Spells Trouble, Kristin Cast [books to read in a lifetime .TXT] 📗

the sinking weight of her sister. Mercy wasn’t built for grief or trauma. Until now, those had always been Hunter’s burden.

The sheriff fogged his glasses, wiped the lenses with the end of his untucked shirt, and fogged them again. “She won’t have died in vain if you get money out of the whole debacle.” He peered up at the clouds through his lenses before sliding the glasses onto his broad nose. “You could sue. That’s what people do, isn’t it?”

Hunter’s stomach knotted as she stared at her reflection in Sheriff Dearborn’s mirrored aviators. She’d never wished for the kind of evil dark magic so many people outside of Goodeville believed was part of the Practice. But she wished for it now. Her pendant heated against her chest. It didn’t matter that the sheriff was wrong about how her mother met her end. Hunter wished she could call down the cosmos and send an entire galaxy of stars ripping through him. She didn’t want money. She wanted her mom.

Deputy Carter clapped the senior officer on the back. “You’ll have to excuse the sheriff. He’s been up a long time. Everything’s got him a little rattled.”

The sheriff slid his glasses to the end of his nose. “You’d be rattled if you’d seen what I saw. That dead man out there—old man Thompson—with no eyes.” With his middle and pointer fingers he mimed stabbing his eyeballs.

Hunter tightened her grip on Mercy’s hand as the sheriff wiggled the imaginary eyes in front of them.

“Ripped right out of his head and then, poof, disappeared.” He threw up his hand. “Swallowed up by who knows what.”

With a strangled laugh, Deputy Carter tugged on the tip of his hat. “As I said, he’s shaken up by the scene that happened last night out off Quaker Road by the old olive tree.”

“Not at the olive tree. The tree had nothing to do with it!” Sheriff Dearborn swiped at the beads of sweat popping along his brow. “You girls got anything to drink?”

Hunter released Mercy’s hand. “I’ll get you a glass.”

Deputy Carter’s puppy-dog face was firmly affixed as he mouthed an apology in Hunter’s direction. She couldn’t even muster the ghost of a polite smile in return as she leaned into her sister and whispered, “You’ll be okay.” It wasn’t a question. It was a reminder.

The deputy’s words caught Hunter as she shakily headed up the steps toward the front door. “We, uh, we also have to discuss the matter of guardianship.” He took a breath. “You girls don’t happen to have any family close by, do you?”

Hunter couldn’t look back at her sister who remained silent as Deputy Carter continued softly prodding the details of their family tree.

Xena meowed and slapped the screen door with her furry paw, refocusing Hunter’s attention.

“You want out?” Hunter asked as she opened the door. The Maine coon circled Hunter’s ankles and pressed her long body against Hunter’s calves, forcing her inside. Hunter closed the screen and stumbled in. She caught herself on the bannister and crouched down near the foot of the staircase that led up to Mercy’s and her rooms.

Hunter combed her fingers through Xena’s fur. “I know it’s hard. I miss her, too.” The tears came then. Their well replenished, they rushed from her eyes like strands of pearls.

Xena chittered and wove figure eights between Hunter’s feet.

“And now we’ll have to leave our home.” Hunter sagged onto the wood floor and hugged her knees against her chest. “I wish Mom was here.” She pressed her swollen lids against her knees and wept onto her ceremony dress. The dress that she’d hand dyed and chosen to wear to begin her new life, her happier life.

Xena yowled and pressed her massive front paws against Hunter’s shins. With a sniffle, Hunter raised her head and rested her chin on her damp knees. Xena’s whiskers dusted Hunter’s cheeks as the cat leaned in. Only a sliver of Xena’s amber irises encircled her dilated pupils as she let out a string of clipped meows and sneezed right in Hunter’s face.

“Gah, Xena…” Hunter grumbled as she blindly wiped her face with the collar of her dress.

“Sorry about that. The incantation always makes me sneeze.”

Hunter dropped her dress and stared at the spot in front of her where the cat had been. Now there were feet—human feet attached to human legs attached to a human torso. Hunter scrambled backward and winced when her back struck the staircase.

The naked woman before her brushed her hand through her mane of wild black, white, and brown–streaked hair. “It’s like you’ve never seen a cat before.”

“Xena?”

The woman ran her clawlike nails down her bare form and smiled. “In the flesh.”

Eight

The silence stretched to an unending, uncomfortable frozen length after Hunter went inside. Usually, in a situation where adults were hanging around looking lost and awkward Mercy would’ve easily alleviated the tension by engaging both officers in cheerful conversation.

But Mercy did not care about their awkwardness and she didn’t think she’d ever be cheerful again.

So the silence continued.

“Um, Mercy? It is Mercy and not Hunter, right?”

Mercy looked up from her phone to meet the deputy’s gaze. She cleared her throat and started to say yes, but decided nodding would be fine.

“Okay, well, Mercy—as I was asking your sister, do you have family close or—”

“Thirsty!” the sheriff interrupted. “Really need that drink.” He cleared his throat several times and wiped his mouth on the back of his tan sleeve. Mercy cringed at the white crusty crap that rained from the creases of his lips.

Anger bubbled strong in Mercy’s chest and the words that had been dammed within her broke loose. “Sorry, but we don’t have the fresh-squeezed lemonade we’d usually offer you—with a plate of cookies or a sweet little spell or two. You see, our mom, the Kitchen Witch everyone loved, died. Horribly. Last night. We’re a little off our social game at the moment. But, hey, come on in. Hunter’s probably curled up in a fetal position in the kitchen