Page 2 of Counting Quarters

Chapter One

Blaire – November, 2021

GrammyandMomwere sitting cross-legged on the living room floor when I got back from helping Storie sort through the family documents we gathered from the library in the room she was renting from us. For some reason, helping her sort through the details about her family had old wounds from my own coming back to the surface. I went over them in my head as I made the short walk from her hotel room to the main house.

It had been quiet despite the chaotic energy flowing through the streets of Beacon Grove as I made my way home.

Nothing had happened yet. I could feel it coming soon, though.

Something big.

Rayner Whittle was in the town square all day spouting nonsense about his big Movement against the four Quarters of Beacon Grove. They were the four families that essentially ran this town and our coven, Watchtower. And with good reason. The gods had blessed each family with the gift of harnessing one of the elemental powers to protect the rest of the coven:

The Winters could control water.

The Eastons could control earth.

The Aldens could control the air.

And the Forbes controlled fire.

Rayner believed that it was time our town evolved into newer practices and moved away from the way things have been done for hundreds of years. You could guess how far that had gotten him.

The only reason anyone gave him the time of day was because this generation of Quarters was uncharacteristically weak, and that made people feel unsafe. As luck would have it, the gods had decided to split each of their gifts and allow them to flow into a second person, called a Counter. This generation of Quarters had a hard time finding their Counters, though, because so many people were convinced that they were actually weaknesses for the Quarters, set out to steal the gifts and keep them for themselves. That forced many of their families to send them into hiding, if they hadn’t already been killed.

In fact, we were only recently learning that wasn’t the case, thanks to my grandmother—who was old as dirt and kept immaculate records.

Grammy’s old, leather-bound books from her personal library were scattered around them on the worn shag carpet, some opened, and others stacked haphazardly on top of each other.

They invited me to sit with them. Actually, they insisted that I sit with them, the way that they always did—and then Grammy pinned me down with her withering stare. The one that made me want to fold myself up into the smallest possible form and roll away from her.

“You've been helping Storie again.”

It wasn't a question. Even if it were, she wouldn't expect a confirmation. She was always three steps ahead of everyone.

It was our job to catch up.

Still, I nodded. My crossed legs began bouncing involuntarily, earning me a deeper glare from the old, wretched woman.

Of course, I loved her. She and Mom were the only family I had. Honestly, she was more of a mother to me growing up than my own mom was. I didn't blame my mother for that, though, as one might assume. She wasn't immune to Grammy's constant berating. I just wished she did more to protect me.

Break the cycle.

Instead, she threw me to the wolves and ran off, probably relieved to be free of them constantly nipping at her heels.

Bloodlines are strange, peculiar things, aren't they?

They can tell you who you are and where you come from. They can provide you with privilege and wealth beyond anything you could ever earn yourself. Or they could dig your grave far before you ever even existed.

I'd always known what it meant to be a Granger—the trials and tribulations that were attached to the name. But I'd also been stuck wondering about the other half of me? Where did that path lead?

I don't know who my father is. He was a tourist passing through our boring little town during the annual Mabon celebration. My mother says they instantly connected on a spiritual level and thus led to my conception. They agreed that staying strangers would keep their affair more interesting, opting not to share their real names with one another. He left before a pregnancy test was a thought in her mind.

It was the oldest story in the book, and par for the course with my flaky, eccentric mother, who rarely thought about anything outside of her own colorful aura. My grandmother had never let her live that decision down.

So, without any knowledge of my paternal side, half of me was always missing. I'd sit up at night fantasizing about it. Imagining that while my mother's genetics provided nothing but negativity and mistreatment throughout my formative years, my father's would be the key. That he held an authority and importance in the real world that could get me out of this swampland. That maybe Mom was just trying to be her weird, mysterious self by saying she didn't know his name and she was just nervous to reach out to him for fear of rejection. That she'd hand over a slip of paper on my birthday one year and gift me with the other half of myself.

But no. That day never came.

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