by Sarra Cannon
“I think I’d rather head up to my room and change,” I said. “I had a little bit of an accident. Besides, I’m pretty tired, and I have to work early in the morning. If you don’t mind, I’ll excuse myself and head up to my room.”
Mrs. Finnygood frowned and shook her head.
“Of course, dear,” she said, but she did nothing to mask the disappointment in her voice. “You get some rest, but we’ll want to hear all about your evening when you have a spare moment to join us here in the parlor.”
She started to stand, but I held up my hand.
“You don’t have to get up,” I said. “I’ll find my way to my room just fine, thank you. I appreciate your hospitality.”
Mrs. Finnygood shrugged and shared a glance with her husband. “Suit yourself,” she said. “The tree has plans for you, though. Yes, indeed.”
She’d said that last part in a whisper as I started up the stairs. Had I heard her right?
Something about a tree?
I stepped back toward the foyer, my eyes narrowed.
“What did you say?” I asked. “I didn’t quite catch that.”
Perhaps the old woman had more to drink than I thought.
But she merely smiled into her hand of cards. “You’ll see,” she said. “Goodnight, Slade. Sweet dreams to you.”
“Thank you. To you as well,” I said, still completely confused about the entire exchange.
I walked upstairs and let myself into my small room overlooking the town square. I did a quick check to make sure none of my things had been messed with, and once I felt satisfied that no one had been in the room, I cast a quick spell on the door to block any noise from being heard out in the hallway.
You could never be too careful in a place like this.
My travels across the country over the past several years had brought me to a few towns like Willow Harbor. Sanctuaries for supernatural creatures of all types. Vampires, shifters, witches, gnomes.
I’d even been to a town once that was full of trolls.
Residents in towns like this were always wary of outsiders, and gnomes like Mrs. Finnygood tended to snoop and stick their nose into places they didn’t belong.
They were only trying to protect their own, of course, but I had people to protect, too. The place I came from was like this in some ways, except that outsiders were never welcome, and those who lived there were never free to leave.
Anna was my ticket out of there. All I had to do was convince her to leave Willow Harbor of her own free will. What happened to her once I turned her over to the Disciples of Light was none of my concern.
I took out my phone, not caring that it was after midnight. It was only eleven back home, and I knew Dad would still be up, waiting to hear word from me.
I dialed his number and stood by the window, staring out at the massive willow tree that seemed to guard this town. Its roots snaked through a small channel that led out toward the ocean.
Hadn’t that old lady downstairs said something about a tree?
I briefly wondered if she’d been talking about the willow. The town must have been named for it.
I didn’t have much time to think about it, though. Dad picked up on the second ring.
“Tell me you’ve really got her this time,” he said.
“I do,” I said.
“Did you see the mark with your own eyes?” he asked. “I don’t want to get Elisha’s hopes up again if you’re not absolutely sure this time. You remember what happened last time.”
How could I forget? He’d burned my sister Sharon’s arm for my failure to find Anna. I’d messed up once, but I wouldn’t let that happen again.
“Don’t tell him yet,” I said. “I haven’t seen the mark, but I’ll get confirmation in the next few days. It’s her, though, Dad. It’s her birthday today. She’s twenty-one.”
I could practically hear him smiling through the phone.
“It’s her. Just grab her and bring her back here now,” he said. “There’s no real reason to wait. Besides, things are getting worse here. Elisha’s uneasy,” he said. “Every moon that passes makes him more agitated.”
“He’s not taking it out on the girls again, is he?” I asked. I clutched the phone tightly, wanting to crush it.
“Not yet, but how many moons do you think will pass before he takes it out on all of us?” he asked.
“I don’t understand what he needs from his daughter anyway,” I said.
“It’s not your job to understand what he needs,” Dad said. “It’s your job to get her here.”
“I know that, but Dad, she’s not like I thought,” I said, wincing at the sympathy in my voice.
Dad latched onto it right away. “You need to put a cap on those kinds of thoughts right now,” he said. “Thoughts like that are exactly what got us into this situation in the first place. We have to think of our own family now, Slade. Bringing Anna back here is the only way he’s ever going to let us go.”
“That’s how you got us into this situation,” I said. “I was eight back then. I had nothing to do with it.”
Dad sighed. “I know that. Believe me, I know,” he said. “But I can’t go back and change the past. It’s up to you to fix this.”
“I know.”
Dad had suffered a terrible injury last time he’d been out searching for witches to bring back to the Disciples. He’d misjudged someone, and her entire coven had attacked him, making it difficult for him to walk.
He had been healing quickly, but he’d be stuck at the compound for at least another week or two.
“Just this one last time, Slade. You can do this,” he said.
“And what if he still doesn’t let us go?” I asked, daring to ask the question I’d been too scared to ask when this moment seemed so far away.
“He will,” Dad said. “He made a promise to us. Anna is our repentance for this family’s sins. We pay this debt, and we owe him nothing more. He told us that himself. He said he wants our rebellious family out of the Disciples. As soon as we deliver this girl to him, he’ll want us out of there as fast as possible.”
I hoped he was right.
Elisha couldn’t be trusted, though, and I didn’t want to trade this innocent woman’s life for nothing.
“Time is running out, Slade,” Dad said. “He gets worse with each moon. Do you really want to be responsible for what he might do to your sisters?”
“I’ll get her there,” I said, wincing at his harsh words.
I was paying for decisions he and mom had made. Of course, I didn’t want anything to happen to my sisters, but Dad could be tougher on me than anyone else, sometimes.
Deep down, I knew he had a big heart, but sometimes, it felt like all he cared about was making Elisha happy. Doing what Elisha wanted.
Sometimes, I questioned where he put his true loyalties. But even thinking that made me feel like a traitor. Of course my own father was on my side. He wanted to keep us all safe. It was foolish to think he could want anything else.
“Just keep this a secret for now,” I told him. “Give me a few days to make absolutely certain it’s her.”
“What’s the name of the town?” he asked. “Just in case we need to send help.”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to tell him just yet, but it didn’t make any sense to keep it a secret, either.
He was right. I might need their help if things went sideways.
“I’m in a town called Willow Harbor,” I said, but all of a sudden, the connection got fuzzy.
I pulled the phone away and stared at it, searching for the connection bar. It seemed fine, but there had been a strange sort of static on the line.
“What was that?” Dad asked.
“Willow Harbor,” I said.
But the connection messed up again.
“Did you get that?” I asked.
“No,” he said.
“Strange,” I said. “Must be a rotten signal. I’ll text it to you.”
“Fine. And c
all me as soon as you know if she’s really Elisha’s daughter, one way or the other,” he said. “I love you, Slade. I’m sorry I got you into this.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I said, but it was worthless to argue that point.
My parents had broken one of the Disciples’ laws, and it didn’t matter if I thought it was right or wrong.
But someday, when this was all over, I would find my way to a place where I didn’t have to follow anyone else’s stupid laws.
Someday soon, I would be free to live life the way I wanted.
I stared up at the half-moon.
Just one week and another full moon would pass, leaving us with just two months left to fulfill our obligation to the leader of the Disciples of Light. If we missed this moon cycle, another of my sisters would be left scarred for life.
I had one week to convince Anna Tillman to leave Willow Harbor behind.
Five
Anna
I groaned at the sound of my alarm. I’d stayed up way too late to be up at five in the morning, but I had a job to do.
I’d somehow managed to sneak back into Gran’s house around two-thirty this morning, and I was hoping for another miracle now that I wanted to sneak back out. Gran hated the idea of my food truck, and she didn’t miss any opportunity to let me know how she felt about it.
My head pounded as I dressed in jeans, a white t-shirt, and a pair of white Converse. I tiptoed down the stairs, avoiding the ones that creaked, and breathed a sigh of relief when my foot touched down on the hardwood floors at the bottom of the steps.
“Sneaking out again, are ya?” Gran said from a dark corner of the sitting room.
I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of her voice. My hand flew up to my chest, and I swallowed.
“Jeez, you scared me to death,” I said. I flipped on the light. “What are you doing down here in the dark, anyway? Spying on me?”
She laughed. “Couldn’t sleep,” she said as she clutched one of our old family photo albums against her body.
My heart melted, and I crossed to sit next to her on the couch.
“Looking at old pictures?”
She patted the old leather album. “Oh, you know, just looking back on some good memories,” she said.
“Show me?”
She nodded and opened the album, spreading it across our laps as we sat close. I knew this album well. I’d looked through it a thousand times in my short lifetime, but staring at these pictures never got old.
“She was so beautiful, your mother,” Gran said, her thumb gently sliding over my mother’s cheek in one photo, as if she could still remember the way her skin felt. “Blonde curls just like yours.”
“The same smile, too,” I said.
“When she cared to share it,” Gran said with a laugh. “She didn’t have your bubbly nature. At least not past the age of ten. She was a sulking teenager by eleven-years-old, that one. Gave me a hard time every day of my life.”
Gran swiped a tear off her cheek.
“God, I miss her,” she said. She put her arm around me. “It means so much to me to have you here, though. Did you have a nice time last night? I still have a cupcake wrapped up for you in the kitchen if you want it. I can put a candle in it for you to make a wish.”
My chest tightened.
I loved my Gran more than anyone in the world, but she held onto me so tightly, it sometimes felt like I couldn’t breathe.
She wanted my mother back, but my living here in this house was never going to bring anyone back. How could I explain to her that I was a woman now? Twenty-one. It was time for me to find a place of my own. To have some freedom to live the way I wanted to live.
Or maybe it was time for me to leave Willow Harbor all together.
The food truck was doing so well here in town, I’d been daydreaming lately about moving to Charleston or Savannah to try my hand in a bigger city. Maybe someday I could even open a restaurant of my own.
I was a great cook, just like Gran, and my talent for creating certain potions translated into a talent at making great food.
The secret was in the spices and the freshly-grown ingredients.
Right now, I got a lot of help from people here in town. My coffee came from Loran at the Urban Grind. And a witch in town named Ida had been doing most of the actual baking, allowing me to watch her as she made breads and pastries with my spices and specialty ingredients.
But I was learning.
Soon, I’d be able to do all the baking myself, but between the daily hours at the truck and my duties here at the farm, I was spread too thin to do it all on my own.
“I have to get going,” I said. I flipped through a few more pictures of my mother and her sisters when they were younger before I slid off the couch.
“I don’t know why you bother with that food truck,” Gran said. “There’s plenty for you to do here at the farm.”
I bit my tongue, not wanting to get into an argument with her when she’d been feeling so melancholy lately.
“I’m home every afternoon in time to get my chores done and make the deliveries.”
“I know you are, but why are you working so hard on this silly little dream of yours?” she asked.
“This silly little dream is already bringing in a full-time income for me,” I said.
She let out a breath and waved her hand, as if to wave away any ideas that might be getting into my head about becoming something other than a farmer.
“I’m serious,” I said. “I cleared over four grand in profit last month alone.”
Her eyes widened at that. “Four thousand dollars?”
“Yes,” I said, holding my chin up with pride. “That’s over and above my expenses, because yes, I’ve been paying back every cent in terms of the food I’ve taken from the harvests and the supplies I buy from the other local businesses.”
She cleared her throat. “Well, either way, I don’t see why you need the money,” she said. “The farm is thriving here, and you know a piece of this is yours. You don’t have to pay rent anywhere, and you don’t have any expenses other than money for going out, which you don’t seem to do that often, anyway.”
“It’s not about the money,” I said. “Can’t you see that? It’s about having something that’s mine. Something I can work for and be proud of.”
“You’re not proud of the farm?”
“This farm doesn’t belong to me,” I said. “I didn’t build this place.”
“Neither did I, but it’s still just as much mine as it was my mother’s,” she said. “This is a family place, and I want to make sure my family stays close.”
“I’m not going to be able to live with you here in your house forever, Gran,” I said, unable to hold my tongue any longer. “I’m twenty-one now. It’s time I got a place of my own and started taking care of myself.”
“Horse feathers,” she said. “This is your home.”
“No. It’s your home,” I said. “I love you, and I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for me, but I can’t just live here forever. How am I ever going to grow up? Find a husband? Have children of my own?”
“You can all live here,” she said.
I stared at her, one hand on my hip, waiting for her to realize just how ridiculous she was being right now.
Finally, she let out a heavy sigh, stood, and took my hand.
“Alright. I know you can’t stay in this house forever, no matter how much I want you to,” she said. “It’s just that you remind me so much of my Maura. She had such a free spirit, and she yearned so much for independence. More than any of my other girls. I don’t think I could survive it if you left me that way, too.”
I planted a kiss on my Gran’s forehead.
“I wouldn’t just up and leave the way she did. Not without saying goodbye or telling you where I was going. I promise.”
“I don’t mean to make your life harder,” she said. “All I’ve ever wanted was to make it easier. To protect you, no
matter what.”
“And you’ve done that,” I said. “But I’m not a little girl, anymore. I have to be free to live my own life now. You can’t follow me around, catching me every time I stumble like you did when I was a tiny little thing.”
She squeezed my hand.
“I know it,” she said. “I just hope you’ll forgive this old lady for trying to keep you close. I do it because I love you so much.”
“I love you, too,” I said. “But right now, I’ve got to get setup for the morning. I’ll have a line of angry people in the town square waiting for their breakfast if I don’t get going soon.”
“Okay, sweetheart,” she said. She sat back down on the couch and opened her photo album again, nostalgia playing across her features like an old song. “You have a nice morning, and I’ll see you back here this afternoon for the deliveries.”
“See ya,” I said, and ran down the hallway and out toward the food truck parked behind the farm house.
Just seeing it made me smile.
I knew Gran didn’t understand it, but I was so proud of my truck and the business I had built over the past few months.
I’d taken one of our older delivery trucks, gutted the inside, and fitted it with several refrigerators, a grill, and storage. Brandon at Black Bear’s Auto Repair downtown had helped me set everything up, like the window for taking orders, but I had done a lot of the work myself.
I’d even painted it my favorite shade of pink.
The name of the truck was painted onto the side in black. PRESTO: Food So Fast, It’s Magic.
A yellow wand hovered over a large sandwich, which always made me giggle.
I had worked hard for this dream, and it didn’t matter to me if anyone else truly understood why it made me so happy.
I stood on the back porch for a long moment, breathing in the scent of freshly-tilled earth. This was home. It always had been.
But was it so wrong to want something more out of my life?
All the other Tillman witches born into this family seemed content to stay right here, living off the land on the outskirts of Willow Harbor.
It was a nice life. A safe life.