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

But maybe now she would.

Hunter stopped at a stop sign as Mercy popped open the glovebox and removed the pack of travel tissues their mother kept next to the car’s manual and a satchel stuffed full of dried sage. Mercy pulled out a tissue and dabbed the rounded tip of her pink nose. “I wish I was more like you.”

Lint clung to the beams of light shining in through the windows. A chuckle hardened in the back of Hunter’s throat. She’d been wishing the exact same thing about herself for the past sixteen years. But that wish had been a compliment to Mercy and, somehow, this didn’t feel the same.

Mercy balled up the tissue and dropped her hands into her lap. “It’s a charm or a tincture or something, isn’t it? Something that just took away all of your feelings.”

Hunter’s knuckles whitened as she tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “It’s nothing magical, Mag,” she said, pressing a bit too firmly on the gas. The car lurched forward before she let off and resumed her twenty mile per hour cruise through the innards of Goode-ville. “You know that’s not—” She pressed the brakes. The car jerked to a stop in front of a pale pink house guarded by plastic flamingos. “Oh my god.” Hunter’s fingertips flew to her pendant.

Mercy frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. “Ess, H. Oh my goddess.”

Ignoring her sister, Hunter pulled her phone out of her pocket. She could help Mercy, but to do so, she’d need their friends.

Twelve

Hunter tiptoed across the kitchen and peered out into the living room. Mercy remained on the couch. The same place she’d been since they’d gotten home. The grief-stricken twin picked at the gold fringe that rimmed one of the many decorative pillows that propped her up and kept her from lying with her face smashed against the sofa cushions.

Good. Hunter nodded to herself and hurried back to the sink. Well, it wasn’t necessarily good that Mercy was back to being nearly catatonic. But it was good that her witchy twin senses weren’t tingling. Hunter preferred to spring her plan on her sister intervention style.

Hunter gathered five moonstones from the kitchen’s east-facing window and exchanged them for her pocketful of crunchy, shriveled leaves. They would deal with the trees as soon as she fixed her sister.

She patted her pocket and absentmindedly glossed her fingertips over her T-shaped pendant as she set her intention on her way to the pantry.

Heal Mercy. Heal Mercy. Heal—

Hunter’s hand stilled on the pantry’s doorknob. Her mother’s basket of Kitchen Witchery was just behind the door. Her hand fell to her side. She should return the stones to the windowsill, slink upstairs, and pour her feelings onto the pages of her book, When Darkness Rises. It might turn a little Poe-esque, but at least the manuscript would distract her from the memories of her mother.

She clutched her pendant: her constant reminder of her god. It warmed her palm and she let out a slow breath. She had to do this. To honor herself, to honor her sister, and, most of all, to honor her mother.

Hunter restarted her mantra and opened the pantry. She squeezed her opal and stared at the wicker basket of Kitchen Witch accoutrements sitting on the bottom shelf. One day, she would celebrate that basket and all of the funny-smelling herbs and pages of handwritten recipes it contained. A grin tugged her cheeks as she refocused and took the rusted metal step stool out of its place behind the door. Her stomach fluttered with each creak and groan of the mini-ladder as she unfolded it and climbed the three steps to reach the top shelf. This was Hunter’s shelf, where she kept all of her supplies. Her favorite cauldron, her astrology charts, and most importantly, her moon water. When she and Mercy turned twelve, their mother had led them, hand in hand, into the kitchen. The trio had stood before the open pantry as their mother explained to them the importance of keeping a fully stocked and impeccably organized inventory of tools for whichever type of magic the girls chose to adopt.

Hunter inhaled. Her mother’s cinnamon and spice scents hung in the air like dust, nearly bringing the memory to life.

“A witch is only as effective as she is organized. Think of what would happen if you were casting and meant to grab rosemary but instead grabbed poppy because your supplies were scattered hither and yon.” Abigail’s shiver tickled Hunter’s hand as she mirrored her mother’s pinched brow and shook her head.

Hunter still wasn’t quite sure where hither and yon were, but, from that moment, she’d lived her life according to her mother’s advice.

Hunter’s heartbeat quickened as she pulled her large copper cauldron off the shelf and ran her fingers along her jars of moon water. She’d felt this way since that very first time, four years ago, when magic brought her to the pantry. Then, she had been excited, had wanted to jump up and down and squeal with glee that her mother thought she was old enough, responsible enough, to have her own shelf and spellwork tools, but Mercy had seized the brief moment Hunter took to savor the gift. Her sister had screamed and cried and run in circles and sucked up all of the exhilaration until the space around them seemed to crack and pop like the last bits of milkshake being slurped through a straw. Now, Hunter would give anything to have that Mercy back.

Heal Mercy. Heal Mercy. Heal Mercy.

Energy pricked Hunter’s fingertips, sending a jolt down her arm that morphed the gentle butterflies flitting in her stomach into a swirling cyclone of swifts. She turned the large Mason jar and read what she’d written on her custom crescent-shaped label: APACHE TEARS. She picked up the jar and studied the stone resting in the bottom. The night Hunter had filled the glass with water and set it in the grass