Moonset - Scott Tracey

“No mistake,” Quinn said, hopping out of the driver’s seat. “Welcome home.”

“It’s some sort of practical joke,” I said weakly. “Right?”

Christmas had come to Carrow Mill, and it had vomited all over our house. I’d seen outside decorations for the holidays before, but never this many. And I definitely hadn’t seen them all in one place.

Not one, but two giant pine trees were decked out with strings of lights stretched taller than the house itself. I counted five different Santas perched around the property, competing with two nativity scenes (although the scene itself was life-sized with its own fully decorated stables), reindeer, wreaths, and a giant sleigh on the roof. And about fifteen miles of Christmas lights decking out every surface they could find.

“Do you think it all lights up?” she whispered.

I could only stare. “Bright enough to be seen from space.”

Quinn unlocked the front door. “Nice, right?” His enthusiasm didn’t hide the mockery underneath. The bastard was enjoying this.

“This is a joke, right?” Jenna asked as we walked up to the front door.

“Just think of it as a little welcome gift,” Quinn said. “In honor of all the hard work that landed you here.” Without another word, or any more mockery, he vanished inside the house, leaving the door open.

“Oh,” Jenna said.

The part of me that wanted to snicker was strangled by the overwhelming embarrassment at having to live in a house that looked like a Christmas village.

She covered her mouth with a hand. “We’re being punished.”

“You’re being punished. I’m being punished by proxy.”

Jenna took a moment, studying the street we were now calling home. “We’re the only house with decorations,” she pointed out.

Most people didn’t know how to deal with Jenna. Sure she was stubborn, occasionally hostile, and had a sixth sense for finding trouble, but she didn’t deal well with embarrassment.

I was pretty sure that Quinn had already picked up on that. And that he was the one responsible for the holiday decorations.

At least the inside of the house was Christmas free. For now, I figured. The furnishings were sparse but livable—all of our homes and apartments over the years had a certain “long-term housing” quality. All the basics were there—tables, chairs, couches, TVs. But there weren’t any personal touches anywhere. No pictures, no collectible figurines, no wacky color palettes.

The house could be filled and vacated with a minimum of effort, ready for the next inhabitant.

That was how it worked for most of us.

Witch children weren’t like most kids. Minor enchantments are taught to kids who aren’t even old enough to attend school. It isn’t until later, in the early teen years, that aptitudes and talents start to emerge. At that point, most witches are moved from their homes to places where they can hone their particular gifts. Thus the need for temporary housing like this.

It wasn’t an entirely infallible system, though. The five of us were the exception—grouped together in one backwoods town after another, trying to keep us out of sight and out of mind.

If we went strictly based on skills, Cole would be down South learning illusions, Bailey would be in the Midwest learning evocations, and Jenna and I would be in D.C. Supposedly, we both had the kind of qualities that would have made us logical choices to join the Witchers. And

Malcolm … well if he had his way, he’d be going to a normal high school, dealing with normal teen stuff.

“I’m taking the master bedroom,” Jenna’s voice floated down from the second floor. We were claiming bedrooms already? I tore up the stairs, only to find that Quinn had beat me, too. He was standing in front of what I assumed was the back bedroom, shaking his head at Jenna.

“You can fight over one of the others,” he said. “I don’t care who goes where.” He cocked his head to the side. “But you might prefer the one down the hall.”

She rolled her eyes, a hand on her hip. “And why would I want that one?”

I worked it out faster than she did and started to laugh, remembering the two giant trees outside the house. Both of them turned to look at me. “The trees,” I said to her. “He heard about Birmingham.” Jenna had managed to make two of the trees grow enough that she could sneak in and out easily, climbing the limbs almost like a ladder.

“Oh, this is going to be fantastic,” Jenna grumbled, spinning around and striding into her new room. She was too classy to slam the door, but there was a definite emphasis to the way the lock clicked into place a few seconds later.

Five

“No one knows why a coven bond forms. Sherrod, Diana, Cyrus, and Emily—they were the beginning. Within days, Brandon Sutter had moved to town, and the bus carrying the runaway Haley Spencer broke down just outside the city limits. Then they were six.

Complete.”

Moonset: A Dark Legacy

The next few days were a mess of activity: clothes shopping, bickering, new cell phones, more bickering, toiletries, at least one sob session, and school supplies. Usually when we left a place, we were allowed to keep some things, but with the way we left Byron, we’d had to leave it all behind.

It wasn’t that difficult for me, because there was nothing I’d had that I’d been particularly attached to, but the girls and Cole were a little harder hit.

“My PS3,” he’d wailed.

Kelly, Bailey’s guardian, had gone with her and Jenna for an entire day. “Outlet shopping,”

Jenna said with only a touch of her usual acerbic flair.

After everything had finally calmed down, we all fell into usual routines.

Monday, Mal and I ended up in the kitchen first thing in the morning. The shower was running upstairs, but I couldn’t figure out if it was Jenna or Quinn who’d woken before noon. Some days it was a toss-up.

We weren’t starting school until after the first of the year, which meant there were two weeks of relative peace before Jenna’s next campaign started. Every school was a little different—

sometimes, she wanted out immediately; other times she didn’t mind a little patience. Only time would tell which one Carrow Mill would be.

“Nick says there’s a gym somewhere in town; I was thinking about checking it out. You want to go?” Mal asked from his spot at the table. I sat across the room from him on one of the barstools set alongside the counter like a breakfast nook. He’d pulled a bowl of grapes out of the fridge and kept playing games, tossing them in the air and catching them in his mouth.

Every time he missed, he looked at me pointedly, like I was the one that was supposed to dig under the oven for the lost grape.

There was coffee brewing, but it wasn’t brewing nearly fast enough.

I shook my head. “It’s too early for working out.”

Mal snorted. There was no such thing in his world. He drummed a steady rhythm against the counter. Rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat. “So what’s he like? The new guardian?”

What was Quinn like? I still didn’t know. “Hard to say. What about yours?”

“Nick’s all right,” Mal admitted. “I think he’s got a thing going on with Cole’s guardian. Kelly, right?”

I nodded.

“But they’ve gotta keep it quiet. Can’t be fraternizing with your co-workers, and all that. But anyway, he said you guys getting Quinn is pretty lucky. Apparently, he’s a big deal.”

“He didn’t freak out about the wraith,” I admitted. “Not like Virago.”

“Yeah, but Nick made it sound like he’s a big deal. More than just ‘I killed a wraith and I liked it.’”

“Who?” Quinn asked, striding into the kitchen.

“You,” Mal admitted shamelessly, popping another grape into his mouth.

“Then I need coffee,” Quinn grunted. “Don’t you guys have anything better to do than gossip about the well-mannered gentleman down the hall?”

“The same well-mannered gentleman torturing Jenna with the Christmas house?” Mal asked, raising an eyebrow. “I heard she came home from shopping and you put a mini tree in her room.”

Quinn’s face was impassive, save for a crinkle at the corners of his eyes. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“Anyway, Justin made the coffee,” Mal warned.

Quinn winced in reply, dropping the hand that had been reaching for the coffee pot.

“Screw you guys, I make good coffee!” I protested.

“No,” Mal said patiently, “you make a perfect vessel for your milk and sugar. That’s not coffee.”

Quinn grunted a quiet agreement.

“Justin and I were heading into town. You can tag along,” Mal offered, suppressing a grin.

“Maybe even help little Justin find a girlfriend this time.”

I punched him in the arm, but the problem was that Mal’s arms were the size of tree trunks and about as hard. I walked away wincing.

“Justin’s never had a girlfriend?”

Great, now even Quinn was getting in on it.

“I’ve had girlfriends,” I protested. I … had. It was just difficult.

“None of them pass the Jenna test,” Mal admitted.

Quinn looked confused. “The Jenna test? What? She has to approve?”

“She has a tendency to destroy the kinds of girls who also happen to like Justin.”

“That was one time!” I argued. There’d been a girl when we lived near the Chesapeake Bay.

Her name was Amanda, and she was a cheerleader. That was her first strike. The second was that she was blonde. And the third was that she dared to be more than a stereotype: an airhead that wouldn’t understand when Jenna was mocking her.

Amanda stood up to her at first, but Jenna played dirty, and by the time we left at the end of the month, Amanda wouldn’t even meet my eyes in the hallway.

“There’s a diner,” Quinn said abruptly, changing the subject. “I’m in the mood for breakfast.”

He glanced at me. “One thing I will miss about D.C.? Starbucks.”

“There’s a coffee shop on Main Street,” Mal said, stretching up and out of his chair.

“And there’s a coffee pot right there,” Quinn said, pointing. “Doesn’t mean anything. I happen to like paying nine dollars for a coffee.”

Half an hour later, Mal and I walked into Shortway’s Diner while Quinn stayed outside taking a phone call.

“You feel bad about leaving Cole behind?” Mal asked as he pushed the door open and we were greeted by a blast of humid air. The diner was straight out of the fifties. Black and white checkered floor tiles, red booths, waitresses in poodle skirts.

“He’ll go bother Jenna, it’ll be fine,” I said with a grin.

“If she doesn’t kill him first,” Mal said.

I laughed. “It’s a rite of passage that big sisters torment their little brothers.”

“Jenna never tormented you.”

I leveled a stare at Mal. “Really?” I asked, voice flat.

He scoffed. “You’ve always been too sensitive.” We walked up to the counter and sat down at the bar rather than wait for a table. “Hey, check it out,” he said, nudging me and pointing back at the entrance.