Once Upon a Charmed Time Page 13

  I looked over at Nicolas and then at Liam. They still had their eyes closed, concentrating on the spell. Perhaps that was what I should be doing too. I closed my eyes, waiting for the signal that the spell had worked.

  It was then that I felt the air thicken. I opened my eyes to see light swirling and popping sparkles coming from the top of the cauldron. The energy around me was noticeably thicker and the floor vibrated under our feet, only slightly though. Nothing like an earthquake or anything. I looked around the room to see if I could find out where this image was going to appear.

  It had to be somewhere. It was like I was playing seek-and-find. I looked to the window thinking that maybe it would pop up there, but there was nothing. I looked down at the water and an image started to appear. It was really faint and I couldn’t make out anything at first, but the longer I watched the more it started to show.

  I didn’t want to take my eyes off of it for fear that I might miss it. Two people appeared and it looked as if one was a man and one was a woman. Come on, hurry up and work, spell. I had to know who these people were. If I didn’t find their identity at least I would have their faces in my mind.

  The mist became clearer and that was when the faces came into view. Yes, it was all crystal clear now, and I couldn’t believe who I saw. It was Cameron with the man. They had the potion bottles. If she had lied to us all along and she really was behind all of this then I didn’t know where to go from here. I couldn’t believe she had been so deceitful and that I had fallen for it. I couldn’t trust anyone. When would I learn not to trust people? We had to go back and find her immediately and put a stop to all this.

  I looked up at the others and we all stood silent. I was sure they were just as shocked as me. Victoria probably was even more shocked. She had been around Cameron a lot more than I had.

  “I never suspected or thought she could be deceiving me,” Victoria said.

  I wondered if Victoria thought I was suspicious of her.

  “I didn’t think that you did,” I said. “It’s okay. We’ll find her. Don’t worry.”

  Victoria looked as if she might be sick. The wind died down and the light show fizzled out and so did the image. It was okay though. We’d already seen it now. We knew Cameron was behind this and we had to find her again.

  “Shall we go now?” Nicolas asked.

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  We hurried for the door at the same time. Victoria offered to drive her car this time, which I was all for. I didn’t want to be stuffed into that tiny rental any more than I had to be. We slid into her Mercedes S550, which was luxurious. The legroom in the back of the car was amazing, although I sat up in front with her while the guys sat in the back. I’d sat in the back for a second to check it out. This was like driving on a cloud. We rolled up to the house and the gate was closed, of course.

  Acting as if absolutely nothing was wrong, Victoria sent a text to Cameron. After a couple of minutes with no response we started to get worried that maybe Cameron was somehow onto us. But how would that have happened? She’d seemed like she had no suspicion of us before. Victoria tried to dial her number, but she still didn’t answer and it went to voicemail.

  “How are we going to get in?” I asked.

  “Well, we could jump the fence,” Liam said.

  “Have you seen the length of my legs?” I asked.

  He winked and said, “I’ve noticed.”

  I kinda blushed at that and Nicholas punched him in the arm.

  “Anyway, I can’t climb that thing. I’m too short. I would need a huge boost to get over that.”

  “We don’t all have to climb. Just one of us can climb the fence and then go up to the house to find her.”

  “It sounds kind of risky. What if she’s on to us and does something?”

  “I suppose that’s the chance we have to take,” Nicolas said. “I’ll go.”

  Nicolas opened the door and jumped out before I had a chance to say anything or to get him to stop. Liam opened the car door and hopped out too.

  “I have to go with him. I can’t let him do that by himself.”

  We watched as Liam went over and joined Nicolas at the gate. Now it was just Victoria and me. I was a little nervous sitting in the car. I kinda got a strange vibe from somewhere, but I wasn’t sure where I was picking it up from. I tapped my fingers against the car seat.

  “I wonder how long it’ll take them,” I said.

  “I’m sure things are fine,” she said.

  They had climbed the gate easily. Didn’t Cameron have more security than that? Wouldn’t she know that someone had gone on to her property now?

  “I’ll try to give her another call,” Victoria said, dialing the number.

  Of course there was no answer this time either. I hadn’t expected that there would be. I was getting nervous so I dialed Nicolas’ number. He didn’t answer so then I dialed Liam. He didn’t answer either. Okay, I was starting to freak out. Maybe we could just take her car and ram the gate. No, I doubted Victoria wanted to do that to her Mercedes or even a junker car for that matter. I’d have to think of another plan with a spell. I couldn’t do that though. Yeah, that was right, my magic wasn’t working right. That wouldn’t go over well.

  Just as I was really starting to freak out I spotted the guys. They were coming back. We watched as they hopped over the fence, making it look easy. They rushed back to the car and jumped in the backseat.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “She’s gone,” Nicolas said.

  “What do you mean gone?” I asked.

  “I mean gone. There’s no furniture. Nothing. The house is completely empty, as if she was never there at all.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. How did she even do that that quickly?”

  “I suppose it was magic,” Victoria said.

  Now I knew Cameron was involved in this, and I knew that she knew we knew. Who knew where she had gone or how we would ever find her now. That meant not finding her and the other witches still wouldn’t have their magic back. There was no telling what other chaos she would cause in the meantime.

  Just then my phone rang and I saw that it was Detective Manning.

  “Do you have any news for us?” I asked when I picked up.

  “I do have some information about this guy Dalton,” he said. “I guess it’s not so much his information as to the fact that we can’t find anyone by that name.”

  “Nobody at all?” I asked.

  “Nobody at all, but we did go by the address you gave us for him. No one was there of course.”

  I could have told him that.

  Chapter 23

  We wanted to go to Dalton’s place and check it out for ourselves. Maybe by some weird coincidence he would be there, although I wasn’t holding out much hope. That was really the only thing we could do right now. We stuffed ourselves into the tiny toy car.

  “I think I saw a car just like this at Toys ‘R’ Us,” Nicolas said.

  “Oh, shut up. When have you ever been to Toys ‘R’ Us?” Liam asked.

  “Actually, we were there just a few weeks ago to pick up a toy for one of the coven members’ son’s birthday party,” I said.

  Nicolas laughed.

  Liam scoffed. “Are we going to discuss toys or are we going to talk about this witchcraft problem that we have?”

  “We’re on our way to Dalton’s, aren’t we?” I said, giving Liam a wink.

  That worked because he couldn’t hold back a smile when I did that. Soon we pulled up in front of Dalton’s house and got out of the car. Everything was quiet as I had expected, but there was something else unusual about the house. It was something different about the façade and I didn’t quite know what. That was until we got up to the door and discovered that it was unlocked and open just a little bit. That seemed to be the case with this place now, so when I stepped inside and saw that all the furniture was gone, I was completely shocked. The blinds were missing from the windows and that w
as what had made the outside look so different.

  “What the hell is going on in here?” Liam asked.

  “I guess he decided to move out without telling anyone,” Nicolas said.

  “This is bizarre,” I said. “We were just here and it was all normal, and now it looks as if no one has lived here for years.”

  Nothing was making sense about any of this and I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. We walked through the entire house and every room was empty. There was absolutely no sign of Dalton or that he had ever been there. I stood at the living room window looking out.

  “Well, what are we do now?” Nicolas asked.

  I noticed a neighbor next door. “I think we should go ask him if he saw anything.”

  “I think that’s a really good idea,” Nicolas said.

  We all left the house and headed toward the neighbor. He was in the driveway washing his car. When the guy saw us headed his way he frowned. He probably thought we were trying to sell something or handing out religious pamphlets.

  “Good afternoon,” I said.

  “Hello.” He spoke reluctantly.

  “We would like to ask you some questions about your neighbor. If you don’t mind.” I glanced over at the house.

  “Yeah? What about my neighbor?”

  “Did you see him leaving or moving in the middle of the night?”

  He put the water hose down. “I haven’t seen anybody over there in ages, so I’m not sure who you’re talking about. Then again, I travel a lot so maybe I’m not exactly the best person to ask.”

  “His name is Dalton?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Yeah, maybe that was it. I don’t know. I think that there was a woman.”

  “Really? That’s interesting.”

  Nicolas and I exchanged a look.

  “He never mentioned a woman,” Liam said.

  But it wasn’t as if we had talked to him all that much. We barely knew anything about him or his personal life, other than he had been chained up in a house and was a witch. That was about all we knew.

  “Oh, by the way, he did mention something about how he was practicing witchcraft and whoever the woman was, she wasn’t really into it all that much. She tried to get him to stop all the time.”

  “Do you happen to remember her name?” I asked.

  I knew this would be a long shot.

  “Actually, I do remember her name because she was always trying to talk to me every time I came outside. She was the real flirty type,” he said.

  “Okay, so what was her name?”

  “Cameron, though I don’t know her last name.”

  We looked at each other in shock. There was no way that that could be a coincidence. Now we were on to something. She had been shown in the spell and she was now connected to Dalton.

  “I wish I could help you out more,” the neighbor said.

  “Thanks anyway,” I said.

  “Good luck on whatever you’re trying to do.”

  We walked away from him. I was excited over the new clue.

  “I suppose we need to find Cameron now too,” Nicolas said.

  “I guess they left together,” I said.

  “There was one thing though. The guy said she wasn’t into witchcraft and had tried to get him to stop. That really doesn’t add up now, does it?” Liam said.

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  I received a call from the detective. “I wanted to ask more questions about this man, Dalton,” the detective said.

  “Sure, what would you like to know?” I asked. “Though I don’t know much about him.”

  “Well, you say you untied him from the basement.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “I’ve been asking around and some people say there was another case like this with a man named Dalton.”

  “That’s odd,” I said.

  “And it was at the exact house where you said you found him. But there is one difference,” he said.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “The one you found is alive. The other man died in that house.”

  No, it couldn’t be possible. I had done magic in the basement, but I’d thought my days of messing up spells were over. I supposed I could be completely wrong. Actually, it was likely that I was completely wrong. Could I have reanimated Dalton?

  “The person who was killed in that house, when did it happen?”

  “It was about six months ago,” he said. “Anyway, let me know if you get any more information about this man.”

  “Yeah, absolutely,” I said.

  I couldn’t exactly tell him that I thought I’d reanimated a ghost and that there weren’t two Daltons who had been victims of the exact same crime. I knew the detective had to be confused. Who wouldn’t be faced with information like that? He knew I was a witch, but for someone to believe that I could reanimate the dead, that was just too much to grasp. So for now I would just keep that to myself.

  “How’s everything else going?” he asked.

  “It’s okay, I suppose. It would be better if I could find my friend.”

  “You know I’ll help any way I can. Just let me know, all right?”

  He could help by actually filing a missing person report.

  “Thank you, I appreciate that.”

  Now I had to tell the others what I’d done. It was completely embarrassing though. I supposed I could make sure first before I told them. I was almost positive that was what had happened. It had probably happened when I’d done the spell in the basement, but it all seemed so real. I supposed Dalton was with the living now, so that would make sense of why it seemed real. I didn’t want to keep anything from everyone, so I would just sit down and explain what had happened and take my embarrassment like the leader of the Underworld should.

  ***

  They were all in my hotel room when I entered and walked over to them. They immediately noticed something was off with me.

  “What’s wrong?” my mother asked.

  “Actually, there is a little bit of something, but nothing really bad.” I waved my arms around. I always did that when I got nervous.

  “I don’t think I can handle bad news.” My mother pressed the back of her hand to her forehead as if she might faint.

  “Everybody, I just wanted to tell you about my magic.” I paced across the floor.

  “What do you mean your magic? It’s wonderful other than that little thing, but that will pass and then you’ll be good again.”

  I turned to face them again. “No, actually I reanimated someone again.”

  “Dalton. I knew it,” Nicolas said.

  “I thought something was up with him,” Liam said. “When he disappeared like that.”

  “I guess I did it in the basement. He died six months ago and now as soon as I go down there and do a spell he comes back to life. That’s not a coincidence.”

  “It is magical. Maybe some people are supposed to come back and you’re just helping them along.”

  “Well, I guess I never thought about it that way.” That did make me feel better.

  “You have a gift,” my mother said with glee.

  If it turned out not to be the truth she would still say it was. Now in her eyes I had special powers. And I would just let her believe that if it made her feel better.

  “So I guess this doesn’t change anything though. We still don’t know where everyone is. So it really makes no difference,” I said.

  “Oh, I have to tell all of my friends about your special powers,” my mother said as she jumped up from the chair.

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea. Maybe we should keep this under wraps just for a while until we find out what’s going on and where Dalton is, okay?”

  Disappointment overwhelmed her as her bottom lip moved down. “Well, if you insist.”

  At least I felt better now that I’d gotten that off my chest. I didn’t like keeping things from them, and especially from Nicolas, since he was going to be my husband. If we eve
r got a chance to get married with all of this chaos going on around us.

  We sat down to discuss our plan. I decided I needed to check in on LaVeau Manor since I hadn’t in a while. Addie probably wondered why I hadn’t called, but now that I had her I found myself less concerned with the manor and more concerned with finding my best friend. The phone rang and rang with no answer. I finally hung up, discouraged.

  “There was no answer,” I said.

  “Did you try her cell phone?”

  “No, not yet, but I will. Maybe she had to go out, I suppose.”

  After all, I couldn’t expect her to stay at the manor all the time without ever leaving. I dialed her cell phone, but it rang without her answering too. Finally it went to her voicemail.

  “It’s Hallie, call me when you can. I want to make sure everything’s okay.”

  Nicolas and Liam stared at me.

  “Was my voice too loud when I left the message?” I asked.

  “Only slightly less than normal. What’s gotten into you?” Liam asked.

  “I guess the stress is getting to me,” I said.

  “Well, don’t let it get to you because everything will be fine.” Nicolas pulled me close.

  It was sweet of him to say that but… After a few minutes I couldn’t handle it anymore and I dialed her number again. Of course there was no answer.

  “Okay, I’m really freaking out now. Why doesn’t she answer her cell?”

  “If it would make you feel better you could have someone go by and check on her,” Liam said.

  “That’s a great idea. Yes, of course, why didn’t I think of that sooner?” I said.

  “It’s what I’m here for,” Liam said.

  I tapped my fingers against the table in contemplation. Perhaps that was the only thing I could do. “Who would I get to go check it out?”

  “Why don’t you call Stephanie? She lives close by,” Nicholas said.

  “That’s a great idea. I bet she’d do it for me.” I punched in her number and waited for an answer.