The Complete Spellbound Trilogy Bundle

  But I didn’t care anymore. I’d been so emotionally beat up over the past few days, I didn’t have the energy to change things that couldn’t be changed. Maybe I just needed to accept the way things were, and know that they would never be perfect. I had Dad. I had Ana and Nicholas and Sophie and Lily. Justin was going to be happy. Why push my luck? Finding out what happened the night my grandpa Arthur died wouldn’t bring him back to life. It wouldn’t take away all the years of Ana’s suffering, or the fact that my mom ran away, not only from Ana, but also from Dad and me. Me pushing things wouldn’t change any of that, and I was tired of pushing.

  Nicholas shook his head, and I felt his disappointment. “I just can’t believe you’d give up. You have the answers at your fingertips. You have the tools at your disposal to discover what you need to know. There’s a way you can fix these things that are tearing you up inside, but it’ll never happen if you just give up!”

  I jumped to my feet and glared at him, my hands on my hips. “Or maybe, you could just tell me what it is you know, and quit torturing me with bits of information and trying to make me jump through impossible hoops! You don’t know what it feels like to be so rejected...to be cruelly cast aside, unwanted… hated, even. You say how sad you are because your parents ignore you. Well, try having one use magic to hide from you and then use magic to send you away! Wait until your own mother looks you right in the eye and says, ‘I don’t have a son!’ Why don’t you have that happen to you and then come and tell me how I should act, okay?!”

  I spun on my heel and started running as fast as I could down the pier. I ran and ran, not once looking back over my shoulder.

  I didn’t have to. I already knew Nicholas wasn’t following me.

  *****

  I tore off my clothes and threw them on the mountain of laundry that was now spilling out of my closet and threatening to overtake the hallway. I kicked the pile out of the way as I headed to the bathroom to wash off. Usually I felt good after a run, even when I was troubled. But not today. Today I felt even worse. Not only because of everything that’d happened, but because of my cruel words to Nicholas. He of all people understood what I was going through—his parents had given him up for adoption when he was a baby, and his adoptive parents hadn’t been all that interested in him, either. And here I was yelling at him about not understanding how much it hurt to be rejected.

  It struck me that that was probably why he liked Dad so much and had been so happy to be here with us last night. Nicholas longed for family, and had never had a chance to be around one that loved each other the way Dad and I did.

  I slumped down on my bed. I was half-tempted to call him to apologize, but right now I just really needed my space from everyone, and that included him. I vowed to spend the day alone, just me and my chores and my homework. I was actually falling behind, which was unlike me, and there was a big paper due for English in a few days that I hadn’t even started yet.

  I put on some clean leggings and a t-shirt, wrapped my hair in a bun, and went to work. Since Dad was out, I blasted the stereo in my room on high as I started sorting the laundry. This is going to take me all day and night, I thought, when I had close to ten piles.

  I threw a load in the wash and started cleaning the rest of the house. First I dusted and wiped down all the surfaces, polished all the glass, and cleaned the windows. I ran a vacuum over the carpet areas and a broom over the hardwood floors. Then I mopped. I brought in some logs for the fireplace, and gathered several bunches of fresh flowers from Ana’s magical, perpetually-blooming gardens and placed them in vases around the cottage.

  Before I knew it, the day was almost over and it was starting to get dark. I glanced in the fridge and saw that Dee had left us one of her amazing chicken pot pies. Just heat and eat. Perfect. I set the oven to 350, and put it in to bake for an hour.

  I glanced around the room, pleased with myself. I’d gotten a lot done today, and it’d felt surprisingly good to get out of my head for a few hours and do physical work. I only had a few more loads of laundry and my homework, which I’d do right after dinner. I’d just made a fire in the fireplace, and that, along with the pot pie baking in the oven, had filled the whole place with comforting, mouth-watering aromas.

  Dad walked through the door a few minutes later. “Wow, Cal, looks great in here…smells even better!”

  He inhaled deeply and headed into his room. “Hey, thanks for washin’ all this stuff for me,” he hollered, obviously noticing all the clothes I’d hung and folded up for him.

  “Sure, no prob. You have a nice day with the guys?” I asked him when he re-emerged a minute later.

  He nodded. “Good times. How’s ‘bout you?”

  I smiled and gave a small nod. “Not bad.” Not great, but getting better…

  We ate dinner in comfortable silence, then Dad retreated to the couch to watch TV, and I headed to my room to finish my laundry and to get cracking on my homework. I gathered up my jeans and dark-colored sweatpants and did the quick ‘pockets-check’ for any random items before I threw them in the wash. My fingers touched something in the back of one of my jeans pockets, and I pulled it out.

  It was actually two pieces of paper—one cream colored, the other pitch black.

  Saffron’s spells! I’d totally forgotten about them.

  I studied them for a moment, trying to remember which paper had which spell. She’d given me one to use on Justin to keep him from blabbing our secret, which obviously I no longer needed, and would’ve caused more harm than good anyways. That was the black one. I ripped it up and threw it in the trash.

  But I stared at the folded cream parchment more intently. It was intended for another purpose entirely. What was it Saffron had said when she met me? I was ‘surrounded in secrets and lies’. She’d handed me this spell and told me I’d see the answers I was searching for.

  My heart started pounding as I remembered exactly what she’d said when I’d asked her about my mother—

  “I cannot answer the question you ask. You must see it for yourself. When you have returned home, are alone, and in a safe place, recite this spell three times outdoors at midnight, during the second night of a full moon. The words will only appear when the time is right. And only you will be able to see them.”

  I looked up at the calendar on the wall, and my jaw dropped. Tonight was the second night of the full moon. There were no coincidences in magic. I was meant to find this spell, and I was meant to do it tonight.

  I glanced back down at the folded square and stared in disbelief as soft cursive script gradually faded into view…

  Now is the time, and all shall be revealed. For if it is truth you seek, then truth you shall find.

  My fingers trembled as I carefully opened it up.

  Chapter 28. Revealed

  I held my breath, half-eager, half-terrified to read the words that would somehow magically lift me from the fog of lies and confusion.

  I undid the last fold and quickly scanned the paper from top to bottom.

  Nothing.

  It was blank.

  I frowned and flipped it over. Also blank.

  What the…?

  Then I glanced at the clock. Of course—it was only half past eight, and Saffron had said to do the spell at midnight. The time had to be right for the words to appear, and I was just a few hours early.

  I set the paper down on my bed and covered it with two fluffy, purple pillows. I would just have to wait.

  Three and a half hours to kill. I gathered my books and fired up my laptop. Normally I was one of those rare freaks who actually liked doing homework, but not tonight. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t focus on the words of Jane Austen, and instead kept glancing over my shoulder to where the spell lay buried beneath the two pillows.

  “What secrets are you going to show me…what lies surround me?” I whispered, giving the hidden paper a suspicious glare. If the spell had revealed itself right away, I would’ve been happy to have done it on the
spot. But now that I was being forced to wait, I was starting to second-guess myself.

  I’d already determined that I wanted to make peace with my situation, and that I had to learn to accept things the way they were. What ‘truth’ could make my mom want me, or bring my grandfather back to life? The fact was, finding out the ‘truth’ couldn’t really change anything the way it needed to be changed. So why bother? Why risk opening another Pandora’s Box, when I had no idea what I’d find inside?

  I was staring at the pillows, weighing the pros and cons, when suddenly my dresser drawer started to vibrate. It was the cell phone Nicholas had given me.

  I grabbed for it and pushed the talk button. “Hi,” I said softly.

  “Hi, you.”

  I shook my head and frowned. “I’m so sorry I acted like brat. I didn’t mean what I said.”

  “I know you didn’t…you don’t even have to apologize.”

  “But you’ve been nothing but amazing, and I ripped your head off.”

  I heard his low chuckle. “It wasn’t that bad. I can take it. Considering what you’ve had to go though the past few days, I’m surprised you weren’t more upset. I think you’re starting to get a good grip on this Empath thing.”

  I stifled a guffaw, then realized he was sort of right. True, I’d felt people’s emotions these past few days, but they weren’t overwhelming me like they had at first. I was able to absorb and process the feelings without them overtaking me entirely. I had become stronger, and I hadn’t even noticed until now.

  I debated whether or not I should tell him about the spell, but deep down I knew I had to. Just keeping a secret from Nicholas felt like a lie, and it made me uncomfortable. Plus, I needed him to reassure me I was doing the right thing.

  “Nicholas, how much do you trust Saffron? I know you think she’s smart and all, but is she good? I mean, would you trust her with your life?”

  “Saffron? What’s she got to do with anything?” There was surprise in his voice.

  I sat down on the bed. “She gave me two spells when I saw her. One for Justin, and another one that I was considering doing tonight. She gave it to me when I’d asked her about my mother, and supposedly it’ll help me see the truth in all the lies that surround me. But now I’m not so sure if it’s a smart idea.”

  He cleared his throat. “Well, ‘good’ is a subjective term. I say she’s powerful, brilliant, wise, crafty, and truthful. And I absolutely do trust her. She’s a big believer in the laws of karma and wouldn’t do something to someone that she wouldn’t want done back to her.”

  “Well, she already gave me one bad spell, so how can I trust the other one?”

  “What do you mean ‘bad’?”

  “Remember the other night when we were in Ana’s living room right before the Council came to take Justin away, and I told her about the spell that Saffron had given me? Remember how she was so upset that I’d traded my amulet for it?”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “Saffron had made it seem like it was a good spell that would help him, that we could replace his old, bad memories with new ones that were good. And that they could do the ling lengo…”

  “The ligo lingua spell—”

  “Right—the ligo lingua spell to keep him from spilling our secret if he tried to. But then Ana said how bad that spell was, and it would’ve actually made him much worse.”

  “Well, I can say this… It’s possible Saffron may not have had all the details necessary in order to come up with the proper spell. Her intentions may have been honorable, but she isn’t perfect, and the Justin situation being so unusual, it may have had complications she wasn’t aware of.

  “But on that note, the opposite may have been true—she may have known exactly what she was giving you, and it would’ve worked had you done it. No offense, but Ana doesn’t know absolutely everything, either. Her view and knowledge of magic, while powerful and strong in its own right, has a more narrow scope than Saffron’s.”

  “So you’re saying I can trust her? I can do the spell that she gave me?”

  “I’m saying that I trust her, and if you think what she gave you can help you, then yeah, do it. But as always, be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it.”

  I sighed in exasperation and flopped backwards onto my pillows. “But you’re the one who was so adamant about me getting the truth! I’m half ready to just forget all this drama and move on with my life. My motherless, surrogately-fathered life.”

  He chuckled softly. “I want you to get the truth from your mother and from Ana…not from a spell. But I do think that it might be the first step.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You know I’m never going to forgive you for not telling me what you know, don’t you?”

  I could hear the smile in his voice. “Yes, you will.”

  *****

  The countdown was on…five minutes ‘til midnight. The unusually cold, record-setting low temperatures were coupled with a heavy fog. But Saffron had specifically said that I had to be outside. Great. I pulled a thick sweatshirt over my head and started to look around for some gloves, but then I remembered I lived on the beach in Southern California and didn’t own any. Besides, it was so dark, I might need my fingers free if I needed to make some light to read by.

  The cold air slapped my face as soon as I opened the sliding glass door, and I raised my hoodie up over my head and pulled the drawstring tight. My teeth were already rattling as I walked across the lawn and towards the cliffs. With all the clanking going on in my mouth, I hoped I’d be able to say the words right.

  I sat on the grass overlooking the ocean below. Only it wasn’t the beach I was seeing, it was a layer of thick, gray fog. I could hear the roar of the sea, but the cloudy mist all but obscured the stormy waters.

  My heart pounded in my ears. I took a deep breath and pulled the creamy parchment from my pocket. It was so dark, I could hardly see. But it didn’t matter—the page was still blank.

  I continued to stare at it. Suddenly, the clouds above me started to swish and swirl. What had been a static layer of thick air grew thin and wispy, and finally disappeared, revealing a crystal-clear sky with billions of bright shiny stars. A luminous full moon shone down like a gentle spotlight.

  As I watched, the fog on the beach below seemed to grow even denser, as if forming a solid blanket, and as it did, strange words began to appear on the paper I was holding.

  aufero deceptio

  patefacio meus oculus

  ostendo mihi verum

  ostendo sum quis hus beren occultus

  Oh, great…Latin.

  I began reading the spell aloud, and the words rolled off my tongue with ease, despite my never having seen them before. I repeated them over and over until suddenly, the paper burst into flames.

  I yelped and shook my hand, certain I’d been burned. But I was unharmed. The sky closed in, covering the moon and blocking the stars. I was again sitting in complete darkness, freezing my butt off, and wondering if I’d screwed up and the whole thing was a total bust.

  I was just about to get up and go back inside, when suddenly I gasped.

  It had begun.

  Chapter 29. Watching

  As if the dense fog on the shore was a screen, and the darkened sky my own personal theater, images larger than life began to flash beneath me. Unlike my vision with Justin and Savannah, which I knew came from my own mind, this was being projected from some unknown source.

  And it wasn’t the future I was seeing…it was the past.

  An image of my mom came into view. She appeared to be around sixteen, and looked exactly like she did in all those pictures I’d seen of her before her father died. She was laughing, and she danced and twirled along the beach, her auburn hair flowing behind her as she happily paused in various poses.

  Then, I saw a young man standing with a group of people. He was tall, athletic, and handsome, in that classic, All-American- Ivy-League-college kind of way. The love in my mom’s eyes
as she gazed at him was unmistakable. My stomach clenched. Was I looking at my real father?

  The scene faded, and a new one appeared. My mother was up in the third floor room, looking through the Book of Shadows. She appeared to be trying different spells. Again and again she would write something, then wave her hands, and candles would light and objects would fly around the room. But something was wrong…she was extremely distressed and at one point she even appeared to be crying.

  The scene switched again. Now a visibly distraught Gabby was being chased up the winding stairs of the mansion by two men and a woman. She was heading towards the third floor room. A moment later, my grandpa Arthur also ran up the stairs, apparently in a panic.

  The next scene showed Gabby crying hysterically as she held her dead father in her arms. Ana was rushing to her side, her face stricken with horror. Then, Gabby was curled up on her bed sobbing, looking at a picture of her father. Finally, Ana and Gabby were screaming and fighting with each other; Gabby was throwing things at Ana, and Ana was magically deflecting them.

  I held my breath as I watched, in living color and great detail, all the tragic moments of the past come to life. I wept along with my heartbroken mother, and felt the torment and anguish she and Ana suffered as they took their pain out on each other.

  The images faded, and for several moments I thought it was over. I was disappointed that it hadn’t shown me much that I didn’t already know, except for what my real father probably looked like. I couldn’t be positive that handsome young man was indeed James, my mom’s boyfriend, but I assumed he was.

  Then suddenly a new image appeared… Dad. He was younger, and standing on the street talking with his friends, laughing and joking around. I could see my mom peeking out the window of a dress shop, just watching him with a smile on her face.