After the Summerland (The Witches of Spring Hill Book 1) (25 page)

“So when I found out she was going to die within the week,
I pulled out my old worn book and read it to her, every single night, until she
was gone. The last time I read it to her… the night she died, she opened
her eyes and whispered, ‘Remember the constellations, Xavier. Always let them
guide you home.’

“Now, whenever I am
faced with something that breaks me inside, I think about the stars and try to
figure out what she meant.” He exhales slowly, and thankful for the clarity that
has come to him, he says, “I finally figured it out… she was telling me
that ‘home’ is my true, authentic, good self. Somehow she knew that I would
always hold the memory of that night close to my heart and I would look to the
stars whenever I felt bad, or when I was far from my true self. She wanted me
to remember the goodness within me, and not let my Aunt Selene turn me into someone
I’m not. Somehow she knew… and she wanted me to always remember who I am…”

Rowan wipes the tears
from her eyes, crying not only for the guy sitting in front of her discovering
himself, but also for the little boy whose mom read him a story every single night,
and for the little boy who lost his mom at twelve years old, which changed his
life irrevocably. “I’m so sorry, Xavier,” is all that Rowan can think to say.

He pats the ground next
to him and says, “Lay back, Miss Alexander. Let me teach you a thing or two.”
He points out constellations to her, including Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Cassiopeia, and the three stars
that make up Orion’s Belt. When two shooting stars fly through the sky, side-by-side,
Rowan gasps in surprise. Xavier holds back from
explaining that shooting stars aren’t actually stars, but rather meteors
burning up in the atmosphere. The moment is too magical to ruin with science.

Although there isn’t a
cloud in the sky, thunder rumbles overhead. “We should probably go in,” Xavier
says, sitting up. Rowan sits up at the same time and whether she was touched by
his story, from seeing the shooting stars, or she was just letting her guard
down to him, she grabs his face between her hands and kisses him with
everything she’s got. He reacts quickly and wraps his strong arms around her
lithe body. The passion flares immediately, and it’s deep and it’s strong.

Like the meteors that
burn up in the atmosphere, Xavier feels as if he is going to burn up from being
this close to Rowan. He is the first to break away, catching his breath. He
looks at this magnificent girl in front of him; and when she opens her eyes to
look at him, her green eyes sparkle in the night. When he grabs her face to
look closer, he sees that the sparkle in her eyes is actually a glowing light
in her pupil, in the shape of a pentagram. He backs away, unable to hide his
shock.

“Xavier, what is it?”
she asks, suddenly feeling insecure.

“Rowan — your eyes! I
saw… I saw…”

“What? What did you
see?” she asks impatiently, suddenly worried that something is wrong.

“A pentagram. I saw a pentagram
glowing in your eyes,” he says breathlessly.

Rowan’s smile spreads from her lips to her whole face in an instant.
She has never felt more relieved than at this moment. “C’mon!” she says as she
grabs his hand, “I want to see.”

Xavier forgets for a
moment what drove him outside. He forgets about his loss and his pain, allowing
her to surround him with her happiness and excitement. He jumps up when she
pulls at him and he lets her drag him inside, falling at her heels. He never
thought
he’d see the day… Just as they close the door
,
the rain begins to fall
.

After Xavier and Rowan
ran outside, Cian and Chloe went to the family room to talk with Liam, leaving
Brianna and Kaiden by themselves.

“Are you okay?” Kaiden
asks Brianna.

“You mean with the
whole my crazy aunt has been planning to kill me for years and now it’s
probably going to happen sooner rather than later thing?” she answers with a
smile. “Surprisingly, I am okay. Honestly Kaiden, I am just tired of being afraid
of her and I’m ready to fight back.”

Kaiden nods his head
and says, “You know I’ll do everything I can to protect you, right, Brianna?”

She smiles at him and
says, “Thanks, Kaiden. That means a lot.”

“No, really… I’ll
make a circle of fire around you so she can’t get close enough to you to hurt
you,” he says smiling.

“Ooh yeah, or… or
… now just hear me out. Maybe you can just start
her
on fire?” Brianna teases.

Kaiden concedes that
maybe that would make more sense than locking Brianna in a circle of fire;
especially since he doesn’t know how to stop the fire once it starts. “You
could be stuck in there for awhile, if we do it my way. I’d have to hose you
down.” They both laugh at the joke and then he moves into the seat next to her.

“Really though, all
kidding aside, Brianna. I will do whatever I can to protect you from her.” He
caresses her cheek and says, “I don’t want you to be afraid of her anymore. I
don’t want you to be afraid of anyone.” Just as he leans in to kiss her,
Grandpa Marcus clears his throat and walks into the kitchen.

“Excuse me, you two,
but I just need to get some water. My throat is… scratchy,” Marcus says,
as he heads for the sink, not even trying to hold back his smile. Brianna and
Kaiden look at each other and grin shyly.

“Where’s Rowan… and
Xavier?” Marcus asks.

Just then the door
flies open and Rowan says, “Something’s happening to me!” Her smile is
exuberant as she rushes past them to look at herself in the hallway mirror.
When she gets there, the reflection looking back is the same as always. No
pentagram. No glow. Just her usual green eyes gazing back at her. She can’t
help but be disappointed as she heads back into the kitchen.

Rowan looks absolutely
crestfallen when she comes back into the kitchen and Xavier knows that the mark
disappeared by the time she got to the mirror. He knows what he saw though and
he knows that it’s a sign of something.

“What’s going on?
What’s all the excitement?” Chloe asks, coming into the kitchen.

“I saw a pentagram
glowing in Rowan’s eyes,” Xavier says. “We were outside and after…” He
looks at Liam, Peter, and Marcus, who are watching him closely, “… after
we saw two shooting stars, I looked at her and saw her eyes glowing. When I
looked closer, I saw the mark of the pentagram burning in both of her pupils.”

“What does it mean?”
Brianna asks.

Everyone looks around
at each other shaking their heads.

“No one knows what this
means?” Rowan asks. “You have got to be kidding me
!?!
”
And although Rowan made a point to sound snarky, she is ecstatic that something
happened to her, finally. And she loves that it’s something that no one seems
to know about. It’s all hers!

“Let’s see if we can
find anything about it,” Chloe says, trying to put her sister’s mind at ease.
She hopes that they can find something, anything… but more importantly,
she hopes that it is a good omen and not a bad one.

After spending hours
combing through the grimoires and books, they can’t find anything about glowing
eyes with a pentagram. Kaiden searched on Google, on the off chance he would
find something, but he couldn’t find anything either.

“You’re an anomaly,
Rowan,” Kaiden says, smiling. “Now, let’s just hope it is a good sign…”

Selene wakes up to the
sound of screaming. Coming back to consciousness, she is shocked when she
discovers the screams are her own. She opens her eyes to find it still pitch
black out. The last thing she remembered was the sound of rain falling on her
tent. She searches her memory for whatever it was that woke her up screaming; but
the dream eludes her, like a wisp of smoke she tries to catch.

Sitting up in what
little space she has, she can see that the rain has not stopped. If anything it
is raining harder than it was even a minute ago. She looks up at the top of her
tent and sees water collecting in pools. This tent isn’t
made for this, she thinks. She grabs her phone to check the time and realizes
she’s only been asleep for a couple of hours and daylight is still hours away.
She looks at her phone again and sees she still doesn’t have service.

Water is beginning to
seep in from the back and she can feel it dripping on her jacket near the front
corner. Although she didn’t make it up to the house, she can’t see spending the
night outside in these conditions. She hates the idea of giving up, but the
idea of sleeping out in the rain is even worse.

She gathers everything
inside the little tent and stuffs it into her backpack before stepping outside.
She’ll have to quickly grab the tent and put it over her head for some
protection from the downpour. She pulls out her flashlight, steps outside,
grabs the tent, and holds it together with one hand, while saving the other for
the flashlight. She will have to trust her instincts to get her out of here.
She figures since she is going downhill she will eventually come to a road that
she can follow back to the car. It will be much easier than hiking through the
woods in the rain.

It doesn’t seem long at
all before she gets to the bottom of the hill and finds her car parked just
where she left it. She drops everything in the trunk, climbs into the front seat,
soaking wet. She starts the car, and is shocked to find only a half hour has
passed since she looked at her phone before setting out. How can that be?
she
thinks. I spent at least four hours hiking around out
there! How could I only be a half hour away from my car? She thinks of the cat,
and rages. That cat better hope it doesn’t cross my path again, because I swear
I will take out all nine of its lives.

Since she planned to
spend the night in the woods, she didn’t think to reserve a hotel room and at
this point, she knows the kids won’t be home tonight. She decides to spend the
night in her own bed and leave early in case the kids come home in the morning.
If she gets caught, she’ll tell them… Wait, I don’t have to explain myself
to them, she thinks. If I’m home when they get home, I’ll just ask them where
the hell
they
spent the night. She
smirks to herself, thinking how either scenario works out in her favor, especially
since they have no idea she knows where they spent the night. I almost hope
they do come home, she thinks, grinning while anticipating the confrontation.

She also hopes the rain
stops by tomorrow so she can try the hike again, and if it not… well then,
she’ll take the direct route up to the house and knock right on the front door.
She would prefer to explore the property a little before talking with the
Alexanders, but now that her niece and nephews are buddies with the Alexanders,
she knows she can’t wait much longer. This was not part of the plan and her
patience is wearing thin, especially with Brianna, Cian, and Xavier. Now that
she knows where their loyalty lies, there is no sense in prolonging the
inevitable.

The following morning,
Liam wakes up to the heavenly aromas of coffee, bacon, and cinnamon. He looks
at the clock and discovers that it’s only 7:00am — four hours since the house
was quiet enough that he was certain everyone was actually asleep. He stayed up
reading for a full hour after the kids went to bed, just in case anyone tried
to rendezvous in the night. He is thrilled with how well Chloe, Kaiden, and
Rowan are handling all of this. They seem to have matured five years over a
couple of month’s time. He thinks back to how worried he was about telling them,
but can’t deny that part of what is making the transition so smooth is the
presence of the Silvans.

Xavier, Cian, and
Brianna Silvan have turned out to be so much more than he expected. Their pain
is etched all over them but it comes out in various ways. Xavier is the one who
concerns him the most. It seems he has been the one to shoulder the burdens of
his family for some time
and
he is
the one most at risk of practicing black magic because of Selene’s influence. Liam
knows under that tough exterior is a young man at the breaking point. He only
hopes that he can provide a safe place for him to fall.

Cian, who seems much
older than his seventeen years, has been so honest about everything from the
very beginning and it is obvious how deeply he cares for Chloe. He seems to
understand the world and his place within it much better than any teenager Liam
has ever met, other than Chloe, of course, making them a good match.

Then there’s Brianna
Silvan, who is heartbreaking. She suffers the most at the hands of Selene. Even
though she is warm, funny, and smart, she has very little self-confidence.
Spending time around Kaiden is good for her; it is bringing her out of her
shell and if he’s being totally honest with himself, Liam
thinks she is good for Kaiden, too.

He is happy with how
they have all bonded and are helping one another. Like one big happy family, he
thinks to himself. The sunny picture he imagines is darkened when he thinks of
Selene Silvan. Lying here in bed alone, he can’t help but worry about how to
keep everyone safe, especially against a witch who wants something from his
family. A witch, who, according to the conversation last night, is
manipulative, dangerous, and more powerful than any of the witches the
Alexanders have ever met before.

With that thought, he thinks that no matter
what happens with Selene, he will find out if he can get custody of Xavier, Brianna,
and Cian, if they want him to. He finally drags himself out of bed to find out what the source of
all the mouth-watering aromas is all about and wonders how someone could have
gotten past his room without waking him.

In the kitchen, Chloe
fries up another batch of bacon. Chloe got up first, and wanting to surprise
everyone with breakfast, headed to the kitchen. Only she was the one to be surprised
when she found Cian standing in the open refrigerator door.