by Amy Boyles
“Sounds to me like if you want to know something, you should be asking the mayor’s office,” Rose said. “They seem to know just about everything that’s going on in this town.”
I snorted. “That’s the truth. Emily, the mayor’s assistant, comes from a long line of Bigfoot hunters. Maybe we should swing by her house and see if she’ll help us.”
“Why don’t we just get some of her panties,” Rose offered. “That way we’ll have plenty to lure the Bigfoot away from the vampires.”
“Did this Emily say she was going to hunt for the Bigfoot?” Mama said.
I shook my head. “No. In fact, she was coughing up a storm the other day, almost as if she was about to hack up half a lung.”
The cabin grew silent. I dragged my gaze from the road to my mother. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“That Pig is hungry?” Rose said.
I shook my head. “Oh my gosh. It’s so obvious. The coughing! Mama, you said coughing was a symptom of the spell. Emily! She’s the one that turned Jimmy into a Bigfoot!”
“And she changes herself,” Mama said.
“She was there the night Langdon was murdered.” Energy coursed through me. Why hadn’t I put this together before? “Emily had access to Langdon. By why did she turn him into a Bigfoot?”
“Perhaps she wants to save the town on her own,” Mama suggested.
“And Jimmy was a monkey wrench in that plan.” My voice filled with wonder. “And somehow Jimmy figured out that Langdon had been a Bigfoot but was now back to being human. Langdon didn’t seem very smart. Heck, he might’ve let it slip when Jimmy was trying to match him up with Belinda. Langdon probably told him about Emily, and then Jimmy confronted her.”
My mother’s gaze met mine. “So she changed him.” A smile curled on her face. “Isn’t it fun working together?”
It was hard not to admit it. “Yes. So Emily’s the murderer, and if she’s a Bigfoot too, she might be hard to stop.”
“I don’t think you’re realizing the worst part,” Rose said. “What if she wants to mate with Jimmy and create a whole bunch of little Bigfoots?”
“Ew. Mama, you’d better haul some butt. We’ve got a mating ritual to stop.”
Mama ground down on the accelerator, and I was thrown back into my seat. Pig squealed and Broom rustled against Pig’s face. Pig snapped at Broom, grabbing it by the bristles.
A spark lit on the stick. I grabbed hold of it to stop Pig and Broom from setting the car on fire.
The spark unrolled like a ribbon and snaked up my arm. I shot a frantic look to my mother.
“What’s happening?”
She craned her neck to see magic unwinding like kudzu roping up my bicep.
She released a disgusted breath. “Well, Charming, it looks like the prophecy is starting. Great timing. Just when we’re about to catch a Bigfoot.”
“The prophecy where I lose all my magic?”
In that moment I realized I didn’t want to lose all my magic. Yes, I barely had any, but I didn’t want it to leave me.
Mama stopped the car. The tires kicked up a fog of dust that encircled us.
She threw the gearshift into park. “No, not that prophecy. The prophecy where you gain all your powers.”
“What?” I said.
Rose pulled Broom away from me. “Charming, there’s something we need to tell you.”
TWENTY-TWO
Magic roped around my arm. I jumped out of the car and brushed it away, but the power glowed.
“What do you mean?” I fumed. “What is this about the prophecy, and why are you both still sitting in the car? Why aren’t you getting out and helping me?”
My mother and Rose slowly exited my Cooper. Gravel crunched beneath my mother’s heels. She surveyed me as if I were a project—as if adding a different color eyeshadow to my lids would change something about me.
“Does it hurt?” my mother asked.
I took a deep breath and surveyed my arm. “No,” I said smartly. “It doesn’t hurt.”
“Good. That means it’s working.”
“What is all this about? Will one of y’all please tell me?”
“We really should have told her when she was younger,” Rose said. “It wasn’t right keeping this from her.”
“Why in witch’s name would anyone ever come to this godforsaken town?” Mama replied. “When Hildegarde the Swamp Witch said Charming would end up here, I knew the prophecy was wrong. The town was dying back then. No one would ever visit it—least of all a witch with puny magic.”
“My magic isn’t puny,” I snapped. “No, I’m not as great as the Amazing Glinda.” I gestured toward her. “Who could be with you and your traveling circus always trying to help people?”
Mama crossed her arms tightly. “Watch your mouth, Charming. I might be your mother, but I can still throw you over my knee. I know how to do that with my magic.”
Anger twisted my gut to the point it hurt. “Would one of y’all explain what is going on?”
Rose hiked a shoulder. “You’d better do it, Glinda. The girl deserves to know.”
“Yes, Mama,” I said pointedly. “I deserve to know.”
Mama sighed. She came around to my side of the car and leaned against the door. “When you were younger, we took you to the psychic. It’s an old tradition, one steeped in ritual. It’s important to know certain things about the child you’ve just borne. Or in some witch’s cases, the baby you’re carrying.”
I shot her a questioning look.
She sighed. “Often a witch will go to the seer while the child is still in utero. Unfortunately I missed my first appointment and had to reschedule.”
“Too busy saving the world?”
“I believe there was an undead outbreak in San Francisco that had to be dealt with.” She sniffed. “Anyway, by the time I met with Hildegarde, you were already born. I gave her the boiled peanuts that helped her to see the baby’s future, and that’s when she told me.”
“Told you what?”
She sighed. “Do we really have to discuss this now? We have a car full of panties and a Bigfoot to find.”
I raised my glowing arm. “Yes, we have to discuss it now.”
“Don’t lose your temper.”
I glared at her.
My mother expertly ignored my glare. “Hildegarde told me that you would be born with very little water witch power. That magic would be a part of your life but not all of it. As you can imagine, since you were born into a strong family of water witches, that was hard to hear.”
I stared at my arm. “But I take it that wasn’t all.”
Mama shook her head. “No. It wasn’t. Hildegarde told me that when the time came, you would enter the place of the forge—that’s what she called it—and you would unite the powers of witchcraft.”
“What?”
She sighed. “Really, Charming. When it comes to a prophecy, you have to read between the lines a bit. Uniting the powers means, I believe, that you’ll be able to wield all four elements.”
The glow faded, and my arm returned to normal. “Be able to wield all four elements? No one can do that.”
Mama’s shoulder ticked up. “It’s extremely rare.”
“The last known witch to be able to call on the four elements lived two hundred years ago, I believe,” Rose said. “So it’s possible. Just rare.”
“But there’s something wrong about it,” I directed to Mama. “I know there is. You didn’t want me to come here, and you sent Rose to watch over me.”
Mama pinned her lips.
“What is it?” I pushed her. She was keeping information from me. I had to know what it was.
“All four elements are difficult to wield,” she admitted. “You don’t even appreciate magic, Charming. Why would I think you’d want that sort of power?”
I tapped my toe impatiently. “You’re stalling. Tell me what’s going on.”
Mama shot Rose a look. Rose shrugged. “You might as wel
l tell her.”
My mother nodded. “Hildegarde revealed that if all your powers come in, it would be the beginning of the end for us witches.”
I smirked. “Right. I get some powers and somehow that ends all witches? I don’t buy it.”
“It’s true,” my mother said. “Hildegarde is never wrong. For some reason, Charming—and I don’t know why, but that’s the prophecy—you obtaining the four elemental powers of witchcraft will put an end to magic as we know it.”
I frowned. “But how can me getting my magic cause such a shift? It makes no sense.”
Mama shook her head. “That’s what we need to find out. I don’t know much about prophecies, and I did my best to keep you away from this place. I never discussed it with you, and it wasn’t like we ever came here for a family vacation.”
At that moment every unkind word my mother had ever said hit me. “That’s the reason you always put down my powers, isn’t it? You wanted to keep me away from magic.”
Mama sniffed. “Charming, I admit I’ve been horrible. I should have told you. Should have let you know the prophecy, but I was scared. So in my own way I did what I could to keep you from magic, as you said, because of the consequences. I thought if you were never interested in magic then you wouldn’t pursue it. I was wrong.”
I studied her, my chin trembling. “Are you sorry?”
She blinked. “Of course. It wasn’t a good choice. Should I have you hate me or keep magic safe? I thought it would be best to have you hate me.”
“You could’ve just told me.” Anguish twisted my gut. For my entire life my mother had been just as torn up about our relationship as I had been, but I had never known the truth.
She wiped the back of her hand over her sniffling nose. “Can you ever find it in your heart to forgive me?”
I nodded. “Yes. I do. I love you.”
“And I love you.”
“Now,” Mama said. Our gazes locked, and I felt a cold line fissure down my spine. “Charming, you have to stop accepting gifts from witches. The broom and pig were gifts. That has something to do with the elemental shift of power blossoming within you.”
I grimaced. This whole thing was such a mess. “I’d hate to destroy magic, especially when I’m working so hard to help this place.” My gaze swept back toward town and the vines of kudzu that threatened to strangle it. “Okay. I won’t accept any more gifts.”
“Good.”
“But what about this magic? What about the power?”
“What about it?”
“Maybe it has a purpose,” I suggested.
Mama gnawed the inside of her lip. She only did that whenever a situation perplexed her. “I worry that allowing you to learn your gifts will cause this shift to happen sooner rather than later.”
But now I suddenly had real magic. Not just a little bit of matchmaking power. I had air and earth magic—at least that’s what I figured. Broom had come from the air witches and Pig from Cap, who had earth magic. I hated to bring on doom and gloom, but I wanted to try out some of this power—learn how to wield it before all the magic in the world evaporated.
I shook my head. As if that was possible. Not that I didn’t believe in prophecies, but I didn’t believe in prophecies. At least not one so silly. All the magic in the world vanishing? I doubted that would happen.
But since my mother didn’t appear interested in teaching me, I’d have to figure it out myself.
But first, a Bigfoot needed to be caught. Two Bigfoots, to be exact. After all, we didn’t know if Emily’s spell would turn deadly for Jimmy. In fact, I had a feeling it would.
The air shifted, and the scent of gardenia blossoms filled the night. The magic in this town was unstable, broken. The fact that Emily managed to create a working spell suggested that it would eventually sour, and when it did, my friend Jimmy would be on the receiving end of that.
I threw back my shoulders and raised my chin. “Come on, y’all. What are we standing around here for? We’ve got Bigfoot to catch.”
TWENTY-THREE
We set up the panties on a line in the middle of the woods, not too far from the fire springs, where we’d seen Jimmy before.
“Mama, you’ll have to be ready with your magic.”
She nodded. “I will be. After all, I’ve vanquished greater enemies than this.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course you have. Just be ready.”
My mother smiled, but I was worried. When Jimmy had run toward us before, she had frozen. Never in my life had I known my mother to freeze.
What was it about this place that was screwing with her brain? Was it the prophecy? Was it the fact that she was concerned her power wouldn’t work correctly because of the laws of magic that affected so many people? Or was it something else?
Honestly, there was no time to worry about it because we needed to get into position.
“Let’s go behind those bushes,” Rose said.
It seemed as good as any other idea, so the five of us—don’t forget Broom and Pig, though I made sure to stay far away from them—hunkered down behind the bushes.
After about two minutes Rose began to hum. “Ssshhh,” I whispered. “You’ll give us away.”
“I’m bored,” she whimpered. “Sitting here takes a lot of energy.”
“Let’s hope we won’t have to do it long,” Mama said.
A crash in the trees grabbed our attention. Our heads snapped toward it. I shot my mother and aunt a be quiet look and remained perfectly still.
A few seconds later Jimmy, covered from head to foot in fur, emerged from the forest. He took one look at the panties, threw his head back and howled.
Crap. The vampires would’ve definitely heard that.
“Now’s our chance,” Mama whispered. “Rose, help me restrain him with water bindings.”
Rose nodded.
Jimmy paused, cocking his ear toward us. He took a step forward and sniffed. At least he was sniffing the air and not my clean underpants.
“Now,” Mama yelled. She and Rose stood up and hit Jimmy with all the water magic they had. Water was pulled from the humid air. Long, thick ropes of it wound around his wrists.
“Hold him,” Mama yelled.
Jimmy howled and snapped, but the binds held him tightly.
Something else crashed in the forest, and suddenly a second Bigfoot—this one must’ve been Emily—appeared.
My mother and aunt were too busy with Jimmy to stop it, so I had to take her on myself.
I held up my hand. I had no idea what I was doing. My magic was numbers and questions, it wasn’t real elements.
I quickly calculated the odds that my new magic would falter and the Bigfoot would kill me. The odds that I would die were fifty to one.
Not very good.
But then suddenly a mound of earth shot up in front of the Bigfoot, stopping her from helping Jimmy. The creature whirled toward me and roared.
Mama yelled, “Charming!”
“Keep on Jimmy,” I commanded. “I’ve got this one!”
The creature leaped over the mound of earth, and in that moment I realized something—I was screwed.
Like, literally.
The worst thing you can do when facing off against a predator is run, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. The only thought that zipped through my head was that I needed to get the heck out of Dodge.
So I ran, crashing through the forest. The creature was taller, faster than I was, but something stirred in me. My feet kicked into high gear, and I was suddenly moving through the forest at high speed.
Air power. The gift of air magic made me fast—super fast, so fast I could outrun the creature.
Wait. Was it still behind me?
I paused long enough to hear twigs snap and branches ripping off trees.
Yep, she was still behind me.
The air was helping me, but I wouldn’t be able to run forever. I could already feel the magic sputtering out.
I don’t know why my mom though
t some swamp woman’s prophecy about me receiving my magic and then killing all magic in the world would come true when I couldn’t even hold on to a little bit of running power.
Lights up ahead signaled I was almost back. The first hint of steel homes told me I was in Fire Town.
I broke free of the forest just as my newfound power petered out. I fell onto the ground and expected Emily to topple on me and maybe scratch me to death, but nothing happened.
In fact, the only thing that greeted me was silence.
I heaved myself off the ground, brushed off my pants and stared into the night. I waited, listening for a sound, any sound that would betray where the Bigfoot had gone.
Though I didn’t hear any crunching, the sound of a door opening caught my attention.
Voices.
I followed the voices—one of which I recognized as Mayor Dixon.
“Emily, what are on earth are you doing out here? And without your clothes on?”
“Mayor.” Emily sounded terrified. “The scariest thing just happened. I was attacked.”
“What?” Mayor Dixon sounded frantic. “Who attacked you?”
I sneaked over to the side of the house and quietly tiptoed to the edge. I peered over the porch to see Emily, naked except for a blanket, bending over the mayor’s outstretched arms.
“I’ll tell you what happened when we get inside. But that matchmaker, Mayor, she’s the one causing all these problems.”
My eyes flared. Are you kidding? Emily had shifted back to normal and was feeding lies to the mayor—lies that would get me thrown in jail.
“Come in, come in,” the mayor said. Mayor Dixon glanced around as if to make sure some crazy person like myself wasn’t about to jump out and attack her.
As if.
But I also didn’t know what Emily’s plan was. What if she was going inside the mayor’s house in order to harm her? I couldn’t let that happen. Absolutely not.
I had to think. I had to figure it out.
Surely Emily would know I’d figure out where she’d gone. Maybe she would count on it. If she counted on it, then she’d expect me to ring the doorbell and tell the mayor what I knew—which would put both of us head to head in a confrontation.
