Copyright © Gabriella Lepore 2016
This edition published in 2016 by
O F T O M E S P U B L I S H I N G
U N I T E D K I N G D O M
The right of Gabriella Lepore to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real people, alive or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cover design by KimG Design
Interior book design by Deadpan Designs
For Westley,
Count Duckular
ONE - Knowing
TWO - Blizzards Vs Buzzards
THREE - She’s PE
FOUR - Yes Much
FIVE - The Partially Dark Art of Remembrance
SIX - Now It’s Personal
SEVEN - To See or Not To See
EIGHT - Trolls
NINE - Remove, Break, Reverse
TEN - Being Evan
ELEVEN - Public Declaration Guy
TWELVE - And One More Makes Five
THIRTEEN - Everything
FOURTEEN - Whose Line Is It Anyway
FIFTEEN - Snapshots
SIXTEEN - End and Begin
SEVENTEEN - Sacrificed
EIGHTEEN - Batten Down the Hatches
NINETEEN - With Great Power
TWENTY - From the Ashes
TWENTY-ONE - Revival
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
IN THE DEAD of night, Joel Tomlins lay on his bed, staring up at the shadowed ceiling as the cut-glass chandelier swayed above his head. The bedroom, with its two narrow beds and balcony leading off a set of ancient French doors, was Joel’s sanctuary. Having inherited the dilapidated mansion after the passing of Really Old Aunt Pearl, the Tomlins family was now calling the estate home. And for the past six months, that is exactly what it had been. Home. Minus the small detail of a father and a mother, and plus the ample detail of various resident family extensions—none of whom were likely to pass a DNA test.
But at least the alleged aunts were there, scurrying about the place and brewing strong-scented concoctions on the stove. Alleged Aunt Topaz had even set up shop in one of the ground-floor reception rooms, inviting clients in for top-notch crystal ball readings in a dwelling that subsequently allowed her to crank up her prices by twenty percent.
“What better setting than Blackheath’s most notorious witch house?” she would croak with glee, her beady eyes and crooked nose fitting the bill. “Fortune telling in a place like this—and from a Tomlins witch in the flesh, no less!”
At this, Joel’s nose would crease. “You’re not a Tomlins,” he would point out.
Alleged Aunt Topaz would gasp in horror at the accusation. “How dare you! I am your flesh-and-blood aunt, a direct descendent of Great Uncle John! Rest his soul,” she’d add, touching a wrinkled hand to her heart.
“Allegedly,” Joel would mutter, refraining from mentioning that he and his brothers—his real brothers—hadn’t the faintest idea who Great Uncle John was, let alone if such a person had even existed at all. Rest his alleged soul.
Then, at the other end of the spectrum, there was Quite Old Aunt Ruby, Joel’s favourite of all the alleged aunts. She preferred to stay out of the limelight, and as she only tended to surface at night, her presence was often forgotten. Somewhere else inside the extensive mansion dwelled the Incredible Psychic Madam Emerald and potentially a few others, too. Indeed, various ‘aunts’ had appeared over time, claiming family status—but only so they could consequently claim coven status, Joel knew. Mostly they kept to themselves, though, working the carnival trade in the warmer months and selling their witchly talents to the people of Blackheath during the off-season.
Of course, the people Joel considered to be his real family were his brothers. First there was eighteen-year-old Evan, a Chosen One and the most promising witch the family had. Next came thirteen-year-old Ainsley, who was blessed with the gift of intuition and colourful cussing. And lastly there was Pippin, who at four years old was brimming with vision but inhibited in speech. Together they made a trio of blonde-haired and violet-eyed authentic Tomlins witches. And then there was Joel, seventeen years old with a knack for commanding energy. Joel’s hair was darker than his brothers’, but he shared the same pale violet eyes that all the men in his family bore. A telltale Tomlins trait. A telltale witch trait, too, as far as the rest of the town was concerned.
As for Maximus Tomlins, father and patriarch, he’d left some months ago in search of their absentee non-witch mother, Evangeline. The star-crossed duo had a habit of skipping town, as Joel and his brothers were well aware. Evangeline had left for the first time just weeks after Joel was born, abandoning her new baby and her then one-year-old son, Evan. She’d returned for a while some years later, and soon there was a third son, Ainsley. It was after Ainsley was born that she disappeared yet again, this time leaving three sons motherless. Not too long after that Maximus had left, too, in search of his wife. He took baby Ainsley with him, leaving Evan and Joel in the care of the alleged aunts—that gaggle of elderly women who haphazardly raised the boys by giving them free run of the carnival grounds and occasionally dropping by the Tomlins’ split-level bungalow with boxes of cereal and milk. It was during this time that eight-year-old Evan and seven-year-old Joel had learned to be almost totally self-sufficient.
When Maximus and Ainsley had finally returned after a year of searching, Evangeline was not with them. Whether Maximus had found her or not was never discussed. In fact, not a single one of the Tomlinses had ever spoken of that year again. The next time Joel had heard his mother’s name mentioned was when a baby had appeared on the bungalow doorstep some years later: the fourth son, Pippin. Then Maximus had left again—this time alone. He’d returned nearly four years later, also alone, right around the time of Really Old Aunt Pearl’s passing. And so, together as a tenuous family unit once more, they’d moved into Really Old Aunt Pearl’s mansion.
And here they were, only six months later, and Maximus was gone again—leaving four sons to fend for themselves.
Now, as the bitter February wind howled outside, driving against the mansion’s walls and rattling the leaded-glass windowpanes, Joel’s mind replayed these memories over and over again. From his bed, he looked out at the black night beyond the French doors. The thin white drapes were open and he watched the stars as they twinkled above the dark forest. He thought of his family. Not the alleged aunts, but his real family. His father, his mother, his brothers . . . and the brother he hadn’t even known he’d had until recently.
Kaden.
Technically, Kaden was his half-brother—a child Evangeline had had within the year following Joel’s birth, when she’d disappeared for the first time. He was the brother who hadn’t been fathered by Maximus, which was also why he was the only brother who hadn’t been born a witch. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t been touched by witchcraft. On the contrary, Kaden—the brother who’d been hidden for sixteen years, the brother Joel had never known—had been raised by the Fallows coven.
Raised by absolute power.
Raised by absolute darkness.
AS JOEL STARED numbly into the shadows of
his bedroom, there was a knock on his door, so quiet that it almost went unnoticed.
Joel sat upright. “Evan?”
The brass handle twisted and the door creaked open. Evan stood in the doorway, his light hair rumpled and his fine features drawn into a frown. Even in the dark, Joel could see the outline of a dull grey aura.
Pain, he recognised.
“What’s wrong?” he asked carefully.
Evan half-shrugged as he crossed the room, his bare feet padding over the wood-planked floor in the stillness of the night. He lay down on the second bed and pulled its ancient blanket over him. Dust particles caught in the stream of moonlight.
The boys lay in silence for a while. Joel pursed his lips, staring up at the ceiling, wondering if he should say something. In the end, it was Evan who made the first move.
“It happened again.”
Joel flinched. “The dream?”
He heard Evan swallow, and all of a sudden the glass tear-drops on the chandelier began to tremor ever so slightly.
“Mm,” Evan replied. “Did you have it, too?”
“Yeah,” said Joel. He drew in a deep breath, watching the long shadows creep over the wall.
“It’s an omen. It must be,” Evan said quietly. “The storm is coming.”
Joel squeezed his eyes shut. “No,” he muttered. “Don’t talk like that. It’s just a dream.”
“Wind that tears the trees apart,” Evan went on. “Rain that falls so hard it hurts. Earth that shakes, fire that’s closing in on us . . .”
Joel clenched his jaw. “Stop it, Evan. It’s just a dream.”
“It’s The Fallows,” Evan murmured. “They’re coming for us.”
“No, they’re not,” said Joel, rolling over onto his stomach and resting his head on his forearms. “We haven’t seen or heard anything from them since . . .”
He trailed off before he said the words aloud: that they hadn’t heard from the notorious Fallows family since the Tomlins brothers had blocked them from recruiting a human into their power-hungry coven.
Joel cleared his throat. “What have we done to them, anyway?” he scoffed. “Nothing.”
“Yeah, nothing,” Evan replied wryly. “Apart from that time you tried to block them from turning Maggie Ellmes into a human–witch hybrid.”
“Okay, there’s that,” Joel half-smiled. “And offering to exchange my life—well, and accidentally your life, too—to Kaden, their newest hybrid recruit who just so happens to be our mother’s secret son. Apart from that, nothing.”
They looked at each other across the dim room, almost daring to laugh.
“We’ll deal with it,” Joel said at last. “If they come for us, we’ll deal with it.”
When Evan spoke again, his voice was distant. “Can you believe Kaden’s our brother?”
“Half-brother,” Joel corrected. “But, whatever, he’s just some tool that our mother used to get in with the Fallows coven.” He rolled onto his back again, ignoring the pang of guilt he felt for saying those words. “Besides, chances are Kaden’s dead now, anyway. The last time we saw him, he just vanished with no trace. He’s dead—I’m sure of it.” Joel tried to keep his voice steady and confident.
“We need more than presumption,” Evan mused. “We need to know what happened to Kaden that night. Not to mention to Mum and Dad, and to The Fallows, too. Everyone’s disappeared, Joel. Everyone.”
“We’ll find out,” Joel muttered. “We’ll get answers.”
“How?” Evan pressed.
“Witchcraft. We’ve got power.”
“Spells and charms, sure. But this . . .”
“You’re the Chosen One,” Joel reminded him. “There’s probably tons of powers you haven’t even tapped into yet.” He sat upright at the thought. “I mean, think of all you can do that we can’t even comprehend right now.”
Evan sat up, too. “But I can’t progress without Dad. I need his guidance, his training—”
Joel rolled his eyes and waved his hand. “I’ll help you,” he said. “We can figure it out together. All of it.”
Evan lay back on the dusty pillow. “How? How can we tap into witchcraft that we don’t even understand?”
“We’re Tomlinses,” Joel said simply. “That’s what we do.”
WHEN JOEL AWOKE at sunrise, the previous night seemed like a dream. He glanced across the room to where Evan was still sleeping soundly in the second bed. And now, on the wooden floor between them, another form was sleeping, too. Only this one was snoring loudly beneath a mound of bedding. A mass of blonde curls corkscrewing out from under the blankets identified the snorer as Ainsley.
Joel raised an eyebrow at the sight. Since when had his room become everyone’s crash pad?
Since Dad left, he thought, answering his own question. His heart gave a little tug, and he immediately pushed the thought aside.
Joel looked out the French doors. Beyond the rusted balcony, a vast evergreen forest was lit by the pink blush of dawn. Soft white snowflakes fluttered through the air, dusting the treetops and turning the sky into one endless cloud. It was as though the world and all of its colours and patterns had been wiped clean, giving way to a fresh start, a new hope. A blank canvas for new patterns to form.
“It’s snowing,” Joel murmured.
“It’s knowing,” came a tiny voice from across the room.
Joel sat upright and turned his head towards the doorway. “Pippin,” he greeted his youngest brother. “I didn’t see you there.”
The four-year-old stood smiling joyfully in the doorway, his thumb stuck in his mouth and his lavender eyes wide and hopeful.
“It’s knowing,” Pippin said again, his thumb muffling the words.
“Snowing,” Joel corrected. “It’s snowing.”
Pippin tottered across the room, his wild blonde curls bouncing as he clambered with much effort onto the end of Joel’s bed. He huddled closely to Joel as they watched the snowflakes fall beyond the French doors.
“Look, Pippin,” Joel said gently. “That’s snow. Hey, we can make a snowman later. That’d be fun, huh?”
Pippin blinked up happily at his older brother.
“Can you say snow?” Joel asked.
“No,” said Pippin.
“Snow,” Joel tried again.
“No,” said Pippin emphatically.
“You’re peculiar,” Joel told him fondly.
“Peculiar,” Pippin echoed in his childlike voice.
“Yeah.” Joel smiled and smoothed down some of the toddler’s wayward hair.
As they peacefully watched the world outside, accompanied by a chorus of Ainsley’s snores, Joel’s thoughts were once again wound up in his family. How could he protect his brothers from The Fallows? Was he even capable of such a feat without Maximus’s guidance?
“It’s knowing,” said Pippin quietly.
“Snowing,” Joel told him.
“No,” said Pippin. “It’s knowing.”
MAGGIE ELLMES HUGGED her winter coat around herself as she ventured out of the boarding house and into the snow-covered orchard surrounding the school. A spongy layer of snow blanketed the ground and clung to the bare branches of the trees. She shivered.
“Snow,” she noted, her sleepy green eyes scanning the blank canvas before her.
Isla, her roommate at the boarding house, zipped up her parka and covered her silken black hair with a slouchy wool hat. “Ohmygod,” she gasped in one breath. “Do you think they’ll have to cancel school?”
Maggie’s eyes lit up and she stopped in her tracks, the slushy snow on the pathway soaking into the hem of her jeans. “I hope so,” she said.
Isla’s finely shaped eyebrows pulled together over her coffee-brown eyes. “Mags, don’t even! I have so much to do,” she said, drawing out the final word as if it had extra syllables. “It’s already Thursday, so I’ve only got two days to finish a catch-up assignment that I need Mr FitzP to go over ASAP. Plus, I’ve got a Student Council meeting at lunch, an
d a Dance Committee meeting after school . . .” She began counting tasks off on her fingers. “Oh, god. I am freaking out!”
Maggie wrinkled her nose. “Don’t freak out.”
“It’s happening,” Isla choked, touching her temples. “If FitzP isn’t in today to look over the first draft of my assignment, I swear I’ll . . . Well, I don’t really know what I’ll do . . .”
While Isla talked, Maggie’s mind drifted. She snuck a quick glance at the snow-capped gothic-era school building a little way ahead. Its towering walls were just visible beyond the stone enclosure of the boarding house.
Actually, she could really use a day off today, she decided. Thursdays were the worst.
“Hello?” Isla said suddenly, waving her gloved hand in front of Maggie’s face.
Maggie blinked. “Um, hi.”
“You zoned out,” Isla told her. “Again.” She picked a snowflake out of Maggie’s dark blonde tresses and flicked it onto the ground.
Maggie stifled a yawn.
“Come on, Mags. Move.” Isla steered Maggie back on track, marching her towards the school with anxious purpose. Maggie trudged dutifully alongside, crossing her fingers that luck would be on her side this morning. If only she could be back in bed within the next fifteen minutes, then this whole school issue would be a thing of the past. For today, anyway.
They passed beneath the arched entrance onto campus. The steps in front of the school had already been shovelled, and tyre marks from six or seven teachers’ cars cut across the snow-covered parking lot. Ms Joy, night manager at the boarding house and self-appointed disciplinarian at Blackheath High, was waiting in the school’s front annex. As usual, her willowy arms were folded across her chest and her greying hair was scraped into a chignon. Her eyes narrowed as she scrutinised the approaching girls.
Isla waved a greeting.
“What are you doing?” Maggie hissed, tugging her friend’s arm back down at once. “Don’t wave at Joyless! She’ll see it as a sign of weakness.”
Blackheath Resurrection (The Blackheath Witches Book 2) Page 1
