Witch-Child

by Gerilyn Marin

  "I don't understand," I say, my brow furrowing, still feeling as though I don't have enough information yet. "Why would anyone do something like that?"

  I let the how could anyone do that go unspoken. I mean, hello, sitting across from the descendant of a supposed devil, I doubt a bit of magic is something that should raise my eyebrow.

  He rifles through a few more of Maris' logs before he has an answer for me. "Okay, now, you know that tendency you have to hit me when you get cranky?"

  I frown. Twice isn't exactly what I'd call a tendency, but he's the one on the receiving end of said hits, so sure. "Whatever's written can't be your fault, so why would I hit you?"

  "Because Samuel Maris isn't here for you to slap?"

  Letting out a heavy sigh, I give a half-shrug. "Fine, I . . . promise not to smack you in Samuel Maris' stead, good enough?"

  He nods, and then scoots a little closer to me. "It was an accident."

  My eyes narrow and, in the back of my head, I giggle a little at the sudden, wary look that Grey offers me. "Why would that make me cranky?"

  "Because it was Maris' fault. Elizabeth warned him, and he didn't care."

  The tip of my nose stings, and I have to close my eyes against an immediate burning in the corners of them. I press my fingers against my nose to ease the stinging. This isn't a reaction I expected, and I have no explanation for it, either. I'm not sad, I'm not angry . . . I don't really know how I feel.

  Maybe I'm afraid, because I think I'm more tied to this than I'm willing to admit to myself.

  "What happened?" I whisper, not trusting my voice to remain steady throughout a longer sentence.

  "You okay?"

  My eyes are still closed; I don't want to open them just yet, so I only nod.

  "All right, well, Maris wanted to be rid of Jack, but didn't want anyone to talk about it, didn't want Drake's Cove to be remembered for harboring a devil, or any of the strange things that were happening because of Jack."

  He sighs, shaking his head before going on. "He had her construct a spell that would blot out anything tied to Jack."

  I lift my lids slowly to find Grey staring at my face, again waiting for my reaction. "Anything?" I ask.

  "Yup."

  If Jack was the cause of the weird things that happened here, if Jack was the start of it, then . . . . "So we literally just can't remember anything that happened because of Jack! It kind of makes sense, now."

  Grey's eyebrows inch up his forehead. "It does?"

  Fabulous—now I'm getting an understanding of what happened, and he's the one confused. It would be a nice change if we could both have the same clue at the same time.

  "Bear with me a sec. Does it say if she told him what would or wouldn't be remembered?"

  He shuffles through the pages in front of him and then looks up at me, giving a little pout of confusion. "Nope, he doesn't say if specifics were mentioned, only that more than what was intended would be forgotten."

  "Okay." I take the pages out of his hands and spend a moment replacing them into our timeline collage. "Gimme some paper and a marker."

  He pulls his backpack onto the couch and fishes around inside. Grey ignores the little noise of impatience I make in the back of my throat as he sets the red Sharpie I remember from last week—once again, I have trouble believing we started talking just six days ago—on the table, and tears a few fresh sheets from a binder.

  Raising one curious eyebrow, he hands me the paper. "Going to let me in on what's happening in that pretty little head?"

  I frown as I pick up the marker, uncap it, then start writing.

  "Pondering the joys of watching a cat play with a ball of string." It's something my grandmother used to say whenever she felt she'd be able to express an idea better by showing rather than telling.

  Plus, I've just always wanted to say it.

  "What?"

  Briefly glancing up, I see that his expression has gone from curious to bewildered. "Never mind."

  I lay out the pages in a separate branch from the final magic circle. "See, what I think is—"

  "That you're a terrible person who wastes paper?"

  I offer Grey a withering look and, after a second, he responds with a goofy grin.

  True, now that I have the pages laid out with the rest of the collage, I see that I could have condensed the lines by writing them all on a single page, but I hadn't really thought this through. However, he doesn't have to pick on me about it.

  "Can you be serious?"

  His grin fades, even as he jokes. "You can always hope."

  The new pages lay out a very basic chain of events, backtracking from Jack's death to when the witches first fled to Drake's Cove.

  "Okay, see, the problem I've been having with this is that it seems like people forgot more than just the Spring-heel-related stuff. Nobody remembers this place being a refuge for witches, right?"

  "Right."

  "Now, let's say Elizabeth's spell did exactly what she warned Maris it would do and sort of deleted anything tied to Jack from the town's memory. And this"—I pick up the page that speaks of Jack's fate in one hand—"was able to happen only because of this"—in the other hand, I pick up the page where I've marked the arrival of the folks from Salem. "So that means that these two events, and everything in between, are 'tied to Jack.'"

  "And no one would be able to remember why they didn't know anything about this part of the town's past."

  "Exactly."

  He pouts thoughtfully a moment and then scoops all of the remaining pages in his hands. "So then, in order to get to Jack, we have to reverse this circle, or spell, or whatever this actually is."

  "And then what?"

  Grey looks at me, shrugging as though I should know what he's thinking. "We break the bond."

  A moment passes before I can find my voice. "You want to let him out?"

  He nods slowly, but this time he won't meet my eyes. "Remember when I first told you about all this and you asked me what I was going to do if I found Jack?"

  "You said you thought you could rid your family, and this town, of the paranormal stuff."

  "I'm not sure, but I think to fix everything, I need to do what Maris didn't want to do. I think I have to kill Jack."

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Intrusion

  The ring of my cell phone pulls me out of a thick, black fog. I’d like to think I’ve been sleeping, but as I force my eyes open and reach for the phone on my nightstand, I don’t feel like I’ve been sleeping; more like I’ve been wading through a dense, heavy darkness.

  Grey let me keep Elizabeth Riordan’s books, so the awareness of having ownership of them is probably just causing me nightmares, I guess, of what being stuck in some magical seal for nearly two centuries might be like.

  The past two nights have gone the same way—since we learned what Elizabeth and Maris did to Jack—but there isn’t much we can do with our new knowledge. Not until Saturday, anyway, when we’ll have the free time to take a trip out of town. Stupid, time-swallowing homework.

  I really don’t want to answer the phone, but when I look at the screen, I see Wendi. The display shows 3:23 a.m., and I know she wouldn’t be calling me at ungodly o’clock if she didn’t have something seriously important to tell me.

  I mumble into the phone a word that might be hello.

  “Cadence! Cadence, you have to do something!”

  Hearing the panic in Wendi’s whispering voice knocks any sleepiness right out of me and I bolt upright. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  For a moment, she’s quiet; I can only think she’s listening for something. “It sounds like someone’s trying to break into my house!”

  “Oh my God! Oh my God!” Before I can actually consider what I’m doing, I’m out of bed and struggling into a pair of jeans, one-handed. “Are you okay? What’s going on? Why did you call me instead of 9-1-1?”

  “Because—because I don’t know if it actually is someone trying to break in. The
sounds have been going on for a while. And my parents are over at my cousin’s house, because she’s freaking out with the new baby, so they’re over there for a few days to let her rest and help her get adjusted. But what if it’s not someone trying to break in and it’s something else making the noise?” She pauses for a breath, and I hear a loud creak in background. “What would I say to the cops? ‘Oh, you didn’t find anything amiss? Yeah, sorry, it was probably just a ghost. You know, haunted town and all.!’”

  “Huh.” Yeah, pissing off cops by wasting their time, bad. I shove my bare feet into the broken-down tennis shoes I sometimes use for slippers. “You have a point. Okay, what do you want me to do?”

  I hear her take a deep breath, followed by the muffled sound of an impact. She gives a startled gasp.

  My heart drops into my stomach. “Wendi?”

  “I’m okay, I’m okay!" She lets out a quick series of quick shivery breaths before she can say more.

  "I just . . . I’m scared. Can you just go look around outside and if it looks like it’s a person, call 9-1-1, but if not, then . . . come in and get me and I’ll stay with you until my parents come home?”

  “Okay. Just . . . sit tight.” I’ve always hated that expression, but it’s all I can think to say before I hang up.

  I’m out of my room and standing in the hallway in a split second, but the idea of sneaking around outside my friend’s house as I look for a possible intruder scares me. Me, the girl who follows ghostly footsteps and sneaks into the cemetery in the middle of the night, scared of a burglar who might not even be there.

  I need backup . . . backup much more adept at swinging a baseball bat than I am.

  Just in case.

  I creep past my mother’s door. I don’t really want to disturb her unless there’s a flesh-and-blood person trying to break in next door. I don’t want to be the one to wake the woman, with a shrug and an explanation of eh, it’s just one of those Drake's Cove things after she put in close to twelve hours at the office. She’s just seemed a bit worn out the last few days.

  When I reach my brother’s room, I turn the doorknob gently, and the metal squeak that follows is nerve-wracking. Ignoring the sound, I push the door the rest of the way open, bolting across the room to drop down on my knees beside Jeremy’s bed.

  “Jeremy,” I whisper loudly, but my brother doesn’t budge. Not only does he not budge, he exhales right in my face with the breath of forgot to brush my teeth before bed.

  Blinking my suddenly watering eyes, I give my head a little shake and then try again, shoving his shoulder. “Jeremy!”

  Without opening his eyes, he slaps my hand away and turns over.

  “I swear to God, Cae, the world better be coming to an end,” he says grumpily, but at least he says it with his back to me so I don’t have to catch anymore of his stink-breath to the face.

  “Wendi thinks someone’s trying to break into her house!”

  Instantly my brother is up. He hastily pushes his blanket away and stumbles off the bed, wearing a ratty t-shirt and boxers. “Is she okay? What’s going on? Why didn’t she call the police?”

  I watch him bumble about his room, finding clothes to throw on, as he fires the questions at me.

  “She’s scared, her folks are away for a couple days, she’s hearing noises and doesn’t want to call anyone else, because this is here and it might just be one of those things.”

  He nods while putting his sneakers on. “Good enough, let’s go.”

  We hurry, tiptoeing back across the hall, then down the stairs to the first floor. I turn back for a moment to tell him about the baseball bat, but he’s already getting it from the closet of our tiny foyer.

  He looks at me. “What?”

  I can’t think very clearly. I’m too caught up with the mental image of someone ransacking my best friend’s house, but I offer him a small grin, glad that I decided to get him to come with me. “I’m just happy we think alike.”

  Jeremy glances at the bat he holds in one hand as he opens our front door with the other.

  “Isn’t that what big brothers are for?” he asks, returning the smile; clearly trying to reassure me.

  We head down the porch steps, then split up when we reach Wendi’s front walk. I head up to her door, while he goes around through a small alley on the far side of the house to check the back.

  I really am grateful that he thinks like me; I didn’t have to waste time suggesting that we check both doors.

  There’s a spare key tucked away in a tiny crevice just under the windowsill. The spot is not as cliché as under the welcome mat, or as obvious as one of those hide-a-key rocks. I dig the key out with the tips of my fingers, but wait for Jeremy to get back; all the while looking over the windows and turning the knob to make sure the door is locked.

  He hurries around the corner of the house.

  “Everything back there seems secure.” He jogs up the stairs as he whispers. “But she’s right; I did hear something moving around inside.”

  I nod, and finally unlock the door, letting us in. Though I couldn’t hear it from the front porch, now that we’re inside the house, there’s an obvious knocking and shuffling coming from the dining room.

  Immediately, I take a step in the direction of the noises, but Jeremy grabs me by the elbow and pulls me back.

  “What?” I whisper, startled by the sudden action—but I hadn’t really been thinking, simply moving on instinct.

  “In case that is someone that somehow got into the house,” he says in my ear, so low that I can barely hear him, and gives me a reminding nod toward the bat in his hand, “you go get Wendi. I will check the noises.”

  Returning the nod, I dash up the stairs. I try to open her door, but she’s locked it. I hear her on the other side give a panicked shriek as I rattle the knob.

  “It’s me!” I say, trying to be loud enough only to be heard through the wood.

  “Cadence?”

  In a few seconds, a very harassed-looking Wendi—bug-eyed, bags under her eyes, and the pixie-cut spikes of her hair smooshed flat to her head in places from interrupted sleep—opens the door. She practically wrings the air out of my lungs with a death-grip hug.

  “Wendi,” I manage, tapping her on the shoulder, “I need to breathe.”

  “Sorry, sorry!” She releases me, only to grab my hand and spin me around, dragging me behind her as she runs down the stairs and to the front door.

  When we get there, Jeremy is coming back out of the dining room. The moment Wendi sees him, she drops my hand—which is good, my fingers miss their blood-flow—and quite literally throws herself on my brother.

  My eyebrows shoot up; I expect him to look surprised. Instead, he simply hugs her back, an expression of relief on his face.

  “Hey,” I say after a moment, trying not to feel awkward in this suddenly very awkward moment.

  Well, awkward for me, they appear perfectly content. “Can we go, now? Please.”

  “Right,” Jeremy says, chuckling a little as Wendi sheepishly pries herself off him.

  “I’m sorry,” Wendi says as she fluffs a spare pillow on the air mattress we inflated beside my bed. “I really didn’t mean to scare you guys.”

  I just shrug, settling into bed even though I’m not sure I’ll be able to get back to sleep. “Bit late for that, huh?”

  She laughs. “Sorry. What do you think it was?”

  “No clue,” I say, shaking my head. “Probably just a ghost.”

  “Thanks for coming over.”

  “What are friends for?” I almost don’t want to ask what I’m thinking, but it’ll just bug me if I don’t. “So that, um . . . moment with you and Jeremy. Anything you want to tell me?”

  She nervously ruffles her pixie-cut hair and looks away from me. “Nothing, really, we’ve just been, ya know, talking the past few days.”

  “Talking?” I echo as I pull up my blanket. “Like, maybe talking on Monday morning at 2:00 a.m.?”

  She glance
s at me, her dark eyes wide. “He told you about that?”

  “Yes and no,” I say with another shrug. Now I guess it makes sense that she looked like death on toast when she came to the door the next morning. “He just said he was on the phone until late with a female someone.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything to you. I just didn’t want to make you feel weird.”

  “I don’t feel weird,” I assure her with a smile. Okay, I’m lying a little, but not enough for her to fret over.

  “Good.” She smiles and reaches up to switch off the bedside lamp.

  She knocks over something on the table and grabs for it. When I see what’s in her hand, my stomach ices over.

  Wendi has the cover of Elizabeth Riordan’s Book of Shadows.

  I’m immediately relieved that I never reunited the pages with the cover—they’re tucked safely away in the drawer.

  “Wow, this is old!” She says, as she examines the remnants of the Book. “Hey, is this, like, a family heirloom or something?”

  One of my eyebrows inches upward. “No; why would you ask that?”

  “Hello?” She leans onto the bed, showing me Elizabeth Riordan’s name scrawled on the inside of the front cover. “Didn’t you tell me that you’re mom’s mother’s maiden name was Riordan?”

  Suddenly, I feel like I can’t breathe. I couldn’t remember that when I first saw Elizabeth’s name! I should have; I remember it easily now that Wendi’s pointed it out, but I couldn’t remember it the day I read her name at Grey’s house.

  I have Riordan blood. Like my psychic great-grandmother had Riordan blood. Ice trickles down my spine and I remind myself to draw a breath as I wonder about what this may mean for me.

  Does this make me a witch-child?

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Day Tripping

  "Hey!" I snap, shoving Grey from behind as he places a textbook in his locker.

  Lunch period has just started and I've been waiting all morning to have enough time to yell at the boy the entire school thinks is my boyfriend. One bright spot of this misunderstanding is that everyone seems to steer clear of us when I look like I'm angry with him.