Coloring a little, he said, “Sorry. It’s not the company. Just a long day.”
“Us, too,” I agreed, seizing the opportunity. “Maybe we should all call this one done.”
He reluctantly agreed and Tori volunteered to clean everything up while I walked Chase to the door. The front of the store was lit only by the glow of the storeroom lamp. Chase put his arms around me, and said, “Hi, there.”
Smiling up at him, I said, “Don’t you have that backwards? We’re supposed to be saying good night.”
“Things have been so crazy with your remodel we haven’t had a chance to talk in forever,” he said. “Take a bike ride with me tomorrow?”
Since I had no idea what Aunt Fiona would drop on us tonight, I couldn’t commit to anything, but I really didn’t want to say no. Chase saw the indecision on my face and came to the rescue.
“Or any day this week,” he said, amending the invitation. “The weather is supposed to be pretty and it won’t be hot. One day after work?”
“Yes,” I said, smiling up at him. “And thank you. For everything.”
“Thank you,” he said, leaning down and kissing me.
When I had turned the lock behind him and heard him go into his own shop next door, I called out to Tori. “Okay, the coast is clear.”
She emerged from the back of the store. Earlier in the day I’d managed to pull her aside and briefly explain that Aunt Fiona would be coming to call tonight.
“So what time is Fiona supposed to be here?” Tori asked.
“I have no idea,” I answered. Turning to the shadows, I said, “Beau, are you around?”
The Colonel’s pale form walked out of thin air and bowed. “At your service, Miss Jinx.”
It occurred to me that he might have just had a front row seat for my goodnight kiss, but I decided I didn’t really want to know.
“Darby?” I called out.
“Yes, Mistress?” the brownie said, materializing beside Beau.
Before I could say anything else, Aunt Fiona called out from the storeroom. “In here, Jinx, dear,” she said. “Hurry up now. We have a lot to cover.”
When the four of us joined her, we found my late aunt seated in one of the easy chairs feeding apple slices to Rodney. Now that I knew about Myrtle’s solidifying effect on ghosts, I understood how my aunt managed to do things like pet my cats and move items in the store . . .
Wait a minute.
I looked around the storeroom. “What have you been doing in here, Aunt Fiona?” I demanded.
“Why, putting things back where they belong, dear,” she said complacently. “You had the herbal stock in a terrible mess.”
“We had the herbs in terrible organization,” Tori broke in, grinning. “Hi, Auntie Fi.”
“Tori!” Fiona cried happily. “You come here and hug my neck!”
Tori went over automatically, then hesitated, arms in mid-air. “Is this gonna work?” she asked.
“Of course it is,” Fiona said, smothering her in a maternal hug.
After a moment of brief surprise at the low-temperature embrace, Tori said, “Wow! You’re going to be better than a Popsicle on a hot summer day.”
Fiona giggled. Then she caught sight of Beau and a shy look came over her cheerful features. “Good evening, Colonel Longworth,” she said.
Hold the phone. Fiona actually batted her eyes at him . . . demurely, no less.
“Miss Fiona,” Beau said, beaming. As Tori and I watched, the old soldier kissed my aunt’s hand, which elicited another giggle from Fiona. As he stood upright again, Beau said, “I have been waiting many years for the pleasure of that greeting. Death quite agrees with you, Fiona. You look lovely.”
That’s when I realized Beau and Fiona had never seen each other outside of the graveyard, nor had they ever been on equal . . . footing. As in both dead.
Could they possibly be sweet on each other? Somehow that whole notion struck me as impossibly cute and thoroughly endearing. My annoyance at my aunt dialed down several levels.
From behind Beau, Darby said shyly, “It is an honor to meet you, Mistress Fiona.”
Fiona smiled at the brownie kindly and gestured for him to come closer. Standing in front of her chair, the little guy was still too short to look her in the eye. “What is your name?” she asked.
Darby let out the same multi-consonant cat yack he’d given me in the cemetery and then added helpfully, “But Mistress Jinx has directed me to answer to the name Darby,” he dropped his eyes. “I like it,” he added.
“So do I, Master Darby,” Fiona said. “Are you happy to be here with Myrtle?”
His head bobbed up and down, and he rewarded my aunt with an ecstatic smile. “Very happy, Mistress.”
“Okay,” I said, “let’s just start there. What’s the deal with Myrtle and Darby?”
Fiona patted the seat cushion and Darby settled in happily beside her. “The store,” she said, “is built on an ancient fairy mound. Myrtle is the life force of that dwelling. To Darby and to many other magical creatures, she is a queen.”
The look on my face must have given away my reaction to that bit of news
“Don’t worry,” Fiona went on. “They’re not the kind of creatures you’ve been reading about on those silly Internet sites. The correct term would be ‘lesser fae,’ but I really don’t have time to explain all that to you right now. All you need to know is that Myrtle is completely on our side, even if she did get ridiculously testy about that whole painting business.”
From somewhere over our heads, the store blew Fiona a raspberry.
Without missing a beat, my aunt looked up and said, “I do agree with you about the cerulean blue, however.”
That won her one of Myrtle’s three-note trills.
Since I was sensing that this could be the start of one, great-big designer rabbit trail, I said, “Okay. As fascinating as this whole metaphysical Martha Stewart conversation might be, could we please deal with the bigger crisis at hand?”
“Which one, dear?” Aunt Fiona asked, looking over at me innocently.
“Really, Fiona?” I said, getting a little testy myself.
She sighed. “Oh, alright. I guess you mean Brenna Sinclair.”
“Uh, yeah,” I replied. “I’d say she kinda qualifies as a crisis.”
Fiona shifted over to make more room for Darby. “Well, you see, Jinx, there’s a great deal I have to tell you before I can actually talk about Brenna herself.”
“Then get to talking,” I said. “We have all night.”
Little did I know we were going to need the whole night.
If Darby’s recitation the evening before had left us all a little stunned, this one made me feel like we’d just signed up for Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts. The only thing that saved me was the Southern preoccupation with genealogy. Yes, my mother forced me to fill out an application to join the Daughters of the Confederacy, and no, I do not own a hoop skirt.
The most important question Fiona answered for us that night was: Are you a good witch or a bad witch? More to the point: Are you a made witch or an hereditary witch. If you’re getting a whole Godfather “Luca-sleeps-with-the-fishes” vibe off the term “made witch” you’re already on the right track.
Darby knew the broad strokes of Brenna’s story, but Fiona filled in the details. Long before Brenna ever met Hamish Crawford, she was a human woman who made a deal with a dark entity in exchange for her powers. The exact details of this arrangement fell under Fiona’s “I don’t have time for that” imprimatur, but we did learn that there are folks out there called “dark fae,” and we don’t want on their radar, ever.
Even though Fiona was vague on the exact timeline, I could well imagine that whatever Brenna’s life had been before forging that deal, it wasn’t good. The lady was out for some serious payback. To get it, she sacrificed her humanity, and her ability to bear children. That is until she hooked up with Hamish Crawford.
The child she carried wa
s her opportunity to form her own line of hereditary witches. You see, by definition, made witches are “bad,” but hereditary witches are “good,” in that their line of descent traces back to original, pure, earth magic. There was a part of Brenna that wanted to legitimize who and what she was, but the lengths she was willing to go to in the process were anything but legitimate.
Duncan Skea was himself a witch, or more a kind of Druid. I’m iffy on the exact wording on his business card, but he definitely had the chops to imprison Brenna. Her child only had half metaphysical blood, and sort of synthetic blood at that. If they could just keep her locked up for enough generations, the magic Brenna passed to her child would dissipate.
At the point at which she escaped, and Fiona had no answer to that mystery either, Alexander Skea carried only about 12.5% magic. The Skeas carefully chose brides for Alistair and Angus for the express purpose of diluting their magic. But then Alexander came to the New World and fell in love with a full-blooded Cherokee witch.
I’ll admit I didn’t follow all the ancestral math Fiona sketched out for us, but I can tell you that Alexander and Knasgowa’s children had an even higher concentration of magic in their blood than Brenna’s son, Alistair. Knasgowa’s pure magic more or less reconstituted Brenna’s magic.
But here was the major surprise behind door number three. When Alexander met Knasgowa, she already had a three-year-old daughter from her first husband, a Cherokee medicine man killed in a hunting accident. That child, Awenasa, was my ancestor and her blood was 100% magical.
“Wait a minute,” I said, interrupting my aunt. “You’re telling me that we’re hereditary Cherokee witches?”
“Only through Awenasa,” Fiona said. “Most of our people are Scots who came into the Carolinas. But they carried Celtic magic in their blood.”
“So how much magic is in my blood?” I asked.
Aunt Fiona thought for a minute and said, “Do you remember your high school biology?”
I remembered stoutly refusing to dissect anything and being in danger of flunking until my teacher took pity on me and cut me a deal. I graded all his papers that year in exchange for no lab time involving deceased animals.
“Kinda,” I said. “Why?”
“Did your teacher talk to you kids about genetics?” Fiona asked.
Some vague memory of little tic-tac-toe diagrams of dominant and recessive traits surfaced in my mind. When I told Aunt Fiona that, she said, “Okay, that’s good enough. So, look at it this way. Magic can be either a dominant or a recessive gene. So it comes out with varying degrees of strength, but if you get two dominant genes, then you get a really strong witch. Does that make sense, dear?”
I nodded. “Yeah, but what does that have to do with me?”
“Neither of your parents is magical in their own right,” Fiona said. “In fact, Kelly refused to have anything to do with the family legacy. That’s why she’s always called me crazy.”
Ouch! I didn’t know Fiona actually knew that the family called her “Crazy Aunt Fiona.”
Then another thought t-boned my discomfort.
“My mother knows about all this stuff?” I asked, shocked.
“Yes,” Fiona said complacently, “but she is the original queen of denial.”
Beside me Tori snickered and sang a few bars of “Dance Like an Egyptian.” I shot her a look and she hushed.
“So if Mom and Dad aren’t magical, how come I am? Just because you gave me my magic?” I asked Fiona.
“I didn’t actually give it to you, dear,” Fiona said. “I activated it. Your parents each gave you a dominant gene for magic. You have the potential to be the most powerful witch our family has seen in generations.” My aunt looked at me, her eyes shining. “I couldn’t be more proud of you if I tried.”
I cannot even begin to tell you how much happier I would have been at that moment if she had been proud of me for any other reason.
Beside me, Tori’s fertile brain had been at work. “So, let me take a wild guess here,” she said. “There are still descendants of Alexander and Knasgowa’s around Briar Hollow that carry Brenna’s genes.”
“Yes,” Fiona nodded.
“Just like you all carry Knasgowa’s magic from her first husband,” Tori went on.
Fiona nodded again. “Exactly.”
“And I’m betting that your side of the family is part of the whole plan to keep the other side of the family on their best behavior,” Tori finished.
“Very good,” Fiona beamed. “That’s it precisely. The Briar Hollow coven has helped to guard Knasgowa’s grave since her death.
Whoa! What the what?! Did she just say coven?
“There’s a Briar Hollow coven?” I asked weakly.
Fiona shook her head sadly. “Not anymore. I’m afraid we’re all gone now.”
“Which means what for me?” I asked, dreading what I already knew she was going to say.
“Why, it means you have to start over, dear,” Fiona said.
Great. The one “do over” I didn’t want.
15
Start over?
How the heck was I supposed to start over?
Put an ad in the Banner?
“Wanted. Thirteen women with magical blood to form coven. Must supply pointy hats. Made witches need not apply.”
Fiona laughed merrily at my suggestion.
“Oh, Jinx,” she said, “thank heavens you inherited a sense of humor from your father.”
That’s me, alright. A laugh a minute.
“Fine, no witchy want ads,” I said. “What am I supposed to do? Specifically.”
Fiona looked uncomfortable as she admitted, sheepishly, “Jinx, I want you to know I do feel some responsibility for all this. I have been sort of preoccupied with my new afterlife and I might have left you a little unprepared, but I really had no earthly idea you’d set Brenna free.”
Okay. Time to derail the blame train.
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” I said crossly. “I was trying to help the spirits trapped in the graveyard, and it’s not like there was some big sign on Knasgowa’s grave that said, ‘Danger. Evil Sorceress Imprisoned Here.’”
“Well, no, dear,” Aunt Fiona said reasonably. “That would be a little obvious, don’t you think?”
Man. You have no idea how nice it would be to have some obvious to deal with.
Rightly interpreting my scowl, Fiona added hastily, “Honestly, Jinx, I really haven’t thought about Brenna in years. I mean, I knew she was there, but she wasn’t on my mind every day or anything like that. Really, sugar, I had every good intention of filling you in on the big picture once you got used to your powers.”
Good intention, meet road to hell.
“You haven’t thought about her?” I gasped, looking at my aunt in total amazement. “How is that even possible?”
“Jinx, for heaven’s sake,” she said, starting to sound a little exasperated herself, “be realistic. Nothing ever happens in Briar Hollow. Knasgowa was buried in 1853. The local coven has been responsible for guarding her grave for 262 uneventful years.”
Okay. Now I really was confused. Just what exactly had Team Witch been doing all that time?
“So you were a coven in name only?” I asked.
“Oh, no, not at all, ” Fiona said brightly. “We read books together and sponsored one of the local Little League teams. Baked cakes for shut ins. Had potluck solstice suppers. You know. The usual.”
Tori broke in at this point. “You actually sponsored a Little League team?” she asked, obviously fascinated. “What did you all have printed on the back of the uniforms?”
“The Ladies Circle,” Fiona said earnestly. “You can get away with almost anything if you just call yourselves a ‘circle.’”
Colonel Longworth, who was sitting on the loveseat with Tori, burst out laughing.
“And just what do you think is so funny about all this?” I asked.
Still grinning, he said, “She’s right. My wife was part
of a Ladies Circle. They read political literature, covertly supported abolition, and debated Mr. Lincoln’s policies, all the while claiming to be crocheting.”
Tori frowned. “What’s unusual about a bunch of women talking politics?”
“In my day,” Beau said, “ladies were not supposed to concern their . . . ” He stopped mid-sentence, looking distinctly like a deer caught in the headlights.
“Pretty little heads,” I supplied helpfully, cocking an eyebrow in his direction.
“Yes,” he admitted reluctantly. Then added quickly, “Not that I believed . . . er, believe that the fairer . . . uh, that women lack . . .”
Beside him Tori advised, “You might want to stop digging that hole there, Beau. You’re getting in pretty deep.”
The wisecrack broke the awkwardness and underlying tension in the room. We all laughed, even little Darby.
“Okay, Aunt Fiona,” I said, regaining my composure, “I get it. Out of sight, out of mind. But Brenna is very much in sight now. And you said I need to start over, so exactly what did you mean by that?”
“Well,” Fiona said, “not to be overly simplistic, but you need to put her back where you found her and develop a new circle of guardians. Having magical associations helps a witch keep her own powers in balance, you know.”
I wasn’t a hundred percent certain, but I was pretty sure my aunt had just told me to get a social life.
“Let’s try this again,” I said. “How do I put Brenna back?”
“I have no idea,” Fiona said.
This whole conversation was starting to make me feel like I was running circles in Rodney’s rat wheel.
“Your coven didn’t come with a set of instructions?” I demanded. “The combination to the tombstone? Something?”
Fiona gave me a slightly more benevolent version of “the look” my mom used when I fidgeted in church.
“Don’t you get uppity with me, Jinx Hamilton,” she said. “Our job was to make sure no one disturbed the grave. No one did. Until you decided to get too big for your britches and start casting spells.”
Now that really annoyed me. I don’t mind owning up to my mistakes, but this was getting old. I felt the heat rise to my face, and then the temperature in the room went up. The magazines on the coffee table levitated a few inches and the hands of the wall clock started spinning like a roulette wheel.
Witch at Odds: A Jinx Hamilton Mystery Book 2 (The Jinx Hamilton Mysteries) Page 10
