I scoffed as I inspected Morgan’s handiwork. The yellow healing salve obscured the worst of the witch’s mark. “Her intuition?”
“Yeah, she’s claiming that her intuitive ability would be more of an asset to the coven than my, as she so delicately put it, ‘necrophilic tendencies.’”
“I’m going to kill her.”
Morgan’s craft pinched my arm. “No, you won’t,” she ordered. “I can handle Camryn. She’s been pulling crap like this since we were in grade school.”
“Why does she hate you so much anyway?” I asked.
Morgan shrugged and rolled her eyes. “I don’t really know. We were always in competition when we were kids. She made it that way. I didn’t care who the coven favored. Back then, all I wanted was to be a normal mortal. Camryn was the complete opposite. She loved being a witch, but because I was the daughter of the coven leader, I always got more attention than her. Not that I wanted it. According to Karma, Camryn was over the moon when I left town after graduation. I guess she figured she’d finally proved to the coven that she was right about me.”
“I’m sure she was pleased when you showed up again,” I guessed.
“Actually, there was so much going on that I never spoke to Camryn,” Morgan explained. She leaned against the kitchen counter, where the moonlight stained her skin silver. “What with all the murders and demons and dark magic, I didn’t have time to waste on a petty childhood battle that I never wanted anything to do with in the first place. Camryn’s been pretty quiet until now.”
The healing spell from the salve spread up my thigh, relieving the ache in my lower back and the leftover buzz from the electrocution. I rested my chin in my hands. “What changed then? Why is Camryn making trouble now? Doesn’t she understand it’s the worst time for something like this?”
“I think that’s exactly why she’s doing it,” Morgan answered. “She sensed an opportunity. The coven is already scared. They don’t want a repeat of the last time. It’s no secret that the yew tree, even with my mother’s influence, isn’t as strong as it used to be. It needs time to grow, which we don’t have. Camryn knows that, and she’s using it to her advantage. The witches need something to believe in, and Camryn's trying to make damn sure it’s her instead of me.”
“If Camryn wanted to be coven leader in your stead, why didn’t she try for the position while you were gone?” I asked. “That would’ve been easier for her, right? One Summers sister down, three to go.”
Morgan laughed without humor. “Camryn never would have dared to challenge my mother. Cassandra was the strongest leader this coven ever had, and she also held the position for an unusually long time.”
“Some would argue that you’re stronger than Cassandra was,” I reminded her, gesturing to the faded ancient marks that snaked up her forearms. “She didn’t survive a trip to the otherworld.”
Morgan involuntarily rubbed her shoulders. “Gwen, when you find yourself in charge of more than forty witches, you have to find the balance between humble and confident. Do I think that I could hold my own against Camryn if it came down to it? Without a doubt. But do I consider myself the most powerful witch to ever lead the Summers coven? Not even close. Power is a fickle thing, Gwen. You don’t play with it. You simply manage it.”
“Yeah, but just once I’d like to see you kick some butt,” I told her. “Like the old days.”
Morgan laughed, but her lighthearted chuckled morphed into a dry cough, and she leaned over the sink, heaving for breath. I stood up, hopped over to her, and patted her on the back.
“Are you all right?” I asked as the fit subsided.
Morgan cleared her throat. “Mm-hmm. Must be a cold coming on.”
I filled a glass of water from the tap and handed it to her. “You said you had to ask me a favor.”
She sipped gratefully. “Yes, of course. Thank you for reminding me. As I was saying, I can handle Camryn, but I’m going to need your help to figure out who’s casting this spell over Yew Hollow. I know you have a lot going on right now with your sister in town, but you’re my best bet, Gwenlyn.”
“You really don’t want my help with the ward?”
“I think it’s better if you sit this one out,” Morgan replied. “Research will be less strenuous on you while you’re healing.”
“I can tell when you’re lying, Morgan. You make an unreasonable amount of eye contact when you do.”
Her eyes flickered away from mine. “I just want you to get better.”
“Or you think this witch’s mark is worse than you’re letting on.” I confiscated the water glass as she tried to swallow her response. “Come on, Morgan. It’s me. Tell me the truth.”
“Fine,” she conceded, swiping the glass from me. “I’m worried about the mark. It’s no coincidence that the only witch in the coven completely outside of the Summers bloodline is the one that gets marked. It makes me uneasy.”
“Why?”
“The spell targeted Yew Hollow,” Morgan reminded me. She pressed a hand to her chest and drew in a deep breath. The air rattled through her lungs. “That means whoever’s behind it cast it with the intention of challenging the coven. I keep waiting for the rest of this curse to drop. One thunderstorm, an empty town, and a bunch of dead grass can’t be the end of it. When it comes—and it will come—it will affect the entire coven. Except you. That’s what makes me uneasy, Gwenlyn. That mark may not be coincidence at all. They’ve been watching us. They know that you were adopted, and they ensured that you would be weakened too. They’ve been planning this for a long time.”
As the weight of this settled between us, I drew Morgan into a hug and rested my chin on top of her head. “Everything’s going to be okay. I have faith in you.”
Morgan bottled up another round of coughs. “I sure hope you’re right.”
In the morning, Winnie stood by the window, looking down at the front yard. I kicked the sheets off my legs. The turmeric paste had stained the linens bright yellow. They would need a healthy cleaning spell to recover their original cream color. I picked dried bits of salve from my calf. The witch’s mark hadn’t faded, but it also hadn’t grown any more. I felt much stronger than yesterday, and the strange buzzing feeling had finally ceased. A knot of hope grew in my mind. Maybe Morgan didn’t need to worry so much about the mark after all.
I joined Winnie at the window. “Morgan wants us to figure out who cast the spell over Yew Hollow. You up for a little magical reconnaissance?”
“Sure, sure,” she muttered.
I followed her gaze out to the front yard. The clouds obscured the angle of the sun, but I could tell it was nearing mid-morning. The witches should have been working on the ward by now, but the yard was empty and quiet.
“Something’s wrong,” Winnie said, surveying the gray landscape. “I can feel it.”
I took her word for it and didn’t waste any time, tugging on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt before rushing downstairs. This time around, my leg supported all of my weight. I hurdled the last four steps and landed in the foyer.
Morgan sat at the kitchen table, her head bowed. A collection of what looked like blueprints littered the table, calculating the size and angle of the ward. As I approached, Morgan remained hauntingly still, immersed in her papers.
“Morgan?”
Very slowly, she looked up. I halted, taken aback by the sight of her face. The skin around her eyes was dark, and her cheeks were sunken in. I tried to hide my horror, but Morgan knew me too well.
“I know,” she rasped. “It’s bad.”
“What happened?” I gasped, sitting down next to her. I couldn’t look away from her mummified appearance.
“I told you I was waiting for something else,” Morgan said, her voice so hoarse that I worried for her vocal chords. “This is it. It’s not just me.”
“What do you mean?”
Malia, Karma, and Laurel appeared from the kitchen, each holding a large mixing bowl full of healing salve. Like Morgan, they
all bore the signs of some kind of intense illness.
“Camryn was right,” Morgan whispered. “Everyone’s sick. Alana was just the first.”
7
The mysterious illness swept through the coven overnight. It spared no one. Every witch bore some symptom or another. Alana was the worst off. She had not awoken since her collapse the day before. Yvette and Yvonne—the twin sisters who lived with Alana—watched her round the clock. When she stopped breathing on her own, the twins implemented spells to keep her alive. Alana was officially in a coma, a fact that terrified the rest of the coven. If Alana had succumbed so quickly to the illness, the other witches assumed they were not far behind.
There was no rhyme or reason as to why the illness affected some witches worse than others. Morgan and her sisters looked like hell, but they were comparatively healthy to some of the other women in the coven. Morgan bore only the symptoms of a common cold—coughing, runny nose, sore throat—while others developed an itchy red rash or agonizing muscles aches. I spent the morning lugging buckets of healing salve from one house to the next, distributing enchanted compresses to those who needed them, and feeling guilty that I appeared to be the only witch on the mend in the entire neighborhood.
The work was far from over though. Tasks were redistributed amongst the healthiest witches. Morgan and her crew began building the ward from the ground up, patrolling the perimeter of Yew Hollow in order to lay down the first layer of our defense. I helped where I could, despite Morgan’s protests. Even with the witch’s mark, I was the strongest witch of the coven at the moment, and Morgan couldn’t deny that for long. As the hours wore on, she gave up on trying to get me to go home and rest. The ward was too important, and it was taking longer than usual to construct. I led a group of witches around town to reinforce our base layer. In the evening, as the gray day faded into a gray night, I sent my workers home with a sad farewell. They were exhausted and sick, and they deserved to rest.
When I returned to the house, I went up to my room with Winnie, where we watched television in silence. I stared vacantly as images of Korean barbecue and speciality tacos graced the screen. Winnie deserved so much more from me, but our daily pattern of not having enough time for each other continued. At this point, pure guilt prevented me from speaking to her, but I used my exhaustion from the day’s work as an excuse to avoid conversation.
In time, Morgan wandered upstairs and peeked into my room. “Did you eat?”
Winnie and I reacted at the same time, turning our heads to acknowledge our visitor. Morgan’s gaze ping-ponged between us, as though she’d forgotten which one of us was alive or dead.
“No,” I replied. “Not hungry.”
“Karma made lobster bisque. Your favorite.”
“I’ll get some later.”
Morgan sat at the edge of the bed and smoothed the wrinkles in the duvet. “I wanted to say thank you for your help today. It meant the world to me. And Winnie? I wanted to apologize to you.”
Winnie looked away from the television, surprised. “What for?”
“Were it not for all of this, Gwenlyn would have more time to focus on you,” Morgan answered. “I’m sorry we haven’t had the opportunity to help you cross over. I know it must be frustrating.”
Winnie tucked her chin to her chest sheepishly, her hair swinging forward to cover her face. “Morgan, I can’t begin to fathom how challenging the situation is for you right now. Please don’t worry about me.”
Morgan surprised Winnie again, reaching out to cup the younger woman’s translucent cheek in her palm. Winnie’s eyes widened, and I smiled. Ever since Morgan’s return from the otherworld, she had honed powers that no other psychic medium had the hope of acquiring. I wished that the ability to interact physically with ghosts was more commonplace. Morgan’s touch was comforting to lost spirits. It reminded them of true compassion, and oftentimes, it helped ease them into the world beyond this one.
“I need the two of you now more than ever,” Morgan said. “Tomorrow, I would like you to go to the library and look through the archives.”
“But the ward—”
Morgan shook her head to silence me. “I’ll take care of the ward. The hardest part is through. All we have to do now is work on reinforcing it and complete the spell. I need you to research this illness, Gwenlyn. You’re the only witch in this coven as familiar with the archives as I am. We need a cure and a plan to combat the curse. Otherwise, this ward acts as nothing but a quarantine. Find me the cure. Find me the culprit. Anything that will help us get Yew Hollow back on its feet.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“I’m going to keep Camryn off my back,” Morgan replied. “She’s been using this ailment as fuel for her fire. I found her preaching to a few of the sicker witches today, trying to convince them that if she was coven leader, she would’ve never let this happen.”
“They can’t possibly believe her,” Winnie piped in. “I know I haven’t been here long, but I can see that the coven trusts you, Morgan. They should understand this isn’t your fault.”
Morgan patted Winnie’s knee and stood up. “Thank you, Winnie. Unfortunately, it isn’t always about trust. Camryn’s building a following based on fear, and I need to focus on containing it before it morphs into a mutiny.”
“That wouldn’t happen,” I said.
“Thinking like that will guarantee that it does,” Morgan rebutted. She leaned over the bed and tugged at the burnt ends of my hair, which I had yet to trim off. “Please, Gwen. Do the research.”
“First thing tomorrow.”
The Summers coven archives were stored in the local library, hidden away from prying mortal eyes by a few simple illusionary spells. With the town vacant, we didn’t have to worry about being discreet. Winnie and I walked to the library together. The sky was gray, as it had been for the past three days, and an annoyingly cold drizzle numbed my ears and the tip of my nose. I started questioning my love of dreary weather. This was definitely a “be careful what you wish for” scenario. The monochrome setting dampened the entire coven’s energy, bringing the already morose mood down further, and I couldn’t wait to see the sun again.
The witches worked in small clumps to strengthen the ward. Their auras entwined to feed the defensive spell, stretching up toward the sky and arcing out toward the horizon. I worried that the scale of the ward might negatively impact its effectiveness, but with Morgan’s craft at the epicenter of its architecture, the witches had a decent shot at constructing a fully-fledged fortress. Morgan herself was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Camryn. I wondered if they were hidden in the woods somewhere, duking it out with an old-school style witch’s duel, then laughed at the thought. Morgan had long since abandoned her hotheaded tendencies, and she no doubt had a better plan to taper off Camryn’s backlash.
The library was deserted, save for thirteen-year-old Arianna hunched over a desk in the corner. Since the town’s teachers had left too, the coven children were on a hiatus from public school. Most of them ran rampant like they did on summer vacation, but Arianna dutifully kept up with the curriculum, reading ahead in the textbooks to further her education. I waved to her.
“Anything good?” I asked.
She held up a workbook and made a face. “Geometry proofs.”
“Ew. Shout if you need help. I’ll be in the archives.”
Winnie and I made our way to the back of the library, where the shelves grew taller and the book titles more incomprehensible with every step. Yew Hollow’s literary collection was small and sacred, but the hidden stacks of witch history put the mortal volumes to shame.
“Here we are,” I announced, stopping in front of the self-help section.
Winnie turned her head sideways to read some of the titles. “Gwen, no offense, but I don’t think The Power of Positive Thinking is going to help Morgan get rid of this curse.”
I chuckled and rubbed my hands together. My aura sparked between my palms. Green flecks of ene
rgy reflected off the spines of the books. With the tip of my glowing index finger, I traced a delicate pattern through the self-help section. When I was finished, I stepped back to admire my handiwork. My craft outlined a set of two-dimensional stairs that were, at first glance, no more accessible than the bookshelf itself.
“Ready?” I asked Winnie.
“You bet.”
I completed the spell with a small push to the top step. The books fell forward, as though the wall behind the shelf didn’t exist, flattening on their sides to construct a staircase of hardbacks that wasn’t there before. The whirl of pages settled, revealing a passageway into the nonexistent basement of the library. A cozy glow beckoned us downward.
“Shall we?”
I led the way down. The books beneath my feet were protected by another spell, but I always felt bad about stepping on them. They led us into a small circular room. Two leather armchairs rested on a collection of handwoven rugs. A desk sat across from them, in case a witch needed a better surface to study at. The glow came from several lit candles and a burning fireplace, all of which warmed the underground room. Curved shelves lined the walls, but these books were not for self-help. They were full of stories that mortals considered old wives’ tales or moral lessons to read to children at night. In actuality, everything we knew about our kind was stored in these pages, including the entire history of the Summers coven.
“Nice digs,” Winnie commented, impressed. She sat down in one of the cushioned chairs and bounced up and down. “Has this always been here?”
I shucked off my raincoat and dropped it by the staircase. “Nope. We used to keep the archives at the house, but we kept acquiring new volumes. Witches from other covens would drop things off, our coven updated the history of the town, et cetera. When a hurricane came through and nearly ruined the entire collection, Morgan decided we needed a better place to store everything.”
Witch Myth Super Boxset: A Yew Hollow Cozy Mystery Page 36
