Cursed In Love (The Adams' Witch Book 2) (4 page)

“That’s pretty cool,” I admitted, awe-struck.

And there was the cocky smile back. “You haven’t seen anything yet, babe. I’m just getting warmed up.”

I rolled my eyes, and he laughed. Jennie reached over and dropped the flower back into the vase. “I’d like to tell you he’s exaggerating, but he’s not. My brother’s a damn good witch.”

“Speaking of being a damn good witch, how are your powers holding up, little sis? Do you need me to charm you a protection, or…?”

Her words came out clipped. “I can handle myself.”

Travis walked around the side of the couch with his hands in the air. “Again, not saying you can’t. What about your friend here?”

Jennie frowned as she looked me up and down. “She could use protection.”

“Do you mean like salt?” I asked, remembering how the canisters of salt Jennie and I bought at the country store the day Aunt Rose died stopped Mother Shipton for a brief period.

“Kind of like that,” Jennie said. “There are more things, too.”

“So, what you’re telling me is, she knows nothing?”

“Hey…I know things. I just talked about the salt, didn’t I?”

He shook his head. “She knows nothing.”

Jennie laughed. “I couldn’t tell her about us and you freaking know it. Dad would’ve flipped. It’s bad enough she already knows some stuff because her aunt ended up turning out to be a…”

“Witch bitch,” they both said together.

“You think I need to learn a spell or something? Turn Wiccan?”

I’d never been that into organized religion, and Wicca seemed like an odd choice to start with. Even with training, I doubted I could do something as cool as Travis did with that flower. I wasn’t anything special.

“It wouldn’t hurt for you to learn a few spells,” Jennie said, eyeing her brother.

“So you’re telling me you can actually teach me how to do magick?” I asked. It seemed beyond the realm of probability. Naturals made more sense. Inherited powers, kind of like superheroes, was something I could get behind. But taking someone like me, who’d never been able to do anything magickal in her life, and teach her to manipulate objects or perform spells, didn’t seem likely.

“Of course,” Travis said, his face the complete opposite of my disbelieving tone. “You heard Jennie when she told you about Wicca, right?”

“I understand that. But I don’t have any special powers whatsoever. It works for people like that? For anyone?”

“For anyone.” His lips curved up. “It’s the most well-guarded secret in the universe. Even you, who I can tell is about as magickal as that plant sitting on the table can do things. Little things like protecting yourself at a very basic level anyway.”

I struggled against the urge to roll my eyes. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

Jennie shook her head. “Don’t mind him. His head’s been that big since he was little. Sarah, you can learn to defend yourself, and with what’s out there, it would be smart to learn a few basic protection spells.”

Travis plopped himself down on the couch between us. “Just think. You can’t fight magick with pepper spray. You fight magick with magick.”

Doubt hovered heavy in my mind. “I get what you’re saying but as you cleverly pointed out, I’m about as magickal as a box of rocks.”

Travis beamed. “For now.”

I shrugged. “Forever.”

The front door to the house creaked open and slammed. “Sarah! You home?”

I tampered the sarcastic remark fighting to escape. We had company so I restrained myself.

Travis stood and moved across the room.

I watched him walk away, his hands in his pockets. He was so odd. Most guys were predictable, but he was unlike any other guy I’d ever met. His actions kept making me change my mind about him. At times, he was a straight up pompous ass. But then others, he could be sincere and thoughtful.

Feet thudded across the hardwood floors. Before she even appeared in the doorway, I knew she was headed this way. Hanging out in the library was now routine for Jennie and me.

She leaned against the doorjamb and smiled at Jennie and I. “How are you guys?” She glanced around the library until her gaze fell on Travis. Her eyes widened.

I turned in disgust. Yes, Travis was nice to stare at, but he had to be in his early twenties and therefore not even close to my mother’s age bracket. I didn’t think she’d drool in his presence though. Then again, I hadn’t met all of Cici’s men. It was possible she dated younger guys.

Jennie motioned toward her brother. “That’s Travis, Mrs. Perkins. My brother. He’s up visiting from Salem where he goes to school.”

He gave my mom a panty-melting smile. His dark hair fell in front of his eyes as he bowed slightly. “It’s lovely to meet you, Mrs. Perkins.”

Her hand moved to her chest. “Finally. Someone with manners. I can tell you’re not from around here. Ever since we’ve moved to this godforsaken town, people have been downright nasty.”

I gave her a warning glare. We didn’t need a replay of the mailman scenario. Besides, I’d seen how she acted around Adams. She once asked if she should wear gloves to the grocery store. As far as I was concerned, if you acted better than everybody else, you deserved what you got.

“How was your day, Mom?”

She shrugged. “Boring. As usual. Yours?”

“Not so good. Have you checked your phone at all today? Two police officers drove Jennie and I to the police station to answer questions about Courtney’s disappearance.”

Mom’s hands dropped to her sides. “They called you in? Out of school? To answer questions on a disappearance you know nothing about? That sounds like this hell-hole of a town.”

Even though I agreed with her, I felt the need to argue. “They’re just trying to do their jobs. A seventeen-year old girl is missing.”

She arched an eyebrow. “I know how that feels.”

My face bloomed red. She never left an open opportunity to throw it in my face that I left Miami without her knowing. Since Travis was around, I decided not to give in to my first impulse to tell her it took a special kind of mom not to notice her seventeen-year old had vanished for two days.

“It didn’t go that bad,” Jennie said. “But the policeman told us another girl went missing, too.” She peeked toward her brother.

Cici fretted over her lip. “We should go back to Miami.”

I laughed. “Yeah, right. Even with the two disappearances, Miami is worse and you know it. I can’t get any safer here. It’s Adams.”

Okay, so part of that was a lie, but I was hoping Cici would drop it. Miami was the last place I needed to be.

She sat on the arm of the couch and put her hand on my shoulder. “Actually, Sarah. I’ve been thinking and I want us to go back to Miami.”

I shrugged her arm off and stood. How could she bring this stupid conversation up in front of other people? This was private.

“You like it here because of your dad, I get that. But—”

“Mom!”

Her face paled, then her gaze flicked toward Travis and it reddened to a deep crimson. “I don’t want to be here,” she said.

“We’re not having this conversation right now and especially not in front of other people.”

“Why not?”

Jennie stood and put one of the journals in her bag. With a quick glance toward her brother and a nod toward the doorway, they both moved in that direction.

Mom watched them, perplexed. “You guys don’t have to leave.”

Jennie waved her away. “We have to anyway. Mom’s making Travis a welcome home dinner and we don’t want to be late.”

Jennie didn’t even look at me as she left the room, followed by Travis. I didn’t trust myself to speak until I heard the front door close.

“What is wrong with you?” I asked.

She pulled at the sides of her hair. “I hate it here. I hate it. I can’t stand it for one more second. There’s nothing to do here.”

“So find a job. Get a hobby. Do anything. You act like you need to be taken care of.”

Cici crossed her arms. “We never should’ve left Miami. We need to go back.”

“We sold the house. What are we going to go back to?”

“Charles said we could stay with him.”

Anger burned through my veins. “Charles? Who’s Charles?”

She flipped her hair over her shoulders. “The guy I was seeing before I came up here to get you.”

I shook my head. A couple of weeks ago I’d had so much hope that Mom and I could save our relationship. But the longer we stayed in Adams, the more she turned into her old self. I hated it. I just wanted an actual mother. “I’m not moving back to Miami.”

“You’re seventeen and you have to do what I say.”

Frustrated tears threatened my eyes. “Please, Mom. I don’t want to be there. I like it here. And it’s not because Dad lived here either. I just like it here. If you could settle into a routine, find a job, a place to hang out, you’d like it, too. I need you to give it a chance.”

“It’s not safe here.”

I couldn’t argue with that. “I’m not saying it is.”

“Then why would you want to stay?” She looked around the room. “Tell me you feel it, Sarah. I’m not paranoid, am I? There’s something going on.”

Again, I’d had thoughts about telling her the whole story but in a lot of ways, I was stronger than my mother. If I told her, we’d be in her car in two seconds and driving back to Miami. I sat down on the couch next to her and leaned my head on her shoulder. “I know it’s weird here. And yes, some very strange stuff happened, but I don’t think it’s always that bad.”

She leaned her head on top of mine. She was quiet for a long moment, then she whispered, “He’s everywhere. It hurts.”

Now that was a reasonable excuse to leave. I swallowed and gritted my teeth. “I know.”

She shook her head and stood. “I’ll give it more time, Sarah, but if any other weird stuff happens, we’re gone. And you can think I’m being as mean as you want to, but the reality of it is, I’m doing what will keep us safe.”

“Mom, I’ll—we’ll be fine. You won’t have anything to worry about.”

“I hope you’re right.”

So was I. Because Adams was where I wanted to be. Weird witch town or not.

CHAPTER FOUR

Jennie and I were quiet on the way to school the next morning. We never talked about my mom and she was the only thing on my mind. I figured Jennie knew my mom was full of shit and even though she’d wanted to go back to Miami last night, that didn’t mean a damn thing this morning.

Old Adams farm houses whizzed by on my right. Adams High School was just on the outskirts of town, so we had to pass through Adams Center to get there. On the way through, I spotted Travis’s sweet Jeep in the angular parking in the middle of town. There was no mistaking it. It was the prettiest car in all of Adams.

“There’s your brother’s car.”

Jennie huffed. “I saw it.”

“You could’ve told me you had a brother, you know.”

She looked at me from the corner of her eyes and then shrugged. “We kind of became friends under very weird circumstances. I don’t think we’ve talked a lot about personal things and my brother is personal.”

She had a point there. Hadn’t I just been saying we didn’t talk about my mother? “Is he as good of a witch as he says he is?”

She scowled. “Better.”

I ran my hands through my hair. “Then he needs to help us break the curse.”

Jennie snorted a laugh. “Travis pretty much does whatever the hell he wants. Always has. If we want him to do something, we’ll have to give him a reason that helps him. He won’t do it for the good of humanity or any other fluffy reason.”

“So telling him it’s the right thing to do won’t work?”

“Nope.”

“Well, let’s see. He’s here because your parents made him, right? To help keep you safe?”

Jennie pulled into the school parking lot. “That’s what he says.”

I got the feeling Jennie didn’t believe him. What the hell had happened between those two, anyway? I didn’t have siblings, but questioning a brother’s wanting to protect his sister seemed way out of character. “Okay…so how do we help him see that helping Drake will help you?”

Jennie hunted for a parking spot as I mulled that question over in my mind. We needed Travis’s power and knowledge to help Drake since Jennie and I had gotten nowhere. How could we make him see it would help him, too?

“I got it,” I said, as all the puzzle pieces lined up in my head. “They’re all interconnected. Travis is here to keep you safe so all we have to do is explain to him that by finding Courtney, he’ll be keeping you safe. What we want to do is find Courtney, so it will be a win-win for both of us.”

Jennie put the car into park and sat back in the seat. “By finding Courtney, we can ask her about the binding spell Mother Shipton put on Drake. She’ll also tell us how she went missing in the first place and if there really is a missing Naturals conspiracy. The two cases could be unrelated. Courtney went missing because she wanted to and maybe the other Natural is missing for real, which isn’t unheard of in our community.”

A light at the end of the tunnel I hadn’t seen in a while glowed. “Do you think that could work? Do you think Travis will see our logic?”

“Oh, you’re so cute, Sarah. Like I said, Travis doesn’t do logic unless it works in his favor. If we can convince him that finding Courtney will help him get back to Salem quicker, he’ll be all about it.”

“Then let’s do it.”

Jennie threw her door open and stopped short. She gasped in a breath as a hand shot out to catch the metal frame. At Jennie’s body straightening, I got out of the car and looked over the top of the car. I didn’t recognize the person in front of her.

Jennie lifted herself from the front seat of the car and shut the door, squaring off with the guy. “What do you want?”

He smirked. He had a small pin head and wiry arms. “The cops brought you in and questioned you about Courtney.”

She shrugged. “So. They probably did with lots of people.”

He shook his head. “No, actually. They haven’t. And seeing as how we both know who each other are, I want to know what you know.”