Convicted Witch: Jagged Grove Book 1 (10 page)

“Not here, they don’t. This is a close-knit town. Trust me, Trinket.”

I snort. “You haven’t told me the whole truth once since this entire thing began. I’m not trusting you.”

Imala is watching us. “He didn’t tell you he was a warlock?”

Angelo turns his glare on her.

She ignores him. “He didn’t tell us, either. My whole family was moved here three years ago, and I didn’t know the truth about Angelo for a year, at least.” She smiles softly and reaches to pat his hand. “He’s shy.”

Angelo grunts. “I’m not-.”

“Shy or not, he lied. Which makes me curious about why, exactly.” I can glare along with the best, so I do.

Bilda stands up abruptly and starts to clear the table. Imala, looking slightly embarrassed about this whole scene, follows suit.

“I think we’ve been dismissed,” Angelo says looking at me.

“Well - you have, anyway. Please leave.”

“I’ll come back when you’re less...upset.”

“Come back when you find me a house of my own, OK?”

From the sink, I hear Bilda make a small sound.

Shit. I close my eyes, knowing that I’ve just hurt her feelings.

I
spend the rest of the morning trying to soothe Bilda’s sadness and feeling bad that it’s my fault in the first place. I’m loading the dishwasher - so glad that Jagged Grove comes with such amenities - when she asks me if I hate her.

I can’t answer. Instead, I start to cry.

It comes without warning, the tears. A sudden downpour that makes my head throb and my nose get all snotty. Bilda leads me into the living room and pushes me gently back onto the rose-patterned sofa. “I’m sorry,” I cough. “Of course I don’t hate you...I just...this...”

I flap my hands in frustration. What am I even trying to say? I lean into her and cry harder.

She wraps an arm around my shoulders and pulls me down until my head is in her lap, like she did when I was a little girl. I feel silly, but I’m not about to get up, either. She uses her fingers to comb through my hair as she starts to talk.

“Do you remember when we first moved to Harte?” she asks me.

I nod.

“This is exactly how I felt. But you know what helped?”

I’m listening.

“You. You were so excited, sweetheart. So ready to embrace the world and the newness and all of the possibilities. Remember?”

I nod again.

“Your excitement was like a balm to my misery. It reminded me that I could enjoy things in a new place, too, and that eventually, if I gave it a chance, I would be happy again.”

She’s right. This situation is the exact opposite of that time - now she’s the excited one and I’m the one who doesn’t want to be here.

She survived.

“We have to be here for a year, right?”

I nod.

“Why don’t you give it a try? I did it, and it didn’t kill me, you know.” Her smile is indulgent.

“I don’t want to - I want to go home, be with Clay, and become a lawyer.”

Her eyes develop that odd glint again, just like the last time we talked about Clay. “Didn’t you say that Clay was mad at you?”

“That’s one of the reasons I have to go home - I have to fix it.”

“What if you can’t fix it?”

“I can. Just not if I’m stuck here.”

“Some things can’t be fixed by sheer force of will.”

Something rings odd in her tone, so I turn my head and look up at her. The angle makes her cheekbones and chin seem even sharper. “What do you know?” I ask, my heart racing.

She looks up and out the window across from us. “Just that he’s not right for you.”

“Mom?” I ask. It sounds weird, because I don’t normally call her that. It occurs to me that calling her Bilda is another way of keeping an emotional wall between us. I am a horrible daughter. “Why don’t you think he’s right for me?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Mom?”

She just keeps looking out the window, smiling a little.

“You used the scrying mirror, didn’t you? You promised you wouldn’t do that.” We come from a fine tradition of hearth witches, but my mother has become an eclectic witch, sampling bits and pieces of all traditions to create her own unique magic. It’s one of the reasons she’s so unpredictable.

Finally she looks down at me. “I wasn’t asking specifically about him. I wasn’t asking about anything. The information came unbidden.”

I sigh and close my eyes. “What information?”

It’s hard to believe that I used to beg her for insight into the future, and now all I feel is a sense of dread.

“You don’t want to know, dear. It isn’t right for me to tell you.”

“If you know something important, you need to tell me. Please?”

Her expression closes in on itself. Instead of answering, she says, “Blakely told me last night that we can communicate with the world we left behind.”

This news drags me to a sitting position beside her. “What? How?”

“He said that we can write letters, and that there is an assigned post office box to use as a return address. He’s been in constant contact with his sister since he came here.” She looks directly at me. “I think you should write Clay a letter.”

“And tell him what?”

“That you had to go away for a while. Blame it on me if you want - that’s pretty easy for you.”

I bite my lip and look at her profile. “I’m sorry. This is just so hard for me.”

“You’ve made that very clear, dear. But since we’re here, and we will be here for at least a year, why don’t you just give it a try? As a favor to me?”

I think about this. “What if I can’t do what Angelo is asking me to do? What if I hurt someone again?”

She turns her ice-blue eyes on me. “What if you die never knowing the extent of the power that lives inside of you? What if you could save so many people, help so many people, and you don’t because you’re scared? Wouldn’t that be the real tragedy?”

I think about the man in the boat. I helped him against my will, but I did help. He and his wife will go home to enjoy a few more years. Maybe their kids, if they have any, will get to hang out with dad for a while longer. Maybe he’ll realize his close call and decide to really live well, for the rest of his life. I’m guessing about all of this, because I know nothing about him, but for the first time since it occurred, I feel really peaceful about what happened on that boat.

“I’ll try,” I tell her, and when I say it I feel a little thrill run through my extremities. I haven’t felt that since I was a child and just toddling around and learning the very basics of magic at Bilda’s knee. “And I’ll write to Clay and try to get things figured out with him.”

She nods, but Clay’s voice brings that cloud back into her eyes.

When she slides from under me and wanders off to unpack, I decide to get dressed and go visit the man named Jones. He obviously knows that we’re witches, and so he must know about local covens. I want Bilda - Mom - to have some friends here, and he seems like as good a place as any to start. After all, he might be quite the ladies’ man, but I doubt he’s interested in a sixty-eight year old woman.

It takes me no time to find a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, then I slip out the back door and head across the adjoining back yards to his place. In most cases, witches and shifters don’t get along so well, because our rituals collide. It’s well known that a full moon ceremony does not bode well, with full moon predators on the prowl. There have been some terrible tragedies in the history of witches because of this.

The pond that separates our lawns is clear and cool-looking on such a warm day. It seems that spring is a little farther along here in Jagged Grove than it is back home, and I make a mental note to find out where I can buy a few pairs of shorts for the summer. As I walk by, a couple of fat frogs splash into the water. I stop to watch them for a second, and that’s when I notice the odor.

It’s the same one that permeated my office yesterday when we found Maggie. I sniff and try to place it. The acidity of it clings to my nose as I stare down at the pond, and then I lean into the slight breeze and inhale to try to pinpoint it further. It definitely smells like chemicals, but I don’t know if it’s coming directly from the pond or just somewhere nearby. I walk around the almost perfect circle, concentrating.

“Are you lost? Because you’re awfully close to your own house to be lost,” a deep voice calls out. I look up to see Jones himself leaning against his porch post with his arms crossed over his chest. He’s smiling, or smirking. I can’t tell.

Jones’s house is a little smaller than ours, and as I give up on locating the smell and walk toward him, I see that it isn’t as well maintained, either. The paint is chipped and cracked on the wooden trim and the porch floor looks like it could use a good sweeping. He has all of his windows partly open and curtains flutter through the open panes.

Jones himself is still as sexy as he was the night before. Maybe sexier, now that he’s more relaxed in stained jeans and a t-shirt that isn’t even close to clean. It’s ripped along one arm. From the way he’s standing, he knows it, too. He looks like he’s on display.

“Hello,” I say, coming to a stop in the grass and looking up at him. He swings down from the porch and smiles.

So I guess it wasn’t a smirk.

“Welcome to the neighborhood,” he says, holding out a hand. I take it, and my hand is absolutely swallowed in his grasp. The guy has huge hands. I’m pretty sure that means something. “Want some lemonade? Or tea? I can find some tea, if you like.”

I push everyone’s warnings about him out of my thoughts and return the smile. “Do you have coffee? I haven’t had nearly enough this morning.”

“Coffee I can do. Come on inside.” I follow him in through the front door, noticing a group of small terrariums sitting on a shelf at the far end of the porch. They are full of herbs - the legal kind and the not so legal kind, from the looks of it. “Nice plants.” I nod toward them. “Is that where you got the sage for B-. My mom?”

“It is.” He’s holding the door open for me with one muscular arm. I’m a sucker for well-toned arms on a guy, so I just stare at it for a second. His is spectacular - not in the musclebound, too pumped to move way, but in a lean, tan, man-who-works-with-his-hands way.

He clears his throat, and I look up. His expression could be described as amused. I mentally wipe away my drool and follow him into the darker interior of the cottage.

The first thing I see is a pile of books. No - strike that. More like several piles of books, teetering on every surface available. The windows are covered in heavy drapes that cast the furniture in shadows, and a single lamp sits near a cold black fireplace.  The furniture looks haphazard and worn, but at least the walls are light-colored. Otherwise, this place would be more cave than cottage.

“You like to read,” I say lamely, because it’s better than, “You’re house is ugly.”

“I do. The one thing I miss about home is the information available. We’re in our own little bubble out here, and that’s not always a good thing.”

I’m relieved that someone else is like me and less than enchanted with Jagged Grove. “What else is there to do around here?”

It’s a common question for a newcomer to ask, but Jones looks a little annoyed. “Not much, if you ask me, but people manage to get into all sorts of things, I suppose.”

He’s acting so formal, not relaxed and slick and...predatory, like he was at the bar last night. It’s endearing, but if I want to get him to help Mom I need him to loosen up. “Listen - do you have a beer instead? I’m thirsty for something cold.”

His house is laid out like ours, only a little smaller. “I’ve got something even better, if you’re in the mood for alcohol.” He turns to look at me as we walk through to the kitchen. I tear my eyes away from his fine denim-clad ass to meet his gaze. Then he smiles.

That smile makes all my warning signals go off. What have I just done? It doesn’t matter, because I’ve already opened my big fat mouth. “Okaaay...”

“Trust me.” He pulls out a seat at his tiny dining room table, which is parked in a corner of the kitchen in front of another drape-covered curtain, and offers me the seat with a flourish of his hand. Actually, it’s more like a bistro table, with two slim chairs on either side.

I perch on the left one and arrange a pleasant smile on my face. “What kind of alcohol are we having?”

“Callahan’s finest. He makes it himself.” He walks to the kitchen counter and pulls out a... “Is that a Mason jar?” I ask. He nods and pours a couple of fingers each into two glasses.

I search my brain for the name Callahan and it finally pings. “The mayor Callahan?”

“The very one. He’s a master brewer from way back, and he makes the finest stuff in Jagged Grove.”

I take the glass as he offers it and then sits across from me. He hoists his glass in a toast. I reply with a hoist of my own, eye the clear yellow liquid, and bring it to my lips.

Before it gets there, I catch that smell again. I stop and frown into the depths of the glass.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“What is that peculiar smell?”

His smile widens, to my surprise. “That’s the mayor’s secret ingredient.”

“What is it?”

He gives me a patient look. “I don’t know - it’s a secret ingredient.” He shrugs. “The mayor won’t tell anyone. Why?”

“No reason.” I start to take a small sip of the drink and the fumes takes my breath away. My eyes go wide and I look at him. “Wow,” I say. It’s almost a whisper. I set the glass back down. “I think I’ll take something less potent. It’s barely noon.”

“Not so brave today, huh?” He tosses his back and sets the glass on the table with a bang. I jump, then take the red cup of coffee that he pours for me.

“It’s different. Or at least it smells different.” No way am I tasting the booze that possibly killed a girl.

“He uses lemonade from down at the Crystal Cup - they deliver a barrel of it to him every few days. Then he-.” Jones searches for the word and then laughs when he says, “Tampers with it, I suppose.”

I smile and take a careful sip of my coffee. I feel it warming my belly and relax. Then I wonder just who has access to the mayor’s little operation. “Is it for sale? I mean, I assume he doesn’t just give the stuff away.”