Serendipity: A Bayou Magic Novel

by Proby, Kristen

  We hurry to our vehicles. When Daphne and I are in the car and on the road, I glance over to see that she’s still as pale as a ghost, and her hands are fisted in her lap, her knuckles white.

  “Hey, talk to me, sweets.”

  “You don’t understand,” she whispers. “That house is the biggest source of terror in my life. It’s horrible, Jack. Not to mention, my father’s spirit is there. I don’t know if I can do this.”

  “Stop it.” I take her hand and pull it to my lips. “You’ve been told, several times now, that the key to stopping your father is in you. That you need to stand up for yourself. Confront the bully.”

  “Easy to say when it isn’t you he’s bullying.”

  “That’s true enough. You won’t be alone, though, Daph. You have about a hundred witches with you. You’re a badass woman. You’re not the shy, unsure young lady I met at that Samhain party all those years ago. You’re strong, and you’re fucking amazing. I have every confidence that you’re going to kick some serious ass today.”

  “Thanks.” She takes a deep breath and then lets it out slowly. “I needed that pep talk.”

  I love you, she says silently.

  I love you, too.

  We step out of the car and immediately hit a paranormal barrier. It’s like walking into a twenty-five-foot wall of water.

  Shields, Millie says in our heads. Keep them up.

  The others follow us and park anywhere there’s empty space, then immediately begin casting spells to push back the energy.

  The six of us flank Ruth, who stands before the house, her head tilted as she examines it with wide, blue eyes.

  The four women join hands.

  We watch as shadows stand on the roof, on the porch. As lights flicker inside without the help of electricity.

  They turned that off long ago.

  I hear moaning and maniacal laughter. Banging and scraping.

  All coming from the house.

  “How did I live there for so long?” Ruth wonders aloud.

  “Mama, you stay strong,” Brielle says. “Nothing in there can get to you while we’re here with you.”

  “I’m not worried about that, child,” Ruth says calmly. “I’m just thinking. I’ve known since I came to stay with Sophia that I would play a part in this. Why else would he have handicapped me for so many years? Made certain I couldn’t protect you?”

  I frown down at Ruth. “You think it was Horace’s doing? That your possession all those years was because of him?”

  “I know it was,” she says flatly. “I know it now, anyway. I’m stronger now. I have tools, especially after many long hours going through everything with Sophia. And I have my girls and their brave men. I know what I have to do. But in order to do it, I have to get inside this house.”

  “No.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “You’re out of your mind.”

  We’re all speaking at once, absolutely opposed to Ruth going inside.

  “Girls.” Ruth holds up her hand. “I need something from in there. Something that was my grandmother’s. I know precisely where it is.”

  “If it’s upstairs, you can’t get to it,” Millie says. “That staircase isn’t sound.”

  “It’s under the stairs by the back door,” Ruth replies. “I know you girls hid under there sometimes. I don’t know how I know, I just do. I hid a box of things under there for safekeeping. I need that box.”

  “It’s right inside the back door,” Brielle murmurs. “Maybe we can get around the house, sneak in the back way, and grab it really quickly.”

  “There’s no sneaking.” I gesture to the hundreds of shadows currently staring at us. “They’re watching every move we make. And I’ll wager a guess that Horace is in there watching, too.”

  “I need that box,” Ruth says again. “I’ll go in and get it myself.”

  “No.” Lucien lays his hand on Ruth’s shoulder. “We can’t let you go in there, Ruth.”

  He turns to the rest of us with a sigh.

  “We’ll get it,” he continues. “The six of us together. From here on out, we stand as one. We’re stronger together.”

  “We’re going to walk right through the back door,” Cash agrees. “No apologies. No fear. What’s in there belongs to Ruth, and she’ll have it.”

  “Now isn’t exactly the moment I’d choose to get all in your face about this,” Daphne says with a sigh, “but fine. We go. In and out. We don’t have much time before the eclipse begins.”

  “Come with me,” Miss Sophia says to Ruth, taking her hand and pulling her back with the others.

  Hand-in-hand, the six of us take off around the house.

  Ignore them, Lucien says in our heads. The spirits will try to scare us off. Ignore them.

  It’s a little hard to do when they’re pushing and grabbing, doing everything they can to terrorize us.

  I see Daddy, Daphne says. Even telepathically, her voice shakes. In the garden.

  I just saw him looking out of a window, Millie adds.

  More games, Lucien says.

  We push through the back door, taking it clear off the rusted hinges, and Brielle opens the small door that leads to the space under the stairs.

  “I see it,” she cries. Seconds later, she and Cash hurry out, each carrying a handle on the side of an old trunk.

  “Let me,” I say and take Brielle’s end. “It’s damn heavy.”

  “Let’s go!” Daphne yells, and we hurry back around the house. Ruth’s face lights up when she sees that we found her trunk.

  “Oh, thank you. Thank you so much.” She falls to her knees and opens the lid, shuffling through the treasures inside. As she and Sophia put their heads together, the six of us huddle up.

  It’s game time.

  The moon is waning, Lucien says. It’s time to put this plan into motion.

  He waves his arm and lights all the torches that have been set up around the front of the house. I’m surprised as I look around at how much has been done in just a few minutes.

  Witches work damn fast when they have to.

  The crowd of witches standing behind us is an army I’m proud to fight with and for. Some are literally dressed for battle with protective gear and helmets. Others are dressed casually, holding wands or crystals.

  More still look like the witches you’d see in the movies, wearing cloaks, standing before cauldrons with large crystal balls in the palms of their hands.

  No matter the skill they’re using, no matter what they look like, each one uses their affinity to help us to the best of their ability.

  Lucy steps forward wearing a red shroud, a grimoire in her hands.

  “I’m going to lead the others in the spells you taught us this morning,” she says to us, her eyes never leaving the house behind us. “We will need the help of the goddess and all the deities to fight this. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “And you never will again,” Lucien says. “Thank you.”

  He turns back to us, into us, and raises his athame high, turning to each of the four cardinal directions and calling upon the watchtowers while whispering words of invocation before walking the perimeter behind us, starting in the north.

  “Element of earth, we call on you. Lend us your strength and keep us grounded in our task.” He walks to the east. “Element of air, we call upon you. Let us be flexible in our ways but powerful in our might.” He rounds to the south. “Element of fire, we beseech thee. Lend us your power and passion to overcome our foes.” Facing the west, he says, “Element of water, we ask your assistance. Show us your might and buoy us in our fight.”

  When he returns to his place in the circle, he reaches out to grab the hands of those on either side of him, and all of us follow suit with our neighbors, creating a spiral of energy around the circle. “We enter this space in perfect love and perfect trust. The circle is cast. No negative energies may enter this space, and any already within are subject to our will. Raising the infinite power o
f three times three, so it is, so mote it be.”

  The wind picks up around us as the moon continues to fade with the shadow of the Earth. Suddenly, lightning illuminates the top of the house, and there stands Horace.

  Waiting

  Watching.

  “He looks like he did before,” Brielle yells out above the sound of the wind. “When he was alive!”

  “He’s manifested himself back into being,” Millie says.

  It means he’s strong. Stronger than ever.

  But then, so are we.

  “We are the six, the six are we…” We begin the spell for the waning moon, pulling in protection and strength from the deities and using it to create powerful banishing magic.

  It pisses off everything in and around that house—even more than creating the circle did.

  Horace’s voice booms down from above.

  “You will not defeat me! How dare you? HOW DARE YOU!”

  More lightning, thunder, and wind. The shadows run and fly about in agitation, but because of the spells being cast behind us, they can’t reach us.

  They’re like dogs, feral, nasty canines in a cage, snarling and spitting.

  The new moon phase is seconds away, Brielle says in our heads.

  The second stage of our plan is being set in motion. I plant my feet, grit my teeth, and get ready for the battle of my life.

  As the moon plunges us into complete darkness, we begin the next spell.

  “By the dark of the moon, in the shadow of Earth, we manifest our desires and give intention new birth. Lord and Lady, lend us your might; stop this evil and make everything right. Our power is yours, as well it should be. Let yours be ours, so mote it be.”

  The wind before was nothing compared to this. It swirls and circles around us, and I can feel the good fighting the bad energy, the spiritual warfare taking place all around us.

  Ruth sits just in front of us, a black mirror clutched in her hands as she begins to scry. I’ve never seen anyone do it before, but I know exactly what this is.

  Brielle moves forward to get her mother, to pull her back to safety, but Millie stops her.

  She’s our key, Millie says. She’s going to open the gateway to the other side for us. It’s the only way!

  She could be killed, Daphne cries.

  She won’t be, Cash adds.

  And so, Ruth continues, putting herself into a trance with the black mirror.

  Suddenly, an onslaught of animals charges toward us and the others behind us. Wolves, ravens, bats, and snakes, all hell-bent on stopping everything we’re doing.

  Witches cry out in pain, dying in horrible slaughter. But then they gasp, the way Lucy did yesterday, and stand back up again.

  Horace rages.

  I watch in horror as a gray wolf charges Daphne.

  Just like it did in my premonition.

  But it doesn’t take her down. To my utter shock and delight, she holds up a hand, and the wolf stops in its tracks, whimpering before it disappears.

  She looks to her right and stops cold. A huge wolf didn’t scare her in the least, but whatever she sees now has her face pale, and her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

  I follow her gaze.

  Her father.

  Only you can stop him, I remind her telepathically. You’re not a little girl anymore, Daphne.

  She takes a deep breath, tightening her jaw, and I know that she’s ready to kick that motherfucker’s ass.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Daphne

  It’s as if all of the chaos around me is suddenly just…gone.

  All I can see is him.

  The man who’s tormented me for all of my life—first when he was alive, and then from beyond the grave. The one just yards from where I stand, in the rose garden beside the house.

  He smiles and shows me those awful teeth, his eyes full of gleeful torment.

  And then he starts walking right toward me.

  “You can’t hurt me anymore, you piece of shit,” I yell. “You can’t scare me!”

  Suddenly, he reaches out and wraps his hands around my neck. He can touch me. He can hurt me.

  He squeezes.

  I hear the others around me, yelling and fighting off the animals and shadows.

  And for just a brief moment, I can’t breathe.

  That awful mouth widens as he squeezes harder. For a moment, I’m so terrified, I just freeze.

  You’re not a little girl. It’s Jackson’s voice in my head. Oh, Goddess, what if I never see him again. What if this man kills me, after all? And all of this is for nothing.

  We lose.

  “No.” I grip his wrists in my hands and use all my energy. The fire spell that Lucien sends into my head takes shape, and I burn the son of a bitch.

  He recoils, and I fall to my feet.

  “You can’t hurt me anymore. You’re nothing, Adam Landry. You have no place here—at this house, or anywhere else. The only place you belong is in the dirt.”

  I’m walking forward, pushing him back. So many years of anger fuel me, so much frustration and hurt and sadness.

  “I don’t know what we ever did to you to deserve this horror, but it’s over. Do you understand me? It’s done.”

  We’re standing in the rose bushes. The one place on this Earth that once filled me with more terror than any other in my life.

  But not anymore.

  “You’re dead. I’m alive. There’s nothing you can do to change that.”

  I hold up my hands and feel a new wind swirl around me, pushing energy into me, through me as fuel. It could be coming from the army behind me or the other five. Maybe both.

  Or perhaps it’s my magic. Power that has always been inside of me. Something I didn’t even know I had. I feel it building, pushing me.

  I shove him, physically push my father back down to the earth and use a little spell that I learned years ago in my early days with the coven.

  A simple one that’s been with me all of these years.

  “You’ve sent me strife and brought me pain. None of this shall be again. Off you go, you must flee. I turn this torment back on thee. As I will it, so mote it be.”

  Over and over, I repeat the spell as he writhes and cries and is absorbed back into the earth.

  Back into his grave.

  When I look up, I see the five now surround me as the other witches pour salt counterclockwise in a circle.

  “Good girl,” Jackson murmurs and kisses my forehead. “Now, for the grand finale.”

  “Not quite yet,” Lucien says grimly as we retake our places. More salt is poured. Candles carved with ritual symbols are set out. Once in place, Lucien lights them all. “First, we have to summon more of an army. He won’t go gently into this not-so-quiet night.”

  “The animals are gone,” I say in surprise.

  “You were a little busy with other things,” Millie says with a wink. “The moon is waxing now. It’s time to call on the deities and summon the spirits.”

  I don’t know these spells by heart, but I open myself and raise my hands with the others, watching as the sky opens above us. It’s like something out of a movie.

  Jackson’s parents are suddenly there, along with our grandmother. People we must have known in previous lives.

  Even men in uniform, Jack’s fellow soldiers that he lost in battle, they are all with us.

  But if we’re able to summon, so is Horace.

  And he has.

  The ground trembles, the earth shifts and lifts, and suddenly swallows the house whole, right before our very eyes.

  More shadows than I’ve ever seen before pour out of what must be the gates of hell, the place the house once stood, crawling like spiders and slithering like snakes.

  Our families surround us now, all of them standing close by. Oliver and Miss Annabelle stand behind Jackson. Gwyneth and Aiden with Lucien. We have Miss Sophia and our coven family right here with us, too.

  Mama’s sweating, but she’s still in
her trance, her scrying mirror clutched firmly in her hands.

  And when the moon is full and bright once more, she begins to shout.

  “The door is open!” she cries. “It’s time!”

  The six of us join hands, and as chaos reigns around us, as the spirits we’ve summoned fight the demons, we step through the doorway that Mama unlocked and begin our final spell.

  “Lords of the watchtowers of the east,

  Lords of air,

  We do summon, call and stir you up

  To witness our rites and guard our circle!

  Lords of the watchtowers of the south,

  Lords of fire,

  We do summon, call and stir you up

  To witness our rites and guard our circle!

  Lords of the watchtowers of the west,

  Lords of water,

  We do summon, call and stir you up

  To witness our rites and guard our circle!

  Lords of the watchtowers of the north,

  Lords of earth,

  We do summon, call and stir you up

  To witness our rites and guard our circle!

  Mother Earth, we call on you!

  Father Sky, we call on you!”

  Horace appears before us, pacing and shaking his head.

  “It won’t work,” he says, his voice taunting. “You can’t be rid of me, girls. No matter what you try or where you go, I’ll always be here. Ready to punish you. Ready to remind you of who you are and everything you can be. Why are you making this so hard?”

  While he throws his tantrum, the six of us check in with each other, through our minds.

  Are we ready?

  Yes.

  Absolutely.

  Without a doubt.

  We will end him.

  “It could have been beautiful,” he continues and then turns a charming smile on the three of us. Zeroing in on me. “Daphne. You’re so sweet. So loving. I know that you don’t want to do this.”

  Play along, I tell the others.

  “I think I have to.” I make my voice shaky. “My sisters told me that I have to.”

  “They’re wrong,” he says and clucks his tongue. “You don’t have to listen to them, Daphne. We can make them see what we do. That we’re better together. That the four of us can be together and it’ll be so beautiful. So perfect. You see it, don’t you?”