Page 49 of Witch and Tell

I turned again, this time toward the west. “Water, you are the great mother, giving birth and holding our emotion. Lend me your protection.” Wet drops, impossible but present nonetheless, touched my hands.

One more convocation. I faced north. “Earth. Your body nurtures the roots of mighty trees and grounds us all. Lend me your protection.” Below my feet, the ground trembled.

“Elements of the universe, protect me.” I dropped my hands.

With that, a dome of opalescent light rose around Rodney and me, infusing shimmer into the air surrounding us. Despite its translucence, I felt the dome’s protection as if it were cast of steel. Nothing could hurt me here. No bad magic could enter, of that I was certain.

Now for the spell from my grandmother’s grimoire. Closing my eyes, at first I strained to remember the words, and then they flowed without effort. Strangely, the words transmuted from English to another language as they left my lips. Scottish Gaelic? Whatever it was, I intuitively understood it.

I hesitated before the spell’s final words, but I had to say them. It was now or never. “Her name is Beata.”

I tensed. The forest’s silence shattered as crows, cawing and flapping their wings, alit in the trees around me. Their cries were loud enough that I flattened my palms to my ears. Rodney growled and crouched low. Seconds stretched to minutes, and the minutes weighed heavily.

I was safe beneath the dome of protection. I knew that. But it took everything I had to stay calm.

Then the cawing stopped. The crows seemed to melt away. Just outside the dome, barely six feet from me, a woman appeared. It was not Babe Hamilton—or Lise Bloom. I’d never seen her before. Her long golden-red hair moved around her face as if a breeze stirred the otherwise still night. Her skin was as pale as the face of a Titian angel. She smiled, and my heart caught. I saw my grandmother in her expression.

“Josie,” she said.

I reached for her, but drew back my arm before it pierced the dome. Beata was a witch far more experienced than I, and her strength was glamour. She could too easily deceive me. I had to be on guard.

“I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time,” Beata said. She smiled, and warmth suffused me, tingling in my veins. “Thank you for summoning me.”

This wasn’t what I’d expected. I drew from the book at my feet and felt its energy course through me as if an umbilical cord attached us. As I focused on Beata, I caught a flash of Babe Hamilton—and someone else. Who?

“What do you want from me?” I asked.

“You’ve heard about me,” Beata said.

“Yes. I’ve been warned.” Behind me, Rodney growled. “You used your magic for selfish reasons. You stole your own sister’s husband and drove him to suicide.”

She dipped her head, then raised it. “Ailith,” she said, naming my grandmother, her sister. After my nod, she continued. “I don’t know exactly what she told you, but I’m certain there’s one thing she left out.”

I nudged my ankle an inch to feel Rodney’s comforting weight. “Really?” I said, the doubt clear in my voice.

“My sister was a wonderful woman in many ways, but she was always jealous of me.” She laughed once. “No. I would never seduce her husband.” Beata’s expression, calm and loving, confirmed it. “I did have a child out of wedlock, though. I’m assuming she told you about that. She didn’t tell you who that child was, did she?”

What was she implying? I summoned the paltry amount of will I had left. “You set me up as a killer. I don’t know how you did it, but somehow you made it look as if I was wandering town when Ian disappeared. You made Ian’s body materialize in the atrium.”

Wide-eyed, Beata shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I would never do that. Why would I hurt you?” She drew her hands together, then opened them wide. “The murderer, the real one, must be framing you.” She nodded slowly. “That’s it. Someone is setting you up. Tell me more.”

For a moment, I was confused. Of course it was Beata who’d framed me. Making me appear to be where I wasn’t. Making notes vanish. Making bodies appear. No one but a witch could have pulled off this kind of deception.

“My grandmother warned me you’d find me, that you need me to break the spell holding back your full magic. Yet you want me in jail. Why is that?”

Beata glowed as if she were the good witch Glinda fromThe Wizard of Oz. A ring sparkled from her hand. Her dress—a gauzy linen shift—might have come from any era over the past few centuries. “Josie,” she said, and the word was a caress. “Josie, you’re family. You are closer to me than you could know. What you feel, I feel. Why do you think I’ve been watching you? To protect you. Let me help you.”

She was so seductive. Conflict paralyzed me.

“It can be lonely being a witch. Perhaps you know that,” Beata said.

Of course I understood that feeling of loneliness. I had confessed to Sam that I was a witch. He couldn’t handle it. My heart seized.

“You’re family,” Beata repeated. “Let me be here for you.”

She reached forward as if to hug me, and I dropped my arms to my side. She couldn’t breach the dome as long as I didn’t pierce it first.

“Come now,” she said in a soothing voice. “I don’t want to hurt you. I want to help you.”