Chapter 25
“No, not at my warehouse!” Annelise protested, maybe a little too harshly, but it gave her visions of her antiques getting scorch marks. “Somewhere else.”
She was so excited that Jenna reached out to her.
It had not gone well up on the mountainside.
Jenna had been so distraught by Annelise’s display of skill, and the suggestion that she was also a Lockheart and therefore a witch, that she’d refused to ride back with her cousin.
She’d begged a ride from Ford and then walked off.
With a wish and a prayer, she’d sent her cousin a text the next day saying - I hope you're okay. I'm sorry about the abruptness of the news.
It had taken a full twenty-four hours until a reply came back. - It was a very odd thing to see. Takes a while to absorb it.
I fully understand. I grew up with it so it's easier for me.
Annelise tried to be patient, but she hated the space between them.
She was schoolgirl excited to have a cousin again.
Though she and Jenna hadn't grown up together, Jenna was in fact a Lockheart, and she was running around, an untrained witch doing all kinds of things that she didn't seem to notice she was doing.
“If not the warehouse, then where?” Jenna asked, having finally agreed to a small training session to see what she could do.
If Annelise was right, Jenna had been trying her hand at some online spells in the meantime and maybe discovering she had some skill. “You can come back to Gram’s house?”
She didn’t say my house this time. Rowan’s words stuck like honey.
Maybe she didn’t have to be responsible for Story.
Story certainly didn’t seem to want her to be.
Instead, Annelise had come back from college, and she’d sacrificed for someone who didn’t seem to want it.
Was that what her mother had done? Maybe—just maybe—she could find another road out.
After all, Story had kept promising her, as they watched the rain fall and the river rise, that change was coming to the Hollow.
Maybe she could be the change. Maybe she could stop feeling like she was sacrificing herself for a grandmother who didn’t want it.
While it might make things worse for Story, if it was what she wanted, then maybe it was what Annelise should do.
So she’d invited Jenna over to the house for practice.
She brought drinks and food that didn’t need a stove or a fridge.
Nothing was plugged in; Story still had the power off.
It made Annelise miss having a real home.
She’d spent yet another night in her office, fighting off images of Rowan holding her, tasting her, driving into her.
Other than catching her breath at the memory and fighting off the need it brought on, the office was more than comfortable.
She’d put in a short day’s work. Annelise graded a handful of the smaller antiques that came in and started research on provenance of two of the larger ones.
She’d sent out a slew of email offers and even taken two counter offers already.
Then she’d headed here, opening the door to Jenna, who stepped in, looked around the barren walls, and still seemed uncertain. “Are you sure?”
“This house has seen generations of Lockheart girls learning all kinds of magic. And showing it to our neighbor friends and them trying it. It’s pretty indestructible.
” Except for floods, but she didn’t say that.
“It doesn’t really have any walls right now either.
If we set anything on fire by accident, well, we can claim it was the flood. ”
Rowan had given her the good news. When he told her how he’d roped Story into agreeing to the case, Annalise had almost cackled.
It had felt wild to be standing in this room with the man who’d once been her whole world and her future and not be angry, and not be naked in his arms. This time, when he’d left, he’d walked away and they’d simply said goodbye like regular people.
“You’re going to teach me how to be a witch?” Jenna asked now, interrupting her reverie. “To do what you can do?”
“That skill level probably won’t happen today, and I don’t know yet what you control.”
“I don’t control anything!” Jenna burst out. “I’m an adopted child whose parents didn’t even want me to find you people, and now you’re telling me I’m a witch? I can’t imagine—”
Annelise laughed softly. “I meant I’m a water witch. Everything you saw me do is because I was working with water. I can’t do the same thing with plants, although Avery Goodman sure can.”
“Is she sisters with Delanie Goodman?” Jenna burst out. “She works that yarn and craft and crystal shop!”
“Yes. They own it together.” Annalise smiled. “I’m glad you got to meet Delanie, she’s fantastic.”
“Oh yeah. I bought some yarn to do crochet and I didn’t know what I was going to make. But she looked at me and said I would need another skein.”
This time Annalise did laugh out loud. “She was right.”
“It was perfect! I had less than a foot of yarn left at the exact moment I finished the pattern.”
“Exactly,” Annelise told her. “Delanie is a textiles witch.”
“That’s a thing?”
“Talk to Delanie. And Story.”
She knew Jenna had been meeting up with Story. There had been a few texts back and forth between the new cousins, and between Annelise and her grandmother. “I’m surprised Story hasn’t told you more of this.”
Jenna raised one eyebrow at her. “Well, her cryptic messages make a lot more sense now.”
Again, Annelise laughed. That sounded exactly like Story. She wouldn’t tell Jenna she was a witch, she would simply throw things into her path and wait for Jenna to figure it out and ask.
“You could work with plants. There are also silver witches and gold witches.” She watched as Jenna’s eyes flew wide. “There are wind witches, earth witches—”
“—and fire?” Jenna asked snarkily.
“Of course. Where do you think the band got their name?”
This time it was Jenna who laughed, and the hard knot Annelise had carried in the pit of her stomach since Jenna had fled the mountainside started to loosen. “We’re going to start with some little things. Things every witch should be able to do.”
Jenna shrugged. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“That’s okay. I do.”
Annelise motioned her to a closet in the back room that had just the lower half of the walls stripped.
Though the door was still in place, the bottom was a little bit warped.
Not what Annelise would have done, she would have scrapped it and gotten a new one.
She would have taken the insurance money.
Thank God, Rowan was finding a way to trick Story into it.
But she pushed the door open and looked to the top shelf, pulling down two fat, colored candles and handed them to Jenna. “These aren’t mine. The candlesticks are family heirlooms. Now that we know about you, some of them will get passed to you, too.”
She watched as Jenna’s eyes widened slowly. Her hands came out as if warding off the offer. “No, I’m not here to take anything from this family.”
“You aren’t taking anything if it’s a gift,” Annelise countered. “And if you’re a Lockheart witch . . .”
She’d seen Jenna’s DNA tests, and it didn’t matter. Story had recognized Monica’s daughter the moment she appeared at the top of the stairs and so had Annelise.
“You could be a blood witch,” Annelise mused, thinking through other options, things she’d known about her own ancestors and their powers. She watched as Jenna shuddered at that one.
“We’ll start with calling the four corners.” She motioned to the two candles Jenna held, then grabbed two more for herself and a piece of chalk her grandmother had made from a recipe of eggshells and clay. “First, we’re going to put our pentacle on the floor.”
She drew it out herself.
“You just hand draw a perfect circle of that size?” Jenna seemed incredulous.
“Not magic. Just lots of practice. You’ll be able to too, soon,” she assured her. “We’re going to get salt next—if you want to grab that, it’s in the kitchen.”
She directed Jenna as she placed the four candles quickly. Her new cousin returned, confused look on her face, the blue cardboard cylinder in one hand.
“This salt?”
“Table salt,” Annelise almost chided. “We have to be practical sometimes. We’re going to put a ring around this entire huge pentacle that I just drew. So no, we will not raid Jasper’s pink Himalayan salt for that. It won’t keep anything out either. There’s not enough of it. It would leave gaps.”
“Gaps?” Jenna asked.
“You need a continuous salt line. It keeps the demons out.” She watched as Jenna’s eyes once again flew open wide, this time her hands coming up. She shouldn’t have said that.
“We’re not calling any demons,” Annelise backpedaled, realizing that didn’t cover there not being any demons.
Maybe she should have introduced that part of the conversation later.
“It’s not like people think either. There’s good witchcraft and bad witchcraft, and you need to protect yourself.
The salt does that. Do you want to pour it?
The spell will be more yours, the more you participate. ”
She realized then she shouldn’t have put the candles out herself, and maybe she should have let Jenna draw the pentagram.
But her cousin took the container and started pouring. “If you insist.”
Jenna walked slowly, the first portion of the line shaky with gaps.
Though Annelise considered walking along behind her and pushing the salt to fill in the spaces, she realized it would be better if Jenna did it herself.
Though unlike Story, she wouldn’t just let the gap linger and let the young witch deal with whatever came through.
When the salt ring was solid, she pulled her cousin with her, stepping over the line and into the center of the chalk drawing on the floor. “Do you feel it?”
Jenna looked at her, and Annelise could hear—without speaking—her reply: No. It’s not real.
“It’s not just your imagination,” Annelise said out loud. “We’re going to light the four candles.”
As Jenna looked for something to light them with, Annelise shook her head. “I’ll do the first one.”
Beside her, Jenna swallowed but knew to stay still.
“I call upon you, powers of Air and Knowledge to witness this rite and to guard this circle.” With her hand held out in front of her, Annelise blew softly through her lips, watching as the wick of the candle flared into flame.
Jenna’s mouth fell open. Then she whispered, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be surprised by this anymore.”
Rotating ninety degrees, Jenna’s hand still firmly in hers, Annelise instructed, “It’s your turn. You’re going to call to the towers of the East.”
“I don’t know—”
“You do know it,” Annelise interrupted. And she watched as Jenna realized that she did.
“I call upon you, powers of Fire and Will to witness this rite and guard this circle.” Though when she reached the end, she looked uncertain. She squeezed Annelise’s hand, the two women still holding tightly.
Then, with her other hand extended, Jenna moved her fingers—matching, or attempting to match, Annelise’s quick flick. When she blew through her lips, they both watched as the flame popped to life.
“What?” She was so startled the flame sputtered out. “You did that, right?”
“I did not,” Annelise replied with a grin. “You did. Do it again.”
This time, when Jenna lit her candle, it held.
As they turned again to the candle facing South, hands still clasped tightly, the connection between them grew. She told Jenna to call to this corner as well and watched as her cousin did it.
But as she did, a series of images flooded through Annelise—childhood birthday parties, Jenna’s strict father, her half-Vietnamese mother.
Something more recent: a dish her mother had found on the internet and said that they should try.
Jenna getting into the car to come to Belle Hollow, full of hope and uncertainty.
The third candle flicked to life, and Jenna smiled. “I did it!”
“One more, and the circle’s complete.”
This time, when they turned, the connection made stronger by the third flame, Annelise was flooded with even more images.
These came through Jenna, not from her. Monica.
The sights made her press her lips together and hope that she wasn’t showing her distress.
Would she tell her cousin what she’d learned?
It was a decision she wouldn’t make now, and she pushed it away.
Next, she saw an image of herself and Rowan, just as the fourth candle flicked to life, and Jenna’s delight washed it out.
Annelise smiled, ignoring what she had just seen, and knowing it could never happen.