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

closed her eyes and lifted her face to the sky as her lips moved as if in a whispering prayer.

Mercy walked slowly around the tree. She turned so that her back rested against the gnarled bark and faced the distant creek. She tried to concentrate—to open herself so she could glean information from her usually astute senses. But the fog of grief refused to thin enough to let anything through. She shook her head.

“I don’t know, H. I can’t seem to—” Mercy paused and sneezed. She rubbed her nose and sneezed again.

“Shh!” Hunter said. “I’m trying to pick up on any bad energy.”

“Sorry, but this smell is getting to me.” Then her mind caught up with her words and she craned her neck around to meet her sister’s gaze. “It stinks!”

Hunter frowned. “Stinks?”

Mercy nodded vigorously. “Get closer.”

Quickly, her sister stood and moved to within touching distance of the tree. She breathed deeply before screwing up her face and backing off several feet. “Eesh! That reeks!”

“Sulphur,” Mercy said. “It smells like rotten eggs.”

Hunter’s face paled. “That can’t be good,” she whispered.

Bile burned Mercy’s throat as her stomach revolted. “I don’t remember any of the trees smelling bad. Ever. Do you?”

“No. Never. Well, except for last night.” Hunter circled the tree with Mercy as they studied the intricate trunk.

A shiver fingered down Mercy’s spine as she remembered. “Fenrir—it reeked.”

Hunter nodded. “Like this, only worse.” She continued to study the tree. “But it looks okay.”

“Yeah, nothing looks wrong, but that smell is definitely coming from the tree.”

“Mag, I know it’s really hard for you right now, but you’re the Green Witch. You usually just know things about plants. Can’t you see if the tree will tell you anything?”

The terrible lethargy that clouded Mercy’s mind also numbed her senses, but she nodded and, ignoring the rotten egg smell, faced the tree. She leaned forward and braced her hands on the rough bark. Mercy closed her eyes and pressed her palms firmly against the banyan, attempting to feel its energy—something that was usually as easy for her as drawing breath.

Today she felt nothing. She sighed and wanted to drop to her butt and sob. Everything was wrong. Their mom was dead! In a burst of anger she pushed against the tree, like she could shove it—and her grief—away, and a section of the bark gave way, like a scab tearing loose, to expose a nest of worms beneath that were boring into the skin of the tree.

Sick filled Mercy’s mouth and she gagged.

“What is it?” Hunter rushed to her.

Mercy wiped her hands over and over against her jeans and pointed at the writhing parasites.

“Oh, Tyr! What are they?”

“I don’t know, but they were at the apple tree, too.”

“Wait, you saw them in the bark last night?” Hunter asked as she stared up at the branches of the deceptively healthy-looking banyan.

“No. I stepped on a green apple and it broke open. It was infested with those things. Hunter, Mom said it was okay—acted like it was nothing—but I saw her face go pale.” She whispered the next sentence. “Like it scared her.”

“We have to tell Xena about this, and we have to see if the other three trees are sick, too.”

“Hang on.” Mercy’s hand trembled as she reached up and grabbed a low-hanging branch. She used her weight, dangling from it so that it shook up and down. Heart-shaped leaves rained around her. They were shriveled and dead.

Hunter crouched and gathered some of the leaves. “This just keeps getting worse.” She shoved a handful of leaves into her pocket. “Let’s get out of here. We need to go to the other trees.”

With leaden feet Mercy retraced their path to the car. She couldn’t shake the feeling that worms were crawling over her skin, but she was too exhausted to say anything or do much more than occasionally brush a hand down her arms.

Hunter put the car in reverse. “Should we go to the Egyptian or Japanese gate next?”

Mercy was saved from having to care enough to respond when her phone chimed with a text message. She read the message and felt another wave of sick grief wash through her. “It’s Em. She says her dad’s ready to see us.”

Hunter blew out a long, sad breath. She put the car back into park and picked at her thumbnail. “You think we have time to check out just one of the other trees?”

Mercy met her sister’s gaze. “I think we need to take care of Mom first.”

Hunter nodded, wiped her bloody thumbnail on her jeans, backed onto the gravel road, and headed toward downtown Goodeville.

Mercy let grief overwhelm her as she closed her eyes and rested her head against the cool window—and tried not to think about what was going to happen next.

Ten

Hunter had never been in a funeral home before. She’d never had any reason to. When her grandmother had passed, the service had been held at their house. Hunter and Mercy were barely out of diapers. Her great-grandmother had died before she and her sister had been born. It seemed all Goode women were destined to an early end.

The heavy wooden door of Parrott Family Funeral Home creaked open in ominous, horror movie fashion. Hunter slipped inside to the foyer. Wood paneling, forest green walls, and black-and-white photos of woodland scenes greeted her. It smelled like flowers and cedar with a hint of cinnamon. Hunter didn’t know what she’d expected, but she hadn’t prepared herself for normalcy.

Hunter cleared her throat. “Mr. Parrott?”

It was silent for a moment before another creaky door opened. “Be right there, girls,” Emily’s dad and Goodeville’s only funeral director called from down the hall.

Hunter took a deep breath. She felt lighter. Maybe it was the fact that the bright Illinois sun no longer burned her tender eyes. Or maybe it was because she and her sister were taking steps forward. This wouldn’t be the new, happier life Hunter had envisioned, but there was something to be said for putting the past