Page 11 of Thistle Thorns

“Mayor Robert lives in a bungalow barely big enough for him and his spaniel, Peaches,” I replied. “We’re staying here.” I didn’t say anything about the town hall, which was as classically palatial as a building could get.

Abandoning the kitchen, I wormed through the family members clustered in the hearth room and knelt on the slate stones. With only an inkling of a plan formed, I thrust a hand into each fire. The flames turned green, their hues darkening as they recognized me and assessed my health. It took only a second for them to start competing again, each trying to outdo the other with what shade of green best represented me.

The magic tree of my core roused in response, golden-green power shooting down my arms. I don’t know how I managed it, but I seized the two fires like I would the scruffs of two arguing dogs.

“Now listen here,” I hissed to them. “You both know me. I was born under your protection,” I told the Hawthorne flames, “and you, my farmhouse flames, have protected me since your first spark. You will get along. You’re family, after all. Cousins, aunt and niece, whatever. And I need you to get my brother back. He’s your family too, so stop squabbling. Please, help me, as you always have.”

There was a beat where nothing happened beyond the flames trying to free themselves of my grip, but then they relaxed. I knew they had accepted my plea when the two fires joined, a new sunshine-yellow color emerging from where they mingled. I withdrew my hands with a smile. “Thank you.”

When I stood, the entire coven was clustered in the doorway, watching me.

“What?” I asked defensively.

“You’ve really come into your own out here, haven’t you?” Aunt Peony said, smiling proudly.

She wasn’t the only one. Uncle Badger’s blue eyes were sparkling, Otter was grinning, and Mom and Dad had soft approving smiles on their faces. Aunt Eranthis nodded in agreement, her precariously perched glasses nearly teetering off her nose, and Aunt Hyacinth looked somewhat sour, but she always looked like she’d sucked on a lemon. And Grandmother…

She sniffed and snapped her fingers. “We have work to do, family. Let’s get to it.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Now that the hearth would obey the coven’s commands as well as my own, Grandmother spelled it to act as a timer, its flames turning orange at every hour to count down the time we had until the echo of Arcadis’s portal vanished for good. Then she shooed half of us outside to form a loose ring around the farmhouse while the others spread out within. As one, we poured our magic into the farmhouse.

Glass shards clinked and twinkled as they sprang from the floorboards and fused themselves back into the windows. The cracks in the walls and foundation caused by the assault on the front door sealed shut; the chipped paint smoothed out like wrinkles vanishing under the ministrations of a steaming iron; the shutters and shingles that had apparently been torn off flew back like crows to their appropriate roosts; even the creeping myrtle and morning glories got a boost. On the whole, the farmhouse received the equivalent of a facelift, a glam-up, and a detox, for the chimney belched out a giant exhale of all the soot and creosote it had collected over the decades.

Wards were layered next, using my floral boundary as a stand-in for the boxwood hedge that surrounded the Hawthorne estate. The delphinium spears rose to head-height in response, almost as tall as Flora’s sunlions. The bigger pixies watched from their fur-lined nesting boxes, not even the strongest of them attempting to test the efficacy of these wards.

Our first task complete, we gathered in the dining room, Dad and Otter dragging over the loveseat from the den so most of us could sit down, Grandmother at the head of the dining room table, of course. Aunt Peony quickly poured the tea, distributing the mugs according to status within the family. When the mugs ran out, people sipped from a variety of bowls. I drank my tea from a ceramic one-cup measuring cup.

No one touched the toast points I’d made. The half-empty jar of apple butter with its little wooden spoon beside it was equally rejected.

After Grandmother had taken a sip of her jasmine green tea, she folded her hands on top of the table. “Report.”

“There are two main points of entry upon the lower floor,” Dad immediately answered, “and since this is a covered wraparound porch, the windows on the second floor must be considered possible breach points. There’s an attic, too, but the vents are too small for anything much bigger than a cat. There are loose floorboards in the hall here under that braided rug that empty out into a crawlspace.”

“And tunnels,” I offered, a little reluctantly. They were the hobs’ secret, after all, but we couldn’t afford any nasty surprises. “There’s a trapdoor under the west side of the house and tunnels that extend throughout the property.”

Grandmother looked to Uncle Badger sitting on the loveseat. “Seal that immediately.”

“But the hobs,” I protested.

She silenced me with a look. Scowling and stewing, I disappeared back into my tea. Uncle Badger abandoned his bowl and went to the hallway to roll back the rug; Grandmother turned back to the witches assembled at the table, rapping her knuckles on the wood to prompt the next report.

I nearly spat out my tea when Aunt Hyacinth thumped my paper-birch-bound notebook on the table and flipped it open to a page where she’d obviously made a checklist. “Most of the raw ingredients we’ll need for the spells are already accounted for, so there will be limited foraging necessary.” She gave me an apologetic look. “Sorry, Meadow, I needed paper and couldn’t find any loose sheets lying around. Your notes and observations in here are fascinating, by the way.”

“You… you read my journal?” I sputtered.

She shifted uncomfortably. “Only a little.”

Liar. Aunt Hyacinth was a Hawthorne; we never did anything halfway.

“What more do we need?” Grandmother asked.

“Well, the wood for the mirror’s frame, for starters—”

“We can get that at Cedar Haven,” I supplied.

Aunt Hyacinth scribbled that note in the margin beside her list. “And we’ll need more of the basic necessities, like jelly fungus, mouse stair ferns, plus blackberry lily rhizomes—”

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