Chapter 12

CHAPTER TWELVE

Grandmother was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, a moonstone collar in her hand. "Where's your cat?"

"He's not much into accessorizing, so he left," I answered, stopping on the second to last step when Grandmother hadn't moved out of the way.

Whatever reprimand she had in store for me was stifled when the hearth released a tumultuous warning pulse that had every witch stop what she was doing. Aunt Hyacinth and Mom bolted out of the hearth room and onto the back porch, Aunt Peony shoved her head out the kitchen window, and Aunt Eranthis, Grandmother, and I barreled out the front door.

"Here," Mom cried.

The three of us in the front raced to the back to join the others as we peered out towards the apple orchard. The rain had turned to a thick fog that swirled and snaked in unseen air currents, smothering the trees and the wildflower thicket between us.

"If Stag were here," Aunt Peony muttered from the window.

The blond-haired weather witch could've snapped his fingers and left the sky as bright a blue as a robin's egg, but he wasn't here, so we had to squint and hope for the best. The hearth released another series of warning pulses, and soon three figures loomed in the twisting vapor.

Four, actually, for as Dad and Uncle Badger hauled the captured fiáin between them, Flora hurried after them, kicking at their heels and shrieking, "Let 'im go, long-legs! That's my feral fairy!"

The tip of her beechwood wand glowed green, but before she could strike him with barbed horse nettle or stinging hogweed, Uncle Badger stamped his foot. A mound of earth rose at his command, jettisoning the garden gnome into the air.

"Uncle!" I admonished.

"I don't want to hear it," my normally soft-spoken uncle replied irritably. "Her sunflowers bit me."

"Better the sunlions than the carnivorous clematis!" Flora shouted.

Her own green magic had activated the moment Uncle Badger had sent her into the air, dormant wildflower stems rising to her call. They'd woven into a trampoline-like net that first caught her, then launched her after the witches.

Dad ducked her second assault, using a bit of his air magic to whisk her harmlessly away. "Meadow, honey, if you'd stage an intervention, that'd be great. Wrangling this fiáin is hard enough without having to fend off the secondary attacks of a feral garden gnome."

He'd kept the fiáin alive, no doubt using the ambiguity of Grandmother's instructions to justify why it was still breathing. The creature was just as thin and wiry as before, its navy blue skin as shiny as a beetle's wing-cases in the drizzle. Its own wings were trapped against its back, yet they still fluttered in agitation. Miraculously, they didn't appear moth-eaten from the effects of the cinders last night. They were healed.

Dad and Uncle Badger had it trussed up in bindings of green magic that looked like the silk of a spider's cocoon, all the way from its shoulders to its feet, and were hauling it between them like a prisoner off to jail. The fiáin twisted in its restraints, not necessarily to free itself. Blind, milky eyes rolled this way and that as it sniffed, desperately looking for something. A pitiful mew escaped from its rows of needle-like teeth.

"I'm coming, Flint," Flora shouted.

I'd already shoved my feet into boots and was halfway through the garden before Dad had called for me, and now I blocked the path of my friend as my family manhandled the fairy through the rear garden gate. "Flora," I began.

"Don't you ‘Flora' me, cider witch," she hollered. "They're kidnapping my fairy!"

As Dad and Uncle Badger wrestled the fairy past me, I snatched up the garden gnome by her miniature Carhartt overalls.

"Ugh," she cried, swinging her fists to no avail, "I hate being eighteen inches short sometimes. Put me down!"

"What's this about it being your fairy? You said—last night, I might add—that you'd never even think about adopting it."

Flora pouted. "That's before I found it cuddling with Poppy on her dog bed in the living room. Came home from sorting out the moonflowers this morning and there they were, spooning. Must've come in through the dog door. It's absolutely besotted with that rabbit. Plus I've never seen a creature weed so fast."

As a garden gnome, Flora had command over her little plot of land, and if she wished to keep a summertime garden thriving even in the midst of winter, she could. Which also meant everything that came with summertime flowers, including weeds and insect pests. And while she could cast spells to rid her garden of these inconveniences, it risked upsetting the natural order of things, and Flora was not about to have that on her conscience. Especially not after she already risked much to keep her land thriving when it should be dormant.

"It thinks the June bugs are candy, Meadow," she told me, eyes sparkling. "I'll never lose another raspberry or rose again."

I glanced back over my shoulder to examine the fiáin with fresh eyes, only to discover Dad and Uncle Badger in the middle of growing a collar and rope out of thorns and chaining the fairy to the big maple tree.

"That's before the Hawthorne brute squad showed up and kidnapped him," she groused. "Make the chain long enough so Flint can get on the porch out of the rain, would ya?" she shouted.

"C'mon," I said, bringing Flora to my shoulder. The wet of her boots chilled my shoulder, sliding a dampness down my skin that made me shiver and long for Arthur's warmth. The chain that connected us hummed as my mind began to wander—

Another warning pulse, more of an announcement than anything else, rippled under my feet.

"Hello, dear!" came a familiar voice.

"Hey, watch it," Flora admonished as I spun around, narrowly missing thwacking her off my shoulder with the low-lying branches of the maple.

As I squinted into the rain in the direction of the voice, I chastised myself for thinking about the lumberjack shifter at a time like this, but that chain… "Daphne? Shari?" I called.

The elegant older woman and the quiet crafter hurried out of the orchard and across the dead wildflowers. Daphne was done up in her frontierswoman outfit with her broad-brimmed hat keeping the rain out of her eyes. Her blackthorn shillelagh squelched in the soft ground with every stab. Shari had a mustard-yellow puffer coat on over her oversized sweater and a crocheted hat that resembled a turkey on top of her head, its orange legs tied tightly under her chin. Her wingtip glasses were entirely misted over when they reached us, and she held on tight to the crook of Daphne's arm for guidance.

"Flora came by all in a tizzy," Daphne said before I could ask. "And Crafting Circle ladies don't let their friends get into fights without backup."

"I brought knitting needles this time," Shari said, pulling two metallic-pink needles as long as my arm out of her bag. "They're pointier. Stabbier."

"There's no fighting going on," I explained quickly.

"Says you," Flora grumbled.

"Then we're here for moral support," Daphne said, lifting her chin.

"Where's Lewellyn?" I asked, looking past her for any sign of the man or wolf.

"Lurking beyond the property line. We all agree it's best if he doesn't encounter that shrew—I-I mean, your grandmother—again." She waved a hand in dismissal. "Now, Flora, why were you hollering about a kidnapping?"

Flora thrust a finger behind us where Dad and Uncle Badger were now chaining the fiáin to one of porch posts. "They stole Flint!"

"Good gracious, is that the feral fairy from last night?"

Shari hastily wiped the fog from her glasses and peered at the porch. "He doesn't look very comfortable."

"Of course he's not comfortable!" Flora stomped on my shoulder. "And neither am I, cider witch, soaked to the bone in this rain."

I took the hint and hurried to the house, the two women following after me. It was a good thing too, for the sooner I got warm, the sooner I'd stop thinking about how nice it'd be to have Arthur's arms around me. Thistle thorns, I had to talk to Lilac. But in the meantime… "How did you even follow Dad and Uncle Badger back here?" I asked the garden gnome.

"Once I realized who was breaking into my house ," Flora flung at my father, who finished cinching tight the briar chain around the porch post, "I took the Vespa to Weaver Lane. They were moving fast at first, flashing here and there like smoke—"

The Rabbit Step Spell , I realized. Then I silently kicked myself for not practicing it since leaving the manor. Though, I'd wanted to keep a low profile then, even among the hobs.

"—but it wasn't hard to guess where they were going. Then I used my own green magic to keep up when theirs quit."

"And harassed us the entire way," Uncle Badger said, following us as we trooped inside to the hearth room. He rummaged amongst the shelves until he found a pair of long-stem tweezers. Sending the garden gnome a condemning look, he retreated to the meager evening gloom of the western window to pull sunlion teeth out of the back of his hand. Black serrated seeds hit the windowsill with faint clicks like the sound of cat claws on a hardwood floor.

"That's what you get for stealing my fairy!" Scrambling down my shoulder, Flora aimed a kick at my father's shins.

The combat instructor easily stepped out of the way and gave me a stern look. "Out of respect for your friendship with this lesser fairy—"

"‘ Lesser? '" she shrilled.

"—I showed restraint, but if she is to stay here, she needs to be civil." He eyed Shari's knitting needles. "They all do."

While I didn't appreciate my father making rules in my own house, I understood that calmer attitudes were necessary.

"I'm right here, long-legs," the garden gnome shouted. "Say that to my face."

"Flora," I said sharply. "That is enough. You'll get your fairy—Flint—back." Wrenching open the back door, I stepped back outside.

The restrained fiáin scuttled away like a fish flopping on the deck of a boat, nostrils flaring, flinching when I set a glowing hand on its chest. That made sense—I hadn't been exceptionally gentle last night when I'd smothered its face in Caer powder.

My power flared, and my father and uncle's magical bindings snapped like frayed threads. It was so quick, and I realized I'd barely tapped into the seed of my magic. Which wasn't a seed at all, not after it'd broken through the spell on my cuffs. My magic core had remained a fully rooted and canopied oak with leaves that rustled in an ever-present breeze. Though its task was complete, the only change was the dimming of the gold-green light of its leaves and the muting of the golden bark, like it was dozing. A cat napping, and easily roused when needed. I'd have to examine that later.

But first things first. While the restraints binding its arm and legs were gone, I'd left the chain and collar on its neck so it wouldn't wander off. It didn't have much room to move on the porch, so I retrieved Grumpy's old water dish and set it nearby. Sniffing, the fiáin quickly found the fresh water and daintily started to lap it up through its savage needle-like teeth.

When I returned inside, Dad was staring at me. "Those were Mabian bindings. Only Grandmother's ever been strong enough to destroy them with a simple touch."

Flora patted me proudly on the knee. "The cider witch has got some pep, make no mistake. You should've seen the spell we—"

"We can talk about that later," I said quickly.

The Crafting Circle ladies quickly picked up on the hint.

The Hunting Spell was my little secret, for now, especially with the scrutiny I was under. I didn't need someone yelling at me about the dangers of spell-weaving, especially since it was already done, when I was already getting reprimanding looks for Arthur, not to mention being the true cause why Marten was trapped in an Unseelie prison.

"Indeed," Grandmother said. The aunts, who had clustered at the doorway between the kitchen and the hearth room, parted to let her through.

"And the rest of you, out of my kitchen," Aunt Peony ordered, clanging her wooden spoon against the rim of the soup pot. "Honestly."

Nobody moved.

"Bringing that fiáin here, especially alive, was foolish, Tod," Grandmother said tightly. "What if those magic hunters have another tracker?"

"They don't," Flora said. "If they did, we'd know about it."

Grandmother arched an eyebrow.

"The Redbud phone tree. Well, not the official one," Daphne explained when it was clear Flora was just going to look smug that she knew something that the matriarch of the Hawthorne coven did not. "It's a faster way to spread gossip than waiting for the latest Talk of the Town . Although, hanging out at the Magic Brewery for a morning is usually just as effective."

"Go on."

"Six trackers have come to town, and six are still here. And there've been no more accounts of lost pets or livestock since, um, Flint became Flint, so they don't have another fairy tracker."

At the sound of his name, the feral fairy's head popped into view in the western window, eliciting a surprised shout from Uncle Badger as he stumbled away, tweezers tumbling to the floor.

"They still have access to magic," Grandmother countered. "It's possible they could be using it right now. Get rid of it."

"I brought it back for Forsythia to examine," Dad argued. "There are runes burned into its chest. If she can determine the caliber of spellcaster we're dealing with, we'll be better prepared to deal with them if it comes to that."

"Scorch marks," Mom said, wiggling between her sister and cousins to the forefront. The hearth room was getting awfully crowded. "While they'll stay imprinted on the body's soul, they'll fade from the flesh when it dies. He was right not to kill it, Mother."

Grandmother didn't look one iota pleased about Dad's foresight, nor this minor mutiny both he and her daughter had staged, but she didn't get a chance to rebuke them.

"But we already know the spellcaster," Shari said in her quiet voice. She looked from one face to another like the answer was painfully obvious before wiping the rain off from the end of her nose with the cuff of her puffy coat sleeve. "Antler Tattoo Guy."

"Antler Tattoo Guy?" Grandmother echoed.

"Has a pair of deer antlers on his throat. Right here." Shari indicated the spot on her own throat. "Leaf-like tattoos everywhere else. Looks just like the leaf brand on the fairy's ankle."

"It's what?" Daphne, Flora, and I exclaimed.

Shari just blinked. "I was the one keeping its leg pinned when y'all were fussing with its face last night, remember? I wasn't about to look away and then get kicked in the head, so naturally I kept my eyes on what was in front of me." She shuddered. "I felt like a creepy Victorian voyeur ogling a woman's ankles."

"I'm looking for myself," Flora declared.

"Me too," Mom said, following her outside.

Grandmother seized my arm and yanked me close. " Antler Tattoo Guy?"

"The magic hunter from today. The one with the black hair and blue eyes, smoking the cigarette. He had a scarf on covering up the tattoo."

"And you didn't think to mention this sooner?" she hissed.

"You saw the fae markings on his skin!"

"Antlers," she muttered, releasing me as Mom and Flora returned. Mom only nodded gravely.

The present Hawthornes became very, very quiet.

"What is it?" Daphne asked suspiciously.

"Ummm," came Aunt Peony's singsong interruption. "Supper's ready."

The tension shattered in the hearth room like a glass chandelier falling to the floor, and all of us except Grandmother flinched.

She turned on her heel and stormed towards the dining room.

When no reprimand came, Aunt Peony thrust her head back out the kitchen window and hollered, "Otter!" Guess my cousin had been out patrolling after all. " Quit lollygagging. Bring this pot over to the hobs then be back quick as you can!"

Dale, who'd been quite forgotten about as a kitchen helper, was quick to snatch up the smaller basket of steaming biscuits and hustle outside, not wanting to get in the crosshairs of another Hawthorne family argument.

I turned to my friends as the rest of my family started making their way to the dining room. "Would you, um, like to stay for dinner?"

"So long as Flint is chained to your porch, I'm not going anywhere." Flora shucked her jacket and boots by the back door and marched into the kitchen as boldly as if she were a Hawthorne herself.

"We don't want to be a bother, dear," Daphne said quietly, removing her hat and hanging it on an empty peg by the door, "but I did mean what I said. Moral support."

"It smells really good, too," Shari said, sloughing off her coat. She kept her bag with her, though, the knitting needles poking out of the top. No sooner did she untie the orange legs of her turkey hat than they jiggled as the hearth released another warning pulse.

I heard the Hawthorne witches strike their cuffs, each of them obviously on a hair trigger now that there was a feral fairy chained to the porch and a gang of magic hunters quite possibly trying to track it down.

Shari adjusted her bag and gripped the knitting needles poking out of the top. "Sounds like someone's knocking on your front door."

I blitzed through the kitchen, the little hallway, and past the foyer connecting the dining room and den to reach the door first. Every Hawthorne, except Aunt Peony and Otter, stood from where they'd previously been sitting at the table, magic wreathing their hands. Ivy-green for all blood Hawthornes, yellow-green for Dad, and brown-green for Uncle Badger.

"Get away from the door, Meadow," my grandmother ordered.

But that warning pulse had been an announcement just like the one it'd released in response to Daphne and Shari. And, I daresay, the hearth and house seemed happy with its visitor, for the doorknob practically leapt into my hand and the heavy door eagerly opened with the lightest pull.

Arthur Greenwood took up the entire doorframe, broad shoulders blocking out the dark skies behind him. Mist clung to his trimmed beard and hair, dotting on his eyelashes. He'd obviously changed after work, no longer in his customary red plaid flannel, khaki pants, and suspenders. His boots were buckled black leather, his pants thick denim against the cold, and the black leather of his motorcycle jacket creaked as he stepped inside, ducking slightly to avoid hitting his head on the lintel.

He'd come as the Coalition enforcer, not as the Redbud lumbersnack.

The power of his presence was underscored, but only slightly, by the tray of blackberry cobbler he held in his hands. "I brought dessert," he calmly told the crowd of battle-ready witches. "Hope that's okay."