I Do Believe in Faeries (The Cotton Candy Quintet Book 3) (2 page)

Maybe I was acting like a spoiled brat, but I didn’t care. It was a long time coming.

Alaina dabbed her mouth with her napkin, sensing my annoyance. “I’ve gotta go to the bathroom,” she said, pushing herself to her feet. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

As she headed towards the bathroom, Jordyn leaned into the table. “What was that?” she hissed.

“What?”

“
That!
”

I crossed my arms. “It’s just not fair.”

“Is this about magick again?”

Ashamed, I didn’t meet her eyes.

Jordyn sighed. “Look, Abby.” She reached across the table and took my hand in hers. “We’re working on your
Book of Shadows
. We’re practicing. Aunt Margaret and Mom are doing everything possible to get you in touch with nature. It will come to you, I promise.”

“I’m almost eighteen years old,” I said, “and I’ve never been able to do magick. It’s not just suddenly going to pop out of nowhere, like a pimple.”

Jordyn’s lips quirked into a half smile at my analogy.

“It’s not funny, Jordyn.” Even though it was.

She squeezed my hand. “We’ll find a way.”

I wished I could believe her, but since I was a little girl, I had been trying so damn hard to be a witch like her. There had been nothing to give me any sort of hope.

It sucked the big one.

“Sorry about that.”

We both looked up to see Alaina standing there, sheepish. “I have to pee every five minutes because of this baby,” she explained apologetically.

“That’s all right,” Jordyn said, sitting back as she watched me pointedly. “Abby and I were just talking.”

“Yeah,” I said, putting a fry to my lips. “Just talking.”

I would have given anything to magick myself away to my room back at the house so I could cry, but you have to have magick to do that.

And I certainly didn’t.

I finished my lunch in silence, sulking into my fish and chips while Jordyn and Alaina talked about everything from porpoises to boyfriends. All of which I couldn’t relate to.

What did surprise me though, was when we got up to leave after a few hours, Alaina wrapped me up in a tight hug.

“So nice meeting you!” she said. “And I understand where you’re coming from, Abby. So if you need anything, just let me know, okay?”

Her gesture touched me, but there was one thing I knew for certain.

She didn’t understand anything.

***

“I thought every bit of magick that you used had to be paid back in thrice,” I said, trying to shrink down into my seat as Jordyn drove back to Centerburg. Jordyn was driving like a maniac, using magick to make the stoplights go green and creating space in the lane next to us to get around a truck. Had I known she was going to drive like this, I would have
never
gone with her to meet Alaina.

She glanced at me and grinned. “This is little magick. It probably just amounts to me losing a few hairs on my head.”

Now I knew why Jordyn sheds like a fluffy dog. At the rate she’s going, she’ll be bald in a week.

“Ew,” I said. “And you and I share the same shower.”

“We’re making great time getting home,” she said.

“Stop showing off.”

“I just want to be there for dinner with Mom and Aunt Margaret.”

“And Luke’s coming over, too,” I snickered, bringing up her boyfriend.

“Well, there’s always that,” Jordyn added sheepishly.

Everything always worked out for Jordyn. She had an awesome boyfriend growing up. She still had an awesome boyfriend now. She still had magick. She was still the gifted Murphy daughter.

The thought made me sink further into my seat.

Luke’s cop car was already in the driveway when we pulled up to our house, meaning that he had come straight from work. Jordyn’s face lit up and I couldn’t help but frown. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Luke. He was mostly okay. I was just sick of being the average little sister.

“Are you okay?”

I looked back at my sister and then pasted on a fake smile.

“Peachy keen.”

Yeah right.

Chapter 2

Mom might have known how to pull a rabbit out of a hat using magick, but she never could get the whole cooking thing down. After forcing down her Pork Casserole surprise, we all sat back quietly, still picking the dried bits of pork out of our teeth.

“How was it?” Mom asked hopefully, as she began collecting our plates to do the dishes. To fill the silence, Jordyn got up and helped her, all the while looking at me for an answer.

Luckily, Aunt Margaret saved us. “It was filling,” the older woman said. Really, that was the only thing she could say about it. “Very filling.”

Mom sighed. “Another failure, huh?”

“Yep,” Aunt Margaret said honestly. Our great-aunt never sugarcoated anything. I wished she had made her chocolate cake. At least that would have been something with flavor.

“I thought it was good,” Luke offered, politely wiping his mouth with his napkin. The goody two-shoes, although he blushed as he said it.

I snickered, and Aunt Margaret frowned at me in response.

“Maybe it needs more frozen peas,” Mom muttered to herself as she picked up my plate.

Jordyn glared at me as she followed Mom into the kitchen, something akin to accusation in her eyes.

What did I do?

For all I knew, she and Aunt Margaret magicked something in there to make it taste palatable. I didn’t know if that was possible, but it would make sense. Luke and I would have had to choke down the food with our normal-person throats.

I sighed exasperatedly and pushed my seat back. It was time to head back upstairs and listen to Taylor Swift while I looked at prom dresses. I wanted to lose myself in stuff that I had some control over.

“Where are you going?” Aunt Margaret asked, raising a suspicious eyebrow. Nothing gets past her. Imagine growing up with a woman who could look you in the eye and tell exactly what you were thinking.

It kinda sucked.

“To do homework,” I lied. “Maybe go to Starbucks so I can get some privacy.” That last part held truth. I wanted to get out of house so I could be by myself.

My great-aunt didn’t buy it. I could tell because her forehead creased ever so slightly.

“I have a test tomorrow,” I added, throwing more fuel into the fire.
A test on Monday. Sure.

Aunt Margaret nodded and waved me away. That was as much of an answer as I was going to get.

“Have a good night, Luke,” I told my sister’s boyfriend. I didn’t know if he was staying longer, or if she was going to go over to his place, and frankly, I didn’t want to know. Still though, I wanted to be nice to him. He was a good guy.

“See you, Abby,” he called after me, as I trudged up the steps.

My family’s cat, Sadie, sat at the top of the landing, giving me the stink eye. “Not you too,” I sighed. Even the cat was judgmental.

She continued to glare at me as I stepped around her. Darn thing refused to move, just like any cat would. I sighed as I finally made it to my room.

I did have homework, but there was no way I was going to be able to focus on that right now. I looked at my phone, debated on listening to music while hiding in my room.

Then I heard Jordyn’s laughter rise up from downstairs.

No, I really needed to get out of here. Where, I didn’t care.

I grabbed my jacket and my keys, and as I did, my
Book of Shadows
fell onto the floor. Jordyn had been helping me work on the
Book
, but I grew frustrated and put the
Book
away. The binder had just been sitting in the corner for a while now, waiting to be used again. I’d never be able to use it properly.

I frowned.

No.

I refused to let something like not having the gift get in the way of me practicing magick. I’m a Murphy, dammit. My family has been persecuted for generations for being witches, and I wasn’t going to be the one exception.

If I was going to suffer for their sins, I was going to learn to sin myself.

It never bothered me before Jordyn got back, but after I saw how differently Aunt Margaret treated her, and how much easier life is for her, I made a vow. I was going to learn magick..

Magick is 95% willpower, right? Well, I had 100%.

I grabbed the binder and tucked it under my arm. I put my phone in my backpack and left my room, sidestepping Sadie again, who hadn’t moved from her spot. The cat didn’t even bother to look at me as I passed her. Her blasé attitude was confirmation that I needed to get out as I took the stairs two at a time.

“I’ll be back!” I called, as I opened the door, meaning to leave without further interruptions. Unfortunately, the last person I wanted to see popped her head around the corner and I inwardly groaned.

I shouldn’t have said anything.

“Where are you going?” Jordyn asked. She crossed her arms as she leaned against the door jamb.

“Out.”

Her eyes flicked to the
Book of Shadows
that I held in the crook of my arm. “Oh!” she said, surprised. “Are you going to practice magick?”

“N—no!”

“Want me to come with you?”

“No,” I repeated, backing up.

Jordyn saw me retreating and stopped. “Are you okay?” she asked. “You’ve been acting so
strange
lately.”

“I’m fine,” I said a little too quickly.

“Is it because of a boy?”

Her question was so stupid, I almost laughed. Her perception of me was all wrong, and it actually hurt. “No, Jordyn, it’s not because of a boy.”

“Then why?”

My bottom lip trembled. Should I tell her? She was trying to help, sure, but at the same time, she was a lot of the reason why I was “acting strange”.

“You can tell me,” she assured me, and she clapped me on the upper arm.

The touch made me explode from within.

“You just don’t get it, do you?” Now she was the one who stepped back, astonished by my outburst, but I was nowhere near done. “You screw up—
royally
—and tear apart our family. Then you come back after three years, and it’s as though everything is all right. Well, guess what? It’s not! You’ve had so many second chances. And me…I’m not even a real witch. I never even had a first chance.”

Jordyn’s eyes turned hard at that last part. “I told you, we’re working on that.”

“It’s not just about that!” I threw up my free hand in anger and rather than say anything else, I opened the door and walked out to my car.

Of course Jordyn followed me. “What is it then?” she demanded.

“Nothing,” I said, unlocking the door and throwing my backpack and
Book of Shadows
in the backseat.

Jordyn narrowed her eyes at me casually tossing my
Book
around. “You need to treat your
Book of Shadows
better than that.”

“It’s just a binder right now. I’m not a witch, remember? Not like you.”

“Abby…”

“You know what the worst part is?” I asked, opening the driver’s side door. “I’m stuck with the realization that Dad left us because you and Mom are witches. But what about me, huh? I’m not even a witch. I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve to be treated differently because of that.”

Ouch. Even as I said it, I knew I’d gone too far.

Jordyn’s face twisted into anger. She probably would have slapped me if she was closer, and I was surprised that she didn’t use magick to do just that. I used her shock to get into the car, close the door, turn it on, and drive away, leaving her there.

And as I drove off, I couldn’t help but cry.

Chapter 3

I didn’t go to Starbucks or to the library to work on stuff for school. Instead, I followed through on my plans to practice magick and see if there was an inkling—
anything
—resembling a witch within me.

I parked outside of Shady Point, a forest on the outskirts of town. After a few nightmarish events that have happened here, I should have been scared of the place.

But I wasn’t.

Not tonight, because I was feeling fiery and defiant. I wanted to be alone, and the only place where I could be alone was Shady Point. Plus, it was the last place where Jordyn would look for me.

If she was even looking for me after I exploded in the driveway.

I stepped out of the car and took a deep breath, smelling the sweet scent of pine and damp earth. Maybe if I breathed it in enough, it would help me connect with nature. Jordyn and Mom used earth-based magick, so I imagined, hypothetically, that’s what I’d be able to use too.

I shook my head trying to clear it of the nagging doubt that threatened to derail me. I grabbed my
Book
and my backpack and took off for the deep part of the woods.

After spending my entire life in Centerburg, I was pretty familiar with Shady Point in the daytime. We had Easter Egg hunts here when we were little. Many of my class trips were to Shady Point to do some experiments (although I think many of the experiments were boys and girls kissing when they were out of sight of the teachers). I’d gone here with Jordyn to play hide-and-seek when we were very young.

I missed those days. when the world seemed fair and just. Yet, after everything that happened with Jordyn’s old boyfriend, and our psychotic neighbor Mr. Samson, the woods and my memories were tainted. I’d seen how far humans would go to hurt each other.

Anyhow, I should have been more scared, but there was one thing about being determined to use magick: I was also determined to be dumb.

After wandering for a bit, I finally spotted it. There was a big oak tree about a fifteen minute walk from the parking lot. I had no idea how old it was, only that it must have been ancient because it was wider than my car, and the bark was almost a brownish gray from age. The thick roots of the oak tree wound into the ground like a complex network of pipes, and it towered over the other trees around it, throwing them into deeper shadow.

The tree was beautiful in an unsettling, soul-touching way. I’d found it on one of those hide-and-seek excursions when we were little. Being three years older than me, Jordyn was always better at it than me and could always find me (she cheated sometimes with magick). When I stumbled on this big tree, I hid in it for hours until Mom panicked and went out to go find me. After that day, Jordyn and I always made it a point to come out here and climb this tree.