“Is it a ghost?” Ethan moves into the room.
“No. I don’t feel anything out of the ordinary. Hunter doesn’t either.”
“Maybe you were dreaming.” Hunter moves to the foot of the bed so Ethan can get in next to me.
“Maybe.” I lay back down, wiggling closer to Ethan. He pulls up my pajama shirt and runs his fingers up and down my back. I’m safe in bed with both him and Hunter and remind myself of that several times before I finally fall asleep.
I sleep through the night without any incident, waking when my alarm goes off in the morning. I hit snooze and roll over, putting an arm around Ethan. In his sleep, he reaches out for me, pulling me close to his body. We stay tangled up together until my alarm goes off again.
“I’ll get up in a minute,” he mumbles after I hit snooze again.
“I got it,” I reply but stay exactly where I am for another ten minutes. Finally, I peel myself away from Ethan and get out of bed. I pull on thick socks, tucking my pajama pants into them so they won’t ride up my legs when I step into my boots. Yawning as I walk, I go down the back staircase and plug in the coffeepot before heading outside.
It’s cold and crisp out today, the yard covered in thick frost. Zipping my coat, I hurry to the barn. My heart swells in my chest when I open the door and everyone calls to me.
“Morning. Sorry I’m late.” I turn on the barn lights and give everyone hay, then go out to the pasture to get the hay bags I was too lazy to bring in last night. I unhook the last one and turn to go back inside.
There are footprints in the frost-covered grass that aren’t mine. Starting from the middle of the pasture. It’s as if someone walked right next to me, stopping just ten or so feet from me.
“Hello?” I ask, breath clouding around me, while I mentally call for my familiar. “You can talk to me. I won’t hurt you.” Not right away at least.
Nothing answers and Hunter’s shadow form zooms through the yard, shifting back into the shape of a dog when he gets to me.
“There are footprints over—” I stop short, hand extended in the air. The footprints are gone. Whirling around, I look everywhere in case I lost the spot. But there’s nothing.
“They’re gone. But they were there.” Hunter sniffs the air and trots ahead, checking out the rest of the pasture. I stay by the gate, watching, but I already know he’s not finding anything out of the ordinary. Shaking myself, I go back into the barn and try to focus on the rest of my morning barn chores, which proves hard to do.
It can’t be another memory coming back to me. I saw it in real-time. And if it was a memory, the yard wouldn’t look exactly the same.
“I think I’m going to go back to bed,” I tell Hunter. My head is starting to feel a little fuzzy, like a headache is coming on. Coffee will definitely help. I pour myself a big cup once I’m back inside. Taking it upstairs, I go into the sitting area of our bedroom. I sit in an armchair, set my coffee on a side table, and open up my Book of Shadows. I’ve flipped through every page and am slowly making my way through reading every single word that’s written. Which is a lot, and it’s not the easiest to read. Unlike the Book of Shadows seen in movies, this isn’t a work of art with neatly written passages about demons, spells, or lists of ingredients for vanquishing potions.
This is more like a journal, passed down through generations. Each witch who acquires it adds her own spell or accounts of firsthand magical knowledge. There are spells for repelling dark energy, how to clear spirits from a space, and lots of protection spells.
But there’s not much about demons or other monsters in here, leading me to believe Aunt Estelle was the first in our line to go after them in the way that she did. I run my fingers over the smeared ink on a passage about placing charms around the house to encourage your children to be tidy. I could probably use one of these for myself.
It’s crazy to think I’m related in some way to the women who had this book before me. Not only does it feel like a violation to alter my memories, but I feel like I was robbed of a chance to get to know my family history and hear the stories of the witches that came before me. I sip my coffee as I flip through the book, thinking about what it would have been like to grow up knowing I was a witch, attending Grim Gate Academy.