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

would be stained by the final seventy-two hours they’d spent with Polyphemus, the creature who’d stuffed himself into Frank Dearborn’s skin and ruined him in more ways than one.

“Come with me, twin.”

Hunter didn’t flinch, didn’t recoil when Polyphemus pressed his meaty paw against her back and hurried her down the hall. Instead, she surrendered, turned toward him and let him push her outside. In that moment, she needed him, needed to be rescued.

“What’s out at the olive tree?” he barked as soon as the door had closed behind them.

“Sheriff, I don’t know if you’d believe me if I told you.” She wrung her hands. “You’d think I was crazy!” She bit the inside of her cheek until her eyes watered. “I’ll have to show you.” She swallowed the warm pool of copper sliding across her tongue.

He adjusted the sunglasses on the bridge of his broad nose and sniffled. “Well then, Hunter, I’ll drive us on out there.” He fished the keys from his pocket, pointed the fob at the cruiser, and pressed a button.

Hunter followed Polyphemus to the car as it unlocked and yellow signal lights lit up the parking lot. “Good guess with the whole which twin thing.” Hunter could only muster a slight twitch of her lips to accompany her attempt at normalcy.

Polyphemus opened the cruiser door and paused before climbing in. He leaned forward and rested his arm on the roof of the car. “Oh, Hunter.” He slid his tongue across his teeth and blew out a quaking breath. “I could never forget that spark behind those blue eyes.”

Thirty

Mercy bent to look into the car through the open passenger’s side window at Emily and Xena. “Okay, Em, drop Xena off at the park, and then get right to the cherry tree. You two have candles and matches, right?”

“Yes,” said Emily. “Don’t worry. We’ve got this.”

“Kitten, you must focus on your intention. It is your will that holds all of us together in Ritual.”

Mercy ran her hand through her long hair and shoved it back behind her ears. “That’s hard to do knowing she hates me.”

Xena touched her arm. “No. Hunter hates what she must do tonight. And I hate it for her, don’t you? How would you feel if you knew that you must reject Freya?”

Mercy sighed. “I’d feel awful.”

“Then understand her instead of judging her. Now, go.” Xena paused. “And as you walk to the Norse gate, gain control over your feelings. Blessed be, my kitten.”

“Blessed be, Xena,” Mercy said. “Good luck, Em.”

“Break a leg!” Emily said as she drove off, waving out the window.

With a sigh Mercy hefted her big purse across her shoulder and headed to their backyard and through the little gate to the fields beyond—tracing the steps she and Hunter and Abigail had taken four short nights, but an eternity, ago.

Dusk settled around the cornfields. The evening had been warm, and a soft breeze caressed the growing crops that brought to Mercy the scent of fertile earth and corn silk. The thick stalks whispered secrets she could almost hear. She relaxed into the familiarity of her world and let the earth comfort her internal wounds.

My intention is to lead this ritual to heal the trees and seal the gates with the blood of witches mixed with the representatives of those who once walked this very path—and the unique power that fills this land.

Mercy repeated her intention over and over until it became like the lyrics of a song that wouldn’t leave her mind. It blocked everything else and consumed her attention.

She closed her eyes tightly before she was able to approach the mighty apple tree that guarded the Norse gate, and readied herself. She knew what she would see, though as she drew closer and closer to the wide trunk and the umbrella of ancient boughs, Mercy was surprised at how little evidence there remained of the horrible battle and their heartbreaking loss.

Only a few of the gnarled roots that pushed up from the ground like arthritic fingers showed signs of the goddess’s inferno that had immolated her mother, though a dark scorch marked the skin of the tree’s trunk. Mercy stared at it as her internal mantra faltered.

“Oh, thank you, Athena.” Awestruck, Mercy bowed her head and pressed her hand against the blackened bark. At the place where Abigail Goode had died to save her daughters—and her town—the outline of a perfect heart had been burned into the tree.

Then she lifted her head, wiped away her tears, kicked off her shoes, and got to work—and as she prepared to open the ritual, Mercy breathed deeply, evenly, until she felt so grounded that the bare soles of her feet tingled. Then she began allowing emotions to bubble up and release—bubble and release.

Feeling invigorated, Mercy reached into her boho bag and extracted a thick white candle exactly like the ones her four impromptu coven members were, hopefully, also readying. She placed her candle at the base of the apple tree, beneath the point of the heart the goddess had scorched into its bark. She returned to her bag for matches, her phone, and the little jar filled with the last apple butter she and Abigail would ever make together. Mercy’s smile was bittersweet as her finger traced the pentagram she’d painted on the side of the Mason jar last fall to mark the final batch of that season’s harvest.

“I’ll think of you every fall—every time I make jam or apple butter or homemade bread. I’ll think of you always, Mama.” Mercy placed the jar beside the white candle at the base of the tree, then she waited, repeating her intention mantra over and over.

She didn’t wait long. Her phone bleeped with the first text message, a smiling cat emoji from Xena—followed by Emily’s READY! And then Jax’s LOCKED & LOADED!

Quickly, she joined the four of them in a group call and hit the speaker button as she tucked the phone into a niche in the tree’s bark.

“All right, you have placed your