Secrets in Phoenix Read online

  Looking away, my focus fell upon the headstone beside him. “Are you okay?” I asked. I recognised a wistful melancholy, an emotion that I’d identified in myself when I’d stood at Wilber’s graveside just days earlier.

  Jaxon didn’t reply. He glowered, and then turned his back on me.

  For a moment I was stunned by his abrupt action. I was hurt by it, actually. Quite clearly he wanted me to leave.

  So I did.

  I set off into the trees, with a stride that quickly turned into a run. And before I knew it, I was racing into the woodland, stumbling along the rutted ground. I couldn’t stop myself. I kept going until I could physically run no more.

  My legs buckled and gave way beneath me, sending me skidding onto my hands and knees in the earth.

  And that was where I stayed, huddled amongst the foliage, my lungs burning and my breath rattling in my throat.

  “What are you doing?” I muttered to myself as my eyes began to pool. “Running away?”

  I looked up to the grey sky above. Trees caged me in from all angles, suffocating me. Where did I think I was going? I was trapped in Phoenix Holt with no friends, no freedom, and no hope.

  And to make matters worse, now I was lost, too.

  Great.

  Why didn’t I wait at the school? I berated myself. Stupid hindsight.

  “Someone help me,” I cried, desolately.

  #

  It was a long time before help came. And it happened quite out of the blue.

  I hadn’t moved from where I’d fallen in what felt like hours. I’d cemented myself to the spot in defeat. My palms were grazed and dotted with blood, and my knees stung beneath their denim shield.

  By the time dusk set in, I’d more or less given up hope of ever getting back the cottage.

  But all that changed when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

  I hadn’t heard anyone approach, so the sudden company took me by surprise. My heart leapt into my throat. Clutching my chest, I scrambled to my feet.

  Jaxon.

  Without a word, he took my hand in his and brushed the dirt from my palm. Then he lifted the hem of his shirt and began blotting my grazed skin.

  “Thank you,” I said, guardedly.

  He let my hand slip from his, then turned and made for the trees. Pausing briefly, he glanced over his shoulder at me, as though he were waiting for me to follow.

  I did follow. I trailed behind him, lacing in and out of the sycamores. It was dark, but I could see him beneath the moonlight as we crunched through the undergrowth.

  “You don’t say much, do you?” I remarked after a very long spell of silence.

  He glanced over his shoulder at me and frowned. His pace slowed ever so slightly and I fell into stride with him.

  “Can you speak?” I ventured.

  Jaxon let out a silky laugh. He shot me a quick grin, bringing the hollow dimple to his cheek.

  “Ah,” I smiled. “Was that a ‘yes’?”

  He didn’t respond.

  “A ‘no’?” I guessed again.

  Nothing. But he kept smiling.

  “You’re very strange, Jaxon,” I chided. “And, if I’m honest, you’re not a particularly good mentor.”

  He pursed his lips and gave a good-natured shrug.

  While I was busy trying to decipher him, a raised tree root caught me off guard. I tripped and stumbled forward.

  In the same beat, Jaxon’s hand was on the back of my top, between my shoulder blades. The next thing I knew, my feet were off the ground, just by a few inches, but it was enough to make me lose my breath. Then, without even so much as a backwards glance, Jaxon propped me back upright and carried on walking as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

  I stood frozen to the spot. It took me several seconds to gather myself, and not because the stumble had shaken me, because of him. With the most effortless of movements, he had caught my fall with one hand and lifted me clean off the ground as though I weighed nothing more than a feather.

  “You’re strong,” I called to him, staggered.

  He kept walking. And we didn’t mention it again.

  After a long and arduous trek, we came to a stop on a wooded hill; the cottage was nestled at the foot of the incline.

  We’d made it.

  I let out a sigh of relief and turned to face Jaxon. The light evening breeze swept strands of barley-coloured hair across his forehead.

  “Well,” I concluded, “thanks, I guess.”

  He tilted his head to the side, watching me as though I were the strangest thing he’d ever come across.

  “I shouldn’t have called you a bad mentor,” I added. “You’re kind of okay.”

  His lips twitched into a reluctant smile.

  “I’ll see you at school,” I told him.

  He bowed his head.

  I took that as my cue to leave and set off downhill towards the cottage.

  Jaxon waited on the slope.

  Once I’d made it to the picket fence, I glanced back at him.

  There he stood, in exactly the same spot I’d left him, somehow looking both rugged and regal in his stance.

  I gave him a little wave.

  He inhaled slowly. Then, after a moment of hesitation, Jaxon spoke.

  “Hello,” he said.

  And he strolled away.

  #

  Safely reunited with the cottage, I trundled through the front door, smiling to myself.

  “What took you so long?” Sam demanded, intercepting me before I’d even had chance to close the front door.

  The sound of his voice startled me. “Huh?”

  He simplified, “You? Doing?”

  “School,” I replied, though I knew that wasn’t the answer he’d been looking for.

  Sam huffed. “They were worried about you,” he grumbled. “Now, come on.” He seized my wrist and hauled me up the wooden stairs.

  “Let go!” I protested.

  “You’re never going to believe this,” he griped. “He’s outdone himself this time.”

  “Who’s outdone himself?” I asked, squirming to free my wrist.

  Sam towed me to the top of the staircase before relaxing his grip. “Do you realise that your brother is a sly, devious, two-faced weasel—”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” I said kindly. “You’re not that bad.”

  “Not me!” Sam snapped. “Him. Todd. You wanna know what your so-called brother is doing right now? While we’re all out looking for you?”

  I wrinkled my nose. “You’re not out looking for me. You’re here.”

  Growing impatient, Sam stamped his foot on the hardwood floor. “Yes, but he doesn’t know that. He thinks I’m out combing the woods for my poor little sister. And the second my back is turned… Bam!”

  “Bam?” I asked.

  “Bam. He’s off sneaking around like the sly sneak that he is.”

  “Todd?”

  “He’s in the apothell-cary room!” Sam waved his hands around wildly. “Can you believe that?”

  I gasped. “Todd’s in Ness’s apothecary room?”

  “Yes!”

  My hands flew to my mouth in shock. “Why?” I looked down at the metal air vent glinting on the wall in the upper hallway. I, for one, had no intention of going back there. Quite frankly, it had given me the creeps.

  “Because he’s obsessed with it!” Sam accused. “He keeps finding ways to slip it into conversation. Asking questions about that old book, checking to see if I think there’s any truth to it. I mean, a spell book! Come on!”

  I clasped my hands together nervously.

  “So I decided to test him,” Sam went on. “I told him I was going into the woods to search for you, and as soon as my back was turned…”

  “Bam?” I guessed.

  “Bam!”

  “Wait a second,” I said, frowning. “Ness is out looking for me?”

  “She went to get you from school, but they told her you’d already left. Sh
e came back to the cottage, and when you weren’t here, she went to look for you.”

  I sucked in my breath. “Oh, no. Is she mad at me?”

  “No, she’s… I don’t know… worried or something. Anyway, forget that. We’ve got more important—”

  “She’s worried? Should I go after her? Which direction did she head?”

  “I don’t know,” Sam moaned. “The outside direction. Who cares? She’ll come back eventually. Anyway, I told her not to bother.”

  I furrowed my brow.

  “I knew you were fine,” he explained with an aloof wave of his hand. “So, what are we going to do about Todd?”

  “You didn’t know I was fine,” I argued. “I was lost!”

  “You weren’t that lost.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “I didn’t realise there were levels of lost. I thought all lost was lost.”

  “You weren’t lost,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I knew you were out there.” He gestured vaguely to the hallway wall. “Now, can we please talk about something other than you for a second?” He nodded meaningfully to the air vent.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he said seriously.

  “Probably not.”

  “We catch him in the act!” Sam declared.

  I stifled a yawn. “Do we have to? It’s been a long day. I really don’t want to crawl through the duct again.”

  Sam folded his arms. “Sophie.”

  I sighed. “Is it really that big of a deal? If he wants to go in there, can’t we just let him?”

  “That’s not the point!” Sam exclaimed. “He went behind our backs. As his brother and sister, it’s our job—nay, our duty!—to bust him.”

  I sighed again. Honestly, I didn’t particularly care about busting Todd. And I definitely didn’t want to go back to the apothecary room. Just the thought of it made me uncomfortable. Granted, I didn’t know much about witchcraft—mostly because I preferred to steer clear of it—but I didn’t want to accidentally hex myself or something.

  Sam crouched down and rattled the vent until the grid came apart from the wall. “Follow me, Soph!” he instructed as he clambered into the duct.

  In seconds he had disappeared into nothing more than a distant clunk of metal echoing throughout the passage.

  Gingerly, I crawled into the tunnel after him.

  I can’t say I was pleased to be tackling the air vent again. Somehow, this time around, it felt even darker, and even more claustrophobic, than it had before.

  After what felt like an eternity, a bright shaft of light poured into the tunnel.

  “Caught you in the act!” I heard Sam remark as he tumbled out of the air vent into the apothecary room.

  “I- I-,” Todd stammered. “This isn’t how it looks—”

  “Shame on you, Todd,” Sam shook his head disapprovingly.

  I crawled out of the tunnel, emerging into the dome-shaped room once more. Everything was as I’d remembered it—wall to wall jars, a huge black pot on stilts, and an overpowering scent of burnt lavender. Then I noticed that the hefty, leather-bound book was lying open on the music stand with Todd standing before it.

  “Todd!” I gasped. “Have you been doing…” I lowered my voice, “spells?”

  “Have you?” Sam interrogated.

  “No! I was just… I’m just looking at it,” he justified weakly.

  Sam scowled. “Without your brother around to get in the way. Is that it?”

  I gave him a peculiar look. He was taking this a little too personally.

  “No,” Todd protested. “It’s not like that. I was curious, that’s all.”

  “We’re all curious,” Sam shot back. “But we,” he pointed between himself and me, “would never go behind your back. We’d never lie to you.”

  “Okay, okay,” Todd appeased him, stepping away from the book. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should have told you. I didn’t think you’d care this much.”

  Sam stared at the floor for a moment. When he looked up, he stuffed his hands into his jeans pockets and strolled into the middle of the room.

  “So, what’s this?” he said, rapping his knuckles against the black pot. “Is this the cauldron?”

  My stomach flip-flopped. It was a cauldron!

  “I don’t know, Sam,” Todd groaned. “Can we just leave? I don’t want to be here anymore.”

  “No, Todd,” Sam retorted in a passive-aggressive tone. “You’re the one who’s curious,” he mimicked. “So, let’s check this place out. Satisfy your curiosity.” He glanced at the open book. “Is this the spell you were going to do? Hear You Me,” he read aloud.

  “No,” Todd mumbled. “I wasn’t going to do it. I was reading it, that’s all.”

  Sam stared down at the scripture. “This says the spell allows you to hear the innermost thoughts of others.” He glanced at us.

  I grimaced. “You’ve got to be kidding me? You don’t actually want to do a spell, do you?”

  Sam ignored me and carried on scanning the yellowed page. “The effects only last a few minutes. It opens the mind and gives insight into the unsaid.”

  I laughed out loud. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Anise Hyssop,” Sam muttered. He strolled to the wall of shelves and located the jars labelled ‘A’.

  “You’re not seriously going to do this, are you?” I asked in disbelief as Sam popped open one of the ‘A’ jars.

  He ambled back to the cauldron and dropped a handful of dried plant into the pot. Then, returning to the book, he read again, “Powdered bay leaves…” He made off towards the shelves again, this time heading for ‘B’.

  “Sam, don’t play around with this stuff,” Todd implored.

  “Why not?” Sam replied, preoccupied as he scooped out a handful of bay leaves from a glass jar. “You were going to.”

  Todd threw up his hands. “I wasn’t! Please, can’t we leave?”

  I edged forward until I was close enough to peer down into the cauldron. A mound of dried herbs was nestled at the bottom.

  Anxiously, I fiddled with a thread on my top. “It’s not really going to work though, is it?”

  Sam shrugged. “Only one way to find out.” He glanced at Todd, then back at me. “Anyone joining me?”

  We both looked to our feet.

  “Just me, then,” Sam answered for us.

  “Don’t do this,” Todd tried again.

  He carried on. “Sprinkle of sage, bethel root…”

  The more ingredients that filled the pot, the faster my heart pounded. By the time the recipe was complete, my pulse was racing.

  “Okay,” Sam murmured, “time to light this sucker.” He took a box of matches from beside the burner and ignited the wick. A wild blue flame shot upwards, spreading across the bottom of the cauldron like a ripple of water.

  I shrank back. “What happens now?”

  Sam deliberated for a moment. “Well, the potion brews, and then I’m going to drink it.”

  Drink it? The idea made me queasy.

  “Oh, yeah,” Sam added, as he reviewed the open page, “and I guess I’ll have to say some words, too.”

  Todd swallowed. “It’s an incantation.”

  Inside the cauldron, the flowers had already turned to pulp and were dissolving into a murky grey liquid.

  Sam drew a pencil from his jeans pocket and used it to stir the mixture. “Double double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron…”

  The three of us stared down at the concoction. It wasn’t bubbling, exactly.

  “Simmer!” Sam finished, then mimicked a wicked cackle.

  It amazed me to see him acting so relaxed. I was terrified. I didn’t want Sam to drink the potion. And worse, I was gripped by a horrible instinct that this would be the start of something much bigger. Like the tempting of a fate that I really didn’t want.

  It seemed I wasn’t the only one feeling uneasy.

  “Sam,” Todd wheezed. “Don’t do this.”

  Sam laughed lightly
. “Quit worrying. You’re like an old woman sometimes, Toddy-boo.”

  Todd’s mouth pressed into a tight line. “I don’t feel comfortable with this—”

  “Give me a break!” Sam exclaimed, letting the pencil clatter into the pot. “You said you were curious, right? So stop being such a baby! It’s herbs. It’s not going to kill me.”

  I bit my lip.

  Sam rolled his eyes. “Now, would one of you hand me one of those syringe-looking things?” He gestured to the shelves.

  Neither of us moved.

  “Fine,” Sam huffed. “I’ll do it myself.”

  He collected a long glass pipette tube with a bulbous end from the shelf and brought it back to the pot.

  I listened as a rush of air wheezed through the tube while Sam absentmindedly squeezed the top. Above the cauldron, clouds of black vapours drifted up into the chimney pipe.

  My hands began to tremble.

  Sam dipped his pipette into the pot and drew the liquid into the glass confines. He raised it to eyelevel, inspecting the grey contents that sloshed around inside.

  “Delicious,” he remarked wryly. Then, hovering the pipette above his mouth, he winked at us. “Cheers,” he said, before releasing a drop of the brew onto his tongue.

  Standing as motionless as a statue, I stared at him.

  Sam winced, then quickly read aloud from the open page, “I am heart, I am head, let me hear the words unsaid.”

  We all fell silent.

  For a minute or two, Sam looked sort of trance-like. His eyes were unfocused and he appeared to be deep in thought. All of a sudden, he turned and stared at us. Through us, even.

  “How do you feel?” Todd asked.

  Sam didn’t respond.

  “Can you hear our thoughts?” I whispered. Now there was a question I never thought I’d have to ask.

  Sam laughed strangely.

  “Say something,” I pleaded. “You’re scaring me.”

  Sam grinned. “What’s thermonuclear?” he asked Todd.

  Todd’s eyebrows shot up; he was evidently surprised. “It’s nuclear fusion. We studied it in astrology club.”

  “Geek!” He turned to me next. “Who’s Jaxon?”

  I felt the blood rush to my face. “Nobody,” I replied quickly.

  Oh my god, stop thinking, I pleaded to myself. Stop!