Witch in the House

by Jenna McKnight

  Then she threw open the window and really set to work.

  It was cathartic, throwing Mason’s belongings out into the snow. By the time he picked them up, they’d be frozen. Considering how much he hated the cold, she toyed with the idea of turning the hose on everything.

  And yet, none of her efforts made her happy. Far from it. She had a knife in her heart, tears running down her cheeks. If she had to go through any more relationships like this to find the right man, she might as well not even try.

  Because Mason had been the one. She knew it, the same as her heart knew how to beat.

  He’d been the one.

  And for her, losing him had more far-reaching consequences than she could have imagined. Without Mason, there’d be no babies. No children to raise in the house where she’d grown up, to tutor in the ways of the Craft, the lore of the plants.

  Because worst of all, having found Mason, then lost him, she knew she had no heart left to share.

  Luggage in hand, Anthony ran down the back stairs, saying a quick prayer of thanks to have escaped unharmed. He had less than an hour to make it through airport security and safely on to the gate. After that, he could forget about a very angry Jade and concentrate on his hot date in Pensacola.

  He found Mason in the kitchen, backed against the wallpaper by one small grandmother with a butcher knife. The kid was nowhere in sight. You had to admire a mob that had its priorities straight.

  “What’d you do, tell everybody at once?” he asked, frantically searching angry faces for any signs of a second assault, not breaking stride on his way to the door.

  “Anthony, wait! Get her off me!”

  “You have a gun. Use it.” Anthony paused at the door for one last word of advice. “Oh, changed my mind. Lose the gun before you talk to Jade. She’s really pissed.”

  Time to come clean.

  Mason felt some measure of relief in the knowledge that he would no longer have to work out the logistics of how and when to tell Jade. Of course now he had to work out how not to get a pissed-off witch to fight back by casting an angry spell on him.

  Though she’d promised.

  Yeah, as if she’d feel honor-bound to keep her word to a man who’d been lying to her.

  She couldn’t be as scary, though, as Weezy pressing him up against the kitchen wall with a butcher knife beneath his chin.

  “Shoe!” Hannah shouted, looking out the window.

  “Courtney,” Weezy pleaded, hiding the knife reluctantly.

  “Sorry. She just got away from me for a second.” Courtney picked up Hannah to take her back to the dining room, where she’d retreated as soon as everyone had turned on Mason.

  “Cam’ra!” Hannah pointed out the window. “Cam’ra fall down in snow.”

  Everyone watched as another Nikon flew by, sans parachute, and landed in the snow next to Mason’s shoes.

  “Does she know how much that camera cost?” Mason grumbled.

  Weezy, Buzz, and Noah glared at him. Annie whispered words, a chant maybe, and he wished she’d glare at him, too, instead of whatever she was up to.

  Jeans, new sweaters, and dark briefs got hung up in the bare redbud trees between the house and walk, but the cameras plunged right through the branches and hit the ground.

  “Oh, quit looking like that,” Jade snapped at him as she stormed into the kitchen seconds later.

  “My cameras,” he said weakly. Inside, he was relieved that she was still talking to him.

  “My dignity,” she spat back with a hostile look that held him against the wall better than the knife had.

  “You want us to tie ’im up?” Buzz offered.

  “Take ’im down to the dungeon?” Noah suggested eagerly.

  Dungeon? The third cellar he hadn’t found was a dungeon? Good God!

  Jade scoffed. “I don’t want to be cleaning up after him. I want him to leave.”

  Hearing her say it hurt more than Mason had thought possible. More than a knife and dungeon combined.

  Jade slapped his notebook computer onto the breakfast bar. Mason bit his lip, keeping his objections to himself lest it go out the window, too.

  She opened a drawer and pulled out a hammer.

  “Oh no,” he said. He wasn’t given to a lot of introspection, but even he knew the computer’s fate was symbolic of their relationship.

  Jade spun it around so Annie could see the screen. “Check it out. Everything that’s on your computer? Right there.”

  “What?” Annie said in disbelief.

  “No,” Mason said. “It’s just networked.”

  Jade tucked her chin and glared at him as Annie tapped keys and scrolled through files.

  “Really,” he said. “I can see what’s on your computers, but I didn’t copy anything to the hard drive.”

  “Computers?” she emphasized the plural.

  He nodded weakly. “But in my defense, it was my job, and I didn’t share what I saw with anyone.” There, whew, he’d gotten it out, though as Jade’s glare grew colder, he didn’t think his defense stood a chance in hell.

  As Jade spoke to her friends, her smile was calm. It dripped calm. “I’d like to have a few words with Mason in private. Would you all mind?”

  “Hell no,” Annie said, her relief palpable. As she brushed past Mason, she whispered, “Should’ve let me do a spell. At least then you’d have a chance.”

  Shit, this wasn’t how he’d imagined it. Would telling Jade now help, or hurt? In the commotion of everyone’s leaving, Mason narrowed the gap between himself and the woman he loved.

  “Worried?” Jade asked, misinterpreting what must be a look of utter confusion on his face.

  Earlier, he’d known it was too soon. If the words left his lips now, she’d—

  Jade slammed the hammer into the keyboard.

  Mason winced at the crunch. “Really,” he said. “It’s a perfectly innocent computer.”

  “Unlike you.”

  He kept his mouth shut; wisely, he thought.

  “Three weeks. You’ve been paid to live under my roof and lie to me for three weeks?”

  She gave the computer two more whacks, turning her head to the side when shards of housing and bits of keys flew into the air. Slivers of gray skittered across the counter. Some lodged in her yellow sweater.

  “I don’t imagine you come cheap. Who has that much money?”

  Mason still didn’t answer, until she turned toward him and waited expectantly. “The, ah, insurance company that issued your husband’s life policy.”

  “What, they were willing to pay you thousands of dollars to find something they could use against me?”

  “No! They just didn’t want to pay if your husband turned out to be alive. People do that, you know. Scam insurance companies. To the tune of thirty billion dollars every year.”

  “Yes. People can be very sneaky.” The monitor went next. When the whole mess was mangled, Jade threw the hammer aside and brushed her hands clean. “There. Now there’s nothing left in my house for you. You can go.”

  “Jade…”

  Her hand shot up. “Do not waste…your…breath.”

  Mason stepped closer to Jade. He wanted to reach out, to pull her into his arms and hold her, tell her it would all be right again, it’d just take time.

  “You’re right. I’m a heel. But I was doing my job—”

  Her hand shot up again. “Don’t. Talk.”

  “Jade, please, this is what I do. You have secrets. I was undercover. What’s the difference?”

  The anger that boiled in her eyes told him that of all the questions he could have asked, of all the arguments he could have presented, that was the wrong one. When she spoke to him again, it was with quiet venom.

  “I wanted an honest, trustworthy man I could count on to keep my secret, not a lying, sneaky slug who’d keep secrets from me. I let you stay in my home.” Her eyes burned into him. “I shared my sanctuary with you. My conservatory. My friends, who mean the world to me.”r />
  Every word was true. He knew it, and he felt like a heel. She’d let him close, and what had he done?

  “I let you into my bed,” she said without breaking stride. “I fell in love with you, you big slug, and you,” she enunciated very clearly, so there’d be no misunderstanding how angry she was, “disrespected that.”

  Jade stormed into the conservatory, instinctively seeking comfort, a safe womb in which to curl up and hide. The thought of living without Mason hurt just as much as knowing he’d lied to her.

  She stood stock-still among her plants. Never before had she been too upset to draw succor from them, too distraught to draw in healing energy, too angry to see straight. She didn’t even hear her cell phone at first. When it registered, she collapsed on the bench under a tree and curled into a fetal position. It was useless to try to hide her sniffle when she said, “Hi, Mom.”

  “Talk to me, honey. Tell Mommy why the redbud trees have men’s briefs in them.”

  Mona’s regressive maternal tone should have made Jade smile, but instead, she felt more tears well up. She rubbed her eyes, trying to stop them.

  Starting at the beginning, she told Mona her feelings about moving on with her life, finding love, having children, the works. As she talked, as she relived the last three weeks, the highs and lows of being in love and having her heart ripped in two, tears ran freely down her cheeks.

  “I screwed up, Mom,” she said finally, plucking at her shirt, dabbing it to her face until it was soaked. “But I tried to fix it. I tried to send him back, honest.”

  “I know, sweetheart. I know you, and that’s what you would do. But, Jade, sweetheart, now I want you to listen to me. You’re very hurt and angry, and you have every right to be, I’m not saying you don’t. So you won’t like this, but if you think about it, you’ll know it’s true.”

  Jade was blubbering too much to argue.

  “The spirits know what you need and what you don’t, sweetheart. Sometimes, in spite of all we do, they step in and give us what’s best for us. You’re very good at what you do, and I don’t want you to lose confidence over this. It happens. Accept it. Then go kiss and make up.”

  “Are you nuts?” Jade stared at Mason, jumping up and down, snagging clothes off bare branches. “You want a lying, sneaking, slug for a son-in-law?”

  “You didn’t call him that to his face, did you?”

  “I most certainly did. I want him out of here. Uncle Henry’s out in the yard with him.”

  “Yes, de-briefing the tree. That’s a good one, isn’t it? De-briefing…Never mind. I see him.”

  “Okay, Mom, I think you should stop scrying now. You’re starting to scare me.”

  “What’re you going to do?” Mona asked.

  What else could she do? “I already did it. Soon as he’s done out there, Uncle Henry’ll make sure he leaves.”

  Mason stood in the snow, his coat unbuttoned, his hat somewhere, in his pocket maybe, his gloves gone who the hell knew where. Who the hell cared?

  Jade felt used. He got that. She was too mad to listen to anything he said in his defense. He got that, too.

  It looked as if his bags had been jettisoned from an airplane and exploded on impact, splotches of dark clothing dotting white snow. Henry Delarue milled around the detritus of Mason’s belongings.

  “You gonna take me on next, old man?” Mason asked.

  Henry laughed. “No, I reckon you don’t need me heaping hurt on top of guilt. Oh, don’t look so surprised. You forget, I’ve been watching you for weeks now. You and that other fella. What kind of partner runs off with the car and leaves a man stranded, anyway?”

  “The kind who understands that I’m not leaving here until Jade realizes I love her and we belong together.”

  Henry’s lips pursed. He nodded his head. “I’ve seen how you look at her. Finish picking up your things.”

  “I’m not leaving.”

  “You can stay with me.”

  With that unexpected but very welcome invitation, Mason swept everything into his suitcases. “Ready.”

  “This way then.”

  He followed the old man away from the house. “Ah, Henry?”

  Jade’s uncle shuffled through the snow as if he hadn’t heard him. Across the driveway, into the yard, angling north and slightly toward the street. Snow crunched beneath their boots.

  “Henry?”

  Into a grove of pine trees, whose boughs dipped under the weight of the snow.

  “Henry!”

  “Almost there.”

  Deep in the grove, the land dropped off a bit. Henry’s steps slowed, finally stopped. Mason halted beside him, staring into a ravine cut by surface runoff. He would’ve been embarrassed if anyone knew that he felt reassured by the weight of his Glock.

  “You planning on leaving my body down there?”

  Henry tipped his head toward the ravine. “Remember the third cellar you were looking for? Entrance is down there.”

  “That right?” Yeah, the Glock was feeling pretty good.

  “I can’t take you in through the house.”

  “Well, that’s true enough.”

  Henry grinned up at him. “I can see you’re kind of nervous about this, so I’ll go first.”

  Mason dogged Henry’s heels down a sloping path. By all rights, the surveillance job was finished. He was off the clock. Satisfaction in locating the remaining cellar couldn’t be justified by anything other than curiosity. Besides, it’d keep him on Jade’s property.

  Their heads were well below street level when Henry peeled frozen vines away from the hill, saying, “They’ll grow back next spring.” He reached inside and patted the wall until he found what he was looking for.

  “A torch?” Mason said. He didn’t know why anything surprised him anymore.

  “You don’t expect me to go in there in the dark, do you?”

  “Afraid of spiders?”

  “I’m not too fond of that big black dog’s been hanging around.”

  Torch lit, Mason followed Henry into a narrow tunnel that looked like a natural crack in the rock. There was no snow in here, and without the wind, it felt warmer. “Jade says there is no dog.”

  “Maybe Jade’s not supposed to see him.” Henry’s voice sounded uneven as it bounced off rough edges.

  “Why not?”

  “Might not be real.”

  “Felt real to me.”

  Henry glanced over his shoulder. “You touched it?”

  “Damn thing hit me in the nuts and left me to die.”

  “It attacked you? So…” Henry resumed his march toward the house, not sharing his thoughts.

  “So, it’s just a dog, right?”

  “Don’t know, son.”

  “What else could it be?”

  “Shapeshifter. Watcher.”

  Mason had heard of the first and didn’t buy that for a minute. “What’s a watcher?”

  “Witch sends an animal out to do its watching. When it returns, the witch absorbs everything it saw and heard while it was out and about.”

  “Okay, I’m not buying that one either.”

  “Yeah. Prob’ly just a dog.” Henry left the narrow passageway and stepped into a larger space. He flipped on a series of very dim wall sconces. “Ah, good, they still work. Not much call for electricity down here.”

  “Holy shit,” Mason said when he stepped into the third cellar. He set down his suitcases, eager to look around.

  “No, no, no,” Henry said. “Pick those up. We’re not staying here.”

  Mason did as bid, but he didn’t follow Henry in a straight line across the floor either. Not when the walls were ringed with candleholders, and there was a flat-topped four-by-six boulder in the center of the floor to stare at.

  “That’s an altar, isn’t it?”

  “It’s ancient history,” Henry said with disdain, moving through the area without pause.

  “Jade doesn’t cast spells down here?”

  “The early Delarues w
ere coven members. That’s when this was used. The outside entrance allowed local witches to come and go unobserved. Man could go hunting, walk in the woods, disappear for a few hours, no one thought anything of it. Used to be an old path up from the river, too, but it’s too treacherous these days. I reckon nobody would’ve noticed a canoe or two on the river at night. Sure easy to hide them down below, climb up here, melt into the darkness again when they were done. Or go fishing. Come on, son. Speed it up.”

  “You don’t like it in here.”

  “Not so much.”

  “There bones and stuff in here?”

  “You’re creepin’ me out.”

  Mason couldn’t stop staring at the dark splotches on the altar as he strolled by it. “Not feeling too great myself.”

  Staring at that, he’d missed the fireplace on the far wall. Hanging inside was a black iron cauldron, big enough to boil a body.

  Henry said, “Gimme a hand,” and when they swung the cauldron out, the floor of the fireplace rose.

  “Gives new meaning to ash dump,” Mason muttered, only marginally relieved that when he poked his head into the hole, he could see that the electric wiring extended into the subcellar.

  “You first,” Henry said.

  “Me? I don’t know where I’m going.”

  “I’m too old. What if the ladder breaks? I need you to cushion my fall.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Look at it this way. You know I won’t be waiting down there to bash you over the head.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know the dog didn’t climb down there, so he won’t be ripping out your throat.”

  “Not feeling too positive knowing you’ve been thinking of my demise.”

  “Oh, for cripe’s sakes.” Henry elbowed him out of the way.

  Mason pulled him back. “Never mind, I’ll go first. You hand my bags down when I get to the bottom, okay?”