Did I feel different? The tattoo on my belly was itchier, reminding me I really should look into getting it removed or altered. Loosening my zipper so I could give it a scratch, I darted a glance to the passenger seat. I’d tossed my things, including the length of joined ribbons and yarns, into a canvas boat bag. Perched atop my wrinkled red dress was a crown. I was going home a princess.
No, a Priestess. What was it Rose said? This ritual marks the start of your vision quest…
For the rest of the drive, I stayed alert to anything that could be construed as a sign or an omen. Aside from the occasional kettle of vultures circling overhead, I found no auguries in the sky, trees, or on the ground, nothing beyond the hyper-bright light of a cloudless summer day. I made my ferry, napped on the quick thirty-minute ride, and backed into my empty driveway.
I positioned the Jeep close to the outdoor hose, my hair and skin every bit as dust-coated as the exterior of the vehicle. A bubble bath followed by a slathering of moisturizer was foremost on my mind as I tramped up the stairs and deposited my load of gear on the floor. I had just taken off my boots and was getting ready to peel off my dirty clothes when a scuffle on the front porch alerted me I had visitors.
Harper and Thatcher stood in the doorway, the screen section opened wide and distressed looks distorting both their faces. My ex-husband stood behind them. He was shorter than our sons, and his eyebrows, forehead, and receding hairline rose like tufted hillocks in the space between where the boys’ shoulders met.
“Doug?” I half-expected him to jump up and down in a bid for attention.
Instead, he elbowed the boys apart, stepping between them and across the threshold to my home. The old A-frame and I shuddered as one.
Technically, Doug was connected to Harper and Thatch; there was no reason for the wards to keep him out, even though I’d jokingly asked Tanner to add my ex to the Thou Shall Not Pass list. I would address that oversight as soon as Doug said whatever he came to say and left.
“What are you doing here?” I kept my back to the living room and stood my ground, an act I appreciated with even greater clarity after the ritual.
My inferred refusal to give in to Doug’s attempt at bullying forced him to jostle our sons farther apart. It was an uncomfortable moment for all three males.
“I had some very interesting conversations with my sons this weekend,” he sputtered, “and I think you owe me an explanation.”
“Dad…”
Doug wheeled around, grabbed Harper by the T-shirt, and shoved him toward the living room. Thatch hesitated before following his brother. Their gangly legs and soured attitudes took up the entire couch.
I moved to stand between my sons and their father, a wave of protective energy flowing up my spine and down my arms. “Doug. This is my house, and I’m saying this once—hands off and sit down. Or else.”
“Or else what, Calliope?” he spat out. “Or else you’ll call your boyfriend?”
Oh, so that was what had Doug’s knickers in a twist: Tanner, and likely his offer to mentor the boys. And Doug’s resistance to all things magically inclined as well as his litany of the missteps I’d made during our years together.
“Why are you here and what do you want?” I asked.
He stood wide-legged and crossed his arms over his chest. The pronounced paunch he’d developed in the final years of our marriage was gone. In its place was a more tapered waist, muscular arms, and a meanness in his attitude I hadn’t seen before.
Or hadn’t wanted to see.
“I am here to tell you there will be no magical training for Harper or Thatcher, by you or anyone else. Period.”
“Dad, you have no—”
Doug glared at me before he turned his torso and addressed Harper, grinding his words between his teeth. “I. Am. Your. Father. I have every right, legal and otherwise, to act as I see fit. And I see fit to hustle your two sorry asses off this island and into a decent school system. Someplace where discipline and order mean something, so right now, you keep your ass on that couch and shut the fuck up.”
Two teenaged jaws dropped open, and two sets of eyes went round as Doug punctuated every other word with a pointed finger wielded like a tool for punching holes. A red flush crept across both boys’ faces.
Stunned into silence, I planted my knuckles on my hips and mentally thumbed through the spells I’d memorized, looking desperately for something that would blast Doug out of the room and off my property.
Before I could latch on to any one spell or hex or incantation, long pent-up words burst out of me. “Douglas Ingraham Flechette, this is my house and you will not speak to any of us that way.”
My fury must have triggered…something, and my raised palm reinforced my resolve.
Doug flew backward, knocked the screen off its hinges, and tumbled to a landing at the bottom of the porch stairs. Tanner, who was walking toward the house, swerved around the heap of arms and legs and waved at me.
“Trouble?” he asked, stopping on the grass.
“Tanner, meet my ex,” I replied, still shaking from the effect of whatever I had just unleashed. “Doug Flechette, Tanner Marechal.”
Doug ignored the hand Tanner extended and stood, gathering his legs under him before he came to his full height of five-feet-ten-inches tall. The agent had a few inches on him and embodied a way of moving that broadcasted restrained power.
My ex appeared unbothered, or unaware. He poured his weight into his back foot and slugged Tanner in the midsection.
Tanner grunted, bowed into the blow, and shot out
