by D. Fischer
She looks around suspiciously. We’re still the only two in the garden. “What are you talking about?”
“I turn into a wolf.” My voice sounds so small. It’s been a long time since I felt that way too, and the urge to run from it and my problems is strong. “Sara saw it – what I become – last night. Could this be because of my father? Because mixing witch and shaman blood made… me?”
“This isn’t funny,” she hisses, her face reddening as she tilts forward. “Making light of your father and my love for him isn’t funny. I raised you better than that.”
“I’m not trying to be funny!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jinx Whitethorn
My mother leads me to her room within the coven’s warmer, if not dustier interior. Several curious glances are thrown our way as we both tried to mask our inner emotions in front of the coven’s members to no avail. A bomb of information can’t be dropped like we had done, only to pretend to be normal in front of the oblivious others. I’m sure we radiate our anxiety through the living spaces and hallways.
Gingerly opening her bedroom door, she flips on the light. Shutting the door is done with a murmured spell and a faint click to the latch that feels more like a snap of finality than a means to privacy.
Her bedroom is mostly occupied by floor to ceiling, wall to wall bookshelves. I loved all the literature as a child but was never allowed to touch them. Most are old and fraying. “These are not for children,” she would tell me behind a finger wag.
Leaving me by the door, she reaches the far end of a bookshelf to the left of her bed, hikes up her skirt, and snatches a worn leather book from the bottom of the shelf. She dusts it off and gestures for me to sit on the quilt-covered bed. Her quilt is identical to mine, having been made to match, per my request, for my sixth birthday. I wanted to be just like my mom when I was young and ignorant. Now, I just want to be anywhere but in the bedroom where my past’s dilemmas and shortcomings linger.
Dutifully, I sit.
“This was your father’s.” The scent of her lavender lotion washes over me when she hands me the book with dirty fingers. Outside with the breeze and the herbs, I couldn’t smell the lotion she applies every morning. Inside, though it’s faint, it stirs powerful childhood memories.
I take the book from her, run my fingertips over the cracked spine, and then open it. The glue, which makes the binding, creaks and crackles. The first thing I see is my father’s picture tucked between the cover and the first page sprawling with handwritten notes and tribal doodles. Most of it is intelligible, but I don’t bother trying to read it.
I pick up the picture, my hand trembling, and peer at my father’s face – my face. His features are more pronounced for the typical Native American with a squarer jaw and a wider set of eyes, and his skin is a darker shade than my own. His hair is long, parted down the middle, and tied to the nape of his neck. Behind him are rows of pine trees, all of which accent his colorful, traditional Native American garb. He’s handsome, but not at all what I pictured. In my defense, my assumptions were colored by his absence.
“This was taken at one of their gatherings,” my mother says, sitting next to me. “Just before I met him.”
She tucks a stray hair behind my ear. “Every time I look at you, I see him. Even in your personality. You’ve never been anything like me. Well,” she corrects, giggling softly as mothers do. “Except for your shapely calves. We have excellent calves.”
I smirk at this. My mother may be a heavier woman, but she’s always had legs made of steel. Any ounce of weight she puts on goes straight to her middle, a fact that makes her more motherly in my mind. More comforting. Her hugs wouldn’t be the same without a little extra around the hips.
Placing the picture next to my thigh, I leaf past the first page with a gentle touch.
“This was his book. Notes, recipes, family trees passed down through the generations of shaman. Powerful shaman who kept excellent records of the tribe’s linages.”
I search her face and then the pages of the book when I find nothing there but adoration for the man who once owned it. The way she said recipes makes me think it’s deeper than a grandma’s secret cookies.
“So he was a witch?”
“Oh no.” She shakes her head, which in turn jiggles the springs in the mattress. “They use an entirely different sort of magic. We witches pull our magic from the earth – from the very things we can grow ourselves. We cannot develop something from nothing. It is elemental.”
I bob my head and twitch my nose.
“I never got the chance to study his own magic, but from what your father had told me, shamans deal more with the spirit, be it living or dead, human or animals.”
I’m beginning to suspect that my mother and father had met quite a bit in secret. I frown over that reason and for the question that pops in my head. “Like the spirits in the Death Realm?”
“I don’t believe so. The way he made it sound . . .” She twists her lips to find the right wording. “Spirits linger. They never truly die. If you happened to be in my room alone, you’d still feel my spirit inside this space. If I were to die, you’d still feel my spirit in this space. It is why tribes will burn the belongings of their dead so that the spirit does not cling to this life and can move properly – fully – to the next.”
“What sort of things did my father do with the spirits?”
“I never actually saw him use his magics, but . . .” She grins, casting a faraway look to the wall. “I once saw him call a bird. The crow swooped down from the tree branch and settled on his perched finger. At the time, he brushed it off as a coincidence, and I was so lovesick I believed the poorly constructed lie. As an adult, I think he was trying to protect me. Command over the spirits is a sacred business. It shouldn’t be messed with without proper training.”
I imagine not, I mutter to myself. If I’m half-witch and half shaman, then it explains where my own creation went wrong. These are two different kinds of magic here. Entirely different. One deals with echoes of life while the other manipulates the life already present.
And I became something in between.
I voice this aloud, and my mother snaps her gaze to me.
“You’re suggesting you’re a skinwalker, Jinx. A skinwalker. A folklore tale.”
I laugh with very little humor. “And witches? Shifters? Vampires? All three roam the Earth Realm, and they’re supposed to be legends and fantasies. Yet, here we are!”
She looks away and murmurs, “You’re a witch. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
I glare at the back of her head. “Why is it so hard to accept that I’m different?”
“Because . . .” she says. Her hands grip a wrinkle in the quilt. “Being different isn’t good inside a witches’ coven, Jinx. When they found out I fell in love with a shaman . . .” She shakes her head. “If he hadn’t died shortly after, I probably would have been banished.”
“Would that have been such a bad thing?” I whisper. “You would have been with the man you loved. I may have grown up with a father who could guide me through what I am.”
“A banished witch isn’t a good thing, Jinx,” she repeats firmly. You may enjoy your freedom, but most of us would rather die than not be surrounded by our sisters.”
“And my father? What did his tribe say?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if they ever knew before he died.”
“In the car crash?” I quirk a brow. She nods and stands abruptly. I grip the book tighter to keep it from falling off my lap.
Walking to her nightstand, she pulls open the drawer and plucks out an object from its depths. It’s a small carving of a wolf attached to a string, and as my mother grips the string, the small wolf dangles.
“A necklace?”
“We found out I was pregnant the night the coven discovered us. He asked me to give this to you once you were born, but I couldn’t –” she pauses, and silver lines her weathered eyes. “I couldn’t part with i
t. Not yet.”
At her gesture, I hold out my hand, and she settles the necklace into my palm.
“It’s carved from a wolf’s bone.”
“Does it do anything?” I ask, running my thumb over it.
“Not that I’m aware.” I look to her when she pauses for a bit too long. “He’d want you to wear it as he had.”
She gestures to the picture, and I follow. Sure enough, nestled against his chest is the wolf necklace.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jinx Whitethorn
“That’s all she said?” Sara asks, navigating the car around the tight corner of a historically old road. After my conversation with my mom, Sara had needed to drive me home before she went to work. She had barged into my mother’s room assuming I was in need of rescuing, but once she saw I wasn’t in any distress like we usually are around our mothers, she blushed a bright shade of red and quickly said, “If I want a ride home, we have to leave now.”
“Yes,” I huff, looking out of the car passenger window. The necklace feels heavy against my pocket, but I refrain from touching it and the book between my thighs.
“So,” she drawls, “you’re a mixed-blood, an actual, confirmed skinwalker, and she had nothing more to say? Not even concerning the men who are after you?”
I hadn’t brought it up to my mother again that people were after me. Nor did I convince her I’m not a witch but a skinwalker. Brushing up against old memories like that had nearly broken my mother’s heart, and I didn’t want to stress her any more than what I had already demanded.
“No,” I answer mildly.
“Do you think anyone found the bodies?” she asks quietly, turning down the radio to a soft hum. “I hadn’t seen any reports on it.”
“Probably,” I huff, facing forward.
Silence fills the car, and my thoughts keep returning to my conversation with my mother. The conversation replays in my head over and over again, banishing any possible questions I could ask her at a later time about the man who helped create me. It sours the bright mood of the interior of her car – pink and orange seat covers and the Hawaiian trinket dangling from her rear-view mirror. She’s never been to a tropical place, but Sara dreams of it.
“Jinx, I don’t want you to be on your own. If there are people after you, this is a dangerous time for you. You shouldn’t be alone. You don’t even know how to control this –” she stops abruptly and waves her hand at my body. She doesn’t finish, but I know what she’s trying to say. I’m deadly. Dangerous. A threat to the living.
Pulling the hair tie from my wrist, I quickly braid back my hair and let the weave fall over my shoulder. The silence fills the car while I do so, Sara waiting for my reply. “I’ve taken care of myself before, Sara. I can do it again.”
“Kill people, you mean?” She turns another corner.
“Isn’t that what they want to do to me?” I watch her bite her top lip nervously. “I doubt they’re after me for a little chat.”
In reality, though, it affects me more than I’m letting on. I’ve ended lives. I’ve ended lives, and I have no idea how to control how I ended their lives. I may not be murdering innocent people strolling down the street, but even cruel people are somebody’s somebody.
“They’re probably after you because they know who you are – what you are.”
“I’ve thought about that too,” I whisper. “But I have nothing to go on. No way to find who is sending these people nor why. Besides, that’s a problem for another time.”
“Another time?” she barks. “What problem could be more pressing than your life?”
I clasp my hands together and fold them in my lap. “Finding a new place to live.” Her head whips to me, and the car swerves. “I can’t stay at the bar. It’s owned by shifters, and shifters are who are after me. I’m not saying all shifters are after me, but a group of them are. They have the same markings on their neck. Why would I live in a place where whoever they are knows where I live?”
“Where will you go?” she whispers.
I shrug. “That’s my most pressing problem, isn’t it?” It wasn’t a question. People may be after me, want me dead, but as of right now, I’m homeless. I can’t go back to the coven – not with the lies that linger in the halls. Not with the witches knowing with certainty that I’m wholly different from them, practically not a witch at all. My mother will be forced to share our conversation because something like this would never be kept from a coven. It’s against their ways to keep someone other than a witch inside their home. And I can’t live above the bar. If whoever sent those shifters comes looking for their dead friends, they’ll find me. I’d be a sitting duck, and though I do seemingly have a bit of magic on my side, I can’t control it, nor do I believe I’d be able to protect myself against more of them. Two is the most I’ve fought off so far, and they’re bound to send more to acquire their goal – whatever their goal is.
Sara pulls up to the side of the road, the tire bumping against the curb, and puts the car in park. She pivots to me. “At least let me stay with you for a few days. Let me help you find a new place to live.” She grabs my hand. “Let me protect you.”
I look back into her pleading eyes. “You can’t help me, Sara. You saw the look on Greta’s face. The woman would have uttered the words to rally my banishment if I hadn’t left as quickly as I did.” She hadn’t known what my mother and I were talking about, but she suspected it covers what makes me a weakling in her mind. I had seen it on her sneeringly suspicious expression. It’s only a matter of time before she unearths the truth.
Sara’s mother’s request pops back into my head. This time, it has a whole new meaning to it than it had before. I understand now. Jamie knows I’m different. She probably suspects what I am. She and my mother are best friends, and if they’re anything like Sara and me, they don’t keep secrets. Jamie has to know what I am, probably more so than my mother’s attempts to deny it.
“I won’t drag you into this mess. I won’t let you be a part of it.”
She sniffles, true tears lining her eyes. “At least call me a few times a day. Check in with me. Let me know how you are, where you move to, and if you find out any more information about those shifters.”
I squeeze her hand. “I will. I promise.”
Letting go of her fingers feels like it has a double meaning. Like I’m leaving her behind, not because I want to but because I’m not safe to be around. She can’t help me. She can’t console me. She can’t walk me through this path I have to travel. Not without getting hurt in the process.
My chest aches. I push the car door open with more force than necessary and step out into the crisp air. The gentle autumn breeze has a bite to it, and it creeps over my bare arms and raises goosebumps along my skin.
Giving her a soothing, small smile, I shut the car door and turn my back on my past to face the future. Be Deviled’s blue door reflects the setting sun back at me against its shiny painted surface, and the windows glisten with a fresh clean.
Deep breaths, Jinx. Deep breaths.
My mind works at a million miles a minute, wondering if I’m making the right choice, wondering if the dead men are still in the alley. Doubtful since trash comes every day in this part of town. But neither I nor Sara has heard any news of two dead men, and this place would have been taped off if that was the case. Police would be swarming the area.
Suspiciously, I look both this way and that. Did other shifters stumble across the bodies? Dispose of them so the humans wouldn’t discover what they are? I’ve heard of shifters going to such lengths to keep the secrets a secret. So do witches. Vampires have it lucky. All they have to do is die, and they’ll become nothing but ash in the wind.
I’m betting on shifters. It would have traveled down the witch’s rumor mill by now, and we would have been told about it while at the Lotus Coven.
What if . . . What if whoever the two men belong to came along and dragged the bodies away? What if they’re still here?
; The goosebumps harden for a whole different reason as I grasp the handle on the bar’s door. I suck in a breath for courage and pull it open. It’s dark inside, which isn’t unusual for this time of day at this time of the week. I step in, let go of the door, and a whoosh of air tickles the back of my neck before it latches. I hear the grind of rubber against cement as Sara’s car pulls away, and then . . . silence.
Without looking around, I briskly march to the steps in blinding darkness while rubbing the chill from my arms. It’s wholly black in here, but I can feel the hulking presence of the bar counter as I pass. It disrupts the soft hum of the ice maker. My foot stumbles on the first step. I curse, bending to grab my toe. When I right myself, a hand clamps around my mouth, another around my waist, and a hard body presses close behind me.
The spicy scent of the male swirls around me, and I let out a scream inside his palm. Heart hammering, I grab his wrist, twisting his thumb, and now, somewhat free, I push him into what I hope is the wall. He thumps against it, and I move further away.
I search wildly to get my bearings, but with the total darkness, I don’t even know which direction I’m facing anymore.
I still can’t see. Damn it, I can’t see. I can only hear as he growls. The sound rakes nails down my spine. Another set of hands grab my upper arm. Raising my elbow, I whirl and strike the next attacker. I aim high, and it connects with a face.
They’ve found me. The group of branded men have found me, and by the number of scuffles of hasty shoes, there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. My stomach swirls with fear as I whirl around, arms searching for a wall to back up against. The back of my palm slaps against someone else's skin, and I jump as the green glowing eyes of shifters surround me. The glow reflects off the objects in the room – the bottles of liquor, the polished bar top, the clean tables.
Arms circle my neck, choking, and I’m lifted from the ground. I claw at the arms, dig in my nails and scent blood. I kick my feet frantically, heels hitting shins and knees, but my attacker is a solid, living wall.
