We finish and clean up. Wyatt and Nathaniel take their post in the living room which has become our makeshift surveillance headquarters. With all of the talk and blatant reveal of cameras all over the packhouse, none of them have been taken down.
Just another sign that they are under some kind of control, but whatever it is, whoever holds the reins doesn’t seem to have access to their memory or the information they hold. Cause if it was me, that would have been the first thing I took over, knowing that we have cameras all over the school and packhouse and the pack borders.
We now take shifts monitoring the packhouse, the school and the perimeter. There are only five of us and we are exhausted, but this is the requirement of the mission, we can sleep properly later. If we can gain back some of my friends and hopefully their parents, things will get better, so that’s my focus now.
Jena, Lil and I pour over the grimoire. It’s like a diary, filled with notes about the moon at that moment and the best place to find certain plants at specific times of the year. Then there are notes scribbled into the margins all around the spells and incantations.
So many different hands have touched and contributed to this book, I feel special just being allowed to read it. It’s not lost on me that my friends can now read it too. When it first came to me, only I could see the words. I’m not sure what’s changed, but I love it.
“There!!” Jena shouts as she points to the topmost inner corner of a page. There is tiny purple writing, “To counter an attack start with the most simple solution, cut the cord.” She reads out loud. “What in the hell does that mean?” Lil asks.
“We are looking for a spell to use against whatever Kevin and Kaley are doing, but what if we can find something to just block whatever it is? Something simple to cut the cord of control. Instead of wasting Sky’s energy constantly casting a spell to protect everyone.”
“Huh, I like where this is going. Elaborate for those of us in the room who don’t actively practice the witchcraft.” Lil points to herself and I smile.
“They aren’t casters so they have to be getting, most likely herbs or a tonic, from somewhere. Meaning they have to go get it and they have to continually give it to them, like for us when Mike had us locked up. We were fed herbs every single day.
The spell isn’t as strong as when a caster places it directly themselves, no witch is going to tell people that part if people are willing to pay good money for a spell. Especially if they are going to get paid over and over and over again.”
“Okay so how do we ‘cut the cord’ as you say?”
“We need to find something that they can wear, like a stone or an amulet that can block the effects and protect them from further spells. Like Sky is able to fight most spells and poisons, she is literal living proof of that, we might be able to give the guys the same kind of protection.”
My heart lifts. For the first time in a very long time, I have a purpose and a mission where I get to save my friends and not the other way around. So many terrible things have happened and I don’t know how we will get past those, but I do know I don’t want any of them to die or be harmed. No matter how awful they have been to me. I just can’t bring myself to hate them.
