Page 19

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

FRANKIE

Hours later, the fun hadn’t started yet. I was losing hope it would. Lennox, Savannah, and

I sat at the end of the dinner table with me in Tenn’s seat and the entire length of the wooden table covered in bottles, vials, and books. So many books. Lennox and Savannah had pulled every single book in the house that could possibly have something to do with potion-making. Yet we hadn’t succeeded in anything. We were no further along than we were when we left the Cups’ apothecary.

Just exceedingly more deflated.

Lennox’s indigo hair was frizzy and sticking out in every direction because she couldn’t seem to keep herself from pulling and tugging at the neon strands. Savannah’s blue and white hair was braided in about a hundred teeny-tiny braids all around her head. None of them were tied off at the ends so they were starting to unravel, which might have been intentional so she could keep braiding. I got the impression she needed to do something with her hands while thinking.

At the other end of the table, Lily, Easton, and Seamus were teaching sign language to Royce, Willow, and Thiago. Warner and Cooper were sitting about halfway down the table watching the lesson quietly like they were trying to learn but were too lazy to get up and move down there. They were doing all the hand movements though. Kessler and Tim sat on opposite couches reading newspapers. Bentley sat on the same couch as his uncle but at the other end flipping through television channels too fast for him to have been able to see anything. I’d tried to figure out what he was doing until I noticed his golden eyes kept flashing with neon-orange crescent moons, and that was too much nope for me to handle at the moment.

Constance was on the floor with two adorable little blonde girls. They were using the coffee table to string crystals onto chains. From what I’d gathered, they were making necklaces for everyone. That made me smile. It wasn’t any different than what I was doing, or what I was trying to do: potions that everyone needed. They made crystal necklaces everyone needed. Daniel sat on the floor next to his little family with his laptop, but the scowl on his face at whatever he saw was also a nope for me. Kenneth, Landreia, Mei-Ling, and Tai were on the other side of the room talking softly, but I knew by my best friend’s face that they were scheming. Yet I also didn’t want to know that. My mind was a little too overcooked at the moment to put anything else in it.

Rootbeer sprinted around the corner, dashed under the table, and bolted out from between Cooper’s legs to race into the middle of the living room. Houdini and Bobokins were hot on her heels, but they crashed into the chairs on their way out the other side. Several people cursed and winced, then reached for their chins. Olli and Bubba were smart enough to swerve around the table, but they were moving too fast, so when they landed on the rug at the same time, it went sliding and sent them both crashing into the couch behind Kessler and Bentley. Albert wasn’t even a year old yet, so he just didn’t know how to use that big mastiff body of his, so it really wasn’t his fault he slammed full-speed into Easton, accidentally tackling him to the floor in a tangle of limbs.

“Heads up,” Bentley yelled a split-second before his fire-doggo, Squishy, raced into the room and jumped over the dinner table. Little flames dropped on top of everyone in his path. “Shit.”

Bentley lifted his hand and Squishy’s flames shot like magnets to his palm, then buried into his skin. I didn’t miss the shudder and cringes on his brother and uncle’s faces when it happened.

“All right, that’s it.” Kessler jumped up and stole one of Lennox’s wands off the coffee table in front of Constance. "I can’t take it anymore.”

I sat up straight and realized I wasn’t the only one who’d jumped when he did. “What’s wrong?”

We were all watching him as he took that wand and marched out the front door and into the front lawn area. Through the big front window, we had a clear view of him creating a black iron fence. When he rounded the side of the house, I turned in my chair to watch out the side window, but Kessler was making quick work of this fencing. It seemed like seconds later when Kessler threw the front door open and whistled.

“Come on, kids,” he shouted and clapped his hands. “Outside time!”

The dogs raced out the front door all barking and wagging their tails. Kessler didn’t follow after them. He just walked straight by us to open the back door. By the time he reclaimed his seat on the couch and picked up his newspaper, Rootbeer led the whole pack through the back door and right through the open front door.

“I’d stay out of the lane if you don’t want to be run over.” He grinned and flipped through the newspaper.

We all laughed.

Seamus sighed. “She’s going to sleep so well tonight. I might have to come by every day.”

“Seamus,” Tim grinned and waited for Seamus to look at him, then continued, “if your girl makes our pack sleep after this, you’ll be required to come by every day.”

Easton got up and moved his chair to the wall by the kitchen, then walked over to sit on the side of the table. “That end is in tornado alley. I don’t want to be tackled by the fire-doggo mid-zoomies.”

Bentley nodded. “Smart.”

I groaned and everyone’s gazes snapped to me, which made me blush. “Sorry, feeling a tad frustrated. We’ve been at this for hours with no success.”

Lennox shook her head, those yellow-green eyes narrowing on me. “That’s not entirely true. Your magic selected all of these ingredients, so we’re definitely going to need them?—”

“How?” I gestured to the dozens and dozens of ingredients in front of us. “All we’ve learned is that these ingredients have labels with a symbol on them, yet none of these symbols look familiar. And I don’t know if that means anything because I can’t remember the symbols I saw. It’s burning a hole in my brain. Even in my sleep I’m trying to draw them and getting nothing.”

“You drew one symbol in your dream last night.” Savannah grimaced and scrubbed her face with her hands. “I saw it?—”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“What do you mean you saw it?”

“Wait, Coop, are you taking her into your dream walks with you?”

Cooper blushed and shrugged one shoulder as everyone stared at him. “I just thought another set of eyes would help. Ya know, like we did in Salem.”

Royce smacked the table, then slowly signed ‘ T-e-g-a-n s-t-y-l-e I-d-e-a.’ He nodded and smiled, giving Cooper a thumbs-up.

Thiago’s eyes crinkled with his smile. He was staring at the ground. “I have to say, if Cooper has to watch our subconscious terrors, then I like the idea he has someone by his side to do so. Some of us see horrible things, it’s nice to not feel alone in those moments.”

The dogs raced through the house again. It reminded me of going to the dog track to watch greyhounds racing. Especially as Squishy was in the lead this lap. Everyone watched them go by, then when they disappeared out the front door, returned their attention to me.

I groaned again. “I don’t want to think about that dream. I don’t want to talk about that dream. I don’t care that you saw it, I just don’t wanna go there again. But if you saw me draw a symbol, like one that wasn’t a blob, please show me what it was.”

Savannah grabbed a blank piece of paper and a pencil, then slowly drew. When she was done, she slid the paper over to me. “I don’t know what it is, I just know what I saw. And I don’t know why that one is the one you actually drew. Creepy pasta, if you ask me.”

Warner cocked his head to the side. “Isn’t creepy pasta your thing?”

“Yes, ma’am, it is.”

Warner chuckled and held his hand out. “Right, well, pass it around so we can help check all these vials for it.”

I slid it to Lennox who then passed it to Warner. As soon as everyone saw the symbol, they dove for the vials closest to them. I’d checked the ten I could reach but didn’t see a match. By the time I looked up, I saw matching deflated frowns on their faces too.

Warner sighed. “Bentley, do you know anything here? I know you’re not allowed to tell us, but Jackson said Tegan was sneaky in her hints on his quest?—”

“What part of what I’m doing over here makes you think I’m harboring useful information?”

Tim folded his newspaper and stood. “So do we want Katherine coffee, Katherine tea, or Katherine soup?”

“Yes,” we all said at the same time.

“On it.” Tim was still chuckling even as Albert nearly crashed into him as he led the pack by us. “Maybe some for them too.”

We all laughed for a moment before reality snuck its way back to the forefront.

I cursed. “We’ve been at this for hours. I need to try and get the symbols to reappear.”

Lennox leaned back in her chair and steepled her hands in front of her face. “You’re probably subconsciously suppressing it.”

“Lovely. Anyone have ideas to combat that? ” I glanced around the group. “I need to force it back out. I need to see what I saw during my initiation.”

“You need the Book of Shadows,” Tenn’s deep voice said from out of nowhere.

We all jumped. Some of us gripped our weapons or chairs. I just gripped my chest because my heart nearly leapt out of its cage. Tenn stood at the top of the stairs that led to the lower level with the infirmary. He looked the same as he always did, in his standard uniform, but the shadows in his eyes were haunting. He took a step forward just as Bobokins came rushing right for him. Tenn didn’t frown or look alarmed, nor did he speak, he simply lifted his long leg in the air to let all seven dogs run under him. He turned to watch them speed out the front door, his mismatched gaze unreadable as he watched them through the window behind my head. As the sound of nails hit the hardwood floor by the back door, Tenn crouched down right in tornado alley. Rootbeer was back in the lead, and even though her eyes lit up when she saw him, she didn’t slow down. Instead, she jumped over him. Albert and Squishy were right behind her, leaping over him without slowing. But as the basset hound and three beagles approached, Tenn slid to the side and held his arm out about four inches off the ground for them to jump over.

Once they were back out the front door, Tenn stood and smirked. “That’s fun for them.”

Cooper looked to me. “Scariest teddy bear.”

Kessler craned his neck back to look at his son upside-down, which was a testament to how tired he must have been. “You were sleeping.”

Tenn’s smirk vanished. He growled and balled his hands into fists. “I can only sleep so much. I need her awake. Now. Leyka says Frankie will make that happen, so I need to help Frankie make that happen. Okay? I need to help.”

Tim walked out of the kitchen with a bowl of soup that was still steaming. He sat the bowl on the table and slid it across to the empty seat next to Cooper. “Fine, Nephew, but you’ll consume whatever we give you in compromise.”

Tenn nodded and went over to the bowl of soup. He didn’t sit, just patted Cooper on the shoulder and then picked the bowl up and drank. He drank piping hot soup. I didn’t know why this was a surprise to me, yet it was. After a few sips, he licked his lips and sighed. “Hunter and Jackson are where you expect them to be, but Em is asleep next to Deacon. He’s trying something from his sleep, so Coop, you might wanna go down there and?—”

Cooper cursed and ran off.

Tenn sat his soup down, then held up a crystal quartz necklace. He squeezed it in his palm until light flashed, then suddenly the Book of Shadows sat in its place. “Em had it, so I grabbed it. Tegan said she wrote what you saw in here, so let’s take a look.”

I slapped my forehead. “Dammit, Frankie. How did I forget that? Tegan told me she wrote it all down.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, kiddo,” Kessler said softly from the couch.

Tenn crossed the space between us to sit the thick leather-bound book in my hand. Then he lifted my other hand and sat it on the front cover. “Ask for what you need.”

I frowned up at him. “Like, say I need to see the symbols from my initiation ?”

Energy tingled against my palm and then the book flew open. Pages sped by until it stopped and lay open on the table in front of me. On the spread staring me in the face was a list, written in order by the number of our Card with the corresponding symbols drawn beside our names. After Jackson’s name, it listed a few others that weren’t in The Coven: Lennox, Warner, Kenneth, and Daniel. Everyone crowded around me to look at them. Well, except for Tenn who just stood there sipping his soup like it was a cup of tea. I knew better than to think he was unbothered by all this. He simply knew this area of magic was not his specialty and he didn’t need to crowd me.

Willow leaned over my arm and tapped on the page. “Touch it. Tegan usually touches it to activate stuff.”

“Activate it?” With a scowl, I pressed both hands to the pages in front of me. Neon-blue and pink flames billowed from beneath my palms. Light flashed in my peripheral vision, when I looked up, I gasped. The symbols were back, floating above everyone’s heads in blue and pink. “ What just happened? How? They’re back? ”

Lennox stood up straight with wide, starry eyes and looked around. “So that’s what they look like.”

“It’s like the Sims game,” Mei-Ling said with a snort-laugh from a few feet away.

“That’s what I thought.” But I needed to focus. I looked to Tenn. “What just happened? They were gone.”

He shrugged and sipped his soup again. “Tegan told me they were stressing you out, so she made them go away.”

“WHAT?” I threw my hands up and whined. “ No one told me that! ”

Tenn looked to his left to his father, then immediately to his right to his uncle. “This is why I shouldn’t be put to sleep against my will. I can’t help.”

Kessler laughed. Tim shook his head.

Lennox rubbed her hands together and bounced on the balls of her feet. “Okay, this is great, but none of these symbols are on the bottles. I’ve never seen these symbols before.”

Savannah snapped her fingers above her head. “Miss boss ma’am, you got an answer to that?”

Tenn reached up with his left hand and touched one of the two symbols above his head. The second his finger hit it, the whole thing sparkled and glowed gold like the bands on his arm, which were also glowing. My eyes widened. I didn’t know that was possible. I hadn’t thought of that, but I was still new to magic, Tenn was born into this life. Following his lead, I reached up and touched one of the symbols above my head. It didn’t glow gold, but the pink shined brighter for a second, kind of like a wave of magic rolling through it, then four more symbols popped up beneath the originals. These were slightly smaller too. Three of them were pink and one was blue.

I dropped back down to my seat and nodded while I stared up at them. “Okay, maybe we should stop putting Tenn to sleep against his will?”

Tenn snort-laughed, but he’d just taken a sip, so soup sprayed from his mouth. He spun but not fast enough because it splashed on Kessler’s chest.

Kessler looked down at his shirt and sighed. “Son, you didn’t need to spit on me to get me to agree.”

Tim slapped Tenn’s back as he coughed. “You still outrank me, Nephew. All you had to do was order it.”

“Wait a minute.” Savannah jumped up and smacked her symbols, forcing three more to pop up. “What in Sam Hill is this shit? Please, sir, can we not have some more?”

Thiago cocked his head to the side. “What does this saying mean? What is a Sam hell? I know I’m not American?—”

“It’s Sam Hill,” Kessler said with a chuckle. “Her accent just makes the hill sound like hell.”

“This gives me more questions,” Thiago mumbled.

“Sam Hill is a guy who lived a while back who, according to the story, used such foul language that his name became a euphemism for swear words.”

“And Sam Hill would be swearin’ at this here garbage too!” Savannah glared at the symbols. “What are we supposed to do with more of them?”

“More of them. That’s it, Savannah. More. These are new potions she’s gotta make. Just like the nausea one.” Lennox’s eyes went wide. She poked at her symbol and two more popped up. “Those smaller symbols are the ingredients.”

“Poke your bears, please,” I said in a rush. “Come on, let me see.”

Everyone shrugged and touched their own symbols, causing more to drop down beneath them.

Lennox laughed in a short burst. She held up two big vials. “The original symbols Frankie saw will be what goes on the label of the newly finished potions she makes. The smaller symbols are our ingredients list and those are on this table.”

Seamus grinned. “That’s what your magic collected from the Apothecary.”

Kessler nodded but he was frowning. “Why are some pink and some blue?”

Tenn’s face fell. “Hope’s angelic runes are pink.”

Tim shuddered. “I don’t like that.”

Royce smacked the table, then smacked Thiago and pointed to us.

Thiago rolled his eyes. “I do believe my boyfriend would like you to know that’s his line.”

“You have to make all these potions?” Seamus stood up and eyed the symbols, then looked to the table and then back. When I nodded, he nodded. “We better get started. How many cauldrons you got?”

Willow cleared her throat to get our attention. “How does Tegan do that? Put them in the book?”

Tenn shrugged and reached up. He grabbed his symbols, then dragged them down toward the Book of Shadows. The page flashed but when the light faded, the new symbols appeared beneath his others, so I copied his move and in my peripheral vision I saw everyone else did too. In a matter of seconds, we had all of the symbols and the ingredients list updated in the book.

“Wicked.” I chuckled. “So, I guess we just have to match these up and start brewing.”

Mona hopped up from the stairs from downstairs. Her eyes sparkled with a mischievous glint. “I hear we’re making potions?”

Kessler scowled. “How’d you— Bentley? ”

He shrugged. “I texted her. We’re going to need help.”

“Wait. Hold up.” I held my hand up. “You said Bettina’s angelic runes were pink?”

Tenn and Tim nodded.

“Only some of these symbols— that’s what Leyka meant! ” I reached over and picked up the puzzle pig from where it sat on the table mocking me. “In his note he said we’d need a cheat sheet to finish this, and he couldn’t just give it to me so he put it in the pig. The cheat sheet inside must be a list of what these pink runes mean.”

Everyone looked to Bentley.

He smirked. “That is true, yes.”

“Didn’t you just insinuate you didn’t have useful information?” Thiago glared.

Bentley shrugged. “It wasn’t useful until now. We still have to solve the puzzle.”

Thiago mumbled in Portuguese, but he snagged the puzzle pig from my hands. “I’m no potion-maker, but I shall work on this for you.”

“Thanks, Thiago. Okay . . .” I rubbed my hands together. “Since everyone can see their own symbols, how about everyone look for their blue ingredients on the table. That way we can at least start making sense of all this.”

Mona whistled under her breath. “That’s a lot of cauldrons. Seamus, run to my office and grab as many as you can?—”

“Here, take our cart.” Lennox pushed the wooden cart they’d made over to him.

“Can Rootbeer stay here while I go?”

“Of course, Seamus.” Constance gave him a thumbs-up.

Easton scratched his head. “We need a bigger hearth. How are we going to brew all of these?”

“There’s two more hearths.” Constance pointed to the stairs. “This building is three centuries old. There’s two down there. Lennox can you go down? Myrtle can show you where they are, but we might need your skill with a wand to get them back up and running. Have Emersyn heat them up, then send her up here to us.”

“On it.” Lennox saluted her, then hurried down the stairs.

“We need Tegan’s first.”

Tenn’s gaze snapped right to me.

“Leyka’s note said so, and even without it, we all know we need her back like yesterday.” I pulled the book toward me, then I touched the three symbols next to Tegan’s name. Just like in the air, a whole string of new symbols appeared. “Shit, there’s like ten ingredients for her. Someone get me a cauldron on this hearth here. This potion is priority number one. Let’s find these ingredients?—”

A dragon roared so loud out front that the whole house trembled. We all jumped and spun toward the door just as all seven dogs came flying inside . . . with Dace on their heels, his messy brown hair looking like a bird’s nest.

“Koth called.” His light blue eyes were wild with panic as he tapped on his temple. “Unseelie attack. NOW. Let’s go.”