Page 12 of My Blind Date is a Warlock

“We should get going.” I walked past him back into the car, slamming the door shut—on him and our conversation. Jacob remained outside for a short while, but after falling apart in front of him, my stubborn pride would not let me ask him what he was doing.

CHAPTER 12

The coven circle was a scenic woodland glade in the middle of the woods at the base of the mountains. The copse of evergreens gave way to a circular clearing of pristine green grass dotted with a variety of flowers here and there, and at the center of the clearing was an ancient wisteria tree. Its weeping branches were in full bloom, creating a purple canopy of shade and littering the ground with petals. Someone had strung mason jar lights on the branches and fairy lights to make it seem as if fireflies were dancing among the blossoms.

Jacob let out a low and impressed whistle, hands on hips as he stared at the tree that was rumored to be older than anyone present. “Ain’t that a sight? Wish I had my camera here to catch it,” he marveled in a wistful tone. It was the first thing he’d said since we left the spot where I threw up. The drive had been fraught with tense silence. The only time I spoke was to guide him down the turn that would lead us to the coven circle.

We’d left his rental parked on the side of the road, along with a multitude of other cars, and made our way to the circle on foot. The clearing was already filled with witches, warlocks, and the human and shifter partners of those married or mated to witches. The two of us were lingering on the fringes, hidden between two pine trees and yet to be spotted. Clearing my throat, I took a preemptive measure at soothing the awkwardness between us before my family and friends descended on us.

“I can do you one better,” I began, my mouth stretching in a strained smile. Jacob tore his gaze away from the wisteria tree with seemingly great reluctance. “Before you leave town, you should make a stop at High Tide, the local gallery. You’ll find a few paintings that perfectly capture the spirit of our guardian wisteria.”

“Guardian?” he prompted, a gleam of interest in his eyes. I suppose for a man to give up a lifetime of adventure and traveling the world to become a teacher, he must have some intellectual interests. I wondered what subject he taught. With his skills, it could be anything from the history of magic to enchantments and self-defense classes. Shelving my curiosity for later, I told him the tale of Mystic Cove’s guardian.

“According to the stories, the wisteria was planted by Genevieve Barnes, one of the first witches to settle here and declare Mystic Cove a haven town.” As Jacob knew, a haven town was a place for paranormals like us to live without fear of persecution from humans at a time where anything and anyone exhibiting signs of being different or straying from the strict tenets of the Christian religion at the time was declared a devil worshipper. Towns like ours sprung up because witches were being burned at the stake or hung, shifters were hunted under the guise of ridding the world of monsters, and vampires were thought to be the spawn of Satan himself.

“The spot where the wisteria stands is the exact location of a confluence of ley lines that flow all over the land. Throughout history, wisteria trees have long been associated with protection—be it from demons, dark magic, anything evil. And by planting the tree here, on top of a powerful magical source, Ginny believed that the tree’s protective properties would be enhanced. And it must have worked because we’ve been able to keep our secret safe from outsiders all these years and we’ve managed to build a great relationship with the humans living among us.”

“Not to mention the thriving tourism and art industry. Genevieve Barnes, huh? Any relation?” He bumped into my shoulder playfully.

“I believe she's a great-great-grandaunt or something like that. So I, too, have an ancestor who had a brilliant mind and aptitude for magic, although she was not into using dark magic.”

“And thank the gods for that. We’ve got enough megalomaniacs on our hands as it is. I read through a few pages of Tiberius’s Book of Shadows last night. The first few entries were not spells or potion recipes or anything like that, but his views on what he thought societal hierarchy should be. The man believed himself a god of sorts, and sorcerers—that’s what he called our kind—the pinnacle of human evolution. The only beings above us were the fair folk—if they truly existed.”

“He sounds like a radical purist. How come I’ve never heard of him? I’m sure we would have been taught about someone like that in History of Magic at school.”

“Because my family did everything to bury all the negative rumors about him. The Buchanans are a prominent family, one of the families who founded Redwood Academy. We couldn’t have our name besmirched like that, and I think there might have been others within the family who shared the same views. But they were—” Whatever he was about to say was drowned out by the sounds of my nieces yelling in excitement and screaming my name for everyone to hear.

“Here we go,” I sighed, pasting on a big smile for my little angels and walking out into the clearing, swallowing down the bit of trepidation curling up within me.

Opening my arms wide for a hug, I crouched down to the ground while my eyes scanned the clearing for Jerome and his posse. It looked like they were not here yet. I still had a moment of respite.

“How are my favorite monkeys doing today?” I wrapped my arms around their giggling forms, getting a mouthful of hair when Charlotte, the younger of the two, head-butted me on the chin. “Aunt Fia, we’ve got a thuprise for you!” she exclaimed, pulling away from the embrace and bouncing up and down excitedly in her neon-pink converse sneakers. Charlotte struggled with calling me Sofia because of her lisp and had decided to call me Fia instead, a nickname that had stuck with both girls.

Like Piper and I, they were Irish twins, born a year apart. At five and four, respectively, they both showed great promise of becoming excellent witches in a few years. Like most of us, the girls would be off to Redwood to receive formal education as a witch in a few years. Even though I knew that they likely wouldn’t go through what I did, I still worried for them. Headmaster Pritchard could be a misogynistic pig at times. His lax attitude toward the warlock students and sometimes harsh and oftentimes cruel disregard for the witches had not changed in the three decades he’d been at the helm of the school.

And Jacob worked for the man!

“You do? I can’t wait to see it,” I gushed, pinching both their cheeks and laughing at the scowls they shot my way. “But first, why don’t you say hello to my new friend?” I got up from my crouch and stood next to Jacob.

“We’re friends now, huh?” he teased me, wrapping an arm around my shoulder and pulling me close.

“I want to meet your new friend, too,” a familiar voice spoke up from behind us. Piper walked around Jacob and me and came to stand behind her daughters. Still dressed in her blue nursing scrubs, her chocolate brown hair was pulled up in a tight bun and her glasses sat on the tip of her nose, perilously close to slipping right off. Her face was bare of any makeup, save for the pink gloss on her lips, and she looked a little worse for wear, but she could still turn a few heads.

“You didn’t have time to change! Why would you come here smelling like death and disinfectant?” I asked her and got a middle finger in reply behind her girls’ backs. She quickly lowered it when Rita tilted her head up to look.

“Let’s see you work back-to-back-to-back shifts at the hospital, deal with these two, and put up with a husband who’d lose his head if it wasn’t screwed on straight and see if you’d still have the energy to take your clothes off at the end of the day. I’ve been meaning to stop by your place and pick up a few more bottles of your energy tonic.” She sighed. Now that I took a closer look, I could see the faint shadows around her eyes and stress grooves lining her forehead and bracketing the sides of her mouth. She could have easily used a bit of glamour magic to freshen up, but my sister did not believe in using her powers for something trivial unless it was for her kids.

“So, Fia, are you going to introduce us to your new friend or what?” Piper asked with a sly smirk, her analytical gaze taking in and noting everything of interest about Jacob. I always thought that my sister would have made a great FBI profiler if it weren’t for the fact that she tended to wear rose-colored glasses in regards to the people close to her or those she liked.

“As if you haven’t heard everything from Gran and Rachel, but I'll pretend to humor you. Pip, this is Jacob Buchanan, a professor from Boston. Jacob—” I turned to face the man who was watching our interaction with a delighted smile. “—this pain in the butt is my younger sister—by only eleven months and three weeks—Piper Campbell-Barnes.” She’d chosen to take on the compound last name to honor both her husband and our family tradition of continuing the Barnes familial line. I couldn’t remember the last time a warlock had been born into the family. The last five or so generations had produced a bevy of witches, no sons. So, in order to keep the family name alive, all the men in our family had married into the Barnes clan. “And this is monkey one and monkey two—also known as Rita and Charlotte,” I went on, introducing my nieces, both of whom had hearts and sparkles in their eyes as they gawked at the man in front of them. Jacob winked at the girls and gave his attention to my sister.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Piper. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s a bit hard to believe that you guys are sisters. That is not to say that you’re not both drop-dead gorgeous, but you look nothing alike,” Jacob commented with a charming smile.

“You wouldn’t be the first one to point that out. I’ve heard a great deal about the work you did before joining the academy. Hollywood could fashion a whole bevy of movies after you,” Piper shot back seamlessly, and if you didn’t know her as well as I did, you would not have noticed the forced edge her smile took on. Jacob had unknowingly stumbled onto a sore spot, one I could easily forgive him for since he’d already graduated from Redwood by the time Piper and I joined the academy.

Piper and I were opposites in all the ways that counted, from our temperaments to ambitions, likes and dislikes. But the most glaring differences were in our appearances. Beauty and the witch. Snow White and the Hag, they used to call us. Whereas I stood at an even five-foot-five with a willowy figure and barely had any curves to my name, my sister had a voluptuous hourglass that drove men wild. But before she learned that most men went gaga over curves like she had, Piper used to have a complex about her body, believing herself to be fat and lamenting over her five-foot-two stature.

I did not miss my formative years. While my sister wished she had been built like me, I envied her c-cups and booty that filled her jeans like nothing I’d seen before. I hated my flat and boyish body. How far we’d come. The topic was a sore spot, but I was glad Piper handled it like a champ.

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