Secret Of The Rose (Legacy Of Magick Series, Book 2) (6 page)

Viviane frowned at the doll. “That nasty thing was in my backpack? I’ve never seen it before!”

“You know...” Kate spoke up, “That’s sort of like the creepy doll someone stuffed in my locker last week.”

Cypress frowned down at the doll. “Was that before or after you hurt your wrist?” she asked Kate.

“The day before,” Kate said. “I remember because it spooked me a little. It had on a cheer uniform like this one, and its hair was brown and cut in a style that was like mine.”

Cypress took a piece of newspaper out of the garage’s recycle bin and wrapped the doll up in it. She set the doll on the workbench. “Do you still have that doll?” she asked Kate sounding very calm.

“No. I threw it away in the garbage can at school.” Kate shuddered.

“Why don’t we all go into the kitchen?” Holly suggested. “I’ll get some bottled water for everyone.”

Viviane hopped up the step and swung through the potting room without further incident. I couldn’t help but focus on that dried floral swag- the herbal ward that hung above the door. It hadn’t escaped my notice that she had not been able to take the backpack
inside
the house.

Holly came in behind her friend. “The ward,” she whispered to me.

“I know,” I mouthed back as Viviane went past me on her crutches.

Cypress walked over to Holly. “Go keep the girls busy for a while. I want to stop any more bad mojo from affecting them.”

“Was that a Voodoo doll?” Holly asked Cypress as she pointed to where the doll lay wrapped in newspaper out in the garage.

“No, it’s more like a poppet. Leave it to me,” Cypress assured her.

Holly went to join the rest of the girls, and I said to Cypress. “I’d like to help if I can.”

Cypress nodded and went straight to the work sink in the potting room. “I should be able to lessen the negative effects the poppet is having on Viviane,” Cypress said as she washed her hands.

Even though I had not touched the doll, washing my hands seemed like a smart move, so I joined her at the sink. I reached up for the paper towels and tore a couple off. “What do you need?” I handed her a towel.

Cypress scanned the potting room. Green plants grew in abundance, a few orchids and African violets were blooming in pots, and dried herbs hung from the ceiling. She went over to the large apothecary chest with its neatly labeled drawers. She scanned the names written on the labels. “I don’t see bay leaves here. Do you have any in with your kitchen spices?” Cypress asked.

“I’ll go check.” I went directly into the kitchen and hit the spice rack.

Bless my aunt’s organized little heart.
She kept her kitchen spices in alphabetical order. Remembering that Aunt Gwen had used salt before to stop evil, I took a container of salt too. I stepped around the girls who were all gathered at the kitchen counter chatting away, and for good measure, plucked a pair of tongs out of a drawer. I left them to it and went into the potting room, closing the kitchen door gently behind me.

“Here you go.” I set the jar down on the butcher block work table. “I brought these because I don’t think we should touch that doll again. And I figured the salt couldn’t hurt.”

“Good thinking,” Cypress replied.

“What else do you need?”

Cypress seemed to consider her options. “Do you have any angelica?”

I knew that we did because I had helped harvest it from the gardens a couple weeks ago. It was hanging up and drying from a hook in the ceiling. I reached up- sometimes being tall comes in handy, and broke off a large round seed head and handed it to Cypress. Competently, she stripped the seeds from the flower head and brushed them into a neat pile on the work counter.

“This will hold things until our aunts can get together and take a look at this.” Cypress frowned at me. “It worries me that Viviane also found a doll right before she was hurt.”

“She said that it had a similar hair style. The doll that was in Viviane’s backpack had blonde hair in a ponytail— the same way she wears her hair.”

Cypress scooped up the angelica seeds. “Its right leg was missing, and Viv severely sprained her right ankle yesterday.”

“So, we can guess that Kate’s doll probably had a messed up arm.” I tried to think about it calmly, but it was hard to stay dispassionate. When Cypress tipped her head towards the door, I grabbed the salt and bay leaves, and we headed out to the garage.

Cypress stopped and took another section of newspaper from the recycle bin, setting the paper flat on the garage workbench. She carefully un-wrapped the poppet using the tongs. “Bay leaves break jinxes,” Cypress explained as she took four dried leaves and arranged them in a circle on the empty piece of newspaper. Using the tongs, she set the poppet in the center, then poured the dried angelica over the doll.

“Angelica is used to protect women and children, isn’t it?” I asked as she neatly re-wrapped the doll in newsprint.

“It is,” Cypress agreed, looking serious as she added a single bay leaf to the top of the wrapped poppet.

Proud of my actually remembering some of the magickal lessons, I held up the salt, and Cypress gave me the go ahead. I carefully poured a circle of salt around the wrapped up doll where it sat on the workbench.

As I finished the circle, Cypress held up her hands over the doll. “By blessed herbs and salt poured in a circle round; All evil and negativity will now be bound.” She turned to me, “As we will it...”

“So shall it be,” I chanted with her to help finish up the spell.

We left the garage and headed back into the potting room to wash up again before joining the gang in the kitchen. “So what do we do now?” I asked Cypress. “It would be a little awkward to tell the other girls to check their lockers and backpacks for dolls. I mean poppets.”

“I’m not sure,” Cypress said. “I’m going to send a text to Marie. Why don’t you contact your aunt?”

“I think I’ll make that phone call in my room where I don’t have to worry about being overheard.” I blew out a frustrated breath thinking of the ghost I’d seen a couple days ago and now the poppets. “So much for things being nice and normal.”

“Being normal is hugely overrated,” Cypress replied completely straight faced.

I tried not to laugh at that and went up to my room wondering how to fill in my aunt on the day’s events.

Hi Aunt Gwen, hope you’re not too busy at the shop, but somebody is making nasty poppets to take out the cheerleading squad. Oh, and when you have the time, could you fill me in on my father’s other child, and, by the way... did you know we have a ghost in the rose garden?

I rolled my eyes at my own inner monologue and picked up my phone to make the call.

CHAPTER FOUR

Well, I had learned something new: Never piss off a Witch. I had only heard my aunt raise her voice one time since I had moved to William’s Ford. That was the day Bran and I had a little magickal showdown in the turret room. Even when Ivy had been abducted, she had kept her composure— pretty much. I mean, obviously she was upset and frightened, but she never got angry.

Apparently, her tolerance for bullshit was at an all time low because my ears were still ringing from our phone conversation. And I hadn’t even brought up my discovery of a half brother or the ghost in the rose garden.

My aunt had closed the magick shop early. She was home and on a tear. She’d slammed the front door and, before I could even say hello, she said, “Show me.” Her voice low, and her tone very controlled, Gwen stood in the foyer practically vibrating with anger, which seemed to confirm for me that I had been correct not to bring up the other subjects. Not right now, anyway.

“I’m sorry that I had to call you away from the shop...” I began. I didn’t think she was angry at me, but when I caught her expression— my first instinct was to step back. “This way.” I said and led her out to the kitchen.

We gathered around the kitchen table, and Holly and Cypress were retelling how they had found the poppet.

“...and there it was,” Cypress said. “That ugly doll didn’t even come with a dream house or hot pink car— Just a whole lot of bad juju.”

Ivy chuckled at her friend’s statement, and I noticed Gwen didn’t find that particularly humorous. I sat with them waiting for the opportunity to share what I’d
seen
when I had used clairvoyance to look over the squad’s auras.

Come to think of it, I wasn’t sure if that was exactly ethical behavior or not. I sipped from a bottle of water, mulling it over. I was torn. On one hand, using The Sight was a bit of an unfair advantage, but on the other hand, it was a way to confirm there was, indeed, some type of dark magick at work.

I heard the front door open, and Marie Rousseau called out as she let herself in. As I twisted to look, Marie stalked into the kitchen wearing distressed jeans and a denim jacket. Her dark hair was knotted up in a casual bun. She went directly to her niece and dropped a kiss on the top of Cypress’ head. “How you doing, baby?”

“I worked the magick how you taught me, Aunt Marie. I think it should minimize the effects of the poppet,” Cypress said. Quickly, she explained what she and I had done with our counter spell.

“What I want to know...” Marie said. “Is why anyone would be petty enough to target the girls on the cheer squad?”

Petty was a good way to describe it, I realized, and spoke up. “It does seem a little juvenile. And besides that, what were they hoping to gain by injuring cheerleaders?” Everyone swung their gaze to me.

“Excellent point,” Gwen stated.

“I want to see this poppet,” Marie said.

“It’s in the garage,” Holly, Cypress and I answered together.

After the aunts left the room, Holly drummed her fingers on the tabletop. “We need to see that doll that Kate found in her locker.”

“That was a week ago,” Ivy pointed out. “Kate said that she’d thrown it away.”

“What if we used a locator spell?” Holly suggested.

Cypress seemed to consider that. “We could... but we’d need something personal of Kate’s to link the missing item to the spell.”

Holly reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded tissue. “I imagine her hair would work.” She unfolded the tissue and revealed a tangle of brown hair.

Cypress let loose a cackle, Ivy beamed at her twin, and I almost spit water on the table at Holly’s sly maneuver.
“Where did you get that?” I asked after I managed to swallow the water.

“I took her brush out of her backpack and removed her hair from it.” Holly shrugged. “I figured our resident Seer could use a little postcognition and look back to see where the doll ended up.

“Damn Blondie, that’s impressively sneaky... especially for you.” I smiled at her.

Holly set the tissue down. “This is
my
squad being attacked.
My
friends who are getting hurt. That makes it
my
responsibility to find out who is doing this, and to stop them.”

“
Our
responsibility,” Cypress corrected.

“Our responsibility,” Holly agreed, and squeezed Cypress’ hand.

“I assume you want to get started right away?” I asked. Standing up, I was met with three very determined faces. “Alright, let’s do it. Ivy, go tell your mom and Marie what we’re going to try.”

We decided to do the postcognition attempt/ locator spell in the twin’s room. The twin’s room was located in the back of the house, and it also boasted a turret. When I had first moved here, I had half expected a room that was divided down the center with pink ruffles and sparkles for Holly and black gothic opulence for Ivy.

“You know, this room still throws me off.” I said as I was struck again by the décor as I entered. The left was Holly’s side which had a romantic shabby-chic vibe. An old red and ivory patchwork quilt was spread over a white iron double bed. The bed was mounded with pillows in red and white toile pattern, and art prints of various goddesses hung on the ivory wall next to her bed.

“It
is
sort of a sweet and sassy Witch décor.” Cypress agreed as she went over and sat on Ivy’s vampire-like red and black, brocade bedspread. As art for her side of the room, Ivy had black and white nature photography that she had taken herself. Plus, a huge framed poster of the comic book character, Harley Quinn.

Ivy draped her camera strap over the dark stained wood of her bed knob. “It works for us,” Ivy said as she clicked on a crimson tasseled lamp. It cast a circle of light on a round skirted table that served as a nightstand between the beds.

I chose a spot on the area rug in front of the turret. Cypress came over and took a seat directly across from me. The twins gathered a few things and joined us, creating a circle.

“Let’s all sit cross-legged and scoot in closer so our knees touch,” Ivy suggested. As soon as my knees bumped into Holly and Ivy’s, I felt a current pass around the circle we had created.

“Wow,” Cypress breathed, her hazel eyes large. “I see what Marie was talking about. Y’all pack a punch when you link together.” She did a happy little butt wiggle. “This is going to be awesome!”

“Are we ready?” Ivy held up her hands, and we fell silent. “By the powers of earth, air, fire and water, Lord and lady bless your daughters,” she chanted.

“The circle is cast. Blessed be,” Holly added.

I had a moment to wonder at the much simpler circle casting than I had seen the coven perform a few weeks ago. Ivy set the photo of the cheer squad that she had printed in the center of the circle that we’d created. Next, Holly produced a clear quartz crystal point that she had wrapped several strands of Kate’s hair around.

“The hair is the link to Kate, and the crystal point works as an amplifier.” She handed the crystal to me. “Look at the picture of Kate and let your mind travel back to last week when she found the doll.”

I was careful to take the crystal in my receptive hand— the better to receive impressions. I tried not to feel nervous, nodded at my cousins, and thought that this was very similar to when I had scryed trying to find Ivy a few weeks ago.

Maybe it was that I had seen the past in a circle before. Or maybe I was more relaxed without the urgency I had felt when Ivy had been abducted. But as soon as I closed my fingers around the hair wrapped crystal, I started to see.