Page 25 of Resting Witch Face
I kept it to myself, but in all honesty, I was very superstitious. Especially when it came to seers or prophecies. Maybe because I had no magic and I didn’t know if witches really spoke to gods and the Fates or not, it made the whole thing scary as shit for me. If my friend was not so desperate to find a solution to my problem, I was sure she wouldn’t be offering something that had a death sentence written all over it.
“Okay.” That time the lie tasted like tar on my tongue, but for her sake, I would’ve agreed to anything. “I can totally pull off gibberish Hecate herself won’t be able to decipher.”
“That’s the spirit.” Sissily shoved the open grimoire into my hands. “Copy the incantation while I go to the cafeteria and grab us come coffee. We won’t be able to drive home otherwise.” She knew I hated that place, so she offered to do it without making me feel like shit, or bagging, which I would have if she didn’t offer.
Her back was already turned when I nodded, and I watched her go until she disappeared from the row of bookshelves. Only then did I release the sigh and let my shoulders slump. Looking through the library was a bust, and for a second, I entertained the idea of making up a prophecy.Who will know that it’s a lie,a voice prodded my brain.
“I will know, that’s who,” I mumbled under my breath as I dug my way out of the piles of books around me.
There would be fresh hell to be paid when Danika discovered the mess we made, but on the bright side, the chances of me being cast out were high. Let fucking Sasha Airborne, the bitch, clean it up. The idea of that evil witch stacking books while cursing me to high hell gave me the energy to shuffle my way to the front in search of a pen and paper. Although the cafeteria was on the other side of the building, I knew Sissily would be back in no time.
Just as I was rounding the corner at the edge of the last bookshelf, my shoulder bumped into a line of stacked books protruding from it. It made me stagger, and the grimoire I had in my hands dropped on the floor with a heavy thud. That was followed by another smack when the damn book, which jabbed me in the arm, hit the ground too, falling on the spine, and it flopped open somewhere in the middle. An invisible breeze skirted across my skin, and goosebumps covered my arms. My heart jammed in my windpipe, and I flipped around searching for some asshole with air magic trying to pull a prank on me.
No one was in the library but me.
Dread pooled in my stomach, and I really didn’t want to be in the damn room anymore. The first traces of dawn were peeking through the tall windows, casting purples and pinks over the wooden shelves and leather tomes. What little light was poking through the brightening sky pierced the liquid in the jars, giving all the eyeballs, fingers, and such a menacing vibe. I had every intention of snatching the grimoire and hightailing it out of there, but when I bent at the waist to grab it, the text on the opened book got my attention. It was a siren song overtaking my mind.
I was powerless to resist it.
13
Lesson number seven: if a book fucks with your brain, run.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew something was not right. First, what my eyes were seeing and what my brain was translating did not match. I would bet the magic I didn’t have that I was reading a language I’d never seen before in my life. And I lived with Danika. That witch had books in so many tongues I was pretty sure some of them were not even in recorded history of any kind. The text was way past dead language. It fell in some alien mumbo-jumbo bullshit.
Second, and most important, alerting me I was in shit up to my eyeballs was the fact that the book was talking to me. Whispering was more like it, but that was semantics. A soothing tone caressed my ears as I leaned eagerly forward like a dumbass. An idiot would run screaming from something like that. Not yours truly. I sat there on my knees gaping like a fool while its voice twisted and curled around me in a lover’s embrace.
Then the letters, which I could read mind you, started glowing, the golden tone making them look like they were floating up from the page. My hand lifted, my fingers stretching in an attempt to touch them and see if they were real. I should’ve used the other hand, the one without a pentagram tattoo marking me as a witch, but like everything else in my life, I never did what was smart.
The tops of my fingers grazed the floating golden words, and for a moment, I nearly convinced myself that I must’ve fallen asleep and was dreaming. My tense muscles unlocked with the thought, and my fingers sunk into the golden light. Phrases like “Finally, it has been so long,” and “How dare they lock us,” exploded in my head, almost knocking me to my side. The light crawled up my hand until it reached my wrist while I stared at it unblinking, not able to do anything but suck in short, gasped breaths. I had the mind to start freaking out when the bandages wrapped all over my arms from wrist to shoulder loosened and fell to the floor in a neat pile.
Anger hissed from the soothing voice overtaking my mind when the glow inched up my still blistered skin, the color changing from golden to mint green. It was such a pretty shade that I gazed at it dreamily for a long moment before I pulled myself out of the hypnotic daze with a shake of my head. A chill was sinking under my skin where heat had scorched it a second ago. Right before my eyes, my arm healed, the angry red tone disappearing as soon as the glow reached it. My pointer finger itched like a bitch, and I barely prevented myself from taking my teeth to it.
I knew I needed to get away from the light and the voice. Hell, I needed to burn the damn book if the cursed thing thought it could take over someone’s mind, but all I could do was blink and gasp. When the crisp open pages touched my cheek, I realized I was plastered on the floor with my face on top of the book. I felt so tired. More than before when I dozed off a few times deep in the belly of the library. Maybe if I took a few minutes to rest, I would be able to fight whatever the cursed thing was doing to me. I was sure of it.
A chuckle bounced around my skull, snapping my eyes open.
“I’m … going … kick … ass.” My threat was slurred, something not even a dozen drinks had managed to force out of me while I played roadkill on the library floor. Where in Hecate’s name was Sissily?
“For waking you up?” The whisper was clearer but neither male nor female. It was many voices speaking from both genders, which turned it into an echoing buzz. “For giving you back what was taken from you, child. Is that why you fight us?”
The chill was crawling up my other arm, and I had no need to see it to know the skin was healing. With every blister healed, my skin tightening until it felt like my bones were being squeezed in a vice. Lungs burning from the inability to inflate as much as I needed, I sipped air through barely open lips.
This was how I died.
On the floor like some pathetic scum in the middle of the coven building.
Dressed in a hospital gown pretending to be a top, and pants crusted from demon blood.
Barefoot.
Rage erupted in my chest, a bubbling volcano spitting and hissing like a sentient being. If I was going to kick the bucket, I was going to do it on my terms. Dressed to the nines with my favorite shoes on, damn it. Not with bare feet and chunks of hair missing from my head.
“You will not kill me.” It hurt to speak. “Let. Me. Go.”
“So strong,” the voice purred in pleasure. “Such a strong mind. Iron will.”
“Fuck you.” That one cost me because I bit my tongue and blood flooded my mouth.
