Spells & Stitches

by Barbara Bretton

  The cell phone in my pocket vibrated against my leg. A second later I heard Dane’s voice.

  “She’s with me. I told you I would win. Why did you doubt it?”

  Luke answered before I could. “If you hurt my daughter, I’ll kill you. I don’t give a shit where you are, I’ll find you, and when I do, I’ll kill you.”

  I spun around to see Luke dragging himself slowly, painfully, toward where I stood. “Don’t do this, Luke. Stay back.” I have a plan, Luke. Look at my eyes. Just go with it.

  I could feel the energies swirling around me. I knew there was more to come and I wanted to save Luke.

  “Here’s a proposition for you, Chloe,” Dane’s voice intoned. “I kill the human and you join your daughter.”

  “Go to hell,” Luke snapped.

  “I have one for you, Dane,” I said. “Spare the human and I’ll join my daughter.”

  “Final answer?” Dane sounded amused, like a man who knew he had won the war.

  “Final answer,” I said.

  “Make him show you Laria is safe,” Luke whispered. “Don’t trust him. Make him prove she’s okay.”

  I ignored him. Let this play out my way, Luke. You’ve got to trust me on this.

  Dane’s powers were obviously limited. Every time he had projected his force into this dimension to take action, he had needed a short time to recuperate. I had noticed it first in his struggle to control James and again after the lightning bolt.

  Why did he stop with one lightning bolt when he could have killed Luke with a second strike? The truth was he couldn’t. We had to be ready to grab one of those windows of opportunity and act quickly. Then we might have a chance.

  “So how do I join you?” I asked after casting a protective spell over Luke.

  The wait for a response seemed interminable. “Repeat the joining words and you’ll be transported.”

  “What are they?”

  “Not yet, sweet Chloe.”

  “Will I see Laria?”

  “You don’t trust me?” he countered.

  “When it comes to my daughter I don’t trust anyone. Show her to me and then I’ll say the words.” I counted to sixty and then I counted to sixty again. “I’m waiting, Dane. Is something wrong? Show me Laria and I’m yours.”

  I heard Luke’s sharp intake of breath and I had to force myself not to send him a reassuring look. Dane was everywhere, like a Fae surveillance camera with a three-hundred-sixty-degree view. I had to stay focused.

  I was becoming more convinced by the second that Laria wasn’t with Dane. Inflicting pain was his lifeblood. If he had her, he wouldn’t be able to keep from bragging about his victory. The sight of his baby daughter with Dane would have driven Luke over the edge. Cruelty was as natural to Dane as breathing. There was no way he would have missed an opportunity to twist the knife.

  But if Laria wasn’t with Dane, where was she?

  I didn’t believe Dane had the power to move her into his dimension. He had needed James to do that, same as he needed a spoken-words charm to transport me. Something had happened during the explosion that enabled Laria to be taken from Dane’s grasp, but what? If only Elspeth were still with us. She had woven all manner of protective spells over the baby. Was it possible one of them had kicked in and saved her?

  Instinct told me Laria was close and I had learned in a very short time just how powerful a mother’s instinct was when it came to her child.

  But first I had to take care of Dane. The solution was so ridiculously simple that I wondered how it had escaped notice all this time. A terrible oversight on my part that had already cost two souls their earthly existence.

  I wasn’t sure how strong my powers were so I needed every advantage I could get. Dane had to be open and receptive and totally clueless if this was going to have a chance at working.

  I felt Laria’s presence in the core of my soul. Her soft skin, the sparse blond tufts of hair, her sweet, milky smell. No doubt in my mind that my baby was close at hand and that we would find her.

  “Dane! Please don’t leave me here. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have issued an ultimatum. All I want is to be with my daughter. I’m sorry if I made you angry. Please, please talk to me. Tell me the words and I’ll join you right now!”

  I struggled to mask my excitement as a new opening appeared in the night sky, larger than the last one, iced with the steel blue glitter that belonged to Dane alone.

  Help me, Aerynn, I prayed. Help me, Guinevere and all who came before me. Help me to save our newest daughter, Laria.

  The energies intensified. I could feel them pressing against my skin, nipping, scratching, shooting forks of electricity in every direction.

  “Dane!” I screamed. “Help me!”

  The phone in my pocket vibrated, then died. His strength was almost depleted. A whoop of excitement bubbled up in my throat and I choked it down.

  Just say the words, Dane. That’s all you have to do. Just get the words out and I’ll do the rest.

  They came to me on a small wave of thought. Silly words, in the way magick often was, but their authenticity was undeniable.

  I stepped away from Luke and looked straight up at the sky opening and said the words in a loud, clear voice with all the need in my heart.

  Steel blue glitter rained down on me as the circle grew wider and wider, lit from behind in a soft silver light. I saw the memory of an image rather than an image itself and I knew this was as close as I would ever get to Dane.

  “I banish you!” I cried to the heavens as I should have done last year when I had the chance. “This banishment is inviolable, unassailable through time and space . . .” The words flowed, all of them, and as I talked the glitter faded, the light dimmed, and the hole in the sky shrank in on itself and disappeared.

  “Himself would be proud.”

  I stared in shock as Elspeth, covered in snow and branches, waddled out of the woods toward Luke and me.

  “Elspeth!” I did something I never thought I would do: I grabbed the cantankerous troll in my arms and hugged her.

  Even Luke looked happy to see her.

  “None of that, missy!” She brushed me away with fly-swatting motions and the smell of stale waffles filled the night air. “There be plenty of time afterwards.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “We have to find Laria.”

  Elspeth looked at Luke, then at me, and she smiled.

  “What the hell?” Luke muttered.

  I don’t think either one of us had ever seen the butter-yellow-haired troll smile before and it caused a major disturbance in our personal force field.

  She took a good long look at Luke, then passed her pudgy little hands over his legs and nodded.

  I gasped as Luke stood up, brushed the snow off his jeans, and kissed Elspeth on the cheek.

  I’m not saying she liked being kissed by a human, but she didn’t hit him, so that had to count for something. She stepped over toward the empty car seat, clasped her hands together in front of her, and said, “’Tis time now.”

  Luke and I exchanged glances. Time for what? We already knew it was time to put everything we had into finding Laria.

  And then it happened. The car seat began to glow, faintly at first, then brighter and brighter, and suddenly our baby, our Laria, was back.

  I don’t have to tell you I cried when I scooped her up in my arms. She fussed as big, fat teardrops fell onto her downy cheeks, but I laughed and cried even harder as I showered her with kisses.

  “Elspeth?” Luke asked, his eyes suspiciously wet.

  I nodded. “Elspeth.”

  I looked around for the yellow-haired troll and saw her sitting on the snowy ground, apron pressed to her face, sobbing her ancient eyes out.

  “Take your daughter,” I said to Luke. They were words I would never tire of saying.

  “Elspeth?” I crouched down next to her and placed a hand on her well-padded shoulder. “Don’t cry. What you did for us was wonderful. We can never repay y
ou for bringing back our daughter.”

  “More nonsense!” she erupted, blowing her nose into the apron and glowering at me. “I didn’t bring the wee babe back from anywhere.”

  “You did something,” I said, confused and—I’ll admit—a little ticked off. “I saw it happen.”

  She muttered something Trollish.

  “Admit it,” I said. “You did something kind. I’ll bet you cloaked her, didn’t you?”

  She made a face. “Ye wouldn’t know your nose in a looking glass, would you, missy? ’Twasn’t me who done the cloaking,’twas the babe.”

  I couldn’t help it. I started to laugh.

  “I wouldn’t be laughing, missy, for I tell the truth.”

  Luke and Laria joined us and, still laughing, I told Luke what Elspeth had said.

  Now he was laughing, too.

  The laughter didn’t last long. Remember that red dot on the baby’s head, the same one Janice said I had on my scalp, too? As it turned out, it wasn’t a dot at all. It was a highly detailed rendering of the snowy owl, which happened to be Aerynn’s symbol. All Hobbs women bore the mark of the owl, but it usually didn’t present itself until the girl reached puberty and began to gain mastery over her powers.

  Laria’s owl appeared a few hours after birth, which, according to Elspeth, meant our daughter would probably rule the magick universe before she was potty-trained.

  The strange rituals Luke had seen Elspeth performing over Laria were actually teaching sessions. The one on cloaking had probably saved our daughter’s life.

  I was in something pretty close to shock. “So you’re saying our eight-day-old baby cloaked herself, then uncloaked herself. I’m thirty and it will probably be another ten years before I master cloaking.”

  “Twenty,” Elspeth said, nodding her head. “Maybe more.”

  Luke looked a little shell-shocked himself. “Should make the kids’ table at Thanksgiving a hell of a lot more interesting.”

  He handed Laria off to me and went to check out the Jeep, which James had hidden in the woods. A minute later I heard the wonderful sound of the engine turning over.

  He came back for the baby and her car seat and I was happily strapped into the passenger seat and ready to go when I realized Elspeth was standing in the middle of the clearing alone.

  Luke looked over at me. I looked at Elspeth. We looked at each other.

  “She doesn’t really have anyone else,” I said. “And she’s awfully good with the baby.”

  He glanced down at his strong, healthy legs and nodded. “And a damn good orthopedist.”

  “We’ll get used to the waffle smell,” I said.

  “We’ll buy Febreze,” he said.

  “Lots and lots of Febreze,” I agreed.

  “Hey, Elspeth!” Luke called out the open window. “Hurry up. Don’t you want to get home in time for Conan?”

  “Stop ye grousing,” she said as she waddled across the snow toward the Jeep. “I’ll be there when I be there and not a lick before.”

  “You realize we’re going to have to come up with a story for my family,” he said.

  “And some loaner cars until they call their insurance companies.”

  “Explaining why James is off the radar might be a tough sell.”

  “I have the feeling they’ll be relieved about that.”

  “And we’ll have to explain Old Buttercup,” he said with a grin.

  “A nanny with attitude,” I said. “I’m not worried. Your family will learn to love her.” As long as she didn’t cloak or spin her way up to the roof or make the cats do the samba.

  “They could be your family, too,” he said, taking my hand. “Just say the word.”

  I looked into those dark green eyes I’d first seen in a dream and said the word I had wanted to say from that very first day.

  “Yes.”

  The console didn’t make it easy, but he drew me into his arms and kissed me as white and gold and silver sparks flew from our lips and fingertips and set the inside of the Jeep alight.

  “Och!” Elspeth groused as she rolled herself into the backseat. “Spare the likes of me that nonsense. It be too soon for such as that, missy.”

  “Shut up, old woman,” Luke said cheerfully. “If you’re going to be part of our family, you’d better get used to seeing a lot of that because Chloe just said she’d marry me.”

  “A Hobbs she was born and a Hobbs she will die,” Elspeth said, unable to hide her smile, “but Himself would be pleased to see you pledge yourselves before the community for all time.” She nodded her head. “Pleased indeed.”

  “For better and for worse?” Luke asked me. “In sickness and in health?”

  “Everything but obey,” I said. “I have to draw the line somewhere.”

  “My mother will want to throw a shower for you.”

  “Let her,” I said, feeling reckless and very human. “Let’s live dangerously!”

  The MacKenzies were a smart and loyal and nosy crew and it wouldn’t be easy keeping our secret right under their noses, but I was willing to give it my best shot. Life was too short, even for a sorceress like me, to miss the chance to be with the people you love. The people who loved you. Family of blood or family of choice, it didn’t matter. They were the ones who would always be there for you.

  Laria gurgled happily in the backseat as Elspeth fussed with her cap and her blanket. Luke checked his mirrors and eased the Jeep back on the road to Sugar Maple. I plucked my knitting from the console, closed my eyes, and smiled into the darkness.

  My family.

  We were on our way home.

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  BARBARA BRETTON: THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF KNITTING

  The knitting vocabulary can be confusing to civilians (a.k.a. muggles) so here’s a short glossary to help get you up to speed.

  BIND OFF See “Cast Off”

  BSJ Baby Surprise Jacket, probably EZ’s most popular design

  CAST OFF To secure your last row of stitches so they don’t unravel

  CAST ON To place a foundation row of stitches on your needle

  DPN Double-pointed needles

  EZ Elizabeth Zimmermann, the knitting mother of us all

  FAIR ISLE Multistranded colorwork

  FO Finished object

  FROG To undo your knitting by ripping back (“Rip it! Rip it!”) row by row with great abandon

  KITCHENER Grafting two parallel rows of live stitches to form an invisible seam

  KNIT The basic stitch from which everything derives

  KNITALONG An online phenomenon wherein hundreds of knitters embark on a project simultaneously and exchange progress reports along the way

  KUREYON A wildly popular self-striping yarn created and manufactured by Eisaku Noro under the Noro label

  LYS Local yarn shop

  MAGIC LOOP Knitting a tube with one circular needle instead of four or five double-pointed needles

  PURL The knit stitch’s sister—instead of knitting into the back of the stitch with the point of the needle facing away from you, you knit into the front of the stitch with the point of the needle facing directly at you

  RAVELRY An online community for knitters and knitwear designers that has surpassed all expectations

  ROVING What you have after a fleece has been washed, combed, and carded; roving is then ready to be spun into yarn

  SABLE Stash Amassed Beyond Life Expectancy—in other words, you won’t live long enough to knit it all!

  SEX Stash Enhancement eXercise—basically spending too much money on way too much yarn

  STASH The yarn you’ve been hiding in the empty oven, clean trash bins, your basement, your attic, under the beds, in closets, wherever you can keep your treasures clean, dry, and away from critical eyes

  STITCH ’N’ BITCH A gathering of like-minded knitters who share knitting techniques and friendship with a twenty-first-century twist

  STRANDED See “Fair Isle”

  TINK To
carefully undo your knitting stitch by stitch. Basically to unknit your way back to a mistake-free area

  YARN CRAWL The knitter’s equivalent of a pub crawl. Substitute yarn shops for bars and you’ll get the picture

  WHO’S WHO IN SUGAR MAPLE

  CHLOE HOBBS The half-human, half-sorceress de facto mayor of Sugar Maple and owner of Sticks & Strings, a wildly successful knit shop. As the descendant of sorceress Aerynn, the town’s founder, Chloe holds the fate of the magickal town in her hands.

  LUKE MACKENZIE The 100 percent human chief of police. He came to Sugar Maple to investigate the death of Suzanne Marsden, an old high school friend, but stayed because he fell in love with Chloe.

  PYEWACKET, BLOT, DINAH, LUCY Chloe’s house cats.

  PENELOPE Chloe’s store cat. Penny is actually much more than that. She has been a familiar of the Hobbs women for over three centuries and has often served as a conduit between dimensions.

  ELSPETH A three-hundred-something-year-old troll from Salem who kept house for Samuel Bramford. She has been sent to Sugar Maple to watch over Chloe until the baby is born.

  JANICE MEANY Chloe’s closest friend and owner of Cut & Curl, the salon across the street from Sticks & Strings. Janice is a Harvard-educated witch, descended from a long line of witches. She and her husband, Lorcan, have five children.

  LORCAN MEANY Janice’s husband. Lorcan is a selkie and one of Luke’s friends.

  LYNETTE PENDRAGON A shifter and owner, with her husband, Cyrus, of Sugar Maple Arts Players. They have five children: Vonnie, Iphigenia, Troy (originally named Gilbert), Adonis (originally named Sullivan), and Will.

  LILITH A Norwegian troll who is Sugar Maple’s town librarian and historian. She is married to Archie. Her mother was Sorcha the Healer, who cared for Chloe after her parents died.

  MIDGE STALLWORTH A rosy-cheeked vampire who runs the funeral home with her husband, George.

  RENATE WEAVER Member of the Fae and owner of the Sugar Maple Inn. Renate and her husband, Colm, have four grown children: Bettina, Daisy, Penelope, and Calliope.

  BETTINA WEAVER LEONIDES Harpist, member of the Fae, occasional part-time worker at Sticks & Strings. Married to Alexander. Mother of three children: Memphis, Athens, Ithaca.