Eva
When I accidentally summoned Sorren, I’d never felt more powerful. I knew a breakthrough was right around the corner, but the magick didn’t last. It's all so confusing. Especially since neither of us seems to be in a hurry to fix the mess I made, and I don't know what that means.
I reach for the open book on the table, and it flies into my hand. “Did you see that?” A laugh escapes at the surprising burst of magick.
Sorren smirks and snaps his fingers, igniting every candle in the house, not wanting to be outdone.
“You know the exact date? That’s pretty impressive.”
“It was my thirteenth birthday. I was the last witch whose magick awakened. The leylines have been blocked ever since.” My old friend, guilt, rears its ugly head.
“Honestly, I’ve always thought that whatever closed the lines was my fault since my awakening was the last time they were active.
” I tug at the sleeve of my sweater and fiddle with the cuff.
“I’ll help you figure this out. Then you won’t have to blame yourself anymore.” Sorren says it like an indisputable fact. I want to believe him.
“That’s why I’ve been working so hard on getting them open again. Until recently, I suppose.” I laugh when I realize my life has been so crazy that I’ve been flitting around in all directions, never making any progress on anything.
Sorren thinks for a minute. He takes off his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose. “What have you already tried?”
He doesn’t make fun of my witchcraft. He doesn’t tease me for wasting my time or effort on something he doesn’t understand. He wants to help me figure this out. Like a partner. My mind races, excited to work through this together.
With renewed energy I bring Sorren up to speed.
“I’ve been working on spells to amplify our magick.
My hypothesis is that if the coven can grow our intrinsic magick, it will begin flowing through the lines again.
We’ve tried runes along the lines, incantations, offerings—everything we can think of, but nothing has worked. Not a single spark.”
“Do you think something is blocking the flow? Or it dried up?” he asks, and I can almost see the wheels turning in his mind, thinking through the problem.
I could hear snippets of his conversation with his half-brother today.
He asked smart questions, always getting to the root of whatever problem they were discussing.
When he spoke and strategized, he was thorough and convincing. It was downright sexy.
“Why would you help me? I essentially kidnapped you.” I’m surprised by his willingness…even excitement about working on this.
“It’s just self-preservation. I’ll help so that you won’t harvest my succulent organs and chop me up into little demon bits for one of your wicked spells.” He gets up and clears our plates with a wink. His humor helps me relax.
“What makes you think I won’t do that anyway?” I follow him into the kitchen. In perfect synchronization, we clean up from dinner, putting away the leftovers and loading the dishwasher.
Back at the table I show him the mapped-out lines documented in my book.
“Right here,” I point to a place we have been working on for years, “There is still a trace of magick.”
“What is it?” he asks, looking closely at the map.
“It’s a rock formation.”
“We don’t have these in the underworld.” Sorren’s finger follows along the drawn lines, “But if there is one thing I’m good at, it’s project management.
In situations like these, the first thing I want to know is if this has happened before. You don’t happen to have a witchy history book laying around, do you?”
His organized approach cracks me up. This professional CEO side of him is an interesting contrast to the guy who sits and watches hours of reality TV.
I think for a minute, taking stock of what books have been passed down to me. I know I’ve seen one somewhere.
“I don’t, but I know someone who does.”
A knock at my front door startles both of us. Sorren jumps to his feet and looks ready to bolt out the back door.
“Go hide in the shed, I’ll see who it is.” I push him toward the back of the house and do one last look for any evidence of my visitor laying around.
The wild look in his eyes calms a bit, and I nod, reassuring him that everything is okay.
Once he is safely tucked away, I go to the front door, hoping it’s not Grant. After today, the breakup feels distant. I'm not all the way there yet, but today has helped a lot. I feel lighter than I have in a long time.
Through the small window at the top of my door, I see Riley’s shiny black hair. I’m glad it’s not Grant, but this proves to be a different challenge. I need to get rid of her as fast as possible without making it seem like I’m ushering her away.
“Hey!” I swing the door open wide and welcome her in.
“How are you holding up?” she asks, looking me up and down. “I expected you to be in your pajamas on the couch with candy wrappers all around you. Why are you dressed?” She cuts right to the chase. No censoring her thoughts around me.
“I didn’t feel like moping around all day.”
She marches straight to the kitchen and spins on her heel to face me. “What’s going on here? It feels weird.” Riley slowly looks around the house. I gulp when I realize there are two cups of water on the table.
I reach for one and take a big gulp. “Nothing’s going on.”
“Your house is too clean. Did Grant come over?” She eyes me suspiciously.
“No!” I clear my throat to calm down my voice. “Nope, just me.” As soon as the words are out of my mouth a crash comes from the shed.
“What was that?” she asks moving toward the back door.
“Nothing!” I dart in front of her and block her way. “Just the cat.”
“You’re still feeding that thing?” She tries to push past me.
“Of course.” A nervous laugh slips out of my mouth. I am not doing a good job at convincing her that things are normal.
“You can’t just feed every random creature that shows up at your house.”
Riley, you have no idea.
“I was just about to go see my mom. I need to grab a book from her house. I’ll see you tomorrow at the café.” I could smack my head at how abrupt this sounds.
Riley narrows her eyes at me. Shit. “You’re being weird. You just ended a five-year relationship. Instead of rotting on the couch, you’re fully dressed, bathed, and you cleaned your damn house. Something fishy is going on here?”
Another crash from the shed breaks Riley’s accusatory stare.
“You know what? You should come with me! They’d love to see you.” I grab Riley’s elbow, my purse, and phone and drag her to the truck before Sorren gets us both caught.
“Eva, they aren’t even here,” Riley grouses when we pull into the empty driveway.
It’s for the best though because now I can snoop around without having to explain myself to her.
“Oh shoot! Well, we can just go in and grab the book I need. They must have forgotten I was coming over.”
Riley squints her eyes at me, sizing me up.
A nervous laugh rattles the back of my throat.
“Better go grab it. You want to wait in the truck?” I suggest lightly. She’s still looking at me strangely. Which is fair.
“No, I’m coming with you.”
We make our way through the dark to the house.
I could do this walk blindfolded, I've done it so many times. I dodge the plaster sundial and bend down just enough to miss the wind chimes, inconveniently placed in the center of the stairs up to the front door. A hippie witch’s house alarm.
I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that my mom and aunt sit and watch delivery drivers knock their heads on the chimes when they are bored.
The house unlocks for me when I touch the knob.
I flip on the lights and go straight for the overstuffed bookcase in the living room.
My tendency toward clutter is a family trait.
I scan over the books. Well-used salacious romance novels are stacked next to books on philosophy and art history.
Family albums are crammed together filling up the middle shelf.
Toward the bottom we get to the witchy titles.
Palm Reading.
Portal Magick.
Potions.
The alphabetization must be Paige’s doing. I can’t imagine my mom spending a single second organizing witch texts. I skip down to the end of the shelf, there it is: The Book of Vestiges. The history of our coven.
“What are you up to?” She bends down.
A plan to work backward formulates in my head. I pull out the most recent volume and blow the dust off the top.
“I got thinking about the leylines. What if this has happened before? The answer might be in here somewhere.” I feel guilty leaving out the part where Sorren is the one who came up with the idea.
“That is actually brilliant,” Riley acknowledges.
I take the heavy book over to the couch, and Riley sits next to me. With the book between us, we open the cover and start at the beginning. It starts with the membership of the coven in 1971.
“This one right here, she’s my ancestor.” I point to Betsy Campbell, midway down the page.
Riley flips through page after page of names, finally getting to chapters with descriptions of events and magick. Together we scan through the pages but find no reference to leylines.
We’re almost through the entire book when we come across blacked out blank pages, followed by a chapter that jumps ahead to 1993.
“That’s weird.” She flips back and forth, inspecting the blank pages.
“Is it?”
“Yeah, this shouldn’t be here.”
The sound of Paige’s car pulling into the driveway interrupts our focus. I slam the book shut and shove it into my purse.
“What are you doing?” Riley asks, sounding perplexed and possibly annoyed at my rough treatment of the book.
“We’re taking this with us. Don’t say a word.” I give her the look that says just go with me on this. We’ve been friends for a long time and have found ourselves in enough trouble to know what that look means.
The door swings open, and a rush of energy and noise fills the house.
“Evie! How are you?” Mom pulls me into a crushing hug, the smell of outdoors clinging to her hair.
“Robin! You’re not supposed to ask a woman how she’s doing right after a breakup!” Paige pulls her off me and gives an apologetic glance.
“I’m fine. Really.”
They look skeptical.
“She took a shower, cleaned her house, and made dinner,” Riley accuses. All three women know me well enough to know those things are out of character when I’m sad, or happy, or pretty much anytime.
Everyone stops in their tracks and stares at me.
“What’s going on?” Paige asks.
“That’s what I said!” Riley chimes in.
“Are all three of you going to gang up on me because I took a shower?” I cringe at how defensive I sound.
The truth is, today with Sorren has been one of the best days I can remember.
The timing couldn’t be worse. Everyone will think I’m on the rebound, but I like Sorren. I like spending time with him.
Deflect. Deflect. Deflect.
“Yes,” they all say at once.
“Unbelievable. You’d prefer me in sweats with dirty hair, living in squalor?”
The three women shrug in unison.
“I know what’s going on,” Mom continues. “She’s in denial.”
“Yep, that’s it,” Paige agrees, and all three women start moving again. Paige and my mom drape their wool coats over the decorative hooks in the entryway.
They might be right. The moment I woke up, I braced myself for the heartbreak to set in. Instead, I felt peace. A part of me that was out of alignment with the universe was finally in its place. Is it too fast? It doesn’t feel like denial. It feels more like I’m no longer swimming upstream.
“Where were you guys?” I ask, directing the conversation away from the armchair psychoanalysis.
“Walking the lines,” Paige answers for them.
“Oh good! Is your ankle feeling better?” I ask Mom.
“When did you hurt your ankle?” Paige asks, confusion written all over her face.
“Oh it’s not a big deal. All better.” Mom says, and flits into the kitchen, away from our scrutinizing looks.
“No, you definitely said that you hurt your ankle and couldn’t walk the lines the other night.” I’m not going to drop this. I’m not the only one acting suspicious now.
Realization dawns on Paige’s face. “Oh yeah. Your ankle. I remember.”
“What is going on with you two? Why weren’t you walking the lines the other night?” I corner them both in the kitchen, blocking their way out. Not until I get the truth.
“Evie. I didn’t want you to worry. It’s not a big deal, we were just trying something different,” my mom says, her face covered in guilt.
“Was it because of me? You didn’t go because of me?” The deep fear that’s been holding onto me for the last thirteen years comes out. It’s the elephant in the room. It can’t be a coincidence the lines closed when they did. Riley stays silent, and I’m sure she can tell how much it bothers me.
“We don’t think it’s your fault.” Paige tries to console me as she pulls me into a side hug.
“We are just trying anything at this point,” Mom explains, wrapping her arm around me from the other side.
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” I swallow down the hurt. So I’m not the only one wondering if this is all my fault. Great.
“It’s getting late, we should go.” I grab my bag and head for the door, needing to get away from their pity. Riley gives them an awkward wave goodbye as I practically sprint away.
“Please don’t be upset,” Mom calls from the kitchen.
“It’s okay. Love you,” I yell back, rushing to get out of there. I just want to go home and lick my wounds.