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

me again. Mercy. I need your help today. I’m going to cast a heal-and-protect spell over the Egyptian palms, and a stang will channel the energy of the spell. So I need your permission to harvest a living bough. I brought wax to seal the wound.” She paused and patted one of the deep pockets in her dress that held a small candle and a box of matches. “And I’ll be very careful. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. May I have your permission, Mother Oak?” Mercy pressed her palms more firmly against the skin of the oak, closed her eyes, and opened herself.

She didn’t have to wait long for the tree’s response. Almost immediately the bark against her palms warmed and Mercy was flooded with a wave of affection. She imagined it was a lot like being engulfed in a hug by a grandma.

“Thank you, Mother Oak. I promise to use your energy only for good and will tend to the wound I cause you.” She decided not to mention that if the spell was successful she’d be back four more times. The faithful old tree probably wouldn’t mind, but still …

Carefully, Mercy climbed the ladder, thinking of their childhood when Hunter used to boost her up to the lowest branches. She’d swing her legs hard and scramble into the arms of the oak, where she’d spend hours reading or just absorbing the warmth and strength and love of the tree. As her thoughts turned to Hunter, the breeze, which had been gentle and warm, changed—cooled—and brushed insistently against Mercy’s skin. She shivered suddenly—like a dark god had walked over her grave.

God, not goddess …

The feeling of foreboding was so thick—so real—that Mercy paused partway up the ladder as thoughts she’d repressed for days flooded free. “Oh, Freya,” she whispered. “Are you telling me that I’ve been right to worry about Hunter’s choice of a god instead of a goddess? Is Tyr the reason our powers aren’t strong enough to keep the trees healthy? Could you show me a sign—something I can understand better than symbols from a tarot deck? Something a Green Witch would get?” Mercy drew a deep breath and opened her mind to her beloved goddess, Freya.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing came to her except the familiar sounds and scents of Grandma Oak.

Mercy sighed. “Okay, well, I promise to pay attention in case you want to send me an omen.”

The warm breeze returned and Mercy shook herself, wondering if she’d imagined the cold and the foreboding. She chewed her lip contemplatively as she continued climbing.

When she got to the familiar fork in the tree, Mercy rested a moment. She centered herself again by breathing deeply. Then she focused on her intention.

I am here to harvest a bough for a magical stang that will channel healing and protective energy into the Egyptian palm trees.

Mercy recited the sentence over and over to herself as she pressed her back against the oak and let her gaze search the branches around her. Soon, her attention was captured by a thin branch growing, straight and strong, from one of the central boughs of the tree. It was forked and about an inch in diameter—and at the end, in the early spring leaves, was a circle of tangled mistletoe. Mercy grinned and nodded as she patted the skin of the bark affectionately. Mistletoe was a powerful magnifier of magic, and would be a great addition to her spell.

“That’s perfect, Mother Oak! Thank you.”

Mercy climbed out, straddling the thick arm like a horse, and used the shears to slice through the much smaller branch, letting it drop to the ground. Then she pulled out the candle, lit it, and dripped wax on the cut, sealing it to keep out insects and disease. She retraced her way back down the ladder and embraced the tree one last time, whispering her appreciation before she grabbed the branch with one hand and the ladder with the other. She hurried back to the greenhouse where she opened her well-organized tool chest and brought out the little folding knife she used to trim plants. Mercy kept it razor sharp so that it wouldn’t cause the plant any more damage than necessary. With a sigh, she sat in the open doorway of the greenhouse and began to trim leaves as she thought about strengthening and healing the palms that guarded the gate to the Egyptian Underworld. She whittled the finishing strokes to create a spike on the bottom of the stang, and concentrated on her intention so fully that Hunter’s voice made her jump.

“Hey, that looks really good!”

“Oh, bloody hell, you scared me,” Mercy said.

“Sorry.” Hunter sat beside her. She carried one of their mom’s handwoven baskets, which she set by their feet. “Wow, you even got mistletoe.”

“Yeah, Mother Oak was super generous today.” Mercy touched the glossy, pointed leaves of the circle of mistletoe.

“I’m not a Green Witch,” said Hunter, “but that seems like a good omen.”

Mercy met her sister’s gaze and nodded agreement. “A really good omen.” She cleared her throat and added, “Hey, H, did you ever consider any other god, or goddess, to follow except for Tyr?”

Hunter’s arched brows lifted in surprise. “No. Never. And that’s a weird question. What makes you ask?”

Mercy shrugged. “I dunno. As I was climbing I was thinking about when we were little girls, before we thought about anything much except toys and tea parties and whatever.”

Hunter snorted. “I never thought about tea parties. That was you. I always thought about books, but now you’re totally the research queen.”

Mercy smiled at her sister. “Sorry. That was a weird question. We shouldn’t be thinking about the past right now. We should be concentrating on our spell. Speaking of—did you get all the items for my Awake and Alive Oil?”

“Yep!” Hunter opened the basket and pulled out the bottle of insecticide she’d purchased from the nursery and five vials of homemade oils, as well as the herbs she’d just harvested. Inside the basket there was also