by C. L. Bush
Sam exhaled, picking up her backpack from the ground, and continued down the cracked road and up the drive.
“You remind me more of him every day,” Damen said loudly behind her, bitterness and hurt staked through each word. “A proper leader, indeed.”
Sam didn’t respond but continued toward the Smith house. Damen quietly followed her.
Pushing everything she craved to tell him and everything she wished he would say to the back of her mind, Samantha tried to focus on the task at hand. She had the rest of her life to worry about the rest of her life. But she might not get another chance for what she was about to do, and Clara might not get a second chance to get back home alive.
The living room in the Smith house was full, and Sam couldn’t help but think of Clara’s birthday and the enthusiasm she felt then. How foolish she was. Just months ago, her main concern was waiting for Clara to find out about her magic and all the wonderful adventures they were supposed to have after. Sam’s dream world crashed in a matter of twelve hours.
Instead of practicing new spells with Clara and looking forward to her future, she was socially depleted, more alone than ever, and the only spells she was learning were tools to correct her colossal mistakes. Instead of getting ready for graduation and moving in with her boyfriend in her first apartment, she now faced a dead-end future, and Damen was freaking out about sentencing their possible future magical progeny to the same destiny.
Would they be as strong as Damen predicted? A stray thought entered her mind, but she silenced it. Sam snickered to herself, thinking of the person she was before she had found out about magic, whose only certainty about her future children was that they would be beautiful, talented, and loved.
Samantha pitied the foolish girl she was half a year ago, and she detested her as well. The only good that ever came out of the person she was, was the perpetual motivation to never be as weak as she was then. She breathed deeply to calm herself as Damen left her side and went to broodingly greet everyone in the room.
Samantha nodded to the gathered group and chose to stay where she was, assessing the room. The grownups acknowledged their presence but barely. Cathy Smith, Clara’s mother and tonight’s hostess, was lighting candles around the room. The fading candlelight only magnified the dark circles under her eyes.
As Cathy lit the candles, a pleasant smell filled the room. The wax was infused with a myriad of herbs and oils meant to protect the room from any magical intrusion. Their presence was meant to create protection, but all it did was remind everyone of the real threat out there. Sam watched Cathy’s fluid movements, and she felt a pang of guilt. She’d been so consumed by her own world and her own pain that she hadn’t even thought about visiting Clara’s mom.
Maybe there was some truth to Damen’s words.
Sam pushed the thought away and smiled briefly at her parents. Rosalind and Daniel MacDonald, both lean, fair and extroverted, were busy discussing the reinforcement of the barrier around the woods with Damen’s mom. Damien’s mom, Amber McDooley, was focused on the duo in front of her, unaware of Sam attentively observing her. Curls framed her stoic face and the pendant representing her family’s New Orleans coven hung around her neck, as it always did. Six months ago, Samantha had thought it was a wonderful token and admired Amber for respecting her roots. Now, she knew better.
She turned away from her possible future mother-in-law and to the coven leader and potential father-in-law. Christopher McDooley.
Christopher was deep in discussion with his son. Damen’s stance was defeated as he listened to his father’s instructions. She felt the need to cut in, to give Damen peace he so desperately needed, but she tucked the need away. Damen couldn’t be her focus tonight. She couldn’t allow herself or her magic to be unchecked just because he was losing the constant battle for independence. She would make it up to him, eventually.
Zoey was nearby. She was visibly lost in thought and evidently unsettled. Was she worried Sam would embarrass her tonight? What would be the consequences for failing as a mentor? If she wasn’t worried, she probably should’ve been.
Zoey and Xander’s mother wasn’t there, still on the warpath against the coven. Samantha was surprised to find herself disappointed that Richard Gaskill wasn’t there as well. Of course, he wasn’t part of the coven, but still. Sam half-believed he was the only person who would’ve given her any viable input.
And lastly, Sam caught a glimpse of JJ. He stood across the room from her, almost cornering himself. He was the sole representative of his family. Both his parents went to visit any of the covens that could be interested or bribed into helping them. Meanwhile, JJ smiled with sadness, and Samantha responded with an equally sad smile. She understood it was hard for him, but it was hard for everyone. Besides, he was the empath, which made empathizing with him next to impossible.
He watched Sam for a couple of seconds, hesitant, before finally approaching her. Sam wished he hadn’t. His mere presence in the room alone made her feel incredibly vulnerable, but having JJ in her close proximity made it almost unbearable. It was hard to forget one’s emotions when you were with an empath who literally felt everything. Empaths are the worst, Sam thought.
“I’m glad we’re back here,” JJ said in his typical friendly manner. Sam forced a smile and a nod. “Sam...”
“You don’t have to explain,” she responded, smile still plastered on her face. “I understand.”
“I know you do,” JJ acknowledged, looking as miserable as she felt. She missed the old JJ, the one making fun of everything and everyone, constantly smiling, ready for a laugh. Maybe he missed that JJ, too. “I’m still sorry. This thing... it’s hard to handle.”
“Well, a lot of things are hard to handle,” Sam interrupted him, widening her smile, fully aware of the glances Christopher was shooting at them. “And yet, we prevail.” She laughed shortly, as if she had said the funniest darn thing, but JJ’s face gave them both away.
“JJ, just please, stop,” Sam said, hoping to brainwash them both into calmness. “We’re good. You don’t have to explain anything. Let’s just go through today’s meeting like a real coven and go from there.”
“Sam...” he began, drawing near sympathetically, but with a warning in his voice. “I don’t think this meeting will go as you want it to go.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She smiled innocently but her words didn’t even slow JJ down.
“People in this room... they don’t feel the same as you do,” JJ said quietly, turning his back on the rest of the group and looking straight into her eyes. “Whatever you want to happen here tonight, it probably won’t go as you’re planning.”
“I still have to try, don’t I?” she asked simply, brushing her hair away. She patted his shoulder sympathetically. “Don’t worry about it, JJ. It’s all going to turn out just fine.”
“Just be careful, Sam. I have a bad feeling about tonight.”
“Are you a prophet now, as well?” she cut him off, and he fell silent.
Her sweet tone was poisonous, but JJ wasn’t taken aback. Instead, he nodded compassionately and took a seat right behind her. She allowed herself a second to be surprised that he hadn’t run away from her before focusing on Christopher who was waving his son away and preparing to speak.
“Well, I’m glad to have our youngest members attending the meeting once again. This has been a trying period, but here’s hoping that you’ve grown stronger from it.”
Sam searched Damen’s eyes, but his gaze was locked onto his father.
“We need to start the reinforcement spell around the woods tonight. Rosie noticed several cracks and we can’t afford that happening until after the summer solstice at least.”
“Reinforcement isn’t the long-term solution, Christopher,” Cathy said. Sam took a deep breath, grateful she wasn’t the only one to realize the situation ahead of them. “The Arch is holding by a thread and we need to take it down on our own terms. I was going through some
of the old Grimoires and our best solution remains the unsealing spell.”
“Exactly,” Sam whispered under her breath, fighting the urge to speak up. Damen’s eyes shifted toward Cathy, stubbornly avoiding Sam’s explanatory gaze.
“Cathy, we’ve been through this,” Damen’s dad said. “The whole area is a ticking bomb waiting to explode and we have to get it under control before we start on it.”
“The kids aren’t ready yet for that kind of magic.” Sam was surprised to hear her mother’s voice. “We need an overlapping circle to make sure the doorway to Pandemonium remains sealed once we take the Arch down since we can’t risk another member entering the Arch.”
“What about the New Orleans coven? Any news from them?” Cathy continued.
Amber shook her head, curls barely shifting as she moved. “They don’t want to get involved in it, and I can’t say I blame them. This is a potential global disaster.”
“If they help us, we might prevent that exact disaster,” Cathy said with the tone of someone who was tired of repeating herself. Sam felt her own heartbeat thud faster as she slowly realized how right JJ was. “This might be happening in Richmond, but once the Arch is down, everyone will pay the price. Do they have no loyalty at all? If we hadn’t placed that Arch, they still would’ve been fighting the evil spirits and demons twenty-four, seven.”
“That loyalty has shattered the moment your child walked into the Arch,” Amber said.
Catharine’s eyes hardened with anger, and a candle next to Zoey flickered rapidly.
“Now, now,” Christopher said once again. “The past is in the past.”
The past is in the past, Sam repeated to herself, scandalized at the nonchalance in his voice and mannerisms.
“We can’t undo what was done. What we can do is move forward. The activity from the Arch in the previous years was always the strongest from winter to summer solstice. The only sane option is to contain the bomb until this period passes and then evaluate if the kids are strong enough to help reinforce the Arch. In the meantime, I’ll continue working on finding us allies who are willing to take the risk and join us in our fight.”
“What about Clara?” Sam asked, her voice hollow as the storm inside of her. The gathered turned to her, some surprised, some even insulted by her words. Cathy’s eyes revealed pain and gentleness, but anything further was impossible to discern.
“Samantha, dear,” Damen’s dad said slowly, causing her anger to boil. “We have no way of knowing anything about Clara. The smart thing to do-”
“She’s there,” Sam interrupted him. “I can feel her. But she’s fading away. Like she’s falling asleep. We can all feel her. We have to get her.” The eyes were glued on her, and Sam gathered herself quickly. “I agree with you, Cathy. We need to take down the Arch and we need to do it as soon as possible.”
“And how do you intend to do that?” Amber asked half amused, half angered while Sam’s father quietly signaled his daughter to stop whatever she planned on doing. Sam had no such intention. Instead, she took her mess of notes out of her backpack and breathed deeply.
Presentations at school were never a problem for her. Not because she always knew her materials by heart, but because it was always a crowd willing to listen and embrace what she was saying. For the first time in her life, she felt like an outsider. And, for a split second, she wondered if this was what Clara felt every day and why she expressed her opinions in an ironclad of cold, verified facts.
“It’s very nice that you did your research, Samantha, and I’m glad to see you’re taking your magical studies seriously.” The tone Damen’s dad used was bitterly condescending and only ignited her anger. “However, we really don’t have time to lose. How about you bring your notes to-”
“I made a massive mistake,” Samantha spoke, ignoring Christopher McDooley’s words and appalled expression. Damen stared at the wall across him, his eyes like glass. “Last winter solstice, I thought just because I had raw power like no one else among my peers that I could manage what Xander failed to do. It was a terrible mistake, and it cost me a lot. I’d like to point out that neither Xander nor myself would have been there if our parents and senior coven hadn’t restrictively given us knowledge that’s rightfully ours.” Her mother opened her mouth to retort, but Sam quickly continued. “No matter our intentions, we did what we did, and we’re where we are. Because of what I did, Zoey had me repeating the basics of magic for weeks now. At first, I was angry because I thought I was wasting my time, but now I’m grateful for it.”
Zoey shuffled from one leg to another, her arms crossed and her eyes weary. But she nodded in support and understanding.
“I’ve been thinking a lot lately,” Samantha continued, clearing her throat and lowering her voice to the intimidating, authoritative one she used at social council’s meetings. “And I’ve been reading even more until I realized that the issue with the Arch can be properly solved in only one way. Among the first thing we learned about magic is that the best way, the only proper way, to reinforce or break a spell is by using the same magical process that formed it.”
She never thought she would be grateful to Zoey for making her repair that stupid mirror over and over but she was.
“Sam, don’t,” JJ whispered behind her, but Sam ignored him, focusing her attention into resisting the shocked looks before her. This was it. There was no going back now.
“All of the other options are going to fail, one way or the other,” Samantha said fervently, clenching her notes in shaky hands, trying to hide her desperation. “We can talk and discuss elements and solstice and the overlapping magical circles and our raw power and connection to nature, but it won’t be enough. Sure, you said Ian Parker used the whole coven and five pillars for the spell casting, the full moon, the solstice, but that wasn’t what kept the Arch whole for all these years. It was blood magic.”
“Be careful with what you’re saying, kid,” Amber said roughly as the astounded looks around the room pierced Samantha’s soul. Sam might have once been intimidated by Amber, but today, for some reason, Sam felt her equal.
“You know it’s true,” Samantha continued, the roaring silence making her emotions louder than ever. The candles around her flickered, as did the bulbs in the lamps, the wind gushed by the windows. JJ stepped closer to her, causing even stone-cold Damen to shift.
“Honey, you don’t know what you’re saying,” her mom started, horrified by the suggestion, while Damen just blankly stared at her. “Blood magic isn’t something to be toyed with. The repercussions can be dire.”
“The repercussions will be dire,” Christopher corrected her, his voice iron-cold now. “Your proposition has been denied and your mentor will be questioned about the direction she may have been guiding you in.”
“This has nothing to do with Zoey,” Samantha objected but was interrupted.
“A proper mentor is responsible for the ideology their protégés take on. Blood magic is not one that will be tolerated in Richmond, let alone practiced,” Christopher continued, his words clouding Samantha’s mind. “Those who took part in the original creation of the Arch meddled with forces that are not to be disturbed and have cost generations of the Richmond coven a debt that can’t be repaid or forgotten. It might have been the greatest evil that ever happened in this town and we’ve been paying the price for decades now. A blood price for the arrogance of those who had no idea what they were getting into.”
“As you said, the past is in the past,” Sam threw Christopher’s words into his face, shaking with anger. “Whatever the reason was to use blood magic once is irrelevant now. It was used, and now it’s the only logical solution to undo it!”
“Do you know what you’re proposing?” he almost yelled, ignoring Cathy’s attempt to calm him down. Her parents’ eyes gave away nothing except for fear and disappointment. “Reaffirming the Arch with blood magic would demand a price you can’t even comprehend. We know nothing about it! The power to strengthen it migh
t take a toll that’s nothing short of mass murder.”
“Christopher, please,” Cathy tried, but he quietened her with a hand in her direction, focusing solely on Samantha.
Christopher’s shoulders trembled, as Damen’s did when he’d have his rare outbursts of anger. His eyes were cold, devoid of any understanding or willingness to listen and understand. Finally, the tyrant hidden in Damen’s father had shown himself, and she understood Damen’s torment. This man was as unrelenting and adamant, and at that moment, Samantha realized all of it was for nothing. She would get no reasoning, no understanding, no support.
Clara was doomed if her salvation depended on this man’s decisions.
“Are you ready to carry that weight on your shoulders, Samantha?” Christopher continued and she stoically accepted his words. “Do you realize there’s a high possibility that reinforcing the Arch, or even tearing it down, might instantaneously take the life force of every single person that has a drop of blood of the families that made that Arch? That is tens, possibly hundreds of people. Children, whole families. Half of this town. Would you be able to live with that? For what? So you could have your friend back?”
“I think that’s enough.” Sam vaguely heard her father speak through the haze, but she wasn’t there anymore. She let her carefully-crafted notes drop to the floor, clenching her fists as the windows around them shook.
“Sam, don’t. He’s provoking you,” JJ softly said behind her, grabbing her wrist, but she pushed him away. The candles flickered. Their glow mixed with the anger in Christopher’s eyes. Behind him, in his father’s shadow, Damen shook his head. His fear was obvious, and at that moment, Samantha detested him for it.
“If that’s what it takes,” she said and the room fell silent. Nothing could be heard except the rattling of furniture she was causing. The picture of Clara danced on the nearby table. Her and her mother smiling in Central Park in a much happier time. “If we don’t control this, we’re all dead anyway.”
