Witch Myth Super Boxset: A Yew Hollow Cozy Mystery

by Alexandria Clarke

  Camryn leaned over me, took the front of my shirt in her fist, and dragged me toward her. “You know, I thought it would be satisfying enough to watch you burn yourself out with dark magic, but I don’t think I’m quite done yet.” She released me, and I thumped to the floor. As she dusted her hands off, she smiled down at me. “Thank you, Gwenlyn. This has been an unfortunate setback, but it’s made me realize that the Summerses’ survival teeters on Morgan’s inability to see reason. I understand my mistake now. All this time, I’ve been trying to kill Kennedy McGrath when I should’ve been plotting Morgan’s death instead.”

  13

  Kennedy

  A loud crash ripped me from slumber. When I wrenched myself back to the conscious world, I forgot for a moment where I was. The barn was lit with dim gray light. I lay on the couch, coated in a layer of mud and dirt. My shoulder ached and my head throbbed as the fight with Camryn came back to me. There was no time to ponder what had happened in the time afterward. The crash was Gwenlyn’s doing. She had fallen through the door and collapsed on the welcome mat, curling into a ball with both hands pressed against her heart.

  “Gwenlyn!” Nora appeared from the kitchen and rushed to Gwenlyn’s side. “What happened? Where’s Camryn?”

  Gwenlyn struggled to get the words out. “She—Morgan—”

  “What is it?” Nora said, soothing Gwen with a relaxation spell. “Tell me.”

  “Camryn’s going to kill Morgan,” Gwenlyn gasped.

  Immediately, I rolled off the couch and onto my feet, sore but stable. I felt the lingering touch of Nora’s craft in my bones. “Where is she?”

  Both Gwenlyn and Nora jumped at the sound of my voice. Neither one of them had realized I was awake.

  “I don’t know,” Gwenlyn answered. “I was unconscious when she left, but there’s no time to waste. For all we know, she’s on our way to Morgan’s right now. I’m no use. Camryn drained me completely.”

  I picked up my mud-stained coat from the floor beside the couch and put it on. “I’ll go.”

  Nora rocketed to her feet, preventing me from passing through the front door. “Kennedy, no! Camryn just knocked the wind out of you too. You won’t make it through another beating.”

  “Someone has to warn Morgan.”

  “Ken,” Nora pleaded, grabbing the sleeves of my coat. “Please don’t go.”

  I took Nora by the shoulders and pulled her into a hug, resting my chin on the top of her head. “Stay here. Look after Gwenlyn.” I pivoted us around so that Nora was no longer standing in the way of the door and let her go. “I promise to stay out of the fight.”

  Her hand slipped out of mine. “Ken, please—”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  It was impossible to unsee the wobble of her lower lip as I left the barn. The hardest thing in the world for me was leaving Nora behind, but I was forced to do it over and over again. That alone fueled me with a surge of motivation. If the curse was broken, Nora and I could live a normal life. I’d never have to leave her again.

  I sprinted through the woods as fast as my legs would carry me. Snowflakes continued to drift down from the sky, melting in my eyes and biting at my nose. My breaths came in short, visible gasps. I emerged from the woods and lengthened my strides to cross the wide expanse of the Summers’ backyard.

  When I vaulted up the stairs to the back porch, I discovered that the house was disturbingly silent. I expected Morgan to be holding court. The coven should’ve been preparing to battle Adrienne or dealing with the Camryn situation or questioning Nora about her options. Instead, it was as though everyone had given up.

  I found Morgan sitting at the head of the dining room table with her forehead resting on her knees, which she had curled up to meet her chest. Pieces of paper and note cards with scrawls of handwriting littered the table. At the sound of my footsteps, Morgan looked up.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” she said, wiping her nose with the sleeve of her cardigan.

  “I know.” I looked around at the empty house. “Where is everybody?”

  “I sent them home,” she replied. She rifled through the papers. “I had everyone write down their opinion for me to consider. It’s quieter that way. After all these years as coven leader, I still work best on my own.”

  I gestured to her position. “This is working?”

  Morgan sniffed and stood up, collecting the notes in a rough pile. “When you have fought as many battles as I have, Kennedy, then you can criticize my methods. Where are Gwenlyn and Nora?”

  “At the barn,” I replied. “That’s why I’m here. Gwenlyn sent me to warn you. She had a run-in with Camryn and lost all of her powers. She’s plotting to kill you, Morgan.”

  Morgan’s head snapped up. “You couldn’t have led with that information?”

  “I—”

  Right on cue, every window in the house shattered. Camryn’s supporters poured in from every direction, casting hexes and spells in a dizzying array, but there was a reason Morgan was known as the most powerful witch in the nation. In a split second, she seized the arm of my coat and yanked me toward her. At the same, she conjured a domed ward that protected us on all sides. The hexes rebounded off of her shiny blue witchcraft, returning to the witches that casted them. A few dropped to the floor, stunned by their own spells, while the rest adjusted their tactics.

  “Move!” Morgan ordered, shoving me toward the entryway.

  We forced a path through the witches until we reached the bottom of the staircase. The front door was wide open. Another round of witches was on their way. In the time since her fight with Gwenlyn, Camryn had recruited every standing Summers witch for her troops. Camryn herself remained at the back of the charge, shouting orders as the witches overran the house. Malia, Karma, and Laurel charged into the entryway, where Morgan’s ward resonated with another burst of witchcraft to keep her sisters’ attacks at bay.

  “Kennedy!” she shouted. “My bedroom is upstairs on the third floor. Go into the closet, pull up the floorboard closest to the wall, and look for the safe underneath. There’s a small handgun inside. Bring it to me.” She fidgeted with the front of her T-shirt, unveiling a short chain with a tiny key hanging around her neck. She pressed the necklace into my hand. “Go! Use your wards! I’ll hold them off!”

  With some effort, I mimicked Morgan’s dome technique and erected my own ward. The orange clashed with Morgan’s blue before separating entirely as I took the stairs two at a time. The ward absorbed the spells instead of deflecting them, but that was all I needed to reach the next level safely. With Morgan holding steady below, no one followed me up, so I rushed onward.

  On the third floor, I kicked open the door to Morgan’s bedroom and located the floorboard in the closet. The safe was right where she’d said it would be. I shoved the key into the lock and twisted. The little box sprang open, revealing the handgun. It was a simple black pistol, modest and unremarkable. I shook my head, wondering how Morgan was going to fight off the entire coven with a mortal weapon, especially when there was no ammo in sight. I took the gun anyway.

  I slid down the banister and back into the fray. Morgan’s ward was punctured with weak spots. She hunkered down at the foot of the stairs, doing her best to keep the coven at bay. I slid in behind her, prodding her back.

  “Did you find it?” she yelled over the noise of the banister splintering.

  I held up the gun.

  “Perfect! Give it here.”

  “There are no bullets!” I shouted, offering the weapon to her.

  She grinned. “It’s not that kind of gun.”

  But as the pistol exchanged hands, a hex founds its way through one of the fractures in Morgan’s ward. It ricocheted off of the gun, which spun out of my grasp, landed on the floor, and was kicked away in the chaos.

  I lunged after the weapon, dodging a wayward curse but receiving a wayward jab in the ribs from someone’s knee instead. The crowd was too thick and turbulent to maneuver through, and I lost sight
of the gun as the witches jostled me farther and farther from Morgan. Her ward wavered, flickering on and off like a faulty light switch. She was running out of energy to sustain her defense. I needed to act soon, before Morgan’s own sisters ended her life, but just as Morgan’s ward died entirely, Camryn finally stepped over the threshold, and all of the witches paused their offense to take heed of her entrance.

  Silence fell, save for Morgan’s heavy breaths. Camryn glanced toward the floor, knelt down, and picked something up. When she straightened, she held Morgan’s gun. My heart dropped into my stomach.

  Morgan climbed shakily to her feet at the foot of the stairs, raising her hands above her head in surrender as she faced her cousin. “Camryn. You’re making a mistake.”

  Camryn shook her head, running her fingers lovingly over the pistol. “No, I don’t think I am. You see, Morgan, I’ve been dreaming about this day since we were kids.”

  “I don’t have a problem with you, Camryn,” Morgan insisted. “I don’t understand where this competition came from.”

  “Oh, now you don’t have a problem with me?” Carmyn spat. “What about a few weeks ago, huh? When you shamed me in front of my family for suggesting a solution alternative to yours?”

  “Your solution involves murder,” Morgan reminded her.

  “A necessary sacrifice to save the coven,” Camryn replied. “If I recall, your own mother bore that weight on her shoulders. It only seems fitting that you will as well.” She raised the gun, pointing it straight at Morgan’s heart as her tone took on a genuine quality. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of your sisters.”

  I didn’t think before I moved, shoving aside the witches and firing myself across the room as Camryn’s finger rested on the trigger. The gun went off just as I made a flying leap across the entryway, blocking Morgan from Camryn’s aim. The bullet punched into my torso, knocking the wind out of me. I landed hard at the foot of the stairs, gasping for air as white-hot pain clouded my vision. Blood pooled in my hands as I clutched my side.

  Morgan slid down the stairs to cradle me from behind. “Kennedy! Oh, God.”

  Camryn took a step forward, staring down at me. “That was moronic of you. Did you really think you could save her? Now you’re just as helpless as she is. Let’s try this again, shall we? And if you don’t mind, Kennedy, please try to contain your poorly performed heroic gestures.”

  She leveled the gun at Morgan’s head, and for the second time, I heard the click of a bullet moving into position. Morgan looked into the barrel of the gun, confident and unafraid as Camryn pulled the trigger.

  Suddenly, Morgan’s skin erupted in bright blue light. The faded ancient lettering that she had acquired from her trip to the otherworld came alive, snaking around her arms, legs, and neck like an art piece in motion. The gun reacted in turn. Its matte-black exterior blazed with the same power. Camryn’s flesh smoked where it touched the metal, and she dropped the gun with a scream of pain. It clattered to the floor. Swiftly, Morgan reached over me, scooped it up, and fired one shot through Camryn’s heart.

  She was unconscious before she hit the floor. A beat of silence followed, during which Morgan’s marks lessened in intensity. Then a collective gasp resonated through the room as the witches came to their senses. With Camryn out of commission, they were no longer under her influence, and by the looks on their faces, they remembered every horrible thing that Camryn had asked them to do.

  “Oh, God,” Karma said, kneeling next to me and Morgan. “What have we done?”

  It was only when she lifted the hem of my bloodstained shirt that I remembered where Camryn’s first shot had landed. The pain was nearly gone, which was probably a bad sign. I rested my head against the wall of the stairway, preparing myself for terrible news. Laurel and Malia joined us, murmuring their own apologies as the rest of the coven shook off Camryn’s hold over them.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Morgan assured her sister. She tucked the gun behind her back and joined Karma in examining my wound. To my bewilderment, she plucked the flattened bullet from where it was lodged against one of my ribs. “Kennedy, you’re in luck. Your ever-present personal ward stopped the bullet before it could do much damage.”

  I braved a look at the wound. Sure enough, it was limited to a round, red divot on the right side of my ribcage. The blood and heavy bruising made it look worse than it was, but I imagined the pain would return once my shock wore off. My gaze drifted to Camryn, who lay prone on the welcome mat.

  “Is she dead?”

  “No,” Morgan replied, casting a disapproving eye over her unmoving cousin. “She’s mortal.”

  “She is? How?”

  “I picked up that gun in the otherworld,” Morgan explained. “The ancient magic of the dead binds it to me. At one time, it was meant to condemn all manner of enemies from this world to the next. I repurposed it to fit my own needs. Camryn was foolish to think that she could wield it.”

  I studied Camryn, who did not bear any signs of injury other than the blue glow around her heart. “What’s going to happen to her?”

  Morgan sighed and wiped sweat from her brow. “She’s no longer a threat to us, but she will be banished for her poor intention. No crime outweighs an attempt to kill your own coven leader. She’ll be forced to live the rest of her life as a normal human, far away from Yew Hollow.”

  She squeezed my shoulder, asking for my attention. I turned to her. She looked like hell, with red-rimmed eyes, pallid cheeks, and pale lips, but she was also smiling.

  “Thank you, Kennedy,” she said. “I’d be dead if it weren’t for you.”

  “It was nothing.”

  “It was everything,” Morgan corrected, taking my face between her palms. “By saving me, you saved my entire family. That sort of thing does not go lost on me. You have my word that you and Nora will be safe in Yew Hollow. Adrienne will have no hold over you or your sister. We’ll fight her like we’ve fought all of our other battles. Together.”

  14

  Gwenlyn

  I was in the meadow again, the one with the mountain laurels. The place seemed familiar now. Peaceful. Each night, I traversed the tall grass and fragrant wildflowers. Each morning, I forgot the nature of my dreams. Sometimes, the graceful figure would appear, dancing ahead of me like a wind nymph, her blonde hair weaving a golden trail for me to follow. No matter how often she visited me, I never saw her face. Other times, I was alone, basking in the warm sunshine as I aimlessly wandered through a world unavailable to me upon waking.

  Waking, in fact, was the worst part. To be ripped from utopia upon the lifting of my eyelids was no easy transition, and when I felt the familiar shift of the dream world fading, I held on with all of my might to the golden sunshine and vibrant petals. Yew Hollow, in its current state, was no place to return to after witnessing such ethereal and natural beauty. The dead, gray town could not compare to the never-ending meadow.

  So when I awakened to find myself not in the queen-sized bed in Nora’s loft, but on the opposite side of the ward entirely, I did a double take. Yew Hollow lay behind me, its blue dome visible through the trees as it reached up toward the sky. I was nowhere near the opening that I had created in the ward. In fact, I wasn’t sure where I’d ended up. The road to the interstate wasn’t visible, and this part of the forest was unfamiliar to me. On the upside, my witchcraft had replenished itself in record time. I felt the familiar hum of it coursing through my veins, although I balked at the thought of its ever-darkening color.

  It was morning. A blanket of snow coated the tops of the trees, glistening in the pale sunlight that managed to make it through the clouds. Everything from the previous day was a blur of memories. Where was Morgan? Had something happened to her? Why didn’t I seem to care if she had made it out of her tiff with Camryn alive? I shrugged it off. Yew Hollow was behind me now. I had better things to do.

  My legs carried me of their own accord. I followed along, unconcerned with where they were taking me. The forest lightene
d even more as I strolled through it, breathing in the crisp, damp air. The cold didn’t bother me. It was refreshing after suffering through the stale atmosphere of Yew Hollow for so many months.

  When a shimmering black fog appeared amongst the trees, I didn’t hesitate to stroll right through it. It weaved energy into my very being. My shoulders rolled back, my core tightened, and I stood taller. Someone was waiting for me on the other side, the fair-haired creature from my dreams.

  “Oh, good,” Adrienne said, looking up at me. “You finally made it. Took you long enough.”

  Adrienne had built her own campsite, but it was nothing like the flannel-lined sleeping bags and poorly pitched one-man tents that I was used to. Adrienne had used her dark abilities to their full extent, creating what essentially looked like a modest New York loft apartment—complete with a queen-sized bed, a miniature kitchen, and a bathroom—in the middle of the woods. She lounged in a comfortable armchair, sipping from a black ceramic mug as she read a fashion magazine.

  “What am I doing here?” I asked.

  Adrienne conjured a second chair, which floated down and settled next to her own. She patted the fluffy cushion, inviting me over. Whether it felt like a good idea or not, my boots carried me toward her, and I plopped down in the empty chair.

  “Coffee?” she offered, setting aside her magazine to lift a half-full French press from a side table.

  “No thanks.”

  She refilled her own mug instead and added a spoonful of fresh cream. “You know, when I first discovered that the Summers coven had adopted a witch from outside of their bloodline, I thought you would be an extreme nuisance. I planned to watch the Summerses die a long, dreadful death. Little did I know that Morgan’s pet would kidnap my own daughter to stall the process. How did you find out about Nora anyway?”