I read the faded gold lettering on the cover. On the Containement of Magick, it said. “Harris Stoughton,” I said aloud, looking at the author’s name. It sounded vaguely familiar to me.
“A horrible man,” Erin said. “A witch who used hysteria to wipe out other witches.”
When she said that, I remembered where I’d heard the name before—from some of my reading on the Salem witch trials. I hadn’t read anything about his being a witch, though.
“I thought that you should have it,” Alyce said to Erin. “I don’t like keeping it here, but I don’t want it to fall into the wrong hands, either.”
Erin flipped through a few of the pages warily, as if the book were something dangerous, then snapped the cover closed. “It’s a rare book.” Looking up at Alyce, she added, “Thank you. A book like this can be dangerous, but it can also be useful.” Erin faced me. “The first rule of magickal defenses is ‘Know your enemy.’ ”
The bell over the front door jingled, and Alyce went to see to the customers.
Erin pushed herself up from the table and walked over to the curtain. Tracing her fingers around its edges, she muttered a harsh-sounding phrase. “Now no one will be able to hear us,” she explained when she saw my confused expression. “Ready?”
I stood up and followed her to the center of the room. We faced each other for a moment. In a flash Erin caught my wrist, and I felt a crackle of electricity ripple through me. But I had been expecting this move. Quickly I threw up a block, as Hunter had taught me. Instead of building, the energy quickly dissipated through my body. Where she held my wrist, I felt the energy die in Erin’s hand as well.
Erin stepped back. “That was good,” she said simply. “You know the divagnth. And you’re strong.”
Damn straight, I thought, feeling a rush of pride.
Erin took a step away from me. I took in her small form. I stood at least a full head taller than her. I felt great— strangely strong, physically powerful, as if I’d been pumping iron or something. Weird, I thought. But very cool.
“Things are not always as they appear,” Erin said. As I stood wondering what that meant, she suddenly seemed to grow taller. Her mouth elongated, and she smiled, revealing long sharp fangs, each as thick as my finger. I felt my pride evaporate as her shoulders broadened and her green eyes turned darker, glowing with a cruel light.
I shrank away from her as cold panic washed over me like a slap of icy water. With horror, I understood that she was more powerful than I was and that she was evil. Why hadn’t I seen it before? She had put up a spell so that no one could hear us, and now she was going to kill me and take my magick.
Erin—or whatever the thing before me truly was—sent out slim wisps of gray smoke. The dark vapor grew thicker and began to fill the room. I felt myself choking.
The creature took a step toward me, and I stumbled away from it. It opened its horrible jaws. “Fight,” it said in a voice that was more animal than human. “Fight me.”
I racked my brain for a blocking spell, but I couldn’t think clearly. My body was pulsing with adrenaline. Did Alyce know that Erin was evil? Did Hunter know? What would happen to them once I was gone and this thing had my magick? I had survived so much in the last few months. Was this really how I would be done in?
The creature leaned toward me as the darkness closed in. I didn’t know what to do. Blindly I threw out my hands and sent a white ball of energy at the creature. It was fearsome-looking, brilliant and powerful. I had never called up something like that before, and for a moment I felt a surge of hope. But the creature merely made a flicking gesture with its left arm and easily deflected the ball across the room. It slammed against a metal shelving unit with an enormous crash. Back stock of notebooks flew off the top shelf and rained all over the floor. I could hardly see anything through the black vapor. I cowered against the wall behind me and finally sank to the floor.
The creature reached out a claw and grabbed my shoulder. “Morgan,” said a voice through the darkness. It was a lovely, musical voice, and for a moment I couldn’t remember where I’d heard it before. “Morgan,” it repeated, “are you all right?”
I looked down at the horrifying claw on my shoulder. Slowly it began to shift and change. The thick, muddy gray skin began to lighten, and the cruel claws receded until it was nothing but a small, pale hand almost the size of a child’s. I looked up into Erin’s clear green gaze. “Are you all right?” she repeated.
The fog around me began to lift, and I sat up. “What happened? ”
“Take a deep breath,” Erin advised. “Now release it. Do it again,” she urged. “Focus on the breath. Now ground yourself.”
Leaning forward, I placed my forehead against the cool tile floor. Slowly my head cleared. “You need to learn to control your emotions,” Erin said. “Pride and fear can cut you off from your power and leave you vulnerable. I’m sorry,” she added as I sat up. “You fooled me with the divagnth. I didn’t realize you weren’t ready for that lesson.”
Standing up, Erin reached out her hand and pulled me to my feet. “You’re strong, Morgan,” she said. “That’s your weakness.”
I frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“You have strong native power,” Erin explained. “Strong abilities. You just called up white witch fire, no easy task. But you don’t have control.” She gestured toward the scorched metal shelves and the Books of Shadows that had spilled all over the floor. “That makes you dangerous.”
“But you’re here to teach me control,” I protested.
“Morgan,” she said with forced patience, “I understand that you’ve been in a complicated situation. I don’t know all the details, but I do know that you’ve been forced into a situation in which you’ve had to begin your education in the middle of things, instead of at the proper beginning.”
“What are you saying?” I asked warily.
“I’m saying that you should back up.” Erin’s voice was brittle. “Take a break from magick that is too advanced for you and focus instead on learning your plants and witch history. I know it’s not what you want to hear, but when you’re sailing in the wrong direction, sometimes it’s faster to go back than it is to keep pushing on until you’ve gone around the world.”
“I feel like you’re punishing me,” I said bitterly.
“It’s for your own safety.” Erin’s voice was like a door slamming shut, and I knew that there was no use arguing. “And it’s not forever, Morgan,” she added. “We’ll begin again tomorrow, at the library. At three-thirty sharp.”
The bell over the door jingled again—the customers leaving—and Alyce poked her head through the curtain. “Is everything okay back here?” she asked. Her eyes fell on the ruined mass of notebooks. “Oh, my.”
“We were just about to clean that up,” I said quickly. Erin and I walked over to the pile of Books of Shadows and began brushing them off and placing them back on the shelf. Thankfully, most of them were undamaged. Erin told Alyce that she would pay for the ones that were.
“It’s my fault,” Erin told her, digging in her bag. “Besides, the cost of a few blank Books of Shadows isn’t one-tenth of the value of this book.” She jerked her head in the direction of On the Containement of Magick.
I watched Erin hug Alyce as we said good-bye. Erin was stiff, but her affection seemed real as she tucked the silk-wrapped book under her arm. Then again, she’d seemed pretty real when she’d looked like a hideous monster only half an hour before.