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

the illustration their ancestor had drawn at the bottom of the page. The ink had smeared, but Hunter could still make out the long, thin branch forked at the end like a snake’s tongue. The note scrawled next to the knotted branch read, Most powerful when cut and carved from a living being. Remember to thank the tree, for we do not understand their sacrifice and we cannot feel their pain.

“Janet was a Green Witch, too.” Mercy said it as if she and their great-great-grandmother had just exchanged texts and were now best friends and new members of an elite social club.

Hunter had yet to read the grimoire of a cosmic witch or one who had chosen a god instead of a goddess. She smoothed her pendant between her fingers and continued to study the drawing. This wasn’t the first thing that made her different, and it definitely wouldn’t be the last. She slipped her hand back under the table and pulled on a hangnail. She winced when she tore into fresh skin.

Mercy filled the space with the sweet scent of lilacs as she brushed her hair over her shoulders and glanced back down at the illustration. “I thought I’d use the oak that shades our cemetery.”

Hunter balled her hands to hide her raw nailbeds and set her fists on the table. “If age plays into it, then that should make the stang even more powerful.”

“That’s what I figured.” Mercy pulled another sticky note–filled grimoire from a different pile and set it open on top of her bff Janet’s. “And this is the spell Gertrude Goode did after the entire state flooded in the 1800s.”

Hunter read the passage and nodded. “It’s really just a blessing ritual. Like what Mom does—” She squeezed her fists, rejoicing in the flash of pain that shot out from her scabbed palm. “Did every spring for the garden.”

“It feels like a good omen, you know? Like it’s what she would want us to do.” A smile plumped Mercy’s cheeks and her eyelids hung heavy. She was gone for a moment, lost in the silent breath of a memory. “So, yeah.” Mercy licked her lips and flashed that childlike smile at her sister before refocusing on the book. “Then I’ll add my Awake and Alive Oil and you can add your charged moonstones, and we’ll douse the trees with it.”

Hunter’s attention was pulled back to the white-and-green bottle waiting on the counter. “How do you feel about really mixing science and magic?” Her chair groaned as she got up and hurried to the counter. “We’re twenty-first-century witches, let’s make twenty-first-century magic.” She set the bottle in the only space between Mercy and the grimoires. “I know insecticide is, well, killing, and our magic is, you know, not, but—”

“H! You’re totally right. We’re modern witches and can use modern science to help us.” Then she paused, chewing her bottom lip. “But which tree do we go to first?”

Hunter’s fingers tingled as she and Mercy watched the pantry door creak open. It was their mom! It had to be. She was there, showing them the way. Hunter sprinted to the pantry, pulled out her rusted stepladder, and climbed to the top. Her palms heated as she gathered her tarot deck and jumped from the step stool. She untied the velvet azure satchel she kept her most prized witchy possession in and nearly bumped into Mercy on the way to the kitchen island.

“It was Abigail, wasn’t it?” Mercy asked as she bounced in place next to Hunter. “I knew she would never leave us.”

Hunter spread her deck out on the counter. The pearlescent silver backs of the cards showed the current waxing gibbous phase of the moon and would change each day, becoming most powerful and accurate on the day of the full moon. “We love you, Mom.” Hunter breathed and flipped over the first card.

Nineteen

Hunter studied the card she’d turned over. “Huh, that’s interesting. Not where I would guess we’d start, but the cards don’t lie.” On it was an illustration of a wide river, muddy with rich, brown silt framed by lush green banks. The vibrant colors stood out next to the moonshine silver of the backs of the rest of the deck like a Waterhouse painting hanging in the middle of a Jackson Pollock exhibit.

Mercy squinted at the card, trying to figure out what was wrong with the logs that bobbed in clumps in the river. “Um, H, what tree does that mean?”

“Easy. The hippo-filled river is the Nile, which means we need to start at the Egyptian tree, of course.”

“Oh, yeah, of course.”

Hunter raised a brow at her sister.

Mercy lifted her hands in surrender. “I didn’t mean anything except that I’m glad you’re the Cosmic Witch ’cause I’m hopeless at tarot.” She looked over her shoulder at the big clock in the foyer. “So, it’s just a little after three thirty. I’m pretty sure I can cut and carve a stang and, with your help, get all the stuff we need for the spells together by dusk.”

From the stairway they heard a long, drawn-out yawn. Xena turned the corner into the kitchen area as she stretched and yawned again. She was still wearing their mom’s fluffy bathrobe. Her hair stood out around her face like the mane of an electrocuted lion.

“Good morning, kittens,” she said between yawns.

“Xena, it’s afternoon,” said Mercy.

Xena shrugged as she headed to the fridge. “That’s human time. In cat time it’s morning whenever we awaken. Hunter, love, did you get me more of that extra-thick cream and delectable tuna?”

“Yeah. Cream’s in the fridge. Tuna’s in the pantry.”

Xena’s head swiveled around and her eyes skewered Hunter’s. “You remembered to get me albacore, didn’t you? You know I won’t eat common tuna.”

“Xena, we all know that. You’re the only carnivore living in a house of vegetarian witches,” Mercy said, then went on, as she continued to list what she and her sister would need to collect for the tree spell.

Xena sighed as