The Trouble With Spells (23 page)

I groaned
instantly at the memory. Mom tried a new recipe someone had given her that was
supposed to be divine. It was the most horrible thing I’d ever tasted in my
life. All three of us—Dad, Mom, and I—promptly scraped our plates into the
garbage disposal. Mom even apologized to the garbage disposal for making it
dispose of the dish.

“Yeah, that was
pretty awful,” I agreed with a shake of my head.

The chatter
continued until we were all finished. Vance and I helped clear items, and I
told Mom not to worry about the dishes. I would take care of cleaning the house
so she could go get ready for work.

I followed Vance
to the door when it was time to tell him goodbye. I hugged him tightly not
wanting to let him go.

“I’m going to miss
you today.” I buried my head into his shoulder.

“I’ll be back soon,”
he replied, hugging me tightly to him, and I knew instinctively he didn’t want
to go either. “Go take a nap or something. It’ll go by a little faster for
you.”

“All right.” I
lifted my head so he could give me a kiss goodbye.

“I love you,” he
said as he stepped outside. “Be careful.”

I leaned on the
doorjamb watching him while he put his helmet on. Then he
started his
bike and took off. I closed the door with a sigh.

 I went to the
kitchen and tackled the morning mess we’d left behind. I was just finishing up
the mopping when I heard my mom coming down the stairs.

“Smells great in
here!” she said, entering the room, taking a big whiff of the pine-scented
cleaner I was using. “You did a nice job.”

She came over to
give me quick hug and a kiss on her way to the garage.

“Be careful today.
Call me if you need anything,” she said.

“Don’t worry,
Mom,” I replied. “If I die today, it’ll be from boredom.”

She laughed,
grabbing her keys off the hook. “I’m sure it won’t be that bad.”

I watched with
longing as she pulled out of the driveway and sped away. I turned back inside
after the garage door had closed, making up my mind I was going to thoroughly
clean the house for Mom today to help pass the time. There was only one problem.
She’d been home all day yesterday, and there was nothing left to do. The house
looked like a model home.

I decided to
attack my room instead. It wasn’t really dirty, but I could go through my desk
drawers and organize things.

I walked into my
bedroom and plopped onto my desk chair with a sigh, opening one of the drawers.
It was a mess. I didn’t really feel like tackling such a project. Then a new
thought popped into my mind.

“I’m a witch! I
don’t have to do things the old-fashioned way,” I said out loud to myself.

This could be fun.

I immediately
began calling out commands to the objects in my drawer. The trash separated
itself from the important papers. My files stacked themselves, pencils rushed
neatly into their holder, and spilled paper clips found their way back into the
box.

I opened the other
three drawers in my desk and did the same thing. This really was a blast!

After I was
finished, I felt pleased with my success and looked at my clock. Five minutes
had passed.

 I groaned. What
else could I do?

I looked around
the room and settled on my dresser. I went through each drawer, magically
rearranging all of my belongings. Then I moved on to my messy jewelry box,
using magic to help untangle my knotted chains and to hang everything neatly in
its place. I progressed on to my closet.

It suddenly
occurred to me, as I was arranging my pants and shirts, why Vance’s room was
cleaner than any guy’s room I’d ever seen. He was using his magic as well. I
didn’t blame him. Doing jobs like this was a lot easier than the traditional
way.

After I organized
my nightstands, I looked around the room trying to think of something else I
could do, and my eyes settled on my pale purple walls.

“I wonder….” I
stepped up and placed both hands on the wall. I thought of the color pink. Instantly
the bright hue I’d pictured seeped out from under my hands and spread across
the walls until the entire room was an awful, eye-popping shade.

I continued my
experiment, thinking of several other colors, and each time the room changed to
match the color I was pondering. However, I soon grew bored with my little
game, so I thought of a whole bunch of colors at once and in a minute it looked
like someone had tie-dyed my bedroom.

That quickly made
me feel like I was on drugs having a hallucination, however, so I ending up
settling for a soft shade of sage green. Then I went around flipping the
fabrics to match. All the patterns stayed the same, just the colors were
different.

After the fabrics,
I concentrated on the pictures on the walls, and any other decorative items in
my room to complement. Even the carpet wasn’t safe from my mass remodel. When I
was finished with those, I rearranged all the furniture. Finally, I plopped on
my bed to survey the outcome.

“I should be an
interior designer,” I said with a satisfied smile on my face.

I turned to look
at the clock. One hour had passed.

“Aarrrgh!” I
groaned loudly. I plopped backward onto the bed, totally frustrated.

“Portia,” I heard
Vance whisper in my head. “I’m sorry, but I won’t be home at lunch. The
principal wants to meet with me and Marsha then.”

“Great,” I
replied, the only bright spot in my day being ripped from me. “I guess I’ll see
you after school.”

“Okay. Sorry,
baby,” he apologized.

At that moment I
heard the doorbell ring, I sat up nervously wondering who it could possibly be.

“It’s all right,”
Vance said. “It’s your grandma.”

Chapter 17

“I’ve come to
spring the captive free,” Grandma Mullins said with a smile as she stepped
through the door. “Vance called me and said I better hurry, that a massive
interior redesign was taking place, spurred on by boredom and magical
experimentation.”

So Vance had been
keeping mental tabs on me from school during the morning. That made me feel
good—even if he was spying without my knowledge.

“I’m quite happy
with my work to be honest.” I grinned. “Would you care to come have a look?”

“Sure, why not?”
Grandma followed me up the stairs and into my bedroom.

“Wow. Green. That’s
a good color. When dealing with magic, green symbolizes balance and healing. It’s
a very good choice.”

“Is that why you
use it for the labels on the bottles in your store?” I asked, curiously.

“It is,” she
replied with a smile. “Is that where you picked up this color from?”

I nodded. “I’ve
always loved your prettily labeled bottles.”

“You must be
naturally attracted to it. With all that’s been going on in your life you
probably could use some balance and healing… which actually brings me to my
other reason for coming over.”

“What’s that?”

“I need to make
some more things for the store. I was wondering if you wanted to come spend the
rest of your time out of school with me. I could teach you how to make some of
my favorite potions and lotions. Babs is going to cover the register for me. I
figured we could work at my house where things might be a bit safer, since it
has the same type of protection charms your dad has here.”

“That sounds
lovely,” I replied with a sigh of relief. “I’ve been going crazy. The time
passes so slowly. That’s how all this experimentation began,” I explained. “I
was just trying to make it through until lunch, but then Vance said he wouldn’t
be coming back. I didn’t know what to do with myself.”

“Well, it doesn’t
look like it’s been a bad thing. I’m glad you decided to try some things out. It’s
how you’ll learn.” She turned to walk out of the room. “I need to go get some
herbs that your dad picked up for me out of his office. Why don’t you grab some
of your stuff and we’ll get going. You might as well spend the nights over
there too. Then we can work whenever we want and I won’t have to worry about
you being over here alone.”

I packed a small
bag of things for myself, while sending a mental message to Vance about what I
was doing. He told me to have fun and said he would meet me at Grandma’s after
school.

When we pulled up
in front of Grandma’s house, we saw my dad had just arrived there also.

 “Hello, Sean,”
she called to him with a wave as she exited her vehicle. “What brings you
here?”

“Can we talk?” He
inclined his head toward the house looking very serious. I felt a wave of
apprehension wash over me. Something was wrong.

“Sure. Let’s go
inside,” she replied. She led the way, and soon we were settled in the living
room
,
watching her light a couple of candles before she sat down across
from my dad.

“Is there news,
Sean?” She leaned forward in her chair, getting right to the point.

“There is. One of
my sources has found some activity in the area of Albuquerque. I believe it may
be the person we’ve been looking for. If it is, he’s already moved on from this
new location, but this puts him significantly closer to our position. I think
we should call Marsha and Vance and see what we need to do from here.”

“Definitely,”
Grandma agreed. “I’ll call Marsha right now and have her and Vance meet us here
after school today, unless you feel this warrants something quicker than that.”

My heart began
racing at epic speed, the thought of Vance being in imminent danger sending me
straight into overdrive.

“No, no,” my dad
replied. “I think we’re okay for the moment. We just need to readdress our
current plan of action.”

“Vance?” I called
out to him mentally. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, baby. Just
taking a calculus test. What’s up?”

“Take your test,”
I replied. “I didn’t mean to bother you. I’ll talk to you after school.”

I didn’t want to
distract him from his exam with news of his father. As long as he was at the
school he was safe, and Marsha would be getting hold of him.

“Okay. See you
later,” he replied, and all was quiet once more.

After she placed
the call to Marsha, Grandma, Dad and I went downstairs into the basement to
begin making some herbal lotions together.

I enjoyed learning
about this process and discovering what things the herbs could be used for. I
was also surprised to find my Dad was a pro at making these things. I’d never
seen him do anything with herbs before in my life. Of course, I guess it
shouldn’t have surprised me to find out I didn’t know something about him,
since he’d fooled me into believing he was an encyclopedia salesman for my
entire existence.

Grandma went
through the whole procedure manually with the first batch we made. Then we
played with magic to make the rest.

 I really enjoyed
that since I’d never really witnessed Dad doing actual spells, outside of past
coven rituals, before. He seemed pretty impressed with me too. The rest of the afternoon
flew by, and before we knew it Vance and Marsha were coming down the steps into
the basement. I stopped what I was doing and ran over to wrap my arms around
Vance’s neck, thrilled he was safe and back with me again.

“Hey, baby,” he
said softly, hugging me back tightly. “I missed you today. Let’s not stay apart
that long again, okay?”

“Fine by me.” I
leaned my head back so he could kiss me softly on the lips.

“How did things go
with the principal?”

“I’m off the hook.
Marsha got a big lecture about the school policy on cell phones, but other than
that, everything’s okay.”

We walked over to
sit with the others at the table.

“So, what’ve you
found out?” Marsha asked.

Dad filled her in
on the details he’d discovered, and I was surprised to see how nervous she
looked.

“He’s too close. It’s
time for us to move on.” She looked at Vance, and my stomach dropped.

“No,” he stated
harshly, and I could feel strong emotions running through him. “I’m not running
again.”

“Think about it,
Marsha,” Dad said, trying to help calm her. “You have safety in numbers here. We’ve
promised to do all we can to protect both of you.”

“I can’t risk it.”
Marsha shook her head. “I swore to his mother I’d die before I let anyone get
to him.”

“I won’t leave!”
Vance shouted this time, pounding his fist down hard on the table, causing all
of us to jump in response.

 I’d never seen
him angry like this, and I placed a slightly trembling hand on his shoulder
attempting to calm him. The others stared at him with wide-eyed expressions.

“I’m sorry,” he
said, taking a deep breath. I could feel him trying hard to rein his anger back
in. “You don’t understand. I’ve already lost one home and one family because of
this man. This is the first place that’s felt like home since my mother ran
away with me.

“And I’m with
Portia now. I’m bound to her, and I won’t leave her. I’m eighteen—this is my
decision to make.” He looked at Marsha. “Sorry.”

Vance and Marsha
stared at each other for a few moments before she gave a slight nod.

“All right,” she
said, conceding softly, but she didn’t look too happy about it.

“I’m sorry I’m the
reason all this danger’s coming here,” Vance said to Grandma and Dad. “If we
have real proof he’s getting too close, then I’ll be happy to leave to help
keep everyone else safe if that’s what you wish.”

“This isn’t your
fault in any way,” Grandma replied. “We’re glad you came here, and I think it’s
wise for you to stay regardless of how close he gets. We can protect you better
if we know where you are.”

“Plus, we need to
find out the reason your dad wants you so badly,” my dad interjected. “He was
obviously using you to strengthen his own powers. We need to know why, what
he’s planning, and why he’s been recruiting more forces. That’s definitely
worrisome to all of us.”