Making Magic: Books of the Kindling, Book 3

by Donna June Cooper

  “Doesn’t it seem odd? They were so young. And returning them like that? It is strange isn’t it?” she hissed.

  “I think that’s the point. They returned them. Kind of fouls up the whole sacrifice idea doesn’t it?”

  “Not if they’re looking for someone specific.”

  “Like a 666 birthmark or something?” He put his hands on her arms. “Mom, please, stop listening to Sarah. She’s not well. And I’m—”

  His mom pulled back and glared at him. “Of course she’s not well. They’ve been trying to stop her—making her sick.”

  That caught Jake’s attention. “Wait, Sarah’s sick?” The last time he’d seen her up close, had she looked any different? Since she tried to look old and decrepit for her trade, it was hard to tell if she was really ill.

  “Shows how much you know.” She dusted off her sleeves. “You’re as closed-minded about Sarah as you are about the Woodruffs.”

  Jake shut his eyes. It had been too much to hope that one night of normalcy meant anything at all. “What do the Woodruffs have to do with this?”

  “Who knows?” his mom said in all seriousness. “But there’s something they’re hiding. Something about that mountain.” She gazed off into the distance.

  He looked over at Sarah’s place and thought he saw movement in the doorway next to that unblinking neon eye. “Sarah’s not suggesting the Woodruffs have something to do with those babies?”

  His mom folded her arms. “You see? Closed-minded.”

  “Dammit, Mom.” He waved off her protest at his obscenity. He could think of a couple of things that he could do to put an end to this. He could take away the house, the car and the money, whatever it took until she stopped seeing that charlatan. Or he could tell her he didn’t want to see her or talk to her again until she stopped this insanity.

  But he had a feeling none of it would work.

  It would have been better if there were something they could see on an MRI. Something they could treat, or at least understand. At least he could remember, vaguely, what she’d been like before.

  “Fine,” he said. “Sounds great, mom. I’ll pass along your suspicions to Sheriff Sloan.”

  “You’re the sheriff. You need to do something about them,” she said.

  “Right,” he said again. As long as she didn’t actually hurt anyone, or herself, he could tolerate her ranting. He would deal with it if she tried to disrupt the Woodruffs lives again.

  She crossed her arms. “You are trying to get me to shut up, Jacob Moser, and I won’t have it!”

  “Look, I don’t care how sick Sarah is, if she’s sick at all and it’s not yet another con. I won’t have you or her starting wild rumors about the Woodruffs. They are good people and don’t deserve to have anyone accuse them of whatever Sarah is cooking up. Especially not those babies,” he said calmly. “It not only sounds insane, it borders on slander.”

  “Well I—”

  “Did I hear someone mention the Woodruffs?”

  Jake looked around to find a man dressed in khakis and a polo shirt standing at the door.

  “Yes sir. Can I help you?” he asked. Probably someone in town for the festival. Hopefully he hadn’t overheard too much.

  The man came forward, extending his hand. “Gregory Whitehead,” he said in a very cultured voice.

  “I’m Jake Moser and this is my mother, Marilyn. Welcome to Patton Springs.”

  “Mrs. Moser.” The man nodded politely in her direction and, of course, his mom smiled back sweetly. She always behaved well for strangers.

  “I was heading for the post office hoping to get some directions. My map app…” He hesitated for a moment. “The GPS on my phone isn’t working.”

  “Be glad to help,” said Jake. “Where’re you trying to get to?”

  “The Woodruff place, actually. I think it’s called Woodruff Herb Farm and Cabins.”

  “You have a reservation up there?”

  He seemed a bit flustered. “Actually I’m looking for someone. Althea Woodruff. I meant to surprise her, but the app sent me up some road that didn’t go anywhere, as far as I could tell. Then it went on the fritz.”

  Looking for Althea— “Yeah, Woodruff Mountain does that from time to time. It’s not your phone.” —to surprise her.

  He studied the man. An average-looking guy. Nothing special. Kind of bland. Sickly even. Maybe even homely. Okay, now he was just being jealous. But he was sure this guy wasn’t Thea’s type at all. Then again, who was?

  “It wasn’t my phone?” Gregory frowned. “But I couldn’t find the entrance.”

  “That happens. Sometimes the Woodruffs have to send an escort down to help folks find their way up,” Jake said.

  “And isn’t that odd?” his mom said, barely loud enough for Jake to hear.

  “Well that is odd, isn’t it?” Gregory said, echoing her.

  Jake cleared his throat. “Well, these mountains can be tricky. Guess she doesn’t know you’re coming? Surprise and all.”

  Again, the man looked a bit flustered. “No. And I didn’t know her hometown was quite so…”

  Backwoods? Country? Parochial? Jake could imagine what he was thinking.

  “…Small.”

  “Yeah, we’re small, but we’re one of the top small mountain towns for tourists. Whitewater rafting, fishing, hunting and hiking, you name it. And you’re here right in time for our summer music festival.” Jake sounded like a brochure, but for some reason the guy was getting on his nerves.

  “Music?” Gregory said, as if music wasn’t something he expected up here. “Oh, yes. Country music.”

  Jake tried not to bristle. “No, actually, there’s quite a variety. Southern rock, folk, Celtic, even some classical, if that’s your thing.” He was sure his tone wasn’t exactly warm.

  Gregory nodded. “I’m sure it’s great, but I’m here to see Althea.”

  And Thea doesn’t know he’s coming. And he calls her Althea. Bet she loves that. This guy was a long way from Philadelphia. Could he be a stalker or something? Jake knew he was probably glaring a bit, so he dialed it back.

  “And you know her from?”

  “Hartford Pharmaceuticals,” he said after a moment. “I’m a coworker of hers.”

  Jake expected the guy to bristle, but Jake didn’t buy his reaction. It wasn’t that he didn’t get a good vibe off the guy. He wasn’t getting any vibe at all, and sometimes that was worse.

  Jake flashed his best good-old-boy smile. “Sorry. I’m the county sheriff. Can’t take that hat off even when I’m on medical leave. Thea and I have been friends since we were kids.”

  He felt his mom stiffen next to him. Jake hoped she would keep her mouth shut.

  Gregory nodded. “I see. Well it’s good to know her friendly local sheriff is looking out for her, but permit me to put your mind at ease. Althea and I are—” he smiled, “—involved.”

  Involved? What the hell did that mean?

  “In a legal case?” Jake said.

  There was the slightest twitch below his eye, but Gregory’s face remained passive. “With each other.”

  “Really?” Jake loaded the word with as much incredulity as he could muster then fired both barrels. “Guess she forgot to invite you to Nick’s wedding.”

  The tic got worse. “Things have been rather busy at the firm since she left last week,” Gregory said. “I couldn’t get away until now.”

  Not only was he not invited, but he didn’t even know whose wedding.

  “Thea’s just down the street,” his mom volunteered. “Shopping or some such.”

  Damn.

  Gregory’s eyebrows went up. “On this street? Shopping?” he asked, as if there couldn’t possibly be anything worth shopping for in Patton Springs.

  “Yeah, but she comes in here every time she’s downto
wn, if you want to hang around and wait,” Jake said.

  The man’s hazel eyes swept the shop. “Really?”

  “You know she’s a musician, right?”

  There was that tic again. However they were involved, old Gregory here didn’t know much about Thea.

  “We spent most of our time talking about business. Not much time for hobbies,” Gregory replied.

  Spent, not spend, huh? “That’s too bad.” Jake smiled. “She won some major competitions right up until she went to law school.”

  “As I said, our profession doesn’t leave much time for hobbies,” Gregory said.

  The guy’s smile verged on smug. Something about him rubbed Jake the wrong way.

  No, everything about him rubbed Jake the wrong way.

  “When I saw her she was headed away from here,” his mom offered, pointing. “That way.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Moser. Nice to meet both of you.” Gregory nodded, heading out the door.

  Jake watched him as he sauntered down the street.

  “Maybe he’ll take her away from here, back to Philadelphia,” his mom said. She sounded hopeful.

  Not if I have anything to say about it.

  Chapter Eight

  Thea remembered the way she’d felt leaving Philadelphia—like a criminal sneaking out of town with her car packed to the gills.

  But Philadelphia had never been home. This was home. Leaving here was going to be hard. Very hard.

  She sat under the awning of the Sweet Things confectionary—a favorite place from her childhood. In front of her was what was left of a thick banana split milkshake which had served as brunch. Bailey lay napping at her feet, leash wrapped around the chair leg.

  No, she wouldn’t sneak away this time, but she still had to leave. She glanced up the street in the direction of HeartWood, soon to be Songs in the Wood. There were too many temptations here. And last night’s was the cherry on top of them all.

  Her family, even her ancestors, had abilities like hers—abilities meant to, if what she had been told could be believed, save the world. It felt as if she had found herself in the middle of a comic book or a movie. But this was real.

  It was all real.

  Grace, who understood Thea’s temper better than anyone, didn’t think that she had caused Becca’s injury or death. But Thea knew. It was her temper that made this talent such a dangerous weapon.

  At the age of six, she had lost her temper with her father, who had been yelling at Pops about Gram’s death. It was upsetting enough, watching him make Pops cry. But when he had threatened to keep all of them, Grace and Daniel and Thea, away from the mountain forever, Thea had lost it.

  “You’ll let us stay on the mountain with Pops and you won’t make him sad anymore!”

  And he had done exactly that, but he’d never been the same after that. Even as a child, she had noticed. She was certain it was what she had done. What her voice had done. What the voice had done.

  It had frightened her when her head had throbbed and frightened her even more when Pops had punched her father in the face. As a child, she had just thought that Pops was really mad at him. But as she got older, she wondered if her father’s nose had started bleeding before or after Pops had hit him.

  The drug her father put her on after that had completely repressed the voice during the school year along with her appetite. But the next summer, after Pops took her off the drug, she had learned that one temperamental outburst could have terrifying results. She wondered if Daniel remembered climbing into the goat pen because she’d told him to. He had ended up in the ER, but his arm hadn’t been broken.

  Daniel had started having nightmares after that, and she had blamed herself. Now she wondered whether she had really caused them at all.

  The drugs kept her ability under control for a while, but soon Pops had taught her some behavioral control techniques that helped even more. She had rarely used it again, and never in anger, until Grandfather Hartford tried to keep her away from the mountain.

  His nose had bled during their “discussion” about Tanglewood, one stubborn person pitted against another. And when he had died, it only reinforced her belief that her temper and the voice were a dangerous combination—even deadly. She had shoved it all into a box and kept it there.

  Until that night at the music festival. It had been a near perfect evening, with their little group, Appalachian Synchrony, performing so well together. Jake, Eric, Becca and Thea had a blast on stage, but it was Thea’s duet with Jake that had drawn the biggest applause. Classical music wasn’t something folks at the festival expected back then. Afterward Eric had headed off with his friends and Thea had been eager to celebrate her upcoming departure for the Curtis Institute of Music with Grace, Becca and Jake. Then Marilyn Moser had appeared.

  Thea would never forget the look on Marilyn’s face as she approached. She’d obviously been drinking. Those amber-colored eyes, the same as Jake’s, had been wide and wild. It was the look of a woman who had given up fighting her inner demons and went looking for them everywhere else in the world.

  The woman had never wanted her children to associate with the Woodruffs, but usually she was too much of a Southern lady to come out and say so. When she had been drinking, it was a different story. Since Thea was the lone Woodruff in their little band, she bore the brunt of the woman’s weird rants and had learned to deal with it. But that night, Grace had been there. Apparently one extra Woodruff had sent Marilyn over the edge.

  Marilyn had marched towards them, waving her fist and shouting. “Jacob Moser, I’ve warned you about those girls. They are full up with evil, those Woodruffs. All of them! I can see it and you can’t! Rebecca, get away from them this instant!”

  One of the tents was picked up by an errant gust of wind and thrown right into her path, but Marilyn had kept coming. She’d picked her way around the tumble of pipe and fabric, yelling her paranoid accusations.

  Becca had been mortified by the sight of her mother yelling at her friends in front of everyone. Grace had been horrified. But the defeated expression on Jake’s face had been the last straw. That was when Thea had lost it.

  “No! You’re the one who needs to go. Go away and don’t ever come back here! And don’t you ever say that again. Forget it, all of it, and just go away!”

  With that angry response, Thea had managed to get Marilyn to wreck her car and destroy Becca’s life.

  Thea stuck the spoon in her half-finished milkshake a little harder than necessary. At least she hadn’t lost her temper last night. But she had kept Marilyn from ruining Daniel’s wedding and without Marilyn showing any signs of stress. It had taken a lot of concentration to word things precisely so that the woman would enjoy herself without drinking, and drive home very carefully. It had given Thea the usual headache, but that had disappeared the minute Grace touched her ankle.

  And now her family knew about her ability. And she knew about theirs. They thought they needed her for whatever it was they were planning, but she couldn’t see how a small group of people, even people with gifts like theirs, could change anything. She had proven that trying to change things at Hartford with her little group of whistleblowers. The juggernaut of greed was too damn powerful.

  It wasn’t worth the risk. She couldn’t always control her temper. And she still didn’t know how the ability worked. For all she knew, it could be doing some kind of damage to the minds of those she influenced, like hammering a square peg to fit a round hole. It was too dangerous.

  And there was always the possibility of exposure. If the wrong people saw what she could do, as Nick had, they might be far too interested in using her for their own purposes. Surely Grace and Nick and Daniel were worried about that as well. There were some pretty evil people out there with some pretty warped agendas, even in their own government. If those kinds of people found out about their abilities, they could
end up being forced to participate in God-knows-what.

  She shivered in the warm summer air.

  But could she run now? Could she go off and teach music now that she knew what her family was up against?

  “Damn!” she said, startling Bailey, who woke up and looked around.

  Thea got up, hefting the bag that Ouida had given her on her way out this morning. Everyone else had slept in, but Ouida had assigned Thea the task of returning the extra wedding favors Mel hadn’t used to the pottery shop.

  She didn’t want to go back to Dreaming in Clay without something for Marty and Emmy. Unfortunately, she hadn’t had a chance to discuss Emmy’s situation with Grace or pick up the dulcitar and music for Aaron. But she wasn’t going anywhere near HeartWood today. Not after the way she had behaved last time.

  “Come on, Bailey girl.” Thea headed across the street, Bailey taking the lead.

  Things at the pottery shop didn’t seem to be going too well, she could hear an uproar inside. It sounded like things were breaking—fragile clay things.

  She picked up Bailey and went into the cool interior of the store. There was no one up front and all the noise was coming from the back room. She could hear Aaron’s voice.

  “I want you better, that’s all,” Aaron yelled. “You said it could fix you.”

  There was an inarticulate noise from Emmy. Thea couldn’t understand her, but Aaron could.

  “I don’t want them to send you away!” he yelled back.

  “Staaa pit!” Emmy cried. Thea understood that much. Stop it!

  “No! Not until you’re fixed,” Aaron yelled.

  There was a crash, a screech then silence. Thea hoped whatever was being thrown around wasn’t valuable.

  She waited quietly for a moment, but there was no further bickering, only the sound of someone moving around quietly. She walked over to the workroom door and stuck her head in.

  There were a number of raw clay scraps on the floor, but nothing finished or painted. Emmy was carefully gathering them and dropping them in a bucket—a task her tardive dyskinesia made more difficult. Hopefully whatever had been thrown around was already flawed or broken. There was no sign of Aaron.