by Rue
Flynn nodded.
Po thanked Mistress Nokomis and steered the girls toward the Meeting House.
“Did I dream the part where Po flew like a harrier hawk and sliced the cord around Lania’s neck?” Flynn blurted.
Po blushed, “No, that happened.”
“How did you do that with your burned right hand? I mean how did you not slice her head off?”
“Carver’s precision—and I’m left handed, eh?” Po replied.
Hazel and Flynn stopped, stared at him, and burst out laughing.
“Leave it to Po to find a joke in cheating death,” Hazel chuckled.
They approached the Meeting House and Flynn slowed her pace. “Do I even want to go in there?” she asked her friends.
“They already got all their yelling done—at me,” Hazel offered.
“And me,” Po chimed in.
“Pounamu even got a little slap on the wrist,” Hazel added.
At the mention of Pounamu, Flynn’s hand flew to her cloak. She felt around and looked at Hazel in horror. “It’s gone!”
“They found it, Kahu and Cabot, that’s why Pounamu got in trouble. However, she convinced them that it’s your birthright, so they placed it in the House of Magickal Items until you’re a Level Four,” Hazel said.
Flynn groaned. “Well, that’s a pretty safe bet for them, since I’ll be a Level One—forever.”
“Daughter!” Kahu ran down the steps and across the courtyard of the Meeting House in a most un-Priestess-like fashion. She scooped Flynn into her arms and squeezed her until she could feel the child’s heart beating against her own chest. “Thank the Goddess.”
Flynn peered at Hazel through her scrunched face, searching for an explanation for the unusual behavior. Hazel shrugged her shoulders and shook her head.
“Come, daughter. We have much to discuss.” Kahu pulled Flynn to her side and led her to the Meeting House.
The rest of the Grand Coven did not share Kahu’s affection. Mistress Adriana clapped briefly when Flynn entered, but no one else joined the ovation.
Kahu took her seat, and Flynn faced the witches.
Cabot spoke first. “When did you take possession of the wand of Temarama?”
She had a flashback of him kissing her mother. Shaking her head to dislodge images of her mother’s love life and her own possible parentage, Flynn thought back to the visit to Dreamwood Forest. “I think, the night before Winter Solstice.”
“How did you discover the treachery of Magdelana?” Thelema asked. Her jowls wagged angrily and her beady eyes fixed on Flynn.
“Do you mean the hex bag?” Flynn asked.
“Yes, the hex bag,” Mistress Windemere responded.
Flynn stumbled backward and stared. She could see the cord still hanging around Windemere’s neck. She pointed and stuttered, “But you—that—”
Windemere reached down the neck of her tunic and produced the small pouch that hung from the cord.
Flynn gasped, “But—Lania.” She took two more steps backward.
Kahu looked at the terror in Flynn’s face and glanced down at Windemere.
“Flynn, that is a protective charm. Windemere was communing telepathically with Pounamu when you and Hazel arrived with news of Lania’s hex bag. Pounamu created that counter-hex for Windemere so she could keep an eye on Lania.” Kahu stood and addressed Windemere, “They decided, without the input of the Grand Coven, that discovering Magdelana’s desire had greater importance than the life of Lania.”
Windemere stood, “High Priestess, I beg you to remember that the Grand Coven would have no knowledge of the wand of Temarama if I had chosen to remove the bag from Lania, immediately.” She returned to her seat, “No lives were lost,” she added.
“Tell that to the broken girl who still cowers in a bed at the Healing Hut,” Kahu’s hand slammed onto the table, “one full moon cycle after the bag’s removal.”
Murmurs flowed through the coven. There were definitely two sides to this debate.
Flynn could only focus on one piece of information. “It’s been a full moon since the promotion ceremony?”
No one answered—they were too busy cross-talking.
She heard the voice of Pounamu echo in her mind, “Magick has its price.”
“May I be dismissed?” Flynn asked.
Kahu brought the coven in order and responded with a question, “Don’t you want to know if you passed your Ones?”
“Not really,” Flynn muttered and looked at the floor.
“Mistress Windemere vouched for your divination abilities with the tree branch, the first reading, not the one staged for Lania,” Kahu said.
Flynn’s face flushed with guilt.
“Master Sorrel claims you have rudimentary grounding skills,” Kahu paused and glanced down the table to Tamsin, “and even the Mistress of Herbs has acknowledged your progress in History of Herbal Identification.” Kahu stopped and smiled at Flynn.
“The Grand Coven hereby grants you the green sash.” Kahu stood and walked to Flynn. She tied the sash around Flynn’s waist and blinked back tears.
Flynn wanted to crush her mother in another hug, but she maintained some decorum in front of the Grand Coven.
Kahu returned to her seat as Tamsin stood and waited to be recognized.
“Please, Mistress Tamsin, speak,” Kahu said.
“Your sash has been granted on the condition that you continue to spend your afternoons in the Herb Hut until the initiates return after the Autumn Balance. You are adept at memorizing facts, but you lag behind on physical identification.” Tamsin avoided making eye contact with Flynn and sat down with a thud.
“May I be dismissed,” Flynn repeated.
“You are dismissed, initiate,” Kahu responded.
Flynn wandered out, rubbing the fabric of her sash and wondering what had just happened—and what everyone had been doing during her month-long nap.
Flynn couldn’t believe she had helped save the entire village, received her Level One sash, and still spent every afternoon rotting away in the Herb Hut.
Hazel had gotten out of the reparations because of the fact that she had saved Flynn’s life and destroyed the hex bag that gave Magdelana access to Aotearoa. She kept insisting that she could never have summoned such power if Flynn hadn’t joined their energy during the battle—but based on results—no one believed that part of the story.
“Hi, Flynn.” Hazel walked in and sat down at the prep table.
“You better get out of here before Mistress Tamsin gets back. I’m not allowed to have visitors,” Flynn grumbled. “She went out to the fields to consult with the crop coordinator about today’s planting. She’ll be back soon—too soon.”
“I didn’t come to visit, I came to help.” Hazel picked up a bunch of lavender with one hand and dug through her satchel with the other.
Before she could find her boline, little fire-headed Daval ran into the Herb Hut. “Hazel, Hazel are you in here?”
“Back here. What’s going on?” she asked.
“Everyone’s going swimming in the river and Carissa and Abelia told me to come and get you.” Daval’s freckled face flushed with red.
“Oh, thanks, but I’m helping out Flynn this afternoon.” Hazel gave Daval a conciliatory smile.
He flushed a deeper red and replied, “Carissa said, ‘No excuses.’ She and Abelia have to go back to Piper Run today, and they won’t be back until after Autumn Balance.”
Before Hazel could protest, Carissa and friends arrived at the door. They walked in and Carissa grabbed Hazel’s arm. “It’s our last day together. Come on, you can sit in this musty old hut after I leave. Come on, Hazey, pleeeeeease?”
Flynn struggled to ignore the nauseating scene. Hazey? The nickname made her physically ill. Hazel had always been her best friend, but after the incident in the House of Magickal Items, everyone wanted to sit by Hazel, and talk to Hazel, and eat lunch with Hazel. She missed having Hazel all to herself.
Hazel looked back at Flynn. “I’ll help you tomorrow, I promise. All right?”
Flynn nodded stiffly. She barely managed to bring herself into balance when another blow chipped away at her resolve.
“Yay!” Carissa shouted. “We have to celebrate your promotion to Level Two, you wonder witch. Now you have your yellow sash and we’ll have all our sessions together next season.”
Abelia chimed in as they pulled Hazel out of the building, “It’ll be the best.”
Despite her best efforts—Flynn’s jealousy flared.
She shuffled toward the front entrance of the Herb Hut and watched the group running toward the river. Envy bubbled in the pit of her stomach, but turned to icy sorrow when she saw Lania walking all alone across the Ceremonial Lawn.
Lania clenched her fists and walked away as fast as she could, carefully avoiding any eye contact with Flynn.
“Hey, are you going swimming?” Po shouted as he ran into view.
Flynn shrugged her shoulders and pointed to the heap of lavender in the prep room.
“When you finish, come join us. This has been the best summer, ever. You’ve got to say good bye to everyone,” he said with a grin.
“Yeah, I heard a Level Five bragging about you to a Level Six today, saying that you cast a levitation spell and silently floated up behind Lania, sliced through the cord, and single-handedly broke the spell. Every time I hear that story it gets better,” Flynn snapped.
Po shook his head and walked away. “See ya later,” he said.
Flynn sat back down at the prep table in the Herb Hut and wallowed in self-pity.
She grabbed a pile of lavender and mindlessly cut the stalks with her boline knife. She placed the stalks in one bucket and leaned over a clay bowl to catch the buds as she slid her fingers down the tops of the spike. She tossed the bare spike into the bucket with the stalks.
As she worked, her mind swirled. She felt utterly useless, like an extra tooth or a wool jumper in summer. Her best friend had moved on to Level Two, without her. Flynn thought her village would be better off without her, too. Maybe she should wander away and live in Dreamwood Forest.
She laughed bitterly at the thought that no one would notice her absence. She wanted to be invisible, to disappear and never have to see people look at her with that hint of pity in their eyes. She could feel what it would be like to be gone—to feel nothing—
A scream and a crashing clay pot interrupted Flynn’s pity party.
She turned in her chair and came face-to-face with a terrified, tongue-tied Tamsin.
“Good afternoon, Mistress Tamsin,” Flynn mumbled.
“Don’t you—I saw—I mean, I didn’t see—we’re going to see the Grand Coven about this at once!”
Young Flynn Hawthorn is anxious for all the initiates to return to Moa Bend. Normally she doesn’t look forward to training sessions, but she’ll do anything to end her endless afternoons trapped in Mistress Tamsin’s Herb Hut.
Before she knows what is happening, Flynn finds her world turned upside down. Her best friend is missing and could be lost in Dreamwood Forest. Her mother, the High Priestess, finally tells Flynn the truth about her father—an outsider, from beyond the mist. And somehow, the falcon she chose to train is triggering strange episodes of time-warped astral travel!
Flynn sets out on a journey to uncover long-awaited answers. Will she find a way to save her people from the growing threat in Southeil, or will she unwittingly put herself directly into the hands of the shadow witch?
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Acknowledgments
I LOVE my illustrator! The gorgeous cover illustration and each of the unique chapter icons are precious gifts from Angelina Elise. Thank you for bringing the pictures in my head to life, Angel!
Thank you (again) to my fabulous editor Jazmine Hale! I feel truly blessed to have found her and look forward to many more projects together.
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work with a new ebook formatter at Tattered Page Ink. Thanks for putting up with my neurosis, Kriston.
This is my first series with a map. Who knew? Maps are tedious, time-sucking beasts! My deepest gratitude to Lord Gilbert and his superb cartography.
Thank you to my Beta readers, who gave me invaluable insights and feedback: Kellie Ann, Andrew, Mesa, Jim, Morgan, Anne, and Scott. (More than once!)
Of course none of this would matter without you! I am grateful for every reader who takes the time to explore The Chronicles of Hawthorn. Thank you for your loyal support. If you are new to the series, I’m glad you joined us! I would like to ask a favor of you. If you can find a few minutes to review AN AVERAGE CURSE on Amazon, iBooks, Barnes and Noble, and/or Goodreads, it would be extremely helpful. Reader support makes all the difference. Your reviews give this book a life of its own.
Thanks for reading!
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Photo Courtesy of Michele Bradley
Rue is an award-winning fiction author and in her limited spare time, she reads voraciously. Her love of the written word led to the pursuit of a B.A. in Journalism from Pepperdine University in California and a lifelong passion for writing. Her respect for indigenous cultures, oral traditions, and the seasonal magick of nature inevitably brought her work to the world of fantasy. The story of Flynn Hawthorn has been part of her heart and imagination for nearly a decade.
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