Sour, p.8
Sour, page 8
“Dark of night, and shining moon, may kindly spirits fill this room—”
“I didn’t know she did this yesterday,” Betony’s voice said in a stage whisper.
My eyes flew open. “Betony. Don’t interrupt. You should know better.”
Immediately contrite, she shrank a little in her chair and bit her bottom lip. Her aura shrank as well, devolving into hues closer to her previous reds and pinks. “Okee.”
I took a deep breath to refocus and imagined breathing out the negative energy like smoke. Then I did it again. It wasn’t like me to be so riled up, and it peeved me that something so insignificant had triggered such a response. I hadn’t realized my heart rate had picked up until I became aware of it decelerating. I opened my eyes and met everyone’s gaze down the table.
“Nobody talk. Please.”
“No,” Lorina said, her brown eyes shooting daggers at Betony. “We won’t.”
I sat a little taller in my chair and closed my eyes again.
“Dark of night, and shining moon, may kindly spirits fill this room.
From north and east, from south and west, we call you forth, your presence blessed.
May we hear you true, and be heard in kind, leaving all harmful things behind.”
I opened my eyes to find that everyone watching me, including Rolf. I smiled. Jake’s mouth opened, closed, opened again.
“Yes?” I asked.
“You... you were...”
“Yes?” I prodded again.
“This is going to sound crazy.”
“Just say it!” Cadence cried.
“Purple. You looked purple. Around...” his hands made a shape as if tracing the edges of my body.
“Do you still see it?” I asked. He shook his head.
“You’re not crazy. That’s my aura.” I said with a grin, proud of the gentle giant.
He nodded, and his eyes darted to Betony, where her aura resumed the sickly hue, and away quickly. He’d noticed that as well, and it concerned him.
“We’ll talk later. Let’s see if we can get Lorina in touch with...”
The planchette stuttered and moved, and as it did, the presence of a specter hovering over the table, a thin hand guiding the piece, shimmered into view. Everyone else’s eyes focused on the circle dancing under the ghost’s power. Go... fish... go... fish...
“Julia?” I asked. The piece swerved to YES.
“Jake, you need to take over for Betony,” I instructed.
“Why?” Betony complained. “I mean, wouldn’t it make more sense for Lorina to come off? She said yesterday she was afraid she’d influence the answers.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter now. It’s her—I can see her—”
Lorina’s large eyes grew enormous. “You can?”
I nodded. “Yes. Lorina. You look a whole lot like her, don’t you?” She nodded, a weepy smile forming under her teary eyes. “And now we’re sure it’s her, it’s best if Jake pairs with her. Their energies are a lot more conducive to this. The bond they built while making the band—it carries over.”
“Wouldn’t three people be better than two?” Her aura moved and twitched, the growth of the sulfury yellow revealing the irritation she tried to hide.
“Not this time.”
Grudgingly, Betony removed her fingers and made room for Jake. His hand across from hers resembled a bear paw joining a spidery hand. The moment their energies channeled into the piece, I caught a scent of vanilla and hyacinths that came from Grandmother Emerson.
“Gramma?” Lorina whispered. She’d sensed it, too.
The planchette responded. Yes.
Enormous tears flowed down Lorina’s face. “I miss you.”
The piece stuttered around the board, slowly making its way.
Love... you...
“I love you, too.” A huge sob escaped, and she sniffled and swallowed heavily. I motioned to Cadence to bring back the tissues I kept behind the counter, and she nodded and fetched them, placing them in front of Lorina, who ignored them. Her eyes locked on the board, and her limbs shook from fingertip to elbow.
The piece stopped moving, and the presence dispelled.
“She’s gone,” I said.
Lorina moved the planchette over to Goodbye. As soon as she did, a tidal wave of energy entered the room. I pressed my feet to the floor and measured the distance between myself and my salt and sage, ready to respond if needed. Without warning, the planchette jerked across the board in a broad arch.
“Stop moving it!” Lorina said to Jake in alarm.
“I’m not!” Jake cried. “It’s not me!”
I held up a hand to silence them as we watched the piece racing in fervent swirls and dips. I recognized this powerful and familial energy.
“It’s reading the board trying to find letters,” Betony said, but I shook my head. This pattern, this strength, was one I’d seen before. As soon as I’d put a finger on it, the smells of fog and hay and heather came to me.
“It’s an ancestor of mine,” I said with certainty. “Aislinn Blackwell.” My last name comes from my maternal line, the ancestor’s Blackwell name taken from the black well behind her home in Ireland, where she, as a purple witch, foresaw the future in the water. Not for everyone, mind you; she had a select group of townspeople and visitors she trusted. Witchcraft may not be accepted in many circles nowadays, but it could get a person hanged back then.
The piece nearly flew out from underneath the fingers that held it as they swooped to a single word.
YES.
I took a deep breath. It wasn’t the first time Aislinn had appeared on the circle, but it was typically with the coven. This was the first time she’d revealed herself to anyone who wasn’t family.
“Mother Aislinn, what do you want to share with us?”
Wasting no time, the planchette swept to the color wheel, choosing a single hue. Looped back around again and again.
Gray... gray... gray...
“I see,” I said, trying not to reveal my thoughts.
“You!” Betony crowed. “She’s talking about you!”
NO... YOU... LISTEN... OTHER... CLOSE...
I sucked in a breath and asked the one question I needed an answer to.
“Mother Aislinn, the prophecy... did you mean me?”
The piece stopped moving for a moment before sliding to a single word.
NO.
My heart raced, and I fought the urge to cry as intensely as Lorina only moments ago. Not me? I wasn’t cursed with chaos? Then what the hell was wrong with me? What the hell was I? Why hadn’t she told me sooner? Or did she not know?
My ears rang and my hands clenched and unclenched. So many questions had tumbled around my mind for the past two decades, and this was my first chance to speak to Mother Aislinn without the coven listening in. There was a chance she may not stay long, so I asked the most important question I needed to be answered. I didn’t dare ask in English, though, so I called on some of the limited Irish Gaelic I knew and hoped I didn’t mangle it too badly.
“An bhfuil sí anseo?” Is she here?
YES.
Any doubt I’d had that it was Betony vanished.
“Thank you, seanmháthair.”
It made one more circle before landing on LOVE. A ghostly kiss of air brushed my cheek and hair, and she was gone.
Well, shit.
Chapter 13
The silence around the table was palpable. No other entities revealed themselves once Aislinn fled, so I released my hold on the Source. In the distance, the deep rumbles of an ominous southern storm rolled—the type that often bred twisters. My nerves hummed with apprehension.
“Y’all better get home before this storm hits,” I said.
“No way,” Lorina said firmly, her arms crisscrossed on her narrow chest. “What in the hell was all of that about? You’re in a prophecy? And what fucking language was that?”
I pulled in a deep breath and let it out, studying the paper bats hanging from the ceiling as I gathered my thoughts. “Apparently, I’m not in the prophesy,” I responded. “For years, I thought I was the gray witch my great-great... well, an ancestor a long time ago predicted. And the language was Gaelic.”
“I’ve never known anyone who’s part of a real prophecy before,” Jake said, his expression awed.
“She’s not. She just said that,” Betony teased. Turning to me, she added more softly, “And if you’re not a gray witch, what are you?”
My first impulse was to answer her honestly. However, I was hesitant to tell her that LaDonna suspected I might be more powerful than a gray—more powerful than any of the colors individually. I’d feel compelled to tell them that we had deduced that Betony was the gray the prophesy foretold, which would lead to me unspooling a whole story, and Mother Goddess knew what tangles that would cause. I needed to mull over what I’d found out before I explained what it all meant to them.
“I am going to have to figure that out,” I said. And that was honest, if skirting the truth a little. I’d never heard of a Summate before, so learning what it meant to be one would be an education. LaDonna had said it was a combination of all the types, but to what degree?
Another long, low peal of thunder rumbled overhead, but still, the rain only pattered on the veranda roof. Lorina peered under the table.
“Your dog is super chill,” she said. “My dog would be hiding under the bed shaking from the thunder by now.”
“Rolf” lifted his head and smiled the way that only a dog can. For a moment, the tension eased as everyone cooed over him and gave him pets and sweet words, and told him what a good boy he was. I shook my head. Conall was either eating it up or was doing an Oscar-worthy performance of an attention-loving pooch.
“Y’all really should go,” I said. No sooner had the words left my mouth when the faint pattering of rain outside turned into fat, loud droplets. It wasn’t falling with gusto now, but it would swell to a gusher within minutes. “If you leave now, you should be home before it gets bad.”
“I am safer here,” said Betony, which was true. Her family lived in a mobile home, which was useless when faced with the mildest of tornadoes. The urge to protect her and offer her shelter was strong, but there was so much weighing on my mind I needed to sort out.
“You can come with me to my grandfather’s house,” Cadence offered. “He has a shelter in his garage.”
“Rolf” leaped in joy, and they all took it as a sign that Cadence’s offer was a sign of the will of the universe. I fought the urge to give Conall an appreciative expression that only a human would understand.
After that, the gang left in surprising haste. Maybe they weren’t as careless about the dangers of the storm as I’d assumed. Or perhaps the events of the night had creeped them out more than I’d suspected. When the last of them left, I locked the door, hung up my “Closed due to weather” sign, and faced Conall, still in his furry form. It was only four o’clock—three hours before the store would typically close on a Saturday—but the heavy cloud cover cloaked the world in an early dusk.
“What do you think?” I asked. He only cocked his head the way adorable dogs do, and I smiled.
“Come on,” I said with a beckoning arm, and we headed through the swinging doors to my home. Well, I went through the swinging doors. Conall trotted under them. Some days, it struck me how odd it was that my commute consisted only of passing through a doorway. The passage itself was a symbol of leaving my business behind me and entering the sheltering womb of my home. Tonight was one of those nights. Between the way I’d explained the purpose of my mother’s witchy kitchen last night and the furious storm gathering outside tonight, I’d come to value characteristics of my protected haven in a way I hadn’t before.
Rolf headed to his pile of clothes in the corner and the air took on a mirage-like haze as he started to transform back into Conall. I turned away, not to give him privacy but to save myself from the urge to stare. He had no reservations about his body—Conall did his rites sky-clad regularly, and I often envied the privileged witches who saw him during ceremonies. I’d seen him in swimming trunks and had no doubt the rest of him was as faultlessly chiseled as the parts I’d seen. I, on the other hand, had no urge to let anyone see me outside my clothes. It wasn’t that I found myself unattractive; it was more modesty. I’d never felt the moon on my skin and had never been drawn to do so.
Ducking into the refrigerator to put the door between my head and his body, I found the half-empty bottle of prosecco from last night and poured myself a glass. Out of habit, I faced Conall’s direction and caught a flash of skin that ran from head to heel before I pivoted away again.
“Um... prosecco?” I asked as an embarrassing flush rose to my cheeks. Thank goodness I hadn’t switched on all the lights.
“Sure.”
I performed an odd balancing act of keeping Conall in my peripheral vision while pouring him a glass of wine. Take the glass from the cupboard. Face the same direction while reaching for the wine bottle. Remove the cork, and pour slowly, giving him time to finish. All the while, I tracked Conall’s movements from the corner of my eye to avoid seeing him naked. Once I detected garments from roughly heel to shoulder, I took a handful of steps in his direction and handed him the glass.
“Thank you,” he said, a tiny bit breathless from hastily dressing. His breath smelled like ozone and fresh air. He took the glass from my hand and downed a generous swallow. Eyeballing the tiny amount left, he shook his head. He found the bottle on the counter, discovered it was empty, and shook his head again, making his brown curls wave. He’d say he was due for a haircut, but I loved them.
“This won’t do,” he said toward the bottom of the empty bottle.
“You can have mine,” I offered, lifting most of what I’d poured in his direction. He pushed a palm at it in refusal.
“No, no, no, I wouldn’t dream of it. Do you have another bottle of wine, though?”
“Um...” I did a rapid mental inventory. “I think I have a bottle of red in the pantry—”
“That’ll do!” he chirped and headed through the pantry door in search of the wine. I heard the click of the switch and saw the rhombus of light on the kitchen floor, minus the shadow of Conall’s fit physique.
“Should be on the left, about... um... shoulder height?” I offered.
“Aha!” he exclaimed, trotting out of the pantry victoriously with a bottle of Chianti over his head. I had to laugh. Conall’s energy always brought out the extrovert in me. It was one of the qualities I loved about him. In the store, he behaved professionally, even reservedly, but he was a downright energetic, adorable dork behind the scenes.
He headed to the sharps drawer where I kept the wine bottle opener, then to the cupboard for the red wine glasses. I loved that he knew my home as well as his own. His was a rental—small, one-bedroom, like many twenty-somethings. Hanna still lived with her father. It wasn’t often that events had gone well in my chaotic life, but I had a paid-for home and business at twenty-six years old thanks to my mother’s careful financial planning and life insurance. Some events in my life had worked out, but I would rather have my mother.
Conall poured two glasses of red wine and turned from the counter to find me still nursing my prosecco. Feigning being aghast, he clutched his chest with a splayed hand and pushed the new glass aggressively in my direction.
“Drink, woman! We’re celebrating!” he ordered, and I laughed. Mother Goddess, I was going to have a hangover if I mixed white and red wine. Then the memory of how my life had turned upside-down less than an hour ago hit me. I chugged the prosecco like a frat boy downing tequila, or whatever it is that frat boys drink.
Conall whooped as I put the empty glass on my counter and accepted the new one of Chianti. I had the glass to my lips before I realized he had raised his own in preparation for a toast. I backed the glass away from my mouth and lifted it as he had.
“To not being a chaos witch,” he said with an adorably cocky half-smile.
“Yeah, but—”
“Ah ah!” he said in reprimand, with a finger pointed in my direction. “No buts. Tonight, you realized that you are not to blame for any of the chaotic events that have unfolded in your life. That, my friend, is worth celebrating.”
For some reason, his use of the term “my friend” bothered me tonight, but I didn’t want to linger on it. Instead, I lifted the class and crowed, “To not being to blame for chaos!” Conall echoed the sentiment, and we clicked glasses. Our smiling eyes watched each other as we downed our first swallow of red and the sound of the summer storm gushing from the heavens hit the porch.
“Rain!” Conall yelled. His mood was positively manic. I wondered if the transformation had something to do with it. Tonight, however, I didn’t care if the change made him high as a Georgia pine. I needed to shake myself out of the weird combination of funk and disbelief that I was in. I wasn’t a gray, which was great, but it meant that I had reached adulthood and had no idea what I was. Unless, as LaDonna suspected, I was the Summate, which was a whole new problem.
“Our funnels!” he exclaimed. “Let’s go see!”
There wasn’t much to see, other than a torrential downpour filling our Mason jars, but sure. Why not? I followed Conall out to the porch where I had a set of wicker chairs and a small glass-topped table I’d salvaged from someone’s curb and made usable again with a coat of spray paint and a few cheap cushions.
Sure enough, the Mason jars were rapidly loading up with the help of the torrential storm. Conall reached a long arm out past the shelter of the eaves, getting his hand wet as I downed another sip of Chianti. Maybe I was drinking too fast, maybe I was an inexperienced drinker, or maybe the weird-ass energy from tonight was throwing my body out of whack, but I was already tipsy.
He pulled his hand back and flicked me with his fingertips.
“Hey!”
He put his wet hand on my arm, and I smiled. I loved the energy that came from water, and he knew it.
