Small town big magic a w.., p.21
Small Town, Big Magic--A Witchy Rom-Com, page 21
“Jacob tried to fight back the spell.” I told her this already, so I get to the key part. “He thinks he could push more and get rid of it altogether.”
My best friend’s gaze sparkles. “And then you could remember everything.”
“But I could tell it cost him. Maybe I really could remember everything if he kept going, but is it safe?”
“A Healer heals quickly, but that has its costs too. If he pushes too hard, he could do damage his body doesn’t have the means to fix. Normally, I’d trust Jacob to know that line. He’s noble, but not stupid.”
“You say that like this isn’t normal.”
“It’s not.” Georgie’s smile is big and wide. “It’s you. I think when it comes to you, Jacob could be very stupid.”
I huff out a breath. “I don’t want that.”
Georgie only shrugs like it’s funny. It’s not funny. “I’m not sure he does either. I’m also not sure it’s a choice.”
Not what I want to hear either.
Georgie considers the window again. “Maybe Carol felt it? Jacob somehow undoing her spell? The timing is weird. I know she bought a book and all, but the fact she just happened to come to the store the same morning Jacob manages to undo some of her spell? I don’t buy the timing.”
“Jacob would be in trouble, wouldn’t he? If she knew?”
Georgie doesn’t answer me right away, and when she turns to smile at me, I know she’s lying to me. No, that’s too harsh. She’s not going to lie so much as dance around the truth. I can’t blame her. She’s been doing it for ten years. She’s had to do it.
“We all have to be careful.” She lets her shoulder touch mine. “But we can’t stop looking for answers. It might be dangerous, but isn’t everyone in danger if we don’t figure out how your power, Skip’s dark magic, and an impending world-ending flood all connect?”
“Maybe they don’t.” But that’s wishful thinking. I feel it.
“Maybe,” Georgie agrees, in that way she agrees with things she doesn’t actually agree with because she always believes there’s the possibility of something she doesn’t expect. “Maybe the book will give us answers tonight.”
The book. I forgot about the book. “Did Carol see it?”
Georgie shakes her head. “No. It disappeared when she walked in.”
“It disappeared? By itself?” She nods. “Is that...normal?”
“There’s not really any normal when it comes to magic books.” She points to the book, now sitting on the chair she vacated earlier. “But it’s back. That’s all that matters.”
I’m really not sure it’s all that matters. Because the deeper we get into this, the more I realize my friends are putting themselves in real danger for me—and I’m not strong enough or educated enough in the matter to do the same.
I need my memories. I need a plan. I need a list.
“Everything will come with time,” Georgie assures me, as if she can read my thoughts. I remind myself she probably can. “You’re a Wilde.”
And Wildes rise, I tell myself then.
No matter what—floods or magic or witch trials in gloomy Massachusetts towns filled with vengeful Puritans—sooner or later, even if it takes generations and descendants, we always, always rise.
16
I put in a full, busy morning at Confluence, then I break to go to the Lunch House for my Lunch with Leaders meeting—the chamber of commerce’s monthly social gathering with members and business owners considering membership.
Somewhere between appetizers and dessert I realize...everyone here is a witch. I’m almost positive and I’m not even sure why. I only know there is power humming through the room.
It’s disorienting. My normal, real life is flipped upside down, and having to pretend I’m the same is taxing. But I do it. With my customary smile, naturally. I head back to the store, and I can feel Ruth the owl’s eyes on me the entire short walk back to Confluence.
Someone is always watching me. Protecting me. This has been my life for a decade—and the only difference is that now I know. I see.
Hopefully, I can do a little protecting of myself. No. Not hopefully. I will.
When I reopen Confluence after lunch, Georgie is already situated on the couch. I open my mouth to say something to her, but she holds up a hand. She’s too deep in her books and doesn’t want to be interrupted.
Normal Georgie.
And as cool as it is to fly, normal also feels really good.
I go through the rest of my afternoon and close up the store the way I usually do. I mark things off on my planner and reorder my to-do lists. I make sure to input the notes I had from lunch into their correct file on my phone. I don’t let magic or floods distract me.
I like normal. I like predictable. I like order and control.
And then Jacob walks into my store and I wonder how much I really, truly like those things or how much they provide a certain kind of buffer from the emotions tearing around inside me.
It is six on the dot, as agreed. A punctual man. Be still my wildly beating heart. Yet I don’t know what to say no matter how much I tell myself he’s still just Jacob. Even if I now know what it feels like to be held against the tall, muscular length of him. Even if I now know what a kiss from Jacob tastes like. That doesn’t change how we talk to each other.
Does it?
Ellowyn whirlwinds in, surveying the room with a scowl. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Zander’s late with the food? I’m starving.”
“Can’t you just magic yourself a feast?” I ask.
“That’s hardly the point,” she says with a sniff. She drops her ratty backpack next to Georgie, who immediately begins to pull things out. Ellowyn and Georgie move furniture, discuss the correct placement of everything, set out candles and say things like but we must honor the center, which would have made me laugh last week. Tonight, I don’t laugh.
Jacob and I stand where we are—him by the door, me behind the counter—and we don’t say a word. It feels like my entire chest is in a vise and I don’t know how to winch it open.
The door opens one last time to reveal Zander balancing pizza boxes from Redbrick. “Don’t start bitching at me,” Zander says by way of greeting, looking right at Ellowyn as he dumps the food onto the table.
Ellowyn rolls her eyes, even opens her mouth, presumably to bitch at him because he told her not to—but whatever she sees in Zander’s expression stops her. I don’t see anything myself, but I might be slightly distracted by the fact Jacob hasn’t spoken.
And neither have I.
Which is certainly not normal.
“Come on and eat, Em,” Georgie encourages me. “You’ve got to be starving.”
I don’t feel starving. I feel awkward AF. And when has that ever, ever been me? I move stiffly over to the open red pizza box. Jacob follows suit.
We eat our pizza, neither one of us adding anything to the conversation, while Georgie recounts Carol’s visit this morning, Zander tells us a storm is coming—bad news for the ever-rising rivers—and Ellowyn mentions that Skip came in and bought a tea from her today.
“Why would he buy tea from you if he can make his own?” I ask. “With special Skip spells, or whatever?”
“I have the magic touch.” Ellowyn waves a finger like she’s inscribing symbols in the air. “And much to his everlasting chagrin, this half witch is far more powerful than him when it comes to spells.”
“Don’t leave us in suspense. What kind did he buy?” I demand. “Regretful Rooibos?”
“Let me guess, a meditation tea,” Georgie offers. “For inner peace. Assuming he has an inner.”
Ellowyn only smiles mysteriously.
“I’m thinking it had more to do with enlargement,” Zander says with his usual grin and an overzealous bite of his pizza.
Ellowyn rolls her eyes as Georgie and I pull a face. I definitely do not want to think about Skip enlarging anything.
“Jacob? Your guess?”
But he shakes his head and refuses to play.
“Charm,” Ellowyn pronounces with a certain relish.
Everyone blinks.
“Skip has become self-aware and realizes he’s about as charming as a rock?” I ask.
“Or he’s got someone in mind he wants to impress.” Ellowyn waggles her eyebrows at me. “He wants to charm you, Em. You lucky duck.”
“What does that mean?” Jacob asks. Of course that’s the first thing he says since arriving.
“You didn’t hear about the date?” Ellowyn says, clearly not hearing my shut-up-now messages in her head.
Zander crosses his arms over his chest so that he and Jacob match. A wall of masculine disapproval. “Is that a joke?”
“Skip invited me to dinner.” I employ my best chamber of commerce smile. “Just a friendly, bury-the-hatchet meal between two St. Cyprian leaders. Like you do.”
“You don’t though,” Zander returns.
“He tried to kill you,” Jacob points out, with a calm that surprises me. Or might have if his eyes weren’t doing that glowy thing that I can now reasonably assume means he’s pissed.
“I don’t think he knows that I know that, Jacob,” I reply loftily. “I subscribe to the keep-your-enemies-closer method of assassination attempts.”
“I’m glad this is funny to you,” Jacob growls, in a tone that has me gearing up for a real fight.
But Georgie steps between us, metaphorically, by waving her pepperoni slice in the air like a white flag. “You guys can argue about Skip later. Right now, let’s try to figure out what Nicholas Frost gave us.”
“I trust Frost as much as I trust Skip,” Zander says, glaring at me. “Why are we even talking about that traitor?”
“Because of course if you think he’s a traitor—even if we don’t know anything about him except he’s immortal—it must be true,” Ellowyn challenges. I don’t get the feeling she’s challenging Zander because she truly believes in Nicholas. It’s more because she’s trying to protect me.
“Guys,” Georgie says, more forcefully than usual. “We can fight each other, or we can fight what’s happening. But we can’t do both.”
Zander sighs. Jacob says nothing—loudly. But Georgie takes my hand and leads me to the center of the room. Ellowyn looks disgruntled, but follows.
“We’ll start with a circle around the two of you,” Georgie tells us. “I’ll make it. Once it’s buttressed and protected, Zander and Jacob will create a bubble. It will block the magic from being seen or felt by any passersby.” Her gaze grows stern as she looks from me to Ellowyn and back. “But they can only hold it for so long. So when you hear me tell you to end it, you have to pull back. Both of you.”
“Pull back?” I ask.
“Georgie is going to keep us tethered,” Ellowyn tells me. “My focus is on the spirits. Yours is on the book. You just relax, let the power flow through you, and trust your instincts. The spirits will do the rest. When you hear Georgie tell you to pull back, you cut the focus off. You let it go.”
I assume this will make sense when it’s happening, like flying, so I nod.
Ellowyn sinks down to sit cross-legged on the floor and motions for me to do the same. We sit facing each other, knees touching. Between us is the book Frost gave me. Georgie begins to make a circle around us, chanting quiet words of protection and insight. Ellowyn puts her hands on her knees, palms up, and then instructs me to put my hands on top of hers, palms down.
I comply and feel that zinging sensation, reminding me that we’re really witches here. Real witches doing real witchcraft—not silly fools pretending someone else is pushing plastic around an Ouija board.
Once Georgie has finished with the circle, she nods to the guys. Zander stands behind Ellowyn, Jacob behind me. I can’t see what Jacob does, but Zander holds out his hands—much like I did when I held off the adlets. Slowly, a glowing bubble like the one Jacob created this morning expands to surround us.
“Focus on the book,” Ellowyn instructs me. “In your head, ask it for answers. Don’t look at me or anyone else. Just the book.”
I nod to show I understand, then look down at the book in between us. The dark black leather. The symbol of gold in the center. It’s old. It has its own power, clearly. And it has answers.
It must.
Ellowyn begins to speak. She’s talking to the spirits, asking them for wisdom and for the power to find what we seek. Our hands grow warm, and I want to look up and see if they’re glowing, but she told me not to look. So I don’t.
Look at the book. Focus on the book. Ask for answers.
Answers. Please, show us answers. Give me an answer.
I begin to fall into a rhythm in my head. Those words over and over. Power arcing between Ellowyn and me—though I barely feel her, barely think of her. It doesn’t even feel like I’m in the store anymore. I’m in the air, but not flying. Alone.
Just me and the book.
There’s darkness all around. An increasing blackness that reminds me of those dead adlets. A shiver runs down my spine, but I remember what Ellowyn said. Focus on the book. On the answers we need. The book opens, pages flipping in the wind I don’t feel, but then vines begin to slither out of the dark, wrapping around the book.
Stop.
But it doesn’t stop. The vines grow thicker, stronger, and yet nothing happens to the book. It grows harder and harder to see.
The necklace around my neck heats against my skin. Dimly, somewhere, I start to make out sounds.
“Let go, Emerson!”
Not just Ellowyn, not just Georgie. Everyone. Yelling at me to let go.
I try to look away from the book, from the vines like dread and that creeping blackness. I try to close my eyes, but something is holding me still. Something too dark. Too heavy.
The vines are around me. Holding me in place. Holding me immobile.
They slither up my body, then around my neck. I try to focus on my power, kill the vines like I killed the adlets, but I can’t seem to access anything. I fight, but nothing happens. The vines pull tight—but when they touch the necklace Jacob gave me this morning, they change. Weaken, shrivel, then fall away.
It’s then I can finally let go. Breathe. I’m in some kind of dank fog, but I think I’m back in the store. The book is gone. I feel more inside my own body.
I might even be me again.
Damn it, Emerson. When are you going to learn to listen? It’s Jacob’s voice in my head and he’s bringing me out of that fog.
I couldn’t, I tell him. I couldn’t.
I fight to open my eyes. The candles are still burning, but the circle is gone. My friends are all looking down at me, laid out on the floor of the bookshop.
“I’m okay,” I manage to say, even though my voice is croaky. “I couldn’t get to you. I didn’t hear you. I was lost.”
Ellowyn takes a sharp intake of breath. I can feel Jacob’s hands tighten on my shoulders.
“What do you mean?” he asks calmly, though his grip on me suggests he’s anything but calm.
“I don’t know.” But they all look expectant and weirded out in equal measure, so I fumble for the words. “I was in the black. Just me and the book. Black everywhere. Then these vines crept over the book and over me, too. I felt...” I reach up to touch my neck, still throbbing from the noose of vines. Then I slide my hand down and close my hand over the necklace Jacob gave me this morning. “I felt this. Then I heard you. When I tried to let go, it wouldn’t let me.”
“What wouldn’t let you?” Zander asks.
“The vines were trying to choke me. Stop me.” We weren’t protected, I realize, despite the steps we took. The bubble. Does that mean we couldn’t have gotten any answers anyway? “It was a failure, wasn’t it?”
Ellowyn shakes her head and points down at the book, now lying next to me. The book that was closed is now open. We all stare at it. Then Ellowyn nudges me and I push myself up to sitting position to take a look, suddenly aware of a kind of...new electric current underlying everything.
“Read it,” Ellowyn directs me. “Out loud for the class.”
I peer at the script on the open pages. It’s flowy and faded and old. I feel like I shouldn’t know how to read it. It’s not English, but somehow...somehow the words arrange themselves in my language. In my understanding.
Jacob is still holding me upright, and I wrap my hand around his arm because I think I’m drawing some of that understanding from him.
“‘A Confluence Warrior,’” I read out loud.
“‘Their magic cannot be fully wielded unless or until they’re faced with dark magic and fight it with the help of a conduit. This fight awakens their power—before caged and hidden. Once awakened, their power is one of the strongest raw forces in the universe. The first step in beating back the dark. The first step in balancing the imbalance. If the light can be wielded. If the right choices are made. The flood of dark can be stopped.’”
There’s a silence. I look up. “That sounds a whole lot like me,” I say.
“It does,” Jacob agrees, and I’m too busy turning that over and over in my head to pay too much attention to his guilty tone.
I’m a...Confluence Warrior. I don’t feel like any kind of warrior at the moment. My legs are weak and my head is pounding. I’m tired, but I keep staring at those words in a language I shouldn’t be able to understand.
Confluence Warrior.
I shake my head, glad Jacob is still making sure I’m upright. “I didn’t do any warrioring back there. The only thing that saved me was this necklace.” I glance over my shoulder at Jacob, who looks vaguely stricken. “What’s a conduit?”
Everyone exchanges glances in that way that’s really beginning to grate on my nerves.
“It can mean a few different things,” Georgie responds brightly. “In this case, I think it means someone whose magic complements yours. Someone who’s...safe. On your side. Jacob was your conduit because you have a connection. Warriors and Healers often have complementary skills. So by fighting together, bleeding together, Jacob...”
