Chapter 6

Fiona arrived at her grandmother’s house just after eight the next morning. She glanced at her face in the van’s rearview mirror. Lack of sleep showed in her features, and that wasn’t good.

Bailey was the source of her sleeplessness, and Fiona didn’t want her grandmother to know. She hated how Sarah, as well as her mother and father, had inserted themselves into her business last night. She needed to be firm about it being time to live her own life, her own way. She would deal with the sexy Bailey Powers.

She chanted a quick glamour spell that brightened her eyes and reduced the puffiness below them before heading to the house.

Fiona, Brenna, and Eva Grave had grown up here, in what was known as the Connelly home place, a comfortable, three-story farmhouse built from the first cabin constructed by their family in the mid-1700s. Tall, ancient oak trees stood sentinel in the steamy July morning. Hand-hewn rocking chairs lined the broad front porch. Strong, protective magic emanated from within.

The house always passed to the coven leader, and Sarah and her husband, Marcus Hayes, had used the wealth from their art careers to expand and update the family home. Fiona supposed someday the house would pass to Brenna, the strongest witch of their generation and a natural candidate for the next leader. Would Brenna raise children with Jake here?

Or would the Woman in White’s curse or the demon take Brenna?

Fiona shivered. Brenna was the demon’s target just weeks ago, her extraordinary powers the lure for an entity the family still didn’t quite understand. Did the demon work for the Woman or was he his own form of evil? Somehow, they had to find out.

Fiona let herself in the front door. Breakfast aromas and familiar voices led her to the dining room. At the long oak table, Delia and Aiden Burns were reading on their tablets and eating toast and jam while her grandmother studied a newspaper. All of them looked up to regard Fiona with frowns.

“And it’s nice to see all of you, too,” Fiona said as she paused in the doorway.

Sarah laid down the newspaper and took off her reading glasses. As usual, her long gray hair was braided, and she wore one of her simple, cotton tunics, this one a pale blue. “I’m glad you’re here, Fiona. We need to talk.”

“Yes,” Delia added. “We must discuss what happened last night.” Her green eyes were as icy as Sarah’s.

Fiona’s father rose to pull out a chair for her at the table. “I’m sorry if we seem cross,” Aiden murmured but without the warmth his voice usually held when he saw one of his daughters. “We’re worried about you.”

Before Fiona could reply, Marcus appeared in the doorway from the kitchen with two plates heaped with eggs, toast, and ripe, red sliced tomatoes. At least he smiled. Marcus, who was nearly two decades younger than Sarah, had helped raise Fiona, her sister, and cousin. Fiona loved him very much and was sad to think he might be disgruntled with her, too.

He set a plate down in front of his wife and offered the other to Fiona. “The special of the house. Want some?”

“No thanks. I’ll just have some toast and milk. I’ve already had three cups of coffee.” Fiona motioned for him and her father to sit down. “Enjoy your food while it’s hot. I’ll get what I need.”

Helping herself also put off the inevitable confrontation, and slicing the homemade oat bread in the kitchen made Fiona feel she’d come home. Sarah made breads every Wednesday, and several loaves were cooling on the counter. Fiona opted for the microwave instead the toaster and slathered the steaming bread with lots of butter and blackberry jam made by one of the coven’s elder aunts. She poured a glass of milk, took a deep breath, and went back into the dining room. Even Marcus didn’t smile at her now.

“Is he gone?” Sarah asked as Fiona took a bite of her warm bread.

Wiping jam off her mouth, Fiona didn’t pretend not to understand Sarah was asking about Bailey. “I don’t know.”

“Don’t play games with me.” Sarah set her fork down on her plate. Temper brimmed in her gaze, and as usual, Sarah’s anger translated into magical energy that rattled the timbers of the old house. Dust shifted and fell in the room’s stone fireplace.

Marcus took his wife’s hand. “Steady, girl.”

The rumbles faded but Sarah still stared a hole through Fiona. “I’m sure you’ve checked to see if he’s left this morning.”

“I have not spoken to him since he was sent away last night,” Fiona replied. “Why didn’t you fly over to the inn and check on him? You had no hesitation about taking to the air last night.” She turned to her parents. “Did Sarah tell you about last night? She put some kind of spell on Bailey.”

“As well she should have,” Delia said, sitting back and folding her arms.

“We felt Sarah needed to intervene,” Aiden added.

“All I did was encourage him to go home so I could talk to you,” Sarah said to Fiona.

“You appeared out of thin air and interrupted a personal moment.”

Delia’s head whipped toward Sarah. “A personal moment? What was that?”

Fiona bit back her annoyance. Trust Sarah to surprise her by not telling Delia and Aiden everything about last night. She took a deep breath. She might as well get it out. “I kissed him, okay? It was just a kiss.” Strictly speaking, that was a lie. Though Fiona’s experience with kisses was limited, she thought that kiss qualified as special. She had certainly spent enough time between then and now replaying every delicious detail in her mind.

As had been the case for all of Fiona’s life, her grandmother knew falsehoods from truths. Fiona could see it on Sarah’s face. Beside her, Marcus’s expression was thoughtful.

Aiden leaned forward, looking concerned. “People like this Bailey character will do most anything to get what they want. He could be trying to seduce you in order to talk you into this reality show he’s proposing.”

“As opposed to actually just wanting to kiss a hag like me,” Fiona observed with a wry twist of her lips.

Delia protested, “Fiona, that’s not what we’re saying at all. Why wouldn’t he want to seduce you, a young beautiful witch who might make him a lot of money?”

“He doesn’t know about us being witches,” Fiona retorted. “He wouldn’t believe it if we told him. He doesn’t believe I’m a medium, either. He doesn’t believe in anything supernatural.”

“And we should keep it that way,” Sarah said.

“Then you need to keep your spells to yourself.”

“Oh for goodness sake,” her grandmother said. “He wasn’t hurt, and he probably just went back to the inn and went to bed.”

“He’s human and skeptical,” Fiona said. “He’ll have a lot more questions now, I wager. You’re so worried about me spilling the family secrets, but you’re the one flying around. No telling what he’s thinking today.”

“Which is exactly why he needs to leave town, and you need to forget about doing a television show,” Sarah said. “I think everyone will agree with me.”

Delia and Aiden nodded. Marcus gave Fiona another one of his long, considering looks.

Her father tapped keys on his tablet. “I just looked Powers up. His family is well known in Hollywood. When Bailey joined the family production company, they went into the reality television business. Bailey is known for picking winners. He’s also quite ruthless about making money off merchandising and such.”

“I know all of that,” Fiona said. “I’ve already checked him out.”

“What will you do when thousands of people begin showing up in New Mourne looking to buy ‘I Brake for Witches’ bumper stickers and Connelly bobbleheads?” Sarah threw her napkin on top of her unfinished eggs. “You can’t be so selfish that you’d risk the rest of us for a little fame, especially now with the threats we face.”

Finally, Marcus spoke up. “Sarah, you can’t believe Fiona would endanger the family or the town the coven protects.”

“I think she can be young and foolish,” Sarah said. “I was once.”

Fiona tried not to roll her eyes. “Are you going to start talking about Bailey planting two babies in my belly again? I’m not you. I won’t make the same mistakes you did.”

Sarah’s gaze chilled even further. “I don’t regard your mother or Eva Grace’s mother as mistakes.” Her twin daughters had been the result of a fleeting teenage encounter with a young man she largely refused to discuss, although Fiona had heard he was a gypsy.

“Now, now,” Marcus soothed as sharp words broke out around the table. “I think what Fiona is asking for is a little respect for her judgment.”

“Thank the Goddess that you, at least, understand,” Fiona told him with relief. She turned back to her parents and grandmother. “Please let me worry about Bailey Powers. We have something far more serious to discuss. I came out here to talk about the Woman in White and the demon. We’ve got a problem.”

There was a collective intake of breath. “What?” Sarah demanded.

“I was running on Devil’s Creek Road yesterday, out toward the old cemetery—”

“What were you doing out there?” Sarah demanded. “You were told as children to stay away from there. That still stands.”

Fiona said, “That’s why I’ve never told you that I run there every day. I don’t have to deal with any ghosts there, and I can run in peace.”

Marcus said, “Nothing has ever grown on that land.”

Fiona frowned. “And it’s right next to Uncle Van’s dairy farm.”

Delia nodded. “Your uncle and your cousin run the biggest dairy operation around here. The farm’s been in the family from the beginning, just like this land, but those acres have always been barren as far as I know. The one time I asked, Uncle Van told me not to question the ways of nature.”

“Does anyone know why?” Fiona pressed.

Aiden and Delia looked at Sarah, who avoided gazes by stacking dishes. When she rose to take them to the kitchen, however, her daughter stood to block her way.

“What’s going on?” Delia asked and took the dishes out of Sarah’s hand. “What do you know about that land?”

Sighing, Sarah took her chair again. “Something happened there before I was born. My grandmother mentioned it when she ordered all of us to stay away from there. She said it was something to do with black magic and shouldn’t be discussed openly. That meant we never talked about it.”

“More secrets,” Delia murmured, sitting down again, as well. “Why have generations of this family tried to sweep events under the rug? It’s as if everyone who came before us didn’t want any of us to learn from their mistakes.”

Sarah glared at her. “It’s always been this way. To live with the present—”

“I know, I know.” Delia waved her hands. “In order to live with the repercussions of the curse, no one wants to talk about the curse.”

There had been numerous quarrels between the elders of Sarah’s generation and the younger coven members about secrets the family held too tightly through the years, information that could possibly prevent another tribute being taken by the Woman.

“Don’t you want to know what happened to me in the dead zone?” Fiona asked as tension simmered between her mother and grandmother.

“Tell us,” Aiden said.

Fiona took a deep breath and told them about the crows. “Though they didn’t threaten me, they seemed to be waiting for me. They definitely sent an ominous message.”

Aiden said, “There are many legends and superstitions about crows and ravens. Most well-known is their association with death.”

“An old English poem says one crow means sorrow,” Delia added.

“This was many, many more than that,” Fiona said. “There were dozens. Maybe hundreds.”

“I’ve heard that crows protect the dead,” Marcus said. “It certainly fits this situation. Could something in that area be threatening those resting peacefully in their graves?”

Sarah sighed. “I don’t know. We just never talked about it.”

“What about The Connelly Book of Magic?” Fiona asked. “There could be something there.”

No one said anything for a moment, though Marcus reached across and laid his hand on Sarah’s. Fiona saw that her grandmother squeezed his fingers and smiled at him before she walked into the hallway where a bookcase stood near the stairs.

She came back with a hefty book, bound by fraying ribbons and with a cracked leather cover imprinted in gold. “I’ll call a coven meeting for tonight,” she said. “The silence has gone on long enough.”

She laid The Connelly Book of Magic in the center of the dining table.

Fiona felt another vibration go through the old house, and the iron chandelier over the table swayed. This time, however, it felt as if their family home place were signaling approval.