Bone Lantern Witch

by Kat Simons

  Mara rolled her eyes, but her cheeks turned pink. “You know. The way boyfriends and girlfriends and stuff look at each other and, I don’t know, hold hands and stuff.” She shrugged. “It’s kind of weird since Carmen is pretty old, but I wanted her to be happy. But she wasn’t happy when the guy showed up.”

  Angie ignored Mara’s assessment of Carmen’s age—old was a bit harsh since Carmen was likely only in her early forties, if that. But twelve-year-olds weren’t great judges of adult ages. And frankly, it was possible Carmen tried to appear older to Mara so she wouldn’t seem threatening, maybe even a little grandmotherly. “What was she then, if not happy when he showed up?”

  Mara shrugged again. “I don’t know. Not happy, but not really mad either. Like…intense. The way Bart gets when he’s on the phone with a politician.”

  “Did Carmen seem to be…in charge? Or was the man in charge?” Sebastian asked.

  Good question, Angie thought.

  “Oh Carmen. He did what she told him to do.” Mara grinned. “She was like a mother, or his boss or something, ordering him around. And he didn’t even argue about it. Not once. He just did whatever she told him to do.”

  Mara’s glee at Carmen ordering someone around might have amused Angie if Angie hadn’t suspected some of the orders were demon-related.

  “Did he visit often?” Sebastian asked.

  “I guess. I don’t know for sure. I saw him around maybe once a month or something like that.” Her gaze narrowed. “Is Carmen in trouble? Did the man hurt her?”

  “Why would you ask if he’d hurt her?” Angie asked.

  “He was kind of scary. Intense.” She looked to her mother. “I’m not sure how to say it. Like… Like if I tried to say something to him, he might yell or something.”

  “Did he yell at Carmen?”

  “Oh no. Just did what she told him to do. But, like, Bart always looks like he wants to hit people who give him orders, only he doesn’t give them that look until their backs are turned or maybe even after they’ve gone. I didn’t see this guy often enough to see him look at Carmen that way, but…” She glanced down at the back of the couch. “I didn’t like him much, but I never told Carmen. He scared me.”

  Ellen went to Mara and wrapped her arm around her shoulders, the couch back between them. “Why are you asking these questions? What does all this have to do with Bart and demons?”

  Angie sighed and looked at Sebastian.

  He held up the bag. “We discovered Carmen, in a stand of trees at the edge of the complex. She’d summoned the very demon we think is at the heart of this.”

  “Carmen?” Ellen said. “No, that doesn’t make sense. She’s just—” Ellen pressed her lips together, cutting off whatever she’d been about to say. “She’s not a bad person. Bart is the one who called the demons before. I know he is.”

  “He’s been summoning demons,” Sebastian confirmed. “But he’s not the only one. And might have had some help learning how.”

  Angie watched Mara closely during this reveal. The girl’s eyes widened, her hands clenched tight into the worn material of the couch back. Her already pale skin grew paler. She looked at her mother but quickly away before making eye contact with her.

  “Did you know?” Angie asked her quietly.

  “No.” Mara shook her head hard. “No. Not that she did…that.”

  “But?” Angie pushed as gently as possible.

  Mara swallowed hard. “She’s… I got the books on demons when Carmen took me to this library in the Bronx. And she said my…Bart wouldn’t know about the books I checked out, that she’d keep this visit a secret. She knew the librarian pretty well. I just assumed it was near where she grew up or something. She told me she grew up in the Bronx.”

  Angie doubted much of what Carmen had told Mara was true, but the library in the Bronx was a detail she filed away. The hunters would have to visit that library—it held books that shouldn’t be checked out by ordinary humans.

  “Carmen didn’t say anything about demons,” Mara went on, “but she suggested the exact isle I needed to find those books. I thought it was coincidence. The shelf across from the demon books had graphic novels and YA books.”

  Angie almost groaned aloud. Of course they put the YA books right next to the demon summoning books. Of course they did.

  Recruiting children. Vulnerable teenagers! Despicable.

  “You didn’t tell Carmen what kind of books you were looking for?” Sebastian asked.

  His tone was also very gentle and there was a soothing quality to it that made even Angie want to relax and tell him everything. Not a feeling of being manipulated into revealing something. It was a sense of trust that you could say anything to him and he’d keep the secret, not judge you, make everything safe again.

  That will of his was one powerful tool.

  Mara shook her head. “No. I just told her I found something in the basement and wanted to look some stuff up.”

  “She knew what Grant was doing in the basement,” Angie said, also keeping her tone gentle. “We think…” She glanced at Sebastian. “Based on what she said, we think she’s the one who gave Grant the idea to summon a demon. Or at least helped him do it.”

  “No,” Ellen said. “No. She couldn’t have. She didn’t come to work for us until after we were married for a year. She wasn’t there at the beginning. And Bart only married me to get a baby to sacrifice to his demon. He was already messing with all that stuff before Carmen.”

  “They could have been working together before she came into the house,” Angie pointed out. “There’s no reason to think they didn’t know each other before she started working for you.”

  “But I hired her. I’m the one who did the interviews. There were… I don’t remember for sure, five or six applicants sent over from an agency. I could have chosen any of them.”

  “There are…tricks that someone versed in summoning demons could use,” Angie said, thinking of the will Carmen had to have been dealing with a demon all these years.

  “Carmen was my friend,” Mara said, her voice so quiet she was hard to hear. “She tried to have me killed?”

  “No,” Angie said quickly. “She was adamant about that. She claimed she protected you.”

  “She helped me when I ran away,” Ellen said, looking as pale as her daughter now. “I trusted her. When I let Bart…take custody of Mara, I trusted Carmen to take care of her.”

  “She did,” Mara said. “She looked after me.”

  Holding the bag at its base, Sebastian let the top part of it open and fall back enough to reveal some of the lantern. “Have you seen this before?” he asked Mara.

  She blinked a few times at the seeming change of subject and looked closer at the lantern. “That was in the basement. On the altar Bart used to summon the demon. The same picture I found in the book I got from the library.” She frowned deeper. “Can’t remember…”

  “It wasn’t in the picture,” Angie said. “It was the only thing not the same as that picture.”

  “What does that mean?” Mara asked.

  “Carmen was using this tonight,” Sebastian said. “When she summoned a demon. It’s for allowing a demon to move into a human host without having to sacrifice their power.”

  “Huh?” Mara said.

  “It’s a dangerous object,” Sebastian said. “And it’s very hard to come by.”

  “Did Carmen take it from Bart?”

  “Best we can tell,” Angie said, “Carmen’s been using it for a long time. She may have allowed Grant to use it. Or used it against him. We’re not sure.”

  “None of this makes sense,” Mara said.

  “Demon summonings usually don’t,” Sebastian said.

  Angie had been thinking it all made better sense now. But for a girl who was just learning the person she’d been relying on for years was at the heart of the problem, this was a tangled mess.

  “Carmen knows where you are,” Sebastian said. “She was here summoning her dem
on. That’s not a coincidence.”

  “She might have found out it was good for that kind of thing, the way I did,” Ellen said. “It might be a coincidence.”

  “She has plans to train Mara,” Angie said, “into the demon world, to have Mara take over for her in some sort of…revenge life.” She shrugged, not entirely sure what to call it since Carmen hadn’t seen fit to outline her nefarious plans for them. “She wasn’t here on accident.”

  “She’s coming for Mara?” Ellen’s arm tightened on her daughter.

  “Not to kill her,” Angie said quickly. “But… Her intentions don’t seem entirely good either.”

  “I don’t want to be stuck with demons all the time,” Mara said. “I don’t want revenge on anyone. I just want to be normal and have my mom back.”

  “You’ve got me back already,” Ellen said gently. “I’m not going anywhere now.”

  “I’m glad you’re not interested in continuing Carmen’s quest, whatever it is,” Angie said.

  “But that doesn’t mean she won’t keep trying to convert you to her thinking,” Sebastian added.

  “Or do something bad if she can’t,” Angie felt compelled to say. Mostly for Ellen’s sake. Ellen needed to know her daughter was in as much danger from Carmen as Grant. Maybe more.

  “Why is all this happening?” Mara said, leaning into her mother. “Why me?”

  Ellen pressed her lips together, not answering. No one answered for a long moment. And in the silence, Angie considered…

  “Mara,” she said, waiting for the girl to meet her gaze. “I’ve told you I’m a touch psychic.”

  Mara nodded.

  “I have a suspicion, a reason why Carmen has been trying to pull you into her plan. But I need to touch you and read you to confirm that. Touching your hand would be enough. May I have your permission?”

  “What if I don’t want to know?” Mara asked.

  “Then I’ll stay where I am. The choice is entirely yours.”

  Mara held her gaze. “Lots of people have been pretending I can trust them. And lots of people have lied.”

  “I know. And I’ll understand if you refuse.”

  “How do I know you’ll tell me the truth?”

  “You don’t. I’ve tried to be as honest with you as possible to this point. But you don’t have any reason to trust me, and I understand if you’re suspicious now. Don’t worry. If you don’t allow me to read you, I won’t and we’ll still keep you safe.” Angie held her hands out to her sides, palms up. “The only difference my reading you will make is that it might—might—answer your question. Why you?”

  Mara looked to her mother and Ellen held her gaze for a long long moment. The resemblance between the two was so obvious in that moment, it nearly broke Angie’s heart.

  To help in her decision, Angie said, “If it makes you feel better, you can touch me. That works too. I’ll hold my hand out and you can just touch the center of my palm. Or the back of my hand even, if that feels safer.”

  “Mom?” Mara said quietly, her voice quavering. She sounded very young.

  Angie’s chest contracted. Mara was very young. Too young to have to deal with all this. Angie understood the world, and life, wasn’t fair. Things happened. Sometimes bad things happened to wonderful people. To children. But it hurt her soul every time she encountered that injustice.

  “Can I stay close to her?” Ellen asked without looking away from Mara.

  “Of course,” Angie said. “It’s best if you’re not touching her. I don’t want to accidentally pick up anything from you. But you can stay right beside her, close enough to pull her back if you feel she’s unsafe.”

  “An explanation might help,” Ellen said. “At least it will stop you thinking something is wrong with you. Nothing is wrong with you. Nothing at all. And this could help you understand that.”

  They’d obviously had that conversation before. Oh, Mara.

  Another long moment passed as Mara stared at her mother. Then she nodded, very faintly. She met Angie’s gaze, her bottom lip trembling slightly. “I’ll touch the back of your hand. That will work, right?”

  “Should do just fine,” Angie said, stretching her arm out. She let her eyes droop close to closed so she could focus on opening her psychic sense, allowing her skin to accept that open sense of the hidden around her.

  She felt more than heard Mara approach, a slight shifting in the air currents as the girl and her mother neared. Angie kept perfectly still—years of practice at her altar helped—and kept her gaze unfocused and half closed. She tried to look innocuous and harmless, but she didn’t have the same knack for it that Sebastian did. She just hoped she looked harmless enough for Mara to take that final step.

  A moment passed. Two. And then Angie felt the slight brush of soft fingers against the back of her hand.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  At first, Angie sensed nothing. Nothing at all. Which was a strange enough sensation she found it pulling her concentration.

  And then…

  The butterfly brush of Mara’s burgeoning powers lapped against her skin like warm water, a gentle kiss of heat, accompanied by the soft flavor of citrus and vanilla and electricity. The taste of it surprised Angie. She didn’t often experience taste in her visions. She’d have to do some research, but she suspected that added element would help her determine the type of magic growing in Mara.

  Because there was, without a doubt now, magic there.

  She smiled a little as she let the magic flow over her skin, as she studied it. Good, good magic. Sparkling and bright and, at the moment, so pure and clean. Like spring water, warmed in the sun’s heat. Crystalline and fresh. The sensation of new magic was always a delight to encounter—at least this kind of magic. And Angie allowed herself the moment of hope and peace that came with acknowledging that new little spark as it grew into this world.

  She was still smiling when she opened her eyes and met Mara’s gaze.

  “Well,” she said, to Mara’s raised brows, “you will need some training soon.”

  Mara frowned and looked between Angie and her mother. “Huh?”

  “It seems you’re coming into some magic of your own,” Angie said. “It feels lovely. I’ll need to research to determine what these first hints tell me about what you could be capable of. But, it looks like you’re a fellow witch.”

  “Witch?” Mara’s eyes widened.

  “Aren’t they evil?” Ellen said, reaching out to pull Mara close.

  Angie quickly dropped her arm so she and Mara were no longer touching. Mara took a moment longer to let her arm drop back to her side.

  “I’m a witch,” Angie reminded quietly. “And no, they aren’t any more good or evil than any other human being. The magic just is. Some witches don’t even have magic. They’re just…theologically inclined toward the pagan philosophies.” When Ellen’s frown deepened, Angie said, “It’s their religion. They align with witchy philosophies but don’t necessarily have any innate powers. Then there are those of us with actual magic. Like me.”

  “What kind of magic?” Mara asked.

  “Mine or yours?”

  “Yours.”

  Her curiosity had her leaning in a little closer to Angie instead of leaning away. That was a good sign.

  “Beyond the touch psychic senses, I can create spells—using words and gestures—that…make things happen. That part takes a lot of study and practice.” She always felt the need to emphasize that to a possible new initiate. Magic wasn’t something you just started throwing around one day. It was a muscle that needed training or injuries occurred. Sometimes injuries occurred during the training. But if you had a good mentor, those were minor compared to what they could have been.

  “What kind of things?” Mara asked.

  Angie decided to show her a small spell, something obvious but harmless. She murmured the spell under her breath, letting the words flow in a practiced cadence as she twisted her fingers together in a brief pattern. She chanted
the spell twice through, then opened her hand. A small sparkle of colorful light, shaped like a butterfly, appeared on the center of her palm.

  Mara’s eyes widened and she let out a sigh.

  Angie held the illusion for a few moments, then lifted her hand and tossed it into the air. The light sparkling butterfly flitted around her head a few circles before landing back into Angie’s palm. She flexed her fingers and the sparkles dissolved, the colorful illusion winking out.

  “That’s a small illusion spell,” Angie said. “One of the first things a witch with my skills will practice because its harmless but visible. You know if you get it right or wrong pretty quickly.”

  “So, like a magic trick at a show?” Ellen said.

  “Not quite. My illusions aren’t tricks of light and shadow and some clever props. I don’t pull rabbits out of hats.” She shrugged. “Well, technically, I could, but the rabbit wouldn’t have already been in the hat.”

  Ellen raised her brows, her look skeptical. “What else can you do? Besides harmless illusions.”

  “Less harmless things,” she said, purposely vague. “Things I won’t do here because they’re dangerous, and I don’t want anyone hurt. Another specific skill is my ability to scry for someone’s location. That’s how we found Mara here.” She focused on Mara. “The kind of magic, how it manifests, what you can do with it, that will come out in training. If you choose to get that training. I recommend it, because without it, some witches get themselves into trouble. Witch magic is all spells and gestures and intentions. It can require a safe space and a lot of time. Sometimes, it requires potions and props. Those are some of the variations. But it’s a natural part of you, like your height. Your kind of magic is the sort that comes on at puberty, so it may or may not grow and strengthen. The stronger it gets, though, the more you’ll need to train it to stay safe.”

  “What could happen if she doesn’t?” Ellen said.

  “That will depend on what her base skills are and how strong the magic is.”

  “Can you train me?” Mara asked.

  “No,” Angie said. “You’ll need a much more experienced mentor than I could be to you now. But if you’re interested, I can point you toward some safe people, witches you can trust to have your best interests at heart.”