Cursed In Love (The Adams' Witch Book 2) (7 page)

“Great. We’ll use that in the spell. Do you have a picture of her, too?”

“I’ve got a question,” I interrupted. “Why does anything and everything have to be done at the park? Can’t we do it in your house or something?”

“Because it’s the most powerful place in Adams.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

Travis caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “It’s kind of like Salem. The most powerful place in Salem is Gallows Hill, which is where all the witches were hung. It’s inconvenient to get to, but when you want to make sure your spell is as strong as it can be, you have to do it there.”

“I thought you said you were an awesome witch. You really need the park?”

He scowled. “I am awesome. But yes, I need the park in this case. If you want, sometime I can show you how awesome I am without the park.”

“Trav, I think you’ve missed the part where we’re trying to find Courtney so that Sarah can get back together with her boyfriend. You do understand what the word boyfriend means, don’t you?”

“Hmm…I may have heard the word. In theory before.”

“Leave her alone. It’s gross.”

I leaned between the two front seats. “Can we just focus on the spell we’re about to do?”

In the rearview mirror, Travis’s eyes focused on me. His gaze was like a car accident, hard to look at, but even harder to look away from.

Once Travis parked, we took the teddy bear, the picture of Courtney, and a flashlight to the center of the park. Goosebumps ran up my spine. I hated the park on a normal day, but it was nighttime and the eeriness of Adams grew by mountains in the dark.

Travis took the teddy bear and Courtney’s picture from Jennie and sat them down on the grass. He sat cross-legged next to them, and Jennie did the same. I followed suit, crossing my legs, and held my hands out. Travis’s grip was firm, but Jennie’s skin was ice cold. I resisted the urge to pull away from her glacial-like skin.

“Close your eyes,” Travis instructed.

I waited until their eyes closed before I dared close mine. Jennie’s cold seeped into my body and I shivered. I didn’t like not seeing what was around me. The wind picked up and tracked hair across my face.

“Center yourself and focus on Courtney’s face in your mind. I’ll say the spell three times, then Sarah, you say it three times, and Jen, you say it three times.”

Jennie’s hand tensed in mine. I wondered if Travis was feeling the same cold grasp on his end.

In a low, deep tone, Travis began to chant. “Keeper of what disappears, hear me now. Open your ears. Find for me what I now seek. By Moon, Sun, Earth, Air, Fire, and Sea. Keeper of what disappears, hear me now. Open your ears. Find for me what I now seek. By moon, Sun, Earth, Air, Fire, and Sea.”

Voice melodic, I got caught up in his words as he repeated them a third time. I had a picture of Courtney fresh in my mind of the first time I met her at the coven meeting in the woods. Her short, spiky blond hair sticking out on the sides of a black hooded robe. She was fresh and vibrant.

Travis squeezed my fingers. I swallowed and picked up the chant. “Keeper of what disappears, hear me now. Open your ears. Find for me what I now seek. By Moon, Sun, Earth, Air, Fire, and Sea.”

As I repeated the chant two more times, Travis’s hold on mine got stronger and stronger. It was as if he was holding onto a life line. I wanted to open my eyes to see if he was looking at me and to see which expression graced his face.

Jennie’s turn next. She started out okay, but flubbed the last line. She continued after a second and said the spell the last two times as if she were reading a technical manual on how to fix her car. By the time she finished, Travis’s hand was limp in mine.

Unable to take it any longer, I opened my eyes. Travis stared hard at Jennie, who still had her eyes closed. He must’ve noticed me move because he looked at me and shook his head.

“What’s supposed to happen next?” I asked.

“Nothing.” The lines around his eyes creased and a wave of sadness passed over him as he looked over his sister again.

Jennie shrugged. “Didn’t see a damn thing. You two?”

“What was I supposed to see?” I asked.

She dropped my hand, stood, and wiped off her jeans. “Maybe you wouldn’t see anything, but we should have at least seen something that would point us in the right direction. All I saw was the same picture I had in my head of her the entire time.”

“Weird,” Travis said, his expression said anything but doubtful.

“That’s exactly what I was thinking.” She spun on her heel and started to walk away.

“Wait,” I said, jumping up and running after Jennie. “Shouldn’t we try again? If nothing happened why are we just giving up? We can try to see something again.”

Jennie shook her head. “Waste of time. We need a better spell.”

Travis walked up behind me. “Funny. I’ve used that same spell before and it worked wonders and even under more dire circumstances.”

I arched an eyebrow. He’d been in more dire circumstances than trying to find a missing Natural. What the hell was he doing up there in Salem? “So, should we try again?” I asked.

“It won’t work much better,” he said, eyeing his sister.

I looked back and forth between the two. They stared hard at each other and I got the sense I was the third wheel again. They were deliberately leaving me in the dark.

“So, we’re giving up?”

Travis glanced at me. “For tonight, yes. I’ll work on something.”

My body deflated. I’d had such high hopes for this locator spell. Finding Courtney was our number one priority right now. There was no other option to help release Drake from the binding spell without her. We had to get to the bottom of what kind of binding spell Mother Shipton used. Courtney was our only chance, and I’d let myself believe we’d find her tonight.

I kicked a fallen leaf with my shoe. “Fine. Another time then.”

We were silent as we walked toward the Jeep. If they were feeling half as empty as I was feeling, I completely understood.

Hopes officially dashed.

Steps away from the Jeep, a shadow moved around the front of the grill and stopped. The street light was far enough away that I couldn’t see who it was, only a black shape. My eyes adjusted to the light and slowly, Courtney’s mother came into view.

Uncertainty clawed at my chest. Her eyes were big and bright, but her hands curled and uncurled around a canvas bag. Jennie, who’d been holding the teddy bear and Courtney’s picture, hid her hands behind her back.

The middle-aged woman’s gaze swept over all of us, but finally, her stare landed on me. “Sarah? Sarah Perkins?”

It may have been a hallucination, but Travis inched closer. I took a deep breath. “Yes. You’re Courtney’s mom, aren’t you?”

She bit down on her lip and nodded. She peeked at Jennie and Travis who flanked me. “And you’re Shaw’s, Naturals.”

“What can we do for you?” Travis asked, his voice a sharp edge.

“Your help, I hope. My daughter’s missing, and this isn’t just a family issue, it’s a Wiccan issue. The girl from the other town was also—”

“We know,” I said. “She was a Natural.”

“So you see…it’s not just about my Courtney.”

Travis leaned against the side of the Jeep, still close enough to reach out and touch me. “I hope you’ve taken up her disappearance with your coven.”

“We’ve tried everything, but there isn’t a lot of power in the coven. Courtney was so happy when another Natural,” she looked at Jennie, “had joined. It gave her spells so much more power.”

“Yeah,” Jennie said, “her spells to help hurt my friends.”

“She didn’t mean to.”

“She didn’t mean to hurt my friends? Or?”

Her hands twisted around the strap of the canvas bag again. “She was also under a spell. She was strong that witch. Too strong for Courtney. I wish I’d noticed.” She hung her head, her chin touching her chest. “If I’d noticed sooner, I would’ve been able to do something to help.”

Jennie crossed her arms. “You expect us to believe that Courtney did all those things while she was under a spell? If she had no recollection of doing those things, why would she run away then?”

Courtney’s mother’s gaze snapped up. “She didn’t run away.”

“There’s no way you could know that,” Travis said.

I looked back at him, my mouth wide. I hadn’t realized both Jennie and Travis thought Courtney was in hiding. Was I the only one who believed she’d been kidnapped? Especially since her Mom looked so upset.

“We brought her up on the light side, not the dark. She was targeted for being a Natural.”

“With your logic, my sister would also be targeted.”

Mrs. James’s gaze locked on Jennie’s and her eyes narrowed. Jennie shrugged and Courtney’s mother returned her stare to Travis. “I know who you are. Your reputation precedes you. I want you to help me find Courtney.”

He pulled his leg up and placed it on the front bumper of the Jeep. “And what’s in it for me?”

“You’re trying to find her anyway. You don’t think I saw what you were doing in the park? You don’t think I
felt
what you were doing in the park? You’re trying to find her. Why don’t we work together? It’ll be easier that way. We’re getting blocked, too.”

Jennie sniffed. “And if you’re getting blocked, don’t you think Courtney’s blocking you? She doesn’t want to be found.”

Mrs. James’s fists clenched. “It’s not Courtney. It’s her captor.”

Travis chuckled. “Listen. We’d love your help, really, but I have a sneaking suspicion you won’t like what we do to her when we find her.”

Her eyes rounded and her face paled in the faint glow of the street light. “You wouldn’t. You can’t.”

A sly smile passed over Travis’s face. “I would. And oh, I so can. You already said you’ve heard of my coven and they’ll be here as soon as I call them.”

I looked back and forth between all three Naturals. I needed a SparkNotes version of what the hell was going on in this conversation.

“She didn’t do it on purpose.”

“That’s for us to find out, isn’t it? When we find her.”

Mrs. James searched her purse and pulled back. Travis held his hand out, and she stopped. Her eyes moved from side-to-side, but she stood frozen in place.

“Don’t even try it.”

Jennie laughed. Mirroring her brother, she was also looking at Mrs. James with a cocky smile.

“What the hell’s going on?” I asked.

“Get in the car,” Jennie said.

I hesitated, but Travis’s jaw ticked. “Now.”

I jumped in the back of the Jeep. Jennie got in after me. Travis approached Courtney’s mom and said something. He lowered his hand, reached in her bag, brought something out, and then continued around the Jeep. He hopped in and threw something at Jennie. She caught it in midair.

I peeked over Jennie’s shoulder at a weird talisman. Jennie tested the weight of it in her hand. “Not bad,” she said. “Could’ve done damage.”

“Please,” Travis said. “I was all over that from the beginning. I could feel the bad mojo emanating from her bag when she walked up to us.”

Travis took it back and threw it in the center console. I groaned and went to open the console back up when Travis stayed my hand. “And just what do you think you’re doing?”

“If you guys aren’t going to tell me what the hell happened, I’m going to figure it out for myself.”

“The old witch tried to hex us.”

“Hex? That doesn’t sound good.”

“No shit,” Jennie said. “It’s a good thing Trav and I were onto her.”

They smiled at each other and their earlier spat seemed forgotten. Nothing like fighting hexes and curses for bringing the family closer together. Freaks.

“Okay. That settles that, I guess, but are you going to tell me what we plan on doing to Courtney when we find her? Other than interrogating her about the binding spell, I mean, because that’s number one on the list.”

Jennie frowned at her brother and her brother shrugged. “You say it then,” she said. “Let your ass get into trouble.”

“The mouth on you,” he said. “It’s terrible.”

She stuck her tongue out as he backed the Jeep out of the parking space with ease. Mrs. James still stood frozen on the sidewalk and didn’t budge an inch. Jennie and Travis didn’t seem too fazed by this. I hoped she didn’t stay there forever though I didn’t know why I thought that. She had tried to hex us.

“I told you I live in Salem, right? Well, I belong to a coven there who tries to keep evil witches from going all power hungry. We crack down on negative spells and try to enforce what Wicca is all about.”

“So, you’re like, the witch police?”

Jennie busted out laughing. “That. Is. Awesome.”

Travis sneered at her and then locked gazes with me in the rearview mirror. “Sort of. But please don’t call us that because that sounds way less cool than what we actually do. I’m an Enforcer for the Order of the Akasha.”

“Order of the Akasha?”

“Fancy name for keeping the true spirit of Wicca and witches alive. We believe in harming none, and we also believe that when you do, there’s such a thing as the rule of three. Whatever evil you do comes back to you three times as worse.” He smiled. “That’s where we come in.”

“When we find Courtney…?”

His fingers curled around the steering wheel. “She’ll need to be dealt with.”

“But what if she really was under a spell?”

His expression softened. “What you need to realize is Wicca isn’t some sort of pure magick that you conjure up from out of nowhere. You have to have an inclination toward what you’re doing for a spell to work. You have to really believe it. If Courtney did crazy evil shit while she was under a spell, she must have been inclined toward that anyway.”

“But what if Mrs. Shipton is just a super strong evil witch bitch, like you guys said. She was powerful.”

Travis was already shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter. No witch is that powerful. People still have control of their faculties at the basest of levels. She must have had an evil streak in her.”

I sat back in the Jeep. What he’d said before about Drake passed through my head again. He must’ve had a predisposition to like Marlene if he binded so well with her. Travis said you can’t change somebody’s free will at the ground level. They had to have believed it somewhat to begin with. Could Drake have liked Marlene still? Even a little? I supposed that could’ve happened. They had dated. Sometimes feelings didn’t go away easily.