Page 24 of Muddled Magic

Now, alone, I wiggled it free from where I’d stashed it and spread it over my thighs, working out the wrinkles with the heel of my hand. It wasn’t the kind you’d find at gas stations, if they even had road maps for sale in this age of technology. It was a witch’s atlas, of course, which gave you information not normally provided to the public.

Opening the map, I tapped North America with a glowing green finger. The image on the map immediately zoomed in to the selected continent. Another tap expanded the East Coast; another my hometown and the manor. Spells prevented any details of our manor begin revealed—it resembled an irregularly shaped, shaded-out circle on the map and nothing more. Using two fingers, I adjusted the zoom on the map and started to move westward.

Not only roads and township markers appeared, but ley lines and rumored fae portal sites too. Reaching Faerie from the human world was next to impossible, for the portals were invisible unless activated, and there was rumor that some could move. But us supes liked to mark those we knew of to better prepare for any unexpected visitors. Cairns and toadstool rings, henges and secluded waterfalls, they could all be useful waystations to a stranded witch.

When I tapped on a specific town, a dialogue box opened to the right with its statistics including population, whether or not it was an open magic town, an alert code if anything hinky had occurred there in the last century, plus other myriad little tips.

Before I got too carried away searching for the town I’d eventually flee to, I tossed another couple of logs onto the fire, dusting the bark from my palms before returning to the atlas. I needed somewhere far enough away that the name Hawthorne wouldn’t strike fear or trepidation into anyone’s heart, not that I’d be using my real name anyway. That ruled out most of the East Coast, except Florida and Maine, but I excluded them anyway, just to be sure. No, I needed to disappear inland. But not as far as the West Coast. They’d heard of us there too. And nowhere along the Rocky Mountains, since Grandmother and other members of the council attended yearly conferences there. And snuck in an extra day at the end of their stay to go skiing.

That leaves basically anything in the Central time zone and the Midwest. Maybe the South.

I paused again to brew more rabbitfoot clover tea and sneak a thin slice of Uncle Stag’s chocolate cake before delving deeper into my perusing. There were some nice waterfalls in Tennessee and ten thousand lakes in Minnesota if I wanted to be by secluded water sources. Water ensured lush plant life, which was a necessity for most green magic, though as hearth witches, too, we could make do with less.

There were the bayous of Louisiana, but New Orleans and the surrounding area were too highly-trafficked by supes. All of Louisiana, actually, thanks to Charlene Harris. I wanted seclusion and safety from alligators and catfish the size of canoes, so once again, my gaze drifted to the Midwest. Aka Farmland, USA.

I knew a thing or two about farms—I lived on one.

Just as I was about to expand the Illinois-Indiana-Ohio area, the hearth fires crackled.

The moment I turned, the whole of them turned green with a snarl.

“Thistle thorns!” I shrieked, flinging myself off my cushion and away from the fire.

Scuttling away like a crab, I hit my head on the edge of the trestle table, which simultaneously knocked some proactive sense into me and jogged loose one of Aunt Peony’s nursery-rhyme-like mantras: Green flames for health and spells, and red for ne’er-do-wells.

The hearth was deploying counterspells like its very life depended on it, the emerald green of the flames darkening to the same ivy-green shade of my eyes. There was only one thing to do, or two, rather. One: heap an entire armload of wood onto the fire.

I did that post haste, green magic bolstering my strength as I hurled log after log like they were bales of hay I was helping Boar stack in the barn. With my hands still ablaze, no happy golden sparks accompanying my magic, I recited the Hearth Protection Spell with rushed but clear words,

“Smoke of ash, the Mother’s bones,

form protection ’round this home.

Cloud the sight of evil eyes,

grant us growth and keep us wise.

May goodness reign within these walls,

our family strong when trouble calls.”

And now for the second thing: alert Grandmother.

No doubt the other fireplaces in the manor were mimicking the main one here in the kitchen, but I had to be sure. She could be in the shower at this very minute, after all. She might not know. And with everyone else sound asleep, lulled into a deeper-than-usual slumber from the rain, they might not know either.

After stuffing the witch atlas under the cushion, I bolted out of the kitchen and deeper into the house. I hadn’t gone more than a few steps before the floorboards vibrated under my feet.

Aunt Hyacinth had taught us all about earthquakes, having experienced some herself when she was on sabbatical, and this felt exactly like that. Eerie. Though the hardwood planks didn’t undulate under my feet, I knew instinctually what I’d just experienced. Just as instinctually, I knew it had come from the hearth. A warning pulse.

It had never done that before, never in my twenty-five years of being alive, at least.

Was the storm worsening and the hearth was just taking protective measures? We were under siege from angry townsfolk at our doors with pitchforks and torches? By the Green Mother, had the parasite on the grimoire stolen its fill of my family’s magic and this was the next phase of the rival coven’s attack on us?

A muffled shout had my feet skidding on a hallway runner and diverting course to the main library of all places. I’d recognized that voice as easily as my own—Marten.

He was back, and the hearth was not welcoming him home.

CHAPTER TWELVE

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