Chapter Eight
Sometimes History Should Not be Repeated
“I feel the energy rising again.” Justin pulled Adrian around a broken branch as he spoke. “This witch is either out of control, or trying really hard to be noticed.”
“Do you think it will be another storm?” Adrian had assumed the town meeting had been able to identify the witch and put a stop to these behaviors. He hopped over another branch. Their path home was a disaster, and he was happy there was still daylight to be had.
“No. This one feels different.” Justin seemed to be more thinking aloud than talking to him, and he actually tripped a bit on a branch.
“Different how?” Everything felt the same to Adrian. Darn his recalcitrant bear—he ought to be able to feel these things, too.
“Different…young?” Justin seemed unsure at first and then firmly added, “Young. Very.”
“I don’t understand.” Adrian kept walking, the urge to get home stronger than before, but not out of the lust he had been feeling only moments earlier, or even fear for the power brewing. No. He felt like the house was calling him.
“It feels like a child.” Justin squeezed his hand as they continued on their ever-quickening pace. How could a child have caused all of this? “An insanely strong child, but a child. The weird part is the energy. It seems to have nowhere to go. Like there isn’t a plan for it. Maybe it’s accidental?”
“Do you think it’s the same witch as before?” How could it be? Yet even as he thought that, Adrian knew Justin was right. “Should we call the sheriff?” Justin pulled him to a stop and didn’t begin to speak until they faced each other.
“I think that would not end well.” The seriousness of his facial expression caused a shiver to run through Adrian’s body.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Justin closed his eyes and took a small step forward, swallowing as he did so. This was not good. “If it is a young witch out of control, what do you think they will do to her?” His eyes remained closed for a moment before he gave his head a shake and opened them to meet Adrian’s. Fear was brewing in his eyes.
“Teach her how to control her powers.” The moment the words left his lips, Adrian could feel the wrongness of them. Of course, they wouldn’t just give her a time-out or lessons. She was dangerous.
“That would be nice, but more than likely, they would bind her powers.” Binding a witch’s powers was the equivalent of taking away a shifter’s animal. It would make her a shell of who she was.
“That’s horrible.” Adrian’s life had been less than sunshine and roses due to his stubborn and hidey bear, but the bear had always been there. If his bear had been taken from him, he would have surely crumbled.
“It’s better than back in the day when they used to kill them.”
Adrian stepped into his arms, the bag from the store and the bag of wet shoes thudding on the ground as Justin dropped them to comfort him.
“They killed children?” He knew the witch burnings of history were real, but he never thought about the fact children might be among them.
“Did Rosemary ever tell you why she was living in a hidden cabin?”
He had asked numerous times but was always given an evasive answer. “Not so much. She hinted it was because of her powers.” Adrian pulled his head back to look up at Justin, saw sorrow racing through his eyes, and quickly snuggled back into his chest, bracing himself for what he knew would be a story without a happily ever after.
“Her sister was killed in front of her when she was a child.” His voice cracked with emotion.
“What? How?” he gasped out before thinking.
“She was killed because she scared people. She healed someone who should have died, and they called her a necromancer. She was burned like a witch in days of old.” Necromancers weren’t real, but people seemed to fear them more than the actual scary things in this world.
“How could they do that to a child and in front of her sister, too?” Poor Rosemary. His old friend carried so much and yet gave her all to help Adrian from the moment they met.
“The whole family was there. They killed her parents next.” Tears were flowing from Adrian’s eyes. That is something no one should ever have to go through, much less a child. “Rosemary only got away because her illusion was strong enough to hide in the trees. She was the youngest, so they assumed she was unskilled and didn’t focus on her whereabouts or the security of her ropes the way they did with the others.”
“She got away.”
He wiped Adrian’s tears with his thumbs. “She did.” He forced a smile and continued on. “That was when she took the name Rosemary. A sprig of rosemary gave her the inspiration to hide and pulled her from her fear.”
“Rosemary?” Adrian searched her files to find rosemary. It had a lot of uses medicinally and in culinary arts, but nothing stuck out at her as reducing fear or helping with illusion.
“It is used both to bring love and as a memorial in folklore. She wanted to honor their love by being alive to share their memory with others.” His voice was lighter now. He seemed to be focusing on better memories.
A shiver ran through Adrian and from the looks of it, Justin as well. “What was that?”
“That was our little witch.” He bent down to pick up the bags with his right hand and grabbed Adrian’s hand with his left.
“What should we do?” They were walking at a quick clip, thanks to Justin’s lead.
“Go home, grab some supplies, and then go find her.” They were practically running now.
“Supplies?” He would need to make sure they had them all before getting too far from town.
“A flashlight, a backpack with some water and food.”
Phew. He had all of those things at the cabin, and they were closer to there than town.
“And one of Rosemary’s old journals. Do you think you can find it if I describe it?”
Crap on a cracker. He knew it was too easy. “I hope so. I am not very far in my quest for organization.”
“It’s covered in a quilt-like book cover. It almost looks like a blanket was made for the book.” Oh, good. It was the one thing he knew the location of with certainty. It lay under his pillow waiting for the time he would need it.
“I do. Rosemary said it was for me and I would know when I needed it.”
“Now. You need it now.” Almost running became a sprint, taking them back to the cabin in record time.
Adrian grabbed the journal and brought it out to him as he threw random things into the backpack. There was not much food in the house, but there was enough.
“Here.” He held out the book, but Justin shook his head and continued to fill up a water bottle.
“It’s not for me. You open it.” Justin capped the water bottle and began to fill a second.
“To where?”
“I don’t know, but you will.”
Code. The man was talking in code.
“What?” Adrian needed more answers, but Justin kept packing. The backpack was going to be heavy at this rate.
“The book is spelled by the witch who raised my grandmother. It will open to where you need, but to a photo album to all others.”
Wasn’t that a handy trick?
“Why me? Shouldn’t it be you, since you are a relative?” The book began to vibrate so slightly, Adrian might have missed it if he hadn’t been so focused on it.
“Because you are the one Rosemary chose.”
“How do you know?” He was right. He could feel it.
“You live here. No one else has ever even been here.” Rosemary had mentioned that, but Adrian had thought it was more of a no one ever visits kind of thing. It had been so much more. He opened the book three-quarters of the way.
“It opened up to a healing powder, but it has no name.” He flipped through the book, but all the other pages were pictures of trees. This was the page. Reading the directions, he was much relieved to have all of the ingredients on hand. “I don’t have it, but I have the things to make it.”
“Do it.” Justin’s voice was firm and demanding. He must have sensed his own harshness and immediately lightened his tone. “Will it be ready right away, or does it need to sit and cure or something?”
“You don’t know anything about healing, do you?” It came out flip, which was not his intent, and Adrian mumbled, “Sorry.”
“I don’t know a thing about it,” Justin admitted as he zipped the bag, his part of preparing finished.
“It will be ready once I blend it and say the words.”
Justin gave Adrian a nod and put the backpack on his shoulder.
“Okay,” Adrian continued. “I can mix this up in a few minutes.” Relief showed on his face.
“Is it like a spell?” Justin gave him a quizzical look. “What about the words?”
Adrian hadn’t really thought about that. “No. Yes. I don’t know. I’m not a witch, so I don’t have that kind of power, but Rosemary was raised by one, apparently. So, maybe?” Could they work without the words? He would need to look into that further. Since he was not a witch, he didn’t know if it was possible.
“Anyway, I’m not experimenting without the words today,” Adrian said after a moment.
“Agreed.” Justin must have let his mind wander there also.
Adrian quickly mixed everything and placed in it a small canning jar. As much of a cluttery mess as the house was, the healing supplies were very well organized in the pantry. Thank goodness.
“Done.” He screwed the lid on the jar as Justin handed him an empty backpack.
“Let’s bring the book, too,” Justin suggested.
He’d been planning to leave it there, but Rosemary’s grandson was right. They might require it again. He quickly grabbed a bunch of dried rosemary. He doubted they would need it, but it pulled at him, so Adrian went with it. “Ready,” he announced. “Where are we going?”
“To catch ourselves a witch.”
Because that answered everything.