by D. Fischer
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jinx Whitethorn
The day after giving Chip my pendant, I find myself spending time with my aunt. She had insisted when I told her about the dream of the wolf and how the wolf died. My ribs are still sore, but there’s no visible wound or bruise.
“This is it?” my aunt asks, looking out of the tower’s window. She studies the sprawling hills and visibly traces the tips of the trees that belong to them, all territory of the Riva Pack. In the distance, birds soar as one, plunging into the trees before spiraling back to the sky.
It’s after lunch, and since it’s been raining all day, I talked her into coming up here instead of trying to find space inside to train. I have questions. A lot of them. Some, I’m not sure I want the answers to.
“It isn’t much, but I enjoy it,” I claim defensively.
She smirks at the window. “That is not what I mean, Jinx.” She turns and bends to grab the travel coffee mugs I had brought with us. Inside them is her own homemade herbal tea. It smells like peppermint, and steam seeps from within.
“Then what do you mean?” I ask, taking the offered mug. I unscrew the top and breathe it in. Up here in the tower, the autumn’s damp chill has free reign. The steam washes over my cheeks like a mother gently wiping away a child’s tears.
“I meant, I’m surprised you stay up here instead of roaming those woods.”
“Oh,” I utter. I avert my gaze awkwardly.
“Does it not call to you?”
“It does,” I admit after a moment of speculating. The trees do have their appeal, and I admit to the surge of energy they give me every time I touch their trunks.
“You feel better when you’re closer to nature,” she says, not as a question but as an observation. She sips, eyeing the birds from over the rim.
“I do.”
“Then why hide from it?” I shrug and startle when she snorts rudely. “You hide from every piece of your life you cannot control.”
Laughing without humor, I challenge her with my own snort. “Can you blame me?”
She tucks a stray hair behind her ear and huffs a sigh. The breath briefly fogs the window. “No. No, I cannot. Tell me, Jinx. What is your most pressing issue? We’ll start with that and hope the rest of this mess straightens up from there.”
I think about it for a moment, rolling another sip across my tongue. The tea is hot, but not too hot that it burns. The wind howls against the large window, urging me to answer the question. “The Bane, I suppose. When it comes down to it, I don’t know how to get them to leave me alone. You don’t want me to break the curse, nor are you convinced that I can. So, I’m at a loss of what to do next.”
Silence, and I glance at her expectantly. She doesn’t return my gaze. Instead, there’s a thoughtful look on her face.
“You know a lot about them, don’t you?” I ask quietly. “That’s why you don’t want me anywhere near them. You fear them.”
“I know enough,” she says into the steam of her tea. “I know my brother didn’t want to wage war on them. That was never his intention, but he also didn’t want bodies to fall at his feet when he could have done something to prevent it. All he wanted was to eliminate the threat, and they killed him for it.”
“Instead of homicidal shifters, we have homicidal superhumans.”
She grimaces. “They are not forgiving people, Jinx. They are terrible people, stuck between man and creature. A caged wolf is dangerous, but a pack of them is lethal.”
The thought makes my stomach churn. I quickly switch the subject. “What was my father like?”
“He was a good man,” she whispers. “A thoughtful man. He cared for his people. You remind me of him, you know.”
My heart thuds hard. My father seems loved by anyone who knew him, and knowing I’m just like him . . . well, I can’t help but feel it is a lie. How am I supposed to live up to his name if I’m failing so miserably at who I am? What I am.
“What did he do for fun?”
“Ahh, yes,” she smiles fondly at the tower’s pointed ceiling. “He liked nature. Like you, it called to him on a level most couldn’t understand. Except for your mother.”
I nod. Witches and nature go hand in hand. It’s a different sort of way than it is for shifters, who need the untamed, lawless wild to feel free. Witches need nature to be who they are. Every spell and potion and magic is borrowed from nature in some way.
“Whenever Adriel wasn’t at home, I could always find him in the woods. Your mother told you about his abilities. Did it scare her?
“Not that I know of.”
“I always found that fascinating.” Though sincere, there’s a touch of jealousy in her voice. To grow up idolizing her brother and his abilities must have been hard as a sister. The shaman magic was always right out of her reach. I can sympathize with this. I lived this. It may not have been my blood relatives I had watched with envy, but the witches were my sisters all the same.
I pick at the brick of the tower wall. “Do you miss him?”
She looks to me now. “Every day.”
“Would you avenge him?”
Her face hardens, and the very air about her transforms into a defensive quality. “No. I told you, Jinx. They’re dangerous people. To avenge him is not within my capabilities.”
Rain pings against the old window. We’re quiet while watching two wolves trot up the hill – Travis and Trevor. They shift, snatching their soggy shorts from the ground while Damien and Cinder undress from their own. As the twins disappear into the compound, the remaining two release the reins to their wolves and dart toward the forest.
“My father always told us stories,” my aunt begins as Damien’s wolf splashes in a puddle and disappears into the trees, Cinder’s right behind him. “Proverbs and stories passed down from generation to generation and instilled in us until every word was like a heavy stone at the bottom of a river.” She sighs as the memories cast a faraway look in her aged and wise eyes. “There’s one in particular that comes to mind.”
Carefully, slowly, she turns and presses her back to the tower’s curved wall and slides down to sit on the cold floor. I follow her, eager for the story. A story that would have been told to me if my father had lived.
“A long time ago, the tribe’s village livestock were being pilfered by a lone wolf. They found the remains of two horses not far from their teepees, and none of them had heard the slaughter in the night. They had known a wolf was wandering around. Seen the tracks and corpses it would carelessly leave behind. But none had anticipated it would be hungry enough to get close to the tribe itself.”
“A lone wolf?”
She nods. “It is not common that a single wolf will venture from the pack to live on its own, but it does happen. When it does, I must learn to hunt and survive on its own.”
“What did the tribe do?”
“One night, the chief’s son wanted to prove his worth. He was too young to hunt the wolf himself, too small compared to its massive size.” She takes a sip of tea and I mimic it, enraptured by the story that’s playing so vividly in my head. “He took his father’s knife, sacrificed a snared rabbit, and took off into the woods with the blood still dripping from the blade. Once he was far enough from his people, he stuck the blade into the soil, climbed a tree far enough away, and waited. The wolf came before the sun rose and he licked the blade clean of the blood.”
I frown, open my mouth to say, “That’s it?”, but my aunt holds up a finger.
“As the wolf licked the knife, he didn’t realize he was slicing into his tongue. He continued to lick, starved for the taste of his own bleeding life, only to lose it to his own insatiable hunger.”
My breath feels too loud inside this tower. Too loud and too rough.
“Once the wolf was dead, the chief’s son dropped from the tree and carried both the knife and the wolf back to his village. The tribe celebrated. They took a piece of the pelt from the wolf, gave it to the boy, and used what was left of the
skin to make the first pages of the shaman’s book. And lastly,” she searches my face, “they took a bone and carved it into a pendant.”
I swallow thickly. Obviously, the shaman’s book has been added to since the wolf’s skin was used but . . . but . . . “That’s not possible. The pendant. It’s made from a shifter’s bone.”
“Indeed,” she agrees quietly.
“A rogue shifter.”
“Indeed.”
I cover my hand with my mouth. “Do you know how lucky the boy was to have lived?”
She inclines her head. “What did you learn from the story, Jinx?”
That this feud between the tribe and the Bane Pack goes back longer than I had realized. I don’t say that though because I know that’s not what she’s asking. Running a hand through my hair, I blow out a breath and stab at the answer. “No matter how tiny I am, I can still out-clever a beast?”
“Well, that’s one way to look at it,” she says with a smile. “It does not take much to save the people you love, as long as you remember what you are, understand your strengths, and use them to your advantage. The Bane may be killers, Jinx, but they’re as predictable as a rogue wolf.” She hesitates. “If you take on the shifters, I cannot stop you. But I beg you, do not approach this the way your father had. Ensure careful consideration of every avenue you can take. They’re clever, but you must be more so.”
Her words, remember what you are, echo over and over again into my head as I explore all the possibilities of what, exactly, that means. What it means for them, and what it means for me. Perhaps I’ll find my own trap to lay, my own knife dripping with rabbit blood, but not today. Today, I have one question that remains.
“What of the voices?” I ask so quietly, I’d think she wouldn’t have heard me above the sound of the rain. “The whispers? Do I hear them because of what I am?”
“Yes,” she says. The corner of her lips lifts with pride. “Spirits will soar until they find someone who will listen. Honor them, my niece. It is all they desire until they find their way home.”
Moments later, I empty my tea. “Do you have a hobby?”
She glowers at my change of subject. “Just music, I suppose. Both Adriel and I learned to play the flute.”
“The flute?” I grin, trying to imagine the large man in my one and only picture playing such a small instrument.
“Not the traditional flute,” she proclaims with a laugh. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this care-free. Maybe surrounded by the shifters with her people’s warnings about how dangerous they can be has made her quiet. Hushed. Reserved and maybe even frightened.
“What do you play?”
I blink at her correct assumption. “The violin,” I say, setting the empty travel mug down.
“Do you play well?”
My eyebrows raise. “At times, it was the only thing that made me feel normal surrounded by all the witches, so I suppose one could say I had a lot of time to practice.”
I don’t know how it happened, but it did. Fifteen minutes later, both of us are back in the tower with our instruments. Sara had looked at us questioningly as we trekked through the halls, me with my violin and Kaya with her wooden flute. I gave Sara a small smile of reassurance, and we took the stairs back up to this drafty solace.
Once settled back on the floor, my aunt strokes her flute lovingly. “Can you follow?”
I nod, tucking the violin under my chin and readying the stick to the tight strings.
She blows a note, a beautiful steady note, and eases into a song that practically dances in the tight space. I’m mesmerized by it, mesmerized by how it floats up into the tower’s high ceilings. Its reverberations bounce back to us, only adding to Kaya’s song. I hear the whispers of spirits singing along with it, imagining my ancestors dancing to such a piece.
My aunt looks at me meaningfully. I lift the violin to my chin and dive into the song with her, mixing both past and present into an honorable piece that seems to knit a trusted bond between us.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jinx Whitethorn
It’s two days later, and all I can think about is my father’s book and how Jacob and I are pulling farther and farther away from one another. Those two topics dredge up endless, pestering questions, and these questions begin to pound against my skull the more I ignore them. Despite myself, my attitude sours further, seeping out of my mouth with snapped responses to anyone who dares approach me with questions of their own.
Since ‘that night,’ as I mentally like to quote it, Jacob hasn’t slept in the same bed as me. All the shifters are aware of it. There are no secrets here. My dirty laundry airs in a metaphorical flapping breeze, and they all stare to watch this shit stain unfold.
I don’t know what hurts more: not being able to help myself from pouring over what I did wrong to Jacob or knowing that everyone knows about my problems. All of them. They’re all aware. I can’t hide anything from these people. Nor can Jacob whose emotions have dwindled from rage to a continual swap between confusion and disappointment. It’s all very confusing, and I’ve had absolutely zero experience in this area of relationships. Or the cut off of relationships.
Under the canopy of barren tree branches, I rub my temples.
“What’s wrong with you?” Sara asks, standing upright. She holds a handful of small leaves plucked from a patch of short bushes.
We’re in the thickest part of the forest, an area Sara seems to know well. I think Cinder told her to get me out for a while, and this is how she chose to do it. Perhaps she thinks to remind me of where I came from and of my mother’s teachings. Perhaps she thinks the familiarity would make me feel more like myself. The problem is witch life and shifter life are completely different from one another, and I, who fits in neither, drown somewhere in the middle.
I clench my jaw. This mini-adventure is doing the opposite. It only brings home the fact that I’m no closer to mastering what I am than the first day my fingers sparkled.
To avoid Sara’s probing stare, I scratch at the brittle, warped bark of a nearby tree, my faith in shreds.
“Nothing,” I lie, shaking my head a bit more than to be considered believable. I point at her hand using my newly acquired strip of bark. “What are those for?”
I know full well what they're for. She’s gathering lemon balm. Their leaves are great for balancing emotions, my mother would remind me when my mood was too surly for a witch’s serene and graceful lifestyle.
“For you,” she grumbles. My best friend considers me with a cocked head and then snatches another handful. She stuffs them in the purple recyclable tote bag she took from Amelia’s room. As a woman used to sharing and swapping belongings with her fellow witches, she’s been helping herself to Amelia’s selection of purses, too. I’m not surprised in the least, and oddly, neither is Amelia. I’d wager she enjoys having more women around, even a woman who, only days ago, frowned at my “hand-me-down” date night outfit.
I clench the bark in my hand, and tiny pieces of it break away, sticking to the lines of my palms. “For me?”
She nods. “You need all the good vibes you can get, and since the training with your aunt is…”
“Completely pointless?”
She raises an eyebrow. “Not working yet. And then the stuff with–”
“The glaring alpha or the big book of secrets?” She knows everything. I told her. Sara is one person I’ll never keep anything from. My secrets are hers, and hers are mine. Except, I suppose I haven’t given her the full details of the night Jacob and I shared with one another. When pressed, I had only shrugged. It had irritated her to no end, but eventually, she had let up. I’ve been reluctant to tell her since she was thrilled to see me go on an actual date. I feel like by sharing my heartbreak and my concerns that Jacob and I won’t work out, she’ll be disappointed in me. Being a disappointment to another person isn’t something I wanted to endure.
“Look, if you don’t want the lemon balm, then I’ll just–”
I cut her off again. “I appreciate it,” I say sincerely. “Really, I do.” I’d have to brew them in the tea Glenda had promised me before we ventured to the woods, but it’s the fact that she’s trying to pull me from my funk in the best way that she knows how that’s touching. She’s trying. She’s the only one of us with faith and hope. The only one trying to hold on.
My best friend doesn’t respond. Her gaze slides around the forest while she scrounges for more wild herbs. I know she hears me, and I know she knows I’m grateful she’s making the effort when most wouldn’t bother. I follow her dutifully, feeling more like a shadow than good company. More like thistles and weeds than a bouquet of flowers in the presence of someone who is so bright and sunny.
In our quietness, I work on breathing deeply and exhaling slowly, imagining all this anxiety pushing out with the warm air from my lungs. The forest is alive around us, wholly different than when Jacob had led me through it. Night creatures don’t skitter for darker shelter. Glowing eyes don’t peek back at us. Instead, bunnies hop lazily, and squirrels squabble in branches. Birds sing from the sky, their music gently floating down to us. Lazy, fat flies float from trunk to trunk.
“Why do you think that is?” Sara asks abruptly.
“Hmm?”
With a clump of moss in her hands, she stands, stuffing it in the tote. “Why do you think that you haven’t been able to do it? To skinwalk, I mean.” She looks back at me to make sure I’m listening.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. I break the bark in two and let the pieces fall to the brittle dry leaves. “I was able to do it when the Bane Pack was here, but not at all since then. At least, nothing past the finger trick and the weird whispers.”
Shoulders slumped, she chuckles without humor. “Your life has been a mess since then. Probably more of a mess than when you lived on your own.”
