Lock and Key (Nocturne Academy 1)

“What about the key? Is this some kind of a trick?” I was beginning to panic. I yanked at the necklace, which responded by growing even smaller. It was almost a choker now, the cool black metal encircling my throat like icy fingers.

“No trick,” the witch-woman snapped. “The key has chosen you.” She held out one gnarled hand. “I’ll give it to you for a hundred.”

“Dollars?” Her words shocked me so much I forgot to fight with the necklace for a moment. The minute I stopped pulling at it, it loosened its grip and settled with the key in the hollow of my throat again. “I told you I don’t have much money on me!” I said.

The old woman got an obstinate look in her faded brown eyes.

“If you can’t give back the necklace, you’ll have to pay for it. It’s rare and precious—a hundred is a bargain.”

“But I don’t have a hundred,” I protested. I was beginning to feel dizzy and the nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach was growing. If only I could get out of this heat! Living in cool, gloomy Seattle all my life hadn’t prepared me for the muggy oven that was a Tampa late-September afternoon. Back home temperatures were in sixties—beautiful fall weather. Here summer still reigned supreme and it was in the high nineties.

I yanked at the necklace again which tightened so much I suddenly couldn’t breathe. Stars danced in front of my eyes like phantom sunspots and I stumbled against the rickety table, knocking some of the fake jewelry to the ground.

“Now look what you’ve done!”

The old woman knelt stiffly in the sandy dirt, scrabbling to pick up her spilled treasure. Loops of glass and plastic beads hung from her claw-like hands, reflecting stray darts of sunlight into my eyes.

“Please!” I twisted my fingers in the fine-link chain, feeling like I was being strangled. Or maybe garroted. If only the damn thing would let up for a minute so I could breathe…

“Meggie, what’s wrong?”

The cheerful voice of my Aunt Delilah made me spin around, still clawing at my throat. She was dressed in her usual thrift store splendor—a pale blue caftan dress imprinted with rainbows and clouds which floated around her plump figure like the robes of some strange priestess.

“Aunt Delliee,” I managed to gasp. “This necklace…choking me. Won’t come off.”

“Oh my, that is pretty.” Completely unperturbed by my distress, Aunt Delliee leaned forward to examine the key. “Let go now, dear—let me get a good look at it,” she said.

She moved my hands gently but firmly out of the way. At once, and to my relief, the necklace quieted, the key settling once again in the hollow of my throat.

I drew in a ragged, relieved gasp and then another. Now that I could breathe again, I was a little calmer. My hands still itched with the instinctive need to yank at the necklace, to get the strangling thing from around my vulnerable throat. But fear stopped me. What if it tightened up again the minute I touched it? Reluctantly, I kept my hands clenched into fists at my sides.

“It won’t come off,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “It went on fine but now I can’t get it off.”

Instead of expressing concern, Aunt Delliee smiled. “Well, it suits you. Just leave it on.”

“But…” I stared at my aunt, uncertain how she could miss the obvious point. “But it won’t come off. And she wants a hundred dollars for it.” I nodded at the old witch-woman who had risen and resumed her former place behind the folding table.

“Blood stones,” the woman snapped. “They’re not cheap.”

“I see,” Aunt Delliee said thoughtfully. “As one practitioner to another, would you take fifty?”

The woman gave her an appraising look. “You walk in the ways of the Goddess?”

“Always.” Aunt Delliee beamed at her. She had never made a secret out of being a pagan, even though the rest of the family mocked her for it. I didn’t mind her weird religion, although to me she looked less like a witch and more like one of those eccentric ladies who lives alone and keeps about a thousand cats for company.

“Ninety then,” the woman said, nodding as though she was doing Aunt Delliee a favor.

Aunt Delliee didn’t bat a lash. “Sixty.”

The woman got a mulish expression on her wrinkled face. “Eighty and that’s my last offer.”

“All right then.” Aunt Delliee reached into the oversized bag printed with uber-cute kittens she carried everywhere and dug around in it. A look of concentration creased her plain but kind face and at last she pulled out three crumpled twenties, a ten and two fives. “Here.” She held out the bills to the old witch-woman who snatched them and made them disappear.

“Thank you,” she muttered. “Blessed be.”

“Blessed be,” Aunt Delliee said gravely and took me by the arm. “Come on, Meggie honey—we need to get going.”