Spells

“They’re not there! I called for them. They’re gone.”

David hesitated, then nodded and ducked back into the house. She heard him yell something to his mom, then he was back on the porch, lugging his backpack as he pulled his jacket on. “Let’s go.”

“Will you drive?” Laurel asked. “I have…something I have to do.”

After grabbing her own backpack from her car, Laurel joined David in his car.

“We have to go get Tamani,” David said, his voice hard.

Laurel was already shaking her head.

“Laurel, I don’t care about you and him right now. He’s our best chance!”

“It’s not that; we don’t have time. If I’m not at the lighthouse by nine, he’s going to kill Chelsea. We have”— Laurel glanced at her car’s clock—“twenty-five minutes.”

“Then you go to the lighthouse and I’ll drive out to the land and bring him back.”

“There’s not time, David!”

“Then what!” he yelled, his frustrated voice filling the car.

“I can do this,” Laurel said, hoping she was telling the truth. “But first I have to stop by my mom’s store.”

Laurel banged on the front doors of Nature’s Cure until her mom came out of the back room, where she always did her closing paperwork. “Laurel, what in the wo—”

“Mom, I need dried sassafras root, organic hibiscus seeds, and ylang-ylang essential oil fixed in water instead of alcohol. I need them right now and I need you to not ask questions.”

“Laurel—”

“I don’t have a single minute to waste, Mom. I promise I will tell you everything— everything—when I get home, but right now I beg you to please just trust me.”

“But where are you—”

“Mom,” Laurel said, grabbing both her mother’s hands. “Please listen. Really listen. There’s more to being a faerie than just having a flower on my back. Faeries have enemies. Powerful enemies, and if I don’t get these ingredients from you and go take care of them right now, people are going to die. Help me. I need you to help me,” she pleaded.

Her mom stood confused for a moment before nodding slowly. “I take it this isn’t something for regular old human police?”

Tears welled up in Laurel’s eyes; she didn’t even know what to say. She didn’t have time to argue.

“Okay,” her mom said determinedly, walking down an aisle and peering at the small bottles that lined both sides. She quickly plucked the ingredients from the shelves and handed them to Laurel.

“Thanks,” Laurel said, and started to turn.

Her mom stopped her with a firm hand on her shoulder. Laurel turned as her mom gathered her into her arms, hugging her tight. “I love you,” she whispered. “Please be careful.”

Laurel nodded against her shoulder. “I love you too.” She paused, then added, “And if anything happens, do not sell the land, promise?”

Her mother’s eyes filled with fear. “What do you mean?”

But Laurel couldn’t stop. She tried not to hear the desperation in her mom’s voice as she followed her to the door. “Laurel?”

Laurel was already out the door and slipping into David’s car. “Go,” she commanded, trying to block out her mother’s last yell.

“Laurel!”

Laurel looked back, her eyes fixed on her mother’s white face as her father burst out of the bookstore, both her parents staring at the car as it drove away.

TWENTY-FIVE

“DID YOU GET WHAT YOU NEEDED?” DAVID ASKED as he headed toward the Battery Point Lighthouse.

“I got it,” Laurel said, already pulling out her mortar and pestle.

“What are you making?”

“You just drive, and we’ll see if I can avoid blowing up your car, okay?”

“Ooookay,” David said, sounding less than confident. They drove silently, the scraping of Laurel’s pestle playing a sinister duet with David’s tires humming against the asphalt. They drove to the south side of Crescent City and the clock on the dashboard marched inexorably forward.

8:43

8:44

8:45

They pulled into the deserted parking lot of the Battery Point Lighthouse and Laurel remembered coming here with Chelsea more than a year ago. She remembered Chelsea’s bright smile as she explained all about the landmark she was so attached to. As they pulled into the parking spot closest to the island, a lump grew in Laurel’s throat as she considered the possibility that she might not see Chelsea again.

At least, not alive.

Laurel shook the thought away and tried to grasp the slightly unfocused calm she had accidently achieved when she made her first perfect sugar vials last week. She threw some hibiscus seeds in the mix and crushed them with determination, forcing herself to focus on happy memories with Chelsea, fighting not to let her fears intrude.

She was startled by David’s hand on her arm. “Should we call the cops?” he asked.

Laurel shook her head. “If cops come, Chelsea will die. I guarantee it. The cops, too, probably.”

“You’re right.” David paused. “What about Klea?”

Laurel shook her head. “I just can’t make myself trust her. There’s something — something wrong about her.”

“But Chelsea…” His voice trailed off. “I just wish we had something else — someone else.” His fingers tightened painfully on her arm. “Please don’t let them kill her, Laurel.”

Laurel shook in a dusting of powdered saguaro cactus needles and held the mixture up against the dim glow of a streetlight. It reflected the low beams just the way it was supposed to. “I’m going to do my best,” she said quietly.

After pouring the mix into one sugar-glass vial, Laurel measured several drops of oil into a second vial, completing the monastuolo serum. It looked right; it felt right. She hoped it wasn’t her desperation speaking. If it worked, Jeremiah Barnes and his new lackeys would go to sleep, and once Chelsea was freed they could go get Tamani. He would know what to do. Laurel stuffed the vials into her jacket pockets and started to open her door. They’d already wasted too much time just sitting here in the parking lot while she finished the potion.

“Wait,” David said, his hand on her arm.

Laurel’s eyes darted to the dashboard clock that was rushing through minutes far too quickly, but she stayed. David dug into his backpack and when he withdrew his hand, he held the small Sig Sauer Klea had intended for Laurel. Laurel focused on the gun for a few seconds, then looked up at David.

“I know you hate it,” David said, his voice quiet and steady. “But it’s the only thing we know for sure can stop Barnes. And if it comes down to his life or Chelsea’s”—he laid the gun in Laurel’s shaking hand—“I know you’ll have the strength to make the right choice.”

Laurel’s hands were shaking so badly she could hardly wrap her fingers around the icy-cold grip, but she nodded and stuffed the gun into the waistband of her jeans, pulling her jacket down to conceal it.

They exited the car, both staring up at the lighthouse, where a spot of brightness shone out from the upper floor. Then she and David walked out to the path that led up to the lighthouse.

It was three feet under the ocean.

“Oh, no,” Laurel said under her breath. “I forgot about the tide.” She stared out at the lighthouse, about a hundred meters away across the churning water. She would make it — it wasn’t that far — but the salt would work into her pores. It would sap her strength instantly and linger for at least a week.

Without speaking, David scooped her up in his arms. He walked to the edge of the water and after the