Reaper (3 page)

I didn’t feel better. For the first time since I’d lived here, I closed my blinds. There was absolutely nothing around the house except fields and cow pastures and since cars hardly drove along our road, I just didn’t see the need to draw the blinds. Or lock the turret door, for that matter.

Next to the fireplace, there was a door that led up to a turret three stories above the ground. The only way to it was through this room. I turned the lock, wishing that there was a deadbolt on this door too. I got back in bed and turned the TV on, flipping through channels until I found something funny. I desperately missed Hunter right now.

My connection with my Guardian had grown since I first learned who Hunter really was in October. Until then, I was under the impression he was a freakishly well behaved regular German Shepherd. We communicated telepathically, though not with full words or sentences. I couldn’t explain it to Ethan; he said it just didn’t make sense. Whatever I thought or felt, I could send to Hunter and vice versa. It was so much faster than talking. He could relay a whole message to me with just one flicker of an image through my brain.

If I felt fear, he did too. If there was a ghost, he was the first to know. He literally would always have my back; defend me until the very end. I knew, without a doubt, that if it hadn’t been for Hunter, Ethan and I wouldn’t be alive right now.

I couldn’t concentrate on the show about pawn shops. I couldn’t get the image of the Burning Man out of my head. I grabbed my phone and called my brother again. When he didn’t answer, I decided to call Laney.

“Hey Annie!” she said excitedly, answering after the first ring.

“Hi Laney! How are you?”

“Good. I just finished an English paper. How are you?”

I hesitated. I wanted to tell her about what happened. I trusted Laney with any and everything…but I knew she got scared easily. Finding out about ghosts, demons, and magic last fall had been hard on her. “I’m good too. Just bored. Ethan’s away on a hunt.”

“Really? Like far away?”

“Yeah. He’s in northern Pennsylvania.”

“I bet you miss him.”

“I do. Hunter too.”

“Wait, Hunter
and
Ethan are gone?”

“Yep,” I said, trying not to regret my decision to let my Guardian go. “Hunter was getting bored here and I feel better knowing he’s protecting Ethan. It’s hard not to worry about him.”

“I’m sure he’s fine. He knows what he’s doing,” she soothed.

“Yeah, still…”

“I understand.” There was a few seconds of silence before she said, “Oh, I read an article about how you don’t really know a person until you live with them. Have you found out anything surprising about Ethan yet?”

“Not really. Well, I have found out a few things I didn’t know before.”

“Like what?” she asked.

“He loves to cuddle. I usually fall asleep wrapped up in his arms.”

“Aw, that is so cute!”

“Yeah,” I said casually, uncomfortable talking about feelings and crap like that. “He leaves the door open when he goes to the bathroom too, which was gross but I’m used to it now. He’s a good cook; that surprised me. Oh, and he is terrible at recycling. I’m always picking stuff out of the garbage.”

Laney laughed. “What about you? Is there anything he found out or doesn’t like?”

“He thinks it’s weird I still sleep with a stuffed animal,” I admitted, eyeing my big pink unicorn. “And he gets kinda annoyed that I spend more time cleaning the barn than I do the house.”

She laughed. We talked until Laney had to go to bed. She told me she missed me once more and hung up. I set the phone down and felt lonely again. Lonely, and vulnerable.

Not wanting to be a sitting duck, I left the house early the next morning.
 
I wasn’t particularly low on horse feed, but the feed store was close and it was the first place I thought of going. The more I thought about the Burning Man, the less convinced I was that it had actually happened. I smiled hello to the clerk when I walked into the store, deciding to take my time looking at new brushes and horse treats.

I caught sight of Donna Campbell, a neighbor who lived on a farm nearby my house. The few social interactions I’d had with her were borderline awkward. I cast my eyes down and hurried past, but my presence didn’t go unnoticed.

“That’s Estelle Hartwell’s great niece,” Donna loudly whispered to the woman behind the counter. I understood the curiosity of anything that had to do with Aunt Estelle; it didn’t bother me. “She lives in that house. With her
boyfriend
. Just the two of them,” she scoffed.

That
did bother me.
 
It was none of her business, and it just exacerbated my already mixed feelings about the subject. I wanted to march up to stupid Donna Campbell and tell her Ethan moved in with me to teach me all about demons and magic, and to help keep me safe when the demons struck again.

But I didn’t.

Instead, I grabbed a bag of peppermint treats and shyly walked to the counter, muttering a quick hello to Donna. Still angry at being unfairly judged, I didn’t feel like going home and dealing with feeling paranoid. I ended up at Barnes and Noble, a place I could easily spend hours. I made a bee line for the New Age section.

Sure, most of the books were written by people who had no idea what real magic was, but there was still something comforting about this section. I subconsciously ran my hands over my messy French braid and debated on whether I should take it out and rake my fingers through it. Deciding against it, I rolled my eyes at my own petty thought. At least not knowing anyone in this town meant I had no one to worry about running into.

My eyes scanned the minimal selection of magical books. I pulled out a thick black book with a glossy cover. It was an encyclopedia of crystals, metals, and stones and their magical uses. I didn’t trust the magical uses in this book to be as accurate as the ones in my own books at home, but the colored pictures of each item would sure be helpful when it came to identifying what kind of rock or stone I was using.

I stuck the book under my arm and thumbed through another; this book was all about love spells. I chuckled to myself at how irrelevant and absolutely non-magical the spells were. Finding it amusing, I hung onto it and grabbed two more books to take with me to the café. After ordering a white chocolate mocha, I sat at a tall table in the corner and started reading through the love spell book.

Once the entertainment of the pathetically written spell book wore off, I traded it for a large text full of information about astrology. Of course, the first thing I did was check to see if Ethan and I were astrologically compatible. I flipped to the index and ran my finger down the page as I looked for my sign.

“What are you?” a female voice asked. My heart skipped a beat and I looked up, my face no doubt mirroring the horror I was feeling, to stare into the blue-gray eyes of a brunette woman who couldn’t be over thirty-five. Her long hair hung in a think braid that was cast over her shoulder and fell to her waist. She had on a forest green dress, a gaudy necklace with large tiger’s eye gems and polished wooden beads. Celtic crosses hung from her ears. “Your sign,” she laughed.
 

“Oh,” I mumbled. Blood instantly rushed to my cheeks. I blushed easily and I hated it. “Virgo, though I don’t have many Virgo traits. I’m more like my moon sign, Pisces.”

“Impressive,” she told me. “Not too many people even know about moon signs, let alone know what theirs is.” Her voice was velvety smooth and her smile was charming.

“Thanks,” I said with a shrug and hoped I wouldn’t blush again. “I like stuff like this.” I motioned to the book.

“I’m a Cancer,” she said. “And my name is Sage.”

“I’m Anora,” I introduced.

“Well, I’ll let you get back to reading, Anora. It’s always nice to meet someone who has an interest in the arts.” She smiled once more and stuck her hand into her oversized canvas bag. “Actually, I run a little New Age group. We’re having a get-together next week.” She extracted a flyer, smoothed it out and handed it to me. “You should come.”

“Thanks,” I said and smiled again. “I’ll, uh, I’ll see if I can stop by.”

“You should. It’s really informal. We mostly just talk and eat.”

“Ok, thanks,” I dumbly said again. Sage gracefully turned and got in line to order something to drink. I looked down at the flyer. Printed on gray paper, the whimsical black font clearly printed out the title of the event:
Coven Gathering
. Under that (and in a font much easier to read) was a description of the event. It merely stated that the Coven Gathering was a place to meet and mingle with fellow like-minded spirits and that all types of magical practices were welcome.

I’d bet a hundred bucks none of the witches at the Gathering had powers like I had. Still, I thought, it might actually be nice to be around ‘like-minded spirits’…or anyone at all. I folded up the flyer and stuck it in the crystal book.

I stayed at the book store for another hour and wasted the rest of the afternoon shopping, though I had nothing in mind to buy. Ending up with a new pair of shoes (ridiculously impractical stiletto heeled boots), I got in the car and drove home.

 
I parked my Prius in the garage, unlocked the door and stepped into the kitchen. The smell of natural gas hit me as soon as I walked through the door. Dropping my shopping bag and my purse, I rushed over to the oven, afraid I left a burner on after making breakfast.

Everything was off. I turned the knobs just to be sure they were
really
off, took a step back, and inhaled. I didn’t smell it anymore. Had I imagined it? Maybe I was used to the smell. I went back out into the garage, took a deep breath, and came back into the house. I shook my head; there wasn’t even a trace of the gas smell anymore.

“You’re going crazy,” I said to myself. I gathered up my stuff and went into my room. I let Romeo out, cleaned his cage, color coded my closest, and changed into breeches before exiting the house to walk down the gravel driveway to the barn.

A cold, damp fog hung in the early spring air, encasing me like a smothering wet blanket, clinging to my body with fury and chilling me to the bone. I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself.
 
A crunch of gravel made me whirl around, my breath clouding as I exhaled.
 
I scanned my eyes up and down the driveway and saw nothing. The urge to bolt into the house pulsed through my muscles. “No,” I said aloud to myself, and forced my legs to move slowly.

I shook my head, focused on the large, white barn and kept walking. Unbothered by the cold, Mystery and Neptune were grazing at the far end of the pasture. I cupped my hands around my mouth and yelled for Mystery. His head shot up and he began to trot in my direction. Once he was several yards away, Neptune, my lazy buckskin Quarter Horse, plotted after, him not wanting to be left alone.

I turned on the radio, spent a great deal of time brushing both horses, and then rode Mystery. The sun was setting by the time I locked up the barn for the night. I rushed inside, this time from cold and not fear, as I told myself two times, changed into pajamas, and heated up a plate of spaghetti.

I jumped when my phone rang. I shook my head and mentally told myself to pull it together before answering.

“Hey Harry,” I said to my brother.

“It’s your fault, you know,” he scoffed.

“Hello to you to,” I retorted. “And what is my fault?”

“Mom and Dad have been on my ass about
everything
since you left,” he complained. “And now I’m grounded. When was the last time I got grounded?”

I thought back. Even with all the stupid stuff Harrison had done, my parents never took notice. “Like a year ago?” I responded.

“A year and a half ago,” he corrected.

I laughed. “What did you do?”

“Just the usual. Mom caught me smoking.”

I wanted to say ‘good, it’s a stupid thing to do’, but I didn’t since Harry was in such a foul mood already. “How did she catch you?”

“Smelled the smoke on my clothes,” he spat.

“It was always pretty obvious,” I reminded him. “I’m surprised you never got caught before.”

“That’s just the thing,” he continued. “They never did when you were here. It’s like they cared more about you.”

I laughed again. “No way. You’re the golden child,” I said almost bitterly. “You can do no harm, remember? I’m the black sheep of the family.”