by Lisa Edmonds
“I guess I should be glad they only said my name five or six times, then,” I said. I knew what a poppet was, but this kind of magic was so very different from my own that I had a difficult time envisioning how the spell worked. “What did the witch put in the poppet, do you think?”
“I hope to find out for sure, but my guess would be a piece of your missing scarf, some of your hair—possibly taken from your brush—grass and dirt for the unclean feeling, poison ivy for the itching, and live or dead ants so you’d feel, well, antsy.” Carly’s dark eyes blazed with anger. “The hex prevented you from realizing anything was wrong with either your actions or your thoughts. It stole your free will. I’m very sorry a witch did this to you, Alice. It’s immoral and unethical.”
I was scratching like mad again. Nan took my hands in hers and held them still. “This is diabolical,” she said. “What do we need to do to break this hex?”
“First, I need to go tell Sean what we’ve figured out before he wears through your sidewalk with his pacing,” Carly told us. “Then I’ll try a tracking spell to see if I can find out who has the poppet. Once we get it, I can break the hex and you’ll be yourself again.”
“You have tracking spells?” I asked, surprised. “How do yours work?”
“Similar to yours, I think. I get a glimpse of where something is and usually who possesses it.”
“How do you see it, though? Through scrying?”
She shook her head. “I don’t have that gift, though I know practitioners who do and I can call them for help if I need to. The spell I use grants me brief visions.” She stood. “Let me go speak with Sean and then I’ll come back and try the tracking spell.”
When she was gone, Nan squeezed my hands. “Alice, I’m sorry someone has done this to you. I don’t want to think someone from our pack is behind this hex, but if something of yours has been taken from Sean’s house, I can’t think of any other explanation. If Carly is right and whoever invoked the spell made it stronger by saying your name too many times, they could easily have killed you.”
A loud noise from outside startled both of us. Nan sighed. “I do believe that was your trash bin. Sean will have to replace it, I suppose.” A second bang, much louder. “And that as well, whatever it was. It might have been the side of his truck, judging by the sound.” She squeezed my hands again and stood. “Let me go talk to him. Will you be all right for a few minutes?” She glanced around. “Mr. Ghost—Malcolm—will you watch over her?”
“Always,” Malcolm said, his voice coming from the kitchen doorway. He’d gone invisible when Carly arrived and stayed in another room to avoid being noticed by her, but he’d been able to hear what was said.
We heard another loud noise from outside. “You’d better go out there before someone calls the cops about a crazed werewolf destroying his truck with his bare hands,” Malcolm said.
Nan hurried out the front door. We listened but didn’t hear anything more from out front. Yay, Nan. She’d probably marched out there and scolded Sean like an errant child.
Malcolm became visible and floated over to me. “Witch magic is so weird,” he complained. “Scraps of cloth, a handful of dirt, burned hair, and ants stuffed into a doll. Rituals and incantations. Stop scratching or I’ll zap you.”
I didn’t want to get zapped, so I sat on my hands. “She’d probably think the same about our magic. Her power is wondrous too. It’s just different from ours.”
“Well, I just hope she can find out who’s got the damn thing so we can get it and break the hex and things can get back to normal.” He made a face. “Or what passes for normal around here, anyway.”
“Normal is just a setting on the washing machine.”
“That’s very deep, Tyrannosaurus Hex.”
I gave him a look.
“This is why everyone needs comprehensive hex education.”
“Please stop.”
“You better check yourself—”
“Malcolm, I swear—”
“—before you hex yourself,” he finished. “Now I’m done. No, wait. What kind of car does Carly drive? I bet it’s a—”
“Hexus,” I said with a sigh. “Thank you for trying to cheer me up.”
“No problem. Is it working?”
I waggled my hand. “Sorta.”
“Well, darn it all to hex.”
“Malcolm. Language.”
The front door opened and Carly and Nan came back inside. Malcolm returned to the kitchen. I caught a glimpse of Sean on the porch, his eyes bright gold and fists clenched, like a volcano about to explode. A flash of pain made me wince. Then Nan closed the door, blocking him from my view.
“What did he do to his truck?” I asked as they returned to the living room.
“He punched it. Twice.” Nan sat next to me on the couch as Carly brought her bag to the coffee table and unzipped it. “I told him he could distract himself by calling body shops while we work.”
Carly withdrew a small pair of scissors from her bag. “For the tracking spell, I need a little piece from your clothing, some nail clippings, and hairs from your brush. You need to give them to me freely.”
I unbuttoned my shirt and took it off, leaving me in a tank top. I held it out. “Take what you need.”
“You give this to me freely?”
“Yep. Yes, I give it to you freely,” I repeated formally. “Nan, can you go upstairs to my bathroom and bring down my brush?”
As Nan went to get the brush, Carly cut a piece from the shirt about four inches square. With a tiny pair of scissors, she trimmed the ends of my nails and gathered the little slivers in a pile on the coffee table. When Nan came back, Carly plucked some hairs from my brush.
From her bag, she took a black cloth with a pentagram on it and spread it over the coffee table, centering the pentagram carefully on the table.
At each point of the star she placed an item. “A feather for air,” she told me, placing it in the upper right and then moving clockwise around the pentagram. “A candle for fire. Stones for earth. A seashell for water.” At the top of the star she placed a ceramic figure with wings. “And an angel for Spirit.” She took a small cast-iron cauldron about the size of a halved grapefruit and set it in the center of the pentagram.
She withdrew an athame from her bag. “Miss Nan, I know Alice has no issue with the practice of magic done the Old Way, but if this makes you uncomfortable, I understand. I’d just ask for you to step outside so your resistance doesn’t interfere with this spell.”
“Thank you for asking, but I have no objection to your beliefs or practice.” Nan smiled wistfully. “My grandmother practiced the Craft and as a child I spent a lot of happy evenings and nights watching her work. Her kitchen was like heaven to me. So, carry on and don’t worry about me.”
“Wonderful.” Carly smiled. “I need to make a circle around all three of us. Can you sit on the floor?”
Nan helped me stand up from the couch. My knees were wobbly but I felt stronger with Sean outside and out of sight. She lowered me carefully to the floor and sat down next to me.
Carly bent and pointed the tip of the athame at the floor. “I cast this circle three times three to protect those in the circle that no harm may come to them or those outside of the circle.” She walked around us three times, clockwise, and then sat cross-legged across the table from us.
She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, inhaling through her nose and out through her mouth. I did the same whenever I needed to clear my head and center myself before doing complicated spellwork.
Carly took a wooden match from the box and struck it. She picked up the piece of my shirt and focused on it. I sensed a rise of power and caught a trace of a scent I couldn’t quite identify, but that smelled like old paper or parchment.
“Universe, hear me,” she said, lowering the corner of the fabric to the flame. It caught and began to burn. “Help me find the object that has been hexed to make Alice Worth so sick so I may retrieve it and b
reak the hex.” She placed the fabric in the cauldron to burn with the hair and nail clippings and closed her eyes. “As I will it, so mote it be.”
We waited. I realized I was holding my breath. A minute ticked by. Two. The piece of shirt turned to ash and the flames died. Nan took my hand and squeezed it.
Carly’s eyes opened. “I’ve seen her in her home, holding the poppet.” Her voice sounded a little dreamy. “She is blonde. Very angry. The wolf within her desires Sean. The woman desires power most of all.”
Shifter magic sizzled on my skin, but for once it wasn’t Sean’s.
Nan’s eyes went bright gold. For the first time since I’d met her, she growled. “Lily.”
“How do you feel?”
From the front passenger seat, I glanced over at Carly, who was driving. “Angry. Really, really angry.” Magic sparked on my fingers.
She smiled. “Other than that. Tummy feeling better?”
“Yes, now that I’m away from…” I hesitated. Saying his name made my stomach hurt, so I just shrugged.
“Miss Nan is a pretty amazing woman.” Carly slowed to make a turn as we headed toward Lily’s house in her car. “I didn’t think there was much chance of us making this trip by ourselves, but she made it happen. I don’t know what she said, but he was calm when we left. I think he understood why you wanted to go with me and why he needed to stay at your house until we got back. He didn’t like it one bit, but he understood.”
Once Carly broke the circle, she and Nan had gone outside together to tell Sean what the tracking spell had revealed. I didn’t hear any loud noises, but I could only imagine how furious he was. At first, he’d flatly refused to stay behind while we came to confront Lily and get the poppet, but somehow Nan was able to convince him facing Lily was something I needed to do, and I needed to do it without him being there. Lily had attacked me and this was my battle. Finding out which of his wolves had stolen my scarf and hair from his house was his.
I would have gone by myself but Carly needed to be with me to help find the poppet. Malcolm was with me as well, as backup, but stashed in my bracelet so my witch companion couldn’t sense him.
“He’s a good man,” she added.
I detected a note of something in her voice. Wistfulness, maybe, or regret. “This must be awkward for you,” I told her. “I can’t imagine what you thought when he called you out of the blue and told you he needed help de-hexing me.”
“I’m all right, really,” she assured me. “We were introduced through a mutual friend who works at Maclin Security in the installation department. We went on a couple of dates, but I could tell right away he was still so hung up on you that he couldn’t bring himself to enjoy my company, like he thought he was somehow cheating on you. Part of it might have been that his wolf thought of you as a potential mate, but the man was already head-over-paws for you too.” She smiled at the memory. “I’m an empath, but I didn’t need to be to sense how deeply he missed you. The third time we went out to dinner, I swear I felt like you were sitting at the table with us. I flat-out told him that he needed to either give your relationship another try or find a way to let you go. He called about a week later to tell me you’d crossed paths while on a case and were back together.”
She gave me a rueful smile. “I won’t say I wasn’t disappointed because the Goddess knows he’s gorgeous and kind, but how could I not wish him all the happiness in the world? And now I’ve met you, even though you’re not at your best, I can see why he couldn’t get you out of his mind. Your aura is pure power, Alice. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt. He’s a fierce man with a good heart and he needs a woman who’s like him. He certainly needs nothing to do with this Lily. I know poison when I see it.”
We turned into Lily’s subdivision. Carly studied the houses and finally spotted our destination, a two-story beige home with a brick mailbox and neatly trimmed hedges out front.
She parked in the driveway and we got out. I’d put on a long-sleeved shirt to hide my arms and redone my makeup to cover the dark shadows under my eyes. I didn’t want to give Lily the satisfaction of seeing what the triple-damned hex had done to me.
I marched up the front steps and rang the doorbell.
After a moment, footsteps approached the door. I imagined Lily was peering out through the peephole and getting the shock of her life.
When nothing happened, I raised my voice. “Don’t make me huff and puff and blow your little house down, Lily.”
The deadbolt turned and the door opened. Lily wore a sleeveless green pantsuit and sandals and her hair was perfectly arranged. I wondered if she was about to go somewhere or had just gotten back, or if she routinely looked so perfect just hanging out at home.
“Alice, hello,” she said with a smile so big and fake that it made my skin crawl. “I had no idea you knew where I lived. And who’s your friend?”
I glanced at Carly for confirmation that Lily was who she’d seen in her vision. She gave me a nod.
“I want the poppet, Lily,” I said.
Her smile froze. “You want what? What’s a poppet?”
“A small cloth doll, probably stuffed with dirt, hair, ants, and a piece of a scarf someone stole from Sean’s house. Go get it.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she huffed. “I think you need to get off my property before I call the police.”
“You know, at first I was angry, but now I actually feel sorry for you,” I told her, ignoring her threat. “You don’t want Sean because you love him. You just want to win. You think that’s where happiness comes from, but that’s the kind of happiness that doesn’t last very long. As long as you chase that kind of happiness, you’ll never get anything worth having.”
Her face reddened. “You don’t know anything about me,” she spat. “Where’s Sean?”
“He’s busy. This is between you and me.” I glanced around. “Do you want to invite us in or do you want to have this conversation on your front porch in front of your neighbors?”
“Fine.” She stepped back and we walked inside. She slammed the front door. “He was mine,” she snarled.
“He was never yours and you know it. That’s one reason your plan was doomed from the start.”
“I don’t know what plan you’re referring to,” she snapped.
“The other reason it failed is that you thought it would be a simple matter of turning me against Sean and he’d be yours, but that proves how little you understand him. My strange behavior only made him care more, not less. Did you honestly think if I suddenly wanted nothing to do with him, that would cause him to end our relationship? And even if the hex caused us to split up, he still wouldn’t be yours because he recognizes you for what you are.”
Her eyes turned bright amber. “And what is that, Alice? What exactly am I?”
“Lonely.”
She blinked.
“Lonely and spoiled and used to getting your way. And maybe you do get your way in most things, but not this time.” I spooled magic and let my eyes glow. A cold wind blew through the foyer. “Go get the poppet, Lily. Don’t make me ask again, and don’t make me look for it myself.”
She stared at me, her eyes bright. I held her gaze and didn’t blink. Green magic flared on my fingertips.
She spun on her heel and headed upstairs, leaving us in the entryway.
“The green fire was a nice touch,” Carly murmured. “I like your style.”
“Thanks. We’ll see if it worked.”
Lily came back down the stairs holding a small wooden box. Carly took it and opened the lid.
Inside was a small cloth figure in the shape of a person, with arms, legs, and a head, but no features except a string tied around its middle like a belt or sash. A plain black button dangled from the end of the string.
“Where’s my scarf?” I asked Lily as Carly picked up the poppet and studied it.
“I gave it to the witch.”
“Which witch?” I demanded.
; Beside me, Carly chuckled.
Lily crossed her arms. “She didn’t tell me her name and I didn’t ask. I wouldn’t tell you even if I knew.”
“Who gave you the scarf?”
She narrowed her eyes. “I found it.”
She wasn’t going to give up her ally in the pack—I could see that. No matter; Sean and I would find out.
Carly looked up at Lily, her expression grim. “When you spoke Alice’s name to invoke the spell, how many times did you say it?”
Lily shrugged. “Six or seven. I wanted to be sure it worked.”
“Were you not told to say her name only three times?”
“Probably. Who cares?”
“I do.” Carly shut the box and stepped toe-to-toe with the much-taller woman. “Magic like this is not to be taken lightly or used carelessly. Speaking an invocation that many times can kill outright. You almost committed murder.”
A little of the color drained out of Lily’s face. “I didn’t know.”
“And that’s why you need to leave magic alone.” Carly rejoined me at the door. “Let’s get you de-hexed, Alice.”
For a moment, I entertained myself with a brief fantasy of lopping off one of Lily’s perfectly manicured hands, but doing so might spark a war between Sean and Zachary’s packs. Besides, I’d sort of promised Malcolm I’d try not to cut off any more appendages.
“This isn’t over,” Lily said bitterly, interrupting my thoughts. “An alpha needs a shifter mate, not some mage. You don’t deserve him.”
“Maybe I don’t, but not because I’m a mage.” My stomach cramped at the thought of Sean and I together, but I was angry enough that the pain barely registered. “I promise that if you’d killed me, Sean would have found out eventually what happened to me, and he would have killed you, slowly. As it is, you’re going to face some serious repercussions from the Were Ruling Council, and you can probably say goodbye to any chance of finding an alpha for a mate after this news gets out. You’re going to be the last person any alpha would want.” I smiled thinly. “Alphas need partners who lead their pack by example and solve problems, not make them, and they certainly don’t want anyone who’d hire a witch to do their dirty work for them. You just screwed yourself for good, and you’ve got no one to blame but yourself.”