Wycked

By Shauna Granger

She's been manipulated, hunted, and caged, now Mattie is fed up and ready to take on the establishment. It is time for a regime change. It is time to expose the lies and crimes of those in charge.

At least that's what everyone else wants. Mattie just wants to avenge her parents' death and find a moment of peace. But in order to do that she will have to help her friends with their plans to overthrow the Los Angeles Coven and the Grand High Witch and her cronies.

But with nightmares and anxiety plaguing her, can Mattie do this and keep what little of her sanity she has left? She'll find out when she enters The Witch Trials of Los Angeles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shauna Granger
• Release date: Oct 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370913992

Shauna Granger

Shauna Granger lives in a sleepy little beach town in Southern California with her husband, John, and their goofy dog, Brody. Always fascinated by Magic, Shauna spent most of her teen years buried in books about fairies, elves, gnomes, spells, witchcraft, wizards and sorcery. When she's not busy working on the next installment of the Elemental Series she enjoys cooking, entertaining, MMA fight nights, watching way too much TV and coffee. Lots of coffee.

Book preview

Chapter One

With pain, there is no time or space; there is just before the pain and after—when it stops.

The world shattered around me with the percussive blast of a gunshot and breaking glass. I was blind with the explosion and deaf to anything but underwater echoes and pressure—pressure so strong that I knew, in a moment, my eardrums would rupture and blood would run down my neck and I would be deaf forever.

The world around me broke apart and I was unmoored for the first time in so long that I had no idea how long I’d been trapped. I thought I would fall. I thought that I would crash and my body would be splattered when I finally stopped falling. I expected more pain, though after so much pain, how can you measure what is more? It is just pain.

But there was something hard and cold under me. A floor. And I didn’t crash into it. I did not splatter. One moment I was suspended in the explosion, and the next, a floor was under my body as if I’d always been there. The floor was uneven; some spots were smoother than others, slick patches that my fingers wanted to trace, sending tingling sensations up my arms. Magic.

Shapes formed as my vision came back in stages, but I was becoming dizzy with the myriad of shapes and moving parts. I was on all fours—that much I could tell—trapped in a drawn circle decorated with runes. How could I not tell they were runes before? Of course they were runes. The lines were the smoother places on the floor, and the runes were the things making my skin tingle with familiar magic.

The pressure in my ears hurt, and soon all I could hear was a high-pitched tone. Not music, not a scream, just a tone that stole my hearing. And my body ached—it ached with bruises and cuts and a bone-deep soreness that I thought would never ease.

I pushed back to sit on my feet, hoping that my head would stop spinning if I looked up, if I righted myself. But as soon as I lifted my head, I was struck and fell over. That was a familiar feeling.

The room spun around me—because of course I was in a room—and my vision was blurry after looking through the panes and angles of a crystal for so long. Now that my crystalline prison was gone, I could see again. But my head ached and the noise was making it difficult to concentrate and get my bearings.

I tried to push myself up again, but my limbs were shaking from exhaustion and hunger. My stomach was something alive inside me, clawing at my spine.

There were voices, too many voices, all around me, and I realized too late that my hearing was coming back in waves, drowning out the high-pitched tone. But this was worse, so much worse. It made my head spin in the other direction, and I covered my ears, praying for quiet but not deafness. Among the voices, I heard animal noises—raw and primordial, the stuff of nightmares.

It was too much.

When I opened my eyes again, there were shapes and shadows and fire and light all around. I wanted to scream, to crawl away from it, because that had been my world for too long, but the circle held me in place. I couldn’t get away. I’d gone from one prison to another, and I had no idea what was happening to me.

Panic flashed through me, and my body became consumed with electric currents, my power bursting from me to protect me in the most basic, primal way.

Something struck me again, but before I could fall over, my power blasted from every inch of my body and struck my attacker.

The animal noises stopped.

Just like that, it was quiet.

And then I could understand the chanting. The voices, they were speaking as one, chanting the same thing over and over. The sound crept into my body, awakening me. Magic. The power around me was rising higher and higher, stronger and stronger, filling the room, filling me, and I knew the spell without knowing the words.

One voice rose higher than the rest, leading the chorus, and it was beautiful and terrible and I couldn’t take it. My hands covered my ears and my body folded in on itself until I was nothing but a little girl curled into a ball on the hard, cold floor, waiting for the nightmare to end.

The pressure in the room built, pressing at me on all sides, and I knew the four walls around us wouldn’t hold it much longer. Something had to give, and I was terrified it would be me.

Then the world exploded again.

I thought it would rip me apart that time. I thought that it was all—finally, blessedly—over.

But I was alive.

And the pressure was gone.

I lifted my head and slowly opened my eyes, unsure that I wanted to see what fresh hell would be my world this time.

But red and pink filled my vision. Hands were on my body, gently pulling me apart, touching my face, looking for wounds. They were familiar hands and smells and colors and I let them touch me, I let them pull me apart, I let them fill my vision.

I heard a familiar voice from far, far away, pulling at me like a lifeline, hooking me from falling over the edge of the cliff to insanity. I grabbed that lifeline; I pulled that voice into me and remembered who it was.

Ronnie’s voice, panicked and happy and terrified, spoke. Mattie! Mattie, you’re safe! We brought you back!

Chapter Two

The chair under me was overstuffed and so soft that I sank into it upon sitting. The blanket around my shoulders was fluffy and warm, but still, I was shivering. Artemis sat in my lap. His thick black fur and impressively wide body covered my lap as his aura melded with mine, trying to bring it back into balance. But still, I was shivering.

I had been so hot for so long that to be cold was strange and disconcerting.

I felt as though I would never be warm again. As if the very marrow in my bones had frozen and become like icy slush, bringing my core temperature dangerously low.

My vision had finally focused enough to keep my head from spinning, so as I sat there, I was able to look about the room without wanting to vomit. But I knew my eyes were a little too wide and I wasn’t blinking nearly enough, and when I did, I blinked for longer than was normal. But at least I could see again.

I was in a small, English-style cottage with too much overstuffed furniture for such a small place. But somehow it felt more cozy than crowded and I was happy for the close, sloping walls that kept in the heat from the fire under the giant cauldron swirling around us.

The cottage was basically one large room with only the furniture to delineate where one room stopped and another started. We were sitting in the living room area, where overstuffed chairs and a matching couch pointed at each other instead of a television. In the corner was an old, hand-crank gramophone with a large tulip-shaped horn that felt as if it were listening in on our conversation.

Past the sitting area was the cauldron and fire. The black, pot-bellied thing looked as though it was more than a century old, and I had to wonder at how many potions it had seen over the years. It sat over a well-tended fire of blue and green flames, so I knew they were of a magical origin and I didn’t need to worry about them leaping or embers popping and setting the cottage on fire. Over the cauldron, on a swinging iron hook, a blacked copper kettle was coming to a boil. I really hoped that someone was going to make me a cup of hot cocoa, because I was not interested in any amount of tea.

Taking up the entire back wall of the cottage was the kitchen. The stove and oven were as old and black as the cauldron, and a cluster of well-worn copper pots and pans hung from the ceiling. Plants hung from baskets, perfuming the air, along with the bundles of herbs drying on the window sill.

A large farm table with two heavy benches provided the only other workspace in the kitchen, and plates and bowls were already weighing down the ancient table. I doubted anything in the entire house had been bought or crafted within the last century.

When my eyes made it back around the cottage to the sitting area, they landed on Ronnie’s face and I realized she’d been talking this entire time and I hadn’t absorbed even a single word. There was a scrubbing noise behind me. I managed to look over my shoulder without shifting the blanket and saw Joey on all fours, furiously scrubbing the floor in the corner.

The soap suds were turning pink and shattered glass sat in a dust pan. When did we break glass? I glanced at my hands buried in Artie’s fur and saw red cuts on my skin. My knuckles were split open, and every line on my hands was traced in dried blood.

Mattie? Are you listening to me?

Ronnie’s voice was too loud to ignore and I realized that probably wasn’t the first time she’d said that sentence to me.

What? I replied, unable to think of a perfunctory apology for spacing out.

I was trying to tell you about what’s been happening since you’ve been gone, Ronnie said.

She was trying desperately to remain patient with me, I could tell, but her tone was starting to slip. Whatever stress she’d been under was finally coming to a head. But I couldn’t help how dizzy I still was. I couldn’t help how exhausted I was. And now that I’d looked at my hands, they were starting to hurt and that too was distracting.

Okay, I said, tearing my attention away from Joey, swallowing the question I wanted to ask—what was she cleaning?

Mattie, you’ve got to try to focus, Ronnie said as she took another calming breath. We don’t have a lot of time.

Before she could say any more, the back door in the kitchen opened, nearly slamming into the counter as a woman with rusty red hair came in with a wicker basket in her hands. The basket was piled with folded sheets and blankets and brought in the fresh scent of a breeze.

Stop badgering the poor girl, Veronica, the old woman said. She can’t even understand you right now. She set the heavy basket on the floor by the farm table before making her way to the cauldron.

Her hair was a mane of faded red curls shot through with strands of silvery-white. Her face was wide and flat with a smattering of freckles, and her eyes were the rich brown of freshly turned earth. Except for the color of her eyes, I knew I was staring at a vision of a future Ronnie, if we both lived as long as this woman had.

She was wider than Ronnie, her curves fuller than my best friend’s would ever be, which I still believed was due to some sneaky Fae blood Ronnie hadn’t admitted to yet. There was something so painfully familiar about the woman, but my mind just couldn’t sort through memories to figure out who she was.

Ronnie snapped her mouth shut, though by the press of her lips, I knew it was difficult for her to do so. But I was grateful for it, because the pain in my head was starting to blossom into a very impressive ache.

The old witch ladled out a portion of the potion bubbling away in the cauldron, pouring it into a ceramic mug. I could tell from where I sat that it wasn’t hot chocolate. She brought me the cup without saying a word, and I knew she meant for me to drink it.

I glanced at the mug and took a sniff. It was almost clear and had a pleasant, almost non-smell to it, as if I were about to drink hot water rather than a magical potion. Without a thought, I drank the whole cupful.

It took less than a moment for the potion to start to work, and I knew immediately it was a healing elixir—and a potent one at that.

She took the cup from me, and I saw the cuts on my hands were already starting to heal, the red lines becoming the same color as the rest of my flesh. The ache in my head was waning and the chill in my bones was melting away.

Slowly, my body stopped shaking as the cold let go of me. I glanced at the old witch’s face and immediately remembered her.

Grandmother Kilpatrick, I said, then remembered what we’d called her as children. My grandmother had always been Gran to us, and Ronnie’s was… Nan, I said with a smile that she returned.

There’s my girl, she said and her far-away accent changed the vowel in the last word.

Ronnie was her granddaughter, but she’d always said we were both her girls. After I lost my family, the Kilpatricks all took me in as though I was one of them, and they never missed a beat on making me feel welcomed and at home.

Grandmother Kilpatrick pulled out a handkerchief from her apron pocket and unwrapped a hunk of dark chocolate. She held it out for me to take and I didn’t hesitate.

But as soon as I bit into the salty sweetness, I realized just how hungry I was and ate the whole thing in two bites. The chocolate steadied my nerves and took away what was left of the edge of my headache.

As the chocolate and healing potion worked their combined magics on me, I glanced at my best friend. Her eyes were a little too wide and one eyebrow was cocked higher than the other, as if she was waiting for me to say something or react to something.

I furrowed my brows at her as I licked the schmear of chocolate from my fingers, silently asking her what her problem was. Slowly her other eyebrow rose, the surprise clear on her face. Maybe she didn’t realize just what I’d been through during my time in the crystal. I wasn’t up for mind-melding and silent, psychic conversations.

Her green eyes flicked away to look at her grandmother again, and after a moment, they came back to me.

Holy frogs! I yelled, nearly jumping out of my chair and knocking Artie to the floor. He made a low, grumbling noise and his claws crooked into the blanket, refusing to be tossed aside.

There it is, Ronnie mumbled.

Grandmother Kilpatrick! I yelled because it didn’t seem like I could stop myself from yelling. You’re dead! You’ve been dead! What are you doing here?

Nan looked at me, her lips pursed and her brows drawn together, clearly unimpressed with the level of my voice. I sank back into my overstuffed seat and tucked my chin, my shoulders inching up as I huddled in on myself, suddenly feeling very much like a five-year-old caught with her hand in the spell jar.

Sorry, I whispered. But… I swallowed, lifting my chin to look at the woman who was long since dead to us. You’re here. I mean, you are, aren’t you? Oh, for the love of toads, please don’t tell me she’s a ghost. Ronnie? Ronnie, is she a ghost? I can’t handle a ghost right now.

Because that wasn’t real chocolate she just gave you? Ronnie asked as Nan tsked at me.

Oh, right. I let my eyes find the face of the old witch who had once been much like a sister to my own grandmother. I don’t understand.

There’s a lot to tell you, Ronnie offered. She was making a weird face that was somewhere between a cringe and a grimace.

Like, ‘hey, by the way, remember how my grandmother died years ago? Yeah, she’s not really dead!’ You mean like that?

I didn’t know she wasn’t dead. Ronnie’s green eyes cut to her grandmother still standing very close to me.

I had to fight the urge to reach out and pinch Nan just to see if she really was corporeal, but the memory of how fast she was with a whack from her wand across our knuckles stayed my hand.

I don’t know what to say right now. I glanced between the two redheaded witches, feeling very much like I was drifting down a river that was about to end in a waterfall.

I know, Ronnie said with a slow shake of her head, and I had to wonder, if she hadn’t known Nan wasn’t dead, how much worse the shock had been for her.

I think it’s time for some food, Nan said.

Joey jumped up from the floor behind me, pulling my attention to her, and I realized that she had been scrubbing the circle and runes from the floorboards. How had I forgotten what was there in such a short amount of time?

I’ll go get food, Joey offered, darting forward.

Go get food? Nan said. Where do you plan to go? We have all we need in the kitchen, you silly thing.

What? Like, you mean, we’ll cook? Joey asked, her lavender eyes wide and tiny mouth parted in an O.

The old witch shook her head and lifted her eyes as if silently asking for patience. Not everyone lives on takeaway.

Embarrassed red glitter sifted from Joey to wink and disappear on the floorboards under her tiny feet. We just don’t cook too much at home. She scuffed her toe, trying to smudge out the little flecks of glitter that didn’t die right away.

Well here, we cook our food, Nan said, but she did so with a grandmotherly smile that went a long way to make Joey stop glittering. Come with me.

Joey bounced on her toes and darted to the old witch’s side to walk with her into the kitchen area. I reached one hand out to let my fingers dance through the lingering sparkling cloud that marked where Joey had stood. The sparkles were almost indiscernible to the touch, but they made my fingers glitter and I realized I was smiling as I watched my fingers move.

Ronnie coughed lightly. It wasn’t a real cough; nothing was caught in her throat. She wanted my attention. I let my hand linger in the dissipating cloud of glitter a moment longer until I knew I needed to look at my best friend. I needed to hear everything she was trying to tell me. I needed to ask her some questions of my own, and I needed to pay attention to the answers. Even if all I wanted to do was watch the glitter wink out bit by bit, eat a sandwich, drink a cup of hot cocoa, and then find a bed to sleep in.

Finally I turned my head and let my eyes find the face of my best friend. Ronnie’s forehead was pinched with worry and her lips were pursed like an annoyed cat, but she met my gaze. I expected her to launch back into her stream of words when I looked at her again, but amazingly, she didn’t. Probably because her grandmother was still within earshot and if there were any people you didn’t disobey, it was Grandmother Kilpatrick and Grandmother Kavanagh.

The thought of my late grandmother twisted something inside me, but I swallowed past that hurt. It was old and healed and I didn’t need to open that wound again. Not right now. And honestly? If I found out Gran really was alive after all these years, I think my mind would actually irreparably break.

So, I finally said, my voice sounding old and worn-out, like rocks in a dryer. How did you find me? It was strange to try to start a conversation, as odd as it was probably going to be anyway, with a woman not five feet away who was supposed to be dead.

Ronnie cleared her throat and adjusted on the couch, smoothing her hands over her dark tunic before she spoke, trying to keep her voice flat and matter-of-fact. We did a summoning. Once we decided it was worth trying, Nan was the one who broke open the crystal and freed you.

And freed the fury demon, I said, saying the part she didn’t want to speak.

Ronnie nodded just once, her green eyes flashing with anger and worry. But Nan managed to banish it. Her voice was still colored with fear, but pride at their accomplishment was pushing back that fear. Of course you blasting it the way you did certainly helped. It weakened the demon so we could overpower it in the end.

I remembered the flash of power crackling over my skin, and it made my body ache all over again. I needed food then all the rest I could manage. And maybe a few extra hours on top of that.

Summonings were class three felonies. Working with demons in any capacity was another class three felony. It said a lot about how desperate they must have become for Ronnie to break such serious laws.

It made me wonder, so I asked, How long have I been gone?

Ronnie’s voice had grown stronger the more she spoke and the wrinkle in her brow was smoothing out, but at that simple question, all the panic and anger came raging back. The red flush to her cheeks muted out her freckles and her eyes flashed again.

I didn’t want to hear her answer, but I had to.

You’ve been gone for a month.

Chapter Three

I could have stayed in the shower all night. At least then I wouldn’t have had to put on the borrowed clothes laid out for me. The dress was a patchwork of mismatched fabric and crocheted swatches. It hung on my body like a blanket, and the sleeves finished in huge bells that hung from my wrists. I looked like a witch who lived in a cottage in the woods, waiting for wayward children to find their way into my oven.

The hem of the dress dragged on the floor behind me as I walked, only letting my bare toes peek out for a moment before the whole thing swished forward to swallow my feet again. The colors of the dress looked like autumn leaves on the ground, and I almost expected woodland creatures to burrow under my skirt. And it was so heavy and the sleeves so ridiculous, I didn’t understand why there was a droopy cardigan laid out as well. There was no way I was layering the two. I also wasn’t interested in the thick wool socks that looked two sizes too big.

When I stepped out from behind the dressing screen, Artie eyed me from the bed. He was almost lost among the blanket and pillows. One thing was for sure about this place—everything was more: extra layers, extra stuffing, more piled on more. Just like the dress.

Don’t look at me like that, I said to my familiar. I didn’t pick this thing out.

But the dress was warm and comfortable—not that I would ever admit that out loud—so I didn’t get chills when water dripped down my neck from the short ends of my hair.

The shower had worked out some of the knots in my neck and back and made me feel a little more like a person. Washing my hair had been a luxury I hadn’t realized I’d missed. So just like the rest of the house, I’d used a little more soap than I needed, I made the water extra hot, and I shampooed more than once just because I wanted to.

C’mere, old man, I said as I scooped up Artemis. He curled naturally in the crook of my arms. I am so sorry I left you for so long. I promise I’ll never do that again.

I rubbed my forehead against his, our noses grazing each other, and he started to purr. Artie couldn’t talk like a person, but he always let me know what he was thinking and feeling.

And his forgiveness meant the world to me.

My nostrils flared and I picked up my head, turning toward the scent that had caught my attention. Do you smell food?

Artie mmmrrowed at me but didn’t try to squirm out of my arms to go investigate. That alone told me how much he’d missed me. My fat familiar would always run toward food.

Well, let’s go see, I said as I carried him to the door.

The bedroom was behind the only interior door off of the main living space, and the bathroom was tucked in the bedroom corner, sharing a wall with the kitchen to form a square. It was a lot like my apartment actually, which was probably why I found it so easy to feel at home here.

When I opened the door, the faint hint of food that had crept past the closed door hit me in the face like a slap, and my stomach cramped painfully in response. I was a little afraid I’d never get the thing unstuck from my spine, but I was definitely going to try.

Artie flexed in my arms, and I released him before he could spring away and possibly claw me in the process. His black tail was an exclamation point as he sauntered into the kitchen area, deftly walking under the farm table as if he owned the place.

In the next moment, I saw a streak of orange fur bolt from under the couch as Pumpkin tried to pounce on the black cat. But Artie, despite his age, was quick. With one side step, he avoided the pouncing and Pumpkin skidded and rolled, coming to a stop with a muffled thump against the low cupboards.

Serves you right, Pump, Ronnie said, shaking her head at her tiny familiar. Leave Artemis alone.

Ronnie and her grandmother were moving around the kitchen as Joey was laying out plates on the farm table, which was laden down with more food than I could imagine was kept in the tiny kitchen. Every empty plate and bowl that had