On Thanksgiving most of us converged on Spook Hall for a huge, rowdy McAllister feast. They’d been doing this ever since I could remember; Aunt Rachel had once told me it was Great-Aunt Ruby’s idea, that after spending Thanksgiving going from house to house so she could try to see everyone, she put her foot down and said we should all gather in one place and save her some work. So we shopped like we were buying food for a soup kitchen or something, making the run to Prescott so we could go to Costco and the Trader Joe’s there, and then set up the long tables in the hall with warm russet tablecloths and centerpieces of autumn flowers.
The kitchen was large, but even so we did a good deal of tripping over one another. My aunt supervised, more or less, since she was an amazing cook. Some turkeys went in the oven, and others were smoked in the smokers across the street at the English Kitchen restaurant. My specialty was homemade spiced cranberry sauce, so I handled that and tried to stay out of the way as best I could.
We really hadn’t discussed my disastrous encounter with Griffin Dutton, but I noticed that she hadn’t sent any more candidates my way after that. Thanksgiving was late this year, so there were only three weeks until my birthday at that point. Both she and I — and the entire clan — were aware of the rapidly approaching deadline. We couldn’t not be. But either she’d decided to let the universe handle it from here on out, or she thought she might as well leave it alone until after Thanksgiving. I wasn’t going to question her actions, mostly because I was just relieved to not have another candidate shoved down my throat. Literally.
It was mainly women in the kitchen, but that didn’t mean the men got off scot-free. From the hall came scraping sounds as they brought out the long racks of chairs and started setting them up. There was another group congregating across the street, ostensibly in order to keep watch on the turkeys in the smoker, but I had a feeling there was more beer drinking than turkey-watching going on there.
All around me was the chatter of cheerful voices and the warm, rich smells of turkey roasting and pies baking. Everyone looked happy, glad to be surrounded by family, glad of the opportunity to share in the world’s bounty. I knew I should be feeling the same way, but I didn’t.
Suddenly the kitchen felt stifling. My cranberry sauce had more or less gelled by then, so I turned off the gas and moved the pot to the back burner. “I need to get some air,” I told Aunt Rachel, and then hurried out of the kitchen and threaded my way through the tables to the front door.
It was one of those beautiful late autumn days, the air cold but the sun warm, the sky deep sapphire punctuated by downy white clouds. I took in a deep breath, raising my face to the sun and the wind, and headed down the side street in an attempt to get away from the hustle and bustle.
“That’s quite the shindig you’re putting together in there,” came Maisie’s voice from a few feet away.
She hadn’t been there a second earlier, but that was sort of how she did things. Just appeared out of nowhere. Once I’d tried to ask her where she was when she wasn’t here. She’d shaken her head and said vaguely, “Around.” Which of course wasn’t illuminating in the slightest.
Right now she sounded more wistful than anything else. “Didn’t you have big Thanksgiving dinners?” I asked.
“Maybe when I was really little, before Papa died.” Her expression hardened. “But that no-good dog my mother married afterward didn’t hold with Thanksgiving. Said turkey was too expensive and it was silly to go to all that fuss.”
I didn’t press the matter further. From our previous conversations, I’d gotten the impression that her stepfather had gotten a little too friendly as she got older, and she ran away. How precisely she’d ended up in Jerome, I wasn’t sure. I could tell she didn’t want to talk about it.
So I only replied, “Yes, I think it’s even bigger this year. Of course, part of it is that everyone wants to be here for Thanksgiving with the new prima.” I shrugged.
Her expression turned sly. “Yes, I seen that you did all that work on your great-auntie’s house. Can’t say for sure that I think it’s an improvement, but then, I’m not much of one for all these new-fangled styles.”
I wondered what my interior decorator would think if I told her that a ghost had criticized her work. Leila was pretty no-nonsense for someone who lived in Sedona, woo-woo capital of the world, so I had a feeling she wouldn’t take it all that well.
All I said was, “I like it, though. It feels more like me now.”
Maisie appeared to consider that, then nodded. “Well, I s’pose that’s the important thing, as you’re the one living in it.”
I nodded, and looked past her out across the valley, past Sedona…all the way to Flagstaff, where Humphries Peak brooded amongst a crown of dark clouds. It didn’t look like the version from the movies, but it still reminded me of Mordor, especially on days like this, where it was sunny here but broody and dark all those miles away. Kind of silly, I supposed, because although the Wilcoxes were not exactly what you would call nice people, they were far outnumbered by all the ordinary folks who lived in Flagstaff and worked and shopped and went to school without having any idea that a coven of evil witches and warlocks lived amongst them.
“What do you know about the Wilcoxes?” I asked abruptly, after turning back to Maisie.
She looked surprised by the question. “No more than you, I guess. They aren’t very nice, are they? And of course all that hullaballoo when they tried to grab Ruby when she was your age. But that was a long time ago.”
“Not very nice” was a hell of an understatement. But Maisie was a ghost. There wasn’t much they could do to her at this point.
I didn’t even know why I was thinking about the Wilcoxes, except for seeing the mountain, standing dark and tall a hundred miles away. Did they have their own Thanksgiving observance, or did they consider that sort of thing hopelessly plebeian?
It was kind of silly to wonder about such a thing, I supposed. I wasn’t likely to find out any time soon.
Rachel’s head popped out of the side door of the building, startling me and causing Maisie to dissolve immediately. “Oh, there you are. We’re about to start pulling the turkeys out of the ovens, and I need you on gravy duty.”
I reflected that sometimes being a witch wasn’t exactly what it was cracked up to be. Yes, we all had our individual powers and abilities, but that didn’t mean we could wiggle our noses like Belinda from Bewitched and have a feast magically appear. There was still a lot of grunt work involved.
“Coming,” I told my aunt, and started to walk up to meet her. Yes, I was the new prima, but that didn’t absolve me of kitchen duty. Just as well, probably. At least that way I’d be busy inside, instead of standing out in the middle of the street and brooding about the Wilcoxes.
After that it was sort of a frenzied bustle of getting all the last-minute things — the gravy and the rolls and the mashed potatoes — ready at the same time. Aunt Rachel supervised with the practiced skill of a field marshal, so everything made its entrance into the hall and onto the long tables set up buffet-style on the far wall at the anointed hour. Then it was time to eat.
I sat at the head of one table, which I hadn’t expected but probably should have, if I’d stopped to think about it. Rachel was on one side of me, once she finally sat down, and Tobias was on the other, so I didn’t have to worry about Adam trying to keep me company all during dinner. He was at the same table, but farther down, sitting with his parents and his younger sister, who was a senior at Cottonwood High. I didn’t see Jenny, his older sister. Maybe she had to work — the lowest person on the totem pole usually got the crap shifts on holidays and weekends. Once or twice during the meal he tried to catch my eye, and while I smiled at him, I didn’t have time for much else.
At last, though, after everyone had had seconds or even thirds, it was time for pie. I’d been sort of selective in my eating, skipping the stuffing altogether, since I didn’t like it that much to begin with. It would be a crime to be so full that I didn’t have room for any of Aunt Rachel’s pumpkin pie, which was divine.
I was just putting a piece on my plate and giving it a healthy dollop of freshly whipped cream — none of that canned stuff around here — when Adam came up to me. Well, it looked more like he was just there for pie, too, but I had the feeling he’d timed his approach so he’d be there when I was.
“Everything okay?” he said in an undertone.
“Of course it is,” I replied, even though I didn’t know if it actually was. “Why do you ask?”
“You just looked sort of…cranky…during dinner.”
“Well, I’m not,” I snapped. Then, as a hurt expression crossed his face, I added, “That is, I’m fine. It was just busy getting everything ready, and I’ve been kind of stressed out with my birthday coming up, and….” I decided to stop myself there. He knew what the problem was…mostly. No way would I admit to him that I’d spent more time than was probably healthy brooding over Chris Wilson. That match was even less viable than one with Adam. At least Adam was a McAllister, and a warlock.
“I’ve been thinking about that.”
Why does that not surprise me? But we were blocking the pies, so I sidled a few feet away. “Everybody’s probably been thinking about it. But I don’t think there’s much we can do except hope that the consort shows up damn soon.”
“There might be another solution.”
Since he was the one volunteering it, I had a pretty good idea what that might be, or at least what he thought it might be. Affecting unconcern, I took a bite of pie, then asked, “There is?”
A light flush appeared along his cheekbones. “Well, I’ve been doing some reading, trying to see what the precedents were. I mean, we all know that it’s not a good thing for a prima to be without a consort when her twenty-second birthday rolls around. But I found an instance where that happened, and a warlock from her clan married her even though he wasn’t the consort, and it actually worked out just fine. So maybe that’s what we should do here.”
It took a few seconds for his words to sink in. Lowering my voice, I said, “Are you asking me to marry you?”
The previous flush was swallowed up in a wave of bright red that went over his face from forehead to chin. “Well, yeah. Wouldn’t it be better than what happened to Great-Aunt Ruby?”
“Nothing happened to her. I mean, the Wilcoxes tried, but they weren’t successful. And it turns out she was right all along for waiting, because then she met Great-Uncle Pat a few weeks later. All’s well and all that.”
“Yeah, but — ”
I realized then how hard this must have been for him. He had to know I wouldn’t agree, but because he was worried and because he cared, he’d gone out on a limb anyway. “It’ll be all right. You’ll see.”
He hesitated. “Maybe. But can you promise me something?”
“What?” I asked, my tone guarded. I knew better than to make a promise without knowing what it was about.
“If we get to your birthday, and there’s still no one else, can you please think about it? I want you to be safe.”
I looked up into his pleading blue-gray eyes. If the man of my dreams never materialized, did it really matter? I didn’t want to be alone for the rest of my life, and no matter how much I might yearn for him, I knew Chris Wilson was not an option. Witches and warlocks married civilians from time to time — heck, Adam’s own mother was one — but a prima didn’t have that option.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “If we get to that point, then…okay.”
His face lit up then, and for a second I was worried he was going to pull me into a hug and smash my plate of pie right against me. Somehow he managed to keep a grip on himself, though. “Great. I mean, I doubt it’ll happen, but if it does…”
“…you know where to find me,” I said wearily. I gestured with my free hand back toward the table where I’d been sitting. “And now I’m going to sit down and eat the rest of this pie.”
“Sure.” He grinned at me. Since I didn’t want to show him how unexcited I was by the prospect of having to marry him because there was no one else, I summoned a smile in return before heading back to my empty chair.
In that moment, I wondered how much I really had to be thankful for after all.
Clean-up seemed to take forever, but finally around nine o’clock I headed home with that night’s bodyguards in tow. No one spoke, probably because we were all feeling sleepy and stuffed after the enormous meal we’d eaten earlier. By that point pretty much everyone had done a rotation watching over me, so I didn’t see the need to show anyone where the snacks and sodas were. Or the coffeemaker; more than once I’d awoken in the middle of the night and smelled the rich scent of coffee drifting up the stairs, beating out the lingering paint fumes.
I just said goodnight to them and went upstairs, thinking I’d read in bed for a while or watch a show on my laptop. Something normal, prosaic. It felt way too early to go to bed, even though I was wiped out from the long day and all the heavy food I’d eaten.
But after I’d washed my face and brushed my teeth and climbed into the flannel pajama bottoms and long-sleeved thermal shirt I wore to bed — it was a magnificent house, but drafty — I found that the book I was partway through really didn’t interest me, and neither did any of the shows I had queued up on Netflix. So I shut my laptop and wandered down the hall to the library to see if I could find anything more enticing there.
I say “library” because that was what everyone called it, but it was really more of a combination study and library. A big rolltop desk stood against one wall, and two of the other walls were covered in bookshelves. This was a room I hadn’t touched yet, mainly because I hadn’t decided what I wanted to do with it. Sydney thought I should turn it into a media room, sort of a home theater, but I thought it felt sacrilegious to tear out those lovely dark oak bookshelves.
Not that what they contained looked all that intriguing. An old out-of-date set of World Book encyclopedias, probably from when Great-Aunt Ruby’s sons were young. Books of fairytales. Some tattered paperbacks looking out of place amongst the more dignified hard-bound books, mysteries and some science fiction and a few more sensational titles like Peyton Place and Valley of the Dolls.
Wow, Ruby…who knew?
Fighting back a smile, I pulled out what looked like a first edition Wizard of Oz and shook my head. How much must that be worth? It still wasn’t really what I was looking for, though, so I put it back. As I did so, my gaze fell on a slim book bound in dark red leather. It had no lettering on the spine, but I didn’t know whether that was because it never did or because it had worn off over the years.
Intrigued, I opened it up and saw that, instead of being filled with type, it was hand-written. I flipped over to the flyleaf and saw inscribed on the yellowed paper there, Ruby Lee McAllister, 1947. I did some quick mental math. This was her diary, and from her twenty-first year.
My heart started to beat a little faster. Now, maybe I shouldn’t read her diary at all, since it was private. Then again, how private could it be if she’d just left it out on the shelf in plain view of everyone? And there could be things she’d written down that would help me now. A lot had happened to her that year. If there was anything in that diary that could be of use, it would be silly of me to ignore it. For all I knew, she’d put it there precisely so I would find it once the house came to me.
With that rationalization to buoy me, I tucked the book under my arm, and slipped out of the library and down the hall to my room. After closing the door behind me, I climbed back into bed, plumped up my pillows so they’d give me good support while reading, then opened the book to its first page.
Mama took me into Cottonwood today to go shopping as part of my birthday treat. Yesterday was my real birthday, and everyone came over for cake and ice cream. How nice to have a birthday in August when ice cream is appropriate. While we were in Cottonwood, she bought me this book. She said twenty-one is special for any girl, but especially for the next clan prima. It’s in this year that I’ll meet my consort, and everything will change.
I stopped for a moment, thinking of pretty young Ruby with the Rita Hayworth waves and the red lipstick. She hadn’t been afraid of her future — she’d had no reason to be. She had her parents and the members of her clan, and seemed to look forward to being prima. Of course, back then she couldn’t have had any idea how long she would have to hold that post. The prima of her youth, Abigail McAllister, had died early. Rheumatic fever, I thought, but I couldn’t remember for sure. What I did recall was that Ruby had barely a year after meeting her consort before she had to take over as prima. There was no comfortable overlap period for her, either.
Frowning, I looked back down at the book and began to read again. A lot of what I saw really was just commonplaces — descriptions of some new dresses she’d bought, comments about the weather, write-ups of various clan parties and gatherings. Here and there she’d mention working magic, but it wasn’t something she particularly dwelled on, as if it was taken far more for granted than a pretty new pair of shoes.
Then, The first candidate came today. I didn’t like his looks much, but I knew I had to kiss him, just in case he turned out to be the consort. To my relief, he wasn’t. It’s funny to think that if any other girl were discovered to have kissed so many boys, people would think she was fast, but in my case it’s expected.
That entry was dated July 12, 1947. I flipped through a few more entries, until I came to a page dated a few weeks later where she wrote of meeting another candidate. This one didn’t work out, either, and I was disappointed, because he was handsome enough to be a movie star. My mother warned me that sometimes it can take a while to find the right one. I hope not, because right now I can’t decide which is worse, having to kiss someone you don’t like, or kissing someone you think you might like, only to find out he’s not the one, either.
I could definitely relate to that. But at least she didn’t have one of her cousins bugging her to marry him if the whole consort thing didn’t work out.
There was a gap of a week or so after that. She didn’t make any mention of why she’d skipped so much time, but I supposed she had decided to write an entry only when something really notable occurred. I could relate — I’d started a diary when I was around eleven, thinking I should get down all the fabulous details about my life. Only most of the details weren’t that fabulous, except for the whole talking to ghosts thing, and after a few weeks I’d given up and shoved the diary into a drawer, never to be looked at again.
Then, in late August, There were three candidates this week. None of them suited me, not one bit. I complained to Mother that this was turning out to be no fun at all. She only smiled at me and said the fun would begin once I found my consort. Maybe so, but whoever he is, I wish he would show up soon.
On the twenty-first of September, there was an entry about the town’s celebration of the autumn equinox, the second harvest. We still had these observances as well, and it didn’t sound as if they’d changed much in the last sixty-odd years — everyone gathered for large feasts, although back then it seemed those were spread out among individual households. These days we use Spook Hall for that, and of course back then wine-growing hadn’t yet taken hold in the area. She described drinking beer as if it were a delicious, semi-forbidden thing, with no mention of wine at all.
All this was an interesting slice of local history, I supposed, but I’d been hoping to find something more. All during October there were entries about more candidates, more kisses that went nowhere. I could commiserate with her predicament, but at least I knew her story had a happy ending — fifty years of marriage, two children, five grandchildren.
There was an entry on October thirtieth about her looking forward to the Samhain celebration, but she didn’t write anything again until November fifth. And on that one, her handwriting looked shaky and almost messy, whereas before it had been clean and neat. That was back when they cared about penmanship, I supposed, feeling slightly ashamed. My own handwriting was so bad that I block-printed anything that someone else would have to read.
I am safe.
I am safe.
I am safe.
There’s an old saying Mother told me once: “What I tell you three times is true.” So I imagine I wrote that down three times so I could give the notion a power of its own. Everyone is watching over me, and I know such a thing couldn’t possibly happen again. But I imagine I am getting ahead of myself.
I was so happy on Samhain eve. I put on a pretty dress, even though I knew my robes would cover it up. It was a warm day, almost too warm for late October, but I was determined to enjoy it, since I knew it would get cold soon enough.
I decided to walk down to Hull Avenue and look at the view from the little park there, since I was done with my chores for the day and didn’t have much else to occupy me. And it seemed fitting to go enjoy the sunshine on this last day before we went into the dark time between Samhain and Yule.
No one took much note of my going. I walked along in the sunshine and enjoyed the feel of the wind in my hair, even though I knew I’d have to give it a good brushing again once I got home. When I got to the park, it was deserted. Well, almost, anyway. A man I’d never seen before stood over by one of the stacked stone walls, smoking a cigarette and looking out at the view. A shiny black Cadillac was parked a few yards away from him.
I tried not to stare, but it was hard. We didn’t get a lot of strangers here in Jerome. Well, we got people driving through, as it was only one of two routes you could use to get from Prescott to Flagstaff, but they didn’t stop here much, except to get gas. And of those who did stop here, I’d never seen one who looked like this man. His hair was jet black and gleamed in the sunlight, and he had a profile that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a movie screen.
I looked away quickly, but he must have noticed me. He smiled, and dropped his cigarette and ground it out on the dirt with the heel of his shiny black shoe, then said to me, “That’s a heck of a view, miss.”
“Yes,” I said cautiously, although talking about the view seemed safe enough.
He took a few steps toward me. “Are you from around here, miss?”
I nodded, not quite trusting myself to reply. Something about his dark eyes was mesmerizing. I tried to tell myself that I’d seen handsome men before, so it was silly for me to stand here and look at him like a mouse staring at a snake.
His smile widened. “You have a name, miss?”
Something was telling me not to answer, but the word popped out as if I couldn’t bear to keep it in any longer. “Ruby.”
“That’s a pretty name for a pretty girl.”
“Thank you, sir.” I decided to tack on the “sir” because he was some years older than I, maybe as old as thirty.
He moved a little closer, although he was still a few feet away. “You like looking at the view, Ruby?”
“Ye-es,” I said.
A nod, but it wasn’t directed at me. Suddenly two more men, also tall and black-haired, and wearing dark suits, got out of the car. My heart began to pound, and I realized something was very wrong here.
“I-I have to go,” I told him, my voice sounding weak and stammering, not like the voice of the McAllisters’ future prima.
“Yes, you do,” he agreed. “Although probably not where you were thinking.” Those coal-black eyes fastened on me, and it was as if the world began to spin around me, sky and trees and buildings all swirling like a kaleidoscope. My knees began to give way, and then he was reaching for me, grabbing me. His touch was cold, so cold, and I realized then who he must be.
Jasper Wilcox, primus of the Wilcox clan.
I didn’t know which spell he had cast, or what he had done to me, but I retained enough presence of mind to call out from within, my cry echoing to all the McAllisters. The enemy is here!
Right away people started to converge on the park. Mr. Song came out of the English Kitchen, cleaver in hand, and next to him were my cousins Leonard and Stephen.
I could feel Jasper Wilcox’s hand tighten on my arm. “What did you do?” he demanded.
“I called to them,” I said. “Bet you didn’t know I could do that, did you?”
He scowled at me, and began dragging me to the car.
“There are only two ways out of here,” I told him. “If you let me go and leave now, you might get away. Maybe.”
He cursed, horrible, foul language no one had ever spoken in my hearing before, but I could see that he realized his dilemma. He let go of me, said, “This isn’t the end of it,” and hurried back to his car, his two clan members jumping in, one of them getting the engine started. They sped off with a squeal of their tires, going the wrong way on the one-way street.
No one was coming the other way, and so they made their escape just as I heard the sirens from the town’s one and only police car blaring away up on Main Street. It wasn’t my gift to see the future, but somehow I knew Jasper Wilcox would get away.
Everyone began to crowd around me, asking what had happened. I told them I was fine, which I supposed I was. Nothing had happened, not really. Then my parents came, my mother weeping in fright, and I went with them back home, where they set up a guard to make sure no one else could get to me. Although Jasper Wilcox had said this wasn’t the end, he didn’t reappear the next day, or the day after. No one let down their guard, but people did seem to relax, just a little.
What I couldn’t tell any of them was that I still felt his hands on my arms, still saw his face when I laid myself down in bed at night. So handsome…so evil.
I want my consort to appear. I want that kiss, the one that will bind me to him.
I hope that then I can forget what it was like to look into Jasper Wilcox’s black eyes.
I shut the diary, my hands shaking. No one had ever told me what exactly had transpired when the Wilcoxes tried to kidnap Great-Aunt Ruby, only that the attempt had been made, and had failed. I’d never really understood why they’d bothered, since I’d always been told that a prima’s true power only manifested when she was matched with her consort. For some reason, though, this Jasper Wilcox had believed differently.
I needed to find out why.