Page 14 of Muddled Magic

She lifted the key from its peg on the doorframe, fitted into the lock, and twisted. The iron door swung open to reveal a room no larger than a small closet, the entirety of it painted black with runes and spells inscribed over that void-like surface in shimmering silver ink. If I stared at them too long, they’d start to shift and swirl, preventing the observer from determining their exact nature, and thus preventing the conjuring of any effective counterspells.

While Aunt Hyacinth was blocking most of the view, I knew what lay on the ash wood pedestal inside.

The Hawthorne family grimoire.

It was almost too thick for the average hand to hold comfortably with a wrinkled, black binding and iron clasps keeping it shut. HAWTHORNE was embossed along the cover in silver lettering, and a giant dark green emerald embedded in the leather of the cover right below it.

Aunt Hyacinth snatched it up under one arm and shut the door, leaving the not-dog to guard the unlocked closet. She gave it a distasteful look before returning the way she’d come.

I’d yanked my head back before she could see me, once again hiding behind a potted tree, and waited for her to pass by, her steps as brisk as I’d never heard them before. What was the hurry? And what was she doing with the grimoire instead of napping? Did it have anything to do with where Grandmother had gone earlier today?

Were they initiating Marten right now, under the nose of everyone, including me, instead of waiting for the auspicious time of the full moon as Otter had said?

Before I even realized what I was doing, I stole after my aunt.

Behind me, the not-dog growled, yellow eyes flaring. But it didn’t chase or attack, since I was heading away from it. It guards the closet, not the spell book inside, I realized, the thought vanishing as I stepped on a loose floorboard.

The resulting creak echoed through the hall like a gunshot, and by some miracle there was a sideboard topped with (yet again) another potted plant, this one a bushy and trailing philodendron, that provided the perfect place for me to dive behind as Aunt Hyacinth twisted around.

The many vines and leaves of the philodendron created a dappled screen from which to view my aunt as she surveyed the hallway behind her, ivy-green eyes darting everywhere. From the floor-to-ceiling windows to the urns with their frilly bamboo positioned between them, the damask settee positioned against the opposite wall to the flanking sideboards with their twin philodendrons and yellow orchids.

“Mice,” she muttered after a long moment. “Aunt Iris really ought to reconsider letting a cat or two in here on occasion.”

Then she was bustling away again, and I had to suck in a deep breath and massage a cramp out of my leg before following. She disappeared into one of the smaller libraries that were all over the house, this particular one dedicated to all things herbology, as denoted by the various plants carved into the doorframe. The doorframe of Aunt Peony and Uncle Stag’s favorite library was carved with various fruits, vegetables, and baked goods and was devoted solely to housing the manor’s collection of cookbooks.

But the sliding double doors of the library hadn’t closed completely behind her, leaving a gap as wide as my thumb was long. Slinking up to the leftmost door, I was surprised to hear another voice say warily,

“You’re late. That dog give you any trouble?”

Otter? There was no trace of musical lilt to his voice, and when I shifted to view him through the gap, his face was set in a graveness that scared me. Where was my carefree cousin, the one who was never serious about anything?

“It knows better than to give me trouble,” Aunt Hyacinth replied loftily.

But her words rang hollowly in my ears. She’s lying.

“I thought I heard something following me, but it was just a mouse or something under that loose floorboard. You know the one I’m talking about. By the Chinese silk rug with the yellow orchids on it?”

Otter only nodded instead of replying with a customary teasing remark, swallowing thickly. Wetting his lips, he stretched out his hands for the spell book.

Instead of taking it from Aunt Hyacinth, as I suspected he would, Otter clasped it from the top as his mother kept ahold of it with two hands along its bottom edge. The emerald embedded in the top seemed to glow, though that could’ve just been the afternoon sunlight catching on it.

I didn’t feel a prick of magic, didn’t hear the murmurings of a spell, and yet something dark in that emerald came alive. Two jagged strips of shadow erupted from the green gemstone, snaking through the air one second and piercing Aunt Hyacinth and Otter’s hearts the next. Stifling my scream with both hands clamped over my mouth, I watched as green orbs of light—magic?—were sucked out of their chests. Backs arched, my aunt loosed a low whimper as my cousin grunted, but neither released the grimoire. No defensive spells were uttered; no one moved to hurl the infernal book away from them.

And me? I was too horrified to do anything but watch.

Watch those twin spheres of glowing green light travel through those shadowy tentacle-esophagi-whatevers like a boba tea’s tapioca pearls through a straw, disappearing into the mouth of the emerald on the grimoire’s cover. Then the jagged shadows detached from my family, slithering back into the emerald as quick as you please. Aunt Hyacinth and Otter rocked forward as they regained their balance, a gentle tremor rattling across the floorboards.

Otter released the book and ran a hand through his long hair, sweeping it out of his eyes. A blink and a yawn later, he said, “So you said you heard a mouse in the hall?”

Aunt Hyacinth swatted his arm. “Don’t yawn. You’ll make me—” She yawned then, wider than him, and shook her head at him. “And yes, by the Chinese silk rug.”

“Grandmother’s seriously gotta let those farm cats inside the manor house. Just for a day.”

“Don’t I know it. Now your aunt said something about wanting some stuffed mushrooms to go with the spaghetti tonight,” she said, moving towards the doorway.

I stumbled back away from the gap, frantically looking for a place to hide. There were swag curtains that ran the entire length of the windows, one terminal end pooling to the floor not a yard from me. I dashed for the burgundy-colored fabric as Otter thrust open the sliding double doors.

“Mom, that book doesn’t go there,” he said, his words coming in slightly muffled through the shield of the curtain. But I heard his tone clear enough—it was teasing.

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