Page 17 of Midlife Shifter Unexpected

“What’s happening now that makes it a good reason?” I asked into the silence.

But the only response was everyone looking away.

Chapter 13

I could tell by the silence in the room I’d asked a question no one wanted to answer.

“Do you guys have a problem?” I asked.

“You could say that,” Mae nodded, but her gaze shot to Trina. “I don’t think that gave you the right to tune her into her supernatural powers.”

“It’s not against any code,” Trina shrugged. “You can’t deny we need her. The cemetery is getting worse.”

“Getting worse?” Just my luck I didn’t get brought into the supernatural world to meet hot guys, travel the world, and have a party.

“It’s been, you know, coming to life a wee bit,” Hilda explained.

My eyes grew wide and my nostrils flared. “I didn’t sign on for a zombie apocalypse,” I stammered. “Not cool. I don’t want to find out about the supernatural world in the final book of the series when everyone is about to die!”

“Have you ever seen anything like this?” Mae asked me, holding out a pendant in her palm. I took it from her hand. It was a pentacle in a circle, with stones at the end of each point and one in the center.

I shook my head. “Isn’t it like some sort of witchy symbol, a trinket?”

“It is a witch symbol,” Mae said. “It’s not a trinket. This is part of The Estate. It came with the house. I found it in my aunt’s things.” She waved her hand over it and smiled, looking up at the other two women in the room. I couldn’t because I was too busy staring at the pendant. The stone in the center was sparkling fire like little lightning bolts of purple and green.

“Oh my God, that’s your magic,” I said.

“That’s my magic.” Mae pointed to the stones in the center, but as she waved her hand over the pendant again, a second stone started glowing in green sparkles.

“What’s that one, the green one?” I looked around the room assuming it was either Trina or Hilda.

But they were all looking over at me. “Oh, that’s you,” Mae said.

My eyes went wide. “What is it, some sort of a tracking device?”

“It’s more like an on switch, a transformer switch. I’m plugged in, so my light is on. You’re plugged in, so your light is on too. We just need the other four stones to light up.”

“You need four more supernaturals?” I asked. “What’s wrong with you two?” I asked, pointing at Hilda and Trina.

“We aren’t part of the accords,” Trina said.

“There were six families in the original agreement, one from each group, and they made a pact to help protect the cemetery from intruders,” Hilda said.

“The coven, the witch’s coven, we are the first line of defense,” Trina explained. “We keep up the wards and the barriers that keep out most of the people.”

“Now that the Hayes is here,” Hilda nodded toward Mae.” We have greater protection, but there’s been problems recently, and so now we need to invoke the pentacle.”

“I was testing out to see if you were one of the members of the pentacle,” Trina said.

“How could you possibly know that?” I asked.

“There are a lot of magic people in the world, but they don’t see it, so I can’t go around telling them they’re magic people. They have to be able to see it and do it for themselves. If you tell someone that they’re magic and they can’t do it, then they go crazy. There’s no way I could force you to be a werewolf or a shapeshifter, but I can bring out your natural abilities.”

“Can I get you a cup of tea?” Mae asked.

“Last time one of you got me a cup of tea, it didn’t turn out so well,” I smirked.

“I promise it’ll just be tea with a bit of a boost in it,” she said with a smile.

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