Kaleb sits down next Connor on the couch, careful not go through Felix. Resting his forearms on his knees, hands dangling between them, he twists to look into my eyes.
“No matter what you share, you’ll still be Callie to us,” he assures, echoing what I said to him at the party.
“Yeah, the cool nerdy girl that blows stuff up when she’s mad,” Felix adds with a wobbly smile.
“Or knocks it down with gale force winds,” Donovan mutters from the kitchen.
Kaleb groans, pinching the bridge of his nose, but the teasing has the desired effect. I laugh, and the winds settle.
“Alright, I’ll try,” I whisper, closing my eyes and taking deep even breaths.
“I’ll go get Nolan,” Donovan announces before heading out the front door.
With the adrenaline no longer fueling me, I hiss with pain and pull my necklace out from under my shirt.
“What’s wrong?” Kaleb asks, noticing me wince.
“So good news bad news about the necklace,” I answer with a tight smile. “Good news, it’s kept half the town from going boom. Bad news, it gets wicked hot doing it, so when my magic surges, it burns my skin. But I’m fine, really.”
“Ooooh,” Felix responds, the word taking on several syllables, and sits back on his heels. “That’s why you were looking down your shirt. Ouch.”
I nod listlessly, and Connor growls, his body tensing beneath me.
“Small price in the grand scheme,” I sigh, rubbing his back to soothe him. “Hopefully, this isn’t a permanent feature, but more because of the binding spell.”
“May I?” Kaleb asks, motioning toward my necklace.
“Yeah, it should be fine now,” I answer. “It cools pretty fast after I’ve calmed down.”
Connor turns his head and sneezes.
“And now I know why,” I sigh, while Felix and Kaleb try to suppress their laughter.
Kaleb gently handles the stone hanging around my neck, his thumb rubbing across its smooth surface. “This absorbs your magic and then expels it safely?”
“As far as I understand it,” I answer with a shrug. “It’s some super important family heirloom. Even has a wolf carved onto the back of it.”
Felix crowds Kaleb to get a better look and comments, “The color swirls kind of remind me of the Avatar nations and how each element was color coded. You know, the fire nation was red, the earth nation was green, the water nation blue, and the air nation was yellow.”
“That’s a cartoon,” Kaleb groans, releasing the stone so it once again hangs loosely around my neck, “and furthermore, the last color is white, not yellow.”
“Thank you, Captain Literal,” Felix quips with an eye roll. “All I’m saying is spirit witches control all the elements, and this big family heirloom just coincidentally has colors that are associated with those elements.”
“If this thing is special to spirit witches, maybe it’ll be in the journal. We could all…” I’m interrupted by Donovan and Nolan entering through the front door, both of their expressions braced for what they’re about to hear.
Right, details about what happened to me. This is going to be fun.
“Mildred is still dealing with the cops outside,” Donovan informs us.
Nolan adds, “We can wait for her if you want.”
I shake my head, guilt weighing heavily inside me. It’s selfish, but I’m not ready for her to know how bad it was. All the horror her sister’s husband inflicted on their only daughter.
While they grab chairs from the kitchen table, forgoing the single armchair or the couch, I reposition myself so I’m no longer clinging to Connor, instead sitting in his lap and fully facing the others. His arms wrap around my waist, and it feels like I’m having a flashback to less than a week ago.
Donovan and Nolan move the coffee table and sit in front of me, Kaleb stays on my right on the couch, and Felix sits on the floor by my feet. All of them are silently waiting for me to start.
It hurts too much to look into their faces as I tell them more of my truth, so my gaze shifts to one of the kitchen windows. Outside, the winds are now gentle. There are bits of sunlight making their way through the clouds and dappling across the myriad of fall colors among the maple, fir, and pine trees.
