Flames in the Midst (The Jade Hale Series) (32 page)

Madilyn
would have to come.  I hated to take her away from Paul and Stefanie, but she was the best one at casting memory spells—especially when she teamed up with Amy.  She and Amy had wiped me from the memories of Zach’s family.  Chase had started the spell, but it would not have held without Madilyn.  We planned to arrive in a forest on the outskirts of Salem in May of 1692.  According to our historical timeline, things were already quite heated in Salem in May, but no one had yet been put to death.  May would give us comfortable weather, as we would probably be camping in the woods until we could determine the whereabouts of Evan and Cameron.  The fact Salem would be crazy with accusations of witchcraft would be both dangerous for us and necessary.  The craziness meant Cameron and his father were in fact there.  With no one dead yet, we would have the opportunity to save as many lives as possible.  However, a town infected with the need to find witches would not be a good place for a group of witches.  If anyone saw us appear in the woods or came across us and became suspicious, we needed someone astute at casting a lasting memory spell.

Then there was Chase.  I didn’t want to bring him along, and the decision was now mine to make.  Unfortunately, he was an obvious choice.  He had skill for tracking.  The witch trials were centered around Salem, but they involved other towns, like Beverly.  Witches were even sent to Boston to be held in jail.  We needed someone who could help us track Evan and Cameron as quickly as possible.  I wanted to leave Chase behind as much as Caylin wanted me to leave Alex behind, but it looked like neither of us would be getting our way.

I took a deep breath and felt Chase squeeze my hand one more time before I spoke.

“Okay.  We’ll take Madilyn, Alex, and Chase with us.”  I said it quickly, before I could change my mind.

“Good choices, Jade,” Amy replied.  I had a feeling my choosing had simply been a test.  She knew already who would be joining us.  “Those of you who are coming, I have clothing for you, so please stay.  The rest of you, please go and get some rest.  We’ll be putting the mission into effect at seven p.m. after supper.  If you are not coming with us, you will still need to remain on alert.  Since this is Jade’s original timeline, we will have to remain away as long as it takes us to complete our objective.  One week in Salem will mean missing one week here.  I can’t guarantee how long it will take us to get back.”  Amy looked at Paul, Stefanie and Caylin with a hint of sympathy.  She knew they may lose a loved one, and she had been there, but she wasn’t going to sacrifice our purpose in order to spare them.

I hung around with Amy, Madilyn, Chase and Alex while everyone else left the room in a silent procession.  The atmosphere around this place grew more ominous with every passing minute.  Chase still gripped my hand; he had no idea I had almost chosen Gia over him, despite the fact he would be more useful for this particular mission.  I would put my letter to him on his nightstand before we left tonight.  When we got back, I would pack and leave.

Amy handed out the period clothing Anastasia had picked out for us.  The colors seemed dull and ordinary for such an extraordinary trip, but we needed to blend in with the Puritan society in the 1600s.  Who better to pick out clothing for us than someone who had been alive then and who also had perfected the art of blending in ever since? 

“Dinner will be at five.  Paul is barbequing.  Make sure you are there on time.  You’ll have some time to change afterwards.  Then we will meet back here at seven,” Amy announced to the few of us who were gathered around her.  As everyone took their clothing, one set to wear
and one set to carry, Amy asked me to stay with her for a few minutes.  Chase wrapped his arm around my shoulders and gave me a quick squeeze before leaving with Alex.  Madilyn rushed off to spend a few moments with her family before we left.

“Jade,” Amy said, “I know that your participating in this trip is not for exactly the same reasons as the rest of us.”

I tried to cut her off, but she just held up her hand and kept talking.  Amy had a way of commanding an audience, whether it be just one person or a room full of people.

“I know you are still hurting.  Even though Evan murdered your mother over a dozen years ago, to you, only a number of months have passed.  I have every reason to want Evan dead, too.  He murdered Justin just as heartlessly as he killed your mother, but I have to think about what is right and what is not.  If we can stop Evan without killing him, we will bring him back here.  He will pay for killing our loved ones, but we have to figure out what he is involved in before we can exact any justice.  We also have to figure out how involved his son is.  I don’t want to assume he is just as guilty as his father.  We’d be no better than the chaos he is causing in Salem.”

“I don’t agree.  I’m sorry, Amy.  I just don’t see how bringing Evan and Cameron back here will do any good.”

“
Madilyn and I have been cooking something up over the years.  We decided capturing him was necessary because there is obviously more to this than just murdering a couple of people in a bar one night.  However, once we get to the bottom of it, neither of us could murder someone who is captured and defenseless.  We don’t want to go down that path.  So we have another plan.”  Amy stopped at this point.  She was obviously not going to tell me about the other plan, so I focused on what I perceived to be a flaw in her initial plan.

“Won’t he just escape?  Can’t he just travel to some other time where we won’t be able to find him?”

“That’s just it.  I don’t think he is the one with the time traveling ability.  I think his son has that gift.  Otherwise, he may have just left him behind, but he couldn’t because he needed him in order to travel through time.”

I had not thought about Cameron being a time traveler as a possibility.  If Cameron was the one who could travel through time, then he had at least two rare gifts since I already knew he could see glimpses of the future.  I couldn’t even think about the fact Cameron had anything else in common with me.  Since I wasn’t in my dream lagoon, or whatever it was, the thought was repulsive to me.  At least, I could will it to be repulsive.

“Promise me you will not kill them unless it is the only option.  I don’t want to see you go down that path either, Jade.  Not if I can stop it from happening.” 

I stared at Amy.  Asking me to help and to bring them along had been a big enough compromise, but it was still a compromise.  They had trained me in return.  I was still far from Guardian material, but my skills and my focus had changed enough to make me a competent witch.  This seemed like too much to ask.  It had been my intention from the beginning to destroy Evan and his son for what they had done to my mother, to my family.

On the other hand, Amy didn’t out and out forbid me from killing them.  I would just have to find a way to make sure I didn’t have another option.  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“I promise I will not kill them unless I have no other options, but I have a strong feeling they won’t make it easy for us.  I think it is going to come down to killing them in the end.”

Amy looked right into my eyes when she answered.  I could see the pain and weariness in her face, but she would still be a strong leader for this coven no matter what the personal expense was to her.

“You may be right,” she said.

I spent the few hours I had left lying on my bedroom floor leaning against Chase.  Stefanie sat across from us, chattering away and obviously upset she would not be going even though she had known that was the case from the beginning.  Chase kept running his fingers through my hair.  We had to blend in when we got to Salem, so at first I had dyed my hair a dull shade of brown.  Then we realized we didn’t know how long we would be there.  If my red roots started showing, that might draw attention. 

I had thought about the spell to change the rusty car to look as if it were brand new, and I thought about a spell from those Harry Potter books the character Tonks had used to change her hair color.  Of course, a spell to change my hair color would take more than a wave of a wand.  For starters, we didn’t use wands.  It took me all of October and November to perfect the spell, not having a natural knack for it.  The first time I tried, I nearly burned my hair off.  Apparently, you need to be careful with new spells when you are a firestarter.  Now I had it down.  I could change my hair to brown, black or indigo.  The indigo came when I was going for blond.  I’m not sure how I messed that one up, but now I could change my hair to indigo if I wanted to, not that it would be useful for this trip.  I still couldn’t get the blond color without using the traditional box of hair coloring. 

Stefanie was still talking.  Every now and then Chase affirmed we were listening by asking her a question or nodding in agreement.  He kept running his fingers through my hair, and
the soothing feel of it let me block Stefanie out and think.  I had to concentrate to get a portal to open through time and allow five people, including myself, to enter.  It was nothing like the parlor trick Garrett had taught me.

Once we got there, we would have to find a secluded place to camp out.  We had toyed with the idea of approaching the Hale family to seek solace, but it did not seem like a good idea in the end.  I descended from the Hale family, but Reverend Hale never had any idea his second wife was truly a witch.  Sarah was one of the few accused who were actually witches.  She couldn’t flee the town of Beverly because of her husband’s involvement in the trials.  She had assumed she would be safe because of her husband’s position.  From what Madilyn and Amy remembered prior to the fire at the bar, Sarah had never been accused.  The hysterics had died down long before she would be accused.  The reality now stood that she was accused and hung at the gallows after giving birth to her fourth child, John, in December of 1692.  We needed to set that right.

The people of Salem believed being a witch meant you were in bed with the devil.  In reality, witches are just people who have inherited a trait passed down through generations because of something our ancestors stumbled upon.  Kind of like a superhero.  I chuckled at the thought of Madilyn’s analogy to Clark Kent months ago.  She thought I should use my skills and gifts to be some sort of hero.  I chuckled at the thought.  Unfortunately, Stefanie was back to complaining about not going.   My laugh stopped her in mid-sentence.

“You think it’s funny I want to go with you and my mom?” she asked me.  She looked hurt more than angry.  I sat up.

“No, Stef.  I’m sorry.  My mind was just wandering.  I’ve got a lot to think about right now.”

“Oh.” Stefanie slumped back against the side of her bed.  She was sitting on the floor with us. 

“For what it’s worth, I wish I could take all of you,” I lied to make her feel better.  I wanted to say I wished I could just go alone, but I didn’t want to break my word.  I didn’t think telling the truth would diffuse the situation.  My lie worked, and Stefanie smiled.  She got up and put on some music.  We sat in silence for what was left of our afternoon—content just to be in the same room with friends one last time. 

After dinner, I waited until Chase and Alex had gone downstairs before I snuck into their room down the hall.  I left my letter under a book on Chase’s nightstand.  I knew he wouldn’t read it until we got back, but I felt I had closure.  I could now look forward to the task in front of me.

In the living room, almost everyone was there.  Kendra showed up last, her hazy aura worrying me more now than ever.  Amy had no big speech prepared.  She had given her speech already.  The five of us who were traveling said our last farewells.  I prepared to open the portal in front of the fireplace, and those who were not traveling stepped back.  It took me only a moment to realize Garrett had not stepped back.  I had the portal open, but I wasn’t concentrating on it enough.  Garrett’s aura, which had always remained the pale yellow I attributed to his hard existence and survival, flicked to a misty black and then back again to the pale yellow.  I wasn’t sure how to explain what I suddenly knew without giving away my secret gift.  Luckily, I didn’t need to because Alex noticed it, too.

“It’s Garrett,” was all he could get out before Garrett lunged at me.  I was sure he was intent on dragging me through the portal with him.  It would close behind me as soon as I went through.  Chase intervened and wrapped himself around Garrett, but Garrett was a caged animal
looking for an escape at this point.  He threw Chase off him with surprising ease.  As he did, I could see he had a knife, which he swung up wildly.  Amy would have been hit in the gut, much like my mother, if Kendra hadn’t jumped on Garrett next.  Chase gained his composure and plunged right back into the tussle.  Even with both Kendra and Chase trying to subdue him physically, Garrett still appeared to have the upper hand.  He still held tight to the knife, and I saw a streak of crimson on the blade as the three thrashed around.  I had no idea which of them had been injured.

Paul tried to reach Madilyn and move her out of the way, but she stood her ground next to Amy.  In the commotion, I watched Stefanie, who was rushing towards her mother, fall right through the portal.  I had no idea where or when she went.  My concentration was not what it needed to be to maintain this.  I couldn’t keep up the portal and use my firestarting gift, and now that Stefanie had fallen through the portal, I couldn’t let it close.  Besides, if I were to try to set fire to Garrett, I would also be setting fire to Chase and Kendra and probably the whole house.  

I began to feel light headed and queasy before I noticed Garrett’s lips moving.  He was casting a spell, and my concentration in the moment was beginning to fade.  Chase and Kendra were working hard to subdue Garrett with physical force, but Garrett still had the presence of mind to cast a spell to make it more difficult for me to make my escape or Stefanie’s rescue.  Madilyn and Amy began countering it, and my head cleared slightly.  The three of them were intent on their spells, although Garrett perhaps did not have the same level of concentration as the women did.  Chase and Kendra continued physically wrestling with the knife-wielding madman in our midst.  My portal was closing, and I had no idea where Stefanie had gone to, so I did the only thing I could think to do.  I jumped in after her, and the time portal closed behind me.