there. I moved toward the edge of the old barn, looking through the cracks in the walls to see my mother standing in the moonlight, shaking her head, saying something that I couldn't hear or understand. Didn't need to, really. I'd heard her say it plenty of times when she thought I was asleep.
She moved over to the fields, and I remembered just how it went. She whispered a few more words that I couldn't understand, holding her hands up over the fields, power crackling from her fingers as she reached out over the entire crop, tens of thousands of acres of corn just a few weeks away from being ready to harvest.
I could see the stalks starting to wither, going out like a wave, falling over themselves in a hushed rustle, coming down to the ground in an unstoppable wave, spreading out over the rest of the crop.
She turned away, running toward the barn and pulling the door open, starting to collect our meagre belongings.
"We need to go now," she called, stuffing her clothes into her old silver suitcase.
"Why?" I asked, still doing as I was told at the age of seven.
"Because we're not welcome here."
I snapped up from the bed, sucking in deep breaths, feeling the cool wind coming across my hair, pushing it back for me as I looked out of the window, narrowing my eyes.
"Mom knew a spell that could kill whole crops at a time," I whispered, standing up from the bed, pulling my pants and boots on before making my way to the door.
As ideas went, it wasn't anything that I would try unless I was truly desperate. Cretu would probably find a way to make her glares lethal if she found out that I was trying magic on the vines, but if there were hellhounds coming for us, it was time to break out all the tricks, even the ones that I wasn't sure I could perform.
Just like everything else in the world, destruction was so much easier than growing and bringing things to life, but the concept was sound. Mother killed the plants by suddenly draining them of all their resources, sending them back into the ground. It would have left the ground rich and ready to grow another crop, but the farmer would still find himself set back for years of debt because of the single failed crop.
"Mom always was a little too vindictive," I whispered to myself, moving out of the house, looking out into the sky, trying to make out what time it was. There was a hint of pink in the distance. "She had a very personal way of burning bridges, making sure we could never go back to certain places. Not your best move, Mom, but at least I learned a little something from it."
Dracul was still barking, and both Rog and Bram were standing close, watching and speaking quietly. I had a little time, since it didn't look like they were in any way as terrified as I would be of something called a hellhound.
I moved out into the vineyard, looking across the vines that were growing at a miraculous rate, tilting my head and taking a deep breath as I tried to figure out where to start.
The roots. I would be pouring the resources of the soil into them. Giving them all they needed to grow. There would be the matter of opening up the plants themselves, letting them take the nutrients in to the point of bursting, letting the excess flow out into as many grape clusters as possible.
"Simple, right?" I whispered to myself, holding my hands out, gathering the power in the air around me, sucking in a deep breath and slowly letting it out, reaching out for the plants all around me.
I winced, feeling a nearby hoe jump and crash into my shin.
"Son of a car-fucking bitch-wad," I hissed, looking down at my shin. A nasty bruise, but no cut, thankfully. Still, a terrible spot to accidentally injure myself. I was going to be limping around for at least a couple of hours.
No time. I closed my eyes again, reaching out into the air again, sucking in deep breaths.
It was no good. I was still distracted, angry about my shin. I heard something wooden splintering.
"Shit." I opened my eyes, seeing one of the posts had been ripped into, barely being held in place by the vine growing around it. "No, no, no, no, stay right there."
Quick work to gather some soil and