I gesture to the thorns, and with a huff, he gives in, thrusts his hands at the waiting vines, and hisses when a thorn stabs his palm.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jinx Whitethorn
“Ya motha’s in the greenhouse,” Marian says to me as soon as the four of us enter the dark and dusty house. Jacob and Cinder take everything in stiffly, but Marian ignores them and waddles to the wall where her cane rests. She grips the handle firmly then leans into it for support.
“Like always,” I mumble, pocketing my hands in my sweatshirt. I forgot how cold and drafty this house could be.
“I assume what ya came here for involves her?” I nod. “That’s good, that’s good. She been workin’ on those plants far too long if ya ask me. More ta life than dirt an’ leaves.”
“Well, without her, you wouldn’t have ingredients for potions,” Sara says, eyeing the ceiling with flared nostrils. We can hear footsteps walking the hall upstairs, sister witches who haven’t come to greet us home. No one else is in the living room full of furniture from various eras, but there’s a few in the kitchen if the clank of dishes being washed is anything to go by.
She sniffs at Sara loudly. “Ya smell like a pack o’ wet dogs. That’s what ya get fa’ hanging aroun’ shifta’s.”
“And you smell like mothballs and gravy,” I quip back playfully. Indeed, the entire house is permeated with the smell of her gravy, a recipe passed down from generation to generation in her family. No matter how many times Greta, a surly witch in the Lotus Coven, asks, Marian still refuses to tell or show her how to make it.
Marian isn’t from here. She wasn’t born into this coven like most of us were. She comes from a long line of Cajun French southern witches who favor the darker magics. As the story goes, she and her mother joined when Marian was still a young girl, transferring in from a faraway town surrounded by jazz and dancing and parties. The town’s humans still remain too suspicious, far more than the average, and the legends surrounding witches were too popular to continue to go unnoticed. They had moved here for their continued safety, and Marian’s mother had died here.
Daughterless but driven, my mother had told me Marian had quickly risen in the ranks of witchcraft as a young woman. We all heard the stories. Resembling Sara’s power, her talent started at an early age – came effortlessly, in fact. I never once doubted her long-standing position in this coven, but now, reminded about her frailness, I worry her rein will come to an end soon.
Having slid over to Marian’s other side, Sara grins at me from over the high priestess’s head, motioning with her eyes to look at the men behind me.
Cinder makes no pains about gawking at every detail inside the living room. He touches everything he wanders to – a cold cauldron set by the fireplace, a skull on the mantel, yearly coven pictures covered in cobwebs. And Jacob, more reluctant, follows a few paces behind, taking in the witches we can see through the doorway of the dining room as they try to quietly clean up after the evening meal. The witches refuse to glance in our direction, their posture stiff and unwelcoming.
“Ya girls have been gone far too long,” Marian murmurs. She thumps her cane, and all of our attention moves back to her. “I was startin’ to worry ya’d neva’ come home where ya belong.”
I frown and pinch the lint inside of my sweatshirt pocket. “My mother didn’t tell you anything, did she.”
“Tell me what, Jinx?”
I look at Sara, noting her frown matching my own. “Anything?”
Tilting her head to the side, Marian says, “Less than you have.”
Shit, I think. I fight the urge to rub my eyebrows. My mother kept everything from her. Everything. Sara and I scowl at each other, a silent conversation passing between us. Did she not tell her because she’s worried about Marian’s health? Or did she not tell her for other, more selfish reasons?
I growl, move around Marian, and push between Cinder and Sara. My march to the greenhouse is a determined one. My mother didn’t say a word because she’s ashamed of me. I’m tired of being a disappointment, and as I had packed to come here, I told myself I wouldn’t continue to allow it. If that’s what this is – if she’s truly ashamed of me – then I plan to give her a piece of my mind.
“Jinx,” Sara warns.
By the shuffle of feet and the thump of a cane, I can tell they’re all following me.
The coven’s home isn’t as large as the compound. It’s far darker though, which gives it the illusion of feeling larger than it is. Candles are used more than modern lights to conserve the electric bill. They line the halls and sit on every flat, cluttered surface, the flames flickering with each draft.
Despite the candles, the halls are still heavily shadowed, and all of the doors are shut. No bedroom windows leak light to help guide my way. I don’t need it though. I know these halls like the back of my hand, and the shifter’s vision doesn’t require light.
“So mom still hasn’t deterred from her hobby?” I inquire, purposefully changing the subject. My voice comes out heated, thick with bubbling anger. I turn a corner into another dusty, dark hall.
Marian huffs. “O’ course not. Is as Sara said. With buddin’ witches, potion materials ah in demand. That among otha’ things.”
I nod. This coven trades potion materials with other covens for cash. The Lotus witches have the largest garden around, thanks to my mother, and it’s the main income for them. There are some covens out there who can’t grow a garden because they live smack dab in the middle of a city, nor can some find the materials they need at a local shop.
That’s the problem with witches living in a city. Secrecy is even more vital than being who they are and practicing their magic. I don’t envy those witches. They have to keep normal jobs to run their households, often fronting as large families or a recovery home for abusive wives and their daughters. It’s sick and twisted, but it’s the perfect cover in a world dominated by suspicious humans.
Sara takes two large steps to reach my side. “Don’t,” I hiss at her. “This is bullshit, and you know it.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Sara whispers back. “I’m here if you need me though. Just,” she pauses and pushes hair from her face. “Don’t go in swinging. Yelling won’t solve anything.”
Light splashes into the hall at the next turn, illuminating the cobwebs tucked in the ceiling’s corner as the greenhouse windows brighten our way. I grab the door’s handle, yank, and hold it open, twitchy with the thought of approaching my mother. The scents of warm humid earth and damp green leaves tickle my nose, and I impatiently gesture for everyone to enter.
Sara ushers Marian in first, seating her on a small bench carved like two fat, twining trees. It was made long before I was born and had been the place I read books as a child while my mother trimmed and plucked at her herbs.
“Tabatha,” Marian hollers. For the life of me, I can’t figure out how such a large sound can come out of a woman as old as the high priestess.
The name bounces around the greenhouse windows, dirty from this year’s crop harvesting. Jacob and Cinder enter next, tucking themselves close to the wall, and lastly, myself. The door whooshes closed behind me.