After the Summerland (The Witches of Spring Hill Book 1)

by Patricia Proctor

  “A pentagram. I saw a pentagram glowing in your eyes,” he says breathlessly.

  Rowan’s smile spreads from her lips to her whole face in an instant. She has never felt more relieved than at this moment. “C’mon!” she says as she grabs his hand, “I want to see.”

  Xavier forgets for a moment what drove him outside. He forgets about his loss and his pain, allowing her to surround him with her happiness and excitement. He jumps up when she pulls at him and he lets her drag him inside, falling at her heels. He never thought he’d see the day… Just as they close the door, the rain begins to fall.

  After Xavier and Rowan ran outside, Cian and Chloe went to the family room to talk with Liam, leaving Brianna and Kaiden by themselves.

  “Are you okay?” Kaiden asks Brianna.

  “You mean with the whole my crazy aunt has been planning to kill me for years and now it’s probably going to happen sooner rather than later thing?” she answers with a smile. “Surprisingly, I am okay. Honestly Kaiden, I am just tired of being afraid of her and I’m ready to fight back.”

  Kaiden nods his head and says, “You know I’ll do everything I can to protect you, right, Brianna?”

  She smiles at him and says, “Thanks, Kaiden. That means a lot.”

  “No, really… I’ll make a circle of fire around you so she can’t get close enough to you to hurt you,” he says smiling.

  “Ooh yeah, or… or … now just hear me out. Maybe you can just start her on fire?” Brianna teases.

  Kaiden concedes that maybe that would make more sense than locking Brianna in a circle of fire; especially since he doesn’t know how to stop the fire once it starts. “You could be stuck in there for awhile, if we do it my way. I’d have to hose you down.” They both laugh at the joke and then he moves into the seat next to her.

  “Really though, all kidding aside, Brianna. I will do whatever I can to protect you from her.” He caresses her cheek and says, “I don’t want you to be afraid of her anymore. I don’t want you to be afraid of anyone.” Just as he leans in to kiss her, Grandpa Marcus clears his throat and walks into the kitchen.

  “Excuse me, you two, but I just need to get some water. My throat is… scratchy,” Marcus says, as he heads for the sink, not even trying to hold back his smile. Brianna and Kaiden look at each other and grin shyly.

  “Where’s Rowan… and Xavier?” Marcus asks.

  Just then the door flies open and Rowan says, “Something’s happening to me!” Her smile is exuberant as she rushes past them to look at herself in the hallway mirror. When she gets there, the reflection looking back is the same as always. No pentagram. No glow. Just her usual green eyes gazing back at her. She can’t help but be disappointed as she heads back into the kitchen.

  Rowan looks absolutely crestfallen when she comes back into the kitchen and Xavier knows that the mark disappeared by the time she got to the mirror. He knows what he saw though and he knows that it’s a sign of something.

  “What’s going on? What’s all the excitement?” Chloe asks, coming into the kitchen.

  “I saw a pentagram glowing in Rowan’s eyes,” Xavier says. “We were outside and after…” He looks at Liam, Peter, and Marcus, who are watching him closely, “… after we saw two shooting stars, I looked at her and saw her eyes glowing. When I looked closer, I saw the mark of the pentagram burning in both of her pupils.”

  “What does it mean?” Brianna asks.

  Everyone looks around at each other shaking their heads.

  “No one knows what this means?” Rowan asks. “You have got to be kidding me!?!” And although Rowan made a point to sound snarky, she is ecstatic that something happened to her, finally. And she loves that it’s something that no one seems to know about. It’s all hers!

  “Let’s see if we can find anything about it,” Chloe says, trying to put her sister’s mind at ease. She hopes that they can find something, anything… but more importantly, she hopes that it is a good omen and not a bad one.

  After spending hours combing through the grimoires and books, they can’t find anything about glowing eyes with a pentagram. Kaiden searched on Google, on the off chance he would find something, but he couldn’t find anything either.

  “You’re an anomaly, Rowan,” Kaiden says, smiling. “Now, let’s just hope it is a good sign…”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Selene wakes up to the sound of screaming. Coming back to consciousness, she is shocked when she discovers the screams are her own. She opens her eyes to find it still pitch black out. The last thing she remembered was the sound of rain falling on her tent. She searches her memory for whatever it was that woke her up screaming; but the dream eludes her, like a wisp of smoke she tries to catch.

  Sitting up in what little space she has, she can see that the rain has not stopped. If anything it is raining harder than it was even a minute ago. She looks up at the top of her tent and sees water collecting in pools. This tent isn’t made for this, she thinks. She grabs her phone to check the time and realizes she’s only been asleep for a couple of hours and daylight is still hours away. She looks at her phone again and sees she still doesn’t have service.

  Water is beginning to seep in from the back and she can feel it dripping on her jacket near the front corner. Although she didn’t make it up to the house, she can’t see spending the night outside in these conditions. She hates the idea of giving up, but the idea of sleeping out in the rain is even worse.

  She gathers everything inside the little tent and stuffs it into her backpack before stepping outside. She’ll have to quickly grab the tent and put it over her head for some protection from the downpour. She pulls out her flashlight, steps outside, grabs the tent, and holds it together with one hand, while saving the other for the flashlight. She will have to trust her instincts to get her out of here. She figures since she is going downhill she will eventually come to a road that she can follow back to the car. It will be much easier than hiking through the woods in the rain.

  It doesn’t seem long at all before she gets to the bottom of the hill and finds her car parked just where she left it. She drops everything in the trunk, climbs into the front seat, soaking wet. She starts the car, and is shocked to find only a half hour has passed since she looked at her phone before setting out. How can that be? she thinks. I spent at least four hours hiking around out there! How could I only be a half hour away from my car? She thinks of the cat, and rages. That cat better hope it doesn’t cross my path again, because I swear I will take out all nine of its lives.

  Since she planned to spend the night in the woods, she didn’t think to reserve a hotel room and at this point, she knows the kids won’t be home tonight. She decides to spend the night in her own bed and leave early in case the kids come home in the morning. If she gets caught, she’ll tell them… Wait, I don’t have to explain myself to them, she thinks. If I’m home when they get home, I’ll just ask them where the hell they spent the night. She smirks to herself, thinking how either scenario works out in her favor, especially since they have no idea she knows where they spent the night. I almost hope they do come home, she thinks, grinning while anticipating the confrontation.

  She also hopes the rain stops by tomorrow so she can try the hike again, and if it not… well then, she’ll take the direct route up to the house and knock right on the front door. She would prefer to explore the property a little before talking with the Alexanders, but now that her niece and nephews are buddies with the Alexanders, she knows she can’t wait much longer. This was not part of the plan and her patience is wearing thin, especially with Brianna, Cian, and Xavier. Now that she knows where their loyalty lies, there is no sense in prolonging the inevitable.

  Chapter 31

  The following morning, Liam wakes up to the heavenly aromas of coffee, bacon, and cinnamon. He looks at the clock and discovers that it’s only 7:00am — four hours since the house was quiet enough that he was certain everyone was actually asleep. He stayed up reading for a full hour aft
er the kids went to bed, just in case anyone tried to rendezvous in the night. He is thrilled with how well Chloe, Kaiden, and Rowan are handling all of this. They seem to have matured five years over a couple of month’s time. He thinks back to how worried he was about telling them, but can’t deny that part of what is making the transition so smooth is the presence of the Silvans.

  Xavier, Cian, and Brianna Silvan have turned out to be so much more than he expected. Their pain is etched all over them but it comes out in various ways. Xavier is the one who concerns him the most. It seems he has been the one to shoulder the burdens of his family for some time and he is the one most at risk of practicing black magic because of Selene’s influence. Liam knows under that tough exterior is a young man at the breaking point. He only hopes that he can provide a safe place for him to fall.

  Cian, who seems much older than his seventeen years, has been so honest about everything from the very beginning and it is obvious how deeply he cares for Chloe. He seems to understand the world and his place within it much better than any teenager Liam has ever met, other than Chloe, of course, making them a good match.

  Then there’s Brianna Silvan, who is heartbreaking. She suffers the most at the hands of Selene. Even though she is warm, funny, and smart, she has very little self-confidence. Spending time around Kaiden is good for her; it is bringing her out of her shell and if he’s being totally honest with himself, Liam thinks she is good for Kaiden, too.

  He is happy with how they have all bonded and are helping one another. Like one big happy family, he thinks to himself. The sunny picture he imagines is darkened when he thinks of Selene Silvan. Lying here in bed alone, he can’t help but worry about how to keep everyone safe, especially against a witch who wants something from his family. A witch, who, according to the conversation last night, is manipulative, dangerous, and more powerful than any of the witches the Alexanders have ever met before.

  With that thought, he thinks that no matter what happens with Selene, he will find out if he can get custody of Xavier, Brianna, and Cian, if they want him to. He finally drags himself out of bed to find out what the source of all the mouth-watering aromas is all about and wonders how someone could have gotten past his room without waking him.

  In the kitchen, Chloe fries up another batch of bacon. Chloe got up first, and wanting to surprise everyone with breakfast, headed to the kitchen. Only she was the one to be surprised when she found Cian standing in the open refrigerator door.

  She takes a moment to watch him move things around on the shelves and open drawers, as if he is taking stock of their refrigerator. His hair is even more disheveled than usual, as if he just ran his hands through it before coming down.

  “Good morning,” she whispers, as she makes her way toward him.

  Startled, he replies, “Hey, good morning. Did I wake you?” He notices she took the time to brush her hair before coming down. He can’t help but like how fresh she looks in the morning, especially because he knows she did it for him. He runs his fingers through his hair again, wishing for the second time that he had remembered his brush.

  Chloe smiles and not being able to resist his pull, wraps her arms around him.

  “I can’t believe you are here, in our kitchen, snooping through our refrigerator,” she says teasingly.

  He laughs, “I was not snooping. I was going to make everyone breakfast, you know, as a thank you for letting us stay here this weekend and everything else…”

  They spent most of the night reading through the grimoires. Cian couldn’t believe how much their aunt withheld from them about their craft. It became obvious she only told them what would help her get what she wanted from them, and didn’t even consider what they would want to know for themselves. So many of the books were about the Scotts’ genealogy and it made Cian wonder about his own lineage. Cian believed that it was necessary to know the past in order to better prepare for the future, and afterward he and Brianna talked about finding their grandparents when everything was settled here. They needed to know more and Selene made it obvious that she couldn’t be trusted for the answers. Asking anything of her now would only raise suspicion.

  Without saying anything, Cian and Chloe slipped into an easy rhythm. Chloe started the coffee and pulled out all the ingredients Cian needed for his ‘famous’ cinnamon rolls. He explained how when he was little, his mom baked a lot and he used to sit on the counter and ‘help’. Right before she got sick, she taught him how to make her family’s cinnamon rolls, his favorite breakfast. He was only eleven, but they turned out perfect that first time and every time since. His mom said he had a knack for baking, but after she died he stopped altogether, until recently.

  Since he had the recipe memorized and didn’t use yeast like most cinnamon roll recipes, he had the time. He liked the precision of baking — every ingredient needing to be measured exact, unlike cooking where the more spontaneity, a pinch of this or a handful of that, the better the results.

  By the time Cian had the dough started, Chloe had the bacon pulled out and was frying it. Her favorite breakfast was bacon, egg, and cheese casserole, which Liam usually made, but since discovering her abilities, she loves cooking. She uses herbs and spices that she had never heard of before and cooks with such flare. Together she and Cian make a good pair in the kitchen. They whisper and laugh comfortably while preparing breakfast, whispering spells over the food. They are just putting the final touches on their dishes when Liam makes his way into the kitchen, followed by everyone else.

  After an amazing breakfast with everyone comfortably full, they sit around the table and make plans for the day. The thunderstorm is strengthening outside, ensuring that no one will be going back to the clearing today. The weather is too volatile and after what happened last time they decide to wait until they are better prepared.

  Instead, they will spend the day going through more of the books and grimoires. The Silvans agree to sit down with Liam and tell him everything that their aunt has told them since they learned they were witches, in the hopes of finding something that will help them. Marcus and Peter will drive by the Silvans on their way into town and report back their findings.

  Once everyone disperses, Peter pulls Liam aside and asks, “Who’s on duty at the station today?”

  “Dave is, why?” Liam responds, wondering what his great grandfather is up to.

  “Oh, I was just waiting for a package from the private investigator we hired to find information about Selene. Last week he called and said he had some information he would mail to me. I’ve been waiting for it all week. I’m surprised it hasn’t turned up yet.”

  “He was going to mail it to the station?” Liam asks, surprised this is the first he’s hearing about it.

  “Uh, yeah. I figured it would make more sense since someone is always there and it would be unlikely Selene would steal the mail from there, right?” Peter says clapping Liam on the back.

  “I guess so,” Liam replies, confused. “I’ll call Dave and see if anything has arrived yet.”

  “Nah, that’s alright. No need to bother him. It’ll be nice to just pop in and see what’s going on anyway,” Peter replies, hoping that Liam will just let this go.

  Just as Liam opens his mouth to say something else, Marcus walks in and says to Peter, “Ready, Pops?”

  “I’m ready. Let’s go.” He pats Liam on the arm a second time and heads out the door. Liam watches his dad and granddad make their way out to the truck in the rain. Liam can’t help but be suspicious of what the old man is up to. He’s been acting strange for a while and it’s probably time to ask him outright what he’s up to.

  Liam and the kids are sitting around the table talking when Liam’s phone chirps with a message from Marcus.

  Selene’s home — car in driveway,

  lights on in house, movement inside

  “Well, we all were right not to believe your aunt… because she’s home,” Liam tells Xavier, Brianna, and Cian. The room goes still as everyone considers w
hat this means. “She knows we’re here,” Brianna says nervously, the first one to verbalize what everyone is thinking. “Otherwise she would have texted us last night to ask where we were.” Liam nods in agreement.

  “As much as we’d all like to hide out here, I think we need to go home. If we don’t, it will only bring more trouble in the long run,” Xavier says.

  Brianna shakes her head, no. “No, Xavier, I don’t want to go. If you want to go, that’s fine, but I won’t be her punching bag again. I’m done being her victim.” Kaiden pulls her in his arms and says, “You’re not going anywhere, Brianna. No way in hell I’d let you go anywhere near her ever again without protection.”

  “Maybe I should just go then,” Xavier says, already thinking that he needed to do this alone. “I can still act like I’m helping her, and that way she won’t even involve you and Cian. Okay, Brianna?”

  Cian sees Liam look at Xavier questioningly. Knowing that Liam doesn’t trust Xavier, he says, “I’ll go, too, Xavier. I’m not afraid of her. I should be there so I can get us out of there if I have a vision and learn that something is going to happen.”

  Chloe looks nervously at Liam and wonders how her dad is even considering allowing two teenage boys to go down to meet a powerful witch alone. Before she can say anything, Liam looks at Cian and nods. The kid is sharp, Liam thinks. There is no way in hell I would send Xavier down there alone when he now knows every single thing about this family. “Okay then. I’ll take you two down and Brianna will stay here. If you have any trouble — and I mean any trouble at all, you just call and I will be there in five. Agreed?”

  Cian and Xavier nod their heads in agreement and head upstairs to get their bags. Liam texts Marcus explaining that Xavier and Cian are going home, but Brianna is staying here at the house. He tells them to continue watching Selene until he drops Xavier and Cian off, giving Liam time to get back up to the house. Liam hates leaving anyone alone right now, but he can’t see putting his kids in harm’s way. He plans on saying a few words to Selene when he drops them off, but without knowing the extent of her powers, he does not want Chloe, Rowan, and Kaiden anywhere nearby.