Tethered 02 - Conjure (26 page)

“I know I probably should have called you first before I came, but I just needed to talk with you,” she said in a soft voice, which held similarities to Callie’s.

I licked my lips and gripped the frame of the door tighter. “Umm, okay. What do you need to talk with me about?”

My heart raced in my chest. I shouldn’t be standing here alone with the person who’d been paying a Hoodoo Conjurer to cast spells on me so I’d leave town.

“Can I come inside?” Susan held her head high. All traces of her nervousness had now disappeared.

I debatedfor a moment on whether I should tell her I had someplace to be or if I should make up some other excuse for why she couldn’t come in. Then, I remembered if she was planning on using any more Hoodoo on me it wouldn’t work anyway, so letting her in shouldn’t be a problem.

“Sure, I guess so,” I said, hoping I wasn’t making a monumental mistake.

Susan walked past me and into the foyer. She smelled of cookies and spicy teas. For a moment, I forgot all about the Hotfoot spells and such, letting her become who she was—my new friend’s mother—in my mind once more.

“I really need to discuss something with you. Can we sit?” she asked as she pointed to the living room.

I nodded and started for the couch, reminding myself for a second time she was not here as a friend, but as a person who was trying to get me to leave town. Binks glanced at me as I sat down on the couch beside him and I stroked his fur.

“I know there have been a lot of crazy things going on in your life lately,” Susan started. Her blue eyes found mine and a level of guilt clouded them. “I’m responsible for most of it.”

The desire to blurt out that I already knew flooded my mind, but I was able to stuff it back down before I gave the information up.

“What do you mean?” I asked instead, exhaling the breath I’d been holding, while silently thanking Vera again for teaching me her skills on keeping key information to yourself until you figured out what the other person knew first.

Susan clasped her hands together tightly in her lap. “I’m just going to come right out and say it… It was me putting all the Hoodoo spells on you. I have no idea how you were able to avoid them all, but I was trying to get you to leave town.”

I kept my gaze directed on her. “Why? Shouldn’t you be wanting me here so you don’t have to go to the Van Rooyens for spells anymore?”

“I was doing it for your mother.”

“My mother? What does she have to do with anything?” I asked, feigning bewilderment.

Susan shifted her eyes to the coffee table. “She wouldn’t have wanted you to be here. I don’t know how you inherited this house, but I can tell you, it wasn’t her doing. This house was supposed to go to the town to be preserved for historical reasons when your mother passed.”

My stomach fluttered. “How did I inherit the house then if she’d set it up to be given to the town?”

“Magick, I’m assuming,” Susan said, her eyes finally meeting mine.

My mind raced. I was sitting with someone who wanted me out of this town so badly she’d resorted to using Hoodoo spells to make it happen, talking with her about how someone else had used magick to bring me here. This whole situation was nothing short of a hot mess.

“And you’re here talking to me now because…?” I dragged the last word out.

“I’m going to let you know what I know, in the hopes that it will make you think twice about staying here—about becoming initiated with the others.”

“Because that’s something you don’t want?” I asked as I narrowed my eyes at her.

“Correct,” she said. “When your mother and I were younger, we decided to do a spell, one which allowed us to see into the future.”

I attempted to wipe my face clear of any emotion for fear she would figure out I already knew all of this and ask how.

“It was the first spell ever bought from the Van Rooyens. We’d heard in town there was a family who had just moved to Soul Harbor that was selling spells and charms for your every desire. It was something that interested us greatly because we were young and foolish, but also because we knew of magick and wanted to see if theirs was real.” Susan paused in what she was telling me and made sure to make direct eye contact with me before finishing her point. “You could safely say we were a bit power hungry. That’s the one thing you haven’t figured out yet about magick—the more you use it, the more you crave the superiority it makes you feel. Think of it as the most addictive drug ever created. It eats away your ability to feel content until you’re left with this unquenchable thirst of never being satisfied.”

I stared at her for a long moment before finally speaking. “Is that why my mother never wanted me to come to Soul Harbor? But couldn’t finding out about my elemental magick have happened anywhere, though? I mean, we aren’t the only Elementals in the world, right?”

Susan nodded. “This is true, you could find out about it anywhere. And that’s not the reason your mother didn’t want you here—Admer is.”

“Admer? Did they have a thing?” I asked, hoping my question seemed genuine.

Damn, Vera would be proud of me right now.

“They did.” She nodded. “But it’s also much more than that. Admer is your father.”

I had never been one for acting. In fact, I knew I sucked at it. Various people over the years had pointed it out to me several times. In this moment though, I thought I’d finally showed everyone they had me pegged wrong all along, because the face I made was one of authentic shock. At least I thought so. Susan was the one I was worried about, though.

“My father? I thought Callie said his name was Talan,” I said, keeping up the dumbfounded act.

“That’s what your mother wanted everyone to believe. She loved Talan. They were the golden couple made for each other. Admer was odd and quirky and not the type you left anyone for, yet there was something about him she liked. One night things went a bit too far between the two of them and one thing led to another.”

Awesome. I couldn’t help thinking at the moment I’d been given away at birth because my mother was a floozy who made a mistake one night, even though I already knew the real answer because of the visions I’d seen.

“It’s not how it sounds, though. I’m not wording this properly,” Susan said, obviously taking note of my demeanor. “Talan worshipped your mother. He was a non-Elemental who was infatuated with her and couldn’t care less about the fact she was an Elemental. To him that made her all the more special. With Admer though, it was something slightly different. There was an attraction there, but it was merely appearance and nothing more. It was the hormones of a teenager.”

Susan paused and I felt the need to speak, like she was waiting on me to at least say something. I pulled a throw pillow into my lap and began to toy nervously with the fringe along the edge of it.

“Lust, not love?” I said. It wasn’t really a question, just something to fill the void.

“Exactly,” she said. “A relationship between the two of them would never work out though because of their elements. Even knowing this didn’t keep what happened between the two of them from happening. After that, Admer became overbearing and smothering with your mother. That was part of their problem—Water smothers Fire. It puts it out. Angela broke things off completely with Admer, but then she found out she was pregnant with you. Admer knew the instant she told the group she was pregnant you were his child. He never let Angela forget that, but he never told Talan or the rest of us either.”

I compared everything Susan was telling me to what I already knew. Everything lined up perfectly. My mother had cheated and gotten pregnant. Then, she’d decided she didn’t want to be with my biological father. My stomach churned. My life was a Lifetime movie in the making.

“The night that Craig and Talan died, Admer had been with them. He claimed they’d all been drinking and then they drove him home. Shortly after, Craig crashed his car. It flipped over a steep bank and landed upside down. They were both pronounced dead at the scene of the accident.” She cleared her throat as though she were trying to force tears away. “Your mother didn’t believe they’d been drinking at all. She claimed it had been Admer. That he’d gone to the Van Rooyens for a spell and used it against Talan to get rid of him. I didn’t know what to think. There didn’t seem to be a motive, but then she told me she thought the motive was her. Admer knew she would never be with him as long as Talan was alive, and with him gone, he and she could raise you together like they should.”

“Oh my God,” I muttered.

There was no question in my mind that was what had happened. That was the reason my mother had left Soul Harbor without ever looking back. She wanted to get away from Admer.

“Then why did she give me up?” I asked.

An image of the second vision I’d witnessed with Theo flashed through my mind—the vision of me falling off the cliff.

“Your mother and I actually used that spell I mentioned twice. The second vision we saw was one of you as you are now.” Susan paused. Her hands trembled in her lap. “It was not a good vision. My only guess is that the reason she gave you up when she left was because it was the only way she could ensure you were never found by Admer and brought back here to have that horrible fate played out. She separated from you to save you.”

I didn’t speak. What do you say to something like that anyway?

“That’s why I’ve been trying to get you to leave, because I know your mother wouldn’t want you here. She wouldn’t want you considering becoming initiated and she wouldn’t want you around Admer.”

It didn’t matter what she wanted; because of the spell she’d created, I was stuck.

“I’m sure I’ve done a lot of things in my life she wouldn’t have wanted me to, but the moment she signed away her rights and gave me up for adoption, she forfeited her right to care,” I said. All of the walls inside of me suddenly came crashing down. The reality of how truly messed up my life was right now sunk in. “And my being here isn’t any of your concern either. You don’t get to choose whether I leave or stay, so stop putting spells on me and get out of my house.” I pointed to the door, ready to explode if she didn’t take the hint and leave right then.

“Fine.” Susan stood. “I’ll go. Now that you know the truth, I’ll even stop trying to get you to leave town. But you should figure out who was trying to get you here in the first place and for what reason.”

She walked out the front door then and closed it behind her without another word. I laid my head in my hands and let the tears that had been building up finally trickle free.

A whole new set of questions burned through my mind. Who had brought me here and for what reason? I felt like someone’s tiny pawn in a game I didn’t understand.

After nearly an hour of tears and a trip to the grocery store—solely for a container of mint chocolate chip ice cream and the latest romantic comedy from the Redbox—I was feeling slightly better. I’d changed into some sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt and plopped my overstressed butt on the couch to eat ice cream until my lips were blue or the container was empty, whichever came first, and hopefully laugh and gush enough while watching the movie to forget about my troubles.