Page 44 of Counting Quarters

Chapter Twenty

Blaire

Grammy’spatiencewiththe Quarters was uncharacteristically high. The way they spoke, the things they did—I wouldn’t have ever gotten away with acting in that manner around her, even as a child. Yet she allowed it all to roll off her back without repercussions. It ignited a sort of jealousy toward them, which quickly morphed into full-blown resentment when they took their teasing further and included her in the jokes.

The seriousness and distrust from the first time she and I met them out here in the dilapidated cabin was long gone, and in its place was a comforting camaraderie—a family. Why did she find it so easy to speak with them, to respect them, and it was like pulling teeth just to get her to speak to me with any ounce of consideration?

She brought me back out here to lift the protection shield for the Fire Festival, swearing that I was the most crucial piece to making sure the spell went on without a hitch.

I felt like an outsider as they all teased each other, their moods unusually heightened, especially since the last time I was here. Even Storie laughed and joked with them, her eyes twinkling in a way I hadn’t ever seen them do before.

They were happy.

Despite everything going on, they were happy. Why did that bother me so much?

“Loosen up, Little B. Today is a good day,” Rhyse said through a smile after catching me scowling at him from my spot in their beaten-down recliner for the hundredth time.

Grammy and Lux were bent over a book, mumbling to each other, confirming they had everything exactly right. Remy and Storie were on the couch across from me and Rhyse and Enzo just finished a pull-up competition off the rafters of the loft.

Rhyse's comment earned me a few curious looks, and I could tell they wanted to agree, but no one bothered to interject.

“I'm fine. I thought this was going to be done by now.”

Grammy lifted her head to level me with a look. There's that ornery old woman I know. “Do you have someplace else to be?”

Of course, she knew I didn't. I shook my head and looked down at my hands, biting back another sarcastic remark. Storie looked like she wanted to say something, but quickly thought better of it and clamped her mouth shut.

I don't know why I was allowing it all to get to me so badly. I guess it was just off-putting to see them getting along while I'd been isolated and alone.

For the life of me, I couldn't figure out if that was Grammy's or my own doing.

“I think we're ready,” Lux declared, making eye contact with the three other Quarters in the room to confirm they were ready, too. I was shocked when his icy blues locked in on mine, and the meaning behind that stare was not lost on me.

He was silently including me in their group.

I tucked my chin down in a stiff nod, and all five of us met at the kitchen table. I took a spot between Remy and Lux while Storie and Grammy lingered a step behind us.

Grammy and Lux instructed us on what to say, and the whole process went a lot quicker than I expected. Once energy in the cabin had been thoroughly cleansed with both palo santo and cedar smudges, we joined hands, chanting in the language I'd always heard but never understood. And just when I thought we were done, having felt none of the usual buzz from my gifts, I was hit with the force of it all at once.

It started in my chest. Like a little spark slowly flickering to life in a dark cave, it hardly stung. But then, it ignited into a full-blown inferno, and I swear I was burning alive. I tried to look to Rhyse to see if he felt it, too, but was shocked again with a cold chill down my spine before I could.

My back arched, nearly breaking my hands free from Remy’s and Lux's grip as my body felt like it was frozen in its contorted place. This had to be the wind element. It moved through me in cold waves, like a hurricane or a tsunami.

Next, my muscles tensed up and my limbs felt too heavy to hold. I felt magnetized to the ground. The earth element tried to suck me into its dense layers.

As quickly as the shock from it wore off, my lungs constricted, and I could swear they were filling with liquid—the water element. I sputtered for breath, vaguely hearing Storie's panicked voice behind me as I faded in and out of consciousness.

Something had to be wrong. These gifts—they were owning me. Trying to destroy me.

“Don't interfere,” I heard Grammy's commanding voice.

It sounded like she was speaking through a tunnel. There was chaos all around me. A tugging on my limbs. A crack down my back. Whirls of fire licking my skin. Waves of water crashing in my lungs.

Until slowly, it all receded. Inch by painful, agonizing inch, the chaos retreated back into somewhere inside of me. Their voices returned beside my ears and my eyes opened back up to the ceiling of the cabin. I was lying on the floor now, all six faces hovering over mine.

And I knew it was done. All of it.

The protection was in place, as were my gifts.

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