Convicted Witch: Jagged Grove Book 1 (18 page)

What I do know is that if I decide to live here, that hedge is coming down, along with half the trees that block the sun. And that if Bilda is all right, I’m going to ask her to teach me about our magic - it’s obvious that if I’m going to stay in Jagged Grove, I need to know.

I can hear my footsteps pounding, and the fainter rhythm of Angelo’s sneakers behind me, but the hills are steep on this end of town and I’m falling as much as I’m running. If I’m not careful, I’ll land on my face.

If I’m not careful, something bad could happen to Bilda.

The streetlights are humming to life overhead by the time I spot our cottage. I’m glad to see that the street seems as quiet as it did when I left with Jones. I round the edge of the little fence and sprint up the walkway, not sure what I’ll find. I hope that Angelo is wrong. I hope that Rachel, whoever she is, hasn’t done something. I hope that Bilda is OK. I practically screech her name as I slam the front door open.

She pops up from the sofa, looking scared out of her wits. I stumble to a halt, and by the time I do, she’s gone gray. I don’t mean her coloring - I mean the actual air around her looks like smoke. I blink again, and I can barely see her pink dress.

“Bilda?” I’ve never seen this before. Is Rachel stealing her or something? Whisking her away in a bloom of cloudy evil? I take a step toward her, but I’m not sure what to do here. “Bilda? What’s going on?”

Angelo catches up with me and walks toward her. “Bilda - go ahead and put that away. Everything is fine.”

I stare openmouthed as the cloud dissolves and Bilda is clear again. “What the hell...?”

“I’m sorry dear - you frightened me. It was a simple protection field.” She waves a hand, as if she can make it dissipate even more.

Bilda smiles at me like she hadn’t just almost disappeared. I don’t answer, because my brain is still catching up. When it does, it’s sad to realize that it isn’t any less confused.

“OK, wait. You mean you have a built in force field? Like a space ship?”

Bilda giggles. “No, silly. More like a...”

“Cloaking device,” Angelo supplies helpfully, earning a glare from me. “Humans can’t see her behind the smoke. They can’t even see that it’s there.”

“So...you...sort of...ink? Like a startled squid?” I think about this for a second, then I snort laughter. “That’s ridiculous.”

She sighs.

“No, really. Ridiculous, but very cool. I want one.” The laughter is bubbling inside of me now, partly due to my mental image of Bilda inking and partly a response to the knowledge that she’s really OK. I come over and give her a hug. “I think you should do that a lot. Just to mess with people. I would.”

She shakes her head and pats my arm, pulling away from me. “I’m going to the kitchen for coffee, and then I want you two to tell me why you’re chasing through my house like hellhounds.”

We followed her through the doorway and arranged ourselves around the dining table while she fiddled with the coffee pot.

Angelo didn’t wait for her to finish. “Bilda, Trinket told me that Rachel was here earlier. Is she still here?”

I looked around like I could spot her, even though I knew I couldn’t.

“No. She left. She said she had some business to attend to downtown and that she would be back soon. Such a sweet girl.” She gives me a look over her glasses. “Why?”

I’m looking at Angelo too, now, but before he can answer a knock at the back door makes us all jump. I look at Bilda, but the air around her seems normal. Maybe it doesn’t happen every time. “I’ll get it.”

I don’t get a chance to, though, because Jones comes bursting in before I can even get out of my chair. His eyes skim me and Bilda, then land on Angelo. “Your girlfriend is causing a little trouble, friend. You might want to go get her.”

Then he turns to me. “And you might want to get to the office. People are going to need you. I’ll find Rain and Glade and send them over. Keep Bilda with you - she’s already given Rachel a way into our plane.”

I look at Angelo and see that he’s gone pale. “I have no idea what that means.”

Jones goes to Angelo and pulls him to his feet by one arm. “Come on, dude.”

Angelo blinks and nods, then follows Jones toward the door. Jones turns to me. “I promise we’ll explain all of this soon. Just go, for now. All hell just broke loose, and people will need help if they get caught up in Rachel’s tantrum.”

Bilda is still staring after them. “I didn’t know Angelo had a girlfriend.”

I don’t bother to explain. “I don’t think it’s like that, but right now I really need your help down at the office. Please?”

That last word - which I mean with all my heart because I’m drowning here - snaps her into action, except that she hurries off up the stairs instead of toward the front door. I look up there after her until she disappears from the landing. “Bilda?”

“Just a minute.” Her voice is muffled, and I hear shuffling. Then a couple of banging sounds. Then a door closing.

“Bilda?” I’m about to go up after her when she reappears, carrying a bulging green suitcase.

“What is that?”

“Just grab it for me, OK?” She sets it down and then pulls a shawl from the coat closet. “I don’t have the same gifts you do, so I’m bringing my own kind of magic.”

“Oh. Um, OK.” I have no idea what she’s talking about, but at least we’re out the door and headed the few blocks to my office. When we turn the last corner, we see that Glade and Rain are already there, waiting for us under the streetlight.

Just as I slide the key home, a scream sounds from close to the docks and echoes across the valley. Only then do I realize how quiet it is in town. Nothing is moving except a chilly wind that teases our clothes and makes me shiver once before I get us all inside.

Glade looks at me with worry in his gaze. “What’s going on? Jones said for us to meet you here.”

“I have no idea,” I answer, shaking my head and watching Bilda. She finds and flips on the bank of light switches, then goes through the exam room doorway. I wonder what she’s up to, but then turn back to the twins. “Are you two OK? Any trouble getting here?”

They shake their heads, but something in Rain’s expression tells me differently. I’m not going to push for answers right now, though.

Bilda has gone to the big worktable in the corner and cleared it, and now she’s opening her bag and setting out glass bottles in neat rows. Lots of them. “Bilda?”

She turns to me, and I see that the bottles are full of...everything? Green stuff - obviously herbal elements. Brown stuff, too. Liquids in every color of the rainbow. Some of the contents of the bottles are even moving, and I suddenly don’t want to know what’s in those at all.

“A lot of that stuff is already here. How do you know what we’ll even need?” I ask. As far as I know, she doesn’t know what’s going on, either.

“Because what we have on our hands is a havrue, my dear.”

“A what? I thought Rachel was a witch?”

“She was - a havrue is the spirit of a bitter witch. Very powerful, and very likely to take her bitterness out on anyone close enough to get in her way.”

“Okaaay... But didn’t you just spend the afternoon chatting with her? Why didn’t she kill you or curse you or...” I shrug. “...whatever it is that havrues do?”

She looks up at me, and her eyes look huge behind her wire-rimmed glasses. “It wasn’t me she wanted. Tell me - did Angelo say how Rachel died?”

I’m trying to think, but nothing comes to mind. “No. Only that she did, and then he asked me if I would take over. I was so shocked that I didn’t ask, actually. Does that matter?”

“Not really. Usually witches who commit suicide are the ones who become havrues. Their unhappiness won’t allow them to completely let go, even though that’s all they want.”

“Why would she be so unhappy, though? I mean, her home is incredible, she was evidently beloved here...?” I feel like I’m getting in deeper by the moment, and the twins look just as lost. Even as I watch, Rain scoots closer to Glade and takes his hand.

Bilda gives me a knowing smile. “It’s always about love or money, Trinket. Surely you know that by now.” She fiddles with her supplies for a moment, then looks past me to where the twins are staring out the window. “Something else to consider - that bitterness usually lies underneath even the most beloved personality and seeps out here and there.”

I look at them, framed in the window, then stare at her again. “You think she did something to their parents, don’t you?”

“Blakely has told me a few stories about this place. It sounds like Rachel was busy wreaking some havoc long before tonight.”

I look at the twins again just as a growl of thunder shakes the building. Tension sizzles through the air and the hair on my arms and neck stand up, making me shiver. The sky outside the window lights up red and throws the twins in sharp relief. I reach for them and pull them away from the glass just as bright white lightning momentarily blinds me. Rain squeaks and ducks away, dragging both me and Glade with her. “Glade, take Rain into the reception area. Close the curtains and stay away from the windows.”

Glade nods. They both look even paler than normal, which makes them almost glow in the dim lights.

I look at my mom and then nod toward the window. “Rachel?”

“Most definitely. She’s getting closer. Come here.”

I walk to where she’s still fiddling with something at the table, just as she turns to me and throws something at my face. I screech and duck, but feel some sort of grit hit all of my exposed skin. “What the hell, Mom?”

“Hush.” She walks closer and sprinkles more stuff on my head. It goes down the neck of my shirt and makes me squirm. “You need protection.”

“From you, maybe...” But she’s already gone, spreading the stuff everywhere - on the window sills, in the corners. It smells like some faint flowery mixture, at least, so it’s probably not dead, ground up animal parts or something gross like that. “More protection?” I ask, watching her. “Are you going to spread this stuff all over the twins, too, because you might want to ask about allergies first?”

She shakes her head. “They don’t need it, but you do. This is Rachel’s home turf, Trinket. I’m just fixing it so that she can’t come in without an invitation.”

I stop trying to wipe the stuff off my clothes. “Why would she come here?”

She doesn’t answer right away, just disappears into my office to presumably mark her territory or whatever in there.

I lean against the worktable, stare through the window just as rain comes pouring down outside, and try to think. If Rachel is a bitter witch - a havrue - what, first of all, would she be bitter about?

I go through to where Glade and Rain are sitting in the waiting area chairs. “Would Rachel have any reason to kill your parents, guys?”

They both look at me with perfectly blank expressions. Finally Glade shakes his head slowly. “Nooo. I don’t think so. Rachel and my parents were good friends - she used to come over for cookouts and stuff.”

I pause, trying to imagine a supernatural cookout for a second. Weird. “OK. Why did she stop?”

He shrugs, but Rain speaks up. “The ring. Remember, Glade?”

I look at Glade, and his face clears a little. “I don’t know if it’s why she stopped coming, but they got into a fight over a ring one night, not too long before mom and dad disappeared. There was a lot of yelling, and even some threats, but nothing that bad. I mean, nobody threatened to kill anybody.”

“A ring?” I can’t imagine killing anyone over a piece of jewelry. Bilda might be wrong this time. “Is that all?”

“Not a ring.” Bilda comes up behind me, making me jump. “A circle.”

“A circle?”

She ignores me and looks at the twins. They’re nodding. “They were all members of the same coven, weren’t they?”

Glade thinks about this, then nods again, curly hair bouncing. “Yeah, they were - I think. I was too young, but that sounds like what was going on. Even when I got older, I didn’t pay much attention to them.”

“They kept shooing us out of the room,” Rain spoke up in Glade’s defense. “Especially when Rachel came over.”

I think about this for a second, then look at Bilda. “So you think there was a problem within the coven?”

“Most likely. Women can get catty when it comes to assignments. I’ve seen it happen many times.”

“Assignments?”

She raises an eyebrow at me. “Like who gets to be High Priestess. Things like that. I’ll bet that Glade and Rain’s dad was High Priest, wasn’t he?”

They both shrug, but I get the picture. “OK, so that happened. Then what?”

Nobody answers me, so I go to the reception desk and lean against it, trying to think. I’ll admit that I don’t know a lot of witchy stuff, but I also can’t imagine a murder-suicide thing over coven politics. Maybe I’m sheltered.

I realize that I’m looking at the exact spot where we found Maggie. At the same time, I see a glimpse of something yellow sticking out from under the leg of the tall coatrack that stands off to the left, near the door.

I had noticed it before - a big wooden, old-timey thing with about ten curved arms sticking out - but I didn’t really pay attention to it. Now I do, and see that the base is about a foot in diameter, and plenty big enough to hide something. Coming back around the desk, I drop to my knees and reach for whatever it is I’ve spotted.

The floor in this corner is so dusty that I sneeze twice just getting the thing out, and when I finally do, I’m disappointed. It’s just a cup. One of those flimsy plastic ones that people use at picnics. Usually they’re red, but this one is bright yellow.

I sniff it, and catch a whiff of the odor that permeated the room when we found Maggie. “Ick,” I say, dropping it onto an accent table and standing up to dust the dirt off my clothes. A little of Bilda’s grit falls off my head at the same time, and I’m relieved to see it looks like dried herbs and something granular, like sugar.

The cup smells like Maggie’s death, and also like the mayor’s home brew, if Jones is to be believed. “I still think she was poisoned or something,” I mutter.

Bilda sweeps past me and grabs the cup, then carries it carefully back through to her worktable. I follow more slowly, trying to get a cobweb out of my hair. “Bilda, what are you doing?” I ask.