Unbound (17 page)

“Really? What is it?” Ethan asked.

My words came out slowly, evidence I was drifting to sleep. “A leather Elven Warrior outfit. I got it from the Ren Fair too.”

“You are such a nerd.”

“ Its, it’s very…authentic.”

“Is it now?”

“Umm-hmm.”

“You sound tired. Sleep well, Anora.”

“You too. Thanks…for talking…to me.”

“No problem. Goodnight.”

“Night.” I drifted into a deep sleep. I dreamed that I woke up to find Ethan sitting on the foot of my bed. I sat up to greet him but he pushed me back down and climbed under the covers with me and just held me until I fell asleep.

***

A stream of bright sunlight poured in through uncurtained window, making all the floating specks of dust in the air visible. Though I’d only gotten a little over four hours of sleep, being in an unfamiliar bed made me wide awake. The illumination throughout the house from the cloudless day made me feel considerably safer.

Laney called me while I was eating pancakes.

“Hey. Sorry I missed your call last night. You’ll never guess where I was.”

“Tell me.”

“I went on a date with Josh.”

“What?! Why?” Not that I had anything against Josh, but the last I had known, Laney was not interested in him anymore.

“Marie asked if I wanted to go to a movie with her and Gavin, and I didn’t want to feel like the third wheel. So I asked Josh. Plus she asked while he was talking to me. I felt obligated.”

“Typical Marie.”

“Tell me about it. But anyway, I had a really good time. Not with Marie and Gavin, they either fought or made out, which was really gross by the way.” We laughed. “I forgot how nice Josh is.”

“I’m glad you had fun. I always liked him. Plus he looks so sad without you!” I teased.

“Yea, yea. So tell me about this house!”

 
I expatiated about the Victorian. Laney made me promise to take pictures. I hadn’t even thought of that.

“Well, I’m off to the barn. And yes, before you ask, I’ll make sure to give your horses some exercise. Annabelle wants to come with, so I’m sure both will look like My Little Ponies when she’s done,” she told me.

“Thanks so much Laney.”

“That’s what friends are for.” I could tell she was smiling as she spoke. After breakfast, I went upstairs, showered and got dressed. Armed with my cell phone and camera I went up the stairs to the turret. I was standing three stories up on the East side of the house. The air seemed so clear here in Indiana. It was no wonder, since no matter which direction I looked, all I could see was farmland.

 
Across the street was an old white barn with about an acre of pasture connected at its side. Two all black cows grazed lazily in the sparse green grass. I was excited to see a newish looking pole barn behind my house. Another old, white barn was near it, but the roof was half caved in. It looked like the next strong wind could blow the thing right over. A matching tool shed stood not far from the house. This too looked old, but I could tell a new roof had been added not all that long ago. On the west side of the property there was a medium sized pasture fenced in with warped wooden planks. A thin tree line butted up against it. I ran my eyes along the entire fence. From what I could tell, it looked safe to let a horse out in.

A huge field was behind the outbuildings and behind that was a rather dense looking tree line that stretched far both east and west. Seventy-five acres was a lot of land, but I knew I only owned a portion of the trees. I tried to image seventy-five football fields to get an idea of what my property consisted of, but it was too hard to visualize. I took pictures in every direction before I skipped down the steps and headed out back.

The pole barn was boring; it had four horse stalls that were incredibly covered in thick dusty cobwebs, a few moldy bales of hay and an antique orange tractor. The tool shed was the same. It was full of old gardening tools, but the wooden handles promised splinters to any hand that tried to use them.

Against my better judgment, I went into the dilapidated barn. While this too was empty, the old architecture was amazing. Sunlight shone through the broken boards in the walls. The floor was covered in bird poop and, looking up, I could see several nests. Other than that it was empty. I walked around to the front to get a good look at the white house. The pitches in the roof were steep and the entire thing was highly ornamented with incredible detail.
 
I snapped several pictures before I noticed the boxes on the front porch. There was a note tapped to one of them.

Anora-

 
These boxes contain items from your Aunt’s apartment at the retirement home that she wanted you to have. The rest of her possessions have been donated to the Salvation Army, as that was her wish.

-James

His handwriting was small and freakishly neat. I picked up the smallest box and was surprised at how heavy it was. When had James stopped by? While I was still sleeping? Maybe while I was showering. Weird…why hadn’t he rang the doorbell? Oh well, I thought and lugged the boxes inside. I set the smallest box down on the dining room table and got a knife from the kitchen to slice open the packaging tape.

The box was full of books. That explains why it was so heavy. I was about to push the box aside and look for something more exciting when a title on the top book caught my attention.
Herbs and Their Magical Properties
was printed in fading green font on the worn tan hardcover. I extracted it from the box and thumbed through it. Who knew that basil had so many magical uses?

 
The next book was about harnessing the magic power of stones and crystals. After that was a thick one called
The Witch’s Cookbook.
The pages showed signs of usage, like they had been stained with ingredients. Three more books sat in the box. They were about numerology, tarot reading and palmistry. The gears in my head started to turn as I tore open the next box. More books were in here, the most curious one was about psychic self defense, as well as a blue velvet bag of runes, a mortar and pestle, about a dozen glass bottles of labeled herbs, a box of multi colored candles, and a piece of folded black material.

It was about as thick as a sheet, but not nearly as big. I spread it out on the table. A very familiar stars and moons design was embroidered along the edges, with a large pentagram in each corner. In the center was the same weird squiggly emblem that was on the dagger and the pendent, which I hadn’t taken off.
 
Two sharpened wooden stakes, a leather holder with five also very sharp Chinese throwing stars, and a pair of brass knuckles were at the bottom of the box.

“What the…?” I said to myself. Why in the world would little, old Aunt Estelle need things like this? I shook my head and eagerly opened the last box. This one too had weapons: A small crossbow and a set of three black stainless steel throwing knives. A long, black velvet cape was folded under the weapons. I held it up to me; if this had belonged to Aunt Estelle then she was taller than I thought because the hem of the cape was very close to the ground.

Next to come out of the box was a round black mirror. With much curiosity, I set it on the table and looked in it. Was it just me, or was there no reflection? I didn’t realize that I was slowly moving my face closer and closer to the mirror. Everything around me began to fade and a tiny flickering of shallow movement reflected back to me. Suddenly, a very clear face appeared. Since I was only an inch away from the mirror, I jumped back with a sharp intake of breath. I looked at the mirror again. It was blank and reflected the opposite wall of the house.

 
“This is why I hate looking in mirrors at night,” I said as I wrapped the mirror up in the cape. “Except that it is day and you are creepy,” I told the mirror as I put it down. The next item was a black stone bowl. I had an idea of what it could be: a scrying bowl. You fill it up with water and look into it, like the mirror I suppose, and hope to see…things? Visions? People? I was sure there was an answer in one of the books.

Several bundles of dried leaves and incense sticks were in a pretty wooden box with Celtic carvings all over it. There was another wooden stick type thing towards the bottom of the box. At first thinking it was another wooden stake, I was surprised to find otherwise. I was holding a wand. The body was wooden, with a beautifully carved ivy vine snaking up from the sterling silver handle to the crystal tip. I held it up and half expected the crystal to light up or glow. Honestly, I was a little disappointed when it didn’t.

A very worn deck of tarot cards was wrapped in a midnight blue scarf. The very last item to come out was the one that excited me the most. It was a large leather bound journal. The leather was worn and shinny from being handled over and over. Imprinted in the leather was that symbol again. A metal buckle held the book closed. I pushed it up and with a click, it snapped open easily. Careful not to rip the old paper, I slowly turned through the pages. I knew exactly what this was. It was not as detailed as ones from movies, however, and the pages were not elaborately painted with pictures of what was being described. Instead, messy handwriting was scrawled over the paper with the occasional badly drawn diagram.

 
This was a Book of Shadows.

The doorbell ringing about an hour later startled me back into reality. Thinking it was James, I set the Book of Shadows down. I was wrong. Instead of James, there was a young woman, probably in her twenties, standing on the porch. She had short, thick, curly brown hair which was pulled back in a perfectly smooth bun. That must have taken a long time, I thought, since I could barely get my naturally straight hair to lay that flat and even. Her makeup was impressively done as well and her pristinely pressed black suit made me feel like a slob in my jeans and T-shirt. I absent mindedly ran my hands through my hair. Since I let the sun and wind dry it, it was messy and a tad bit wavier than usual.

“Hi, you must be Anora,” she said with a smile. Her voice was higher and more girly that I expected. Her smile seemed genuine as well. I nodded. “I’m Susan Cospan. I’m James’ intern. I’m guessing he didn’t tell you I was coming.”

“No, sorry,” I said, though I don’t know why I was apologizing.

“I’m not surprised,” she said, almost to herself. “Well, I’m here to take you to the bank and help you finalize everything.”

I knew the polite thing to do was to invite her in, but a quick glance at the dining room table, still covered with weapons and magic supplies,
 
told me not too. Luckily my shoes were by the front door. “I’m gonna run and get my purse, I’ll be right down,” I said and closed the front door. I remembered to lock the back door and grab the house key to lock the front. I was surprised to see an old Ford truck parked outside. There was a horse decal on the back window.

“You have horses?” I asked.

“Yea, I have a Quarter Horse. James’ keeps telling me that I need to get a more professional looking car, but I told him that he needs to give me a raise first because there’s no way I can afford a new car on an intern’s salary.” She smiled at me. We talked about horses the entire ride to the bank. I tried to pay attention to the roads. It turns out that the house wasn’t as far in the middle of nowhere as I had thought.

A few miles up the road was a small cluster of ranch-style houses and about three miles after that was what Susan called ‘the highway’, though it was only two lanes. Once on the highway, it was easy to get into town, she told me. Sure enough, after a while of driving north, the highway split into four lanes. Downtown Paradise Valley was very cute and very clean. I wished I had more time to explore around here before going back home.

“Alright,” Susan said as she unbuckled. “Get ready to sign you life away and be told the same things over and over. If you don’t understand anything, I’ll explain it in normal terms.”

When we left the bank two hours later, I had a headache from everything I had been told. I’ve never had to pay taxes before so the concept of inheritance tax made no sense to me. Back in the car, Susan asked me if I wanted to get some lunch. I was hungry and the company would be nice. She pulled over not even three blocks away and led me to the restaurant. I enjoyed the food and it was nice having someone to talk to, but I was eager to get back and read.

***

“Thanks for helping me with everything today,” I told Susan as I got out of her truck.

“No problem. If you need anything, give me a call instead of James. I’ll pick you up at ten for your flight tomorrow.”