Authors: Trish Milburn
I looked down. “I don’t think I have anyone.”
“Keller’s processing. He’ll come around. He’s different with you than other girls. And don’t think I didn’t see all that kissing going on. I can drum and peruse the crowd at the same time.”
My cheeks heat, and I smile at the memory. Tears well in my eyes, but I bat them back. “He didn’t know what I am then.”
“Hey, you’re not a
what
. You’re a
who
, just like the rest of us.”
“A who with the power of destruction. Wow, I’m such a catch.”
Toni leans forward. “I know you care about Keller, and he cares about you. There’s something about you two, like you’re freakin’ destined or something.”
“Star-crossed lovers?”
“Yeah. You’re Baker Gap’s answer to Buffy and Angel.”
“And that went all kinds of smooth.” My words falter, catching on the edge of a sob.
“Hey,” Toni says as she moves to sit beside me. She puts her arm around my shoulders. “What’s wrong?”
I wipe at the stupid tear that makes good its escape from my eye. “All I wanted was to be a regular girl, to live a regular life. And I was naïve enough to think maybe I’d succeeded, that maybe all the ugliness of who I am would simply go away.”
“It’ll work out, really.”
“Then why does it feel like my heart is being fed through a shredder?” More tears flow, and this time I’m not able to stop them.
“Aw, sweetie,” Toni says as she pulls my head down to her shoulder. “You’re already really falling for him, aren’t you?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. How do I know it’s real? I’ve never cared about someone romantically before, never
. . .
loved anyone other than my mother.”
“I think the paper shredder feeling might be your answer.”
I look down at my hands, feel the power residing inside my fingertips. “It can’t be love. I still have my power.”
“You can’t have both?”
“No. If a witch falls in love with a non-witch, she loses her power.”
Toni doesn’t immediately respond. Her forehead scrunches like she’s thinking hard. “Have you known anyone this ever happened to?”
“No.”
“Maybe it’s just a legend then. Or maybe since you’re not a normal witch, all spooky and evil, it doesn’t apply to you.”
Should I dare hope? “It’s too big a risk. I can’t let things with Keller go any farther, even if he wants them to.”
“You said your family would only find you if they detected your magic signature, right?”
“Yeah, probably.”
“Well, what if you did lose your powers? Wouldn’t that erase your ability to leave a signature? You’d be safe.”
“But what if I lost them and my family found me anyway? I’d have no way to defend myself, to protect you and Keller.” God, this isn’t going to ever get easier, is it?
“We’ll deal with that when and if it happens.”
I pull myself upright and wipe away my tears. “I shouldn’t be doing this. You’re the one who had the traumatic night.”
“I think there was enough trauma to go around.”
I gesture to my face. “I’m sorry about this.”
Toni takes my hand and squeezes. “Stop being so hard on yourself. Keller needs time, that’s all. It’s a bit of a shock for him to fall for a girl who can kick his ass.”
“You mean someone supernatural, a thing he normally hunts.”
Toni lets out a long breath. “Yes. But you’re not some evil spirit bent on revenge or wreaking havoc for fun. You’re flesh and blood, beautiful, a good person.”
“You don’t know that. You barely know me.”
“I do know it,” Toni says with a conviction that touches me deep in my heart.
“Stop or I’m going to start crying again.”
“Hey, the truth’s the truth.”
I walk over to the window, stare out into the night. “How long has Keller hunted?”
“Since he was about ten.”
“So young.”
“It wasn’t long after my dad died. Uncle Jacob wanted Keller to be prepared, to be able to protect himself. And, well, the hunting and ridding the world of evil spirits became a bit of an obsession with Uncle Jacob. He felt responsible for Dad’s death, so he hunted every night. He took Keller once he felt he was ready. For the past year, Keller’s been going out on his own so they can cover more ground.”
“There are that many evil spirits floating around?”
“You’d be surprised. It’s something about the Appalachians. They’re dark, mysterious, old. Otherworldly energy seems to seep out of the hills.”
“And it doesn’t scare you?”
“Creeps me out from time to time, but I’ve never faced any of it myself. Mom would have a conniption.”
“Your dad hunted, too?”
“Yeah, he and Uncle Jacob were brothers. Their dad was a minister too, and they learned hunting from him. Uncle Jacob has all Grandpa’s old books on the supernatural, dusty old things that make me sneeze.” Toni stands and walks over to the window too, props her shoulder against the wall at the edge of the window seat.
“Dad and Uncle Jacob were in an old mansion over in Avery County where a poltergeist had taken up residence, a really nasty one. A couple had bought the place planning to turn it into a B&B, but accidents kept happening. When the man ‘fell’ down the stairs and broke his leg, they finally gave up and put the house on the market.
“Dad and Uncle Jacob snuck in one night, wanting to rid the place of the poltergeist before someone else got hurt. Evidently it knew what they were.” Toni stops, stares out the window as if she can actually see the past out there in the night. “It threw Dad off the third floor landing.”
“Oh, Toni, I’m so sorry.”
“Poor Uncle Jacob was devastated, but he still had to pick up Dad and get him out of the house. He carried him to a spot in the woods where there was a deer stand and placed Dad on the ground below it so he could tell the authorities Dad had fallen out.”
“A hunting accident.”
Toni nods. “We never have to lie when we say those three words.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
Toni shrugs. “Life’s not fair.” She shifts her gaze from the dark of the night to my face. “What about your mom? How’d she die?”
The pain slices through me anew. It doesn’t matter how many years separate me from my mother’s death. The wound never totally heals. I wonder if it would have if Mom hadn’t died in the way she had.
I hold up the pajamas. “I’m really tired. I’m going to change.” Without waiting for a response or further questions, I flee to the bathroom. After changing and washing the tear tracks and makeup from my face, I brace my palms against the sink and stare at my reflection in the mirror.
Am I really a good person? Can I make a life free of magic and the inner darkness that pumps through my veins? Will my family let me? And will I ever be happy if Keller isn’t in that life?
I’ll have to be.
By the time I leave the bathroom, Toni has crawled into bed and fallen asleep. Not wanting to disturb her, I grab a blanket from a chair and go to the window seat. I curl up and scan the stars blanketing the sky. That’s one of the first things I loved about Baker Gap, that I can look up at night and see so many stars. Miami’s night sky is too bright to see much beyond the moon and the brightest stars. I wonder how many of them I can see from this one spot alone.
I watch the night sky shift as the hours tick away. Too many thoughts assault my brain for me to sleep. Yearning for Keller and the way things had been when we were dancing, hope that fate will be kind and my family will never find me, thankfulness that I have such a great friend in Toni.
Those horrible memories of my mother’s death.
“Jax?” Toni sits up in bed and stares my direction. “Have you slept?”
I glance at the clock. 2:34 a.m. “No. Brain won’t shut down. You go back to sleep though.”
Instead, Toni gets up and drags her comforter over to the window seat. It’s big enough for two, so she crawls up opposite me and snuggles under its warmth.
“Wanna talk about it?”
My instinct is to say ‘no’, but there’s something about Toni that makes her easy to talk to. And I’ve never shared this story with anyone.
“There’s just lots of stuff zipping around in my head.”
“Part of that about your mom?”
I catch her questioning gaze in the faint ambient light coming through the window. “Yeah.”
“I’m not pushing, but it might help to talk about it.”
I stare hard out the window, up at the brightest star in the sky. It reminds me of Mom.
“She was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Long blond hair to her hips. I swear it had some sort of internal light. Her eyes were so blue, like a bluebird’s feathers. And she had such a kind heart, which of course was her biggest sin. Only the fact she was a successful artist and bringing in good money kept her from real punishment. She wanted to leave the coven, but they wouldn’t let her. When she tried to escape with me and my sister, they caught us before we got out of Miami.”
“And
. . .
they killed her for that?”
I nod. “There’s a round room in our house, on the top floor. The entire family sat around the Siphoning Circle. Marissa, my sister, and I were seated in the front. When everyone was in their spots, my father motioned for my mom to be brought out. Her hands were bound behind her back, and she was gagged so she couldn’t say anything. She was placed in the middle of the circle on her knees. They didn’t give her an opportunity to say anything, to defend herself. First, they extracted her powers, which causes excruciating pain. Despite the fact she was gagged, I can still hear her screams. I dream about them and wake up with sweat so cold covering me that I feel like I’m there all over again.”
Toni reaches forward, touches my arm. “God, Jax, I’m so sorry.”
I wipe away a tear. “But that wasn’t the worst part. When she was truly powerless, they started draining away her life force, little by little. It took hours for her bodily functions and organs to stop completely, and Marissa and I had to watch the entire thing. We were too scared to move, terrified we’d be next.”
I glance over when I hear Toni sniffle. Tears are running down her face, too. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“It’s just so awful. Where was your father?”
“Right there. He led the siphoning.”
“Oh, my God. How could they all do that? Make you watch?”
I straighten and glance out at the night. “They were making a point, that no one leaves if they want to live.”
“But you did.”
“I knew in the moment that I saw the last light go out of my mother’s eyes that someday I’d get away. I refused to become a beast like the rest of my family. I’d rather die.”
“Why don’t they allow anyone to leave?”
I shrug. “Power. Since the moment our ancestors accepted that dark power, it’s been the driving force of our kind. To give up any power, like the power of making everyone stay with the coven, is unthinkable.”
“What happened to Marissa?”
I sigh. “She, well, she’s more like my father. She eventually came to believe Mom got what she deserved for abandoning who she was, for leaving the coven.”
“There’s no one else like you?”
“If there is, they’re very good at hiding it. And part of me can’t blame them. Once you’ve witnessed a coven execution, you live with the indescribable fear that it’ll happen to you if you don’t do what’s expected.”
“It sounds like the mob.”
I snort. “That’s us, the Sopranos with superpowers.”
“It’s all so different from how we think of witches.”
“We’re definitely not the Hollywood type.”
“What about all the Wiccan people? They seem so harmless.”
“They are. Lots of good Wiccans. They don’t even know we exist. The covens are good at masking themselves, making the families look like successful members of society without drawing too much attention our way.”
We sit in silence for a couple of minutes, both staring out into the inky night.
“I feel guilty for complaining about my mom when your family is
. . .”
“So awful?” I let a slow sigh escape from deep within me. “You can be thankful for your mom and sisters and still be annoyed at them sometimes. It’s natural, normal.”
The kind of normal I ache for but can never have.