When I was down to the last crumb of ricotta in the bottom of the bowl, I looked down at the page I was writing and wondered if everything I just wrote would be in the big book as well. I would have to ask Chester, when I saw him again, if he used what I wrote for their coven circles.
The wind started to pick up outside my window and I could hear laughter from the front yard below it. Michelle and Clara were getting out of Clara’s car, and they were laughing about something. As I sat back down, the empty bowl slid down my comforter and onto the floor. Without getting up, I bent over the side of the bed to grab it and saw something glowing. Lifting the comforter back onto the bed, I slid to the floor and placed the bowl on my night stand. I had to get down on my stomach and slide under the bed to reach what was down there, since it was sitting directly under the window, on the other side of the bed.
When I grabbed it, I could feel jagged edges and it was cool to the touch. As I slid out from under the bed with it in my hand, one of the edges dug into me. I quickly placed my finger into my mouth to catch the blood from dripping on the carpet. The thing under my bed was a rock of some sort. It was the color green you’d expect from a glow-in-the-dark toy. Only it reminded me of a kryptonite crystal from Superman’s ice cave.
The spot that cut into my finger had a small amount of blood on it. As I started to wipe it away, the rock seemed to absorb it.
“Well . . . isn’t that curious,” I said to myself as I placed it on my bed and went to the desk to retrieve my laptop.
What do you put in a Google search for a glowing rock that absorbs blood? I hit the keys, searching for glowing rocks, and came up with core gravel. Rocks that glowed for illumination without the aid of electricity. Perfect for lighting pathways, driveways, and flower gardens, but what was it doing under my bed?
A knock on the door made me jump halfway out of my skin. The rock in my hand went flying somewhere, but I abandoned it to grab my book and its box and slid them under my bed.
“Elyse, honey, are you in there?”
“Uh, yeah mom . . . gimmie a minute, I’m . . . um . . . changing.”
I moved the box from under my bed to its spot back in the closet. Chances were, she was dropping the day’s laundry to be put away. I jumped from the closet, went to the door and turned the lock.
“Sorry.”
“Oh, it’s okay. I just don’t remember you ever locking your door before.” She moved past me to the bed.
As soon as I turned around to see her pulling folded clothes from the green basket, I saw the rock. It had landed in front of my pillow, which was perched up against my headboard. A flick of my finger and the pillow fell down, concealing it from view.
“Cool,” I said out loud, which had Helen turning on her heel.
“What’s that?”
“Um . . . my shirt, I wanted to wear it tomorrow. I see it’s in the pile. Cool, thanks.” I moved to the pile of clothes she placed on the bed and began moving the items to the appropriate drawers.
“Don’t mention it.” She started for the door, then turned back to look at me. “You know . . . next year you’ll be away to college. I hope you stay local if you plan on me doing your laundry still.”
“Is that your way of saying you don’t want me to leave home?” I laughed.
Helen just smiled and left the room. She was the sentimental type. I had planned my graduation day down to the last minute, including extra boxes of Kleenex we would need in every corner of the house to last a good three months.
The week went by without any complications, although Michelle had been bugging me about why I had been so nice to Clara on Sunday. I didn’t have an answer for her and that bugged her more than she was bugging me.
I brought the stone with me to school the next day to show Chad, Crystal, and Matt. When they didn’t know what it was, I took it to Clara. I could imagine her parents were the type to train their children in the arts of magic and magical relics all of their lives. Of course, that was confirmed when Clara told me she learned about core gravel when she was very young.
She said her mother had about seven dozen or so that lined the walkways in her back yard and around her pool. The glow inside them was powered by light, like solar panels. Some witches substituted these core gravel rocks for candles when they worked magic in smaller surroundings. Some witches also used them to trap another witch’s essence. This led me to believe that they could be used for light or dark magic.
Clara suggested that Sigmis had tracked me down and had someone deliver that to my room.
“It was probably the easiest place to hide it, because how often does a person crawl under their bed?” She laughed at me as she turned to leave, grabbing onto the arm of one of the varsity football players.
I turned my frustration to Chad, who was waiting patiently for me. “She can be so . . . ”
“Irritating . . . annoying . . . spiteful?” He ran through the usual words I would have used to describe my sister.
“Bitchy.” I gave Chad a look that said, ‘Where have you been all our lives?’
“Okay, yes, but that’s a bit harsh. I was trying to be nice.”
“Why?”
“I don’t entirely know . . . but . . . when I find out, you’ll be the first to know.” He gave me his cutest smile and I blushed.
We still hadn’t talked about what happened Sunday. To be honest, I didn’t know if I wanted to. I knew one way or the other, there would be a major change in our relationship. He broke off the kiss much quicker than I would have expected. Maybe he resented doing it and didn’t want to change anything between us. Either way, I wasn’t ready to discuss it.
“You’re too much.” I threw my book bag at him. He caught it and slung it over his shoulder.
We started walking home, but without holding hands, which was how it had been all week. I could tell the difference in my mood, opposed to when he held my hand every chance he got. I felt more agitated, unnerved, and scared than I ever did before. I was starting to miss his calming ability.
By Friday, I was all nerves and couldn’t stand it much more. I watched him when we left the school. His hair was its usual messiness, and he kept his eyes forward, scanning the area as we walked at a leisurely pace. I swung my arms back and forth in a very exaggerated manner, trying to see if I could get him to look my way, even for a second. He had a lot of self-restraint, and he kept a vigilant watch at every yard, taking notice of all movements around us. It was as if he were expecting someone to jump out at us. That moment was the first time I felt like I was being escorted by security, rather than walking home with a friend.
When we reached my yard, I took my bag from his shoulder and thanked him for walking me home, as I had done every day since kindergarten. Only this time, when he turned to leave, I yelled at him. I had no idea where it came from, but I think the entire neighborhood heard me scream.
“Seriously, what was that all about, E?” He looked at me as if I had just wounded him.
“You’re just gonna keep going on like this? Like nothing ever happened, aren’t you?”
“What in the world are you going on about? I don’t know what’s happened? Did I miss something?”
I let my bag fall to the porch and walked down the three steps between us. I had no idea what I was going to do until my hands had already flung to the back of his head, entwined in his hair, and my lips found his. At first, I could feel him wrap his hands around my arms, but then they moved to my back. He pulled me closer and intensified the kiss.
When I pulled away from him, I could see the smile on his face. “Why is it the girl that’s always got to make the first move?” I teased him.
“The girl? Hey, I did that, and you haven’t said a word about it.” He ran his hands through his hair.
“Well, you should have just said something.” I turned and stomped back up the porch, collected my bag, and went inside, letting the screen door slam behind me.
Once inside and able to catch my breath, I pulled
my cell phone from my pocket and pushed the letters on the small keyboard. “I expect you’ll know how to make the next move . . . ” and pushed send.
My only reply was a small smiley face with a large grin.
CHAPTER NINE
The kiss kept my mood tranquil for the next few hours, until I received a text from Chad asking what time I wanted him to pick me up for tomorrow’s trip to my grandfather’s house. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go, but I gave him a time and told him he could drive the Cooper if he wanted. His dad always let him borrow the pick-up, but I knew how much he liked driving my car.
Once I got the address from Barnaby, I told Helen where we were going. I knew she wouldn’t be upset because it had been her idea in the first place. The whole time she told me that she thought it was a great idea to meet my relatives, I could see a little bit of hurt in her eyes.
I gave Helen a hug, “I love you, mom, see you tonight,” I said before going out to get the Cooper ready.
Chad showed up on time and looked like he didn’t know how he should act anymore. Things were so easy before we kissed. I knew things were going to be different, I just wasn’t expecting awkward.
“Ready to go?” I threw my bag in the back seat and tossed him the keys. After getting situated in the passenger seat, I leaned over the armrest and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?”
He turned the car on and put it in drive. Once we were on the highway, the air between us began to lift and we were our normal selves again.
“Stop turning the heat up. I can’t drive if I’m falling asleep.” He turned the knob back down.
“What does sleepy have to do with the heat being up?”
“Too much heat makes you sleepy. It’s a well-known fact.” He slapped at my hand as I went for the knob again.
“I’m freezing.”
“Well, that’s because of the block of ice in your chest.” He laughed.
“What?”
“Here, we’ll stop at a shop and get you a chisel for it. That should help.”
“So, you’re saying I have an ice heart?”
“Yup, that’s what I’m saying.”
“And why’s that?”
“Cause of how long you made me wait to be able to do this.” He grabbed my hand and interlocked our fingers. Bringing my hand to his lips, he kissed it ever so softly.
“Oh, I see.” I laughed with him as he drove through Pleasant Ridge to the highway.
When we pulled up to the house just off of the interstate, I didn’t care who we were meeting at that moment. All I wanted was to use a restroom and get a drink. Chad drove straight through so he could estimate what time would be good to start heading back. It didn’t take nearly as long as he thought it would, and decided we could have stopped a few times and still made good on our arrival. For only being a little over an hour ride, my rear was in a significant amount of pain. Chad laughed at me and said the seats just needed to be broken in.
“Well, your rear can do the breaking in, cause I’m driving home.” He didn’t like that too much.
The man standing on the porch of the rundown looking farm house had a full head of grey hair, a full beard, and a mustache to match. So full, in fact, I had to ask myself quietly what this family’s deal was with the mustaches.
He was about six feet tall, maybe more, and a bit on the high cholesterol side of things, from the look of him. He was wearing blue jean overalls and a red flannel shirt, just as I’d always imagined a hillbilly looked like. The only thing missing was the straw hat and a single piece of wheat hanging from his mouth.
I assumed this man was Alistair Crawford, and he was not anything I had expected. He certainly didn’t look like an evil warlock hell bent on killing his son-in-law.
“You must be Elyse?” he said with a smile and both of his arms outstretched.
“Yes, that’s me,” I said, stopping at the bottom of the steps.
“Ahh ha.” He met me at the bottom and placed each of his hands on my shoulders to pull me in for a quick hug. I was glad when he let go, because he smelled of stale pipe tobacco and mothballs. He wasn’t exactly the fearful warlock I had imagined him to be in my mind.
Chad made a face when the giant man embraced him in much the same way, which made me smile. After we were introduced properly to the family beagle, Hank, we were led inside the old house. The inside was a lot nicer than I could have pictured from the outside. The floors were all bare hardwood. The only carpet in the place, that I could tell, was on the stairs leading to the second floor, where we were told had nothing of interest to see. There were just bedrooms and a few overfull closets from years’ worth of hoarding.
The next room we saw was a dining room, or at least that’s what I figured a room to be with nothing in it but a small table with four chairs.
As I looked around, Alistair must have seen a look of question on my face, because he turned to me and said, “We don’t have need of a big fancy table; we’re not really the type to entertain . . . well, not indoors anyway.”
I was more than a little confused by his comment, and even as I had decided to let it go, he ushered us through a nice-sized kitchen, with another two seats at a smaller table, and out the back door. The setup on the back patio was something I’d once seen on a do-it-yourself television channel. The table was made of wood and could fit about twenty people to it; five people per side. It was bulky and square, sitting in the middle of a ‘U’ shaped area off of the kitchen. There were two other areas of the house on either side.
“I built it myself. Even did the little bits of detail on each of the chairs,” he said, pointing to the Celtic knots on the back of each of the twenty chairs.
Hank followed us outside and curled up on what looked like a large red pillow at one side of the table. The awning overhead shielded him perfectly from the sun. The grill was a large brick fireplace, and there was a built-in ice chest next to it as well.
“It’s really nice, but why so many chairs?”
“Well, as head of the family, I host a weekly dinner. This is where we gather.”
“What about in the winter?”
“Did your lamebrain uncle not explain to you that you’re a witch?” he asked with a laugh.
“No sir, I already found out before he came to see me.”
“We use magic.” He pointed to where the end of the table met the two ends of the house. At the open end of the ‘U,’ what looked like a curtain rod hung from one end to the other. He started laughing, then added, “Awe, you caught me. No, we pull the curtain down there and fire up the pit. It stays really warm in here.”
Chad hadn’t let go of my hand during the tour of the house, but the minute the back door opened behind us, he did so he could turn around and see who had followed the three of us outside.
It was a woman of average height, with long, auburn hair. She stood still for a moment and studied Chad, then me. She walked slowly over to me and tapped me on the nose with her index finger.
“Boing,” she said with the enthusiasm of a child who was teasing. My hand flew to my nose as if I needed to get her off of me, but she didn’t linger.
“Well, aren’t you the spitting image of your mother . . . isn’t she, daddy?”
“Yes, well, I suppose so.” The old man had found himself a seat at the table.
Then a familiar face appeared, and then two more not-so-familiar faces emerged from the back door. “Look, it’s a party,” one of them said as they all studied me on their way to the table and found seats.
“Please, sit, I will introduce you.” Alistair bellowed above the noise of those who exited the house.
I found an empty chair and was about to sit, but got an overwhelming feeling to pick another. It was almost as if I had been there before and had an assigned seat. Chad nodded at me, as if to say he was more comfortable standing behind me with his hand on my shoulder.
“So, we thought for this introduction, that this should just be immed
iate family only.” Alistair pointed around the table to the seats that had been occupied. “Yes, this is just the immediate family.” He seemed to answer me before I was able to verbalize my questions.
“Barnaby you know.” He pointed to my uncle, who was sitting on the left side of the table. “The lovely lady sitting beside him is his wife, Bellatrix.”
She was stunning. She had hair like mine; dark, curly and long enough to touch her elbows as she sat in the chair. Her skin complexion was the same color I had woken up with on my birthday. It looked like I had tanned, but had honestly never liked the sun.
“I’m actually your aunt twice; I was first your father’s sister.”
“I thought the whole thing that started this mess was . . . ?” I began to ask.
“Yes, but that was way before you were born. I left the family when Silas did, and Barnaby and I only married ten years ago. It was already a mess by then.”
“Oh,” was all I could say, and I felt Chad give my shoulder a little squeeze.
“The tall guy over there is Cinnabar, and this lovely young lady is Sabina,” Alistair finished.
At the mention of her name, my body tensed, even with Chad working his magic to calm me. I could feel my heartbeat start to race and the blood pumped up to my head and flushed my cheeks. I had already been warned that Sabina couldn’t be trusted where I was concerned. Chester had said she shouldn’t know about me, but here she was, sharing the same oxygen with me. I felt Chad again, and his touch was trying to calm me, so I took a deep breath and tried to lessen the tension.
Immortal Slumber (The Crawford Witch Chronicles Book 1) Page 9
