Witching You Wouldn't Go (The Witchy Women of Coven Grove Book 6) Read online

  Witching You Wouldn't Go

  by

  Constance Barker

  Copyright 2016 Constance Barker

  All rights reserved.

  Similarities to real people, places or events are purely coincidental.

  Prologue

  Chloe Minds was in love.

  She tried not to seem anxious as she kissed her aunt good night and went up to her room to crawl into bed. It was difficult, but she’d learned to project false feelings from her mother and when they parted there was no final question about what she was nervous about. Chloe listened carefully to the house for half an hour before she finally pushed the covers back down and slid quietly from her bed. She’d already collected the things she needed, including a thick wool sweater; the same one Leander had first seen her in.

  Tonight was the night. She could feel it.

  Sneaking out of the house was the single most rebellious thing she’d ever done, and the mountain of trouble that was going to land on her in was considerable. Aunt Linny would tell the Coven Ladies, and Rita would skin her alive, or possibly even march her to the Crones and let them deal with her. None of them liked Leander, and for no other reason than that he was a wizard.

  But Leander wasn’t like any of the wizards she’d heard about. The Coven had a pretty skewed view of some things, in her opinion. Leander was kind, and gentle, and curious, and was willing to talk about things with her that she’d always wanted to know about but which the Coven ladies shut her down over every time she brought them up. He was brilliant.

  And he was going to take her away from this stupid, dinky town forever, tonight.

  She opened up the little tupperware container she’d stowed the ingredients for the concealing spell in, and dumped them into a copper bowl from under her bed. The words of the spell rolled off her tongue with practiced ease—she’d spent two days repeating it to herself every moment she was alone—and when she poured the vial of ink over the herbs, she felt the whisper of magic swirling together in the black. She dipped a finger in it and dabbed just a tiny bit of the ink onto the back of her neck and on the soles of both feet. A shiver spread over her, and the sound of the distant ocean beyond her bedroom window muted just a bit.

  Well, that was a side effect she hadn’t expected; but it wouldn’t matter.

  That done, she changed clothes quickly, pushed the copper bowl with it’s reagents carefully under her bed, and then opened the window and crawled out to shimmy down the lattice that, during the summer, sported her aunt Linny’s massive red roses. She only pricked herself a few times on the flowerless rose vines, but not enough to hurt badly.

  Her feet made no sound when she dropped the last couple of feet to the ground. Her heart pounding, she trotted off toward the beach.

  She found Leander, as they’d planned, between two of the larger hills on the south end of the beach. What she hadn’t expected was the blanket, the candles—which stayed lit and steady even in the constant evening breeze coming off the Pacific—and the small spread of fruit and cheese, along with a bottle of wine.

  “What’s this?” She asked, smiling, when Leander rose and met her.

  He drew her close and kissed her, his hands resting lightly on her waist. “Just a wee surprise. What’s the point of having a clandestine meeting and daring escape if we don’t romance it up a bit, eh?”

  She’d have been lying if she claimed his Irish brogue wasn’t part of the attraction; but it was just this sort of thing, as well, that made her love him. All real, raw emotional satisfaction; not a love spell. She’d checked. But it might as well have been. “It’s so sweet… oh… thank you, Ander.”

  “Anything for you, cushlamachree.”

  The word made her stomach flutter. “Vein of my heart”, he said it meant; a carryover from the old Gaelic of his ancestors.

  He trailed his fingers down her back, under her sweater, and kissed her again.

  Together, they laid on the blanket and mused about where their lives would take them once she was free of her unwanted destiny, and after a time he kissed her again, and again—and the two of them grew warm, and Chloe felt the now familiar tingle of need that Leander seemed to always ignite in her just by his presence, much less with his touch.

  Martha had warned her, when Chloe was a sophomore and had almost decided she was going to have her first time with Joey Tymbal—who turned out to be a creep—that it would hurt. She hadn’t enjoyed her first time, and assured Chloe that she wouldn’t either. Frances and Aria were both virgins still, so they had no counter argument. To say that Chloe was nervous when Leander pulled her to him with unmistakable intent sold the feeling short.

  But, it didn’t hurt. It was sweet, and slow, and beautiful, and Chloe basked in the glow of it afterward, putting aside the last worries that she’d clung to just an hour before. She was with Leander, and she was ready to make a new path for both of them, together.

  “Where will we go?” She asked, lazing against him, the chill air playing over their bodies where their skin was exposed to it instead of pressed against one another.

  “That’s the other thing I wanted to tell you about,” Leander said, his voice taut with excitement. “Chloe… can I trust you?”

  “What?” Chloe asked. She sat up, and frowned at him. “Ander… how could you ask that?”

  He pulled a frown, and rolled onto his side, propping his head up on one hand. “I didn’t mean it like that, cushla,” he said. “It’s just… well there’s something I haven’t told ye, and I don’t want it to change anything.”

  A new kind of nervousness worried at the back of her head and made her pull her hair around and over her shoulder where she could tug it. “Okay. What is it?”

  Leander rubbed his neck, and sat up as well. “It’s about why I came to the States.”

  “To get away from your family, you said.” Chloe combed her long hair through her fingers. “Is that not true.”

  “It is,” Leander said, nodding. “But… when I said family… you see I took something. Something which was mine by right, mind you ; but which was in the possession of others who did not entirely share that point of view.”

  “You stole something,” Chloe clarified.

  Leander winced. “Something which was of no use to any but my family; my bloodline. It should have been passed to me, you see, but… well, it was absconded with some centuries ago.”

  Chloe pursed her lips. This wasn’t quite what she’d imagined. A life on the run? There was a certain romance to it, but once she left Coven Grove, her magic would weaken considerably. Her ability to protect herself would wane accordingly, as well. “What… did you take?” She asked.

  “A spell,” Leander said. “A very old spell. One of the oldest, in fact. It’s…” he hesitated, suddenly troubled. He glanced past her, and then out to sea as if something might be there, listening.

  “What?” Chloe pressed. “You can trust me, Ander.”

  His breath held for a moment longer, but at length he leaned forward. “It’s for an ancient enchantment. The Throne of Medea, it was called.”

  The bottom fell out of Chloe’s world, and then her stomach as she felt herself falling, far and fast, back into reality. She swallowed hard.

  “Cushla,” Leander murmured. “What’s wrong?”

  Chloe shook her head. God, she had been so, so foolish. “You knew,” she breathed.

  “Knew what? Chloe, talk to me—“

  “Get away,” Chloe gasped, barely able to keep the sobs from rising. “That’s why you came here, isn’t it? You knew about me. You cam
e here to find me, didn’t you?”

  “No, no, now… Chloe, Cushla; love, listen, I didn’t come here expecting—“

  But Chloe had already stood up, and was tugging her jeans back on. “Leave Coven Grove, Ander," she said, her eyes burning with tears. “I’m not going to help you.”

  Leander stood, and then quickly scrambled to dress himself. As well, Chloe pulled her sweater over her head and left, heading not back to her house, but to the Bakery. If he wouldn’t leave on his own, she’d tell the Coven.

  “No, Chloe… wait…”

  She heard his footsteps thudding quietly over the sand toward her and turned to face him. She held out a hand. “I said leave, Leander Swift.” There was magic in the words, driven by her pain; potent, but sickening as it twisted itself into her voice. “Leave, and never come back.”

  Leander rocked back as the magic crashed against him. He didn’t leave, but he stood, stunned and staring at her. “Chloe, please… I love you.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Chloe said. “Not anymore. I’m done. I don’t want to be anyone’s tool. If you don’t go, I’ll tell the Coven what you did.”

  Even in the pale light of the stars and moon, she could see the color drain from his face. He held up both hands. “There’s no need for that,” he whispered. He dropped his hands slowly, and stood shirtless in the cold, his face twisted with hurt that must have been similar to Chloe’s. “I swear to you, cushla; I didn’t come here looking for you. It was fate what brought us together.”

  Chloe pressed her lips into a tight line and stood her ground.

  Leander nodded slowly. “If it’s what you want. I’ll go. But we’ll see one another again, Chloe Minds. I know it. You and I… our fates were wound around one another’s before our ancestors were even born. Mark my words. I’ll have your love again. I’ll have no other till that day.”

  The words rang hollow in her ears, even as they tugged at her chest. But the truth was plain to Chloe. Martha, Francis, Aria, Rita, Anita… they’d all warned her and she hadn’t listened.

  Leander spared her anymore proclamations and turned to leave. She didn’t see him again, at least not in person. He haunted her dreams, and her thoughts; a ghost that wouldn’t be banished. And four weeks later, she was brushing her teeth when the first bout of morning sickness gave Leander’s words a whole new meaning.

  Chapter 1

  Bailey groaned as the spell she, Avery, and Aiden were attempting failed to take hold on anything and unravelled the moment they stopped supporting it. The tension of magic between the three of them faded gradually, and as it did she felt the urge, again, to stamp her feet and throw a tantrum as if the universe’s unwillingness to work with her was purely personal.

  “It’s alright,” Avery said as Bailey turned away from the array of stones and chalk drawings and spent spell components to pace the far end of the seventh cave. “We learned something. We can try again.”

  “What did we learn?” Bailey asked, trying not to snap at her friend and failing. “It didn’t work.”

  “We… learned that it didn’t work,” Avery said hopefully. “Now once we figure out what the last… five attempts had in common, that should help us narrow down the options.”

  The last few days, since Avery had his wild notion that they could reinforce the basic spells that kept the Caves secured, Bailey had worked more magic in a shorter amount of time than she had since she first picked up the proverbial broom. She was exhausted, her muscles ached—even her bones seemed to ache with the distant echo of vibrations that now made her skin tingle. She could see in Aiden and Avery’s eyes that they were just as exhausted as she was.

  Ever since they had tapped the power of the caves to defend Coven Grove against Mr. Dove—Amadan Dubh, Avery had decided, after some research, had been his most likely Faerie name—it has seemed like the Caves were somehow more… amenable to working with the two wizards. But since then, the same connection hadn’t opened up for Bailey. That made twice that she’d managed to work directly with the Genius Loci—the semi-aware spirit of the Seven Caves—in a moment of dire need. But no matter how much Avery seemed to believe that this reaction was just a function that could be triggered with the right kind of spell, the theory just didn’t hold water. At least, not so far.

  “Let’s try one more variant,” Avery said. “I think the problem is that we’re missing a part of it. We’re only accounting for six dimensions, but the seventh vector in the calculations still comes up with a negative value and if Aiden and I can modulate a—”

  “No,” Bailey said, and squeezed her eyes shut. “No. More. Math. I’m tapped.”

  “Aiden and I can—” He pushed.

  “Avery,” Aiden said gently, “perhaps a break is best. We’ll run the calculations again.”

  Bailey waved at Aiden. “Yes, please; run the calculations, tabulate the… the…”

  “Vectors,” Avery offered.

  She glared at him. “The magic of the caves isn’t an equation. It’s not letting us in for a reason. We don’t need more math, we need to know what we’re saying wrong; why it’s closed off.”

  “No, look,” Avery said, rubbing his forehead with impatience that was getting to be a more and more common sight, “the appearance of self-awareness is constructed; the way that your magic and ours works to get something done is the different, but the outcome, the product, is governed by the same rules, we just need to understand the shape of the construct and figure out which part…” he trailed off as Bailey continued to glare at him. “We… should take a break.” He cleared his throat, and flicked his wrist to vanish his wand—a trick he’d picked up quickly once Aiden had helped him make one—and showed himself out of the rear cave of the complex and toward the entrance.

  “He’s only trying to help,” Aiden told Bailey as he approached her and carefully put his hands on her shoulders.

  She leaned into him and let him put his arms around her. For the moment, she could set aside her frustrations for this. Aiden was only marginally better than Avery about the whole affair; but he at least knew how to talk to Bailey. Or possibly, he feared the consequences of an argument. Avery was her best friend, and had been since they were children—he knew that wasn’t going to change. And he was right, of course. That didn’t make their arguments less stressful, though.

  “I know that,” Bailey sighed. “I just can’t take anymore right now. I can’t help but feel like… I don’t know; like maybe the Caves feel like I’m betraying my people by working with you? Maybe Frances is right; maybe you two shouldn’t be here. It may be I have to do it on my own.”

  “They allowed me to work with them before, through you,” Aiden said confidently. “They will again, if we can convince them of our need.”

  “I don’t know how to say it any clearer,” Bailey said as she disengaged herself from Aiden’s comforting arms. “What could be more needful than saving the world? It’s like they aren’t even aware of what we accomplished before, or why. All of this would be so much easier if the Coven would just trust me and work with us for once.”

  Aiden wisely did not comment on that.

  Bailey had brought up her plan with Chloe, Aria, and Frances, and even asked them to approach the crones as well. Twice, she argued, she had tapped directly into the magic of the caves—and the last time, she’d even altered the fundamental nature of the magic here to include two previously non-magical people. Piper was already beginning to learn the craft, and while her oldest son, Riley, hadn’t exhibited any other magic since he’d freed Bailey and Piper—and ultimately everyone in Coven Grove—from Mr. Dove’s enchantment, they could all feel his presence in the bond they shared with the caves. Eventually, he would grow, and his magic would wake, and he would be the first male to be directly connected to the Seven Caves in history.

  It proved that it was possible to alter the magic of the caves. To Bailey, that meant that they therefore could figure out how to restore the integrity of the spells that kept t
he realm of Faerie firmly on the other side of some mystical divide. Maybe even restore all of the caves.

  To the witches, it meant that something about the Caves was forever altered, and warranted caution and observation to see what that would mean. In any other situation, Bailey could have been persuaded to see it that way, too. After the fight with Mr. Dove they’d seemed almost… depleted. Quiet. That, though, was even more of an incentive to work quickly.

  There was a clock ticking in the background of Bailey Robinson’s existence. She could practically hear it, day and night. Each day that passed potentially brought them closer to another incursion and the next one might be the last. One Faerie had wreaked havoc and that was before he unleashed his true power. A dozen of them? An army?

  “Come,” Aiden said, tugging her gently toward the passage that led back to the entrance, “let’s get something to eat, rest, recover our strength, and perhaps approach this from a different direction entirely. All new magic is seemingly impossible at first. Avery is simply over excited to be a part of something like this; he doesn’t realize quite how… abrasive, his energy can be.”

  Bailey snorted. “You haven’t seen him pine over a boy like I have. Believe me, he knows. He just loses sight of it.”

  “Be that as it may,” Aiden said, “he may need rest as well. I am myself quite drained from today’s attempts; I can only imagine how he must be feeling. Who has not felt a bit manic after two days without sleep?”

  His point was taken. Bailey felt about like that now. Or maybe three days? It was hard to say. She needed coffee and carbohydrates. Her stomach growled at the thought, as if to say, “Oh, so now you remember me?”

  “Food sounds good,” she said. She took Aiden’s hand.

  With his free hand, Aiden turned his phone back on—leaving it on during the kind of magic they were working was a recipe for a fried phone—and then stopped when it chimed several times to alert him to various messages he’d missed since he turned it off.