We stood in the parking lot, close to my car. Her arms around my waist, my arms circling her shoulders. I hadn’t known this reserved young woman all that well prior to the summer’s events. The Flechettes frowned on rubbing elbows with the Joneses. Sallie was revealing herself to me—to all of us—slowly and at the same time processing her overwhelming feelings of shame. Her parents, Josiah and Garnet Flechette, were in jail, probably for the rest of their lives.
They were Fae, and had collared Sallie starting at age twelve, using spelled ribbons and jewelry to hide her unusual features and mute her magic. The now almost nineteen-year-old was coming to grips with who she was, what her nascent magical skills might be, and where she belonged.
As far as I was concerned, my niece could call my old A-frame house her home for as long as she needed. And Thatcher was thrilled to have his cousin living under the same roof.
“Are you ready for this weekend?” I asked, happy to see her off the property and out in public. The coming Friday marked the start of the first Magical mentoring weekend of the academic year. Sallie and Thatcher were going. Harper and Leilani would attend if they got back from the Northwest Territories in time.
“Yeah? No? Maybe?” she said. The six blocks to either side of the main thoroughfare, though bustling, were quieter than during the summer rush. “I wish I could bring Jasper.”
Jasper was the Maine Coon cat on extended loan from Shamaha, another witch in my expanding circle of acquaintances and friends. Jasper helped mitigate the effects of withdrawal Sallie had been experiencing. Her parents had been remanded to a subterranean holding cell and were no longer able to mask or control their daughter or her magic.
“Have you asked Wes and Kaz about taking the cat along?”
“No,” she responded, biting one of her already stubby nails. “Should I?”
“Yes. Absolutely. But I would ask Shamaha first.” The witch had more than one magical Coon cat, and overnight Jasper had become a favorite of Sallie and Thatcher’s.
“Okay.”
Seeing as it was still officially summer, with the autumnal equinox but two days away, I was wearing flip flops. Tanner wore the flimsy footwear all the time. I missed him and had adopted the look after he left for France. The thin soles kept me in more intimate contact with the ground than my leather boots. When an oily, viscous sensation hit the bottoms of both feet, I took a quick breath and tamped down the desire to run.
“Sallie,” I said, assessing our immediate area for possible threats, “do you feel that?”
She tightened her grip, the bones of her forearms almost bruising my ribs. “I do, Aunt Calliope, and I don’t like it. It makes me feel sick to my stomach.”
The Magical signature echoed one I felt the same day I met Tanner and began this whirlwind odyssey into a world of magic and Magical beings. Once again, the signature blinked in and out from the vicinity of the marina, where float planes, fishing boats, and yachts docked alongside one another.
Sallie’s battered fingernails contracted and elongated, switching erratically between her chewed-at human version and the claws Fae trained themselves to use as weapons. I swept away the shoulder-length hair she kept deliberately shaggy. Her ears were turning too.
“Get in the car,” I said. “Lock the doors and lie down. Now.”
Chapter 2
Sallie had been schooled into round-the-clock obedience by the series of collars her parents forced her to wear for over six years. She no longer wore a collar; even without the magic-imbued restraint, she reacted to my command quickly and without question.
We were going to have to talk about that later. I pointed to a strip of bushes and trees separating the public parking area from the section of businesses. “I’ll be right over there.” I could dig my toes into the soil and keep Sallie in sight.
Sallie’s face was streaked with splotches of red and white. She mouthed, ‘Okay’.
The sickening sensation heralding the Magical’s presence was growing stronger, and the tree I ducked under was someone’s camping spot. I pressed my hand into the deep grooves of the bark, scuffed away leaves and a crushed can, and slipped one foot out of the flip flop. Toes in the soil, I kept one eye on my car and attempted to pinpoint the oddly colored spot.
The blackish area swirled with a rainbow of colors, like a shallow puddle on an oil-slicked bit of road. Hating to have Sallie out of my sight, but not knowing how else to do what I needed to do, I settled all ten toes into the soil and closed both eyes.
A circuit board of Magical spots spread against the inside of my eyelids and through my brain. Familiar ones, as always, connected to store owners and other workers, ones I often saw when I read the downtown area.
Added now were a handful—five maybe, or six—of the oily swirls, all moving together. My eyelids flew open. The group was approaching the building backing onto the parking lot. The building belonged to the Flechette Realty and Property Development Group.
I forced my dirtied feet into my flip flops and hurried to my car. I didn’t press the unlock button on my key fob until I made sure Sallie saw me.
“Sallie,” I said, whispering. Which was entirely unnecessary. “Sit up slowly. I’m going to move us out of here and drive around the front of the realtor’s office.”
“If you mean my family’s realty office, just say it, Aunt Calli.”
I nodded. “Yes, that one.” I started the car, backed up, and stopped at the exit area to let a group make their way along the crosswalk. The queasy feeling in my belly strengthened.
“Do you feel that?” Sallie asked.
“I do. What do you think it is?”
Sallie pressed her lips together,
