1. Into the Dark

1

INTO THE DARK

“I dare you to go in,” my friend Bellamy said, and I shot her a side-eyed glance.

“What is this, fifth grade?”

She only grinned, unfazed by the dig. We were standing at a boarded-up shaft to the abandoned United Verde Mine above Jerome, Arizona, a site that was off-limits to pretty much everyone…not that the “keep out” signs and the barbed wire stopped members of the McAllister witch clan from coming up here and poking around from time to time, or merely checking on the isolated spot to make sure no wayward tourists had gone out of bounds and started wandering around where it wasn’t safe.

Bellamy had lived her whole life in the former mining town — her two dads owned the sweet shop down on Main Street, and I had to believe the United Verde was old hat to her by now. But since I’d only arrived in Jerome a month ago, much of it was still new to me, even though, like most other members of the Wilcox witch clan, I’d come here to visit and explore at least once a year throughout most of my childhood, depending on what my family’s vacation schedule looked like.

After I graduated from Northern Pines University at the end of May, I really hadn’t known what I wanted to do with myself. When I heard that Rachel McAllister, who’d run McAllister Mercantile in the heart of Jerome for longer than a lot of us had been alive, was looking for some additional help at her store, I decided to go for it. Why she’d chosen me when I had to believe there were plenty of other McAllisters who might have wanted the job, I still wasn’t sure.

I hadn’t asked too many questions, though. It was enough for me to be living in Jerome — I’d lucked out and was able to rent the same darling little bungalow my cousin Lucas’s wife Margot still owned, just a block south of Main Street — and to allow myself to be on autopilot for a while. My parents weren’t entirely thrilled that I’d decided to bail on Flagstaff, but it wasn’t as if I’d moved to Africa or something.

Not that I could have done anything so extreme even if I’d wanted to. Witches stuck to their clans’ territories, and the only reason why things were a little different here in Arizona was that the prima — head witch of the McAllisters — just happened to be married to the primus — head warlock — of the Wilcox family. We were also on friendly terms with the de la Pazes, who lived in the Phoenix area and points south of that, so at least we could wander around the state pretty much as we liked, and even into New Mexico as well, since they’d come to our aid back before I was even born, when all the Arizona clans had been fighting the dark warlock Joaquin Escobar and had been on the brink of losing…until the Castillos stepped in to lend their assistance.

Bellamy was Rachel’s other shop assistant, and the two of us hit it off right away. It probably helped that she was only a year younger than I, although she had decided against going to a four-year university and was instead getting her certification in enology at the local community college.

“More future in that kind of thing around here anyway,” she’d told me not too long after I came to work at the store, which was true enough. The wine industry was positively hopping in the Verde Valley, and since the area had gained AVA — “American Viticultural Area” — status, it was becoming almost as popular as Napa or Sonoma.

She also worked two nights a week at the tasting room down the block from Rachel’s store, so it had become a hangout of mine as well, a place where we could continue our chats, except she got paid for doing so.

This particular Thursday night, however, she didn’t have a shift at the tasting room, which was why she’d suggested we go take a look at the abandoned United Verde mine. At first, I’d demurred — when I was a kid, maybe around eight or nine, my parents had taken the family to the Gold King Mine just outside Jerome, which had once been a separate settlement, and I didn’t see the point in visiting something that seemed way too similar — but Bellamy had told me that wasn’t the reality of the situation at all.

“The Gold King is just a tourist attraction,” she said. “I mean, it was a mining settlement once, but it’s been defunct a lot longer than the United Verde, which was a working mine until the 1950s. When it was closed…it was just closed, and that’s it. Most of it was open pit mines, and there isn’t much to see. But there are also some exploratory shafts they dug and then boarded up, and those are kind of creepy.”

I had to admit I wasn’t sure whether I was in the mood for “creepy.” People had always told me Jerome was super-haunted — and Angela, the McAllister prima, had a special talent for talking to ghosts, which probably had been handy while she was growing up there — but even though I’d been living in the former mining town for almost a month now, I hadn’t seen even a single sign of a ghost. True, Margot had told me no one had ever died in her bungalow, at least as far as she knew, and I had to admit Rachel had so imprinted her presence on the big brick building her store occupied that I doubted any ghost would have the guts to try haunting the place.

But it had been awfully hot this past week…June in the Verde Valley was often like that…and I thought going up to the mine and checking out one of those abandoned shafts might be a little cooler than trying to sit on a patio somewhere and have drinks.

Which was why Bellamy and I now stood outside the shaft she’d said was the easiest to access. I had to admit it didn’t look very inviting; my brain had manufactured images of a gaping hole in the steep hillside, but of course, that wasn’t how it was set up at all. No, the entrance had been covered with some weathered boards, and barbed-wire fencing provided an additional perimeter about a dozen feet back from the actual opening.

That barbed wire hadn’t offered too much of a deterrent, since Bellamy had gone unerringly to a section off to one side and stepped down on the bottom strand of wire and deftly pulled up the one above it, showing that she — and probably generations of other McAllisters — had been doing that very same thing for a long time.

While the fence hadn’t proved to be much of a barrier, I couldn’t say the same for the boards that concealed the opening to the mine.

“Even if I wanted to, how am I supposed to get in there?” I asked, and she just grinned. She had long hair in the bright copper shade that showed up in the McAllister clan from time to time, although I supposed it might also have come from the egg donor who had been her mother. Obviously, Kirby and Matthew couldn’t have children on their own, and they’d known Kirby would need to be their child’s biological father, or there wouldn’t have been any chance of the baby inheriting the McAllister clan’s magic.

Bellamy had been perfectly frank about her situation, as if it wasn’t any big deal, and I supposed it wasn’t. After all, she might not have known who her mother was, but I had my own craziness in my family tree, considering how my father, Robert Rowe, had been born in the eighteen hundreds but had come to live in the twenty-first century after my mother rescued him when she time-traveled to 1884 and brought him back to modern-day Flagstaff with her.

“Like this,” Bellamy said, and stepped forward so she could grasp one of the plywood boards and pull it away from the opening.

Clearly, the majority of the nails that had been holding it in place were just for show. With the sheet of plywood set off to one side, I now could see the dark opening that yawned in the hillside, and a shiver went down my back despite the lingering heat of the day. With Mingus Mountain towering above us, Jerome and part of Clarkdale and Cottonwood below were already in shadow, although the sun wouldn’t actually set for at least another forty-five minutes or so.

“You’ve really gone in there?” I asked, knowing how dubious I sounded.

“Lots of times,” she said blithely. “My cousins and I would come here and play Truth or Dare, or just sort of hang out when we needed a place to be away from everyone else. And it’s kind of a thing to go in the mine and stay there alone for at least an hour, just to prove you can do it.”

That sounded like a kind of whack rite of passage to me, but I supposed every clan had its quirks. Also, while I thought Jerome was absolutely darling, with its various hundred-plus-year-old houses and buildings and sloped sidewalks and absolute lack of anything resembling a true right angle, I had to admit that it probably didn’t offer much to do except go exploring. Growing up there would have been very different from my own childhood; the big house in Flagstaff where I’d been raised was less than a mile away from shopping and a movie theater and a variety of diversions.

“So if I do this,” I asked, “does that make me an honorary McAllister or something?”

Bellamy’s grin only broadened. “I’d say you already are, kind of, since you’re working at Rachel’s store.”

The question had been dancing around in my mind anyway, so I figured I might as well go ahead and ask it. If nothing else, prolonging our conversation would postpone the moment when I had to go into that dark, gaping hole in the side of Cleopatra Hill.

“Why did Rachel hire me, anyway?” I said. “I mean, there must have been plenty of McAllisters who wanted the job.”

Bellamy shrugged. With the light fading fast, her coppery hair wasn’t nearly as bright as it had looked even a couple of minutes earlier.

“You’d be surprised,” she responded. “I mean, a lot of my cousins have worked there part-time to help out, or to earn some extra money over the holidays or whatever. But most of them really aren’t interested in doing the retail thing unless it involves owning their own business.”

Like her parents, who had been running the treat shop on Main Street since before she was born.

“Why did you take the job, really?” Bellamy asked next. “I can’t believe there wasn’t plenty for you to do in Flagstaff.”

There was, of course. True, a lot of people would probably argue that a history major didn’t make me a shoo-in to work in a law office or even at my cousin Jake’s witch-finding operation across the street from Wheeler Park in Flagstaff’s historic district, but I knew someone in the Wilcox clan would have found me a job if I’d asked. That was just how we rolled — how most witch clans rolled, from what I’d been able to tell. We always looked out for one another.

After graduation, though, I’d found myself longing for a change of scenery, and when the job at McAllister Mercantile came up, I thought it must be fate.

Or maybe just really good timing.

Also, it was plain, honest work, the kind of thing that allowed me not to think about very much. And most of the time, not thinking was the best way to ensure there weren’t any more incidents.

All witches had certain magical talents they shared, like unlocking doors or lighting a candle with just a thought. Once you got past the basics, though, things became more specialized, with every witch and warlock having their own particular gift…and, every once in a great while, being lucky enough to have two, the way I did. The one I’d inherited from my father involved being able to hide my witch powers from other witches and warlocks, something I’d never really needed, although I assumed it might come in useful at some point.

My mother’s power was also an unusual one — she had the ability to give herself an extra five minutes whenever she liked, while time froze for everyone around her — and I’d inherited something like it…except my supposed “talent” wasn’t useful in any way I’d been able to determine.

Yes, I could manipulate time, but rather than having it stand still for everyone around me, I instead sometimes went into the future and sometimes into the past, not with any real rhyme or reason. True, sooner or later, I either snapped back to where I was supposed to be or the rest of the world caught up with me, but because I couldn’t control those jaunts in time, I’d caused quite a lot of havoc in my family. The worst incident had occurred when I was twelve and went a week into the future and thought I’d only been there for a couple of hours…only to discover upon my return that I’d been gone for nearly seven whole days.

My parents, understandably, had freaked out, and after that, I basically did whatever I could to prevent my weird, annoying magical talent from asserting itself. On a couple of occasions, I still screwed up and lost control, but because the time involved had only been a few minutes or at most an hour, it wasn’t too big of a deal.

Which was why I thought having a nice, low-stress job far away from any surroundings that might trigger me was probably the best thing to help me cope with the situation. Over the years, I’d gotten my supposed “gift” under control, and yet I still couldn’t quite trust it not to pop up at inopportune moments even though I hadn’t had a slip since I was around fourteen, almost eight years ago now.

“Haven’t you ever wanted a change of scenery?” I asked, and now Bellamy smiled again.

“All the time,” she said, her tone cheerful. “I suppose that’s partly why I wanted to go into the wine industry. Sure, I’ll stay in the Verde Valley once I find something permanent — although I guess I could also go down to wine country in the south, maybe Sonoita, since the de la Pazes are pretty cool with us being in their territory — but wherever I end up, I don’t think it’ll be Jerome. Page Springs would be nice.”

I couldn’t disagree with that comment. No, I hadn’t spent a lot of time in the small community about fifteen minutes outside Sedona, but it was a pretty place, with the Verde River flowing through a narrow valley and vineyards and wineries scattered on either side of the winding country road that bisected the area.

“Well, that’s how I feel about Jerome, I guess,” I said. “I always liked it when I visited, and being here gives me a chance to try something new.”

“Speaking of which,” Bellamy replied, still smiling, “that’s why you should check out the mine.”

A flicker of worry went through my body. “Aren’t you coming in with me?”

“Not at first,” she said. “You should really go in and experience it for yourself the first couple of minutes. But don’t worry — I’ll follow along soon enough.”

Her words reassured me a little…a very little. However, even though this wasn’t fifth grade and I was a grown woman of twenty-two, I also didn’t want to look like an utter chickenshit in front of Bellamy McAllister, not when she made all this sound like child’s play.

And it wasn’t as if I was afraid of the dark. No, I didn’t have some kind of witchy night vision — although that would have been a cool talent to have — but I knew there wasn’t anything in the mine shaft that would hurt me.

Except snakes. And rats. And probably bats, too, although I wasn’t afraid of bats. Honestly, I wasn’t all that afraid of snakes or rats, either, even if I didn’t want them running over my foot.

Or biting me, although the sturdy hiking boots I wore probably would have foiled a strike by a rattler as long as it didn’t aim too high.

I tried to reassure myself that a rattlesnake would have settled down for the night by now, although I couldn’t be sure. Maybe it was still warm enough that any snakes in the immediate vicinity might still be up and about, looking for a nice, juicy rodent before they slithered off to their burrows to await the arrival of another day.

As best I could, I shut down that line of thought. Psyching myself out before I even took a single step inside the mine probably wasn’t a very good idea.

“Here,” Bellamy said as she handed over a small flashlight, the kind of thing you could easily stash inside your purse without it taking up too much room. “This’ll make it easier.”

That was for sure. Suddenly, the prospect of stepping inside the mine opening didn’t seem quite as scary. I’d already planned to use the light on my phone to illuminate my surroundings, but I knew it wouldn’t have been anywhere as bright as the flashlight my friend had just given me.

“Thanks.”

Now that I was more or less properly outfitted to go in, I knew any other delays would be way too obvious. Besides, tons of McAllister kids had gone in the mine before me. Did I really want to be scared off by something that didn’t even frighten a twelve-year-old?

It seemed I’d answered my own question.

“‘Once more into the breach,’” I quipped, and Bellamy raised an eyebrow.

“Huh?”

“Shakespeare,” I said briefly. Well, not everyone had a displaced warlock from the nineteenth century for a father, someone who’d made sure that I and my older sister Jessica and my little brother Patrick were well-versed in the classics.

Flashlight in hand, I moved closer to the opening and shone it inside. To be honest, the shaft didn’t appear all that impressive — just a space about fifteen feet wide or so, with some sketchy-looking timbers holding up the rock sides, and more rocks strewn on the ground below. I recalled Bellamy’s comment about how shafts like these had been dug to look for additional deposits of the copper and silver and gold hidden in the hill.

They probably hadn’t found much, or this part of the hillside would have been blasted open as well.

“It’s not going to bite,” came her voice from behind me, and I shook my head.

“That you know of.”

But since there wasn’t any point in drawing this out, I went ahead and squeezed through the opening she’d made by pulling back that one piece of plywood. Almost at once, the temperature seemed to drop a good ten degrees…or maybe that was just my inner heebie-jeebies taking over.

Because I couldn’t lie — the place was creepy. Maybe it was the utter darkness, broken only by the narrow beam of the flashlight Bellamy had given me, or maybe the oddly musty scent of cold stone and confined spaces.

Or maybe it was only that I couldn’t tell how deep the shaft went.

It can’t be that deep, I told myself as I took a gingerly step forward, then another. This was an exploratory shaft, so it’s not like they would have been drilling hundreds of feet inside the mountain.

At least, that was what I wanted to believe. Since what I knew about mining probably would have fit in the palm of my hand, I couldn’t know for sure.

Another cautious step. I paused and shone the flashlight all around me, but everything still looked pretty much the same — evenly spaced timbers along the wall that were beginning to show signs of rot, loose stones and gravel spread over the ground beneath my feet.

On one wall, though, I noticed something that seemed to be chalk markings on the dark surface. I headed over there, figuring I might as well take a look, even though I guessed the scrawls were probably graffiti left behind by some long-ago McAllister coming in here to get their wiggles out.

It didn’t look like graffiti, though. No, it looked like purposeful markings of some kind, numbers and letters that didn’t appear to be real words but possibly abbreviations. At the end were the letters SLM and the number 26.

Initials and a date?

Possibly. It didn’t seem too out of bounds to guess that it might have been an inscription left behind by a long-ago surveyor or someone else who worked for the mine.

For some reason, seeing that physical evidence left behind by someone who’d been working here made me feel a little better. True, the shaft was still creepy and not the sort of place I’d want to hang out, but really, it was just a place that people had surveyed and moved on. Nothing to see here.

A little lighter of spirit, I shone the flashlight around again. It looked as though there was another set of markings on the opposite wall, and I hurried over to take a look.

Except with my flashlight fixed on the wall and not on the uneven ground at my feet, I didn’t notice the gaping crack in the stone surface until it was too late. The toe of my hiking boot caught in the fissure, and I went down hard, my head smacking against the rocks.

The last thing I remembered was the metallic clank of the flashlight as it fell from my limp fingers.