Flames in the Midst (The Jade Hale Series) (28 page)

“I don’t understand.  Why do I need to hurry up?  I can travel through time.  It won’t matter when I leave.  When I’m ready, I’ll get there.”

“That’s just it.  We’ve been waiting, and you haven’t shown up.  That is not going to change.  You’re just not in Salem.”

“Well, this would be easier if you told me when I needed to get there.”

“I gave you that information in the bar.”  He was still gripping my arms.  He squeezed so tightly that I was beginning to feel uncomfortable.

“A year and a town are not really that specific.  This would be easier if I knew exactly when and where to show up.”

He let go, maybe realizing the game I was playing.

“You wouldn’t trust me if I told you that.  The only reason you trust the general time and location is because you know something we did changed the events from that time.”

He was right.  Even if he did tell me, I would have to consider the fact that he and his father were trying to gain control of my gift.  Since my mother died trying to keep both my gift and me from them, I was not going to let that happen, and I must therefore believe that anything he told me was part of a trap, if this was more than a dream.

“That’s true.  I guess you’ll just have to wait then.  I haven’t decided exactly when I’ll arrive.”

I feigned as much disinterest as I could.  I hated this place as much as I loved it.  It was calm, tranquil, and comfortable, like a warm blanket on a cold morning.  Rather than feeling hatred and disgust towards Cameron, I was oddly pulled towards him.  That was the part I hated—waking up feeling like I had emotionally betrayed myself, and now Chase.

Cameron seemed to be able to fight the false sense of serenity more than I could.

“People are dying, Jade.  Innocent people.  You’re taking too long.”

I stared at him.  None of this made any sense.  Why was Cameron concerned about innocent people dying?  This had to be a dream.  Maybe Cameron was a reflection of my own sense of right and wrong.  As if he could read my mind, he moved swiftly, reaching over me to grab a small shard of rock near my sun bathing spot.  Before I could stop him, he pulled the rock across my left calf, drawing blood.

“This is real,” he said, looking very intently into my eyes as a trickle of blood rolled down my leg.  The lagoon began to spin around me, and I felt as though I would pass out. 

I closed my eyes only to open them to Stefanie’s room in the very early morning hours.  I rubbed my arms.  They felt sore from where Cameron had gripped them.  Knowing that couldn’t be possible, I turned to go back to sleep.  That’s when I felt the wet spot under my lower leg.  I put my hand down to my calf.  I felt warmth that could be blood, but I couldn’t tell for sure in the dark.  I pulled the quilt back and moved to the bathroom.  In the light, I could see the small incision from the rock and the smudged trickle of blood.  My heart beat like the wings of a bat in my chest.  I found it difficult to catch my breath.  I had no idea what this could mean, but it couldn’t be good.  I sat on the bathroom floor to process what I was experiencing.

After thirty minutes of staring at the wall, I came to a few conclusions.  One, Cameron wanted me to know that my lagoon had some element of reality in it.  Two, I still couldn’t trust him or even know it was Cameron I was dealing with since I had no idea what it meant to have a dream that was also real.  Three, if it was Cameron, something wasn’t right.  Why would he be concerned about me finding them or about innocent people dying?  Finally, I couldn’t tell anyone about this.  I didn’t know what it meant, but I knew I’d never heard of it before.  Nothing that made me more unusual and unique was a good thing to share with anyone else.

I cleaned up my leg and put a Band-Aid over the cut.  I washed the sheets before anyone else woke up.  I had moved on to my bags of smoke filled clothes by the time Stefanie came downstairs.

“Wow, you got up early,” she observed.

“I wanted to get some of my laundry done before we go to campus.”

“Did you see my dad?  He usually leaves for work around four or so.”

That struck me as odd, but I had never really thought about the finances of running a coven of witches.  I supposed some of them would have to work, and since Paul and his wife and daughter lived here as a family, and Paul wasn’t a witch, it would only make sense that he would be one of the people to work.

“No, we must have missed each other.”  I set a cup of coffee in front of Stefanie.

“So, I convinced my mom to let me come with the two of you this morning.  I have a few loose ends to tie up on campus, too, so she really couldn’t say no.”

“That’s great,” I tried to smile at Stefanie.  It wasn’t that I didn’t want her coming along.  I just wasn’t looking forward to the outing.  I intended to take only a semester off from school, but there was something very dramatic and almost final about officially withdrawing from my classes and moving in with a coven of witches at the same time.  I could have simply withdrawn online, but since I had a bit more paperwork to take care of as a former ward of the state, taking the trip in to the university would make the process a bit easier.

I began to make myself at home by cooking breakfast.  Caylin and Alex came downstairs next.  Mercy and Garrett did not come around for breakfast, but I made fried eggs and toast for everyone else.  Caylin squeezed some orange juice while I was busy at the stove.  Then we were off. 

Madilyn reinforced a spell around me to keep me hidden from any Shadow Rulers or Hunters that might be searching for me.  Stefanie and I took care of our business on campus quickly.  I hoped to run into Zach while we were there, but I didn’t see him, and if he saw me, he didn’t stop to say hello.  I saw several dark auras on campus and realized any of them could be looking for me, but Madilyn’s spell worked well.  The day went by without incident.  I would have to learn that cloaking spell before I left the coven.

The next eight days passed quickly, some more quickly than others.  I essentially shadowed all eight Guardians.  I asked them questions about their skills and their gifts, those who possessed them, and they asked me questions presumably to gauge my preparedness for the task that lay ahead.  Amy and Madilyn had a history with me.  Although it was much more recent for me than for them, they knew me better as they had kept up with me through my aunt. 

My day with Madilyn and Stefanie consisted of practicing a few spells and discussing my plans both for training and for my future.  They were interested in what I thought I needed to know, and Madilyn was particularly interested in knowing what my plans were when this whole ordeal was over.  I explained I wanted to learn her spells for keeping me hidden.

“I honestly don’t know what I am going to decide, but initially my plan was to return to my old life,” I told them.

Stefanie just smiled knowingly.  Not only did she know why I was wavering now on that plan, but she also firmly believed I would end up with their group on a more permanent basis.

“Jade,” Madilyn responded, “I can’t say that I approve of you trying to go back to your old life after all of this, but I do understand.  The night I met you, I had just been ripped from my life.  I had a young daughter, and I was dating Paul.  I had been attacked in a parking lot on my way back from a night class.   I thought my attacker was a mugger or a rapist, but then your mother shows up.  She looks like a crazy woman, her lips moving and no words coming out, but this man responds to her.  He starts doing the same thing. 

“One of the cars near us starts up and starts moving towards her.  She didn’t even look at it.  She just put her hand out towards it and continued her silent chant.  The car slid right back into place.  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  Within minutes, the man who had attacked me is whimpering on the concrete, and I’m running through the parking lot with this strange woman.  I didn’t get to know your mother past that night, but I knew after that night that I was a part of something much larger than myself. 

“The way I saw it, I had three choices.  One, I could give in to the Shadow Rulers who were pursuing me and hope they did not find out about my daughter.  Two, I could go back to my old life, but I had to worry about a daughter who might also be a witch, and I didn’t know how to protect myself much less the two of us.  Finally, I could stay with Amy and become a Guardian like the woman who had saved me.”

“Dad was a little shocked by the time she told him she was a witch, but I was already six by that time, and even I could perform a few spells, so he didn’t really need too much convincing,” Stefanie added.

“See, the decision is not so easy for me,” I told them.  “I only have me to worry about, so I’m not looking out for anyone else or factoring them into my decision.”  Unless you counted dating Chase or wanting to date Chase as a factor in my decision. 

“In a way, you’re right, if you choose to be,” Madilyn told me, sounding more like Amy or my aunt.  “But just because you don’t have a child does not mean that your decision only affects you.  You have extremely rare gifts, and you have to ask yourself if you are choosing to do the right thing by choosing to do nothing with them.  I know it’s not exactly the same thing, but in a way, it is like Clark Kent deciding only to be a reporter and never to transform into Superman. 

“Besides, you may only have to worry about yourself if you choose to, but you are not the only one worrying about you.  Even though you haven’t been living with us, you’ve been a long awaited member of our family.  Amy, Stefanie, Paul and I will worry about you if you decide to return to that other life.”

They were beginning to feel like family already, which was a frightening prospect for someone who had lost her family in fragments on four different occasions.  They had all known my aunt to some degree, and Amy had known my mother well, so if anyone on the planet could feel like family, it would be them.  Even if I decided becoming a Guardian was the right thing to do, I didn’t know if I wanted to do it here.  I didn’t know if I wanted to have a family again.

I thought all of this, but all I said to Madilyn was “Thank you.”

My day with Mercy was less than eventful.  She hardly acknowledged my existence.  In the morning, she greeted me and explained I would be following her around, observing.  After lunch, she asked me a few curt questions about my experience writing spells.  She seemed to take on an even more lofty air of arrogance when she discovered my experience amounted to the equivalent of a four-year-old’s experience driving for NASCAR.  At dinnertime, she told me good night.  We did not speak to each other at any other time during the day.

I spent the day with her nephew, Alex, after that.  He was much chattier, although I could tell he would rather be spending the day with Caylin than with me.  She always seemed to be nearby, but she didn’t intrude on my time with her beau.  Alex explained the key to writing a good spell was different for every person, just like the key to writing a good poem or a good song differed with each writer.  Some people could only make a spell they wrote work if it rhymed or if it was in Latin.  Other’s could take a shopping list and turn it into a spell, but if they tried to make it look more presentable, it would cease working.  I would have to experiment to find out what worked for me.  If I was talented, like Mercy or my mother, my spells could be used by others if I chose to share them.  If I had not inherited my mother’s skill at spell writing, my spells would be for my use only. 

“How often is someone able to add a spell to a family spell book?” I asked Alex, figuring he would be a better bet to satisfying my curiosity than his aunt.

“Well, that depends.  If you are adding the spell to your family pages, then any spell writer with moderate talent can do that.  If you are adding the spell to the communal pages, the ones that are shared with all other family books, then it doesn’t happen very often.  There are probably only a few dozen or so witches who can do that, but no one really knows for sure.  There could be more, but not everyone wants to share their spells with the whole community.  But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  You haven’t even written your first working spell.”  Alex smiled at me.  He had a friendly, outgoing personality.  I liked him, despite his aunt. 

At dinner, I insisted that Caylin sit with us on the back patio.  Caylin’s strawberry blond hair with her chic hairstyle was a sharp contrast to Alex’s head of coarse spiked hair.  Yet, they looked like the perfect couple.  They did not have the conflict Chase and I had.  Although Caylin wasn’t a Guardian, she wanted to be one.  She and Alex would fight side by side.  As if Chase knew I was thinking about him, he slid next to me at the table.

“Guess who you get to hang out with tomorrow?” he asked me, almost conspiratorially. 

We were obviously assuming we were in the beginning of a relationship rather than the end until I did something to prove otherwise.  I smiled as Chase slid his arm around my waist and kissed my cheek.  Caylin raised her eyebrows, but said nothing.  From Chase’s actions, I took it there were no rules against us dating.  I noticed Amy giving a disapproving look from inside the house, but if there were no rules about it, she really couldn’t do anything.  We were both adults, and we could choose to date if we wanted to.  However, I wondered for a minute if she were worried about me dating Chase or if she worried for Chase dating me.  She probably should worry for Chase, as he was the one most likely to get hurt.

I spent the next day with Chase, but we didn’t really accomplish much.  He already knew a lot about what skills I had and what skills I lacked from the time we had spent together in St. Augustine.  Accordingly, Chase had a somewhat romantic day planned for me.  We walked through the woods together to the spot where we had shared our first kiss.  Chase put out a blanket and set up a picnic lunch for us to share.