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he would end up participating at all, as protective magic was not his strongest suit.

“Goodness, what is it?” Rosemary asked, emerging into the main shop space and blinking at all of us. She always reminded me a bird, light and fluttery, with her pale hair and big green eyes. She was five or six years younger than Rachel, but somehow seemed older, as if she’d embraced a little too much the whole idea of being a solitary witch. It didn’t take much mental effort to imagine her stirring a cauldron, although we McAllisters actually weren’t that big on potions.

“An incursion,” my aunt said briefly, setting a container of pink Himalayan salt next to the white candles. “We’ll need to cleanse the whole building and set up new wards.”

“Oh, my!” she exclaimed, and despite everything, I had to stifle a laugh as Adam sent me a sideways look. Cousin Rosemary did tend to act like she’d just escaped from a Harry Potter novel or something.

After that there wasn’t much time for conversation, as more people converged on the shop — Allegra Moss, who had a sculptor’s studio across the street from Tobias, and Efraim Willendale, who ran the tiny post office, and Wyatt McAllister, owner of a B&B a few doors down from the stately Victorian where Great-Aunt Ruby lived. So many of them, all surrounding us with their strength, until the magic number of twenty-one was reached. Well, twenty-two, counting Adam, but he wasn’t going to be participating.

“What about Great-Aunt Ruby?” I asked. Usually she would take part in something this important.

My cousin Dora, who lived with Ruby, shook her head. “She’s been feeling a little tired the past few days, so I thought it better if she sat this one out.”

At that reply I couldn’t help feeling a little guilty. When was the last time I’d gone up to visit my great-aunt? Had to be almost a week now. I’d spent way too much time wrapped up in my own problems.

Aunt Rachel also looked rather grim, but then she shook her head, as if reminding herself to focus on the task at hand. After pulling out a soapstone incense burner and some cedar incense, she said, “Angela, you’ll need to lead the ritual, as you’re the one who saw the entity we’re protecting against. We’re all here to support you.”

I’d guessed she would ask that of me, but it didn’t make this any easier. Even with all of them there, I couldn’t help feeling alone. I would have to put myself out in front of everyone and hope that whatever it was had long gone.

There wasn’t much I could do except nod, however. I picked up the candle and sparked the flame with my thought. It lit at once, its glow steady and calming.

“Goddess, we ask that you lend us your strength, and aid us in cleansing this house of whatever evil spirits might have visited here. Let this pure white fire dispel the shadows, and bring peace to this place.”

An icy breath seemed to pass over me, and the candle flame flickered wildly. At once I heard the echoing murmur from the coven.

“Bring peace to this place.”

Warmth began to return, and the candle stilled. I moved to the front door and repeated my plea to the Goddess. From there I moved clockwise around the room, although the coven members stayed more or less in the center of the space. Not that it would have been all that easy for a crowd that size to follow me everywhere, what with all the table displays and bookshelves that filled the store.

I moved down the hallway to the stairs opposite the storeroom door, and hesitated. Were they all going to follow me upstairs to the apartment?

Apparently they were, although they had to straggle their way upward in ones and twos, a line that stretched almost all the way back to the first floor by the time I reached the second story. I felt nothing up here, not even the hint of a chill I had sensed before the power of the light pushed it back, but of course I wasn’t about to take any chances. Clockwise again, moving from the living room to the kitchen, and then to the funny little cubbyhole off the dining room that my aunt used as a workspace for drying flowers and herbs. From there we climbed yet again, to Aunt Rachel’s room and my own bedroom, past the inadequate little bathroom we had to share. All the while I focused on the power of the white light, of how it sent the darkness away from every corner, every cubby.

Then it was all the way back to the ground floor again, and the ritual repeated with the burning incense and the purifying power of air, then finally with spring water poured from one of the bottles we always kept under the sales counter, mixed with the pink Himalayan salt, bringing the strength of earth and the balance and clarity of water to all the spaces in the building. As I worked, I could feel the energy of the coven humming along with me, lending me the power necessary to perform the ritual and make it a lasting one, something that would maintain its protection for months and even years.

At last we had made all the circuits. I took up the bowl with the spring water and salt mixture, then went to the front door and traced the form of a pentacle there with my index finger.

“Peace and purity dwell here now,” I said. “Nothing of ill will may enter. So the Goddess wills it, and so it will be.”

“And so it will be,” the members of the coven repeated.

For the barest second I almost thought I heard the sound of faraway laughter, mocking and cold. But then it was gone, and I told myself it must have been the wind. After all, around me was only warmth and light and the reassuring presences of the people who stood a few feet away. My coven.

My family.

It seemed I was safe now. But even then I wondered whether it would be enough.

5
Speaking With the Dead

They all dispersed after that, talking quietly. Adam was watching me with something like awe, which I didn’t really understand. After all, he’d seen me work magic before. But then I realized this was the first time I’d actually led such a large group, been the one to direct all that energy. In the past, Great-Aunt Ruby would, as prima, have been the one to take on such a role. There was power in me, of course, although it was nothing compared to what it would be when she passed the strength of the prima to me and I had found my consort.

Cousin Dora had said Ruby was too tired to perform the task today. Was she really too tired, or was this her way of telling me it was time I stepped forward and showed everyone that I really was capable of taking on the mantle of prima?

I didn’t know for sure; my great-aunt was eighty-eight years old, and if there’s one thing you’ve earned at eighty-eight, it’s the right to be tired. Even so, I couldn’t help wondering.

Aunt Rachel began taking the items I’d used in the ritual and putting them back in their places under the counter. As she worked, however, she looked from Adam to me and back again, her gaze thoughtful.

“Thank you, Adam,” she said after an awkward pause. “I think Angela’s pretty tired after all that, so….”

He wrenched his eyes away from me. “What? Oh, yeah, I guess I should get going, too.”

“Thanks, Adam,” I added, realizing I was sort of falling down on the job here. However I might feel about his unwanted intentions, he’d certainly come to my aid tonight, and the very least I could do was express my gratitude…even if he might prefer that I express it a little bit differently than with a simple “thanks.”

“No problem,” he replied, too casually. Then he said, in a quick undertone clearly intended for my ears only, “You know I’d do anything for you.”

He left after that, hurrying to the back door, since of course the front was still locked. For a minute or two after he left, neither Aunt Rachel nor I said anything.

Finally, after closing the little storage area under the counter and locking it, she asked, “Is that going to be a problem?”

“What?” I blinked, then realized what she probably thought the “problem” was. “You know there isn’t anything between Adam and me.”

“I thought I knew that…until I saw the two of you show up on Tobias’s doorstep.”

“He saw me at Grapes and basically invited himself to sit down with me. But he was the one who convinced me to go to you and tell you what happened, and yeah, I was glad to have him walk with me. After what I saw, I was kind of spooked, you know?”

Her expression gentled. “I do know. I only felt traces of…whatever it was…and that was enough for me.” She came out from behind the counter and moved toward me, pulling me into a quick, fierce hug before she let me go. “I won’t lie and say I’m not worried, but things do seem quiescent for now. Still, Angela, if anything like this happens again, come to me at once. I don’t care if you have to pull me out of bed with Tobias. Understood?”

My cheeks flamed at the thought of having to interrupt my aunt having sex with her boyfriend. “That’s a mental image I didn’t need.”

She shot me a warning look.

“Okay,

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