by Vera Sparks
“Okay,” I said, satisfied with his reasoning.
I leaned on the counter as I stared hard at the mug, willing the magic to flow through me.
Axle had relaxed by now and had lied down on the floor.
“Trudo,” I breathed, my face breaking into a grin as the mug slid to the left less than an inch. I’ll take any small victory.
“Good, keep doing this until you get it to the end of the counter, then we’ll try something bigger,” my father smiled.
“So this magic is meant to be used as an offensive tactic, right?” I checked.
“Yes, once you hone it and master it, you can fling would-be attackers away from you. But you must also learn how to gauge the amount of magic and force you’re using. So you can move a simple item, or fling someone away,” he clarified.
“Right,” I said as my shoulders slumped. Fling someone? I thought I was doing good just making the mug move. This was going to take quite some time.
I practiced the spell over and over as my father watched on, each time the mug moving slightly more.
Alex returned at some point, but I barely noticed as I continued my desperate attempts to move the mug to the end of the counter.
I could feel the small pig watching me too.
“So close,” I murmured, the mug only an inch from the end of the counter. Finally, I was getting this.
“All right, you’ve been doing well. Now, I want you to think of a time when you felt powerful, stronger than you thought you were,” my father instructed.
Powerful. The night of Philip’s demise, when I’d warned him of what I was and he’d tried to kill his prodigy and my friend, Jeremy, and I’d set him on fire. I’d had the power then, and I knew it. I wasn’t afraid to use it.
“Trudo,” I commanded as I waved my hand.
The mug shot off the counter and my dad flicked his hand to stop it from smashing on the floor. The mug levitated mid-air and floated back up onto the counter as I grinned like crazy.
“I did it!” I fist pumped the air and turned to Alex, who was chuckling at my excitement as he stood beside my fridge.
“Congratulations,” he nodded at me.
“Good job, now, move the couch,” my father instructed me, barely allowing me time to celebrate.
“Before you do, I’ll just let you know that nothing has come up at this point for a place under the Priben name, but I’ve got others looking into it,” Alex jumped in.
“Right, well, if we don’t hear from Maria by morning, I’ll begin a tracking spell and we’ll find her that way,” my father stated.
“You said we’d use the stone because it was infused with her magic, can we track other creatures using similar methods?” I asked.
“Yes, we can. Witches are harder because just what they are makes them harder to track. Their own magic wards them without them even trying. So being able to lock onto their magic by using an item infused with their own magic makes it much easier. There are tracking spells you can use with something that is theirs and is used often, be it a hairbrush or clothing. Having their magic is as good as having some of their hair or a tooth, a piece of their DNA so to speak. It’s the easiest and fastest way to track them,” he explained.
I tensed as my phone sounded off and I pulled it out. Maria.
Looks like we were in luck.
“Maria! We on for dinner then?” I asked, smiling as I forced the sweet voice. Her brother could be listening.
“Yes, if that’s still okay with you. Mom is so excited to see you again, she remembers you from the few times you visited her,” Maria’s high voice sounded forced, but barely noticeable. “She remembers Axle too.”
I shot a look at Axle. He’d only met her the one time, but she’d taken a liking to him. He was practically asleep on the floor, breathing softly.
I had seen Monica a few times at her nursing home with Maria, but I felt out of place and it was so awkward and strange when she’d forget who you were. The distant look she’d get in her eye. I couldn’t handle that, so I’d stopped joining Maria.
“We’re thinking Italian, Mom loves Italian,” Maria continued. “There’s this little place near the water, Jerome’s. We were thinking of going there. They cater for the late folk, so they’re open all night,” she said.
Late folk. Many businesses had begun staying open all night after the day of revelation to accommodate the vampires and werewolves. Not really the vampires, more their human companions that many of them had. Willing donors, so to speak.
“Sounds great, what time?” I asked as I flicked my eyes to the clock on the wall. It was nearing 10pm already.
“Eleven if that suits you?” Maria checked.
“Perfect, I look forward to it,” I said, managing to catch myself from sounding fake and sarcastic. This would be an interesting dinner.
“Jerome’s,” Alex repeated, having overheard with his sensitive hearing.
“What time?” my Dad asked as the call ended.
“Eleven, we’d better get ready,” I said as I looked down at my jeans and top. I definitely needed to change first. A shower would be good, although I no longer enjoyed them. I couldn’t feel the warmth on my skin, it was an odd thing to describe to someone, not being able to feel the temperature. I knew it was warm, but I couldn’t feel it.
“What should I do?” Alex stood awkwardly in the kitchen, and I caught myself feeling sorry for his lost look.
“Keep trying to get a location on them. Hang back a few blocks if you can, we might need backup,” my father said.
“On it,” Alex nodded.
“Well, I’m getting changed, I’ll jump there, so I’ll see you both later on,” I said as I strode to my room. I felt Alex’s eyes following me, and wondered if I should’ve been more sweet, maybe given him a kiss on the cheek. No. We weren’t a thing, just testing the waters really.
I needed to figure this out. But I’d focus on one issue at a time. Such as finding a good outfit for dinner.
4
I stepped into Jerome’s at exactly 11pm. The restaurant was rather quiet this late, and the few patrons I did see appeared mostly human. Except for the pair in the back corner, the woman was obviously a vampire.
“Table for one?” the gentleman at the counter asked.
“No, I’m meeting my friends,” I smiled as I checked my hastily put up bun. A few strands had fallen loose, so I tucked them behind my ear as I eyed the exquisite restaurant. It was a high end, brick-walled building with painted artwork of what I could only assume to be Italian countryside. The booths and tables were set with white clothes and wineglasses, and the soft ambience music was relaxing.
Or at least, it would have been if my eyes didn’t fall on the woman seated in a booth with Maria.
Monica gave me a pleased smile and nodded in my direction, and chills ran down my spine.
“Monica, it’s so good to see you,” I said as I joined them, making sure to plaster a sincere smile on my face.
“Ivy, it’s been too long, Maria has told me so much about you,” Monica took my hand in hers and held them gently. But the dark power that attempted to seep into my skin was anything but gentle.
My smile faltered only momentarily before she released my hand and indicated for me to sit down across from her and Maria. I took the moment to take in her attire, a soft sky-blue dress with a darker cardigan pulled over the top. You’d easily mistake her for a sweet old mother.
“I’m glad you could make it,” Maria smiled with a knowing look. “I love the dress, isn’t it gorgeous? The green looks stunning,” she said as she turned to Monica. Maria herself was dressed in a deep purple dress, her color of choice.
“It is absolutely gorgeous on you,” Monica agreed, her deep forest brown eyes bright and alert as she took me in. I tried to not look unsettled as she gazed at me, and focused my attention on Maria to distract myself.
“I hear Jerome’s is quite good, have you two been here before?” I asked, desperate to draw Monica�
��s scrutinizing gaze away from myself.
“I used to come here with Maria’s father, all those years ago. I’m glad it’s still in business,” Monica stated. Her eyes crinkled at the corners as she smiled, and her bronze skin showed the lines of many years in the sun. I vaguely remembered Maria saying she worked as a teacher, but spent most of her free time gardening.
If I ignored the dark power I could feel coming from her, I’d be able to appreciate how much she looked just like Maria. Her grey hair was done up in a high bun, much neater than the one I’d thrown up in my haste. She had the same high cheekbones and soft jawline, the delicate pixie nose that Maria had.
I’d never asked her lineage before, although I remember her saying she had some native American in her, although I’d forgotten the name she’d used. Cheyenne perhaps?
“So, Maria tells me you two are good friends, you help her with her psychic work?” Monica leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table.
“Yes, I do,” I nodded as I shot Maria a look.
“Mom remembers everything I used to tell her when I visited her,” Maria said carefully, informing me as to why she knew.
“Yes, I remember you visited me a few times as well, but then you stopped,” she sighed as if she was hurt by that.
I bit my tongue, unsure what to say in response, but she just smiled.
“I can understand my dear, don’t stress. It must’ve been hard to see me like that, forgetting who you were, forgetting so much,” she frowned as she remembered what it was like. “But I’m better now, much better.”
“We should order,” Maria stated as she reached for the menu. “Do you know what you’d like Mom?”
“Of course, I’ll be having my favorite. I know there are some fancy options on there, but I always did love me a good carbonara,” she waved Maria’s offered menu away.
“I’ll just order this one,” I pointed at the first appealing thing I saw, although I wasn’t going to try to pronounce the name. Some exquisite pasta with a million herbs, spices, chicken, parmesan and tomatoes. It sounded good enough.
“Right,” Maria managed a smile as a waiter approached us.
“Good evening madams, may I take your order? Would you like any starters or drinks?” he asked.
I didn’t even give him a glance as I watched Maria carefully. She looked nervous and uneasy, although she was doing her best to hide it.
Monica ordered for all of us, along with some wine to share. The waiter nodded and headed off, and her attention was back on me once more. Great.
“So, tell me, Ivy, what are you? Maria said you were some kind of ghost, but I can feel something about you, something else,” she narrowed her eyes as she gave me a thin-lipped smile.
I played with the hem of my dress under the table, unsure how to reply. Was she onto me? Was she going to do something? How could she sense my difference? She’d been only human.
“Mom, please,” Mara rolled her eyes and attempted to act casual. But I could see she was as unnerved as I was about the question.
“I’m a witch, like Maria. I only recently found out, apparently my Dad was one,” I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“A witch you say?” Monica arched an eyebrow as she leaned back against her seat.
“Yeah, I’m still figuring it all out, it’s quite strange to find that out, and not having any family around to teach me what I am or what I can do,” I said as I laughed nervously. Hopefully she’d mistake it for me being new to it all and not understanding what I was. What my abilities were.
“Well, I’m sure Maria and Shaun can help you there. Even Martha, their Aunt. She used to teach them the old witchy ways,” Monica relaxed as she wiggled her fingers spookily. “I never really believed in it all, but it was their heritage on their father’s side so I never stopped them from learning. The kids thought I knew nothing, but I knew what she taught them. Then when vampires and werewolves came out, you started to realize that the things you didn’t think were real might be,” she shrugged as she glanced around the restaurant, as if she was expecting something. “Where is the boy with our wine?”
I relaxed. Maybe I’d been too on edge, thinking too much into it. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as we all thought. She wasn’t that strange, probably just unnerved herself, what with having her memory back and operating at full capacity again.
“Ah, here we go,” she sighed and thanked the waiter as he arrived with the bottle of wine.
The waiter informed us of its brewing year and name that I wouldn’t even attempt repeating before pouring our glasses.
“To new memories and a better life,” Monica raised her glass.
I nodded as I clinked my glass against hers and Maria’s. Maria looked even more on edge now despite her mother’s calmness. I sipped the rich white wine, not enjoying the taste as much as my usual preference of red wine.
I wondered what my father had picked up from outside the building. What dark magic could he feel from her? Was she really the one responsible for Mr Hershel’s death? And the other body by the bus stop? Why? It was hard to believe as I watched Monica. She was just like any other elderly mother as she happily spoke to Maria about plans of traveling. Maria tried to look genuinely interested, but her eyes kept flicking to me.
I relaxed a bit as the food arrived and the waiter handed us all our plates.
“Looks amazing,” Maria thanked him as he nodded and headed off.
“Eat up, don’t want you fading away on me sweetheart, and you look so tired, why aren’t you getting enough sleep?” Monica asked Maria.
“Just a bit stressed, not feeling too well, don’t you worry about me though,” Maria attempted to reassure her as she raised a forkful of food to her lips.
The meal did look delicious.
“Hmm,” Monica stared down at her plate with a soft furrow in her brow.
“Everything all right?” I asked, my fork poised over my meal.
“I ordered the carbonara,” she stated as she stared at her meal.
“It is,” Maria said hastily. “See, it’s got the creamy sauce and bacon in it, just the way you like it,” she added, her thin smile wavering.
“It’s not right,” Monica stated with a displeased expression as she pushed the plate away. “That idiot brought me the wrong meal!”
“It’s okay, we’ll fix it, I’ll let them know,” Maria raised herself from her seat, but she was blocked in by her mother.
“Why can’t anyone get anything right,” Monica growled.
I shuddered as a wave of dark energy pulsed around her, and I gritted my teeth as I looked at Maria questioningly? Her terrified eyes informed me that she felt it too.
“People who can’t do their job shouldn’t even be alive,” Monica muttered, and I had to do a double take. Had she seriously just said that?
Her eyes locked onto our waiter as he approached the bar with a tray of empty glasses.
I followed her gaze, and my stomach twisted and knotted as the waiter shrieked and collapsed on the floor. The glasses smashed around him while he convulsed and spasmed.
“Mother, please,” Maria whimpered.
I snapped my eyes back to Monica, on the small, amused smile she wore. She was doing this; she was killing him. And she was delighted by it, I could see the flicker in her eye. I had to stop her.
I stood up and reached across the table, my first instinct was to drag her into the ghost realm somewhat. Surely that would stop her power. Maybe. I wasn’t sure, but I could try.
Monica snarled as I wrapped my hand around her small arm, and I was shocked by the firmness and muscle that greeted me. Nothing like what she should’ve felt like, like the frail woman I’d known before.
“You dare meddle, witch!” she hissed, and I froze in terror as her eyes glazed over. Darkness. That was what greeted me in her eyes, like I was staring into an empty, terrifying void.
Monica’s smile twisted into an unnatural grin, the corners of her mouth curving higher tha
n they should have been physically able to, like a Cheshire cat.
She muttered something, a Latin word I vaguely recognized from my Warlock book, but the pain that followed had me screaming.
Flames ignited across my arm, and unlike the fire I was still learning to wield, these flames seared my flesh and burned with a grey tinge. Why could I even feel it? Being part ghost had meant I could plunge my hand into an open flame and feel nothing, not a single mark left on my strange skin.
But right now I was on the floor, writhing as I tried to put out the excruciating flames. The smell of burning flesh and the sudden realization that it was my own made my vision blur.
The pain lessened as Maria flung a jug of water onto me and murmured something, banishing the wretched flames away.
I was barely able to look at my arm, and the red, blistering, peeling skin made me choke as the burning sensation continued.
The next thing I knew I was in my father’s car with a terrified Alex leaning over me as he placed me inside.
I hadn’t even seen him come in.
Maria and my father were at the car in less than a minute, and I bit my lip hard as I whimpered, clutching my injured arm close. I heard Otis snort from the seat behind me, and his soft snout prodded my forehead gently, as if he was trying to reassure me.
“Here,” my father pulled Alex out of the way as he leaned in.
Tears stung my eyes as they blurred again, but a cool sensation washed over me as my father murmured inaudibly and waved his hands over my burned arm. It was like healing water was brushing over my skin, seeping into the blistering flesh and slowly rebuilding the tissue.
I closed my eyes as the pain subsided, and the cool sensation continued.
“How did she even get burned?” I heard Maria whisper. “She’s a ghost.”
“This magic, it traveled through her spirit, burning her actual body, wherever it is, harming her spirit itself,” my father explained. But I was too enthralled in the soft ripples across my arm as the horrendous burn faded away.