Hold Tight

“Earthly Elements?” I asked.

“It’s more useful than a book on devious creatures that will twist your words to their advantage.”

After what I’d heard when I’d attempted to perform the summoning spell, I wasn’t going to argue with him.

“Besides,” he continued, “you need to know which natural elements will protect you and which will invite trouble.” He opened the book to a random page and went back to eating.

I read the first paragraph. “You think I’m going to need to know how to make a deal at a crossroad?”

“Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the best example,” Isaac replied through a full mouth. He swallowed. “But we have used crossroad dirt. Haven’t you wondered why?”

I hadn’t, but according to the book, demons could be summoned at a crossroad that passed through the point where the veil between worlds was at its thinnest. The ground in these locations absorbed the lingering power like a sponge.

“Do you really think someone would make a deal with the devil in exchange for talent?” I asked, still scanning the page.

“Yeah, I do. Ever hear Robert Johnson’s music?”

I shook my head.

“My grandfather used to listen to him all the time. ‘Cross Road Blues’ is all about a deal being made.”

I shuddered at the thought of selling my soul just to be the best at something.

“Witches don’t need to make deals, though,” Isaac said. Curiosity had me pulling my gaze away from the page to look at him. He smiled and went on. “If we want to play the guitar, we can simply bewitch it.” He shrugged. “It’s cheating, though. Not very honorable, if you ask me, but at least we wouldn’t be giving away our souls just so we can strum a few tunes. That reminds me, I checked on Emma last night.”

“She still crazy?” I asked in an acid tone. After her repeated attempts on my life, I was perfectly fine with her being a long-term resident in the psych ward.

Isaac ignored my snide remark. “She was too sedated to tell, but it’s safe to say she won’t be causing any more problems for us even when she gets out.”

He held his now-empty plate in front of him and focused on it. It quivered in his hand and then vanished. A moment later, a faint clatter came from the room above us.

My eyes grew wide. “Did you just put that in the sink?” His smug grin answered for him. “Do you know how much time it would save me to be able to blink the breakfast dishes into the dishwasher? I could zap the dust bunnies from under the kitchen table. My dad would get off my back about the chores piling up.” I tossed the elements book on the chair. “You have got to teach me how to do that!”

He laughed. “We’ll work on it.”

After an hour of trying to learn how the heck Isaac had managed to do his witchy-stare, poof- now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t trick, I gave up. I couldn’t even snatch a quarter off the floor without bending down and picking the damn thing up with my hands.

We stopped at the grocery store on the way to my house. Isaac went to get pasta sauce and chips for his mom while I headed to the dairy section. I grabbed a gallon of milk and turned quickly, bumping into a guy in his late teens.

“Sorry,” he said, grabbing the milk I’d nearly dropped.

A surge of heat shot through me when his fingers brushed mine. Surprised, I yanked my hand away.

“You’ll probably want this.” He held the gallon out to me.

I took it from him, purposely touching his hand to see if what I’d felt was a fluke. His skin was warm, like he had a fever, but there was no shock to indicate he possessed the powers. He gave me a funny look, which made me realize I was staring.

“Sorry.” I tucked my hair behind my ear. “I didn’t see you.”

“No harm done.”

I moved to my left at the same time he moved to his right. He smiled, his chocolate-brown eyes peeking out from under dark bangs. He had sharp features and a five o’clock shadow, and he was still in my way. I stepped toward the aisle, but so did he.

“I’ll just—” I indicated with a glance what direction I needed to go.

He turned sideways, letting me pass.

“Thanks.”

When I reached the chip aisle, I glanced over my shoulder. The guy watched me, his head cocked to the side. Not at all sure what to make of him, I hurried to join Isaac, who held a jar of marinara sauce in one hand and a variety of chips in the other.

“Ready?” he asked.

At the checkout, I paid first and then surveyed the store while I waited for Isaac to pay for his things. The guy I had bumped into was nowhere in sight, but I couldn’t shake the feeling something was off about him.

Chapter 3 Playing with Magic

The next morning, Dad opened Chase’s dresser drawer and figured out just how far behind I was on my chores.

“How hard would it be to toss in a load of laundry once in a while?” His voice dripped with exhaustion as he sniffed the socks Chase had worn the previous day. Deciding they would do, he gave them to my brother to put on.

Guilt nagged at me. I’d been too busy hanging out with Isaac to worry about clean clothes.

“I promise I’ll do a load after school,” I replied without thinking through my choice of words.

The school day flew by, and I was still kicking myself in the butt for making that promise because, with my powers, those two little words—I promise—meant I had to do laundry when I got home. No more stalling or pretending I hadn’t noticed our hampers were regurgitating two weeks’ worth of clothes.

Isaac drove me to pick Chase up at the sitter’s and then dropped us off at home, bringing my inevitable appointment with the washing machine around way too soon.

“It’s you and me, squirt,” I said as I stuffed Chase’s mittens into the sleeve of his jacket and hung it by the hood on the banister in the foyer. “How about you pick up your toys while I go upstairs to sort the laundry?”

“No way! I want to finish the movie I started last night!”

I placed my hands on his shoulders and turned him around. “You can clean while you watch TV.” When his head drooped forward in obvious disappointment, I added, “If you put away your Hot Wheels and stack Dad’s magazines into a neat pile, you can stay up until eight thirty. Do we have a deal?”

“And eat ice cream for dinner?”

“And have ice cream for dessert.”

“Okay!” Chase ran into the other room.

A few minutes later, I came downstairs with a basket full of light-colored clothes. Upbeat music rang out of the family room. I peeked in to see Chase holding a copy of Handyman Magazine as he bounced along with the music to Disney’s The Sword in the Stone.

“What happened to cleaning while you watched your movie?” I balanced the basket on my hip so I could grab his gray hoodie off the back of the couch.

“I am.” He pointed to the end table. “See, I used magic to stack the magazines. Just like Merlin.”

“You did what?” The basket nearly slipped from my grip.

Since the powers ran in our blood, it stood to reason Chase would possess them, eventually. But could he have tapped into his at such a young age? I tried to remember when Isaac and our friend Josh Corey had said they’d embraced their powers. I was pretty sure they had been eight or nine, and they’d learned about them through their parents.

I studied Chase, searching for any supernatural movement from him or the magazines.