Magick and Mischief (Warlocks MacGregor Book 7)

by Michelle M. Pillow

  “I’ve seen my share of arranged marriages. I prefer the ones made out of love,” he said.

  Andrea set the coffee mug on the counter. “After their first and only child was born, the wife, my great-great-grandmother, found out about his mistresses’ children. It’s said she treated all of the illegitimate siblings very well, including the ones he had with the servants. Asshole-grandfather didn’t like it, and it’s said his cruelty killed kind-grandmother’s fragile heart. After she died, several curses were placed on him and he wasn’t soon behind her. One of my great-grandmother’s half-sisters came from a family of hoodoo practitioners. Over the years, the family practice has shifted and changed, but that is where its roots come from.”

  “So the half-sister’s family adopted your great-grandmother?” he asked, flipping a pancake.

  “Not exactly. As heir to the fortune, my great-grandmother had plenty, but to repay the kindness of her mother, the family did look out for her and taught her folk magick to protect herself. To this day, the two family branches remain close.” Andrea smiled. “Aunt Florence, one of the women I was talking to last night, is Grandmama Ruth’s first cousin, the daughter of the half-sister. They grew up playing together and now live together.”

  He stacked four pancakes on a plate and handed it to her. “Blueberries and cream are by the tray.”

  After she scooped toppings onto her breakfast, Rory appeared in the doorway. Seeing her holding the plate, he instantly snatched it from her. “Thanks, Andrea.”

  “What?” Andrea blinked in surprise. Rory disappeared before she could stop him. She turned to Kenneth. “But…”

  “Welcome to my world.” Kenneth chuckled. He had already poured four more onto the griddle.

  “I thought my family was a handful.” Andrea gave a small laugh and resumed her spot next to him by the counter as he cooked.

  “Need a tall stack and a short stack,” Raibeart announced from the doorway, holding Jewel.

  “Tall ’tack,” Jewel said.

  “Make that two tall stacks,” Raibeart said.

  “Hot ’tuff,” Jewel said, kicking her legs in excitement.

  “Sorry, muffin, you’re too young for the hot stuff,” Raibeart said, carrying the child back to the dining room. His plaid fairy wings looked a little tattered as if he’d crash landed. “Whiskey coffee for me. Cocoa for the fairy princess.”

  “I’m not a short-order cook,” Kenneth called after him.

  “Not with that attitude, you’re not,” Raibeart answered.

  “Yeah,” Jewel piped in. “Not wit’ that tattitdue!”

  “Is it me or has her language skills advanced since yesterday?” Andrea remembered the child’s gibberish when they first met.

  “I hadn’t noticed, but then I’m used to her little mental growth spurts,” Kenneth said.

  “Not that I’m complaining because I need a paycheck, but I don’t think you need a nanny. Raibeart seems like he has the job well in hand.” Andrea could tell Raibeart had a good heart, even with his naked drunken runs through the town and passing out in the public library. The man undoubtedly loved his niece, and she adored him.

  “That he does,” Kenneth agreed, “when he is around. Raibeart is a free spirit.”

  “Why do I feel like there is a story there?” Andrea asked.

  “Not much of a story. Sometimes a mood strikes him and he goes a little mad.”

  “That might explain why I saw him being chased by an invisible badger when I arrived in town,” Andrea said.

  “Could be,” Kenneth agreed.

  “Do you have a water kettle? I can start the cocoa.” Andrea waited as he pointed toward a cabinet. “You said he goes mad?”

  “Aye. Sometimes, rarely, there are people born who act as a type of siren for a warlock’s magick. It has to be the right warlock and the right human. We call them inthralls. They siphon off the warlock’s magick and can use it for themselves.”

  The sound of happy voices came from the dining room followed by a burst of laughter.

  “What does that have to do with Raibeart?” she asked.

  “His lover was an inthrall. She drained him of his magick and his physical energy. It left him broken and a little crazy. The magick and energy recovered. His sanity was another story. He’s been a bachelor ever since, who also happens to propose to every female he meets. He says he’s convinced when he finds the right one, she’ll say yes.” Kenneth flipped a pancake. “That’s not to say all inthralls are bad. Erik’s married to his. It’s worked out well for them.”

  “There could be something majorly wrong with a woman who says yes to marrying a stranger,” Andrea warned. “Raibeart should be choosier in his future wife.”

  “For all we know, a hundred of them have said yes, but he doesn’t remember.” Kenneth handed her another plate with pancakes before pouring more.

  She topped them, then went to the dining room doorway and called, “Order up.”

  “Mine!” Yet another MacGregor shot up from the chair to take the plate.

  “How about ya give it to the child, Murdoch,” Iain said, swiping it before Murdoch could lay claim to the food.

  Kenneth arched a brow when she came back to the kitchen.

  She gave a small shrug. “If you can’t beat them, join them. I figured I’d just go with it. And it looks like we’re going to need a lot more batter.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “What visit?” Grandmama Ruth’s voice was soft as it came through the phone. “Andrea, you’re not making any sense.”

  Andrea walked away from her car parked in the driveway. It felt nice to be outside in nature, stretching her legs and breathing the fresh air. Rory had left her cellphone in the front seat but thankfully it was charged. She’d called her grandmother for information, but hearing her voice made Andrea realize how much she missed the woman.

  A wave of emotion filled her and she couldn’t answer right away. The overcast sky diffused the daylight so that everything was bright and it hurt her eyes to look up, but at least there were no signs of storms. She studied the looming mansion. It would seem that her decision to stay allowed her to leave the house, but she had a feeling if she ran, another portal would open up and drag her right back.

  Kenneth had told her the mansion and surrounding grounds were protected, and as long as she stayed close, she should be fine. Andrea looked up at the window to Malina’s bedroom. Protected or not, the spirit had been there. But, with the clear skies, none of the usual signs were present and she wanted privacy for this phone call.

  She felt someone watching her and glanced to where the curtains moved. Margareta didn’t bother to hide her stare.

  “Andrea, are you there?”

  “I’m here, Grandmama Ruth,” Andrea answered. She walked past a large tree growing in the front yard toward the side of the house where Margareta couldn’t see her.

  “Where are you, cher? Are you safe?”

  “Green Vallis, Wisconsin.” Andrea could hear the worry in her grandmother’s voice. “I’m staying with friends. Yes, it’s a safe place. The MacGregors are like us.”

  “There used to be a MacGregor family with magick living down here years ago,” Ruth said. “Same one?”

  “Maybe. This family is from Scotland.” Andrea turned the corner to go down the side yard.

  “You said you were calling about a visit? What visit?” Ruth asked.

  “I’m talking about when I was younger. You were with Aunt Florence and we spoke through a doorway in time.”

  “Is that happening?” Ruth asked, surprised. “Flo, get in here. Andrea says it’s happening.”

  “What’s happening? The wedding?” Florence’s voice sounded far away. “We already know about that.”

  Andrea passed over the side yard between the forest and the house, unsure why she was compelled to walk in that direction. She saw movement in the trees and stopped, studying between the trunks.

  “No, the other thing,” Ruth said.


  “The baby?” Florence asked.

  “The other thing,” Ruth insisted.

  “The dance of the full moon?”

  “The other thing.”

  “The chickens?”

  “No.”

  “The banshee?”

  “No.”

  “Burnt pudding?”

  “No, that other thing.”

  “Well tell me. Don’t make me guess,” Florence grouched.

  “The spirit with the time slip from when Andrea was a girl,” Ruth said, as if Florence should have automatically known the answer. “We wrote it down somewhere in one of the old notebooks. Check storage.”

  “Pipe burst ruined all that old stuff,” Florence reminded her, sounding closer. “Besides didn’t we already do that? Here, give that to me. Let me talk to her.”

  Swooshes and bumps came over the phone as the two ladies fought over it.

  Andrea couldn’t see anything coming from behind the trees and slowly moved toward the back gardens. She slipped between two trimmed bushes and made her way to the landscaped path.

  “Andrea, it’s Florence,” her aunt said. “What you’re going to want to do is look the spirit in the face, but not the eyes, and say the chant. Call upon your family magick and banish that bitch back to hell. Go ahead, I’ll wait.”

  “Um, the spirit isn’t here,” Andrea said, “at least not right now. I don’t know where it is.”

  “Oh. Well, next time it shows up, you do that,” Florence said. “Do you have a pen?”

  “Not on me.” Andrea automatically glanced around for something to write with, even as she knew there wasn’t anything.

  “Okay, then you’ll have to memorize this list,” Florence said.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Cheese curds, string cheese, fresh mozzarella, and if you get the chance, there is a pizza place called Son—”

  “Give me that,” Ruth demanded, taking over the call.

  “She’s in Wisconsin,” Florence protested. “We need cheese.”

  “Did you do the chant?” Ruth asked.

  “When I first came across the spirit, I tried the one that said I meant no harm or disrespect but I don’t think I was assertive enough because it didn’t work,” Andrea said. “You tried to hand me a necklace.”

  “What necklace?”

  “Your silver coin one.”

  “Oh, that? I gave it to Annie years ago. She needed it for something,” Ruth answered before asking, “Which spirit is it? Lady in white? Lady in black? Lady Kathleen? Mister in the lake? Monster of—”

  “Mama Cecile,” Andrea interrupted, reminding herself that for Ruth and Florence, the conversation had been decades ago.

  “Why on earth would you try to send Mama Cecile to the afterlife?” Ruth shot back in surprise. “Cecile moved on before you were born. What’s left at that place is death echoes—screeches and scratches to scare the tourists. Oh, cher, I think your imagination is playing up.”

  “But I’ve seen her. She touched me,” Andrea denied, confused. “It’s not my imagination. You called and told me that she’d been luring people to their deaths and that I needed to get to the cabin in the swamp to take care of it. You said I was the closest person and the signs said it had to be done that night. Aunt Florence told me the chant to say. You told me what to draw on the floor.”

  Tick. Tick.

  The sound was soft, but she heard it in the trees. She stiffened, barely moving as she searched her surroundings. The skies had not changed. Nothing walked the path coming from the forest into the gardens. Leaves crashed in the trees as the wind moved through them, making it difficult to hear anything in the woods.

  “Is that what you meant when you called to tell us you failed and then took off?” Ruth asked. “We thought you were having an essential crisis.”

  “Existential,” Florence said.

  “Existential crisis,” Ruth corrected. “Why else would you take off across the country to find yourself?”

  “Who said I was finding myself?” Andrea frowned.

  “Annie,” Ruth answered.

  Of course. Annie.

  Andrea frowned. Her sister tended to fall on the more dramatic side. Also the one psychology class she took before dropping out of college tended to make her think she knew more about human nature than she did.

  “I’ve been trying to keep Mama Cecile away from our family,” Andrea said, still watching the trees for signs of anything abnormal. Insects hummed beneath the sound of the wind. “I went home and she followed me. You always said to trust my instincts, and they said to run, that if I stayed, you all would be in danger.”

  “We never told you to exorcise Mama Cecile,” Ruth said.

  “Because she’s been crossed over for years,” Florence inserted.

  “And we would have heard if people were dying in the swamp because of a spirit. She’s just a swamp legend told to tourists these days, a bunch of made-up ghost stories. If we had sent you on such a task, we would not have sent you alone, cher.” Ruth chuckled. “You weren’t our best student when it came to such things.”

  “No, she wasn’t,” Florence loudly agreed.

  That made no sense. Andrea distinctly remembered the phone call. She remembered questioning their reasoning in asking her to do it. She remembered the urgency. She remembered writing down instructions. Hell, she even remembered she’d been two bites into a pizza delivery when the phone rang.

  “You called me and told me to go,” Andrea insisted.

  “Whoever sent you, it wasn’t us,” Ruth continued, “and whatever marked you wasn’t the spirit of Mama Cecile. What you’re talking about seems to be a manifestation of something much more sinister.”

  “And personal,” Florence piped in.

  “If it’s borrowing the shape of Mama Cecile and using the legend to scare you,” Ruth continued, “then—”

  “Tell her it’s personal. The phantom chose her,” Florence insisted.

  “It’s personal,” Ruth said.

  “I heard her,” Andrea answered.

  “Tell her—”

  “She heard you, Flo, shush,” Ruth admonished.

  Tick.

  Andrea turned around, unsure if she heard the warning sound or just imagined it. She was always on edge and it was sometimes hard to tell reality from fear.

  “If what you say is true, how do I know this conversation is real?” Andrea asked.

  “Cause Grandmama knows all your secrets, cher,” Ruth said. “I know about when you stole ingredients from my cupboard trying to make a love potion for that bucktooth little Timmy down the street.”

  “Made him sicker than a dog,” Florence inserted.

  “It was for his older brother,” Andrea protested.

  “I know about the time you wanted nothing but peas for dinner because someone told you it would make your boobs grow bigger. I know you were mad that your mom got you a red bike when you wanted a blue one. I know—”

  “Fine.” Andrea stopped the stroll down memory lane. “You’re you.”

  “Good to know. At my age, I’m not always so sure,” Ruth joked.

  The wind in the trees picked up and the temperature felt like it dropped a few degrees.

  Tick, tick.

  “Grandmama, it’s found me. I hear it in the trees,” Andrea whispered, cupping her hand over the phone. “What should I do?”

  “Get inside and find a safe room,” Ruth ordered. “It’s easier to control smaller surroundings.”

  Andrea started to obey. A childish giggle came from the woods, followed by the sound of running feet over broken twigs and leaves.

  “Crap.” Andrea turned back to the forest. Her heart beat fast with fear. She wanted to run inside and hide. “I think kids are playing in the forest.”

  “Get them inside,” Ruth ordered. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with. They could be in danger.”

  Andrea made a weak noise and nodded her head even though her grandmother couldn’t see it on
the other end. “Call you back.” She hung up the phone and listened to her surroundings. She inched slowly toward the trees.

  “They don’t know,” she heard someone whisper.

  “You shouldn’t be out here,” Andrea said, torn between not yelling too loud but trying to be heard. “You need to come inside. It’s not safe. Uh…” She glanced around trying to think of something that didn’t sound insane. “The weather is going to get bad.”

  With her words, the wind seemed to pick up.

  “They don’t know…” the voice said again, the words trailing off.

  “I do know you’re there. I can hear you. Come inside.” Andrea tried to sound stern, hoping it would jar the girl into listening.

  “They don’t know that we’re here.” The girl’s voice came from another direction, singing softly this time.

  “But their hearts will fill with fear,” a second girl answered from the opposite direction, as if the two flanked her on either side.

  “They did try to send us back,” the first sang.

  “But we slipped in through a crack,” the second answered.

  Andrea couldn’t see from where the voices were coming. A chill worked its way over her. She backed slowly toward the house, hoping the door would be unlocked.

  “You should go home,” Andrea said, her voice not as firm as before. “I’m sure your parents are wondering where you are.”

  “They all thought that we were dead,” the first said, her tone lower and filled with growing anger.

  Andrea searched the gardens for movement.

  A tug on her arm caused her to cry out in surprise. Andrea spun around. A young girl with dark blonde curls stood beside her, holding tight to her sleeve.

  The girl wore a white dress with a petticoat under the skirt. A smile stretched across her innocent face, and she sang in a whisper as she finished her friend’s half of the verse, “But we will kill them instead.”

  The child giggled, her face decaying as she became transparent. Andrea jerked away. The girl’s form crumbled before disappearing.