Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 92996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
I smiled at her.
“You don’t believe me?”
I kept smiling.
“Fine.” She sighed. “The mayor, your man, and Councilman Hernandez are the only three she says are even remotely competent.”
“Well, having the mayor on her side will help.”
“For a tiny town, the red tape and funding here are a mess.”
“No, really?” I mock-gasped.
“I will hit you.”
“This is a shock, I tell you.”
“The sole reason I’m not smacking you with a dictionary right now—like a really heavy one—is because you’ve got company.”
Turning, I found Cass—Cassidy MacBain, Lorne’s niece—and her best friend, Delia Johnson, plus three other girls.
“What’s shakin’?” I asked them.
Delia’s face scrunched up. “Don’t ever say what’s shakin’ again. That was really cringe. Nobody says that anymore.”
No one on earth was as judgmental as a teenage girl. Period. “Fine. What do you want?”
Cass leaned on the counter. “Can we talk to you over here?”
Moving around the cage of the checkout island, I got to the other side where the card catalog was—which was no longer in general use ever since the computer system was put in. Of course, a few things had been missed, which was why we kept it. And furthermore, any good librarian worth their salt had to understand the great mysteries of the Dewey Decimal System backward and forward. I was a master in that area.
Cass gave me a smile instead of telling me what she needed.
“Yes?”
“As you can see, I have a pen and my magic journal with me, so when you give me answers this time, I’ll write them down.”
Lately, I’d been getting a lot of witchcraft questions from her and her friends, and many were the same ones over and over.
“You promise?” I wasn’t annoyed, it hadn’t reached that level, but no one liked to repeat themselves. Retaining a given answer was just good manners.
“Yes,” she said quickly, sounding serious. I noted then that all five young women had journals and writing implements.
“First, who are your friends?”
I was introduced to Skylar, Jewel, and Hailey.
“Nice to meet you,” I told them and got big smiles in return. “And you may proceed with your interrogation,” I said imperiously to Cass.
“Really?”
I groaned. “You’re no fun at all.”
She shook her head at me. “Okay, so, why do you say, so mote it be?”
All five girls were looking at me expectantly.
“The words so mote it be close a spell or prayer. It releases the magic, lets it know to go do its work, or tells whatever deity you’re entreating that you’ve finished asking for everything you need.”
“So it’s like saying amen,” Delia pointed out.
“Basically, yes.”
Fun to watch them all write in their journals at the same time.
“And what about blessed be?” Jewel wanted to know.
“That’s what you say when you’re leaving. It’s like hope everything is good with you and have a nice day wrapped up in one. You can also use it as a greeting. Like aloha, which means both hello and goodbye.”
“Aloha?” Cass sounded confused.
I nodded. “I had a roommate from Kona when I was in college.”
She looked at me oddly.
“Kona is on the Big Island in Hawai'i,” I explained.
“I know where Ko— I’ve just never heard you say blessed be.”
“I usually say it to other witches, and while there are a few in town, you might not have been with me when we crossed paths.”
“Okay. How do you know if someone is a witch?” Skylar asked that time.
“Well, normally they tell you.” Her question made no sense. “Don’t you all follow several on Instagram?”
“Yes, but how do you know?” Cass pressed me.
I knew who was magic because I could see and feel their power. That was the blessing I received when I was branded by the god Arawn. A branded witch could easily tell a magic user, and in most cases, could counteract any enchantment used against them. I, for example, could always pick out a witch or wizard, sorceress or warlock, but I was truly powerful only on my own land. Separated from Corvus, where I lived, my magic was limited to what many could do—or maybe slightly more, since I came from a line of guardians.
Historically, those lines were chosen to be caretakers by a god or goddess. Some watched over great libraries in castles and manor houses all over the world. Others guarded sacred groves where deities met with those forbidden to them, while still others, like me, kept safe small areas of land with rifts that deities used to move from one plane to another. All those trusts between protectors and the protected were sacrosanct, and when those places were threatened, the guardian’s power would rise to meet the challenge. Taken together, being branded and being a sentinel answered the question of how I knew a witch when I met one, but for Cass and her friends, the answer needed to be simple, redacted.
“I don’t really know,” I replied, which was a lie, but to say any more was not something I could do. “I just have to wait and see.”