The Witchfinder Wars (12 page)

A wish I didn't even know I'd made. One to
see
him
again.

"Hey there!" The Southern drawl in my voice
reminded me of the charm I had put on the Hopkins' servant. This
time it felt natural instead of forced. I leaned over to unlatch
the gate and swing it open.

I knew the strength to be so friendly wasn't
my own. The magic I'd dismissed as nothing more than fantasy was at
work again. But I also knew I didn't care. Tommy was here. Nothing
else seemed to matter.

Except he looked as if the world had landed
on his shoulders. And he hadn't had a bit of sleep in the past few
days.

"Hey."

The drag in Tommy's voice confirmed he was
exhausted. I watched in amused silence as he looked around at our
house, shabby, badly in need of a coat of paint. His gaze moved
toward the garden we were standing in; Evie's little tags in her
spidery handwriting at the ends of the rows with names such as
'Holy Basil' and 'Dragon's Breath'. The porch swing chose that
moment to shift in the breeze and the resounding silence was broken
by a creak.

"Uh, nice place."

I laughed at his expression as he passed by
me. Tommy's face was too composed; too neutral.

He's nervous, or terrified. Or both.

I pulled the gate shut before I responded.
"Yeah. It's...charming."

He stood still as I walked past him toward
the table where I had been working.

"What brings you by, Tommy?" It was too much
to hope he had come by just to see me. I knew what was dictating
his actions, his reason for being here. Yet I couldn't break the
feeling of happiness—he had actually come. My hands wrapped around
the handle of the basket I'd left behind as I waited for his
answer.

To keep my thoughts away from the breaking
this sudden happiness.

Or why he was really here.

Panic fluttered across his face just long
enough for me to notice it.

"I, uh, well. I was in school today for the
first time since...well. You know. And you weren't there. I wanted
to, you know, thank you for your note. It meant...it meant a lot to
me. I...I've traveled around a lot in my life, so my friends are
all spread out, and some of them I haven't heard from yet. I
will."

His blue gaze stared down at me as if I'd
said something to doubt it.

"I'll hear from lots of them, I know. But
this...your note, I mean, well, it meant a lot. I just wanted you
to know, so I asked where you lived and, sorta, drove out to say
that."

Tommy's embarrassment expressed itself as a
bright blush across his cheeks and he didn't seem to know what to
do with his hands. He kept putting them in his pockets and taking
them out again, or hugging himself, then running his fingers
through his blonde hair.

I smiled to myself when I realized it stood
up in all directions from cowlicks. Then I took pity on him. I
couldn't help it.

My head tilted to the side as I chuckled.
"Will you carry this for me, Tommy?"

His look of relief was evident as I gave him
the basket. Now, he had something solid to put his hands
around.

"I just need to take them over to my aunt's
dry shed. It's close, so you won't have to carry it for long." I
grinned to myself as we made our way out the back toward the field
separating the house from the woods. My steps fell in sync with his
before I responded.

"You're welcome for that old note of mine,
you know. But I should be the one thanking you."

I looked ahead to the tiny building just
coming into view. It had been there for as long as I could
remember, and I didn't know everything it held. Evie and Ivy
stuffed it full whenever autumn came around. I only frequented the
place when I had to.

Like now. Cleaning up this chore. With
Tommy.

"I don't know what I would have done if you
hadn't shown up the other day, what they might have done," I
said.

"They? Oh, those creepy dudes. Honestly, I'd
forgotten about it, almost. I really didn't do anything after all.
You're the one who really...I mean, your letter was..."

I could hear his mind grab onto something
less embarrassing to talk about.

The modest knight in shining
armor
.

I hid my laughter behind my hand as I
pretended to shade my eyes from the sun facing us.

"Hey, what a cool shed. Must be really old,
huh? Uh, I guess your family has lived here a long time. When I
asked at school how to get here, everyone said 'The old Blanchett
place just out of town, out on Route Nine' like the whole world
knows where it is. Must be great, to live in the same place your
whole life, I guess?"

I shrugged as we approached the dry shed.
The building was nothing more than an old barn, but it had served
its purpose to store Evie's herbs and Ivy's discarded treasures.
The rich browns walls streaked with faded yellow rose up to the
rusted tin roof. It was different; I'd give him that.

"Well, it does have its advantages."

I grabbed the basket from him and set it on
the faded grey deacon's bench against the back wall.

"For me, it's about not having to worry
about getting lost in the melee of a new place. And you already
know everybody, so you know pretty much what to expect."

My grin widened before I turned back to him.
I had the sudden urge to share the pond with him. To show him
something really special.

The voice in my head was quick to agree.

"How long can you stay, Tommy? I'd like to
show you something."

I could see the blush returning to his
cheeks as confusion formed in his eyes.

"I promise. It's nothing bad.
It's...peaceful."

"I could use peaceful right now," he
said.

I led him to the path I'd memorized in my
childhood. I worked my way around a pine tree before I spoke to him
again. Anything to break the sudden quiet that had fallen over the
woods.

"So what was going on at Cothran today?"

Tommy was focused on finding the path in
front of him, his eyes filled with a sense of something close to
recognition. I fell back into silence at his reticence as we worked
our way down the small pine straw path leading to the small body of
water. It wasn't until we reached the end of it I heard him breathe
out behind me.

"Whoa."

I had to admit the scene before me was
beautiful. The small enclave was surrounded by bristled pine trees
casting deep shadows across the surface of a small pond. It was
blue today, as clear as the reflection of the sky above.

This had been my place of cherished solitude
when I was little. In this place, I could believe the beauty of
magic existed.

This would be the first time I shared this
place with anyone.

"This place is...really something, isn't
it?"

His tone put more meaning into his simple
words than I could decipher, but I couldn't make out exactly what
it was.

"It's..." He made a chopping motion with one
hand as if to cut the words away. "Well. Never mind. It's cool;
really." His voice became much too artificial; too bright. "What
did I miss in school earlier this week? Don't want to fall behind
in trig."

I plopped down on a grassy spot just outside
the water's edge to buy time to think up an answer. It wasn't long
before he joined me. I watched the trees sway for a moment. Tommy
had asked a simple question, but all of I could think of was how
scared Jordan had looked. How the crowds parted in the halls as I
passed now.

My shoulders shook a bit before I could
contain the shiver running down my spine.

"
...cursed..."

"
...died..."

"...witch..."

I sighed, pulled my knees up to my chest and
planted my chin on top of them. I didn't dare tell Tommy about the
incident. It didn't seem right to put this on him, too.

Or any ideas in his head.

"School was, well...school. You haven't
missed much." I turned my head to look at him.

"Everybody was worried sick about you. The
whole place has been in mourning since the news broke."

"I don't want to talk about it right now,
okay? I've talked and thought about nothing else all week."

The anger in his voice was unexpected; the
pain was not.

"Trig. Assignment. Please."

My brow rose at his tone as I lifted my head
up from its perch.

Fair enough
.

"All right. I'll play nice and give you all
the assignments you missed. Not just trig. I'd hate to be
responsible for your getting behind on anything."

Tommy groaned as he fell back into the
grass. I couldn't help but laugh aloud at his tortured expression.
The sound of it echoed across the wall of trees around us, and it
died across the pond.

The sounds of the world seemed to disappear
here. It was nice, sharing my place with Tommy. It felt right.
Natural.

"Tommy, have you gotten any sleep at all?"
The question came out before I realized it.

Tommy rose back up as if something other
than himself was pulling him upright. "How did you know? I mean,
I've just....Dreams. I've been having the weirdest dreams all week
long, so I've been doing whatever I could to stay awake. Drinking
coffee even, and I hate coffee. Dreams about my dad and the wreck,
and something he wants me to know, and other dreams about...well,
never mind about them."

The shyness was back as he turned from me to
stare out at the water.

"Do you...can there be anything in that? I
mean...the stuff they say about you and your family at school.
Don't get mad, but...I really want to know. Can you help?"

Tommy's words were a cry for help. The
desire to protect him was stronger than ever.

What I didn't know was if I could. After
all, how can you stop someone from dreaming?

I decided to ignore the comment about what
people said about my family.

I leaned back against my elbows in the
grass, stretching out beside him. The dream of his father wasn't an
uncommon one. Many people dreamed of their loved ones soon after a
death. The veil was always the thinnest for them then when emotions
were at their height.

Yet it seemed unfair so few knew what those
feeble attempts at communication actually were, those dreams of the
dead. The waters of the pond had captured tiny pinpoints of the sun
before my words came to me.

"I've heard to dream of someone who's passed
means they are trying to communicate with you." I smiled at him.
"They...he's still with you, Tommy. Your father. Maybe he's trying
to tell you something he couldn't before. You can talk to him too,
you know? Through your dreams."

His face didn't change at the words. I was
sure he would have laughed. Called me crazy, believe the rumors,
and disappear just as quickly as he had arrived. Instead, he hooked
his arms behind his head. Tommy seemed to be somewhere else, lost
in thoughts I would never know.

I shrugged. "It's an old Southern
superstition. Like hanging black velvet over mirrors to keep the
ghosts out. Or memorizing your family tree by the age of five so
you can adequately introduce yourself. It's all about the
bloodlines around here, ya know?"

He chuckled at that one.

Tommy's next question threw me off balance.
"Is it true what they say? About you and your family being witches?
Not that I believe in that kinda stuff, of course. But I'm just
wondering. How did all that start anyway?"

I opened my mouth to deny it, but the words
wouldn't come to me. My shoulders lifted in a shrug. "People here
don't have much else to talk about. There's always a family in
every small town, the local outcasts. Here in Manning, it just
happens to be us. The rumors have been there for as long as I can
remember."

"Yeah, but how did it get started?"

"I honestly don't know, Tommy. My
grandparents were never ones for the whole social scene, and they
taught my mother and aunt to live independent of Manning. We don't
go to a church or see the local doctors. I'm only going to Cothran
because the state mandates I have to go or get a tutor." I shrugged
again, looking out over the lake. "We're different, and they don't
understand us."

I could feel his eyes on me, watching in
silence until I couldn't stand it any longer.

"So tell me about yourself, Mr.
Hopkins."

He laughed at me. "Everyone asks me about
myself when I get to a new place, but no one really listens to what
I say, or at least that's how it always seems. So I'll warn you
right at the start; you'll get the canned version that comes out
all the time. So. What do you want to know?"

"Anything. Everything. Surely you aren't so
very complicated. And I promise to pay the utmost attention."

I laughed as I flipped over on my stomach
beside him, and I became very aware of how close I was to him. So
close I could feel the energies radiating off of his skin. He
breathed in once before he grinned at me. Then he started
talking.

As his story began to unfold, I realized
just how complicated he really was. Tommy's life of constant
motion, constant movement—country to country, city to city—seemed
like a whirlwind compared to my lazy existence here in Manning.

The importance of his grandmother—Grand, he
called her—was evident. As was the love he held for her. That
emotion lit up his face each time he glanced over in my
direction.

That's when he dropped the Campbell soup
version of his life's story. He started talking about his life in
Manning. How hard it had been on his Grand, and him, when they
learned Spenser Hopkins had died. Now, an uncle and cousin were in
the picture. People that, while he spoke very highly of them, I
could tell he didn't care for.

As he finished, I could see him watching me
out of the corner of his eye. I wondered what he was thinking. It
was amazing how solid he seemed, how steady, after traveling around
the world so many times, living the lifestyle many of us only
dreamed of. Coming from my world, I couldn't understand. But I
could sympathize.