But Mom just said, "And now it's four minutes. Go."
There wasn't much to the bedroom Finley and I had shared. A bunk bed-Finn had claimed the top-a dresser, a battered desk, and a mirror. Finley's clothes were still folded in the drawers, and almost without thinking, I grabbed one of her black sweatshirts, tugging it over my tank top. I traded my flannel pants for jeans (my own, since Finn had been taller than me), and added a scuffed pair of black boots.
Jogging back downstairs, I twisted my hair into a sloppy braid over one shoulder. Hopefully, wherever we were going didn't have a dress code.
Mom was just outside the front door, and when I appeared at her side, she didn't say anything, merely jerked her head toward the woods surrounding the compound. Years ago, all the Brannicks had lived in this secluded spot deep in the woods of northern Tennessee. There were still outbuildings and training yards to accommodate at least a hundred people, but I'd never seen the place that full. By the time I was old enough to remember, the only Brannicks left were me, Mom, and Finn.
The woods were full of noise that morning, from the cracking of branches under our feet to the birds singing, but Mom didn't say anything and I didn't ask any questions.
Nearly a mile into the trees, we came to the Itineris. To anyone walking by-not that many people ever just "walked by" in these woods-the portal wouldn't have looked like anything but a small opening in a bunch of branches. They wouldn't even know it was there unless they accidentally stepped into it.
Which would probably be fatal since the Itineris was too intense for humans. We could only use it because we had some residual magic in our blood.
Mom held out her hand to me, and I took it, ducking under the branches and stepping into the Itineris.
One of the weirdest things about using the Itineris is how it feels. There's no rushing wind or sense of motion, but a crippling, sickening pressure, as though the weight of the whole universe is pressing down on you.
Suddenly, we were standing on a paved road.
Well, Mom was standing. I was on my knees, gasping. The portal was always rough on me.
Mom helped me to my feet, but that was clearly all the TLC I was going to get. As soon as I was steady, she started walking down the road.
"Where are we?" I asked, following.
"Alabama," she replied.
I didn't ask what part of Alabama, but between the sand and the slight tang of salt on the wind, I guessed we were somewhere near the beach. We hadn't been walking long when we came across a path of crushed shells. Mom turned onto it, her boots crunching and sounding too loud in the quiet.
At the end of the driveway was a small, one-story house that actually looked a little bit like our place. An ancient Jeep was parked just by the front porch, and several sets of wind chimes twisted in the breeze.
The screen door creaked open, and a woman stepped out, squinting down the drive at us. She seemed to be about ten years or so older than my mom, and her dark blond hair, shot through with gray, was piled on top of her head in a messy knot. Her arms, bare in a black tank top, were pale and flabby. Roughly a dozen necklaces and pendants hung around her neck, and she held a coffee cup in her right hand. "Ash?" she asked, frowning at us.
"Maya," Mom returned. She gestured at me. "Mind if me and Izzy come in for a bit?"
Maya glanced over, seeming to notice me for the first time. I raised my hand in a tiny wave. "Hi."
Maya didn't wave back, but sighed and said, "Too early in the morning for Brannicks." Then she turned and walked back into the house.
I dug a little hole in the shells with the tip of my boot. "Does that mean we should go?"
To my surprise, Mom just chuckled. "No. If Maya hadn't wanted us here, trust me, she would have let us know."
"Who is she?" I asked, but Mom didn't answer; just trudged up the steps and into the house.
And after a long moment, I followed.
The house wasn't quite as spartan as our place, but it still wasn't what anyone would call homey. No pictures lined the walls, although Maya did have one of those crazy cat clocks, the swinging tail marking off seconds, its eyes darting back and forth like it was watching for something. The only other things of note were a sagging couch covered in an ugly orange-and-brown plaid and a crooked coffee table. But that wasn't what had me freezing in the doorway. Instead of magazines or heavy books, the coffee table was covered in...feet. Not human feet-at least I didn't see any-but half a dozen chickens' feet, several of those rabbit's foot key chains, and a brown, furry paw. Char marks dotted the table's scarred surface, and there was a cracked leather book lying open facedown, its pages wrinkled. Everything about it screamed magic, but I hadn't sensed anything when we came in, so I didn't think Maya could be Prodigium. Maybe she was just a... taxidermist or something. Mom had made some weird friends over the years.
And she must've been here before, because she didn't even blink at the bizarre collection. But she did lean in and whisper, "Don't say anything until I tell you to, okay? And don't take anything Maya gives you to drink."
I tried very hard not to gulp. "Got it."
Sure enough, Maya came out of the kitchen holding three mugs, steam rising off of them. Even across the room, the smell turned my stomach. Still, Mom accepted two cups before sitting on the couch. I sat next to her as Maya took a seat on the floor in front of the coffee table. She was wearing a long skirt, and it jangled softly when she moved, as though there were bells hidden in its folds.
"So you're Izzy," she said, blowing the top of her drink. "Your mama brought Finley here plenty of times, but she always said you were too young to go out on jobs. How old are you now, thirteen?"
I had always looked younger than I was. "I'll be sixteen next month," I told her, and she gave a low whistle. "My, my, time is flying. When I first met you, Ash, Izzy was what? Five? Maybe six? It was right after her daddy died, and-"
"We didn't come here to chat, Maya," Mom broke in. "I wanted to go through the file."
Maya rolled her big blue eyes. "That's it? You could've e-mailed, you know. You didn't have to hike all the way out here for that kind of thing. I thought at the very least you wanted another locator spell. See if we'd have any luck finding your girl this time."
CHAPTER 4
With that, she rose to her feet and went back into the kitchen. While she pulled things out of cabinets and drawers, I leaned closer to Mom. "A locator spell? For Finn?"
"Hush, Izzy." She said it calmly, but her shoulders were stiff, and she was bouncing one foot up and down.
"She's a witch?" I hissed. "You went to a witch looking for Finn and you never told me?"
"It was none of your business." Mom's voice was sharper now, her hands digging into her thighs, and I jerked my head back like she had slapped me. To be honest, I kind of felt like she had.
Then Mom sighed and leaned closer to me, her voice softer as she said, "Iz."
I shook my head, biting off anything else I wanted to ask about Finn. Instead, I said, "I couldn't feel her. Maya. And I can always sense witches."
"I'm a hedge witch," Maya said, coming back into the living room holding a folder overflowing with paper despite all the rubber bands wrapped around it. "Which is why your mother is insulting me greatly by using me to gather this sort of stuff." She waved the folder a little, and few Post-it notes fell out.
"What's in there?" I asked, and Maya sighed, pulling the rubber bands off the folder.
"Articles, weird things that popped up on the Internet... Basically, I keep an eye out for any news story that seems to involve the supernatural."
I turned to Mom. "This is how you find cases?"
Mom had never looked sheepish in her life, I was willing to bet, but something really close to that expression crossed her face now. "Not always. But sometimes it makes sense to...outsource."
I knew Mom had friends who helped her out on cases from time to time. There was the guy who got her the boat when she had to find those killer mermaids, and we always seemed to have plenty of money that came from some mysterious source. But a middle-aged lady in the middle of nowhere collecting articles about possible supernatural happenings? That seemed kind of...lame.
As Maya sat down in front of the coffee table, I pulled the sleeves of my shirt over my hands and asked, "What's a hedge witch?"
Clearing all the feet away, Maya opened the folder. "The kind of witches you're used to are born that way. What is that stupid word they have for themselves?"
"Prodigium," Mom and I answered in unison.
"Right, well, Prodigium come into their powers at what, twelve? Thirteen? And they can just do magic. No wands, no spell books necessary unless they're trying to do the super-dark crap. Point is, it's an inborn ability." Maya began paging through the papers. Some were newspaper articles with big garish headlines. I spotted one that blared, SEA MONSTER SPOTTED AT NEW ENGLAND RESORT!
"Now, it strikes me that this is incredibly unfair," Maya continued. A pair of glasses dangled from a beaded chain around her neck, and she picked them up, balancing them on the end of her nose as she continued to scan the papers. An article that seemed to be about crop circles drifted to the carpet.
"Why should some people be born gods while the rest of us poor mortals have to struggle through the mud of humanity, trying-"
"Enough, Maya." Mom turned to me. "A hedge witch is someone who can do magic, but they've learned it from books. And their abilities are severely limited compared to natural witches."
"I resent the term hedge witch," Maya said with a haughty lift of her shoulders. "What I do is every bit as natural as what fancy Latin witches can do. If anything, hedge magic is more elegant."
I glanced at the little pile of feet on the carpet and bit back a sarcastic comment.
"Ah," Maya said at last, pulling out a large piece of paper. "Here's the one I was looking for. Caught my eye because it happened so close by."
She handed it to Mom, and I leaned so that I could read it over her shoulder. It was a photocopy of a newspaper piece. There was a grainy photo of stretcher being pulled out of a large brick building, police tape everywhere. The caption read, STILL NO LEADS IN ATTACK ON POPULAR TEACHER.
"What happened?" I tapped the picture.
"Was just a few months ago," Maya said. "I remember it because that town in Mississippi was close enough to here that it made the local news. The science teacher was found nearly dead from a blow to the head."
"Okay, well, that seems awful but not necessarily supernatural," I said, but Mom shook her head. Pointing to a section of the article, she said, "Read this part. 'Police are particularly baffled as David Snyder was found in a room locked from the inside.' No witnesses, no fingerprints. And he swears he was alone in the room."
I read all of that, but I still didn't get it. "It's creepy, but it still isn't all that Brannick-y."
Mom looked up at me, the corners of her mouth turning down. "Unless it's a haunting."
Digging my fingers into the couch cushions, I tried very hard not to roll my eyes. "Mom, come on. A ghost case?"