After the Summerland (The Witches of Spring Hill Book 1) (11 page)

“Ro, you are going to have to
get used to the great outdoors,” Chloe calls back to her sister. “In fact,
maybe you should consider casting a spell that makes you enjoy it more,” she
says teasingly as she breaks into a run.

Rowan, feeling inspired
by Chloe’s carefree attitude, sprints to catch up with her. Not worrying about
anything, she focuses on how she
feels
and for the first time in a long time, she feels
good.

Not to be outdone by
his energetic sisters, Kaiden jogs happily behind them, happy about this new
connection that they have with each other. He can feel Chloe’s joy, he can feel
Rowan’s relief, and he senses his own need to understand himself in a way that
he never has before.

Chloe slows down enough
for Rowan and Kaiden to catch up to her and when they do, she spins around with
her arms open to the world. Smiling, she says, “Do you guys feel that? This electricity
all around us?” She giggles before setting off again on a path that only she
sees through a thicket of trees and rocks that make up the dense woods.

When she gets to the
entrance of the clearing Chloe waits for Rowan and Kaiden so they can all go
through the boulders together and enter the clearing at the same time. She has
been here enough times by herself that she knows that something profound
happens each time she steps through. Now that she knows of their abilities, she
is sure that when they all walk through together with the intention of casting
spells, the energy will become electric.

“What are you waiting
for, Chloe?” Kaiden asks, and before Chloe can answer him, he and Rowan step
past her and into the clearing.

Chloe watches their
reactions. By the widening of their eyes, she knows they have experienced the
awareness of the something “other” nearby, followed by the intense need to
brush away the goose bumps that crawl along the skin from head to toe.

The air inside the
clearing smells faintly of decay and a stronger musty, earthy, smoky smell that
has one conjuring up images of the people who used this land for their ancient
ceremonies.

Just as the smells are
identified and memories acknowledged, the wind picks up and clears the air, as
if the spirits of those present have accepted the newcomers presence and
cleared the air of the smells of the past. That same wind rustles the leaves
overhead and causes the tall pines to sway and creak, reminding them of their
place within the clearing, their place on the earth, and their connection to
all of the elements.

Kaiden quickly drops the backpack and rubs his
arms while Rowan wraps her arms tightly around herself, as if protecting
herself from whatever is causing this invasion of her senses. Chloe bows her
head as she always does when entering the clearing as she has always recognized
the sacredness of the space. She has always felt an affinity to the clearing,
which she knows is rooted in her love for all things earthy — gardening,
planting, growing, and harvesting.

She walks over to the
backpack that Kaiden dropped and begins taking out the items that they are
going to use for spell casting.

Rather than casting
three different spells, they decided earlier that together they would focus on
casting the circle and then cast a spell of protection. Although the Silvans
have not done anything to imply harm to them, Rowan, Kaiden, and Chloe agreed
that casting a protection spell should hopefully prevent anything from
happening while they begin their investigation of the Silvans.

Kaiden grabs the
newspaper and matches out of the backpack and heads over to the hearth to start
a fire.

“Chloe, are you sure it’s
safe to start a fire in this thing?” he asks, as he tries to look up past the
dense foliage to see where the smoke will exit.

“Yes, Kaiden. I’ve had
fires up here before and you’ve never noticed the smoke, have you?” Chloe
responds.

“I wasn’t looking for
it,” Kaiden mutters while arranging a pile of twigs, newspaper, and dried
leaves inside the fireplace. “And you are lucky Dad never knew you were
lighting fires up here by yourself. You could’ve burned down all of these woods
and the house.”

“He knew,” Chloe
responds and watches the surprise on both Kaiden and Rowan’s faces.

“What?” she asks. “When
I saw the hearth I told him sometimes I get cold when I’m up here and I asked
to use the fireplace. He told me it was fine as long as I never left it burning
when I was done and as long as I was always careful.”

“Well, I guess we’re
good to light it now then,” Rowan says, surprised at how understanding and easygoing
their dad seems to be, especially when someone is direct and honest. It makes it
even harder to keep secrets from him, but she knows he won’t always be cool
about everything.

Chloe sets the altar to
face east and then when she is satisfied with
its
positioning, opens it and pulls out the items inside. First she lays down the altar
cloth with the pentagram at the base of the altar. She arranges it the same way
she saw her gramps had it laid out on the night of their disclosure.

Next, she pulls out the
four candles; green for north, yellow for east, red for south, and blue for
west; the athamé, the correct name of the silver dagger; the iron cauldron;
salt; the gold chalice; the incense burner with incense; brown, blue, red, and
green stones to represent the elements; and finally, the wooden wand that will
be used to cast the protection spell.

Once she has carefully
pulled everything out of the box, she closes it and reverently traces her
fingers over the two pentagram symbols burned into the wood. In the center of
the altar is a mounted pentagram that was carved and burned by her grandfather.
On each side of the altar, distinct symbols are carved. One is of two crescent
moons surrounding a full moon, the same as the metal piece on the porch, which
she learned earlier represents the Goddess. The other carved symbol is a
crescent moon atop a full moon, the symbol for God.

She arranges the
candles to correspond with their appropriate direction, starting north and
following a
sunwise
or clockwise direction. She then
places everything else as it was in the diagram she studied earlier. Once
finished, she is satisfied that it looks just like her grandfather’s altar she
observed last night.

Rowan watches her
sister place every item in its correct place and admires her sister’s ability
to recreate the altar from memory. She grabs the box of matches from Kaiden,
who is fanning the fire, and hands it to her sister to light the candles and
incense.

“Thanks, Rowan.”
Wanting to include her sister, she asks her, “Will you help me to clean out the
circle? Let’s brush away these leaves, twigs, and pine needles.”

Usually not inclined to
help or clean, Rowan agrees because she is simply glad to be included in the
preparations. Since they have both been preparing things, she has been left
standing around doing nothing, which only makes her feel useless and
uncomfortable.

She grabs a handful of
twigs and pine needles and tosses them onto the fire that Kaiden started. She
smells the sap burning and warms her hands by the fire. She hasn’t been able to
get warm since they walked into the clearing and she knows that no amount of
heat from this fire is going to change that.

After what seems like
forever, Chloe finally says, “I think we’re ready.”

Kaiden and Rowan move
closer to their sister and watch as she pours salt into the cauldron and pours
water from a bottle into the chalice. She strikes a match against the box and
begins lighting the candles and incense. The circle fills with light
eliminating any remaining shadows and the scent of musk fills the air.

Chloe pulls out the grimoire
with the incantation needed to cast the circle. She takes the athamé and
touches it lightly to the water within the chalice and says, “
I consecrate and cleanse this water to
purify it
.” She then touches the athamé to the salt, and says, “
I consecrate and cleanse this salt to purify
it.
”

She faces north, lifts
the athamé to waist level, and begins walking around the circle drawing on her
own energy, the energy of her sister and brother, and the energy that is
already present within the circle. She waves the athamé above her head and all
around her, while saying, “
Here is the
boundary within this circle of stones. Nothing but love shall enter and nothing
but love shall come forth. Make this be by your strength and power, Spirits of
the Land.”

Once back at the
beginning of the circle, she reverently places the athamé back on the altar and
takes the bowl of salt, sprinkling it generously around the circle. At the
beginning of the circle she sets down the salt, lifts the red candle, walks
around the circle, and then, finally, seals the circle with the water from the
chalice.

Once the circle has
been drawn, Chloe closes her eyes and visualizes the colors and directions of
the elements by using the stones representative of them. She says, “
Spirit of the North stone, symbol of Earth,
I call upon you to be present in this circle. Spirit of the East stone, symbol
of Air, I call upon you to be present in this circle. Spirit of the South
stone, symbol of Fire, I call upon you to be present in this circle. Spirit of
the West stone, symbol of Water, I call upon you to be present in this circle.
Make this be by your powers, Spirits of the land.”

Chloe removes the
wooden wand from the altar. Drawing on all the energy that she can feel within
the circle, she begins the protection spell. She takes a deep breath, closes
her eyes and draws a pentagram in the air while saying “
Keeper of the Spirits, light of our lives, guard our bodies, and give
us the sight. Let us see those who mean us harm, while protecting us from their
evil charms. Make this be by your powers, Spirits of the Land.”

Chloe opens her eyes
and looks to her brother and sister. Rowan and Kaiden exhale at the same time,
letting go of a breath that neither of them realized they were holding.

Although they can’t immediately
tell if the spell actually worked, they know something definitely happened by
the way their skin is crawling and the way it feels as if the world has stopped
spinning on its axis. Together they close the circle, put out the fire,
pack
up their backpack, and head back to the house before
nightfall.

“I cannot believe we
are doing this,” Brianna whispers to Cian as they fall farther behind their aunt
Selene and Xavier. “What are we even doing out here?”

“I don’t know, but tromping
through the woods, which by the way, is illegal since the signs posted at the
road clearly stated ‘Private Property’, is probably not a smart way to deal
with the Alexanders,” Cian whispers back.

“Is it bad that I hope
we get caught?” Brianna responds. “They won’t do anything to us, but maybe Aunt
Selene will go to jail.”

“Nah, she won’t go to
jail. They’ll tell her not to do it again, maybe slap her with a fine and that
will be that,” Cian says.

Up ahead, Cian sees
that his aunt and Xavier have stopped walking and are looking back at him and
Brianna.

“What?” he mouths and
holds up his arms in question.

His aunt looks furious
and just stares them down until they catch up. When they finally do, Selene
grabs both of them by their arms and pushes them against a tree. “We will only
get caught if the two of you keep making so much damn noise,” she hisses, as if
she overheard their conversation.

Cian shakes her off and
stares daggers at her while Brianna cowers beside him. “Why are we even doing
this?” he asks. “We told you to give us time to get to know the Alexanders, but
you can’t even wait a couple of days?”

Selene is ready to
smack that smartass look off Cian’s face when Xavier breaks her attention away
from them by asking, “Do you smell that?”

Selene takes a big
sniff of the air and smiles when she recognizes the smell of fresh pine needles
burning. She drops Brianna’s arm and looks toward the sky, searching for smoke.

“We’ve got to be getting
close,” she says as she takes in the woods around them.

“Not necessarily,”
Xavier replies, as he looks around the woods seeing only trees and rocks as far as his eyes can see.
“Just because we can smell smoke from a campfire doesn’t mean it’s coming from
them, or that it is even burning nearby. The wind could be carrying the smell
from miles away. I think we should turn back now before it gets dark.”

“I know it’s them,” she
says as she pulls a map out of her pocket. She wasn’t sure if she’d have
service up here, so before she left she printed out a map. She is thankful for
how easy the Internet makes everything. There was a time when she would’ve had
to go to a county clerk’s office to get a decent map of the property, but now she
can easily pull it up online.

She didn’t see anything unusual on Google Earth
because of all the trees, but she could make out the property lines. This
helped her decide the best place to start the hike onto the property. Ten acres
is a lot of land to explore and without a decent map they could hike for days
without ever making it up to the house.

She consults the map
and then the GPS on her phone. She can see that they probably have not hiked
very far at all. Technically they are still climbing an incline, which means
since they haven’t come across any flat land, they are probably not that far from
the road. The woods are so dense that every few steps they have to change direction
to find another route up.

“Keep your eyes open
and your mouths shut,” she says to Cian and Brianna. “We’ll keep going for a while
and we have flashlights if it gets dark. So, let’s go.”