by H. A. Wills
It would also be unfair.
Whether I want to or not, I will eventually have to pass through the pearly gates-- and until then, I’m still a ghost. I’m still dead. Trying to make what’s between us more than friendship would be cruel considering all she’s lost-- and if she didn’t feel the same as I do, I’d be the first ghost to die a second time from embarrassment alone.
Instead, I press my forehead against hers, and say, “That’s not how friendships work. There’s nothing to repay, and…” I hesitate but decide this piece of truth won’t hurt, “and you’re one of the best things that’s ever happened to me too.”
“But friends help each other,” she counters, her breath feathering against my lips. “I may not know much, but I’m pretty sure if there was a handbook on the subject, that’d be on page one.”
I chuckle softly, loving her more with each passing second, and reply, “And that’s what we’ll do. Whatever this all means and who’s behind it, we’ll face it together and help each other through it.”
“Okay,” she murmurs, shifting so she once again has her head resting against my shoulder. “Thank you… for everything.”
“No problem, pretty girl,” I whisper, squeezing her tight, and we go back to dancing in slow circles while Ed Sheeran croons the words that I won’t allow myself to say.
Chapter 13
Callie
Mildred drops her purse and keys on the granite kitchen counter and heads over to the kettle to start making tea. I follow her in, and while leaning against the counter, I stare at the paper that allows me supervised permission on the road. It took a few hours to reach the closest DMV and take my written test, but I’m now the proud owner of a Provisional Instruction Permit-- which is a black and white print out with a not so great picture of me-- and still has the last name Santiago.
Soon it’ll be Volkov, and I’ll be one step closer to wiping the Bastard from my life. When I asked my aunt about needing his permission to change it, she was vague, simply stating it wouldn’t be a problem, and that I shouldn’t worry about it. Since she had a kind of mafia boss vibe going, I decided to follow her advice.
Considering how epically shitty this day started, I’m feeling… well, maybe not good, but at least stable. A lot of that I owe to Felix and our adventures on Campbell Island: Imaginary Edition. I don’t know if that’s what it’s actually called, but it works. With his infectious smile and innate joy, Felix took me on an adventure of exciting new experiences with the assurance that nothing could hurt me there. Which considering what it’s normally like in my mind, it was a refreshing change of pace.
The ending was bittersweet, as we danced in a slow circle and I could hear his heartbeat. Every day I feel more alive thanks to him, and it reminds me that until we solve his murder, he can’t move on. He can’t be reborn and feel the real sun on his skin again, instead of just a memory. As much as it will hurt to let him go, it’s time, and as insane as it sounds, I hope the bonfire this morning was started by the same murderous bastards. It’s time to put my weird mutant… er, magic power to good use.
As for this island in the real world, I want to say I’m shocked that Nolan’s family owns one, but at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he’s some vampire prince that’s been hidden away for his own protection from some dark shadowy government out to kill him.
Oh wait, that’s me!
Speaking of Nolan...
“Aunt Mildred,” I ask, leaning against the counter while watching her put the kettle on the stove, “can I tell you something and you’ll promise to keep it a secret?”
“Does it put someone in immediate danger if I do?” she replies evenly, glancing over her shoulder.
I swallow heavily and hope I can keep my promise to Nolan. “No, the damage is already done. I need your help to fix it.”
She stops mid-motion, her hand extended up to retrieve the tea from the cabinet beside the stove, and now fully turns to look at me. Concern is written across her brow, and she leans against the counter opposite me, mirroring my posture.
“I’ll help any way that I can,” Mildred answers gently, her hands pressed primly against her thighs.
“And you promise to keep it a secret?” I emphasize.
She sighs and nods. “I promise.”
I tug on the sleeves of my red ASU sweater while trying to find the right words to explain something I only have a surface level of understanding. “So, um, Nolan has… an affliction that the guys believe was caused by a spell, and… I was hoping there was something we could do to help him.”
“An affliction?” she echoes with a quirk of her lips. “I’m going to need a little more to go on, and why do they believe it’s the result of a spell?”
In rapid fire, I answer like I don’t have time to breathe, “Nolan used to date Gina, then he broke up with her freshman year because she’s evil incarnate and so self-absorbed she’d fall off a cliff if there was a mirror on the other side, and since they broke up, he’s no longer able to drink bagged blood.”
While I take a few gasping breaths, Mildred blinks at me, clearly attempting to process my word vomit.
Slowly, like she’s testing each word to see if it’ll crack, she asks, “You’re telling me that your vampire friend can’t drink bagged blood, and the girl harassing you at school is the reason for it?”
Oops. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned the Gina part.
“Yes?” I answer, the word rising into a question as I wince, my shoulders climbing toward my ears.
Unlike me, there aren’t giant thunderstorms or gale force winds to announce how angry she is, but by the narrowing of her eyes and the tight compression of her lips, it’s fairly safe to say she’s not pleased.
“I take from the vow of secrecy, that neither his parents nor Neva are aware of this?” she questions while crossing her arms and resting one hand under her chin.
I press my lips tight together and shake my head no. There’s a nervous flutter dancing in my stomach as I worry she won’t keep her promise and what the guys were able to keep secret for two years, I’ll expose within two weeks.
“Go sit at the table,” Mildred instructs, at the same time the kettle screams that’s it’s ready. “I’ll put the tea together, and then you’re going to tell me everything you know. Understood?”
“Yes,” I murmur and pray I haven’t made a huge mistake.
Over tea, mint for me and black for her, I explain everything I know. How shortly after breaking up with Gina, Nolan started vomiting up any bagged blood he tried. That the guys felt they couldn’t go to Neva, the coven leader and Gina’s mother, because Gina is technically too weak to have performed that kind of spell. They were sure no one would believe them. And Gina’s father is in charge of the Campbell’s blood supply, so accusing Gina could greatly hurt Nolan’s family.
“Well, he’s clearly still alive,” my aunt points out, sipping on her tea, “so what is he doing for blood?”
Recalling exactly how he’s been surviving, a deep blush starts from my toes and burns its way to my scalp, and I mutter, “He can keep down blood from… um... living donors.”
“I see,” she replies with a quirk of her blonde brow, and I’m afraid she just might. Thankfully, she saves me from having to find a cliff to fling myself off of by not asking any follow-up questions.
Mildred looks out the window just past my head, the cogs of thought visibly turning in her gaze. Slashes of afternoon light cast harsh lines across her pale face and highlight flecks of gold in her brown eyes.
“Without knowing the original spell, it will be quite difficult, maybe impossible, to reverse it,” she explains sadly. “There’s no blanket, magical undo-it spell, and just like there are many ways to get to a single destination, there are many spells that can lead to similar results. Simply using the wrong elemental magic to try and reverse the spell, could lead to compounding the problem, instead of solving it.”
I wilt against my chair and stare up at the off-
white ceiling. “Is there nothing we can do?”
“Don’t lose hope yet, my dear,” she advises despite her morose prognosis. “I’ll search the family grimoires, and see if, at the very least, I can find out what element the spell was cast under and how exactly the spell is affecting your friend. With those two things, we’ll at least have a chance.”
“Thanks,” I reply with a wan smile, then sit up to take a sip of my rapidly cooling tea. “Aunt Mildred, why does it matter what element a spell was cast under? I figured a spell was either something you could or couldn’t do because of your element-- though I haven’t thought too hard on it since, apparently, I’m the damn Avatar or something.”
“The what?” She blinks at me some more, rightly confused.
“Not important,” I answer, just imagining Kaleb’s ‘praying for patience’ face if he heard I explained to my aunt how I’m like a cartoon character. “So, the element thing?”
She shakes her head as if to dislodge the daily crazy that raising a teenager keeps putting into it. “I guess now is as good a time as any to start your magic lessons. Come with me,” she commands, rising from the table and heading down the hall.
“Yay, magic lessons! Is there any kind of real-world Hogwarts?” I bellow, quickly following after her. “Because if so, my owl got seriously lost.”
There’s a tinkling of laughter in response, followed by her answering, “There are academies specific to the witch community, actually. Had you not been raised in the human world, you’d likely have gone to one.”
“Really? I was joking, but that’s kind of cool. Just witches? What about other supes?”
I’m surprised when we walk past her office figuring whatever she wanted to show me would be in her mountains of books there… and then have thin tendrils of panic pierce through my heart when my aunt reaches for the heavy door at the end of the hall. I’ve avoided it since we moved here, because well… because of the stupid door. I know it’s not the same one from my nightmares… that it leads to an innocent garage and not a basement of horrors, but why face it if I didn’t have to?
“The vampires, I believe, have some exclusive schools for their kind, but nephilim and shifters don’t,” she replies, while opening the door. “I imagine it’s for integration purposes.”
My anxiety subsides when I see the garage instead of a set of concrete stairs and as I follow her inside, I’m quickly filled with an open curiosity. It seems while I was at school, Mildred was busy turning the garage into some kind of mystical workshop. Well, the mystery of why she doesn’t park her car in here is solved.
The whole room looks like someone accidentally mixed their sci-fi into a fantasy setting, and smells like a florist shop. In the middle of the room is a large wooden table with a heavy clear lacquer finish-- that has a full chemistry set on top of it. Test tubes. Beakers. Bunsen burners. The whole nine yards.
The walls are lined with a U shaped workbench that matches the table, and above it are shelves filled with old looking books, shiny plastic binders, and glass jars with various liquids, powders, and herbs. Underneath the bench are a mixture of drawers, boxes and… Oh hey, it’s the blood magic chest!
Drying herbs hang upside down from the ceiling between the fluorescent lights. While pointing at them, I wonder out loud, “Isn’t it a little wet out here for that?”
“Not to worry,” my aunt answers distractedly, searching along her massive collection of books, “I enchanted the garage door to keep the moisture out.”
Of course, she did. Silly me.
She pulls one of the books from the shelf, a thick leather bound monstrosity that requires both hands to carry, and places it on the table. Embossed on the cover is a heavily stylized wolf-- or what I’m guessing is a wolf by the ears, teeth, and muzzle-- with thick sweeping outlines of the creature and finer curling patterns and indentations within.
“How is it a secret that the wolf shifters and our family are tied together? Wolves seem to be all over everything related to us,” I mutter, tracing my fingers along the embossed creature.
Mildred runs a hand down my hair and sighs, “The fact that shifters used to serve the original bloodlines is no secret. Who exactly and why is what’s been lost. Now, depending whom you ask, the shifters were slaves that finally rose up against their oppressors, or they’re savage tricksters that refused to honor a pact between our two peoples and therefore can’t be trusted.” She wraps her arm around my shoulders, holding me to her side. The comforting scent of roses fills my nose. “It’s why there’s so much animosity between shifters and witches… and why shifters are considered… unfavorably within the supernatural community.”
Thinking of Connor, I can’t hide the dripping sarcasm when I comment, “Considering witches are like the supernatural police, I’m sure that doesn’t backfire on the shifter community or anything.”
“Yes, well…” she trails off, because what’s there to say, then quickly changes the subject. “It’s bloody cold in here.” She points at what looks like an old-fashioned, cast iron stove and commands, “Burn.”
Sure enough, licks of a small fire are visible behind an elaborate grate. Seeing it so well contained keeps it from being frightening, and I’m more intrigued by the curling wisps of smoke dancing in what looks like an invisible bubble over the stove pipe.
Who needs ventilation when you can just magic bubble your way to clean air?
After a quick squeeze, my aunt releases me and flips open the leather-bound tome on the table, apparently ready to get this magic lesson started.
While she searches for the correct page, I tap my fingers against the waist high table and ask, “So Volkov literally means wolf in Russian, and wolf shifters served our family. Does that mean there are different types of shifters and the original bloodline surnames’ match?”
“Yes, there are different types of shifters and yes, it appears there is a correlation between the shifters and the original bloodline family names,” she answers, stopping on a page that has illustrations clearly representative of different elements followed by handwritten paragraphs underneath.
“And Lyncas means…” I lead, curious if I’m going to bump into some other type of shifter that’s going to hear The Call to my spirit witch ass, because that won’t be weird at all.
She gives me a micro smile and there’s a visible tightness in her shoulders, while she answers, “It means lynx in Latin… well, agitare lyncas means lynx in Latin, but you get the idea.”
Wow. She really doesn’t like talking about my father’s side of the family… not that I totally blame her. It isn’t like I’m a huge fan of the people that raised my lunatic sperm donor.
“Neat,” is my only comment, not wanting to make her any more uncomfortable, and instead turn my focus to the book. “So you were going to explain the elements thing.”
Her shoulders relax and her mouth softens as she begins my lessons, “Yes, you see each element rules over not only their physical representation but also some more abstract concepts that reasonably relate back.” She points at the illustrations. “For example, fire rules over passion and emotions, while air is more geared toward logic and persuasion. Earth encompasses all fertility, whether it’s plants or people, but water controls all other forms of physical healing.”
“Okay,” I respond, the word elongating several syllables. “But you said that different elements can be used to create the same effect, and that’s why knowing which element was used to cast the spell on Nolan matters.”
Mildred offers up a pleased smile with a subtle glint to her eye, like a professor proud of their pupil for asking the right questions, but knows that they also have the answer in front of them.
Fortunately, she doesn’t make me try to figure it out on my own, but her answer does have the cryptic nature of an old crone from a fantasy novel, “You want to convince someone to do your will, emotion or logic can be just as effective. However, if a person’s emotions were what was used to manipulate them, trying to
use logic to bring them back to your side can often have the opposite effect.”
I unzip my sweater, because the garage has grown quite warm, and start fiddling with my necklace. Feeling the etched wolf on the back of the stone brings the ever present issue of the binding spell to mind, and I question, “But if fire controls emotions and air controls persuasion, how in the hell was Neva Reyes able to say no to you about helping us with removing the binding spell? You’re strong in both, aren’t you?”
Her lips press tight together and she straightens her clothes, despite the fact she looks like her normally, well-pressed self. “Yes, well,” she replies-- her standard opener for topics she doesn’t like discussing, “besides the fact that it’s illegal to use magic to manipulate a coven leader, each leader is bequeathed a talisman that is enchanted to absorb any magic cast against them.”
“That’s a thing?” I exclaim, equal parts shocked and kind of annoyed. Toddler me could’ve really used one of those. “Why only coven leaders? Considering the alternative, I’d think everyone would have one.”
“They’re very difficult to make and the sacrifice is high,” she murmurs, gently tucking some of my hair behind my ear. “It requires several extremely powerful witches of each element to infuse it with all of their magic… and magic is life.”
A sickening weight sits in my stomach, and I whisper, “They die, don’t they?”
“Yes. They die so that their leader may always be protected.”
My face scrunches up in disgust. “Does that mean a whole bunch of witches killed themselves to protect Gina’s equally evil mother?”
She releases a breathy chuckle without humor. “It’s unlikely. These days, leaders pass them down to their successors. However, it is customary for the passing leader to infuse the talisman with their remaining magic before they die. It’s a way to ensure that the talisman will always grow stronger and shows approval for their successor.”