Spellbound

by Samantha Combs

  That did it to her again. Serena laughed so hard now, it sounded like she had to move the phone away from her mouth. I started laughing too. I waited till she came back on the line and asked her, “So, are you ready for the party side of Logan Daniels?”

  “Why? Is that a bad side?”

  “Well, I get frisky and fresh with you. Can you handle me?”

  “Logan, I can handle you just fine.” I imagined her smiling.

  “Bring it on then, Twitchy. Don’t forget, the playing field has been leveled.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning I can do anything you can do.”

  “Oh, you think so, tough guy.”

  I laughed. She played along so well.

  “Oh, yeah. I’m a well-‐‑trained warlock, you know.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Just wait till I get my hands on you.”

  “And when exactly will that be?”

  “Thought I’d pick you up about four?” Well-‐‑trained warlock my eye. I still needed to wait till she gave me the word. More like a well-‐‑trained boyfriend. Made me grin. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  “Four sounds perfect. Okay, then.” She blew me a kiss through my phone and broke the connection. Seconds later it beeped again and I got a text from Dave: PARTY ON WAYNE! I texted back PARTY ON GARTH! I knew he would be pumped to get it. He just made it so easy to like him. I swung my legs off the bed and went in search of my mom. This morning, I thought I’d make her some breakfast.

  I padded around the house looking for her and almost quit and headed outside to wash my car for tonight when I found her.

  She was in Jade’s room. We hadn’t gone in there since the Council took Jade and Sully that day at the drive-‐‑in. In fact, not long after that I had quietly closed the bedroom door because it made my mom so sad to walk past it and not find my sister in there lounging on the bed or talking on her phone. Today, though, it was my mom who lay on the bed. She just stared straight up at the ceiling, motionless. I walked into the room and sat down at Jade’s desk without saying anything.

  “Logan.” My mom spoke to me but she never turned to look at me or tore her gaze from the ceiling. “Logan, are you seeing it too?”

  I followed her gaze up to the ceiling. Or rather, where the ceiling used to be. Because it wasn’t there anymore. It’s not like it became a hole in my sister’s ceiling, because it didn’t. It looked more like a canvas, with clouds on it. It had movement within it because it swirled around. My mom motioned for me to join her on the bed. Cautiously, I left the desk chair and sat on the edge of Jade’s bed. My mom scooted over and I stretched out beside my mom. As we watched the ceiling, it began to resemble a movie screen. Images flashed across it, too fast to make out, then shapes appeared.

  I whispered to my mom, “Have you been in here before today?” She shook her head and whispered back, “No. I had been in the studio and I had this overwhelming urge to come to Jade’s room. Logan, I think she’s trying to communicate with us. Maybe this is the only way she can. Just be quiet and watch, honey.”

  My sister’s ceiling morphed again and the movie screen it had created became larger and suddenly my sister’s face appeared before us. She had been laughing and smiling and the wind whipped through her hair. Oh! We were seeing her in a car. I had a picture of both her and Sully too!

  “Mom,” I whispered tersely, “They’re in Sully’s car. She’s showing us the day they were kidnapped.” My mom’s hand found mine and gripped it tight.

  On the ceiling screen, Jade and Sully had reached the overgrown, green field next to the drive-‐‑in. We watched my sister take a pre-‐‑packed picnic basket out of the back of Sully’s truck and he pulled a ratty blanket out from behind the seats. I’d never seen this side of Sully and watched, fascinated, while he spread a blanket on the grass and assisted my sister onto it. She opened the basket and spread the food out and they sat together and ate and talked. I hated to admit it, but they seemed kind of sweet. I was so busy watching Sully’s hands on the ceiling screen and where they might be touching my sister, I almost missed the real action happening on the outskirts of the field. My mom didn’t.

  “Oh, Logan! That’s where they were!” She pointed to the edge of my sister’s ceiling. And instantly I understood why Sully and my sister didn’t know what would happen to them. Because the things that took them were the same green colored trolls I encountered when I had taken my drive to the other side of town, creeping through overgrown grass that hadn’t seen a lawnmower yet this year and wouldn’t until drive-‐‑in season commenced in the summer.

  In horror, we watched the slimy trolls creep up on Jade and Sully and take them by surprise, wrapping their nasty green hair around them and restraining them with their misshapen arms until Christophe and more demon goons arrived. Their arrival turned out to be even more fantastic. The air seemed to blur and stretch in a vulgar way and Christophe appeared to rip through a seam in the air, leaving a jagged knife wound in the space behind him. The whole effect represented a violation of nature. He hadn’t changed much since I met him at the warehouse. Christophe would be gentle with Jade, but rough with Sully. He considered them both and with a wave, put them into what appeared to be sleep. On the ceiling screen, I noticed their chests moving, so I knew they were alive. I reassured my mom with this fact. She lay so stiff beside me, like if she moved even a tiny bit the ceiling would clear and the visage we were seeing would disappear.

  The ceiling pictures changed then. Now we were looking at the face of my sister again. Jade stared right at me and my mom and started to speak. It startled me so badly I almost rolled off the bed. Next to me, my mom gripped my arm tight and I could her gasp. “Logan, you have to save me. I’m okay now, so is Sully, but I won’t be for much longer.” My sister spoke with a hushed voice.

  Her voice broke and the image of her blurred and faded. She looked like she had been crying. This had to be killing my mom.

  “You can’t believe what they want to do. You have to tell Eden and Cordelia and Prudence and everyone, Logan. You have to do whatever it takes to get me out of here. The head guy, his name is Christophe, and his disciples, they’re trying to make a bunch of super-‐‑witches, Logan. They want my genes. They don’t want anything from Sully. I’m afraid for him. They’re not going to need him soon. They’re going to decide they, well, they don’t need him around anymore.” Her voice cracked again here. I knew now she cared for my friend. “I’m so afraid for him. And Logan, there’s more.” She paused here and tried to compose herself. Her voice became so low I had to strain to hear her. Her image wavered and faded even more and I knew the ceiling show would end soon.

  “I’m not even who they want. They want Serena. She’s the real prize.” My sister laughed, a sarcastic snort. “Turns out she is special, big brother. You sure know how to pick ‘em. She just may be the most special witch in the whole world. All this mess is over her genes. Those are the ones they’re killing themselves over.” She paused. “I guess I mean killing us over.” My mom whimpered beside me. I reached my arm up and put it around her shoulders, shushing her, almost rocking her like a baby on my sister’s bed.

  This had slain her. My sister’s voice went soft and baby-‐‑like.

  “Please, Logan. Please come get me. I know you can do it. Please save us. Please.” As she spoke the final word, the edges of the ceiling movie blurred and wavered and seemed to evaporate. The image of my sister’s worried, beseeching face warped and disintegrated and disappeared until my mom and I were left lying on her bed staring up at the same old popcorn-‐‑covered ceiling.

  ****

  My mom was a mess. After the show in my sister’s room, I couldn’t get her to leave it for almost an hour. I held her in my arms and let her cry and rocked her until she fell into a restless, tortured sleep. I tiptoed into the hall and whistled until I found Sheba and clucked my tongue and led her to jump up onto the bed and curl up with my mom. At least when she woke up s
he would have a friend with her.

  I went into my own room to lie down and digest what the heck just happened. I wanted to tell Serena about it but first I needed to wrap my own head around it. One thing, at last I finally knew how they took my sister and Sully. I knew she truly wasn’t harmed, at least not yet, and I knew now why they had her. I shuddered a little when I thought of how they were going to get at her genes, that part gave me the creeps.

  The main thing now, I had to take care of my mother. I needed to make sure she would be alright. This whole affair had stripped my mom of her ability to function and I couldn’t know what this latest delight might do to her. I puttered around downstairs tidying up and making some sandwiches in case she got hungry when she woke up, generally just killing time until then. I thought maybe I should call Dave and tell him I couldn’t go to the party, that maybe I needed to stay home and take care of my mom. She could be torn up over this last thing. I needed Serena’s opinion. Chances were she already knew what happened and was just waiting for me to call anyway. I was right.

  “Logan, it’s incredible that Jade contacted you!” she said when I called.

  “I know. The best thing is I know she’s okay. Sully too. And now we know what happened that day. That part killed me, the not knowing.”

  “Me too. I’ve been trying to mindjump her this whole time.

  They must be blocking her.”

  “It’s so hard for my mom.”

  “I can’t even imagine.”

  So, I thought…maybe we better not go to the party tonight.”

  “If you think that’s best, I agree.”

  “I think it might be.”

  “NO!” My mom said it loud and firm. She appeared from the hallway and crossed the living room toward me with more resolve and purpose in her stride than I had seen in her in the last few weeks. “You absolutely will NOT miss tonight’s party to take care of me. I will NOT listen to that at all. I am perfectly fine, young man. I do NOT need taking care of, thank you so much!” She used her And That’s Final voice.

  Looking at my mom, I realized I was encountering a totally different person now than I had been lately. Clearly, there would be no discussion on this topic.

  “I’ll call you back, Serena.” I said and hung up on someone for the second time that day. “Mom, I just thought that in case you, well, weren’t feeling like being alone tonight. You know, after the Jade thing earlier.”

  Oops. That got my mom’s hackles up. “The ‘Jade thing’ you referred to is the first time I have seen my daughter in nearly three weeks since sinister forces took her from me. And she seemed good, Logan. And when I slept I had another vision. One child may be gone, but another will save her. You, baby. And it will happen at the party. So, you have to go.” I stared hard at my mom. She didn’t look crazy. With everything that had happened lately she could have gone off the deep end, but how would I know? Would there be an obvious sign?

  My mom sighed. “No, honey, I’m not crazy. Some might call me that for having faith in a son who thinks I am, but I assure you I am not. I just know you have to go to the party tonight. I bet you Prudence has had the same kind of vision as me.”

  “Okay. Okay. We can always check it out with them. Do you think the Council knows that we know something is going to go down there?”

  “No. And that gives you the all-‐‑important element of surprise. But we need to inform everyone because now we are all going to be at that party, in one form or another.”

  “Great. Can’t wait.”

  “Logan, we don’t even know how many strong the Council is. You and Serena will need the full strength of our coven, and that even includes the dogs and cats. There are only a few of us who know how formidable an opponent Christophe truly is. Don’t underestimate him, son.”

  We grabbed our coats and headed out into the afternoon, bound for what certainly would be my destiny. Just outside our front door, my mom stopped and grabbed me by the shoulders.

  She didn’t say anything, just stood and stared at me for a long time.

  Then she hugged me to her chest, hard, the intensity of the embrace saying the words she dared not speak. It didn’t need words. I loved her too. We broke apart and made our way across the street to tell the others what had happened in my sister’s bedroom and of my mother’s dream.

  Chapter Thirty

  SERENA

  We drove to Tamera’s family’s barn on the outskirts of town in silence. We had three of the dogs with us, Charlie, Zena, and Sage, but even they were oddly quiet. I silently went over the events of earlier in the afternoon. Logan and Lily had come over much earlier than Logan and I had previously arranged. They gathered us all together and told us the amazing story of the ceiling in Jade’s bedroom, and then of Lily’s subsequent dream. After that, everyone began talking at once. Prudence immediately contributed that she had, as Lily predicted, had an almost similar vision come to her, where Logan played a prominent role as Jade and Sully’s rescuer. She also reminded everyone that tonight it would be the nineteenth of March. This didn’t mean anything to me, but everyone else stood around nodding their head as if illuminated by an astonishing fact. I turned to Elizabeth and she mouthed the words “Spring Equinox” to me. Suddenly, I understood. Dave and Tamera’s St. Patrick’s Day party wasn’t actually being held on the actual St. Patrick’s Day. It would be held on the Saturday after, the nineteenth of March. Logan understood it immediately after I did.

  “Which means that at midnight, it will be March Twentieth, the official start of Spring Equinox,” he said. “What’s so special about Spring Equinox, anyway?”

  Raven stepped forward. “I think I know. I believe Christophe believes that if he were to succeed in impregnating Serena during Spring Equinox, then medically speaking, she would give birth during the Winter Solstice, to him, the most perfect of all the earthly seasons. Cold, deadly, without regard for human life.

  The most like him. It is, for him, the perfect aesthetic.”

  I had felt myself quiver with revulsion and become unsteady on my feet. Both Elizabeth and Logan came to my aide quickly, or I would have fallen over. Eden had taken over the gathering with a business-‐‑like hand.

  “Sisters, since we know his intentions now, we know his target, and we know his attack time and place, I find us to be clearly in the advantage, would you agree?”

  Nods of agreement followed and witch chatter rose steadily until Eden had to take the meeting back over again.

  “Sisters, please. I know we have been training and waiting for this moment for a long time. For most of us, this is about much more than the protection of our young twitch, although that is hardly to make light of it. But, for most of us, our reasoning extends far beyond the task at hand. We have a long-‐‑standing and deep-‐‑

  rooted mistrust of the current Council and have voiced our misgivings often enough that we have been found to be out of favor with those currently in power.” Again, I observed more heads move up and down in assent. “We know we have the power to overthrow and oust those currently seated. We know that the skills and talents of the witches assembled in this room are among some of the finest in witch history. And with good reason. For tonight, every last skill, talent, and trick we know, will be put to the test. Tonight, Sisters, will be our finest hour. Let us gather.”

  The thirteen of us stood and joined hands to form a circle inside the pit of sofas and tables in the large living room. I found myself looking over the witches who had come to stay in my home, who made up our coven, who had become like family to me in such a short time; my mother’s best friend Eden; shape-‐‑shifter Cordelia and the queen of cloaking, Finola; the lovely spell-‐‑casting twins Aisling and Echo; the witches of flight, Rochelle and Libby; potion master and animal lover, Raven; our clairvoyant Prudence; exotic Eve, who taught me astral projection; lovely Lily, Logan’s mother; and my sweet aunt, Elizabeth, who pretended to be my sister all these years to protect me. These wonderful, witchy women were all like
sisters to me now. And just beyond them stood Logan, strong, sure, solid. My handsome warlock, trained by the finest witches ever known.

  As I stood there looking at him, I realized he truly qualified as one of us now, and he belonged with us. I let go of Eden’s hand and reached out for his.

  Thirteen is an old school number, I told my coven sisters in mindspeak. Fourteen is much more modern. Logan took my hand and stepped forward. To my delight, I watched Eden take up his free hand into her own.

  Serena is right, she mindspoke back to us all. Fourteen is much more ‘with it’. Logan squeezed my hand. Together we lifted our clasped hands and felt the conjoined force of our combined power.

  We gazed around at each other as we felt it and we knew. We were ready.

  ****

  I didn’t mean to be, but I felt so preoccupied by what might play out tonight, I fell silent for most of the drive. When we pulled into the dirt road that led to the barn, I lived so deep in my thoughts I didn’t even realize we’d arrived.

  “Oh. We’re here already?”

  “Already? You’ve been lost in your own head for miles.”

  “I’m sorry, Logan. I didn’t mean to shut you out.”

  “It’s okay. I knew we both had a lot to think about.” So much, in fact, that I nearly forgot to play the part. At the last minute Logan reminded me to wear something green and I had to run back inside and change into something appropriate for St.

  Patrick’s Day. Logan did too. I think we pulled it off. He said to remember the party was being held in a barn, after all, so we just had on jeans and t-‐‑shirts and boots. Green t-‐‑shirts. And I colored bits of our hair green for effect. Tabitha said we were pretty cool.

  Zena and Charlie kept growling at me until I knelt before them and let them smell me again. Logan kept saying maybe they thought we were one of the trolls. I told him ha-‐‑ha very funny. Not! He conceded later maybe it wasn’t his best joke.