“Excuse me,” Isla said, pouncing on it.
She picked up her phone and began tapping the screen swiftly.
While the others carried on with their conversation, Joel became transfixed by Isla’s face as she read the text message she’d just received. He watched with a wave of trepidation as her expression changed from surprise, to uncertainty, to excitement.
“Ohmygod,” she said in one breath.
The others turned to her.
“Oh. My. God,” she said again. “It’s about time.”
She waved her phone in front of their faces, her red nail polish glistening beneath the light of the chandelier.
Joel’s heart gave a thud. Oh. My. God.
“What is it?” Maggie asked, holding Isla’s arm still so that she could read the message box illuminated on the screen.
And there it was, in plain sight for everyone to see.
I’m coming back to Blackheath. I’ve missed you. Kaden.
In the seat beside Joel, Ainsley’s knife slid from his grasp and hit the table with a clatter. He swore under his breath, and Joel quickly kicked him under the table.
So Kaden was alive. And worse, he was back.
“Eee!” Isla let out a joyous squeal. “I’m so happy! I knew he’d get in contact eventually!”
Wide-eyed, Maggie stared at Joel across the table. He didn’t have to be psychic to know what she was thinking. Should they tell Isla who Kaden really was? Should they tell her what his intentions for her really were—namely, turning her into a human-witch hybrid just like him? And if they told Isla the truth, would she even believe them?
“Are you going to reply?” Maggie asked weakly.
“Of course I am!” Isla clutched her phone to her chest and sighed dreamily. “Guys, you don’t even know what this means to me. Kaden and I had such a connection. I can’t even explain it . . . I knew he wouldn’t just up and leave forever. I mean more to him than that.”
Evan sat rigidly in his chair.
Yeah, she means more to him, alright, Joel thought with a grimace. She’s the next unsuspecting human in line to be recruited into his coven.
He took a breath. So Kaden was coming back to town. Probably with the entire Fallows clan. Maximus was gone, and Evan hadn’t trained in months.
Joel and Evan exchanged a glance. It was out of their hands now. With The Fallows coming back, they had no choice but to be ready for them.
But right at the moment, they were far from ready. So far, in fact, that they couldn’t even see ready.
MAGGIE WATCHED JOEL from across the table as everyone tried to resume the conversation as normal. Every so often, their eyes would meet and frantically try to convey silent messages. Although it was never clear what the words were, the tone was overriding.
Holy crap.
Kaden was back. Did that mean it was time to tell Isla? And if so, Maggie had to speak to Joel first. Alone.
Fortunately, Isla was distracted, excitedly texting back and forth with Kaden. Every time Isla’s message alert beeped, the atmosphere around the table would prickle. But Isla, oblivious, would just giggle and gush.
“Where is he?” Maggie asked with forced brightness, attempting to disguise the anxiety in her voice.
Isla was grinning stupidly at her phone. “Not sure,” she managed whilst dexterously typing a text response. “Here.”
“You mean, here in Blackheath?” Evan asked, his casual tone sounding forced. His eyes shot to the dining room doorway. “Not here, as in, our house, right?”
Ainsley’s eyebrows shot up. “Don’t tell him you’re here!”
“Yeah,” Joel seconded. “Or else Joyless might, uh . . . change her mind.”
Maggie wrung out her hands. “So . . . so what’s he saying, Isla?”
Isla tittered. “I can’t tell you in front of these guys.” She gestured to the brothers without looking up from her phone. “It’s personal!” She giggled again.
“Oh, great. Personal,” Maggie echoed numbly. “That’s good. Sounds . . . personal.” She flashed a look at the Tomlins boys.
“Personal like how?” Ainsley pushed.
“Personal like you’re too young to know,” Isla replied, her thumbs still moving rapidly across the phone’s keypad.
After a bated silence, Maggie patted her mouth with a napkin and rose from the table. “Would you excuse me for just a second?”
Isla managed a cursory glance up from her phone, but her attention was back on the screen in no time. Maggie left the dining room and gestured for Joel to follow.
He stood up stiffly from his seat and trailed behind her into the mansion’s dimly lit corridor.
As soon as they were out of earshot, they let out a collective breath.
Joel raked his hands through his hair. “This is not good,” he muttered.
“Tell me about it,” Maggie replied in a hushed voice. “What are we going to do? We have to tell Isla.”
Joel glanced up at the oil lamp’s flickering flame. “I don’t know . . .”
Maggie took hold of his arm and drew his gaze back to her. “Joel,” she said meaningfully. “Come on.”
They stood facing each other now. Really Old Aunt Pearl’s little wrinkled face peered down at them from a gilded frame on the wall.
“Joel,” Maggie tried again, “we’ve got to tell her everything. Kaden’s back, and he’s clearly still out to recruit her into his coven. She could die. Or, at best, be turned into . . .” She threw up her hands, flustered. “I don’t even know what!”
All she’d been told about this whole ritual was that there was no simple or pleasant outcome. It was either bad, or worse.
Joel pressed his knuckles to his mouth. “We need to think this through,” he said calmly. “Kaden won’t be able to turn Isla into a hybrid—not through Erridox, anyway. That ritual only works once a year, and that day came and went months ago.”
Maggie slumped against the wall. “Well, we have to do something,” she said glumly.
“If we tell her, then we have to do it carefully,” Joel said. “Who knows how she’ll react to all of this?” He glanced towards the closed dining room door. “If she’s all loved-up with Kaden, then telling her my family are witches—witches who just so happen to be at war with his family of witches—might not go down too well.”
“She’ll understand,” Maggie implored. “We can’t let her go on thinking that Kaden is the guy for her. Not now that he’s back.”
“I get that.” Joel slipped his hand around hers. “Believe me, I get it. And we will tell her. But I have to protect my family, too. If Isla goes to the police with this—”
“She won’t,” Maggie insisted. “Besides, Kaden’s not dead. The police can’t pin anything on you regardless. You’re off the hook.”
Joel flinched. “We’re not off the hook from being witches.”
Maggie exhaled slowly. “Okay,” she said at last. “So we’ll think this through, and then we’ll tell her carefully,” she echoed his words.
Joel sighed. “Thank you.”
“She’s not in any immediate danger, right?” Maggie asked.
“No. Not while she’s here with us, anyway.” Joel paused, lost in his thoughts. “As far as I know, Erridox is the only ritual that can change a human into a witch. And that won’t come around for another nine months.”
Maggie bowed her head. “We can’t ignore this for nine months.”
“We won’t,” Joel assured her. “I just mean we have time, that’s all.”
“Okay,” Maggie agreed softly.
Joel closed his eyes for a second. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “But I have to protect my family.”
“I know,” Maggie told him. “And I have to protect mine.”
A weighted silence hung over them. Maggie looked down at the scuffed floorboards beneath her feet.
“Hey.” Joel’s voice pulled her gaze back to him.
She met his pale violet eyes.
“I’m sorry,”
he said again.
“Me, too,” she murmured.
Joel reached out and pulled her closer to him. She sank into his chest, breathing in the familiar comforting scent of his clothes and his skin. They stayed that way for a while, listening to the stillness of the mansion and the crackle of the lamps’ flames.
When she looked up again, Joel’s lips met hers. His kiss was gentle but tentative, like he wasn’t quite sure if it would turn out to be poisonous.
AFTER MAGGIE AND Isla had gone to bed, Joel, Evan, and Ainsley gathered in the kitchen. The sun had set over the snow-covered forest beyond the window, and a gale was building, rattling the thin glass pane.
“So, Kaden is alive,” Joel began, sliding into a seat at the kitchen table opposite his two brothers. “And he’s back.”
Ainsley pinched the bridge of his nose. “Which means the rest of The Fallows are probably back, too—and out to get their revenge.”
“Not necessarily,” Evan uttered hoarsely.
“Of course that’s why they’re here!” Ainsley exclaimed. “They wanted to take that girl during Erridox, and Blockhead over there”—he thumbed across the table towards Joel—“blocked them. Blockhead,” he muttered.
“I had to,” Joel argued in a strained voice. “I thought they were after Maggie. And I had a plan—”
Evan half-laughed. “A suicide mission, more like. Good plan.”
“It was a good plan,” Joel shot back. “Until you came along and initiated your dumb plan.”
“Yeah, another suicide mission,” Ainsley noted. “Oh, the irony!”
Joel and Evan swapped a glance, silently calling a truce.
“And now you’re two dead Blockheads walking,” Ainsley went on, raising his index finger. “Scratch that; we’re all dead Blockheads walking.”
Joel sighed and dropped his head into his hands.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Evan cautioned. “You did the right thing, Joel. In your own dumb-ass way, you did the right thing.”
Ainsley snorted. “How do you figure?”
“Because blocking Erridox is a kind of noble—albeit totally stupid—thing to do,” Evan replied. “Joel saved Maggie, or Isla, or whoever. And maybe The Fallows aren’t happy about it, but that might not be the reason they’re back. Maybe they just like Blackheath.”
Ainsley shot him a dubious look. “Delusional.”
“We’re no threat to them,” Evan continued, ignoring Ainsley. “And if our mother’s involved with them somehow, maybe she has . . . I don’t know . . . smoothed things over?”
“Unless she’s dead,” Ainsley said simply.
Evan grimaced.
“Listen,” Joel cut in, “something dark went down that night at the carnival, there’s no denying that. Kaden and Mum disappeared. Now one is back, which means the other could be—”
“Alive, too,” Evan finished positively.
“Okay, fine,” Joel conceded. “But on the very likely chance that The Fallows aren’t just over it, we need to get good. Really good. We need to protect ourselves, and Maggie and Isla, too. And, as much as it pains me to admit it, we need Dad.”
“Oh, right,” Ainsley scoffed. “If Dad’s our only hope then we might as well just throw in the towel now.”
Joel said nothing. He withdrew Maximus’s journal from his back pocket and began leafing through the yellowed pages.
“What are you trying to find?” Evan pressed.
“A summoning spell,” Joel muttered, distracted. “We need to call him back.”
“Joel . . .” Evan began, his tone beseeching.
“What?” Joel’s focus was still fixed on the journal.
“I’ve tried that already,” Evan confessed quietly. “He’s not coming back.”
Joel hands tightened around the leather book. “So, we try it again,” he said stiffly. “We keep calling him.”
Evan looked down at the table and silence fell between them.
Suddenly Joel paused on page, his eyes quickly scanning the faded text. “I think I have something,” he murmured.
“A summoning spell?” Ainsley tried to peer at the page from across the table.
“No . . .” Joel’s brow furrowed. “Not a summoning spell. Look at this.” He angled the journal towards his brothers, bending it in the path of the light. “Venatus,” he read from the scripture. “To track the path of the lost.”
Evan licked his lips nervously. “You want to track down Dad?”
Joel shrugged his shoulders. “If he’s not coming to us, maybe we should go to him.”
“It’s a Level Four,” Evan pointed out, pushing the journal back towards Joel. “It’s too strong.”
“Is it possible, though?” Ainsley asked.
“It is possible,” answered an old woman’s wobbly voice.
The boys jumped. Startled, they turned their heads towards the kitchen’s arched entrance. There, in the candlelight, stood a small elderly woman with long silver hair and tiny amber eyes.
“It is possible,” Quite Old Aunt Ruby said again, shuffling across the kitchen in fluffy slippers. “But you’re two witches short.”
The boys stared at her as she scuttled to the sink to fill a glass with water.
“What do you mean?” Joel asked.
Ruby turned off the faucet. “To execute Venatus, you’ll need to work a pentagram. There are only three of you. Two short.”
“Well,” Evan floundered. “Could you help us? You and one of the other aunts? Maybe Topaz, or—”
Quite Old Aunt Ruby smiled benevolently. “Oh, goodness no, dear. We’re witches, but we’re not of the calibre needed for an incantation like this.” Ruby took a long slug of water before continuing. “Tomlinses are born with a blessed gift, you see. I am merely a humble spell caster.”
Joel’s stomach sank. “Couldn’t you just try a Four?” he asked hopefully.
“Good grief, child,” said Ruby. “There’s just no way. Now Pippin, on the other hand . . .”
Ainsley folded his arms across his chest and smirked. “You think our baby brother could do it? He can’t even speak!”
“He can speak,” Joel defended. “He just doesn’t say the words he’s supposed to.”
Ruby chuckled. “As is the way of the male folk.”
The boys frowned at her.
“So, what are you saying, Ruby?” Joel said, threading his fingers together on the table. “That the spell is possible if my brothers and I do it, but we’d need Maximus to be our fifth?”
“Correct.”
“Oh, well, thanks for nothing,” Ainsley grumbled.
“You are welcome,” Ruby replied before shuffling back into the dark corridor.
“Completely useless!” Ainsley yelled after her.
Joel stared down at the open journal. “We have to get Dad back,” he muttered.
“Right, good luck with that,” Ainsley groused. “Get him to bring some food when he comes.”
Evan gazed thoughtfully at his younger brothers. “Ainsley,” he said abruptly, “how did you and the alleged aunts summon Mum that night at the carnival? We could try using that spell on Dad.”
Ainsley pursed his lips. “I don’t know. Aunt Toppy did it.”
Joel raised an eyebrow at Evan. “Do you really think Topaz’s spell would have more weight than the one you used to summon Dad?”
Evan flipped his palms. “It brought Mum to us, didn’t it? Anything’s worth a shot.”
Joel sat forward, leaning across the shadows cast by the dim lighting. “Do you remember the spell Topaz used?” he asked Ainsley.
“Yeah,” said Ainsley uncertainly, shifting in his seat. “But she’s the one who did it. I just sort of . . .” he trailed off with a shrug.
“What?” Joel pressed.
“Amped it up,” Ainsley finished limply.
“So,” said Joel, making a circling motion in the air with his hand, “amp it up again.”
Ainsley sighed. “I’ll try. I don’t really
know what I did, though.”
Evan frowned. After a beat of silence, he asked, “What is it that you do, exactly?”
Ainsley huffed in irritation. “I told you already. I don’t know. Topaz says I channel, but . . . I don’t know,” he repeated, drumming his fingers on the table. “I, like, hear stuff.”
Evan and Joel swapped a glance.
“What do you mean?” Joel asked.
“Well,” Ainsley began, lacing and unlacing his fingers. “I hear sounds. Frequencies, I guess. I don’t know. I can’t explain it.”
“Try,” Evan urged.
Ainsley took a deep breath. “Um, well . . . you know how Joel sees energy?” he said, gesturing across the table to his brother. “Like, you know how he’s always telling us what colour we are and all that crap? Well, I hear it,” he said.
“You hear crap?” Joel repeated dubiously.
“Yep,” Ainsley confirmed. “Lots of it. Toppy says it’s a cool power, because when she’s in a reading, I hear the questions and I hear the answers, even when nobody says anything out loud.”
Evan’s eyebrows rose. “You hear unspoken words?”
“Not words, exactly. It’s a language I understand, but it’s not words.”
Evan and Joel looked at one another again.
“Okay, cool,” said Joel slowly. “So, you hear stuff. Cool.”
“And Joel sees stuff,” Evan added. “And I . . . I guess I . . . feel stuff, sort of. Energy stuff.”
Ainsley cocked an eyebrow. “You feel energy?”
“Yeah.” Evan stared down at his hands for a second. “I feel energy, emotions, thoughts . . .”
Ainsley nodded his head in approval. “So, hearing, seeing, feeling . . .” He paused. “Do you think Pippin can do anything?”
“Sure,” said Evan confidently.
Ainsley seemed to consider it for a moment, then shook his head. “Nah. There’s nothing.”
“Maybe his power hasn’t come to him yet,” Evan suggested.
“No,” said Joel in a distant voice. “He has his power. He knows.”
“He knows?” Evan repeated.
Joel nodded. “He knows.”
They fell silent again, each lost in their own private thoughts.
Blackheath Resurrection (The Blackheath Witches Book 2) Page 7
