Covet (19 page)

I had to do this, I reminded myself. Dylan and the Brat Twins and the whole Clann’s hatred toward me and anyone I called a friend had forced me to do whatever I could to protect my friends and myself. Even Nanna’s ghost, if it was hanging around Mom, seemed to want me to learn how to do magic.

If I used magic only for protection, how could the Clann or the vamp council complain about that?

Sighing, I grabbed the beginner spell book and went outside to sit in the cool dirt under the old tree at the center of the backyard. “Okay, Nanna. You wanted me to learn how to do this. How about a little help here?”

There had to be something in this book that I was missing. Tristan had told me once that descendants began training as soon as puberty hit, so I was definitely old enough. If a twelve-year-old could do basic magic, surely I could figure it out, too.

I flipped back to the very first lesson on grounding. I didn’t need the effects from grounding, but it might be necessary to do every single lesson in order or something. Skipping ahead certainly hadn’t worked so far.

Following the first lesson’s instructions, I closed my eyes, pressed my palms flat against the grass, and tried to imagine pushing my energy out through my hands.

My palms tickled a little. Because the magic was finally starting to work, or because of the grass against my skin?

I tried again, determined not to leave this yard until I figured it out.

Sharp tingling spread across my palms, spreading to my fingers and making me gasp.

The grass was now darker in the exact shape of two handprints right where my hands had rested.

“It’s working!” I squealed, then clapped a hand over my mouth. Nobody was outside in the only neighboring yard, but if I made too much noise and anyone was home, they might come out to investigate.

Okay, settle down, Sav,
I told myself.
You’ve got the grounding down. Now let’s do the next step.

A flip of the spell book’s page revealed the next lesson was to draw energy from the ground. So I just needed to reverse the process, right?

Closing my eyes, I pressed my hands to the ground again and tried to visualize the earth’s energy entering my hands.

Nothing. No tingling, no warmth.

I reread the lesson’s directions but didn’t see anything that I’d missed. Grumbling, my back and head aching probably from sitting hunched over on the ground so long, I lay back on the sun-baked grass and tried again.

Come on,
I thought, pressing my hands against the earth.
Give me some energy already!

My hands grew warmer and tingled this time, and I sighed with relief. Finally, it was working. But when I tried to sit up, I couldn’t move. It was like someone had parked a car on top of me.

Oh crap. What had I done?

I must have accidentally grounded off more energy instead of drawing it into me.

I opened my eyes in panic, opened my mouth to yell for help. But all that came out was a tiny squeak. And my phone was inside the house beyond my reach.

Okay, relax, Sav. You can do this
.
You figured out how to ground energy. Maybe too well. Now just chill out and do the opposite!

Less warmth in my hands this time, and my thoughts grew fuzzy.

The backyard seemed to grow dark. Was it time for the sun to set already?

I should feel cold, too, but I didn’t. I didn’t feel much of anything other than the need to sleep. Except a voice in the back of my mind said sleeping was a very bad idea. I should call someone.

I tried to roll toward the patio door. But I couldn’t move any part of my body. Even breathing felt like an effort.

The yard was so quiet. I could hear the wind as it wove through the backyard, making the plants rustle and whisper.

If I could just find a way to tap into those plants’ energy…

I should start watering everything. Nanna would have wanted that.

That was my last thought as even the tree branches overhead faded from view.

And suddenly I was free. I was floating above my body in the garden, held by only the thinnest of silver cords at my navel.

“Savannah, what on earth are you doing?” Nanna demanded as she walked through the garden toward me, her feet not quite touching the ground.

“Nanna! How—”

“Child, you’re in the in-between world. Which means you’ve gone and done something pretty dumb. They sent me to come and send you back where you belong.”

When I frowned in confusion, she added, “You’re dying, dear.”

CHAPTER 13

TRISTAN

Three-quarters of the way through afternoon practice, I felt like I’d been steamrolled, and it wasn’t from the defense or the hot July sun sizzling on my skin. It was like something had drained every bit of energy out of me till I could hardly breathe. Coach Parker pulled me off the field to rest on the bench, thinking I was overheated. But I knew it was something much more serious.

When I caught my breath again, I realized it wasn’t my own exhaustion I was sensing. It was Savannah’s.

Savannah was in trouble. I didn’t know how I knew, maybe it was that connection spell still in effect, but I knew. I could feel her out there somewhere, slipping away.

But I had no idea where she was or what was wrong with her or even how to reach her.

I was forced to wait half an hour till practice ended before I could get back to the field house and grab my phone in my locker to text her.

Sav, I know you don’t want to talk to me, but I felt like you were in trouble just now. Are you okay? At least let me know that much.

SAVANNAH

“Well, crap,” I muttered. Talk about a failed magic lesson. “I was trying to learn how to draw energy. But all I kept doing was grounding instead.”

“Yes, well, do it again and you’re going to end up
in
the ground,” Nanna said.

“I probably shouldn’t even be trying to do magic in the first place,” I grumbled. “If the Clann or the council find out, they’re going to go nuts.”

“Pfft.” She waved a hand with a scowl. “They’re just afraid you’ll give them a taste of their own medicine. Of course, you won’t have to worry about them at all if we don’t get you back into your body soon.”

Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. “It’s nicer being like this. Being here, with you.”

“I can’t stay here, hon. And neither can you.” Her voice was softer now, like a gentle hand coasting over my hair.

“Why not?” There was no pain here, no endless heartache or anger or loneliness or guilt. Just peace. I looked at her, rememorizing the lines in her cheeks that showed how often she used to smile and squint in the sun. “I miss you, Nanna.”

“I miss you, too, kiddo. But you have to go back. It’s not time for you to cross over. God’s got big plans for you yet.”

“For the earth’s biggest freak? Why?”

She made a hissing sound. “You are just as much His creation as every other living thing on earth. Who are you or me to ask why He chose any of us for anything? It is what it is. You’ve just got to learn to stop fighting everything.”

“What do I fight against? All I do is put up with endless crap!”

“You’re fighting what you are. Even when you start to give in and embrace your abilities, you still end up fighting them. Look at your body lying there in the dirt, dying. That’s you fighting the energy.”

“I was
trying
to let it in—”

“You don’t understand the give-and-receive nature of energy. Right now, what you’re doing is trying to reach out and grab the energy like it’s this solid thing you can pick up, like a rock or a leaf. But it doesn’t work that way.”

She sighed, and it sounded like the wind in the trees. “It never should have been called drawing. There’s no pulling to it. It should be called receiving, or accepting, because that’s all you’ve got to do. Chasing after it doesn’t make it come to you. You’ve got to step into the river and let it wash over and into you.”

She moved closer then reached out and took my hand, and I was stunned by how solid and real she felt. “Can’t you feel the energy already beneath your body, pulsing in the earth and grass and roots of all the plants around you?”

“How can I? My body doesn’t feel anything right now.”

“Hardheaded. Get back in your body. Then just relax and open up your senses. The world is your battery, hon. All you need to do is allow the energy to flow in.”

I didn’t see how I could get any more relaxed, seeing as how I was supposedly dying. Grumbling, I lay down in my body again, then gasped.

It was like resting on top of a wool blanket full of static electricity.

“I can feel it!” I said, and this time the words came out of my actual lips.

“Good! Now relax. Pretend you’re lying in a shallow stream, and let that current flow over your skin.”

My skin tingled on my hands, my forearms and my left ankle where my jeans had bunched up, allowing my bare skin to touch the ground.

“That’s it, dear.” Nanna’s voice was fading.

“Wait! What about the rest of it? Which book should I work on next?” I had so many questions to ask her. But most of all, I didn’t want her to leave.

“Your mother already told you. Most Clann spells just need willpower and focus. These books are just to give you ideas of what can be done with that focus and will.”

“But what about the bloodlust-dampening spell?”

“Ah, now that is old magic better left alone, dear. It requires too much sacrifice to make it work. It’s dangerous.”

I hesitated, but I had to know the truth. “Nanna, did you…sacrifice your life for it?”

“In a way, I did. And that’s why it’s no longer taught. But you don’t need it. The safer ways, the new ways, will give you almost everything you need.”

Except Tristan.

If I could learn the old ways, I could do so much more. I could perform the bloodlust-dampening spell to make it safe for me to be around descendants like my mom and Tristan. Maybe I could even turn off my vamp side completely.

To be able to kiss him again without stealing his energy… To be able to dance before an audience again without fear of revealing my vamp strength and speed…

“You have enough self control over the bloodlust on your own, Savannah.” Her voice was only a whisper now. “And all the sacrificial magic in the world still wouldn’t stop the energy flow if you kiss Tristan. I’m sorry, but even magic has its limits. It can’t change what you are, no matter how much you might wish it could.”

She sounded like Sam Coleman in the Circle when I wanted him to bring her back to life without a soul. Frustrated, I rose up on an elbow, determined to learn how she’d performed the bloodlust-dampening spell even if it killed me.

But I was alone again in the bright afternoon sunlight.

A breeze picked up a strand of my hair, and I could swear I felt Nanna’s hand brush it back.
I gave what I had to for you and your mother, and I have no regrets,
the wind whispered.
But nothing is worth sacrificing your life for. At least, not yet. You have so many great things left to do. So mind your grandma, stick with the safe magic, and go make me proud. I love you.

“I love you, too, Nanna,” I whispered, my throat so tight it was hard to swallow.

A tear slipped down my cheek. I didn’t wipe it away. It helped to make this moment feel more real, less like the dream my rational brain kept saying it had been.

I needed to believe seeing Nanna, talking with her again, had really happened. That my stressed-out, overtired mind hadn’t imagined that whole conversation on its own. That she really was somewhere out there, waiting to take me to the other side someday and watching over me in the meantime.

I flopped back on the ground, too tired to get up yet. Overhead the sun beamed at me through the mostly bare branches of the old pecan tree. Thin wisps of clouds stretched overhead like the thinnest froth over a perfect blue sky.

Could Nanna see that sky, those clouds, this yard with all her plants, from where she was now?

Closing my eyes, I relaxed and pretended a silver stream was washing over me. And again, that low level of electric current sent tingles racing over my skin everywhere it made contact with the dirt.

I smiled, a sense of peace stealing over me for the first time in too long to remember. I couldn’t have dreamed that conversation with Nanna. The proof was in my ability to finally draw energy.

When I felt less like the living dead, I rolled to my feet, gathered all the spell books back into their box, and put them in the corner of the closet in Nanna’s room. I hadn’t been able to enter her room before, when Mom and I had been packing up the house. The room had felt too much like Nanna’s private space, an area where I didn’t belong. Now, the guilt wasn’t quite so heavy in my chest, and it was simply an empty room.

Nanna said I didn’t need spell books to do the new magic. So I was going to trust her on that and leave the books here. Bringing them home or carting them around in my car was asking for trouble if anyone discovered them. But they should be reasonably safe here, especially if this house was destined to stay empty till it became mine.

It was a shame that I couldn’t pass the books on to my own child someday, not only as tools to learn from, but as part of my family’s heritage. Now that my vamp side was taking over, Dad had said I would probably become infertile like all the other female vamps. I would be the last in the Evans line.

I shook off the old heaviness that tried to drape itself over my shoulders. I couldn’t change my parents’ choices or what I was becoming. All I could do was try to make the best of what I’d been given. And with Nanna’s help, take back what the Clann had tried to steal from me…my heritage as an Evans witch.

My phone buzzed against the worn-out linoleum floor where I’d left it. I picked it up, checked my missed messages.

Tristan had texted me. His message confused then scared me. How could he possibly have felt me almost die? His connection spell had stopped working the moment his heart had nearly stopped beating after his wreck. Unless it had kicked back into effect when Emily fixed him?