Calling Quarters (Beacon Grove Book 1)

by Jen Stevens

  He was the one who had set her paranoia into full swing. Nothing about our life together was the same after that day, and I'd always wondered what he could have said to send her onto the path that ultimately caused her untimely death.

  He was the reason I drove all the way to Beacon Grove to find answers.

  We locked eyes and he nodded at me, a smug smirk tugging the left side of his face as if he knew. He knew that I was here to investigate him. He knew he played a part in Aunt Ash's death. And he didn't seem to give a damn.

  He was dressed in the same type of clothing as before, all black and professionally pressed. We continued to hold each other's stare as he walked through the small space, silently daring the other to speak.

  Blaire noticed and followed my gaze. Her voice dropped to a whisper, and she cupped one side of her mouth with her hand. “That's Rayner. He's a real creep. He's basically the leader of the Movement.”

  My eyes snapped to her, and she clamped her lips shut, clearly realizing she'd said too much. “The Movement?”

  The memory from that day was faded and distant, but I recalled hearing him mention something about a movement to Ash.

  The door closed behind Rayner, and it was like my lungs could fill with air again. After years of constantly dreaming of the man who had turned my life upside-down, being so near to him sucked all the breath out of me.

  Blaire swatted her hand between us in an attempt to downplay her statement. “It's nothing. More of an idea than anything with substance. I'm not even sure you could call it that. It's kind of just a rumor, really…” she rambled.

  “Blaire,” I cut in, leveling her with a desperate look. Her liquid green eyes fell to the table. “Please… you can tell me. I need to know.”

  “I really don't know much about it. No one bothers including us in any of it. We're kind of the outcasts, you know? Being the town's midwives, they blame us a little.”

  When she noticed my confused expression, she shook her head and paused, glancing around to make sure no one was listening. “We can't talk about it here,” she finally whispered.

  I couldn't argue with that. I really didn't want anyone knowing that I was digging into Rayner's business, or that I might suspect him of taking part in my parents’ or Aunt Ash's deaths. It was probably best if we had this conversation in private.

  The thought occurred to me that Blaire might end up feeding me lies. Distrust seemed to spread through this town like a cancer, and I'll admit it had infected me a tiny bit. But once again, my gut told me Blaire was an ally. She was terribly naive about most things and didn't take social cues very well, but I realized I really liked spending time with her. The more she spoke, the more genuine she felt, and it was nice to know there was at least one person who I could somewhat believe in.

  Chapter 5

  Storie

  “I shouldn’t even be talking about this to someone outside of the coven,” Blaire groaned, shoving a throw pillow into her face to hide.

  “My parents were a part of Watchtower, weren’t they? Doesn’t that make me an honorary member?”

  Blaire’s eyes appeared above the pillow and glared. “No.”

  “Come on, Blaire. This is important. I’m asking as a new friend.”

  She sighed, and I knew I had her then. Blaire was desperately deprived of friendship. I’m not sure why, but people in this town seemed to walk in the other direction whenever she came near. Sure, she was quirky, but everyone had their tribe who accepted them no matter what. Everyone except her. She mentioned something about being left out because her family were the town’s midwives, but that didn’t make any sense.

  Either way, she needed companionship and I needed answers. I liked being around her and we were basically fast friends at this point. It’s not like I was being too dishonest.

  “Every coven has a hierarchy, right?” she looked to me for confirmation, and I just shrugged cluelessly.

  “Sure.”

  “Well, Watchtower has kind of a unique system. Most covens have to call the four elements into their sacred space for protection and guidance. They address each direction and element and invite them in. It's a ceremony of calling the quarters. Watchtower is unique in that we're such an ancient coven, we've been given our own set of Quarters by the gods. It's a role that's been passed down through those four families for generations. Do you follow?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay, the story goes that in order to keep a balance, the universe creates an opposite for each Quarter—a counterpart,” she held her hands together into a circle and then separated them in two halves. “Counters are born exactly twelve hours after the Quarter on a new moon and are rumored to be the only people that can take the Quarter’s powers away from him. Quarters are trained from the moment they can walk to hunt and kill their Counters, so they can keep their powers and continue to serve the coven.”

  She took a deep breath and smiled sheepishly. “See, it sounds insane.”

  She was right. None of that seemed realistic. It was like she was repeating a fairytale she'd heard before being tucked into bed every night. As if she knew the story and hadn't believed in it. But an isolated town full of witches and magic once sounded like a fairytale to me too, yet here I was.

  I had so many questions. “How do they know who the Counter is?” was the one I landed on first.

  Blaire shrugged her shoulders. “They used to track who was born within the twelve-hour period of a Quarter and kill the babe before it could grow up and become a threat.”

  I looked at her with my lip curled in pure disgust. “They killed babies just for being born at the wrong time?”

  “Yeah,” she stated and nodded quickly, stuffing popcorn into her mouth, muffling her words, “until parents began hiding their children's births from the coven. The Quarters are savages. No one really goes near them if they can help it.”

  She swallowed a large chunk of her popcorn and went on. “The women in my family have always been the town's midwives, so they're usually the one's relied upon to keep track of births. But women were afraid to admit they were in labor at the same time as a Quarter mother. They'd birth their children without assistance and hide them until the new moon was over. A lot of times, the mothers would die before then due to lack of medical attention.”

  “That's horrible,” I whisper, my thoughts lingering on my own mother.

  She died from giving birth to me, or at least that's what I'd always been told. Could she have been hiding me to protect my life?

  “It was a rough time, especially for my family. We were accused of helping the Counters and their families escape their fate. Grammy was all but cast out until my mom agreed to take over as the town midwife. Grammy was put on desk duty here at the hotel that her patents owned. Mom was only eighteen at the time.”

  “Have any of the current Quarters found their Counters?”

  Blaire stopped chewing again and looked over at me, her eyes going wide. “No. That's the weird part. They couldn't find any babies born on their new moons. It's the first time this has happened. The town is going a little crazy over it. Like, how did four children go undocumented and manage to slide under the radar?”

  My skin broke out into chills. It was starting to make sense: my parents’ deaths, Aunt Ash's paranoia, the warnings from Officer Kyle and Tabitha.

  Could I be a Counter?

  No. That was insane. I could entertain the stories and pretend all of this made any sense, but to suggest I had a role in any of it? That I was a part of this crazy town's history? That may have been taking it too far.

  But I was here to find the truth about myself, and every possibility had to be explored.

  Right?

  “All I know is that the mystery over who the Counters are is splitting the town in half. Some believe they're a threat to the coven’s existence and need to be hunted quickly. The other half thinks it's time to end the Quarters’ reign over us and rely on our own magic.” She pointed a salty finger at me. �
��That's the movement Rayner has been pushing. His brother was suspected of being a Counter to the Forbes when they were younger. They executed his father in front of the whole town to make a point: You can't hide from the Quarters. They took his brother away to be killed in private since he was so young.”

  My stomach flipped thinking of the poor boy and his father. How many people have lost their lives due to this silly tradition? How many children? Were they even sure that the Counters had the power over the Quarters that they were accused of having?

  I wanted to ask what side she was on. To know if I could trust her with my crazy newfound suspicions about myself and my past. But just before the words made their way from my mouth, Tabitha opened the bedroom door and waddled in.

  Her eyes lingered on me as she barked, “There's a customer at the desk, Blaire.”

  Blaire walked out of the room wordlessly, leaving me alone with Tabitha and her withering stare. Once she was out of earshot, Tabitha finally broke our silence.

  “She's a smart girl, but she's regurgitating fables that were told to her by people who only speak out of fear. I've warned her to protect herself from them, but does she listen?” She clicked her tongue disappointedly.

  A tight smile was all I could offer. She was so intense, and I was afraid to admit my own thoughts on the matter, especially to someone who would be so unforgiving if she believed I was on the wrong side.

  “I know what you're thinking, little girl. You cannot tell a soul about it,” she whispered. “Your parents died protecting your secret. You are either a threat or a pawn to these people—nothing more. If you want answers, you need to find them on your own. Don't trust anyone here to help you.”

  “Grammy, no one was there,” Blaire's voice called out from the hallway as she approached her bedroom.

  “They must have left,” Tabitha simply said, offering one last warning glare before she turned and left.

  “She's really losing it,” Blaire sighed.

  I didn't respond. I couldn't stop thinking about her warning—the same words Officer Kyle told me before even entering Beacon Grove.

  Did they both know what I am? And who else in this town was privy to my past?

  I purposely didn't bring the topic back up with Blaire and she seemed to have forgotten all about it, returning her focus to the movie and stuffing her face with popcorn. But my mind was too chaotic to pay any attention to what was happening on screen.

  I had to find a way to get Tabitha alone and make her explain more. She told me I needed to find out on my own—that I couldn't trust anyone here—but did that include her?

  Was she guilty of what they accused her of?

  Was she part of the reason my father and aunt left Beacon Grove so suddenly?

  Chapter 6

  Remy

  I once read about a study conducted on rats that tested their perseverance with the presence of hope and support. First, a group of rats were placed in a bucket of water and left alone to swim until they drowned. The process hadn't taken long, as they quickly gave up once they realized they weren't going to be rescued. The second time, the rats were brought out of the water just before they drowned, and then immediately placed back into the bucket to swim.

  The study found the rats that were rescued lasted significantly longer than the ones that were left to drown. They'd pushed their bodies to swim past their limits because they had been introduced to the concept of being rescued.

  They believed that eventually, they'd be saved again.

  When I first read about it, I thought the second group of rats was foolish, and that the study hardly represented how far one would go if only they had hope—this elusive concept of waiting for someone else to save you.

  Then, I grew up.

  I witnessed people drown in their metaphorical buckets because there was nothing left to hold onto. I also witnessed people survive simply because they believed they could. They believed someone would come along and save them, or that they could save themselves.

  Now, I sympathize with those rats. No one had ever reached their hands out to keep me from drowning. Yet, I felt this glimmer of hope that one day, someone will come along and pull me out of this hell. All I had to do until then was tread water.

  Of course, that was an incredibly stupid mindset to have. No one was coming to save me. They weren't coming for any of us. As the coven’s Quarters, we were the ones responsible for instilling hope. They trusted us to keep them protected and stop their magic from going too far.

  If only they knew how powerless we truly were. How long we'd been treading water; waiting.

  There were four of us born every generation. It was a requirement to produce at least one heir and continue the Quarter bloodlines. The gift was always passed on to the firstborn of each Quarter. It didn't matter if they were male or female, though the past four generations have all been male.

  Each of us was homeschooled as we didn't need the standard education to fulfill the duties of the roles we were born into. Instead of Math and English being our core curriculum, we were taught how to master our gifts and eliminate the only threat against them: our Counters.

  We were considered guardians of the Watchtower coven; each assigned a corner to protect and an elemental gift to use. As the Quarters of the west, my family drew magic from the water element.

  It didn't mean much outside of us being able to tap into ancient powers and make sure everything was in order for our coven. We weren't superheroes or anything, saving the world with our imaginary superpowers.

  Though, the rest of the town acted that way. In their attempts to offer the respect and honor that our fathers and grandfathers demanded, we've been isolated from the people we shared a home and coven with.

  It left us no choice but to lean on each other.

  We managed to create a bond between us more akin to brotherhood than anything else. No other generation of Quarters had stuck together the way we have, always too distracted with greed and competition.

  We made it clear that we didn't want to be anything like them.

  That was our first mistake.

  I found that the best time to be in town was when the mayor held their monthly meetings. In the cooler months, they gathered in the community center and spent the hour bickering back and forth about their menial issues. I’d take advantage of the peaceful opportunity to walk the downtown streets without being gawked at or treated like I was diseased.

  Unfortunately for me, they held their meetings in the town’s center during the warmer months, so walking through town wasn’t much of an option. Still, I found myself taking the empty back streets just to get out of the house.

  This time, an unfamiliar girl sat across from me, outside the hotel run by the Grangers. She was staring down at the phone in her palm with pinched eyebrows and pursed lips, irritated at whatever was on the tiny screen. Her golden locks were pulled to one side of her shoulder and curtained her face.

  Beacon Grove attracted a lot of tourists, especially in the fall months. They were easy to spot and ignore, always too engrossed in soaking up the town’s history to bother any of the locals. But something about this one felt off to me. I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  I stood on the sidewalk and openly gaped at her for a good sixty seconds before she sensed my gaze and lifted her head. We locked eyes for a moment, and it felt as if the air had been stolen from my lungs. The feeling was so intense, I was the first to break eye contact just to recover my breath.

  Whoever this girl was, she was trouble.

  I didn't have time to investigate it any further, though. Tabitha and her granddaughter, Blaire came walking down the street then, the rest of the town following closely behind. With one last look in the strange girl's direction, I stepped off the curb and walked in the middle of the street to avoid the oncoming crowd.

  ---

  “There's nothing special about her,” Rhyse muttered when Mystery Girl walked away.

  I asked them to meet me downtown a
nd see the anomaly for themselves, though they appeared unaffected. Lux and Enzo nodded their agreement, turning back toward the Alden estates to continue discussing our plans for Mabon in private.

  Most of the town would be celebrating at the harvest festival held in the town's center each year, but we were never allowed to join in on the fun. As the Quarters and families of the current and former High Priests and Priestesses, it was our responsibility to guard our four corners and keep the coven safe, especially when so much careless magic would be cast.

  The problem was that each year, our gifts dimmed. It took too much effort to do what was once an easy task for our ancestors. Our fathers and grandfathers were able to support the coven with little thought, even joining in on the festivities now and again.

  Now, it was us four in charge and we could no longer handle the burden. We'd managed to hobble by the past few years, barely making it work with what little magic we had to offer. This time, our fathers planned to step in and help and we were doing all we could to avoid it.

  Help from them always came at a cost.

  Anyway, it was the Counters. Each year that they lived took power from us and put the entire coven at risk. None of us were any closer to finding them and time seemed to be running out. If we weren't able to eliminate them as a threat, we'd lose everything.

  They were wrong about the girl, though. I knew the instant our eyes met that something was different about her. It was like my body was set on fire and my veins ran icy.

  The elders warned us there would be a reaction when we came into contact with our Counters. They'd never experienced it themselves since their Counters had always been eliminated before they became a real problem. But I couldn't hunt the girl based on a whim or a guess. We thought that if one Quarter felt it, the others would, too. Apparently, that could not be the case.

  I'd have to get closer to her to find out if she needed to be taken care of. That didn't seem like it would be an easy task when she looked at me like a serial killer. And if she were a Counter, I was sure there was someone protecting her. I couldn’t be as obvious about my interest in her as I have been.