Page 4 of Magical Mirage (Stonewick Magical Midlife Witch Academy #6)

Everyone had gone home, and the air was lighter, the cottage brighter, and my hopes filled to the brim that if nothing else, we would figure out how to break Keegan’s part of the curse. But as I slid under the covers in the loft at the cottage, goosebumps skittered along my body.

I lay still, listening. The rafters above me creaked, a familiar, sleepy groan of old timber settling into night, and a faint pop from the hearth downstairs sent a puff of orange light across the floorboards.

Nothing unusual. Karvey and his crew were perched on the roof, as always, silent guardians who rarely left their posts. Every so often, one of their stone claws rasped against the shingles with a slow scrape, the sound oddly comforting in its regularity.

I enjoyed the towering security of the Academy on most nights, but tonight, I just needed the cozy comfort the cottage offered. This was where it all began.

Yet the goosebumps wouldn’t subside. A shiver threaded my spine, and suddenly the blanket felt too thin.

I pressed a finger to the pulse at my throat and let my magic hum just beneath the skin, testing the quiet for anything amiss. A Hedge witch’s intuition was sharper than any Ward's if you cared to listen. I was learning that much if nothing else, but tonight, mine buzzed like a nest of hornets.

Too much tea, too many moon-puff pastries. That had to be it.

Still, I rolled out of bed and padded to the loft window, pulling the curtain aside.

Moonlight poured over the herb beds. Lavender swayed gently in the thin breeze, sage leaves glimmered silver, and the mint, recovering after Twobble’s raid, stood upright and unbothered.

A scene so peaceful it belonged on the cover of a spring almanac.

Yet the hair on my arms refused to lie flat. I had grown used to Frank always being around to lend a snort, and he was back at the Academy.

I pressed my forehead to the cool glass.

Beyond the garden, the pines rose black and dense at the property’s edge, their tops tracing dark strokes against a star-brushed sky.

Shadows pooled at their bases, thicker than they should have been under a waxing moon.

I held my breath, counting heartbeats, willing something to break the hush, an owl’s cry, a fox’s yip, even Skonk tripping over a rake.

Nothing.

Behind me, the loft steps creaked, then settled. Just the cottage breathing. Still, goosebumps.

I turned from the window and pulled on a wool shawl, the one Luna had knit with threads that warmed on demand.

The loft floorboards felt colder than usual as I crossed to the steps.

A low scrape echoed across the roof that sounded like stone on slate, deliberate and measured.

Karvey shifting position, no doubt, but the sound felt… tense.

I descended into the sitting room, firelight flickering over familiar clutter. Stacks of Academy library books awaited return, and a half-finished teacup still faintly steamed where Stella had forgotten it. Everything precisely as it should be, except for my heartbeat thudding in my ears.

So why did I feel like the forest itself was holding its breath?

A soft thud overhead jolted me upright. Another scrape of stone…then silence. I hurried to the front door, pressed a palm to the sturdy oak, and opened senses I rarely used unless trouble called. Magic flickered at the edge of thought, reaching outward like roots tasting the soil.

Something tasted wrong.

I unlatched the door and stepped onto the porch. Cool air kissed my cheeks. The lantern by the steps burned steadily, haloing the garden in soft gold. I strained to hear more than the wind in the pines.

Nothing. Then one quiet footfall where no path lay.

A tall, hulking silhouette moved at the treeline, with its darkness blending with the shadows around it.

My mouth went dry. The shape slipped between trunks with uncanny silence, but not the silence of fae lightness.

This was the stealth of something heavy, predatory, practiced.

My magic recoiled as though recognizing an old scar.

Malore.

The name slammed into me with the force of a thrown stone.

Grandfather. Betrayer. The massive wolf who’d abandoned his own son and nearly felled the cottage the last time he crossed the Wards.

I couldn’t see fur or fangs from here, yet every instinct screamed that he was out there, pacing the boundary, testing for weakness.

I glanced up. Karvey crouched at the roof’s peak, wings tucked, head tilted slightly toward the trees. His posture was relaxed, too relaxed. Either he hadn’t sensed Malore, or he deemed the threat distant enough not to warrant alarm.

My pulse thundered. If Karvey wasn’t worried, was I imagining things? I swallowed, forcing calm. Hedge intuition could misfire after a night of excitement. But that silhouette…the deliberate hush of the forest…

Across the clearing, the shadows shifted again. The figure now stood partly in moonlight, huge shoulders outlined, head turned toward the cottage.

Yellow glints of eyes catching light flared and vanished.

I took one step back and hit the doorframe. The wood creaked, loud in the hush. Instantly, the silhouette melted into darkness. Branches stirred, needles whispered, then stillness reigned once more.

My breath came ragged.

Karvey’s gravel-deep voice rumbled above.

“All is secure, Maeve.” But he hadn’t moved. Was that reassurance or a warning to stay inside?

I edged backward through the doorway, closing the latch with shaking fingers.

Thunder rumbled far away, even though there was no storm on the forecast, and then I recognized it as gargoyle wings beating air.

Karvey glided low over the yard, scanning.

He circled twice, then alighted on the porch rail, stone eyes meeting mine through the window. A silent question: saw something?

I nodded once. His stony brow furrowed. He lifted off again, disappearing into the dark, intent on his patrol.

I exhaled shakily. The cottage remained warm and safe.

Yet the night pressed thick at the windows, as though Malore’s vast shape swallowed moonlight wherever he prowled.

We’d earned peace tonight, shared laughter and foolish dancing, but darkness had a long memory, and family ties could be the cruelest chains.

Upstairs, the loft waited with blankets still warm, but sleep would not come easily now. I stoked the fire instead, brewed a fresh pot of mint and chamomile tea, and settled into the armchair facing the door.

Outside, the gargoyles scratched across the roof again, slow, deliberate, and untiring. For now, the cottage was guarded, and I feared the night had only just begun.

The last ember settled in the hearth, and a hush fell over the cottage like fresh snowfall. Even the clock on the mantle seemed to hold its breath between ticks. I leaned an elbow on the windowsill, staring past my reflection into a world washed silver by moonlight.

Somewhere beyond those pines, the Academy glowed with its steady, humming Wards. I’d probably be safer there if something was stirring in the woods, but I could no longer hide, not if we wanted to break the curse.

My father was tucked safely inside its walls, and the thought steadied me, yet offered no real comfort. Relief and dread braided together, tightening around my ribs until every heartbeat felt too loud.

He’s safe. Repeat it. He’s safe.

Not like last time.

But there’s still something out there. I could sense it.

The usual night chorus of owls, the wind through pine needles, and the distant creek had quieted. Pines loomed like sentinels carved from ink, cracking in a rhythmic dance with the wind as their shadows pooled at the garden’s edge.

Each time I looked away, I sensed movement at the periphery, a shape that slipped between trunks and dissolved when I tried to focus. My magic, normally a gentle hum beneath my skin, prickled in warning. Hedge-witch intuition rarely shouted. It lodged deep in my bones and waited for me to listen.

I pushed off the windowsill and crossed into the kitchen.

My feet knew the path by heart when I craved a kettle, a tin of rooibos, and a jar of dried valerian blossom.

Keegan claimed valerian tasted like damp socks, but tonight that earthy note felt grounding, the herb’s calming heaviness just what my roiling thoughts required.

I measured pinches with practiced fingers, letting the woody scent rise.

Water hissed in the kettle. Everything seemed normal, ordinary, and safe.

It was all in my head. It had to be.

But dread tugged anyway.

The gargoyles were unusually quiet on the roof. Usually, Karvey and his crew scraped and shuffled, trading dry-witted commentary about cloud formations or arguing over the merits of different lichens. Now, nothing. A stone silence. I tipped my head, listening. Still nothing.

“I’m just anxious,” I told the kettle. “Nothing more.”

The kettle answered with a thin whistle. I turned off the flame and let the water settle before it could screech. Steam unfurled, clouding the cottage air. I set the mug on the windowsill beside the sink, tea leaves swirling like rust-red galaxies.

I glanced up, eyes following the steam’s slow spiral, and that’s when I saw them.

Two points of light glowed between the trees, impossibly bright against the dark. Not fireflies. Not starlight. Eyes.

Huge, golden, unblinking. They hovered at a height that belonged to nightmares, too tall for any deer, too level for an owl. The pupils contracted, narrowing into slits.

My breath caught. The mug slipped from my grasp and thudded onto the counter, tea sloshing but, miraculously, not spilling. The kettle’s cooling metal pinged behind me like distant bells, each note sharp enough to hurt.

Don’t blink.

Don’t move.

The eyes remained fixed, a hunter’s gaze locked onto its prey. A shape coalesced around them, broad shoulders, darker than the night surrounding it. The creature, no, the wolf, didn’t advance. It waited. Watching.

Malore.

My grandfather’s name pulsed through me with icy finality.

One meeting had been enough to carve his presence into my magic forever.

Even in human guise, he radiated violence; in wolf form, he was silent ruin on four legs.

And now he stood at the border of my garden, Wards trembling beneath his weight.

The breath I’d been holding fled in a shaky rush. I backed away from the window, chest hammering, tea forgotten. The wooden floor felt too thin. I needed the gargoyles and their stone certainty.

As if summoned by my fear, a shrill, grinding cry tore through the night. Stone scraping slate, wings beating air.

Karvey’s alarm, raw and ragged. Another gargoyle, maybe Horny, responded from the far corner of the roof, then a third. Nails gouged the shingles, claws dug for purchase. The screeches overlapped, a chorus of granite fury.

The eyes in the woods narrowed to coals.

The shadow around them shifted, muscles rolling beneath midnight fur.

Malore’s growl carried across the clearing, low and toneless, as if the earth itself voiced it.

The glass panes vibrated, fine lines of frost spiraling across the surface, though the air was nowhere near cold.

I reached for my wand on instinct, fingers brushing carved birch.

My mouth formed half an invocation before I stopped.

The Ward might hold if I wove them all tighter, but drawing that kind of energy risked weakening the other Wards.

Worse, it might be exactly the show of power Malore waited for, permission to breach.

Miora appeared behind me, and I nearly jumped ten feet.

“I’d hoped it was my imagination,” she whispered, staring out the window.

“Me too.”

Another screech overhead, closer and desperate. Shingles shattered. Dust sifted past the ceiling beams.

Think, Maeve. Dad is safe. You are the only piece left on Malore’s board game tonight.

The eyes blinked once, slow and deliberate, with a promise. He would wait, starving me of courage until I surrendered it.

I raised the wand anyway, voice steadying through sheer will. A Hedge witch warded both home and heart. I would not hand either to a creature who abandoned blood for slaughter. Not tonight.

And I was not foolish enough to go outside or call my friends for help for fear they would fall prey to him.

Moonlight cut across the floorboards in pale bars. I stepped into one, letting silver pour over me.

Ever since the night of the moonbeam, I’d felt a deeper connection with the disc in the sky.

I’d only hoped I didn’t need to test it so soon.

The gargoyles shrieked again, circling overhead in frantic sweeps. Malore’s shadowy form shifted, weight gathering in his haunches.

For a heartbeat, I imagined the surge, the crash of wood as the beast barreled through the garden and slammed into my door like last time, but he didn’t. Instead, those golden eyes retreated a pace, and then another, melting back into forest gloom.

The silence that followed roared in my ears, louder than any howl. Gargoyles swooped in wider arcs, searching, but the wolf had vanished between the trunks. Only the black hush of the pines remained, thick and impenetrable.

I lowered my wand and placed it in my back pocket, but my arm wouldn’t stop trembling. The tea behind me had cooled to a dusky red, valerian scent curling like smoke. Outside, not a single owl dared call.

The gargoyles regrouped on the roof, talons clattering. I heard Karvey issue orders in gravel tones I couldn’t make out. No further screeches, just the heavy thump of patient wings settling.

Malore was gone for now.

My knees unlocked, and I sank to the floor, spine pressed against the cabinets. I let the tension bleed into the wood behind me, every breath an uneven stutter.

In the distance, the Academy’s Wards pulsed once with a gentle hum, as though reminding me of their presence, of my father’s safety. But the spell of relief broke before it could take root.

Because the dark between the trees still felt alive, charged, restless. Malore had come to survey his prize, and the gargoyles’ alarm proved I hadn’t imagined it. He’d tested the boundary, measured the strength of friend and Ward alike, and retreated untouched.

It was best I hadn’t called for help, or tonight could have ended much differently.

I lifted my gaze to the window one last time. Nothing stared back. Yet I felt his watching, just beyond the fringe of moonlit grass, and waiting for a crack in courage, a slip in resolve. Waiting for me, his granddaughter.

The cottage stood silent, and the woods were muted. My heart drummed, counting down to dawn or danger, whichever arrived first.

But all I could ask myself was why had he returned?