Spellbound (8 page)

Quickly, before I had time to react, she jumped out of the car and ran into the house. At the front door, she paused and gazed at me and before she had fully closed the door I knew, for the first time in my life, I‘d fallen in love with this crazy, witchy, powerful girl. I didn’t know what it meant, or where it would lead, but I was surely in love with Serena Starr.

Chapter Nine

SERENA

My plan: go and lie down the second I got into the house.

My encounter with Natalie had left me strangely drained. Even though I normally didn’t need much sleep – usually I slept only a few hours a night anyway – I thought tonight I could sleep for hours and hours! But, like almost everything in my life lately, what I wanted and what I got were two different things. I supposed I should have been clued in by the strange rental car parked in the driveway, but my fatigue made me miss that sign completely.

Then, when I got inside, I should have noticed that only Tabitha stood in the living room by herself, practicing her tricks. She had several items from the shelves levitating and worked on keeping them all equally balanced in the air. Without being seen, I watched Tabitha wave her hands in the air and the levitating items alternately dipped and curved according to her non-‐-verbal instruction. She handled them pretty well, I thought.

“Hi Tabby,” I said, walking into the room. All at once, everything in the air crashed to the floor, candles, books, a jar of potpourri, and some pencils. I laughed at Tabitha.

“Holy cow, Serena!” Tabitha jumped and leaped around.

“You scared me half to death!”

“Obviously,” I drawled. “You need to concentrate harder.”

“Oh, you think so? First clue?” Tabitha bent and started picking up all the fallen items.

“Where’s Elizabeth?”

Tabitha straightened with a gleam in her eye. “Did you notice the car parked out front?” I nodded. “We have a visitor. It’s a lady I’ve never seen before and Elizabeth wouldn’t talk in front of me. She took her upstairs to her bedroom and they’ve been up there forever!” Tabitha had a great flair for the dramatic, but I had to agree with her here; this had its share of drama. Luckily, my bedroom shared a wall with Elizabeth’s and I was willing to bet that I’d be able to overhear something if I went to my room right now. I didn’t dare try and jump into Elizabeth’s head…she would skin me alive for that. Quickly, I headed upstairs; confident I’d hatched a brilliant plan. True to my life it wasn’t.

Just as I reached the top stair, my sister’s bedroom door opened (of course she would know my plans) and she beckoned to me.

“Serena, I’m glad you’re home. We’ve been waiting for you.

Come on in here.” Elizabeth had been poking her head out of her bedroom door. Now, as I reached it she opened it wider and ushered me into her room.

“Serena, I’d like to introduce you to someone. This is Eden, a friend of mine from Salem.” She stepped aside and motioned to the sitting area in the back corner of her bedroom where a tall willowy brunette sat in the lounge area, balancing a cup of tea on her knee.

I knew my manners. “Hello,” I said, and stepped forward, offering my hand. My sister’s guest placed her teacup on a small table and rose to meet me. Tall, with her hair in a loose, messy braid that hung down the right front of her almost to her waist, she took my hand in both of hers in an easy, motherly gesture. I noticed she could be our mother’s age, if our mother was alive.

“Hello Serena. It’s so nice to meet you. Your sister has shared so much about you, I feel as though I know you already.

And your sister Tabitha.” She had a smooth, gentle voice and even though I didn’t know this person, I found myself already liking her.

Her face broke into a warm smile and she said, “You have grown into such a beautiful girl.”

Immediately my head snapped back to Elizabeth. Grown into a beautiful girl? Did this person know me from before? From somewhere else? A million questions swam around in my head and spilled into Elizabeth’s, but one well-‐-delivered evil eye from her shut me right up. Clearly, now was not the time. I eyed her right back, but she just motioned for me to sit down. I took a chair opposite our guest and Elizabeth sat down at the other end of the sitting area.

“Serena,” she began, “Eden has known us since we were children. In fact, Eden was our mother’s best friend.” I shot a look at our guest, who didn’t look like anyone I remembered from my childhood.

“Lucinda, your mother, was my dear, best friend for many years. We were young twitches together and received our Council approval for witchhood at the same time. I thought we’d practice together our whole lives. Ah, but then your mother fell in love.”

Our guest, Eden, gazed heavenward and winced, as if remembering a painful, yet precious memory.

“She was so young and beautiful, so full of life and love, who could have blamed him.”
My father! We never talk about my
father!
I knew little of him. He and my mother had been taken from us when I was so young; I hardly remembered anything about them. I had some small memories, some so fleeting they seemed more like stop action movies I played in my head or possibly I even made them up. Tabitha wasn’t even born yet in most of my memories, so I had faded, blurry photos of a happy, smiling family, a loving mom and dad, and two pretty little girls everyone’s arms all wrapped around one another, hugging, laughing, and loving one another. So perfect it couldn’t be true. If this stranger from my past had memories of my parents, I wanted to see them. Desperate to get inside her head, I knew I better not. And something told me I wouldn’t even be able to. I just knew our guest was one powerful witch. But what else did she know about my life that I didn’t?

“It didn’t matter what anyone told her,” the stranger’s story filled in holes about my mother’s early life I had never heard about.

“Your mother knew true love. And nothing would stand in her way.” I gasped, wide-‐-eyed. So did Elizabeth. And we were both on the edge of our seats.

“What happened?” I asked, breathlessly, my fatigue all but forgotten.

“Well,” said Eden, “They did what all star-‐-crossed lovers do when no one approves of their love. They ran away. Heath,” she spoke directly to me, holding my gaze captive; I could hardly breathe. “So like your father. He knew about your mother’s powers and he knew the Council; he knew they would never allow them their happiness. And your mother knew it too. So they ran as far away as they could. They were already with child.” Her face glazed over with tenderness at my sister, who had tears in her eyes. She reached out and they joined hands, both thinking, I know, of the fear and the journey of the two doomed lovers who were my parents.

“They settled in a small town in England,” she closed her eyes and stopped speaking for a few seconds, then slowly opened them. “I forget where, and busied themselves with the business of raising a family. They had a sweet little girl, a precious blond,” she gestured toward me, “whom they named Serena, and completed their family with a scamp of a redhead…”

“Tabitha!” I burst out.

“Yes, Tabitha. They were so happy. So in love with each other, and with you girls. They thought nothing could invade that perfect joy. Lucinda should have realized that couldn’t have been further from the truth.” Eden’s face darkened. “My dears, your father, Heath, he could never be one of us. He could not have understood. There is a code of conduct among witches, girls. The Council hasn’t enforced it for centuries, not since the time of those embarrassing witch trials in Salem in the 1600’s, but there have been some grave and disturbing changes in the Council that have many of us concerned.” Eden got up from her seat and began to pace around the small sitting area, circling the couple chairs and table.

“Leadership has changed hands and they did not take kindly to the fact that a promising witch had left her coven for, well, for a mere mortal. They set it to a vote and unbelievably, incredibly,” Eden paused, swallowed, and when she spoke again, she almost whispered, “they decided.”

“Decided?” Elizabeth and I both asked in unison.

“What got decided?” I demanded.

Eden again circled in front of the small lounge couch. She appeared defeated at my question. She sat heavily, the weight of my inquiry visible on her shoulders.

“They decided that your mother should answer for her insolence and your father should be…be terminated.”

“NO!” I screamed and sobbed into my sister’s arms. She held me tightly even as I felt the tears falling from her own face.

“How could they do that?” I wailed into my sister’s chest. “They had children!”

“In discussions I’m told they felt if they handled it when you were younger it would be easier for you to overcome.”

“Easier!” My sister spat the word. “Younger! They weren’t younger! Serena still remembers the smell of his flannel shirts!

Tabitha still has the memory of waking up and hearing them laughing together in the morning, making breakfasts before any of us were awake! I still recall walking in on them kissing and looking into each other’s eyes! They were so happy! Overcome! I’d like to speak to the genius who came up with that piece of snap psychology!” I’d never seen my sister so mad before. She punctuated every word with a punch in the air with the arm not holding me in a death-‐-grip. Her eyes flashed.

Eden acted like my sister had actually hit her.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t come here to upset you girls. I came here only to warn you.”

“Great,” I muttered, disentangling myself from Elizabeth

“my second one today.”

“What do you mean?” asked Elizabeth, “Who else warned you about anything.”

I twisted to face my sister. “Well, I haven’t got a chance to tell you yet, because of this,” I gestured toward Eden, “but I got a nice little visit myself today, from Miss Congeniality, Nasty Natalie. Just two tons of fun in the Library. Warning me that the Council didn’t like my boyfriend.”

“Oh. I may be too late, “worried Eden. “And I may have misunderstood something.” She appeared thoughtful. “I thought I came here for you, Elizabeth. I understand now. It’s
you
I’m here to protect, Serena. It’s
your
bloodline. And now I have to explain myself further. It regards your mother.”

“I’m not sure I can take much more.” I protested.

“You must, Serena. I fear your life may depend on it. My darlings, there always have been good reason the Council had interest in your mother. We all knew it, from an early age. Your mother was special. Oh, we all had special talents. Some of us were clairvoyant, some of us were shape-‐-shifters, and some had perfected the powers of invisibility or astral projection or flying.

But your mother, Serena, she could do it all. She could cast spells, create potions; she had the power of flight, projection, invisibility.

She could read minds, shape-‐-shift, foresee the future, understand the past; she could do everything. A witch like that comes along so rarely as to be almost non-‐-existent.” Eden’s eyes shined with the memories of her best friends uncanny abilities. “Once the Council understood the magnitude of her abilities, they began to monitor her advancements. Her meeting and falling in love with Heath simply could not be part of their grand scheme. And when she ran away with him, they were furious. But she had so much power by then, she could block out any attempts they made to read her mind and find her or your family. And by then, her family became of great interest to them. More specifically, her daughters. For, my darlings, that is what they were the most interested in.” She paused and found my hands and took both of them in hers. “They wanted to know what she might pro-‐-create. If she could create another such as herself. And in an unguarded moment, when your wonderful mother thought she had finally found safety for her family, they found her. Then they discovered you and they knew that she could.

When only one parent is a witch, the gene is only passed to baby girls. And when they found your mother and father had produced daughters, they knew your mother had passed on the gene. They must have realized it was transferred the strongest and most prevalent in you Serena. They began monitoring you, I understand now it must have been you, and realized that you are just like she used to be, so powerful, so unstoppable.” She reached out and ran a hand from the top of my head, down the length of my hair. “You even favor her the most, child.” Now I had tears in my eyes.

Eden questioned Elizabeth. “So, would I be right in assuming this one is growing as powerful as her mother?” Slowly, my sister brought her head up and down in a silent yes.

“I’ve been teaching her myself, Eden, but truly, she is beyond what I can show her now. I’m ashamed to say I’ve taught her all I know.”

Eden just nodded. “And would I also be correct in assuming the boyfriend she spoke of…this appears serious?” Again Eden addressed my sister, not me. Crazy interested in the answer, I didn’t say anything.

Elizabeth sighed. “Serena is not a frivolous girl, Eden. Yes, I believe it is a serious match. And for what it’s worth, I also believe my sister has chosen well. I sense strength, a quiet dignity, in her choice. Logan is a boy of true character and integrity. And while he may be a boy now, he is not far off from being a man. I do approve of her choice.”

Eden stood. “So, our work will begin. Sisters from my coven will be arriving within the week to begin her training. She should remain in school and we will train after school and at night. If she needs to be out of school, a suitable excuse will be arranged. It is imperative that she be ready. We will rent a house and stay nearby.” She moved and spoke right to me. “Tell the boyfriend what you feel he needs to know. Trust no one else. The Council is aware of you now. Do not underestimate them.”

Eden faced my sister. “Elizabeth, thank you for your hospitality. We’ll be in touch.” She hugged my sister and then hugged me even more fiercely. “Will you take me to the door, dear?” she asked me, as we exited Elizabeth’s room.

We went downstairs, where we found Tabitha practicing her levitating again. This time, our arrival did not disturb her and she managed to swirl her floating objects around the room in a figure-‐-