It All Spirals to Broken

It is a known fact that power in witches builds. The older the family, the stronger they will be. First born are usually weaker than the second born, and the pattern repeats the more children a witch has. Seventh born, the rarest, are often the strongest. However, witch families rarely exceed three children, and there has been no documented cases of numbers greater than seven.

- Grokhek, genealogist

The scent of freshly cooked popcorn permeates the air. It fits with the distant sound of The Hobbit, returned to the start, so Clarise has something to keep her occupied. I have my own work. Spread-out in front of me are the case files from the previous kidnappings. Three children, three cases. Whitney Clay, Oscar Morrison, and Eva McCall. Their faces blur together, all young and wide-eyed and unsuspecting.

Their backgrounds, however, are very different. Whitney is seven, and her twin sister discovered her disappearance. Her family is stronger than Clarise’s family. Their defenses are better, harder to get around. Unlike Clarise’s mom, they aren’t old-fashioned. They have security cameras in their home and on their property. Yet in the end, those cameras were useless. They caught nothing.

Tech systems are harder to get around than magic defenses, in part because they’re rarer. It’s unsettling that whoever did this was able to escape the notice of both.

Compared to the Clays’, Oscar’s family is the complete opposite. They’re old-fashioned and weak, engaging only the barest defenses needed to protect a household. It was his father who’d woken up to find his son’s empty room and open window. There’d been no footprints, even if the rain had left the ground beneath the window muddy enough for them.

It had been raining the night Oscar was taken.

It’s raining tonight, even if the thunder’s moved on and the wind no longer tries to rip the roof off the house. A quick check to Whitney’s file shows that there had been rain the night she’d been taken too. My hands scramble for the last file, Eva, the first to go missing. I yank it open, pages flapping everywhere, scanning desperately. The word rain leaps out at me like it's spring-loaded.

Every kidnapping happened during a stormy night. It doesn’t make sense. This person works with music, soft music. They should be striking on quieter nights when their song would be easy to hear. And yet, they’re not.

I grip my pen tight between my fingers. The clip cuts into my palm, the grip’s grooves engraving themselves into my skin. Then I’m moving. The pen clatters against the table, my half-eaten bowl of popcorn shoved out of the way. I pace.

I don’t know what to make of this information. Witchcraft isn’t taught in school. In most cases, it’s passed from parent to child, secrets shared only between covens. Some information, as with anything, makes its way onto the internet, but it’s hardly enough. I’m not an expert on witchcraft, or psychic manipulation, or whatever this is. Stella could have told me more if she was here, but she’s not, and I refuse to interrupt her hunt again.

Something crashes in the other room. I freeze, heart pounding so hard I can feel the vibrations in my fingers. Then I’m spinning around and stumbling that way. My hand hits the doorway – but no. No. No intruder. Just Clarise. Just Clarise and the TV screen, trolls and dwarves fighting and yelling. The crash had been nothing but sound from the movie. God. I let out a sharp breath. I need to calm down. With a barely audible groan, I let my head drop against the door frame, close my eyes, and force myself to breathe.

I’m letting my frustration get the best of me. I need to take a moment, think. I can’t call Stella and ask how spells work. Like hell am I asking Alex. Who do I have left? It’s far too late to even think about calling my dad. The library is closed at this time, so I can’t do research there. If only I had a witch to talk to.

My eyes snap open. A witch. I’m an idiot. Clarise is right there.

For a moment, I consider her. She sits in her seat, curled in on herself, eyes focused on the movie. Her hair and clothes have dried. She no longer looks quite like the crying girl that Stella and I had talked to. But at the same time … this is her brother. Her brother whose gone missing. The questions Stella and I’d asked before are one thing, they were necessary. This, however, is different.

But if I don’t, then the investigation is stuck until morning comes. There’s something there, something important. I can feel it. Clarise is already involved in this case. It’s not like I’m asking her to go back to the scene of the crime, I’m just asking a few follow-up questions.

The heel of my palm presses against my forehead. I drag it up and dig my fingers into my hair, let out a sharp breath. If Stella were here, she’d know what to do, how best to approach this problem. But Stella is not here, and as much as she’s rubbed off on me, I am not as sympathetic. The best I can do is ask softly.

I pull away from the door and move back to the table, snatch up my popcorn bowl. Complete with my excuse, I move to take the other side of the couch. The faded floral print distorts even more as I sit. Clarise doesn’t look over. She’s completely engrossed with the battle on screen. I let out a slow breath and wait.

The battle takes forever. I’d forgotten how that the scene following is tense as well. I sit there, chewing the inside of my cheek, fingers tapping against my bowl, until finally the trolls are stone. I pick the remote up and pause the scene. “Hey.”

She jumps. Her head twists, eyes wide. “Lore?”

Shit. I hold the remote up. “Hey. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“I didn’t hear you come in.”

There’s a tightness to her voice, like she’s ready to run at any moment. I bite the inside of my cheek again. I should have announced my presence, a simple knock on the wall, something. But it’s too late for that. Instead, I proffer my bowl. “Sorry.”

She eyes the bowl, but in the end, hers is empty, and the movie still has a long way to go. We swap them. She curls around it again, her back firmly edged between cushions and armrest. “Did you need something else?”

I consider the bowl in my hands, rotating it slowly between my fingers. “Yeah … are you alright if I ask you a question about witchcraft?”

“Witchcraft?”

“Yeah.”

“Is …” She trails off, bites her lip. When she tries again, her voice is smaller. “Is this about James?”

I press my fingers hard against the bowl. The plastic is rough from years of use, textured and feathery in places from its many drops and scrapes. I run my thumbnail along one of the larger marks. “It is.”

Clarise sucks in a soft breath. I can’t look at her, too invested in staring at the collection of salt and popcorn seeds coating the bowl’s innards. With each small shift, they roll and rasp against the plastic. The couch dips. The AC rumbles in the background, it’s faint hum too loud in the silence that’s descended upon us.

Finally, Clarise breaks it. “I … don’t know much, but I can try. What do you want to know?”

My breath leaves me. I look up. “Can music be used as a focus?”

She blinks, and for a moment, I’m worried that this is too high-level stuff. I know sound can be a carrier for magic or energy, that’s how sirens and harpies do their thing, but a focus is something different entirely. Fine-tuning instead of doing the brunt of the work. It’s possible she hasn’t been taught the difference yet. But then her lips start shaking, her too tight posture uncurls.

“Of course, it can.”

She isn’t confused. No, now she’s giving me That Look. The one people always give me when they feel like I’ve said something completely stupid, something that highlights that I’m not one of them. I’m used to it from adults. Getting that look from someone as young as Clarise makes me want to squirm.

Her voice is worse. Slow and careful, as if she can’t quite believe that she actually has to explain this. “Anything with rhythm can be a focus. That’s why chants are used for spells.”

Oh, I’m an idiot.

She takes my silence as confusion. Her hands come up in front of her, her voice dropping into singsong. The way nursery rhymes are sung. “Hello, light, my little friend. Will you banish the dark again?”

The effect is immediate. I can feel it, the surge of power makes the hairs on my arms rise. Above Clarise’s cupped palms, a bead of color blooms. Small at first, quickly swelling. A marble sized orb of soft yellow-white light. It illuminates her palms, her fingers, and her face with its soft glow. A child’s chant, and it’s more than I could ever muster without a flashlight in my life.

“I get the point.” I take a moment to rub my face. “But that’s vocal. You said that the music sounded like wind chimes. Is the same thing possible for non-chanting music?”

“I don’t know.” Her cupped hands close over the marble of light. For a moment, it shines dimly between the gaps of her fingers. Then it cuts out. Snuffed.

The growing confidence in her face goes with it. She’s no longer my greater in knowledge, but a child. The knowledge that she doesn’t know enough to help me find her brother pushes her incredulity away. Her shoulders hike again, her eyes drop.

I pull one hand from my bowl. It hovers in the air above her shoulder, hesitant, before landing. I give a slight squeeze. “Hey, Clarise?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

Her eyes dart back up to mine. “It doesn’t feel like I’ve helped.”

She hasn’t, really. Just proven that what we’re looking for knows high-level magic. But I smile anyway, keep it gentle. “You have. For one, I don’t have to do as much research now, which means I’m one step closer to finding your brother.”

“But the library’s closed.”

“There’s always the internet.”

Her nose wrinkles. “Mom says the internet is never right.”

“Sometimes there’s gold in the muck. So, thanks for making sure there’s not as much muck I need to sift through.”

Finally, something like a tiny smile flitters across her face. “You’re welcome.”

I let go of her shoulder, and stand up, the empty bowl tucked against my side. “Is there anything you need?”

“Can I have the remote?”

Oh, yeah. I pluck it up and pass it over. “I’ll be in the kitchen. Call me if you need anything.”

“I will.”

I step back. She plays with the remote, her eyes firmly fixed on the buttons. I wait, a second, two, for her to say anything else. After those few moments, I turn and head back. I have research to do. It’s all I can do, until Stella comes home.

Research, as expected, reveals little. There are a couple of forums on magic through music, but nothing about wind chimes. Harps for soothing spells, drums for the inspirational. Flutes and other wind instruments seem to have the most variety, but they still aren’t what I’m looking for.

One solid answer I do get is that if music was the method for the spell, the rain would have cancelled it out. Spells with music as their median normally target other creatures. The farther the music travels, the louder it’s played, the more targets it can reach. If the music is covered by some other noise, then it won’t affect its target.

So, no wind chimes. Not unless someone was standing right beneath James’ window, ringing those things as loud as wind chimes could possibly be rung.

It does bring to mind, however, the possibility that they weren’t wind chimes at all. Some spells – according to the forum – have certain signatures. It’s possible that Clarise hadn’t heard anything. She could have sensed the spell and interpreted it as wind chimes.

But that is all forum speak, and it doesn’t seem likely that every witness would hear the same thing. But what the hell do I know? I need a specialist. Someone other than randos on the internet or a traumatized young girl. Someone who can give me some solid answers.

Someone like my dad.

I lean back in my seat, pressing the cap of my pen hard against my cheek. It’s too late to contact him right now. It’s half past twelve, and my father sleeps like a rock. But he has an innate understanding of magic that I can never hope to reach. It comes with being fae, and working in a fancy government position in close association with some of the strongest witch families in the city. He has to know someone who could shed light on this matter. Hell, he might even know what kind of creature might be able to do something like this.

I’ll see what I can do to get a meeting with him tomorrow. Calling isn’t an option right now, but he tends to be decent at paying attention to his text messages when awake. And for all he’s not flexible, his schedule – at least when it comes to me – is.

The downstairs door opens. I only hear it thanks to the silence. The movie is long over, the popcorn gone. Clarise sleeps on the couch, tucked under blankets with a pillow shoved unceremoniously under her head. It’s just me, my phone tossed to the side, my head resting against the hard kitchen table.

Just me, and whoever opened the door.

I jerk up from my seat. The chair teeters on its back legs. My rush from the table completes the motion. It falls with a crash against the floor. I don’t try to pick it up, I’m already out of the kitchen, running toward the door of the apartment.

The downstairs door is locked. I’d locked it when Clarise and I had come back from the station. There’s only one person who has the key besides me.

I careen down the stairs, momentum nearly carrying me into the wall. My hand curls tight around the banister and I swing myself around. Down the hall I run. The office door lies open. I have to catch myself against the door frame to keep from spilling into the room. Stella stands in the center of the office, staring at me.

She’s an absolute mess. Her clothes are soaked through, jeans turned black with the damp and her shirt plastered to her skin. Water clings to her hair. It gleams faintly with every flash of light from the street. The shadows of her face do nothing to disguise the glow in her eyes.

I take a step forward into the room. “Hey, Stella. Welcome back.”

Her eyes flick to me. For a second, they don’t actually seem to be seeing me, but then the glow fades, her eyes their ordinary amber. Her smile is smaller than normal, an odd bent to it, as if she’s forcing herself to keep it up. “You ran down here all the way to say that?”

“You’re too wet to hug.”

She blinks, as if just noticing her soaked state. Her hand reaches up to thread through her mess of curls and comes back glistening. She sighs and shakes. Water goes everywhere. I yelp and cover my face. I lower my arm; her situation hasn’t improved much. Her hair is drier, but her clothes are still soaked. And now there’s water droplets everywhere.

I sigh. “You need a towel, not a shake. And a new pair of clothes.” I turn, back to the staircase.

It’s sudden, Stella’s movement. One moment she’s in the center of the office, the next she’s at my back, arms wrapped around my waist and face in my hair. It’s the only connection she gives, the rest of her soaked body held away from me. But it’s still enough connection to tell that she’s trembling.

“How’s Clarise?”

“Safe.” I hesitate, before covering her hand with my own, giving it a squeeze. “Passed out on the couch after watching movies and being stuffed full of popcorn. I even gave her a blanket.”

Normally, there would have been some sort of joke there. A huff of amusement, at the very least. But who I’m dealing with now is less Stella and more wolf, instincts riled after a hunt. So, all I get is a nod, a soft “Good.”

I nod back and stand there, waiting. Stella is warm, she’s always warm, but right now, it feels like she’s burning. I can feel the press of her claws even through my shirt. But slowly, as the seconds tick by, her trembles subside. It is only then that I pull away.

“Come on,” I murmur, quiet, “you’re dripping everywhere.”

And this time, the smile she summons is a tad more real.

We settle around the kitchen table. My notebook sits in front of me, pages open, so I can read my scrawled notes with ease. Stella sits close, her chair angled, so she can see into the living room. She eats a hastily constructed sandwich with methodical movements, breadcrumbs falling to litter the worn, stained wooden tabletop. Her gaze flicks often to the couch.

She’s been like that the whole time I’ve recounted my findings. Oh, I know she’s listening. Her gaze is on me as much as it is on the couch. Now, it rests somewhere on the kitchen wall, tracing faded wallpaper decorations as she digests the information.

Finally, the crust of her sandwich disappears into her mouth. She drags her hand along her face. Her palm rubs at her eye, before falling. “Have you texted your dad yet?”

“I have. He should text back sometime next morning.”

“Good.” Stella stares for a moment longer at the wall, before shaking herself. “It sounds like you’ve found more than I did.”

“But you did find something, right?”

“Not enough.” Her fingers tap against the table, a single spastic movement, before she pushes herself up. Her feet beat a desperate path as she paces. “There were no tracks leading from the house. No scents leaving it either. The witches couldn’t pick anything up. It’s like the rain just washed away everything outside.”

I grab my pen. “But not inside?”

“No. James’ scent was in his room. The window and the lock weren’t broken, so it was opened from the inside. He climbed down himself.”

Clarise claims that James doesn’t like climbing since he broke his leg. He’s a kid. It’s hard to imagine that he would get over a fear of climbing during a stormy night – especially when he’s already afraid of storms.

“The music Clarise heard was a spell. It manipulated him into opening the window and climbing down.”

Stella’s pacing comes to a slow halt. “They were probably waiting under the window in case he slipped. As soon as he left the room, his scent was gone.”

“But there’s something else, isn’t there?” Because if the trail went cold at James’ window, Stella wouldn’t have been gone for so long.

She lifts her head, and her eyes are dark, all traces of the previous glow gone. “The property isn’t large, but one end bumps against a river. The druid on the team said it was pretty old, but – Lore, there was no naiad.”

No naiad. That seems even more impossible than there being no trace of James or his abductor. Every body of freshwater older than a century has a naiad, and as long as that body of water continues to exist, so will the naiad tied to it. Nature spirits are basically immortal. It’s basic information. Even I know that.

“Are you sure that the river was old enough for one?”

“I’m no druid, but he sounded pretty confident. There should have been a naiad there. We walked up and down that river and there was nothing. The druid couldn’t even sense any flow of magic. All his rituals to summon one failed. It was like a dead zone.”

A naiad gone with no trace. It’s too similar to James’ disappearance to be a coincidence. “I’ll look back over the reports and see if there were any other missing nature spirits. Do you think they went that way?”

“It’s too early to tell.” It’s clear in her voice that she thinks there’s a connection. It’s just a bad idea to leap to conclusions this early in the investigation.

I sigh and turn my gaze back to the pages of my notebook. The paper is bent where I’d written too hard. After a moment, I begin writing again. This last bit of information. The possible connections. The disappearance of the naiad is another question I’ll have to ask tomorrow. It shouldn’t be possible, but if it happened, there has to be a cause.

Stella pulls out a chair and sits heavy against it. Her shoulder bumps against mine, and her head follows soon after. There’s no strength in the way she sits. I’m the only thing holding her up.

I set the pen down again. “You should get some sleep.”

“So should you.”

She’s right. I rub at my face with one hand and let out half a breath. “I will, I will … Stella, what are we going to do about Clarise? We can’t keep her here while we’re investigating.”

Stella grunts. “Her dad has a phone. I’ll call him tomorrow. I can stay with her until he comes over to pick her up.”

It’s a solid plan, the best we have. If we kept her here, we’d be handicapped. And she doesn’t deserve to be dragged any deeper in this investigation than she already is. The police follow-up questions will be enough. She doesn’t need to be in the other room when we discuss our findings.

“Then we’re set,” I say.

She hums, a low, tuneless thing. The chair scrapes when she pulls away from me. Her hand catches on my arm, gives a light tug. “Come on, we can’t do anything else right now.”

I let her pull me to my feet, then out of the kitchen and towards the living room. Clarise still slumbers on the couch. She’s pulled herself into a smaller ball than before, the blankets hiked around her shoulders and her pillow half hanging off the cushions.

Stella leaves me there, watching her, and heads to my bedroom. Within moments, she’s coming back out with my giant quilt over her shoulder and pillows stuffed under each arm. They drop onto the floor unceremoniously, the blanket following after. She heads back to her room to grab more.

I shake my head and get to building us something comfortable to lay on. It’s not the first time we’ve slept on the floor together, Stella’s just normally a lot fluffier when we do. But I won’t deny either of us the comfort, and within moments, I’m adding the blankets and pillows Stella’s come back with.

Finally, we have a nest keeping us from the hard, cold floor. The gray, blues, and blacks of our blankets tangle and twist together. My pillows line the insides with big white bars. Stella’s collection of smaller, squishier ones softens the harshness of the curve in a scatter of constellations. I’d bought the starry covers as a birthday gift years ago. Even now, worn thin and ripped in places, she refuses to have them replaced.

She pulls me down, and I let her. My head hits a pillow with a soft puff of air. Not long after, Stella tugs me close. Her face is in my hair, her arm around my waist, her warmth sinking into my skin. I listen as exhaustion catches up to her, as the rise and fall of her chest evens out, the sound of her breathing a slow rush. It takes me much longer to fall asleep.

Foolish as it is, I’m listening for the sound of wind chimes.