Single Witch's Survival Guide (The Jane Madison Academy Series) Read online

  Apparently, I was the only person discomfited by the naked witch. Raven met my gaze with a little smile. “If you’ve never worked skyclad, you really should try it.”

  I reminded myself that I was the magistrix of the Jane Madison Academy, and I gestured to the third candle, inviting Raven to cast the western quadrant. “Blessings of the West upon us,” she said. “Guardians of Water.” The candle lit without a problem.

  All three of us witches spoke the words for the North together, inviting the Guardians of Earth. I felt the shudder of the circle joining together. The warders closed off their protective barrier, matching three sword-tips as one.

  In the end, everything looked right. Four candles burned, their wicks straight and tall inside the shelter of our circle. A shimmering arc of colorless energy crackled above us. The heavy pressure of the brewing storm was held at bay.

  I reminded myself not to be overly critical. I was looking for perfection, and we were a group of witches working together for the first time. I needed to trust myself, trust my magicarium. This was Lughnasadh, after all. The great power of the sabbat grew out of twilight, out of the transition between day and night, between summer and autumn, between growth and harvest.

  I stepped to the center of the circle and raised my hands overhead. The fabric of my dress was heated to body temperature now; it slipped over my skin like the warm bathwater. Trying to hold that image in my head—water—I touched my forehead, my throat, and my heart before beginning my spell.

  “Witches gather, joined in union, one strong voice as darkness falls,

  Freed from worldly cares and toils, safe in nature’s world sans walls.”

  I drew out the last word, waiting for Emma to join in. She was supposed to build on the foundation I had set. After a lifetime of hesitation, she finally spoke the next words:

  “Here beneath—”

  She cut herself off, realizing she’d used the wrong word. Intent meant more than any vocabulary choice, but there would be time enough to teach her when we resumed normal classes in the morning. Emma shook her head and started again. Her voice shook as she recited:

  “Here beside the oaken forest, here upon the lakeside shore,

  Let the storm clouds roll in closer, let the raindrops start to pour.”

  She was supposed to call for rain clouds, not storm clouds. Moreover, her emphasis upon correcting her first mistake torqued all the energy raised by her couplet. Nevertheless, I could still turn this into a teaching moment for our next class.

  During the few moments I hesitated, Emma poured more strength into our fledgling working. In fact, she transferred astral energy with an alarming efficiency, pumping out power from her vast reserves. In a dozen heartbeats, I felt as if I were walking along a mountain ridge in a fierce windstorm. Setting my teeth with determination, I leaned into one gust of wind, only to be sent reeling when another rose up from a different direction. I was pushed, twisted, spun around until I nearly lost my footing.

  I tossed my head, trying to cast out all the interfering thoughts. I was a witch. I was a channel. I was a vessel for the powers of the natural world around me.

  I had almost accommodated Emma’s modifications to the spell when Raven began her part of our working. Her voice rolled forward with the force of a gale, brutal winds pushing word after word, line after line.

  “Increase rainfall at our summons, rise up to our desperate need,

  Fall upon the lake and forest, nurture all that grows from seed.”

  They were simple words, a spell we’d all discussed. But I was astonished by the power of Raven’s working. I’d sensed the intricacies of her strength before, the stony framework, the countless interstices where arcane energy could spark and multiply. I had never imagined, though, the sheer volume of that amplification, the rushing, rolling torrent that would crash over us as she spoke.

  Even as I fought to find my proper balance, desperate to keep my literal and figurative feet, Raven embraced the energy that Hani offered as her familiar. Somehow, impossibly, her power doubled.

  We three witches were wildly out of sync. We had summoned a prodigious amount of energy, and every breath we took threatened to spin us off our physical and astral axes.

  I clutched at the lifeline Neko tossed me, the guy-wire he cast across the buffeting gulf. There wasn’t time to defuse the excess power. I could not possibly siphon off the energy safely, feed it to the gathered Elementals of Earth and Air, Fire and Water.

  I had no choice but to plunge ahead, to lead us off the cliff, into the chasm, into the heart of the burgeoning storm.

  Lightning flashed, brighter than any noon-day sun. At the exact same instant, deafening thunder shattered above us. The earth rose up beneath our feet, shaking hard enough to throw us all to our knees. Our protective dome shattered, nowhere near the equal of the energy we had raised. All the air around us was sucked away, and for a terrifying eternity I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t breathe.

  * * *

  “Jane!”

  That word had no meaning.

  “Jane! Dammit!”

  The voice was pushing on me, beating against me.

  “Neko, over here. No, kneel beside her!”

  Beating against me. I was separate from the void.

  “Jane, I need you to focus. Take her hand, Neko. Feed her power—now!”

  White heat surged into me. Burning. Searing.

  “Too much!”

  The heat pulled back. Returned, more gently.

  “A little more. That’s it. More.”

  The heat crept into my wrist. I had a wrist. I had a wrist, and a body and lungs that were desperate to breathe. I gasped, gulping air, choking, flailing.

  “Easy,” the voice said, and I discovered that it had a hand, too. It had hands, and arms, and a steady, solid chest. It folded around me, cradling me, sheltering me. It surrounded me, protected me, and I could sink into it and be safe forever.

  “Hush,” it said, and I realized I was sobbing. “You’re fine, now,” it said. “Breathe. You’re safe. Breathe.” It crooned words to me, easy words, simple words, endless words of comfort. I could float on whatever that voice said. I could slip back into the void. I could drift away, far away, forever.

  “Jane,” the voice whispered. No. Not the voice. David.

  I opened my eyes.

  David was sitting on the sand, in the center of the circle we had cast. He cradled me in his arms. My crimson dress was sandy and torn. The silk was drenched. My hair was dripping, and so was his.

  I tried to take in everyone else—Raven and Emma, clutching each other as if they shared one soul. Nervous warders, darting protective glances into the woods, across the lake. Familiars, hovering near their witches, helpless, unsteady.

  “What…” I meant to speak. I meant to ask the questions that loomed out of the fog inside my head. My throat was raw, though, as if I had screamed for a thousand lifetimes. I tried to swallow, but I was too parched to complete the motion.

  David shook his head. “Your power was too great. Too unbalanced.”

  “Rain?” I managed, trying to put an entire cavalcade of questions into the word.

  He nodded. “A hurricane. All of it—rain and wind, thunder and lightning. The power passed through you, over all of us. It was gone before we knew it had struck.”

  I understood each individual word, but together they made no sense. I could never have survived such a storm.

  I looked past him, to the tallest oak on the shoreline. To the osprey’s nest, where barely an hour ago the male had fed his three chicks.

  Or, rather, I looked to where the osprey’s nest had been.

  Now, there was nothing. Now, the oak was split in two, its massive trunk halved into a pair of curling strips. The sprawling nest, the majestic birds—gone.

  I didn’t realize I was sobbing again until David pulled my head against his chest. He said something to the others, issued orders. Someone retrieved the quenched candles. Oth
er hands gathered up the altar cloth. The bag of corn, the sodden lump that had been a loaf of bread, all of it was collected. Someone—Neko, it was Neko—slipped my sandals onto my feet.

  And then we were walking through the forest, David clutching me close. It was too far for him to carry me. The ground was too rough, especially with the channels that had been carved by the instant, deadly downpour.

  I leaned into him. I melted against his side. He matched his steps to mine, and a century later, we finally made it back to the farmhouse. I was nearly asleep as he swept me into his arms, as he carried me over the threshold, like some travesty of an eager groom welcoming his bride. I felt him put one foot on the stairs that led to our bedroom. And then I knew nothing more.

  CHAPTER 10

  THE OSPREYS WERE attacking me. The male tangled his feet in my hair, closing his talons and raking my scalp. The female slashed at my face with her beak, as if she were peeling strips of flesh to feed her chicks. I screamed as she tore my cheek, as she gouged a trough beside my eye.

  “Jane.” David spoke my name and drove off the raptors. His voice was calm and certain. “Look at me, Jane.”

  I couldn’t look at him. I had to protect myself. I had to brace for the next attack. Shadows writhed in the corner of our room. The three fledglings hid there, waiting to strike at me.

  “Jane. Look at me.”

  I found his gaze. In the gloomy light, I couldn’t make out the color of his eyes, but I knew they were brown, a deep and steady chestnut. His eyes conveyed the essence of his patience, his calm. He was absolutely certain I was safe. Only then did I realize the ospreys had been a nightmare.

  David ran his hands down my trembling sides, and I braced myself, a part of my scrambled brain still believing he would recoil at the stickiness of my blood. But there was no blood. There was only the soft cotton of my nightshirt.

  My ruined Lughnasadh gown was pooled in the corner where David had discarded it the night before. In the grey light of almost-dawn, I couldn’t tell that the dress was the color of blood. But in my heart, I knew it was.

  David blinked, and I was finally free to move. I was safe from the ospreys. Safe from the nightmare. But there was nothing David could do to rescue me from memories of the magic I had unleashed by the lake. The ospreys—the real ones—had been struck by lightning. They had been devoured by the storm, their nest shattered into a million fiery pieces.

  David’s hands were firm as he pressed me back on the bed. I tried to protest. I could not stay here. I did not want the luxury of my pillow, the forgiveness of the mattress. I struggled to sit up, but David touched my forehead with his index finger. “Sleep,” he said. The low thrum of warder’s magic echoed through my body, and I slipped into oblivion.

  * * *

  I awoke sobbing, gasping, desperate for freedom from my tangled sheets. Sunlight striped the edges of the bedroom shades, too bright, too strong to ever gaze on directly. I fought to break away from the grasping bed. I struggled to escape.

  And David was there. He released my trapped arms, worked the twisted bed linens from my thrashing legs. I choked for air, heaving like a sprinter at the end of a heat.

  David took me onto his lap. He eased my head against his shoulder. He rubbed my back, gently, calmly, and he rocked me until my sobs drifted away.

  * * *

  My third awakening was easier. I swam up from a sleep deeper than any dreams could penetrate. I was groggy from the depths; I’d lost my words, lost all but the vaguest shell of my thoughts.

  David helped me into a seated position, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. He told me to hold on to the edge of the mattress. He needed to repeat himself, twice, but some part of my lizard-brain finally understood.

  He took a washcloth from somewhere, a soft one, and he dipped it into a basin of warm water. He bathed my face, slowly, carefully. He traced my eyebrows, the line of my nose, my chin. He went over my hands, holding each one lightly between his own. He smoothed my fingers, wiped the length of my arms. When I shivered, he dried me with a towel, taking care to remove every hint of moisture.

  I was still cold, though, frozen to the core. My teeth started to chatter, and when I set my jaw, my entire body shook.

  David eased me back onto the bed, swinging my legs around. He covered me with the sheet, the cotton blanket, the feather blanket we’d stored in the top of his closet months earlier. He stretched out beside me, and his arm was heavy across my chest as he anchored me to the bed. He cradled my swaddled body against his until I slept again.

  * * *

  I wasn’t sure what I sensed first—the hum of the electric clock on my nightstand or the sun that shone scarlet through my eyelids. I lay as still as I could, listening for David’s breath beside me.

  The working had been a nightmare. So much power, and I’d lost control of all of it. I had put myself and my students directly in harm’s way. The storm alone could have devastated us—torrential rain, lightning strikes. And that was before I began to calculate the magical backlash…

  Nevertheless, David had been there for me. All the tension of the preceding weeks, all the distance and uncertainty… I had felt his arms around me, and I had known I would be safe. He would never let me be harmed. I had trusted him in a way I had never been able to trust any other person.

  Remembering the velvet iron of his body around mine, I sighed and stretched my legs beneath the sheets. I reached out one hand, seeking his chest—or maybe some more interesting part of his anatomy. With any luck, we could spend the entire morning here in our bedroom. Finish things off with a shared shower before heading into town for lunch at the café. I moaned a little in the back of my throat, imagining the decadence of it all.

  “Jane, dear!”

  That wasn’t David’s voice. My eyes flew open.

  Gran was sitting in a ladderback chair beside the window. She wore an orange cotton sweater set and a faded denim skirt. White socks protected her feet from her navy blue Keds. She had crossed her legs at her ankles, and the position made her sit up straight in her chair. She looked prim and proper, the polar opposite of the lascivious home movie I’d started to play inside my head.

  “What are you doing here?” I meant to shout the question, but my words faded into a rasp after the “what.” I swallowed hard, suddenly realizing how parched my throat was.

  “Here, sweetheart. Have a sip of water.” Gran helped me to sit up. I felt ridiculous leaning against her, but my hands were trembling so hard I needed both of them to hold the plastic cup she gave me. It took three tries to close my lips around the drinking straw. The water was so cool and sweet I almost started to cry.

  Gran clucked her tongue and gestured for me to lean forward. Supporting me with one hand against my shoulder, she used the other to straighten my pillow. She was as smooth and efficient as a nurse.

  “What happened?” This time, I got out both words. I was encouraged enough to push. “Where’s David?”

  “You’ve been sleeping, dear. David had to go to Sedona last night, so he asked me to sit with you.”

  She’d been here all night? But what about my nightmares? Why had I dreamed about David comforting me, if Gran had been watching over me? And what was David doing in Arizona anyway?

  Gran took the cup from my hands. “Perfect, dear. Now, maybe just a bite of something light. Melissa dropped off some Bunny Bites, but I think the frosting is a little too rich for your first meal back.”

  Dropped off? Wait. “What day is it?” I croaked.

  “Sunday, dear. Don’t you remember? You’ve been awake several times.”

  Sunday. We’d attempted our Lughnasadh working on the first of August, on Thursday. I must have dreamed about the ospreys that night. And woken from more nightmares the next day, Friday. And David had bathed me that night. So, two days later, I managed to return to the world of the living.

  As I worked through the miracle of the Gregorian calendar, Gran wrestled open a package of peanut butter grano
la bars. She wrapped one in a paper napkin, as if I were a five-year-old child who might muss her dress with a snack.

  Even as I wondered how Gran had smuggled the processed treat past Raven’s whole foods vigilance, I nibbled on a corner. The sweetness bloomed across my tongue like pure sugar, and I had to fight not to gulp down the entire bar without chewing. In between tiny bites, I asked, “When will David be back?”

  “I’m not sure, dear. Your mother needs him for a working tonight. He’s helping her prepare things today.”

  Shakespeare said jealousy was a green-eyed monster. Melissa would know the play—Othello—and she’d have no problem citing the act and scene, noting that Iago spoke the famous line. But Iago was wrong. Iago and Shakespeare and Melissa herself, if she’d ever believed the Bard’s words. Jealousy wasn’t green. It was bright red, scarlet, the color of blood streaming from a newly opened vein.

  I blinked, hard. David was bound to Clara by a warder’s sworn obligation, just as he was bound to Gran and to me. Nothing had changed that—not the disastrous working by the lake, and certainly not the weeks we’d spent separated before Lughnasadh.

  Still angry, but embarrassed by my visceral flash of emotion, I took another bite of the granola bar. I forced myself to focus on chewing and swallowing before I asked, “Did he tell you? About what happened here?”

  She nodded solemnly. “I know you pushed yourself too hard. You wanted to impress your students, and you tried to do too much too soon, with too little support from the other witches.”

  I shook my head. “That’s not what happened.”

  “Why don’t you tell me, dear?”

  And so I did. I admitted that I’d lost control of the Lughnasadh ritual on the beach. I told her about fighting with David on the Fourth of July, even though I didn’t say what we’d argued about. I told her about how much I hated changing the magicarium’s curriculum, how much I missed the communal magic I’d always planned to teach.