He reaches for the ever growing duffel bag when I try to walk by him, and before I can so much as object, the strap is firmly on his shoulder. I wait for him to comment about the weight of it and demand to know what I have in there, but he says nothing.
I shrug and head to the kitchen to grab Hoot’s food. I was going to leave the little stink bomb with Tad, but after seeing his magic seeing-eye-dog skills, I think I’ll be better off keeping him close by. I just hope he doesn’t get us kicked off the plane on our way to deal with the clusterfuck I find myself caught in the middle of.
“All set?” Rogan asks.
“I think so. What airport are we headed for? I have a pet carrier for Hoot, but will they let him on the plane?”
“We’re not flying,” Rogan announces as though I’m crazy for even suggesting it.
“Driving will take forever,” I counter. “And I doubt my car would even survive that trip.”
Rogan snorts derisively, and I instantly grow defensive of my rust bucket. He scoffs, “I doubt we could even make it to the state line in that thing. No, we’ll use a ley line.”
I bark out an incredulous laugh at his announcement. “Good one. Should I just grab my broom, and we can zip on over to one?” I tease, but Rogan’s face is serious.
I study him for a second, waiting for him to crack a smile and saygot ya,because ley lines are a thing of the past; they’re too dangerous, unstable, and unreliable. No one uses them. My amused smile starts to falter when he gets thatI’m dealing with an idiotlook on his face again.
Well, shit. He wasn’t kidding.
9
“Is this going to hurt?” I ask, a little more squawky than I’d like. I stare at the empty park, swings swaying in the cooling evening air, and wonder how I never knew a ley line ran through this place.
Grammy had to have known, but why she never told the rest of us, I don’t know. Frustratedly, I shake my head. Why didn’t she just pull anAunt Hillenand slap me upside the head, demanding that I listen? Why didn’t she make it clear that I’d need to know all of this someday? She could have clued me in, told me why I needed to internalize every lesson she wanted to impart about this world and its inner workings, but she never did. She let me decide that it didn’t matter, and I’m not sure how to feel about that.
I know in the grand scheme of things, none of this is her fault, it’s mine for not caring more. But I wonder why she never pushed to help me care more. Gwen being gifted made it seem like the selection was a done deal. I never thought that might not be the case.
Yes, I knew there was magic out there in the world, that bloodlines stretching back as far as the beginning of time could do incredible, unimaginable things. I was aware that witches had a world and society of their own, but I convinced myself that I was a Lesser. I refused to covet their abilities or dive into a world I knew, as a teenager, wasn’t as advertised.
I never sensed in myself what my grandmother so evidently sensed in me, then again I never wanted to. Now I wish I wouldn’t have let my anger blind me. I wish I’d spent more time seeing the truth and less time convincing myself that I’d never be a part of it. I’d categorized myself as anever going to happen, butI was wrong.
Guilt stings the back of my eyes as I close them. With a sigh, I take in the electric buzz of the ley lines running through this park, the magical hum washing over me from where we’re sitting in the car. I played at this place hundreds of times as a kid, but I never felt anything like the charge I feel here now.
I get the distinct impression of one large line with smaller lines branching off of it. It’s a spiderweb of connections all leading to other places just like this one, which is freaky when you think about it, and yet I can’t deny that I’m kind of excited at the same time.
I want to be annoyed with myself, with the eager feeling coursing through me, but how can I when this is just so epic? For one, vacations are going to be so much easier if I can just zap myself to the Bahamas instead of hopping on a plane. And a girl could really use some R & R when all this crap Rogan’s dragging me into is over.
“It doesn’t hurt, it’s more of an adrenaline rush than anything else,” he answers. “I wouldn’t recommend trying to travel them on your own though. You can get lost in them, overwhelmed by them, if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“How do you know whatyou’redoing?” I press as I stare out at the uninhabited space and try to see the lines that I can only feel.
“Elon and I both learned when we were around twelve,” he supplies.
“Oh, right. I guess that’s on par with the whole old and extra powerful magical line thing you’ve got going on,” I tease flatly.
“Something like that,” he responds just as flatly, and I wonder if that could have been me if I had just let it.
Rogan climbs out of the passenger side of my car, Hoot jumping down after him like the tiny little stalker he is. I don’t miss the fact that he doesn’t seem to like talking about his family much—well, other than his brother, and pretty much all I know about Elon is that he’s an Osteomancer and he’s missing.
My car door creaks as I open it, the sound loud and grating in the quiet of the empty parking lot. I’m surprised there aren’t more people out here, but I suppose the nights are starting to get colder, making it less inviting for late walks and adventures in the park.
Rogan grabs my duffel from the back seat, and I walk around my elderly SUV to meet him on the other side. A crisp breeze shoves my curls in my face, and I struggle to wrangle them back as the sun dips a little further down, and the shadows stretch out across the park like they’re rising from a deep sleep and are readying themselves for some mischief.
It’s a good night for magic.
I pause and warily look around me for a moment. Rogan starts walking to the middle of a sod-covered clearing, but I’m trying to figure out who just planted that thought in my head. I mean, how the hell would I know that it’s a nice night for magic? Or that the moon tonight is going to be a waxing crescent, with a harvest moon only eleven days away?
I give myself the side-eye.
