Mark of the Witch (Boston Witches) (3 page)

“All right, out with it, what’s going on? Why do you have that weird look on your face, and why are you talking in that dreamy voice?” Emily asked bluntly.

“I just had the weirdest experience,” Jilly said, and told her what had happened with William.

“Oh, was he that hunky guy who was coming in as I was leaving?” she asked.

“Yeah, that was him. It was just so weird, I’ve never experienced anything like that. And I could tell he hadn’t either, by the look on his face. I don’t know what to make of it.”

“Maybe it was just a fluke?” Emily questioned.

“No, I felt something weird while I was cutting his hair too; it was almost like we were connected by electricity or something. Oh well, we’ll figure it out later. Right now we need to talk about the summoning spell Rosemarie Phillips wants us to do on Thursday. I think I have most of what we’ll need for it; let’s go in the kitchen and make a list of what I don’t have.”

As she walked into the kitchen, Jilly grabbed the grimoire off the chest. Emily got up with a slight groan and followed Jilly into the kitchen.

Emily was seated at the counter on a high backed bar stool, drinking a cup of milk with a plate of cookies in front of her and the grimoire opened to the correct page. Jilly was in the pantry, grabbing the ingredients Emily was reading off to her and writing down the ones they still needed. “You know, I really think you should bring your grimoire over too next time; this is a complicated spell; we can use all the help we can get,” Jilly said, poking her head out of the pantry.

“I don’t know why you think we’ll need it. Mine is more of a cookbook with some herbal remedies than an actual grimoire. You know my family has always been more on the lighter side when it comes to power,” Emily said in between bites. Her family had a rich legacy filled with healers and charm makers dating back to the sixteenth century.

“Don’t disparage your talents, Em. I think you’re brilliant,” Jilly said with gusto. She had always admired how Emily could heal anything just by touching it. “Ok. So it looks like the only things we’ll really need are sage and penny-royal. I think I can go over to Bewitched tomorrow morning before Finola Graham comes over.”

“Well, if we’re all done, I need to get going. I told Adam I’d be home by seven and I still need to stop at the store.” Emily hopped off the chair and went to grab her coat, and Jilly walked her to the door.

“I’m going to call Tanya in a minute and have her take you off the books until Friday too; I think it’s just Thursday you were still on, so she can just reschedule any clients until Friday or Monday. I really think I’ll need the extra hands on Thursday morning getting everything ready.”

Jilly gave Emily a hug and watched until she was in her car before closing the door.

The wind had turned cold, and the trees were blowing, making it look like it was snowing orange leaves. Jilly opened the back door and stepped out onto the porch, breathing in the cold air. Fall was her favorite season; she loved when the leaves changed color. She stooped down to the woodpile she had next to the porch steps and gathered an armful before going back into the house. Once she had a fire going to warm the kitchen, she set about bottling up the contents of the cauldron. It had shrunk down in size to about a cup and a half, and she easily got it all in one bottle. She put a stick of wax in the flame of the fire and sealed up the cork at the top, and then clearly labeled the contents with one of the premade labels she had with her name and phone number at the bottom of them. She picked up the bottle, grabbing a bag, the instruction sheet, and a white angelica candle, and carefully packed them up and set them by the door.

With the task at hand done, she sat down in the big comfy chair by the fire with the grimoire. She opened it to the front page; it had a family tree dating way back to the 1400s. So many powerful witches in her family line, the most powerful to date being Liza and Mary, twins from the late 1600s. She carefully traced the lines of it down to her own name, which was just under her grandmother and mother’s names. She missed them so much it hurt sometimes.

It had been over ten years since they both died. They had been on a trip together in Ireland, and there was an accident. Jilly could still remember that horrible phone call and the look on her dad’s face when he told her.

She sat in the chair until the fire burned down and only the embers were glowing. She finally got up, made herself a sandwich and went into her room to eat while she watched some TV and got ready for bed. She was asleep the moment her head hit the pillow.

Jilly opened her eyes and was in an unfamiliar room—well, not really; the room itself was the same, but everything in it was different. She looked down at herself and she was wearing one of those old-fashioned nightgowns that buttoned way up the neck and came down to her ankles. She jumped out of bed and let out a yelp when her bare feet hit the ice-cold wood floor, and quickly jumped onto the rug. She heard footsteps outside in the hall, and they came to a stop outside her door. A woman who looked like she could have been her mother’s twin sister came in, walked over to the bed, and sat down.

She turned to Jilly and said, “Now you know how it feels to lose someone too. Now I suppose we’re even.” Her eyes were full of fury as she spoke.

“I—I’m,” Jilly started to say, but didn’t quite know what to say.

The girl grabbed her hand and pulled her over to the window. “Look, there he is he’s just leaving after his argument with father. Watch him go Liza, for this is the last you will see of him,” she said in a voice as cold as ice.

Jilly pressed her face to the window and watched the man walking down the driveway towards his carriage. Just as he reached the door, he turned and looked up into the window. When she saw his face, Jilly felt as though a shard of ice was shoved into her chest: the man looking up at her was William Morgan. His face was sadness itself. It looked as though his heart had been ripped out as he clutched his chest looking at her.
How is this possible
, she thought? She must have fainted; everything went black and when she opened her eyes again, she was back in her room lying in bed.

What was that all about?
she wondered to herself as she got out of bed.

The grimoire was just where she left it on the chair by the fireplace; she snatched it up and put it on the counter on her way to the coffee pot. She glanced at the clock on the microwave as she was grabbing the coffee filters out of the cabinet. The time read 8:30 A.M.; she still had an hour and a half before Finola would be over. Coffee mug in hand, she sat on a bar stool and opened the grimoire to the first page. Starting at the top, she began to trace the names down until she reached a branch that held two sisters named Mary and Elizabeth Proctor. The date next to their birth was 1675 they were twins, and the most powerful witches in the family.
I wonder what they’re trying to tell me
, Jilly thought to herself as she drank her coffee.

She snatched the phone off the wall and punched in Emily’s number. After the third ring, Emily’s husband Adam picked up, sounding a little sleepy.

“I’m so sorry, Adam, did I wake you up?”

“No—well, yes, but I needed to get up for work anyway. Let me grab Em for you,” he said. Jilly heard him walking out of the room and handing the phone to Emily.

“Hey, Jill, what’s up?” she asked.

With a sigh, Jilly dove right in and explained her dream. “What do you think it means? Why did that man have William’s face?”

“I don’t know, Jill. Do you think it was just a dream, or do you think you were actually seeing the past?” Emily asked her.

Jilly thought for a moment before saying, “I don’t know, but it’s not unheard of for the women in my family to be shown things in our dreams. Plus, if we’re talking about Mary and Liza, it wouldn’t surprise me that they want to help me.”

“Do you think William has ancestors dating back that far in Boston?” Emily asked, and Jilly heard the tap of her fingers on the counter.

“I don’t know, Em. It almost looked like it was him I was seeing and not just someone who looked like him. I need to do a bit more research on his family tree before I decide if I want to talk to him or not,” Jilly said as she was walking back into her room to get ready for the day.

“Ok, well let me know if you need any help or tell me what you find out. I have some errands to run in town today before I come over; why don’t I just get what we need at Bewitched? There’s no need for you to make the trip if I’m already out,” Emily offered.

*

Thirty minutes later Jilly emerged from her room, ready to face the day. She left her hair down today, and it was curling wildly down her back. The doorbell rang as she was coming down the front stairs that led out into the living room.

Jilly opened the door and let in Finola Graham. She was an older lady in her mid-sixties, with short, snowy white hair and sparkling violet eyes.

“Finola, thank you for coming by today. This week has just gotten away from me already and it’s only Tuesday,” Jilly confessed as she closed the door.

“Nonsense, my dear, it was no trouble at all for me to pop on over here on my way to meet the ladies for breakfast at that little pastry place down by your shop,” Finola said as she took a seat on the big leather couch.

Jilly walked into the kitchen and returned with the little cloth bag she had packed up the night before. “I included an instruction sheet with your charm, but let me just go over it with you in case you have any questions. The first thing you’ll want to do is light the angelica candle and place it in the center of where ever you’re going to perform the charm. Then get out a pan of water, and set that on the table as well. Pour the contents of the bottle into the pan and swirl it around. You should notice that the water will heat up once you pour in the potion. When the water turns red, then you can put the contents into the little necklaces that you have. I think it’s pretty straightforward. The charm lasts for six months, and it will only work if they have the necklace on or with them at all times. Do you have any questions?” Jilly asked as she packed the bag back up.

“No, I think I should be ok, but I can call you if I hit a snag, right?” Finola asked as she rose from her seat to leave.

“Of course you can, but I think you’ll be just fine,” Jilly told her as she led her to the door. “Just one more thing, Finola. What do you know about the Morgans?”

“The Morgans? Oh, the family has been in Boston for years; I’d say almost as long as your family has. Why do you ask, my dear?”

“Oh, I cut William Morgan’s hair yesterday, and I was just curious.”

“Didn’t he just move back to town? I think I remember Adelle telling me that he was going to be moving back from England this month.”

“Yeah, he told me he just got back into town, but he never told me where he moved from. Oh well, I was just a little curious about him,” Jilly said with a smile as she opened the door.

“Of course you were, darling. From what I hear he’s quite handsome; who wouldn’t be curious?” Finola said with a wink as she walked out the door. “I’ll see you next week for my cut,” she called out as she walked down the stone steps to her car.

Jilly closed the door and leaned her back against it for a minute, thinking about her dream, and also about the intriguingly handsome William Morgan.

Before she knew it, Emily was honking her horn in the driveway, asking for help with all the bags in her trunk. Jilly bounded down the steps and quickly sent Emily up to the house with the lightest of the bags.

“Don’t complain, missy; you can start helping with the heavy lifting when that bun in your oven is finished baking,” Jilly yelled at Emily after seeing the sulky look on her face.

Three trips later, all of the bags were sitting on the kitchen counters and both girls were warming up by the fireplace. With a determined look on her face, Jilly got up, grabbed her grimoire, and opened it up to the spell for summoning. Summoning spells are usually not that complicated, but this one would be a bit dicey only because of who was being summoned. The longer someone has been dead, the harder it is to summon him or her to you.

While Jilly was reading over the spell, Emily got up and began to collect what they needed to prepare the spell. Once they were both finished, Jilly went over to the big fireplace in the kitchen and swung the cauldron back over the fire. She then poured all of her ingredients in and began to stir, first ten times clockwise, then ten times counter clockwise, until she had stirred the pot a total of one hundred times.

“Once the liquid turns blue, we take it off the flame and let it sit for one day. Then we’ll be ready for phase two,” Jilly said as she wiped her hands on a towel.

“Ok, sounds good. Now can we eat? This kid is apparently starving, and I could eat a horse,” Emily said, laughing as she sat down at the kitchen table.

“Sure, what do you want to eat? I have fixings for salad and sandwiches; how does that sound?” Jilly called out from behind the refrigerator door.

*

Ten minutes later the girls were seated at the table enjoying their lunch. “So what do you make of that wacky dream you had last night, Jill?” Emily asked between bites.

“Finola told me that the Morgans have been in Boston as long as the Proctors have. It appears Liza and his ancestor were lovers at some point. It sounds to me like my many times over great-grandfather was not too keen on that union; he sent William away before they could be married. It’s obvious by the dream that Liza loved him, but I’m not sure what was going on with her sister. I’m going to do some more research on his family before I decide if I want to talk to him about any of this.”

Emily sat up straight in her chair, stretching her back as she said, “I think that’s probably smart of you. You don’t know how he’s connected to you yet, so I’d stay away until you’re sure.”

*

By three the next day, Jilly was no closer to discovering the connection between William and her family than she was when she started. She was sitting in her den with a stack of old books and her laptop in front of her, and she let out a sigh as she stood up. She stretched out her shoulders and back as she walked down the hallway to the back stairs that led to the kitchen.