The Keeper Saga: Wynter's War, Charmed, and The One (The Boxed Set Book 2)

by K. R. Thompson

  From the small frown that tugged at her lips, it wasn’t hard to guess what answer Aeolith wanted. She was ready to go. Wynter shook her head. “No, I require nothing more. Safe travels to you, my sister.”

  Pleased, Aeolith’s frown disappeared. She walked down the steps, passed Wynter, and left without another word.

  The two had not seen one another for over a century, until Wynter had requested her presence in this small town. She doubted that she would see her for another century—maybe longer. Still, she wished that Aeolith had at least taken the time to say goodbye.

  Perhaps I have been around the humans too long. I am thinking like them now. She gave her head a quick shake to clear her thoughts and concentrated on new ones.

  She looked at the school’s double doors. She had missed being here and was ready to be back in her library again.

  First things first. She turned her back on the school and walked toward the forest. I have yet one task to complete before I make my presence known.

  EFFLEHURT BUSTLED ABOUT, feeling quite pleased with himself. After the girl’s last visit, he had decided that it was time to move his humble abode and seek a new beginning in a less conspicuous place.

  It wasn’t that his hidden place behind the falls had been stumbled upon often. In fact, only she, the human girl, and the wolves were the ones that had trounced through his meadow of flowers and plowed right into his house. Well, that wasn’t completely the truth, he corrected himself. One other had found him there once before, too, but it had been so long ago that he wasn’t worried. She’d never visited him again once she had picked up her special book—the one that the girl had destroyed.

  Efflehurt sighed. He had felt the shift of magic when she had done it. It had jarred him all the way to his bones. Still thinking about that, he bumped into a leaning stack of books. They nearly toppled. He quickly straightened them up, and then sat down at his table to take a break.

  A crow flew through a broken pane in the window and lighted on the scarred wood before him.

  “Hello, my lovely,” the Bog Elf smiled. “What news do you bring me?”

  The bird squawked. Efflehurt leaned forward and listened, for the crows always told him all he needed to know. The smart, wee demons were sharp and cunning—the thieves of secrets—though no one knew that but him.

  “Someone comes for me,” the old elf repeated the crow’s warning as a sense of dread settled over him.

  He felt it—a quick burst of magic that infiltrated the invisible barriers that he had put in place to keep his new home safely hidden. Indeed, someone was coming…someone with a magic that was as strong as his own.

  There was only one creature he could think of.

  The door opened and she walked in, long blue hair billowing around her. She stopped when she saw him sitting there.

  “Might…might I be helpin’ ye?” Efflehurt managed, not happy that his voice sounded hoarse and weak.

  The Spriteblood gave him a small smile. There was no comfort or warmth in that smile—or in her endless blue eyes. That was when Efflehurt knew that something had happened which had changed her, for she wasn’t the same fairy he had known in centuries past. He wondered if perhaps she hadn’t lost a bit of herself when her magic was returned. He fervently wished that it wasn’t so—that she wasn’t like her sisters. Her next words made his blood run cold.

  “Yes, I believe you can help me,” Wynter said, in a voice as musical as raindrops. “You see, I need another book.”

  Chapter 1

  AS JOHN WALKED away, Ronnie’s heart dropped to her stomach. His words had etched themselves permanently into her brain and were replaying over and over, like a scratched disc. “Maybe we need to take a break—just for a while.”

  Ronnie wasn’t sure how long awhile was for, but she didn’t like it. After all, they had been going steady for over a year now. She knew that he cared for her—and thought that he loved her. But it was beginning to look like she was wrong. He had grown more and more distant over the past two weeks. It had started slowly at first and she hadn’t thought much of it. A cancelled date here, a forgotten phone call there. She’d chalked it up to a busy schedule and had pushed it from her mind. Now, he was walking so fast to get away from her that she wondered what she had done to make him hate her so much.

  She bit her lip and blinked back tears as she watched him disappear down the hallway to his next class. One word kept bouncing in her head. Why?

  Was it possible that he had figured out who she was? And if so, had the thought of her magic disgusted him so much that he was willing to dump her between classes, without giving her a chance to say anything? He was practically running away from her.

  She hadn’t said anything to make him stay, she realized. She had stood right there at her locker, dumbfounded, and she listened to him say the words that broke her heart.

  It’s probably because I’m a Chickcharney, she thought. Tears rolled free, leaving hot wet tracks down her cheeks.

  “Hey, are you okay?” She bit her lip harder when she realized the voice belonged to Nikki, who had reached out and was squeezing her arm in sympathy. Getting up her courage, Ronnie turned and looked at her pretty, curly-headed friend whose free arm was loaded with books. Unable to say anything for fear that her voice would break, Ronnie nodded and tried to smile.

  “I’m going to guess that this has something to do with one certain tall, gorgeous quarterback who was just here a minute ago,” Nikki said with a quick nod that sent her corkscrew hair bouncing around her shoulders. She paused, then scowled. “Shall I go beat him up for you?”

  The thought of the small blonde offering to exact revenge brought a genuine smile to her face. “No, but I appreciate it,” she managed to say.

  Nikki smiled. “Guys are jerks. Don’t let it get you down. He’ll come around.”

  “Okay,” Ronnie nodded. She believed the first part, but she wasn’t so sure about John changing his mind. He seemed sure of his decision.

  “I’ve got to get these books to the library before I dump them all over the place. If you need to talk, I’m here for you.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate that.” Ronnie gave her friend another small smile and watched as Nikki set off down the hall with a teetering pile of books toward the school librarian who had appeared, glowering at her from the entrance to the library.

  RONNIE HALFWAY EXPECTED him to call that evening after school and say it was all just a big mistake. Hoping to hear his voice, she sat next to the phone in the living room, wishing for it to ring.

  Her father came through on his way to work, he gave her a long look and looked as if he was going to say something, then he shook his head and went to the closet and took out his coat. “I won’t be home until early tomorrow morning,” he told her.

  Ronnie nodded. She already knew his rotating shifts and wasn’t worried when work took him away. As the chief emergency room doctor, he was at the hospital more than he was home.

  He shrugged into his coat and buttoned up the front, then reached back into the closet and took his wool hat from the shelf and pulled it on, covering his ears.

  Completely dressed, in nothing but black, his feathery, white eyebrows stood out in stark contrast, looking even fluffier than usual. “I’ve found that night air always manages to clear the head,” he said thoughtfully, as if to no one in particular.

  Ronnie couldn’t fight the smile that spread on her face. He was doing his best to give her fatherly advice, while trying his best not to ask directly what the problem was.

  “I might just try that breath of fresh air,” she said with a nod. She could tell he was happy with his answer, even though all he said was, “All right, then.”

  As he reached the front door, he whirled around, as if he had forgotten something. “They are calling for a winter storm tonight…”

  “I’ll be careful. I promise, Dad.” Ronnie crossed her fingers over her heart.

  “All right,” he said, then turned to leave again,
mumbling under his breath as he did so.

  She didn’t catch all of the words, but boy and crazy were two that she definitely heard before the front door clicked shut, leaving her all alone.

  Ronnie glanced at the phone lying beside her on the couch. It wasn’t going to ring. She might as well take her dad’s advice and find out if a quick soar through the night would fix broken hearts as well as it cleared heads.

  But it did ring—and it caught her completely off-guard. She jumped, nearly knocking the phone into the floor. She grabbed it just in time and jabbed the button. “Hello?” she said, breathless.

  “It’s just me,” Nikki’s voice came across the receiver. “Sorry, I know I’m probably not who you were wishing for.”

  Ronnie struggled to keep the disappointment out of her voice. “I’m glad it’s you, Nikki. What’s up?”

  “I just wanted to check on you and see if you were okay. You seemed really upset today at school. Is everything all right?”

  “Not really,” Ronnie admitted. “John broke up with me and I don’t know why…unless…”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless it’s because he somehow figured out that I was a Chickcharney,” she sighed. Immediately, she felt better from telling her worst fear to someone who would understand. And if there was anyone who understood magic, it was the girl on the other end of the phone. Nikki Harmon was the Seer for the Keepers, a local group of wolf-shifters who kept the balance of nature in the forest. Just the week before, she had come seeking Ronnie’s help with a strange book that she and the Keepers had discovered—a book that held the power to take away magic.

  Hope surged through her and she couldn’t contain her excitement. “Nikki, do you still have that weird book?” she asked quickly, gripping the phone so tightly that she heard the plastic crack a little under her fingers.

  A long pause met her ears, then Nikki sighed. “No, we destroyed it a couple of days ago. We were afraid that it would fall into the wrong hands. I’m so sorry, Ronnie. I thought you were okay and didn’t want to get rid of your magic or I would have told you before we did it.”

  “Oh…that’s okay,” Ronnie managed. It wasn’t okay, though. Despair bubbled up to her eyes, threatening to spill another crashing wave of tears down her cheeks. She had to get off the phone—and soon—before Nikki realized that she was ready to have a breakdown. “Listen, I’ve got to hop off here and study for exams. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  “Sure, unless that storm hits that everyone has been worrying about. The weather guy can’t decide if it’s going to hit tonight or next week. I’ll see ya later, though, either way. If I can help any other way—like by beating up John and knocking sense into him, let me know, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure. Thanks,” Ronnie said, then added a quick goodbye before hanging up the phone on the charger.

  There wasn’t any need to knock sense into John if he had somehow managed to discover what she could become. Without thinking, she stood and walked to her dad’s bedroom, straight to her mom’s cedar chest at the foot of the bed. She hadn’t looked inside it for ages. As she opened the lid, a photograph of her mother spilled onto the floor. She carefully picked it up and set it to the side, not wanting to look at it for fear that more tears would break free. Dianna Stevenson had lost her battle to cancer, leaving her little five year old daughter and doctor husband with a chest full of old memories, but also with a book that contained the knowledge of their heritage—of the Chickcharneys.

  Ronnie shuffled the old photo albums to the side and found the small leather-bound journal that she was searching for in the bottom.

  She took it out and hopped up on the bed and carefully began turning the pages. Her dad’s family had originally come from the Bahamas to the United States. And with them, they had brought their magic. As luck would have it, they settled in the one place that had an abundance of magic, deep in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains, in a small town named Bland. But not everyone who lived there had magic. John didn’t have it…and neither had her mother.

  Ronnie traced over her mom’s pretty handwriting on the first page, remembering a favorite story that her dad used to tell her when she was little. Before he and her mother married, he had chosen to show her that he was a Chickcharney. Oswald Stevenson had fully expected the beautiful Dianna to be afraid as she had no magic of her own, but instead she was enchanted with his heritage and wished to know all that she could about it. She researched every source she could find and wrote this journal, telling her new husband that it was not for herself, but for their children, should his magic pass on to them. Though she had no magic of her own, she wanted to share all she had learned.

  The magic had indeed passed to Ronnie and now she found herself hoping that her mother had written something in this small book that would tell her how to take the magic away. She’d read this book many times and never recalled finding anything like that in it, but maybe she had missed something and it would jump out at her now.

  “The Chickcharneys,” she read softly to herself, “are shifters who possess the magic of the sky. Their form is likened to that of an owl. Many believe that if a Chickcharney is treated well, it has the power to charm and grant good luck. Likewise, if the Chickcharney is treated poorly, horrible luck will be bestowed upon the one who has been so unwise.” There was a small note in the margin, as if her mother had written as an afterthought. “There hasn’t been any proof of this wish-granting that I can find, either in books, scripts, or personal experience. My belief is that this has no basis in truth.”

  Just a myth, Ronnie thought, as she slowly searched the rest of the book, finding nothing that she didn’t already know. Nikki had destroyed the only book that had held the power to take away her problems and bring John back to her. Her mom’s small book of notes wasn’t going to help with anything. She sighed and put it back into the chest and began piling the photo albums back in, too.

  “It really is just a myth. If I could charm anything or grant someone wishes, I’d grant my own. I’d wish for the same amount of magic that John has. That would fix everything.” She closed the lid on the chest and looked up at the window.

  It was fully dark outside now. The perfect time for that quick flight her father had suggested. “Doctor’s orders,” she said to herself as she went upstairs to her room and opened the door to the balcony. “After all, he would be the one to know if flying helps.”

  What nights he didn’t work, her father spent in the sky. He had stayed in his form so long that traces of the animal within him stayed permanently as a human. It wasn’t that he looked monstrous or anything, it was subtle differences that no one would notice if they didn’t have magic—full, feathery white eyebrows, a somewhat sharper, straight nose, and faster reflexes than any fifty year-old would normally have.

  Ronnie had heard that his reflexes were the quickest of anyone in the emergency room, and his ability to assess and find treatments for his patients were rarely ever wrong. It had made a highly regarded physician and a vital member of the hospital staff, which led to even longer hours flying in the night sky in an effort to alleviate some of the stress from his work life.

  But it hadn’t been a bad thing. Some of the most enjoyable times the two of them had spent, were flying together over a dark forest. She wished her dad hadn’t had to work tonight. A flight with him would have cleared her mind better than the one she was going to take alone, she was sure of it.

  She opened the door and stepped out, feeling the cold air brush across her face and her bare arms. She hopped up onto the wooden railing that encircled the balcony. It was wide, as railings go, with a large eight inch plank circling the entire veranda. She stood there for a moment, testing the direction of the wind. Gooseflesh appeared instantly and she felt the shift of the magic inside her as the feathers beneath her flesh pushed toward the surface, wishing to be set free.

  If it had been daylight and someone had seen her, they surely would have thought her insane and possibly
suicidal, standing on the wide, wooden beam in the cold, November air with no coat on, but the house stood far from anyone else’s near the edge of the forest. From her place on the balcony, she could see the next house, farther down, also nestled near the tree line. A family of Woodsburls lived there and wouldn’t have thought anything about it had they seen her standing on the ledge as they too, had magic. Anyone in town who had magic tended to live either very near or in the forest, which wasn’t saying much as the small town was filled with magical people and completely surrounded by national forest. Only those with absolutely no magic lived away from the safety of the woods.

  Like John, who lived in the center of town with his two very plain, very human parents.

  The thought of him brought a fresh wave of tears to Ronnie’s eyes and she struggled to blink them back. It was time to fly before she had a nervous breakdown.

  She closed her eyes for a moment and concentrated on the soft brush of feathers just below the surface of her skin. The air around her swirled softly at first, then sped up so quickly that it made a whirring sound as it completely encased her body. If anyone would have seen it, they would have thought she had been trapped in a personalized cyclone—a freak pattern of weather made just for her as she swayed on the wide wooden balustrade.

  The swirling air stopped just as suddenly as it had begun and Ronnie sensed the magic inside her surge free in a flurry of feathers. Instantly, she felt warmer, snug beneath the flesh of the Chickcharney.

  She stretched out her wings and felt the breeze catch them, caressing each feather as it brushed past. She tightened her claws on the railing as the air caught her wings and lifted her up. She wasn’t ready to go quite yet, the current wasn’t as strong as she wished it to be. Sure, she could pump her wings and soar as high as she wished, whenever she wished—but tonight, she wanted nature to pick her up and lift her body, as well as her spirits as she floated on its currents.