Legacy Of Magick (Legacy Of Magick Series, Book 1) (21 page)

Then he started spouting off bible verses at me, and I’d had enough.

“Listen Romeo,” I purred into the phone, and his tirade stopped. “If you put your bible thumping hands on my mother again, I’ll come after you personal. Understand me? Now put my mother back on the phone. Right. Now.”

A couple of seconds later, I heard him hand the phone to my mother. “I’m here.” She said.

“Mom are you crazy? Did you hear what he said to me? What are doing with a religious fanatic?”

“I told you when you left to go back there... If you chose that path over your own mother, I would
never
let you come home again.” Her tone was colder than I had ever heard in my life.

“I had no idea that you were serious.” My voice shook.

“I am. Very serious. Goodbye Autumn.” And then, she hung up.

I sat there in the dark for a few moments staring at my cell phone, as our conversation sank in. Then I pulled my knees up to my chin and wrapped my arms around myself for comfort. I tried to hold my emotions in. But I couldn’t.

I rocked back and forth as my heart broke, and I cried quietly for a long time.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I got through the next few days by throwing myself into my studies, both magickal and mundane. I finalized the planting plans for the house Duncan was rehabbing, broke ground on the new flower beds, and would begin the planting at the site on the coming weekend. Duncan was busy finishing up the rehab on the house, but when he suggested we go out for dinner I gave him a lame excuse.

When everyone met at the Manor to discuss how their search had gone, I had merely said that I had contacted my mother, and that she knew nothing. I felt like a slacker when I heard that Holly and Ivy had been searching through the storage area in the attic. And that Gwen was meticulously going through all of our family’s journals and old spell books, looking for any mention of the Blood Moon Grimoire.

Rebecca was discreetly examining all of the books in her family’s personal magickal library, also looking for any reference to the grimoire. While Duncan had checked to see if there had been any safe deposit boxes, or remaining personal papers of his father’s, besides what his mother had kept — but he had found nothing. He said that he was going to go through old family photos next on the off chance that he’d find a clue there. Finally, Bran reported that he was double checking the oldest books at the University library in case the grimoire was mixed in, and hidden in plain sight.

After the little get together, I stayed busy working on assignments for my Museum Studies classes. Whenever I had any free time, I worked even harder with Aunt Gwen on protection magick and psychic self defense. I didn’t sleep well. I didn’t go for any runs, and basically I got up, went to class, came home, and studied. Then repeated. I claimed to be too busy to talk to Duncan, dodged the twins, and ignored Bran entirely. The only thing that kept me going was my hurt and anger.

Yeah, yeah. Anger leads to the dark side and blah, blah, blah... Been there, done that, saw the Star Wars movies. But I turned that anger into determination, and used the hurt from my mother’s denial of our family’s past, my abilities, and, ultimately, her rejection of me to fire myself up to learn as much as I could, in the shortest amount of time.

Aunt Gwen poured on the witchcraft lessons every evening, and I was grateful for the distraction. I worked hard at learning more about the Craft, until I was too tired to think straight. I was worried about what Thomas Drake might do next, his threat was a hell of an incentive, and I wanted to be prepared. I learned to build up my energetic shields (which is harder than it sounds), and how to defend myself without causing harm to another. Those particular lessons left me shaking with fatigue. But when we finished, I would crawl into bed, and not sleep more than a couple of hours a night.

After several days of that routine, it started to catch up with me. Between a lack of sleep, stress, grad school, learning psychic self defense, and then my magickal studies, I felt horrible. And honestly? I looked worse. On Thursday afternoon, I sat in the window seat of the turret of Aunt Gwen’s sitting room, wearing a ratty old t-shirt, a pair of royal blue sweat pants, and my typical mismatched socks. I couldn’t keep this pace up for much longer, but at least it kept me from feeling so horribly alone all the time. I might be in a house full of people, but I still felt like an outsider, deep down. If my own mother didn’t want me, how could I ever truly fit in anywhere?

I gave up trying to read from one of Gwen’s magickal books, took off my glasses, and rubbed my eyes. Hard. Who was I kidding? My eyes wouldn’t even focus any longer, and I could feel a migraine brewing. Then if things hadn’t sucked badly enough, I found myself confronted by Bran.

“You look terrible.” Bran said after returning a volume to the bookshelf.

“I bet the ladies love it when you talk like that.”

God I was tired. In an effort to slow down the nasty headache that seemed determined to cap off my afternoon, I pulled my hair free from the French braid I had done earlier. I shook my hair out and tried to massage my scalp. Bran walked over to me, with a concerned look on his face. He was, as usual, impeccably dressed, and damned if that didn’t annoy the hell out of me.

“Dude, do you
ever
wear jeans or a sweatshirt?”

“What’s wrong, Autumn?” His voice was quiet, sympathetic, and totally caught me off guard.

“Nothing.” I snapped back, shoving my glasses back on my face. I was so
not
in the mood for this. I stood up and started to push past him.

“Bullshit.” He stood his ground and boxed me in.

“I’m getting a migraine. That’s all.” I lifted my hand to his shoulder, thinking to push him out of my way

“Hey,” Bran didn’t budge. Instead he grabbed my wrist and pulled me up short. “I’m not joking. What’s going on with you?”

“Let go!” I yanked, but he held my wrist firmly, and kept me in place.

“I know something’s wrong. For the past few days you have walked around here like a zombie. You aren’t eating. Obviously you’re not sleeping.” He frowned down at me, and I fought not to let him see how close I was to crying.

“Like you care.” To my shame, I felt tears spill over anyway.

“That’s where you’re wrong.” He picked up the book I had been reading on psychic protection. “How’s this coming?”

“Super!” I snarked at him, and wiped at the tears with my free hand. “Thanks for asking!”

“Have you put any of it into practice?”

My headache was ramping up, and I was mortified that he was seeing me cry. “Well I tried to protect myself from pompous asses, but here you are.” I yanked at my wrist again.

“You’re only going to hurt yourself if you keep that up.” He said quietly as he easily kept a hold of me, and that made me furious.

I swore at him, and he stood there seemingly unfazed. “Last chance.” Bran warned me quietly as his eyes lit up with a brighter shade of green. “Either you tell me, or I’ll find out for myself.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

To my complete and total surprise, Bran released my wrist and then took a firm hold of both sides of my face. “See if you can keep me out.”

“Don’t!” My first instinct, to kick at him, simply fizzled out. He tugged my face closer to his, and as he looked me in the eyes, I felt a solid inner
click
. My heart sank, and I was unable to stop him from
seeing
whatever he wished. With a connection from his mind to mine, he read my memories and innermost thoughts.

All the studying I had done on psychic self defense went right out the window. I couldn’t even put it into practice. I was too tired and he was too strong. I stood there humiliated, while more tears rolled down my face. He could see it all. My grief over my father’s death and the hurt that he’d bound my powers and hidden so much from me. He saw the anger I had towards my mother, from her turning her back on me, my new, and private, feelings for Duncan, and, most of all, my fear that I would never have a real home or a family to love me ever again.

It was a hell of a thing to have someone else in your head. I also realized, as he did a thorough rifling through my mind, that if he had been angry it undoubtedly would have been a painful experience.

But now that I knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end of walking through another person’s mind, I was
never
doing it again. My headache intensified, and I felt my knees start to buckle. As soon as they did, he pulled back, and my thoughts were once again my own.

“Hang on now, it will be alright.” Bran gently guided me to sit down on the floor.

“You son of a bitch.” I said quietly while I waited for my head to just fall clean off my shoulders. The migraine wasn’t teasing me anymore. It was full blown now, and, in defense, I covered my eyes, glasses and all, with both hands against the light.

“Holly!” Bran gripped my shoulders, and called for his sister.

“I’m here.” I heard Holly walk into the room. With my eyes covered, I gave serious consideration to lying down on the rug. As a matter of fact, that seemed like a marvelous idea. Bran must have known, as he started to guide me down, so I could lie on my side. Still I kept my eyes covered against the light.

“What did you do?” Holly asked her brother in the sharpest tone I had ever heard her use.

“Holy crap!” That was Ivy and I could tell she was running into the room. I flinched when she dropped a hand on my arm. “Bran, you were supposed to find out what was wrong, not make her sick or cry!

“Migraine.” I managed to say.

A second later Holly laid her hand on my shoulder, and to my surprise, I felt Bran place his hand gently on top of my head. And then — I felt all three of them pushing energy into me. Behind my closed eyes, I imagined it to be three different colors, and it felt cool and calm as it flowed over and into me. The intensity of the migraine let up after a few short moments. I took a careful breath, and I cautiously slid my hands away from my eyes.

I looked warily up at them, and then made eye contact with Bran. “The minute I can stand up, I’m going to kick your ass.” I told him in a shaky voice.

“So she says while lying on the floor.” Bran grinned at me.

“I won’t be down here forever.”

Bran brushed my long hair out of my eyes, clearly unconcerned for his own personal safety. “Autumn, I wish you would have come to us and told us about your mother turning her back on you.”

“Shut up!” I warned, but it was too late. Now the twins were asking all sorts of questions, and right then I wished I had Ivy’s gift of telekinesis, because I would have thrown the loveseat straight at his head.

Holly leaned over and looked closely at my face. “You are so pale. How long has it been since you slept more than a couple of hours at a time?”

I gave up. “I don’t know.”

“You’re going to take a nap now.” Holly said with an edge to her voice.

Cautiously, I eased up on an elbow. When the room didn’t spin, I attempted to sit up. Slowly. “Listen, honey, you can’t order me to go to sleep.”

“Nope. But I can spell you to sleep.” She said standing there in her blue and gold cheerleading uniform. All pretty and pert, she sounded tough as nails.

I let out a short laugh. “What about free will and all that stuff you guys have been blathering on about for weeks?”

“I’ll take the karma.” Holly said as her eyes took on an eerie aqua glow.

***    

I suppose she did decide to ‘take the karma’ because the next thing I knew I was lying in my bed covered up with a soft blanket, and it was fully dark outside. I sat up slowly and patted the bedside table for my glasses. Once I found them, I sat up against my pillows and noted that the migraine was gone. I looked at the clock and discovered it was around 7:30 at night. I pulled the light blanket up to my chin, and settled back deeper against the pillows with a sigh.

I was still tired, but I did feel better. I clicked on the little light on the stand and waited for my eyes to adjust. My head felt sore, the typical post migraine effect, but it wasn’t too bad. Good grief, what a hell of a day.

My door slowly opened, and Bran poked his head in. Merlin used the opportunity to run into the room and jump up on my bed. Seeing that I was awake, Bran stepped in carrying a mug. “How do you feel?” he asked and handed it to me, while the cat curled up on my legs.

“A little better.” I admitted. “What’s this?” I sniffed suspiciously at the mug,

“Eye of newt.” He said deadpan, and sat on the bench at the foot of the bed.

“Well aren’t we a laugh riot this evening?”

“It’s chamomile.” He gestured towards the mug. “Drink it.”

Since it was there and it smelled good, I did just that. I eyeballed him over the rim of the mug. “You,” I told him, “are such a jerk.”

“Still planning to kick my ass?” He asked pleasantly.

“You will never see me coming...” I threatened him.

“It isn’t fun having someone do that to you against your will. Is it?” He arched an eyebrow at me.

I set the mug down on the nightstand with a snap. “Is that what that was, then? Revenge from when I scanned your memories about the hidden books a couple of weeks ago?”

“No.” He said. “I hated to see you suffering for the past few days. I was worried that Drake had gotten ahold of you again. I thought maybe you were too frightened to tell any of us about it. So the girls and I decided I should try to find out what was wrong.”

“So you picked a fight.” I sipped at my tea again.

“I did. I’m told that I am rather good at that.”

“It might be
your
super power, Sparky.”

“Please.” He grimaced. “Don’t ever call me that again.”

“I don’t know...” I considered and patted Merlin’s kitty head. “It seems to suit you.”

“Autumn, I know only too well how much it hurts to be rejected by a parent. I am sorry that your mother turned her back on you.”

“Don’t.” I held up a hand, struggling not to cry again. “I’m too raw to talk about it right now.”