Chapter 10
The drive over to the rec center is silent save for the low hum of the radio. All five of us are stuffed into Malik’s car. Lizzie’s the smallest, so she ended up with the dreaded middle seat. She rests her head on Chris’s shoulder, looking at a video on his phone.
My screen seems too bright in the darkened interior, but I can’t stop staring at Gramps’s text.
He didn’t reply to us when we asked for more details.
I have this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that this has to do with what happened to little Marian.
The same sensation that I felt right before Theresa rang our doorbell sends goose bumps down my arms.
Marian’s unnerving symptoms are seared into my brain. I’ll never be able to unsee the bizarre color of her eyes as the illness devoured her from the inside.
Gramps wouldn’t assemble the entire coven on a weeknight for no good reason, so that means whoever died didn’t do so by natural causes. I’ve got the sense that we’re not done with the evil that sickened that little girl.
The parking lot is a quarter full by the time we arrive. The site manager of the rec center is a witch, so she keeps the building open after hours when we need to assemble all fifty members of the coven.
We head around to the side door leading to the gymnasium. Aunt Roberta’s waiting for us as soon as we step inside.
“Come with me,” she commands, gripping my elbow and dragging me past the bleachers and out into the lobby. Orion’s hot on our heels.
“What about the meeting?” I ask.
Aunt Roberta screeches to a halt and grips both my arms so tight it hurts. “The Council’s convened right now, and you need to be there. Zeke doesn’t want to scare the whole coven with all the details, but the Elders need to be apprised of the full situation.”
Orion hovers next to us. “You wanna give us the scoop, Auntie? What’s going on?”
Her expression is grim as she lowers her voice. “James Peterson died tonight. His skin glowed golden, and his eyes were…unnatural.” She shudders on the last word. “Before you got here, your grandfather told the other Elders about the LeBlanc girl.”
I swallow past the lump in my throat. Once again, my foresight was correct.
“Did anyone try to heal him?” I ask, thinking of the amount of power it took Gramps and me to remove the darkness from Marian’s body.
“His daughter tried her best.” Aunt Roberta shakes her head. “The poor thing’s nearly inconsolable. She was his only child.”
Andrea Peterson graduated a few years before Orion and I did.
She and her dad rarely came to the parties at our house, but they attended the monthly meetings regularly.
James had a green thumb bolstered by his skill in potions.
He would grow the most beautiful flowers and enchant them with various properties like extended life and increased scent.
Gran always kept a bouquet of his white roses and powder-blue hydrangeas on our kitchen counter. They’d live for months without any tending.
Orion lets out a low whistle. “Damn, this ain’t good.”
“It surely ain’t,” Aunt Roberta agrees. She turns her attention back to me. “You cannot go in there and act meek. They will eat you alive if you do, and you need them on your side. If they don’t support your ascension, then no one will.”
“But Gramps said it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks,” I argue. “He said I’m the only one who can lead.”
Aunt Roberta sighs. “Our family has led this coven since the very beginning, thanks to our link to the first Queen, but we’ve grown since then. There are families within our numbers that have no link to the original coven of five.”
My heart pounds against my rib cage. “Are you saying that someone else will challenge my claim?”
Aunt Roberta purses her lips. “I’m saying that you need to be on your best behavior if you want to lead.” She turns on Orion. “And you! Shoo! Go back to the gym and don’t mention a word of this to your little friends!”
As she and Orion squabble, I contemplate what she said.
I’m not sure I even want to be Witch Queen. Besides, if my vision comes to pass, then I won’t be alive much longer. Maybe choosing someone else to lead would be the best decision for the coven.
A tiny voice in the back of my mind that sounds a whole lot like Gran shouts, Shut your mouth! You get in there and do your duty!
My inner voice knows exactly what Gran would say. She always told me that the ancestors walk life’s path at our side, and now I know what she meant. Even if I don’t want this title, Gran would be disappointed if I didn’t fight for it. I’ll never stop trying to live up to who Gran wanted me to be.
Everyone’s heads swivel in my direction as I enter the room with Aunt Roberta at my side. Goose bumps erupt along my arms as an icy chill settles over me. I can’t tell whether it’s the temperature of the room or the reception of the people within. There’s not a smile or warm look in sight.
I almost wish Orion were here to lighten the mood, but there’s no justifiable reason for him to attend a Council meeting.
Our Council of Elders consists of seven members, with representatives from each of the five original families, the Witch Queen, and an extra member to represent the newer families.
Levi, Bernadette, and Terrence sit on one side of the table, while Aunt Roberta takes a seat next to Miss Connie. Aunt Lorraine and Gramps stare each other down from opposite ends. There’s one open seat left next to Gramps. I settle into it and train my gaze on him.
He nods in my direction, but the corners of his mouth remain turned down.
Miss Connie is the first to speak, leaning forward to ask in French, “?a va?”
I’m doing the best I can for the situation at hand, so I respond with a murmured “?a va” and clasp both hands in my lap so no one can see me pick at my nail polish.
Gramps clears his throat. “Let’s continue,” he says. “As we were saying—”
“Shouldn’t the girl lead the meeting now?” Aunt Lorraine asks, peering at her brother through slitted eyelids. “Or would you really wait until her formal ascension to release responsibility?”
As she turns her eagle-eyed gaze on me, I can’t help but shiver. Aunt Lorraine is dressed impeccably in a leopard-print dress beneath a dark brown shawl. Her shoulder-length gray hair is pressed and laid, not a single strand out of place. Each ring on her fingers glints in the fluorescent light.
Despite the fact that I’m her great-niece and one of Malik’s best friends, she’s never shown any love toward me.
“She’s still learning,” Gramps says gruffly. “Now, don’t interrupt me again.”
“Don’t forget your place, Ezekiel,” Aunt Lorraine snaps. “I’m still your older sister.” She points a ruby-adorned finger in my direction and proclaims, “We all know this girl isn’t fit to serve. This coven has gone too long without true leadership. It’s time to look beyond the Cormier line.”
Aunt Roberta curses under her breath and slams her palm on the table. I’ve never seen her so openly furious. “Shut your mouth, Lorraine! Where is your loyalty? After all Adelaide did for you and for her people, you ought to be ashamed.”
“It’s the truth,” Aunt Lorraine says. “A man is dead because Adelaide Broussard failed to stomp out those wretched white witches when she had the chance.”
Confusion and shock electrify my tongue. “What are you even talking about?” I snarl. Aunt Lorraine and Gran never saw eye to eye, but I didn’t expect her to speak so savagely against her. “What do you have against Gran?”
“Quiet! All of you.” Gramps clambers to his feet. “This isn’t the time nor the place for these petty squabbles. Like you said, a man is dead.”
“And you know why,” Aunt Lorraine spits. “Only the Hightowers could be responsible for such callous evil.”
The Hightowers. That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time and only in whispered conversations, never so out in the open. Among the other witches in this city, the Hightowers are the only coven with numbers as large as ours.
They were cast out from Salem during the time of the witch trials and moved from place to place until finally settling in New Orleans around the time that Gran’s mother was queen.
I’ve never set eyes on a Hightower witch, and that’s because they went into hiding years before I was born. In Gran’s and Gramps’s eyes, their name is synonymous with evil. I could never suss out why. Gran would never answer my questions about them, so I stopped asking.
“We can’t immediately assume they’re to blame,” Levi croaks for the first time, leaning forward and placing his grizzled hands on the table. “There needs to be a full investigation.”
“Agreed,” Miss Connie says. She peers at Gramps through thick lenses. “All the witnesses need to be questioned. Including you and Mikaela.”
“I’ve held nothing back,” he says.
“Except you waited until there was a death to inform us of the first incident,” Aunt Lorraine says. “You cost that man his life.”
“She has a point,” Terrence, the representative for the new families, says. “Why didn’t you call on us after the LeBlanc girl?”
Gramps casts his eyes downward. To the others, he appears intimidated, but I can read him well enough to see that he’s keeping them from sensing the true reason he withheld the information: to protect me.
“I hoped it would be a one-off occurrence. I never thought…”
Aunt Lorraine narrows her eyes. “Tell me, what is the difference between Theresa’s daughter and James Peterson? Why did one survive while the other died?”
Gramps steeples his fingers on his temple. “Mikaela and I worked as a team while James’s daughter was alone when she attempted to heal him.”
Aunt Lorraine waves him away. “We all know the girl is inexperienced.” She traps me in her gaze. “You would have essentially done all the work yourself, Zeke.”
I can’t help the groan that escapes my lips. Not this again.
“Look,” I begin, “I know I’m not the best healer—I’ll admit that any day of the week—but I worked just as hard as Gramps.”
Adrenaline floods my veins as Aunt Lorraine and I stare each other down. The truth is I’m not sure whether I helped Marian much at all, but I’m tired of hearing her insult me. I refuse to back down this time.
She glances away first.
“That could be the case,” Aunt Roberta chimes in. “This illness, whatever it is, may require multiple witches.”
I think back to when we healed Marian. After we saved her life, her magic had disappeared, like it had never been there at all.
When witches die, our magic lingers in our bodies, decaying along with our bones.
“Wait,” I ask. “Did anyone here actually see James’s body? Did he still have magic?”
Gramps looks at me sharply while Aunt Roberta nods. “I didn’t feel a thing, cher.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “I thought it was strange, but I was too distracted to put much thought into it.”
“Can you share the memory with me?”
My aunt nods and reaches for my hands. Witches are able to share memories the same way that Orion and I speak within each other’s minds.
Aunt Roberta opens a door through her mental walls, and I step inside her mind.
When I open my eyes, I’m inside her memory, staring down at James’s body.
I have to force myself from flinching at the sight of death.
James’s face is slack, and his red-gold irises are visible beneath half-open lids.
Golden streaks spiderweb along his face and down his neck.
And smack-dab in the middle of his forehead, a symbol appears to be burned into his skin.
I’ve never seen anything like it—half a circle with a sideways T running through the center.
The odd coloring to Marian’s skin and eyes disappeared after we healed her, but James’s body still bears the effects.
A theory forms on the tip of my tongue as I process everything I know.
“I don’t think their magic is disappearing into thin air because that isn’t possible.
It’s like they taught us in school, matter is neither created nor destroyed.
” As the old folks stare at me blankly, something else occurs to me.
“If I’m right, someone’s stealing the magic. It’s being transferred.”
“Is it some sort of magical pathogen?” Bernadette asks. “I’ve never seen anything like this in all my years.”
Aunt Lorraine clucks her tongue. “If it is, we know who’s responsible.”
The others exchange glances, but Levi gets to his feet. “Do the how and the why really matter so much right now?” He gestures wildly as he speaks. “If the Hightowers are responsible, then it’s an act of war. We need to answer in kind.”
The other members murmur in assent, but something doesn’t sit right with me. We have no proof that they are responsible. No one’s even heard a peep from them in years.
“Why do y’all think they’re behind it?” I ask.
Gramps’s expression darkens. “This wouldn’t be the first time they’ve killed living creatures for their own gain.”
“What are you—”
Aunt Roberta rests a hand on my arm. “We caught them sacrificing animals, baby.” Her eyes flash. “Once we made a fuss over it, they disappeared.”
“Those wretched people,” Aunt Lorraine spits.
Only the darkest spell books make mention of living sacrifices.
It’s an evil task, and it only results in temporary gain.
If you spill a living soul’s blood over an altar, you can reap the power of their unused potential, but the increased power wears off after a few days or weeks, depending on the creature.
Bernadette clutches her chest. “Someone’s gotta get to the bottom of this, Ezekiel,” she says. “I’ve got grandchildren. We can’t have the babies of this coven dropping dead and losing magic.”
“Witches can’t lose their magic!” Terrence exclaims, pounding his fist on the table. “It’s impossible! Why are we even entertaining her theory?”
“Quiet!” Gramps snaps. He glances down at his watch. “Now, I’m sure the rest of the coven is getting restless out there. We won’t figure this out in one meeting, but we do have to go out there and inform the others about the evil forces lurking in this city. They need to be warned.”
“And the Hightowers?” Aunt Lorraine asks.
Gramps glowers at her. “We’ll investigate.”
I have a sick feeling that when he says we, he really means me.