Adela and I hugged. I’m not much of a hugger, but at that point, it felt right.
“That was incredible. I can’t believe we did it,” I said.
“You did it,” Adela said. “You might call yourself a novice, Belinda Drake, but there’s an incredible natural power burning in you. With the right direction, you will be a formidable witch—if that’s the path you choose.”
I flushed with pleasure. “You think so?” I said.
She nodded. “And I think Blackthorn Springs will be an excellent place for you to explore your true power.”
I beamed, exulted by the most flattering compliment I had ever received.
“Until next time,” Adela said. She waved goodbye and left Edie and me alone in the parking lot.
We stood beside our cars in the dark.
“I owe you,” Edie said.
I brushed her comments aside. “It’s nothing.”
“Witches pay their dues,” she said. “I am in your debt whether you want it or not.”
I nodded. I didn’t want anything from Edie Jacques, but it was nice to know there was a favor out there to be called on if I ever needed it.
On the drive home, my mind was still in the white place, my fingers, toes, every part of me tingling with the electric energy of the most magic that had ever passed through me. The shape of the maze was etched into my soul, elation pulsing with every beat of my heart.
By the time I reached my street, however, the good feeling was dissolving fast, replaced by a strange anxiety and exhaustion.
I had always said I wasn’t interested in developing my power, and I’d believed it to be true. So what had that spell done? What had it opened inside me?
I parked in the alley beside my building. That same black SUV was across the road in front of the diner again. I glanced up and down the sleepy street. There wasn’t a soul around, and the car itself seemed quiet and empty, though who could tell through those dark windows.
You’re kidding yourself, I thought. On seeing the car, the last positive effects of the magic finally slipped away, leaving me with a gnarled angst gnawing at my stomach. It could have still been some kind of spell hangover, but the thoughts it stirred up were too black to ignore. Jackfort had denied that car had anything to do with him. Why should I believe it?
Walking up the back stairs to my apartment, I had convinced myself to climb straight into bed without even thinking about dinner, let alone heading out to the woods for a moon cleanse. I would bury my head under the pillow and focus on the amazing thing I’d done and the words Adela had said, try once again to pretend Rowan Jackfort had never existed, and beg the universe to let me have just one good night’s sleep.
Hemlock circled me, purring as I tipped the can of Mr. Snappy into his bowl. I’d hidden his medication in the mush, thankful he hadn’t yet figured out he was taking pills. I tried not to think of Conri lecturing me for feeding him canned food.
Get out of my head, O’Farrell, I thought.
The vet, the increasing list of people who might be connected to the Mortis curse, the spell with Adela, the black car, Jackfort, and whatever other strangeness was hiding in the secret corners of Blackthorn Springs, I needed it all out of my head, and going straight to bed wouldn’t cut it.
“You know what you like, don’t you, old boy?” I said, smoothing Hemlock’s back while he ate. “You know what’s good for you.”
I knew what was good for me too.
I changed into the loose navy yoga pants and sweater I always wore on moon cleanses, when the weather wasn’t warm enough to do it in nothing at all.
“Mommy’s going out again for a little while, okay?” I said. Hemlock, happily fed, licking his paws and washing his face, gave me a sleepy-eyed nod. He understood completely.
On the day I’d come to Blackthorn Springs, before I had officially decided to move, I had gone on a short hike along the Hazel Wood Trail and discovered a spot in the woods that had instantly become my favorite place in the world. I had tried to visit the woodland clearing at least every month since moving and found, as I had suspected in my first visit, that it was a potent location for a moon cleansing ritual.
I drove up the mountain, parking at the top of the track. No one else would be up here at night, and that thought alone calmed me.
The clouds had cleared, allowing the moon to light my way along the rough path.
It was a clearing by the side of a stream, the entrance marked by twin hazel trees. In the daytime, the grass was a verdant brilliance, with moss-covered rocks and the little singsong tumble of clear mountain water over the pebbles. The first time I had come here, I was lost. It was after a storm, and a tree had fallen across the way, so I’d assumed the trail had ended. I’d turned off and followed what looked like it might have been the path, and I’d found the place I now thought of as my private sanctuary. It seemed as if every leaf in the trees and every pebble in the stream knew my name.
I set up my ritual supplies—a white candle, a bowl of salt, another bowl for water, and my silver bell—on top of a large flat rock that looked as if it had been designed especially for my purpose. I didn’t really need any accessories to do the cleansing—it was meditation, not actual magic—but I enjoyed using the stuff of ritual to help guide my mind into the right place, and I liked watching the candlelight flicker as I meditated on the point where the light ended in the darkness.
I rang the little silver bell, as I always did to mark the beginning of the cleanse, and sat on my knees before the rock, focusing on the candlelight, breathing purposefully and rhythmically.
The light shimmered on the surface of the water bowl I had filled from the stream. The tension slipped away as if it was physically melting from my skin, leaving me light and fresh and new as I eased into a serene trance. I inhaled again, measuring the flow of air in a slow count.
My trance shattered.
What was that smell?
I sniffed the air like a hound. The unmistakable scent of burning sage.
Footsteps. Moving through the brush, slowly but not carefully. My calm vanished. Leaves rustled, sticks snapped and cracked. Whoever it was, whatever it was, they were coming right toward me.
I scrambled for what to do. What if it was someone I knew, someone I would rather keep my ritual a secret from? Someone who wouldn’t understand. Or, worse, what if was a stranger? Even worse still, what if it was Jackfort? But why would Rowan Jackfort, or anyone else who might be out to get me, burn sage before murdering me? Sage was usually a white magic cleansing herb.
I puffed out the candle, cursing the glow of the moonlight I couldn’t turn off, and hid behind a large tree. The footfalls came closer.
The huge black shadow of a man moved into my ritual place. He held a thick bundle of herbs in front of him, its burning end glowing like a firefly. He moved toward me, quietly murmuring something in a language I didn’t understand. My throat locked, my pulse racing so hard I was sure its booming would give away my hiding place.
As he moved closer, three things simultaneously became obvious.
One, the man was completely naked. His chiseled chest was painted with a complex series of lines and symbols running the full length of his bare body. Some of them looked like runes, but all of them were clearly part of some elaborate ritual. Two, he wore a smoky quartz pendant around his neck. Three, it was Conri O’Farrell.
“What the hell are you doing?” I shouted, my voice shrill and wavering with panic.
He stopped, and his face, darkened by his emerging beard, twisted into an angry snarl. His eyes were black and wild, deep as a canyon in hell.
“Get out of here!” he raged in a voice too deep to sound like his own. I froze. He kept walking, slowly, entranced.
“Conri, what are you doing?”
“Get out of here… I’ll kill you,” he growled.
The threat added a whole new layer of terror. I couldn’t move.
He passed right by me and disappeared into the woods on the other side of the clearing.
Run, fool! I told myself.
Buzzing on adrenaline, I hurried to pack up my things, throwing them back into my bag with fumbling fingers. I ran, stumbling on the rough path back to the car. As I drove home, my foot barely touched the brake, and my blood and my mind raced equally fast.
I parked on the grass between the sidewalk and the street in front of the shop, not wanting to waste time. I wasn’t supposed to park there, but at that point, I gave precisely zero cares. I hurried to the back stairs. A lone figure sat on the low wall on Langdel’s side of the alleyway.
“Nice night for it, Bella.”
Jackfort didn’t move. He sat with one leg crossed over the other, his hands neatly folded. In the moonlight, his skin looked all the more ghostly.
I was sure I was going to vomit right there on the cobblestones.
“Get away from here, Rowan, or I’ll call the sheriff. I can’t deal with you tonight.”
“I’m not doing anything wrong. This is public property. I checked. It’s not illegal to sit in a public space and enjoy the light of a spring moon, is it?”
“I know what you’re doing, and it’s not going to work,” I said.
He stood slowly and walked toward me, his hard boots clunking on the stones.
“It is working, Bella.” He leaned in close and took a long smell of me. “Your fear smells like sweet red wine, and I want to drink you all up.”
“What is it going to take for you to believe me?” I said, stepping away from him and hating that he’d forced me backward. “I don’t know where Quentin is.”
“And your lies smell like vinegar,” he said, scowling. He lifted a finger and pressed it to the center of my forehead. “You know, I know you do. Even if you don’t know it. There’s a bond in there I can trace.”
His finger on my skin felt like it was about to bore right through my skull. I batted his hand away. His small smile broke into a grin, erupting into a cackle before he turned on his heel with a flourish.
“Good night, Belladonna,” he said in a singsong voice, and he disappeared into the darkness of the alley, leaving me alone with my confusion and terror.