Enchantment (2 page)

They were ornery as the dickens but so damn cute they could get away with anything. They had gorgeous carmel-colored skin, big brown eyes with lashes thick as feather dusters and curly black hair. Their exotic looks added to the mystery of their daddy’s identity. There were plenty of mages in the Ozark region with dark eyes and hair, but they were all fair-skinned.

Channie and Abby had both inherited Momma’s light eyes, frizzy hair and skin so pale it was almost translucent. Momma had gray hair now, but Daddy claimed it used to be just as red as Abby’s. They all had blue eyes, except for Channie. Abby used to tease her when she was little and tell her she was adopted because she was the only one in the entire family with green eyes. If she hadn’t had the same white-blond hair as her Aunt Wisdom, she might have believed her.

Savvy whined and rolled over, kicking Zeal. Channie pushed his damp curls off his forehead and shushed him back to sleep.

Abby was lying on her back, drenched in sweat and snoring. That girl didn’t have a lick of sense. Channie raised the window and propped it open with the forked stick they kept for that purpose.
 

Momma and Daddy started arguing again, but kept their voices too low for Channie to understand what they were saying. It sounded like Daddy was trying to talk Momma into doing something she obviously didn’t want to do. Channie edged a little closer to the rail as she packed in an effort to eavesdrop without being conspicuous.
 

Momma shot her a look and said, “You about done up there?”

“Almost.”
 

“Don’t think I don’t know where you been. We got bigger fish to fry right now, but you’re in a heap of trouble, missy.”

Momma must have looked under the elderberries in Channie’s basket and found her wet clothes with the tell-tale scent of bauxite clinging to them.
Damn it to hell and back.

Channie stalled as long as she could to give Daddy’s neutralizing spell a chance to fade. She didn’t want to face Momma without Enchantment’s power protecting her.
 

She only packed one change of clothes leaving room in her pillowcase for more important things, like her text books and journal. Hopefully they wouldn’t be gone too long. She didn’t want to get behind with her school work. Aunt Wisdom insisted all her students, especially her apprentices, excel in science, math, history and literature as well as magic.

The back door slammed, startling Channie. It also woke up Abby. She mumbled a nasty word under her breath and sat up. Channie peeked out the window. Momma was muttering to herself and stomping down the path, towards the family burial plot — with a shovel.
 

~***~

Channie imagined several different scenarios of what had happened as she helped load their old hand-me-down Volkswagen bus. The more stuff they packed the darker her suspicions became. They were going to be gone for a very long time. She couldn’t help but wonder if Daddy had actually killed someone this time and for some reason he wanted Momma to bury the body.

When Momma came back she was sweaty, grimy and in complete disarray. She always wore her hair pulled into a tight knot at the nape of her neck, but most of it had come undone. Grey wisps floated around her shoulders like ghosts and her eyes had that vacant, glassy look you see on the front row at funerals.
 

Channie held her breath as she wondered who Daddy had killed. She hoped it was no one she knew.

Momma stabbed the ground with her shovel, burying half the spade with one angry thrust and said, “Well, I got it.”
 

Channie’s heart skipped a beat. “Got what?” Maybe Momma had gone to dig up her secret stash of egg money. She wasn’t distraught because Daddy had murdered someone, but because she didn’t want him to get his hands on her money. The wave of relief that washed the burden of worry off Channie’s shoulders left her weak-kneed and shaky. “Where’d you go, Momma?”

Momma raised her shield and glared at Channie. “None of your gall-darned business. Now, go help your sister wake up them babies and get ‘em loaded in the bus.”

Channie’s eyes filled with tears — ‘gall darned’ was about the closest Momma ever came to swearing — but it wasn’t the scolding that made her chin quiver. It was the sight of her bicycle, leaning against the side of the cabin. Aunt Wisdom had given it to her for her fourteenth birthday two years ago and it was her most prized possession.

“I want to take my bike.”
 

“And I want a million dollars. Now do as you’re told before I take a switch to your bee-hind.”

“But … my bike.”
 

Daddy grabbed Channie’s bike with one hand and tossed it on top of the pile of furniture bound to the roof of the bus. “Get me another rope out of the shed, baby girl. There’s no reason we can’t take your bike.”

As soon as Daddy finished securing Channie’s bike, he turned towards Momma and said, “It’s time.”

But instead of slipping into the driver’s seat, Momma nodded and went back inside the cabin. Daddy said, “You stay here and don’t come inside no matter what happens. I’ll send Abby and the trips out.”

Channie knew she was treading on thin ice, but since Daddy wasn’t shielded she also knew she could push her luck. “Why? What’s going on?”

He got a pinched look around his eyes as he stared over the top of the bus and all the color drained from his face. “On second thought, if something happens, get your bike and ride as fast as you can to your Aunt Wisdom’s place and tell her what’s going on.”

“What
is
going on?”

Daddy scrubbed his face with calloused palms then said, “Just promise me you won’t go inside that cabin.”

“You’re scaring me, Daddy.”

“Good.” Daddy squeezed Channie’s arm then patted her cheek. “Promise?”

“Yeah, I promise.”
 

He nodded once then joined Momma in the cabin. Abby and three very cranky trips stumbled out the door.

~***~

The Volkswagen bus was an old 1956 panel-van model without rear seats or windows. Useful for avoiding prying eyes when running moonshine, but not very comfortable for passengers — even when it wasn’t packed floor to ceiling with half their earthly belongings. Channie helped Abby clear a space for the triplets then wriggled between Momma’s cedar trunk and Daddy’s tool chest like a snake.
 

Abby grabbed Channie’s left foot and said, “What the hell you think you’re doing?”

“I want to know what’s going on.”

“I’ll tell you what’s going on, you’re gonna get me whipped.”

She was right of course, Daddy would scold Channie, but he’d take his belt to Abby for not stopping her. “I’m not going to get caught. Unless you tell on me.”

“I ain’t no snitch.”

“Daddy told me to go get help if something goes wrong. How am I supposed to know if something goes wrong if I’m stuck in here?”

“I don’t know, but Daddy said to stay in the bus.”

Channie pushed a little persuasive magic at Abby.
 

She sighed and let go of Channie’s foot. “I wish you wouldn’t do that, lil’ sis. You’re gonna get me in all sorts of trouble.”
 

Channie rolled onto her back and grabbed the steering wheel to pull herself between the front seats. The side doors hadn’t worked in years and were bound shut with bailing wire.
 

When Channie sat up, her jaw dropped. The cabin was on fire. Black, oily smoke seeped through the cracks between the logs and poured out around the door jamb and window sills.

She ran to the window and pressed her palms against the glass. The interior of the cabin glowed but she couldn’t see anything through the smoke. There were no flames and no heat. The cabin was not on fire, it was bewitched. Energy pulsed all around Channie. She’d been healed, blessed, bound and even cursed, but this magic was different, unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. It made her dizzy and a little nauseous. She stumbled back to the bus and yanked on the rope holding her bike. “Abby! Get out here and help me get my bike!”

“No need, baby girl. We’re all done.”

Channie whirled around. Daddy was sitting on the top porch step, fanning smoke away from his face. Momma stood to the side, clinging to the porch post.

Channie slid her hand from the base of her throat to her hip. “Good lord, Daddy, you scared the bejeebies outta me.”

Daddy rocked forward and launched his massive body off the step. “Let’s get outta here.”

~***~

They were about fifty miles west of the Oklahoma state line when the trips fell asleep and Daddy did something he’d never done before. He confessed.
 

“I was on a lucky streak, sold all my moonshine the first night and tripled my money playing poker with the boys. Me and Lucky McGee decided to head on down to Hot Springs and play the ponies.” Daddy sighed and wiped the sweat off his brow with a grimy red shop towel.

“Usually, the tracks, stables, horses and jockeys are shielded from magic, but there was some sort of hullabaloo going on that day with visiting celebrities so the track’s mages were a little distracted. Lucky found a hole in the shield and kept watch while I cast a weakening spell on Dark Magic, the colt favored to win in the fifth race. It would have been okay, except the horse belonged to …
 
a very powerful mage.”

Channie couldn’t believe Daddy had been so stupid. “How could you not know that a horse named ‘Dark Magic’ belonged to a mage?”

“Lots of Empties name their horses Magic something-or-other. It don’t mean nothing.”
 

Abby said, “Just because a magically disabled person don’t have no powers, don’t mean they’s empty.”

Channie rolled her eyes and muttered, “Here we go again.” The term Empty had evolved from MD which stood for magically disabled. But most mages used it as an insult. Calling someone a son-of-an-Empty was much worse than saying he was a son-of-a-bitch.

Momma glared at Abby in the rearview mirror and said, “Don’t interrupt your Daddy,” then nodded at Daddy and said, “Go on. Tell ‘em what happened.”

Daddy dropped his chin a couple of inches and exhaled loudly, pursing his lips. “Dominance, had already cast a spell to increase the colt’s heart rate and lung capacity before I got to him.”

“Wait. Are you saying the mage that owns the horse you cursed is …
Dominance Veyjivik
? The Queen?”
 

“The one and only.”

Channie’s throat tightened around her heart. All the Cumberland Mages were wealthy, powerful, and violent. But the queen, was pure evil. She’d murdered her own family, including her parents, her siblings and even her own son, to seize the throne. She was the reason Hunter’s momma, who was a distant relative of the Veyjiviks, had fled to the Ozarks.
 

“Oh Daddy.”

“I know. Talk about bad luck. The horse probably would have died anyway, but since I cast the weakening spell, I got blamed for it.”

“He died?”
 

“Collapsed on the track going into the final stretch. Killed his jockey too —
 
who just happened to be the old bitch’s grandson.”

Channie’s mouth went completely dry.

Daddy sighed again and said. “And to top it all off, the horse I was betting on got tangled up in the mess when Dark Magic went down. I lost everything.”

Momma’s breath came slow and steady, but shallow. She was tight-lipped, stiff-spined and royally pissed. “The point is … since we can’t raise the money to pay off the blood debt, the Veyjivik clan has sworn to exact vengeance.”

Abby blinked and put her hand over her heart. “They want to even the score by killing Daddy?”

Momma cast a pre-emptive be-calm spell on everyone then said, “The Veyjivik’s don’t get even. They get revenge. They plan to make your daddy watch while they torture and kill the rest of us.”

Daddy shot Momma a look then twisted sideways in his seat and draped his arm over the back. “I don’t want you girls to worry about it. Your Momma used some powerful magic to bewitch the cabin and redirect any tracking spells. We’re going to Colorado, but everyone, including the Veyjivik clan will think we headed east to seek sanctuary with some of my distant kin in Appalachia.”

Channie’s legs were starting to tingle so she nudged Savvy off her lap, careful not to wake him. “But, we don’t have any kin west of Arkansas. And I’ve never heard of any mage organizations based in Colorado.”

“Which is exactly why we’re going there. No one will ever suspect a family as magically gifted and deeply rooted as ours would go so far away from home, cut all ties with our clan, and live amongst nothing but Empties.”

“What do you mean … cut all ties?” Channie’s voice trembled, even though she was still under the influence of Momma’s be-calm spell. “What about Aunt Wisdom?” Truth be told, Channie was closer to Aunt Wisdom than anyone, even her own momma. She’d spent at least a part of every day with her for as long as she could remember. “She knows I’d never leave without saying good bye.”

Daddy frowned and shook his head. “No one can ever know where we went. It’s as much for their safety as ours. The Veyjivik's are ruthless, but they ain’t stupid. When they discover how hurt and angry everybody is on account of us just up and leaving without a word, they’ll know our kinfolk had nothing to do with it. Their ignorance will protect them as well as us.”

“How much is the blood debt? If the whole clan pitched in, maybe we could raise enough to satisfy the Veyjivik’s while we earn the rest of it. We could all get jobs.” Even as she suggested it, Channie knew it was futile. The Veyjivik’s wouldn’t care whether or not mage law demanded they accept gold in lieu of blood for payment. They’d still want revenge.

“That’s right kind of you, baby girl, but there’s no way we could earn that kind of money. In addition to the blood debt, Dominance is demanding I reimburse her for the horse. That’s why I was gone so long. I had to find a safe place for us to start over and get new documents.” Daddy patted a large brown envelope on his lap. “I changed our last name to Belks.”