Witch in the House

by Jenna McKnight

  Nevertheless, she had to try to right it. She had to cast a strong, effective reverse spell immediately.

  Though what spell? This wasn’t something she had much practice at. Like, none. But every minute counted.

  Clasping her crystal ring tightly, Jade put out a silent plea to Annie for help, which was really nothing less than a powerful, highly charged spell. Since Annie normally finished her candle dips in wax with a higher melting temperature so they wouldn’t drip, and since she always was reversing her own spells-gone-awry, one could argue that Annie not only was somewhat accountable for this mess but would be an invaluable ally as well.

  While she waited to hear from Annie, Jade rushed through the tunnel-like brick archway that led from the conservatory to the herb-drying room. There, in a closed cabinet, sat dozens of family grimoires, handwritten accounts of spells, charms, and remedies passed from one generation to another. She ran her fingers lightly over the gold-lettered spines, seeking guidance from the spirits before selecting one penned by Great-great-grandma, which seemed the most likely source because, as everyone in the family knew, Grandma Clarissa, poor thing, messed up as often as not.

  An eclectic witch, Jade neither followed whatever traditions were in vogue nor favored one pantheon of spirits over another; she unashamedly sought help wherever most appropriate. Today she chose Cerridwen, as the Old One was the keeper of knowledge and transformation, and right now, Jade needed her expertise.

  She laid the book flat and carefully thumbed through the delicate pages, preserved over the years from nibbling bugs with dried mugwort. Grandma’s reversal spells focused on reversing hexes; maybe appropriate back in her day, but not so much now. Jade was just about to try another grimoire when Annie finally burst through the front door, shrieking Jade’s name.

  “Out here!” Jade called back.

  Annie tore into the drying room, pink scarf flying behind her, shoulders and pixie-cut hair covered with snowflakes. Like Jade, she wore an abundance of silver rings, but otherwise she was her opposite, blond and short.

  “What’s wrong?” she gasped, breathless from rushing to Jade’s side. “You’re pale as a ghost. Whose grimoire is this? Is there something bad in it?”

  When Jade didn’t reply fast enough, Annie grabbed her and shook her until she did.

  “Thank goodness you’re here.” Jade hugged Annie with relief, then thrust her to arm’s length. “You have to help me. I need to reverse a spell.”

  Annie blinked. “You?”

  Jade thumped Annie’s arm so she’d stop grinning and recognize the seriousness of the situation. She explained what she’d done, even the Pierce Brosnan part and how the candles had dripped and—

  “My candles? Dripped?”

  “Annie, concentrate.”

  “All right, already. Let me think. Take the wax, wrap it up—do you have some fabric handy?” Annie flinched as Jade grabbed her scarf and plunked the wax onto it. Annie snatched it back and glared at her.

  “What? I’ll make you a new one,” Jade said.

  “The heck you will. Courtney made it.” Knowing the room well, Annie opened a drawer and pulled out a flannel square. She dropped the wax onto the center of it and took care to fold it away from Jade before handing it back.

  “Now what?” If she hadn’t been so flustered, so caught off guard, Jade wouldn’t have asked at all, because even a toddler knew the answer to that. “Oh, I know. I bury it at a crossroad.”

  “At midnight.”

  “Midnight?” she wailed. “This can’t wait another six hours.”

  “And sprinkle it with—”

  “Annie!” Jade thumped her on the head this time. “Something I can do now, please. Something with a candle, maybe?”

  Annie blinked, as if surprised she hadn’t thought of that, since candle magic was the one thing that never backfired on her.

  “Oh. Sure. You can burn a seven-knob candle. No, wait, that takes a whole week. Okay, I know. What do you have, a black candle, maybe? A silver one?”

  Jade threw open a cabinet out in the main part of the conservatory, exposing shelves of tapers and pillars in a variety of colors, though predominantly white.

  Annie pointed at the pillars. “Use one of those, it’s easier. Get a knife.”

  Jade grabbed one and waited for further instructions.

  “Now turn it upside down and expose the base of the wick.”

  “Of course!” Pleased with the simplicity and logic of this reversal spell, Jade made short work of preparing the candle to burn backward.

  “Botanicals are your business,” Annie said. “I leave the anointing to you.”

  “I’m not using what’s in Great-grandma’s grimoire, that’s for sure.”

  “Don’t have it?”

  “Don’t want to burn anything with pee on it.”

  “Eww.”

  “Maybe some arrowroot? And, hm, chamomile? Peppermint?” Jade said, not really asking Annie’s advice but thinking aloud as she returned to the drying room and took stock of every precious dark-colored jar, selecting a few as she went. This was a concoction she’d have to make from scratch, then she’d oil the candle and roll it in the blend.

  Annie said, “I’ll scrape up the rest of the wax. When I’m finished, you want me to start lighting candles upstairs?”

  “Thanks,” Jade murmured, already turning words over in her mind, selecting and discarding several phrases one after the other.

  It had been right to wish the best for Brenda’s ex, so she didn’t want to reverse that. Nor did she particularly want to reverse the part where she opened herself to a new love. But any parts that connected the first to the second had to go.

  With her mission clearly outlined, Jade took a deep breath and concentrated on grinding the bad part of her inadvertently commingled spells to a screeching halt. For this one, she was pulling out all the stops.

  A concealed drawer beneath the work counter housed several wands, most of them very old, each wrapped separately in sumptuous red silk. Jade selected a beautifully crafted eighteen-inch iron wand for extra power, one embellished with a crystal tip and black tourmaline. In moments, she raised her energy to a high level, because intent alone wasn’t enough; spells didn’t work without energy. She used the wand to cast a circle and hold all that power within. As she marked the four directions with stones, each in turn, she said,

  “Guardians of the North, element of Earth,

  Two spells I cast; nurture them well, but smother any ties.

  Guardians of the East, element of Air,

  Two spells I cast; separate is good, together not wise.

  Guardians of the South, element of Fire,

  Two spells I cast; that which unites, set to flames.

  Guardians of the West, element of Water,

  Two spells I cast; alone like islands, nothing the same.”

  Jade visualized Lyle calling one day soon, telling her that Brenda’s ex was happy and settled with a family of his own. She took special care to clear her mind of that thought before moving on to visualize herself happy and glowing with a new love of her own.

  That done, Jade lit the upside-down pillar.

  Calmer now, she sighed with relief at a job well done, a catastrophe averted. She slipped her ruby ring off her finger and laid it by the candle; the color lent speed to spells, the setting of silver wings enhanced it further. Conversely, the ring also would absorb energy from the spell, without weakening it in any way, allowing her to carry that energy with her later, until the deed was done.

  A spell was no good if she doubted herself, if she continued to worry about Lyle’s ex-rival arriving in her life. She’d look back on this later and laugh. Next year, maybe. Right now, it was time to open the circle and leave the magic to work itself, and she did so promptly.

  The sun had set while she’d been working, marking the beginning of Imbolc. The festival celebrated not spring, but the first stirring of it, when animals awakened from hibernation and crocuses
began to peek through the snow. Jade lit a taper, left the conservatory, and began lighting candles in the back of the house.

  “I skipped the office. Hope you don’t mind,” Annie said as their paths merged in the kitchen, and they continued toward the front rooms. “It’s such a mess, I was afraid to light anything.”

  “No kidding. I didn’t even put a candle in there.”

  Jade loved Imbolc. Her home took on the warm glow of candlelight, of flickering shadows and golden hues. Yule was over. The days were lengthening, the nights growing shorter. Soon it would be spring, bringing more clients for long, enlightening weekends.

  Having guests was a mixed blessing. She couldn’t have dug Mystic Manor out of debt without them, but some days she just liked to work in the drying room until lunchtime. Or wash her hair and lounge around in sweats all evening. It was, after all, her home, her refuge. It held the essence of generations of Delarues before her, and she didn’t like just anybody traipsing through it.

  “Feeling better?” Annie asked as they finished their circuit in the foyer.

  “Yes,” Jade said, able to smile now with real relief.

  It didn’t last long, only until the front door burst open and two men blew in and slammed it against the wind. Both were tall, bundled in dark parkas, and dusted with snow.

  Forget positive thinking. It was too late for that. All Jade could do was stand there and gawk at the sum of what she’d wrought—

  Pierce Brosnan’s clone.

  No, no, no!

  The most she could do as she stared at him was gasp, and that didn’t nearly echo the alarm she was feeling. She shouldn’t be gawking. She should be shouting vile, horrible things that would make him back out the door and run away, escape into the night, but try as she might, she could barely breathe, let along put two coherent words together.

  “Damn,” she whispered at last. He was perfect; over six feet, with steel blue eyes, jet-black hair, the works.

  “Yeah,” Annie echoed.

  “Guess I should’ve peed on the pillar.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Think it’s too late?” That’d send any sane man running for the hills.

  Though from the looks of him, he might not notice. Bloodshot eyes, a couple days’ stubble on his face, and three white butterfly bandages closing a gash over his left cheekbone—what a sorry-looking double. The scowl didn’t help either. As he did a visual 360 of the foyer and great hall, silently noting the candles burning in every window and in several wall sconces, he looked…angry, like a guy who wouldn’t mind stuffing a body into a trunk right about now.

  He also looked really, really good in candlelight.

  “Whaddya think, wedding or funeral?” Mason had snarled a few minutes earlier, as a strong wind whipped Anthony and him up the flagstone steps to Mystic Manor.

  Swear to God, there was a candle burning in every friggin’ window. And this place had a lot of windows. All those flickering flames just reminded him of Brenda.

  “Try to forget you’re hungover and pissed off, okay?” Anthony said. They paused in front of the leaded-glass door and stomped snow off their hiking boots. “We’re supposed to have been out eagle watching all day.”

  “It doesn’t snow in Aruba. I could birdwatch in Aruba.”

  “Yeah, but you wouldn’t get paid for it. Now shut up and make like a guy who’s never seen anything as beautiful as a bald eagle.”

  Anthony opened the front door. They rushed in, both of them shouldering it closed against the howling wind just as Mason said, “You’re only pissed because I slept with your boyfriend,” in front of a stunned audience.

  Two very striking women, staring at them, wide-eyed. Both holding burning candles. One in slim, curve-hugging jeans that made her legs look as long as his, the other in…something unimportant. They had their heads together, speaking softly.

  While the number on the street side mailbox matched their destination, there’d been no sign to identify this as anything other than a private residence.

  “Ah, this is Mystic Manor, right?” Mason zeroed in on the taller one in stiletto-heeled boots. If there was a God in heaven, she’d be the subject. If not, if they were in the wrong house and had to stake out some other address, Anthony might have to find a new partner.

  I am a trained professional, he reminded himself with anticipation. And, I’ll admit, a little slow on the uptake this evening. So I’ll need to spend extra time familiarizing myself with every luscious inch of—

  “Yeah, we weren’t sure,” Anthony threw in, the sound of his voice forcefully reminding Mason that he was supposed to be working.

  With the wind no longer numbing his senses, Mason glanced around, getting the lay of the land, so to speak. He took in lots of gleaming dark wood, richly colored Oriental carpets, and holy cow, at the far end of the foyer, a central staircase rose, split at a wide landing, and turned back on itself. The house was toned down from a mansion you’d see in the movies; more his idea of a luxurious hunting lodge where the weapons of choice were Jack Daniel’s and a royal flush.

  “Is that a Tiffany?” Anthony asked in a reverent tone. Unlike Mason, he was staring up at the large, ornate window topping the landing. Backlit for effect at night, its palette of jewel tones was nothing short of magnificent.

  “Yes, he installed it himself.” A little pride crept into Ms. Stiletto’s voice, but it didn’t last long. “Now, if you’re looking for a place to stay, I can give you directions to several other establishments.”

  “Other” told Mason all he needed to know, which was good, because as soon as he’d once-overed the decor, he was back to studying the woman with fantastic taste in heels. He couldn’t possibly be sober, or she wouldn’t look like that. Perfect skin. Who had perfect skin these days, with pollution and junk food? Hers was flawless, swear to God.

  Long, dark hair fell beyond her shoulders, twisting like a spiral staircase, which immediately led his thoughts right up to the bedroom. Those silky curls would snare a lover’s hand, holding it captive, winding around his fingers like ribbons.

  Eventually he got to her eyes. They tilted slightly at the corners, speaking of mysterious, exotic ancestry. Green. Mesmerizing. Magnetic. His brain was so muddled, he couldn’t figure out if he was drawn to her like a mosquito to a bug zapper because he was still drunk, or if being so saved him from frying himself to an ignominious end.

  Anthony cleared his throat pointedly. Mason took a long, deep breath to clear his head, thinking mystery was good—in a relationship, not a surveillance subject. Forced to concentrate on the job at hand, he realized Jade hadn’t actually answered the question, a trait shared by most people with something to hide. He was better off focusing on the candle in her hand. That’d keep his head straight if he lived through it. The flame was nothing less than a sharp pin constantly pricking his sore brain.

  Anthony took the lead, nudging the registry on the kidney-shaped desk. “A guy down in town said this is a B&B. If you have any vacancies, we’d sure appreciate two rooms.”

  “At least Brenda didn’t light them all at once,” Mason muttered. Talk about déjà vu. Only the ribbons and flowers were missing.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Oh. Nothing,” Mason said. A wave of his hand indicated all the burning candles. “Just wondering what the occasion is.”

  “Annie’s birthday.”

  There it was. Lie number one. And it slid off her lips so easily.

  If Annie was the blonde, then the raven-haired beauty who’d spoken had to be Jade Delarue, a.k.a. the Target. The name fit. He’d be hard put to say how exactly, but it did.

  Didn’t matter though, he thought, catching himself before he fell into her trap. There was a fifty-fifty chance Ms. Delarue had something to do with her husband’s disappearance or knew something about it. Better than fifty-fifty. Three full-grown husbands, hers and those of her two best friends, didn’t just go missing without leaving something to trace.

  Annie was Team Two�
�s target, which explained the dark van across the street. Mason didn’t remember the third woman’s name. Hell, he was doing well to remember there was a third.

  “I’m sorry,” Jade said, opening a desk drawer, extracting brochures. “I have a policy of booking advance reservations only—”

  To Mason’s surprise, Annie grabbed Jade by the arm and pulled her aside with a cute, apologetic, “One minute, okay?”

  Anthony seized the opportunity to round on Mason and whisper, “Forget Brenda and the blasted candles for five minutes!”

  “Look, I’m tired and I’m cold. I need to crawl into bed without worrying about the whole place burning to the ground around me, okay? Is that too much to ask?”

  “Don’t mess this up, Mason. You may not have little brothers and sisters depending on you for tuition, but I do, dammit, so be professional and stick to the plan.”

  “Okay, okay,” he grumbled.

  “I mean it. It can’t get any easier than staying right under her roof.”

  “Chill, man. I promise.”

  That secured—Anthony knew Mason’s word was ironclad—Anthony smoothly turned back to the women with his trademark disarming smile. Jade and Annie seemed to have resolved their issues just as quickly.

  “It sure would be helpful if we could stay here,” Anthony said. “You see, we’re chronicling the increasing numbers of bald eagles wintering over along the Mississippi, and with this house perched on a bluff the way it is—”

  “I guess I could make an exception for fellow nature lovers.”

  Jade smiled when she said it, but given her sudden change of heart, Mason didn’t believe one enthusiastic note in her voice. Lie number two.

  “I know just the rooms,” she said. “You’ll get the best views in the morning when the birds are more active.”

  “Great,” Anthony said with an affable smile. “Isn’t that great, Mason?”

  “Great.”

  Anthony introduced them as freelance author/photographers, then smoothly took Jade into his confidence as he reached for his wallet. “I hate staying in hotels with all our equipment. Too many people in and out of the rooms to leave anything behind during the day, if you know what I mean. Do you take charges?”