Page 8 of Spellbound

“Oh, come on. It’s just a bunch of hocus-pocus.”

~ Max, Hocus Pocus

I was dreaming again, and the dreams were interrupting my sleep just like they had before we set out for North Carolina. Such crazy dreams—could they be a warning that I should never have come here?

In my dream, ancient spruce trees were crowding the edges of the long, winding driveway that led up to the Cromwell house.

One or two of them had stretched their roots across the overgrown dirt track to trip any would-be trespasser, like me, and all of them had crept closer to what was only burnt-out ruins of the house, shaking their limbs furiously in the cold breeze, reclaiming their land, demanding to know why I was there, disturbing their peace.

Or were they trying to give me some kind of warning? There was a sign hanging on a tree, and it was slightly askew. I peered at it through the dim light and saw the sign from the Wizard of Oz movie— I’d Go Back If I Were You.

As I stared at it, I could hear someone laughing in the woods. It sounded like whatever that had been earlier that evening on the road, the thing that had whistled at me and called my name. I turned to run and something grabbed my hand.

I came awake suddenly, breathing hard and fighting shadows as I lay on a sofa in a darkened room that I didn’t remember being in before.

I must be inside the Cromwell house, startled into wakefulness by my grandma, who was laughing softly nearby.

I sat up quickly with the feeling that something was dreadfully wrong.

My heart was beating too fast, and I couldn’t seem to take in a full breath.

“Grandma!” I called out, reaching blindly for her in the dim room, but instead a large, strong hand slipped inside mine—the same one as in my dream—and Ben Jackson was pushing me gently back down against the pillow.

“She’s fine. Don’t alarm her by shouting for her like that. You’re safe and so is she. You’re here at the Cromwell farm, and you fainted.”

“W-what? I fainted? I’ve never done that before in my life.”

“There’s always a first time, I suppose. My dog tried to knock you over.”

“And that caused me to faint? No way,” I said, my voice sounding winded and incredulous, but my heartbeat was slowing down, and I found I could breathe a little easier at least. For some reason, his presence made me feel safer, though I couldn’t imagine why.

It must have been that nightmare that had made me feel so alarmed.

“What happened?” I asked him again, unable to figure out why I’d blacked out.

“Like I said, we came up toward the porch, and my dog Dolly got excited and tried to knock you down to get to me. She didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“That doesn’t sound…” I trailed off, because I wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence. Didn’t sound what? Like the truth? What the hell? I sat up, shaking my head and swung my legs over the side of the couch. “No, you did something.”

“I caught you and put you back on your feet.”

“B-but you were nowhere near me.”

“I used magic, like I told you, Ash. You know that, so stop pretending. I’m not going to indulge you like the others have in the past.”

I felt my eyes widen . “W-what?”

“You heard me perfectly well. Now, do you feel like standing up?”

“Of course,” I said, jumping to my feet.

Too fast—I got a little head rush and had to sit right back down again, which made me feel even more foolish and weak in front of this man I would have liked to impress.

But thank goodness, my grandma had heard me calling her after all, and she came hurrying in, with her sister right behind her.

She came over beside me and pulled me into a hug.

“I was so worried about you, honey. Are you feeling better?”

“I’m fine,” I said, letting her hug me for a few seconds and then, feeling embarrassed, I pulled away. “I still don’t understand what happened though.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ben roll his eyes.

“Low blood sugar, just like I told you,” my grandma said. “We haven’t eaten all day, you know, not since that snack this morning, and they were just some old, dry crackers from the gas station. Then came all the stress of trying to drive in that rain and fog.”

“You drove, Gran.”

“I know, but you were right there with me. Come on in the dining room, sweetie. You need to eat, and Rosalyn has fixed us a lovely dinner.”

It did smell good, and the pot roast that someone had mentioned had fragranced the whole house. My stomach growled, and I saw Ben glance over at my grandma and shake his head like he disapproved of something. She met his gaze and blushed. What was that about?

My grandma wasn’t from this area originally and neither was Rosalyn.

They were both from Atlanta and neither had any roots here in the mountains.

But Rosalyn had gone to college in North Carolina and had liked it so well, she’d decided to stay on.

My gran told me she had come here as a young woman to teach in an elementary school in Brevard, a town close to Asheville.

It was there that she met her husband, a slightly older man who had been some kind of police official—she had called him a Council member—Town Council, maybe?

Anyway, that man had been Lawrence Cromwell.

He had fallen in love with Rosalyn at first sight.

The rest, as they say, was history. They’d been really happy together and raised two sons, until he developed ALS, which had eventually killed him at the age of forty-eight.

Rosalyn had never remarried. All things considered, she had experienced a lot of tragedy in her life.

I let my grandma take my arm and lead me through to the dining room, trying to ignore Ben, who was a little intimidating.

The house was lovely, with the ten-foot ceilings common to these older homes, with bigger than usual rooms for such an old house.

We came out of the parlor and crossed the wide foyer that was lit by a gorgeous, old-fashioned, crystal chandelier.

I wondered if it could be original to the house.

A wide staircase led up to the second floor, and decorative crown molding called egg and dart went around the ceiling.

The furniture was authentically antique, in a style that I had always quite liked, called Queen Anne.

The wood floors gleamed, and every room had been fairly recently painted or wall-papered. I’d noticed a fairly new Grand Cherokee parked outside as we came up the driveway. And Ben had been driving a late model Ford F-250 pickup, so no one was hurting for money around here at least.

We came through a graceful archway into the dining room, where the table was set with lovely old chinaware, crystal and silverware.

I knew my gran would recognize the patterns, which were no doubt expensive, and I was a little touched that Rosalyn would go to so much trouble.

I thought she was probably like my grandma, though, and thought that some of us younger people didn’t go to nearly enough trouble these days, as we seemed to have little interest in fine china, crystal and silverware anymore.

I was one of the guilty parties there too, I suppose, because I once made a casual remark to my grandma that she might consider selling all that stuff she had on eBay.

She might make a nice little profit off it.

She called me a “Philistine” and said if one day her dishes wound up on eBay, she’d come back and haunt me.

My grandma had most of her “good” china packed away or displayed in her glass-fronted china cabinet, but the whole set was rarely taken out and used anymore.

I saw her cast a haughty I-told-you-so glance over at me, because we had that argument almost every time I ate dinner at her house.

I would have been just as happy with paper plates and plastic silverware.

Less to clean up afterward, but after the “Philistine” remark, I learned to keep my mouth shut.

The food was delicious. Roast beef and brown gravy, fluffy mashed potatoes, green beans, fried okra, and creamed corn—all the vegetables were fresh, and all perfectly prepared.

There were homemade rolls too and peach cobbler for dessert, with sweet iced-tea to drink.

It was all very southern and exactly what I was used to from my grandma, so there were absolutely no surprises and no complaints.

I hadn’t realized how famished I was until I began to eat.

And everyone was right—I did feel much better afterward.

I began to think I’d just imagined what happened when the dog tripped me and I had managed to catch myself and stay on my feet with no help from anyone.

I mean, what else could it have been? As for what Ben said, I just decided he'd been teasing me and making a strange joke.

And I was even more embarrassed about fainting like some maiden in a Victorian drama, even though no one brought it up again.

After dinner, Ben and I tried to help clear the dishes, but the ladies scolded us and told us to go outside and enjoy the evening on the front porch, and they’d join us soon.

I trailed along after Ben, who walked out and perched a hip against the porch railing.

He stared out at the woods that came within about forty feet of either side of the long, wide front porch, though it was cleared in front all the way to the road.

I sat down in one of the rocking chairs and listened to the cicadas singing a loud chorus to each other, and they were as noisy here as they were at home.