Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus Identity

by Lydia Sherrer

“Just a friend,” Sebastian replied, and gave the old woman a tight smile.

  Lily wasn’t sure how Sebastian considered himself Richard’s friend in any interpretation of the word, but she appreciated his sentiment on Mrs. Grant’s behalf.

  “He wanted me to tell you—” Lily began, then paused, trying to think of what to say without betraying that she knew more than she should. “That is, we spent some time together and he—he told me how much he loved you.”

  “Oh? Spent some time together, did you?”

  Lily blushed at the implication in the old woman’s words, and Mrs. Grant chuckled weakly.

  “Don’t mind me, dear. My poor Richard never had much luck with girls. He was a dashing young man, as good as any woman could want. But he was too dedicated to his job, and that’s hard on any relationship.”

  Lily nodded. “I—I gathered that. But he loved you so much. He wanted you to know that.”

  The woman let out a long, quiet sigh. When she blinked, a tear slowly ran down over the wrinkled planes of her cheek.

  “I know, dear. I know. He wasn’t able to visit often, but he called every week, and he’s never let me go a single day without my flowers. For years, no matter where I was, the flowers have always kept coming. I don’t know what I would have done without them to cheer me up.”

  Lily squeezed Sebastian’s hand more tightly. This was hard. So hard.

  Not knowing what else to say, Lily looked around, taking in the many plastic pots of flowers as she focused on them for the first time. They were in various stages of growth, some of them full of life and others drooping, as if they knew their time was drawing to a close. Something about them made Lily’s brow furrow, and she pulled away from Sebastian to approach one, fingers reaching out to touch a leaf.

  Shock coursed through her and she jerked her arm back, then stared at the plant in disbelief.

  “Is everything all right, dear?”

  “Y-yes, Mrs. Grant. Of course. Everything is fine.” Lily turned back to the hospital bed, ignoring Sebastian’s questioning look. His stance had changed from relaxed to wary in an instant. “I’ve just never seen such beautiful flowers. Thank you for seeing us. We don’t want to tire you out, so we’ll be going now.”

  “Oh, there’s no need for that. I was hoping you could stay a while and visit.”

  Lily swallowed as guilt radiated through her chest. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Grant, but we can’t. We have to catch our plane back to Atlanta. I hope you...feel better soon.” The words felt completely inadequate, but Mrs. Grant nodded her bald head graciously as if she were merely down with a cold.

  “I’ve lived a good life with more blessings than I can count. Every day is a gift. I never know which one will be my last, so I try to treasure them all.”

  The peaceful acceptance in Mrs. Grant’s words was beyond anything that Lily could comprehend. So she just nodded, out of things to say.

  “Thank you both for coming. I’m glad Richard had friends like you.”

  “It was the least we could do,” Sebastian said quietly after a pause where it had become obvious Lily had no idea how to respond. “Goodbye, Mrs. Grant.”

  Sebastian tugged her gently from the room, and neither of them said anything as they made their way out of the hospital and then headed across the parking lot. It wasn’t until they had reached their rented car that he finally asked the question she’d been expecting.

  “What startled you about the flowers? I felt...something. I don’t really understand what Aunt B did to this ring Mr. Dee gave me, but it does funny things now around magic.”

  Lily looked at the antique band on Sebastian’s finger. She tried not to remember the blood that had stained it when Madam Barrington had returned it to him, courtesy of the caretakers who had taken it from Richard’s body.

  “The flowers,” she murmured. “They were enchanted. I’ve never sensed a spell like it. It felt like it was woven into the flowers themselves, into their very life force—not cast on the pots or the soil like you’d think. The flowers radiated magic, but so subtly that it was hardly noticeable.”

  “Weird. What was the magic doing?”

  “There’s no way to know, really. But I don’t think it was anything harmful. In fact, it felt...good.” She fell silent and hunched her shoulders against the chill. The air was crisp and clean, but much colder than she was used to in Atlanta.

  After a long, thoughtful pause, Sebastian spoke again.

  “Maybe John Faust was trying to cure Mrs. Grant after all.”

  Lily’s eyes prickled with tears again, and she swiped at them angrily. She didn’t want to think about her father, and she certainly didn’t want to think about him trying to help an old woman dying of cancer. Not after what he’d done. She wanted nothing more than to be safe at home—well, not home, but maybe Madam Barrington’s house. It was back to bursting with her mother and Jamie refusing to go back to Alabama while the business with John Faust was still up in the air. The constant presence of so many people grated on her poor introvert nerves, but it was preferable to the places her mind wandered when she found herself alone.

  When she turned to get into the car, she was halted by Sebastian’s gentle grip on her elbow. Reluctantly, she let him pull her back around to face him. A firm finger under her chin lifted her head until she met his chocolate-brown eyes.

  “Mrs. Grant was right.”

  “About what?” Lily asked, a bit of a blush heating her cheeks at the intensity of Sebastian’s gaze.

  “Every day is a gift, and we never know how many we’ll get.”

  Lily didn’t respond. She was drowning in those eyes. They filled her heart up with warmth and comfort and hope.

  “I—” Sebastian stopped, swallowed, and tried again. “I love you, Lily Singer. I don’t want a day to go by that you don’t know that.”

  The heat in her cheeks spread over her entire body, but despite the butterflies doing loop-de-loops in her belly, her reply came easily to her lips. “I love you, too, Sebastian Blackwell.”

  He kissed her then, his touch tender and sweet.

  “Could we hurry this along, pray tell? I’m freezing my tail off in here.” Sir Kipling’s muffled meow came from inside the car, and Lily pulled back, laughing, then translated for Sebastian. Her cat had shown her the handy spell Madam Barrington had put on his collar, and while Lily agreed it was quite useful and worth adding permanently, she’d pointed out it was best used as little as possible. You never knew what clueless mundane might be watching.

  Sebastian smirked at the cat as he opened the driver-side door, then leaned in to put the keys in the ignition. “You’re telling me you can unlock any door and perform healing miracles with your purr, but you can’t start a measly car and get the heat running? What kind of magical familiar are you?”

  THE KIND WITH HUMANS TO DO MY BIDDING, the cat replied.

  Well, so much for using his spell sparingly.

  Lily shook her head and went around to climb into the passenger seat while Sebastian got the car—and the heat—running.

  Important, dangerous questions still remained unanswered: what would happen with John Faust? Was Morgan still alive? What was the ring Morgan had killed for, and what were they going to do with it? More terrifying than all those put together: where was Nergal and what horrific evil was he planning next? She knew with heavy certainty that she’d learned important things in her enchanted sleep. She knew she should be revisiting the events in her mind, memorizing every detail, every revelation, every clue. Yet any time she tried, all she saw was the ruin of Agnes Scott campus and all she heard was Sebastian’s agonized screams. And her mother’s screams. And Jamie’s screams. And—no, she couldn’t stand it. The memories were like a living thing, all pulsing blackness and predatory terror that tried to suffocate her every time she let her mind touch them. Had Sebastian dealt with such nightmares ever since he was sixteen? So much about him made sense now. She was beginning to understand what it was to just do your best—
because sometimes that was all you could do—and hope it was enough.

  What was her best? For the time being it was to barricade the memories behind a thick wall and tell herself the black thing would disappear eventually, once she’d had time to recover. If it didn’t...

  “Uh, Lily? You okay?”

  Lily looked over at Sebastian’s concerned face and did her best to smile, for his sake. Just thinking about the future gave her nervous twitches. But facing the uncertainties seemed bearable as long as she had her two favorite people—well, person and cat—at her back.

  “I’ll be okay. Let’s go home,” she said.

  “You got it, Lil.” Sebastian shot her a grin, and then they were on their way.

  To be continued in Book 7 of the Lily Singer Adventures, expected release in 2021. Want something else to read in the meantime? Check out Accidental Witch, Book 1 in the Dark Roads Trilogy that tells Sebastian Blackwell’s backstory and how he became a witch.

  Keep going to read a preview of

  ACCIDENTAL WITCH: Dark Roads Trilogy Book 1

  Now in paperback and ebook

  Dark Roads Trilogy Book 1: Accidental Witch

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Sheesh, Mom, what’s the big deal?”

  “The big deal is that you are sixteen years old and we expect better behavior from you. We taught you to respect your elders. How could you do something like this?”

  I winced inwardly at the disappointment in my mom’s voice, but kept my face stubbornly set. “He insulted me in front of the entire class. It’s not my fault our math teacher is an insufferable prick.”

  “Sebastian.”

  My dad’s warning growl should have brought me to my senses, but I was in too deep to back down now. After all, the guy had insulted me first. “It’s not like I’m saying anything new. Everyone knows Mr. Hensley is the worst teacher in our school, probably in all of Atlanta. He’s only kept his job because he’s banging the—”

  “Sebastian!” my mom gasped in horror, but I paid more attention to the snort from my older brother in the back seat beside me. He had his nose stuck in some college textbook—as usual—but withdrew it long enough to give me what was no doubt supposed to be a look of sympathy. His permanent expression of smug superiority ruined the gesture, though. Freddie was the “golden boy” in the family and I knew he secretly enjoyed seeing me get in trouble.

  If I had been smart, I would have shut my mouth then and there, just to deprive him of the pleasure. I wasn't doing anyone any good, and the look of distress on my mom’s face as she twisted in her seat to meet my eyes sent a flash of guilt through me.

  But I was young and stubborn, a mix that always seemed to get me into trouble. Crossing my arms, I avoided my mom’s gaze, instead glaring at the back of my dad’s neck. “I was only telling the truth. Isn’t that what you taught me to do?”

  Mom’s expression hardened. “Sebastian, you will speak with respect when addressing your father. What has gotten into you? Your brother never acted like this when he was your age.”

  I could almost feel the grin on Freddie's face as he bent lower over his book. The look was imprinted on my memory and hung before my eyes, mocking me. I told myself to shut up, to let it go. But my mouth seemed to open of its own accord, angry words escaping in a hot torrent. “Well maybe if you weren’t so busy being uptight about everything you’d notice—”

  “—now see here, young man—”

  “—Sebastian, honey, please—”

  A horn blared, overpowering our competing voices. It was the only warning, a useless second of noise that drew our attention. But too late.

  The piercing screech of tires split the air. I felt only a moment of explosive terror before everything erupted in a tumult of shattering glass and screaming metal. My body slammed forward and the seatbelt dug painfully into my chest, keeping me from flying through the windshield as the front of the car crumpled. Even so, my head whipped back and forth, hitting something with a painful crack. The world went black.

  Beep…beep…beep.

  The noise, intermittent yet persistent, was the first thing I heard. It sounded familiar, but the harder I thought about it, the more my head hurt, so I stopped.

  Voices, soft but urgent, argued in the background. I tried to ignore them and sink back into blissful unconsciousness, but then I heard my name.

  “Sebastian deserves to know!”

  “Absolutely not. Even if he were not already in a fragile state of recovery, his father would not have wished it. It will only make the situation worse.”

  “How can you say that after what happened? I’m out of my mind with worry for Stephen, heaven knows what has befallen him. The boys could be next. They need to be prepared.”

  “It is precisely because of what happened that I base my decision. The boys are better protected now than they have ever been. I have taken every precaution, used every ward and spell at my disposal. The truth will help no one.”

  “Wards? We need the police—no, the Stewards! They’ll put a stop to—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Eliza. This is a family affair. You know as well as I do that the wizard conglomerate would not lift a finger to help us. There is no proof.”

  “But—”

  “Not another word about it. I was appointed guardian and my decision is final. You should not even be here, it is too dangerous. Besides, Stephen would want you somewhere safe. Go back to England. No wizard is foolish enough to tangle with the Dee family.”

  I had a hard time following the conversation. Why did my head hurt so much? I tried to raise my hand, but felt resistance as if it was attached to something. Confused, I opened my eyes and turned my head, but gasped as blinding pain shot through the base of my skull like a hundred stabbing needles. I lay there, jaw clenched, trying to ride it out and remember what had happened to put me in this state. But thinking hurt. Everything hurt.

  (Don’t want to stop reading? You can continue the story HERE)

  Afterword

  Thanks so much for reading Lily and Sebastian’s continuing adventures! Don’t miss future books in the Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus universe by signing up to my mailing list at www.lydiasherrer.com/subscribe for new release alerts, behind-the-scene sneak peeks, book giveaways, and chances to help me out in the story-making process.

  Reader reviews are essential to a book’s success by helping other readers discover stories they might enjoy. Plus, they are a great way to show support for your favorite author! Please consider taking a moment to leave a review for Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus: Identity.

  If you want to explore more of the Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus universe, then come join my motley crew on Patreon www.patreon.com/lydiasherrer. You’ll get awesome rewards like exclusive monthly short stories (found nowhere else), snarky swag, and series spoilers.

  Want to discuss story, characters, and future books? Check out my VIP Reader Group on Facebook and join the fun.

  You can also discover more backstory by checking out the Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus Universe Glossary here on my website.

  I’d love to connect with you online! You can find me at:

  www.lydiasherrer.com

  www.facebook.com/lydiasherrerauthor

  www.instagram.com/lydiasherrer

  www.twitter.com/lydiasherrer

  www.youtube.com/c/lydiasherrer

  Still hungry for more books? Did you know that Sir Kipling stars in his very own adventure in Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus: Cat Magic? Read about how he teams up with an ancient German wizard to save McCain Library from snooping witches—and manages to be snarkier than ever while he does it! Check it out here!

  Also by Lydia Sherrer:

  Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus Universe

  * * *

  The Lily Singer Adventures:

  Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus Book 1: Beginnings

  Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus Book 2: Revelations

  Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus Book 3: Allies

 
Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus Book 4: Legends

  Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus Book 5: Betrayal

  Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus Book 6: Identity

  (Book 7 coming in 2021!)

  * * *

  The Lily Singer Adventures Novellas:

  Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus: A Study In Mischief

  Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus: Cat Magic

  * * *

  Dark Roads Trilogy (Sebastian’s Origin)

  Book 1: Accidental Witch

  * * *

  Other Works:

  * * *

  Ashes of Hope: A Post Apocalyptic Dark Fantasy Short Story

  Acknowledgments

  With each book I write, I feel like the list of people I’m indebted to grows longer! If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a legion to publish a book.

  As a working mom, writing is a precarious balance between finding the space I need to create, and being the involved, exuberant, and joyful mother of my young and needy offspring. Much thanks to my own mother especially, as well as the others in my support team, who have helped me find this balance so I could put in the hours needed to publish yet another book.

  Thank you, dear hubby, for supporting this endeavor and always believing in me.

  Thank you, long-suffering sister, for drawing beautiful illustrations for my stories.

  No author would get far without her editor and cover artist! Thank you, Josiah, for fielding my innumerable grammar questions, and Molly, for not being afraid to remind me I know nothing about cover design and I should just hush and let you do your thing.

  I am absolutely indebted to my amazing beta readers, who stepped up with a vengeance and helped me whip my long and convoluted manuscript into shape. They are too many to name, but they know who they are. Just as amazing have been my many fans and readers who have waited (more or less) patiently for this next installment, sending encouragements my way and keeping the fire lit under my posterior. You all make the hard work of writing worth it!