Unruly Magic (17 page)

“Especially in Wilding,” Evan said softly. Before I could ask what he meant by that, he’d stepped past me and pulled the door open, raising an arm to wave. Past him I could see that another car had pulled up next to his and our visitors were here so my questions would have to wait.

Nine

I sat at the junction, letting the engine of my car idle while I decided which way to go. I should have been going straight home with the few bags of groceries on the seat next to me but I’d caught the telltale whiff of magic that was luring me in another direction and I wasn’t sure whether I should follow it. I could, of course, ignore it completely. I could take the handbrake off, step on the gas and motor home to wait for Étoile, Seren and David to bring their supplies of an entirely different nature, but this tug was strong and unrepentant.

Yesterday’s roundtable (minus roundtable) discussion hadn’t pulled any punches. Even though Evan had pitched in his research on Chyler – it was amazing what you could find out about a person on the web if you just punched in the right keywords, apparently – and Étoile and Seren had been in touch with their contacts, we were firmly stuck on square one. What the Winterstorm sisters had found out was hardly helpful. They reported that Chyler had been dabbling in a darker magic, something her mom had been deeply concerned about, and eventually it was reported that Chyler had simply said she was over the phase and she wouldn’t be messing about anymore. But evidence suggested Chyler had just gotten a little sneakier in what she was doing and had continued to dabble. On the day Chyler disappeared, Andrea had been found sprawled inside a chalk circle with strange symbols painted around its edge, in the Anderson’s attic room, a space that doubled up as a living room slash study for magic, where Chyler was being taught the basics of spell craft. With a knife through her heart there had never been any chance of Andrea surviving. Instead, her death had been fast as she bled out. It was surmised that as she had no signs of defensive wounds, she had been surprised by the attack and unable to protect herself.

Andrea’s coven sisters had suggested that if it was Chyler, and they claimed there was evidence to suggest that she had been the perpetrator rather than another victim, Andrea simply wouldn’t have thought to protect herself from her daughter. One thing working in Chyler’s favour was that even with the mounting evidence, the Andersons’ coven sisters weren’t completely convinced that Chyler was absolutely at fault. After a lot of arguing amongst themselves, the coven had agreed that Chyler could be in trouble too and that they weren’t even sure that she wasn’t hurt or captive somewhere. It wasn’t much help in Chyler’s favour but it was something. Using their connections to the council, Andrea’s family and the coven had requested help, but that still didn’t explain to me why the council seemed so keen to expend resources to help a kid, not when they apparently faced enormous problems of their own.

The surviving family hadn’t been able to shed any light on things as neither Étoile or Seren had managed to talk directly to them due to the coven was protecting them while they were deeply troubled and grieving.

It didn’t escape my notice that I might have been able to offer answers to some of those questions. Chyler was alive and well, even if her erratic behaviour gave me concern. More to the point, she didn’t seem to be anyone’s captive, which suggested to me she was either innocent and afraid, or as guilty as hell.

A sharp honk behind me made me snap to attention. I flipped the blinker lights and, against my better judgement, turned the car away from the direction of home. Light rain had started to patter on the windscreen so I switched the wipers on to deal with it, and, after a moment, the lights too seeing as the air was turning as dull and grey as the sky. I wanted a romantic winter image, not a reminder of weather that echoed London.

After everything that had been said that I knew I had to go and talk to Chyler. I let myself drive without thinking, just following that vague wisp of magic I’d caught a hint of back on the main road – I might have disguised her to others but there was no mistaking what I felt. When she’d shown up out of nowhere yesterday morning, Chyler had gestured vaguely east of my house and my limited geographic knowledge of the area seemed to agree that I was heading in the right direction.

I wasn’t sure what I expected when I drew up in front of a modest bungalow with a neat yard on a spacious plot but it wasn’t this poster home for clean neighbourhood living. Chyler had admitted to staying in an abandoned house so I’d got it into my head that it was probably some ramshackle old building. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I parked by the white picket fence and got out, pulling my hood up over my head to keep my hair out of the drizzle. A foreclosure sign swung on a post off to the left of the path as I walked through the open gate and went up to the front door. I knocked hesitantly, thinking of aback-up story for why I was on this doorstep in case I’d gotten it all wrong, but after a moment Chyler opened the door.

“Oh,” she said. “How’d you find me?” Chyler had changed into clean jeans and a red sweater that made me think of Christmas. She’d tackled the twigs in her hair and it shone blonde and glossy again.

“A good guess,” I lied. “Can we talk for a moment?”

“Sure. Come in.” She stepped aside so I could step past her into a broad hallway then I followed her into the living room. The big pieces of furniture remained but anything personal had gone. I wondered where the people had gone too and why the bank had taken the house back. I didn’t have to wonder what it was like to lose a home; the pain of that was clear to me. “What’s up?” asked Chyler, twirling a loose lock of hair through her fingers.

I decided to jump straight in with it. “You remember I said some friends of mine came all the way out here to see if you had tried to contact me.”

“Uh huh. What did you tell them?” Chyler was doing her best not to look worried but I could see the tell tale sign of her lower lip quivering and her jaw vibrate with the effort of keeping her mouth shut. She might have a roof over her head, but I didn’t get the impression she was dealing with hiding out so well.

“I didn’t tell them anything, but I am worried about you. I don’t think this is just about the book.” The book had barely been mentioned, except in passing when Seren mentioned that it was gone. Mostly they had concentrated on the dark magic Chyler had been suspected of practising; that, and her mother’s death.

“What else could they possibly want from me? I know the other witches want it.” Chyler sat on the big flowered couch, her knees together and ankles splayed in an ungainly way.

“I think they just want to find you, to know that you’re okay. They want to know what happened.”

“I’m okay. I just want them all to leave me alone.”

I sat opposite her on a velvet covered stool so that I wasn’t looming over her. “Why don’t you come back to my house? My friends might be able to help you.”

“No way.” Chyler shook her head emphatically. “Everyone is totally mad at me. And you know that when people are mad at witches they do horrible things.”

“Like what?” I pressed, which was silly because really, I, of all people, did not need to ask that. I’d been ostracized and teased and picked on and that was just by people who didn’t have an ounce of magic in their bones.

“They’ll set me on fire!” Chyler wailed, throwing her hands in the air, her face stricken. “And, like, that totally cannot happen. Do you know how much hairspray I have to use to make my hair look like this? I am totally flammable!”

“Chyler, I don’t think they’d do that.”

“They might. Fire is the best way to kill a witch, everyone knows that, that’s why those crazy Brotherhood dudes do it. I’m not risking it.” Chyler leapt to her feet and paced the small room. She was shivering but it wasn’t particularly cold inside. “How can I trust your friends? They might be tricking you. They might be just using you to get to me.”

“They’re not like that. And they won’t kill you.” At least, I was ninety percent certain they wouldn’t.

Chyler harrumphed. “I’m not letting them take me prisoner. I’m free and I’m staying that way.”

“I’m just asking you to talk to them so they can help you.”

Chyler came to a stop in front of me and stared down, one hand on a hip. “I think you should go. I don’t know if they followed you here.”

“I swear they didn’t.”

Chyler just looked at me for a moment then sank down to the ground where she sat, rocking on her heels. “Why don’t you stay with me?” she said in a little-girl voice. I swear she even fluttered her eyelashes at me. “We could go on adventures and we could go anywhere we liked. There’s no one to stop us.”

“Except an entire nation of witches who are on the lookout for you,” I pointed out tartly. I stood up abruptly, fed up of her near Schizophrenic attitude to all the trouble she was in. Chyler nearly toppled over in my wake as I walked to the hall. “Look, don’t do anything rash. I only came by to see if you’d come with me but I’m not going to force you. Stay here until I figure things out.”

I heard Chyler huff crossly but when I opened the front door she tottered after me, throwing herself at me and just before I could throw up a shield, she surprised me with a tight hug before stepping back. “Thank you, Stella. I know you’re trying to help me.” She sounded so lost that I had half a mind to grab her hand and tug her back to my house and order her to get some help, but I had no right to do that so I didn’t.

I tried to smile reassuringly at her but Chyler just looked at me, then around her, blankly. She sauntered back to the open archway leading to the living room, turning around with a confused expression like she couldn’t quite work out how she’d got from there to me. She paced the few steps back again and shuddered.

“So, you’re not going to tell anyone where I am?” she asked, her eyes boring into me.

I shook my head, puzzled by her odd behaviour. “No, but stay put. Okay?”

“’kay.” And Chyler shut the door in my face.

~

Instead of heading straight inside when I got home, I stopped my car just as it was fully on the driveway and hopped out and went across the street.

“Hello stranger!” Annalise threw the door open with a wide smile and pulled me inside. I followed her into the kitchen past baskets full of materials and yarns of all colours and patterns. “I’m just making coffee and you are just in time to dish the dirt.”

“There’s no dirt.” I laughed when she raised her eyebrows at me. “Okay, there might be some dirt. But I actually came by to see Gage and give him this.” I held up the slim envelope of cash I’d gotten from the bank earlier. “I said I’d pay him back. Can I leave it with you?”

“You can leave it with him.” Annalise pointed behind me and turned away just as I looked over my shoulder to see Gage padding towards us.

“Hey,” he said and leaned down to kiss me on the cheek before ambling past. I blinked back surprise. I hadn’t expected to see him, nor get a friendly kiss. Perhaps the finger crushing incident hadn’t bothered him at all. That said, I had to remind myself I was cross at him about that too, just not enough to say anything.

“Hi. I brought the money. For the paint.”

“Just put it on the shelf there.” Gage waved his hand at the shelf of pans over the range so I slotted the envelope in between pans so it stuck out a little. “Make me a cup, sis’,” he said to Annalise.

“Coming up.” Annalise was already pulling mugs out of the cabinet by her head and testing the pot with the back of her hand. “Still hot,” she announced as she poured then invited us to finish it how we liked. There was no standing on ceremony here.

“I almost forgot, I had something to show you, Stella.” Gage set his mug down and loped out. I heard him take the stairs.

Annalise slipped into a seat and motioned for me to park myself. “And while he’s out of the way,
who
is your house guest?”

“That would be Evan. You’ve seen a picture of him.”

“Ahh, the boyfriend. You never did say where he’d been.”

“I thought he was dead.” I said, then backtracked a little. “At least, I assumed he might have been, but he wasn’t and he’s been looking for me.” I sighed when Annalise looked at me with her eyebrows raised. Yeah, I wasn’t making any sense. “Long story,” I said.

“You don’t say. And here he is?”

“Here he is.”

“To stay?” pressed Annalise.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think he’s into small town living. He wants to go back to Texas.”

“And you?”

I leant back in my chair. And me? That was a good question and one I’d tried to not focus on. “I was just starting to feel at home here.”

“Then don’t let a man take you away from that.”

“Easier said than done.”

“Always,” agreed Annalise, “but take it from one who knows. If you try and change yourself for a man, or just give in to what he wants without thinking about what you want, nothing good will come of it.”

“Sounds like you know what you’re talking about.”

“Better believe it, baby.”

There was a thump upstairs like something heavy had just fallen on the floor and we both looked up.

“I was married once,” Annalise said, surprising me. “And that did not work out well at all. I was miserable.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh, it was a long time ago, but what I’m trying to tell you is, is that I’m glad I had a home to come too. Don’t think I’m being all noble and poetic though. I like having a neighbour and I like you.” She flashed a smile at me and as if she had caught my thought train, she added, “And whatever might or might not have gone on with you and my brother is nothing but your business to sort out. But I can’t say I don’t have the smallest hope that you might like him back, regardless of hot stuff over there.”

Gage clattered down the stairs before I could answer. He held a thick red book in his hand and thumped it on the table between us triumphantly. “This is one of the family photo albums. You remember when Dad was keen on photography, Annalise? He’d bug us all the time taking pictures. Anyway, I remember him being keen on summer pictures and it occurred to me he might have taken some snaps of your parents.”