creepy hollow 05.5 - scarlett

  “Tilda?” The two girls looked up as Malena appeared in the doorway. “I can’t find the pixie’s breath. Is it finished? I know you checked last week and said there was plenty left, but I can’t find it anywhere.”

  With a long-suffering sigh, Tilda got to her feet. “I’ll come and find it.” As Beth made herself more comfortable among the towels, Tilda looked back at her. “Don’t think you’re getting off lightly. I’ll send Thoren to help you get started.”

  “Oh, okay.” As Tilda and Malena left, Beth tried not to feel awkward about the idea of being alone in a room with a guy who wasn’t Jack. A guy who might be influenced by siren magic she didn’t even know she was radiating. It would be fine, though. She wasn’t actively trying to seduce him. It wasn’t like he was going to throw himself at her feet against his own will.

  Right?

  Ugh, please, no, she thought to herself as the alarming image crossed her mind.

  “Scarlett.”

  What if the power to seduce men was also something she couldn’t turn off? What if she spent the rest of her life unintentionally drawing men to her like moths to—

  “Scarlett?”

  She raised her head and found Thoren standing beside the pool, a questioning look on his face. “Um, yes, sorry.” She had to remember to respond to the name Scarlett now. She could be Beth again when she returned home.

  “Tilda said you might need some help with basic magic.”

  “Yes, please. Yesterday I was dripping magic everywhere, but now that that’s stopped, I have no idea how to access it and make it do … well, anything.”

  Thoren sat down, leaving a respectable amount of distance between the two of them. “That’s a good thing,” he said, “the fact that you’re not ‘dripping magic everywhere,’ as you put it. It means your body is already learning to keep its magic contained.”

  “If only the dangerous part of my magic would learn to contain itself too,” Beth grumbled.

  “You’ll get there, don’t worry. For now, focus on feeling your magic, pulling it together, and then directing it outward.”

  “Okay.” Beth swallowed and tightened her hands in her lap. “Um, how exactly do I do that?”

  He chuckled and pushed his hair out of his eyes. “It’s difficult to explain. It’s something we learn so early on that it becomes instinct before we even realize what we’re doing.”

  “Instinct. Right. That really doesn’t help.”

  He leaned back. “Okay, when your magic first appeared, did you feel different?”

  Beth looked up, looked past those eyes almost the exact same ice-blue as Tilda’s, and thought back to the night at the edge of the lake. “Yes. It was … sort of like a hum that wasn’t there before. I haven’t thought of it much since then—I suppose because I became used to its presence so quickly that I forgot it was even there—but when I think about it now, I can still sense that faint hum.”

  “That’s it,” Thoren said, shifting a little closer to her. “That’s what you need to concentrate on.” Beth nodded, her gaze locked on his. “Focus on that hum. Imagine it as threads running through every vein in your body. You need to pull all those threads together into a core in your center—” his head seemed to move closer toward hers “—and then direct all that power outward at something—” his eyes flicked down to her lips and back up “—willing it to do whatever you want it to do.”

  Unable to look away, Beth nodded once more. Then, abruptly, she pushed herself to the far end of the bench. “I’m sorry. This is weird. I know I’m supposed to be able to exert my siren influence over you and make you do anything I please, but I don’t know how, which means I don’t know if I’m doing it right now. I don’t know if you’re sitting next to me because you want to or because my magic is compelling you to, but—”

  “Scarlett,” he said. “Stop. I’m immune, okay?”

  She hesitated. “Immune?”

  “Yes, I put a charm on last night to prevent myself from being influenced by you.” He raised his hand to show her a thin leather band around his wrist. A small wooden shape hung from it. He lowered his hand and added with a half-smile, “My mother thought it would be a good idea.”

  “Oh. That’s—that’s good.”

  “So, yes. I am sitting next to you because I want to.”

  “Okay.” Did that mean he’d also been inching closer to her because he’d wanted to? Or had she imagined that part? Her gaze fell on the small space between them as she struggled to think of what to say next. Slowly, her eyes moved back to the charm hanging from his wrist. “Do, um, do men become witches as well?”

  “Yes, although it’s less common. The covens are still mainly female.”

  “Do you want to be one?”

  “No. I don’t plan to go through the Change. I’m tired of living here. I want to travel. I come and go a lot already.” With a wry smile he added, “Now I simply need to convince my mother that she no longer needs my help around here.”

  “Hopefully she’ll come around to your way of seeing things.”

  “Hopefully. So … do you want to give that magic thing a try?”

  “Right, yes. Tilda told me to create a whirlpool, so I guess I’ll start with that.” She leaned forward and focused on the nearest pool. She did as Thoren instructed, reaching for that hum inside her, pulling it together and trying to push it out toward the pool. But no matter how much she focused on stirring the water around and around into a whirlpool, nothing happened. She tucked her hands under her arms and shook her head. “Is it supposed to be this hard in the beginning?”

  Instead of answering her, Thoren said, “Tell me about each time you’ve used magic. Any kind of magic, good or bad.” She didn’t know how that was supposed to help, but she told him anyway. When she was done, he nodded and said, “Take off your gloves.”

  She frowned. “Why?”

  “I think you’re afraid of what you can do, and that fear is holding you back. These gloves are keeping you from hurting anyone, but they’re also acting as a mental block for the rest of your magic. Remove the gloves, and you’ll remove that mental barrier.”

  Beth raised an eyebrow in doubt. “You’re a psychology expert now?”

  “I may have read a book or two.” He laughed then and shook his head. “No, I’m not an expert. I could be completely wrong, but there’s no harm in trying, is there?”

  She chuckled but reached for the fingertips of her glove anyway. What did she have to lose? Perhaps these gloves did symbolize a mental block. She certainly felt far more attached to them than any other piece of clothing she’d ever worn. Once the gloves were off, she laid them on the blanket and returned her focus to the pool.

  “Don’t be afraid of what you can do, Scarlett,” Thoren said. “You’re not going to hurt anyone.”

  She stared at the water, concentrating fiercely on pulling the core of power from her center and using it like a giant wooden spoon to stir the water. Spin around, she commanded silently. Spin around and around and around.

  “Perhaps don’t focus quite so intently,” Thoren said, a touch of amusement in his voice. “You don’t want to cause some kind of explosion when you do eventually release some magic.”

  She breathed deeper and forced her frown into a neutral expression, but the pool remained as undisturbed as before. “I can’t do it,” she said, flopping back against the wall in defeat and releasing all her built up tension.

  And right in front of her, the water rose up in waves that spun around one another before crashing back down. Beth sat forward in amazement, watching water slosh out of the pool and across the stone floor as the choppy surface slowly returned to normal. She turned her head and beamed at Thoren. “I did it.”

  He smiled back at her. “I had no doubt that you would.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  During the days that followed, under Tilda and Thoren’s guidance, Beth continued to test her magic. She didn’t see much of the older two sisters other than at meals, but Tilda
and Thoren were easy to get along with. Their magic lessons took place anywhere and everywhere. Out on the snow, in the kitchen, in the lava room, even sometimes in Malena’s workshop when Malena wasn’t using it.

  Beth was both intrigued and intimidated by the workshop. The numerous hanging plants made her feel at home, but the animal skulls, eyeballs, and other strange ingredients often sent a chill crawling up her spine. The walls were lined with timeworn wooden shelves, drawers, and cupboards, all packed with ingredients, apparatus and books. A large workbench with decades’ worth of dirt pressed into the grooves took up the center of the room. A desk as weather-beaten as the rest of the furniture stood against one wall, and an old couch—for Malena’s clients to sit on while meeting with her, Tilda said—was angled next to it. Beth could have spent hours wandering around the workshop, examining every fascinating inch, but she went only where Tilda told her to go, and did what Tilda told her to do. The workshop was clearly Malena’s domain, and she didn’t dare step a toe out of line when she was in there.

  It was slowly becoming easier to manipulate the earth, air, fire and water around her, although the elements didn’t always respond in quite the way she’d planned. A sweep of her hand might bring about a mini tornado instead of a gust of wind, and a snap of her fingers might produce a fireball instead of a single flame. But she was definitely getting better. Beyond the manipulation of the elements, Tilda wasn’t sure what Beth should and shouldn’t be able to do as a half-siren, so many of their lessons consisted of Tilda asking Beth to try various things. ‘Can you cut a slice of bread by simply thinking about it?’ or ‘Can you shrink your gloves?’ or ‘Can you shoot a spark of magic from your fingers and transform it into a bird?’

  Beth tried everything. Sometimes magic happened and sometimes it didn’t, but she learned something new in every lesson, and every night she fell asleep looking forward to the next day. She felt herself coming alive as she uncovered, bit by bit and day by day, more of the person she was meant to be.

  * * *

  They were in the kitchen two weeks after her arrival, practicing blowing air across their palms and watching it turn into smoke. Beth soon realized she could produce smoke directly from her fingertips without having to blow any air. “I can’t see how this would ever be useful,” she said as she waved her arms in slow, random patterns above her head, “but it’s certainly fun.” She twisted in a circle on the spot as smoke drifted from her fingertips. It gathered around her legs in a swirling spiral, floating slowly down to her feet and building in layers up to her hands. “This would make such a pretty dress,” she said, “if it were possible to make clothes from smoke.”

  Tilda stopped blowing rings of smoke across her palm and tapped her chin. “Perhaps it is possible. I think I shall try.”

  “What are you doing?” The two of them turned and found Sorena, usually the quietest sister, standing in the kitchen doorway looking horrified. She placed her hands on her hips before demanding, “Where is your brain, Tilda? Smoke spells inside? I thought the kitchen was on fire.”

  “Relax, Sorena. It’s dispersing already.”

  “Yes, into the rest of the tunnels. Our entire home is going to smell of smoke.”

  “Well, it sort of smells like smoke already,” Tilda muttered. “We have fires going all the time.” Sorena’s lips pressed firmly together. Tilda groaned. “Fine. I’ll do that expunging spell.”

  Sorena’s shoulders relaxed a little. “Thank you. Please get it done before lunch.” She strode away from the kitchen.

  Beth raised an eyebrow and said, “I thought Malena was the bossy one.”

  “Sorena has her moments,” Tilda said as she rolled her eyes. “Thankfully they’re few and far between.” She looked around the kitchen. “Okay, I’ll start gathering the things we need from here. Can you go to Malena’s workshop and ask her for a small wooden block?”

  “Uh, okay.” As she left the kitchen and headed for Malena’s workshop, she felt a twinge of anxiety. She’d never been alone in a room with Malena or Sorena, and she had hoped to keep it that way. They’d been friendly enough toward her, and while she was now accustomed to the subtle reverberation of their voices, their black eyes still freaked her out and their pointed teeth were more than a little threatening.

  She knocked on the workshop door and waited until Malena shouted for her to enter. She pushed the door open and walked in. Malena was standing at her workbench’s stovetop tending to a boiling pot—but she wasn’t alone. Sitting on the couch near the desk was a stern woman with hair that was, interestingly enough, both blonde and green. A young boy nestled against her side. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Beth said. “I didn’t realize you—”

  “It’s not a problem at all,” Malena said with a wide smile that showed off her magnificently sharpened teeth. “Please come in. I was about to call for you anyway.”

  “Oh.” Confused, Beth paused for a moment before closing the door behind her.

  “Madame Lucia,” Malena said to the woman, “this is Scarlett, my newest apprentice. I would like her to observe the watcher spell on your son. With your permission, of course.”

  Apprentice? Beth thought. Both she and Malena knew she was nothing of the sort, but she didn’t dare contradict the witch.

  Madame Lucia pursed her lips, then said, “I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

  “Wonderful.” Malena motioned for Beth to join her at the workbench. “You can add the magnolia bark to this pot, Scarlett. Stir for a minute, then strain the liquid into a cup.”

  Terrified of doing something wrong, but excited at the prospect of observing a real spell in action, Beth forced herself to approach the bench. On one side, atop the stove, grayish liquid bubbled within a small pot. Spread out across the bench were numerous bottles, vials, cloths and scattered herbs, but Malena had pointed to the bowl containing bits of a rough, dark substance. Beth assumed it must be grated magnolia bark. She picked up the bowl and whispered to Malena, “All of it?” Malena nodded, and Beth tipped the grated bark into the pot. She picked up the wooden spoon balancing across the handle and stirred the liquid. Should she count to one minute now? Had Malena meant exactly one minute, or was that simply an estimation? She was about to ask when Madame Lucia loudly instructed her son to stop kicking his feet against the furniture.

  “Also add a drop of midnight spider venom,” Malena added in a low voice, nodding to a vial containing a dark blue liquid. Beth’s eyes flicked toward Madame Lucia, but the woman hadn’t noticed Malena’s instruction. Beth opened the vial and allowed a single drop to fall into the pot. It sizzled as it hit the potion’s boiling surface. She stirred the concoction once more, and Malena, who was busy swirling a flask of liquid as black as soot, said, “You can strain it now.”

  Beth’s eyes darted across the workbench surface and found a sieve. And there was the cup Malena had mentioned. Wrapping a cloth around the handle to keep from burning her hand—her glove surely wouldn’t be thick enough to protect her—Beth lifted the pot and poured the contents over the sieve and into the cup. Bark, herbs and leaves gathered in the wire mesh, leaving a smooth blue-grey potion in the cup.

  “We’re ready,” Malena announced, and Madame Lucia turned her attention back to the witch. “Bring the potion,” Malena said to Beth as she carried her flask and a quill across the room. She sat on a low table across from the boy while Beth stood awkwardly beside her.

  The boy took in the sharp tip of the quill with wide eyes and asked, “Will it hurt?”

  “Not at all,” Malena said. She nodded for Beth to hand him the cup and added, “Drink this.”

  With shaking fingers, the boy took the cup and sipped the contents. His face twisted as he swallowed, but he finished the remaining liquid and returned the cup to Beth’s hand. Barely a second passed before he slumped back against the cushions, his eyes sliding shut and his head drooping to the side. Madame Lucia turned her accusing gaze on Malena. “What is the meaning of—”

  “I lied, I’m af
raid,” Malena said. “The mark will hurt a great deal, which is why I put him to sleep. He won’t feel a thing, and the pain will be gone by the time he wakes.”

  Madame Lucia hesitated, but her eyes remained narrowed as they looked Malena up and down. “You could have warned me.”

  “My apologies,” Malena said, but as she caught Beth’s eye she smiled discreetly, and Beth knew she didn’t feel sorry at all for startling the woman. “Where would you like the mark to be placed?”

  “Does it make any difference to the effectiveness of the spell?”

  “No.”

  “Then … on the side of his torso, beneath his arm. I obviously don’t want anyone to know it’s there.”

  “Of course. Please lift his clothing.”

  As Madame Lucia moved the boy onto his side and pulled his shirt out of the way, Malena dipped her sharpened quill into the flask. Then, with movements slow and precise, she drew an eye onto the boy’s side. As her quill pressed into his skin, black ink tinged with red dripped down his side, looking eerily as though the eye were crying.

  “A cloth, Scarlett,” Malena instructed as she finished the eye and sat back. Beth hurried to the bench and returned with the same cloth she’d used to pick up the pot. Without sterilizing the cloth in any way, Malena wiped it across the boy’s skin, cleaning away the excess ink and leaving the perfect dark outline of an eye. Germs and infection clearly weren’t a concern when magic was involved.

  Malena then pressed her hand flat against the tattooed shape, closed her eyes, and began reciting words Beth didn’t understand. She assumed at first that it was the same language she’d heard the witches speak before, but it sounded different. Hard edges and guttural sounds. As she spoke the final word, her hand tensed, her nails dug into the boy’s skin, and a flash of light blazed briefly from beneath her palm.

  Then she stood, wiped her hand with the cloth, and said, “That’s it. Leave the shirt up for a few minutes to let the wound heal.” She walked to her desk and sat in the chair, crossing one leg neatly over the other. “The other half of the spell has already been performed inside this book, as you previously requested.” She moved a tattered old journal to the edge of her desk and patted it. “You’ll be able to see and hear everything he sees and hears. Now, let’s settle the payment while the sleeping potion wears off. Scarlett, please watch the boy until he wakes.”