Colors by You

Chapter 4

"Took you long enough," Kim's voice echoed across the house as I stomped through. The back doors were swung open and she stood on her terrace, the fire pit roaring. Those twin mulberry candles on the dining table burned with eerily still flames as I passed, an ominous sign that Nora's plan had gone into motion.

"How long do we have?"

"Those two will be writhing on the floor by now. We need to do this now."

I dropped my stuff on the ground, standing next to her. We got to work, reciting the incantation in unison. With the final utterance, the bags unceremoniously blimped into existence on her patio table. No muss or fuss. Just neat and simple, like most of Kim's magic.

The bags seemed ordinary, like the slightly ominous kinds Kim used to point at when I was young and say (in a voice more threatening than most dark magic I'd seen) 'Do. Not. Mess. With. It'. The black fabric was marked with runes and twine that looked like it had been dipped into some substance. That was it. No smell or glow or particularly dark clue, and yet there was something off. My stomach coiled, an instinctive feeling settling deep into my bones from just the sight of them. It felt cold and sinister.

"Don't touch them," she warned.

"I wasn't planning on it," I shivered. "What kind of magic is that? I've never felt anything like it."

Kim's lips pressed into a grim line as she stuffed her hands into heavy duty oven mitts. "It's her malice mixed with the dark." Grabbing a pair of plastic tongs, she gingerly picked up the two bags at once. I gave her a wide berth as she dumped them into the fire. The tongs and her gloves immediately followed suit.

"There," she watched the rising flames with a satisfied look. "Easy part's done."

"How do we know she won't plant another hex bag?"

"We don't." She strode back into the house, retrieving the bangles. "We have to get to her before she tries."

"At least we only need to get one on her for this to work," I sighed, accepting a bangle.

"I figured with two we could better our odds." She met my gaze with a razor sharp look. "Nora Jean won't take kindly to anyone meddling in her work. Best case scenario is that we take her by surprise."

"But she'll probably expect someone's coming now," I ventured. Kim nodded, going to rummage through her cabinets. She returned with a rolled up sheet about the length of her arm, laying it out flat on her dining table. It was a map of the town.

"All the more reason for us to work fast. Match." She pointed to the little box. I passed her the box and she set one alight, reciting a locator spell before throwing it over the map. In seconds the entire perimeter was covered in flames, the old paper quickly beginning to shrivel and ashen at the edges. It shrunk in size, the center of the circle drawing west. Instead of centering on one location, the flames converged in the middle, drawing a line down the center of the remaining paper.

"The hell?" Kim's eyes widened.

A pair of circles formed, rapidly decreasing in size until the flames went out. Two pieces of the map remained. One was a residential area. The other had a plot of land, like a small field.

"Did you do it wrong?" I asked, dumbfounded.

"Of course not. Nora Jean must have done something to throw off trackers."

"But if she warded herself, the entire map would've burned," I said, confused. "Are these just dummy locations to throw people off?"

"I think we're looking at a trap," Kim said, eerily calm. "That spot is her old house. The other is our old high school." She pointed between the pieces.