First published inTemporally Deactivated, an anthology from Zombies Need Brains (2017). In the Yellowrock timeline, it occurs just after Angie Baby started calling Jane “Ant” Jane.
She waved her hand in front of Mama and Daddy’s open doorway, pushing a little of her magic into the working. It wasn’t what Mama calledelegantbut itwasstrong. They wouldn’t wake up or hear her. She sneaked down the short stairs into the den, setting her toes and then her whole foot carefully on each step. Once on the solid icy flooring, she inched forward, past the unlit Christmas tree and the few wrapped presents. Around the reclining sofa.
Mama had left her cell on the table beside Daddy’s spot and there wouldn’t be a better time to make her call. Even EJ was deeply asl—
“Hey, Sissy.”
Angelina made a little squeaking sound and stopped with a jerk. The glare of an extra-bright flashlight hit her in the face. “Turn that off,” she whispered. The light went out and Angie blinked against the blindness from the glare. She used aseeingworking and spotted her baby brother cuddled under a blanket in Daddy’s spot. He was a wriggling mass of blue and gold and purple magics, bound with Mama’s greens and Daddy’s yellows. EJ giggled at her and she frowned at him, trying for Ant Jane’s mighty scowl. “You’re a son of a witch on a switch.” Which were Mama’s swear words. And Mama would threaten to spank her if she heard her say that. Mama said witch words had power, Angie’s words especially. But EJ was apaaaaaain.
Her baby brother giggled.
“How did you know I was up?” she demanded.
“You’s magic was singin’.”
“Magic doesn’t sing. It sparkles.”
“Sings. And the magic from the woods is singin’ louder. It hu’ts my ea’us.”
Angie moved to the window and looked up the small hill behind the house. The woods were dead-dead, not just winter dead. Mama had killed all the trees and bushes by accident and they were gonna take a long time to regenerate. Yet her brother was right. The pale glowing magic that had been in the woods all day was sparkling brighter. Way brighter. It was a big magic, yet Mama and Daddy said nothing was there. For some reason, they couldn’t see it and they had refused to listen to her.
She could call Ant Cia and Ant Liz or Gramma to come deal with it. Or she could call Ant Jane. She was undecided.
“It sings like a wolfie and a bird and the bells in the church.”
Angie turned to her brother who had joined her at the window, dragging his blanket. They had waked George and KitKit. The basset hound and not-a-familiar-cat joined them at the window. George growled, a deep menacing vibration. KitKit hissed and arched her back. “A wolf?” Angie asked her brother.
He nodded, his head moving hard up and down, his bright red hair catching glints from the working on the hillside. “Yup. And a bird and bells.”
They had just attended a bell service for Christmas and EJ had loved the bell choir. Now, to him, everything sounded like bells.
Angie said softly, “It shines the color of a were-creature. That might make it an animal.” She frowned at the hillside. “A paranormal animal-person Mama can’t see, maybe a were-creature, or like Ant Jane.” Were-creatures could only be the were-creature that bit them. Ant Jane was a Cherokee skinwalker and she could be any shape she wanted. But it wasn’t her.
If Angie called her Witchy Ants for help, and if it was were-magic, they could get bit. Her brother could get bit. He stood beside her, a corner of his blanket in his mouth, his blue eyes staring up at her in the dark. He was kinda stupid but Mama and Daddy liked him so she had to take care of him, him and the new baby on the way.
She dragged her eyes back to the hillside. The magic on the hill didn’t move like an animal. It moved in a line and a clump. Daddy would say it moved like chaos. Daddy was big into chaos. The sparkles were witchy,the colors were-creature, but the size of the magic was wrong for a moveable witch ward or glamour and wrong for a were-creature. Mama said it wasn’t there at all, so it wasn’t witch magic.
She studied her own magic, zinging through her blood, knowing she needed someone close by, someone strong, to deal with the strange not-witch magic. There were only a few she trusted, and her magic told her that Ant Jane was too far away. Her Dark Knight, Edmund, was vampire strong and when she thought about him, the magic in her blood got brighter. He was nearby.
She retrieved her mama’s cell, returned to the window, and punched in the security code. She looked through the contact list for Edmund, the vampire she’d sworn a blood oath to. She had wanted him to be her fiancée, but when he swore his blood oath and fealty, he didn’t promise to marry her. He swore “to the Everharts and Truebloods... I shall protect your children and your children’s children unto the laying down of my own undeath.” He had included her whole family, which was how he became their protector. The mystical bond wasn’t what she wanted, but it was good enough until she grew up and convinced him to marry her.
She was just about to touch the call button when EJ said, “Sissy? Its bells is comin’ c’oser to the house. If it’s a animal, it can get in the ward.”
She found the glow in the dead trees on the hillside. Fear shot through her, a bright sizzle of her own red-gold magic. The line-and-clump magicwascloser, and brighter. It was directly outside the ward that protected the house and grounds. This wasn’t good. Thehedge of thornswas built to allow Ant Jane to get in. If a Big Bad Ugly had figured that out and had a way to use that one weakness, they were in trouble. She had to make her parents understand. Still holding the phone, she grabbed EJ, his blanket, and the flashlight, and hauled him across the TV room toward her parents’ bedroom. The critters followed, KitKit meowing.
She made a fist at the entrance of the bedroom and envisioned the power she had stretched over her parents’ sleep. “Wake up,” she said. The magic flashed red-gold, a sizzle of light, and rushed back into her, popping like a rubber band and covering her with a copper-pink glow. “Ow! Mama! Daddy!” she shouted.
In the dark, Mama rolled over. “Kids? What are you doing up at this hour?”
And then the ward made a gong, GONG,GONG!Daddy sat up, still asleep, one arm waving in the air, his other reaching for his flute. Mama raced clumsily to the window and threw open the drapes, looking up the hill, holding her baby bump. Bright light blasted in. Mama said a very bad word, followed by, “Evan, whatisthat thing?”
Her little brother’s hands covered his ears. “It’s louder! Bad bells hu’ts my ea’us.”
Angie pulled EJ closer, under her arm, standing in the doorway. She heard nothing now that the gonging had stopped, because her magic didn’t work that way, but there were the dazzling, angry lights of an attack. “I told you it was out there,” she accused her parents as Mama and Daddy poured magic into the wards. The thing on the hill started gonging again, which everyone could hear, louder and louder. It threw lights at the ward. Hammering on it. The ward began to hum and echo, brighter and brighter.
EJ cried in pain. KitKit leaped onto the bed, her eyes on Mama, stalking her across the mattress. George tangled into EJ’s blanket, underfoot.
Mama screamed, “I don’t see anything!”
