Old Magic (14 page)

I wish he would kill his black, self-absorbed mood. “No, you idiot. Jillian’s got an idea, but it’s a bit farfetched even for me. So we won’t consider that an option at this stage.” With a bit of manipulating, hopefully, we would never need to consider it.

“So what’s the other idea?”

“You.”

He gives me this disbelieving look again. I’ll never get used to it. Why can’t he just accept? “Like how?”

“Your powers of course. When are you going to admit that I may be right about this?”

He grunts and spins toward the road that leads to his place. “Kate, for God’s sake, leave it alone.”

I grab his arm and yank hard. “No, I won’t. Look, not everything fits neatly into your simple book of rules. There are things in life that cannot be explained. The paranormal is only one example. With the help of your gift, Jarrod, we might just be able to fight this thing.”

“You’re confused, Kate. I don’t have any “gift.” The things that happen to me, if anything—and I can’t believe I’m actually saying this—are caused by that stupid curse, not from any unrealized supernatural powers.”

“No, Jarrod, you’re wrong. Sure, the accidents and misfortune, broken bones, clumsiness, they’re from the curse, I’m almost certain. But the storms, sudden winds, earthquake! You are the one causing those.”

He’s quiet and hopefully thinking about what I said. Using his powers is our only way really. Jillian’s idea won’t work. It can’t work. Besides, the mere concept is outrageous, and would only make Jarrod positive we’re both ready for a spell in a psychiatric center.

But he only shrugs and slips his empty water bottle into his backpack’s side pocket. “What’s the other way? Jillian’s idea? The one she read about in that ancient manual.”

I stare at him but can’t find the words.

“What is it, Kate?”

Frustration has me seething. I spin away, toward home. “Forget it. You don’t want to know.”

“I asked, didn’t I?” he calls into the distance I place between us.

My wave is half-hearted. “Go home, Jarrod.”

He doesn’t. Instead he jogs up beside me. I glare at him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Well, if you won’t tell me the other way, I’ll ask Jillian myself.”

I groan, instantly regretting opening my big mouth. Ever since Jillian read the ancient texts, she’s been in a spin putting her idea into practice. Other than essentials, she’s been doing little else except running around in a mad frenzy making preparations, even to the extent of whipping up handmade original clothing right down to authentic leather boots. I shudder just at the thought. If Jarrod discovers what Jillian’s plan is he’d only laugh, and I’m not confident he would keep it to himself. I can’t trust him. The way gossip spreads up here, the whole town could be laughing by midnight. If he asks Jillian, she’ll tell him. It’s as simple as that.

I have a lot of faith in Jillian. I’ve seen what she can do. As a healer, especially of animals, she’s brilliant. She knows her herbs, but it’s much more than that. There’s power in her body. There’s power in her mind. She draws deeply from her ancestral heritage. She can transcend to a different level, and it’s there her magic is unearthly.

But this thing she’s talking about is different. It doesn’t fit into any category: preternatural or the norm.

“Listen,” I begin. “Jillian’s idea is a bit, well, over the top.”

“So, what else is new?”

I scowl at him long and hard, have to force myself not to chant the words of a nasty spell. Recalling the vision of his hairless exposed chest last night, sprouting excessive thick and curly body hair sounds like a good idea. I restrain myself, only just. “Listen,” I try again, gritting my teeth. “You know what people think around here. If I tell you Jillian’s plan, how can I be sure you won’t go spreading it across the mountain?”

He looks seriously offended, and stops walking. “What do you think I am? For heaven’s sake, Kate, I wouldn’t do that. I like Jillian. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.”

As we start walking again I mumble half to myself, “I’ll hold you to that.”

“What did you say?”

I start biting on my lower lip again, then stop myself. “Look, I don’t want Jillian hurt. She means everything to me. Do you understand, Jarrod?”

He nods but remains quiet.

I stare at our dusty shoes. “She’s more than just my grandmother. She . . . she loves me.”

“I can see that,” he says softly.

There’s more I need to say, I just don’t know how. “She didn’t . . .”

“What is it, Kate?”

“She didn’t abandon me, all right?” I hope this is enough. We walk the rest of the way in silence.

It turns out Jillian isn’t home, the Crystal Forest temporarily closed, the sign reads. I take Jarrod round the back through the herb garden, under the bare wisteria vines that weave through the back veranda. Once there I hunt for the key I know is here somewhere. Jillian is mostly always home. I guess her absence now is related to her plan. She locks up only because of the valuable pieces, crystals, and irreplaceable antique books and equipment in her room, not for anything she has in her shop, that’s mostly costume stuff, for tourists.

At last I find the key, but Jarrod is sitting on a stone pillar at the edge of the veranda that backs on to the rain forest, watching the currawongs, bower birds, and brush turkeys come to feed on the scraps Jillian put out earlier. Jillian loves the forest too. Our backyard is the forest, a place where birds know they can always find food, water, and a safe haven.

He looks so comfortable, at peace with himself for a change, I don’t want to spoil the image with Jillian’s farfetched scheme. I pull up a pinewood garden stool and sit quietly opposite him, enjoying the play of afternoon sun on the giant buttressed trees, palms, ferns, and eucalyptus that make up the vast majority of forest up here.

“You’re so lucky to have this, Kate,” he says softly.

“I know.”

He drags his eyes away from the array of bird life spread out before him and locks into mine. “Your self-assurance scares me.”

“That’s only because you don’t have any.”

“I admit it, I’m a gutless coward. You deserve so much better.”

This last statement surprises me. It sounds as if he’s thought about, perhaps even considered me a prospective girlfriend. I feel empathy for him, but his self-pity is still disgusting. “If you accepted the gift, Jarrod, your self-confidence would improve like out of this world.”

His expression changes from awe to exasperation. “You’re not going to start on that again, are you?”

I almost stomp my feet, the frustration is so real. “If only there was some way to prove it to you. I could make you angry enough to spark that temper of yours, but because you don’t know how to handle your strength, your mind triggers some sort of catatonic trance and you don’t remember very much. So there’s no point in destroying my home and Jillian’s livelihood just to prove a point you might easily brush off with one of your ridiculous explanations.”

“We know this is a dead end conversation, Kate, so tell me Jillian’s idea.”

“It’s crazy.” I’m totally honest.

“Okay, so what is it?”

I can’t look at him. I don’t want to see the smirk I know will follow, so I pretend fascination in the squawking currawongs arguing over a few remaining food scraps. “To stop the curse from being affixed on your family in the first place.” I flick him a quick glance. His eyes are narrow, his elbows resting on his knees. He leans forward, hanging on my every word.

“Jillian thinks the curse has created a link so strong it surpasses time and space and matter. She thinks she can generate a spell that will physically forge you back to the time and place the curse was first created. Or near enough.” I choose to use simple language so he will grasp the idea quickly and I won’t need to repeat myself with long explanations. I also rush this before I lose my nerve. “Simply put, Jillian believes she can take you back in time and place. Back to Britain during the Middle Ages, to that same spot up near the border of Scotland where the first family in your father’s heritage book lived.”

He stares at me, a funny little crooked smile playing around his lips as if he wants to ask something but wouldn’t dare in case it encourages insanity. Sometimes it’s there, and a hint of a dimple appears in one cheek to complement the hint of cleft in his chin, then it disappears as his eyes roll upward. “Swing it past me again, will you?”

He doesn’t believe me. Well, what a surprise. I don’t even believe it’s possible, and I’ve witnessed Jillian do amazing things. I groan. “That first family listed as your ancestors is littered with controversy—deceit, abduction, illegitimacy—you name it. Even sorcery. It has to be through them the curse originated. Jillian thinks so too. She’s been studying your heritage book day and night.”

Jarrod’s finger leans toward me, bouncing back and forth in midair. “Not that part.” He sounds as if he’s talking to a stupid child. “The other bit. The insane part about time and space and matter.”

I’m not going to repeat what he obviously takes for lunacy. Even though I don’t believe in Jillian’s theory myself, I take the defensive immediately. “How do you know it’s insane? What better ideas have you come up with other than suicide? Are you always so ungrateful when people are just trying to help?”

“Don’t get heavy with me, Kate. Do you know how ridiculous you sound? No wonder you’re worried about what people might think. But don’t worry that I might tell someone, ’cause I know that if I did they’d arrange beds for you and Jillian at the nearest psychiatric hospital.”

It’s such a nasty thing to say I want to hit him. “You’re a jerk.”

“Yeah, well explain to me how Jillian’s going to perform this miraculous feat? Her theory does include a return journey, doesn’t it? Or what would be the point?”

“I’d be wasting my breath.”

He shrugs. “Have it your way.”

“Look, you don’t understand. Jillian’s got the gift too. She comes from a long line. And it’s Old Magic, Jarrod. It’s different. It’s powerful.”

“Just tell me the plan, Kate. I can make up my own mind.”

I decide, against my better judgment, to take the chance. What the heck? Things couldn’t get any worse. He already thinks Jillian and I are crazy, what more damage can I do? Just maybe, and I cling to this hope, with a little more explaining he might start to believe. . . . “It’s got to do with the forest.”

“How?”

“Links.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Jillian believes you’re linked to the past through the curse. And because the curse is still active, still working through you, taking you back would be easy. The difficulty is returning you.”

He nods at this, so I continue explaining enough, without going into every detail. “She’s working on an amulet that has the ingredients that will link you to the forest. Her magic, old as time itself, will take you back; the amulet, with its strong link to the forest, is supposed to return you.”

“What’s in this amulet?”

“It’s something to do with the trees—the oldest and newest.” I’m losing him again, it’s in his doubting expression, so I sum up quickly. “It doesn’t matter how she does it, all you have to do is trust.”

He laughs at this. “You don’t believe her, so why should I?”

He has me there. My teeth dig into my lip again as I try to think of a plausible reply.

He scoffs. “Don’t bother. I really don’t want to hear it. Actually, I don’t want to hear another crazy word.”

I don’t get the chance to retaliate as I hear Jillian’s car drive into the garage. We’re both quiet while Jillian lets herself in through the shop front. She starts singing a Scottish tune. I wonder where she picked this up. “Jillian’s home,” I mumble, even though I know he knows. Suddenly, I wish I was anywhere else but here, even Pecs’s bedroom would be better at this moment. “I hope you can at least be civil,” I grind out between gnashing teeth.

She comes practically flying through the back door, her hands full of bits of crumbled bread mixed with wild bird seed. We have to duck low as bits of food fly toward us. She sees us too late. “Oops, where did you two come from?” The surprise has her miscalculating her aim, and the seed and bread crumbs come tumbling down over the top of us instead of her original aim of the backyard. “Oh, sorry. Look what I’ve done. You’d better brush that off before you come inside or the birds will follow you.”

I believe this easily as I’ve seen a variety of wild birds on occasion trying to get through the door.

We stand and brush seeds and bread bits out of our hair and clothes. “It’s all right, Jillian,” Jarrod says softly. “No harm’s done.”

I glance swiftly at him, quietly impressed. He really does like Jillian. He has himself completely under control.

“Come on then, the least I can do is fix you a drink.”

We follow her into the kitchen and sit around the table while Jillian pours three glasses of iced water, carves up a fresh green lime, and squirts a little juice in each drink. As she does this the tension in the room keeps mounting with long awkward silences. Jillian asks Jarrod how Casey is, and how long before his brother will be returning to school.

Jarrod politely replies but I can see, and feel, he’s uncomfortable. He’d rather be anywhere right now than sitting here pretending politeness.

It doesn’t take Jillian long to comprehend. Her fingers slide all the way round her glass, while her eyes lift and settle quietly on Jarrod’s frowning face. “I see Kate has told you my theory.”

He swallows, hard. I watch his Adam’s apple bob deeply up then down. I wonder if he can maintain the calm, polite facade much longer. “I don’t believe it’s possible, Jillian,” he says.

At least he didn’t call her a crazy mad woman.

She smiles, nods her head understandingly. “You don’t believe in very much, do you, Jarrod?”

He takes the defensive. “Look, I believe Kate has certain talents. Some things are undeniable. I feel her in my head sometimes—”

Jillian shoots me a reprimanding look. “Kate, you haven’t. I thought I taught you better than that.”

“Sorry, Jillian,” I mutter.

“That’s intrusive, darling.”