Shadows (Bayou Magic 1)

“What about you?”

He shakes his head. “I ran in and out.”

“It felt like you were in there forever.” I swallow and turn to find my mother sitting not far away, looking around as if she’s just woken from a dream.

“Brielle?” she asks. “Where are we?”

I look at Cash and frown.

“We’re at Horace’s house. Or what’s left of it.”

“Horace?” She frowns, and then her eyes fill with fear. “He’s a bad man. A bad, bad man.”

“He’s not here.”

Millie and Daphne join us. Miss Sophia, Lena, and Mal are close by. The others are still chanting, casting spells and cleaning up.

“Don’t know how I got here,” Mama says. “The voices stopped talking.”

“The voices?” Daphne asks.

Mama nods, and then her eyes fill with tears. “You’re all grown up. When did you grow up?”

“We grew up a long time ago,” Millie reminds her.

“She’s confused,” I say as Miss Sophia joins us, but she shakes her head.

“I don’t think so. Not in the way you mean. Ruth, what’s the last thing you remember?”

“Well, I don’t know. I remember their daddy hitting me. Harder than the times before.”

I feel my eyes go wide.

“And then he was gone. Everyone was gone. And I was left in the house. Every time I tried to leave, I went away again.”

“Oh my gods.” I stand and reach for her. “They kept you there.”

“Who?” she asks, then frames my face with her frail hands. “Oh, you are a beauty, aren’t you?”

“I wish I’d known,” Miss Sophia says. “Ruth, I’m so very sorry. I had no idea that you were a prisoner in your own house.”

“There was a woman, in the rocking chair.” Mama’s eyes are blue and clear as day as she smiles. “She kept me company.”

The rocking chair.

Could it be that the one spirit that wasn’t evil was the one in that chair?

Was she protecting her?

“Let’s go, ladies,” Cash says, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. “We need to get these burns checked out.”

I nod but keep my mother in sight all the way to the hospital.“So, let me get this straight,” Millie says in the morning, sitting next to my bed at the hospital. “Our mother isn’t an evil human being, but it was the evil spirits in the house that made her that way? And kept her there? And, Horace, along with his terrible mother, were behind it all?”

“Well, we can’t prove that they were behind it,” Millie says. “But I know because I dropped my shields long enough to look. Horace helped. He kept the bad spirits there, to keep an eye on us. He had a thing for Mama, and she did play with him a lot, so she’s not completely innocent.”

“Well that’s…disturbing,” I whisper. My throat hurts from the heat and smoke I inhaled in the house. “What happens to her now?”

“She’ll be in the mental hospital for quite some time,” Cash says as he walks into the room. “I just spoke with her doctor. He’ll be in soon to talk to all of you.”

“You know, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again,” Millie says. “She may not be the salt of the earth kind of mother, but no one deserves that kind of torment.”

“I wonder if she was possessed when she killed our father,” I say, frowning. “I mean, she doesn’t even sound the same, right? Her accent, the way she phrases things, it’s so different from how she sounded when we saw her just a couple of weeks ago.”

“It honestly could be,” Daphne says. “I’m sure we can ask Miss Sophia more questions later. She went home to rest.”

“Everyone sure supported us,” I say. “The whole thing was just amazing.”

“Witches aren’t always scary,” Millie says with a wink. “And they look after their own.”Chapter Twenty-SevenBrielle“It’s about time we took this day,” Cash says as he passes me a bowl of freshly popped corn and cozies up with me on the couch. “I mean, you’re not naked, but it’s close.”

“I can’t be naked all the livelong day,” I remind him and push a handful of popcorn into my mouth.

“You’re such a lady, darlin’,” he says on a laugh, so I toss a kernel his way, which he eats.

“You can get me naked later.” I haven’t said anything to him yet, but there’s a new shadow in my apartment today. It’s not malicious. On the contrary, actually.

But it’s not my place to say anything.

So, I’ve steered him away from sex and instead suggested that we curl up on the couch with a Marvel movie, while we wait for the call that’s about to come.

We don’t wait long.

“Hello?” he says into the phone. “Hey, Felicia. How are things?”

He sits up and sets the bowl aside before pushing his hand through his hair. I rub his back in big, soothing circles.

“I see. No, I know there’s nothing you could have done, sweetheart. I’m so grateful that you were there, and I know Andy is, too. He’ll be happy to have you home soon, but I’ll talk to him today, and he and I will come to you tonight or tomorrow. No, you don’t have to do all of that by yourself, we’ll be there. Thank you, Felicia. We owe you big time. Love you, too. Okay, bye.”