Holly nodded and pulled her phone out of her bra. She smiled and showed us the time. “No, it’s still only midday. Isn’t that crazy we’ve been gone all that time and it’s not much later than when we left!”
Alba’s eyes widened as she looked at the phone. “It’s not much later? Holly, it’s Thursday! We left on Wednesday! A whole day has passed.”
Holly flipped the phone around to look at it. “Oh my gosh! I didn’t even look at the date. How did a whole day pass?”
Alba shook her head. “I don’t know, maybe walking through time took longer than we realized. Ugh, this sucks!”
“Why? If we did everything right, then we shouldn’t need more time,” I said.
“Yeah, well, until we know that everything is how it should be, losing time is never a good thing.”
“And now Libby and I have one day less to put together a graduation project,” said Cinder, her head falling back on her shoulders.
Holly sucked in her breath. “Oh no!”
“What?!” asked Alba.
“I just thought of something. If we’ve been gone an extra day, Jax has got to be freaking out wondering where we are!”
The thought hadn’t occurred to me. “We need to get over to Habernackle’s right away and let her know we’re okay.”
“Maybe she went to work for me,” said Sweets with a shrug. “Since we didn’t come home.”
“She might have,” said Alba. “But let’s start at the B&B and we’ll go from there.”
We just begun our walk when a thought hit me. I stopped dead in my tracks as we passed Hallowed Hall. “Alba! It’s Thursday!”
Alba looked at me curiously. “Well, that took you a while.”
I shook my head. “No, I mean, it’s Thursday. Your library book is due.”
“Oh man. Good catch, Red,” said Alba, pulling her backpack around to her front so she could pull out the autobiography. “I almost forgot I had it!”
“I think that means you owe me one!”
Alba rolled her eyes. “If this all works out and I scored you a grandfather, I think we might call this one even.”
Crammed in Sweets’ small car like clowns in a clown car, we all jabbered a mile a minute on the ride into town. The excitement of seeing Jax in all her glory with her powers made each of us giddy. Even Alba and Cinder, who were both usually pretty straight-faced, wore smiles on their faces. It was like Christmas Eve, and none of us could wait for Jax to unwrap her gift!
Sweets pulled the car to a stop in front of the B&B. None of us paid any attention to the exterior until we had all unloaded and were standing side by side on the sidewalk. Then something caught my eye. The sign that my brother had picked out for Habernackle’s Bed, Breakfast, and Beyond was different now. Not only was it a different design, but now it read Smith’s Room and Board.
“Smith’s!” said Reign, nearly choking on his own spit. “What the hell?!”
I shook my head slowly, my mouth gaping open, staring at the sign in awe. “I don’t know.”
“I’m so confused,” said Holly.
I could tell even Alba had to be confused, because she couldn’t even manage to muster up a snappy retort towards Holly.
Reign led the way into the building. The inside was totally different. Gone were many of the changes that my brother had made. It no longer looked like a restaurant, but more like a posh hotel lobby. There were sofas and a television set in one corner. And a small continental breakfast area with a waffle maker, a juicer, a basket of fruit and some cereal dispensers in the other corner. I shook my head. What in the world?!
My brother’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “This isn’t happening,” he breathed.
“Oh, hello, kids,” said a familiar voice from the top of the stairs. We all turned to see my mother smiling down at us. At least I thought it was my mother. She wore a dress and heels and had her hair done up in a professional-looking bun. And she was wearing makeup. My mother hardly ever wore makeup. Maybe on a special occasion, but never just to wait tables or spend the day cooking in the kitchen.
“Mom?” I said.
“Yes, dear?”
“Mom, what’s going on?” said Reign.
Mom slowly descended the stairs, hanging on to the handrail carefully. “I don’t know what you mean, sweetheart.”
“You changed the sign out front, and the dining room—it-it’s totally different!” said Reign, his voice showing the early stages of a full-on panic.
“We changed the sign?” She frowned slightly. “Hmm. I don’t know anything about a sign change.”
“Well, what about the dining room? It’s different!”
Mom looked around at what had once been Habernackle’s dining room. “You mean the lobby? Oh, yes,” she said with a nod. “I did switch the sofa and the chair. The balance was off. It’s been bothering me since we got this set. I decided this was much more Feng Shui.”
“Feng Shui?” I repeated.
She nodded. “You know, the spatial arrangement in relation to the room’s energy.”
“No, I know what Feng Shui means, Mom. I’ve just never heard you use that term before.”
She smiled calmly. “Oh, Mercy, you’re such a doll.”
I’m a doll? Since when? “Mom, you’re kind of freaking me out.” I looked around. “Where’s Jax?”
“Jax?” Mom looked surprised. “Your cousin Jax?”
“You know any other Jaxs?” asked Alba.
A V formed between my mother’s eyes. “Why do you want to know where Jax is?”
“We have to talk to her. It’s really important!”
Mom shrugged. “I have no idea where she is.”
The bell over the door chimed. We all turned around to see Merrick Stone striding in like he owned the place.
My mother rushed over to him. “Oh, hello, dear. You didn’t tell me you were coming home for lunch. I would have whipped you up something special!” I stared in horror as she planted a kiss directly onto the man’s mouth!
My mouth dropped open as he wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her back. I glanced over at the rest of the faces. Reign’s eyes bulged, as did the rest of the girls’.
“Mom, what is going on? Why are you kissing him?!” I demanded. “What about Detective Whitman!”
Mom looked at me curiously. “Detective Whitman? What about him?”
“What’s he got to say about you kissing Merrick?”
“Why in heaven’s name would Mark Whitman care what I do?” She took a step towards me and put a hand on my forehead. “Are you feeling alright, sweetheart? You’re acting so strangely.”
Merrick wagged a finger in my direction. “I know what’s going on.”
I stared at him uncomfortably. Did he know what we’d done? Was he going to be upset that our grandfather had kicked his family out all those years ago?
My mother put both hands on her hips and nodded. “Well, good! Maybe you can fill me in!”
“Mercy is worried about her finals, and she’s lashing out. I happened to speak to her Advanced Kinetic Energy instructor today and she’s not doing so well.”
“Mercy!” breathed my mother. “You never told me that!”
“Well, Mom, I—”
“In fact, she’s in danger of not passing the course.”
“Mercy!”
“Mom, I can explain—”
Merrick ticked his finger at me. “Now, you know how important your education is to me. I expect nothing less than excellence in your magical coursework.”
“You expect? Why in the world do I care what you expect?” I was getting heated now. How dare Merrick Stone think he could tell me what kind of grades I should be getting.
“Mercy! How dare you speak to your father like that!”
30
“My father?!” I bellowed. My pulse raced. What in the world was she talking about? I mean, for all these years, I’d never been told who my father was, but Merrick Stone most definitely could not be my fath
er! He and my mother had been bound apart at the time that I was conceived. I shook my head wildly. The thought made my skin crawl. “Mom! He’s not my father!”
Merrick didn’t look amused. He shook his head. “Is this some kind of teen angst thing? Are you rebelling right now because I grounded you from dating that boy?” He shrugged. “I told you that you can see him again when you get your grades up. Receive high scores on all of your finals, and then we’ll talk about you dating again.”
My eyes swung up to meet Reign’s. I didn’t understand what was going on. This wasn’t happening!
“I’m sorry. Are you two a thing now?” asked Reign, drawing a line with his finger between our mother and his father.
Merrick lifted a brow. “You’re in on this angst thing too? Aren’t you a little too old for that, son?”
“Just answer the question, Dad. Are you and Mom back together?”
“Back together?” said Mom. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Reign. We’ve never broken up. We’ve been married since the day we eloped twenty-five years ago.”
My breath left my body and the world began to spin. The last thing I remembered seeing was Sweets’ blurry face before my body hit the floor.
“Mercy?” Sweets’ voice grew louder, and then I felt her cold, clammy hands patting my cheeks. “Mercy, wake up!”
My eyelids fluttered open. Sweets’ apple-red face was in my direct line of sight. She sucked in her breath and smiled from ear to ear.
“She’s waking up!” squealed Sweets excitedly.
I turned my head slightly to my right, and there was my brother. Alba stood behind him. On the other side of me stood Holly, Libby, and Cinder. Everyone stared at me. “What happened?”
“You passed out cold,” said Alba with a smirk. “Sunk like a rock. You’re gonna have a welt the size of a baseball. You know that, right?”
“I passed out?” I sucked in a big breath of air, and suddenly the memory of what had happened flooded my mind. “Oh no! Reign, please tell me it’s not true. Please tell me that Mom is not married to your father.”
“Mercy, I wish I could, but—”
I pinched my eyes shut and covered my face with my hands. This was not happening. Merrick Stone was not my father. My shoulders shook as genuine tears began to pour from my eyes. In getting Jax her powers, somehow we’d inadvertently messed up my life.
Alba shoved Sweets out of the way and kneeled down beside the bed. She pulled my hands from my face. “Now’s not the time for this, Red. You need to buck up, buttercup.”
“How is this happening Alba?” I blubbered through a face full of tears and a runny nose.
“Eww, someone get her a tissue or something. I think she sprung a leak somewhere.”
I swatted at Alba. “I mean it, Alba. How is this happening?” Even though I wasn’t in the mood for one of her lame jokes, she’d managed to slow my tears. I tried sitting up in bed. Reign and Holly both helped me up. I looked around to see a room I hardly recognized. “Where are we?”
“My room, I guess,” said my brother sullenly.
“Your room?!” I looked around. The room looked like a prep school kid lived there, with its navy-and-red striped wallpaper and shelves full of baseball, football, and basketball trophies. Medals hung from almost every trophy, and sports memorabilia decorated every wall. The closet door was wide open and full of suits and dress shirts, and a decorative tie rack hung beside the closet.
He lifted his brows and sighed. “I guess since our parents stayed together, we grew up together, and I had a normal childhood. It seems as if I’m a bit of an all-American guy now.”
I shook my head and used the tissue that Holly gave me to wipe my tears. “Don’t call them our parents. She’s our mom, but he’ll never be my father. This is all just one big mistake.”
“Mercy, it’s not so horrible, is it? That we grew up together and are full brother and sister now? I mean, I’m not in love with the fact that I was some kind of preppy sports star, but it means that I grew up with my biological parents, and you and I grew up together.”
“But we don’t remember any of that!” I bellowed at him. “It doesn’t change the fact that you don’t remember being that perfect son. It doesn’t change the fact that I don’t remember a single Christmas with you, or with your father and my mother together. I don’t remember any of it, and neither do you.” I looked at him curiously. “Wait. Or do you?”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t remember any of that either. It’s kind of nice knowing you’re my full sister, though.”
“Reign, it’s never mattered to me that we have different fathers. You’re my brother and that’s all that matters.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I know. I feel the same.”
I looked around. “Where’s Mom?”
“She’s making your da… I mean, Merrick, lunch,” said Sweets.
I glared at her. She’d almost said dad. What a creepy, creepy notion, that I somehow had Merrick Stone’s blood running through my veins. And then a thought hit me. If Merrick Stone’s blood ran through my veins, that meant that so did Jax Stone’s. In that singular turn of events, Jax and I had become real cousins.
I had to get to Jax. I scampered off the bed.
“Where are you going?” asked Reign. “Mercy, you might have a concussion.”
“Yeah, you should be more careful getting up with that knot on your head,” said Alba. “Maybe we oughta get you looked at.”
Rushing to the door, I stopped and turned around to look at the large group of people in my brother’s strange bedroom. “We have to find Jax.”
“We will, Mercy,” said Sweets. “But Alba’s right. Maybe we should stop by the Aspen Falls Medical Center and get you looked at.”
I frowned as I fingered the back of my skull and discovered the hard lump that was the source of the throbbing I felt. “We don’t have time for that. I’m fine. We need to find Jax, and we need to find her now.”
Reign sighed but followed me to the door. “Alright, if you insist. Let’s go.”
I held a palm up to stop him. “I need you to go downstairs and find out where she is. The girls and I will meet you in the car.”
“Whatever you say, sis.”
“It never even dawned on me that she’d be in school right now,” said Alba as Sweets pulled her car into a spot in the Institute’s parking lot. “If classes are back in session, then I have high hopes that Stone’s still alive.”
I wanted to be excited to see Jax and tell her the good news about her powers, but the fact that we were now officially cousins had me in a funk. It wasn’t that I minded that we were actually cousins now. What I minded was having Merrick Stone for a father, and that my mother was now some kind of a Stepford Wife.
“So, where do we start looking?” asked Libby as we all stood in the empty quad minutes later.
Feeling the weight of the situation, I looked down at my Batman watch wearily. “I’m pretty sure Jax is in Advanced Spells class right now.”
Holly nodded and pointed to the other side of campus. “Jax and I have Advanced Spells together. It’s over in the Broomsgarden Building.”
I started towards the cobblestone sidewalk. “Well, then, let’s go,” I sighed. “We’ll wait over there for her to get out of class.”
Broomsgarden Building, like all of the other historic buildings on campus, was just your basic, run-of-the-mill multilevel stone building. But this one, located on the northeast end of campus, sat just across from a neatly manicured, flower arboretum. Nestled snugly in the center of the garden, a circular stone water fountain, which had recently been restarted after the long winter season, spewed water into the air at regular intervals. Red columbine, orange azaleas, and pink roses filled the air with the sweet scent of springtime and attracted hummingbirds and butterflies to the garden, making it a popular destination for students eating a sack lunch, or looking for a quiet place to study.
While all beginner broom-riding classes were
instructed in wide-open spaces, far away from buildings and other people, the advanced broom-riding classes all took place in the Broomsgarden arboretum. Of course, this was how the garden, and by association, the building, had received their names.
Walking onto the plush carpet of grass in the garden, we all took seats on the knee-high flat seat that surrounded the fountain. With all eyes on the front door of the Broomsgarden Building, we waited for classes to be dismissed.
Excitement radiated off Sweets like warmth from the sun as she clasped her hands together in front of her heart. “Jax is going to flip out when she hears that she got her powers!”
“She’s definitely gonna be excited,” agreed Alba. “That is, if she doesn’t already realize she’s got them.”
With her butt on the outer edge of the stone fountain and her hands planted firmly behind her, Holly beamed up at the warm spring sun with closed eyes. With her back arched, her wavy blond hair dangled between her shoulder blades, nearly touching the pool of water. “For sure. This is going to be the best birthday present ever! I can’t wait to see her expression when we tell her.”
Reign smiled softly as he looked down at Holly. “She’s definitely going to be blown away. I owe you girls a lot for everything you’ve done for our family.”
I had to bite my tongue to keep from lashing out. Reign didn’t seem to mind that I was now officially a Stone. Nor did he seem to care that both our histories had been completely rewritten. While maybe his history had changed for the better, mine certainly hadn’t. And while I wanted to say all those things—let it out and complain about the new situation I found myself in—I oddly felt like I’d sound ungrateful. No one else seemed to think having Merrick Stone as my father was such a big deal. No one sympathized with my predicament. It made me question whether or not I was making a mountain out of a molehill. Maybe it was a small price to pay for making Jax a real witch finally. I mean, I’d never known my father before. I could certainly pretend I still didn’t know who my father was. Maybe this didn’t have to change anything.
The Witch Within Page 22
