48 Birdie
BIRDIE
Jasper knocks on the back door of the Carousel. We’re only left waiting a moment before it opens, revealing a man I’ve never seen. He’s older, maybe in his sixties, with salt-and-pepper hair, fair skin, and pale blue eyes. He looks to me with a frown. “Can I help you, miss?”
I glance to Jasper. “I . . . umm . . .”
“Oh, shit—sorry,” says Jasper. “Just hold on, Paul.”
The man’s eyes go wide with shock. “Jasper? Is that you?”
“Yeah, hold on.”
Oh my—that pendant really works! This man is standing right in front of Jasper and he can’t see him. Paul’s gaze darts all around. “Are you . . . a ghost?”
“No, just hold on.” Jasper reaches under the collar of his T-shirt and tugs out the little charm, pinching it between thumb and forefinger. “Paul Fischer,” he whispers. “Evil Eye, hide me not from his Sight.”
I watch as the magic takes effect. Paul blinks twice, leaning away with one hand still on the door. “Whoa . . .” Letting out a breath, he looks to the witch he can now very clearly see. “My god, Jas. I thought you were dead. They all said it. Even Mercy—”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Jasper says over him. “Coven business. Is Mercy here? We need to talk to her.”
Paul steps back with a dazed nod. “Yeah, sure. I’ll just send her back to the office.”
Jasper and I slip inside the back door, and he directs me left into a cramped office. Meanwhile, Paul heads deeper into the store. “Mercy! You got a visitor!”
“That’s Paul,” Jasper explains. “Mercy’s husband.”
I watch the older man disappear around a stack of chairs. “He’s human?”
“Yeah. There are no witch pairings in my coven. There hasn’t been for generations.”
“Why not?”
“Insular island means insular families. We only have four active bloodlines. With that small of a gene pool to work with . . .”
He doesn’t need to finish the thought. “So, you let humans mate with you to make more little baby witches, but they don’t get to be in the coven?”
“They know about us,” he assures me. “They know about magic too. But no, none of the current human partners are full coven members. As I said, you’re the first.”
I gasp, glancing his way. “Wait—is that what the coven expects from me? That I’ll make more bloodline babies?”
He dares to smirk. “Your options are limited if that’s your goal. You’ll have to choose between me or Jonah Clarke.”
Leaning against the desk, I purse my lips. “Well, a girl likes to have options. Is Jonah more handsome than you?”
Jasper snorts.
“What?”
“Jonah Clarke is over sixty and creepy as fuck.”
A witch calling something else creepy has a chill racing down my arms. “Creepy how?”
“He’s a Seer. Old family curse. It’s activated through physical touch. He’s the one who told us my sister had cancer . . . at her birthday party,” he adds with a frown. “While she was blowing out her damn candles.”
My heart drops as I picture it. “Oh, gosh. Happy birthday to Grace, I guess.”
“Yeah, it was gruesome,” he mutters. “But Jonah didn’t mean to do it. In fact, we’re glad he did. We were able to get Gracie the palliative care she needed. You know . . . for the end.”
Fighting a shiver, I rub my arms. “So, maybe Jonah and I won’t be a love connection.”
“Never say never,” he teases. “If you have a sweater vest kink, this contest is over before it begins. There’s no way I’ll be able to compete.”
“Sweater vests? Really?”
“Mhmm. All year round.”
I laugh, shaking my head. I like this side of Jasper. Relaxed, open, willing to communicate. “Was your father a witch?”
“Yeah. But he and my mom were never a true mated pair. More like just a handful of messy mistakes.”
“Is he still alive?”
“I think so. I also think I don’t care,” he adds with a disinterested shrug. “We have no relationship. It’s not tortured or complicated. It’s just . . . nothing. I never think of him. He’s never even been out to the island.”
I smile weakly. “Is it too dark and damaged of me to say I’m a little jealous?”
“Jealous of what?”
“Sometimes kids are better left abandoned.”
He holds my gaze for a moment. “Shit. That is dark, Birds.”
It’s my turn to shrug. “Yeah, well, sometimes being found is worse than getting lost.”
“Spoken from experience?”
“Yeah.”
“That bad?”
“Bad enough that I fled with all my stuff in a trash bag at sixteen and never looked back. I finished high school from the front seat of a Volvo.”
“What happened?”
“They say there’s no love like Christian hate, right?”
He nods.
“Well, my adoptive parents hated everything. And they never really wanted me. They just wanted a baby. God wanted them to have a baby,” I correct.
“But I was colicky and cried if you didn’t hold me.
My mother saw that as proof of my wickedness, passed on from my junkie birth mom.
I spent my whole childhood being ‘reformed’ from the sins of her past. It’s not easy, you know? ”
“What?”
“Carrying someone else’s shortcomings and being forced to wear them as your own skin.”
His heavy gaze traces over my tattoos. “So, you started painting your skin, reclaiming yourself.”
I brush my fingertips over the face of one of the hummingbirds visible on my chest. “Pretty much. Each one is a final tear shed, a little victory won. This is the real me, finally shining through. I shed away all my layers of shame and pain. I’m not wicked and I’m not sinful.
I’m not perfect either,” I’m quick to add.
His smile makes my stomach flip. “Perfect is boring, Birds. I like you just the way you are.”
Before I can respond, Mercy appears. She looks as austere as ever, her black funeral dress replaced with a chocolate number. Instead of pearls, she has an Hermès-looking scarf tied at her neck. Her sleek bob is perfectly polished, her lips a crisp shade of red.
Jasper steps forward, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Thanks for agreeing to meet with us.”
Her gaze is cold as she stares him down. “My high priest commands, and I obey.”
He drops his hand away. “Yeah, I guess I deserve that. It’s why I wanted to come see you in person . . . to apologize.”
Her penciled brows arch high. “Oh?”
“The last time we spoke, I was an ass, and you didn’t deserve it.” Sighing, he leans against an old file cabinet. “Look, all of this is changing so quickly. I know I’m not doing things the usual way. I may not even be doing them the right way. And I know how much you like rules—”
“Because rules keep us safe,” she presses. “Rules rein in the darker aspects of our nature that would tend to chaos, domination, and control. We are wild beings at heart, Jasper. No one should know that better than a Prescott.”
He smirks. “We’ve got a bit of a reputation, I suppose.”
Surprising me, she steps in, cupping his cheek like a mother would.
“You are not a bad man . . . or a bad high priest. And you are not your mother. It was wrong of me to refresh that old wound. I see the difference in you. The kindness, the readiness to lead with us, not for us.” Dropping her hand lower, she presses it over his chest, right where his heart beats.
“And I see this. Your witch’s intuition is strong. It always has been.”
Nodding, he places his hand over hers. “I have to trust it, Mercy. Without my heart guiding me, I’m dead.” He glances to me, his gaze resolved. “Which is why I made Birdie a member of our coven last night.”
Mercy’s eyes widen. “You did? How?”
“A handfasting ritual. Then she crossed my threshold. She’s in, Mercy. The goddess accepted our oaths. Birdie’s going to help us take down Ludmilla.”
Slowly, Mercy turns. Her dark eyes bore into me. “And what makes you think we need a human’s help?”
I open my mouth only to shut it, surprised by the bluntness of her question.
It’s like she reached into my chest and tugged on my deepest insecurity.
There’s nothing I hate more than feeling inadequate.
That’s the root of all the trauma from my past. Nothing I did was ever enough.
I wasn’t good enough. Wasn’t pure enough. Wasn’t Christian enough.
It transferred over to my schoolwork, too, to all my sports and hobbies. If I wasn’t the best, the feeling of inadequacy suffocated me. I worked harder, studied longer, practiced more. All the while, I wasn’t chasing the wins or the straight As. I was chasing the feeling of finally being enough.
I fought hard to overcome the demons of my past. I grew in my confidence and stopped seeking external validation. But now I’m standing here before this witch who dares to throw my oldest fear in my face. I’m just a human in a world of magic. How can I ever matter? How can I ever be enough?
Taking a deep breath, I square my shoulders, glancing from Jasper back to Mercy. “Your coven is at a crossroads, Mercy. Isolation has dwindled your numbers down to nothing. The way I see it, you can’t afford to be picky about who joins anymore. Not if you want to survive.”
“Fair enough,” she replies. “But you can mate with my high priest without joining my coven. This is something more. He treats you as essential. Why?”
“Because you’re all being hunted by a witch who is using an archaeologist to dig up the secrets of your past,” I reply.
“Jasper doesn’t need more magic on his side to fight her.
What he needs is an archivist who can analyze journals and a field researcher who can operate a ground penetrating radar.
No one in the coven is qualified. I am. You may be powerful witches, but you live in a world where magic can’t always be the solution. ”
Pride glows in Jasper’s eyes. Slowly, he nods. It’s time for me to really prove myself.
Feeling emboldened, I turn back to Mercy. “Now, let’s talk about that magic for a second. Jasper was attacked the other night. I saved him.”
“You saved him?” She glances between us. “How?”
“We’re not quite sure,” says Jasper. “We’re looking into it.”
“But she’s only human . . .”