Silver End Lake was inside the state park a few miles from town. The scent of wood-burning smoke and grilling meats, combined with the blast of loud music over the speakers and the jovial conversations of the football lovers from all over Southill Village, greeted us as we got out of the car.
I’d kept calling Michael, but I knew from experience that the cell phone reception at the park was nonexistent. The lake had a large, paved parking lot, four giant pavilions, and an enormous ten-foot fire ring that made it a perfect spot for family gatherings, parties, and, of course, the Booster’s Kick-off Bonfire. A stack of logs blazed in an open field where people, young and older, congregated to ward off the late summer chill. Just past a thin line of trees, the surface of the lake glittered with the moon’s reflection.
I took several deep breaths to calm myself as Keir, Marigold, and I searched for Michael. Even with the fire and the moonlight, it was dark, and half the town had shown up. Finding my kid was like trying to find a needle in a stack of moving needles.
The stage near the second pavilion had a high school band playing country-pop music. I recognized the bass player from Michael’s class. We’d driven as fast as Keir’s hybrid car would take us, which wasn’t fast enough by my estimation. Still, I hoped we had been able to beat Jordan to the place. I didn’t want that asshole anywhere near my kid.
“Let’s split up,” I told Keir and Marigold.
“Is that smart?” Marigold asked.
“We need to cover a lot of ground. And splitting up is the quickest way to find Michael. I can’t let that man get near him.” This was one instance where I really hoped I was making a mountain out of an anthill. As much as I hated being in the supernatural line of fire, I would take the hit a thousand times if it kept my son safe.
I grabbed Marigold’s arm before we parted. “Steer clear of Jordan.”
She nodded. “Don’t worry. I’m happy to steer clear of supernatural men.” She glanced at Keir. “No offense.”
“No worries.” Keir pointed toward the parking lot. A huge white truck had pulled in, and Jordan stepped out. “We need to find Michael now.”
His sense of urgency to protect my son made me love him even more. No matter what, I needed Michael to be a priority.
Keir headed toward the lake, Marigold left to circle the bonfire, and I took on the pavilions. I accidentally made eye contact with Quarterback Mom Carla, and I cringed as she hustled over to me.
“I’m so glad you came to the game tonight, Iris,” she said with too much sympathy. “I know it’s got to be hard for you, what with Evan being gay and running off with another man.”
First of all, Evan was bisexual, but I wasn’t going to explain the nuances to Carla. Secondly, how I felt about it was none of her business.
“Watching my son dominate the field on defense is never hard.” I bared my teeth in a feral smile. “If our offense pulls together, we’ll be unstoppable this season.” Was I being petty? Yep. Did I care? Not really.
Carla, however, wasn’t going to be out-bitched. “Let’s just hope your new boyfriend isn’t into coaches.”
Her comment was meant to raise my ire, so I called up my ignis-craft and raised her body temperature.
I watched Carla’s face as it flushed. A bead of sweat broke out over her lip and forehead. She frowned and sucked in a breath. “Did it suddenly get hot out here?”
I shrugged. “I feel fine,” I told her. “Maybe you’re starting menopause.”
Her eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open as I eased off the heat, and her temperature returned to normal.
I didn’t have time for this pissing contest, so I excused myself. “Have to run. Looking for Michael.”
Carla, uncharacteristically helpful, said, “I saw him head down to the lake with Maddie Carver.”
“The new cheerleader?”
“Yeah. You met her mom Yolanda earlier at the game. She’s over there.” Carla pointed a finger at the woman who’d been sitting behind us at the game.
Did Michael have a girlfriend? Why hadn’t he told me? He was getting older, and she wouldn’t be the first girl he’d dated. Still, it would’ve been nice to know. For the time being, I’d put the questions away. I had bigger fish to fry.
“Uhm, thanks.” I rushed past Carla, uneasy about our encounter. I had enough problems in my life, what with pixies to protect and sorcerers to suss out, without adding a war with another mom to the agenda.
I saw Marigold come around the far side of the bonfire. I waved, but she didn’t see me. I gave up after a few more waves in her direction and headed to the lake. Keir would already be down there. Hopefully, he’d found Michael already. I wasn’t sure what I thought would happen. After all, Jordan had taken over as head coach several weeks ago. If he’d wanted to hurt Michael, he could’ve done it at any time without my knowledge. Maybe that had been the point. Jordan had been waiting to meet me. Maybe he’d wanted me to see him coming. A tightness gripped my throat. How powerful was the man? Would he be too formidable for me to stop?
I hustled past the Treese memorial bench on the path to the lake. The Treese family had planted gardenias on either side, and the late August blooms scented the night air with a sweet floral fragrance. There were people, adults and teens, walking up and down the path. It was a clear night. The three-quarter moon’s reflection on the water was like something out of a painting. Beautiful. Even so, it was too dark to make out faces until I was a few feet from anyone.
Once when Michael was little, maybe four or five years old, he disappeared from the front yard. My imagination had taken me through every horrific possibility, and the panic I’d felt had been crippling. Evan and I had found him playing on a swing set one block over. I’d gotten angry and sent him to bed as soon as we got him home. I’d never been so terrified in my entire life, not even when Volres had taken me to his molten lair. I was starting to feel that same intense fear.
“Michael,” I shouted, knowing it would embarrass him, but I didn’t care. Not if it meant keeping him safe. “Michael!”
“Mrs. Callahan.” Doug Reynolds waved at me from the dock. He was with several other boys from the football team and a few girls.
I jogged over to him. I didn’t correct him about my last name. I had been Mrs. Callahan to the boy for twelve years, and aside from that, I had bigger worries than whether someone got my name right. “Hey, Doug. Have you seen Michael?”
“Uh…Uhm, yeah,” he said. “He’s around here somewhere.”
Since the teen was stepping about the answer, I took a more direct approach. “Mrs. Porter says she saw him come this way with Maddie Carver.”
“Oh, yep.” Doug nodded emphatically. “Yeah, I think he was with Maddie.”
“Where?” I asked.
“I’m not—”
I balled my fist and set it on my hip so that I wouldn’t call up the earth to swallow the teenager. “It’s important, Doug. Point me in the right direction.”
He pointed toward the Silver End walking trail, a two-mile hike around the lake. “That way.”
“Thank you.” I made my way to the marked start. The path followed the curves of the lake but was nestled in the trees. There were several benches where people could sit and take in the sights and a couple of paths that veered off to longer trails that went through the woods and came out at the special use camp area. I didn’t like the idea of Michael using the trail in the dark, but I was a teenager once. The trail being dark and isolated was a selling point for someone young, dumb, and full of teenage hormones.
Just in case he was making out with Maddie, I called ahead as a warning. “Michael. Michael Callahan!”
Cripes. My heart rate quickened to the point that I had to pant for oxygen. Panic and anxiety were setting their claws into me, and I couldn’t untangle myself from what was and what might be. Chances were good my son had a girlfriend, and they were making out in the woods. But my brain was cycling through all the other awful possibilities, such as he’d been drugged and kidnapped by a sorcerer who wanted to kill him for his spark.
“Michael!”
The trees rustled in the wind making the soft sound of a hand percussion shaker. Shhhh-shh, shhhhh-shhhh. I could still hear music playing at the pavilions, but crowd sounds had all but faded. Where was my son?
“Damn it, Michael,” I hissed. “I swear I’m going to ground you until you’re old enough to run for president.” A rustling of leaves to the right of me made me jump. I went stock-still and listened. The crunch-crunch was there again, then stopped. I looked around, ready to fight if anything or anybody tried to attack me from the woods.
But nothing happened. I started walking. The rustling noise started back up again. When I stopped walking, it stopped again.
“Son of a bitch. Whoever you are, come out now if you want to survive.”
I peered into the woods toward the sound. It seemed as if it were close, but there was nothing there. Were the woods around the lake haunted? Eeep. Or maybe the Ozark Howler was on the prowl. Legend had it that the animal with the head of a cat and the body of a bear patrolled wooded areas and forests, searching out wicked children. It was an old wives’ tale meant to frighten.
When I took a step, and the rustling started and stopped with my movement, I had to admit that the story meant to scare kids was having a similar effect on me.
“Halt. Who goes there?” I said, yanking a line from my dad’s favorite Monty Python film, The Holy Grail. Only, the sounds weren’t coming from knocking together coconuts. I swallowed the knot in my throat. “Whoever you are, show yourself. Coward.” I reached inside and pulled on my ignis-craft and, at the same time, searched with my terra-craft for rocks or minerals I could manipulate into weapons. This Howler or ghost or Hexenmeister was messing with the wrong witch. The wind began to stir above me, raising my hair until my ponytail was standing straight up.
I started walking again, determined to find my son but ready to wage war if I had to. The crunch and rustle of dead leaves continued.
“Michael Evan Callahan! Where are you?”
A loud boom sounded in the distance and sent me to the ground as I waited for a barrage of bad to rain down on me. Nothing happened. And once again, the noisemaker following me had ceased its movements. It had rained earlier in the week, and the ground was still damp. I’d accidentally willed the wet earth to act as a shield, and I had sunk down a good foot in what my terra-craft had turned to muck. The mud had created a vacuum around my hands and forearms, and I had to use magic to get myself out. Wow, if a bad guy had tried to jump me then, I would’ve been a sitting duck.
“Make your intention known, Kleinkind,” Linda would say. “Or the magic will guess at what you want.” My intention was to get my son and get the hell out of here. And maybe take a hot shower.
I wiped my palms on the back of my thighs since it was the only part of my jeans that were clean. This was getting utterly ridiculous. My cell phone had fallen out of my pocket. Useless with its no-bars, but I turned on the flashlight app and held it in the direction of the noise.
I screamed, scrambling backward, as a scaled monster rushed out from under the leaves, then I tripped over a fallen branch, the phone flying from my hands as I fell into the lake. I sucked in a breath as I splashed to the surface. The stupid armored creature paid me little mind as it crawled inside a hollow log.
“A fucking armadillo,” I sputtered. “Arrrrrgh!” I smacked my hands onto the surface as I tried to walk out of the water. The mud made it difficult to move, and I resigned myself to the loss of my tennis shoes as I finally managed to crawl up the small ravine and back onto the path. “Stay hidden, armadillo,” I growled. “Or I am going to add you to the barbeque menu.”
I collapsed onto the path and rolled onto my back when I made it out of the water. My phone was lit up like a beacon a few feet away. Even so, I stayed supine for a moment as I reexamined my life choices when a man said, “Nice night for a swim.”
I blinked at the silhouette towering over me. I grabbed my phone off the path and scrambled to my feet. “Coach Jordan,” I said coolly as I prepared to put some real intention into my magic and go crazy on his ass. “What are you doing here?”
“Just taking a walk,” he said. He studied my wet clothes. “Most people wear bathing suits.”
He was trying to be cute with his banter, but I wasn’t having any of it or him. “No,” I told him. “What are you doing here in Southill Village, sorcerer?”
His expression went from surprised to amused. “You think I’m a…,” he held out his hands, palms up. “I’m not a sorcerer.”
“I know you are.” I took a step back. He was tall and had a long reach. There were only two ways to take on someone with longer arms than you, get inside or get away. “Now tell me why you’re in Southill Village, masquerading as a football coach.”
“I’m not masquerading as anything,” Jordan said. “I’m a coach. I’m also a math teacher.” He put his hands to his side. “What I’m not is a sorcerer.”
“Bullshit.” I took another step back and saw the outline of a vine hanging from a tree several feet over his head. Since the bindweed incident, I’d been practicing incantations with climbing plants, and I’d found the magic was stronger if it was added, so I sent out my thoughts to the hanging line, vine and twine protect mine and thine, twist and wrangle, this man you will tangle.
The vine came to life, stretching and moving like a snake. I smiled as I met Jordan’s gaze. “I hope you like hanging from a tree.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” he said. Then, as the vine lashed around him and lifted him off the ground and fifteen feet into the air, he smiled back. Then his eyes flashed silver and began to glow.
My breath caught in my throat. “Not good,” I whispered.
The vines holding Jordan fell away from him. He landed on one knee in a superhero pose as the light faded.
So not good.