A Witching Well of Magic

by Constance Barker

  “Maybe he’s in league with someone else,” Bailey suggested. “Like Gloria and Trevor.”

  “I’ll be honest,” Avery said. “I don’t think we’re looking in the right place. Aiden... I just don’t get that sense from him. You know I read people pretty well.”

  Bailey bit her lip. If only he knew the irony in that. This would be so much easier if she could just tell him precisely why it was all so strange. “Just look at the time line. Martha Tells is murdered in the caves. Poppy goes to prison. Aiden buys the business from her, has all sorts of weird questions about the caves, and who made them—”

  “Questions you’ve had for years. Go on.”

  “—yes, alright, I have; however, just a few days after Aiden shows up someone breaks in and steals one of the stones?” She scoffed. “Gloria and Trevor have been in town for months now. If they were in on it, they’d have done it when no one was watching the place. So would anyone else. Why wait until now?”

  Avery only shrugged, and shook his head. He drummed his fingers on the table. Bailey wanted to shake him. Why wasn’t it as obvious to him as it was to her? She supposed there were parts he didn’t know; if he knew them, though, would that make a difference? She stood from the table and went to the water cooler in the corner to get something to drink.

  “Plus he’s just a little too smooth, don’t you think?” She said as she did. “I mean, with that face and the way he dresses, and the way he talks... it all just sort of screams con-man if you ask me. You know I saw Rita the other day—”

  “Rita’s normally out of town this time of year,” Avery said quietly. “I wonder if Thomas is coming to visit. Been a while since I saw him. Probably he’ll just avoid me.”

  “She said something about her nephew coming to visit,” Bailey said. She turned from the cooler with her cup and returned to the table. “I didn’t know his name was Thomas. Do you know him? Why would he avoid you?” She waggled an eyebrow at her friend.

  But Avery didn’t answer her immediately. Instead, he stared at her, eyes narrowed and suspicious. “Yes, I do know Thomas. We didn’t go to school with him, he lives in Portland with his father and only visits every few summers. I met him last time he was here. How do you know him?”

  “I don’t,” Bailey said. “You just said you wondered if he was coming to visit.”

  “No, I didn’t, Bee.”

  Bailey froze, scrambled for something to say. She checked herself—yes, she’d slipped. She closed herself off, tucked the chatter of minds back to where it belonged. She’d been so intent on convincing Avery to suspect Aiden, she hadn’t realized she was opening herself up again, trying to connect with his mind. “I... you’ve mentioned him before, I think.”

  Avery raised one eyebrow. “I certainly have not.”

  “What? Sure you have... at some point. You must have. Maybe I know him from somewhere else.”

  “No, Bailey, you don’t. I can tell that you’re lying to me, Bee.” He shook his head slowly, and gazed at everything in the room except her. When he did finally look at her again there was a light of recognition and discovery in his dark eyes. “Bee, answer me honestly. And I mean it...this is important.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table as he clasped his hands together. He was deadly serious. “By important, I mean that our friendship is staked on your answer important. Tell me the truth.”

  “Avery, I don’t know what you—”

  “You heard me thinking, Bee, didn’t you.” It wasn’t a question, it was a deduction.

  “That’s... there’s no such thing as... how could I have heard you thinking, Ave?” But she was shaking a little, and it was difficult to look at him, and her fingers were picking at the table. She stopped them.

  “I feel like that’s possibly a good followup question,” Avery said, “but it isn’t an answer. You’ve been acting really strange lately. Like, pod person strange. I hardly ever see you anymore, you’re completely out of touch with everyone and everything; I thought at first maybe you were just in shock after what happened with Martha and Poppy.”

  “There are things about your whole encounter with her that don’t make any sense,” he went on. “And people talked about it for about five minutes after it was all done and then it just went away, and no one thought to ask how you knew Poppy had done it.”

  “I didn’t,” Bailey said quickly. “I didn’t. She and Chloe and me were there and she just... I don’t know, she felt guilty about it and had to relieve her conscience and—”

  “You and I both know Poppy didn’t have a conscience. You read her mind, didn’t you?” He peered at her, not with fear, but with... disappointment. “You really think I couldn’t keep your secret, Bee? Is that why you won’t tell me the truth?”

  Bailey took a deep, long breath. She was already in so much trouble with the Coven—she thought, anyway, it was so hard to tell with those women—and the last thing she wanted was to be deeper in it but... if Avery figured it out himself, then, maybe the rules were different? And besides, there had to be exceptions. She wasn’t going to let her friendship dissolve just because they had some old, dusty tradition.

  And Avery could keep a secret. She’d kept his for years, and he’d kept it for... well, since he was a little kid, at least, probably. And when Avery had been ready to come out, he’d confided in her first, before anyone else. Didn’t she owe him? Magic was all about costs and exchanges and the importance of oaths and promises and such... there was a whole rune devoted to it. Gyfu, it was called; it looked like a letter X. It meant that nothing is ever given with getting something in return, and visa versa.

  Avery was still watching her, waiting.

  “I...” Bailey steeled herself, and begged silent forgiveness from whatever it was that governed magic, and the caves, and the Coven. “It... started just before Martha was killed,” she said, so softly she could barely hear herself speak.

  And yet for as light as the words were, the moment they were out of her mouth and in Avery’s astonished ears, they took with them a crushing weight. Once it was gone, the rest of it came out. The coven, Martha’s past, her training with Chloe and Aria and Francis—Avery figured that out easily on his own almost the moment Bailey admitted what she was.

  And she told him about the Caves.

  “You just wouldn’t believe how... amazing, how beautiful it was, Ave,” she said. “They took me inside, and sang this song... it was in all sorts of different languages and at the same time kind of... not in any real language at all. And I felt this presence... it was warm, and comforting; it was like being hugged by the air, or the ocean, or the mountains. And the paintings... oh, Ave... they... they moved.”

  “What do you mean moved?” He asked, mystified. Now that it was out he’d driven straight past angry and betrayed, and right to excitement to hear all about it. How could she have imagined it would be any different?

  “I mean they moved. The letters sort of, slipped around on the wall and rearranged themselves until they made sense. I didn’t even have to translate, I just sort of knew what they said. And you know in the first cave there’s a sun and moon, and some animals, and that kind of landscape that everyone thinks is so funny—a picture of a mountain in a cave?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “It came to life. It told a story. About... well...” Bailey paused. Maybe telling the story she’d learned was going a bit too far.

  “More secret tradition stuff?” Avery guessed.

  Bailey shrugged. “Sort of, yeah. They make a really big deal about it. I don’t know exactly why, but I think there’s something about our history—witches, I mean—that’s supposed to stay hidden to keep us all safe.”

  Avery sighed. “Well... that makes sense, I suppose. Still, maybe just the, ah, ‘cliff’ notes?” He winked.

  It took her a moment. “Dork,” she muttered, but she chuckled. Cliff notes...

  “Well... it seems that, a very long time ago, there was a tribe that split up. One side wanted
to stay where they were, and the other thought something bad was going to happen. So they left. And they traveled around the world using... well, using magic. But their magic started to weaken; it was tied to their homeland. So they had to find other places, places that were... it doesn’t really translate... sort of asleep. And they woke them up, but it takes a long, long time.”

  “And?” Avery pressed.

  Bailey shrugged. “And, that’s the short version. I guess each cave tells another part of the story, but I’ve only seen the first one.”

  Avery sat back. “And, the words tell this story?”

  “Sort of,” Bailey said. “They talk about how it was done.”

  “How is it done?” He wondered.

  Experimentally, Bailey actually did try to tell him. She’d never had a chance to test the Geas before. But when she tried to explain that there were spells, progressive enchantments that reached into the earth and gathered the spirit of the place into one locale to wake it up, her tongue cramped in her mouth until she gave up. “I can’t,” she said.

  “More secret stuff,” Avery grumbled, irritated at being left out of the club.

  “No,” Bailey said, “I mean I’m incapable. I can’t talk about the... what the writing says.” She winced as her tongue cramped around the word ‘spells’. “Its magic, it’s called a geas. I had to accept it to see the story and understand the writing. When I try to talk about it, my tongue cramps.”

  Avery’s eyes rose. “Wow. So... magic, huh?”

  “Magic,” Bailey said simply.

  He was quiet for a moment, weighing something. When he spoke, it was slowly and carefully. “Well, I think I might have a secret to tell you, too. Since we’re sharing.”

  Bailey tried to think of a secret Avery had that she didn’t already know. Of course she couldn’t but, what was left?

  He smiled at her. “I’m absolutely certain that Aiden didn’t steal the stone.”

  “How’s that?” Bailey asked.

  “Because, my intuition never lies. And, it’s not just instinct.” He shrugged. “Ever since I was fifteen or sixteen, I just sort of... know things, sometimes.”

  Aria had talked about something like this when she listed the exhaustive number of ‘gifts’ there were in the world. But, the women always talked about magic as if it were something specific to women. In the story on the wall, the history of the covens, all the people with magic had been women. “Do you mean,” Bailey clarified, “that you guess right?” There was a difference between a lucky guess and genuine prescience.

  “No,” Avery said. “I mean... I get a funny feeling in the middle of my brain, like... sort of like a flower bud. And it opens up, and then...” he shrugged. “I just... know something. I can’t control it, but I can almost always tell when people are lying, and when I meet a person it’s like I know them. Not like reading their mind,” he assured her. “I don’t know... like auras and stuff. That’s how I know it wasn’t Aiden that took the stone. He just wouldn’t do it. I can’t explain how it feels, but it’s true. I can’t say he isn’t somehow... involved? No... responsible. But not intentionally? It’s fuzzy.”

  Well. That was a useful bit. She wished she could ask the Coven about it but, well... she’d be in a lot of trouble.

  “Ave, that’s... amazing.” She sighed, with relief and with other emotions, mixed and tangled up in it. “Oh Lord, it feels so much better not having to hide it. I’m sorry I kept it from you.”

  “It’s okay,” Avery said. “I understand, I guess. Just... maybe don’t keep secrets anymore. Either of us. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  “Now, that does mean we have another problem,” Avery said.

  “Oh?” Bailey wondered if he was going to press her to tell Piper as well. Did Piper also have some secret gift no one knew about? How far and wide did this thing go? The whole town?

  But, Avery was remarkably steering the conversation all the way back to the beginning, rather than postulating about who they should tell next. “If Aiden didn’t burglarize himself, someone else did. And I think you’re right—even if it wasn’t him, it has something to do with his coming here.”

  Chapter 12

  With Avery’s help, Bailey had a plan. They would both keep an eye out on Aiden—even if he hadn’t robbed his own place, there was still something about him that Bailey wanted to find out. Avery would carefully probe Gloria and Trevor about a job at the paper, and would even feed them a juicy, made-up tidbit about Bailey to get close.

  Bailey, for her part, would take her concerns about the stone, and Aiden, and possibly even Gloria and Trevor to the witches. That was Avery’s idea; Bailey thought that involving them wasn’t worth it, now that Avery knew and she had an ally in this. But, he made a good point.

  “If this is their stuff—their culture, or whatever—then they probably know something about it that you don’t. If we know what the stones are, then we might be able to figure out why someone would have taken it; and if we do that...”

  “Then,” Bailey finished, defeated, “we can figure out who would have that reason.”

  “Precisely.” And so, Avery decided to go check on Aiden, chit-chat a little, and possibly nerd out over the caves. After all, if anyone knew the caves even close to the way that Bailey did, it was her childhood would-be archaeologist’s assistant.

  They got about ten feet out of the door the library, however, when Piper called. She was hysterical.

  “My mother in law got the call,” she wailed, “and she’s been... Oh my gosh, Bailey, she’s so awful. She says it’s all my fault!”

  “What?” Bailey waved at Avery. “What’s your fault? What’s happening, Pipes?”

  “Gavin,” Piper sobbed over the phone, “he left work for lunch and went to Hap’s for a drink. A drink! In the middle of the day. And he started screaming at people, and got into a fight and... he got arrested, Bailey, and his mother’s cousin works booking and he was raving at her about how his life is a mess and he never should have gotten me pregnant and that...” she paused to sob again, “...and that I got pregnant on purpose so he wouldn’t leave me!” She drew out the last word into a keening wail.

  Bailey’s heart ached. Her eyes burned. She did this. There was no question. It was her spell, finally unleashing Gavin’s secret fears and issues in a fire of revelation, just like the title implied. “Okay... okay,” she said, “Pipes just... I’m with Avery, and we’re going to come and get you and Riley. Okay? And we’ll go down to the Sheriff’s station and bail Gavin out and get through all of this, okay?”

  “What if he—” Piper started, looking for the worst.

  “Just,” Bailey interrupted her, “just make sure you’re both dressed. We’ll come get you, okay?”

  “Okay,” Piper said, sniffling. “Okay. I’ll see you soon.”

  Bailey hung up.

  “What the heck is going on?” Avery asked. “Is she okay? What did Gavin do?”

  “It wasn’t Gavin,” Bailey sighed. Might as well come clean to the one person she could in this situation. “It was me. Piper was so worried about what was going on with him... I cast a tiny spell...”

  “On Gavin?”

  “We need to pick up Piper,” Bailey said, directing them both toward Avery’s parked car. “I’ll tell you on the way.”

  She did, and Avery heard her, and was more concerned for Gavin and Piper than he was angry, or disappointed, or frightened of Bailey and her spell casting. That was something, at least—he didn’t judge her for it, though he did comment that maybe it was good to take some things slow; like strange, arcane forces that could do God-knew-what.

  Piper was a mess when they arrived. Riley, Piper’s son, was a knot of concern for his mother, but lacked the words to say it. Instead, he seemed vaguely uneasy about everything, and kept saying ‘mama’ over and over again when she began to lose it.

  “It’s just so embarrassing,” she said from the front seat—Bailey sat in the back where they’d fastened
Riley’s car-seat in. With her belly, Piper needed the space in the front. “What could he be thinking? Everyone in town knows what he thinks of me—I don’t know if I can walk down the street again in broad daylight. And don’t get me started on his mother. Evelyn is beside herself, but of course she’s not mad at Gavin—oh, no, not her sweet boy. She’s furious at me. She never thought I was good enough for him, and now she thinks he’s only with me because I... what? Trapped him?”

  “It’ll be okay, Pipes,” Avery said. Bailey was having a hard time thinking of anything to say that wasn’t an apology, and she couldn’t even offer that. Not without having to explain what she’d done and everything that came with it. “I know it’s not the best way for this all to come out, but, you know... now that it has... maybe you two can finally start sorting things out, right?”

  “Us and the whole town,” Piper said, her voice tight. “I mean we got a second one on the way! And poor Riley—”

  “Riley, Riley,” Riley chimed, singsong. He reached for his mama, and Piper smiled at him, a pretty, tear-stained smile, and reached for him and let him play with her fingers.

  “—I just don’t want him to grow up knowing his father thinks he was a mistake, you know?” Piper finished.

  Avery sighed. He glanced in the rear-view mirror, and Bailey averted her eyes. No, he wasn’t angry but... still. She’d caused all this pain. He had to at least think she was grossly irresponsible. Or, maybe he was trying to be reassuring to her like he was to Piper.

  “Secrets,” Avery said to Piper, though Bailey felt part of it was directed at her as well, “have a way of festering over time. Like the bad apple in the bunch, it spreads and starts to ruin everything around it. Trust me, now that this is out, things can start to get better. I wish it didn’t happen this way, but... well, it had to happen somehow.”

  It didn’t help much, but Bailey at least clung to the hope that once the spell ran its course, Gavin would calm down and start talking to Piper. They had to. Not just for the kids—Piper and Gavin had been practically an institution for their generation in Coven Grove. Elementary school sweethearts, Middle School couple, High School royalty—kind and queen of every dance they went to. When they’d gotten married, over half the town had been there. They’d been excited when Piper got pregnant with Riley. Or, at least, they had seemed to be.