Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
“You’ve got a scrappy hearth there, Meadow,” Uncle Badger said as I entered the farmhouse to find Aunt Peony and Grandmother hunched on the slate stones. It was unclear from his level tone whether or not he found the observation amusing. “It’s giving Grandmother a run for her money.”
“It is not,” came a snippy reply. “It will submit.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, leaning over the two crouched women to get a better look at the hearth.
The fire I had nurtured since my first day in Redbud was treating the ember of the Hawthorne hearth like an interloper. A usurper. Two separate fires devoured the wood on the iron grate, mine a paler lemon in comparison to the robust goldenrod color of the Hawthorne flames. They lashed at each other, fighting for space and dominance. Uncle Badger was right: my hearth fire might be younger, but it was well nourished and fighting to defend its home turf with everything it had.
“It’s like watching a cock fight,” Otter mused. “Or, I suppose, a phoenix fight.”
“Well you better hope they simmer down,” Grandmother snapped back at him, summoning green magic to her hands to force them both into submission. “If they don’t, we can’t contact the rest of the family at the manor, much less make the potions we need to contact Arcadis or fortify this rickety old termite feasting ground of a house.”
The farmhouse seemed to creak and groan in outrage at the insult.
“And I’ll never get anything prepared for dinner on time,” Aunt Peony groused, adding her magic to Grandmother’s. Of the eight remaining witches of the Circle of Nine, these two would be calling on the magic of the hearth the most, so it was in their best interests to get them to behave as quickly as possible.
“You could just use the oven,” I offered.
Aunt Peony twisted around with a baleful glare. “Me, a hearth witch, use an oven ?”
While there was a gas range at the manor, and we’d all been taught how to use it, Aunt Peony and Uncle Stag did not consider it beyond its storing and display capabilities. Cookie sheets were stacked in the warmer, spare cast iron skillets crowded the oven, and the burners were where Aunt Peony displayed her collection of antique teapots and ceramic spoon rests.
“Next you’ll ask me to make cauldron stew on the stove ,” Aunt Peony spat . “Bite your tongue, Meadow.”
Rolling my eyes, I wandered into the kitchen to start preheating the oven.
Sawyer and Ame sat in the busted-out kitchen window, flanking the goldfish plant quivering in the breeze. Mrs. White huddled in the upper leftmost corner, no web in sight. It’d probably been destroyed when the farmhouse had been attacked, and since she didn’t know these witches, she hadn’t risked making another one.
“Meadow,” my mother began quietly.
“Just a minute,” I said. “I need to check on the cats.” I’d given Sawyer a little healing boost in the moonflower grove, but I hadn’t had the opportunity to check Ame for any injuries. The old battleax of a cat could probably conceal a sucking chest wound if she really wanted to.
“Meadow, they’re just cats—”
“And they’re my cats,” I snapped. “ I am responsible for them, and I’ll take care of them, thank you very much.”
My mother shut her mouth and faded away into the dining room.
Otter cleared his throat. “Need any help?” He’d always had a big soft spot for the manor cats.
“Touch me, witch, and I’ll claw out your eyes,” Ame told him calmly.
“And I’ll piss on them,” Sawyer added, tail lashing.
Scowling, Otter retreated to the kitchen doorway nearest the hearth and slouched.
“So I take it the shifter’s gone, then?” Aunt Hyacinth asked, poking her head into the kitchen. She sniffed, adjusting her wire-rim glasses. “Good.”
“But he’ll be back tonight, so you all have time to adjust your attitudes before then,” I said sweetly, my teeth clenched into a smile. Then I put my head down so I wouldn’t see their disapproving or apprehensive looks and got to work.
Under the watchful eyes of the family members still remaining and those not riveted on the drama unfolding at the hearth, I examined the two cats—Sawyer needed another healing session and Ame was just hungry. Even so, I didn’t release her right away, and she regarded me with suspicious yellow eyes.
“I told you, I’m fine,” she said. “Also, I’m not yours.”
“Shut up. You’re honorarily mine. Sort of. And you knew who I was this entire time, didn’t you?” I accused in a low voice, trying not to attract any more attention to us.
She didn’t bother denying it. “Yes.”
“Is that why you kept snooping around and insisting I bond with Sawyer? Because you’re my great-aunt’s familiar?”
“ Ex -familiar. Iris tore us apart.” Ame wiggled out of my hands and seated herself on the counter by the sink to start smoothing down her fur. “After they came back from that ringfort in Ireland, I was informed we had to annul our bond. That no Hawthorne witch could be associated with beasts of any kind, familiar or shifter. Apparently we’re all spies.”
“Spies for whom?”
But she wouldn’t say any more, and I knew I’d have an easier time fighting that hellhound again than getting this cat to give up any information she didn’t feel like parting with. Then again, maybe she was keeping that secret for Great-Aunt Fern. Or had been spelled to silence by Grandmother.
But I had Arthur’s promise, anyway, and Grandmother definitely owed me an explanation. She was still fussing with the hearth, though, so I busied myself by bustling around my kitchen filling up the kettle and setting it to boil, collecting all the mugs from the dish drainer and the cupboard, portioning out the tea bags, and giving the cats each a bowl of food—with a handful of those tuna treats they loved on top—to replenish their strength. It was only when I’d moved on to slicing and toasting the rest of the bread I had on hand, stomachs starting to rumble, that the two witches at the hearth gave up.
Try as they might to coerce the two fires to come to an alliance, their magic had failed. Grandmother erupted to her feet, smacking the soot off her knees. “This place is far too small for all of us, anyway. Doesn’t this town have a mayoral palace we could borrow for a few days?”
“Ooo, I do love a plush featherbed,” Otter said, stretching wistfully.
“Mayor Robert lives in a bungalow barely big enough for him and his spaniel, Peaches,” I replied. “We’re staying here.” I didn’t say anything about the town hall, which was as classically palatial as a building could get.
Abandoning the kitchen, I wormed through the family members clustered in the hearth room and knelt on the slate stones. With only an inkling of a plan formed, I thrust a hand into each fire. The flames turned green, their hues darkening as they recognized me and assessed my health. It took only a second for them to start competing again, each trying to outdo the other with what shade of green best represented me.
The magic tree of my core roused in response, golden-green power shooting down my arms. I don’t know how I managed it, but I seized the two fires like I would the scruffs of two arguing dogs.
“Now listen here,” I hissed to them. “You both know me. I was born under your protection,” I told the Hawthorne flames, “and you, my farmhouse flames, have protected me since your first spark. You will get along. You’re family, after all. Cousins, aunt and niece, whatever. And I need you to get my brother back. He’s your family too, so stop squabbling. Please, help me, as you always have.”
There was a beat where nothing happened beyond the flames trying to free themselves of my grip, but then they relaxed. I knew they had accepted my plea when the two fires joined, a new sunshine-yellow color emerging from where they mingled. I withdrew my hands with a smile. “Thank you.”
When I stood, the entire coven was clustered in the doorway, watching me.
“What?” I asked defensively.
“You’ve really come into your own out here, haven’t you?” Aunt Peony said, smiling proudly.
She wasn’t the only one. Uncle Badger’s blue eyes were sparkling, Otter was grinning, and Mom and Dad had soft approving smiles on their faces. Aunt Eranthis nodded in agreement, her precariously perched glasses nearly teetering off her nose, and Aunt Hyacinth looked somewhat sour, but she always looked like she’d sucked on a lemon. And Grandmother…
She sniffed and snapped her fingers. “We have work to do, family. Let’s get to it.”