Chapter 6
“ G rams? You home?” Lucy called out, in desperate need of her grandmother’s famous healing hugs.
Benedict had tried to catch up with her after the meeting, but she needed time to think, and she hadn’t wanted to argue in front of the coven.
Her call echoed through the corridor and went unanswered. Grams was probably at the tarot shop or in the brewing room on the third floor.
Hanging her coat on the golden hook by the front door, Lucy noted that the forest-green wallpaper was beginning to peel again. She’d hoped the masking spell would hold it in place for longer than a week. Slipping off her muddy boots, she sighed as the floorboards creaked beneath her feet, reminding her of another much-needed repair. Hawthorne House had been in their family for generations. It needed constant repairs because Grams refused to move out, to modernise the dark floral wallpaper, wood, and pointed doorways. Lucy preferred something a bit brighter– a little less Gothic – but the house had been left unaltered for so long it had a spirit all its own, and changing it felt wrong.
“Grams?” she called again, turning on the antique lamps in the hall. It was already past ten. Despite being in her eighties, Grams never worried about breaking a hip in the dark.She insisted on maintaining the lamps, though, for when Gramps visited from the afterlife; they were one of his favourite features.
“Lucy? Is that you? I’m in the brewing room. Come up– I can’t leave the pot, or the lizard skin will burn!” Grams yelled. Her voice was still clear and strong from years of giving orders. Since Lucy’s dad worked at the university in the city and was away from home during the academic year, it was just Lucy, her mum and Grams at home.
“Please tell me you didn’t use the dried skins again. They stink out the house…” Lucy got a whiff of something rancid. “I just got the smell out of the room from last week’s brew!” she huffed. The spiral staircase always winded her.
“Bring me the bat’s blood when you pass the pantry,” Grams requested.
“What are you working on?” Lucy shouted back, stopping on the second floor. Trying to figure out what Grams was up to was a welcome distraction from the night’s earlier events. Mum still wasn’t home, and she couldn’t wait to have that discussion. She could only hope her mum had a plan.
“Stop shouting through the house. You’ll wake your uncle.” Grams had forgotten, again, that Uncle Gregory had passed away years ago. Not that it mattered; Gregory popped into Foxford from time to time when he had a soul to collect, though his job as a Grim Reaper kept him from making regular visits.
At the pantry, Lucy found the spare brewing ingredients kept in the coldest cupboard, thanks to the floor being the most visited by those who had passed on. Only Grams slept on the second floor, because she wanted to stay in the same room when Gramps visited. Lucy hoped to one day love someone as much as her grandparents loved each other. Her stomach sank as she passed their bedroom, reminded that she was to bind herself to Benedict on All Hallows’ Eve. The thought of never having such a love made her heart heavy, so she decided to focus on the task at hand.
She brushed aside the cobwebs in the top corner of the doorframe of the cupboard.“The spiders must have got out again. This is why I say not to buy live ones when the dried ones are just as good,” she muttered, finding the vial of bat’s blood between the rattlesnake venom and the dried cockroach. She didn’t want to know why Grams needed it, but after the day she’d had, it was probably better not to ask.
Grams spent her well-earned retirement concocting spells and potions for those willing to pay for the unrivalled talent of their former High Priestess. From falling in love to curing your cystic acne, she was the one everyone went to for help, and since Gramps had passed away, she liked to keep busy. To be honest, the more she helped others, the less she meddled in Lucy’s life. She always joked about setting her up, so Lucy figured Grams would get a great laugh out of her arranged marriage.
Reaching the third floor, she was almost out of breath. Those stairs never get any shorter.
“Hi, Gramps,” she said, pausing at his portrait. “Making sure she doesn’t blow up the house again?” She smiled, hearing Grams chatting to herself through the slightly open door.“One vial of bat’s blood. Please tell me you aren’t helping the vampires with the blood substitute again. The last one gave them awful hives.”
The brewing room’s black and white chequered floor tiles were littered with scraps of paper. Grams was working at the other end of the room, surrounded by bookshelves and cases of vials, both filled and empty.
“No, they’ve given up on a substitute blood, and this”– she popped another ingredient into the cauldron – “has nothing to do with vampires.” Thankfully, whatever she was brewing smelt sweet, like honey or maple syrup. Her white curls were frizzy from hours of standing over the bubbling cauldron.
Lucy started to clean up, finding the scribbles of what looked like an original spell, with a list of characteristics and potion ingredients.
“‘Kind, capable, passionate’? What is this? Please tell me it’s not another love spell. They never end well!”
“How was the meeting?” Grams dodged her question. “Your mum couldn’t settle before she left. Gwendoline might be her friend, but I think she is asking too much.” Lucy listened intently. “Suggesting her son take your place was rather left field, even if I do like the boy.”
Hearing Benedict referred to as a boy almost made Lucy laugh, but to Grams, she supposed they would always be young ones causing trouble.
“You knew Gwendoline was going to nominate Benedict? Why didn’t you warn me?” she asked, sitting up on the counter lined with labelled brown bags for orders.
“I don’t like to meddle in coven business. Anyway, your mum and I discussed it this morning, and she didn’t have a choice but to let the coven decide your punishment. I can’t believe you jinxed the teacups – and you took my koi fish! I’d really hoped you and Benedict had put all that behind you.”
“Did Mum know about the binding ritual? The coven gave us a choice: risk banishment from Foxford, or agree to lead together,” Lucy said, pulling at the ends of her sleeves.
Grams hesitated, confirming her worst fear.
“Your mum wanted to tell you, but she’s still the High Priestess, and there are some things she just can’t share with you.” Gram’s glasses fogged up as she added black pepper, causing the potion to steam.
“I understand she had a duty to the coven, but I’m still her daughter, and this is about my life. If I’d known I was going to be confronted, I could’ve prepared something to say other than standing there like a blindsided idiot! It was only by the grace of the goddess that I didn’t flood the temple.” Lucy slumped forward. She didn’t have the energy to argue about what had already passed.
“I’m sure Benedict felt the same way. Maybe working together won’t be so terrible. If there is one thing you have in common, it’s your love of this town,” Grams said, removing her glasses and letting them hang on the crystal chain around her neck.
“He knew. You should’ve seen him accepting their congratulations, as though we really were a newly engaged couple. I could barely string a sentence together before I left,” Lucy admitted. “How can you be okay with this? You want us to be bound, or to see me banished?”
Grams calmly shrugged. “You’d never be banished. The coven is overreacting because they don’t want others to think they can pull such tricks without consequences. If you both decided against the binding and you’d lost the vote, you’d only have to leave for a year or two at most.”
That was clearly supposed to be comforting, but even a year or two away from home felt like an unreasonable punishment for some silly pranks. Lucy couldn’t believe she might lose everything all because she’d lost her temper over some damn bike tyres.
“Don’t look so surprised; you should’ve been more careful.” Grams sighed, stirring her potion. “The Mathersons have had their eye on the coven since Foxford became a sanctuary. With that handsome son of hers charming the town and the hotel lining everyone’s pockets, Gwendoline was going to make her move for power sooner rather than later. Your mum deciding to retire with your father was the perfect opportunity for them to strike.” Grams clearly wasn’t too pleased with Lucy’s parents’ decision to relive their youth, but given how much they had sacrificed, Lucy wouldn’t pout too much.
“But Mum and Gwendoline have been friends for years. It doesn’t make sense that Gwendoline is risking a divide between our families. What if Benedict is the right choice?” Lucy didn’t know if she was being logical or if the weight of the day had exhausted her will to fight. “He’s more involved with the town and enjoys politics. What if I abdicated? Do you think we’d both get to stay?” She might lose her right to lead, but she’d still be able to stay in town and keep the library. “Our family has watched over Foxford for generations. Maybe it is someone else’s turn to lead?”
Grams side-eyed her. “Is this your way of telling us you don’t want to inherit the seat? I had my doubts when I saw how composed you remained when the proposal was made.”
“My reaction? You sent a dove to spy, didn’t you? If you’d been there, you’d have seen it was shock, not composure. I’m already on tense terms with the Order. I don’t need to add a political rivalry with Benedict to my plate.”
“I don’t spy; this matter involved my family. And you’re able to handle far more than you give yourself credit for. The work you’ve done for the Order speaks to that,” Grams said, wiping her hands on her polka-dot apron. “If you’re so ready to hand the position to Benedict, why did you agree to the binding?”
Lucy hesitated, eyeing the spy doves in their gilded cage.
“To buy myself some time. I never expected Benedict to agree… I thought he’d object, and I wanted to appear willing to go along with their wishes. I figured my acceptance would earn me some points if there was a vote.” She’d also hoped her mum had some plan to get her out of this, and that the coven would cool down once they saw the attendance at the Autumn Festival wasn’t depleted due to that damning review.
“There is fight in you yet, otherwise you wouldn’t worry so much.” Grams winked. “And though we may have lost this battle, I might have just the thing to help you win the war.”
Lucy felt the hairs on her arm stand on edge. “Please tell me whatever you’re brewing doesn’t have anything to do with Benedict? As much as I detest him and his family’s ambition, poisoning him is not the way to go.”
“How little you think of me.” Grams tutted. “Benedict’s a good man; I’m not going to poison him. I’m old, not crazy.”
“You’ve always had a soft spot for him.”
“If you weren’t so determined to hate each other, he might’ve conceded the nomination. If you’d chosen honey over vinegar, neither of you would be in this position.”
“What’s your plan?” Lucy stepped closer to the table, feeling the temptation of some kind of magical solution. She stirred the potion for Grams, who added some apple seeds.
“We need to make sure that neither of you is forced into a binding neither of you wants. That can lead nowhere good.”
Lucy examined the ingredients on the cutting board. Rose water, apple seeds, cardamom…
“This isn’t exactly a traditional love spell,” she muttered, glancing at the diced chickweed and chilli.
Before she could ask, her mum came through the door. Her usual pale complexion was now red and blotchy; gone were her stoic expression and priestess robes. She was Mum again, with her wooden clogs and flowing patchwork skirts. She was a big fan of upcycling; nothing ever went to waste in their house.
“Found the damiana root. Thankfully, Myrtle had some left,” she panted, then stopped dead as she saw her daughter by the cauldron.
“You’re in on this?” Lucy looked between the two matriarchs.
“Don’t worry about a thing. We’ve a plan to get you out of the bonding,” Mum said.
Lucy tried to understand what hairbrained scheme these two had concocted. “But… you agreed with Gwendoline at the temple. I thought you wanted us to be bound?”
“Yes, I agreed, because I’m supposed to be impartial. However, as your mum, I’m not going to let you bind yourself to someone you don’t love,” Mum explained, removing a small, muddy root from a paper bag.
“How about you stop whatever spell you’ve concocted, and we go back to the coven? We can tell them that I’ve changed my mind, and to proceed with the vote at the end of the month so that Benedict and I have an equal chance to prove ourselves,” Lucy said, trying to find a neutral solution. “Using magic to manipulate a situation never ends well.”
Both women stared up at her, as if they weren’t the ones who’d taught her that very lesson.
“Are you mad? You can’t go back on your word. Not when Benedict has agreed. They’ll stand against you.” Mum took a deep breath. “I promise, your grandmother and I aren’t going to hurt or manipulate anyone.”
“We discovered there’s a flaw in Gwendoline’s ritual. If you find your true love before All Hallows’ Eve, your soul won’t bond with Benedict’s because you’ll already be connected to another,” Grams explained, while Mum grated the foul-smelling root over the cauldron.
Lucy hesitated, then laughed, thinking it had to be a joke. When Grams and Mum didn’t falter, her nervous laughter disappeared.
“You can’t be serious. You want to use a love spell on me?”
They stopped her from putting the lid on the cauldron.
“By ensuring you find your true love, your magic will never let you bond to another. Love is stronger than any magic, so the coven won’t be able to force your hand,” Grams insisted.
Lucy waved the makeshift spell in the air. “I hoped you’d have a plan to help, but love potions never work the way we want. Love magic usually ends up with some crazed obsession, or worse, even dying of a broken heart. Love can be lethal in certain doses. I’ve seen the horror stories in the archives to prove it.”
“There’s no need to worry. We’ve taken every precaution, and mixed two spells,” Grams started.
“Combining incantations with potions will only make the spell more potent!” Lucy groaned.
“It’s not an incantation – just a list of all the qualities we thought would make your perfect match. Technically, we aren’t making someone fall in love with you, nor you with them. We’re only setting you on a path to find each other, but not dictating it,” Grams said.
It sounded reasonable, but also insane. Was there such a thing as reasonably insane?
“What about the potion?”
“Just a simple mixture. It’ll draw the two of you together. We only have until the 31 st October for you to find each other.” Mum seemed as convinced as Grams that their scheme would work.
“This is too risky! You can’t just design a man for me,” Lucy argued, pacing. “How did you even have time to come up with all this?”
“Risky is binding yourself to a man you can’t stand,” Grams muttered, but Mum interjected.
“When Gwendoline called the coven to gather, I knew something was up. This wouldn’t be the first time she has hinted at another successor, and when she showed me the review I knew she had the ammo she needed to put doubt about you in the other’s minds.” She took her daughter’s hand. “With the whole town seeing the review, my hands were tied. I do agree that Benedict is a worthy candidate, but a loveless binding is out of the question.”
“I wish you’d just spoken up at the meeting if you were so against it.” Lucy sighed, removing her hand. “It would’ve been far easier than casting whatever Frankenstein love spell you’ve got simmering away.”
“I would’ve been accused of nepotism.”
Unfortunately, Mum was right.
“We thought you’d be happy to hear our plan,” Grams chimed in, arching her eyebrow. “Maybe you don’t despise the man as much as you claim?”
Both women stared at her, as though she was harbouring some secret love.
“Just let me think! What if I find the person I love, but the coven finds out we cast a spell intending to disrupt the binding? They’ll view it as a betrayal.”
Mum gripped her hand and, before Lucy could stop her, pricked her finger.
“Ow,” Lucy hissed as her mum squeezed a droplet of blood from the wound over the sizzling pot. The potion shimmered, and the bubbling settled.
“Sorry, we needed it to strengthen the spell,” Mum said, releasing her hand. “Your concerns are valid, but we know how hard it is to be in power, and to do it with someone you don’t care for at your side would be a life sentence. We only wish to see you happy. If the coven finds out, then we’ll worry about that when the time comes.”
Lucy pressed her finger to her lips, feeling guilty for questioning the two people who’d only ever wanted the best for her. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that a spell was too drastic, and she couldn’t believe they were willing to go so far to protect her heart. It was something the Mathersons would do, not the Hawthornes.
Gram took the list of qualities from the table and held it over the cauldron.
“Don’t even think about it! If those who wish to see us ousted find out—”
Grams dropped the list into the potion. Mum followed up with the final rose petals.
“I should’ve skipped the meeting and gone to the lake with Rosie,” Lucy grumbled, wishing she wasn’t witnessing this madness. If she were at the lake, she’d have had plausible deniability.
A sharp bang caused the trio to jump, and Mum swished her hand through the rising smoke. Glancing inside the cauldron, they found a piece of paper burnt to ash and the potion gone.
“I hope for all our sakes that didn’t work,” Lucy prayed.
“We’ll have to wait and see. It shouldn’t take long,” Mum said, tidying up the mess Grams had made. Lucy felt like they were hiding the evidence.
“How can you know how long it’ll take to work?” Lucy wasn’t sure if she even wanted to know the answer.
“We added a clause to the spell that if the person you are meant to be with is of magical descent, your elements will call to one other. Elemental power has an incredibly strong call,” Grams informed her.
“Great! Not only did we mess with a love potion, but also elemental magic! What makes you think he’ll be of magical descent?” Lucy asked, wanting to learn as much as she could about the spell. “Dad is a magless.”
“We don’t, but it was worth adding just in case,” Grams said.
That brought up a new worry. “What if the coven doesn’t like the idea of another coven leader marrying a magless? Dad was only approved by the coven because he’d been attacked by a vampire when he was younger, and then spent the rest of his youth researching myths and legends until he stumbled upon Foxford and fell in love with mum.”
“You should’ve seen his face when he learnt the true nature of this town. Nearly scared him to death when he saw Broomhilda at the library, sweeping away,” Grams chuckled.
Mum continued. “And yes, such unions were quite the scandal back in our day, but only because many people thought marrying a magless would lessen the magic passed down to the next generation. Pure elitist nonsense. It was also said that marrying a werewolf or vampire would create hybrids, but they are either born vamp, wolf or magless. There is no lessening of power. You might be lucky to marry a magless. He would be of no threat to your position, and the families are far more accepting now.”
Lucy didn’t need a history lesson, but she had been raised not to interrupt her elders.
“If Benedict discovers we’ve been conspiring…” She fidgeted, wishing she’d discovered their plans earlier. She wanted to inherit her mother’s position fair and square, not because she’d interfered with magic.
Grams and her mum exchanged puzzled glances.
“Maybe the line between love and loathing is rather thin between you?” Grams suggested. Lucy rolled her eyes.
“Gwendoline always suspected there might be something between them,” Mum agreed. “I can’t count how many times the school called us because you were both too busy making mischief to focus on your schoolwork.”
“I don’t mean that it would hurt the chance of us being together. I meant he could use it against me,” Lucy clarified. “I only agreed to the binding because I didn’t think he’d agree. And need I remind you he nearly got me expelled? I wouldn’t call that mischief.”
“You can hardly blame him entirely for the threat of expulsion. You did cause the lake to burst,” Grams countered.
There’s that soft spot rearing its ugly head .Lucy grimaced.
“Only because he set the trees along the riverbank on fire. My flood saved the woods and spared the coven having to answer to the werewolves who dwell in them!”
“The lad had lost his father,” Grams reminded her softly, putting the ingredients back on the shelves. “You shouldn’t judge him for what he did during that time. Both of you broke the rules by using your elements while under eighteen. Using that much power could have flooded the entire town.” She raised a hand before Lucy could argue back. “Yes, just as he could have burnt it down.”
Lucy rubbed her temples, wishing she’d never got up this morning. “To be clear, there is nothing, nor has there ever been anything, between me and Benedict. Please no more spells for my benefit.” She headed for the door. “Let’s wait and see how this month plays out. We can only trust that the right person will be watching over Foxford when the time comes.”
Grams started to argue, but Lucy interrupted. “If fate says that’s Benedict, and I have to leave, I’ll accept it.”
“It could be both,” she heard her mum mutter as the door closed behind her. She wished they loved her a little less; their good intentions could ruin them all.
On the carpet by her feet, she noticed a scrap of paper with a barely legible list of ingredients. She scanned the words, trying to figure out the spell they’d used to make her element call out to another, only to notice there was noblack pepper on the list. The cursive read Bat’s Blood , not black pepper . She realised Grams hadn’t uncorked the blood she’d brought from the pantry. Grams must have got confused while we were talking and put in the wrong ingredient.
Lucy smiled from ear to ear. Hopefully, the mistake would stop the spell from working. She scrunched up the list of ingredients and put it in her skirt pocket before Grams realised her mistake.