Catalyst (A Tethered Novel) Page 9

  “Okay, guess I’ll use the broom then,” I said.

  After cleaning up the mess in the kitchen the way Binks seemed to want me to, I got changed into my newest lavender bikini and met Vera at the bottom of the stairs. We spent the day at the beach, soaking up the sun and coating our skin in thick layers of sunblock. The day was gorgeous and exactly what I’d needed after all the craziness that had been introduced into my life lately.

  As nice as it was to hang out with Vera like I’d intended to during this break, I had to admit there was something off about her. She seemed incredibly antsy and unable to sit still. We’d walked up and down the beach a dozen times in just a few hours. Something was bothering her and I wished she’d just tell me already.

  “What is going on with you?” I asked finally, after we started back toward our little adopted piece of sand from another one of her walks she insisted that we go on.

  Vera sighed and tugged her long hair free from her hair tie. Combing it with her fingers, she twisted it up into a higher bun on top of her head. “I don’t know. I just have this feeling I can’t shake.”

  “What kind of feeling?”

  She sighed. “I don’t really know how to explain it… It’s almost like I need to leave here, like if I stay in this town any longer I’m going to burst into flames.”

  I laughed at her. “What? That’s crazy.”

  “You asked, so I told you. I don’t understand it myself, but I can’t help how I feel.” She frowned. We’d finally reached our beach towels, and Vera bent to scoop up hers. She shook out the sand and wadded it up to tuck beneath her arm. “I’m sorry, Add, but I really think I’m gonna call my mom and see if she’ll meet us halfway. I wanna go home.”

  My mouth fell open at her random confession. She wanted to go home? “You’re not serious, are you? What happened to the Vera who wanted to find a hot fisherman fling and have fun before she went off to college?”

  She picked up her bottle of sunblock and tossed it into the hot pink polka dot beach bag she’d bought especially for this trip. “I know, I know. I just—can’t explain it.” She shrugged a shoulder and started toward my house without another word.

  What the hell? Had I done something, said something maybe, that would have ticked her off? I couldn’t think of anything. Surely cleaning up one small mess of whatever the heck that stuff was wasn’t enough to make her want to leave so soon. I shook out my beach towel and crammed it into my bag, tossing my sunblock on top. I scooped up my bottle of water and started after her.

  Vera called her mom shortly after we got back from the beach. Two and a half hours later, we sat at the diner we’d found that was halfway for both of us, waiting on her mom to show up.

  The car ride had been awkward to say the least. I didn’t get what had her acting this way, but I wasn’t going to fight her on it. If she wanted to go home, then she could go home.

  “I’m so sorry I’m bailing on you after only a few days. I don’t know why I felt like I had to get out of there so soon. I just did.” She fumbled with a stray fringe of her jean skirt as she spoke. “I’m not even kidding you when I say that I felt like bugs were crawling under my skin and the only way to get them off was to go home. It was weird.”

  “Promise it wasn’t something I did?” I asked.

  “Psh, it wasn’t anything you did. I just felt like I couldn’t spend another second in that house or that town. I don’t know where the feeling came from or why… All I know is I had to get out of there.” She leaned her head back against the headrest and rubbed her forehead with her hand. “God, I sound crazy. I’m sorry. Worst case of homesickness ever.” She chuckled, trying to lighten the mood, I was sure. It didn’t help much.

  “No, it’s all right. As long as you’re not mad at me for something, then I don’t mind. I mean, I’m sad you’re not staying—we haven’t even gotten to have that much fun yet—but I get it. I think.” I didn’t really, but she seemed to be feeling bad enough about her decision to leave and I didn’t need to make it any worse.

  Her mom’s silver minivan pulled into the diner, and Vera perked up some. “There she is, guess I’d better go.”

  I got out and helped her gather her things from in the back. An ache began in my chest and made its way up my throat.

  “Well, this sucks. I wish you’d stay,” I said.

  Vera nodded. “I know, I can’t explain it, Add… I just wanna go home.” Her blue eyes glimmered with tears.

  After a tear-filled goodbye, I drove the two and a half hours back to my house in silence with my mind going in circles as I tried to figure out what had happened, what had made my best friend leave so soon. I pulled into the driveway and cut the engine. Glancing up at the darkened house, all I could think of was how ominous it appeared without any lights on.

  I headed inside and up the stairs, anxious to change into some PJs and veg out on the sofa with whatever I could find in the fridge and Binks. I’d made it to my bedroom door when a creaking noise at the end of the hall startled me—the door to the stairs that led to the attic had opened all on its own.

  My heart pounded in my throat as I slowly crept to the opened door. I slid my hand against the smooth wood and pulled it open farther. Glancing inside, I noticed the red door at the top of the stairs—the one that had been jammed before—was now opened.

  My heart raced as I continued to stare at the slightly ajar red door from where I stood at the bottom of the steps. Binks appeared by my side from out of nowhere to rub his head against my bare legs while he meowed, what I thought of as some sort of reassurance to me.

  “How did that door get opened? It was broken before… The knob was broken,” I said, distinctly remembering how hard Vera and I had tried to open it.

  Binks stopped rubbing against me and darted up the narrow staircase.

  “Binks, don’t go up there,” I called after him as he disappeared behind the door and into the room. “Of course you aren’t going to listen. Why would you?” I scoffed after him.

  There were scary movies with scenes like this in them—with the girl going into some creepy room and finding a monster of some kind or a serial killer lurking within. Either way, it never ended well.

  If I’d been smart, I would have let the stupid cat come back down on his own. But I wasn’t smart, and it wasn’t just about the cat. I was curious to see what was behind the only painted door in the entire house. The only door that had been locked. After learning what I had about my family over the last few days, I was sure it would be something of interest behind there.

  Before I realized it, my legs were moving and I was halfway up the narrow stairway.

  My hand gripped the edge of the red painted door and slowly pushed it opened farther. The room was dark with little to no light filtering in through a circular window. I fumbled along the wall at my left for a light switch. Flicking on the light—which was nothing besides an exposed bulb hung in the center of the room with a short pull chain attached—I stepped farther into the room.

  The air was thick and moldy smelling, like it had been sealed up for far too long.

  Binks meowed at me from atop a folded white blanket on a table near a pedestal of some sort in the center of the room. Exposed wooden beams, dusty hardwood floors, and bright purple walls made up the basics of the room. The floorboards creaked beneath my bare feet as I made my way farther inside. A thick scent of moldy herbs clung to the air the farther I went. Glancing around, I found the source of the smell—dried bunches of something hung from the lowest section of the roof. I walked over to them, my eyes trailing every inch of the room as I went.

  There were two walls of bookshelves—one filled with books with spines of every color imaginable and the other crammed with little glass jars, Ziploc bags clearly labeled, candles, and crystals galore.

  It was a real witch’s room.

  I reached out and touched the dried plants hanging from the ceiling. They crumbled upon contact, turning into a fine dust, and a brief scent of ros
emary fluttered to my nose.

  Pivoting to glace at the rest of the room, my attention was captured by a book sitting in the center of the room atop the pedestal. I brushed my hands together to get off the crushed rosemary and walked to where it stood. Strange symbols clustered into a diamond shape were carved into the brown, leather-bound book’s cover. I traced the first symbol with the tip of my finger. Red and orange flames sparked to life and danced within it. I pulled my finger back, startled, and the colorful flames disappeared, dying down to nothing but the dark color of the leather book once again.

  I touched the symbol beside it, which looked like droplets of water chasing each other in a circle, and they began to move beneath my fingertip, slowly circling as they pursued one another in a never-ending chase. They turned a brilliant blue while doing so, and I let out a slight gasp.

  “Wow…” I breathed, unable to contain my awe.

  I moved on to the next symbol—two little leaves attached together. The moment my finger brushed over them, they became a vibrant green and began shifting from side to side. The last symbol resembled a pinwheel, and it spun in an unfelt wind once I touched it.

  “It’s the four elements,” I said aloud. “Earth, Air, Fire, and Water.” My skin tingled as I said the words aloud, and I swore each of the symbols on the book gained more color and moved a little faster.

  I gripped the thick cover of the book and flipped to the first page. It was crinkled by age and was a dingy yellowed color. The back of the cover was lined with a light brown fabric that had tiny red and gold flowers. The opposite page was gorgeous. Intricately designed letters made up the words: Book of Shadows — The Eternal Elements.

  I’d heard of these before, from TV shows and books I’d read. They were books witches used to keep their spells and stuff in. The concept of my family having one fascinated me beyond words. I’d never heard of one being called The Eternal Elements before either. I ran my fingers along the edges of the book as I stared at the beautifully written words before me, feeling the magick that had awakened inside of me since coming to Soul Harbor lightly pulsate from the contact with the book’s delicate pages. I flipped the page, anxious to see what spells the book held within, but it wasn’t a spell that I saw. At least I didn’t think it was. It seemed more like a saying.

  An it harm none, do what thou wilt.

  My fingers traced across each word and I felt the impact of them seep through my fingertips, weaving their way into my soul, making an unspoken promise within me to obey. My eyes slid down the page to the next few sentences written in the same gorgeous handwriting.

  Bide ye the Wiccan laws ye must, in perfect love and perfect trust.

  Live and let live, fairly take and fairly give.

  Cast the circle thrice about, to keep the unwelcome spirits out.

  To bind the spell every time, let the spell be spake in rhyme.

  Soft of eye and light a touch, speak little and listen much.

  I stared at the book with its handwritten words scrolled across the aged page. Something about the poem, if that was what it was, seemed incredibly familiar somehow and resonated within me deeply. I shifted my fingers to the final words written and read them with an intense grasp of their meaning.

  Mind the Three-Fold Law you should, three times bad and three times good.

  “What is all of this?” I whispered aloud, my eyes never wavering from the page. Binks meowed as if to answer me, and I shifted my eyes to him. “I wish you could talk. You sure do seem to know a lot about this house and everything inside it. I bet you know a lot about whatever happened inside this room too, don’t you?”

  He looked up at me as I spoke to him. His bright greenish-yellow eyes stared into mine as though he understood every word passing from my lips with the clarity of a human. I returned his direct stare, half expecting him to actually answer me. When he didn’t, I turned my attention back to the book.

  Flipping the page, I read:

  CANDLE MAGICK

  The two words were written at the top of the page in the same handwriting as the previous pages. I scanned the page; it was a list of colors and their meanings. Some seemed pretty self-explanatory, something of common knowledge. Pink stood for love, affection, and friendship. Red was for passion, strength, and courage. But there were some that surprised me, mainly black. I’d always thought black would be associated with bad things—hexes and curses or types of negativity—but instead it was used as a color of protection, of banishing things, and absorbing negativity.

  I continued to flip through the book, marveling at the wealth of information captured within its crumpled-by-age pages—spells for everything possible, lists for which days to do what magick, lists of herbs and crystals and their magickal properties, elemental blocks and how to remove them. The book seemed to be never-ending. There was so much to read, so much to learn. It was fascinating and overwhelming at the same time.

  My cell phone rang from in my back pocket, startling both Binks and me nearly to death. Jumping, I jostled the podium the book sat on, causing it to rock and the book to slip off. It landed spine up at my feet across the hardwood floor. My heart hammered in my chest from the commotion as I reached for my phone. My stomach rolled when I saw who was calling—my mom. I didn’t want to talk to her right now, not in this room surrounded by all of this stuff. It seemed odd somehow. I left the book where it had fallen and darted out of the room and back down the stairs as I answered her call.

  “Hello?”

  “Honey, how are you? Is everything all right?” she asked frantically. Her hysterical tone made my heart race even faster.

  “Yeah. Why? What’s wrong?” I asked out of breath.

  “I just saw Clarice, Vera’s mother, in the grocery store. She said she had to meet you halfway this afternoon to pick up Vera, because she suddenly felt the need to cut her trip short and come home. Did you two get into a tiff?” The dinging of her keys being in the ignition while her driver’s side door was open echoed through my phone.

  This afternoon? Wasn’t it still afternoon? I started down the second set of stairs to the kitchen, needing to check the time.

  “No, we’re fine. I guess this place wasn’t as much fun for Vera. I don’t really know why she wanted to go home so suddenly. It was kind of strange actually,” I said as I rounded the corner into the kitchen.

  My jaw dropped when I glanced at the clock hung above the back door; it was 7:15 p.m. I’d dropped Vera off nearly five hours ago. That meant I’d been in the attic room for almost two and a half hours already.

  There was no way that was possible. I’d just gotten home.

  “Well, Clarice said Vera never gave her a reason either, but she hoped you two hadn’t had a falling out. I told her I didn’t know anything, because I don’t. You haven’t called me a whole lot since you’ve been there, sweetie. I’m trying to not appear pushy because I understand this is your vacation and you’re trying to figure out what you want to do with that house.” She paused, like the mention of the house had left a sour taste in her mouth. “But, I would appreciate it if you called me at least once a day, especially now that Vera isn’t there with you anymore. I don’t like the idea of you being alone, honey. I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll call you at least once every day. Promise. But, I’m not a little kid anymore, Mom, and…I think I’m going to be staying here for a while.” I closed my eyes and held my breath while I waited for her response.

  “Oh, okay. For how long?”

  I swallowed hard. “The summer at least.”

  “Well, if you’re sure that’s what you want to do,” she said simply, but I could hear the hurt laced into her words.

  It stung my heart.

  “It is. I really like it here. And besides, I just…I really need time to clear my head.”

  “Honey, I know the breakup between you and Ryan was hard, but it’s certainly no reason to leave town. That’s a little drastic, don’t you think?”

  There was the harsh, irritate
d tone I had been expecting. I closed my eyes and blew out a puff of air.

  “It’s not really about that. I mean maybe a little, but really it’s more about…my biological family. There’s a lot I’m learning about them, at least my grandmother and mother. I’m not ready to walk away from it all just yet. I’m sorry,” I insisted.

  God, I hated to say that to her, but it was the truth. The reason I was staying was because of them, not Ryan. Not anymore.

  “Oh,” that was all she said. It wasn’t what she’d said, but how she’d said it. There was so much emotion wrapped up in that one tiny word that it hit me square in the chest and made me hate myself. It made me feel guilty for being here and for wanting to stay. So incredibly guilty. “I understand, just please be sure you call me at least once a day. I’ve gotta get these groceries into the house. Love you, honey.”

  “Love you too.” She hung up then, leaving me feeling like the most worthless, selfish adopted child in the world.

  I let out a loud sigh and jogged back up the stairs that led to the second floor and then the narrow attic stairs. The book and Binks were right where I’d left them. I bent down and picked up the book, hoping none of the pages had been folded beneath its heavy weight. Incredibly, they hadn’t. My fingers smoothed along the page it had opened to. It grew warm to the touch, and I focused on the words written upon it as I sat the book back in its place.

  To Reveal What Has Been Hidden:

  (To banish a concealment)

  To reveal something that was hidden, like car keys? A boyfriend’s true intentions? That could come in handy someday. If it worked. I read further.

  To see clearly the ill effect that has taken place. To open your eyes to another’s cast upon you. To reveal.