“We’re on our way.” Lewis arched his eyebrows, tilted his head toward their car, and said, “C’mon, Jack, we gotta go.”
Jack looked at me and smiled his sweet smile. I’d always liked him. He’d made it clear on a number of occasions he liked me too. “G’night, Calliope.”
“G’night, Jack. And ’night, Lewis. Thanks for checking it out, guys. I’ll keep my eyes and ears open.” Detection diverted, I turned toward my house, my insides quaking.
As soon as the officers drove off in their white mini-SUV, I picked up the pace, hurrying around the house to the backyard and coming to a stop in front of a pile of bodies.
Two bodies, my ex’s and his brother’s. Lucky for everyone involved, these bodies were breathing. Even in the dark shadows cast by the flood light, I could see Doug’s cheeks were puffy and red, with long welts crisscrossing his face and neck, arms and lower legs.
“Get. This. Off me,” he sputtered.
“Sorry, Doug. I only know how to cast spells. My tutors haven’t covered undoing spells,” I admitted, more to Tanner than to either of the vine-bound men.
One of Thatcher’s raccoon buddies was nibbling at the leaves and berries on his way to mounting Roger’s chest. I was delighted to see how uncomfortable the man was under the poking and prodding of the animal’s delicate paws.
Harper was visibly upset. I stepped closer and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Harp. Look at me. I want you to go into the house and let me and Tanner handle these two.”
He shook his head hard, his hair sticking to his sweaty face. “Mom, something’s going on, and I want to know. I’m eighteen. I can handle it.”
I squeezed his shoulder and turned my attention to Thatcher. More raccoons, likely offspring of the mother he’d first befriended, had appeared and were clamoring for his attention. “Thatch?”
“What, Mom?”
“Do you want to stay, too?”
He dropped his gaze to his father and his uncle. The two men, still bound by the invasive vines I’d called upon, writhed on the ground. The vines had done their job and showed no sign of weakening. If anything, they appeared to be applying steady pressure on their victims. “I think Harp and I deserve to know.”
“Tanner?” I said.
He nodded solemnly. “I’ll work on them simultaneously. Do either of you have your phone handy?”
“I do,” Harper volunteered, slipping it out of his back pocket.
“I’m about to work a reveal spell. On my say so, take pictures. The images may not show up, but it’s worth a try.”
My gut clenched, and the raw area under the bandage continued to throb. A moment of truth was coming, and though my bare feet were anchored solidly to my land, toes pushing aside the grass’s stubborn roots in their search for soil, I still felt the rise of bile in my throat.
Tanner grabbed Doug by the shoulders of his shirt and dragged him next to Roger. I watched, fascinated and mildly terrified, as the vines wrapping my ex and his brother thickened in places and sent out tiny shoots in others, linking nearby sections in an approximation of fortified netting.
I stepped closer to Harper and slid my arm around his waist. “I’m sorry you have to witness this.”
“I’ll…we’ll be okay, Mom. Sometimes the truth hurts.”
“I know, sweetie, I know.”
Harper stepped away and readied the phone on his camera. Tanner stood to the side of Doug’s midsection and held out his hands, palms facing down. He closed his eyes and moved his lips. Whatever words he chanted were undistinguishable at first, until they became louder and more clearly enunciated. To my ears, it sounded like he was saying the same thing, over and over, in different languages: reveal.
I ripped my gaze from Tanner’s face and stared at Doug and Roger.
Their fingers lengthened. Their skin smoothed, all traces of facial hair gone. They were barefoot when captured, and a similar transformation was happening on their feet.
What caused the most confusion was the change in their faces. It was subtle, remaining true enough to the visages I’d known since they were teenagers, but it was there. They were reversing the aging process and becoming more youthful, even as their ears flattened against their skulls and grew pointed tips at the top.
“What the—” I whispered.
The vines I recruited began to snap. Doug and Roger must have felt their bonds loosening, and Tanner appeared so involved with his spell casting he wasn’t prepared for Doug’s foot as it crashed into the side of his knee and sent him stumbling to his back.
“Tanner!” I rushed to his side.
Harper was furiously clicking away, and Thatcher stared, dumbfounded, as his father and uncle ripped at the vines and freed their legs.
Doug roared as he broke away, scattering leaves and bits of shredded stems. He ran toward the road, Roger on his heels. Tanner was moaning on the grass, his leg at an odd angle, and Thatcher had given chase after the others.
“Harper! Give me the phone and go get your brother. I don’t want him anywhere near—”
A scream rent the air. “Dad—stop!”
I turned from Tanner and scrambled to my feet. My child was in pain or danger, and every maternal cell in my body hurtled me forward. I rounded the side of the house, my feet hitting the gravel without feeling the sharp edges of the stones, only to see Doug dragging Thatcher toward the road by one arm.
Tanner’s knife was in my hands. No time to wonder how it got there. I aimed it at Doug’s arm, pictured him releasing Thatcher, and unleashed an entire marriage’s worth of fury at my ex.
Doug let go of Thatcher with an ear-piercing scream and pivoted to face me, blood splashing from the knife sticking out of his wrist. His severed hand was still holding Thatcher’s arm as he reached the border of my land.
I grabbed the grotesque remnant of the man I’d shared a life with for over ten years and flung it in
