Black Magic Sanction (The Hollows 8)

Oh, my God. Ivy is a closet Nancy Drew fan! Those books hadn't gone to the brat pack - they were probably under her bed! Amused, I set the knife on the dresser table and smiled at her eager expression. Her hands were carefully in her lap, anxious. I could have teased her about it, but seeing any happy emotion on her was precious. She actually sighed when I opened up the box and leaned to look in.

"It's my camp stuff!" I exclaimed, taking out my mom's handwritten note to see the accumulated bric-a-brac underneath.

"Oh look!" Ivy said brightly. "There is a book!"

My gaze lifted from my mom's letter, and I smirked at her as she reached for Nancy Drew, volume 52. "You opened it up already, didn't you!

Ivy wouldn't look at me. "Don't be ridiculous. Why would I open your mail?"

"Mmmm-hmmm." HI, RACHEL, I read as she flipped through the dog-eared pages as if it were a lost book from the Bible. I FOUND THIS WHILE MOVING IN WITH DONALD. IT WAS EITHER THROW IT AWAY OR SEND IT TO YOU. MISS YOU, MOM.

Setting the letter aside, I smiled. Most of what she'd been sending me had been junk, but this... I gazed into the box. Okay, this was junk, too, but it was my junk.

"Look at this," I said, bringing out a lopsided clay bowl painted in garish colors. "I made this for my dad. It's a pipe holder."

Ivy looked up from the book. "If you say so."

My fingers pressed into the dents that I'd made when I was twelve. They were really small. "I think it was the only reason he had a pipe," I said, setting it back in the box. The pressed-flower album I didn't even remember, but it was my scrawl on the pages. There was a badge from the cabin I was in, dated and covered in rainbow stickers. The pair of dusty sandals on top of it were so small it was scary.

"How old were you?" Ivy asked when I held them up.

"They kicked me out when I was twelve," I said, flushing. It hadn't been fun. I'd thrown Trent into a tree with a blast of ley-line energy because he'd been teasing Jasmine. I guess they figured if I was well enough to do that, then I wasn't dying anymore and should make room for someone who was. Trent had deserved it. I think. They had long-term memory blockers in the water and nothing was certain.

I smiled at the pair of freshwater clam shells Jasmine and I were going to make into earrings. A blue jay feather. Things that meant nothing to anyone but me.

"What is this?"

She was holding an antique-looking curved metal hook, and I reached for it as I warmed. "Uh, a hoof pick," I said, feeling the weight of it in my palm, heavy with the sensation of anxious excitement and guilt. Ivy's eyebrows rose, and I added, "They had horses, and you had to clean their hooves before you took them out. That's a hoof pick." A really fancy hoof pick, with an inlaid wooden handle and a silver hook, of all things.

Head cocked, Ivy leaned back and eyed me. "And your pulse just skyrocketed why?"

Grimacing, I set the pick back in the box. "It's Trent's. At least I think it is.

"And your pulse just skyrocketed why?" she asked again.

"I stole it!" I said, feeling myself become breathless. "At least I think I did. I'm pretty sure I meant to give it back..." I hesitated, confused. "Crap, I don't even remember why I have it."

Ivy had a weird smile on her face. I think Nancy Drew had reminded her of her own innocence. "You stole Trent's hoof pick? What is that, some witch-camp tradition?"

"Maybe I just borrowed it and forgot to give it back," I said, guilt coming from nowhere. I remember shoving it in my pocket with a feeling of vindication. Trent had been there... and I hadn't liked him. He was snotty.

Ivy picked up the book again. "No wonder he doesn't like you. You stole his hoof pick."

Exasperated, and trying to ignore the guilt coming from a memory I didn't entirely have, I closed the box and pushed it away. "The feeling is mutual," I said, tugging on my socks. "Trent is a lying, manipulative brat, and always has been."

She handed me the Nancy Drew, exhaling slowly. "So... you think this entire situation with the coven is one of his scams? That Trent told them about you?"

I looked at the cover and the furtive posture of Nancy as she held a tablet engraved with ley-line glyphs, treasure hunting. Oh, when it had looked that easy. "I don't know," I said, miserable with confusion as I handed the book back to her to keep.

Ivy held it possessively as I looked at the closed box of memories. I wanted to be pissed at Trent about the coven, but something in my gut said no. Seeing the stuff from camp... things had happened there that I couldn't remember. Memory blockers were like that, clouding events but leaving emotions intact, and as the collective mementos touched on half memories, I couldn't tell if my anger at Trent was because he was a camp brat or if he was truly bad.

"I just don't know anymore," I finally said. "He is in jeopardy, too, now, and there are easier ways for him to make my life miserable."

Ivy made a soft sound and set the dog-eared Nancy Drew carefully beside her. Much as I'd like to believe he hadn't told the coven I could invoke demon magic, I was done with being stupid. It was far easier to believe this was one of his elaborate schemes. Easier, yes, but smart? Because if Trent hadn't told them, then someone else had, and I didn't have a clue as to who. Logic said he had done it, but if I was logical, I'd have made the familiar bond active between us and forced him to be nice to me. Instead I had rescued him at great cost to myself because of a freaking gut feeling. And I still didn't know why. My eyes strayed to the box, feeling as if the answer was in there somewhere.

"Why don't you use the Pandora charm and find out?"

I stared at Ivy - I'd forgotten that I even had it. "You think it's something from the camp?"

"He did say he might make you one if the memory you wanted was of camp or your dad. Well, he made you one."

"You're nuts!" I exclaimed, but she was shaking her head, smiling.

Her eyes touched on the closed box. "Whether you remember it or not, you and Trent go back a long way. I'd think it worth finding out if your gut feelings about him are based on something real or a childhood argument over a hoof pick. Don't you?"

Well, when she put it like that... From the back living room came a masculine voice raised in anger. My gaze went to my top drawer, where I had stashed Trent's charm, and I stifled a shiver. I needed to know if I could trust him, and not just with surface stuff, but really trust him. I needed to know why I disliked him yet would risk my life to save his worthless skin. I needed to use his Pandora charm.

My pulse quickened, and I swung my feet to the floor, wincing when my knees protested. If I was going to do this, I'd rather do it when all the pixies were spying on Nick and Pierce, arguing. "Okay, but if it kills me, it's your fault." Shuffling to my top dresser drawer, I yanked it open. Maybe it was a memory of my dad.

"Uh... ," Ivy stammered, and I glanced up to see her eyes wide in consideration.

"I'm kidding," I said. "It passed the lethal-amulet test, remember?"

"Not that. You keep it in your underwear drawer?"

I hesitated, wondering why I was embarrassed. "Well, where do you put your elven magic?" I asked, and then my fingers touched the smooth, knotty bump of the bracelet-size length of knotted horsehair. A surge of excitement went through me, and I brought the charm out.

Together Ivy and I looked at the innocuous-seeming thing. The knots were hard under my fingertips, the hair they were made from silver and black. It tingled as if the power was leaking out. Elven magic. Wild. Unpredictable. God, I hoped I wasn't making a mistake. Trent had made it, and I didn't know how good - or evil - he was. Knowledge is power. Frowning, I fingered the first knot. Ignorance is bliss.

But curiosity - even if it had killed the cat - was king, and heart pounding, I moved the box from the bed and sat down. "You won't leave?" I asked, feeling like a chicken, and Ivy shook her head. And with that reassurance, I worked the first of the three knots free.

My damp hair seemed to crinkle, and my face warmed as the elven magic rose through me, tasting of oak leaves and chill autumn air.

"You okay?"

I nodded. "The magic feels funny. Like tinfoil."

She exhaled, and the bed shifted as she stood, arms crossed over her middle. It was an unusual show of worry I totally understood. Steeling myself, I undid the second knot. My thoughts seemed to jump, and my breath quickened. To stop now would ruin the charm, and I undid the third knot, an unusual fatigue making my fingers fumble. I hope this isn't a mistake.

My breath came in as I looked at Ivy, and it was as if I fell into myself, like Alice down the rabbit hole. I knew I was sitting on my bed, but there were birds and the soft snuffling of horses. The twin sensations of reality and memory were eerie, but the charmed ones were becoming dominant.

"My God, Ivy. It's warm," I whispered, eyes closing as I gave myself to the dream that wasn't a dream, but a memory. I felt small, the softness of my bed becoming a hard wood floor. Fatigue crept up, familiar and hated, stealing into my bones like poison. My memories were halved, and seemingly forgetting everything I knew, I... remembered.

My pulse quickened to the pace of childhood, racing, and I opened my eyes to the dim light of the camp's stables.

Sniffing, I curled up tighter, bringing the cloying scent of damp straw, horse dung, and sweaty leather deep into me, trying not to cry. This sucked. This sucked big-time. Here I thought that Jasmine hated Trent, and it turned out she liked him. Liked him! How was I to know? She complained about him enough.

The horse stomped, and I burrowed deeper into the corner, pulling the blue blanket up and around me, hiding. I'd never seen anyone ride this monster of a horse, and he hadn't minded me slipping in. I was so mad. Jasmine and I never fought, but when I found out she'd lied to me about where she'd been, I lost it. She'd gone for a moonlight walk with little richy rich boy, leaving me alone in the bottom half of our bunk bed to listen to everyone else tell stories of their first kiss when she knew I didn't have one. She was supposed to be my friend!

I held my breath to keep from crying, my arms clasped around my knees. It was all Trent's fault, the snot. Miserable, I picked at my shoelaces, cringing when a set of boots echoed at the wide stable doors. I froze as two people went by, talking in low voices, their identities hidden by the tall walls of the box stall I was in, but I could tell it was kids, not lab techs disguised as counselors or stable hands looking for me.

The horse above me nickered. Ears pricked, he shifted to hang his head over the gate.

Crapy I thought, recognizing a voice. Stanley had been here for three days, hanging with Trent as usual. The guy had been here last year, too, managing to twist Trent's ankle in a footrace his second day. This year he'd broken Trent's hand in a canoe race. Stanley's paddle had come down right on the back of it, and snap, no more contest. Stanley didn't like to lose. And if Stanley was in the stables, then that was Trent with him.

His voice going faint, Stanley started singing "Love Song for a Vampire," changing the lyrics to something suitably rude, and my breath eased out as they went into the other wing of the stables - but the horse above me still had his ears pricked.

"Hoy, hoy, Mr. T.," came a soft voice, and the jingling of a bridle, and I froze. Trent? Trent was here? Panicking, I put a hand to my hot face and stared, seeing nothing but the top of his head. The horse blew his breath out, and Trent's voice shifted, the words slurring into a hummed pattern of crooning. It was beautiful, and I strained for more, trying to understand. It sounded like another language, and though I hated him because Jasmine liked him, I couldn't help but think it beautiful.

His tawny head flashed over the walls of the stall, giving me a glimpse of his fair skin and green eyes. He hadn't seen me, and I watched his face, empty of the scorn he usually heaped on me. Trent's eyes were full and shining, and he was smiling. His white hair was messy, and his ears showed. Trent never let his ears show, always combing his fine hair over them. He was skinny, lanky, and almost singing to the horse as he fondled his ears and fed him a treat.

Feeling my eyes on him, his gaze flicked to me.