I was curious about the boxes and what might be in them, but when I recalled the mayor’s words from the night before, I hesitated on the doorstep. I had never dealt with a poltergeist before. One of the Havens we had robbed a couple of years back had had an old library that everybody thought was haunted, but I had never seen the ghost. I wasn’t sure how to proceed, or even whether a poltergeist would be around in the daylight. But I thought I might as well take a stab at showing it who was boss, right from the start.
“Hello?” I called up into the rafters.
I was answered with silence. But not an empty, lonely silence; the quiet of the Depot made it feel strangely inhabited. Full, almost stifling, even though there was practically nothing in the shop. I had the same prickly feeling I had had the other morning when Aimee had been following me. But this time, the presence seemed to come from all directions. Like the building itself was watching me.
The longer I waited for a response, the more creeped out I got. So I tried again. This time I tried to add a little bit of entitled indignation to the word, the way my mother would have done:
“Hel-lo?”
Nothing. Weirdly, my voice did not echo, even though it should have, what with the high ceilings and all. And was I imagining things, or was the temperature in here quite a bit cooler than outside?
I shook off a shudder and forced myself to take three confident steps farther into the room.
“I don’t know who are you, or if you’re here now,” I said loudly, even though I was almost positive I wasn’t alone, “but this is my shop.”
This time I was answered by a blast of icy wind, which could not possibly have come from the warm June day outside. I shivered in my thin T-shirt and wrapped my arms around myself as another, even stronger gust of air engulfed me.
My teeth began to chatter, and I thought about what I must look like to the poltergeist—small and shivery, and probably two seconds away from running out the door. The image brought on a sudden surge of anger. Getting the Depot up and running was key to our plans for Witchtown. For my plans. And this ghost thought it was going to drive me away with a little bit of cold?
No way. I’d buy a space heater. Or six. This poltergeist didn’t know what it was dealing with.
Dropping my arms as though the cold was not affecting me at all, I marched around behind the counter, stopped at the very bottom of the horseshoe curve, and faced the shop’s door. This seemed like the most proprietary place to position myself: it was where Gayle had been standing when I walked into the Crescent Roll. I put my hands firmly on the slightly beat-up wood and raised my chin so that my voice would carry through the whole space.
“This is my shop,” I repeated, loudly, over the wind. “And I will not tolerate any interference.”
The wind stopped abruptly and a quiet, growly whisper spoke up from directly behind me.
“Oh, really?”
I jumped, whirled, and found myself trapped between the curve of the counter and a pair of bloodshot eyes. The eyes had no irises, just pupils: wide black disks floating in two pools of red. I couldn’t see my reflection in them; I couldn’t see much of anything. The eyes had to be attached to something, like a face and a body, but they were taking up my entire field of vision.
We stood frozen, the eyes and I, while my heartbeat ticked off the seconds.
The dark disks were calculating, looking me up and down, hard. Were they examining me? What would happen when they reached a conclusion?
Say something, my brain commanded.
Though the wind had stopped, my body was still shaking with fear and residual cold. I managed to part my lips. I had no idea what I intended to say, but before I could get a word out, the eyes blinked once, and I thought I heard exactly one syllable of a haughty, irritated laugh.
“I don’t think so,” the poltergeist said, in that same quiet, barely audible voice. Then the counter that surrounded me burst into flames.
I ducked. I was stuck inside a horseshoe of fire. The poltergeist backed up a couple of steps until it stood in the open end. I could see now that it—he—was a man. Or he had been a man, back when he was alive. In death he was a tall, shadowy figure in a long black coat. He seemed to shimmer a little around the edges, although that may have been from the heat of the flames. I couldn’t see the expression on his face, but I saw him cross his arms and plant his feet.
Cutting off my escape.
The air was rapidly becoming too hot to breathe. I bent my head lower, closer to the floor, where there was still some oxygen. I was afraid to consider my options because I knew I didn’t have many. The poltergeist had clearly settled in to watch the show; there would be no appealing to him, even if I could think of something to say.
I thought of praying to Laverna, but I was fairly certain that the Goddess of Thieves couldn’t help me now. I didn’t need darkness. And I didn’t need clouds.
I needed wind.
I closed my eyes and I reached, just as I had reached countless times before. I knew it was pointless, but it was the only thing I could do besides quietly burn to death. I wasn’t surprised when nothing came. Nothing except what was always there whenever I tried to channel: the wall. The thick, impenetrable wall that stood between me and the power that came so easily to others. The power my mother had been born with; the power that even the six-year-olds in the meadow had been able to summon at will.
But not me. That wall had always declared me unfit, unworthy to get near magic. And it wasn’t going to make any exceptions now. Not even to save my life.
The smell of charred cloth brought my attention back to the floor of the Depot: the frayed bottoms of my jeans were starting to smoke. The moonstone’s chain had grown hot around my neck, and my lungs felt like they were breathing in the fire. I was just starting to contemplate the notion that I might actually die here when I heard a shout. And suddenly I was cold again instead of hot.
The fire was gone. There was smoke everywhere and my eyes burned with it. Through streams of tears I could see that the poltergeist was gone, too. In its place was a flour-streaked apron and a pair of hands reaching down to help me up.
Chapter Ten
“Don’t be embarrassed, dear. It’s very difficult to channel when you’re scared.”
I didn’t respond; it was taking all my energy to keep my hands from shaking. Which was important because I was holding a cup of hot tea.
My thoughts were coming too fast for me to do anything but sit and wait for them to slow down. So I had parked myself at a corner table inside the Crescent Roll and watched as Gayle rustled up tea and a heaping plate of scones, mouthed something to Maire (who was behind the counter), then came and sat down across from me.
“It’s something we can work on,” Gayle continued, nudging the scones closer to me. They were fresh and cakey looking, and they smelled like lemons. Lemons and some sort of herb—thyme? Was that thyme? The heavenly scent was too much. I had had salad for dinner last night, then again for breakfast that morning. My stomach, which had ceased to be amused by an endless parade of vegetables, was in full-on rebellion mode and was trying to recruit my head over to its cause. My need to devour one of the scones, to sink my teeth into that thin, crackled sugar glaze on top, was almost primal.
I stuck my nose into my teacup and flooded my senses with apple cinnamon instead.
“In the fall, when school starts, we can set you up with a mentor,” Gayle mused, and took a casual sip of her tea. As though everything were perfectly normal and she was not, in fact, sitting across the table from a girl whose clothes and hair were singed, whose left shoe had been partially melted at the heel, and who smelled like a campfire. “Maybe Odin. Someone who can help you get past the fear.”
Well, that’s something, I thought, as I flashed Gayle what had to be a pretty feeble smile. At least she still thinks you’re a witch.
A lousy one, sure. An incompetent, badly trained witch with fear issues. But that was better than the alternativ
e.
I set down my cup.
“What—” I tried, then doubled over and hacked up the remaining smoke in my lungs. I was glad I had put down my tea. “What—” I tried again, clearing my throat loudly. “What was that thing?”
“That,” Gayle said, leaning back in her chair, “was the first owner of the Depot. He and his husband both died in the first Depot fire, not long after they bought the place.”
“And he enjoyed it so much he stuck around just to do the same thing to others?”
Gayle shrugged.
“It’s a little game he and the mayor like to play. Brooke rebuilds the place; he burns it down. Three times so far. He doesn’t seem to want the Depot to have a new owner.”
I stared at her.
“Geez, Gayle! You must really not like me. Why else would you try and talk me into buying that place?”
“Oh, no, dear. It’s not that,” Gayle said, smiling over her teacup. “I’ve been pondering the problem of the Depot for quite a while now. I was thinking about it the other day, in fact. I had just asked the Goddess to send me a solution when in you walked. You looked so young, I thought that perhaps the Goddess and I had gotten our signals crossed. But then, before I could find a way to bring up the Depot, you asked me about it. Right out of the blue. That’s when I knew.”
“Oh,” I said, not sure exactly how to respond to that.
Gayle leaned forward and put her hand on mine. Her eyes were heavy with concern.
“I would have warned you about the poltergeist,” she said. “I’m sorry. I had no idea you’d swoop in and buy the place so quickly.”
“I wouldn’t have if I had known it was haunted.”
“Then perhaps it’s a good thing I never got around to telling you,” Gayle quipped, sitting back and sipping her tea again. “What are you going to do about it now?”
I picked up my tea and scowled down at the scones while I thought about how to answer that question. In spite of what Gayle had said, I knew there was only one Goddess who could possibly have sent me here. And Laverna’s purposes were not the benevolent, kind ones that Gayle’s Goddess would have.
Still, I knew better than to argue with a witch who thought she saw the hand of a Goddess in something. It might even be useful down the line, when it came time to get the Merchants’ Guild to trust me. But it also meant I had to figure out a way to deal with the ghost, and fast. Before Gayle figured out that I wasn’t the answer to anyone’s prayers.
I shuddered involuntarily at the thought of ever stepping foot inside the Depot again. But there was nothing to be done about it. I couldn’t admit defeat to Gayle. Or my mother.
“I’ll figure something out,” I assured Gayle, and stood up. “Thank you for putting out the fire.”
Gayle raised an eyebrow.
“I’m sure you would have been just fine without me,” she said, and I didn’t know her well enough yet to tell if she meant that or not.
I headed for the door.
“One piece of advice?” she called after me.
“The first step to having power over something is to know its name. Your poltergeist has a name: it’s Bradley.”
The poltergeist, the fire, and my recovery tea with Gayle made me late to my appointment to meet Kellen in the meadow. I thought about blowing him off. For the entire walk toward the lake, I considered it. But I wouldn’t let myself turn back, no matter how much I wanted to run to the apartment, snuggle with Rafe’s jacket, and take a very long nap. I was a professional. The poltergeist may have destroyed my morning, but I wasn’t going to let him derail the rest of my day.
There were things I needed to get done. Like find out how Kellen figured into my plans for Witchtown.
When I arrived at the lake, Kellen and the kids were sitting in a circle, patiently waiting for me. Before I could apologize for my tardiness, he announced that in honor of my presence, he would be using this afternoon to teach the younguns about the local herbology.
Had I ever told Kellen I was an herbalist? I couldn’t remember . . .
Kellen directed the kids, and me, to disperse and search the area for interesting plants. He then announced that we would regroup in half an hour, when I would examine everyone’s findings and give a rundown of their magical properties.
Was he testing me? Bring it on, Golden Boy.
The kids wandered off in small clumps, and Kellen divided his time between the groups. Still a tad shaky from my eventful morning, I decided to go in the opposite direction from everyone else. I walked alongside the lake, keeping my eye on the tree break where the stubby pines gave way to the shoreline. Poison oak liked to grow in places like that. Might as well teach the kids something useful.
I walked until I came to the top of the dam, without finding anything. The dam created a large reservoir that fed into a water filtration plant. According to what I remembered of the mayor’s map, there was also a hydroelectric plant somewhere at the dam’s base.
I had to hand it to Witchtown; it used every resource at its disposal to power, feed, and maintain itself. The people of Witchtown had worked hard to ensure that they would need nothing from the outside world. I could see why the mayor was so freaked out about that hard-won independence being threatened.
A small stream veered off from the lake and I followed it into a glen. Shaggy weeping willows hung down into the water from both banks, giving the space a closed-in feel. There was a small island in the center of the stream, dotted with—I had to look twice to make sure—wild angelica.
No way.
I had never seen angelica in person before. Finding it gave me a shivery thrill, and at that moment I could think of only one other person who might appreciate my excitement.
Talya seemed to know her herbs. But she was never going to believe me without proof.
The water looked only about a foot deep, so I stripped off my shoes and socks and rolled my pants up to my knees. With a silent apology to the citizens of Witchtown for contaminating their water supply with my dirty feet, I stepped in and made my way toward the island.
“What are you doing?”
Flapping my arms to regain my balance, I turned around and saw Aimee on the bank behind me.
I pointed to the angelica.
“I found something cool! And secret. Wait there, I’ll show you.”
I waded carefully into the stream, debating what I would—or should—tell Aimee about my find. Angelica was deceptively innocent in its beauty, with wispy white flowers shooting out from the center of the plant like tiny bursts of light. And it was harmless enough to ordinary people, and even to Learned witches. But it was Kryptonite to Natural witches, just like rowan to Learneds. For this reason, angelica was rare, controversial, and—ever since the end of the Second Inquisiton—spectacularly illegal. The U.S. government had gone to great lengths to eradicate it. Witchtown could get into serious trouble if word got out that it was growing wild here.
“I found something too!” Aimee exclaimed, waving a fistful of daisylike flowers at me. “What are these, Macie? What are these?”
I smiled to myself, and took another careful step toward the island.
“Those taste really yummy,” I lied. “Nibble on one, you’ll see.”
Her eyes lit up, and I couldn’t help but cringe when, instead of nibbling on just one flower, she shoved the whole handful into her mouth at once. She chewed a couple of times, then made a terrible face and spat everything out into her hand.
“Yuck!”
“Gotcha!” I said to her, as I reached the island. “Those are chamomile flowers. They do taste yummy when they’re brewed in tea, but they’re really bitter right after you pick them.”
“Yuck!” she exclaimed again, and scraped her tongue with her fingers to get rid of the taste. Still making a face, she knelt at the edge of the stream and scooped some of the water into her mouth.
“Aimee,” I scolded, as I reached my hand toward one of the wispy angelica stems. “I don’t k
now if that’s the cleanest—”
“Ow!” she cried, as soon as she had spat the water out, and then started gagging. Grasping her hand, she tried to wipe the water off on her sleeve, but succeeded only in getting her other hand wet. Which appeared to cause her even more pain. “Ow! Ow! OW!”
Alarmed, I left the angelica behind, without even touching it. I started to splash back over toward the bank as quickly as I could and watched, helpless, as Aimee howled in pain.
The sound brought Kellen at a run, before I could get out of the water.
“It burns!” Aimee yelled.
Kellen pulled a bottle of water from his backpack and poured it over Aimee’s hands. The pain drained from her face.
“I drank some, too,” she admitted, and Kellen handed her the bottle.
“Rinse out your mouth,” he suggested. While she was doing as she was told, Kellen turned and bent down toward the water. He dipped an experimental hand in, cringed, then brought his hand cautiously to his mouth, allowing the tiniest bit of the water to touch his lips.
He spat it out immediately, wincing in pain.
“Rowan,” he said, and coughed. Aimee handed him the water bottle, and he used it to rinse his mouth and hands, just as she had.
I tensed. What on earth was rowan doing in the Witchtown water supply?
Kellen spat one more time, then stood up. When he looked at me, there was a strange expression on his face. It took me a second to figure out why, but when I did, my blood ran cold.
There was rowan in the creek.
And I was standing barefoot and ankle deep in it.
Chapter Eleven
Could this day get any worse?
“Ow!” I yelled loudly, and splashed the rest of my way out of the creek, doing my best to imitate the reactions that Aimee and Kellen had had.
I wasn’t fooling Kellen. At least, I was pretty sure I wasn’t. His face was expressionless as he took two careful steps out of my way so that I could flail onto the bank.
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