Any Witch Way (The Witch Next Door Book 3)

by Judith Berens

  Aluino held her gaze the whole time and barely blinked under the early-afternoon sun’s growing intensity. Finally, he nodded. “We know this. Yes. And I think she has chosen the perfect teacher.”

  She tried to hide her surprise and simply returned the nod before she looked slowly at Romeo. He smirked at her, having not expected her to give an answer like that but also not surprised by anything she’d said. “I guess that’s it, then, huh?”

  Lily snorted and rolled her eyes. “I guess.” The regular sounds of the traveling villagers striking up their own conversations again and finishing their meal filled the clearing once more. And all these witches are gonna cling to every last thing I show them. She didn’t try to meet anyone’s gaze when she looked around the circles of villagers. Still, she unexpectedly shared a glance with Neron the necromancer, who swallowed his last mouthful, allowed the tiniest smile to twitch at the corners of his mouth, and nodded. I got myself into this, didn’t I?

  Twenty-Two

  The rest of that day felt remarkably like another celebration, and the only difference was that they were out in the middle of Nowhere, Chiapas, in a teleporting caravan of wagons instead of a settled village on the mountainside. The villagers passed the time weaving more blankets and rugs with materials from the wagons, braiding the girls’ hair, patching clothes, cooking over another quickly made fire, and playing in the river. A few of them ventured into the jungle and returned in less than twenty minutes with overflowing baskets of fruit, greens, and nuts Lily couldn’t begin to name.

  “So they’re really good at foraging.” Romeo scratched the side of his head. “The more I watch these people, the more I think we’re really not prepared to be out here without them. Like…I don’t know how to find any of that stuff. They simply went out there”—he gestured vaguely toward the thick jungle around the clearing—“like we take a short drive to the Harris Teeter or something.”

  Lily laughed and readjusted the braided crown of flowers one of the other boys had brought her, his cheeks pink with both excitement and embarrassment. “I wouldn’t call it grocery shopping. I think they use their magic for that, honestly.” She nodded at the full baskets of brightly colored fruits.

  “Seriously? And they have to go all the way out into the forest to do that?”

  “Well, I think perhaps they did that part for you, actually.”

  “Oh.” He continued to study the villagers around them curiously. Some of them gave him wide smiles and nods and others merely went about their easygoing business as if the Americans with the giant RV in their midst had been part of their community all along. “That was really considerate of them.”

  “Nobody wants a sneezy werewolf stumbling around.” She winked at him and made herself laugh.

  “True, I guess.” He chuckled with a little shrug. “It’s probably a good idea anyway. I’m startin’ to run out of the wolfsbane Melissa gave me.”

  “Yeah, I noticed.”

  “I can help with that.” They both twisted where they sat in the grass to see Rosalía standing behind Romeo. The girl folded her arms and smirked at him. “You eat a lot of that poison medicine, don’t you?”

  He laughed and glanced at Lily. “Only when I’m around witches and considerable magic.”

  “So all the time?”

  Lily barked out a laugh and gestured at the girl who could send their sarcasm right back in spades. “Look who’s throwin’ down.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He grinned at Rosalía. “If you can get me more wolfsbane, kid, I’ll let that one slide.”

  “I don’t have to get you anything. Where is it?”

  “The wolfsbane?”

  “Yes.”

  “In the center console.” Lily pointed at the Winnie. “You have to squeeze the handle underneath to open it.”

  She grinned at her, spun on her heel, and ran to the RV.

  “She doesn’t have to get me anything, huh?” He snorted. “Okay, I know she had attitude when we found her, but—”

  She shook her head. “I think she meant she won’t have to go looking for any.” She nodded toward the Winnie’s passenger window, where they could see Rosalía’s dark hair and most of her profile as the girl closed the center console again and climbed onto it. A deep green glow illuminated her face and most of the RV, then faded again. She looked a little surprised for a moment but stood and returned through the Winnie without delay.

  When Rosalía stepped through the side door, she walked toward them again with her arms held behind her back. Her eyes were wide, and she stopped a few feet away from Romeo with her head tilted a little dubiously. “Maybe I was too excited…but I don’t think you’ll be angry.”

  He smiled at her but kept the mild concern he felt out of his face. “Well, that’s one way to soften the blow. Let’s see it, then.”

  The girl slowly removed her hands from behind her back. One held the empty Ziplock bag, and the other clutched what was essentially an entire wolfsbane plant—roots, stem, leaves, flowers, and all. “It’s not bad…”

  He snorted and couldn’t hold back the bellow of laughter. “No. It’s definitely not bad.”

  Rosalía glanced at Lily with a sheepish smile and a shrug. “I can find a pot and then maybe he won’t run out.”

  “That’s a great idea.” She nodded, and the girl dumped the fully grown plant unceremoniously into his lap before she sprinted toward one of the wagons.

  “What”—he laughed again and gestured at the huge plant in his lap without touching it—“am I supposed to do with this?”

  “Most of the time, it’s fairly simple. Put it in some dirt, pour water on it sometimes, maybe stick it in the sun for an hour a day…” She shrugged.

  “Okay, when you say it like that, it sounds like the easiest thing in the world.”

  Lily smirked. “Well, it’s one of them, at least.”

  “No, it’s not. I can’t even keep bamboo alive. That’s like one of the easiest plants to grow, right?”

  It was hard to keep a straight face at all when Lily shrugged. “You know what got me to start keeping plants alive?”

  “You’re gonna tell me it was a spell, aren’t you? Again, what am I supposed to do with this?”

  She shook her head. “No, I didn’t use magic…well, okay. It was magic-related.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “My mom left me a clue once inside an actual flower.”

  Romeo leaned toward her and widened his eyes. “What?”

  “Yeah. I think it was an orchid. I got through this entire mini scavenger hunt she did right after graduation. The very last thing was a key code to get into this hotel room she booked for me, blah, blah, blah. But I had to get the orchid to bloom first ʼcause she obviously messed with the seeds or something.”

  “Your mom made a flower with numbers on it?”

  She chuckled. “Yep. It was definitely the best way to keep that plant from shriveling up, even with all the stuff I was busy—no.” Shaking her head, she laughed again. “I was actually busy wasting my time. I’m starting to realize now that it’s probably why she left a clue inside an actual flower.”

  “Man, if anyone can do it…”

  Rosalía skipped back to them with a medium-sized clay pot painted bright red with a yellow rim. She struggled a little to set it down gently rather than drop it on the ground beside him, but then she stood, dusted her hands off, and gestured toward the wolfsbane plant’s new home. “Mama said it can be a gift for you.” She put both hands on her hips.

  “It’s a…great gift. Thank you.” Romeo peered over the rim of the pot and gave the girl an uncertain smile. “Do you have any pointers for how to put the thing in here the right way?”

  She frowned and stared at him for a moment, then giggled. “You’re really smart and strong but you need a ton of help still, huh?”

  Lily burst out laughing and immediately clamped her hands over her mouth. He leaned toward Rosalía and whispered, “Well, now that you’ve discovered my secre
t, yeah. I could really use your help. Again.”

  The girl grinned, rolled her eyes, and pointed to the pot. “Bring that. I’ll show you the best dirt to put in it.”

  He nodded solemnly and once she turned away, he looked at Lily and mouthed, “Smart and strong.” She suppressed another laugh as he stood with the giant wolfsbane plant in one hand and the rim of the red pot in the other.

  Although the musicians from the village celebration hadn’t joined the travel party to Ichacál, someone had still thought to bring a flute and a drum. One woman had filled an empty gourd with sand and a few small pebbles, which she used as a maraca that night while they played. Chalina and Aluino approached Lily and Romeo after everyone had eaten their fill of dinner. The woman bent to grab Lily’s hands and grinned at her. “Come with me. I will show you a dance you will not forget.” She tugged on her hands until the younger witch had no choice but to stand.

  “Um…okay.” She laughed as Aluino thrust his hand out to haul Romeo to his feet too.

  “You too,” the man said.

  “Oh, no.” Although he let the villager help him to his feet, he stood his ground and shook his head. “I’m not…I don’t dance, really.”

  “This dance is important. Not for looking pretty.” Aluino nodded at the two women. “Well, maybe for them. And you are not too old to learn new things.” He clapped a hand on his shoulder and led him away from the women.

  “Um…” He turned toward Lily and shrugged.

  “It is not dangerous for him.” Aluino shot her a wink, then laughed and prodded his unwilling companion forward again.

  “It is not dangerous for anybody,” Chalina muttered and stared after her husband with her hands on her hips. “Men and their danger, eh? They like to call it with their words”—the woman opened and closed her hand like a moving mouth—“and when it finally finds them, they are mute.” She snapped the mocking mouth shut with her fingers and shook her head, chuckling.

  Lily smiled and let the woman lead her away from where she’d eaten dinner with Romeo on the soft grass. “I have a feeling you balance that for your husband very well.” The villager flashed her a sharp glance. “Not that you talk too much. Only that you’re a little more…subtle about the danger part.”

  She tossed her head back and laughed freely, her long, straight black hair dangling below her hips. “That is a woman’s calling, yes? To handle all the danger a man cannot without needing to constantly boast about it.” She winked at the other woman, and they both laughed. “Of course, I know some women who like to talk as much as their men. They talk at each other all the time, bidi, bidi, bidi.” Chalina flapped her hand again and wiggled her head. “Then the danger has already found them and they are too busy talking to see it there.” She nodded with wide eyes as if reminding the younger woman to take notes on this for the future.

  Why does it sound like she’s trying to give me relationship advice? For a relationship I’m not even sure I actually have. She smirked as they joined a group of other women who’d separated themselves a few yards away from the cookfire at sunset and the musicians playing beside it. All of them grinned and beckoned Lily forward, grasped her arms, and brushed their fingers against her blonde, sundried ponytail. One of them adjusted the flower crown on her head and chuckled. “I looked exactly like that once.”

  “When was this, Pila, hmm?” Another woman wearing a white blouse with bright, embroidered flowers folded her arms with a smirk. “I want to know when your skin and your hair were this white. And oh. You had blue eyes once?”

  The woman laughed and jostled Pila playfully, who rolled her eyes and grinned. “I meant her face. No, not how thin it is.” They all laughed again, and she lifted Lily’s chin a little with a gentle handle. “This look in her eyes, yes? This look we all know.” The gathered women hummed in agreement, nodded and smiled, and gazing at her with more admiration than when she and Romeo had arrived in the Winnie with two kidnapped children.

  This is totally real-life Twilight Zone. Whatever they’re about to do, roll with it.

  Chalina clapped her hands as the song ended and nodded at the musicians. The woman with the sand-filled gourd nodded in response, grinned, and a new song began. The villagers who hadn’t joined either the woman or the men uttered a few whoops of excitement and turned to watch the groups.

  “Okay, now you’re putting me on the spot,” Lily said with an uncertain laugh, “and I have no idea what I’m doing.”

  “That is why we are here.” Chalina nodded and took her shoulders to position the younger witch a particular way in the grass before she came to stand beside her. “We will teach you this dance and you will use it, yes?”

  She took a deep breath and nodded warily. “Okay…”

  “Okay! Do you know the Latin dancing?”

  “Yeah, actually.”

  “Well, throw all that out. It is useless now.”

  That made her laugh again, and she shrugged. “I’ll try.”

  “No, no, no. You will watch me and you will do it.” Chalina nodded brusquely and started a dance step that was vaguely like salsa dancing but with far more stamping involved. The music carried over all the conversation in the clearing, and she did her best to repeat after all the women who tried at the same time to show her what came next. “You are all fish flopping around like this,” Chalina snapped. The others laughed and made faces when they almost fell over each other. “I told her to watch me.” The woman smirked and nodded at her again. “One more time.”

  Across the clearing, one of the kids shrieked in a fit of giggles before the explosion of men’s laughter. When Chalina stopped her dance steps to turn, Lily did the same and found a good number of the men gathered around Romeo rolling around on the floor in hysterics. He must have tripped over his own feet and was quickly caught under the arms by a surprised Aluino, who shoved the werewolf upright and pounded his back. Whatever they said to each other, she couldn’t hear a word of it, but his face looked a little redder than what a day in the sun had given him. He spread his arms and shrugged, and another round of laughter issued from the men.

  Chalina clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes before she turned to face the woman. “That is their danger, huh? While we are dancing.” That brought a few more chuckles before Lily was pulled back into learning a dance she’d never heard of and trying to ignore how weird this felt. They’re all acting like this is the most important thing I’ll ever do and I don’t even know what it’s called.

  Almost two hours later, Lily had pretty much gotten the dance down from start to finish. It was ridiculously complicated.

  “Right arm out.”

  “Do this with your hand.”

  “You step forward only when the other dancer moves to your left.”

  And Mom did such a great job teaching me how to memorize. I guess spell signals and choreography aren’t that different. The thought made her laugh as she wandered toward the Winnie. Romeo shuffled closer and shook his lowered head.

  “Woah. It looks like they were pretty rough on you.”

  He scowled at her and snorted. “I keep telling everyone I can’t dance and no one wants to believe me.”

  She gave him a sympathetic grimace and slipped her arm through his beside the vehicle. “If your teachers were half as dedicated as mine, I’m sure you learned something.”

  In response, he simply rolled his eyes, turned to face her, and put his hands on her hips. “I’m tellin’ you, Lil. It’s torture.” She laughed and a few hoots and joking shouts came from around the cookfire, which now blazed in the darkness. They both turned to see a few of the men stumbling around, their arms flailing as they fell on top of each other while their friends caught them and pushed them upright again. “See? They’re laughing at me and they still think I’m gonna be able to do any of that stuff.”

  Lily pressed her lips together and tried not to laugh herself. “Try to think of it as laughing with you.”

  He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “I feel l
ike that’s something our third-grade teacher used to say.”

  “I think it is.”

  Chuckling, he turned and raised a hand to wave briefly at the men. “Goodnight, dancin’ fools!” They doubled over in laughter and waved them both away as they returned to enjoying the rest of their night with their wives and what few children still remained among them. “Yeah, I don’t think they get the reference.”

  “Um…I don’t think I do, either.”

  “What?” He opened the side door and waited for her to step inside first. “Really? ‘Dancin’ Fool,’ the song?” She turned and stared at him expectantly. He shook his head. “Frank Zappa? None of this rings a bell for you?”

  She fought back another laugh. “Sorry.”

  He threw his hands in the air and let them drop back to his thighs with a muffled smack. “Now I really feel alone, Lil.”

  “Come on. When it comes to your ridiculously broad taste in music, I think you might be.” The laughter escaped her anyway when he hung his head in mock hopelessness.

  “That was a low blow,” he protested but peered at her from below his lowered brow and smirked.

  “I had to.” She shrugged. “But hey, I bet I could make it up to you.”

  “I dunno…my pride’s all wounded and everything. You’re probably gonna have to try really hard.”

  “Oh, whatever. Come on.” She took his hand and pulled him toward the bedroom, grinning at him over her shoulder.

  Romeo didn’t even put up a fight, and when they stepped through the doorway, he jerked her toward him and slid his arms around her waist. “Okay, you win. This might make me feel better.” He kissed her and she laughed and pushed him away gently.

  “It might?”

  He shrugged. “I guess we’ll just hafta find out.”

  “Hmm.” She smirked and studied his green eyes. “Did they even tell you what that whole ridiculous dancing thing is about?”