I tried to stay focused on light and darkness, but my thoughts wandered to Cameron—the man I shouldn’t be thinking about—and Chase—the man I was giving up so I could live a normal life. There were no clear answers for either situation, and sitting alone under the stars, I could be honest with myself for a few moments and recognize I had feelings for both of them.
By the time the sun peeked its way between the trunks of the trees, I was ready to go home. I walked inside expecting to find Cameron and Evan, but found Stefanie instead. She was alone in the cabin, looking for me. The library was empty. There would be no burning additional contracts. Evan and Cameron had left. They had gotten away, for now. I found a note on the countertop.
Jade,
Thank you again. I hope to see you, soon.
Cameron
I assumed he meant this to let me know he would still be invading my lagoon. The note made me want to smile, and that made me distraught. I couldn’t think about Cameron, Chase, or anyone else. I had to get Stefanie and I back to the right place and time. We had been gone for two days, so we would be arriving two days later at the house. Whatever the outcome had been with Garrett, we would be returning to it. Whatever effect our presence here had, we would find the result when we got back. We didn’t know what would be waiting for us, so we decided to go back at the correct time, but a different place. I put us on the outskirts of the coven’s property, and Stefanie and I began our slow and quiet walk back towards the house and whatever awaited us.
Chapter 17
We walked in silence. Darkness crept over the remaining light of day, as it had when we left. This walk through the trees and the night sky felt very different from the one I had taken only hours before in Salem. My body felt as if every inch of me was made up of a bundle of tangled nerves. When I walked through the forests of Salem looking for William, I was on edge, but I knew I was the key to the situation. I had confidence we would succeed, at least until I actually met William. Now, I knew the control did not belong to me. Whatever had happened had already happened, and we walked towards a hazy future.
Time travel, as I had learned over the past few months, had many restrictions. It ranked high on the list of rare gifts, but it was also among the most complicated of the rare gifts. It was the most difficult to change something in the time traveler’s own timeline. You were limited to interfering in your own life only once and that was reserved for your first journey through time, when you would be the least prepared. Additionally, whenever you traveled through time, you continued to age at your normal rate. When you returned, you had to return after the same length of time had passed. There were no exceptions. So even though we had only been gone two days and no one would likely notice I had aged an additional two days, we were still bound to return two days after we left.
That was how Stefanie and I ended up standing among the orange trees staring at the house on a dark and cold January night. We were both afraid of what we might find. The lights in the house were on, and they cast a glow on the ground I would have called inviting under any other circumstances. We couldn’t see anyone moving around, but smoke drifted from the chimney, so we had to assume everyone would be in the living room. We were still dressed in the clothes Sarah had given me. Our breath materialized on the cool air as we huddled by the trees attempting to gain courage.
Stefanie gained her resolution before me. She took off with long, determined strides towards the house. Once she started walking, I hurried to catch up. I couldn’t let her face whatever waited for us alone. So many possibilities raced through my mind, each one pressing for my full attention.
When we left, Chase and Kendra had been wrestling with a knife wielding Garrett. Had they won out? Someone had been cut. Was it Chase? Did he survive? Maybe it was Garrett. Who else was Garrett working with? Did they come to back him up or did they leave him alone to fight off an entire coven of witches? I couldn’t calm my mind, so I kept moving my feet to keep up with Stefanie.
When we reached the back door, Stefanie regained her senses and entered the house with as much caution as possible. We snuck through the kitchen and down the hall to where we could peek out to see who sat around the fire. It was our coven gathered in the room. Chase sat with Caylin, Alex, and Mercy on one side of the room. Madilyn and Paul were closest to us.
Stefanie began to sob at the sight of her parents. She ran to them, and they both embraced her, crying all the while. I felt a small stabbing pain at the sight of their family reunion and took it in stride. I felt this way around Stefanie and her parents from time to time, but tonight brought the feelings on much more sharply. I had no parents to embrace me the way hers were.
As if she knew what I was thinking, Amy walked over to me and wrapped her arm around my shoulder, steering me towards the fire. It felt good to have someone care I made it back, but only for a moment. As Amy sat me down by the fire, I felt Chase glaring at me from across the room. He had obviously read the letter. I pushed back any regret I might feel. Maybe it was a cowardly way to say goodbye, but I had done it, so I would have to stand behind it.
“Welcome home,” Amy was saying. “We figured you had reached some partial success when the death count in Salem decreased. We didn’t know when to expect you. So many still died. We figured you found success in September, so we thought it might be as much as three months before you returned. We’re so glad we didn’t have to wait that long.”
Amy was all business. She was proud we had completed the mission even though the plan did not quite work out as designed.
“Are you okay?” Caylin asked me.
“Yes, we’re both okay,” I answered. “There was another Shadow Ruler causing the problems in Salem. We stopped him, but Evan and Cameron got away.” I didn’t add I had to let them get away in order to get Stefanie back.
“What we really want to know is what happened here and just how many people died back in Salem. Did Sarah Hale die? How much of a difference did we make?” I asked.
Caylin did not answer any of my questions. She looked to Amy instead. I couldn’t read Amy’s face. She looked serious and grave, but also grateful and relieved. I scanned the room. Garrett, of course, was not among the faces staring back at me, but neither was Kendra. Had it been her blood on the knife?
“You were more successful in Salem than we could have hoped for, under the circumstances,” Amy began. “Nineteen innocent people were hanged and Giles Corey was still pressed to death, but after the hangings in September, the court was shut down and the remaining accused were released. Your ancestor, Sarah, was accused, but her being accused is said to be the cause of her husband’s change of heart. She was never tried, convicted nor hanged.”
“Thank God,” I said, not realizing how much I had been worried for her. I guess it comes from losing my family. Any family member, no matter how distant, becomes a vital link for me.
“What about here? What happened here?” Stefanie asked when she was able to break away from her parents.
“Where is Kendra?” I added. She had tried to stop Garrett from hurting anyone or taking me. My opinion of her had changed considerably since I last saw her.
“Kendra is fine,” Amy said. “She’s upstairs resting. Garrett sliced her arm open, but we stitched her up. He would’ve gotten me otherwise, and he might have gotten to you.”
Amy grew very quiet. She didn’t explain where Garrett was or say anything else. She simply sat down and closed her eyes. I reached out for her, but Chase got to me first, pulling me up to my feet.
“Let’s go outside and talk,” he said in a tone that told me not to ask about Amy quite yet.
I looked back to find Stefanie. She and her parents were also heading out of the room, overjoyed at their reunion. Gia and Mercy were moving to sit near Amy. Alex and Caylin brushed quietly past us on their way to the kitchen. Chase steered me to the front door and out onto the porch.
“What’s going on? What’s the matter with Amy?” I asked Chase, purposely avoiding any
conversation about our relationship—or rather, our breakup.
“She trusted Garrett. Amy invited him into the coven years ago. She really believed he was an amazing Guardian. He lived a much longer life than most Guardians. She saw him as more than a friend and a member of the coven. He represented hope for her that the good guys could prevail, that being a Guardian did not mean sacrificing your entire existence. It looks like Garrett’s luck wasn’t luck at all. He’s been playing on both sides this whole time—a Guardian when it suits him, a Shadow Ruler when the better deal is there.”
That explained the weak quality I saw in his aura. He wasn’t tired and worn out from fighting the good fight; he was a weak person at his core. Like Evan, no matter how many good things Garrett had done when he was playing the role of a Guardian, it could not make up for the evil he allowed into his heart when he gave in to the temptations of working with Shadow Rulers.
“Worse than all of that, she had to kill him,” Chase continued.
“What?” I knew I was standing with my mouth hanging open, but I didn’t expect Amy to kill anyone. She didn’t have a gift like mine. It would have to be done close up.
“How?” I asked as the shock began to ebb. I sat on the porch swing. I knew things were bad when we left, and I had assumed we would come back to find someone dead, I just didn’t expect for Amy to have been the one doing the killing.
“Kendra and I were trying to control him,” Chase explained, “but we couldn’t manage it. He had the knife held like it was an extension of himself, and even while he fought us, he was casting spells and directing them at everyone else in the room. We suspect he was also calling for help, but no one ever came. Amy and Madilyn were trying to slow him down with spells, but he was stronger than any of us gave him credit for—both physically and mentally.”
I sat still in the swing, feeling helpless. I knew I couldn’t change what had happened, and I did what I had to do in Salem, but it was difficult to know what the coven faced while we were gone.
“Kendra lost a lot of blood,” Chase continued with more details. “Amy makes it sound like it was a little scratch, but truthfully, she came close to dying. She finally couldn’t fight anymore, and as she went down, Garrett threw me off. Amy must have known what it would come to. When he came rushing at her, she moved so fast. She skewered him with the fireplace poker.”
I cringed. I had liked Garrett, before I knew he was out to get me, anyway. I didn’t like thinking of so much death. Like Amy, I only did what had to be done, but I had killed two Shadow Rulers myself in the past year. Of course, I could simply set them ablaze. I didn’t have to get close or deal with a dead body afterwards. I wondered what they did with Garrett’s body.
“There’s more,” Chase interrupted my thoughts.
“Oh, no,” I breathed.
“Amy doesn’t want to do it, but she needs to ask you to burn the body. We’ve buried him out in the woods, but we’ll have to dig him up for you to burn.” There was the answer to my unspoken question.
“What? No! Why can’t you just leave him where he is?” I didn’t have any desire to dig up and burn a rotting corpse. Garrett didn’t have any family. No one should come looking for him. Except of course for the Shadow Rulers he was working with. They might look for him. Still, I didn’t want anything to do with this.
“Jade, remember what I told you about the fire in St. Augustine? A fire set by a firestarter is hotter and more powerful than any accelerant known to man. Amy was protecting herself, but she was also protecting the coven when she killed him. That includes protecting you. She won’t ask you, but it needs to be done. So I’m asking you, and you owe me.”
This was a different Chase than the one I had been getting to know. It was some combination of the Chase I cared about and the one who was angry at me from the minute I set foot in this house. I found myself wishing I could really step back in time. Not the way a time traveler does, but in a mystical, erase all of my knowledge about the past way. I wish I could forget about being a time traveler and a firestarter and a witch. As much as I still longed for a normal life and as much as I knew I would still try to live it, I also knew now I did have a responsibility here.
“Fine,” I told him. “When?”
“Now. I’ll be right back,” he told me. I waited on the porch, and he came back in less than five minutes with two shovels and a flashlight. We trekked back into the woods, me following Chase.
“You know,” he told me, “What you did was not fair.”
“Are we really going to talk about this now?” I asked him.
“The semester starts in a few days. I assume it is now or never.”
“Okay. Why wasn’t it fair, Chase? I had a choice to make, and I made it.”
“Exactly,” Chase chastised me, “You made a choice. You made a choice for both of us. You didn’t give me a say in the matter. You just figured you knew the way things were, and you ran with it. You didn’t let me know. You never even tried to talk to me about it once you made your decision to leave.”
We walked in heavy silence for a few minutes. Of course, he was right, but what else could I assume? He had been appalled by the fact I didn’t want to live my life as a Guardian. We were just too different.
“I’m sorry, Chase,” I told him. “What was I supposed to do? You made it very clear you did not want a life outside of becoming a Guardian and working with this coven. I’m just not ready for that yet.”
“Yet?”
I hadn’t even thought about the word when I tacked it on. I guess I had changed. I felt the responsibility of my gifts when I used them to save Sarah and the people in Salem. I knew I had a duty to do good for others with my gifts, but I still wanted some level of normalcy in my life. I couldn’t commit to this life one hundred percent like Chase was doing.
“I need some kind of balance between the two worlds,” I told Chase. “I can’t live with the coven and dedicate every ounce of myself to being a Guardian right now. I want to go to school and create a different life for myself. But I’m also willing to help where I’m needed.”
We came to a stop, and I felt softer dirt under my feet. I took a step back so as not to be standing directly over the grave. Then we dug. We didn’t talk while we did the work. I thought about all I had been through in the past eight months. I never would have guessed after my first year in college I would end up digging up a shallow grave with a Guardian in the middle of the night wearing clothing literally from the 1600s. The first thing I wanted to do when we got back to the house was change. Then I would pack. I was ready to move forward.
When we got close to the body, I let Chase finish the digging. He moved as much of the dirt out of the way as possible. It wasn’t as bad as I had feared. They had wrapped Garrett’s body in a sheet. The crimson sheet was drenched with his blood, but I didn’t have to look at the man himself. I could start the fire from a safe distance and burn the sheet as well. Chase threw the poker from the fire into the hole as well. We’d buy Amy a new fireplace toolset.
I stepped back and concentrated. Although I was tired and I had never burned a dead body before, I could dredge up enough emotion about Garrett to start the fire. He had tried to use me, tried to capture me, tried to hurt Chase, and tried to kill Amy. The funeral pit burned quickly and with such intensity I forgot it was January for a moment. When everything burned, we began filling in the hole again. As I shoveled dirt in over the ashes, I noticed the poker from the fireplace. It looked melted and misshapen. I had no idea the fires I created were that hot.
We finished quickly, patting down the dirt with our shovels and covering the spot with pine needles. We walked slowly back to the house. It occurred to me Chase had not officially confirmed nor denied the end of our relationship. I didn’t really know where we stood, but I figured on assuming a break up unless something else worked itself out. I needed to be on my own for a while anyway.
Before we entered the house, Chase stopped and turned me to face him.
/> “I’m sorry you didn’t catch Evan and Cameron,” he told me.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll catch up with them another time.” Of course, I would have to figure out what time they were in, but I had a feeling I would find out eventually.
“So, this is it then?” he asked.
“I think so.”
“But you’ll be back, at least every now and then?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll see you around,” he said. He leaned down and kissed me just as passionately as he had when we had kissed for the first time. I didn’t feel like we were kissing inside of a star tonight, but I did feel a warmth, a tenderness for him. It took all of my strength to let him go, but I had made this decision. I was heading back to the life I wanted to make for myself. When he walked away, he didn’t look back.
Weeks later, I sat in my own apartment studying for my first American History exam of the semester. I thought about how I could just travel back to check out how things actually played out. I might do that in the future sometime. For the time being, I was content to go to class. I had to keep on alert now that Shadow Rulers were looking for me, but I did my best to lead a normal life. Amy and Madilyn came over to put a spell on my new apartment as a housewarming gift. I couldn’t quite live as an Unknown, not that I would want to anymore, but I could live on my own in relative safety.
Zach and I were running partners again. He didn’t remember me ever being like a sister to him, but he did remember us being friends and going running together. I kept him at a safe distance for two reasons. One, I didn’t want to put him in harm’s way again. Two, since he no longer looked at me as a sister, he did funny things around me he used to do only around other girls, like cover his mouth to pick food out of his teeth. It was a small change, but it was a change. I may not be like a sister to him anymore, but he was still like a brother in my eyes, so I kept our friendship on a low simmer. We went running about three times a week, and we talked if we saw each other on campus, but it was very low key.
Flames in the Midst (The Jade Hale Series) Page 27
