Phantom Quartz: A Stacy Justice Witch Mystery Book 6 (Stacy Justice Magical Mysteries)

by Barbra Annino

  I slipped in through the back door of the kitchen where I found the Geraghty Girls and Angelica all in a huddle.

  Oh, what fresh hell is this?

  They startled when I shut the door.

  “Hello, dear,” said Fiona.

  “There you are!” said Birdie.

  Lolly was drinking Champagne from a moose mug. She held it up and said, “Cheers.”

  Something was different. They were different. Back to their true selves, almost. Birdie was wearing her usual skirts and gypsy blouse, but no hat. Lolly was in a silver strapless ball gown and Fiona was perfectly made-up, hair in a chignon, wearing a sleek sheath dress.

  Angelica just smiled at me, smelling of spun sugar and allspice.

  I said, “What’s going on? You all seem...normal. I mean, you know, normal for you.”

  Birdie rolled her eyes. “Of course we’re normal. You didn’t think we’d let you siphon our magic without the ability to build it back up, did you?”

  I frowned. “Well no, I guess not, but—wait a minute, did you say, ‘let me’?”

  Birdie said, “Never mind that for now. We have a problem. We believe Cinnamon’s baby is in trouble.”

  I sighed, put my bag on the counter. “Yes, well you’re a day late and about a million dollars short on that prediction.” I ran my fingers through my hair. “But don’t worry, the baby is fine. I handled it.”

  “Are you sure?” Angelica asked.

  “I’ve got the war wounds to prove it.” I pointed to my blood-soaked leg, and Lolly got to work gathering herbs and crystals.

  “Oh, Stacy! You’re such a good girl!” Angelica tossed her arms around me in a bear hug.

  “There is one thing, though.”

  She stood back, her features lined with concern. “What is it?”

  I pulled the nightmares jar from my bag, set it on the counter.

  Angelica blinked at it. “Why do you have that? That’s for baby.”

  I looked at her. “What do you mean, ‘that’s for baby’? Nightmares aren’t for babies.”

  She chuckled and pinched my cheek. “This one, hah? So much to learn.” She thumbed to Birdie.

  Birdie crossed her arms. “They turn thirty, and they think they know everything.”

  “I’m twenty-nine, and can we please get back to the subject?”

  Angelica said, “Nightmares not to give. To take.” She picked up the jar. “For only sweet dreams to stay.”

  “Oh.” I guess that made sense, but I still thought it was a creepy-looking jar.

  Wait. Why were we talking about magic right in front of Angelica? And why was she acting like she knew exactly what we were talking about?

  Lolly passed the healing ingredients to Birdie to mix.

  “Tell me what happened with baby,” Angelica said.

  I shot Birdie a look as she pounded the herbs with a mortar and pestle to create a poultice. She met my eyes and nodded.

  I quickly ran through the whole story of what happened in the caverns with Evelyn, her former role as Seeker as well as the miner and the captain. I stressed that the baby was better than fine with two watchdogs (so to speak) and a protective amulet of her very own—the phantom quartz.

  Angelica made a grave face as she listened to the story about what happened to her granddaughter. “I knew I should not leave hospital. But my daughter is stubborn. She want to rest, so I let her rest.”

  Birdie scoffed and shot me a look. “Tell me about it.” She handed the poultice to Lolly who applied it to my leg.

  “Birdie, did you know about the miner? Did you know he was an ancestor?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “There were rumors, of course, but I never believed them.”

  Lolly said, “There are always rumors about the Geraghtys. It comes with the territory.”

  I winced as she dug deep into the wound with the herbs.

  Fiona said, “But there was nothing about any adoption in the Blessed Book.”

  “Maybe Meagan didn’t know,” I said.

  “I suppose that could be.” Birdie took over for Lolly, ripping my pant leg open wider to get a better look at my injury.

  Angelica was quiet as she watched Birdie heal my leg. She crinkled her forehead after a while. “It best not to tell Cinnamon.” She nodded as if that was that.

  I stared at her for a beat wondering what part of the Twilight Zone I had just entered. “Wrong. It’s best to tell Cinnamon. No way am I going to keep this from her.” Secrets and lies had plagued my family for generations and I wasn’t about to let the little one enter this world that way. I had never lied to my cousin. I wasn’t about to start with her child.

  “In time, perhaps.” Angelica shrugged.

  “I’ll give you a week.” My voice steeled.

  She threw me an icy stare, and I thought for a moment she was going to reach into the apothecary table and grab a rolling pin to clobber me with.

  But she didn’t. She just spun on her heel and left the room.

  Birdie said, “You should have a bit more respect.” She motioned to Lolly who handed her a needle and thread.

  “I do have respect. Which is why I won’t lie to Cin.” I sighed. “So we know who the shifter is anyway, but we still have a major problem. She didn’t have the amulet. And my time is up.”

  Angelica came back into the kitchen with Lisa and a plate of cannoli. I held up a hand, palm out. “None for me, thanks.”

  Lisa winked and said, “They make you happy, yes?”

  “They make me goofy, no.” I shook my head.

  Angelica whispered something to Lisa, and Lisa pulled a chain from around her neck and plopped it in Angelica’s hand. Angelica passed it to me.

  It was my amulet. I stared at it, marveling at the way it pulsed with energy. It felt like mine. It felt like home.

  “But how? I mean, where?” I stammered.

  “The spell, of course. You didn’t think anyone could actually break our barriers, did you?” Birdie asked.

  The three of them explained that they had a very good reason for tricking me into funneling their magic which basically went something like, we didn’t want to tell you, dear.

  I was livid. Yet another underhanded tactic to work me like a puppet. “You had no right to deceive me like that! I was terrified, Birdie. You could have just told me. Whatever the reason, I would have trusted you.”

  Birdie narrowed her eyes. “Is that so? You never did before. In fact, I believe immediately after you felt the surge of power, you wanted to return the magic. Did you not?”

  She was right, I knew, although I still wasn’t happy about being lied to. Again.

  “We knew what we were doing, Stacy, and look at how it helped you with battling Evelyn,” said Lolly.

  That reminded me. I needed a new sword.

  Birdie started on the stitches.

  “But you don’t know that locket, I do. I mean, what if the spell had ricocheted and left me powerless?”

  Birdie paused, considering this. “Oh. That’s true.” She looked at Fiona, then Lolly. “We didn’t think of that.”

  I sunk my face in my hands.

  “It was the only way to get you strong. You’ve been so far behind, dear,” Fiona said.

  “We needed you at full capacity for the next mission.” Lolly polished off the last of her Champagne.

  I looked up. “It’s too late. No more missions for me.” I said. “They’re coming for the locket. They’re going to put me on trial.” That little gem of information had been delivered directly from Tabby to my cell phone before I headed over here.

  “We are sorry about that dear. That actually was a mistake,” said Fiona.

  “Yes, we never meant to spill the beans on the locket,” said Lolly.

  Birdie was just finishing up my leg when I said, “That’s right. Why did you take it in the first place? I mean, if you wanted me to be at full power. That makes no sense.”

  “We didn’t intend that part initially. Not until A
ngelica told us what your mother was up to. Putting her old coven back together behind my back. What was she thinking? She could have cost you the Seeker title. Or worse. The Council could have charged her with treason since Evelyn was stripped of her role as you said. That likely means she was also banned from using magic. ” Birdie said. “Your mother is grounded, by the way.” She added.

  “But she didn’t know.”

  “That wouldn’t have mattered. You know how self-righteous they can be,” Birdie said.

  “Wait, so she wasn’t in on the spell you cast against me? Then who was the shifter who pretended to be my mother in the magic chamber?” I asked. Because it obviously wasn’t Evelyn.

  In the corner, Lisa made a bird-like squeak. I turned to face her. She shuddered and trembled. Her legs lengthened, her hair grew, then faded and flashed auburn. Her eyes blinked from brown to green, and she looked exactly like my mom.

  Then she did it again and transformed into Uncle Deck.

  Chapter 48

  I had to sit down. I was completely floored. This changed everything. Two shifters? And Uncle Deck wasn’t alive after all. So much was happening at once, my head was spinning and a dizziness overcame me.

  After it passed, I looked at Angelica. “So you have magic too?”

  She shrugged. “I am mostly kitchen witch, same as Cinnamon, but her powers don’t come until baby.”

  “And the baby?”

  Angelica said, “If it come from just me, then not yet. But it come from grandmother Birdie too. So maybe Cinnamon different. She have magic all the time, she just didn’t believe. So we wait to tell her.”

  Oh boy.

  Birdie let me sink all of that in for a few seconds. Then she launched into a story about five teenagers playing at magic-making. Mom’s little group was called The Fifth Element. Evelyn was the leader of the pack. It was after her brother disappeared that Evelyn went digging for answers and ancestry and learned about the legend of the miner and the captain. Uncle Deck and my mother were tops on her list to join her coven because of the Geraghty reputation. Birdie thought that Penny Byrne joined because she was mom’s best friend and that Monique’s mother went along because her sister had disappeared the same day as Ponyboy. They were all terrified that they would be next or that their future children would suffer the same fate. That’s how legends morph into nightmares, fueled by the fear and imagination of people clinging to fairytales of good versus evil.

  So while the history itself had some truth to it, as I had witnessed, the fantasy of children being stolen was drummed up by one very troubled girl who didn’t understand her mother’s power and couldn’t control her own magic.

  “So when Angelica came to me and told me that your mother had called to question her about your uncle, looking for a map to some treasure, I knew something was suspicious. I knew she had belonged to that little group back then, and I didn’t mind as long as she was just practicing magic. I never dreamed that the basis of it was steeped in a horror story.”

  “So we decide to do some investigating,” Angelica said. “Lisa go undercover as my husband.”

  “I’m sure mom was shocked to see him.” And probably upset to learn they had deceived her too.

  “She say she think he was alive all the time,” Angelica said, a wistfulness to her voice.

  Birdie chimed in. “Evelyn was obsessed with finding the lost treasure and returning it as a gift to the council. Repentance, she thought. Blood money if you ask me. Sloane always had a soft heart when it came to friendship, and I’m afraid she let her judgment lapse when she agreed to help her.”

  Lisa said, “When Evelyn asked about the locket, we gave her the map instead. We wanted her to focus on the treasure, but Birdie thought the locket needed to be protected just in case.”

  “So the map mom gave Evelyn. That was real?” I asked.

  “Well it was a real map of the old mines, but it didn’t lead to any treasure,” Birdie said. “That part we altered. No one knows where the real treasure is buried.”

  Angelica gave me a pensive look. “Baby was not to come for weeks. We thought Evelyn may steal locket, but not baby. Never baby.”

  “So instead you stole the locket and put me in danger,” I said to Birdie.

  “No. We stole it to keep you safe,” Lolly said.

  “Until we got plastered and blew the whole plan,” Fiona said.

  “But why the locket?” I asked. “Why give it to Lisa?”

  “Because it’s the key to something very valuable that only you can open,” said Birdie. “And who better to guard it than a shifter? She could blend into any situation. Disappear if she had to.”

  I smirked. “Something only I can open, huh? I won’t be able to open it from prison.”

  “You won’t be in prison if the plan works.” Birdie gave Angelica a conspiratorial look.

  “What plan?” I asked, a prickliness crawling down my spine.

  Birdie slipped her hand into her pocket and produced a copy of the page of the Blessed Book that had been haunting me.

  The Seeker shall never be alone in the New World, for another child will join her. Together, the pair will battle inner and outer demons, loss, and tragedies great and small. This child, born of two ancient families, will carry a great burden. For the child holds the key to—

  She nodded to Angelica who pulled a page out of her own pocket. She handed it to me. It was written in Italian.

  “Yeah, I have no idea what this says,” I said, scanning it.

  Lisa peeked over my shoulder and read aloud.

  —forging a new governing body that will uphold the laws, ethics, and triads set forth by the Old Ones. The pair will continue to protect the treasures of this world, great and small, defending the sacred oaths set forth by all Councils of the New Alliance.

  I looked at my aunt, seemingly for the very first time. She was still Angelica with her plump cheeks and hot chocolate hair, but there was a soft aura radiating from her now I’d never seen before.

  “So you—your family—you belong to a Council too?” I asked.

  She nodded. “My grandmother write that. She was visionary. It seems that she and Meagan knew each other. They work together back then. Not so segmented like now.”

  “So they must have seen something in the future that made them divide the pages. One in your book, one in mine.” The page hadn’t actually been cut out after all. The second part had never even been in the Blessed Book.

  Angelica nodded. “Wise women.”

  I looked at Lisa. “But how can you shift? I thought it was against the rules.”

  She shrugged. “Italian Council not so strict.”

  I read the pages again, trying to comprehend everything they were throwing at me. “What does this mean?”

  Birdie said, “It means that for too long and for too many years, the Council has doled out the harshest, most inhumane punishments. It means that they no longer abide by the codes the Druids set forth, but have been running their own selfish agenda.” She squared her shoulders, took a deep breath. “It means we’re going to overthrow the Council and implement a new world order.”

  I looked at her, stunned. “And how do you propose we do that?” I asked.

  The Geraghty Girls each exchanged a look with Angelica.

  “We help,” Angelica said.

  “Help how? What’s the mission?”

  Birdie said, “You’re going to find the Irish Crown Jewels. The very treasure the captain stole.”

  Well sure, that’ll be a piece of cake.

  A thought occurred to me then. “Well I guess it’s good that the second passage was never written in our book.”

  “And why is that?” Birdie asked.

  I sighed and ran my hands through my hair. “Because I uploaded the book to the database. And the Council has confiscated it.”

  Birdie looked like she wanted to strangle me. I couldn’t blame her.

  Chapter 49

  I washed up, borrowed sweats fro
m Fiona, grabbed a plate of cookies, then climbed up the stairs to visit my mother. I tried to process everything I had just learned. Cinnamon was a witch, Angelica was a witch, they wanted me to overthrow the very Council that was about to put me on trial, and somewhere, there was a treasure only I could open.

  All in all, a typical day at the Geraghty house.

  They told me that initially Lisa was going to simply steal the locket so that Evelyn couldn’t, which was why she was lurking around my front porch, not knowing I was wearing it, but when I showed up unexpectedly, they had to switch tactics. Apparently, they cooked up their scheme while I was talking to Chance. I asked Birdie why all the theatrics, why threaten to destroy the Seeker’s Den? She shrugged. “We had to make it look good.”

  I knocked gently and Mom told me to come in.

  She was sitting on the bed, staring out the window, a faraway look on her face.

  “I heard you’re grounded,” I said. “So I brought cookies.”

  She rolled her eyes and accepted the Snowman-shaped cookie. I took one too and set the plate on the side table.

  “So I guess you’ve come to lecture me.” She bit the head off the snowman and chewed.

  She wouldn’t yet know what had happened in the caverns. She’d been trying to help a friend—a crazy friend, but a friend nonetheless—by giving her that map and putting the old coven back together. I understood that. The myths we hear when we’re young and naive sometimes stick with us. Urban legends become living legends, and sometimes we still check under the bed for monsters.

  “Nope. I came to give you my Yule list.” I pulled out a piece of paper I had scribbled on earlier and handed it to her.

  She smirked and grabbed the list. She read out loud. “One sword.” Mom looked at me. “That’s it?”

  “Yes, but it has to be a big one.”

  “What happened to the one Birdie gave you?” Mom folded the list and placed it on the bedside table.

  “I’ve outgrown it.”

  She put the rest of the cookie on the plate and pulled me in for a hug. She smelled of lilacs and lattes. And comfort. I hadn’t felt comforted for a long time. She pulled away and scooted back on the bed, patting the place next to her. “Come snuggle with me.”