“Now they won’t move, and won’t drip wax onto the floor.” She waved her hand and I wanted to smack myself.
“You think of everything Wendy.” Toya smiled wide at her and I could see a faint blush rise to her cheeks. Interesting.
But I turned my mind back to the matter on hand. “Okay. Let’s start.” I lit the other candles and used their flames to char some herbs. I ripped a few pieces of paper up and threw it into the bowl with the charred and burning herbs, lighting the pages. “Everything is in.”
“Are you ready?” I took a few cleansing breaths, taking in the smells of the herbs, and I thought of something. “Can you quickly grab me a small glass of water?”
Toya nodded and jumped up. She came back with the glass and I dumped some sea salt into it, and added about half the bottle of the distilled water. “What are you doing?”
I drank the salty water and shivered as my body tried to reject it. “Sea salt helps to purify, so I figured why not drink a glass to help purify my body from everything.” I shrugged. “It can’t hurt.” I added a few springs of herbs into the bowl and closed my eyes. “Ifta nota wal spiritian flo sta bint tor fa shen.” I dropped the last thing into the bowl, a few leaves of basil, and opened my eyes. “Agin tor kin thista dor.” I repeated the words three times and waited. And waited.
I looked around and realized nothing was happening. Something must have gone wrong. I shook my head and turned to Toya to find her staring at me. “It’s not working.” I stood up in a huff. I stepped over the altar and turned, hands on my hips. “I don’t know what I did wrong.”
But Toya and Wendy were still staring at me. My body was exactly where I left it. My hands were open on my knees and my eyes were closed. But I was in front of the bowl on the ground.
I did it. I had separated from my body, and now I was walking around as just my spirit.
“Focus on the task at hand, girlie.” I turned to find my grandmother sitting in my chair.
“Grandma.” I rushed over and she smiled. She stood and cupped my cheeks and for the first time, I could feel her. “I can feel you.” I launched myself into her arms, feeling her soul pressed against my own.
“Focus, or else you will lose your tie to the living.” She gave me a quick hug and pressed her lips to my forehead. “Don’t let the spirit world call you too far from the path.” She turned me back to my body. “Follow the power.” I stared at myself and realized there was a thin black chain that shot into my chest. “Save your wolves, or die.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Iturned away from my grandmother and stepped back to my body. I looked at her over my shoulder. “What should I do?”
She smiled. “Wrap your hand around the chain. It can't hurt you any more than it already has. And follow it to the end. Find out who is hurting you, find out their intention, and save your wolves.” She looked towards my body. “You don’t have long. They are already so very weak.”
“I’m afraid.” I whispered, and her smile was sad but firm.
“I know. And that’s perfectly fine, but don’t let fear stop you from doing something necessary. Don’t let your fear hold you back from who you were meant to be.”
Her words repeated in my mind as I stepped up to my body on the ground. “Okay.” I grabbed my hand around the chain andstarted walking. The chain in my hand thrummed. I could feel the intent in its black links.
Whoever cast this hex was intent on one thing. Killing my wolf. They would have succeeded if I had only one. But I had two, and thankfully they supported each other until I realized something was wrong.
It took me entirely too long to realize the truth, though. I needed to be more in tune with myself in the future. I couldn’t neglect my power, or my wolves like I had.
I shook my head when I realized I was too focused on everything else. School, training, my friends and Rowan. Everything else that should have taken a back seat to my wolves, the very beings created to share my soul with, had slipped between my fingers while I focused on the things around me.
But maybe that was a piece of the spell as well. I felt a jolt go through the chain as I realized I was right. This spell attacked my wolf, but also made the mind shift away when thinking about the wolf, so that it wouldn’t be caught before it was too late.
Whoever is attacking me is smart. It feels like the cleaving, but different. Maybe they changed it or added onto the spell. Either way, I’ll follow it back until I find out who it is.
I walked through the world all the while staying apart from it. The streets blurred as I hurried past. Something in my chest was burning and as I grew closer to the other end of the chain, then more the pain in my chest increased.
The chain veered off, and I followed. Through the trees that grew familiar, into a clearing I had seen before. A clearing that sent chills down my spine. No one should be here. This ground was sacred.
The chain yanked me past the grounds where I found my power, the place I met my grandmother and out the other side. I was near my father’s pack grounds, and the thought made my insides clench.
The chain, which I had been following, had taken control. I was sucked past the pack grounds and further down the hill. I tried to release the chain but my hand was stuck to it, as if the chain was taking me the rest of the way, because it knew I would turn away.
I felt the ground shift, the light darken, and the air thicken. I paled as I realized where we were headed. I remember my father telling me as a child to stay away from the dead caves. But the chain yanked me towards them. I felt the ground crumble beneath my feet, and rocks shift as I stumbled to keep up with the pull of the chain. The dead were the only ones supposed to be here. A place that my father said was haunted by our ancestors. A place where we used to lay our dead before it was corrupted by something dark, something unknown.
A call went out, deep from within a cave, and my blood froze. This wasn’t a normal call. This was from some beast deep inside the walls. I felt the ground tremble with it. This place was my death.
But the chain yanked me inside, and the darkness closed around me.
