Double-Sided Witch (Covencraft Book 3) (28 page)

Seth looked a little chagrined. “Can’t say anymore.”

“You haven’t said anything!” Jade exclaimed.

“Tough break, I know. What can I say? I don’t make the rules.”

Out of sheer curiosity, she asked, “Who enforces demon rules?”

Seth’s eyes went serious and settled on her. It was like a cold cloak had just been placed over her shoulders.

“You don’t want to know. Suffice to say, no one breaks the rules if they can help it. No one. Well, I must be off. Don’t worry, I’ve got my eye on you - I’ll be keeping up on all your bits and pieces. I’m cheering for you, Possum. Rah-rah and all that.” He raised a hand to his lips, kissing his fingers and then made a motion like he was going to blow it her way. Out of sheer self-preservation, she spat out the wind spell again, the pantry door slamming shut a second time.

Seth’s laughter rang in her ears long after he disappeared. 

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

Paris
came back with an overnight bag and Jade marveled at how men could pack so easily and so quickly. She didn’t consider herself high-maintenance by any means, but it did take her time to put together a suitcase or weekend bag - makeup, toiletries, clothes, electronics, chargers. But there Paris was with one very nice, not too large, leather satchel slung over his shoulder. He could probably live out of it for a week. He had a huge, ancient looking book tucked under one of his arms and Jade eyed it.

“Let me guess, light reading?”

His lips quirked. “No, it’s one of my mother’s grimoires. Not one of her demon ones,” he added before Jade could interrupt. “She has a spell in it for calm sleep and I thought I would cast it for you. She used to cast it for me when I was younger.”

“Did you used to have bad dreams?” Jade asked, following Paris up the stairs. He dropped his bag off in the spare room, keeping a smaller bag from inside it and the spell book with him, and paused in the hallway.

“Yes, but no more so than most children. Creatures under the bed and the like. May I?” he asked, indicating her bedroom.

Crap. Did she leave underwear out on the floor? “Just…” she said, holding up a finger for him to wait. She darted in, looked quickly around, kicked some clothing into the closet and closed the door to the main bath, where the mirror was still cracked and broken.

Jade opened up her bedroom door again. “Okay.” She made a sweeping gesture with her hand, letting him know it was okay for him to enter. Paris didn’t really look about, just took his little bag over to the bed and unpacked a few things from it, setting the book open to about three-quarters of the way through. It was clear the book was well-loved - the pages were dog-eared and worn, and as Paris flipped one or two, searching out the spell he wanted, the scent of sage, vanilla and mint wafted up. Paris put together a few ingredients on a scrap of fabric. Jade couldn’t be certain, but it looked like silk. It was a lovely dark grey, like slate. He was murmuring to himself as he worked and she resisted the urge to stand closer and either listen in or read over his shoulder. She knew if she asked him to teach her the spell, he would, and that kept her from hanging over him, eager to see what he was doing.

Paris tied the little satchel together, saying more words that Jade couldn’t make out and then he shook the little sack a bit at each of the four corners of her bed, before tucking it under her pillow.

“Was that Voudon?” she asked, reminded of the little sachet Paris had in his coat.

“Yes and no. It’s a charm bag, which likely has it’s roots in Voudon, but the actual making of this particular charm bag wasn’t Voudon in nature. Just an older spell my mother knew. You just have to keep it under your pillow. If it doesn’t work, we can try another combination.”

Jade nodded and then came to the awkward-inducing realization that she was standing in her bedroom with Paris. It shouldn’t have been suddenly weird, but it was and she froze, not wanting to look at the bed, but feeling like it was a magnet for her eyes.

A scratching sound caught her attention, breaking her immobility. “Bruce!” Jade hissed, bending over and sticking her face under the bed. “What has gotten into you, bud?”

Bruce glared at her once and then scratched at the hardwood again.

“Stop that! We discussed this!”

“What’s he doing?” asked Paris.

“I don’t know. Digging to China. He’s scratching at the floor. Bruce! Come on, bud.”

Bruce slunk out from under the bed, looking mulish.

“He may be more agitated than usual because you’re highly stressed,” Paris said.

Jade’s shoulders slumped. Now she felt like a jerk. “Sorry, Bruce. My bad,” she said, patting him on the head.

He tipped his neck back and showed her his scaly patch again. It was weeping a clear yellow-tinged fluid.

“Oh, buddy,” Jade said quietly, taking a tissue off her nightstand and patting gently at it. Bruce’s tongue came out and touched her once on the wrist while she carefully cleaned him up. “Do you want some more cream on it?” she asked and he shook himself like a dog, Elizabethan collar flapping wildly. “Is that a yes or a no?” she wondered aloud.

“Why don’t we go downstairs and I’ll flip through my mother’s grimoire and see if I can find a poultice for him?”

Jade nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

Bruce loped out the door and Paris followed him, leaving Jade to bring up the end of their little trio. Once downstairs, Paris starting flipping through his mother’s grimoire, while Jade decided to tackle unpacking some boxes. She only had a few books, having switched to an e-reader a while ago, but the books she did have, she liked to have out. She eyeballed the two boxes, trying to decide if she should keep to her former organizational set up (fiction by author and then non-fiction by subject) or if she should switch it up (fiction by genre, then author, and then non-fiction, still by author). The problem was always the genre-bending books.

Feeling eyes on her, Jade looked up and caught Paris watching her.

“Problem? You’ve shelved the same set of books three times.”

“I just… don’t know how I want them.” She could always throw caution to the wind and sort by color. She sighed. She was too tired to make this kind of decision. She would just shelve them for now and think about it later. Decision made, she placed her stacks of books on the shelves.

“Problem solved?” Paris asked.

“Meh. Problem deferred.”

Bruce sauntered over to the fireplace, kicked at the grate once and then gave Paris a pointed look.

“Message received, Master Bruce.” Paris lips curled in a smile as he spoke a few words and a fire sprung up in the fireplace. Bruce fell over onto his side and then worm-wiggled his belly closer.

“You’re going to burn yourself,” Jade called from over by her books.

“Pffffft.” Bruce smacked his lips and closed his eyes. 

Paris did end up finding a poultice that he thought would work for Bruce and they moved into the kitchen, hunting for the right ingredients. Happy that she had them all, Jade listened attentively as Paris showed her the routine of making a poultice. It was like witchcraft and cooking mashed together and while she found it interesting, it wasn’t as shiny and fun as demon magic.

Plus, it kind of stunk. Literally stunk.

Jade wrinkled her nose as she wrapped the poultice paste three times in cotton. It smelled moldy and wet - like moss or the forest gone bad which was weird because they hadn’t used a lot of outdoors stuff. Paris tried to explain that was the magic combining with the ingredients and once it was ready, it wouldn’t smell as foul.

Still, it stunk. Although if it helped Bruce, it would be worth it. It had to ’settle’ or ‘steep’ over night, going through a cycle of the moon. Jade gently placed it in her fridge and then set up a little barrier of tin foil around it.

“For the smell,” she said at Paris’ wry look.

After that, her exhaustion caught up with her. She was ready for bed by nine.

“Okay, I’m not much of a hostess. You know where all my stuff is. Food, coffee, I think I even have some of that tea you like. In the cupboard. Way in the back. I’m going to bed.”

Paris looked up from his laptop. The light of the screen highlighted his face and he looked tired. Not as tired as she felt, but he didn’t look like he normally did, or should. He’d kind of had a tired look on his face ever since the whole thing with Dex and Veronica.

“Thanks,” she said suddenly.

He frowned. “For what?”

“You know. Staying here. Helping out with my bag of crazy.” Jade gestured at her brain. “I’m sure you have more important things to do. Like running a Coven.”

“Your well-being is important to me. The Coven will be fine.” He smiled. “It practically runs itself.”

Jade laughed. “Yeah, that must be why you put in all those hours. Because it’s a well-oiled machine.” She wished she had something to do with her arms. She ended up crossing them over her chest. “Well, goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Jade. Sleep well.”

Jade really hoped she would.

#

Paris
watched Jade go upstairs, his eyes lingering on the staircase long after she’d disappeared and he’d heard the door to her bedroom close over. She probably didn’t shut it all the way in case Bruce wanted in later. He was still sacked out in front of the fireplace, belly soaking up the heat. He twitched when Jade went upstairs, his head moving slightly to watch, but he stayed firmly in place stretched out. When Paris finally looked away from the stairs to check back at Bruce, he was watching Paris. If a lizard could have a ‘knowing’ look, Bruce was wearing one.

“I’m worried.”

Bruce’s tongue flicked out, his ‘pffft’ sound familiar and comforting to Paris.

“Exactly.”

Paris wasn’t sure how he felt about his discussion with Jade earlier regarding Lily. Did he think that Lily was an alternate personality? A part of Jade’s psyche, making her a very disturbed young woman? Strangely, no. He got the feeling he perhaps should. He should be asking Dr. Gellar for a psychiatric referral right now. Instead, he’d asked the doctor to keep what happened in Jade’s medlab room, when Lily had shown up, out of her medical file. Dr. Gellar was going to review the scans from Jade’s brain at the time and see what she could determine medically, but she’d agreed to wait before she put it in Jade’s file.

There were several signs pointing to Jade’s issue being magical in nature. While Paris hadn’t necessarily made an ordered list in his mind, he did have some crucial points.

‘Lily,’ the other person Jade always referred to, had magic. While Paris would expect if a witch had a personality disorder that all personalities might have magic, Lily’s magic did not feel like Jade’s magic. A witch’s magic was very holistic and homogenous. Paris had never known of it to be ‘split’ or ‘divided’ into separate and distinct components. The only variation he’d ever known of had been with respect to demon magic. Jade’s demon magic was quite like her ‘regular’ or Coven magic, but Paris had read of cases where witches practicing demon magic had their power take on a taint or a sort of tarnishing. It was the only time he recalled from his magical studies that a witch’s power could be altered.

Jade had also never mentioned any other distinct or separate individuals. Paris’ understanding of dissociative identity was rudimentary at best, but he thought he’d read somewhere that a ‘split’ or alternate personality, where there was only the true personality and one other, was quite rare. He’d have to consult a specialist to be certain, as he doubted his rigorous reading of the internet’s Wikipedia page made him an expert. However, Jade said that she and Lily shared memories and knew all about each other. Paris thought that secrecy and separation were key components of the disorder - one personality (or several) knowing parts of the abuse suffered, but not sharing with one another.

Jade never appeared to lose time and while he didn’t always agree with how she approached things, he wouldn’t call her unstable or erratic. She was quite methodical and rational when it came to her life and her magic.

Then there was the third player in Jade’s dreams - the Sparrow Lady. Paris supposed she could be a third personality, but the way Jade spoke of her was very different from how she spoke of Lily. Jade spoke of Lily with fondness, regret or sometimes wistfulness. Jade spoke of the Sparrow Lady like it was the monster under the bed. Hushed tones, quiet words.

The sparrow had quite a few meanings, mystically and magically. It could mean joy, protection or creativity. Sometimes it was used as a symbol of small things being important. Sparrows could be seen as either good or bad luck - harbingers of death, soul catchers or symbols of love. He sent a quick email to Callie, asking her to research sparrows in their Coven library, but as he searched through the internet, his stomach sat uneasy. He found himself drawn to the darker stories containing sparrows - sparrows that pecked at animals and destroyed lives, sparrows that were omens of bad things to come, sparrows catching the souls of the dead to carry them to the afterworld.

Paris’ eyelids were heavy. It had been a long day and he could only imagine how tired Jade must have felt if he was this exhausted himself. Bruce stretched on the ground in front of Paris, making little grunting and sighing noises as he did. There were a few more articles Paris wanted to read, but he found the words on the screen starting to swim in front of him. He sighed, thinking he would close his eyes for a few minutes, catch a catnap, and then send off a few more Coven emails before heading up to bed for the night.

As he stretched out on the sofa, something made him pause. He shouldn’t be so tired. It had been a long day, but he’d slept the night before. Perhaps not all the way through the night, but he wasn’t so old that a single night of poor sleep should wipe him out the next day. The faint scent of licorice drifted across his senses and he felt his heart beat twice hard in succession. He wasn’t just tired. This was magic. This was witchcraft. Someone was making him fall asleep. He knew spells that would keep him awake, but he could feel his brain slowing down, his consciousness being dragged to sleep, his magic slipping through his fingers. His eyes closed and he felt the fabric of the sofa under his cheek. He was so heavy. He tried to move but couldn’t make his limbs respond. He could feel himself falling further away from consciousness, tipping over the edge into sleep. He thought he felt something brush across his forehead - light and careful, and then he heard the quietest hint of words, like they were carried on light and shadow.