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

thicker as it filled with magically induced humidity. The scent of spring rain tickled Mercy’s nose until she sneezed.

“It’s working!” Hunter fist-pumped.

Above them, the white oak swayed in a new breeze that carried the scent of heather and fern and rain. Thunder rumbled and the girls smiled at each other as they put out the smoking brand in the dirt at the base of the tree and then went back to the car and waited.

It only took fifteen minutes for the sky to open and rain to begin leaking from the billowing clouds.

“And there they go!” Hunter pointed at the last of the people who were running for their cars as thunder rumbled overhead.

“Abigail would be very pleased at how quickly that happened,” said Mercy.

“Another good omen?”

Mercy nodded thoughtfully. “H, I hope so. Okay, ready to get wet?”

“Absolutely.”

Alone in the parking lot, the twins gathered their spellwork supplies and headed to the center of the park where, unbeknownst to the residents of Goodeville, the clump of doum palms had protected the town from ancient Egyptian monsters for generations. Close up Mercy saw that the damage they’d glimpsed from afar the night before was worse than she’d thought. Only the uppermost palm fronds were still green and healthy. The rest were dried husks that looked like brown knife blades jutting out from thick-armed boughs. The trunks were odd, and nothing like any other Illinois tree. Mercy had long thought they looked like someone had woven together gray corn husks to form the skin of the trees. Well, tree, she automatically corrected herself. Though it looked like there were five big palms placed in a close circle around one another, they were actually one tree with five shoots growing from it. Abigail had told the girls that when she was a child there had only been four shoots—that the smaller of the five had sprung up when she was in elementary school. I hope you feel healthy enough after this to sprout another tree, Mercy silently told the doum as she pressed her hand against its rough bark. Then she turned and got to work.

The rain drizzled lazily as Mercy wiped her face with the back of her sleeve and unslung her bag from across her shoulder to drop it beside Hunter’s basket. “I’m going to put the stang here.” She carried the forked bough directly in front of the clump of trees. “Then I’ll drape some of the mistletoe over it.”

“Okay, while you’re doing that I’ll set a protective circle with my moonstones.”

“Sounds perfect,” said Mercy as she pressed the pointed tip of the stang against the hard-packed ground.

“And remember our intention—to heal and protect,” said Hunter as she began to circle the palm, dropping a moonstone every three steps.

“To heal and protect,” Mercy murmured. She pushed the stang against the dirt until it stood straight and strong, forked end up. Then she went to the basket and gathered the mistletoe circle and returned to the stang. There she carefully unwound the prickly ivy so that she could form three separate circles of green. Two of the circles she rested at the base of the stang. The third Mercy draped around the stang’s fork so that it looked like a slender crown atop a very skinny stick drawing of a person.

Hunter rejoined her then and Mercy took the bottle of potent ancient herbs and modern insecticide from the basket. She swirled the bottle, mixing the oils. Inside the blue bottle the potion took on a moss-colored cast that appeared to be lit from within.

“It looks good,” said Hunter.

“It is good. A mixture of us.”

“And a mixture of tradition and today,” added Hunter.

“Let’s do this.” Mercy bent and picked up both of the mistletoe wreaths. She handed one to her sister. The other she lifted and said, “I crown you with the strength and wisdom of sacred mistletoe.” Hunter bowed her head so that Mercy could place the living wreath on it.

Then Hunter invoked, “I crown you with the protection and guidance of sacred mistletoe.” Mercy bowed her head and Hunter placed the green circlet there.

Mercy held the bottle aloft. “I’ll make the first circle, spraying as high as I can with the atomizer.”

Hunter nodded. “I’ll channel our intention through the stang and take the second circle.”

“Perfect,” said Mercy. “Just mimic what I say in your own words. Let your intuition guide you.”

“Got it. I’ll let Tyr guide me. He’ll give me the right words.”

Mercy felt a jolt at her sister’s confidence in her god—the being who could be responsible for all of this—but forced the doubts from her mind and made herself refocus. Protection and healing … healing and protection …

The twins faced each other and breathed together—in and out—three times. Grounded to the earth, Mercy was filled with calm. Then, Hunter walked to the stang. She turned to the trees and grasped the forked ends of the green bough with her hands, and raised her head as if she spoke directly to the cosmos—a channel between earth and sky.

“Heal and protect … protect and heal … heal and protect … protect and heal.”

With Hunter’s prayer litany as background magic, Mercy began to circle the trees. She talked to the palms and her voice, amplified by her connection with the earth and the ley lines that pulsed deep beneath her feet, sounded so powerful that Mercy was reminded of her amazing mother. “I call on the Powers of Wind and Earth—of Sun and Rain. By tree and bough, leaf and shoot, with all my heart and the workings of my hands, I bless this palm with life and love—health and growth—protection and strength.”

Mercy felt the magic swirl around her. With a feather-like caress, it shivered across her skin. Heat from the mistletoe crown flowed from her third eye and cascaded throughout her body. With every step—every word of the spell—she squeezed the atomizer bulb and misted the Awake and Alive Oil onto the dying leaves of the suffering tree. And as she did the scent of