A Lying Witch Book One

  Chapter 7

  It took Max a while to rustle up the medication, as he put it. I expected him to lug back some kind of first-aid kit. You know, with bandages, ointments – sensible kinds of things.

  It’s not what I got. He came in, trailing mud over the carpet, a bunch of random plants in his arms.

  I frowned so hard, my lips could have dropped off my face. “Ah, what is that stuff? Where’s the first-aid kit?”

  “Here,” he said, lips curling into a shadow of a grin.

  I narrowed my eyes and stared at him cautiously. “Have you been mucking about in the garden? Do you know how much pain I’m in? Plus, now I pause to think about it, shouldn’t I go to the hospital? These are definitely third-degree burns.”

  Max arched an eyebrow. “They are relatively superficial, and once I’ve finished, you will heal quickly.”

  “Once you’re finished?” My stomach gave a kick. It wasn’t the promise – it was the fact that he slowly walked towards me, got down on one knee, and arranged the muddy herbs at the base of a couch.

  “Ah, what are you doing?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “Unless you’re taking this opportunity to learn flower arrangement, then no, it isn’t obvious.”

  He shot me that look – that one that told me he wasn’t amused. It brought entirely too much attention to that perfect, chiseled jaw. “Perhaps you should lie back,” he suggested.

  My stomach kicked again. This time, it was a surprise it didn’t kick all the way out of my torso. “Why?” I gulped.

  “The magic works easier when you’re horizontal,” he said, tone neutral, expression giving nothing away.

  The magic works better when I’m horizontal? Oh boy.

  Before my imagination could become too active, Max began chanting something. It was low, it was rumbling, and I couldn’t catch a word. His voice dipped in and out, almost as if he were in a car driving away from me only to turn and speed back.

  He arranged the plants neatly all the way around the couch. Then, using the mud that was still trapped in the tracks of his boots, he dug two fingers into the tread, liberated some dirt, and started tracking it in a great big dirty circle around the couch.

  “Hey, that’s going to be a nightmare to clean—” I began.

  “Relax,” he commanded.

  “What? This carpet is cream, and that mud—”

  “Is less important than your hand. Now, for the first time in your life, Chi McLane, shut it.”

  A surge of indignation climbed my throat, and yet, for some reason, I pressed my lips closed.

  That’s when I started to hear it. The weirdest noise. It was kind of like a radio that had been switched to the wrong channel. Static, but static that half sounded like it was a crackling fire, too.

  Once Max was done dirtying the carpet, he stopped, right in front of me.

  “Close your eyes,” he commanded.

  I complied. For like half a second. Then I blinked one of my eyes a fraction of the way open.

  “Close your eyes,” he demanded once more.

  “All right, all right.” I closed my eyes.

  Suddenly, I could hear it louder. That static. I started to be able to discern voices amongst it, too. It was honestly like a radio station, now. One we were tuning into until we got a better signal.

  Though Max was still chanting, I became less and less aware of it as I concentrated on those indistinct voices.

  I started to smell things, too. Incense, burning candles, melting wax, roaring fires, a clean hearth, chopped grass, driving rain.

  It was such an assault on my senses, I wanted to spring from the couch.

  Max didn’t exactly give me that opportunity. He weighed a hand gently on my shoulder. “Keep your eyes closed,” he warned.

  I didn’t bother to snap at him this time. Because I swore I couldn’t feel the couch underneath me, anymore. It felt like I was lying down in pastureland. There was long grass beneath me, soft, slightly damp with dew. And the air smelt of fresh rain. I could even feel sunshine playing across my feet and hands and cheeks. “What… what is this—”

  “Keep still,” Max snapped once more.

  “No, wait, what's happening?” I couldn't deny the sensations anymore. I wasn't in the lounge room. I was on some pastureland, in full sunshine.

  Problem was, I didn’t remember walking here.

  Fear started to twist its way around my gut once more.

  “Calm down, Chi,” Max's voice changed – becoming soft, becoming genuine.

  I let myself be led along by his voice, let it soothe me, calm me like a gentle caress running from my shoulders down my back.

  It must have distracted me long enough, because a second later, I started to hear crackles. That indistinct static sharpened, and I heard a voice – deep, rumbling, powerful. It took me a second to realize it was Max's voice. But Max was still chanting. Yet somehow, there were now two of him.

  I seriously wanted to open my eyes now, but Max did not give me that chance. Suddenly, I felt him leap forward and clap a hand over my eyes. The move wasn't exactly hard, and yet his determined grip gave me the distinct impression that he had no intention of removing his hand until this was done.

  “What are you—” I began.

  “Just trust me,” he said.

  … Trust, ha? That was a hell of an ask coming from him. Or at least, that's what my cynical mind pointed out. The rest of me? It allowed itself to be lulled by that rumbling tone, by that soft pressure around my face and forehead.

  I started to feel magic. Which was saying something, as before several days ago, I hadn't known magic existed. But the distinct sensations now rushing through my body could not be mistaken for anything else. They were wholly different to ordinary feelings. Hotter, faster, more powerful. And so goddamn invigorating. They pressed down from Max's hand, darting into my jaw, rushing over my lips, gushing down my throat, and sinking through my chest until they made it to my shoulder and poured down my arm to my hand.

  If Max hadn't been there, I would have sprung to my feet. Heck, I would have rocketed into the air.

  Instead, I shunted back against the cushion, overwhelmed by what I was feeling.

  And yet, I could not be distracted from the distinct sense of a grassy meadow beneath me, a beautiful blue sky above.

  So this was Max's magic, ha? His home?

  Far away on the edge of hearing, I swear I heard something – hoof beats. Someone calling. Someone shouting. Someone—

  Suddenly, Max jerked his hand back. He cleared his throat, and I heard him take several steps back.

  I didn't dare opened my eyes.

  In fact, I waited there until I heard him clear his throat. “It's done, you can open your eyes now. Get up, go have a shower, change your clothes, get something to eat,” he added.

  Wow. What a difference. He’d gone from gently placing his hand on my face, to snapping at me like I was an unruly teenager who needed to be brought into line.

  I opened my eyes and swiveled them towards him.

  Of course, he had his arms crossed. And of course, his expression was completely neutral with just a hint of mean. “I healed you,” he said.

  I was about to snap, “well done,” in a sarcastic voice, when I brought up my hand.

  My jaw dropped open. No, I hadn't suddenly transformed into one of those cartoon characters from the 50s. But yes, my jaw still did drop open.

  Because my hand? It was healed. I had caught several glances of it before I lay down. It had been completely blistered, red, charred. A sickening mess.

  Now? Sure, it was still a bit red, and there were still a few blisters, but as I experimentally opened and closed a fist, I realized it was almost completely healed.

  I was not the kind of person you could surprise easily. Because even if you managed to surprise me, I always kept my poker face. But my poker-faced suddenly took a back seat to my utter shock.

  “How,” I tried to struggle th
rough a dry throat, “how the hell did you do that?”

  For a fraction of a second, a satisfied smile spread across Max's face – then he controlled it. “Magic. Do I really have to state the obvious?”

  I didn't snap back. Couldn't. Because, hello, I’d just been transported to some grassy pasture somewhere while the Scottish fairy had healed my third-degree burns.

  I sat there, staring at him.

  It took a while for it to become uncomfortable, took a while for him to snort. “What? This is all it takes to make you speechless. I'll have to remember that.”

  I’d never paused long enough around Max to assess his reactions. Even though my job as a fake fortuneteller pretty much required me to read people day in, day out.

  Now as I struggled to find the breath to put my surprised thoughts into words, I watched. And I realized he was being defensive. Not rude – okay, he was being rude. But he was only being rude because he was trying to hide something from me.

  I felt my eyebrows knot together and press hard on my eyes. “Just what are you exactly? What kind of magic was that? And what was with the pasture and hooves?”

  His eyes pulsed wide. He tried to hide it – and he managed to do it quickly. But it wasn’t quick enough.

  My eyebrows pressed even harder over my eyes. “It was kind of like,” I paused as I tried to ascertain what I was thinking, “It was kind of like I was back somewhere,” I said. Why I’d said the word back, I didn’t know. It wasn’t as if pastures and horses only existed in the past, and yet I had the impression that the scene I’d just felt had been old. Very old.

  If Max had looked defensive before, it was absolutely nothing to what happened to his face now. It stiffened, his lips drawing in until it looked as if he would swallow them. “You saw that?”

  “No, I felt it, heard it…. But what was it?” It was a testament to how surprised I was that I was checking my indignation and anger at the door.

  I suddenly blinked, the move so pronounced, it was like I was a theatrical actor.

  How the heck had I known that I’d just been transported back to Scotland? And I did know it – it wasn't some wild assumption, some ridiculous fantasy. Nope, that had been Scotland.

  “Max, where was that place?” I pressed once more.

  He put a hand up to his head. “I can’t remember what you’re talking about,” he answered in a flat tone.

  How convenient.

  I stared at him, trying to gauge if Max really had forgotten – an apparent consequence of using his magic to heal me.

  He simply held my gaze.

  He still hadn’t explained how his so-called forgetting worked. What exactly did he forget if he practiced magic, the immediate past? Or did it randomly take chunks out of his memory like a bird pecking at scattered grain?

  “How's your hand?” Max asked after a considerable pause where it was clear he was catching his cool once more.

  I wouldn’t be distracted. “I could hear horse hooves, someone shouting. They sounded angry,” I continued, not willing to let this go.

  Max cleared his throat, and by god did he clear it. It sounded like he was trying to cough himself a hole right through his trachea. “You're healed now. Go and have a shower. You smell,” he said, without pulling punches.

  On any other day, I would have retorted that he smelled worse. Instead, I cast my mind back to that strange scene. “That was your home. It was Scotland, wasn’t it? Why do I get the impression it's from the past, though?”

  His expression – which had only just become controlled – practically shattered. For the shortest fraction of a second, I thought I saw somebody. Somebody I'd never seen before. The Max who wasn't a fairy, the Max who wasn't a friggin’ nuisance.

  For the shortest, shortest fraction of time, I thought I saw the real Max.

  And maybe the real Max appreciated what I was doing, because he suddenly turned so hard, he dislodged a great clod of mud from the tread of his shoes right onto the carpet. He strode towards the kitchen door without another word.

  I twisted around on the couch, locking a hand on the back and rising to my feet. I was steady. In fact, I felt great. Though my hand still kind of smarted and was a little burnt, the rest of me felt fantastic. It was as if I was fresh from a sunny holiday.

  I pushed up to follow him into the kitchen, incapable of letting go of this conversation.

  I heard his gruff growl from somewhere near the kitchen door that led out onto the patio. “Go and have a shower. I have things to do. You'll be safe here,” he added after a thoughtful pause. Then he closed the door. No, okay, he slammed the door, loud enough that it echoed right through the house.

  I placed a hand on the door frame and craned my head into the kitchen.

  It was just in time to see his departing form striding across the backyard.

  … What the hell had just happened?

  Again I brought up my burnt hand, but this time, I didn't focus on the burn. I focused on the barely discernible charge of magic that still pulsed through my veins. That magic – its fiery embrace – had been the most thrilling experience of my life.

  I kind of waited there, lingering by the door, hoping he would come back and reveal to me exactly what had happened.

  He didn't. In fact, it was soon clear that he would be out for the night.

  I let my hand drop, and that's when I noticed just how dirty and torn my clothes were. “Crap, I look like a mess.” I made the mistake of leaning forward and smelling my blouse experimentally. I jerked my head back and winced. “I smell worse.” Which made sense, as I’d been dragged through the gutter.

  Still, Max was right. It was time for a shower, a change of clothes, time for a snack. And then? I would just have to wait and see.