Chapter 4
Holding her hands out in front of her, Annelise Lockheart wished she could see the magic and not just feel it. The ancient cord was wrapped between her fingers, stone dangling down by the pulse of her wrist. But it wasn’t enough.
Inside the house, she’d tried to tap into the water, but it hadn’t worked.
The house was warded, and it was possible she’d built the barriers too well.
Maybe her magic couldn't escape her own protections. She’d come out here to the porch, where the patio cover didn’t do enough to keep her dry.
Where the wind whipped her hair from side to side.
And she’d once again begun the work of casting her spell.
It had to work. There was simply no other option.
Magic was ruled by emotion and power. All the combinations of items and sacred pieces she could put together for a spell—the candles, the proper herbs, sacred waters, her book of shadows—could all be overruled by a witch who had enough control of her own energies.
Annelise Lockheart had grown up knowing this.
She'd grown up training it. And, at one point, she’d thought she was pretty good at it.
Then she’d been smacked with the hardest lesson.
So now she gritted her teeth and tried to rein in the fear. Fear could ruin everything.
She tried not to let the doubt seep in. She told herself she was older and stronger and better than the last time the rain had come down this hard. The last time the water had come this high.
She told herself now would be different, but it was so hard to believe it.
The last time the river kept climbing, she’d fought with everything, and it had not been enough.
She’d lost everything. So this time, she fought harder, with more skill.
She had to keep the waters at bay, even though she knew the thing that was most likely blocking her magic was herself.
Last time, the insurance hadn’t been enough.
They’d scraped by, taking years to get the place livable again.
But it was too late to yell at her Gram, because Annelise had first seen a notice just a few days ago: The policy was lapsed.
She couldn’t recall ever having been so furious at one of her elders.
Though she’d tried to fix it herself, she’d called in, trying to make the payment.
They hadn’t let her. Canceled was canceled.
Twenty-four hours too late. There hadn’t been anyone willing to set up a new policy either.
Story wasn't just Annelise’s Gram. There was also her cousin Teagan.
But, maybe more importantly, the woman considered herself a grandmother to the entire town sometimes.
Spent her money where she saw fit to help others, even at the expense of her own wellbeing.
At the expense of her own home. Annelise had tried the “you can’t pour from an empty cup” and “place your own mask before you help others” ideas on the old woman.
But her Gram could pour from an empty cup. The magic in her veins and the years of practice gave her those powers. She didn’t understand empty cups or oxygen masks. None of the advice had stuck. So now, Annelise was grinding her teeth to bite back the words, I told you so.
She was now the last line of defense between the water and her home. Chanting her spell on infinite repeat as she fought to hold the water back, even as her grandmother moved out onto the porch behind her, startling her with two heavy thunks.
Thinking it was old boots on the older planks, she didn’t want to look. But the spell was already broken, so Annelise turned quickly.
“Sandbags,” Story announced.
Readily agreeing to the new tactic, she looked around. Sandbags might hold better than a spell. But . . .
“Two is not going to cut it. How many do you have?” she asked, opting for the hopeful.
“More than this.” Her grandmother looked at her, one eyebrow cocked, as if to say she wasn’t that dumb—and that was the problem. So why hadn’t she paid the insurance? Why had she left them in trouble like this?
“Put them out where they work,” Story told her curtly and turned back, presumably to get more.
Annelise wasn’t even sure where that should be.
When they’d rebuilt, they’d taken a house that was cut into the hillside and raised it a few feet.
Not as much as she would have liked, but all that they could afford with the government bail-out money.
This was better than last time. She told herself the water simply could not get that high again.
It was a hundred-year-flood and it hadn’t been close to a hundred years.
They would be able to survive this time—unless the water kept coming up.
Looking down off the porch, she searched for the best place to put the sandbags.
But the quick and dirty mud began lapping at the lattice that covered the base of the house.
Story had kept it painted a nice white. She’d power-washed it sometimes to keep it gleaming.
Again, Annelise found herself being irritated that there was time for that, but not time to pay the bill.
Because the curbside appeal would not save them from a flood.
After sucking in a deep breath, she pushed her fear into a tiny ball in the darkest recesses of her soul. There were a few other things parked there. Some of them fifteen years old. Some more recent. All left in tiny knotted charms somewhere inside her to be pulled out and untangled later.
Closing her eyes, Annelise chanted. Then did it again.
She could still see the water pushing at the base of the house. She could still see it as it pulsed in tiny waves, sending the dirt and mud right through the lattice as though it wasn't even there, creeping up under the house. Her fear and anger pushed back at it.
Trying to find a future, she looked into her mind's eye. She saw the water getting higher. She saw a small blue car she didn’t recognize on the side of the state road into town.
Then she watched as the road collapsed, barely missing the little blue car, leaving a massive gap in the two-lane road.
She watched as the town main street suffered a slow, smooth, rolling wave.
Though it seemed too low to do much damage, she could tell—in minutes—the town center would be covered in a layer of water.
The question was: Would the rain stop before it got too high?
She couldn’t see that. But she was pretty sure she could see Rowan Velasco standing at his big bay window with his arms crossed as he watched the rain from his vantage point, high on the mountainside. Or maybe she was just making that one up.
Once Story brought enough sandbags, Annelise would stuff her feet into her wading boots and start placing the bags around the base of the house. She would do the practical thing. But, until then, she would do her best to hold the water at bay.
She pushed at the rising flood again and again. Though she gave everything she had, though she’d been told so many times how powerful she was, the river kept winning in small increments. Some water witch she was.
The wish in her heart was growing, that Rowan Velasco was standing on this porch beside her now. Maybe just so she could show him that she was okay. That she was going to win this time and that his family couldn’t hurt hers anymore.