Witch Myth Super Boxset: A Yew Hollow Cozy Mystery

by Alexandria Clarke

  “That’s the most important part about being a sister,” Nora said. She sighed, looping one leg comfortably over my knee as if we were sisters too. “By average definition, Kennedy isn’t the best example of a big sister. She was gone most of the time, and she made a lot of empty promises. When I was little, she disappointed me a lot. Now that I’m older, I understand more of what made Kennedy the way that she is. I always thought that she didn’t want to see me, when in reality, she was keeping herself away out of fear that she would eventually harm me. That is infinitely more tragic than an older sister who doesn’t care.”

  “That’s why I agreed to help you,” I said, prodding Nora’s side for emphasis. “I just got a taste of sisterhood, and I realized how important it is. You and Kennedy deserve to have each other in your lives. That, and it’s not fair. We forced you into helping the coven, and we repaid you by threatening the life of your sister. If that isn’t injustice, I don’t know what is.”

  “I appreciate that,” Nora said. She patted my leg. “I guess your leg is feeling better if you ran here.”

  I ducked my head to avoid her probing gaze. “Yeah, I’m all better.”

  “So that thing is gone?”

  I considered lying, but Nora’s face told me that she already wasn’t buying it. “You’re playing me,” I accused her. “How did you know?”

  She slid out of the armchair with a wry grin. “I can feel it. Your aura is totally out of whack. Maybe you can hide it from everybody else, but you can’t fool me.”

  “Not everybody,” I grumbled.

  “What do you mean?”

  I stood up. Though the initial power surge had worn off, I still felt more energized than I had in months. I wandered over to the window and pushed the curtains aside. My breath fogged against the glass. The temperature was dropping rapidly as Yew Hollow geared up for more snow. It was nearly time to break out the non-slip boots. I hoped Kennedy would return from Windsor Falls before she had to drive through any flurries.

  “You asked me about sneaking off earlier,” I said to Nora. “I know I’m supposed to be watching you, but I’m very confident in your ability to get out of trouble, and I have other obligations to this coven.”

  Nora tucked her bare feet beneath the couch cushions. “Such as?”

  “Morgan asked me to stay away from Camryn,” I admitted, unsure as to why I was confiding in Nora. “But I think that’s a mistake. Camryn’s planning something. She’s warping her intuition to hypnotize her followers into thinking that Morgan is unfit for leadership. That’s the only reason we’re dealing with this entire uprising in the first place.”

  “She’s hypnotizing them?” Nora repeated, astonished. “She can do that? Why haven’t you told Morgan yet?”

  “That’s the thing,” I replied. “Camryn caught me spying on her today. She found out about the mark on my leg, and now she’s blackmailing me into keeping her plans quiet.”

  “Her plans to kill Kennedy before Morgan can stop her.”

  “Bingo.”

  Nora combed her fingers through her lengthy blonde hair, separating the tangles with practiced delicacy. “Why don’t you just come clean to Morgan? She could put a stop to Camryn’s behavior without a problem if she knew that half the coven wasn’t thinking for themselves. Whatever that mark on your leg is, I’m sure Morgan would understand.”

  “She wouldn’t,” I said firmly. “And I need the mark. I can’t get rid of it, not yet anyway. You can’t tell Morgan about this either. If you do, everything goes to hell.”

  Nora expertly braided her hair into a loose waterfall. “This feels like a terrible idea.”

  “It probably is.”

  “So then we deal with Camryn on our own.”

  “We?” I crossed my arms, looking down at her. “There’s no we. It’s my job to keep you safe. Letting you anywhere near Camryn is like throwing you into moving traffic. It’s not happening.”

  Nora finished off her braid, secured the end, and tossed her hair over her shoulder. “You don’t have anyone else to help you. Besides, Camryn wants my sister dead. I have just as much right as you to try and stop her.”

  I opened my mouth to insist that Nora was too young to deal with coven politics like this, but I stopped myself. Nora was too young for all of it—that was a simple fact—but it had never stopped her from doing her best in a bad situation. She never complained or cried. She didn’t continuously berate me for having taken her from her home. She worked tirelessly to help a family that wasn’t hers, all with a sense of maturity that would’ve taken me years to acquire.

  So I sat next to her, staring straight into her eyes, and said, “You do as I say. Whatever we plan, wherever we go, you follow every instruction I have for you. Otherwise, you won’t see the light of day until the curse is broken. Do you understand me?”

  She stuck out her hand. Reluctantly, I shook it. She grinned excitedly. “Deal. What’s the first step?”

  I sank into the couch cushions and propped my feet on the coffee table. Mentally, I was exhausted, but Nora and I still had to do our afternoon rounds. “Well, first of all, we need to figure out how Camryn is manipulating the other witches—”

  The door to the barn blew open with a bang, startling me and Nora. Instinctively, I sprang to my feet, stepping in front of the younger girl with a defensive spell heating up in the palm of my hands, but it was only Morgan. At first, my anxiety faded when I realized that we weren’t under attack, but Morgan marched in and slammed the door behind her. She was livid, and the heat of her anger filled the barn with a palpable pressure.

  “What is it?” I asked, lowering my fists. “What’s wrong?”

  She crossed the living room in three strides, her face inches from mine before I’d even registered her effortless movement. “Was it only last night that you promised me you would stay away from Camryn?”

  Goose bumps raised the hair on my arms as Morgan’s words sent a chill through me. “Morgan, I—”

  “You lied to me,” she interrupted. “You lied to my face, Gwenlyn.”

  “I just—”

  “What aren’t you telling me?” she demanded. “This isn’t like you. I’ve never known you to keep secrets from me, and I like to think you wouldn’t go disobeying me behind my back for no good reason, so imagine what it was like for me when someone reported a confrontation between you and Camryn.”

  I stuttered, trying to maneuver out of Morgan’s truth-seeking stare, but she took me by the shoulders and held me fast. “Morgan, you don’t understand—”

  “It was my fault,” Nora piped in suddenly.

  Morgan and I both turned to look at her and chorused, “What?”

  Nora bowed her head sheepishly. “Thanks for trying to cover for me, Gwen, but I should really take responsibility for my own actions.”

  Beneath the throw blanket, she nudged the back of my leg with her toe, a silent command to go along with whatever she said.

  “Uh, right,” I said. “Sure. No problem.”

  Nora shook off the blanket and stood up. “Morgan, it’s my fault that Gwenlyn went to see Camryn. I asked her to.”

  Morgan narrowed her eyes, looking between me and Nora. “And why is that?”

  “Because I was worried that Camryn might try something to hurt Kennedy,” Nora murmured, scuffing her toes against the area carpet. I had to hand it to her. She was convincing. “Gwenlyn was just trying to take care of me, like you told her to.”

  Morgan finally stepped out of my personal space. “Nora, honey. I know you’re worried for your sister. I’m doing my absolute best to make sure she comes out of this unharmed, but in order to do that, it would really help if the people on my side actually pay attention to the things that I say.”

  “I get that now,” Nora mumbled.

  “Good.” Morgan took a pair of gloves from her coat pocket and pulled them on. “As I understand it, the two of you are late for your afternoon rounds. You should get to it. Walk me out, Gwen?”

>   I shadowed Morgan to the door, shocked that Nora’s quick thinking had saved me from what was sure to have been a heated argument. The relief didn’t last long though. Before Morgan left, she took hold of my wrist, drawing me close to whisper a parting message to me.

  “Secrets become us, Gwenlyn. Don’t hold onto yours until after it’s too late.”

  9

  Kennedy

  “You did what to your father?”

  Gwenlyn’s shrill voice echoed through the trees, startling a few crows from their roost. They took off, black bodies in sharp contrast against the white sky. I pulled the hood of my parka up and tightened it around my face, grateful that I’d been able to pick up the rest of my clothes from my father’s house. With the sudden dip in temperature, they would come in handy when night fell.

  “Keep your voice down,” I ordered. I brandished a bag full of takeout containers. “Otherwise, I’m keeping the rest of these leftovers for myself.”

  Gwenlyn eyed the bag. “What kind of leftovers?”

  “Filet mignon from last night and chicken kiev from the night before,” I teased, letting the bag swing back and forth from my index finger. “My dad’s cook went to one of the top-ranked culinary schools in the world. How’s that tofu sounding now?”

  “Give it.”

  “Say please.”

  A green dart of craft severed the plastic handle of the bag, causing it to fall from my hand. With another flash, the bag caught itself before the food could hit the ground and floated over to Gwenlyn.

  “That was rude,” I said.

  “Garlic potatoes or sweet potatoes?” she asked, rifling through the containers. “I’ll let you choose sides, but I’m claiming the steak.”

  We parsed out the food. I set aside a container for Gwenlyn to bring to Nora so that she wouldn’t miss out on the rare treat, then warmed the rest of our meal with a little help from my inner fire. Gwenlyn was much more agreeable when her mouth was full and she couldn’t talk, so as she ate, I filled her in on what information I had gleaned from my brief return to Windsor Falls.

  “I don’t know what I did to him exactly,” I confessed. I offered Gwenlyn a bottle of wine. Her eyes went wide as she accepted it, popped the cork with a flicker of her aura, and took a swig straight from the bottle. “It wasn’t like what you were talking about before. I don’t think I erased his memories or anything like that. He just… won’t remember what we talked about.”

  “That’s erasing his memories,” Gwenlyn said dryly. She examined the label of the wine bottle. “God, this is good. What is this?”

  “Ridiculously expensive,” I replied. “I swiped it from the kitchen before I left, so enjoy it while you can. And I didn’t erase his memories. It felt more like I cast an illusion over the top of them.”

  Gwenlyn tucked the bottle under her arm so that she could pilot another bite of steak to her mouth. “I guess that makes sense. Witchcraft is malleable. It’s one of the reasons why it’s so problematic. Did you find what you needed at least?”

  I set down my food to retrieve the photo album from my duffel bag. “One picture book full of emotional baggage, at your service.”

  She set the album on the roof of the car and began to flip through it, pausing here and there to examine certain photos. “Wow, this is wild. Look, there’s Morgan when she was a kid. And your dad claimed he didn’t know anything about this?”

  I shivered, but not because of the cold wind. I had left my father with a vacant expression and no recollection of our interaction, and I couldn’t stop thinking about his empty, glazed eyes the entire drive back.

  “I think he was telling the truth,” I said. “His confusion seemed genuine. He doesn’t remember anything about Yew Hollow.”

  Gwenlyn froze with a bite of her food halfway to her mouth. I looked down at the photo album, wondering what had caught her attention. It was the picture of Alana, waving from the yew tree.

  “Is that—?”

  “It’s Alana,” I confirmed.

  “But is she wearing—?” Gwenlyn’s eyes darted up, searching for a glimpse of the tree pendant around my neck.

  I tugged it out from under my parka. “My necklace? She sure is. Alana’s my mother. My father confirmed it.”

  “Holy crap,” Gwenlyn breathed, gently caressing the photo. “We were right.”

  I snatched the album away from her to study the picture again. “Wait, you knew?”

  “I guessed,” she corrected. “Actually, Nora found out about it first. She told me that your auras felt the same.”

  “Give me the wine,” I ordered. Gwenlyn didn’t dare to argue, passing the bottle silently. “Anything else you want to tell me? Are we long-lost cousins or something?”

  “I’m not really a Summers,” Gwenlyn reminded me sourly. “But this is the breakthrough that we needed. I asked Morgan about Alana. She would’ve been about ten years old at the time of your conception, so she should’ve remembered if Alana had a boyfriend and got pregnant. She doesn’t. Your father isn’t the only one suffering from memory loss. It’s the entire coven.”

  “So I’m supposed to a member of the Summers coven,” I said, realizing the full extent of what it meant to be Alana’s daughter. “I was supposed to grow up in Yew Hollow. I am a Summers witch.”

  Gwenlyn nodded sullenly, using her fork to push the last bite of meat around the takeout container. “Yup. Without even trying. Lucky you.”

  “What do we now?” I asked her. “We have the photos, so we can perform the memory retrieval ritual, right? When?”

  “Slow your roll,” she said, abandoning her meal. “I kinda fibbed to you before. It’s not your memories we need. You were a baby when all of this happened, so you wouldn’t be of much use to us anyway. We need Alana.”

  “You were stringing me along!”

  “I was playing the game strategically,” Gwenlyn said. “And I’m sorry for that. I couldn’t sneak you into Yew Hollow without knowing for certain that Alana was your mother. It would’ve been too big of a risk.”

  I paused in cleaning up the remnants of our dinner. “You’re going to sneak me into Yew Hollow?”

  “How else are we going to get you and Alana to connect again?” Gwenlyn dusted her hands off and collected the meal I’d prepared for Nora. “I need you both for this to work. Meet me around the south edge of town at three a.m. We’re getting to the bottom of this tonight.”

  At three o’clock, I paced alone along the edge of the ward, blowing hot air into the palms of my hands. The night was cold, dark, and silent. The animals, sensing the oncoming storm, had returned to their homes. I kept myself warm with my craft but tried to conserve my energy. I didn’t know how much Gwenlyn needed from me in order for this to work. She wasn’t forthcoming about what the memory ritual involved, and if my last interaction with Alana was any indication, this was going to be one hell of a ride.

  “Psst, Kennedy!”

  I ducked down, searching for the source of Gwenlyn’s voice. Her head and shoulders appeared from a miniscule opening in the thorny shrubs. She beckoned me toward her.

  “Really?” I said, kneeling down to squint through the opening. It was, as she’d said, barely bigger than an air vent. “You hid it behind a bush? I can’t believe I couldn’t find it.”

  Gwenlyn grinned, withdrawing from the woods. “Get moving, genius. We’ve got work to do.”

  I kicked aside the branches to widen the space. Gwenlyn might be able to weasel through the shrubbery, but my shoulders were far broader than hers. I shook off my parka and shoved it through the opening first. It was already going to be tight without the extra padding. The wind bit at my skin as I wriggled headfirst into the break in the magical barrier. The ward itself felt like cool plastic, almost like a kid’s slide at a fast food playground. I slid along, grunting as my shoulders and knees scraped against the glittering sides. My chest felt tight. It was a longer tunnel than I imagined, and all I could see ahead were the soles of Gwenlyn’s boots.
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br />   Finally, I slipped out of the opening on the other side, where Gwenlyn helped me to my feet. Yew Hollow hadn’t improved since my eviction, although with winter fast approaching in the rest of Massachusetts, it looked more normal that it had a few months ago. Everything was gray and still, as though the entire town waited for the snow to silence it once and for all.

  “Are you sure everyone’s asleep?” I whispered.

  Gwenlyn beckoned me toward her. “I infused tonight’s healing spell with a little more chamomile and valerian than usual. They’ll be out for a while. Just in case—”

  She tapped my shoulder, and the aura swirled around both of us to create a camouflage of dark green. In the shadowy town, anyone would have a hard time spotting us. I followed Gwenlyn as she led us past the crumbling yew tree in the town square, up the high street, past the police station and the church, and over the hill. The Summers house loomed like a sleeping giant on the dark horizon, but we turned off the path before we reached it and headed into the cul-de-sac where the other witches lived.

  I hadn’t been to Alana’s house since the first day I’d met her, though our initial interaction was fresh in my mind. I wouldn’t soon forget the panic of being sucked into another world, one made solely of fire and brimstone, especially since that world seemed to exist in Alana’s mind. She was trapped there, waiting out the effects of this curse, and it was somehow my fault that she was suffering.

  We bypassed the front door. Two other witches, Yvette and Yvonne, lived with Alana. Gwenlyn peeked into their bedroom windows first then signaled me to proceed to the back of the house. Keeping to a crouch, I tiptoed through a dead flowerbed and peered into Alana’s window. The room was dark, but Alana herself glowed faintly red, as though her fever was visible to the naked eye. With a soft grunt, I unstuck the window frame and pushed it upward.