Convicted Witch: Jagged Grove Book 1 (3 page)

My energy wells in me without my permission and travels from that spot just below my heart to my fingertips. A part of me tries to stop it, but I don’t even think I can. It’s my mother. She’s hurt. I have the power to save her, so I do. Simple as that, yet not simple at all.

If anyone is watching, they can see the soft green light surrounding my hands and her head wound. I pray that no one is watching, but it doesn’t matter as much as Bilda’s life matters, and I’ll deal with the consequences later.

I lick my lips and speak the words I know I need. “Spirit bright and Spirit bold.” I whisper it, and then whisper it again. These are my words, unique to me, and they come unbidden to my lips. Every witch has their own, found in adolescence and carried throughout their lives. It is a secret switch, to wake the power inside each of us.

“Spirit bright and Spirit bold.”

My entire body grows hot. It’s been eight years since I used my powers, but the sensation is like coming home, familiar and soothing. My palms pulse and I see my lifeline light up, as if someone has painted its trail with glow-in-the-dark paint. This is normal. This is me. A me that I’ve tried hard to smother.

My mother looks tiny, and so frail. She has this beautiful silver hair that she keeps in a loose perm, and the kind of supermodel bone structure that most women would kill for. Her skin is just starting to show a few wrinkles, and she looks more like fifty that a hundred and ten. There is blood in her soft hair now, though, and I’m so, so afraid that I’m too late.

I let the energy flow as the rain pelts us, scrolling down our faces. She’s so quiet.

And after a few moments of concentration, my mother moves. It happens more quickly than I expected, but then again, my power has been waiting a long time, growing patiently and waiting for me to call on it. Her eyes flutter open, and it takes her a couple of minutes to remember what’s going on.

Only after she’s sitting on the sidewalk do I see through my tears and the rain that people have gathered and are whispering among themselves. Angelo and the man named Ray are trying to shield us, but the two of them can’t do much in the way of that.

Bilda throws her arms around me. “Oh, baby, I’m so sorry you had to do that. Are you mad? I didn’t mean to get hurt, or make you mad.” Her voice is quivering, and she’s a little pale, but otherwise she looks fine. Thank God. Even the huge black bump on her head is slowly disappearing.

I hug her tight and brush her hair back from the nasty cut on her forehead. I’m so glad I didn’t accidentally kill her.

Angelo helps us up while Ray does damage control. I can hear him trying to explain that I’m a doctor carrying specialized equipment, and I give Angelo a shaky smile.

He doesn’t return it. He just quietly escorts us to the car and into the back seat.

“W
hat was I supposed to do? Let her die?” I’m pacing Angelo’s office, which looks just like any other government office, and flapping my arms in frustration.

“You could have waited for the paramedics,” he answers calmly, clasping his finger together and leaning forward on his desk.

“So...let her die? That’s what you’re saying, because the paramedics wouldn’t have gotten there in time, Angelo. She was dying - you didn’t see her eyes. You didn’t see how pale she was... There was blood and...” I let my voice trail off because my throat is burning with unshed, angry tears. I want to jump across the desk and beat him with the sad-looking lamp that glows softly on the shelf behind him.

“I’m sorry, Trinket. I’m so sorry. But the rules are clear, and you have to know that we would have made you go anyway. I mean, you can’t just ship your own mother off somewhere and never see her again.”

I plant both palms on his desk and stare down at him. “Actually, I was working out a way to avoid this whole thing.” That’s not exactly true, but I was attempting to wiggle my way out of it.

He shakes his head. His hair is shaggy from running his hands through it about a hundred times while helping me give a statement to the police and the delivery truck driver, a skinny guy who saw the whole thing. “There is no way. Too many people saw too much at that mall, just like tonight. You both have to go.”

He’s not moving on this, and I suppose I can see his point. I don’t have to like it or go along with it, though. “OK, answer this. Say we go quietly and do as we’re told - without a proper trial, I remind you - and don’t cause any more trouble.”

“Sounds good.”

“But instead of a life sentence, we make this a probationary period. If we can behave for...some specified amount of time, you let us come back.”

“Behave? You aren’t toddlers, Trinket.”

“I know, but you insist on treating me like one.” I pause to give him a dirty look. “Anyway, if I can make Bilda control herself for say...a month...we can come home. Tell everyone that we went on a cruise or something.”

He’s already shaking his head. “Statute dictates that-.”

I cut him off, my anger boiling over again. “Statute? I’m a law student, Angelo, so please tell me what that statute might be? Is it in the North Carolina Constitution, or the Federal Constitution? Because it’s funny how I’ve never come across modern laws against witches in all of my years of study.” I cross my arms, because I feel like hitting him in his big sexy, stupid face and that’s probably a bad idea. “Enlighten me, O Wise One.”

Hid eyes flash with anger, and I could swear I hear him growl. He stands up so fast that his chair flies backward and spins around until it bangs against the filing cabinet. Then he stalks around the desk, and for a second I think he’s going to handcuff me, so I walk backward and press myself against the closed metal door we came through fifteen minutes ago.

He shoots me a look and walks the other way, to a different bank of filing cabinets on the far wall. Yanking open the top drawer of the farthest on, he digs around for a minute and then pulls out a very old book, an inch thick and loosely bound with frayed red cloth. Turning around again, he slams it onto his desk. “There you go, honey. Read away.”

I stare at him for a moment, biting my lip, then look at the book because his rage is suffocating me in this small room. There isn’t enough space for both of us to be this mad.

I don’t want to step forward and open it, because I know that the words inside will back him up and change every part of my life forever. Instead I whisper, “Please don’t make me leave, Angelo.”

I can’t meet his eyes. I can’t even think. It occurs to me that I might suck as a trial lawyer in the real world because of this, but I still don’t want him to take the chance away from me.

And Clay. His handsome face flashes through my mind, and I remember how angry he sounded on the phone earlier. Something else I have to fix, all because of Angelo.

No - this isn’t his fault. It’s my mother’s. OK, fine - it’s really mine. All because I just had to go to Duke.

He goes around and sinks back into his chair. “You’re going, Trinket. If I have to take you into formal custody, I will, but you’re going. It has to be this way. I’m sorry.”

I’ve been defeated and I know it. “Can I at least say goodbye to people? My friends? My fiancée?”

He purses his lips, and his brown eyes look sad. “And tell them what, Trinket? Do you understand why I can’t allow that? No one knows about this place beyond a select few, and if the information gets out there will be a lot of hard questions to answer.”

“So? I don’t care about your difficulties. This is my life, Angelo. Can’t you see that?” My voice is breaking, and I hate that he can hear it.

He’s quiet for a long time. “You’re right. Tell you what - why don’t you sit down and write them letters. Tawny, Clay, whoever. There are obviously things you can’t mention, and I will be checking them before they go out, but at least you’ll have a chance to say goodbye to your loved ones.”

“And then if we’re good, we can come back in a month?” I ask hopefully.

He gives me a withering look. “You know I never agreed to that. I can’t. It’s a one-way ticket, Trinket.”

I nod, but in my head I’m disagreeing as hard as I can. I will figure a way out of this, and I will be back home soon. With Bilda, with my life intact, and with a great, fictional story about some undisclosed adventure.

He pulls out a desk drawer, reaches in and hands me a legal pad and a pen. I take it without looking at him and then leave the room. Ray is standing just outside the door, probably listening and definitely guarding. It finally hits me - hard - that there really is no way out of this, and that I’m walking away from everything I’ve built in the last eight years.

I tell myself that I will not cry, but by the time I find my mother waiting quietly in another room, it’s too late. She smiles sadly as I fall into the ugly green chair beside her.

“I’m sorry, baby,” she says quietly.

I want to lash out at her, but at the same time, the memory of almost losing her is too fresh. I reach over and pat her hand. “It’s OK. I’ll figure out this mess and then try to get us home soon.”

She nods, but looks away so that I can’t see the doubt and fear in her eyes.

She doesn’t deserve this.

I don’t deserve this. I will fix it.

And the magic thing? I used it tonight because I had to, but that will never, ever happen again. Angelo may know I’m a witch, but he doesn’t know what kind of witch I am and he’ll never know what happened that terrible night when I was sixteen and too powerful for my own good.

“W
hat the hell is that?” Angelo yells over the wind. He cocks his head and stares at the cage I’m hoisting over the rail of his boat.

“My familiar. Surely you are familiar with familiars -.” I grin. “- having to deal with witches and all.”

“An owl?”

I ignore that and yell back, “A speed boat? Seriously?” I get Bumper secured and then pull a shivering Bilda to my side and glare at Angelo, trying not to be distracted by his long, tanned legs in cargo shorts.

“It’s not my fault that the portal is in the middle of the South Atlantic, Trinket.”

We’re standing on a private dock behind a big house in Beaumont, with the sun glaring down on us. Under other circumstances, it would be a beautiful, perfect fall day - not too hot and no bugs to fight. I love the ocean, but not right now. I gather my wind-whipped hair in my free hand so that I can glare at him better, but it doesn’t work very well. “She can’t swim, you idiot. She’s scared.”

I nod my head at my mother, huddled against my side in a jacket that is miles too big for her. A gift from Ray, who drove us here to meet this jerk. I’m still pissed at him, even if my anger is misplaced. He’s a nice, big target.

The jerk shrugs casually. “She’ll be fine.”

“I really, really hate you, Angelo.”

He grins at me and turns to rev the powerful engines of the gleaming white boat, making any further complaints impossible. “All aboard!” he yells at the top of his lungs.

Someday I’m going to kick that man so hard in the-.

“I don’t want to go!” Bilda says into my ear, pulling me down six inches to her level.

I nod, but there is not one damned thing I can do about this. Besides, even if this whole mess isn’t exactly her fault, she’s the one who got us onto Angelo’s radar. “I guess you shouldn’t have turned Miranda into a crow, then.”

Angelo has already made it clear that we can go peacefully, or we can go in handcuffs. Peaceful isn’t the word for what I’m feeling toward him right now, but it’s better than handcuffs. My stomach can’t handle much more of this grinding stress.

Giving her a quick hug, I edge her toward the side of the dock and then let go long enough to jump on board. The boat rocks a little, making her gasp, but I encourage her with a smile until she grabs my outstretched hands and follows suit.

I get her seated and buckled in, and then turn toward the front of the boat to see Angelo standing at the wheel and look forward, away from me. For just a second, I let my eyes be drawn to his fine, fine ass. Then I shake my head and make my way up to stand beside him at the windshield. “How long will it take to get there?” I ask. 

“We’ll take this boat out about a hundred miles to meet a cruiser - you’ll like it a lot better. It’s much more stable.”

“Why? I mean, why not just bring the cruiser in to get us?”

“Too many questions. We can’t actually file a float plan with the Coast Guard for a sailing vessel that disappears halfway through the voyage.”

“Disappears?” I look over at him. Oh, yeah - the portal, or whatever.

He nods, but doesn’t answer.

I glance back at a very green-tinged Bilda and hope Angelo thought to pack a few barf bags. Bumper glares at me from his cage, upset that I’ve disturbed his rest. I blow him a kiss, and he closes his big orange eyes and turns away.

Bumper has been with me since the night I killed my then-boyfriend, a little over eight years. He’s the one who found me in the woods that night, crying, and he’s the one who understood that I was trying to help when everything went wrong and I accidentally exploded the heart I was trying to restart. He just appeared, swooping down from the tree I was leaning against, and bumped me on the shin with his head. I don’t know how he understood, and I don’t know how I knew, but his comforting presence saved my sanity that night. It was like we had a psychic link or something. Bumper knows all of my secrets, and he knows why I don’t practice my healing magic. He loves me anyway.

Angelo pulls away from the dock and we’re on our way. I can’t help thinking that if only this were just a fun trip instead of the end of my life, I might enjoy it. Instead, we are leaving everything behind, limited to only two boxes and two suitcases each. At first I didn’t think I could do it. My whole life, distilled down to two boxes and two suitcases? I managed, mostly, and it was easier than I thought, even with Ray breathing over my shoulder the whole time to make sure I didn’t contact anyone.

I ended up having to leave behind most of my pretty boots, and I will never, ever forgive Angelo for that.

It takes just over an hour for us to lose sight of the shore completely, and then it hits me again that I’m not going back. The realization has been coming in waves of despair, but until now I’ve been able to work through them. Not this time. I fall into the seat behind me and start to cry, not able to care if Angelo sees me or if I’m upsetting Bilda.