by Amy Boyles
“Then why are you doubting him?” Amelia said.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Maybe because it’s easier. Maybe I’m stupid. I don’t know.”
Cordelia squeezed my hand. “You need to tell him your fears. You have to explain it. It’s better that you let him know than to make him think something else.”
I spoke slowly. “That I have feelings for Rufus.”
Cordelia nodded. “Your fears are something Axel will understand. What he won’t understand is holding on to Rufus’s protection amulet when he’s made you one of his own.”
I wrapped my hand around the golden locket at my throat. It buzzed slightly, like holding a very mild live wire, like one that barely had any electricity blipping through. The amulet in my pocket hummed as if it had heard my thoughts.
“I like being doubly protected,” I said. “What’s wrong with a little extra help? Both of these might’ve helped when Beverly Unk nearly attacked me in Magical Elements.”
“I think you should ask yourself why you need the protection of more than one man,” Betty said. “I have a feeling when you look deep inside, you’ll see the answer is simpler than you think.”
I sighed and dropped my hand to the table. “Okay. Yeah. All right.” I leaned back and rubbed my sweating palms over my thighs. I hadn’t realized how worked up I’d gotten over this conversation, but it had really yanked my chain.
“Well, this was fun,” I said cheerily.
Amelia and Cordelia laughed. Betty eyed me soberly. “You need to tell Axel your fears. I think you’ll find they’ll make him feel better, too.”
“Right.” It felt like a wall was pressing against my chest. Thinking about all this challenged me. The weight of this decision was more than I wanted to deal with.
“Axel thinks you have feelings for another man.” Betty pulled out her pipe and lit it.
“I don’t. I like Rufus but not in that way. I think he’s grown as a person, but I don’t want to date him.” I rubbed my temples. “I think I was confused, but with Axel things are clear and right. There’s always clarity—” I shot them an embarrassed look. “Except for this, of course.”
“That’s good.” Betty rose. “Very good. Because Axel wouldn’t have given you part of himself for protection otherwise.”
My brow furrowed. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you mean.”
“I’m talking about that locket.” She pointed the mouth of the pipe in my direction. “You think that’s just a bunch of gold and a few spells?”
“Maybe?” I said with a huge question in my voice. “What else would it be?”
Betty threw her head back and laughed. “The best protection spells always use blood. Axel shed some to protect you. Now, the question is—will you accept what he’s offering?”
As I stared down at the locket, the answer popped in my head.
FOURTEEN
I decided to take Sylvester to my talk with Deidre.
These halls hold secrets, the snake said into my head as we walked toward her office.
I quirked a brow. “Have you deemed me worthy to hear them? Have you forgotten I’m a woman?”
The snake tasted the air. I haven’t forgotten.
“But I feed you, is that it?”
He didn’t respond. Yep, I had a feeling that was the correct answer.
Deidre answered on the first knock. Her eyes widened when she spotted Sylvester.
“Oh! I didn’t know you’d be bringing company.”
“Yes, he’s a joy to be around.”
She flinched. “You won’t let him out of the cage, will you?”
“No. He’s staying right where he is.” I pointed to an empty table. “Is it okay if I set him there?”
She waved the air. “Yes, of course. As long as you don’t think he’ll get out.” She leaned over until she could see around me. “He’s slightly unnerving.”
“You should talk to him. He’s pretty sexist.”
Deidre puckered her lips as she spoke. “I would be too if I’d been Beverly’s familiar.” Her gaze met mine, and she smiled. “Now. What can I do for you?”
“I wanted to know what you had, if anything, on the Craple family history?”
Deidre tapped a finger against her lips. “There’s a lot on the Craples, actually. Let me see.” She walked to a large bookcase that was filled from top to bottom with thickly bound tomes. Her finger traced across and down until stopping on one particular book.
“Ah, here we are.” She heaved the book from the shelf and laid it on a lectern. The binding cracked and the thick smell of old paper filled the room as she opened it.
“This book contains most of the history of the families that either founded Magnolia Cove or who lived in the surrounding area for a very long time. The Craples should be in here.”
She flipped the pages until landing on a table of contents. Deidre found the listing for Craple and slowly peeled back the sheets.
“Here we are. The Craple family. Now. What are you looking for?”
I licked my lips. Here goes nothing. “You heard what Gilda said last night—that the Craples supposedly own a scroll with knowledge that will keep witches invisible to humans?”
“I did.”
“My grandmother doesn’t know anything about it. I was wondering if there was something in these older records either about the scroll or about the ancestor who supposedly owned it.”
“Ah, I see.” She gave me a warm smile. “Well, let’s look. Maybe we can find something.”
I poured over every bit of information that Deidre had readily available about the Craples and our history, but most of it was little more than facts or names with ages and a genealogical tree.
I had just about given up when I spied a book title Magical Families of the South.
I pointed to it. “What’s this?”
Deidre whisked to its side. “Oh, this is a book I’ve recently picked up. It’s very volatile and difficult.”
I laughed because the idea of a book being volatile was amusing. Deidre did not laugh in return.
“Oh. You’re not joking, are you?”
She shook her head. “I most certainly am not. This tome is testy. Burt ordered it for me, but it hasn’t wanted to give up any of its secrets.”
“Give up its secrets? You’re talking as if the book is alive.”
Once again Deidre just looked at me.
“So I’m guessing the book has an attitude?”
“You could say that, yes.” She sighed and pointed to it lamely, as if she’d already given up on it. “It won’t open for me.”
“How can a book not open for you?”
Then I remembered what Connor, Burt’s assistant, had said in the shop—that he’d had to separate the book from the divination powder because the two hadn’t gotten along.
Could the book somehow be a clue?
I crossed to it. The book was nothing special. It had a black cover with raised lines that swirled into decorative vines. They looked to have once been painted gold but were now severely faded.
I opened my palm and laid it over the book. It seemed to shrink back, like it was trying to get away from me.
Command it to open.
Sylvester’s voice popped inside my head. My gaze darted to the serpent, which sat coiled around his branch. His black eyes glittered, and his tongue tasted the air as if a delightful treat were only inches from his face.
Command it to open, he said again. That’s what Beverly would do.
What? But I didn’t have time to ask for more information because the book bucked.
Yes, it bucked. Out from under my palm the tome contracted as if its thick binding didn’t matter.
Deidre appeared at my side. “What’s it doing?”
“I don’t know.”
Her eyes widened. She grasped my shoulders. “Maybe you can open it. I haven’t been able to.”
“Um. I’m not sure.”
Deidre grabbed my hand and placed
it over the book. “Open,” she commanded.
The book did nothing.
“You’ll have to say it.” Delight and something else—lust, maybe?—filled her eyes. “You have to command it to do your bidding.”
Something about her desire made my stomach churn.
“This book contains more information than just the first families in the area,” Deidre said quickly. “It contains some spells, chants and other tidbits. It was written by one of the oldest settlers in the area. I know you are looking for a scroll, but if there ever was a scroll, it would have been this book.”
I curled my fingers into a fist. “So this book could hold that information?”
She nodded. Want filled her eyes.
I bit my bottom lip. “I don’t know if I want to open it. A spell like that would be so powerful I’m not sure if it’s a good thing to have or not. I only wanted to prove that my family doesn’t know its whereabouts.”
“But this would prove it,” Deidre insisted. “If it has the spell or even if it tells us a little bit about the history.”
I bit my lower lip as I thought it over. I was here to help Betty, after all. That was what I wanted, wasn’t it? To help my grandmother?
In the end I splayed my hand over the book. “Open.”
The book bucked again. It bent and stretched as if waking from a thousand-year slumber.
The cover peeled back with a loud cracking sound.
“‘A Magical History of Alabama, written by Ernestine Craple.’” I glanced up at Deidre. “A Craple wrote this.”
She nodded. “Probably why you could open it.” Her fingers curled around the book. She raised it to her and stopped. “Do you see that writing? Where it gives the title?”
I nodded. “Yes. Don’t you?”
She frowned. “No.” She slowly peeled back the next page. “Is there writing on this one?”
“Yes, it gives a list of names of the first families in the area. Oh, I see Unk. The Craples are just as old as them.”
Deidre snorted. “Did she tell you that’s why she didn’t like you?”
I nodded. “No, she didn’t like me because I’m a half-breed. But if my family hadn’t been as old as hers, Beverly’s attitude probably would’ve been even more sour.” I considered that. “If such a thing was possible.”
Deidre rolled her eyes. “That’s what Beverly always did—told people she didn’t like them because they weren’t good enough. She just plain old didn’t like you. For instance, my family has been here for such an incredibly long time, longer than the Unks. My research has been in proving that.”
I glanced down the list of names but didn’t see Tipple.
“Beverly thought she could intimidate me as well and make me not say what I’ve discovered—that the Tipples are older than the Unks—but now she isn’t here to challenge it anymore.”
“Hmm,” I said.
“The Tipples were very clandestine. My research shows they didn’t live among the other witches back in the old days.”
“I see.”
Deidre smiled at me. “But now, let’s see if we can find something in here about that scroll.”
We spent two hours poring over the book. Since Deidre couldn’t read it, I had to go over all the text. In the end, it didn’t have one word about some hidden scroll that the Craples were supposed to have owned.
Too bad.
I thanked Deidre for her time, grabbed Sylvester and headed down the hall. I hadn’t gotten far when I met Prissy and Valerie on the opposite end of the corridor.
Prissy stopped. Her lip curled into a snarl as she eyed the serpent. “What do you have there?”
I glanced down at Sylvester. “Oh, I have Beverly’s snake. Do you want him? He’s a bit sexist and not very much on conversation, but if you promise to give him a good home—and by that I mean feed him and not swindle him out of his hard-earned cash by promising to change his future—well then you can have him.”
Prissy sniggered. “How very funny. I don’t know what you’re talking about when you mention swindling.”
“She’s talking about what Beverly used to do,” Valerie said quite honestly. She sounded young and innocent, sort of like how Prissy sounded before she’d taken Beverly’s spot as leader of their little group.
“Shut up, Valerie,” Prissy said. Her eyes narrowed as she pinpointed her focus on me. “Do you think we gave people bad fortunes so that they would pay to have them changed?”
I raised my chin. I wasn’t going to let this witch intimidate me. “No, I don’t think you only dished out bad fortunes for money, but I think you did that a great deal, yes.”
“And I suppose you think that’s what got Beverly killed? That it was someone who was so angry with her for cheating them out of money that she was murdered for it? Is that what you think?”
“The thought had occurred to me.”
Prissy took a menacing step forward. “Let me tell you something. What we did was a service. After we fixed people’s futures, they were happy to be alive. When people think bad things are going to happen, then bad things will. That’s how the universal laws of attraction work. Like begets like. So for your information we were helping get people excited about their lives. Helping them shift and focus their perspectives.”
“So you were helping them? By stealing their money?”
“They always paid us,” Valerie said. “We never had to take anything by force. Except maybe for that one time—”
“Hush,” Prissy snapped. She glared at me. “You would do good to mind your own business. I can see now why Beverly didn’t like you. At first I thought it was just jealousy, but you’re judging us, and you don’t even know us. You don’t know anything about us.”
She threw her head back and laughed. “And you don’t know anything about that man and Beverly. You think you do because he protects you, but you don’t know one thing. Not one. You ask him what he knows about her. Ask him and you’ll see.”
I rolled my eyes. “I already know about Rufus and Beverly. I know he was aware of your scam.”
Her eyes glittered with malice. “I’m not talking about Rufus.”
I scowled. “Then who are you talking about?”
A slow, evil smile curled on her lips. “I’m talking about Axel. Go ask him. He’ll tell you.” She threw back her head and laughed once more. “Or maybe he won’t.”
With that, the two women turned and stalked down the hall, leaving me standing alone with knees so weak I collapsed to the floor.
FIFTEEN
“What did Prissy mean by that, that I was supposed to ask you about Beverly?”
Axel’s face tightened.
Y’all might think I was being a bit dramatic by heading over to Axel’s right after I left the school, but I didn’t think so. Heck, I wanted this mystery solved and I wanted it solved yesterday—at least in regards to what Prissy was talking about.
“Why is your face turning red?” I said.
Axel sank onto a couch and rubbed his eyes. “What she’s talking about is that years ago Beverly approached me about certain spells—certain divination spells that are generally performed by wizards instead of witches.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because the magic in them is dark, masculine. There are feminine and masculine forces in nature and so, too, in magic. Beverly needed some help, and I assisted her.”
He stopped talking.
I kicked his foot. “You’re not telling me everything. There’s more.”
His gaze darted to the wall. “There are things I won’t say only because they might hurt you.”
I shook my head. “We promised not to keep secrets, remember?”
“We did. Unless those secrets are better left buried and never discovered.”
My face burned with anger. “You got on to me about Rufus being between us and now you’re keeping something from me.” I sliced the air with my hand. “Now this is between us and that’s not on me, Axel.”
&nbs
p; He rose. Fury filled his eyes. “That’s different. This is the present I’m talking about with Rufus. Beverly is the past.”
“So she was your past? Beverly was? That’s what you don’t want to tell me?”
“No, it wasn’t like that.”
“Then why don’t you just say it?”
His voice filled every nook and cranny of the room. His anger was so fierce, so deadening that I wanted to shrink into a ball and hide.
“Because I gave her the spell that would help her divine a negative future for people. Beverly couldn’t just lie about seeing the wrong fortune in someone’s life; she actually had to see it so it could be changed. I’m the person who showed her how to work the spell, Pepper. Did I know what it was being used for? No. Should I have given it to her? Never. And I would never do it again if someone asked me for it. So you see, I’m at fault here.”
He fisted a hand and tapped it to his heart. “I’m not perfect. I’m far from it, but I don’t hurt people intentionally. That’s not what I do.”
His words stung. “Oh? Are you saying I’m hurting you intentionally by remaining friends with Rufus?”
“I didn’t say that.” His voice lowered to almost a whisper. “I’m saying…I don’t know what I’m saying. But I know that I made a mistake by giving the wrong person a spell that they then used for harm. I won’t do that again. Not ever.”
He extended a hand and brushed a loose strand of hair from my cheek. A fissure of energy snaked up my skin and made my scalp tingle. I shivered.
Axel took a step toward me and pulled me into his arms. I melted into his concrete body and let him take my weight. In that moment I felt protected within the walls of his strong body. I curled my fingers into his shirt.
“I’m not perfect,” he whispered. Axel’s warm breath tickled my ear. “Far from it. I’ve trusted those I shouldn’t have. I never thought Beverly would use the spell the way she did.”
I pushed away. A curtain of hair fell into my face. I brushed it aside before Axel could. “Then what did you think she would do with a spell like that? A way to see the negative in someone’s future? What possible good could that ever do? And are you saying you showed her a way to create a negative future for someone?”
