Chapter 16

Emmett Trinketnearly spat his coffee out as the four of us marched into the Barn Market the next morning. He hastily swallowed, wincing at the burn, coughed, then shouted, “Monkfoot, incoming!”

“Good morning, Emmett,” Daphne greeted, blackthorn shillelagh thumping as her leather boots scraped softly against the floor. She was dressed as her frontierswoman persona with her broad-brimmed hat, buckskin skirt, and shawl. I’d learned that this was her “business attire,” and that people were less likely to give the elegant elderly woman a hard time when she looked like she could skin you quicker than a rabbit.

Shari trailed after her, fingering the cuffs of her voluminous sweater sleeves. She looked like the rabbit, head jerking here and there from the overstimulation of all the bits and baubles. Then she spied an old pickle barrel that’d been repurposed to hold skeins of yarn, sighed in relief, and hurried over to pick through the colors.

“L-ladies,” Emmett returned Daphne’s greeting. His blue eyes flicked from Daphne to Flora riding on my shoulder to me. “Lawdy, please don’t tell me you’ve formed some sort of posse. Ms. Charlotte Harris’s bridge club is enough for this town.”

“We’re here for your gold,” Flora declared.

“So this is a stick-up?” Apparently the idea of being robbed versus watching a turf war erupt between the Harris Bridge Club and the Crafting Circle ladies was much more palatable. The old man relaxed.

“Your vintage jewelry,” Daphne clarified.

“Anything twenty-two carat or higher,” I added quickly.

Emmett’s bushy white eyebrows rose. His gaze flicked from me to Flora and back again. “The jewelry is in this display case over here.” He guided us to a glass-topped counter. “The gold’s all on the left. Why don’t you have a look, and I’ll be right back.”

As Shari muttered to herself and dug through the yarn barrel, the three of us crowded together to examine the jewelry for those with the most amount of gold.

While it was true I could imbue an object with magic, that didn’t make it necessarily safe for a human like Shari or a mostly human like Daphne to touch. Gold, however, was inert to magic. So, the plan was to acquire enough to melt down in Flora’s welding shop and then coat a pair of tongs with it. At least the pincer ends. Those would then keep the magical item far enough away from sensitive hands. And I wouldn’t have to worry about contamination either.

We were murmuring and pointing amongst ourselves when Emmett returned with a pouch of black velvet. He slid the bag onto the counter but didn’t open it. “This, uh”—he lowered his voice—“have anything to do with Alder Ranch?”

Daphne let out a small gasp, but it was Flora who leapt from my shoulder onto the display case and thrust her finger into the old man’s face. “Not a word, human!”

I sighed. “Cody told you, didn’t he?” They were best friends, after all.

“Heh,” Emmett said with a sheepish smile.

“Not exactly,” I admitted. Though… if my Hunter Spell worked, why not give it to Flora after I’d used it for her—and anyone else brave enough—to find the demon whose half-heart still strained against the confines of the moonflowers? “The gold will keep them safe while they help me with, um, a project.”

He nodded. “How—”

“You ask a lot of questions, old man,” Flora interrupted.

Daphne tapped her on the head like she would as if scolding a kitten. “Stop acting so tough. You’ve known Emmett Trinket your entire life.”

The garden gnome rubbed her head, brown curls swishing. “Mum’s the word with this kind of thing, Daph. You know that! And you heard him—he and Cody blab.”

“Now wait just a second here, missy,” Emmett said sharply. “We might share a thing or two in confidence, especially when it affects our lives here in the town, but we don’t blab. And certainly not to strangers.”

“Hmph.” Flora crossed her arms over her chest.

Daphne plucked her up by her overalls and announced in a sing-song voice, “We’ll be over by the yarn bucket. Flora will be in it.”

As Flora’s protests were suddenly muffled by colored wool and cotton, I pulled a roll of bills from my purse. “I need that cigarette holder in the case too, but what else can I get for this?”

Emmett placed the vintage cigarette holder, what looked like a hollow wand of silver and jade, onto the counter, but he didn’t take my money. Instead, he slid the velvet bag towards me. When he didn’t say anything, I wiggled the ties loose and eased a gold brick out into my palm. Well, half a brick.

“Emmett,” I gasped.

“I don’t need to know what you’re up to,” he said in a low voice, “but if you can use that to protect them, and anyone else in town, then it’s worth it.”

Something in his tone made me tear my gaze away from the gold. “What’s happened?”

His words came out in a whisper as he leaned in closer. “Those strangers are still in town. Mrs. Bilberry is terrified of them. Of what she hears in their rooms, but she’s too scared to confront them. Livestock’s gone missing in that part of town. Reports of dead cats and dogs, too. House pets! But no one can prove anything. They think it’s the annual fluctuation in coyote behavior.”

The feral fairy.

“Them folks are like a starving dog with a bone about that flash of white light, interrogating everyone. Confronting the lesser supes at every turn. I-I don’t mean ‘less’ in any derogatory sense,” he added hastily. “Just those with limited power. Not like you or Flora. Or Arthur.”

I chewed my bottom lip as I glanced down at my parasite bracelet. The magic hunters were searching for me, they just didn’t realize it. How much longer before they called their search a loss and moved on? How much farther were they going to push the townspeople into giving them the answers they sought? Would Redbud bend, or break?

I couldn’t reveal myself, not with a magic-sniffing fiáin lurking about. If I did, I would have to fight. There was no way I could repel that many magic hunters by myself, not with one arm tied behind my back. And even if I removed the parasite bracelet, there was a chance I’d have to call on my battle magic. Activate the cuffs.

And then I’d be discovered for sure, and by something far worse than a pack of magic hunters.

No, as always, the best option was my low and friendly profile. Though, when the Hunting Spell was complete, maybe it would be best to lead the hunters off my trail here in Redbud. Maybe go to Tussock and cause a stir in their woods, then farther into the next county, leading them away on a wild goose chase. And when they were gone, I could actually use the Hunting Spell to finally free my family from its curse.

Replacing the gold brick into the velvet bag, I promised, “I’ll bring back what we don’t use.”

Emmett grunted and nodded, clearly having expected me to weigh in on what he’d revealed to me.

“Ladies?” I prompted, already striding for the door so Emmett couldn’t guilt-trip anything out of me, “I’m good here. Y’all done?

“Mr. Trinket?” Shari asked. “Just these please.”

She carefully counted out the money—all in coins—for the charcoal-gray and crimson skeins of yarn, stuffing them away in her bag and worrying at her sleeve cuffs once more.

In the parking lot, we diverted to our cars and separate objectives: me to the farmhouse to prepare the ingredients for the weaving and the Crafting Circle ladies to Flora’s workshop for Daphne to help Flora with the tongs and cigarette holder. Shari would sit at the work bench with her crochet hook and her audiobooks. Tomorrow, we would craft our first spell, together.

Intent is nine-tenths of magic.

Flora’s words bounced around in my head as I sat in front of the hearth staring at all the spell pieces scattered across the hearth stones, including the wand of willow charcoal I’d infused with magic for Shari to use tomorrow to write the locator rune. Sawyer perched on the windowsill, popping Grumpy on the snout with his paw whenever the werewolf tried to sneak a peek inside to see what we were up to. If the collar around Grumpy’s neck hadn’t prevented him from seeking retaliation, Sawyer would’ve been playing the world’s most dangerous game of Whack-A-Mole.

Intent. What did I want this spell to be? Maybe this was why only elders created new spells and the rest of us just used the index in the grimoire. Who’d decided masking sand had to be sand, that the locator rune was a rune and not an incantation? Was there something specific about the nature of the spell that dictated what form it should take? Spells were very precise, you know. That’d been my trouble all along—I hadn’t been obeying the first rule of spellcasting. They were bullets, not birdshot.

“I’ll be hunting something down,” I muttered to myself, shifting my focus to the hearth’s fire. The flames that were a constant green now as they deployed concealment spells. The fiáin, searching for me without knowing that’s what it was doing.

Frustrated that my thoughts had wavered once again, I retrieved my notebook from where I kept it in the kitchen drawer and returned to the hearth. Writing would help focus my mind, just like grounding and breathing helped focus my magic.

The pen scratched across a fresh page, my penmanship cramped as I fought to get everything down quickly before the thoughts fluttered away like torn cobwebs on a spring wind.

Incantations: short term or long term.

Short term: say the spell once, it does its job; low magic requirements and output.

Long term: requires either constant repetition of the spell or a coven chanting it together, or both; high magic requirements and output. Long-lasting effects.

Rune: must be marked on the object of interest.

Well that definitely ruled out the Hunting Spell as a rune. While I could touch the emerald with a pencil, the moment the grimoire realized I was writing a rune, I would be blasted into the next county. Its own wards destroyed runes as they were being written, punishing the perpetrator as a bonus.

Artifact: a physical object imbued with magic.

I never considered masking sand as an artifact, but by definition, it was. It looked and felt like beige sand yet was able to mask my presence and scent when sprinkled around me. Caer powder was the same—a white power that could reveal magical wards, or befuddle the senses.

My ivy-green eyes drifted to the assortment of crystals on the hearth stones. Completely mundane to human eyes, dismissed as cheap tricks by powerful witches, and yet…

What if I anchored the spell to one? What if the crystal itself was the spell? Just like masking sand and Caer powder, even the Seeking Spell. It wasn’t much different than what I’d done with the black tourmaline, using a quality it already possessed and amplifying it!

I snatched up the piece of selenite that had replaced the monocle-like one I’d shattered against the wall. This one was quarter-sized, one side a little more concave than the other, like a worry stone. It reveals the truth of things.

Selenite, despite is prowess at revealing hidden truths and its cleansing ability, wasn’t great at containing magic. It’s why we never used them at the manor as batteries. But there was another crystal on the hearth stone beside it that was quite the energy provider: tiger’s-eye.

I’d never have known any of it had it not been for my tabby cat’s patient instruction. “You’re a genius, Sawyer Blackfoot!” I exclaimed, leaping to my feet.

Yowling in surprise, Sawyer jumped from his post on the windowsill and ricocheted off Grumpy’s face when the werewolf looked over the sill, startled by Sawyer’s sound. The cat landed on all four feet inside the house; the werewolf landed on his rear on the porch, long golden-white limbs flailing.

“Sorry,” I apologized loudly so both could hear me. Then I was grabbing my mortar and pestle from the shelf and returning to the hearth.

A little tincture, a lot of pounding with the pestle, and the tiger’s-eye was pulverized into small pieces and powder. Shoving the mortar right into the hearth coals, I waited until it was steaming and the larger pieces were jumping around like exploding popcorn kernels before splashing it all with a brown potion that resembled Worcestershire sauce in both appearance and smell. Instantly the granules were transformed into an acrid viscous substance like yellow rubber cement. I rolled the edge of the selenite round through the mess again and again until nothing remained in the mortar. Dropping the crystal into a bowl of ice solidified the new creation: a milky-white selenite center surrounded by the banded stripes of tiger’s-eye.

Holding the crystal in one hand and my amazonite pendant in the other, I prepared to transfer the stored magic within the pendant into the little worry stone. No sooner had I taken a grounding breath, my magic core bursting to life to facilitate the transfer, did the hearth send out a warning pulse.

And another.

And another.

Outside, Grumpy threw back his head with a battle cry of a howl and bolted off the porch.