The Hidden Grimoire by Karla Brandenburg (pride and prejudice read TXT) 📕

“Are you right-handed?” she asked.

“Yes. Why?”

She gave me the black stone. “Hold this.” The jar she’d been holding contained flowers that resembled the verbena I grew in my workshop. She scattered them around the base of the black candle she’d used to create positive energy. “Repeat after me. Release the negative energy from the unhappy person in my life.”

I did as she said.

“Close your eyes and envision the negative energy being drawn into the stone. When peace comes to you, bury the stone in the sea salt.”

Except I wasn’t sure who the unhappy person was. Sharon?

“I can’t be sure, nor does it matter who it is,” Hannah said, reading my thoughts. “Take the negative energy away.”

I closed my eyes, focusing on the energy more than where it came from. My hand tingled from the transference until the crystal vibrated.

“Yes,” Hannah said. “Now bury it in the salt.”

As I covered the crystal, I looked to Hannah. She made a gesture pinching two fingers which I recognized as “a little bit,” then widened the fingers to form an “L.”

“Copy the gesture,” she said. “Close your eyes and visualize the white light surrounding you, protecting you from negative energy. Associate the gesture with what you feel, what you see, to hold the image of the light.”

I pinched my fingers the way she had, then widened them into an L. A sense of peace settled over me.

Hannah spoke in a whisper. “Good. That’s it. If you sense negative energy coming toward you, make the gesture. You will return to this moment, this sense of well-being.”

“What about Georgia?”

“Have you woven a protection spell for her?”

“Yes.”

“Then for now, you need to protect yourself. As long as you are safe, she will be, too.” Hannah made the hand gestures once more, from “little bit” to “L,” and I mimicked it. Immediately, the positive white light surrounded me.

She patted my arm. “Good. Be aware. Pay attention. All will be well with your little cousin as long as you are there to guide her away from the negative energy. I suspect you’re up against something you’ve not encountered before. Stay in contact with Georgia, either through dreams or these astral projections. In the meantime, guard yourself.”

As if nearly getting shot or set on fire wasn’t bad enough? Now I had something more to fear.

Hannah straightened. “A spirit walker?”

I shook my head, unaware I’d telegraphed so much of my thoughts.

“There are worse things to fear from a witch than death. Just sayin’.” She tilted her head as she assessed me once more. “You look hungry. You really should have stopped for lunch on your way into town. I think we have brownies in the kitchen if you’d like a snack before you head home.”

I blinked, trying to keep up with the conversation. “What?”

Hannah waved a hand in the air. “Everything will be fine, as long as you remain alert.”

Except now I had to consider what could be worse than death.

Chapter 24

On the drive home, I replayed my afternoon with Hannah, trying to process everything I’d learned. My phone chirped with a message notification, indicating I’d regained cell coverage, but I chose to ignore it while I was on the road.

Nightfall came early in November. I’d used my headlamps for at least half the drive home, and when I pulled into my driveway, the lights were on in my house. Kyle peered out the window, then came to open the garage door.

“Didn’t you get my message?” he asked as I crawled out of the car.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t check. Is something wrong?”

He hugged me close, increasing my misgivings. While he escorted me inside, I checked my phone. Two missed calls from him and a voicemail. “Is Nora okay?”

“To the best of my knowledge. Are you okay? I was worried when you didn’t pick up, and didn’t call me back.”

Then this was more about his protective streak and less about a crisis I’d missed. “I didn’t have cell coverage while I was in Brown’s Landing, and I wanted to concentrate on my driving on the way home. Should I listen to my message now?”

“It doesn’t matter now.” He led me to the table and pulled a chair out for me. “How did your visit go?”

There was that tingle of dread again, the one that said he’d run if I told him about the magic stuff. “Good.”

“Did she offer any ideas with what to do about Georgia?” he asked.

Then he had been paying attention. “She seems to think Georgia will be fine, but the woman is the real problem.”

“Sharon?”

“She wasn’t sure who the woman was, but Sharon makes sense, don’t you think?”

“That’s one of the reasons I called. Sergeant Cudahy hasn’t done a notification for Narcy, and because I’d mentioned she had a sister, the body is still at the morgue until they figured out who the sister was. I filled her in and gave her the name of the insurance company where Sharon and Jason work. Sharon’s likely the closest thing Narcy had to family.”

Sharon, who’d already given me the impression she was potentially unstable. I’d been down this road before with Kyle’s aunt. Would identifying Narcy’s body make Sharon homicidal?

“You’re thinking about Aunt Polly, aren’t you?” Kyle asked.

I straightened. Lucky guess? Or was he that in tune to my moods? Seriously, Kyle couldn’t read my mind. Could he?

“I alerted Sergeant Cudahy to our conversation with Sharon at the mall yesterday,” he went on. “I told her we had questions.”

All right, he was reading my mind. Not the way Nora did, but he knew me well enough by now to intuit my thoughts. His gaze was steady, patient. Waiting for me to respond. I didn’t know what to say.

“You have a way of reading people,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll want to talk to Sharon again, especially if your meeting today suggested she might cause trouble. I want to be with you when you do, make sure she doesn’t do anything you might not be expecting.”

I shuddered,