Catalyst (A Tethered Novel)

by Jennifer Snyder

  A tingling sensation sparked across my skin. All I could think of was Vera and the true reason as to why she’d left. Then, I wondered if I would be able to do the spell without being initiated. Kace had said we could feel our magick, but we couldn’t use it until then. Maybe this was different. Maybe I was different. In books and movies about powers and situations like this, there always seemed to be someone who was the exception—maybe that was me. I would never know unless I tried. I read the list of ingredients.

  — 1 copper or iron casting pot for banishings

  — 1 black candle

  — 1/8 a cup of rubbing alcohol

  — 1 match

  Glancing around the room, I searched for what it called for, unbelieving what I was about to do. My hands shook as I picked up a well-used iron pot on legs from the shelf with all the bottles of herbs and such at the far end of the room. I held my breath to stay quiet as I lined everything up on the table beside the pedestal where the book sat. I glanced at the page once more to see what was next.

  Create your circle.

  I thought for a moment, wondering what that meant. Create my circle? Then, years of movies and TV shows about witches flashed through my mind. They always created a circle made of chalk around them for some sort of protection or something. I glanced around the room, searching for something I could use to create such a thing. My eyes landed on a small piece of chalk that sat on a shelf near all the little bottles.

  Crossing the room, I snagged it up and went back to the book. I began drawing a thick circle on the dark hardwood floor, making my way around the table where I’d set everything else. It was far from perfect, the line was shaky and the circle was sort of oblong, but it would work. I hoped. I didn’t need any crazy mojo coming after me while I was trying to do this spell.

  Stepping inside of the circle, I closed it behind me and sat the chalk on the table beside the ingredients I’d gathered. Glancing back at the book, I read what I was supposed to do next.

  Pour the rubbing alcohol into the casting pot.

  I reached for the little glass bottle that had nothing besides alcohol written on it and prayed it was the right thing. Binks stood and began stretching. He moved to sit on the table beside where I’d set the casting pot as though he was curious now about what I was doing. His tail wrapped around his paws as he stared at me fixedly.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing, I know,” I said to him as I fumbled to twist the cap back onto the bottle, which should be empty, but still appeared to be entirely full. “Honestly, I don’t even know why I’m attempting this. If Kace is right, it won’t even work.”

  Binks meowed at me, and I was nearly positive it was a meow of encouragement. I scratched him behind the ears as thanks, and then turned my attention back to the book.

  Light the candle and set it beside the pot. Toss the lit match into the rubbing alcohol.

  I bent three matches horribly before I was finally able to get one to light properly. I put it to the candlewick first and then hesitated before tossing it into the alcohol. My palms grew sweaty as I held the tiny match between my fingertips. I took in a deep breath, silently prayed that it wouldn’t blow up in my face, and then tossed the lit match in. My eyes closed at some point in preparation for an explosion that never came. When I opened them, the casting pot had reddish-blue flames flickering across its top. I released my breath slowly and swiped my hands across my shorts before glancing back over to the book.

  Hover your hands over the casting pot while staring into its fires and say:

  Blazing power of revealing fire

  Expose what cannot be seen

  Banish the hidden, this is my desire

  Help me see what is unseen

  Xs 3

  I did as the book said. The words felt strange at first, but after the second time, they lost their oddness. And by the third, the fine hairs across my body stood on end and something shifted in the air. A sudden heat flared from within me, running over my body and making my breath hitch in my throat. Binks meowed three times after I said the final sentence for the last time, and a loud crack of thunder clapped directly above the house, nearly making me pee my pants. At the same time as the thunder, the fire went out on both the black candle and the pot.

  My heart raced, and I covered it with both hands in an attempt to keep it in and slow it down all at the same time. I laughed nervously as I stared at Binks and listened to the storm outside. The entire clichéd moment of thunder at that exact moment was incredibly laughable. Same as Binks’s meows.

  “This is crazy,” I said as I took in long, calming breaths to slow the rapid pace of my heart and shook my head. “I can’t believe I did this.”

  Quickly, I began to clean up everything and put things back in their place. Without thinking of grabbing a towel or something first, I reached out and gripped both hands around the pot to move it back to its rightful place on the shelf. I jerked my hands back upon contact, not because it was hot like it should have been, but because it was cold. Icy cold, as though it had held no fire within it at all moments ago. I wondered if it had something to do with the metal as I placed it back onto the shelf and turned off the light.

  Within minutes, I was changed into my pajamas and crawling into bed, listening to the crazy storm that had seemed to come from nowhere brew above the house. I hated thunderstorms. And I especially hated being alone during one. Too bad Vera had decided to ditch me before her two weeks were up. I fell asleep wondering what had driven her away and if that spell I’d attempted would show me anything.

  I woke the next morning to the alarm on my cell at eight. I’d set it the previous night because today was my first day of work at Spellbinding Reads and I didn’t want to be late. Yawning and stretching in bed, I sat up and stared at Binks’s curled-up frame resting at the foot of my bed. He looked so sweet. After scratching him between the ears, I slipped from bed and headed to the bathroom for a shower.

  My shower didn’t last nearly as long as I would have liked, because Binks began frantically scratching at the closed bathroom door and meowing at the top of his lungs for no apparent reason. Freaked out by it, I hurried and got out as quickly as I could to see what his problem was. When I opened the bathroom door, I expected him to be hurt or something, but all I saw was him sitting and staring at me intently.

  “What’s the matter with you?” I asked him with my hands on my hips. He ignored me and started toward the stairs. “Good grief, are you really that hungry?”

  I descended the stairs to follow him, grumbling all the way. When I rounded the corner into the kitchen, what I saw made me stop dead in my tracks.

  Strange black and gray symbols floated in the air, hovering just above the trash can. I took a step into the kitchen, mesmerized by them. They appeared to be made of some sort of smoke, instantly reminding me of the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland and how he’d made the vowels out of smoke in that one scene. I inched farther into the room and noticed Binks sitting to the side of the trash can, staring at the same floating symbols I was with an incredible dislike glaring in his slanted eyes and the hair on his back standing on end.

  “What are they?” I whispered aloud.

  An overpowering desire to reach out and touch one of the symbols, which upon closer inspection resembled skulls and bones but blurred, gripped me entirely. I extended a hand out just as the memories from last night and the spell I’d attempted to cast flashed through my mind. Was this what had drove Vera away so quickly? Was this what the spell was revealing to me? I licked my lips and bent down slightly to get a closer view of the oddities floating above the trash can. Just as my fingertip nearly brushed one symbol, Binks hissed and I jerked back like I’d been bitten.

  “Stop it!” I scolded him. He straightened and sauntered just a few feet away from the trash can with more attitude than I thought any animal should have.

  I reached out again and this time, touched one. My fingertips didn’t slip right through it like I’d thought they
would. Instead, a vision played out before my eyes like a movie clip.

  Someone with dark hands mixed a reddish powder together with what looked like dirt in an old stone bowl. They mumbled something in a language I couldn’t understand as they continued to mix, and I was certain I was listening to the voice of an old woman. Everything the old woman had been mixing was then scooped into a black drawstring bag using some sort of spoon made of bone.

  Her dark fingers pulled both strings to close the bag and handed it off to hands of the same color, but larger and less delicate. Male hands. They cradled it carefully as they carried it out of a house, across a crumbling front porch, and inside an older black truck where it was then tossed into the passenger seat. The drive was far, but soon the truck engine was cut off and the male hands gripped the bag once more, stuffing it into a loose-fitting jean pocket.

  The man’s hands retrieved it from within the pocket moments later and spread the dark powder across the floor just inside the front door to my house. Another few sentences were mumbled in the same strange language—this time in a voice I swore I recognized, but couldn’t place. A thump coming from someplace inside the house sounded, startling whomever it was, and he dumped the remaining contents onto the floor, and then closed the door as he left. Time sped up. Sunrise brightened the floor surrounding the mixture and a pair of bare feet with neon green toenails descended the stairs.

  “Seriously?” Vera said hotly. “What a freaking mess!”

  Her feet disappeared only to reappear a moment later, along with a broom and a dustpan. She swept the mess up, managing to only step in it twice and have to stop in her cleanup to brush the bottoms of her feet off. The mess was then dumped into the trash can.

  My lungs struggled for air as my regular vision came back. I choked and gasped as I tried to catch my breath. My heart pounded too fast within my chest, and my skin broke out in a cold sweat. The symbols faded away into nothing as I continued to stare at them. What the heck had that been?

  I found my phone and called the one person who would know what that crazy powder had been and why it had been placed there—Kace. He didn’t pick up. Instead, I got his voicemail. I left him a message telling him I was working at Spellbinding Reads today, but that I needed to talk to him about something later. My heart was still pounding from what I’d seen, and I recoiled away from the trash can.

  “Here, these just came in. Can you put them over there on display somehow?” Admer paused in what he was saying and gestured to the mess that was the front desk. “That way they’re easily found. I promised a friend of mine I’d sell her odd Celtic music.”

  “Umm, sure,” I said, taking the stack of CDs from his hands and glancing around. “I think I’ll start with organizing the desk first, though. Then I’ll find a place to put these. And why are you calling it odd, isn’t that what we’re listening to now?”

  Admer smirked at me. The expression seemed out of place on his normally serious face. “Tis true.”

  I spent nearly two hours riffling through everything that had been scattered across the front desk, weeding out the trash and creating folders for all of the receipts that had been tossed around. I was just getting ready to start placing things neatly back on the desk the way they should be, when my cell vibrated in my back pocket. It was a text from Vera. I smiled when I realized it was her, glad things hadn’t been too weird between us since she’d left.

  Hey, girly, how’s it goin’?

  I glanced around to see where Admer was—he stood near the coffee machine helping an elderly woman create a drink of some sort—before I responded back.

  All right. First day on the job.

  Oh no, are you bored to death yet?

  I chuckled and shook my head.

  Not in the least.

  Well, call me later or something.

  I will.

  I slipped my phone back into my pocket and glanced over at Admer once more to see if I’d been busted texting on my first day. He was casually sipping some tea while showing another old lady the wooden puzzles for preschoolers we’d apparently gotten in yesterday.

  I started to stack things back on the desk, but couldn’t stand all the dust covering it. I remembered Admer telling me about a storage closet in the back. I left the front desk and headed to the back office for a dust rag and some Pledge.

  The office desk was just as messy as the front desk. For being so calm and smooth seeming all the time, sophisticated even, Admer sure was a slob. Papers covered the desk here too, as well as old Styrofoam cups of tea and cookie wrappers I recognized from Paisley’s. Obviously he’d fallen prey to the spells of their delicious offerings too. Sage, the large black cat of the place, lay curled in a fluffy ball right in the center of everything.

  I spotted the closet in the back and retrieved pieces of an old T-shirt that had been cut into rags and a fairly new can of lemon-scented Pledge. Heading back out to put it all to good use, I noticed a picture that hung on the wall just beside Admer’s desk. As I walked over for a closer look, my cell vibrated in my back pocket once more. I made a mental note to leave it in my Jeep the next time I worked. I didn’t want to be reprimanded for being on my phone the entire time I was supposed to be working. Glancing at the screen, expecting to see another text from Vera, I realized it was Kace calling.

  “Hello?” I answered in a whisper, shifting to look out the office door, making sure Admer was still with the puzzle woman. He was.

  “Woo, hey, sexy,” Kace whispered in a low tone that nearly took my breath away. “How’s it goin’?”

  I chuckled. “It’s going. I’m still at work.”

  “I figured as much, I got your message, but I wanted to hear a little more of your voice. Glad I called when I did, cuz I like the tone you answered in.” His voice took on the same low, rumbling tone as before, and it sent shivers along my spine.

  “Psh, whatever.” I rolled my eyes, but couldn’t suppress the grin that twisted my lips.

  “I hear the grin in your voice, and now that I’ve mentioned it, I’ve got you smiling, don’t I?”

  I grinned even wider. “Sure do.” No point in denying it.

  “Awesome, my job is done. So, what time do you want me to pick you up?”

  “Pick me up?”

  “Yeah. You said you had something you wanted to talk to me about. I can only assume what it’s in reference to, and there’s no better way to talk about that stuff than face-to-face.”

  His words seemed to trickle through the phone and caress my skin the same way that I knew his fingertips would if he were here with me, and a tingling sensation slid through me. “Sounds good then.”

  “So, what time?” he asked again, and I felt my face catch fire because I hadn’t answered him the first time.

  Instead, I’d been thinking of what his touch felt like and how it was the best part of being face-to-face with him.

  “Umm, I get off at four. How about then?”

  “I’ll be there. Later, sexy,” he said, and I melted a little more.

  Sexy was so much better than babe. Ryan had always called me babe, and I hated it. It had never sounded right coming from his mouth. He tried too hard, that was the problem.

  “Later,” I said and hung up, grin still in place. I walked out of the office and back to the front desk.

  “Well, this is a first,” Admer said as I sprayed the front desk with Pledge.

  “What is, dusting this desk?”

  Admer chuckled slightly. “No, a person cleaning with a smile on their face.”

  “Oh, well it’s not because of the cleaning. I don’t enjoy it that much,” I assured him.

  “Either way, it’s nice to see you smile.”

  I glanced up, not because of his words, but because of his tone. It was off. I couldn’t tell if it was because he was genuinely happy to see me happy, even though he hardly knew me, or if he was being sarcastic. Either way, something about the entire situation gave me the creeps for a split second.

 
; “Right,” I said as he turned away and tossed his cup in the trash.

  I continued to clean and organize the desk. When I was finished, Admer asked me to do the same for the desk in his office. While removing stuff so I could dust there too, I remembered the picture I’d seen hanging on the wall and took a closer look to see what it was of. An old woman with a walking cane stood in front of the store holding out a set of keys to a slightly younger version of Admer. He must have bought Spellbinding Reads from someone else—that lady in the picture.

  Admer came into the office carrying a large box. He sat it along the back wall of the room beside two others that had been there since this morning.

  “Books, some new arrivals. I don’t think this one is supposed to go on the shelves until Wednesday though,” he said, his face all serious as he opened the paper that was attached to the front of the box.

  “Who’s the lady in the picture?” I asked, pointing to the one on the wall I couldn’t seem to keep my eyes off of.

  There was something about the woman that seemed familiar to me.

  “Amelia Avery. She’s who I got the shop from.”

  He said this so absentmindedly and yet I was floored.

  “Amelia Avery?” I repeated.

  There was that name again, my name—Avery.

  Admer looked up at me then. “Yes. That’s who I bought the shop from.” Realization dawned in his eyes, but it seemed phony somehow. “Oh, right. She was your grandmother, wasn’t she? I’m sorry. I guess I just assumed you knew this store had belonged to her.”

  “I didn’t,” I said simply. How could he have assumed I’d known that?

  “I bought it from her after she’d grown too old to maintain it herself. She’d waited for her daughter, Angela, to come back so she could take over, but she never did.” Admer’s jaw tightened at his words, and I wondered if he was thinking of how distraught my grandmother must have been when her daughter never returned.

  I swallowed hard. “I can’t believe she owned this place.”