“Reggie was worried about you, so she called me,” Mom said softly.
“Worried about me? Why?”
“Because she said you’ve been looking at that book for a really long time, and it was starting to scare her.”
“That’s silly. I was just looking it over before we opened,” I said.
“Kinsley, sweetie, it’s three in the afternoon.”
“What? It can’t be,” I said. “Why wouldn’t Reggie come back here and say something. That doesn’t even make any sense,” I said and shook my head like I could clear the fog in my brain.
“It may not make sense, but it’s the truth,” Mom said. “Look at the clock.”
I shook the mouse on my computer to wake it up. Sure enough, the little digital clock in the corner said it was three in the afternoon. I’d been sitting there just staring at the book for hours.
“Hand it over,” Mom said.
I felt the book tug at me. It didn’t want to be handed to my mom, but I knew that meant I had to do it.
“Thank you,” she said as I placed the book in her hand. “Whoa. This thing is intense.”
She hadn’t even opened it. A troubled look came over her face. She understood the book just from touching it. Not the words that were inside, but what it was doing to me. I could see the recognition.
“What?” I asked.
“I feel like I should offer to take this thing off your hands, but I don’t know if that’s to protect you or if the book is trying to trap me. Besides, you’re the most powerful witch I know. As much as I don’t want to leave it with you, I know that’s the safest thing to do.”
“Well, I know there’s got to be something we can do to lessen its effects on me. Like you said, I’m supposed to be the most powerful witch in the world. I shouldn’t be letting my life be ruled by a little book.”
“We should bind it,” Mom said. “I don’t think it’s witch magic in this thing, but that doesn’t mean we can’t bind it.”
“If it was Voodoo magic, we probably couldn’t,” I said. “I think it’s…”
“Let’s give it a try anyway,” Mom said. “If it doesn’t work, then we can try something else.”
We wrapped the book in a black ribbon and lit some white candles. Mom and I chanted that the book was bound and had no power over our Coven. We kept chanting until the words began to sound foreign and strange. Until they ran together. That’s how we knew we’d said it enough. It was like a trance we put ourselves in.
When she left, I felt like it might have actually worked. While we might not have power over the dark magic in the book, we could have successfully bound ourselves against it.
“You alright now?” Reggie asked as I emerged from my office. “You were starting to spook me. I went back there several times, and even though I stood right in front of you, it was like you couldn’t hear me.”
“I’m sorry about that,” I said.
“No reason to be sorry. It’s not your fault. You did get me worried, though.”
My stomach growled. “I guess I missed lunch,” I said.
“There’s a burger and chips in a container in the mini-fridge in the back. I got your lunch when I had mine delivered. You’ll probably have to reheat it.”
“Thank you so much,” I said. “Sorry I left you out here alone all day.”
“I managed,” Reggie said with a shrug. “I do have a couple of messages for you. Witches who want to know about certain ingredients. It was interesting trying to watch them talk their way around the fact that it was real magic when they realized the veil wasn’t working on me. Anyway, I told them you’d call them.”
“I will do that right after I eat,” I said.
The rest of the day was uneventful. I called the witches who had questions and then dropped the herbs they wanted off at their houses after Reggie and I closed up the shop.
I arrived back at Hangman’s House about the same time as Thorn. He had all of the takeout food he promised plus Tiramisu for dessert.
Our evening together was pleasant but also uneventful. We watched a couple of movies together until I got too tired to keep my eyes open. I didn’t mention the book to Thorn because even though Meri didn’t find what he was looking for during his research, I was convinced the binding would work.
I was so confident that I put the ribbon-wrapped book in the nightstand when I went to bed. I no longer felt it pulling at me, so that felt like the safest place to keep it. I didn’t want anyone accidentally picking it up. Thorn stayed in the guest room again, and I didn’t know what kind of effect it would have on a regular person. I didn’t want to find out.
So, it was a bit of a shock when I woke up standing in the clearing where I found Richard’s body. I let out a heavy sigh as I took in my surroundings. The book had tricked me.
I didn’t get my bearings before I started the trek back to the road. At first, I went the exact opposite direction.
But, if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have found the knife on the ground. I nearly stepped on it. It would have cut my foot if I hadn’t seen the glossy black handle shine in the moonlight.
I knew what it was before I even bent down to pick it up. The ruby jewel at the top of the hilt didn’t reflect any light at all. It was unusual, to say the least, but it also told me that the gem contained something dark. Something evil.
While I wanted to throw it down and run, I knew I couldn’t. The knife had kept the deputies from finding it so that I would. I sensed it. The dried blood on the blade told me it was the murder weapon.
Despite wanting to get rid of the knife, I carried it back with me. I passed over the place where I’d seen Richard’s body, and where he’d lain the day before was one single crushed rose.
It reminded me of when people placed flowers at the scene where someone had passed. Like at the scene of a car accident. Only Richard seemed to have just one person to leave such a tribute.
Finding the flower meant I wasn’t surprised to also find Esadora’s car on the dirt road when I emerged from the forest. What I didn’t expect was to see her slumped over at the wheel.
At first, I’d thought she was dead, but when I went to open the driver’s side door, she sprang to life. Tears had utterly destroyed her makeup. She’d cried so hard that she’d fallen asleep in her car. I had no idea how long she’d been out there.
“Kinsley Skeenbauer?” she asked as she wiped under her eyes with the back of her hand. It further smeared her melted mascara across her face. “What are you doing out here?”
“Sleepwalking,” I said. It sounded ridiculous, but what else could I say? If I’d tried to lie and say that I was somehow investigating Richard’s death in the middle of the night, it would have sounded even stupider.
“All the way out here?” she asked.
“Yeah. I don’t know if I should be horrified or impressed with myself,” I said.
“Well, I’m sure you had a bit of help. It’s not like we’re completely subject to the laws of physics,” Esadora said.
“Yeah, you’re right about that, but now I’m miles from home,” I said. “I don’t want to openly use magic to get home. It will take me an entire day or more to get out to the highway.”
“Well, I guess you lucked out that I’m here,” she said. “I’m not just going to leave you out at the side of the road.”
“You sure?” I asked.
“Leave the head of the most powerful Coven I know of out in the middle of the woods alone? Are you crazy?” she said with a chuckle. “I’d give you my car and walk home myself if you asked. The last thing I want to do is tick off the Skeenbauers. But seriously, I’d offer just about anyone stranded out here a ride.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll take you up on that.”
I walked around and slid into the passenger seat of Esadora’s car. As soon as I got in and shut the door I smelled clove cigarettes. The scent was overpowering, and I felt my stomach lurch.
She must have seen me turn green. “Sorry about
that. Is it the clove?” Esadora asked.
I nodded my head and quickly rolled down the window.
“Most people don’t like the smoke smell. I can’t get enough of it, but I guess I’m the weirdest of the weird.”
A second later, she pulled a small metal spray bottle out of her center console storage. She spritzed it into the air, and the car was filled with the scent of fresh peppermint. It instantly calmed my rebelling stomach.
“That better?” she asked.
“Much. Thank you,” I said. “I don’t normally mind clove. I wouldn’t say clove cigarettes are my favorite thing, but I’ve never had them bother me like that.”
“It’s the baby,” she said with a smile. “I’ve heard being knocked up can change your senses dramatically.”
“I didn’t tell you I was pregnant.”
“I’m a witch too, honey. Not like you can hide that kind of thing from us. I could feel the power coming off that little one from a mile away probably. Well, maybe not that far, but I can definitely feel it from here.”
“Oh,” I said. “I guess I won’t have to make any kind of formal announcement, then.”
“Nope. That little guy is like a shiny magical beacon,” she said. “So, you live at Hangman’s House, right? I know where that is. We used to run up and knock on the door when I was a kid. Okay, not exactly. We used to dare each other to do it, but nobody ever would. We were all too afraid of your family.”
“That’s where I’m going,” I said.
“I’ll have you there in a jiffy.”
We made it most of the way back to my house in silence. We’d actually just turned into Coventry when Esadora said something else.
“I’m sorry about that night outside the bar,” Esadora said. “The night Richard caused the car accident.”
“It’s water under the bridge now,” I said. “It’s not like it was your fault.”
“I guess in a way, it kind of was. I never should have gone to the bar to meet him. We’d broken up, and I should have left it that way. I don’t know why I was always going back to him. He was never going to change. My mother was always telling me I could do better.”
“Love makes us do strange things,” I said.
“Yeah, I get that, but I don’t know that I ever really loved Richard.”
“You didn’t?”
“I believe that I thought I did, but how could I have? He didn’t love himself. I don’t care what people say; you can’t love someone that doesn’t love themselves. That man was so full of self-hatred, it was… It was sad.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to her. I was exhausted, and I mean, what do you say to something like that?
When I didn’t respond, Esadora continued talking. “He could be vile too.”
“Oh?”
“He cheated on me. He cheated on me all of the time, and most of the time I don’t think he even knew he’d done it.”
“He didn’t know he cheated on you?”
“If I didn’t go to the bar with him, he’d go home with women, but he wouldn’t remember it the next day. A few times, he brought women home to his house, but they’d leave before he woke up from his binge. I don’t think he remembered that either,” she said.
“How did you know?”
“Word travels fast in this town,” Esadora said. “Plus, sometimes I’d see him.”
“You’d see him with them?” I asked.
“Yeah, I didn’t trust him one bit. Sometimes I followed him.”
Her admission didn’t sit right with me. The more Esadora talked, the more obsessive she sounded. Their relationship was dysfunctional to the max. Richard was the town drunk, and she was an obsessed witch who stalked him.
“He’s lucky I never…” she said and then shut her mouth quickly.
“Never what?”
“Nothing. It’s not good to speak ill of the dead.”
By that time, we’d pulled onto my street. Esadora dropped me off in my driveway and then backed out like a bat out of hell. She was in a hurry to get away from me, and I couldn’t help but think it was because she’d almost admitted something she didn’t want me to know.
But what was it?
The next day was Richard’s funeral. I’d slipped back into the house after my sleepwalking excursion to the murder scene and hid the knife.
Meri was suspicious when I got back in bed, but I made sure to go to the bathroom and flush the toilet. I also washed my hands, so they were wet. When I got back in bed and woke him, I said I’d been in the bathroom. Which I had.
You could tell he didn’t exactly believe me, but Meri wasn’t sure how to challenge me on it. I figured I’d tell him eventually. I’d have to tell him about the knife, but I wanted to wait. If I told him right then, he might have gotten ahold of my parents or Amelda. They would have tried to take the book. They might have tried to destroy the book.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I’d decided that I had to protect the book. I wanted to keep it close. It meant so much to me.
It was fine…
“You’re going to the funeral?” Meri asked me after we ate breakfast. I put on a black dress that was much fancier than what I usually wore to the shop.
“I am,” I said.
“What about the shop?” Meri asked.
“Reggie proved she can run things for a couple of hours on her own. I’ll go in right after the funeral. I probably won’t even miss a couple of hours. How long is the funeral going to last anyway? Like an hour at most?”
“Whatever,” Meri said and sauntered out of the room.
My dress was a little snug around the waist, and I had a hard time zipping it up. Nothing a little magic couldn’t fix. It was an incredibly frivolous use of magic, but I didn’t have another appropriate dress.
Interestingly, I didn’t feel nearly as bad about it as I suspected I would. Since it was even a little fun, I swirled my fingers above my head and used my powers to style my hair into the perfect updo. I ran my hands over my face, and when I looked in the mirror I had a professional quality makeup job too.
When I was satisfied with my appearance, I went downstairs and slipped on my dress shoes. They had a three-inch heel on them, but it was a wide, chunky heel. I was thankful that they weren’t any harder for me to walk in than regular dress flats.
I half expected Meri to follow me out to the car and insist on going to the funeral with me, but he didn’t. I told myself that perhaps he was going to do more research on the book, but I was glad that I had it in my bag. I slid my hand into my purse and ran my fingers over the ribbon covering the book.
By the time I pulled my car into the cemetery, I’d completely unwound the ribbon. I’d done it entirely unconsciously, not even realizing I was tugging at the silk length until I’d freed the book entirely.
“Oh well. It’s not like it helped anyway,” I said to the empty car.
There were a few more people at that funeral than I expected. Most of them had glassy, bloodshot eyes and looked rumpled and disheveled. I assumed they were Richard’s drinking buddies.
Esadora’s car pulled in a few minutes after I arrived. She and another witch I’d seen around got out of her car and made their way over to the casket. They avoided Richard’s friends like they were trying to avoid stepping in something gross.
She and her friend went over to the minister whom Richard’s family must have hired to conduct the services. Though, I didn’t know if anyone else present was his family.
One person I didn’t expect to see at the funeral, but he showed up minutes after Esadora, was Al Peterson. He was the guy who wrecked his truck trying to avoid hitting Richard the night I went to the tavern to get Reggie.
He was dressed in a navy blue suit, but after being out in the heat for a while he took the jacket off and put it in his car. After that, he took a seat in the back row of metal chairs and waited for the services to begin.
A Coventry Sheriff’s Department cruiser pulled into the cemetery and par
ked off the gravel road on the grass. At first, I thought it might be Thorn, but when the person rolled the window down, I saw it was Lincoln.
Thorn had stayed over at my house the night before, but he’d been up and gone before I woke up. He’d left me a note with a little heart drawn on it that said he had to go, but he’d see me soon.
He made good on the promise when, a short time after the funeral started, he slid quietly into the chair next to mine. I’d thought I heard another car pull up, but I’d been listening to the minister talk and hadn’t turned to look.
What struck me was how white Thorn turned when a woman near the front of the small crowd turned around and offered him a soft smile and a brief wave. He looked stunned but returned the wave.
“Who is that?” I whispered into his ear.
“I’ll tell you as soon as it’s over,” Thorn said. “I’ll introduce you.”
As soon as the minister was done speaking and they began to lower the casket into the grave, the woman who had waved at Thorn stood up and headed in our direction. “It’s my sister,” he whispered to me.
“Oh, okay. But why would your sister make you turn as white as a sheet? I didn’t know things were bad between you guys.”
“It’s not,” he said. “I mean, we don’t talk much, but things aren’t bad between us. The problem is why she’s here.”
“Right,” I said. “Oh yeah. Why is your sister here?”
“I mean, I’d heard rumors… but I never…”
Thorn’s sister walked up before he could finish.
“Hello, Thorn,” she said and went in for a hug. “It’s good to see you. It’s been so long.”
“I can only assume if you’re here, then the things I’ve heard are true?” he said as soon as their hug broke.
“What’s true?” I asked, unable to hold back.
“Amelia, this is Kinsley,” Thorn said.
“Nice to meet you, Kinsley. I wish it was under better circumstances,” Amelia said and stuck out her hand for me to shake.
I took it and offered her a smile. “It’s nice to meet you too. I’m sorry to have blurted that out. It’s just that the suspense is killing me.”
Book of Dark Magic Page 6
