by K. J. Emrick
“Where have you been?” he yeowled. “You’ve been gone for ages and you were supposed to save me from the crazy man. I’m royalty! I don’t deserve this!”
Addie had to catch her balance and find a way to hold Doyle at the same time. He was by no means a small cat, even if he could outrun most things on four legs. “Doyle, what have we said about just jumping on people like this?”
“You’re not just people,” he said, blinking at her in honest confusion. “You’re my people.”
It was hard for her to stay mad at him when he said things like that. “Fine, but that doesn’t give you permission to treat me like a human trampoline.”
“But you have to save me from the crazy man!” he said, practically hissing the words. “He keeps talking to me like a baby and trying to tell Willow that I like belly rubs! You know I hate belly rubs!”
Addie kept her amusement to herself. She knew who Doyle was talking about. Willow’s boyfriend, the owner of that hideous sports car out there. Gary White was a looker, and came from a good family, and he was usually fun to be around, too. Quick with a joke or to find something fun to do on a boring Saturday night. Addie could see why her young and impressionable sister Willow had fallen for him as hard as she had.
At the same time, he wasn’t ever going to be the smartest guy in the room, no matter what room he was standing in.
“Look, Doyle,” she said, carrying him with his forepaws up on her shoulder and his tail twitching furtively back and forth. “We’ve talked about this. You know Willow. She’ll get bored with Gary just like she gets bored with all her boyfriends. You just need to stay out of his way until then. Go find some mice to chase outside, or something.”
“Mrrow,” was his scathing reply to that. “I’m not letting that man chase me out of my own home. I was here first.”
He said it so petulantly that Addie just had to give him a sympathy scratch between his ears. “Just hold on, Old Man. Willow will get bored and move on to someone you’ll like better.”
“Doubt it,” he groused. “She’s different with this one. Ooh. That’s good. A little to the left, behind the ear… oh, that is marvelous.”
“Glad I could make you feel better. Seriously, don’t worry about Gary. I predict he’ll be out and a new boyfriend taking his place in a matter of weeks.”
“Gee,” she heard her little sister’s voice snarking. “Thanks, sis. Is that a premonition? Or do you really think I’m some sort of floozie?”
Willow Kilorian lived up to the name their parents had given her. She was tall, and graceful, and Addie had seen talent scouts for Victoria’s Secret actively seek her out for their photo shoots. She had that sort of lithe, feminine body that men seemed to idolize, with curves in all the right places and the right way of walking and a smoky smile. Her hair was a darker red than Addie’s, and she didn’t have the freckles that still peppered Addie’s face either, but they shared the same delicate chin and high cheekbones that had been passed down from their mother.
In her more honest moments, Addie could admit to herself that she was jealous of her sister’s good looks. Even though she knew Willow’s physical perfection had been partially achieved by careful application of her Essence, the results were hard to argue with. Willow was an Irish beauty, and Addie would only ever be who she was.
“First of all,” Addie said as she stood there stroking Doyle’s fur, “no one uses the word ‘floozie’ anymore. Secondly, I haven’t had any premonition about you and your current man. I haven’t consulted the runes, or cast a spell of foretelling, or anything like that. I just know how quickly you run through the guys you date. And no, before you say it, I don’t think that you spread yourself around to every guy you meet. I just think you’re too quick to fall in love.”
None of this was anything she hadn’t already said to her sister, more than a dozen times before. She liked to be honest with her family. When she could. They were sisters, after all, and closer than most. Which meant they loved each other and argued with each other in equal amounts.
Flipping her long hair back over her shoulder, Willow adjusted the bottom of her pink t-shirt down lower, over the low waist of her jeans. “Whatever,” she said. “What I feel with Gary is different.”
“Oh? You mean different than it was with Alan? Or Nick? Or what about Marko, the guy you almost married before you found out he had a demon stone lodged in his heart?”
Doyle purred with laughter, licking his paws and trying to act like he wasn’t enjoying every single word.
Willow stuck out her lips in a pout and turned her gaze away from Addie. She was stubborn, just like their father had been. “Whatever. It’s different with Gary. So you can keep your opinions to yourself. Oh. And Kiera’s looking for you.”
“Didn’t Doyle tell you why I was late?”
“Of course I told her,” Doyle complained. “Dead woman in the woods. It wasn’t a very long message.”
Willow shrugged a shoulder. “It’s a Typic death, right? No indication of magic involved?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Addie protested. “That’s what we need to find out. But it’s a member of the Norris family. That alone will cause trouble in town.”
“Whatever. You’re late, and Kiera’s looking for you.”
With that she turned and stalked up the hall without another word. She went straight to the dining room, the second door on the left, and Addie watched her until she disappeared through it. When they had been little girls, Addie about ten years old and Willow three years younger, they’d been the best of friends. Something about reaching adulthood had changed that. She wished she knew what it was so she could cast a spell and put everything back to the way it had been.
She sighed. A lot of the issues had started when their mother and father had died. There was no spell that could fix that. Dead was dead.
“Come on, Doyle.” She’d been standing there too long already. Kiera would have felt her Essence the moment she stepped out of her car in the driveway, even if Willow wasn’t in there telling everyone she’d arrived. “Let’s go join them for supper before Kiera gets her panties in a twist.”
“We’re having fish,” he grumped, pushing himself out of her arms and jumping down to the hallway floor. “Told you she would.”
“I know. Kiera likes fish.”
“So do I, but what’s wrong with a little variety? You promised you’d ask about salmon. Don’t forget about the salmon.”
They walked side by side, and Addie was very glad of his company. No matter how crazy things got she could always count on him to be… well, himself.
“This stuff,” he continued complaining, “is hardly fish. It’s that horrible breaded tilapia in white sauce recipe that she served two weeks ago. Blech. Double blech, in fact.”
They were almost to the dining room. “Doyle, enough with the fish. I’ll get you salmon, like I promised, but did you tell Kiera about the dead woman too, like I asked you to?”
“Of course. I told Willow, I told Kiera. What do you take me for, a newborn kitten?”
They turned the corner, and stepped into the spacious dining room together. Kiera was already sitting at the table, down at the far end. Willow was there as well.
So was Gary.
He was staring down at Doyle, watching the black and white tomcat intently, and it only took Addie a moment to understand why. He’d heard them talking out in the hall.
Doyle blinked at the man. “Uh. Meow,” he said, almost convincingly.
Addie cleared her throat, and then coughed, and then tapped the side of her fist against her chest. “Sorry. I think—” She coughed again for good measure. “—think I’m getting a cold.”
Gary nodded, buying the explanation wholesale, and he went back to telling Willow and Kiera some story about his high school football days. He liked to talk about his old football days. He hardly ever talked about anything else except his old football days.
Right then, Addie couldn’t care less if all of
his stories involved a quarterback and an oddly shaped ball and words like blitz and fumble. What mattered now was that he believed that it had only been Addie speaking in the hall, and that Doyle was just a cat.
Maybe there was an up side to Willow’s taste in boyfriends after all. God help them all if she ever started dating a professor, or a lawyer, or—Heaven forbid—a real life rocket scientist.
Gary White was none of those things. He was tall, and he was broad-shouldered, and that wavy hair of his was just begging for a woman’s hands to comb their way through it. His v-neck sweater clung to his muscles as he waved his arms to get the finer points of his story across. He definitely had been blessed with an abundance of good looks. That’s where his blessings ended though, as far as Addie was concerned.
“A-hem,” Kiera said dramatically to Addie. “You’re late, and the food is getting cold.”
She softened the scolding with a warm smile. If Addie had a best friend in the world, it was Kiera. Where life had pushed her and Willow further apart, it had brought her and Kiera closer together. They had more or less run the household together ever since their parents died. Addie had been just eighteen when all that had happened. Willow had been just about to turn fifteen. Kiera, on the other hand, had been in her middle thirties. Their parents had started a family young. They’d finished it late.
Addie wondered constantly what they would think of their daughters now.
Time marches on, and so it had for Kiera. The Essence that flowed through a witch’s blood would extend their life well past the age a regular human could expect to live to, but age caught up with everyone eventually. Even them.
At forty-two, Kiera was as matronly as someone in their sixties. She had always worn long black dresses that covered her from neck to ankle, from shoulder to wrist. A heavy brooch with a woman’s profile carved in ivory sat heavily at her throat. Her auburn curls were cut into a short style that framed her pinched face. Gray touched the end of ringlets that had always been not-quite-red, but more of a black shade. Blue eyes mixed with lines of jade studied Addie.
For those who didn’t know her, Kiera was a woman grown old before her time. The truth was something else entirely. The brooch was a talisman of power. The long dresses hid scars from failed magical experiments and struggles with evil creatures. Addie knew the real Kiera. A woman totally devoted to her duty, her coven, and her sisters.
“Sister Addie,” Kiera said, folding her hands together on top of the table. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine. There’s just a lot to tell you. There’s trouble in town, and this woman who came to my café—”
Her sister held up a hand. “We’ll talk about all that after dinner.” Her eyes moved to Gary and Willow, huddled close together and whispering in each other’s ears. Addie took the hint. There were things you just didn’t talk about in front of Typics, even when they were sharing your sister’s bed.
Kiera smiled when she saw Addie was on the same page. “All of that can wait. For now, let’s eat. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m starving.”
“Mmm,” Willow murmured, draping herself over Gary’s shoulders. “So am I.”
Addie grimaced at the blatant double entendre in those words. Her sister was all in with this boyfriend. Maybe she was right. Maybe things would be different with Gary and her.
As Gary launched into another story of the time he was playing football and had to save the whole game by blah blah, blah blah blah, Addie looked over to the corner where Doyle had retreated. He twitched his whiskers to express his opinion of this man who had invaded his home, and then very purposefully strode out of the room.
Addie giggled as she took her seat, wishing she could do the same.
Chapter 5
The top floor of the house’s tower was where they ended each Thursday night, together, discussing matters of importance to the town.
It was also where they had constructed the Family Circle.
In ancient times, a coven of witches was a group of like-minded women who could access the Essence of magics within themselves. They didn’t all need to be powerful. They just needed to be able to give their Essence to a single purpose when called on. Different covens often worked against each other, and the Wiccan Wars of the 1500s were some of the most destructive moments in the history of either the magically inclined, or the Typics who had the misfortune of getting swept up by the fighting.
At its core, however, a coven always consisted of family. Either by birth, or by association, or by love. Even with just three members, Addie, Kiera, and Willow were the strongest coven Addie had ever seen.
Their Family Circle was inlaid in the polished hardwood floor of the chamber room. Three lines of thick copper wire described a perfect circle, twelve feet across. Silver and gold wire were wrapped around the copper in perfect symmetry, and the line of braided wire had been sealed in place with an acid-cured finish. Tall beeswax candles four and five feet high burned in each of the four corners. A fat, square candle had been set in the exact center of the Circle. Herbs and special plants grew in planters set on shelves below the edge of the slanted, peaked ceiling, growing and alive and spreading their own sort of Essence throughout the room.
Addie had always liked this part of the house best. As a child, she had played through the rooms on the lower floors, and even in the basement, but now that she was a grown woman this was what she thought of, when she thought of home.
After supper, they had stayed around the table with coffee and a delicious apple cobbler that Kiera had made with Cortland apples grown on trees in the back part of their property. Gary had made moon-eyes with Willow, obviously wanting to stay longer, but she had eventually led him to the door around eight o’clock with the promise that she would come over to his place later, as long as he promised to stay awake and wait for her.
With the boyfriend situation taken care of the sisters had retired to their rooms silently, without a single word spoken, and changed into their plain brown robes for the gathering in the Circle. There would be plenty of talking after the Circle was prepared with the ritual chants, and the lighting of the candles, and the sharing of their Essence. Addie stood stiffly in her soft brown robe while Kiera, as the oldest, recited the ancient words. Their Life Essence spread outward from each of them, drifting, soaking into the lines of metal laid into the floor, moving along that rigid path until they joined as one.
They could feel the Circle close as Kiera spoke the final incantation.
“Bee cooidjaghtys fys cooinaghtyn as graih ain reesht.”
Addie felt the air around her snap. Blue light illuminated the edges of the circle from floor to ceiling, for just an instant, and then was gone again.
The magical barrier that surrounded their home and fed off the well of Essence beneath the ground below hid this use of magic. It would have rang out like a gong otherwise, attracting every magic sensitive being within miles. Spells tugged at the very fabric of reality, and sent ripples outward like a rock dropped on a pond. How far the ripples went depended on how much essence the practitioner of magic put into the spell.
Some spells could rock the world. The one they were using to invoke the Circle would only resonate for ten miles or so, if not for the protective spell around Stonecrest.
All magical types knew that where there was a witch, there was Life Essence to be had. It basically would have put them on the menu for a whole host of big baddies. That’s why Addie was so careful about using her magics away from Stonecrest. She didn’t care to be some demon’s lunch. The Essence of Stonecrest was too important to let it be ripped away by someone who would use its power for evil.
With the Circle closed, Kiera took a moment to bask in the shared Essence flowing between the three of them. Addie could sense it, too, and she did enjoy being this close to her sisters, but it wasn’t as thrilling to her as it was for Kiera. For Willow’s part, she looked completely bored. She wanted this meeting of the coven to be done and over with so s
he could get back to Gary.
Addie wanted the meeting to start so they could decide what to do about the murder.
“Tell us about it,” Kiera insisted, feeling the turn of Addie’s thoughts through their link. “Who was this woman who was murdered?”
“Esmerelda was her name,” Addie said. “Esmerelda Norris. She was the daughter of the family. From everything I have been able to uncover so far the murder appears to have been committed by a Typic. However. Since the Norris family is one of the two most powerful families in town—along with the Raithmores—this is sure to stir up trouble.”
“We’re the most powerful family in Shadow Lake,” Willow piped up, her emotions angry and prideful.
“Careful, Sister Willow,” Kiera cautioned her. “Power comes in different forms. We were born to the use of magic. That does not make us better than those who were not.”
“Typic trouble,” Willow muttered, like that made a difference. Her disinterest in the whole affair resonated through the circle.
“Esmerelda Norris,” Kiera said, closing her eyes for a moment. Then she nodded. “Yes, I remember her. I know her mother better, of course, and I hardly know her brother Lance at all, or his wife Misty. Except for some cousins, I believe that’s all there is to the family. Then again, Esmerelda left Shadow Lake after her brother Lance and Misty were married. She didn’t approve of Misty, as I recall. There’s bad blood between those two. I didn’t even know Esmerelda was back in town. How did you find out her name? Have you met her before?”
“No, never. I raised her ghost, and her ghost told me.”
Addie felt the surprise from both of her sisters. Willow gaped at her. “You raised a spirit? In front of the police?”
“Of course not!” Addie folded her arms, the cuffs of the long sleeves drooping nearly to the rope belt at her waist. “I’ve done this before, Willow. I know how to keep our practices hidden from the Typics. I did it before the police arrived.”