AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Oh, cranberries.
Without a moment’s hesitation, I scooped Asher back into his jar and placed him as carefully as I could by the side of my bed. I dove into my bed and switched the bedside light off, Hecate curling up under the duvet with me.
My bedroom door opened with a spine-tingling creak.
Chapter Six
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to breathe normally as silence fell.
Though I couldn’t see who it was, only my grandmother would check up on me. What must have been thirty seconds felt like an hour under her fierce scrutiny. After an endless period, the door finally creaked shut, but I still waited until her footsteps had disappeared before I turned on the light.
“You see how difficult it is to get a minute’s peace around here?” I grabbed the jar and placed it on my bedside table. “I’m going to need at least half an hour to make a potion.”
Asher wobbled around inside, pressing himself to the side of the jar for stability. But when Hecate poked her head out from under the covers, he stumbled back and fell on his butt.
“Well, luckily for you, you’re in the presence of an expert stealthatician,” he said.
I chewed the inside of my cheek as Hecate curled into me for cuddles, and I obliged, scratching her under the chin. “Stealth...a, what?”
“You might have noticed I’ve had nothing to do around here.” Asher stood up, rubbing his behind. “So I’ve been keeping tabs on your family’s schedule, in case it came in handy. And I’ve noticed that there’s a good two hours between three and five am where nobody is walking the corridors. That’s your chance.”
I rolled the idea around in my head for a few moments.
No matter how much of an ass Asher was - huh, Asser was a better name for him - didn’t I have a moral responsibility to release him? If I hadn’t discovered that my grandmother was suppressing my powers, maybe I would have thought twice. But something wasn’t right with all this and I had to get to the bottom of it.
Perhaps, with Asher and Hecate’s help, I could get my grandmother to let me in on why she wanted to keep my powers concealed. Hecate hadn’t just warned me about what my grandmother was doing, but she had led me to Asher. As a spiritual creature, Hecate wouldn’t lead me astray. As uncomfortable as it made me feel, I had to escape this place, even if I had nowhere else to go.
“Fine,” I said. “Three am tomorrow, I’ll make your potion. But only if you help me get out of here.”
“Deal.” Asher pointed at the blanket on the bed. “Would you at least shove something more comfortable in here? I’m sick of sleeping on glass.”
I reached over and grabbed the blanket, feeding half of it into the glass. The other half stuck out at a weird angle, but Asher plumped up what he could reach and curled up on it. Hecate had already taken her place as little spoon in my bed and stretched as I turned the light off.
I’d never had a sleepover before, but something told me having a Grimalkin and a shrunken siren present wasn’t exactly typical. But I couldn’t deny the warm feeling they gave me just by being there.
* * *
I awoke with a resolve I had never felt before. Perhaps speaking with Asher and Hecate had broken a glass ceiling in my mind. Being kept here when I wanted nothing more than to go out and live my own life suddenly felt like a cage that I now had the key to.
After a shower and dressing, I gave Hecate one last pet before heading down to breakfast, leaving Asher snoring softly in his jar.
My heart pounded all the way through breakfast, and not because I sneaked rashers of bacon into a napkin whenever nobody was looking. Grandmother chatted with my aunt across the table, ignoring me like always, except to slide the potion I was supposed to take across the table.
I eyed it but didn’t reach for it. Knowing now what it did made me feel sick, and the questions it raised burned so fiercely within me. But my heart’s frantic beating warned me of the repercussions if I asked my grandmother what all this truly meant.
Despite the sheen of sweat all over my body, and the veritable palpatations, I finally forced the words past my lips.
“Grandmother,” I said, my voice croaking up my dry throat. “What does this potion do?”
My aunt’s knife and fork slipped from her hands and clattered onto her plate. Every head turned in my direction and every pulse in my body threatened to burst.
“You know what it does, Beatrix,” my grandmother said, her tone laced with ice. “It’s supposed to help your powers emerge. Of all the good it appears to be doing.”
“Well...that’s what I want to talk about,” I said. “If the potion isn’t working, maybe it’d be okay if I stopped taking it for a little while...just to see...?”
I trailed off as my grandmother’s pupils turned to pinpricks. “Absolutely not. Without that potion, your situation will only get worse.”
“But what if there’s a chance it doesn’t?” I asked. “I want to go out into the world and find a place for myself and-“
