Forever Charmed (The Halloween LaVeau Series, Book 1) (2 page)

It was early autumn, the days warm in the middle, but crisp around the edges. A breeze wafted into the room, carrying the scent of damp soil and burnt leaves. Drooping branches from the tall oak trees shaded the back lawn, and beyond that, the river lay a few hundred feet away. A raven took flight from the treetop, drifting across the sky in rhythm with the water below. The flap of its wings and caws floated across the air. I looked down, watching the river run steadily past. Beneath one of the oak trees sat a small family cemetery enclosed by a black wrought-iron fence.

The sun dipped toward the horizon, the last faint color of the day lingering in the sky. It would be dark soon, and I needed to sort through the old boxes and get back downstairs before my imagination about discovering my great-great-great-grandfather’s bones got the better of me. Instinctively, I looked around for the old trunk.

Three boxes formed a neat stack to my left and a couple of brown vintage suitcases set to the right. An old wingback chair with a bureau pushed up next to it took up space at the back of the room. I’d have to find someone to help carry them down. After popping open the suitcases, I sifted through their contents. One contained what I assumed was my great-aunt’s clothing, velvet and satin with lots of feathers. The other held hundreds of postcards from around the world, some blank and others from people I’d never heard of, addressed to her
with indecipherable personal greetings. The boxes were full of old books, dishes, and stuffed animals. She was eccentric like that.

I stacked everything up ready to take it downstairs and started to move toward the door when something stopped me. I wasn’t sure what that
something
was, but my feet froze to the spot. A strange force compelled me to look to my left. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted it. An old book, stashed behind a beam. My feet carried me to it, a peculiar power pulling me to the mysterious tome.

I plucked the heavy volume from its hidden location and blew the dust from the stained and weathered cover. Fear placed its icy arms around me, and cold shivered up my spine when I touched the leather binding. My heart rate increased. A panic attack, I thought. Inheriting the house was a big undertaking and the anxiety had caught up with
me, that was all. Goosebumps emerged on my arms.

As I held the book, a dark sensation, evil just beyond its edge, nagged at the boundaries of my thoughts. But I couldn’t release my grip. I opened the cover and a rich scent of leather stirred in the air around me. An unrecognizable foreign language covered the thick, yellowed pages, not French, definitely not Spanish. With each flipped page, my fingers tingled. Nothing about the book’s contents offered a clue as to what it was about, no owner’s name inside or even initials, but the symbol on the front was strangely familiar: a twisted knot circled by fancy scrolling. Had I seen it before in my mother’s Book of Shadows? If this was a spell book, it was unlike any I had seen before.

“Anyone home?” a familiar singsong voice called out.

I jumped three feet in the air, almost tossing the book across the room. I slammed it shut, as if I’d been caught reading someone’s diary.

“I’m in the attic. Come on up.” My voice wavered. I’d forgotten my best friend Annabelle Preston had agreed to stop by.

“There’s no way in hell I’m coming up there! It’s creepy. You come on down here.”

I rolled my eyes. It had been all I could do to convince Annabelle to come over in the first place. She thought for sure the house was haunted. Even so, I told her, ghosts wouldn’t hurt her. But being non-magical, she got a little on edge when around the supernatural and she wasn’t buying my reassurances.

“I’ll be right down,” I called back.

I tucked the book under my arm and made my way to the door. With my hand on the knob, I paused and looked back, sure that I’d heard footfalls behind me.

Now Annabelle’s paranoia was getting the better of me.

My best friend stood at the bottom of the stairs, peering up at me with wide, mascara-rimmed blue eyes.

“I don’t know how you can live in this place all by yourself. At least get another cat or ten, for heaven’s sake.” She looked around for my black cat, Pluto. He’d been scarce since the first day at
LaVeau Manor.

“Great, so then I can officially be the weird cat lady in the big old creepy house.” I moved down the first few steps.

“Okay, how about a dog?” she asked with hope in her eyes. Annabelle was obsessed with animals. She had two dogs, three cats, a hamster, and too many fish to count. I’d had to stop her from getting a monkey. When I’d told her about the diaper-changing she’d changed her mind right away.

I nodded.
“Fine. Maybe a dog, but I doubt Pluto will take too kindly to a new resident.”

“What are you doing up there all by yourself, anyway?” She gestured with a tilt of her head. “I’d be afraid I’d get trapped and never get out.”

“I wanted to know what was up there,” I said.

“A trunk full of bones, that’s what’s up there.” She rubbed her arms, warding off a shiver.

I made my way to the last step of the wide, winding staircase. “Sorry to foil the urban legend, but I found no trunk, no bones. Just a bunch of old crap.”

“This place is the epitome of creepiness. I could have sworn I saw a man standing on the front porch when I pulled into the driveway.” Annabelle looked over her shoulder toward the front door.

A bang echoed through the foyer and Annabelle screeched, wrapping her arms around my neck.

“Oh my God, we’re going to die!”

I peeled her arms from around my neck. “It was just the cat. Take a deep breath and calm down.”

She clutched her chest. “I guess I’m a little jumpy, huh?”

“A little,” I said, pinching my index finger and thumb together. “I can’t believe you saw a strange man at my front door and you’re just now telling me.” My voice raised a level.

“Well, upon closer inspection, I think it was just the shrubbery.” She tucked a blonde strand of her hair behind her ear.

“No one could accuse you of a lack of imagination. Remember when you watched
Pride and Prejudice
and then insisted we all had to speak with a British accent and have four o’clock tea every afternoon?”

“Never mind that,” she huffed. “You’re never going to let me forget about that, are you? I happen to think England is a beautiful place.”

I laughed. “I think it’s beautiful too, but you have to admit my accent sounded more like
Pirates of the Caribbean
than Princess Di. And it’s not like you ever let me forget about that time I wanted to join the circus.” 

“You’re not the traveling type. You freak out when you have to drive to New Haven.” She shook her head. “So you didn’t find a body in the attic?”

“No body. You’ve officially become paranoid.”

“You probably didn’t look hard enough.” Annabelle paused, peering up at the staircase with distrust.

We moved across the foyer, the sound of our footsteps echoing across the old wood floors.

“What’s that?” She pointed at the book tucked under my arm.

One thing I loved about Annabelle was that she had never judged me, unlike the other non-magical folk in Enchantment Pointe. We’d been best friends since the day we shared our finger paints in kindergarten, and she’d stuck by me through thick and thin—burned-down kitchens and all. She knew about my ancestors and my witchy background, but it never fazed her.

“Um, an old book.
I’m not sure what it is. I can’t read it. It’s written in a weird language.” I was still feeling strangely unsettled by it. After stepping through the open French doors leading into the library, I sat down in one of the red velvet-upholstered chairs opposite the large ornate fireplace. The room’s walls were covered with wood and floor-to-ceiling bookcases with my great-aunt’s old hardbacks lining an entire wall. A large crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling.

“Can I see it?” Annabelle asked.

I hesitated for a moment, then handed the book to her.

She flipped through a few pages and then shoved it back in my direction. Her abrupt movement surprised me. It was as if she thought she shouldn’t be looking at it. Maybe she sensed it had otherworldly qualities—she’d always been uncomfortable around magical objects.

Just as I opened my mouth to ask her why she seemed so freaked out, the sound of movement caught our attention—footsteps echoing through the walls. We remained seated in front of the fireplace, neither one of us moving an inch. The footfalls sounded as if they’d come from the bedroom directly above us. I shook off my fear: this was
my
home now, and if there was an intruder, I’d deal with it like the witch I was.

Jumping up, I tiptoed over to the staircase. Annabelle followed,
but stopped short at the library entrance, pressing her back against the wall. The hair on the back of my neck prickled. The footsteps sounded again, this time coming across the hall toward the landing. An undeniable presence emanated from the top of the stairs, but I saw nothing. I knew something was there… I felt it. A cold misty sensation sent chills down my arms.

Slowly, I placed my foot on the step in front of me and forced the other one to do the same. The stairs made a creaking noise with the movement. Annabelle rushed over, grabbing the back of my shirt so I almost tumbled backward. A ghost hunter she was not.

“You can’t go up there,” she whispered, still holding my shirt.

“Why not?”
I whispered back.

“Because it’s dangerous, that’s why. Can’t you do some kind of spell and get rid of the spirits?” Her voice wavered.

“Ghosts are supposed to be living with me here, Annabelle. It’s their
job
. Their whole purpose is to make spooky noises and make us think we’re losing our minds. They haunt creepy old manors. I can’t ask them to leave. Besides, witchcraft doesn’t work that way. Don’t you know that by now?”

I hoped she would never ask how witchcraft really worked, because there was no way in hell I could explain.
I
had no idea how it worked. If I had, I wouldn’t have been named Worst Witch of 2009 at the local fête.

“If I see bones coming down those stairs I will probably pee my pants,” she whispered, still holding my shirt.

I pulled the fabric from her grasp. “Let’s go up there and see what happened. Maybe it was just the wind.”

Okay, even I couldn’t say that with a straight face. There was no way the noise we’d heard was the wind.

Annabelle shook her head, stepping backwards toward the door. “I just remembered. I told my mother I’d take her shopping for yarn.”

I turned around to face her.
“Yarn?” I raised an eyebrow. “Since when does she know how to knit?”

“New hobby.
She’s quite good actually. You should see the lovely scarf she’s making.” She chuckled nervously.