Page 30 of Blue Moon Mistress

The bundle of herbs catches fire the instant I pass it over the candle flame. A tiny flare of light and I swirl it around in the air as that flash fizzles, and the smoke pours from the brittle leaves.

More words… more concerns from my wolfy audience, and the smoke reverses direction. Like a waterfall, the white stream falls from those herbs to cover the calfskin map as if a peet fog has settled over the city.

The bundle goes in the cauldron, its smoke leaking down the sides, and I take the pendulum from the onyx bowl where it lives.

A simple swirl moves that viscous smoke, and it runs up against that barrier, thickening in a line to show its location. A jagged fence blocking in the town.

As I coil the pendulum up and return it to its home, I watch that smoke. That barrier doesn’t push it inward or out, it simply exists… But the snaking line of darker smoke tells me exactly what that barrier was meant to do.

I follow the line of my path from the edge, to Wexxons, and then back home. Someone wants to track witches… or maybejust me. And if they’re paying attention to their spell… I’ve led them right to my home.

That line fades as I leave Wexxon’s and one glance at the box on my table reminds me why.

I cut the paper tape open, and pluck the thing from its wrappings.

The full moon has passed, and I don’t feel like waiting fourteen days for the new moon to cleanse this beautiful hunk of stone. Smoke it is.

The palo santo is almost a charred stump, and I pull a sprig of rosemary too, seeking the indications quickly as I light them from the same purple candle. Pouring the smoke over the crystal, offering it clear intentions.

When the smoke has covered every inch of it, I look back and the line inches backward, away from my home as if it was never there.

It stops at Wexxons. It’s erasing its own path, not mine.

And I have to hope that whoever placed the barrier wasn’t paying attention… or if they were,theirintentions aren’t the cause of this sickly feeling that’s washed over my skin.

Four

Nothing crossesmy wards in the night, and the wolves are curled up in various places around my bedroom when I wake the next morning.

The group chat the guys added me to kept me up later than I expected and as I stretch beneath the warm blankets, I think about one of the last things Johnny said.

It’s why he’s the one I text after a quick good morning to the group.

Hey, beautiful. Does this mean you want me to come over as promised?

He adds a gif of a cartoon wolf with hearts bulging from its eyes.

I might.

You don’t have to play hard to get. I’ve already licked every inch of your sexy body.

It makes me laugh, so I don’t put up any more of a fight. I give him the address and a time as a response, even though I have a feeling Joshua already gave them the former.

The gravel outside crunches five minutes before the time specified and I glance out the window, (just to make sure) before I step onto the porch.

Johnny hops down from his truck—a beat up old SUV from the seventies that has a little plaque on the grill that says “International.” It looks like he loves the big orange thing.

“You definitely are off the beaten path. I missed your driveway the first time past.”

“That’s kind of the point.” I smile as I read his shirt. It’s the one I wore yesterday morning. “The four of you aside, There’s no one in town I want dropping by.”

He stops short and looks over the wolves lounging on the front porch. “Thoseshould keep the locals away.”

“Most people can’t see them. Witches and wolves and all other manner of non-normals, but your average human won’t see them.” That wasn’t strictly true. They might catch glances of the wolves in their periphery, but trying to actuallyseethem wouldn’t bear fruit.

One hops down and goes to him, nose raised and twitching.

“That one’s yours.”

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