“Well, she’s dead, so if it were one of us, wouldn’t the killer have been,” I flinched at having to say the word, “stoned.”
“One would think,” Mag said.
I thought back through all of Salem’s lessons—even the ones I’d only half-listened to at the time. I remembered the tales of witch persecution even grade school history teachers couldn’t ignore (I’d absorbed every detail of those, you can rest assured), and recalled the bedtime stories Terra, Evian, and Soleil had regaled me with as a child—especially the ones I’d assumed were complete fiction but could now recognize as flimsily-concealed truths.
“You’re worried we have been or will be discovered,” I stated simply.
Gran nodded, and Mag piped up, “Discovered, revealed, and eradicated. We can never let our guard down. There’s more to being a witch than working magic. And you, my dear niece, have even more to fear, what with your particular brand of special gifts. Fate Weavers are considered a delicacy to a variety of creatures.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. Being referred to in the same manner as a slice of goose liver pate can be extremely motivating. “What can I do to help?”
“Just watch and learn. And don’t touch anything.” Mag barked. In all honesty, I preferred Salem’s overbearing teaching methods to Mag’s grumpy demeanor any day.
Gran began by lighting several white tea light candles while Aunt Mag rubbed each vial with a layer of herb-infused oil and placed each one in a suspended rack made of iron—for grounding, she explained—and laid out a pile of cardboard sticks in various colors.
“Each one of these testers has been steeped in a combination of revealing potion and the essence of various beings. We’ll start with the basics—Fae, demon, witch, shifter, et cetera—and then narrow down the results as we go.”
Mag lifted the stoppers off each bottle, inserted a different stick into each collection of goo. The red one gurgled, and the contents bubbled over the top of the vial, then crusted into shiny black crystalline shards. Yellow and blue produced no special effects, but the green one put on a miniature fireworks show before Mag deftly replaced the lid.
Another one of those looks passed between the sisters. The kind that smacks of adults conspiring to keep sensitive information from the ears of children.
“What?” Something failed the magical litmus test—perhaps failed wasn’t the right word, but I wanted to know.
“Demon.” Gran said.
“Coincidence? Unlikely.” Mag referred to Rhys and his timely visit.
None of us noticed the Balefire dwindling to a bed of embers until the air had stilled to utter silence behind the clinking of glass and the shuffling of our feet against the stone floor.
“Um, you guys...” I pointed and rushed to the hearth.
When I reached for the handle nestled in behind the andirons, a feeble flicker of blue was all I could see above the glowing coals, and I felt none of the familiar tickle I was used to from the fire. The only other time I’d seen it close to this low was during the days before I’d gained my magic and this was worse. Way worse.
Thanking Hecate that part of my life was over for good, I gave the handle a yank and nearly landed on my butt when nothing happened.
“We have a problem.” Another tug and the fireplace stood stubbornly still. The impossible room I’d made my own no longer felt like a cozy sanctuary. Every time I glanced away from them, it felt like the walls crept closer. We were trapped, and in another minute I might give in to the urge to voice the scream creeping up the back of my throat. Bracing my foot against the andiron, I grabbed the handle again. “This. Thing. Won’t. Move.” A grunt punctuated each word.
“Here, let me.” Confident in her magic, Clara gently nudged me aside and, knowing I couldn’t watch, I turned to survey the space for something that might help. Potions, powders, and books. Nothing useful unless...there was one book that might have something. The family Grimoire rested in its customary place on the pedestal in the center of the summoning circle.
The scents of old leather and parchment soothed the claustrophobia for about a second and a half—right up until I saw the room shrink another foot all the way around and realized it wasn't my imagination. Claustrophobia my left foot. You’re only paranoid until they really are after you, and the room was getting smaller by the minute.
What would happen when the walls met? When the Sanctum dwindled to nothing with us locked inside? Would it spit us out the fireplace or would the walls eat us whole? I shuddered and renewed my efforts to find something to stop the inexorable slither of sneaking doom from closing in on us completely.
Meanwhile, Clara and Mag’s voices rose with excitement, and not the good kind.
“Just crawl through.”
“I can’t. Remember we closed off the back of the fireplace when we installed the sliding door system?”
“Excuse my memory, I'm old.” A sullen Mag kicked the raised hearth with one surprisingly dainty foot. “What are we going to do, then? Because I don’t want to spend the night fighting for space on the sofa.”
“That’s not going to be our biggest problem in a few minutes.” Abandoning the book, I rejoined them near the hearth. “Haven’t you noticed the workshop is getting smaller? What happens to us if it disappears? And by the way, isn’t the door mechanism a mechanical thing?”
Clara ignored my first two questions and zeroed in on the last. “Runs on magic. I got that handle at a junk shop over in Palmer. The only way to get out of here is to feed the Balefire.” She glanced toward the empty wood box, then at me.
“What? It’s a magical fire, we haven’t had to add wood to it since my Awakening.” Fear sparked a touch of defensiveness, but at least I didn’t whine. “Can’t we use our magic?”
As it turned out, the answer to that question was a rousing no. Even with all three of us thrusting hands and power into the dying embers, we managed to raise nothing more than a brief flare of red before the coals darkened again. So much for the witch feeding the flame part of the Balefire lore.
“You didn’t answer my question. What happens if the room disappears with us in it?”
“Best case, we get expelled through the fireplace. Worst case—we end up somewhere else, or dead. There’s no rule book or contingency plan for these things. We’re witches, we work with what we have at hand. Let’s worry about the Balefire for now, and figure out the rest later, shall we?”
“It needs fuel. Wood. It’s the only way.” Mag stated the obvious.
The walls inched closer. We needed something to burn, and I grabbed the only thing in sight besides books, which I could never bring myself to sacrifice to the flame: the three-legged stool tucked under the potions section of the table.
While I bashed the stool against a jagged border of stones lining the side of the fireplace, Clara and Mag rounded up an old newspaper and balled up a few pages to help coax the embers back to life. In their haste, they threw on more than we needed.
“Didn’t there used to be a set of tools in here? I need a poker to stir this up before it suffocates the coals.” Clara’s voice sounded strained, and I hated to tell her the tools were in the garage.
Without thinking too hard about it in case of failure, I reached for the only long, pointy thing I had at my disposal and pulled an arrow from the invisible quiver on my back. The arrow, actually. The one I’d used to free Clara not so long ago. Of course, I didn’t realize that until I poked it into the dying embers and gave the balled up papers a stir. When whatever remnant of the Balefire clinging to the arrowhead made contact, the paper caught and the pieces of stool went up like tinder.
Flames shot back to life with enough explosive force to push all three of us off the hearth and into a tangled heap. I happened to land in a position where I could watch the Sanctum walls scuttle back to their original dimensions so fast it looked like a time warp.
Gently extricating myself from the jumble of limbs, I yanked the handle hard, and the fireplace swung open. Crisis avert
ed. For now, anyway.
You wouldn’t think a thousand or so square feet could fit in the space between the back of the hearth and Soleil’s room on the other side of the wall, but that’s part of what makes being a witch so unbelievably cool. Just like the backyard, the sanctum occupied space in some kind of alternate universe, invisible to the naked eye but as real as anything else you can touch, see or feel.
I’d been happily unaware the workshop existed until I dreamed about thrusting my hand into the flame, feeling the soft tickle of fire on my skin, and pulling the handle to open the wall behind the chimney. Witches don’t tend to doubt the wisdom of dreams the same way non-magical humans do; I trusted my instincts in real life and was pleased to find I couldn’t be harmed by the Balefire.
Two minutes ago, I wasn’t sure the coals could sear a gnat. But now, it roared to life in a hundred shades of the rainbow and fed off all the energy circulating through the house. Licking flames colored the bricks below the mantle a dingy shade of black that even faerie magic couldn’t clean. Being confined indoors probably didn’t please the Balefire; after all, it had once been a mighty beast of a bonfire that lived under an expanse of Celtic sky.
A couple thousand years ago the first Balefire witch, Esmerelda, created the Balefire to keep our realm—and witches—out of the civil war between the two Fae courts. From that time to this, witches have been distributing the same flame to one another, all across the globe. Back in Ireland, my great-great-great-and then some grandmother hosted a spectacular celebration each year on the day falling directly between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. Witches from all over the Celtic lands traveled the countryside for a bit of the Balefire flame. Beltane—a Gaelic term meaning brilliant fire—is now celebrated on the first day of May, which also happens to be my birthday.
Flame feeds witch, and witch feeds flame; that’s the Balefire motto. Sure, our family Keeps the fire, but it belongs to all of witchkind. We brew our potions above it; we light our candles with it; we absorb and resupply its energy in a symbiotic relationship.
Globalization being what it is, distributing the flame has become a much bigger problem; and more important than ever. As long as the Balefire burns, our magic flourishes, and we’re safe from the dark faction of Faeries—the Unseelie—who would love nothing more than to eradicate all witches and most humans from the planet. My godmothers, of course, hail from the Seelie, or light court, and have sworn to protect us from what the Seelie consider traitors to their race.
Around three centuries ago, my ancestors made the decision to move the flame to the New World, settling into the same plot of land on which I’m currently standing. With the population exploding during that time, what was once an honored celebration has turned into a logistical fiasco, and requires an entire committee to organize the distribution.
The witches who file through my parlor each year on Beltane bear little resemblance to the wild women who used to dance naked around the fire. They fit in with quote-unquote civilized society, passing for humans as the terms eccentric and odd are whispered behind their backs. We’ve all—and by we I mean supernatural beings of any and all persuasions—been relegated to the shadows in one way or another, effectively increasing the macabre stereotype by more than a few degrees. But, that’s life, right?
Chapter Eight
CLARA
Cuddled into a patio chair on the front porch, I watched dawn paint pink light across a narrow ribbon of sky and sipped peppermint tea with enjoyment. After twenty-five years of standing still, I had plenty of catching up to do, but for this one minute, I didn’t mind sitting down.
This early in the morning, the air often turns still and quiet like it’s waiting for the sun’s touch before coming back to life. That’s the only reason I heard the soft exclamation drifting from the site where I’d been imprisoned for so long.
“Hecate’s petticoats! She’s gone.”
I highly doubt Hecate ever wore petticoats, but I knew by the epithet exactly which witch had come to have a little chat with old stoneface. Now, I know I’ve been called evil a time or two, but I’m not. Or not more than most, anyway.
Scaring Millie Minkens out of her shoes only counted as mischief, not wickedness. Unless the degree of wicked can be measured by the amount of pleasure taken during a mischievous act—then it was totally wicked.
I crept across the front lawn and got as close as I could without drawing attention to myself. “Come to regale me with more tales of your superior nature, have you?” I let the words roll off my tongue, relishing the feeling of being able to speak my mind again.
“Clara?” Slightly stronger now, the sun gave just enough light for me to see Millie’s hand rise to clutch her throat. Millie’s biggest sin evidenced itself in a penchant for stirring up trouble by telling the kind of half-truths that made others seem stupid while she came off looking like an authority. That her habit was well-known and not only tolerated, but laughed about in the community was a piece of news she would ignore should anyone tell her. Anything that didn’t fit with Millie’s internal image of her own importance couldn’t possibly be true.
“It can’t be...Clara. Is that really you? But I thought...”
“...I was a stone cold killer?” I said bitterly. “Even after Sylvana turned up alive? Exactly who did you think I’d killed once that bit of truth came to light?”
The question put a stop to Millie fidgeting with the front of her dress, and she landed on the bench installed so witches could sit and contemplate my crimes before deciding whether or not to commit one of their own. Being pointed out to young witches as a bad example rankled more than I’d realized. It’s not polite to carry a grudge, but it feels so good.
To her credit, Millie answered truthfully, “I don’t think any of us really thought too hard about that side of things. You’d obviously been stoned, so we naturally assumed you did something to deserve the punishment.”
“Naturally.”
The support and warmth I'd hoped for from an old friend was not on the books, apparently. “Can you blame us for that? How were we supposed to know you were innocent?”
“A little faith might have been nice—especially coming from my own coven.”
Millie had the decency to hang her head. “Calypso took over the coven after you...left...and she isn’t your biggest fan.” An understatement she delivered dryly. Calypso Snodgrass despised me almost as much as her daughter hated Lexi. And for as little reason. Her influence on my witch sisters couldn’t have been good, and she was the only coven member who had never used me as a confessional.
“What really happened that day?” With guilt deflected onto Calypso, Millie was free to try and satisfy her avid curiosity, which left me with a small dilemma since she had trouble keeping even the simplest of stories straight. Anything said to Millie went in one ear and out her mouth. After taking a ride on the Tilt-A-Whirl in her head. No good could come from telling her anything important.
Unless there was a way to turn her insatiable need to know things to my advantage. I eyed Millie speculatively and tried to buy a little time to decide. “Tell me more about coven activities during my absence.”
Eager to part with a load of gossip, Millie launched into a rambling tale that spanned the years I’d been out of contact. That her story hardly matched most of the one-sided conversations I’d witnessed during my years of standing still came as no surprise.
Picking the truth out of her self-aggrandizing narrative, I became increasingly dismayed at the direction Calypso had taken the coven. Maybe that’s why I spit in karma’s face and, using my amulet as a focus, whispered an incantation to wipe her memory clear of this conversation. I left her with the suggestion of a rumor that I was no longer among the dead and tiptoed away while it took effect.
LEXI
“Shh,” Gran whispered as Terra glided into the kitchen for breakfast the next morning.
“You realize I could hear you from the end of the street if I wanted to, ri
ght?” My faerie godmother batted her thick lashes at us while absently flicking a finger and sending a cast iron frying pan zinging across the room. Salem and Pye ducked when the thing nearly beaned them on its way by. Mag let out a quiet chuckle.
The gas clicked to life as Soleil tottered in, still yawning, a few seconds later, Evian at her heels. In a flash, a fresh pot of coffee perfumed the air, and I inhaled deeply while pretending not to have any clue what Terra was talking about.
“Where’s Vaeta?” Mag asked pointedly, ignoring her sister’s request for silence.
“Still in bed. Morty Gunderson’s retirement party raged on till almost dawn. Vaeta lost a bet against Terra and had to clean the bathrooms without magic, so she’ll probably ignore us until the bleach smell fades.” Evian piped up.
Soleil snorted, “Or until she forgets—which I’m betting will be around lunch time today, if not before.”
“No more betting,” I admonished, “Not today.”
“Fine, fine.” Terra brushed my statement aside. “We’ll be good. Now tell us what the whispers were all about.”
Earth and Air represent opposite ends of the elemental spectrum for a good reason; if Vaeta’s mind was a sieve, Terra’s was a steel trap. Nothing got past her, as attested by my countless failed attempts at sneaking out after curfew during my teen years. She might have let me get all the way to the end of our road a couple of times, but only for her own amusement.
“It’s probably nothing, but we found some evidence that might point toward Vaeta’s demon friend, Rhys. Inconclusive evidence,” I returned Mag’s elbow prod with one of my own, and heard her suck in a breath as I jabbed her ribs, “so it could have been an entirely different demon altogether.”
Soleil let a hiss escape from between her lips as Evian’s eyebrows lifted almost off her forehead, and Terra closed her eyes for a moment.
“You think it’s no coincidence that Rhys shows up at the home of the Balefire Keeper right around the time a witch from her own coven was murdered.” Terra directed the statement toward Gran and Aunt Mag.
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