Witching for a Miracle (The Witchy Women of Coven Grove Book 7)

by Constance Barker

  Wheeler had a smile on his face that elegantly walked the line between hopeful and outright smug, but Bailey managed to keep her head clear and not wipe it off his face.

  Neither of the Clearys were inclined to respond, instead electing to turn away from Bailey and Chloe both.

  “I’ll talk them around,” Wheeler promised, his voice low—but not so low that they couldn’t hear him. “Best of luck, ladies. I hope we can resolve this messy business as soon as possible.”

  Best of luck, Bailey thought, loudly enough that Chloe heard her, apparently.

  We’ll beat him, Chloe projected. We’ve got the combined magic of ten nations so far. There’s no way he’s prepared for that.

  Bailey certainly hoped so. She pocketed the comb, and the photo, and gave Sheriff Larson an appreciative nod.

  Then she said a prayer to whoever was listening. Please let this be as simple as a missing kid.

  Amen to that, Chloe added, glancing at Bailey with a weak, worried smile.

  Somehow, though, neither of them believed it would be.

  Chapter 23

  The set of finding spells that the Coven Grove coven had access to didn’t work. They avoided the couple that involved destroying the articles used to make the connection to the sought after party. That wasn’t precisely unexpected, but it was still frustrating.

  “It does narrow some possibilities, at least,” Frances pointed out when they’d exhausted their in-house options. “He was taken by someone who expected us to use magic to find him, and knows how to keep us from doing that.”

  “Great,” Bailey sighed. “So, that’s basically one of us or one of them.”

  “At least we know,” Chloe said. “And we have other resources now—let’s ask around, and see if there’s another approach.”

  Most of the arrivals were housed in the tour office, so they went there first. The people at Aiden’s house were mostly those with children. Bailey didn’t particularly want to get any of them involved if she didn’t have to.

  Chloe was right about one thing—they had a broad set of tools at their disposal. Unfortunately, most of the witches who had arrived so far didn’t have any real magic. Those who were from places like Coven Grove, where there were ancient Caves that had long been tied to and supported the coven, had lost the majority of their magic when their Caves failed. Some had only heard stories of the kind of magic that took place here, near a living Cave system.

  The others, who had never been tied to a spirit like that in the Caves, had never had the inclination to attempt serious magic—there wasn’t enough power available.

  None the less, there were a few among them who offered to use specialized skills to help. Alkina went into a trance, and assured them that if Xavier dreamed, wherever he was, she could find him. A witch from Brazil name Ana Maria assured them that she could discover Xavier’s location by approaching Ogum, a kind of crossroads orisha or spirit. Some of the shamans offered to search for Xavier’s spirit in the spirit world, in the event that he’d actually been killed.

  The wizards might have been more useful collectively—wizardry was by and large a unified system of magic. However, as soon as you spoke to one wizard, three more popped up to explain why the first one was wrong in his approach and how to correct his basic misunderstanding of one theorem or another.

  Bailey approached the warlock only because the warlock hadn’t approached her.

  He was a short, thickly muscled man, with a wild, dark beard. It was hard to tell how old he was, but there were lines around his eyes.

  “This is not a thing I can help much for,” Peitr mumbled in his thick slavic accent. “Hounds would scare people.”

  “Hounds,” Bailey said, curious.

  Peitr nodded. “Dark hounds, hell hounds. Psoglav, maybe. You could approach the domovoi. Perhaps domovoi watched, er… witness.”

  “Domovoi?” Chloe asked. “That’s a spirit, right?”

  “Eh.” Peitr shrugged. “Little bit spirit, little bit something else.”

  “How would we contact it?” Bailey asked.

  Peitr frowned at them, and then shook his head. “You should not. Tricky creature. Angry, if child was stolen.”

  Frances snorted, and regarded the warlock with suspicion. “He wants to do the magic himself,” she muttered. “Could be dangerous.”

  “Why I would come here,” Peitr sighed, “if I do such a thing? Easier to stay on my mountain.”

  “He has a point,” Bailey said. She shot Frances a warning look when Frances opened her mouth to protest.

  “Fine,” Frances sighed.

  “Good,” Bailey said. “Peitr, I’d appreciate it if you’d do what you can.”

  Peitr grunted, and shrugged his thick shoulders.

  “Chloe, take Frances and whoever else you think will be helpful and go with him.” Bailey looked around the tour office. “Where’s Piper?”

  “She went home,” Frances said. “A couple of hours ago.”

  “Fair enough,” Bailey murmured. Piper had been a great help, and had said that she would try to put some of the people up at her house. Maybe she’d gone to clear that with Gavin.

  “What are you going to do?” Frances asked.

  Bailey ran her fingers through her hair. Sleep, she wanted to say, but that was out of the question. “I’m going to go to the Caves and check the breach. If this wasn’t the hunters and it wasn’t one of us then that only leaves one option.”

  “If this looks like it has to do with Faerie,” Chloe said, “you wait for us, alright? Don’t… go after him yourself, or anything.”

  Bailey nodded, but didn’t make any promises. For one thing, if she did have to go into Faerie to get Xavier, she was the only one among them that was likely to be able to come back in one piece.

  But for another, finding Xavier wasn’t the only reason she had for going to the Caves. And if she told them that, there was no way they’d let her go alone.

  Chapter 24

  Piper steeled herself against what it looked like Gavin was about to say. He had a shocked look on his face, which was quickly turning to anger. Or, at least, it seemed like it. “Only for… a little while,” she said. “Until all this is past.”

  “Piper,” Gavin said slowly, “I can’t just leave town with the kids. We can’t just leave you here. It’s not going to happen, baby.”

  “Gavin, I really don’t want to fight about this,” Piper sighed. She’d intended to take the long, subtle route, but when it came to it she’d sat down and simply told him he had to take the children and leave Coven Grove. Maybe slow and subtle would have been the better choice.

  “We’re not going to fight,” Gavin said. He touched Piper’s face, and she bent her neck and pressed her cheek against it. “I’ll let Mom take the kids up to Washington, she can stay with Uncle Mitch.”

  “Gavin,” Piper said, her stomach knotted with worry, “we don’t know what’s going to happen here. I don’t want our kids… I want them to have at least one of us.”

  He held her eyes for a long moment, and then closed his tight. “I’m not going to leave you here alone. That’s the end of it. I… don’t know what I can do, but I can't just leave and not know what’s happened to you until after.”

  Piper took Gaven’s hand from her cheek and held it. When she did, Gavin pulled her to him and held her close. “I know we’ve been through a lot lately,” he muttered into her hair, “and I know that it seems like it’s been taking me time to adjust.”

  “It’s okay,” Piper said.

  He pulled back a bit, and tipped her face up toward his. “I haven’t had to adjust, Piper. Not like you think.” He kissed her softly on the lips. “I’ve loved you from the first moment I laid eyes on you, and that hasn’t changed.”

  “You met me when you were ten,” she chuckled.

  “And those first six years were the hardest years of my life,” he said. “All I’ve wanted since then is to make you the happiest woman in the world. But that’s
not enough. Without you, Piper, I…”

  He didn’t need to finish, and she could see that she wasn’t going to win this argument.

  Piper bit her lip, and looked toward the children’s rooms. “I’m sure your mom will be happy to get them out of town,” she said. “Call her first thing. Then you and I need to talk about guests. We’re overflowing at the tour office.”

  “Whatever you need,” Gavin said. He blew out a breath. “Feels like we’re being overrun with refugees.”

  “We are, kind of,” Piper admitted. “Already we’ve been hearing about groups being attacked by hunters on their way here.”

  “I can’t believe our people are letting those monsters walk around in our town.” Gavin shook his head in disgust. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

  Piper pressed her lips together. Gavin was one of the good ones. He saw the best in people, like Bailey’s father had. She wished she could say the same of herself, but from the moment she read Ryan’s letter she’d been worried about this very thing. Especially after meeting the hunters on the mountain.

  “So what will we do?” Gavin asked. “What’s the plan?”

  “Right now,” Piper said, “we’re waiting for these stones to make it here. They’re like… well, actually I’m not entirely sure. But they’re important to whatever Bailey needs to do.”

  “What happens if they don’t?” He asked, his eyes wide.

  Piper grimaced. “We have to hope that they do. If not… I don’t know. We come up with a plan b.”

  “Any idea what that will look like?”

  Piper shook her head, and stared out the window, toward the clusters of witches gathered at the tour office, in Aiden’s house, and even along the beach. “A lot of the people here are regaining their magic. It’s slow, but steady. The Caves are taking them in like orphans, I think. Not everyone, but… enough. If Bailey can’t pull off her plan? I don’t know, Gavin. But what I’m afraid of is that it’ll mean…”

  “Mean what?” He pressed.

  Piper shivered, and leaned against Gavin’s chest for comfort.

  “I think it’ll mean war.”

  Chapter 25

  Rhonda Peeler surged into consciousness with a gasp as the camper bucked, nearly throwing her out of the small cot in the back. Bracing herself on the wall, she waited, frozen, and listened, and felt.

  The camper slowed, and she heard the crunch of gravel under the wheels. She rocked forward slightly as the camper and the truck pulling it lurched to a stop.

  She was already dressed—they’d been warned to stay that way just in case—so she threw the blanket off of her legs and made her way quickly to the front. Her two daughters, Mary and Simone, were wide eyed at the fold out table, their hands spread out over the playing cards between them that had apparently flown everywhere when they hit whatever it was that had tossed the cabin.

  “Mom?” Simone asked warily.

  “It’s okay,” Rhonda told them. She pulled a hair band from her pocket and drew her mussed curls into a pony-tail. “Probably just a flat. I’m gonna go check on your dad. Just… stay inside.”

  She opened the door and took the long step down to the side of the road. It was early—before dawn—and still black outside other than the glow of the camper’s break lights and the truck’s headlights. She listened, and heard steps on the gravel. “Carl?”

  “I’m here, Ron,” Carl’s gruff voice came. “Go back inside.”

  “What happened?” She asked. She padded around the camper and found her husband squatting by the tires on the other side. “We get a flat?”

  Carl was grunting. After a moment, he jerked something free of the tires, and held it up to shine his flashlight on it.

  “What the heck is that?” He muttered.

  Rhonda moved closer and leaned in to see.

  It was a bent piece of metal, sharp prongs jutting out at different angles.

  “Didn’t you charm the wheels?” Carl asked.

  “Best as I could,” Rhonda murmured, and took the bit of metal from his fingers. As he shined the light on it, she peered closely to see that there was rust all over the metal, as if it were old.

  A weak image flashed in her mind. It was a woman; she was in agony, and covered with small cuts. It was all she saw—nothing like the kinds of supposedly immersive visions her great grandmother used to have—but it was enough to catapult her into a panic.

  “They found us,” she whispered harshly, and waved at Carl. “Turn your light off!”

  He did so immediately, but there were still the brake- and head-lights making them a target.

  “Timothy,” Carl breathed, “and Lilly.…”

  “They knew,” Rhona said. “They bought us time. We’re just a few hours away.” She looked out at the darkness, tense against the expectation of a crossbow bolt or sniper bullet about to emerge soundlessly from the tree line. There would be two of them, at least—one to spot them, the other to lay the trap. But they wouldn’t come at them alone—they didn’t know how weak Rhonda’s magic was, or that her daughters were practically untrained.

  “I have to change the tire,” Carl said gravely.

  “No,” Rhonda told him. “Just unhitch the camper. I’ll get the girls into the truck with the stones.”

  Carl nodded, and Rhonda wanted to kiss him, and tell him how much she loved him for trusting her. But she didn’t have time.

  She rushed back to the door of the camper and flung it open. “Grab your coats,” she said. “And the stones. We’re leaving the camper.”

  “Mom, what’s happening?” Mary asked. She was barely fifteen, but she’d heard the Queen’s call just as loudly as Rhonda had. “Are we in trouble?”

  “Just focus on getting into the truck for now,” Rhonda said. “We’ll move faster without the camper anyway.”

  Simone was the oldest, eighteen, and she didn’t waste any time. She whispered for Mary to be quick, and then got to work putting her coat on after she handed her sister’s to her.

  They had come by the stones on accident—or, more likely, through the will of the stones themselves. They’d been in Florida when they found a ragged group of witches bringing them from the coast through the swamp, having traveled over the Atlantic from Africa. They were starved, and had found the camper just inside the northern part of the swamp where the family had settled down for a few weeks so that Rhonda could take the girls to see her old teacher, and hopefully learn what this strange feeling was—this magnetic attraction to the west, as if something there was calling her name.

  Each stone was the size of two fists, covered in strange carvings that Rhonda had never seen in her life but somehow recognized nonetheless—like some sort of genetic memory.

  Once the call came, changing the gentle pull into a burning desire and a specific place—Coven Grove—the African witches had given her the stones and assured her that they would follow, once they recovered from the journey. Whether they had or not, she didn’t know, but she hoped.

  She ran her fingers over the six stones. Three from Gambia, and three from Egypt. They just had to make it to Coven Grove.

  She and the girls each took two, clutching them to their chests like infants as they evacuated the camper and made their way to the truck.

  “You two get into the cab,” she said. “I’ll ride in the back. Put these in the floor board.”

  She helped her girls into the truck and then climbed over the side to get into the bed. Carl was already at work getting the camper disconnected.

  The first bolt missed her by a few inches, and thunked into the inside wall of the truck bed. It took Rhonda a few moments to register what had happened, and when she did she reached for Carl. “Down!”

  The second one hit the driver’s side window, and both girls inside screamed. In a panic, Rhonda scrabbled for the back window to the cab. “Girls! Get down!”

  Even if she could somehow harness the power of the stones, which had already seemed to awaken her native gift slightly
, all of her tools were in the camper. And even if she did get to them, she’d never needed any kind of defensive magic and they weren’t going to give her the time to cast anything.

  Carl spat a curse, and Rhonda crawled across the bed of the truck toward him. There was a metallic scrape, and then a crashing sound as the front of the camper slammed into the earth.

  “Get out of here!” Carl barked. “Take the girls!”

  “Carl, no,” Rhonda said. But she screamed over her shoulder. “Simone, start the truck, baby!”

  Another bolt thunked into the side of the truck. Rhonda bounded over the edge to help her husband in.

  “I’m hurt,” Carl complained at her. She saw the bolt in his leg, and fear flushed through her.

  “No, no, no…” She pulled at his arm. “Get up. Get up!”

  A whistle, and she flinched back as something split the air just an inch from her neck. Maybe the charms on the truck were holding after all.

  Carl shoved at her, but Rhonda slapped him once long enough to make him freeze with shock. She ducked under one of his arms and threw her whole body into heaving him up. Adrenaline gave her the boost she needed, and she all but threw him at the vehicle, draping his arms over it before she put her shoulder under his butt and pushed him up and over so he could tumble into the back.

  The truck revved to life, and Rhonda clambered over the side to follow Carl.

  She wasn’t fast enough. Something stung her in the shoulder and tipped her forward as she came over. One arm went numb, and she collapsed forward. Her head hit metal, and pain shot through her skull, echoed by the deep, grinding ache where the bolt had hit her.

  “Drive,” she barked hoarsely at her daughter.

  Carl was on her a second later, and she felt the bolt in her shoulder tear at something.

  “Leave it!” She howled.

  The pain lessened, and Carl rolled her onto her side as the truck lurched forward.