Returned (33 page)

“Fine!” Cora snapped. “We can do tomorrow but, Tab, no bruises, no aches and no pains.” Cora listed them off on her fingers. “I want to be able to rip open my presents without groaning in pain.” She playfully poked Tabitha in the ribs.

“I can’t stop a few bumps and bruises, plus you give out as much as you get.”

He was about to agree with Tabitha but the hard look from Cora told him to keep his mouth shut.

“Jack, stop smiling,” she chuckled playfully hitting him.

He laughed unable to stop himself.

“Right, I will leave you both.”

“What time are we meeting tomorrow?” Cora asked Tabitha.

“That’s up to you; we can do whatever time you want.”

Cora looked at him waiting for an answer. His eyes looked at hers and lowered to her lips. His fingers itched to trace the lines, to brush her bottom lip with his thumb. He shrugged having lost the use of his tongue.

“I guess we could make it early-ish so then we have the rest of the day to do what we want?” Cora suggested.

That was fine with him, he nodded.

“That’s fine, but what time is early-ish?” Tabitha prompted.

Cora looked at Jack again. He couldn’t answer her, his tongue had tied itself in knots. He scuffed his trainer on the floor avoiding the pull of her eyes.

“I guess 10am? Then we can train and hopefully still have some day left. At least it should be warmer than early morning temperatures.”

“Let the two covens know,” Tabitha said and smiled. “Have a lovely night. Jack, see you tomorrow.” She kissed Cora on the cheek and squeezed his arm.

“So, what do you fancy doing tonight?” he asked speaking first and breaking the weird silence between them. At least his voice seemed to be back to normal. His heart wasn’t.

“Oh, so he has a voice,” she remarked smiling at him. “I don’t know. I guess we could just hang out. I’m really tired after the hectic week so do you mind coming to mine?”

“No problem.”

             
He headed outside into the gale force winds wrapping his coat tighter around himself. He hissed in frustration when a freezing gust of wind slapped his face. Cora began moving one of the witches on the pavement. They were mostly lightweight but what with her lack of energy and the gale force winds, she was stumbling all over the place. Winter had already been cruel to their faces. The one Cora was lugging towards the shop door was now completely without a nose, the other two had what looked like huge scabs on their faces but when you looked closer the grey paint was peeling back.

             
The street was deserted. Little lights flickered from within the houses as the street lights cast a dull mournful glow along the pavements. Nobody in their right mind would come out in this weather. So nobody could see what he had in mind
.

“Cora, move out of the way,” he whispered.

She looked at him, a confused expression etched onto her face but she moved. Her trust warmed him. He focused his element, playing with that little ball inside himself. The three witches hovered in unison, bashing against each other. Well, at this rate they may all lose a nose. It would add to their charm. Cora, realising what he was doing, opened the door as fully as she could. He moved behind the witches following them as they drifted into the shop. They landed with a thump. 

“Job done,” he smiled.

She rolled her eyes at him but smiled whilst she locked the shop.

“Can’t you control this bloody wind or something?” he asked, shouting over the whistling noise as they walked to her house.

“I can. But I don’t want to,” she replied and grinned at him.

He groaned as they took a quick left onto her drive. Laura’s car was sat in front of the garage which meant she was home and wherever Laura was, Ayden was sure to be.

             
He liked Laura Hunt very much. She was what he considered to be the typical mum. She had a friendly smile which portrayed her inner warmth and patience. She never shouted. She fed you when you were hungry. She had this infectious laughter which made Cora laugh. It was something he always loved to see and hear.

He'd been his family’s dirty little secret.

Unwanted and unloved.

             
Maggie Thomas, his mother for all intents and purposes, was tall, skinny and incredibly pale. Her thinning, ginger hair was always pulled back into a bun on the highest point of her head forcing her face to look pinched and harsh. Her blue eyes were cold dark pools of nothingness. When he thought about it now he couldn’t actually remember those thin lines you call lips ever breaking into a smile. She was a hard, stern, law abiding woman.

He was everything she hated.

             
Victor Thomas was a rotund man with eyes the colour of rusty iron that sat too small on his big face. His receding salt and pepper hair had always been combed in odd places to hide the ever growing bald patches. Victor worked in construction, the job keeping him from home six days a week. For six whole days Jack had lived a somewhat normal life, if normal meant not speaking to your mother, eating food when she was out and living in your bedroom.

The trouble in his life reared its ugly head on Sundays.

             
It was demanded of Jack that he sit with the
family
during Sunday dinner. During an excruciating two hours Jack was forced to sit down at a table with his so called family. Victor sat to his right, Maggie to his left, her face making him anything but hungry. Stuart, his so called brother, sat opposite him.

             
Stuart was five years younger than his seventeen year old self. He was the apple of his father’s eye. He was also the image of his father, minus the bald patches. During those two hours Jack had to keep quiet and suffer whilst Stuart repeatedly kicked him in the shins.

             
Once, Jack had made the mistake of moving away from the table so his brother’s legs couldn’t reach, Victor had pushed him closer to the table, so close that his ribcage bashed against the hard wood.  His body had struggled to take in a breath but he’d kept his mouth shut. One murmur from him led to a severe beating. He had been his father’s punching bag; he clenched his fists thinking of the damage he could do to that man now. No one knew of those beatings. Eli hadn’t known, once he’d found out he’d taken the initiative to bring Jack back to Millsteeple.

             
Jack remembered the last year of
his life with the Thomas family.
Once he’d moved to Eli’s a year ago, the spell Tabitha had always cast to take his memories had stopped. Eli hadn’t allowed Tabitha to continue.

             
The day that changed his life happened on a Wednesday. He was on his way home on the tube and had just managed to find a seat during rush hour, people were packed in like sardines. Much to people's protesting grunts, a man wanted to walk through the middle of the train. As the man squeezed by him, he gave him a sheet of paper. He'd pushed it aside to begin with but another fifteen minutes was a long time on a train with people breathing down your neck.

             
The leaflet had stated there was a room to rent, the rent depending on the income of the person. He had thought it was slightly strange that the man was willing to let someone live with him rent free. At the time Jack hadn't seen the man walk off at the next stop, or the fact that he'd only handed one leaflet out that day. He now knew the man to be Eli.

             
He'd left the Thomas family that same week and hadn’t looked back. He didn't know where they were and didn't want to know. He'd made it to this small village with only the clothes on his back. Without Eli’s help he wouldn’t have left the Thomas family.

He wouldn’t have met Cora.

“Jack, how lovely to see you again!” Laura entered the hall from the kitchen.

He grinned at her, he couldn’t help himself where Laura was concerned.

“Mum, you only saw him yesterday and the day before that and the day before that,” Cora grinned as her mother hugged her and then hugged him.

“Are you trying to say that you're sick of seeing me?” 

“No, I’m just... it’s....”Cora blushed and shrugged off her coat ignoring her mother’s quizzical glance.

Ayden entered the hall from the living room.

“Ayden, there's a training session tomorrow at 10am. I couldn't make my mind up about the time and Jack couldn’t make a decision, so I did.”

That was true but he couldn’t very well say the reason he couldn’t speak was because his tongue was tied in a twist, a twist she'd created. Everyone was staring at him. He just shrugged not caring if he looked like an idiot. Ayden already thought he was.

“You're stopping for tea,” Laura said smiling at him.

He nodded, laughing. Cora grabbed his hand, his heart stumbled as he followed her, enjoying the feel and look of their hands entwined.

Chapter
44

THE DEFINITION OF TEAMWORK

He trudged through the woods listening to the wet crunch of thawing leaves and twigs beneath his feet. He could hear Tabitha and Eli talking; he just couldn't see them yet. Laughter filled the air around him. He knew the laugh.

             
Ayden came running out of the trees. He smiled as unease tightened in his chest. Five Ayden’s surrounded him. He didn’t want to admit it but the man still made him nervous.

“Nice of you to join us, Jack, we’ve been training for a while now,” Ayden remarked flashing him his trademark cocky smile.

To any other it may have sounded like a playful joke but to him, it was criticism.

“It’s not even ten yet, Ayden, so technically, I’m early,” he replied smartly.

The five Ayden’s didn’t say anything to him; they turned and walked in another direction.

             
He entered the circle heading towards Eli and Tabitha. The training ground, otherwise known as the woods between both their houses, had been purposely built for them. Eli had put several axes to work which had chopped away at the trees and bushes. Clio had shaken the ground, thus opening up the mess that Eli had created, allowing Tabitha to ignite everything. For an hour or so the circle was a graveyard. The smouldering remains hadn’t smelt nice but they'd made great obstacles. Well, he'd thought so, Tabitha hadn't. The circle remained that way until Clay had washed all of it away creating some sort of barrier around their circle. Now they had a huge circle in which they could train openly without anyone seeing them. Tabitha hadn't gone into detail but she'd mentioned that the people who entered would feel an overwhelming urge to leave. 

“Hey little brother, you made it,” Eli announced.

What was
with
everyone today, he wasn’t late.

“Hey,” he said, shoving the irritation away. “So, what’s happening?”

He stood next to Tabitha but she wasn't concentrating on him, she was focused on something else. She had a frown on her face and her lips were drawn together in a tight line. It wasn’t a look that usually resided on Tabitha’s face.

“Cora, you have five minutes,” Tabitha whispered.

He looked around just to make sure she wasn’t in the circle. She wasn’t there, he would have known. His eyes roamed the perimeter searching for her. She was training without him? Of course she'd done it plenty of times before. It wasn't like she wasn't capable of looking after herself, far from it. The clenching in his gut didn't like her out there without him. Who was she training with? Ayden?

             
Cora’s scream echoed around them. He felt a curse rise in his throat, a primitive growl was ready to rip out of him with a powerful urge to protect her. He surged forward, he didn’t have a clue where she was but he would find her. A hand clasped tightly onto his arm and he was quickly jerked back.

             
He whipped his head around to see what was obstructing him and clenched his fist ready to punch the person. He saw Tabitha holding his arm, her eyes looking into his. She shook her head, it was all it took; not a single word was spoken. There was no need. Tabitha projected enough conversation in that one look. He stepped back but only because he could still feel Tabitha’s fingerprints engraved into his skin. If he heard another scream he would go.

No matter what.

             
Seconds passed but it felt like hours before he finally heard the crashing. He felt the increase of the wind as it gathered in speed around the area. The ground trembled beneath his feet, he pushed his feet wider in an attempt to keep his balance. A second later Cora came bounding out of the woods and into the circle. He felt some of the tension lift from his shoulders but he couldn’t see who she was with. She stood with her hands by her sides, her posture telling him she was ready for something to happen. She wasn’t wearing a coat, where the hell was her coat? Her hair having fallen free of its bobble was streaking across her face. She was focused on a part of the wooded area, the place she had just come from. He started unbuttoning his coat, his fingers stopped when he heard a loud roar. A tidal wave of water hurtled from within the depths of the woods bashing against the barrier that Cora held.