Read Online Casting Spells by Barbara Bretton - Free Book Online Page A

realm. Sorcha stayed to protect her until she came into her powers.”
    Isadora dismissed her with a glance. “Which hasn’t happened.”
    “She’s right,” someone called out. “What if Chloe never gets her powers? What happens to us then?”
    “Then we’re in trouble, that’s what.” Henry from Fully Caffeinated stood up on his chair and waved an angry fist. “Maybe Isadora has had the right idea all along. I say it’s time to think about moving the whole shebang beyond the mist.”
    “Sorry, Chloe, but Henry’s right.” Colm Weaver shot me another apologetic look. “Truth is you haven’t been getting the job done. I grew up beyond the mist. If you can’t keep us safe, I don’t see where we have a choice but to listen to Isadora.”
    “You’re nuts,” Archie shouted. “They’re a bunch of fascists in there. I’d rather take my chances and stay right where we are.”
    “But we can’t stay here if we’re not safe.” Hiram was one of the itinerant house sprites who wintered in Sugar Maple. “I’d trade freedom for safety any day.”
    “You’re a horse’s ass,” Archie, the diplomat, shot back.
    Lilith, always the peacemaker, stepped between them and quelled the dustup with a stern look.
    But the damage had been done. I looked out at the crowd of familiar faces and saw that Colm and Hiram weren’t the only villagers who were beginning to believe Isadora might have the right idea.
    Isadora saw it too. The expression of triumph on her face cut me to the quick.
    “Give her time,” Janice said, staring down Isadora. “I know Chloe won’t let us down.”
    “We’ve given her thirty years,” Peggy Whitman called from the back of the room. “How much time does she need?”
    “It’s not Chloe’s fault,” Isadora said in a mock-sympathetic tone of voice. “She can’t help that she’ll never be more than she is at this moment: a nonmagick human who can do nothing to save us from ruin.”
    Recreational crying wasn’t my thing, but my eyes were starting to well up with tears I hoped no one noticed.
    Gunnar, however, noticed everything, and he sounded a warning.
    “Let it go, Mother. There’s no crime in being human.”
    Nervous laughter erupted like tiny brushfires and was quickly extinguished.
    “But being selfish is.” She swung around to face me, and it took every ounce of courage I had to meet her eyes. “Be warned: the clock is ticking. Until you claim your powers, the Book of Spells is mine for the taking.”
    I opened my mouth to say something but Gunnar stepped in front of me.
    I had known Gunnar all my life but I had never seen him like this. He seemed bigger, taller, more powerful. More dangerous. Nothing like the gentle friend I loved. His words were mild, his manner controlled, but anger flew from his body like thunder-bolts. For a second I almost believed I could see them heading straight for his mother. Neither one of them uttered a word, but the room started to shake with the force of their silent battle, and just when I thought the very air between them was going to split in two, Isadora vanished in an explosion of red and purple glitter that sent Gunnar crashing into the back wall of the church.
    The sound as he hit the wall sent chills up my spine, but that was nothing to the sense of dread when I realized he wasn’t moving.
    “I hope he’s not dead,” Archie said. “The way things have been going around here ...”
    “He’s not dead,” I snapped as I ran to him, our talk of banshees screaming inside my head. “He can’t be.”
    I bent down over him and placed two fingers against his wrist. Nothing. My heart thudded hard inside my chest. The first time Gunnar heard the banshee wail, my mother died. The second time Suzanne Marsden drowned in Snow Lake. The third time—
    I repositioned my fingers and held my breath. Please, please ...A tiny pulsing, faint and thready, but there! My knees went weak with relief when his eyes opened and he groaned loudly.
    “My