She grimaced again as she set her foot down. I actually felt bad for her. A sigh gusted out of me. “What do you want me to do then?”
Gwenlyn finally looked up at me, her eyes shining but her expression firm. “Don’t tell Morgan or Nora that it’s getting worse.”
“Fine.”
“That’s not all,” she went on. “If this goes sideways, there’s a good chance I won’t be able to make it back from the dark. That’s where you come in. With your affinity for wards, you’re about the only person who could stop me from doing serious damage. If I hurt anyone and you can’t make me see reason, I want you to put me down.”
She was serious. I could tell by the straight set of her mouth and the worried lines at the corner of her eyes. I couldn’t argue with her. I couldn’t tell her that Morgan would kill me if I ever had to go through with it. Gwenlyn had asked me to do this for a reason. I was the only person she could trust to do it, which meant that we were finally on equal footing. We both needed something from the other, so I didn’t protest. I nodded curtly, and Gwenlyn’s shoulders dropped in relief.
“Thank you,” she said.
I took a deep breath, gazing up at the ward. “So what’s next?”
“I already told you,” Gwenlyn said. She tossed Nora’s car keys to me. “Go home, Kennedy.”
6
Gwenlyn
With Kennedy soon to depart for Windsor Falls, it was time to buckle down and focus on the situation in Yew Hollow. Nora was surprisingly resilient. After an entire day of lending energy to the other witches, she still had the breath to bend my ear with her far-fetched theories. Though we agreed that finding out more about Kennedy’s past was sure to reveal answers about the curse, it was hard to entertain the idea that Alana was Kennedy’s mother. While their hair matched in garish hue and they both had electric blue eyes, the similarities ended there. Kennedy was all brawn, where Alana was small and soft. I’d known Alana for ten years. She was a shy, timid witch who kept to herself, preferring to paint in solitude rather than interact with her sisters and cousins. Never once had she mentioned anything about having a daughter, but at Nora’s insistence, I cornered Morgan in her bedroom late that evening to ask a few select questions. As the coven leader, she was more than familiar with the members of the Summers clan.
“Aren’t you supposed to be baby-sitting the kid?” Morgan asked as I flopped down on her bed. She set aside the book she was reading and flipped the sheets up to invite me in.
I kicked off my shoes and wriggled underneath the blanket. “I locked her in the barn. No one will get in or out.”
“It’s better for you to be close to her. If Camryn—”
“I know. I just missed you. I won’t stay long, I promise.”
She softened, absentmindedly playing with my messy hair. “We haven’t seen much of each other lately, have we? I’m sorry for that. I haven’t been available to you.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “How goes the curse busting?”
“Oh,” she sighed. “Not very well. Malia, Karma, and Laurel spent the entire day in the archives with no luck. Everyone else is either too sick to help or convinced that I’m no longer the rightful coven leader.” She laughed lightly, but the sound was tired and dull. “God, maybe I should step down. Let Camryn take care of the chaos.”
“You know that would only end in tears,” I reminded her.
“I know.”
I dislodged myself from Morgan’s grasp so that I could look her in the eye. “Listen. About Camryn, I was thinking I could keep an eye on her for you. Nora is, of course, my first priority, but I saw Camryn the other day—”
“No,” Morgan said firmly.
“You didn’t even let me finish my sentence.”
She wrapped a crocheted throw blanket around my head and shoulders like a cloak and drew me closer. “I want you safe. Let me worry about Camryn.”
“You have enough to worry about—”
“Which is my duty as the head of this coven,” she reminded me. She squished my cheeks together with the blanket. “Promise me you won’t go all Sherlock Holmes and try to pin Camryn down. She’s not harmless, Gwen. If she catches you, it will just feed the fire.”
My reply was muffled by the crocheted yarn. “Fine.”
“Say it.”
“I promise.” I broke free of the blanket and turned it over on Morgan’s head instead. As she shook it off, I said, “Can I ask you a question?”
“I have no ideas how babies are made.”
“Har, har. Can you tell me what Alana was like before I got to Yew Hollow?”
Morgan combed her fingers through her hair to straighten out what the blanket had mussed. “There’s not much to tell. Alana was always quite reclusive. When I was a teenager, my mother had to send Aunt Alberta to bring her to town meetings.”
I wrinkled my nose. “To be fair, if you sent Aunt Alberta to fetch me, I wouldn’t show up to the town meetings either.”
“Touché. Anyway, we used to say that Alana was a gray ghost, which is kind of the witch equivalent to an ‘old soul’ but with more depth to it,” Morgan explained. “It implies that she understands the craft in a different way than the rest of us do.”
“Does she really?”
Morgan lifted her shoulders. “Who knows? It’s an idiom, nothing more. The Summerses, by nature, are extroverts, so when we happen to give birth to an introvert—you’re looking at Exhibit A, by the way—the coven doesn’t really know what to do with them.”
“Did she ever, I don’t know, date anyone?”
Morgan looked taken aback. “Not that I know of. You know how we are. No one’s significant other sticks around for long.”
“But what about when she was younger?” I pressed.
“I have no idea, Gwen,” Morgan said. “I was just a kid then. Why are you so interested all of a sudden anyway?”
I immediately withdrew. We didn’t have nearly enough evidence to support Nora’s hunch, and there was no point in casting suspicion over Alana when she was already unconscious. It was best to find the facts first. Then I could clue Morgan in on the details.
“No reason,” I replied. “Just wondering.”
Nora worried incessantly about Kennedy. She wouldn’t shut up about her older sister as we made our rounds the next morning. Kennedy had only been gone for a few hours. She had left at dawn for Windsor Falls, hugging Nora goodbye and promising to return by nightfall. The sisters wore matching expressions of grief as I helped Kennedy push the car far enough from the ward for the engine to recover from its magically engineered failure. We could see Kennedy’s piercing eyes in the rearview mirror as she drove away. Nora, sniffling, had leaned her head against my shoulder, and I felt an unusual pang of guilt that it had been my idea to send Kennedy away.
So I let Nora talk. I learned things about Kennedy that she would never have told me herself. Nora rambled on and on as she diligently worked on the sick witches, unfazed by the desperate whirl of auras that entwined themselves around her as soon as she entered each house. I helped where I could, but the witch’s mark threatened to sour my own craft with its thrilling power. I concentrated on separating the green from the black, but with Nora’s interminable blather, it got harder and harder to keep the colors from intermingling. Each time I sensed an overflow from the mark, I crafted an excuse to get out of the room. I was grateful that Nora was so ensconced in Kennedy’s absence. She didn’t appear to notice as I made increasingly less graceful exits from the healing rituals.
I never strayed too far though. I knew we hadn’t heard the last of Camryn. Nora was too kind to overlook the witches who sided with Morgan’s problematic cousin, so we visited them as well. For a group of women who wanted Kennedy dead, they doted on Nora with obvious adoration. Either that, or they feared Nora might leave them worse for wear if they mistreated her. Camryn herself remained under the radar. If she was rallying her troops, she was doing so quietly. The thought made my skin crawl, so when
Nora took a break at the barn around lunchtime, I doubled back in the hopes of catching Camryn in action. Deliberately going back on my promise to Morgan didn’t sit right with me, but I couldn’t do nothing.
I checked Sage’s house first, where the reward was immediate. A few of Camryn’s followers lingered on the front porch, waiting for something. I knelt behind the corner of the house and cast an illusion to disguise myself. The witch’s mark sent a spark of pain up the back of my leg, the result of a build-up of unused power. If I released it, it would relieve some of my discomfort, but I feared retribution for using something that wasn’t mine. However, in a moment of distraction, a silken thread of black craft trickled into my green aura.
“Crap,” I muttered as the illusionary cloud around me darkened to the color of the forest floor. There was no time to worry about it. The witches on the porch stirred, and Camryn swept into view, today wearing a long slate-gray cloak with brass buckles and knee-high, heeled boots.
“Inside,” she ordered.
At once, the witches scurried to obey her. There were about seven or eight of them in total, some of which Nora and I had tended to only half an hour earlier, including Sage and Lana. As Camryn followed them in, her cloak whooshing as she closed the door behind herself, I snuck onto the porch, flattened myself beneath the windowsill, and cast a listening spell to enhance my hearing. Clear as day, Camryn addressed her cohorts.
“You know how this works,” she said, her heels clicking across the floor. “Line up to see Sage. She will perform the purification spell to rid you of Morgan’s influence. Then have a seat. I’ve come to a decision, and since you are among those who I trust the most, you will be privy to this information first.”
A sneer twisted my lips. Sage was an elemental witch with the ability to manipulate air. Like her name implied, she used smudge sticks to burn herbs and cleanse objects, people, or areas. In the past, she did so to connect with the earth, drive away spirits who overstayed their welcome with Morgan, and to relieve the grief of the coven when one of the older witches passed away. There was no need for her to purify Camryn’s followers of Morgan’s so-called influence. The only influences Morgan had on the rest of the Summerses were honesty and loyalty, but I suspected that Camryn didn’t operate under a similar banner.
I waited as the witches followed Camryn’s instructions. The scent of burning sage wafted outside. I waved it away from my nose and held my breath. If Camryn was forcing Sage to use smudge sticks to push her own agenda, then I didn’t want to inhale whatever spell was infused within the herb’s aroma.
“In short,” Camryn said, once all of the witches had settled, “I plan to kill Kennedy McGrath.”
I bit my lip to keep from uttering a groan of rage. Camryn’s followers murmured in assent. Already, they believed Camryn’s decision was for the best, even if it meant murdering someone in cold blood.
“I don’t believe Morgan has the wherewithal to kill the catalyst herself,” Camryn went on. “She will delay the process until it is too late, and the Summers coven will perish without hope. I would like to prevent this. What say you?”
My blood chilled as the witches replied in unison. “We would like to prevent this.”
“McGrath’s death is imminent.”
Another murmured repetition. “McGrath’s death is imminent.”
The cultish back and forth confirmed what I already knew. Camryn continued to use her influence to strengthen the bond between herself and the other witches. I wondered if any of the Summerses felt a true allegiance to her or if Camryn had simply grasped at the opportunity to take advantage of the weaker-minded witches. My bet was on the latter.
“The time and place for this occurrence has not yet been determined,” Camryn said. “According to my intel, McGrath has left the immediate area. I expect her to return shortly. Something tells me she wouldn’t leave her little sister for long.”
So Camryn had intel. That meant someone was spying on Kennedy through the ward, watching her every move. If that was the case, Camryn probably had eyes on other people too, including Nora, Morgan, and possibly myself.
“When she does return,” Camryn went on, “I’ll contact you again, and we’ll arrange for her quick and easy death. This curse will be broken, ladies. I’ll make sure of it.”
Suddenly, the window above my head moved upward. I tried to dart away, but someone grabbed the back of my neck, hauled me inside the house, and dumped me on the accent rug in the living room. It was Camryn, aura glowing. Without help from her craft, she never would’ve been able to lift me through the window. I scrambled to my feet, needing higher ground in a room full of witches under Camryn’s spell.
“Hello, little Morgan,” she sneered.
“How did you know I was there?” I demanded. “I cast an illusionary ward.”
“Oh, please,” Camryn scoffed. “As if I couldn’t smell the piteous stench of subpar witchcraft nearby.”
I backed against the wall, away from the witches, who all stared at me with the same eerily focused, dark-eyed expressions. “No wonder the coven is splitting in two. You’re manipulating them. No one would support your otherwise.”
Camryn stepped toward me, power rippling along the folds of her cloak. Her strength didn’t make any sense. The curse touched every witch, and though there were traces of its effects in Camryn’s hollow cheeks, she looked half as ill as the other members of the coven. She’d also refused Nora’s treatments, which meant that she should have been bedridden like Alana by now. I suspected that she was stealing Nora’s energy from her followers, who all appeared gaunt and corpse-like.
I stood my ground. “I won’t let you kill Kennedy.”
Camryn laugh was bitingly shrill. “Let me? What makes you think you can stop me?”
“I’m stronger than you,” I declared, squaring my shoulders. “I trained under Morgan for ten years. You’re outside of the superior bloodline. Less original blood, less power.”
Camryn swept into my personal space, her nose inches from mine. “That’s rich, coming from you. I implore you to remember, darling, that no matter what mommy dearest tells you, the blood of the original Summers coven will never run in your veins.”
Pain ripped through my entire body as Camryn hit me with an unpredictable offensive hex. I doubled over, collapsing at Camryn’s feet. Heat built in my heart and radiated outward until it felt like my cells were on fire. Was this what Kennedy felt like all the time?
As I gasped for breath, Carmyn rolled me over with her foot and planted the heel of her boot in the middle of my chest. I fought to free myself, pushing against her, but the hex made me feel frail and brittle.
Camryn leaned over me and took a deep cleansing breath through her nose. “Did you think that being Morgan’s favorite pet would protect you here? Because you have no idea how much I’m going to enjoy killing you.”
Just as she raised her fist to deliver the witchcraft-loaded blow that would end my life, the witch’s mark came to life. The muscles in my leg seized, and a surge of frenzied power exploded from me in a burst of black and green. It blasted Camryn across the room, where she crashed against an ornate decorative mirror that shattered on impact. I rose to my feet, blossoming with the haunting shadows of the forest at night. The other witches remained seated and oblivious. Without Camryn pulling their puppet strings, they served her little purpose.
“My, my, my,” Camryn said as she recovered from my defensive maneuvers. She stood up, shaking broken glass from her cloak, but made no move to attack me again. “It seems we have a deal to make.”
Anger boiled inside me, but I didn’t rise to the bait. Slowly, the mark retracted its power, purifying the color of my aura to its original green. Camryn smirked as it faded.
“Tell no one of my plans for Kennedy McGrath,” she said. “If you warn Morgan, I’ll know.”
“Why would I go along with what you want?” I spat.
“Because if you don’t,” Camryn said, glass crunching under the
heel of her boot as she moved toward me, “I’ll tell your beloved adopted mother that her favorite brat is using dark magic.”
7
Kennedy
The two-hour drive to Windsor Falls felt shorter than when I had been heading away from it in search of Nora. My anxiety mounted with every mile. I had a long history of leaving Nora in my rear view, but those past mistakes were nothing in comparison to the present-day situation. I prayed that Gwenlyn would take her role as Nora’s surrogate sister seriously. I couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to Nora, especially when it was somehow my fault that she was in Yew Hollow to begin with.
That was the can of worms to pop open. If Gwenlyn was right, my father had lied to me about his entire life. There was no other way to swing it. Though I doubted my own abilities, I wholeheartedly believed that Nora fell into the category of “rare super-powered witches.” It was evident in the way the Summerses worshipped her every move. It also meant that my dad knew he had fathered witches for daughters. All this time, he claimed to love me, but if he really cared about what happened to me, he would’ve told me why I had so much trouble making a life for myself.
I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror. A different woman from the one I had been two months ago stared back. We looked the same, with the fiery hair and contrasting glacial eyes, but this new being was as foreign to me as the other side of the world. She was aware of herself, aware of the world that she had been excluded from for so long, and she was on a mission. For years, I’d protected Nora from myself. The tradition continued, but the final inning was approaching. The woman in the mirror had a plan, and I was going along for the ride.
The last thing I wanted to do was alert my father or Adrienne to my return. For all they knew, both of their daughters had inexplicably disappeared, and though I felt an immense guilt at the thought of my father suffering through that knowledge, it was safest for things to remain that way. So when the green exit sign for Windsor Falls appeared through the windshield, I piloted off the ramp and in the opposite direction of my father’s neighborhood. It wasn’t wise to drive through town either. The cops were sure to be on the lookout for Nora’s car. I took the long way around through the backroads, rolling over the hills in a roundabout pattern. Then I trundled off the pavement, hoping Nora’s tires were up to a little off-roading, and drove just far enough into the woods to hide the car among the trees.
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