Flames in the Midst (The Jade Hale Series)

by Reckenwald, Sarah

  I closed my eyes only to open them to Stefanie’s room in the very early morning hours. I rubbed my arms. They felt sore from where Cameron had gripped them. Knowing that couldn’t be possible, I turned to go back to sleep. That’s when I felt the wet spot under my lower leg. I put my hand down to my calf. I felt warmth that could be blood, but I couldn’t tell for sure in the dark. I pulled the quilt back and moved to the bathroom. In the light, I could see the small incision from the rock and the smudged trickle of blood. My heart beat like the wings of a bat in my chest. I found it difficult to catch my breath. I had no idea what this could mean, but it couldn’t be good. I sat on the bathroom floor to process what I was experiencing.

  After thirty minutes of staring at the wall, I came to a few conclusions. One, Cameron wanted me to know that my lagoon had some element of reality in it. Two, I still couldn’t trust him or even know it was Cameron I was dealing with since I had no idea what it meant to have a dream that was also real. Three, if it was Cameron, something wasn’t right. Why would he be concerned about me finding them or about innocent people dying? Finally, I couldn’t tell anyone about this. I didn’t know what it meant, but I knew I’d never heard of it before. Nothing that made me more unusual and unique was a good thing to share with anyone else.

  I cleaned up my leg and put a Band-Aid over the cut. I washed the sheets before anyone else woke up. I had moved on to my bags of smoke filled clothes by the time Stefanie came downstairs.

  “Wow, you got up early,” she observed.

  “I wanted to get some of my laundry done before we go to campus.”

  “Did you see my dad? He usually leaves for work around four or so.”

  That struck me as odd, but I had never really thought about the finances of running a coven of witches. I supposed some of them would have to work, and since Paul and his wife and daughter lived here as a family, and Paul wasn’t a witch, it would only make sense that he would be one of the people to work.

  “No, we must have missed each other.” I set a cup of coffee in front of Stefanie.

  “So, I convinced my mom to let me come with the two of you this morning. I have a few loose ends to tie up on campus, too, so she really couldn’t say no.”

  “That’s great,” I tried to smile at Stefanie. It wasn’t that I didn’t want her coming along. I just wasn’t looking forward to the outing. I intended to take only a semester off from school, but there was something very dramatic and almost final about officially withdrawing from my classes and moving in with a coven of witches at the same time. I could have simply withdrawn online, but since I had a bit more paperwork to take care of as a former ward of the state, taking the trip in to the university would make the process a bit easier.

  I began to make myself at home by cooking breakfast. Caylin and Alex came downstairs next. Mercy and Garrett did not come around for breakfast, but I made fried eggs and toast for everyone else. Caylin squeezed some orange juice while I was busy at the stove. Then we were off.

  Madilyn reinforced a spell around me to keep me hidden from any Shadow Rulers or Hunters that might be searching for me. Stefanie and I took care of our business on campus quickly. I hoped to run into Zach while we were there, but I didn’t see him, and if he saw me, he didn’t stop to say hello. I saw several dark auras on campus and realized any of them could be looking for me, but Madilyn’s spell worked well. The day went by without incident. I would have to learn that cloaking spell before I left the coven.

  The next eight days passed quickly, some more quickly than others. I essentially shadowed all eight Guardians. I asked them questions about their skills and their gifts, those who possessed them, and they asked me questions presumably to gauge my preparedness for the task that lay ahead. Amy and Madilyn had a history with me. Although it was much more recent for me than for them, they knew me better as they had kept up with me through my aunt.

  My day with Madilyn and Stefanie consisted of practicing a few spells and discussing my plans both for training and for my future. They were interested in what I thought I needed to know, and Madilyn was particularly interested in knowing what my plans were when this whole ordeal was over. I explained I wanted to learn her spells for keeping me hidden.

  “I honestly don’t know what I am going to decide, but initially my plan was to return to my old life,” I told them.

  Stefanie just smiled knowingly. Not only did she know why I was wavering now on that plan, but she also firmly believed I would end up with their group on a more permanent basis.

  “Jade,” Madilyn responded, “I can’t say that I approve of you trying to go back to your old life after all of this, but I do understand. The night I met you, I had just been ripped from my life. I had a young daughter, and I was dating Paul. I had been attacked in a parking lot on my way back from a night class. I thought my attacker was a mugger or a rapist, but then your mother shows up. She looks like a crazy woman, her lips moving and no words coming out, but this man responds to her. He starts doing the same thing.

  “One of the cars near us starts up and starts moving towards her. She didn’t even look at it. She just put her hand out towards it and continued her silent chant. The car slid right back into place. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Within minutes, the man who had attacked me is whimpering on the concrete, and I’m running through the parking lot with this strange woman. I didn’t get to know your mother past that night, but I knew after that night that I was a part of something much larger than myself.

  “The way I saw it, I had three choices. One, I could give in to the Shadow Rulers who were pursuing me and hope they did not find out about my daughter. Two, I could go back to my old life, but I had to worry about a daughter who might also be a witch, and I didn’t know how to protect myself much less the two of us. Finally, I could stay with Amy and become a Guardian like the woman who had saved me.”

  “Dad was a little shocked by the time she told him she was a witch, but I was already six by that time, and even I could perform a few spells, so he didn’t really need too much convincing,” Stefanie added.

  “See, the decision is not so easy for me,” I told them. “I only have me to worry about, so I’m not looking out for anyone else or factoring them into my decision.” Unless you counted dating Chase or wanting to date Chase as a factor in my decision.

  “In a way, you’re right, if you choose to be,” Madilyn told me, sounding more like Amy or my aunt. “But just because you don’t have a child does not mean that your decision only affects you. You have extremely rare gifts, and you have to ask yourself if you are choosing to do the right thing by choosing to do nothing with them. I know it’s not exactly the same thing, but in a way, it is like Clark Kent deciding only to be a reporter and never to transform into Superman.

  “Besides, you may only have to worry about yourself if you choose to, but you are not the only one worrying about you. Even though you haven’t been living with us, you’ve been a long awaited member of our family. Amy, Stefanie, Paul and I will worry about you if you decide to return to that other life.”

  They were beginning to feel like family already, which was a frightening prospect for someone who had lost her family in fragments on four different occasions. They had all known my aunt to some degree, and Amy had known my mother well, so if anyone on the planet could feel like family, it would be them. Even if I decided becoming a Guardian was the right thing to do, I didn’t know if I wanted to do it here. I didn’t know if I wanted to have a family again.

  I thought all of this, but all I said to Madilyn was “Thank you.”

  My day with Mercy was less than eventful. She hardly acknowledged my existence. In the morning, she greeted me and explained I would be following her around, observing. After lunch, she asked me a few curt questions about my experience writing spells. She seemed to take on an even more lofty air of arrogance when she discovered my experience amounted to the equivalent of a four-year-old’s experience driving for NASCAR. At dinnertime, she t
old me good night. We did not speak to each other at any other time during the day.

  I spent the day with her nephew, Alex, after that. He was much chattier, although I could tell he would rather be spending the day with Caylin than with me. She always seemed to be nearby, but she didn’t intrude on my time with her beau. Alex explained the key to writing a good spell was different for every person, just like the key to writing a good poem or a good song differed with each writer. Some people could only make a spell they wrote work if it rhymed or if it was in Latin. Other’s could take a shopping list and turn it into a spell, but if they tried to make it look more presentable, it would cease working. I would have to experiment to find out what worked for me. If I was talented, like Mercy or my mother, my spells could be used by others if I chose to share them. If I had not inherited my mother’s skill at spell writing, my spells would be for my use only.

  “How often is someone able to add a spell to a family spell book?” I asked Alex, figuring he would be a better bet to satisfying my curiosity than his aunt.

  “Well, that depends. If you are adding the spell to your family pages, then any spell writer with moderate talent can do that. If you are adding the spell to the communal pages, the ones that are shared with all other family books, then it doesn’t happen very often. There are probably only a few dozen or so witches who can do that, but no one really knows for sure. There could be more, but not everyone wants to share their spells with the whole community. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. You haven’t even written your first working spell.” Alex smiled at me. He had a friendly, outgoing personality. I liked him, despite his aunt.

  At dinner, I insisted that Caylin sit with us on the back patio. Caylin’s strawberry blond hair with her chic hairstyle was a sharp contrast to Alex’s head of coarse spiked hair. Yet, they looked like the perfect couple. They did not have the conflict Chase and I had. Although Caylin wasn’t a Guardian, she wanted to be one. She and Alex would fight side by side. As if Chase knew I was thinking about him, he slid next to me at the table.

  “Guess who you get to hang out with tomorrow?” he asked me, almost conspiratorially.

  We were obviously assuming we were in the beginning of a relationship rather than the end until I did something to prove otherwise. I smiled as Chase slid his arm around my waist and kissed my cheek. Caylin raised her eyebrows, but said nothing. From Chase’s actions, I took it there were no rules against us dating. I noticed Amy giving a disapproving look from inside the house, but if there were no rules about it, she really couldn’t do anything. We were both adults, and we could choose to date if we wanted to. However, I wondered for a minute if she were worried about me dating Chase or if she worried for Chase dating me. She probably should worry for Chase, as he was the one most likely to get hurt.

  I spent the next day with Chase, but we didn’t really accomplish much. He already knew a lot about what skills I had and what skills I lacked from the time we had spent together in St. Augustine. Accordingly, Chase had a somewhat romantic day planned for me. We walked through the woods together to the spot where we had shared our first kiss. Chase put out a blanket and set up a picnic lunch for us to share.

  I sat on the blanket, giddy with the excitement of a new relationship. Unfortunately, Chase felt this would be a good opportunity for us to talk. I just wanted a repeat of our first kiss, but it didn’t look like I was going to be getting that right away. At first, we ate in silence. Chase kept looking at me and smiling, but I could tell he was also torn. He knew I was not a sure thing in the ideal relationship department.

  “Look,” he started, “I know you aren’t sure what you’re going to do. I want you to stay here when all of this is over, but if we are going to continue this, I need to know that your staying here is at least a possibility. I need to know I’m not just a temporary distraction for you.”

  “You’re not just a temporary distraction for me, Chase,” I tried to convey my sincerity. “But I also know I don’t want to be a Guardian.”

  “Okay. I can accept that, even if I can’t understand it. Are you sure you will be going back to college when all of this is over?”

  “I honestly don’t know. I suppose there is a possibility I could stay here.”

  “That’s all I need to know, then.” Chase smiled and leaned forward, brushing my dark, dyed hair from my face and finally allowing our lips to meet. I felt the same heat build within me, although it wasn’t quite as intense as our first kiss. We stayed in the woods, making out, longer than we should have. Then Chase took me back to the house and we spent several hours practicing starting fires. No matter how often I practiced, I couldn’t get the focus I needed in order to light just one object on fire. I wished I could have the calm and focus I got when Anastasia was near me. I didn’t know how she was able to affect people the way she did, but I was sure she had paid a high price for it with her immortality. It could not be easy to live forever when you know those around you have only a finite amount of time.

  The following day, I actually had fun with Gia and Caylin. We spent the day practicing spells and hanging out. It rained, so we stayed inside. We took over the living room and lounged on the couches, snacking and practicing. Gia and Caylin took turns showing me spells, and then I would try them out, usually with very little success. It takes practice to really learn a spell, and since I hadn’t been practicing spells for years, I had a hard time getting the hang of any of them. Neither Gia nor Caylin seemed to judge me for my lack of skill. They encouraged me to keep practicing, and by the end of the day, I had about three more spells under my belt.

  I was nervous about my day with Kendra. Her shadowy purple and silver aura gave me an ominous feeling. Everyone in the coven trusted her, but I had a feeling their trust may be misplaced. However, I hadn’t seen anything from her that could give me reason to share my suspicions with anyone without revealing my third gift. So, when Kendra’s day came around, I was obliged to follow her around. I tried not to talk to her, but she gushed with enthusiasm from the moment we started our day.

  Over breakfast, Kendra asked me what I wanted to do with our day together. It all seemed like a fun adventure to her, as long as we didn’t have to dwell on why we were trying to train me on the super-accelerated pace.

  “I don’t know,” I answered, as noncommittal as I could be.

  “Well, why don’t we work on your firestarting gift a little bit for the first part of the day? I can show you some tricks I use to focus my levitation gift, and maybe you can use that for your firestarting,” she exhaled all of this at me without taking a breath in between.

  Her excitement radiated off her, but it just made me more suspicious. Although the thought of learning a new trick to focus my skills was enticing, I just didn’t want her to be any more aware of my gifts than she needed to be.

  “I worked on my firestarting with Chase,” I answered without providing her with an alternative.

  She was undeterred.

  “Well, then I will just demonstrate my trick for you, and you can decide if you want to use it on your own time. After that, we’ll break for lunch. Then we can work on some new spells. I would love to work with you on your time traveling, but Amy said that needed to be reserved for her. I know it’s not for a really happy reason or anything, but I am looking forward to traveling through time. It should be exciting. You must have been excited to realize you had such a truly rare gift, of course, you already had an exceptionally rare gift as a firestarter.”

  The way she was carrying on, she was beginning to remind me of an older version of Stefanie. This was not what I had expected. For a moment, I thought she might be nervous to be talking with me. That only made me more suspicious.

  “When I realized I could levitate things, I was thrilled. That’s why my mother decided to stop my father from teaching me more. I started levitating neighborhood kids in magic shows, so she sent me here.”

  She paused to chew a mouthful of eggs. I didn’t add anything to the con
versation. We sat and stared at each other for a moment. She seemed to take notice of my apprehension, but I think she misread it as something else.

  “Listen, Jade,” she said in a matronly tone of voice. “Honey, I know you have been through a lot. I want you to know that in a way, I understand. Probably more than anyone here. I’ve lost both my parents to tragedy, and my grandmother, who raised me, died of a heart attack just last year. If you ever want to talk, I’m here.”

  “Thank you,” I told her with as much sincerity as I could fake.

  The tricks she showed me as she levitated various furniture and knick-knacks turned out to be only minimally useful. She used meditation to block out all other distractions. It was a tactic I could use if I had the time for two things: first, to practice my meditations and second to implement them in the instant they were needed. She insisted with practice, I could call up the focus I needed even in the most pressing of circumstances, but I remained skeptical. I would practice her meditations on my own though. I didn’t think they could hurt, but she didn’t need to know about it.

  After lunch, she taught me how to cast an illusion spell. She could create the illusion of an entire person with her spell. Using her spell, I could create the illusion of a box, about the size of a small cat.

  “The basic spell,” Kendra explained, “is the same for everyone. You need to modify it for your needs. However, what works for me, will not necessarily work for you.”

  “I thought that if a spell worked for everyone, it just worked for everyone, and if it didn’t, then it just didn’t.”

  “Well, that depends on the spell.” Kendra smiled at me, but it only made her appear more sinister.

  “The person who wrote this spell only chose to share the backbone of the spell. It is up to each person who uses it to tweak it to their own needs and skills. I actually met a witch once who could create the illusion of a full city block. Most amazing thing you have ever seen. Of course, he used his skills to cheat unsuspecting tourists out of their cash. That was before the flood. Back when I was just a girl.”