Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
SALEM, PRESENT DAY
Clara had not forgiven Seraphina English nor her niece for dismissing her concerns as if they were not of the utmost importance.
She stirred her morning English Breakfast Tea with a teaspoon that she wasn’t even touching.
It began to whip itself into a frenzy sending hot liquid all over her clean tablecloth.
‘Damn it,’ she muttered, watching the spreading brown liquid stain the cloth that had been passed down from a long line of matriarchs in her family.
The problem was she was furious with the English women and always had been.
They weren’t descendants like the rest of the witches who lived in Salem.
They were the real deal and were born again and again, which she found most annoying.
They weren’t scared of her and the rules either, she knew that, but she had to try and pretend that they needed to adhere to the council rules, otherwise they would run amok all over Salem.
She tutted loudly. To be fair they already had.
It was unforgivable that the girl, Dora, had the audacity to fight Corwin in a cemetery after dark.
She was, however, intrigued by this secret bookstore that Dora had found and the spell book it had contained.
She had heard a rumour passed down from her great-great-grandmother of a mysterious bookstore and in it had been hidden two of the most powerful grimoires in the world.
One of the spell books belonged to the English women, but it was rumoured that someone else had hidden another spell book in there, too, right at the height of the witch hunts; the spells in the other book were darker in intent, black magic, and it was supposedly more powerful than the one belonging to Lucine English.
Clara decided she was going to pay a visit to this secret bookstore.
She had a good mind to summon Dora English to guide her to it.
She could hardly refuse when she admitted that she had not closed the bookshop again and it was sitting in the middle of the woods for anyone to discover.
Clara urgently wanted that grimoire of black magic spells in her possession.
She walked over to the window of her apartment that looked out onto the Witch House and sighed at the crowd of tourists outside posing for photographs with pointy witch hats on.
From here, if she strained her neck, she could see Sephy’s apothecary, which also irritated her; she hated the fact that it was in such close proximity to her home.
She turned and walked to the spare bedroom, which she had turned into her office, and flicked on the light.
On the wall were tacked photos of every practising witch and magical being in Salem who was registered with the council.
The witches outnumbered the magical beings, some of them were mere babies with nothing to cause her any concern.
The magical beings were a little different; there was Arnie and Brandon who could shapeshift if they needed to, but the pair of them barely used their magic.
They worked alongside her on the council out of duty rather than passion.
There were a couple of other shapeshifters, but they seemed to be happier keeping to themselves and rarely caused problems. It was the older witches who were harder to rein in.
She looked at the pictures of Lucine, Lenora and Seraphina English.
They were beautiful women. She knew she should take Lucine’s photo down out of respect.
But then again, at some point the woman would be born again, as they always were.
Clara didn’t know if she would be around to bear witness to the rebirth.
Clara had yet to add a photo of Dora English, but had told Arnie that he needed to get her picture ASAP to add to the collection.
Underneath each photo was a small notecard with the basic facts about each person written on it in her neat, cursive script.
Their level of magic, address, age, and any potential problems they could cause.
Clara enjoyed being able to tap into this little font of all knowledge when she had to.
In a bowl on the oak desk, next to the stacks of magical texts and spell books, was a selection of witch bullets, favoured greatly by her Appalachian great-grandmother.
Each one made from different black animal hairs: cats, buffalo and horse all rolled into little balls with beeswax.
There were different strengths and purpose.
When one of her members was getting a little out of her control, she would choose the appropriate ball and throw it at their picture, then wait for the rest to happen.
If someone needed reining in tightly, she would throw them directly at the person, but she had only done this twice, as using their photographs seemed to work sufficiently enough.
She did not dare to throw them at the photographs of the English sisters for they were far too powerful and would know immediately if she was meddling and trying to control them from afar.
She wasn’t sure about Dora though; she seemed distant.
From what she knew of the family, from notes that had been passed down from her own mother and grandmother, this distance was unusual.
She seemed different to her aunts, her innocence too raw.
Clara could not decide if this was a good or bad thing, but she knew she was going to have to monitor her closely in case she needed to do some kind of intervention.
She sighed. This responsibility could be a chore, but she was always looking for more power, so she would approach the girl when her aunts were nowhere near and ask her to show her the bookstore in the woods.
If there were any more grimoires out there, she wanted them for her own collection.
The English women already had Lucine’s powerful book of spells; they needed no more.