Double-Sided Witch (Covencraft Book 3)

by Margarita Gakis

  Double-Sided Witch

  by

  Margarita Gakis

  This book is available in print at Amazon.com.

  Digital Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any character resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Double-Sided Witch

  Book 3 of Covencraft

  Copyright © 2015 by Margarita Gakis

  Published by Castalian Springs Press

  Cover by Steven Novak

  Edited by Donna Serafinus

  To my family - thanks for supporting and encouraging me!

  CHAPTER ONE

  Hiding in the closet wasn’t new to Jade. Crouching down, making herself small - she was good at it. Or rather, they were good at it - Jade and Lily. When their father would drink, the closet was a refuge - a small, forgotten corner of their house that in his drunken stupor, their father seemed to forget about. If he’d had the clarity of mind that came with sobriety, he might have realized his daughter was a small child and couldn’t actually leave the house. He might have realized that the dark closet, with its long shape, was the perfect place for a six-year old to curl up in the back, piling an old quilt on herself to make it seem like she was just another misshapen lump of detritus relegated to a bleak corner.

  So no, being in the closet wasn’t foreign or strange to Jade. What was strange was that she was an adult now. She should be long past the time where she felt the need to hide in the closet. She had magic. She could call fire to her fingertips, cast a circle of protection, or conjure a hex to lash out at demons. Jade shouldn’t need to hide in the back of a closet, pressing herself into the cool drywall and waiting for daybreak. She ran her hands along the wall, finding the dimensions of the closet strange and wrong. The closet should be smaller, or she should be. She frowned, squinting in the dark. Now that she thought about it, she shouldn’t be in this old closet at all, should she? If she was in a closet, wouldn’t she be in the one in her little cottage at the Coven? Why was she in the closet in her old bedroom? In a house she hadn’t been back to in years?

  It was that detail that first tipped her brain toward the inevitable realization that she was dreaming. That and the fact that she wasn’t in the closet alone.

  Jade looked down at the warm weight next to her where a little girl was curled up against her leg. The girl turned her face toward Jade and in that strange wrong-logic that dreams had, Jade could make out her features perfectly despite the dark. She found them to be a miniature of her own features, except for the eyes. Jade’s eyes were a stormy grey - somewhat bland, actually, but for the fact that their light color tended to make people nervous when she gazed at them for too long. She’d been told she had eyes like a bird of prey. She didn’t mean to glare at people, but the pale color of her irises sometimes gave that impression.

  The little girl’s eyes were apple green. The color of Lily’s eyes.

  “Are you her?” Jade asked, her voice sounding loud in the small space. The girl blinked up at her, her eyes glowing for a moment. “Are you back?”

  A loud crashing sound outside the closet made them both flinch. The girl curled up into Jade and Jade tried to pull her closer, to bring her further back into the closet.

  “He’s out there,” Jade whispered. She could hear their father cursing and shouting - breaking things, throwing things. The words were unintelligible - nonsense words from a dream. Maybe it was because Jade and Lily had never understood what he was yelling about, or maybe they’d both forgotten over the years what he’d said.

  The closet door was yanked open and the light burned her eyes. Jade squinted, unable to see. There was a shrieking sound and Jade could feel the girl being pulled from her - being dragged away. Jade couldn’t make herself open her eyes, couldn’t make herself see what was happening. She lashed out, clawing with her hands, trying to grab something, anything - a hand, an arm, a leg.

  Her fingers wrapped around something too large to be part of the girl, but too slender to belong to a man. The light faded and Jade could open her eyes. Above her stood another version of herself - same long brown hair, pulled back into a ponytail, same impressive height, same fit build. Except the doppelgänger that stood before her had green eyes. Lily’s eyes.

  Jade’s fingers tightened on Lily’s arm. “Are you back? Say you’re back!”

  Lightning quick, Lily’s fingers shifted underneath Jade’s, grabbing Jade’s wrist back tightly and Jade winced - she thought she could feel the bones grinding together. Lily was urgent, desperate. Jade could feel anxiety coming off her and it was so unlike everything she ever remembered of Lily.

  Lily pulled hard on her arm and Jade struggled. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know it wouldn’t work. You made me.”

  “You need to come with me.”

  Hearing Lily speak, her voice the same pitch and cadence as Jade’s own was strange and vertigo inducing. The grip on her arm tightened and Jade tried to pull back into the depths of the closet.

  Lily looked behind her, over her shoulder. They were no longer in the house where they grew up, but were at the lake, at the Nature Preserve by the Coven. In the distance, a figure stood, dark and faceless, a swarm of birds swirling around her like an ominous fairy tale. Lily’s grip on Jade’s forearm was tight, her fingers digging in.

  “I shouldn’t have slept so long.”

  #

  Waking up after one of her nightmares was like rising from a body of water. There was an initial shock of air as she sucked in a breath and then disorientation mixed with slight distress. Both bled away, leaving her feeling shaky and a little cold.

  It was dark in the mornings now. This time of year, it seemed impossible that when she would get up at the same time during the summer, her bedroom would be already bright. She wouldn’t need to turn on any lights to get out of bed and get her running gear on. But now, closer to midwinter, it was as though it were still night. The only light came from the glow of her alarm clock and even that made her squint at its partial brightness after the blackness of sleep. Like most mornings, Jade wanted to roll over and close her eyes. Maybe more lately because of the dreams. She’d been dreaming of Lily a lot lately. Every night.

  Jade didn’t know how to explain it. She’d never known how to explain it. She wasn’t Lily and Lily wasn’t her, and yet, they both lived in the same body. It wasn’t a split personality or dissociative identity disorder or whatever the world was calling it now. She didn’t know how or why it wasn’t that. It just wasn’t. They had never been one person. They had always been two separate people. Jade didn’t remember anything but being that way. When Jade was little, she hadn’t questioned it. It had always just been. Like other things she ‘knew’ as child - the only monster in their house was their father when he drank, her mother would always forget dinner on Tuesdays after her ladies lunch, and surely everyone was really two people that shared the same body. That way no one was ever lonely. Jade had no memory of a life that didn’t include Lily. It was only once she got older that she’d realized the rest of the world wasn’t the same.

  It had been different for Lily. Lily c
ould remember a time that didn’t involve Jade. Jade could see the memories in her head still, even with Lily gone - murky, abstract images where it had been just Lily and her parents. Before the drinking and the yelling and the fighting. But when Jade tried to think of anything for herself that didn’t have Lily, her head was just… empty and dark. Cold.

  Intellectually, Jade knew everything she remembered, everything she described sounded like dissociative identity disorder. But she also had a sense that the definition didn’t fit what they were. They never felt like one person. They were always separate, yet together, sharing one body except for their eyes. Their eyes shifted color depending on who was ‘in control.’ It was a subtle thing people never noticed, or if they did, they never said anything. As far as Jade knew, things like that didn’t, couldn’t happen with an identity disorder. They didn’t often think about it. It just was. Always had been and always would be. Or so she thought.

  Then Lily … went away. Thinking about that day, the last day she saw Lily and spoke with her, made Jade feel sick. She finally pushed herself out of bed for her run. She couldn’t think about it. She wouldn’t think about it. She would ‘Scarlett-O’Hara’ the problem. Only she wouldn’t think about it tomorrow or the next day or the day after that. It made her chest clench, her heart pound, made her angry and anxious and just… empty. Alone. Incomplete. Like losing a limb, she was unsure of her new structure and balance. Everything was hard and different. Sometimes, late at night when the darkness of the day was pressing in on her, she would get crazy thoughts like maybe the morning would never come and sometimes she would wish that it wouldn’t. She wished she would just fall asleep and never wake up. Some days she couldn’t stand being alone.

  As if sensing her thoughts, Bruce, her lizard familiar, leapt off the bed, where he’d been curled by her feet and butted his serpentine head against her leg.

  “I know, Bruce. I’ve got you now.”

  His pink tongue flicked out and he made his customary ‘pffft’ sound. She wasn’t sure what to make of him most days. It was extremely uncommon for a witch to have a familiar and Jade wished she could take credit for Bruce’s presence, but he’d chosen her far more than she’d chosen him. Jade didn’t understand their connection, but she knew she liked having him around, knew that he was somewhat magical, and also knew that he was a horrid little laundry thief. He loved to drag her workout clothes out of the laundry basket and make himself a little nest, burrowing under tanks, shirts and sport bras. Jade was both disgusted and a little touched.

  Jade realized she wasn’t really alone anymore. She had Bruce and maybe something more.

  As Jade pet Bruce, feeling his serpentine skin under her fingers, warm and smooth, she remembered a moment when she’d been fighting Dex, a witch gone bad, trying to defeat his hex. Jade had felt something against her brain - a presence - Lily’s presence - for the first time in years and it was just as it had always been - a cool tingle in her brain - calming, soothing and there.

  Afterward, when Jade was safely by herself in her little cottage, she’d worked up the courage to stand in front of the mirror, like she’d done so many times in the past before Lily left, and spoke to her reflection. Jade asked the mirror if Lily was there. She asked for a sign. For a moment, so quickly she could have imagined it, one of her grey irises had turned apple-green. The color of Lily’s eyes.

  Jade didn’t know what that meant. She’d tried to talk to Lily since then - the silent communication they’d always had with each other, unheard and unspoken, inside her head. There’d been nothing but emptiness and blankness in response.

  Bruce head-butted her leg again and Jade realized she’d been standing stock still in the middle of her darkened room. “Sorry, sorry,” she mumbled and then, “watch your eyes, Bruce,” as she turned on the light. They both squinted at the brightness, blinking away the last vestiges of sleep. She pulled on her running outfit before she stumbled down the stairs, liking the way Bruce’s heavy footfalls followed after her own. She headed straight for the coffee pot in the kitchen, firing it up, while Bruce took a detour to the window she’d spelled for him, hopping up and over the sill, spilling out to the ground outside. The magic on the window let him in and out as he pleased without it needing to be physically opened. Ah, magic. Not just for the fancy-pants things in life, but for practical stuff like letting your lizard familiar out without having to actually open a door.

  Bruce toddled into the kitchen moments later, shaking himself like a dog. His Elizabethan lizard-collar flapped open and shut a few times and he came over to where Jade sat at the kitchen table. She flipped open her laptop and read her email reaching down to pat his head. When he tilted his head to the side, she pressed her fingers against the soft part of his neck, intending to give him a good scratch. She paused when she felt a small rough patch of skin under her fingers.

  “Whatcha got here, bud?” she asked. He tilted his head even more, stretching his neck to the side, almost presenting the area. Jade ran her fingers over the scaly skin, peering closely. Despite the fact that he was a lizard, Bruce’s skin was normally soft and supple. Although she hated to think it and would never, ever, ever say it out loud, (and certainly not in front of him), Bruce’s skin was like an Italian leather handbag - buttery smooth and pliant. Finding a section feeling scratchy and uneven was new.

  “Dry weather got you down? Do we need to get some of that udder cream they put on cows?” she teased. He pushed his neck out a bit more and she patted his head. “Okay, I’ll keep an eye on it. If it gets worse, we’ll go to the vet. I guess.” She frowned. A vet might not cut it. “Well, Paris will know who we can see.” If there was anyone who could help her familiar, Jade was sure it would be the Coven Leader.

  Giving a longing stare toward the coffee pot, she tapped Bruce’s head one more time. She knew that drinking coffee before her run was a bad idea - it was why she set it up so it would be ready upon her return. She was tempted every time to grab just a half a cup before heading out, but this early in the morning, it was like her body was hyper-efficient - if she drank even half a cup, she’d have to pee halfway through her run with Daniel and she was not going to end up squatting somewhere in the Nature Preserve, getting poison ivy in the summer or freezing her ass off in the winter.

  Jade laced up her runners, donned her head lamp and darted out the front door, detouring to the back alleys until she got to an access point to the reserve. She used to just hop over the chain link fence, but she’d tried her hand at spelling the fence the same way she had spelled the window at home for Bruce and found that she could now come and go through the chain link as she pleased. She pressed against the metal, murmuring her spell and felt it almost melt away underneath her skin, or maybe into her skin, she wasn’t sure. There was a slightly unpleasant tingle associated with it, but it was worth not going up and over the fence. She’d ruined a pair of running pants that way, tearing a really indecent and obnoxious hole in the soft fabric. She was mostly certain the spell was temporary and only remained active for a few minutes after she used it. Of course, if it turned out she was letting deer or moose or whatever out of the Preserve by accident she was going to deny all knowledge.

  Daniel was waiting for her in his usual spot. He jerked his head at her, his own headlamp bobbing in the semi-darkness. It was still too early for the sun to be up and Jade was thankful for her multiple layers. She knew she’d be warm enough in a few minutes, but right now, it was pretty damned cold. Her breath plumed out in grey globes as she exhaled from her mouth and her nostrils burned from the chill as she inhaled. She bobbed her own headlamp at Daniel; morning greeting complete. As much as Daniel’s boyfriend, Henri, was chatty, Daniel was not. If he were, Jade didn’t think they could be running partners, at least not in the morning. She liked the company, or rather, the companionship, but appreciated the silence. Running with Daniel was blissfully conversation-free. It was his day to pick the music, so he fired up his MP3 player and they fell into step to the identifiabl
e beat of the Black Keys. She was yawning her way through their first mile, willing her body to fall into the semi-trance like state it often did while she ran. The ‘thump-thump’ of their footfalls, the beat of the music, and the cadence of their breathing all started lining up, but just when Jade thought she might drift into ‘the zone,’ her mind would jerk back to last night’s dream. Like a record scratch - jarring and harsh - she was zipped back. She could see Lily standing over her, feel her tugging on her wrist. Jade shivered in the morning air and told herself it was just the reaction of the sweat on her face evaporating in the cold morning air. Pushing all thoughts of Lily down, she listened to the music, focusing on the lyrics and the bass line. As the next song started up - a heavy hip-hop tune - she wondered what kind of bass setting Daniel must have his speakers on because she could feel the beat in her chest. A heavy, wet thumping.

  Then she realized that it wasn’t the music causing the feeling in her chest. It was the lake.

  Jade had first passed by the lake with Paris as they walked through the Nature Preserve to work on Jade’s circle casting - casting magical spells within the confines of a circle. It could boost power, protect a witch and enable them to work on more complicated spells. At the time, she’d felt something tugging at her - pulling at her insides. Paris had led her toward the lake, thinking maybe they could work on Jade’s water magic, but on the way there, she had felt sick. Even now, she couldn’t articulate it. Her hand had reached out of its own volition to clutch at the back of Paris’ coat, stopping him from going any further. Getting closer and closer to the lake had felt like being sucked into a gravity well. The closer she got, the harder it was to stop; as though something deep inside her was being pulled against her will. Paris mentioned there’d been an accident at the lake years before and many witches in the Coven had an aversion to the area. She hadn’t asked what he meant and he hadn’t offered. She was both sorry and grateful; Jade wasn’t sure she wanted to know what other witches felt when they passed by the lake. She’d rather not think of it at all.