Chapter 5 #3
The space was extremely tidy and clean. I doubted anyone could have left an evil bag of bones in here without Ivan noticing, particularly since he was a shifter. With his heightened senses, he’d have sniffed out something like that right away.
Movement caught my eye at one of the windows. It was the raven. When our eyes met, the bird knocked at the window with its beak.
“Uh, Elwood?” I pointed at the window.
Elwood’s face lit up. “Oh, what a good girl. She must have found something.”
We all hurried upstairs and outside. The raven was waiting patiently by the window, fluttering its—her?—wings when we approached. Elwood said she, and it felt right to me, too.
“Why don’t you go see what she’s found?” Elwood said.
“Me?” I squeaked.
“Well, she’s your familiar. She’s going to want to show you first.”
I blinked at him. “She’s my what?”
Elwood huffed and shooed me toward the big black bird. My grandfather was right. I did have a lot to learn. But now, with Ivan scowling at me, wasn’t the time.
With my mind reeling, I stumbled toward the bird.
A black bundle was tucked against the wall under the window close to her talons.
Well, wasn’t the hex maker clever? They’d placed it where Ivan wouldn’t notice it.
I doubted he’d have found it until he cut his grass and, since the grass had browned in the last heat wave, it might’ve stayed there for a long, long time.
“Yep,” I said. “I see it.”
“Thank her,” Elwood instructed.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “You did a good job in finding this for us. And I’m glad you didn’t touch it. It isn’t nice.”
She bobbed her head and cawed. Then she hopped a couple of times before jumping into the air and flying to a nearby fence to watch us.
Elwood hurried over and picked up the little bag.
“What are you doing?” I shouted, swatting it out of his hand.
“It isn’t designed to hurt me. It’s here to hex Ivan.” He grabbed it off the ground again and carried it to the microbus. Ivan followed, but kept several feet back. “Today is making it obvious we need to increase your lessons. You’re so far behind.”
I bristled at that. It wasn’t my fault that everyone, including him, had kept me in the dark about magic until a few weeks ago.
“What does it do? What’s inside?” Ivan leaned over to sniff at the hex bag as Elwood grabbed his toolboxes and plopped everything, including himself, onto the sidewalk.
I held my breath as my grandfather cut through the rope binding the fabric and tugged the bundle open. When nothing jumped out, I exhaled slowly. But I didn’t think we were safe yet. Sweat trickled down my neck.
The contents were a balled-up jumble of dried plants and tiny bones. Elwood poked at the mass, spreading it out over the cloth. I really needed to stick some latex gloves in his toolboxes because he shouldn’t be touching that without some kind of protection.
Something white caught my eye. It didn’t look like a bone, but what was it?
“Perfect,” Elwood muttered to himself as he plucked out the white object.
“Let’s see what we have.” He picked at the thing with his fingernails until I realized it was a tiny bit of folded paper.
He squinted at it when it was finally laying flat across his palm.
“I can’t read it. Declan, come see if your younger eyes can make sense of this. ”
I begrudgingly took the itty-bitty scrap of paper from his hand. The writing was ridiculously small, but I could read it.
“Well? What does it say?” Ivan leaned over to look for himself.
“Give him space,” Elwood said. “Can you read it, Declan?”
I nodded. “It is like a little rhyme. It says:
‘This little hex will use its power
to turn what you submit sour.
This magic you will not feel.
It will do its work and stay concealed.’”
“So, someone is out to get me,” Ivan muttered. “I knew Roy couldn’t have won fair and square.”
“We don’t know it was Roy,” Elwood said quickly. “In fact, I’d be surprised if it was him. I’ve known him his whole life. I’d swear that boy doesn’t have any magic.”
“But does this even make sense?” I asked. “You found magic in that beer, and I think I felt it too, for that matter. I just didn’t know what it was. So it obviously didn’t stay concealed.”
“The magic was supposed to stay hidden from Ivan. Although, that last bit of the verse suggests the witch is fairly new to hexes and doesn’t understand what can and can’t be done.
It’s a bit crude, to be honest. However, few witches would be strong enough to hide a hex like that completely.
They’d certainly need to be stronger than this hex maker.
Although it does explain why I couldn’t get a better reading from the contaminated beer.
” Elwood gathered up the remnants of the hex bag, plucking the hex out of my hand and tucking it back in with everything else.
“Where do you think you’re going with that?” Ivan asked.
“I need to take a better look at it. Identify all the ingredients. That might help us find out who did this.”
Fur sprouted along the backs of Ivan’s clenched hands. “We know who did it. But fine, take it. I’m still telling Grady about this. So you better not lie when he comes knocking on your door for answers.”
Elwood nodded. “And by then, hopefully I’ll have something to tell him.”