by Patti Larsen
“My grandmother,” I offered as way of an apology. “I’m sorry, I have to get her home.”
Thank goodness nothing we did so far magic-wise was visible to normals. I would be forced to have someone in the coven wipe his memory and I worried they might take too much. I wanted him to remember he was going to kiss me. Weird thing to think about while trying to keep my grandmother from totaling half the block, but hey, I was a teenager.
Brad watched Gram as she struggled, snarling and spitting from her sprawl on the ground. She made heavy grunting noises, her face twisting in frustration.
“Is she okay?” He asked.
“No,” I said. “She’s nuts. I really have to go.”
I started pulling on Gram, hauling her to her feet, using my demon to help. She clutched at me, eyes blazing. I considered knocking her out, but Brad was still there. He was such a gentleman, I knew he would frown on that sort of thing. I had a flash of his lips and had to fight my way back.
Focus, Syd, focus.
Gram turned on me, hissing.
“Can I help?” Brad frowned, clearly worried.
“Thanks but no thanks,” I said, tugging her toward home, winning a little. Thank goodness we were only a block away. “See you!”
He waved and turned to leave, glancing back once or twice. When he was far enough away, I released my demon and let Gram feel my full power even though I had no idea what else to do with it.
“Okay, Gram,” I growled. “We can do this easy or hard. You pick.”
She pouted like a petulant child caught doing something naughty. “You have it and I want it back.” Her lower lip quivered. I felt like leaving her there.
“Look, I don’t have it, whatever it is, and I never have.”
Tears welled in those pale blues, but I knew better than to feel empathy. She could turn on me like a wild cat in a flash.
“Can we please go home now, or do I have to make you?”
“I don’t want to go back there,” she pouted.
“Tough,” I answered. “We are going back, end of discussion. How do you keep getting out?” The last was more a question for myself as I steered her up the street.
I didn’t even bother to try to listen in on her one-sided muttered conversation as we walked the rest of the way home.
I checked around to make sure there were no witnesses. A huge, black dog watched me from a nearby driveway. There was something familiar about him, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. It wasn’t like he really counted or anything. Besides, he seemed friendly enough, tongue lolling out as if he was laughing at us.
Stupid dog.
***
Chapter Twenty Six
The very fact I managed to get Gram in the driveway amazed even me. I should have been alarmed by the number of cars outside our house but I was so focused on getting my grandmother safely inside before she did something we’d all regret, it wasn’t until I had her physically in the kitchen that I saw there were more people in my house than there were when I left.
At least a dozen coven members had a mixture of surprise and relief on their faces. Mom rushed forward, hugging us both at the same time. We both fought her, but for very different reasons. Gram managed to extract herself and stood there, weaving and humming, lost to all of us. Mom hugged me harder. I stopped struggling.
“Oh, Syd,” she whispered.
“It’s okay, Mom,” I whispered back.
She gave me one more squeeze and let me go. Mom went to Gram who picked her nose, a huge, happy grin on her face.
“Mother,” Mom said, pulling her hands down. “How do you keep escaping?”
Gram ignored her, making smacking noises with her lips, eyes crossing and uncrossing.
My mother turned to the gathered witches.
“I’m so sorry, everyone,” she said to them, making it very clear to me she had no idea Gram had even been missing. “Please forgive the interruption.”
Somehow, I had the feeling they weren’t there because she invited them. There was a strange feel to the whole thing raising the small hairs on my arms. I resisted rubbing them to make it stop.
Erica pasted on a smile. “Well, this show is over then, and no harm done.”
A murmur ran through the others. None of them seemed certain. I knew every face but wondered as they stared at my grandmother, if I really knew them at all.
Trust my mother to know the perfect thing to do.
“Not this time,” she said softy to Erica, “but we do need to get to the bottom of this.”
The answering murmur was positive. I could feel their energy reaching for Mom. I shuddered, hoping I would never have to try to play her role. I knew I would fail.
“I’m here because the others thought we should come to you.” Celeste Oberman, one of the stronger witches and always a leveling presence, shook out her long, brown hair, a nervous habit. “It’s clear there is something going on that is out of the ordinary, but your claim that we are under some sort of an attack seems outlandish.”
I wanted to cut in that Uncle Frank’s near demise wasn’t exactly his own idea but held back. I knew I wouldn’t be helping Mom’s case any.
“I’m not comfortable leaving anything to chance,” Mom said. “If there is something going on,” and we both knew there was even if Celeste and the other witches felt like sticking their stupid heads in the sand, “I want to get to the bottom of it before it turns into something dangerous.”
Too late. Meanwhile I marveled at Mom’s skill. She was so good at handling them. Aside from Celeste, the others did seem to be taking what Mom told them seriously.
“Fine,” Celeste said, glaring down her nose at me before turning her attention back to Mom. “What would you like to do?”
“We’ll call the twins,” Mom said.
I shivered. The twins. Okay, I knew it was serious, but nobody called the twins unless it was a last resort. They just didn’t play well with others.
“If something is going on,” Mom said, “they will be able to tell us. If not, I for one will be the first to put these odd occurrences behind me.”
“I’ll call them,” Celeste said, going for the phone.
“No,” Mom said, again very softly. The control in her voice made everyone stop. “I’ll call them myself.”
So there, I silently snapped at Celeste. Her cool hazel eyes flashed at me but she backed off immediately. I wondered at the fact she even overstepped herself at all. I recognized every high-ranking witch in our coven, with the exception of the Moromonds, was there. Every one of them near in power to Erica, if not my mother. No one was close in strength to my mother but me.
What was going on?
Meanwhile, Erica guided Gram out of the room. I could hear Mom’s voice murmuring on the phone as she carried the portable out into the hallway for privacy. The air in the kitchen hung thick, oppressive. There was a tension to it, a discomfort I never felt with the others before. No one looked at anyone, no eyes meeting, and no one would look at me. Something was definitely going on. I knew whatever it was, it involved me or my family and I wasn’t going to like it one bit.
Mom came back into the kitchen before I did something drastic to break the tension and make someone, anyone, talk to me. I felt her power reach out through the room, diffusing our frustration and anxiety, soft and comforting, supportive and strong. The tension eased before dissipating altogether.
Didn’t want her job. Ever.
Mom made coffee and invited everyone to the living room. I helped as much as I could. I tried my best to get my mother alone to grill her about what was going on, but it never happened. I know she did it on purpose. By the time they settled with coffee and cookies, I was sick of the calming energy she radiated and shook free of it.
Mom’s expression begged me to behave.
Syd, I heard her voice brush through my mind. Please…
Fine, I snapped back. But I want answers.
Her magic left me with the impression I would find out
everything soon enough.
The assembled witches started chatting among themselves. I began to think I was worried about nothing after all when the doorbell rang.
Everyone froze. All eyes turned to my mother. Mom rose gracefully from her seat, a reassuring smile on her face.
“That must be the twins,” she said. “Please excuse me.”
Silence reigned until she left the room. As soon as she did the chatter started again. This time there was an edge to it. We all knew how deadly serious things were with the threat not just to me, like they cared about me. More importantly, the fact that whoever was behind the attacks seemed to keep making it past the family wards and into our house. No one felt the need to hide it any longer.
Mom reappeared at the door with guests.
“Everyone, make our sisters welcome.”
I felt my heart stop. It’s not that the twins were overly impressive to look at or anything. They were identical in every way, right around five foot four, with ordinary brown hair and brown eyes. They dressed as average, normal people in simple jeans and sweaters and neither of the fifty-year-old women wore a stitch of makeup. They both had tight, pinched faces, like stereotypical shrews. You could tell by the feel of them they were both single and happy about it.
It wasn’t their appearance that overwhelmed. It was the fact both of them refused outright to hide they were witches. They oozed power. On their own, Esther and Estelle Lawrence were rather weak, disjointed and unfocused. But, as often happens with identical twins, especially girls, together they were a force to be reckoned with. Considering their specialty was uncovering secrets others wished very much to remain hidden, they made the rest of us very, very nervous.
Every time I saw them I had the feeling I was guilty of something. This time was no exception. I squirmed under the doubled gaze as their eyes passed over each and every one of us with slow deliberation.
I wondered if they made my mother feel like a naughty six-year-old or if it was just me.
From the expressions on the faces of the other witches, it wasn’t. But if Mom felt it, she was way too good to show it.
The group murmured a welcome. The twins simply nodded.
“Coffee?” Erica held out the pot.
“We have work to do,” Esther said—or was it Estelle? “No time for idle chit-chat.”
The twin who had spoken—I was pretty sure it was Esther—turned to Mom, face even more pinched and tight than usual as she focused on the task at hand.
“Miriam, if you would allow us?”
My mother bowed her head to the twins. “Thank you for coming so quickly,” she said.
“We answer to the call of the coven,” Estelle said with piety. The twins exchanged a look. “The coven’s troubles are all of our troubles, no matter who is causing them.”
They had the nerve to focus on me. I scowled at them as Mom gave me a sharp shake of her head.
“I would be honored if you would use my place of power,” Mom said. “Please, follow me.”
She led them away. A sense of relief went around the whole room. I glanced over at Erica and mouthed, ‘What?’ at her. She offered a sad smile and turned away.
I felt suddenly unwelcome. I stood up and walked out, knowing I was stiff, knowing they all watched me, getting madder and madder that they blamed me for the stuff that happened so far. Some gratitude for saving their collective butts.
I went up to my room and collapsed on my bed. Crap, I had history homework I hadn’t finished. I fished out my stuff and started reading, but the words all ran together. After my tenth time reading one sentence, I tossed the book aside in frustration. I started doodling on a piece of loose leaf. My mind drifted to Brad. I thought about his hair, his eyes, his lips so close to kissing mine. Before I knew it I covered a page with big hearts, ‘Syd and Brad’ in the middles of them. I rolled my eyes at myself and giggled, knowing I would burn that piece of paper before I would let anyone see it.
I sat up, book forgotten, as I felt the huge build-up rising toward me. Something was really, really wrong and the demon in me would not let me sit it out.
I barely reached the bottom of the stairs when I heard the first scream from the basement. I recoiled physically from the whiplash of released power, passing through me and out of the house. I started running. I wasn’t the only one, but I was the first at the top of the stairs and didn’t hold them up on the way down.
I hit the basement floor and skidded to a halt only feet from Mom. She crouched over the still forms of the twins with her back to us. Her whole body shook. A strange noise came from her. I went to her and knelt, trying to understand what happened.
Mom turned to me, face flushed, hands trembling. She wept, her terror so vivid on her face I wanted to flinch from her. She clung to me, making the feeling of fear all that much worse as it washed over me from her, shaking so hard I had trouble hanging on to her.
“Mom,” I whispered.
She continued to sob against me. I felt Erica kneel close by. I knew she was checking the twins. My expression asked the question my lips didn’t want to. “They’re alive,” she said. “Just unconscious.”
Mom’s eyes were huge. “Are you sure?” She reached for Erica, grasping her hand so tight they both turned white. “I felt…”
“Mom?” I tried to pull her free of Erica. “What did you feel?”
She turned back to me, a desperation in her I never saw before, a scary emptiness that made me think of Gram.
“I felt them leave,” she whispered.
I felt Erica’s power reach out, out… and found nothing. Mom was right.
“How could this happen?” Celeste stepped forward, breathless and afraid, her full brown skirt swirling up mustiness from the basement floor. Her plain, tanned face glared, uncompromising. “Miriam, how could you let this happen?”
My mother shook her head, unable to speak. I spun on Celeste with my demon in my gaze. It was getting easier to let her out. I didn’t care even a little that they all saw it.
“Give her a minute,” I snapped.
Mom gripped my hand. She took large gulps of air, pulling herself together. The others backed off but they were waiting for answers. I just wanted my mom to be okay.
Mom struggled to rise. I helped her. She pulled herself erect, using me for balance and faced her coven deputies. Her eyes were still haunted and I had a weird feeling something within her changed, was wrong, weakened and smothered, but I couldn’t put my finger on it and had no way to do anything about it.
“I don’t know,” she said. “The twins cast the spell, but it… failed… came back at them somehow, and they… they were taken away with it.”
Celeste checked around with the others for support before speaking.
“You were here, Miriam, couldn’t you stop it?”
Mom shook her head, still clinging to me. She was so weak, so unlike my mother, I almost shrank from the desperate grip she had on me.
“It happened so fast, the recoil, there was nothing… nothing I could do.”
“Can’t we bring them back?” I asked her. The sparkle that never left my mother’s eyes no matter how mad she was at me, no matter how bad things were between us, vanished.
“No, Syd,” she said very softly, though everyone heard her. “I’ve lost them. They’re gone.”
She started to cry.
***
Chapter Twenty Seven
Several hours and dozens of witches later, we had no more answers than when the twins collapsed in the first place. Mom tried to remain as the focus, but I saw her wavering, leaning on Batsheva Moromond who arrived in a flurry shortly after the incident, claiming she felt it down the block. Erica didn’t seem happy her position as second was taken over by the loud and portly woman, but I was happy as long as Mom had someone to lean on until she had her feet under her again.
I hunted privately for a hopeful thread of the green magic but there was nothing left, nothing to follow and since I really had no ide
a what I was doing, I quickly abandoned my search but not my frustration.
The attack took a huge toll on my mother to the point where she was not only physically drained, but her power limited as well. By the end of it, Batsheva supplied most of the magic guiding the search for the women’s missing spirits.
She turned to Mom, round face crimson with effort, lipstick running into the little lines around her mouth so badly she had clown lips. “We’ve done what we can for them, Miriam,” Batsheva said. “Our power is done, for tonight at least.”
Every eye turned to my mother. She felt so frail, like a delicate shell was all that held her together. I was terrified for her. But she was still leader enough she gathered what strength remained to her.
“Very well,” she whispered. “Have them taken and put into protection until we can figure this out.”
Batsheva waved two members forward before taking my mother’s elbow, guiding her to the stairs as the chosen witches prepared the empty bodies for magical stasis. They would be preserved for as long as the coven existed. But I was hoping their spirits would find their way home first.
I followed the weary and defeated group up the stairs and into the kitchen. Erica made a half-hearted effort at coffee and cookies but no one was interested. Jared stopped her by taking her hand and pulling her to him. He looked drained. They all did, beaten down a little more by what happened.
I thought about making my way to Mom but Batsheva still had a firm hold on her. I wasn’t sure I wanted to face her for control. Her eyes settled on me. I saw a flicker of something nasty, like satisfaction.
