Witch Myth Super Boxset

by Alexandria Clarke

  Nora turned her head down and murmured shyly, “I understand.”

  I opened my mouth to craft a more appropriate reply, but Morgan silenced me with a sparkly wave of her fingers.

  “As for you,” Morgan said as I attempted to overpower whatever hold she had on my vocal chords. “Look around. Look at my family. You claim you’ve come to Yew Hollow for one purpose only: to rescue your sister. You crossed into a world that bends and breaks around the structure of reality in order to save her. In that same vein, do you not understand that I would do anything necessary to save my coven from their suffering?”

  I drifted to stand behind Nora’s chair, squeezing her shoulders. Morgan released her hold on my voice. “This was not the way to go about it.”

  “You may be right,” Morgan agreed. “But Nora has done wonders for my family. As you can see, she has not been harmed. In addition, she has learned more about the nature of her craft and how to use it in the past three days than in her entire life. We’ve taken quite good care of her, if I do say so myself. We aren’t monsters, Kennedy, so I’ll make you a deal.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  Morgan fixed me with her green-eyed gaze. “Tell no one of your whereabouts. Allow Nora to continue helping us. Assist Gwenlyn in caring for our coven. Do that, and I promise to train you. After all, it beats inevitably blowing yourself up.”

  16

  The entire coven awaited my reply. The bitter taste of their impatience tinged the air around me, but there was something else too. They were scared. They needed Nora’s healing abilities. The coven would suffer without my little sister, and whatever mysterious illness that plagued them would rage unhindered until it ran its course or killed the entire Summers bloodline. Their fate rested in my decision. Or did it?

  “I’m afraid your deal isn’t for me to consider,” I told Morgan. At once, the witches tittered, and the strength of their auras swelled. I raised my voice to be heard over the noise. “Nora is the one you need, but she belongs to herself and no one else. I’m simply her guardian. Any proposition you make is for her to accept or deny.”

  Nora tilted her head back to look up at me, eyes wide as if it had never occurred to her that the choice to stay or leave was hers. I pushed aside the collar of her leather jacket to give her thin shoulders a reassuring squeeze. Then I knelt down to speak to her somewhat privately. The witches would overhear no matter what, but in the space between me and my sister, I could almost pretend that we were alone in the room.

  “Nora,” I murmured. “I mean it. If you want to go, we’ll go. No questions asked. Dad and Adrienne miss you. If you want to stay—”

  Nora looked at her hand-me-down boots.

  “I won’t stop you,” I finished. “I know how you are, Nora. You’re so giving and so gentle. It’s no wonder these women want you amongst their midst. Who wouldn’t?”

  “Too right,” a woman next to us mumbled. Nora smiled slightly.

  “I can already see that you’ve learned so much here,” I told her. “You deserve that. If you really are a witch, you should get the education that you missed out on as a child.”

  “What about you?” Nora asked. “Would you stay?”

  “I’ll go wherever you go,” I promised her. “I won’t leave you again. We’re in this together.”

  “But Mom and Dad—”

  “Let me figure that out.”

  Nora toyed with the frayed fringe on the sleeves of her jacket. “I think we should stay in Yew Hollow for a little while. Now that you’re here, it feels like everything will be okay. Besides…”

  She trailed off. I nudged her knee, encouraging her to continue. “Go on.”

  Nora looked up, her eyebrows knit together in a tense line. “I don’t want you to blow yourself up.”

  Part of me wanted to laugh at Nora’s concern. No matter what Morgan said, I’d lasted this long controlling my energy on my own. “I have no intention of doing so.”

  “Let them help you,” she said quietly. “Please, Ken. If I’m staying to heal them, then the least they can do is teach you to control your magic.”

  I suddenly understood Nora’s compulsion to stay in Yew Hollow. It wasn’t just because she felt obligated to help the witches. She was worried about me.

  “Nora, you don’t have to stay here for me,” I said. “That wouldn’t be fair. I’ll figure this out on my own—”

  Gwenlyn scoffed from the corner of the room but quickly covered it up by faking a series of overdramatic sneezes.

  “Bless you,” I growled before returning my attention to Nora. “Don’t let anything pressure you into staying here if you don’t want to. Not them—” I glared around the room at the myriad of witches waiting on Nora’s decision. “—or me. This is your choice, Nora.”

  A collective anxiety scattered throughout the coven as Nora deliberated. She glanced around the room, taking each witch’s expression into account. Then she looked across the table at Morgan.

  “I’d like to stay,” she announced.

  The room didn’t erupt into cheers, but the abrupt release of positive energy from every witch within earshot had a similar effect. It pulsed through me, and an involuntary burst of laughter escape from my lips before I could understand why. Relief spread to every corner as the witches nearest Nora swept her into a group hug. I lost sight of her pale hair as they surrounded her, offering their thanks and wiping tears from their eyes. I retreated from the hubbub, circling away from Nora to let the witches express their gratitude, and found myself framed in the doorway of the kitchen, unsure of where to put myself. Morgan stood from her seat at the head of the table but bypassed the commotion around Nora and strolled toward me instead. For the first time, I took in her full appearance. Though she exuded a superior presence with every step, she became more human to me in that moment. It helped that she was not dressed like any sort of witch I’d imagined as a child. None of them did. There were no pointy hats or long cloaks in the room. Morgan wore harem pants and a shirt for The Cure that made me question if her entire wardrobe consisted purely of band T-shirts. The baggy navy cardigan that she wore over her top lent a comfortable vibe to her. It billowed behind her as she walked, the only piece of clothing that made her look as ethereal as her aura felt.

  “Interesting,” she mused, joining me near the kitchen as I supervised Nora’s interaction with the coven.

  “What is?” I asked her reluctantly.

  She tipped her chin toward Nora. “As soon as your sister arrived here, I understood that she had always been told what to do.”

  I glanced at Morgan out of the corner of my eye, watching her speak. Something told me that she was aware of my observation, but she continued on as if she didn’t notice.

  “Some children are raised that way,” she said, drawing one side of her cardigan to overlap the other. “To follow a routine and a strict set of rules. It makes it easier on the parents, you see? To raise a child that they consider well-behaved when in fact they’ve simply robbed her of the innate joys that naturally accompany youth.”

  “I’m not sure I follow you,” I said. “Nora’s childhood was far more cushioned than mine.”

  “I didn’t say she was uncared for,” Morgan replied. “Just that she was expected to act a certain way. It’s in everything she does, from her posture to her tone of voice, but there is a subtle hint of rebellion under that posh exterior of hers. I wondered how she’d fostered it. Then you showed up, and I understood immediately.”

  She turned sharply toward me. I almost looked away, but the determination in her expression made me hold her gaze.

  “I have no reason to trust you, Kennedy,” Morgan said. “There’s no earthly reason you should have been able to pass through our ward. However, you taught that girl the importance of being able to balance structure and freedom. You taught her to make decisions for herself, to weigh the outcomes of her choices rather than to rely on someone else’s word. You allowed her to grow into an individual where her paren
ts would have preferred for her to blend into the masses. She would be a different person without you, and a lesser one at that.”

  I snorted at her speech. “I doubt it. I haven’t been the best older sister in recent years.”

  “Be that as it may, Nora cares for you more than anyone else in her life. She would die for you.”

  “Don’t say that—”

  “It’s true,” she went on. “And that is the kind of bond that I honor. It’s the reason I offered you any kind of deal in the first place. Mark my words, Kennedy. If I wanted to keep Nora for my own and decided you were more trouble than you were worth, I would not have hesitated to expel you from Yew Hollow.”

  “Wow, thanks.”

  Morgan smirked. “You remind me of myself, you know. I didn’t want to be a witch either. I thought that it wasn’t worth the hassle, or the drama, or the ghosts. Ugh.”

  I studied the shorter woman, recalling the article I’d read about her, as she reminisced on her past. “What changed?”

  She gave me a knowing smile. “Life,” she answered simply, and then she swept past me into the kitchen.

  Gwenlyn caught her before she slipped out through the back door. “You know you sound more and more like your mother every day.”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  Gwenlyn laughed outright as Morgan let herself out on the patio. I watched through the window as she sat in one of the rocking chairs, swaying back and forth, and surveyed the dead land around the house with a forlorn expression. Gwenlyn knocked into my shoulder, and I snagged her by the elbow.

  “Hey,” I said to her. “Is it Morgan, as in Morgan Le Fay?”

  A zap of energy jolted through my fingers, causing me to yelp and abruptly release the younger woman. She winked and replied, “Not as dumb as you look.”

  She joined the throng of witches around Nora. The revelry didn’t fade easily. I watched the small celebration from my secluded position near the kitchen. Nora blended right in. With her rosy pink hue and long blonde hair, it was almost as though she was meant to be a part of the Summers coven all along, while I, as always, stood separate and disjointed from everyone else.

  I dodged an arrow of dark green energy, huffing as it changed direction at the last second and grazed my calf. It left a bright red welt on my skin that smarted and stung. I grimaced, heaving for breath, and looked up to find yet another bolt heading my way. I dove out of the way, but not quickly enough to avoid the next burn on my shoulder.

  “Enough!” I yelled, flattening myself to the dead earth as the following attack darted across my scalp and ruffled my hair.

  “You’re meant to block them,” Gwenlyn called. She lounged on the top step of the front porch, lazily conjuring green fireballs to lob in my direction.

  It hadn’t taken long for my “training” to commence. Laurel, who I’d learned was Morgan’s youngest sister, had whisked Nora away to complete healing tasks, which left me to defend myself against Gwenlyn’s biting sarcasm and capable witchcraft on my own. Gwenlyn had not forgotten the solid right hook I’d delivered to her eye that morning, and she took particular glee in exacting her revenge. She tossed bolt after bolt of energy my way, not bothering to conceal a grin every time one of them found its mark.

  “You haven’t taught me how,” I reminded her, flicking my sweat-soaked hair over my shoulder. This was not the kind of workout I was used to.

  “Wax on, wax off,” she replied carelessly.

  “For the love of—”

  In the split second between Gwenlyn’s attacks, I tried it her way, mimicking the movement of her fingers. A tiny streak of orange flame launched across the lawn, but it fizzled out before it reached Gwenlyn. Her own energy nipped at my hip, a fierce reminder that she was far more practiced in the art of witchcraft than I was.

  “Defense,” she instructed. “Not offense. That comes later.”

  “Aren’t you a little young to be my wise and worthy mentor?” I asked, tucking my arms in and rolling over a patch of dry dirt to avoid her next missile before lunging to my feet. “Why can’t I train with Morgan?”

  “First of all, the only reason age and knowledge often coincide is because if one uses their time wisely, they are able to acquire said knowledge over several years,” Gwenlyn said. She leaned back on one palm, using the other to keep me on my toes. “You, I’m afraid, have squandered your time. I, on the other hand, have been honing my witchcraft for the past decade with the help of one of the most notorious coven leaders of all time. Age is just a number, pal.”

  She hit me square in the chest. I went sprawling to the ground, landing with a grunt in the dirt. A pebble lodged itself in the palm of my hand, digging into the skin. I stayed down, breathing hard, and glared at Gwenlyn. Much to my relief, she lowered her hand and allowed me to recuperate.

  “Which brings me to answer your second question,” she continued. “Morgan Summers is without a doubt the strongest and most renowned witch of twenty-first century America. She is far too important and far too busy to take time out of her day to train some no-name witch with no mother and no coven.”

  “You really know how to make your words count, don’t you?” I inspected the burn mark on my leg. It wasn’t too bad to look at it, but it itched and stung. “I thought you might be a little more sympathetic to my situation. What about you, huh?”

  “I have a coven,” Gwenlyn replied sharply. “They may not be my flesh and blood, but Morgan and her sisters took me in and raised me like one of their own. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for them. I owe Morgan and her mother my life.”

  I blew on the welt to dislodge dirt and dry grass from the wound. “What is with witches and their mothers? Why do you all have mommy issues?”

  “Speak for yourself,” Gwenlyn retorted. “And I told you already. Magic is passed down from mother to daughter. Circumstance separated you and your sister from your mother, which is probably why neither one of you ever figured out what you were. Are you ready to try again?”

  She summoned her energy in her palm, but I waved her away. “Hold on a minute. Nora knows her mother. Adrienne’s alive and well.”

  Gwenlyn seemed confused. “You share a father? Not a mother?”

  I nodded. “My mother died in childbirth, and my father remarried. Fifteen years later, they had Nora.”

  “So your father cavorted with two different witches?” Gwenlyn asked. “Impressive.”

  “My stepmother isn’t a witch,” I told her. I groaned as I pushed myself up from the ground and joined her on the porch. “Not literally anyway. Figuratively, you might have an argument.”

  “If she’s Nora’s biological mother, then she’s definitely packing craft,” Gwenlyn said. She wriggled her fingers, and a tall glass of ice water appeared on the porch. When she offered it to me, I accepted gratefully. “I’ve never heard of a human giving birth to a witch.”

  I gulped the ice water, savoring its cooling effect on my overheated body. “I’ve known Adrienne my entire life. I think I would’ve noticed if she was mixing potions and casting enchantments.”

  “If you say so.”

  I lay back on the porch and winced. The splintered wood wasn’t the nicest surface for the multitude of welts on my skin. The sore on my shoulder begged for some kind of soothing antiseptic.

  Gwenlyn reached into the front pocket of her tight jeans, extracted a tiny tin of what looked like lip balm, and thrust it toward me. “Here. Rub this into the burns. It’ll numb the pain.”

  I uncapped the container. The concoction inside looked similar to the healing salve from earlier except it was pink instead of orange and smelled like aloe vera and roses. I dabbed it on, moaning with relief as a cooling sensation dulled the sting of the burns.

  “Thanks,” I said, closing the tin and handing it back to Gwenlyn. “So tell me about Morgan. What’s her deal? Why didn’t she want to be a witch?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “She did.”

  “Oh.” Gwenlyn fiddled w
ith a splinter of wood that had separated from a plank in the porch. “It’s a long story, but the gist of it is that the ability to communicate with the dead is one of the rarest in our world. It also happens to be the hardest to cope with. Mediums before us have gone insane. Dealing with the dead all the time will do that to you.”

  “But Morgan was accused of murder,” I said. When Gwenlyn shot a fierce look at me, I added, “I read about it online. Did she really do it?”

  “She solved that murder,” Gwenlyn corrected brusquely. “And took down an idiot channeling dark magic in the process.”

  “Is that why the yew tree burned down too?”

  Gwenlyn shook her head. “Different idiot.”

  “Sounds like Yew Hollow’s got quite a history.”

  “You have no idea,” she said. “We thought we were in the clear. Ten years of peace. You start to get used to it, you know? You get complacent, and then something comes along to derail everything all over again.”

  I gathered my dirty hair and restrained it with a hair tie at the top of my head. “What happened ten years ago? I tried to research it, but there’s hardly any information available about this town anymore. Did your coven do that on purpose? And what’s with this tree anyway?”

  Gwenlyn rested her arms on her knees. “Everything starts and ends with the yew tree, Kennedy.”

  Her gaze drifted lower, to the necklace around my throat, which had roamed free of my collar during our haphazard training session. I tucked it under my shirt once more.

  Gwenlyn stood and dusted her clean palms on the seat of her jeans. “Let’s take a walk.”