by Falls, Bella
W e let the Crystal Coast coven leader back inside our house for the second time. Instead of offering her hospitality with a drink, I sat across from her.
“Tell me what’s going on with Ms. Myrna that’s gotten you involved. Last I knew, she was fine.” I thought about my last trip there with Dad when we didn’t even make it inside. “I mean, she was accepting sympathies from her friends and neighbors.”
Ebonee studied me with careful intent. “Have you seen her lately? Or heard that she’s had an unwelcome visit from an unsavory man extorting money from her?”
Dad stiffened in alert. “What?”
I wrung my hands together, having forgotten to tell him that tidbit of information after wallowing in my own guilt. “Uh, about that. Spike did mention something about getting Ms. Myrna to pay him back the money Croy owed him.”
“And that’s the man you confronted last night, correct?” the coven leader checked.
I regarded her with suspicion. “How exactly did you hear about that so quickly?”
“Perks of my leadership role. There are those of our kind living in all sorts of places. Including bad biker bars where any lady with an ounce of respect wouldn’t find herself, no matter what she was trying to accomplish.” Ebonee gazed down her nose at me. “I may need to rethink the bargain we struck about letting you into the coven. If you have problems making good decisions, then we may not want you after all.”
“Fine by me,” I retorted.
“We’re getting off track here,” Dad reminded us. “Ebonee, you still haven’t explained why you brought up Myrna in the first place. Is there a problem we need to be aware of?”
The coven leader fingered one of her long dark braids falling over her shoulder. “One of our members from Smooter contacted me after she dropped by Ms. Miller’s home to bring her a casserole. She was concerned with the state in which she found your so-called friend.”
“Well, she just lost her grandson in a horrific manner. No matter what kind of man Croy was, no grandmother wants to lose her grandchild,” Dad stated. “And we haven’t checked in on her because of that young man and where he lost his life. It would seem…callous of us.”
Regret returned while I considered our selfish reasons for not accompanying Ethel and Gladys into the house to comfort our mutual friend. Even if we had only stayed for a few minutes, either my father or I might have been able to detect if Myrna was having problems. At least we’d have a better idea what that meant.
“When you say that the state she’s in concerned someone so much that they had to bring in the regional coven leader, I assume you mean she’s suffering from the effects of her exposure to the crystal ball,” I estimated.
Ebonee nodded in confirmation. “I know she was your point of contact where you found the object in the first place. If you knew she’d been using it, then I don’t understand why you wouldn’t be responsible enough to either ensure there were no lingering effects or to report it to a warden or to me.”
I stood, placing a hand on my hip. “First of all, we didn’t know there would be any problems. When I neutralized the ball on the spot, she seemed to recover immediately. There was no way of knowing that anything else would be wrong. Second, I thought someone did go and make sure she was clear of any ramifications of her exposure to the magic within the crystal ball.”
“And who did you leave that responsibility to?” Ebonee asked. “Because as far as my personal assessment of her health revealed, no one has done anything to mitigate her condition or stop her decline.”
“Uncle Jo!” I hollered in a most unladylike fashion, just to watch the stuck-up witch flinch.
Two quick stomps on the floor above let us know he’d heard me. “What?” he yelled back.
“Stop shouting.” Dad got up from his place and hurried to the stairs. “I’ll get him.”
While Ebonee and I were left alone with each other, I did my best to keep my mouth shut. I had plenty to say to the woman who came in here ready to accuse us of abandoning a dear friend in need.
“If you are unwilling to join the coven, then we will have to renegotiate terms to make up for all the help I’ve been giving to your family,” she exclaimed.
It took great effort not to roll my eyes at her. “I thought you said I wouldn’t be a good candidate?”
“It occurs to me that having a Jewell under my control could be more beneficial than keeping you out. Then none of you will be able to operate completely on your own without any supervision.” She adjusted her position in the chair across from me.
“Keep dreaming if you think having me in your organization will give you any added bonus other than having a pretty powerful elemental fire witch as a member. My presence won’t get you access to what I think you really want.” Although she’d never admit it, Ebonee and others like her desired access to our secret vault where we kept all the objects that needed to be kept under lock and key out of mortal hands and were sold to only thoroughly vetted magical hands.
The heavy clomping down the stairs alerted us to my uncle’s presence. “We’ll see.” She got in her last shot right before Uncle Jo joined us.
“Why don’t you stop browbeating us, Eb, and get down to why you’re really here,” my uncle demanded, snapping his fingers for Bobby to heel at his feet.
“I’m here because you let a mortal suffer. In the witch community, it’s one of the worst offenses, and I think the responsibility and accountability of it falls directly at your family’s feet.” Ebonee moved her ankles away from the reach of the dog’s tongue. “Were you a part of the coven, I’d already have measures taken against you.”
“But we’re not.” He took off his hat and scratched his head. “However, I do care that Myrna’s in trouble. You say nobody noticed she was having a reaction to being exposed to the crystal ball? Nobody helped her at all?”
Ebonee huffed with impatience. “I’ve already said that.”
Uncle Jo flashed me a concerned glance. “That’s strange. We have a friend who swore she would make sure Myrna was okay. If she couldn’t do it, I know she would have made her husband take on the task.”
“Give me the names of these friends of yours. I’d like to talk to them directly.” She opened her purse and rummaged around until she found her phone.
“No,” Uncle Jo refused. “I won’t be giving you their names. Not until I can contact them first and get their side of the story.”
Jackson and Marilyn didn’t need to be blindsided by a visit from the regional coven leader fixated on wreaking havoc just to annoy us. It puzzled me why neither of them had followed through and helped Myrna.
“Best guess, Ebonee, what do you think needs to be done to cure Myrna of her ailments?” Dad asked, ignoring the stand-off and bringing us back to the most important point.
Real concern flashed over her face. “Maybe because of her age or because she went so long without any help, my personal doctor couldn’t do anything more than give her a special draught that acted as a sedative as well as slowing down the effects. If we can’t halt the repercussions and reverse them, I’m afraid she won’t be long for this world.”
Uncle Jo cocked an eyebrow at her, scratching Bobby’s head. “Come on, you’re bluffing. No way is she that bad.”
“She is. And after consulting with my doctor, I think there might be only one solution to get her stable enough for her to do any good.” Ebonee paused, making us wait far too long.
“Sweet tea and spells, woman, what’s the solution?” My mouth erupted before my brain caught up. I clapped my hand over my mouth too late.
Ebonee didn’t react to my outburst. Instead, she worked hard to hide her glee. “I think she needs to be exposed to the crystal ball again.”
Even Granny Jo appeared out of nowhere, waving a wooden spoon in the air in refusal. The head of the coven suffered the dissent from all of us Jewells in silence, her face as calm as the surface of a lake on a still morning.
“You’re pulling my leg,” Uncle
Jo accused. “You’ve come here with your lies in order to force us to get the magical item out of wherever we’re keeping it just so you can get a shot at using it.”
With gravitas, Ebonee pushed herself out of her chair. “If you remember our bargain, I am supposed to have access to it whether you want me to or not. Giving you the use of my personal advocate wasn’t the only thing I’ve done to protect your family. You may have noticed that no one has come snooping around your premises looking for the object even though many have heard you have it.”
“We’ve had a few customers who weren’t quite right at the shops,” I added.
“And the wardens have been made aware of every single witch or inhuman supernatural out in the open or lurking in the shadows.” She concentrated on my father. “I’ve been providing you extra protection without even your knowledge, yet I’m receiving nothing I was promised in return.”
Without a braid out of place or even breaking a sweat, the woman had managed to get exactly what she wanted by putting all of us in a bind. If we continued to refuse her, she might rescind her help. It never occurred to me how little threat we’d had from outsiders trying to find the crystal ball. If she was indeed keeping them out, then we needed to have her on our side.
“I can go get it,” I volunteered.
Ebonee’s face relaxed into a smug expression. “I’ll wait right here.”
“No, you won’t,” Dad exclaimed. “Unless you’ve forgotten that you want us to bring out the crystal ball to help Myrna Miller. Not for you to use.”
A little of her confidence faded. “I don’t want to wait too long. I will return tonight with the patient. Eight o’clock.”
“You’ll make it nine or don’t come at all,” Uncle Jo proclaimed. “That’ll give us just enough time to fetch it.”
Nobody stretched out their hands to shake on anything. I noticed my uncle’s foot nudging Bobby closer to the coven leader. Once within reach, the hound licked her hand, leaving sticky slobber all over her pristine manicure. Losing a little of her composure from disgust, Ebonee gave us the opportunity to shoo her out of our house.
As soon as we confirmed she had left our land, Dad called all of us together. “We need to make a plan and stick with it. First, Granny will check Myrna out to see if Ebonee’s assessment is true and she really does need to be exposed to the crystal ball in the first place. Second, we limit the time of use. And Ebonee doesn’t get to touch it all.”
Uncle Jo sneered. “No kidding.”
“Third, after they leave, we will destroy the thing once and for all. If she’s right and we’ve had threats coming at us from all angles that she’s helped deflect, then we need to take what’s attracting the attention out of play. If that’s okay with you, Jo.” My father checked with the one who’d benefit the most from the use of the crystal ball if just one of my family or friends would agree with me.
Their refusal to see the ball as a useful tool meant I had a small chance at having it all to myself. “I’ll wait until the sun goes down and then take the boat out,” I offered. Changing the subject to the retrieval of the object allowed me to circumvent having to lie if either of them asked me to agree to their plan of destruction.
“She shouldn’t go alone,” Granny Josephine interrupted.
I gritted my teeth to keep from cursing. “I can do it.”
“We know you can, butter bean. But maybe I’ll come with you,” Dad offered. “The two of us can go through some of the items we’re keeping to see if there’s anything in there that could help Jo’s situation. Perhaps we should have been more proactive on that end to begin with, and then we wouldn’t be relying on Ebonee so much.”
With my original plan spoiled, I’d have to wing it to seize the opportunity to use the ball before its ultimate demise.
* * *
Ebonee’s arrival time loomed over us as my father and I took the small boat out into the intracoastal waterway right as the sun set and the sky darkened. Dad cut the motor and powered our progress with his own magical energy. We cut through the water without making a sound.
Small sea islands existed right off the edge of the coast. We wove our way in and out of some of the lesser ones, using the special compass passed down through the generations that magically connected to the secret safe Daniel Jewell conjured when he first arrived in the Colonies. The spell directed us to the one sea island that never stayed in the same place twice, making it almost impossible to find without the compass. Or being a relative.
We passed through the magical veil of protection like cutting through thick fog. Once inside the perimeter, Dad drove the boat onto the shore. The energy surrounding us buzzed like cicadas on a hot day. We walked the short distance from the beach into a clearing. The compass in my hand lit up like I’d plugged it into a light socket. The arrow pointing forward guided me to a specific spot until it whirled around in a circle, indicating I’d made it to the right place.
A metal door with no handle or lock shimmered into view in front of us. I touched the smooth surface of it, and it warmed underneath my contact as if saying hello again. I stroked the exterior like a family pet.
Dad chuckled. “I was going to recite ‘Endymion’ by Keats, but I think it wants you to do the unlocking tonight.”
The first time he taught me about our family secret, it surprised me to learn that everything from the island to the vault to the door reacted differently to each one of us. As long as we had the descendent blood from Daniel Jewell flowing through us, it recognized and responded to our demands of it. For my father, the door wouldn’t open unless it liked the poem he recited. It took me multiple times and many hours of frustration trying to figure out what it wanted from me. I’ll never forget the first time I got it right.
Clearing my throat, I closed my eyes and placed both hands on the metal. My voice rang out clear and true while I crooned Patsy Cline’s hit song “Crazy” to the door. I’d hoped it would open after the first verse and chorus, but it required me getting all the way to the end until the sound of clicking locks and other protective noises rose in the air. With almost an audible sigh of pleasure, the door gave way and opened wide, allowing my father and I to enter.
Sticking the compass into my pocket, I conjured a little orb of light with my hand and threw it a foot or so in front of both of us to illuminate our way. Much like the spell that allowed our house to be bigger on the inside than the outside dimensions suggested, the scope of the vault changed according to the amount of stored objects we needed hidden from the world at large. After last month’s midnight market where we sold as much as we felt safe getting rid of to witches and other supernaturals, the room we entered did not seem much bigger than the living room back at the homestead and was lined with three rows of shelves on either side.
As a younger woman, I’d had to hide my fear when in the presence of some of the objects. Not all of them were bad, but a few did things that would make anybody shake in their cowboy boots. A small nondescript wooden box rattled and jumped as I passed it, but I barely flinched, having gotten used to it trying to catch me off guard. Each item possessed a tag where one of us jotted down whatever the item was, especially for those wrapped in neutralizing fabric so they could be identified without having to pick them up.
I flipped over a few of the tags in front of the mysterious lumps on the shelves until I found the one I wanted. “Here’s the crystal ball.”
While I hummed the same tune from before, I contemplated the crazy notion of grabbing the object and making a run for it. However, the story about a very distant cousin who’d tried to rob the vault of a specific object and was never heard from again kept that idea at bay.
Dad joined me and opened up a bag made up of black neutralizing fabric sewn together to hold medium-sized items. “Hold this open and I’ll put the ball inside.” Once we accomplished our goal, my father wouldn’t even let me take it, yanking the straps out of my hands and throwing them over his shoulder.
“I wish we had m
ore time to look,” he said, reading another tag. “I wanted to find that one umbrella from a while back. You know, the one that would boost a protection spell and cover whatever building you opened the umbrella in.”
“The one with the seriously overpowered cloaking charm woven into it?” I clarified. “I think Uncle Jo sold that to a private buyer who was checked out by his friend in the International Magic Patrol.”
Having a low-level contact within IMP vastly improved our family’s chances at finding the best buyers possible and made sure that nobody higher up got any ideas about taking some of the objects off our hands for the organization’s own use.
Dad snapped his fingers. “Dang. I should have checked the log before coming out here. Ebonee’s got me all twisted up, so I forgot. Just to make sure we’re not late, I say we return with the crystal ball and come back tomorrow to really go through the inventory to see if there’s anything here that could help solve the murder without putting us at risk for using it.”
Once we exited the vault, the door closed tight with a metallic clang. Since I’d been the one to unlock it, it was my job to secure it once again. I placed my hands on the surface and leaned closer. Figuring that it tuned into the classic country sentimental vibe of Patsy, I chose “You Belong To Me” as my farewell. I felt the unseen security bolt into place as I warbled the last line that matched the song title.
Most nights when I rode in the boat away from finishing with the family safe, my heart soared with pride for the job that we did and the people we protected without them knowing it. Tonight, all I could do was focus on the black bag sitting in between my father and me, my heart racing at the thought of rebelling against everything I’d been taught just to take my chance.
Chapter Eighteen
W e set a small round table up in the middle of the living room and covered it with a neutralizing cloth. I’d scrounged around the different buildings, including my cottage, to bring in extra ones in case of an emergency. Dad set the crystal ball in center of the surface but kept it wrapped up tight, just in case he could find a way around using it at all.
