Casting Spells (32 page)

Isadora said something but I couldn’t make sense of her words. I was too busy trying not to betray the fact that I was watching as Luke pulled himself up then grabbed the hilt of the flaming sword with both hands and yanked it from the wall.

I felt powerless as he slowly moved closer to Isadora, who was hovering a few feet above the ground. No second thoughts. No doubts. He would do what needed to be done even though he had seen things tonight that would send most mortals running.

Isadora stopped speaking and I could feel the heat of her gaze intensify. I literally stopped breathing as Luke moved behind her, raised the sword high overhead, then made to plunge it into her back.

I don’t know if it was something I did or if Isadora’s Fae senses alerted her, but she spun around so quickly that she vanished from sight for an instant then reappeared as a lightning bolt shot from her hand straight toward Luke.

The scream tore from my throat like jagged pieces of glass as the bolt slammed into the center of his chest and sent him through the shattered front window and into the night.

He was only mortal. He had withstood multiple onslaughts, but this time Isadora had achieved her goal. He was gone. I had never experienced pain like this before. It burrowed deep into my bones and worked its way outward, devouring everything within reach.

If my magick had been stronger, if
I
had been stronger, this never would have happened. But I hesitated and this was the result.

Luke deserved better. My parents and Gunnar and Suzanne deserved better.

I had no death bolts at my command, no flaming swords. All I had was the combined power of generations of Hobbs women.

I heard the voices of Aerynn and Maeve, Bronwyn and Guinevere, and all the others who had come before me. Their strength and wisdom were mine for the taking.

The voices grew stronger inside me.

I was a descendant of Aerynn and this was my time.

“Banish!” I cried out as I lunged for Isadora. “Banish!”

I scaled the air as if it were a flight of steps and grabbed her by the shoulders.

“Banish!”

I could feel the power surging through my body, the strength flowing into my muscles and bones. I lifted Isadora over my head and laughed out loud as the word
Banish
literally danced in the air before me, crisp and shiny black as patent leather. It widened and elongated and wrapped itself around a stunned Isadora, and then as the last letter fell into place, I summoned up all the magick at my command and hurled her through the missing roof, over the treetops, through the clouds, and into the void.

It was done.

I watched in silence as my shop reassembled itself around me. The roof slid back into place. Windows pieced themselves together. Bookcases righted themselves. The crazed twister began a counterclockwise rotation that sent brightly colored skeins of Noro and Elsebeth Lavold and Araucania flying back to their proper places. Penny was sleeping soundly in the overflowing basket of roving as if nothing had happened.

I stumbled out of the shop and stood on the sidewalk, gulping in the clean, cold air. I felt empty. The town had been saved but the cost had been high. My best friend had sacrificed himself so I could be with the man I loved, and in a terrible twist of fate, the man I loved gave his life so I could live.

Hobbs women loved only once. We were given one chance to be happy, one tiny moment in time when our hearts were open to the future.

And now mine was over.

I caught the scent of woodsmoke in the air, the faint tang of pine. The purple mist that had blanketed the town was gone. Sugar Maple was back to picture-postcard perfection, safe and snug beneath Aerynn’s protective spell. In a few weeks it would be as if none of this had happened. The town would go on the way it always had, happily flying beneath the radar.

I would have given everything I had to be able to forget the past week. To see Gunnar one more time. To erase the memory of Luke from my mind and the pain of loss from my heart.

In a thousand lifetimes I wouldn’t have enough magick to do that.

I was about to head for home when I heard my name. At first I thought it was my imagination, but the sound grew closer, the voice more insistent.

“Chloe.”

It was Luke’s voice. I closed my eyes and gulped in more fresh air to clear my head. My imagination was running wild.

“Turn around, Chloe.”

I felt a hand on my arm, a warm human hand, and I spun around.

He looked like he had been to hell and back, but he was all in one piece. Tall. Strong. Alive.

Relief did to me what fear couldn’t: I felt my knees go out from under me, and it was Luke’s arms that kept me from falling.

“You’re here,” I whispered. “You’re still here.” If this was all I ever knew of happiness, it would be enough.

“I was afraid I’d lost you,” he said. “When she—”

“I thought you were gone. That bolt went straight into your chest.”

“I had a little help.”

“You were wearing a vest?” I didn’t mean to sound skeptical, but I doubted there were too many bulletproof vests out there that also protected against magick bolts of lightning.

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small square book. “This saved my life.”

“A schoolkid’s marble notebook saved your life?”

“I know,” he said. “Sounds nuts, but after the things I saw tonight, I’d say anything’s possible.”

A funny tingling sensation started working its way up my spine. “Do you always carry a kid’s notebook around?”

“I found it in the cat’s basket when I fell. All that talk about a book of spells, I figured it might be important.”

He handed it to me and I gasped as the cheap composition book suddenly morphed into a huge dark green leatherbound volume the size of an unabridged library dictionary.

But not even the Book of Spells was as important as the fact that after everything that happened, we were there together. I placed it on the ground at my feet and met his eyes. “It saved your life. That makes it extremely important.”

“I have questions,” he said, drawing me into his arms.

I slid my hands inside his jacket. “I figured that.”

“But they can wait.”

I looked up at him and smiled. “I figured that too.”

Our eyes met, and for the first time in my life I let down my guard. I let him see me the way I really was, not the way I wished I could be. Tall, blond, skinny, big feet, small boobs, part human, part magick, and head over heels in love.

And the amazing thing was he loved me too.

It was the last thing he said before he kissed me and the world disappeared.

But this time in a good way.

Did you ever wonder why things happen the way they do?

I finally had the answer.

It was so we could have moments like this.

EPILOGUE

CHLOE
SUGAR MAPLE—FIVE DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS

 

 

Gunnar’s death cast a shadow of deep sadness across the town that neither Dane’s death nor Isadora’s banishment could match.

I spent a lot of time with the Book of Spells those first few days, reinforcing the protective charm and searching for a way to reverse Gunnar’s fate even though I knew it was a lost cause.

If any volume contained such a secret, this would be the one. The Book was a living, breathing organism that put pop-ups to shame. The word
lavender
became a scent I could breathe in. Music from the pages sounded throughout my shop. I felt the ocean lapping against my ankles, the wind in my face, the velvety softness of a baby’s cheek. But not even the Book could undo what was already written.

The best I could do was to hold Gunnar’s memory in my heart and hope that somehow, somewhere, he knew how much I loved him.

Gunnar had made it possible for Luke and me to have the chance to build a future together, but unfortunately he forgot to tell us how.

I was putting the finishing touches on the better-late-than-never Sticks & Strings Christmas tree when Luke appeared in the doorway.

“Don’t say it,” I whispered. “If you don’t say it, I don’t have to believe it.”

He said it anyway. “I don’t want to leave, but I can’t ...”

He didn’t have to finish the sentence. I knew exactly what he was going to say. I even understood. We were everything he wasn’t. To him, our magick looked like unleashed chaos, our freedom and individuality like a recipe for disaster.

He was a cop. He lived by the rule of law. His world was imperfect but it made sense. It had logic and form and predictability.

So did Sugar Maple, but first you had to be willing to push past the selkies and trolls and shapeshifters to find it. Asking him to turn his back on the warm comfort of being human in order to throw in his lot with us was too much to expect of anyone, although for a moment I had almost convinced myself that he might.

And let’s face it: I was a descendant of Aerynn, and unhappily-ever-after endings came with the magickal powers.

I tried to force a laugh. “Just don’t say, ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’ Anything but that.”

“Okay,” he said, with a smile as phony as my laughter. “I won’t.”

Our eyes locked over a small mountain of kettle-dyed merino I’d been meaning to wind. The thought that I would never see him again made me want to grab the Book of Spells and call up every trick used by every sorcerer who had ever walked the earth and make him mine forever.

But I couldn’t do it. I loved him enough to let him go.

At least that was what I kept telling myself.

“You’d better get going,” I said over a giant-sized lump in my throat. “There’s a blizzard on its way down from Canada.”

I wanted him to tell me that he didn’t care about blizzards, that he didn’t care about anything but staying with me forever, but he didn’t and I had to remind myself that this was the real world of mortal men and women, who didn’t have forever to get it right.

He nodded and I could see the emotions breaking through his steely resolve like small seismic events beneath the surface.

Let him go,
I told myself.
If you love him, you’ll let him go.

I knew how it felt to be deeply lonely in a world that wasn’t yours, and I wouldn’t wish that on him.

“This doesn’t have to be good-bye,” he said. “I’ll drive back to visit or maybe you can come down to Boston. We’ll figure this out.”

I didn’t say anything. I was reasonably sure my expression didn’t change but he knew just the same. You know that flat, dead-eyed stare cops acquired with the badge? That was how he looked at me. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“You know about the protective charm.”

He nodded.

I took a deep breath. “The town wanted me to take it a step further.”

“What does that mean?”

“They wanted me to cast a spell on you.” I took another deep breath, but that one didn’t help any more than the first. “To make you forget.”

His eyes never left mine. “So I would forget what happened that night? I gave the town my word and I’ll keep it. The town’s secrets are safe.”

“Not just that night,” I said. “To make you forget everything.”

For a second he looked like he was going to laugh at the absurdity of it, but then he caught himself. This was, after all, Sugar Maple. “Gunnar? Isadora? Midge and her vampire family?”

I shook my head. “Just be some nice eccentrics you bumped into along the way.”

“What about you?” I don’t know if it was my imagination, but for a second I thought his voice broke. “I’ll remember you.”

“Yes, you’ll remember me,” I said, my own voice breaking in response, “but I’ll be the knit shop owner next door.”

“Nothing more?”

I shook my head. “Nothing more.”

“Nothing could make me forget how I feel about you.”

“This would have,” I said, “but I couldn’t do it.”

Whatever happened between us, I wanted it to be real.

Who knew Samantha and Darrin had gotten it right after all?

I couldn’t help it. I started to cry. He tried to pull me into his arms, but I kept my distance. “This is hard enough,” I said. “If you hold me, I’ll never be able to say good-bye.”

“You could come with me,” he said one last time.

I shook my head. We both knew my life was here in Sugar Maple and always would be.

There was nothing left to do but say good-bye.

 

ONE HOUR LATER

 

“I’m fine,” I told Lynette and Janice for what seemed like the hundredth time. “We said good-bye. He left. It’s over.”

“You don’t look fine,” Janice observed. “You look like crap.”

“It’s been a rough couple of weeks,” I said dryly. “A girl gets tired battling the forces of evil.”