Spellbound (6 page)

The Council were specific when they suggested we come to Lancaster.” She faltered here, and appeared hesitant to go on. “I suppose now would be as good a time as any to tell you about the Council.” At this point, Elizabeth arose from her seat and began to walk around the room, seeming to be more comfortable talking while moving, as if the words came easier if she kept mobile.

“The Council is our governing body. They are the deciding force behind what we are allowed to do, where we are allowed to live and with whom we are allowed to co-‐-exist. The Council normally consists of twelve senior witches and the leader of the coven. Our current Council is not even made up of witches.

Warlocks are running it. And they have been patient, waiting for two more members. One of them is Serena.” She peeked over at Serena, who still sat on the sofa next to me. I could see a mix of love, pride and concern on her face. She walked behind the sofa and placed her hands on Serena’s shoulders and gave them a squeeze. She continued her pacing.

“We don’t know who the other one is. Tabitha is far too young and the Council would never wait that long for her to come of age or master her powers. But we have concerns. There are some dark forces in this town, Logan.” She walked over to one of the large windows and gazed out into the starry night. “And for some unnamed reason, I feel these forces will, in some way, be harmful to my sisters and me, and even to you, Logan. Even to you.” She changed direction and faced both me and Serena and that time I knew what emotion flashed across her face for certain.

Fear.

“Even Serena doesn’t know this part.” She spoke to us both.

“I’ve been contacted and warned of impending trouble from those who mean us harm. I don’t know who they are, but I have been told to expect a benevolent visitor soon who would explain everything.” She came over and knelt before Serena. “I always knew this day would come, dear sister, I just didn’t know it would be so soon. You
are
special, Serena, more special than you can even know. And you Logan…” She reached out and grasped my hand too. “You must be special as well, maybe because my sister has chosen you.” I glanced over at Serena to find her blushing right down to the roots of her blonde hair. “I only hope you are up to the task that will be put before you. Serena, I know that you are. You were born to it.” I watched as both sisters embraced fiercely. When they parted I knew Elizabeth still wore a mask of grave concern.

What
was
I in for? I wondered.

****

Elizabeth rearranged the features on her face and gave Serena and me a cool gaze.

“Don’t let me scare you off, Logan. Not that I think for one minute I could do that.” She laughed, a little too forced, and stopped as if she played it back and knew how strange she sounded. “I only wanted you to know what Serena and I know.

Just watch your back and look for anything happening out of the ordinary.” As if she realized how suddenly ironic that sounded, given the setting and how it had come to be that I had come there, she changed her last statement, with a wry smile. “Well anything
more
out of the ordinary.”

Well that did it. Next to me, Serena stifled a small giggle. I playfully elbowed her and just that one gesture broke the tension that had built up in me and despite everything, I too, found myself barely able to stop laughing. Just like that afternoon in my car, we found ourselves bubbling over with nervous laughter until we could hold it no more and finally it gurgled to the surface and exploded. We both were laughing so hard we had to hold our sides.

Elizabeth gave us a wary glare until she thought a minute. I could tell in her eyes the moment she got the joke too and she warmed up and finally joined in the laughter as well. She got up and headed out of the living room.

“Serena, I’ll let you say your goodnights to Logan. It’s been a long evening and I think it’s time we called it a night. Logan?” She rotated to address me specifically. “It has been a pleasure to meet you. I believe my sister has chosen well. Good night.” And with that, she spun around and left the room. As she went, the music changed from the soft-‐-rock ballads of earlier to something loud and clangy, and the candles all extinguished in one ‘swoosh’ as the overhead lights, before dimmed or off, lit up the room like a football stadium.

“Very subtle, Elizabeth!” Serena yelled after her sister. She waved her hand and in an instant, the candles were relit and the music changed back to the soft-‐-rock Dave would call “make-‐-out’

music. With her sister out of the room, Serena seemed to be more free and playful. She scooted closer to me on the couch, tucking her legs underneath her and slinging her free arm around the back of the sofa.

“Have we frightened you away, Logan.”

“No way.” I made my voice sound strong and sure, even if I didn’t feel it. I swallowed hard and moved closer to her. “What your sister said made sense. It’ll take a lot more than this to scare me off. You being a witch is just a bonus in a girlfriend.” I tried the word out for size and liked the way it felt. Even better I liked the way she liked it. As soon as I said it she snuggled closer.

“So I’m your girlfriend then?”

“Yeah. I guess you are. Although, I’ve never had a witch for a girlfriend before.”

“Twitch.” She corrected. “Remember, I’m not a full-‐-fledged witch yet.”

“Well, you could have fooled me with the hocus-‐-pocus in the hallway at school and that noise with my mom’s ring. Can you do that all the time? You know, what you did with the ring? And what
was
that anyway? Mind-‐-reading? Past-‐-reading? What?”

“I’m not sure what to call it. I just knew it as soon as I felt your arm. You know, when you almost knocked me down?” She glanced away at the memory. “And the idea of it just took me over that afternoon in the rain. Sometimes a memory is so strong I don’t know what to do with it. That’s why I don’t always like to touch people. Their memories aren’t always pleasant. Or clear. Like your friend Natalie for instance? When I shook her hand the day you introduced us, I just got, like, blackness. She is not a nice person, Logan.”

“You didn’t need to tell me that. And she’s no friend of mine. No one likes her that much except Nicole. Nicole became her friend
super
fast. But that girl is more like her slave or something.

She just follows her around and doesn’t even say much anymore.

Natalie has switched that girl into a mute. It’s pretty sad.”

“Be careful, Logan. Elizabeth thinks Natalie is dangerous.”

“Yeah. So, they say. I’m not sure how she could be, but your sister seemed, like, sure about it, huh?”

“Yes. And I have never seen Elizabeth be so serious about anything before. She didn’t scare you?”

“Naw. Told you, you can’t get rid of me that easy.”

“Logan, I might turn out to be way more trouble than I’m worth.”

“I doubt that.”

Serena smiled.

“I didn’t think stubbornness could be a virtue, but maybe I’m wrong.”

I showed her some teeth too. But for all my false bravery, I did want to know more.

“Tell me more about the Council.”

“I don’t know much about it. Elizabeth says they approve all twitches for witchhood and that since our parents died, they have been monitoring us pretty close. They even considered Elizabeth for membership at one time.

“Then why doesn’t she want you to be a member?”

“I don’t know. She won’t tell me yet. She might not even know. It may have something to do with our parents.”

“What happened to them?”

Serena cast her eyes down.

“I’m not sure. Elizabeth and I were young, Tabitha even younger. I just know they died.” She didn’t elaborate and I didn’t press.

“I’m sorry. My dad died too. I know how hard it is. So, Elizabeth raised you?”

She brightened.

“Yes. She’s been our mother and our father. I don’t know what I’d do without her. She’s everything to me.”

“I can see that. She’s protective of you. I guess I lucked out that she likes me. It’d be pretty hard on us if she didn’t, right?”

Serena laughed and it sounded like bells.

“Right!”

I scooted closer to her on the sofa.

“I agree with her about one thing, though.”

“Oh, you do, huh? What’s that?”

“You are pretty special.” And I reached over and kissed her once, gently on the top of her hand. I wanted to kiss her soft lips, but just then the lights in the room flickered once, then twice. I began to question Serena, but she had a knowing smile on her face.

“It’s Elizabeth,” she said. “She thinks it’s time for you to go.”

In one fluid motion, she unfolded her legs and rose to a standing position beside me. I got up too. I stood to leave the room and Serena slipped her small hand in mine. She squeezed it tight and beamed up at me. I realized I had a foot in height on her. We walked down her hallway toward the front door. All the way there I mentally rehearsed the goodbye. Should I try to kiss her? Should I just shake hands? No, that would be lame. Maybe I should just squeeze her hand. I wasn’t even through all the scenarios and we were already at the door. Serena opened it and the night air rushed in, stunning me into reality. Before I had a chance to plan or react, my decisive twitch took both my hands in hers and used them to reach up on tiptoe to kiss me on the lips. It was a soft, gentle kiss, full of magic and promise, perfect and precious and right.

Somewhere, in the middle of that kiss, I thought,
I will protect you
from anything.

Serena stepped back and quietly said, “Goodnight Logan.”

She didn’t say anything else and she didn’t need to. I leaned in again and kissed her soft cheek.

“Goodnight Serena.” I said, softly. “Sweet dreams.” I knew mine would be. They would be all about her.

Chapter Seven

SERENA

Monday morning the first thought I had was of Logan. Of course, I thought of Logan all the time now. Since our date and the wonderful way it ended, he permeated my thoughts. Tabitha said she thought it all so romantic and Elizabeth pretended to be annoyed and even rolled her eyes a lot, but secretly I think she did like him.

Logan waited for us in the morning again, so we got to ride to school together. Jade and Tabitha got in the back seat and started right up jabbering so neither one noticed when Logan gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and opened my door for me. When we got in the car, he took my hand and drove to school the whole way holding it.

His pack of friends was lounging in the usual spot in the parking lot. Tabby and Jade scattered as soon as we parked and we were left alone. Jessica spotted us together first. She whispered to Dave, then to Patty. Dave came right over to where we were.

“Hey Buddy!” Dave’s booming voice crossed the parking lot with him. “You and Serena making it official?” You literally could hear him clear across the whole school. Heads swiveled everywhere and soon, our first public appearance became, well,
so
public. We would definitely be a topic of conversation now. Wildly, I thought for one minute that Logan would drop my hand. To my great relief, he just gripped it tighter.

“I’m just lucky she’ll have me.” Logan squeezed my hand again. I started to blush and willed myself to stop. Just then the first bell rang. Thank heavens! I couldn’t have done this much longer.

Elizabeth told me not to call attention to myself and here I’d made myself the
center
of attention. This certainly couldn’t be what she meant.

Logan untwined our fingers and gave me a crushing hug. I inhaled the sweet scent of his aftershave (which I noticed he’d started wearing only recently) and reached my hand up to ruffle the scrub of hair on his head. How long had I wanted to do that?

He flashed a smile and gave me a quick peck on the cheek.

“Check you at lunch Serena.” He ambled away. He knew I had a free period today and would spend the morning in the library working on a research paper. At least that’s what he thought. I had a different kind of research to do. Now came the time to prepare.

****

I made my way down the ramp to the library with my research plans already on my mind. I surfed the microfiche, cruised the periodicals, and gathered my materials. I needed some more reference materials, though. Specifically, any background on Lancaster, New Hampshire and any information I could find on witches. There must have been some reason why the Council would have chosen this town for us to settle in. I still didn’t know what happened to my parents, but I had my suspicions it had something to do with Lancaster, N.H. I took my stack of books and spread them out on a long table at the back of the room. The stacks had me hidden from sight in between a giant pile of reference books. An hour or so later I was still pouring over the material. I got so involved in my reading I didn’t notice the atmosphere change. Even though the sky outside still showed the middle of the morning, the day had grown dark and gray. The air inside the library seemed to change. I sat there trying to figure out what had happened when the library stacks rumble with the low whisper of a voice I recognized. It was cold and unpleasant and even though I had only heard it once before, I knew who the voice belonged to.

“Well, who do we have here, all by herself? No big, handsome boyfriend to protect her.” Natalie came into view from the other end of the reference stacks, advancing on the table where I sat, all at once menacing and a little bit frightening. She smiled, but it wasn’t welcoming. It was more like a sneer.

“What do you want, Natalie?” I wasn’t usually unfriendly, but something told me that I needed to tread with care here. I had the distinct impression Natalie did not have my best interests at heart.

“I thought it might be time we had a little talk, Serena.”

“What in the world could we have to talk about?”

“Hmm. Dear Serena, there are a number of topics I wish to discuss.” Natalie advanced toward me. I stood, immediately on guard. Natalie’s manner, her language, even her choice of words was different now that she was out of earshot of anyone apart from me.