Embrace (15 page)

Josh held up the sock and folded piece of paper. I took the handkerchief from my purse.

Kaylee sat on a pillow in the center of the room. She had a half-full sixteen-ounce bottle of soda, needle, thread, and several small bowls filled with various things I didn’t recognize arranged in front of her. Isaac handed me a ceramic plate, container of salt, and a small dagger-like knife. He handed Josh a length of rope, a white votive candle, and a bottle of water.

“Unravel a few pieces of rope,” Isaac instructed. “We’ll need them for the poppet.”

“Poppet?” I asked. The knife slipped from my hand and fell to the floor, point-down and a mere hair’s width from my boot. I quickly picked it up.

Isaac raised an eyebrow.

Kaylee grabbed a couple more pillows from the bed and tossed them on the floor so there was one for each of us. “It’s the doll for our binding spell.”

I had a pang of jealousy that Kaylee had gotten to spend the day with Isaac. She probably knew more about magic than I did. I wanted my best friend to be informed, but while she’d spent the day learning about spells and poppets with my boyfriend, I’d gotten to take a pop quiz in history, endure an endless parade of classmates asking me if Kaylee was okay, and sit next to the slime ball who’d caused this mess in the first place. My hands became sweaty, and this time the knife
and
the plate and salt slipped and fell onto the floor. The plate shattered into a gazillion small pieces.

“I’m sorry.” I dropped to my knees, pushing my purse behind me, and started to pick up the pieces.

“It’s okay.” Isaac moved his hand as if waving a thought aside. His powers brushed past me, sweeping the pieces into a neat pile. He used a dustpan to pick them up. “Is that what you wore to school?”

I looked down at my faded jeans and T-shirt. He was not going to tell me there was a dress code for preparing the doll. If there was, then Kaylee was underdressed too.

“Yeah,” I replied cautiously.

“You didn’t take any more jewelry from Mark, did you?”

“Of course not.”

“Check your pockets.”

“What?”

“Just check them.”

I did—empty with the exception of Kevin’s number. I quickly stuffed it back in my pocket. “Is there a reason you’re—”

The rest of my sentence never made it past my lips. Isaac slipped my purse off my shoulder and tossed it to Josh.

Before I could ask what he was doing, Isaac had swept me off my feet, tossed me onto the end of the bed—nothing romantic about it—and proceeded to yank off my right boot. “I would have taken them off upstairs if your mom had asked me to,” I said. The unexplained pat-down was starting to annoy me.

Isaac, however, either didn’t notice or didn’t care. I debated which it was as he turned my boot upside down and shook. He reached inside it next, groping around the toe. I’m not sure what he expected to find. He did the same with the left one.

“Here it is.” Josh held up a small brown sachet that he’d pulled out of my purse. He untied the strap holding it closed. “Red pepper, black yarn, bird talon, and hair.”

“A hex bag,” Isaac said. “It explains the sudden streak of bad luck.”

Isaac only knew the half of it. I couldn’t believe it: the near-miss car accidents, me falling down the stairs, dropping the knife—all the work of a spell.

“He tried to curse me again? That jerk!”

The talon was stained with blood as if it had been freshly ripped from the bird and placed in the hex bag. I remembered the crow Chase found at the park. How many birds had died for their body parts?

I stuffed my feet back in my boots. “So he killed an innocent bird to make that thing?”

“There are a lot of spells that require a talon from a raven or a black bird. Most of them are for dark magic,” Isaac said absently.

Josh created fire in his hand, burning the contents of the hex bag in his blue flames. “Come on. Let’s do this before he makes another one of these things.”

Isaac handed me another plate. We took a seat on the pillows.

“I want to cast a summoning spell first,” Isaac said. “Madison, put the plate on the floor in front of us and give Kaylee the salt.”

I did.

“A summoning spell is a way for a coven to know if one of its members is in trouble,” Isaac said. “It will connect our wills, and if we need help, we can call each other without a phone.”

He then explained the steps to the spell. We sat cross-legged on the pillows, hands palm-up on our knees, eyes focused on the plate. Kaylee began to build the circle.

“By the power of earth.” Kaylee poured a large pile of salt onto the plate.

All eyes turned to me, my cue to perform my step of the spell.

“By the power of air.” I drew a cross in the salt with the knife and placed the candle on top of it, twisting it from side to side to make sure it was stable.

“By the power of water.” Josh poured water around the edge of the plate, leaving the salt in the center like an island surrounded by a shallow pond.

“By the power of fire.” Isaac waved his hand over the candle, pushing out a small amount of power and lighting it.

I could hear our circle close around us with a snap.

“Kaylee and I made these today.” Isaac handed each of us a hemp bracelet. He placed his on the plate and told us to do the same.

We did. Isaac then pricked the tip of his finger with a pin and gave the pin to Josh, who did the same and passed it to Kaylee. I got it last. I stabbed my finger fast, getting the sting over with quickly, and watched as a bead of blood formed.

Isaac held his finger over the plate. “Swift as the wind, in times of need, let my cry be heard.” He used his thumb to force more blood out of the pinprick and let it fall in the salt. We each did the same.

Kaylee and I looked at a sheet of paper on the floor between us. It contained the words to the spell. We then nodded to the guys. Together, the four of us said, “By the powers of three times three, so we will it, so mote it be.”

The flame grew brighter, then returned to its original glow. The salt had absorbed the water, and the fire—filled with Isaac’s, Josh’s, and my magic—had dried our bracelets. When the candle flickered out, the spell was cast, and we were to keep our bracelets on at all times. Josh slid the plate to the side as we moved on to our next spell.

There was no way our sock poppet could be mistaken for a child’s doll. We stuffed it with dirt from the crossroad, sulfur, a spider web, Mark’s hair, shredded newspaper, and a few other items Isaac had ready. An unraveled piece of hemp rope separated its head and limbs from the body. Its arms were uneven, its torso too short, and its legs—which Kaylee had sewed after carefully cutting the top of the sock—were too long. If we penciled in a mouth and beady little eyes, it would have looked frickin’ creepy.

Isaac believed Mark would know within seconds that someone was binding him. We needed to cast the spell quickly.

Isaac twisted black ribbon around the poppet’s legs as he spoke the words to the spell, stopping halfway up its legs and handing the poppet and ribbon to Josh. Josh twisted the ribbon further up the poppet and repeated the spell, then gave it to Kaylee, who did the same and gave it to me. When I finished, the poppet’s head was wrapped. I gave it back to Isaac, who said the spell one more time as he wrapped the ribbon back down its body.

“What’s next?” I asked.

“We’ll bury it,” Isaac said and wrapped the handkerchief around it. “In a graveyard would be best, but under the corkscrew willow out back should work too. We better make sure Mark can’t bind us first.”

The spell to protect us was easier to cast than the spell to bind someone else. We already had the dirt from a crossroad and hair from the person we wanted to protect ourselves from. Add ash, salt, and spit, wrap in a cloth, tie closed with hemp rope, say a quick spell, and instant protection. We didn’t even have to get a shovel to bury it.

The trickiest part of the day came when it was time to leave. Kaylee couldn’t stay missing forever, and with Mark’s powers bound, she was safe. She had to go home. One look at her, and her parents were going to know she hadn’t spent the last twenty-four hours wandering aimlessly around Gloucester. She was showered, her hair and make-up were done, she was wearing the clothes I’d given her, and it was obvious she wasn’t starving.

“Can’t you cast a spell to make her parents forget the last few days?” I asked—more like groaned and pouted.

“No.” Isaac tied my hemp bracelet to my wrist and pushed me toward the stairs. “You can do this.”

I didn’t want to face Mr. and Mrs. Bishop, but I’d been elected to go with Kaylee for support. “How about turning back time?”

“You can’t relive the past,” Josh called over his shoulder as he followed Kaylee up the stairs. “Let’s just get this over with.”

I didn’t miss Josh’s choice of words:
You can’t relive the past.
Nor did I miss the look Isaac gave Josh after he’d said it. I gave the subject some quick consideration. I’d have been willing to bet that while you can’t relive the past, it isn’t impossible to visit it. Just my gut feeling; I knew Isaac would never confirm it, so I didn’t ask.

Isaac heaved a sigh. “I told you, time moves in one direction, forward. Besides, if we could turn back the clock—which we can’t—but if we could, the poppet wouldn’t be made because we wouldn’t know it needed to be made.”

Isaac picked me up and placed me on the bottom step.

I quickly wrapped my arms around his waist. “Couldn’t we hang out for a while? Pop some popcorn? Watch a movie?” With me standing on the first stair, I could look directly into his dreamy brown eyes. “With all this curse stuff going on the last few days, we really haven’t spent much time together.”

Isaac kissed my upper lip then nibbled on my lower one before the corner of his mouth pulled upward into a knowing smirk. “You’re stalling.”

“No. I’m trying to spend a little time with a pretty cool guy.”

He bellowed out a laugh. “Is that so?”

“Definitely.”

“You coming?” Josh called back down the stairs.

Isaac gave me a quick peck on my lips. “Just cast the calming spell I taught you.”

Easy for him to say; all he had left to do was bury the poppet.

“Fine.” I spun on my toes and marched reluctantly up the stairs after Josh and Kaylee.

Josh dropped Kaylee and me off in front of her house and sped away.

Coward. Not that I blamed him; Kaylee and I wished we were still in the car too.

We walked nervously up to the front door. Kaylee fidgeted with her keys as she looked at me, her eyes wide with worry. I dried my sweaty hands on my jeans and tried to relax. Not only did I have to face Kaylee’s parents, I had to face my dad. While simply telling my dad that Kaylee was home was tempting, I knew Kaylee’s parents would eventually call him. I knew it was better to tell the truth, or our version of it, right away. I could hear my dad now:
You’re grounded until you turn eighteen!

I uttered the words to the first half of the calming spell Isaac had taught me while Kaylee unlocked the door. Her parents bolted out of the kitchen as we stepped into the foyer. Her mom’s hand flew to her mouth as she gasped. Her dad turned as white as the walls. Tears streaked their faces. I nonchalantly held my hand in front of me and mumbled the rest of the spell, pushing my powers out in all directions. Her parents’ shoulders relaxed, and their tears stopped. Even I could feel the effects of the spell. I let out a sigh of relief.

I admitted to sneaking Kaylee out of the hospital, swearing I’d only done it because she’d begged me to. Kaylee explained that the medications the doctors had her on had made her hallucinate, and each time she’d started to feel better, it had been time for another dose. If it weren’t for how totally sane Kaylee was as she said this, we probably wouldn’t have been able to convince her parents. The calming spell helped as well.

“Where have you been all this time?” her father asked. His tone was much more placid than the vein popping out of his forehead would have made you think possible.

“I was afraid you’d just take me back to the hospital.” Kaylee glanced over at me. “So I talked Madison into letting me stay at her house.”