I let out a breath. “That will take forever with this many of you wanting to come back to life. It’s completely unrealistic. I’ll do what I have to do. My first course of action is to protect the islanders, but after that, I’ll work on how to save you. I want everyone to be safe, not just a few.”
The ghost smirks at me. “Yeah, right.”
“I will help you. But I cannot do this on my own. I am bound to this island and can’t leave, but you can. Find me a spell, and I’ll do it. I’m both an Obeah and an ancestral witch. If anyone can free you, I can. But I don’t have the knowledge to do it, and the books on the island leave a lot to be desired.” I pause and think for a moment, but nothing else comes to me. “You can go.”
Cecilia waits until the rest leave and approaches me. She gives me a wide smile.
“I am an ancestral witch. Or at least I used to be. I’ve also studied the voodoo arts, and I believe I can be of great help to you.”
I never thought I would be able to find someone who could help me with this magic. I’m so sick of relying on books and other people to dig up information I need. Cecilia is my first direct source. Well, aside from Lorena, but I’m pretty sure she lied to me about a lot of things.
“I have searched everywhere on ancestral magic and have found nothing.”
She gives a half-smile. “Ancestral witches write nothing down. Knowledge is passed from mother to daughter, and it is guarded carefully.”
“Well, my mother wanted nothing to do with teaching me anything.” I clench my fists. I don’t like thinking about her.
“She and I chatted quite a bit.”
My skin grows cold. Maybe she’s working with Lorena as well. No, I can’t believe that. Not right now. I need this win.
Cecilia sniffs. “I should’ve known she was in charge. She was always a little too sweet, and that should’ve made me suspicious. But I was looking for someone to connect with. I haven’t taken to death well.”
I let out a breath. “Neither have I.”
Cecilia laughs, and I can tell we are going to get along. I now have someone who can help me figure this all out. I no longer have to stress about urgency and time. Except. Crap.
“Wait. You are moving on during the full moon.”
She nods. “That I am. We have very little time to prepare. But I think I know how to help you protect the islanders. Those contracts can be destroyed. They were created by voodoo, but your ancestral powers will assist you. I’m a ghost because my contract with an Obeah in New Orleans was destroyed.”
I’m skeptical, but right now, I’ll believe just about anything she’ll tell me because I need to have a plan of some kind.
“We’ve only got a week. Please, teach me everything you know.”
I lead her into the circus, and we cut through the walls of the big top. I don’t want Reken to see the training. A few other ghosts are in there, trying to swing from the trapeze.
“I need you guys to leave,” I holler up at them.
They float down to me. “I thought you weren’t going to be as bossy as Lorena,” a girl says. “Oh, wait. She was never bossy. So I guess that makes you worse than her.” She doesn’t wait for my response. Just floats out of there. I try not to let it bother me.
“You already know some magic, right?” Cecelia asks.
“Yes. I can conjure fire and make objects fly away from me, but that’s about it.”
“That’s a good foundation. Can you do it as a ghost?”
I think for a moment and try to feel the fire in my veins, but it doesn’t come easily.
I bite my lip. “I don’t think I can.”
She takes me by the shoulders and looks deep into my eyes. “Yes, you can. Part of your problem is your insecurity. Take a few deep breaths and try again. Pretend you are still alive, that nothing happened to you.”
“Okay, I can do this.” I close my eyes and breathe through my nose three times and imagine the fire flowing along my veins. A warmth is there that wasn’t before. I imagine fire bursting from my hands. I peek.
Blue flames hover over my palms. “I did it!”
She smiles. “Very good. Be careful in front of the islanders because they can see it, but not you.”
I giggle a little because I’d love to see the look on Elias’s face if he sees floating fire.
Cecilia and I spend the rest of the afternoon working on mastering the elements, and by the time night falls, I can conjure fire, water, and wind.
“You’ve got this. There are no limits to what you can do as an ancestral witch. The voodoo is trickier since it relies on spells, talismans, and language. But you should be able to use the power from the ancestral magic to make the voodoo spells stronger.”
We wander around the circus, and I listen to her, grateful that she is willing to teach me.
“What about blocking or undoing voodoo spells?” I ask. All the spells on the island are voodoo, and I want to be able to get rid of them.
“That’s a lot harder. You’re better off doing a new spell instead of trying to block or undo another. Voodoo and ancestral magic naturally clash. Though I don’t know why.” She looks up at the sky. “I’m going off-island for the night. I’ll see you in the morning, and we’ll start on the real work.”
“Where are you going?”
She levels me a look. “None of your business.” And then she is gone. I spend the rest of the evening hanging out with Juliette.
The next morning, we meet in the tent again. “Did you have a good night?” I ask Cecilia.
Her face falls. “It was fine.”
I debate whether I should push her to respond but decide against it.
“What’s today? Making objects move? Cursing my enemies? Destroying those contracts?”
She laughs. “Not nearly that exciting. No, today and tomorrow and the next day, I’ll help you learn how to tap into the most powerful side of your magic. After that, everything is easy.”
Cecilia leads me to a dry patch of ground away from everyone else.
“Sit down and close your eyes.” She taps the ground with her foot, and I sit. “Now, find your magic.”
I peek out of one eye. “How do I do that?”
“It should be at your core. I know you use your hands for most of the magic you do, but that’s weak. Find it in your belly.”
I close my eyes again, feeling silly. I concentrate on fire since that’s the easiest for me. It burns in the veins of my hands and arms, but nothing in my belly. It itches to get out. I let the flames out of my hand, not being able to stand the feeling.
“No!” Cecilia shouts, getting right in my face. My eyes fly open, and I scramble back. “Force the fire into your core. Do not let it escape.”
I stare at her a moment, a little scared, but then I remind myself that this is for my own good.
I try again. The fire creeps down my arms and into my hands. I clench them tight and force the magic inward, up my arms, and to my chest. It burns, and my head feels like it’s going to explode. I try to force it into my stomach, but it won’t go. Holding it in my chest hurts too bad. Finally, I release it, not able to hold on to it any longer.
Fire explodes from my palms and fingertips, setting the bleachers ablaze in a whoosh. I jump to my feet.
Cecilia waves a hand, and the flames go out. The bleachers are untouched.
“Better, but you have to control it. Hold it firm in your belly, and don’t let it go until you want to.”
“That was a lot of fire.” I’ve never been able to conjure that much before.
“That it was. You should be able to conjure a lot more than that. If you manage to learn how to hold that magic in your belly, you could have infinite fire.”
“Can you do that?”
She sighs. “No, I can’t do that with fire or any of the other elements. All of my magic comes from my core, but I can’t hold it there. I have to release it. I’ve met a few ancestral witches who can hold it, and they are powerful. Lorena was one. I
’m emotionally spent. Why don’t we try again tomorrow?”
The next few days are unbelievably frustrating. I can’t get fire to settle in my core, and I accidentally set the tent on fire again and again when the power becomes too much.
Luke and Juliette walk into the tent, chatting animatedly. Juliette stops mid-sentence with Luke and bounces over to me.
“I heard you were setting the place ablaze, and I had to come watch,” Juliette says. Luke gives me a nod and sits in the stands, holding his hat in his hands.
“Ha. Ha. I can’t control it.” It burns to admit that. Even to friends. I should be better at this.
Juliette sashays up to me. “That’s because you need me. Remember when you couldn’t figure out how to trap someone in a circle. I helped you.”
I give her a forced smile. “I do.”
“Okay, tell me what the problem is.” She crosses her arms and stares at me. I tell her all about what I’m supposed to do. It’s pointless, but with Juliette, it’s best to go along with her plans, or she’ll pester you to death.
She throws her hands up in the air. “This is so easy.”
I resist rolling my eyes. “Enlighten me, oh wise one.”
“Who do you hate more than anyone in the world?” Her face is determined and set.
That’s easy. “Benny.”
Luke snorts so loud I can hear it across the tent, and Cecilia stands to the side watching us with a look of amusement.
Juliette stomps a foot. “No, you don’t. Not really.”
“He killed me so he could come back to life.” I push away the anger that always courses to the surface when he’s mentioned.
“Yeah, yeah, I know that sob story already, but there’s someone you hate more.”
He killed me to get his own life back. That won’t go away.
But I appease her anyway. “You already know the answer to that. Lorena.”
“Exactly. Now picture Lorena living in your belly.” She stands up tall with her serious face on.
Sometimes that girl has the weirdest ideas. But then again, it might work. “Okay. I’ll try that. But only because I love you.” I don’t tell her I think it’s a great idea. She doesn’t need the ego boost. If this works, she’ll gloat for days.
I picture Lorena’s face deep in my core and focus all my fire on destroying her. The fire in my veins races up my arms and legs, into my chest, and whooshes into my stomach.
But the second it arrives, it explodes.
Chapter Eight
I land hard on my back and blink up at the cloudy sky. I lie there for a few minutes, unsure of what just happened. Adrenaline courses through my body. A few seconds later, Juliette and Cecilia look down at me.
“That was freaking awesome.” Juliette claps her hands and giggles.
Cecilia’s frown is more concerning. Did I do something wrong? Juliette reaches her hand down, and I take it. We’re standing at the bottom of a small crater. The tent is gone as well as several around it, and Luke is standing at the top of the crater.
“You’ve done a number on the circus,” Cecilia says. She crosses her arms and looks up to the sky.
I should be more worried, but I’m not. I figured out how to find the strongest of my magic, and for that, it’s worth the hole I blew into the earth. We fly up out of the crater and get to work on putting it back together. Between Cecilia and me, it doesn’t take long.
As the week progresses, I manage to succeed with water and wind as well, though we spend a lot of time putting things back together. Try as I might though, I can’t hold the magic for more than a second.
Juliette has a heyday with the whole thing, but Luke goes back to his big cats, muttering about blowing myself up one of these days. The islanders stay far away from the circus.
The day of the full moon, my palms are sweating. We have spent the entire time on my ancestral magic and not a second on voodoo. I’m not prepared for her to leave. “Cecilia, you still haven’t taught me how to destroy those contracts.”
“Oh, shoot. I nearly forgot. But this is easy. You need three things. The blood of an enemy. The blood of a lover. And the blood of a close family member. Mix it together in a chalice made of bone and set it ablaze. Then feed the contracts into it. The fire works to destroy any magical binding. I used it a few times in my day.”
Nothing is ever easy.
“Where will I get the blood? Lorena isn’t around. Luke is dead and therefore doesn’t have blood, and I don’t have a lover.”
She gives me a knowing smile. “You have more enemies than just Lorena. Luke will have blood on the full moon, and I’m fairly certain I’ve seen you locking lips with Benny.”
She’s right about Benny, but I don’t want to think about him. I contemplate her words. Luke will work. And I could ask Elias for his blood, but I don’t know if I would call him an enemy. Probably though. I hope the fact that we are sometimes sort of friends doesn’t dilute this. There is no one else that will work. The acrobats don’t like me, but we haven’t had enough interaction to be considered enemies. Elias is my best bet. As for Benny…
“Benny and I broke up.”
She shrugs. “It doesn’t matter. He’s still a lover.”
That means I have to talk to him. Ugh.
Cecilia stares up at the sun. “There is one more thing I’d like to teach you. It’s powerful magic, and most ancestral witches aren’t even aware they can do it, but my mother was a great healer. You have the power to start and stop hearts, heal gushing wounds, or create them with a thought. You can also crush or mend bones.”
I’m not quite sure what to make of that ability. It all seems like so much. It’s not a power I want. Then again, it will probably come in handy at some point. “That’s pretty intimidating.”
She shakes out her hands. “We don’t have much time. Most of your magic comes from your belly, but this comes from your heart.” She places a palm over my chest, and it buzzes.
“Do you feel that?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the power of life. It feels different than the fire, wind, and water, yes?”
I nod, and she removes her palm. “Now that you’ve felt it, you should be able to create it on your own. See if you feel it in your heart.”
I focus on the beating, and sure enough, it buzzes like it did when she put her palm there.
“There is no time to practice, but this is one of the easiest magics to master. If you want to heal a cut, you need to touch it, find the magic in your heart, and think about what you want to do. If you want to make someone bleed or harm them, it works the same way.”
I stare down at my hands. That’s a lot of power.
Cecilia and I chat until the sun goes down, and my hands burn once again. Sure enough, there is only one glowing pink strand, and it connects with Cecilia.
She stares at my hand. “Thank you,” she says.
My hand is starting to hurt. I look her straight in the eyes and touch the pink strand. She disappears. I’m a little sad to see her go, but I knew this would be the outcome. I hope she’s in a happier place.
I, on the other hand, have a crap-ton of work to do. I head to Lorena’s boat and search for a bone chalice. I dig through all the cupboards but find nothing. Crap.
Samuel would’ve had one, but his boat is on the bottom of the lake. I need to try Ruth.
I’m halfway down the path when a hawk lands on my head. I look up, and he squawks. His claws dig into my scalp. I’d forgotten about them. Do they still answer to me, or are they Benny’s again? They certainly haven’t paid me any attention lately, but it’s worth a shot.
“Bring me a bone chalice.”
He squawks once again, and I continue to Ruth’s in case he fails. The circus is alive and well, and people bustle everywhere and screech at the gruesome acts. Though it’s not as busy as it was before. I hear some mutterings about no act in the big top, but I don’t really care. Just before I reach Ruth’s tent, the bird lands in front of me
, a chalice in his claws.
“You are a lifesaver. Thank you.” I take it from him and shove it into a bag, and he preens his feathers for a moment before flying away.
I head to the big cats instead. Sure enough, Luke is there, loving on Fiona. He sees me coming and gives me a hug.
“Don’t blow up my tent.” He chuckles.
“Ha. Ha.”
He continues his rubdown of Fiona. “How you hanging in there? Did you discover how to free the islanders?”
“Yes, I did. I don’t know how to protect them from the ghosts, but one step at a time, right?”
“Sure.”
I don’t say anything for a minute, not sure how to ask this question. He stops stroking Fiona and looks at me. “What’s up?”
I hold up the chalice. “I need your blood.”
He chuckles. “Oh. Is that all?”
“Yeah. Can I have it?”
“How much do you need?”
“Only a little.” I think.
He hands me a knife and holds his hand out. “You’ll have to do the honors. I can’t cut myself.”
My heart swells. I can’t believe he trusts me that much. I don’t even trust myself that well.
I eyeball Fiona. She might not trust me though.
“Can we do it away from the tiger in case she thinks I’m hurting you?”
He chuckles again. “Sure.”
He nudges Fiona back into her cage, and I take his rough palm into mine. “This is gonna hurt.”
“But it’s worth it, right?” He clenches his teeth.
I nod, though I’m not convinced. This might not work at all. Especially if the spell doesn’t work with Elias’s blood. I run the knife over his palm, and it slices open. He holds it over the chalice, and several large drops fall in. I wait a moment or two and then decide to test my ancestral magic. I take his palm in mine, feel the buzz in my heart, and concentrate on the skin weaving back together.
When I remove my hand, he is as good as new. Holy flip. His eyes widen. “Wow. You’ve been learning. This is far better than blowing things up.”
I chuckle. “I don’t know. That crater was pretty impressive. But I have to go. Yours isn’t the only blood I need.”
Circus of the Dead: Book 4 Page 6