by Lili Black
Not paying attention to where I’m going, I just drive. Hattie and I did amazingly well at conserving our money. I never would have been frivolous with our gas before, but at this point in time, I don’t care.
My drive takes me in circles in some places and the long way in others, ever-circling closer to my destination. When the back drive to my home appears, I take the sharp turn and head toward the house without thinking it through.
After two years of neglect, weeds cover the path. More than likely, no one has used this drive since we left. The fallen tree is right where we left it, and this time, I manage to avoid it without almost crashing.
When I reach the old garage, I park alongside it, pointing the nose of the truck back toward the path for a quick escape if needed. When I came for Hattie’s magic tools, no one had been here, but better safe than sorry.
Pulling an extra string and my antique phone charger out of the glove box, I plug the phone in, then climb out of the car. My first thought is to throw the phone as far into the woods as I can or maybe run it over with the truck, but I don’t. Not yet, anyway. A part of my mind still wants to hear Donovan’s excuse for being with Macey.
After forming the protection web and reciting the spell, I cut through the woods and toward the house, using the light of the waning crescent moon to light my way. I don’t know what I want to do here, but I need this. My legacy started here, and however it ends should be here as well.
Since leaving, I haven’t had a chance to walk the entire property. Something urgent always weighed on me when I came before. This time, I’m just here for me. Nothing, not even Maggie, holds me back from being here.
The first place I head is Henry’s room. He was obsessed with all things outdoors. He loved rocks, plants, animals, anything involving nature.
I crack open the door to his room, my heart in my throat at what I might find, but it looks the same as it always did, just dustier. Books still lay scattered across his desk, and his clothes rest on his dresser, waiting to be put away.
The corner of his room holds his rock collection. Many of them are rocks he found in or around our property. Some are rocks someone picked up for him at the farmer’s market. A few are ones he picked out himself.
His collection is neatly labeled, which makes me smile. He hated handwriting class, but each of his items has the best handwriting I’ve seen, better than even my mom’s.
I pick up the box labeled All The Rocks and step to the window to use the light of the moon to see better. Inside, each rock, gem, or mineral is categorized by what it is, where he found it, what its properties are, and a note with a page number. Looking around, I find a book on rocks, and I flip to page twenty-five. There, I find a picture of a rock that looks similar to the one marked Amethyst, so this has to be the book the page numbers reference.
I pick up a few of them, curious because rocks have never been my interest. Skimming through the labels, my hand freezes on a chunk of gold.
Where did he find this? This has to be worth some money. I question if it’s real gold, but right next to it is iron pyrite, fool’s gold. When they’re side-by-side, the differences are striking, and I wonder how people could confuse the two.
Not caring at this point if one of the dark witches realizes someone’s been here, I search for a bag to use. I can’t carry the box and make the ward, and I refuse to leave Henry’s treasures here any longer.
Eventually, I find one of his old bags and shove the box of rocks and its corresponding book inside, then sling it over my shoulder.
Back outside, I take one last look around. The long shadows of the night play tricks on my eyes, making me see shadowed forms moving through the house, but I dispel the idea that the spirits of my family are stuck here. Hattie and I spoke the ritual words for each of them, but I still worry that they’ll never be at peace.
I know I won’t while the dark witches and now, Macey are still out there.
The frantic energy that brought me here drains away, leaving me with the exhaustion of a sleepless night and heavy labor. Hattie loved to warn me that using magic would drain me, but we never discussed the drain of emotions. She tried, but I shut her out.
All my fault. If I opened up, would she have done the same so I could have helped her?
Not ready to head back to the campsite, I go to my secret hiding place to calm myself. Meditation has never been my strong suit, but I’ll try. If for no other reason than I need the focus before getting back behind the wheel.
Inside my cave of briars, I slip the box of rocks from the bag and take out the gold, holding it loosely in front of me. So many hours of my meditation were spent in the cave, searching for gold. Now, I have a real sample to concentrate on.
Sitting cross-legged on the ground, I rest the gold on the dip where my calves cross. Closing my eyes, I take a few deep breaths, then focus my energy on the gold. At first, nothing happens, and frustration tempts me to throw the precious mineral.
Instead, I pick it up and cup it in my hands, sending my magic into it.
Once my magic touches the gold, my mind opens, and the gold calls to me. The hum of the connection calms me further, and I let the energy flow through and around me. I have no doubt I’ll be able to find the gold vein in that old tunnel now.
A strange male voice floats through the air, startling me awake. “This area here will be for the clubhouse and heated pool.”
I lie perfectly still and crack my eyelids. The bright magenta of Henry’s dried flowers floats across my vision as I turn my head on the hard dirt. I fell asleep in my hideout.
Turning slightly, I roll onto a hard rock and suppress a yelp. Rolling back, I slide my hands through the dirt until I find the culprit.
In my hand rests the gold nugget that finally helped me crack the code on how to find the vein in the mountain. I must have fallen asleep while meditating on it.
“What do you plan to do about the old house?” another man asks.
“We’ll have to clean the entire area. The plan is to start on the outer edge of the property and work our way in, since there’s more to clean here at the heart of the property. I’d like to see most of the trees kept on the outside, just thinned out some. The fence will go inside of that. Once those are in place, we can begin constructing the buildings,” the original man explains.
My hands tighten into fists. This man wants to take my property and put a clubhouse on it.
Oh, hell no!
“If you clear these trees out, you’ll have a nice view of the mountains. What else are you planning to put out here?” a different man asks.
“This will be a full community, but I don’t think we need to go too far into the communal living idea. I’ve seen too many of those fade away, thinking that they can be self-sustainable when, in reality, it’s just a dream,” the first man responds.
About to storm out of my hiding spot to confront the intruders, a voice I recognize freezes me in place. “What happened to the family who used to live here?”
Why is Donovan with them? Is this Donovan’s dad’s work? I knew he developed the land on the other side of the property, but I never imagined he’d expand here.
Even as mad as I am at Donovan, I can’t bring myself to confront him now. My emotions would take over, which will lead to chaos. Control will be the only thing that keeps me from burning out, so I push down the pain and betrayal, adding it to my growing reservoir.
“They’re long gone. Abandoned it when times got tough for them. I knew them when I was younger. It was a complete waste of air having them around, especially their daughter, Sabine.” I nearly choke when I hear Macey’s voice, and the hairs on the back of my arms stand on end as my magic resurfaces.
Knowing Macey might be able to sense me, I grab my string from where I dropped it on the ground and quickly built the cat’s cradle. The shaking in my hands makes me start over as I lose the shape, but I finally manage to set it in place.
“You don’t think they’ll be back?” Do
novan asks, ignoring Macey’s snide comments about my family.
“No. From what I’ve been able to discover, a trust was set up to pay all the bills and taxes. It’s been in place for years with the management of it passing from lawyer to lawyer in the same firm. My plan is to work with him to turn the management of the trust over to me and my lawyers, then I’ll be free to do what I want with the property. If any family members do resurface, I’ll be more than generous with how I handle them.” I’m fairly certain that’s Donovan’s dad’s cold voice. I’ll be able to pick it out anywhere now.
The way his dad is handling this sends chills up my spine. Now, I understand why Donovan fought so hard to get away from him. At this point, I wish he stayed away at school. He might not have met Macey or be caught up in the destruction of my family home. My one saving grace is the fact that the house won’t be taken down by his wrecking crew, and Macey doesn’t have near enough magic to remove the protections.
Their voices fade as they move away from my hiding spot. With them here, I worry that the dark witches will show up again, but maybe, Macey took the wards down for them. Otherwise, all of them could be slaughtered if the dark witches think I’ve returned.
That would fix one of my problems, but my heart aches for Donovan.
How can I still be in love with someone who would cheat on me? If he truly cared for me, he should have pushed her away. That doesn’t mean I want him to die at the hands of a dark witch, though.
I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, not even Macey.
No, I have better plans for her.
3
Dusk is falling by the time I arrive back at the campsite. I stayed in hiding long after I was sure the land development people left, my mind whirling with different ways to hold back the destruction of my family home.
But it all boils down to one thing. The dark witches.
I no longer have a nebulous timeline to perfect my magic and hunt them down. Not if I want to be able to reclaim my family home. And I want that with a desire that burns so hot it nearly chokes me. It’s not just that it holds the last memories of my loved ones. It’s deeper than that, rooted in a tradition I didn’t realize I still clung to until the realization I could lose it struck.
That house has belonged to the Barlow women going back generations. It’s stood as a safe place for white witches to live in peace and harmony. And while I never felt like I belonged, it’s in my blood, and I refuse to see it destroyed.
Which means, I need to take down the dark witches. Wipe them from the face of the earth. Then, I can go to Donovan’s dad, show him proof the land is mine, and reclaim Barlow Manor. I’ll bring the garden back to life, cleanse the evil that was done there, and open the doors for new witches like me, who question their place in the world.
The idea came to me fully formed and dropped into my mind as if someone else put it there, and maybe, they did. I was in the seat of my ancestral home, and I can’t have been the only witch who lived there who questioned. I can take what Hattie taught me, build on my own experiences, and make something new.
And all I need is Macey.
As soon as I climb out of the truck, Maggie bounds over, and I bend without pausing in my steps, scooping her into my arms and lifting her to my shoulder. Flames burst to life in the firepit as I near, brought to life by the surge of magic that still rolls through me. There’s no stopping it now that Hattie’s death released the final bind that held me back.
Bending, I scoop a handful of fire into my palm and continue past the firepit. With my magic unbound, it’s easy to picture the spell in my head, to let claiming the flame and offering the personal sacrifice happen at the same time. My fingertips sting for only a moment before the fire dances against my skin, hot but not damaging.
Maggie purrs and rubs her cheek against mine, tickling me with her whiskers.
With my free hand, I reach up to stroke her soft head with my free hand. “We’re not sleeping tonight, sweet girl. Too much to do, and no time left.”
She nibbles at my fingers, then shoves her head back into my hand.
Walking to the cave, I step inside and pull the piece of gold from my pocket. It’s easier this time to form the connection, and my magic surges, bolstered by it. But this gold didn’t come from here. It lacks a connection to the gold I know lives in this mountain. It’s merely a steppingstone to what comes next, just like Hattie said. One spell learned paves the way for the next, compounding one on top of the other.
Shoving the baking rack aside, I raise my fire to illuminate the roughly hewn passage it hides and stride forward.
I’ve been here often enough over the years I could have walked it without the light. The passage isn’t that deep, and there are no offshoots to get lost in.
When I reach the end where those who came before me stopped, I lift the gold nugget in my hand, admiring the way the light dances on its surface. Humans fight wars for this, driven by greed, but witches know its true power.
I concentrate on the precious mineral, and its weight lifts from my palm. It spins in the air for a moment, then flies past me, over my shoulder, a magnet drawn to its own kind. I turn to find it pressed against the stone wall behind me, tapping lightly as it tries to connect with more gold. I step up to the wall and place the hand that holds the fire against the wall, pushing my magic through the hard surface in search of the soft veins that run through it, the lifeblood of the mountain.
The connection comes in a rush, my magic striking the vein of gold it finds and spreading outward, dragging me through the mountain, down all the paths. The miners should never have given up on this dig site. There’s so much here they left undiscovered.
It takes effort to pull myself back, narrowing my focus to that first point of contact. The stone wall under my hand grows hotter, softening and creating a pathway for the gold to create a new vein, flowing toward me. I step back, pulling away from the wall, and a small hole appears, a shimmering trickle of gold following. It puddles onto the cold ground, burning hot before it cools, the mineral hardening into a flat disc.
I let my concentration fade, and the nugget I got from Henry falls to the ground and bounces. Bending, I pick it up and tuck it safely back into my pocket before I peel the new gold disc from the stone floor. It still feels warm in my hand, malleable, and I set it against my wrist, bending the edges until it forms a cuff. Through it, I still feel the connection to the gold in the mountain where it flowed from, and with little effort, my magic leaps from the new cuff to its source, expanding my power beyond anything I could have ever hoped for.
I’ll need to test how far I can travel before the connection breaks, but I have other thoughts for that, like pulling more gold to create checkpoints down the mountain that I can use to hopscotch back to here. It’s just a theory, something I’ll need to experiment with, but my gut says it will work. The effort to extend that far may burn through my resources faster, but it will be worth it to gain a boost if I need it. Where some witches may wear jewelry to elevate their power, I’ll have an entire mountain to pull from.
Heading back toward the main cave, I grab the backpack that holds my family’s grimoires and leave the passageway. I pull the baking cart back into place to hide the treasure it now contains before I return to the firepit.
The flames leap in welcome, and I drop the one I still hold back into their eager embrace before I stride to the trailer and open the door. The dark grimoire lays where I threw it early on the floor, and I don’t even need to walk up the steps to grab it.
On my shoulder, Maggie growls and leaps to the ground, her fur standing on end.
I ignore her objections as I return to my favored log and sit, the book balanced on my knees. By the light of the fire, I place my hands on the dark cover and close my eyes, focusing on what I desire.
The book hums gently under my palms, a living thing with a consciousness of its own.
When I lift my hands, the cover opens, the pages flipping, until they settle on what I need
. I look down at the spell it offers, Causa Est Somnum. A spell to cause sleep. I was focusing on unconsciousness without death, so this works. I need a way to knock Macey out without permanently harming her. She has the answers to questions I need to ask.
As the night grows darker and the stars come out, I practice the incantation, memorizing the words and the patterns until they appear fully formed in my mind as a cohesive whole.
Then, I set the book aside and dig out my hunting gear. I need a living creature to practice on.
Once I set the snare, I drop to the ground to meditate. Over the years, I’ve perfected the process of letting my body rest while my mind stays on alert for changes in the environment around me. It got me out of more than one scolding from Hattie when she thought she caught me sleeping, and it works now to put my body in a state of motionlessness.
In my semi-conscious state, the visions come of crows and skulls, of rainbow pentagrams and fire.
I don’t know what they mean, and I let them slip into my unconscious mind to focus on later.
When the snap of the snare sounds, followed by the sound of thrashing, I open my eyes to see what I caught.
The doe from earlier fights against its bindings, its chest heaving and eyes wild with fear.
“Be at peace,” I murmur as I stand and walk nearer. “I mean you no harm.”
The deer freezes, its sides heaving with desperate gasps.
I walk closer, steps slow and cautious. Even trapped, the deer can hurt both itself and me, and I have no desire to kill the poor animal. I don’t need its meat or desire its hide, and I have no use for its blood and bones, nor the soul it carries. I may be willing to delve into the dark arts, but my mother raised me not to waste. I have every intention of letting this creature go once I perfect the spell.
Pulling out my cell phone, I set a timer, then form the spell in my mind before I reach out and quickly touch the deer on the forehead.