Chapter 8

Harlow

"Are the vines still necessary?" Bruin asked, raising his bound hands with an irritation that continued to amuse me the longer it lasted.

We'd squished him between Kylen and me in the middle seat of the Camry, and I immediately missed those beautiful hours the day before when he'd been unconscious in the trunk. Good times.

"Yep. I don't trust you not to try something while we're driving. Now shush," I snapped back before leaning forward to flick Addie on the shoulder. "Hey, eyes front, kiddo! No conversations with the hostage allowed."

"Hostage? Really?" Bruin muttered.

Addie slumped in her seat, unusually grumpy despite being in her preferred shotgun position. Honestly, she was lucky we didn't leave her in the motel. If I thought she wouldn't hike through the woods to follow us, I would have.

She muttered something I couldn't hear, but it made Lindsay laugh from the driver's seat. "Aww, Addie's getting maddie," he teased, reaching over with one hand to ruffle her hair.

"Oh my gawd ! You suck so hard!"

"Funnily enough, Kedron said the same thing to me last week." Lindsay winked at me in the rearview mirror, and I snorted.

Addie went quiet for a moment, processing his words. "Dude. Pull over, I gotta puke."

"Seconded," Bruin grunted.

"No need, prudes," Lindsay said, slowing the car to a stop as the woodland road opened up. "I think this is it."

Leaning out of the passenger window, an old, rotting gate loomed ahead of us. It was too modern to be the original town gate, but the metal was rusted and frail. "Everyone, stay here for a minute. Don't touch the car doors or anything made of metal."

I slid out of the car and gripped the remains of the gate tight with both hands. With a deep breath, I pushed out with my magic, like I would blow out a few too many candles. Electricity crackled across the metal, fizzling and sparking until the whole thing blew apart with a crash.

As the dust settled, I stepped over the threshold, hesitating for just a moment when my foot tapped a thin, metal KEEP OUT sign. Well, I'd never been one for doing what I was told.

"Welcome to Spells Hollow, I guess."

Lindsay drove us the final mile into town, finally pulling over between the tree line and a huge derelict building. We exited the car and slowly circled around the side of the structure. It was a lot bigger and more intricate than what I imagined an original colony house would look like. The wood was burnt, but still held together. Impressive, considering how long the town had supposedly been abandoned. But there was a lot we didn't know about this place.

As we reached the front and stared out at the town proper, it became obvious that this was more than a deserted settlement. All around us, buildings stood in various states of disrepair, where they weren't reduced to a pile of rubble, all the way up to a line on the ground that separated a perfectly preserved slice of history.

"Wait a minute." I crouched, brushing the point where charred earth met clean, healthy grass with my fingertips. "Lindsay, can you sense any spells along this line? Any illusions?"

The line was a literal scorch mark in the grass. From where we stood, it seemed to surround the interior of the town in a circle, but we'd need to keep walking to know for certain.

My bestie kneeled beside me, placing both hands along the strange line, and closed his eyes. I glanced around while he concentrated on working his magic and found Bruin leaning against the large building behind us, permanent scowl in place. Guess he was serious about not letting me out of his sight. Ugh, what a pain.

Speaking of pains… Addie was following Kylen like a duckling as he poked his head around a few buildings, keeping close for now. He didn't seem to mind her presence, though. In fact, he kept up a running monologue of each thing he studied so she could understand what they were doing. Maybe this would end up being a weird history field trip for her.

After a few minutes, Lindsay sat back on his heels with a sigh. "I know this town is supposed to be magical and shit, but dude, this town is magic. Like old-school-protection-spells kinda magic. It feels like they're just around the houses, which might explain the difference in the grass, but we should still be careful what we touch. Good news is I don't sense anything that would immediately hurt us. So that's a win."

I offered him a hand up. "I'll happily take ‘not immediately hurt.'"

"It's a lovely change of pace for you." He chuckled, dusting off his knees and glancing around. "Where the hell do we start?"

Pursing my lips, I moved over the line into the preserved section of town, spinning on my toes for one step, two… As I landed the third step, I pointed in a random direction. "This way!"

"That's how you're making your decisions?" Bruin snarked as he followed close behind.

"Usually, no. But when you're on a magical vision quest—"

"Epic Road Trip of Destiny," Lindsay corrected.

"Epic Road Trip of Destiny." I nodded at Lindsay, who motioned for me to continue. "You need to let fate take the wheel now and then."

Just as I thought Bruin's eyes were going to roll back far enough for him to see the empty cavity where his brain should be, Addie shouted, "Hey! I'm gonna stay with Kylen and look for plants!"

Kylen flashed a thumbs up to approve the message, and after a moment of thought, I nodded. Now that we knew him a little more, he seemed safe enough for Addie to hang with while they looked around the town, especially if they were staying outside. She might actually learn a thing or two from him.

"Okay. But stay close and meet back here in two hours!"

We moved carefully around the town square, not approaching the gallows in the center. I wasn't ready to start off my exploration with something that deadly, so I started looking through the windows in a few of the surrounding businesses. Because obviously if I was going to watch someone die, I'd need retail therapy afterwards. Yikes.

Continuing in the direction fate had dictated for me, we ended up in front of a row of three large houses surrounded by gardens and wooden fences. The houses seemed to circle the town square, and I wondered if it was mirrored on the other side. I'd have to check later. As I stared up at the first house, my heartbeat accelerated, and warmth spread through my chest. It felt like… home? No, this was nuts. I'd never been here before, but the feeling of familiarity wouldn't stop nagging my brain.

Bruin appeared in my path, pulling me out of my thoughts as he snapped, "Are you just gonna stare at it, or are we going inside one of these creaking deathtraps?"

"Calm your murder-boner, psycho." I shouldered past him through the front gate, and the closer I got to the front door, the more it felt like I was going to barf up my own heart.

The doorknob was cool beneath my shaking hand, and I took a calming breath before gently turning—

"Did you hear that?" Bruin asked, his head whipped around as he pressed his back to the wall beside me, more cautious than earlier with his hands bound in Kylen's vines.

Neither Lindsay nor I moved for a moment, listening for whatever he had picked up on.

Bruin's eyes narrowed. "I swear I heard growling. Like a bear or a wolf."

"Or your stomach?" I quipped, finally opening the door to reveal a large foyer.

Thick, musty air filled my lungs as I stepped inside, my footsteps muffled by the russet patterned rugs covering most of the hardwood floors. A thick layer of dust covered the surfaces of wooden tables and cabinets along the wall leading to the dining room on my right. With a heavy pull, I opened the floor-length drapes, allowing sunlight to fill the space for the first time in centuries.

"Let's open a window in here," Lindsay muttered, fiddling with the locks before welcoming in an ocean breeze. "That should make it a bit easier to breathe."

Now that light filtered into the space, I could see that the table stretched through a room much longer than I thought it'd be. Whoever lived here was either very rich or very powerful. Picking up a plate from the edge of the table, I blew the dust off before shining it with the hem of my t-shirt. It was heavy, gleaming real silver in the sunlight.

"Well, at least no one's leaving here poor." Bruin smirked, opening a drawer to find matching silverware.

"Of course your first thought is to loot the place," I scolded him, though there was a thought at the back of my mind that we could really use the money. Hell, depending on how haunted this place was, maybe we could move in.

In the next room, toward the back of the house, I found a kitchen the size of our apartment. Holy shit, people could cook actual meals here, as a family, instead of fighting over a stovetop where only half the burners worked. Except for the dust, everything was in an amazing condition, clearly well cared for before it was abandoned. Which begged the question, who would leave a house like this?

We completed a circle of the ground floor, walking through a large sitting area with multiple couches and armchairs where the family must have gathered, and a conservatory with a view of the tragically overgrown garden. I made a mental note to show it to Kylen in case this family had grown his mysterious plant. It looked like a miniature jungle out there.

As we headed for the stairs, a whistling sound from below distracted me. Did this house have a basement? Smoothing my hands along the wooded wall under the stairs, I felt a cool breeze from between two planks of wood. "Hey, Lins! Gimme some light over here?"

He held up his phone, the flashlight shining on the side of the staircase, and I followed the gap to a spot big enough I could pull with my fingertips. With barely a hint of effort, a door swung open like it was welcoming me inside. That was far too easy.

"Do you see anything?" Lindsay asked.

I nodded. "Stairs. It looks like they might lead underground. Wanna take a look?"

"At the definitely-not-haunted secret tunnel? I think I'll try upstairs instead."

"Oh, boo. Come on, I've got a good feeling about this."

Lindsay held up his hands in surrender. "You do you. I'm more interested in what's on the second floor."

"Okay. Meet in an hour."

" Ahem ." Bruin held out his bound hands, looking more like a Victorian orphan boy than the biker threatening to murder me. "Come on, Sparky. I know you don't want me alone with your friend, and if we're going down there, I'm gonna need my hands to dig myself out when it collapses."

He had a point, sort of. At least if he was with me, I could keep an eye on him. Plus, I'd already beat him once.

"Do you seriously think you can trust him?" Lindsay asked, eyeing him.

I stifled a laugh as I carefully zapped the vines enough for them to release their captive. Didn't want them to accidentally constrict him instead and squeeze off his arms… or did I? Now there's a thought.

"Not even a little. But I know I could make lightning tap dance across his ass if he starts shit."

"At least I know you're thinking about my ass." Bruin winked at me, shaking off the last of the vines that had plagued him for the past day.

"I think you are an ass. Now, let's go."

Crouching to avoid the low ceiling, we headed down into the earth.