Flames in the Midst (The Jade Hale Series)

by Reckenwald, Sarah

  I used my arms to raise myself slowly to sit on the bench opposite Aunt Lynn. Cameron did not even twitch a muscle in an effort to help me. I stared at the shot glass, already knowing what I had to do. The room spun around me, but sitting, I could focus in on the shot glass and make it stand still. I picked up the glass, feeling the weight of it in my hand, and threw it back in one swallow. Fine. I would help him, but I would try to save my mother as well.

  Chapter 4

  I could sense the room slowing to a stop. The strange vertigo that had afflicted me faded into a slight pounding in my head. I tried to stand, but had to steady myself with the table. This time, Cameron rushed to my side, a different person now I had agreed to help him burn his father’s place of business and residence to the ground. He held my elbow firmly, but I wretched it out of his grasp. His fingers felt like barbed wire on my skin.

  “I don’t need your help. Don’t you think you’ve done enough?” I gestured at my aunt.

  “You’ll need to sit down for a few more minutes. Elixirs are not instantaneous.” He sounded like a teacher attempting patience while lecturing a fifth grade student on the order of the alphabet. I should know this, but I couldn’t change the fact I had never really been engrossed in my studies of our family history or my abilities.

  “And she’ll be fine as long as you keep your end of the deal,” Cameron added as an after thought. I sat in the booth waiting for the pounding in my head to subside. I looked at Aunt Lynn, sitting stiffly in the opposite side of the booth, completely unmoving. She wasn’t even blinking her eyes. It was eerie, like being alone with a mannequin and feeling like someone was watching you. But Aunt Lynn was watching me. I didn’t know what to say to her, so I looked away at Cameron, sitting across from me in a wooden chair from one of the tables. He muttered another incantation, and I froze in fear for a moment. He stared at me as he reached to my right and grasped a glass of water that had made its own way to the table from behind the bar.

  “This will help with the headache,” he explained, “Don’t worry. It’s only water. I need you to be clear headed when you go back there.” His eyes never left my face. Something was not clicking here, but Cameron would have to remain a mystery until I could deal with him. I might not have all the knowledge I needed as a witch, but I had my special gift. That would be enough. I would make an exception for the man who threatened my family and possibly killed my mother. I knew he had to be involved in her death one way or another.

  After staring at me in silence for what seemed like enough time to read a Harry Potter novel, Cameron stood up. He said nothing, but grabbed my arm again and pulled me up from my seat. Luckily, my headache had subsided, or I might have dropped to the ground again like a lifeless doll.

  “It’s time,” he said, pushing me towards the black-painted door leading to the house behind the bar. “Burn the place down. Burn the books.”

  I walked purposefully towards the door, stopping just as I reached it. My hand grasped the cool metal handle. I could picture how hot this handle would be within an hour. It would glow like a lantern inset in the dark wood. It would burn an imprint into the hand of anyone wanting entrance to this hell. That was what I was about to enter. If entering the bar had been like entering a nightmare, entering the back rooms was my own private hell. Who enters hell willingly? I should be kicking and screaming and being dragged into its pits by vicious demons, but I knew my vicious demon was a Shadow Ruler, and he didn’t need to drag me, just coerce me by threatening the existence of my past. He held my past in his grip with an ice pick and my petrified aunt.

  “You’re running out of time,” I heard him urge me on. Hell didn’t make a difference to him. I took a deep breath and turned the knob.

  I imagined the door would creak open and reveal a dark hallway with mystic lanterns and cobwebs. Instead, the door swung easily and opened into a restaurant kitchen. Stainless steal glinted at me from every angle. Pots hung from the ceiling, and the tile floor gleamed as if it had just been mopped for a Mr. Clean commercial. I stepped into the kitchen and let the door swing shut behind me of its own accord. As I heard the latch click, I had a brief memory of how this worked and shut my eyes as pots and pans and cutlery appeared to fly in all directions.

  When I opened my eyes, the kitchen had vanished and was replaced with a long hallway, but it was neither dark nor gothic in appearance. I stood in the hallway of a slightly above average American home. The painted black door stood like a sentry behind me, and I knew if I opened it, I would once again find myself in the kitchen, staring at the black door to the bar. A witch would shut off the portal during business hours so kitchen staff would not be alarmed as witches appeared and disappeared through the doors. When business closed, as it would be from this night forward, the portal stayed open. Of course, after tonight, the portal would not exist either.

  Overhead electric light fixtures hung from the ceiling instead of mystic lanterns on the walls. The calming yellow walls appeared as if someone had decorated with the intent to sooth any inhabitants. I looked down at the beige Berber carpeting and could remember sitting on this floor, both hiding and playing. I looked back up to see two sets of interior doors on either side of me and a turn in the hallway far ahead. On my left, there were two doors, three on my right. I remembered a kitchen and living area of sorts around the corner in the hall.

  I placed my hand against the wall. I no longer felt dizzy from the elixir, but I had to reassure myself this really existed. Only hours earlier I had been in the middle of a party in a college town, celebrating the end of my first year of school. Now I had an enemy, and I was in the midst of pursuing a mission for that very man.

  This would be so much easier if Cameron hadn’t suppressed my gift. If I didn’t have to convince my younger self, I could just light this fire, find my mother, and be done with it. I concentrated on my breathing and pushed my hair back, trying to decide which door to open first. The haze of a dozen years and a subconscious repression clouded my memories of this place. I had never wanted to remember it. I felt a deep regret at forgetting now that I needed this knowledge. I knew it would come to me, but it would be slow and fragmented, possibly not enough or in time to do me any good.

  I slid my hand along the wall as I walked quietly forward. I toed the first door on my right, peeking through the small crack. Inside, I found a bedroom—simple and comforting. The same shade of yellow crept through the doorway and bathed this room in its warm glow. The dimmed lights cast eerie shadows on the walls, and I could hear the television’s low murmur. Jeffrey lay on top of the neatly made bed. His eyes were slightly open and concentrated on the television. He didn’t notice me, and I didn’t feel the need to talk to him. Quietly, I pulled the door closed.

  I took another deep breath and moved forward. Immediately, another door loomed on my right and further down the hall stood the first door on my left. I would search methodically in each room I came across until either my memory kicked in or I found my mother or my child-self. Something felt familiar as I turned the small round knob of this door. I inched the it open and peered into a small study. I couldn’t make out the color of the walls in this room because floor to ceiling bookshelves obscured them. Bulky, leathery, and over-stuffed furniture filled the room like grazing cattle. Against the wall to my right lounged a claw legged, polished leather couch. In the corner closest to the door lay a matching armchair. A large, oak writing desk stood grandly across from the couch. A fireplace took up the majority of the wall opposite the door with only room for a skinny bookshelf on either side of the fireplace. The built-in bookshelves looked as if someone had pressed them into a molding of the wall, and various books on witchcraft and history seeped from the overcrowded shelves.

  At first, it appeared no one occupied this room. I let the door swing open and stepped inside. Here were the books Cameron wanted burned, but I couldn’t do it by myself. My powers were useless, at least for now. I closed the door behind me and began to run my hand over the var
ious books. Why did Cameron want these burned? What did he have against his father that he wanted these books and this place burned?

  I rested my fingers on an older, leather bound book, a spell book like the family book I attempted to study in my youth. I pulled it gently off the shelf and sifted through the pages. This wasn’t just like the spell book I studied; it was the very book I studied, but the pages my aunt had added were missing. She wouldn’t add to this book for a few more years. My mother must have been keeping it safe in this room. Well, this book would not be burning tonight. I would have to get it to my aunt when all this was over.

  I glanced around the room and found a backpack in the corner by the armchair. I took three quick strides from the bookshelf to the armchair and set the spell book down. Average school supplies and college books filled the backpack. I emptied the contents onto the floor and shoved my family spell book into the bag. Was this what Cameron wanted destroyed? I may have disliked being a witch, but I wasn’t about to burn my family’s history. As I zipped the backpack up, I laughed. Of course, I didn’t burn my family history and spell book tonight. I studied from it years after the fire, after all.

  Setting the backpack on the floor, I reached for another book from the closest bookshelf. This one looked ordinary—a college American History book. I flipped through the pages and a loose page of paper fell to the floor like a butterfly landing gingerly on a twig, twisting in a slight breeze. I squatted on the floor to pick it up—probably notes some poor college student had taken before being plunged into this “wonderful” life of witches and wars. I stayed on the floor as I examined the paper. It was not notes after all. It appeared to be a contract of some sort. A contract tucked between the pages of an American History book.

  I sat on the floor and rested my arm on the chair with the contract between my hands. It held a simple statement. The words, written in a beautiful script with flowing loops, dripped down the page, followed by two signatures at the bottom.

  “I, Megan Harper, do hereby relinquish my abilities from now until the end of my life or the end of the life of this contract, whichever comes first, to Evan Michaels.”

  Both Megan and Evan had signed the bottom of the page. Megan had dated the contract—May 16, 2000. A small marking at the bottom of the page seemed to change continually. I couldn’t make it out, but it looked like a countdown of some sort, like on some Internet sites.

  None of this made any sense to me on several accounts. One, how was there a contract here in 1995 with a signature from 2000? Two, why had Megan Harper given her abilities to the professor? This started a slew of questions in my mind. Was this something my mother was working on with the professor? Maybe they were taking the abilities of Unknowns who did not want to be witches as a way of protecting them. Did my mother also have the ability to travel in time? Maybe time travel was genetic. I pictured my aunt and my mother gawking over me as an infant. “Aww, she has her father’s nose. Do you suppose she has her mother’s time travel gift?” That, of course, was ridiculous. I had to stay focused. Most importantly, why did Cameron want all of these books, and thus this and any other hidden contract, burned by a firestarter?

  As I saw it, if I convinced myself to burn the books or the contracts, I would hurt these Unknowns by re-exposing them. I would be undoing all of my mother’s hard work, and for what? She would die in the fire with this contract and these books. I felt lost. I didn’t know what the solution to the problem could be, and I found myself stuck between a wall of fire and an uncertain rewrite of history.

  From my vantage point on the floor, I now realized I had company in the room after all. From underneath the oak writing desk, two little feet poked out. I put the contract back in the book somewhere in between the American Civil War and World War I. I closed the book and placed it carefully upon the cushion of the chair. Slowly, I crawled over to the desk and peered underneath at myself. My child self looked mildly bored, but as we peered into our eyes, I sensed a measure of anxiety within her small frame.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone about your hiding spot,” I comforted myself. “Why don’t you come out and we can talk?”

  Little Jade just shook her head and continued to peer at me with those piercing eyes. I had never looked into my own eyes for quite so long. I wasn’t the type to stare into a mirror. This was really all too much for me, but I didn’t know what else to do, so I sat back down on the floor, drew my legs to my chest and mirrored my child self.

  “Why are you hiding?” I asked her. I wasn’t sure yet if she knew she had called me here. I/she was so young; it may not have been a conscious act. Actually, I was pretty sure it wasn’t a conscious act. Either I had blocked myself out of my memory or I had no idea I had ever traveled through time to save myself. Little Jade did not know she and I were one and the same. I sighed. That, of course, was the whole point of this journey. It wasn’t to save my mother, though I was going to try; it was to save myself. The concept of time travel stuck its participants in a constant loop. I had to call myself here at the age of three; I had to come back here at the age of seventeen; I had to save myself so that I could survive to come back and save myself. I suddenly remembered part of what “somewhat free to travel through time” meant. You were only allowed to interact with your own timeline once. No wonder; this kind of calculating could confuse even a NASA analyst.

  “Something feels bad. I’m scared,” little Jade finally whispered to me.

  “It’s okay,” I assured her, “that’s why I’m here. I’ll keep you safe.” As I said the words, I knew they were true, and I knew this smaller version of me took priority over everyone else tonight. I hated knowing that. It seemed so self-serving, but I couldn’t let anything happen to little Jade. Even though she was I, she was also a small, frightened child, but not a helpless child. As a firestarter and one of few witches with any abilities left in the Professor’s Pub, Jade was like a tiger cub—cute and vulnerable in some situations, but lethal in others. I would have to coax her into using her firestarting gift if it became necessary.

  “Why are you looking at the books?” little Jade asked.

  “Well,” I wasn’t sure what to say. I could lie, but there didn’t seem to be a point. “Cameron asked me to do something with them,” I ended up telling her. I seemed to be full of half-truths tonight.

  “Cameron?” she whispered again. I wanted to hear fear in her voice. I hated him already, but it wasn’t fear I heard. She sounded star-struck.

  “I like Cameron,” she said. I cringed. I know she was just a child, but she was also me, and I didn’t want to hear myself say anything positive about the man who was holding an ice pick to my aunt’s throat.

  “You probably like everyone,” I retorted. How odd to be mean to yourself. It took a few minutes before she replied. She got very quiet and pulled her knees in closer to her chest. Her eyes showed a glimpse of anxiety and apprehension again. I felt bad for upsetting myself.

  “I don’t like Professor Michaels,” she whispered. I could barely hear her.

  “Professor Michaels? But he’s a friend of Mom’s…I mean, he’s a friend of your mom’s. Why wouldn’t you like him?”

  “His color is wrong,” she confided. She was talking about his aura, but I hadn’t been able to get a good look at his aura before I drank the elixir infused lemonade. I hadn’t even made note of its color. She had to be wrong. Maybe my gift of reading auras had not fully kicked in when I was three.

  “What do you mean?” I asked her.

  “Don’t tell,” she whispered again, “I see colors around people. I don’t think other people see them.”

  “Why don’t you want anyone to know?” I asked. I knew the answer to this already, but the question just came out, a natural part of the conversation.

  “My fire made Daddy go away. I don’t want Mommy or Aunt Lynn to go away if they know,” she voiced the fear I kept with me until my teen years. After that, I didn’t tell Aunt Lynn because I knew the more rare gifts a
witch had, the more special other witches considered her. I didn’t want to be a witch at all, so I let Aunt Lynn think I only had one rare gift. Of course, she must have known about the time traveling, but none of that mattered now.

  “Your mommy and aunt Lynn love you. Having more gifts won’t make them go away,” I reassured myself, but I didn’t look convinced, so I changed the subject. It was better I not tell anyone about reading auras anyway. “What do you mean that Professor Michaels’ color is wrong?” I asked her, “I didn’t see anything wrong with his color.”

  “You can see them, too?” she asked me, scooting a little bit closer, my small green eyes getting a little bit wider.

  “Yes,” I schooled myself. This must be where I learned what they were called. “The colors are called auras, but very few witches can see them.”

  “I wish I wasn’t a witch,” she said. I sighed. Keeping a three-year-old on topic proved to be difficult.

  “I know, I wish the same thing,” I told her, “But sometimes you just have to deal with the hand you are dealt.” She looked at me quizzically, and I realized a card analogy probably didn’t make sense to a small child. “It means sometimes we can’t change things. We just have to keep moving forward.” She frowned at me and tightened her arms around her knees.

  “So,” I started again, “What is wrong with Professor Michaels’ aura?”

  “It looks normal most of the time, but it isn’t real,” she was whispering again.

  “Not real?” I had never seen an aura that wasn’t real. This made less sense than time travel. “I really don’t see how someone can have an aura that isn’t real. I’ve never seen an aura like that, and I have been able to see them for a long time.” There. The matter was settled. Cameron was the bad guy, and Professor Michaels worked with my mother to protect Unknowns by taking their abilities. Okay, that didn’t make much sense either.