Back in a Spell (The Witches of Thistle Grove, #3)(88)
But the relaxation methods Ivy had taught me were always worth at least a try. I repeated the sappy “reed in a river” mantra to myself several more times—trying my damnedest not to feel like someone who’d ever wear Spiritual Gangster apparel in earnest—all the while inhaling deliberately through my nose and exhaling out of my mouth. The familiar smell of Lady’s Lake calmed me, too; the distinctive scent of the magic that rolled off the water and through the woods, coursing down the mountainside to wash over the town. It was the strongest up here, an intoxicating scent like incense. Earthy and musky and sweet, redolent of frankincense and myrrh laced with amber.
As a Harlow, my sense of the lake’s magic was both more intimate and more acute than that of members of the other families—and the flow of it up here, so close to its wellspring, reassured me. Left me safe in the knowledge that I was still Delilah of Thistle Grove, on her knees on Hallows Hill; a Harlow witch exactly where she belonged.
Abruptly, the harvesting charm slid back into my mind. A little frayed around the edges, some of the words blurring in and out of sight, as if my memory were a dulled lens that had lost some of its focus. But it was back, restored, intact enough that I would be able to use it to collect the viridian.
“Oh, thank you,” I whispered on a tremulous sigh, my limbs turning jellied with relief, unsure whom I was even thanking. Ivy’s mantra, the goddess Belisama, the magic itself? When it came down to it, it didn’t really matter.
Sometimes, you had to take the smallest of victories and run with them.
Sometimes, they were all you had to cling to.
Mystery Objects
It was nearly nine by the time I got home, the harvested viridian pulsing contentedly in my backpack, safe inside the transparent little globe of magic I’d conjured for its keeping. I lived on Feverfew, only a few streets over from Yarrow Street and Tomes & Omens, the family occult and indie bookstore that was now largely my charge. Not even a five-minute walk away, but far enough and residential enough to cushion me from the relentless hubbub of rowdy tourists who overran Thistle Grove almost year-round.
Witch-crazy visitors were Tomes & Omens’ bread and butter, but that didn’t mean I had to like the noisy bumblefucks, or the overly familiar way they pawed my books and artifacts. You’d think tourists itching for a slice of occult history would approach it with more respect, and yet . . . That was people for you.
I paused in front of the renovated colonial that held my second-floor duplex unit, dipping into my cargo shorts pockets in search of my house keys. Protective candles always flickered in my windows, while my woman-about-town landlady’s below were dark more often than not; the chick’s social life was tantamount to an extreme sport. The summer night felt like a bell jar lowered around me, still and almost perfectly silent. A warm hush that pressed sweetly against the skin, disturbed only by the faint, whispery rustle of the elms that lined the street. The air smelled like honeysuckle, which grew abundant around the base of Hallows Hill and drifted around the town in fragrant currents every year, as soon as spring began its softening yield to summer.
Perfumed peace all around me, just the way I liked it. If I closed my eyes, I could almost pretend to be the only human left alive in the entire neighborhood, the sole survivor of some subtle apocalypse.
Sometimes, the idea of that much solitude was disturbingly appealing.
I located the correct pocket, still savoring my little triumph up on Hallows Hill as I fished out my key and jogged up the stairs to the porticoed landing, my hiking boots clomping against the concrete steps. I’d successfully snared a memory back from oblivion, something I’d managed only a few other times before. Maybe I was finally getting better; maybe the remnants of the oblivion were loosening their lingering hold, claws retracting from my mind.
Shifting the weight of my backpack to my left shoulder, I lifted the key to slide it into the lock.
And promptly forgot what I was doing, or what the serrated, ominous piece of metal in my hand was even supposed to be for.
The panic that slammed into me was like barreling face-first into a Sheetrock wall. My heart battered against my ribs with what felt like bruising force, my hand shaking so hard I couldn’t even keep the—the thing, the Mystery Fucking Object—lined up with the lock.
Had my life depended on it, a cold blade pressed to the soft flesh under my jaw, I couldn’t have divined what the object in my hand was meant to do.
The more I thought about it, the more sinister and wrong it felt, until some of that danger seemed to seep like welling blood into the texture of the night around me. Tainting it, turning it into the deceptively peaceful prelude of a slasher film. Why would something ever be shaped like this? That strange little circular head at the top, and then the menacingly toothy blade. Was it . . . a very small weapon, maybe? An artifact intended to facilitate some malign spellwork? What was I even doing, holding something so clearly forged to nefarious ends without even protective gloves between it and my skin?
I dropped my backpack with a thump, careless of the englobed viridian inside, and turned to press my back against the door, sliding down the varnished wood until my butt met the floorboards. My entire body was drenched in icy sweat, and I could hear myself panting, harsh breaths that sounded like they were being dragged by a fishhook out of my throat. I wanted to drop the Mystery Fucking Object more than I’d possibly ever wanted anything, but some deep-rooted stubbornness inside me resisted the impulse, the desire to take the easy way out.