Quill’s embrace as he bent over her neck, his fangs extended, eyes as red as blood.
In one instance, Ava’s gaze met Callie’s and she distinctly heard her grandmother’s voice, again admonishing her that she was in danger. And then, in a bizarre twist, Callie and her grandmother became one.
Just before she woke up, Quill came to her, his presence so vital, his touch so intoxicating, she was certain he was really there, in her bed, holding her close, his hands learning the contours of her body while he rained kisses over her brow, her cheeks, the curve of her throat.
She woke with a start when he bit her.
Heart pounding, she glanced around the room. Had he really been there? Perhaps it had been a mistake to invite him into her home. The websites she had visited said you could uninvite a vampire merely by saying his name and revoking his invitation. Did that work on Hungarian vampires, as well? Should she try it? Would it make him angry if he found out? How would she explain her decision to do so?
A glance at the bedside clock showed it was a little after 7 AM. Snuggling back under the covers, she closed her eyes, but sleep eluded her. Sitting up, she propped a pillow behind her head.
Quill was convinced Grandma Ava had been a witch. If he was right, it explained a lot of peculiar goings-on that Callie had accepted without question as a child—like the fact that Ava had always appeared to be much younger than she was, and that meals had, on occasion, appeared on the table seemingly out of thin air. There had been times when a murmured word from Ava had warmed the water in the teakettle, even when it wasn’t on the stove. She remembered that she had always had clean clothes even though she didn’t remember ever seeing Ava use the washer or dryer.
Perhaps the strangest memory of all was Ava telling Callie that she must never, ever tell anyone her full name. When she’d asked why, Ava had whispered that giving someone your full name gave them power over you. What kind of power, Callie had no idea. As a little girl, she hadn’t given any thought to these bizarre incidences, but had merely assumed that everyone’s grandmother could do the same things.
Closing her eyes, Callie remembered how she had tried to turn water from the hose into chocolate milk and unleashed a ball of fire that had burned down Ava’s wooden wishing well. At least Callie thought she had done it. The memory was hazy. She had vague memories of other incidents, like the time she’d wished really hard that one of the boys in third grade would trip and fall into a snowbank, and he had. When she’d mentioned that and other odd happenings to Ava, her grandmother had blithely explained them all away.
Funny, Callie thought, how, as she had gotten older, she had forgotten all those queer events. Why had she remembered them now? If Grandmother Ava was in fact a witch, why had she kept the knowledge from Callie?
She felt a chill as a new thought crossed her mind. Was being a witch inherited, like hair color and blood type? If so, was she, herself, a witch?
Suddenly restless, Callie slipped out of bed and headed for the kitchen, where she filled a teapot with cold water and set it on the counter. Focusing on the kettle, she whispered the words her grandmother had used, then shook her head. What was she doing? She wasn’t a witch.
Callie turned toward the door, intending to go back to bed, when a shrill whistle made the hairs on her arms stand up. Whirling around, she saw a cloud of steam rising from the spout. Still doubting, she touched the side of the kettle, let out a yelp of pain when it burned her fingers.
Murmuring, “Oh, Lord, maybe I am a witch,” she dropped into one of the kitchen chairs.
Why hadn’t her grandmother told her the truth?
Callie mulled it over as she prepared breakfast, but she couldn’t think of a single good reason why Ava had hidden the truth from her. Sure, it might have been hard to explain about witches and witchcraft when Callie was a child, but Ava could have let her in on the secret later, when Callie was old enough to understand. Why hadn’t she?
The question niggled at the back of her mind while she ate, and later, while she was