Secret Of The Rose (Legacy Of Magick Series, Book 2) (5 page)

“Don’t make me get tough,” I said.

Ivy batted her eyelashes at me and deliberately raised the can to take a drink.

Waiting until she was about to swallow the soda, I shot my hand out and dug my fingers into her side. She coughed and squealed at the same time, and I snatched the can back again.

“Your telekinesis bows before my ninja-like reflexes,” I said.

“You are the klutziest Ninja I know.”

“Yet, I hold the soda can, Grasshopper.”

“I am defeated.” Ivy bowed her head.

I laughed at that, then gave in. “Here,” I passed what was left of my snack over to her.

“Thanks,” she said, polishing off the last of the apple.

It was nice to see her starting to act like her old self. While her dramatic goth-girl look was long gone, her flair for drama and humor was returning. I was still getting used to her more natural hair color, though.

“You all done working on that paper?” Ivy asked me.

“I am.” I swiveled on the barstool and noticed for the first time that her purple t-shirt said,
I’m not antisocial. I just don’t like you.
My lips twitched. Yeah, our girl was coming back. Funny how seeing someone wearing snarky slogan t-shirts could lift your mood.

“What’s up?” I asked her as she pushed my now empty plate aside.

“Hey, you’re wearing the shirt I gave you for your birthday.” Ivy noticed and smiled a little.

I glanced down at my own ivory colored graphic tee. It featured a vintage looking Ouija board printed in black. “Well, Halloween is only a couple weeks away.” I grinned at her. “It seemed pretty appropriate to me.”

“We call it Samhain,” Ivy corrected me.

“Right. I’ve been studying the sabbats. Samhain is the Witches’ New Year. It’s the night of the year when the veil between the physical and the world of spirit is at its thinnest.”

“You know, I got that shirt for you before I realized you were a Medium,” Ivy said, referring to my ability of being able to communicate with the spirit world— not my actual shirt size.

“Your mom already told me that Ouija boards are tools, not toys. No worries, I’ll leave them alone.” Especially since according to the Witches, this was a hot time of the year for ghost and spirit activity. I didn’t say so to Ivy, but the
last
thing I wanted was more ghostly company. I still hadn’t worked up to talking to Gwen about Ro, the ghost yet. Or my discovery of the baby brother who had passed away all those years ago.

While I sat there trying to figure out the best time to approach my aunt about the subject, I got a strong gut hunch that Ivy was working up to something herself. “What did you really want to talk to me about?” I tossed the empty soda can towards the recycle bin.
Two points.

“Have you noticed anything unusual about the girls on the cheer squad?” she said carefully.

“Besides their baffling habit of color coordinating everything?” I grinned at her. “One of the girls even had a royal blue wrist brace on!” Talk about devotion to the school colors...

Ivy didn’t laugh as I’d expected. And I felt a little uneasy at her silent appraisal of me. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Do you remember when I challenged you to figure out which pebble was spelled and which was not?”

I nodded. “Yeah. You had me scan the pebbles, and I improvised that charm...”

“Okay, keeping that idea in mind... think you could tell which of the girls has had a spell cast on them?” Ivy’s expression was very serious, and her gaze was intense.

“Why would anyone cast on the cheer squad?” I asked my cousin.

“Do you remember Holly and me talking about a girl, Kellie, who was hurt and unable to cheer for a few months?”

“The one with the broken leg?” I tried to recall.

“Yeah. Now Kate has sprained her wrist. And
another
girl got hurt in practice only yesterday.”

“Wow, they do sound a little accident prone. But, Ivy, maybe it’s simply a coincidence.” I tried to placate her. “I remember reading somewhere that the sport with the most serious injuries was, in fact, cheerleading.”

Ivy drew herself up, clearly offended. “You think I would bring this up if I wasn’t sure something hinky was going on?”

“Okay, okay.” I held up my hands. “Don’t get angry.” I considered it for a moment and wondered about how I would go about discreetly scanning a bunch of teenage girls. “What if I went out in the garage and looked at them using The Sight? I wouldn’t scan their private thoughts, but I bet I could see their energy and their auras,” I said to Ivy.

“That’s exactly what I was hoping you’d do.” Ivy nodded.

“So we’ll hang around for a few moments and see if I notice anything unusual.” I stood up.

“Cool. And if I took a picture of the group I’ll tell them it’s for the yearbook, and we printed it out here at home; you could try and read the photo too,” Ivy said. Clearly she had put some thought into this.

I had never read a photo using my abilities before. That did pique my interest. Honestly, I thought Ivy was overreacting a bit, but I didn’t want to upset her after what she’d been though recently. So, I agreed to her plan.

Ivy left the room to collect her digital camera out of Gwen’s home office on the main floor, and we went out into the potting room. The door to the garage was open, and from there we could stay out of the way watching as the girls put the finishing touches on the float.

Trying to act casual, I stopped and stood in the doorway right underneath one of the wards Aunt Gwen had made to protect the house from negative energy or dark magick. I leaned against the doorframe. I could admit now that I had been working with my ability more and more, it wasn’t so much ‘opening up” to it- as it was allowing it to come out and play. So, I relaxed into it, and let myself
see
the girls and their energy.

There were eight of them today. They bustled around all in matching shorts and homecoming shirts. I let my eyes go unfocused and ignored the overabundance of Central High royal blue and yellow, hoping to see other colors around the girls.

I considered a trio of cheerleaders that were carefully attaching a banner to the front of the float. Their energetic fields, or auras, were nice and bright; an intellectual golden-yellow, a vibrant orange, and a rosy- romantic pink. I focused on the girl with the pink aura, Megan, and sure enough, she was talking about her boyfriend. I saw some bright spring green and warm blue mixed with green colored auras on the other girls. Holly seemed to sparkle in a combination of white and bright aqua blue. In my magickal studies, I had learned that empathic abilities were often aligned with the element of water. So, Holly’s watery blue colored aura made sense.

Cypress, the ‘body’ I had tripped over earlier in the week, had an aura that was bright and vibrant. It was a glowing violet color- which meant she was probably psychic herself. Or maybe a Witch. No sooner did I think that, Cypress lifted her head and met my eyes. Her hazel eyes sparkled, and she tossed me a wink.

Well shit.
I jolted a bit and nodded to her in a sort of silent acknowledgement. I hadn’t expected to find another Witch on the cheer squad. However, I reminded myself there were lots of families here in William’s Ford with a magickal heritage.
Note to self: find out who Cypress was connected to.

I scanned the rest of the girls and discovered to my surprise that the brunette with the wrist brace had a muddier colored aura than the other girls. I wondered what I’d see when I focused on the girl who’d been admiring the Halloween decorations.

But I didn’t see Leilah. “Where’s Leilah?” I asked Ivy.

“She left a little while ago,” Ivy said and adjusted her camera lens.

“Leilah’s new isn’t she? I met her today. She was in the house checking out all the decorations.”

“She’s a sub from the JV squad,” Ivy explained.

A blonde girl shuffled awkwardly around the back of the float on crutches wearing a brace on her right ankle. My breath caught in my throat. Her aura appeared dark, almost as if whatever color would have been there was cloaked over in a charcoal gray. “Who’s the blonde girl on the crutches?” I asked Ivy out of the corner of my mouth.

“That’s Viviane,” Ivy whispered.

Holly must have felt the scan. She walked over to where I stood in the doorway. “What are you doing?”

“Viviane has a dark, shadowy aura,” I told Holly very softly.

Cypress appeared, and I managed not to jump in reaction since I hadn’t seen her walk over. “Viviane was hurt in practice yesterday,” Cypress pointed out.

“I think it’s more than that,” I murmured as Holly and Cypress turned to inspect Viviane themselves.

Ivy called out to the girls to all gather together and pose for a picture with the homecoming float. As the eight girls lined up, half sitting up higher on the float the other four standing below them. Ivy snapped several pictures with her fancy digital camera. As it ended up, Kate with the wrist brace and Viviane with the ankle brace were posed right next to each other.

I tried to read the energy of the group, but it was a kaleidoscope of colors with them standing so close together. However, at the end where the two injured girls posed, there
were
darker and muddier colors. I blinked, pulled The Sight back and realized my shoulders were tight and that I’d been holding my breath. I let it out in a slow steady stream, telling myself to relax.

“Thanks, girls,” Ivy called out. As she walked back in the house, she whispered to me, “I’ll go load these up on my computer and print out the best one for us to work with. Be right back.”

Cypress strolled over to me. “You gonna ask me who my people are?”

“Huh?”
Yeah, that’s me. The ever articulate grad student.

“Anybody ever tell you that you psychically project your emotions very loudly?” Cypress smiled.

Damn it!
“Yeah, I get that a lot.”

“You were wondering which of the founding families I’m from?”

I stared at Cypress. I had a moment to realize that she was referring to the four magickal families from the Colonial era who had first gone up against the Drakes. “Umm...” I hesitated, not sure what to say to that. Finally, I stepped down into the garage so I could speak to her without being overheard.

“Actually, I’d been thinking of the current families that I knew from Aunt Gwen’s coven,” I admitted.

Cypress grinned at me. “You know my aunt, Marie. Marie Rousseau.”

“Marie with the tattoo shop. That’s your aunt?” I tried to put the pieces together. They did have similar coloring. The gorgeous caramel toned skin and thick, dark hair, but other than that I didn’t see much of a family resemblance. Marie had dark brown eyes, was curvy, and vivacious. She also sported dozens of tattoos all over her arms, hands and upper chest.

Cypress’ hazel eyes sparkled as I studied her. She was softer spoken, willowy, almost elegant. Also, Marie was a Hoodoo practitioner, a root worker. I tried to imagine Cypress conjuring up some Hoodoo with her Creole aunt. As we stood there and she grinned at me, it suddenly didn’t seem like much of a stretch after all.

“How is Marie?” I asked since I couldn’t think of a single thing to say that wouldn’t make me sound like an idiot.

“She’s busy now that the tattoo shop is open,” Cypress explained. “You should come by soon and see. I bet you would like it.”

To be polite, I agreed to stop by the shop, all the while noticing the squad had called it quits for the day and was starting to clean up and gather their belongings. One of the girls picked up Kate’s bag for her since she had the wrist brace, and Holly was hovering over the blonde Viviane who was a little wobbly on the crutches.

I had to give it to Viviane. She was trying to figure out how to sling her backpack over one shoulder, keep her balance and still move forward with the new crutches all at the same time. If that would have been me, I would have probably fallen on my face. Holly tried to help out her friend as she went to navigate the step up into the house, but before she could step through the doorway to the potting room, the contents of Viviane’s backpack hit the garage floor with a splat.

“These crutches are harder to use than I thought they would be.” Viviane stopped and shrugged off the backpack. She blew out a frustrated breath, tossed her long ponytail out of the way and frowned at her crutches.

“The squad sure has had a run of bad luck lately.” Kate grimaced and held up her arm that was in the brace.

Cypress and I automatically bent down to pick up the notebooks and papers. I picked up the backpack and scooped up a three ring binder. As I went to tuck the binder away, I saw what appeared to be a fashion doll tucked inside of the bottom of Viviane’s backpack. Caught off guard, I pulled the backpack open a tad wider. And as soon as I did, I got a good look at what had to be the ugliest doll I had
ever
seen.

Every sense I had developed since first learning about my father’s family legacy of magick went on full alert. My stomach dropped and my mouth went dry. I felt my heart speed up, and it took everything I had to not throw the backpack as far away from me as possible. I centered myself and carefully studied that doll. It seemed to be wearing a miniature version of a cheer uniform, but it was a little hard to tell since it was all wrapped up in strips of fabric and twine. The doll’s blonde hair was in a ponytail; its face was scratched up and dented in. Its right leg was missing.

“Viviane,” I tried for a neutral matter of fact tone of voice. “Did you know there is a creepy doll in your backpack?”

“What?” her eyes went wide as she balanced on her crutches.

I raised my eyebrows at Holly and Cypress. They caught my hint and moved forward to see for themselves.

“Let me see,” Cypress said and calmly reached in, pulling the doll out of the backpack. As she did, the other girls gasped in reaction. “That is one ugly-ass doll.” Cypress carefully held onto it with her fingertips.

A few of the girls laughed nervously at Cypress’ comment. Holly had recoiled from the doll when it was removed from the backpack. She recovered and put her hand on Viviane’s shoulder, standing with her.