Deadly Delicious by K. L. Kincy

Author:K. L. Kincy [Kincy, K. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub

Far after my bedtime, while Mama and Daddy are still snoring, I sweep the beam of my flashlight around the Ralstons’ barn, just to make sure I have the place to myself. The smell of alfalfa hangs in the air. Alfalfa, and vinegar.

I shine my flashlight on a low rafter. By the sickly yellow glow, the cucumbers soaking in their pickling jar look like zombie vegetables. From my backpack, I take out my ingredients. One twisted, rusted old nail. One crow’s eggshell, nearly whole. A five-leaf clover, one too many leaves to be lucky. A broken cat’s claw.

Flash sniffs the cat’s claw and growls low in his throat.

I peer into the darkness. “Shaula? I’m ready.”

Shaula swirls into being beside me, and Flash slinks away to go lie down by the door.

I take a shuddery breath and unscrew the lid of the pickling jar—counterclockwise, of course. Dark conjure always has to be backwards from the light stuff, otherwise it can be a powerful dangerous mix-up of magic.

Fingers quivering, I pick up the twisted nail. “Here’s what I found.”

With feather-soft fingers, Shaula slips the twisted nail from my hand.

“Strong conjure.” Her eyes glimmer. “You have chosen well.”

Pride stirs from its perch in my heart. I yank my hair from its ponytail and shake it out so my curls hang wild and witch-like around my face.

“Thank you,” I say. “I picked that because it felt… twisted.”

Shaula nods, unsmiling. “Who do you intend it for?”

“My friend,” I say. “Ex-friend.”

Heat creeps into my cheeks. It’s strange, telling her these sort of personal things. Even though I suppose we’re technically family. And she technically knows a lot more about me than I ever would care to tell her.

“Which will you add first?” Shaula says.

I hadn’t thought of that. I chew on the inside of my cheek. “Give me a second.”

Slowly, I set the ingredients before me. The glare of the flashlight seems too bright, so I click it off. My eyes slide into nighttime seeing, and I study how the cat’s claw gleams, how the crow’s egg looks like a false gemstone.

An idea sneaks into my mind. I lug my grimoire from my backpack and lay it flat on a wooden box. The pages shine bright in a moonbeam, the words squiggling in curlicues. I flip to the page where I wrote down the list of ingredients I wanted. Sure enough, the very first ingredient on the list is twisted nail. I honestly can’t remember what order I wrote these in, or if they maybe sorted themselves in my absence.

“This,” I say, and I drop the nail into the pickling jar.

The nail sinks into the vinegar, trailing sparks like a shooting star. Blue sparks. I lean closer and watch the sparks fade. Shaula arches her eyebrow, but says nothing. A sweat breaks out on my forehead. What happens if I guessed wrong?

“Here goes nothing,” I say, and I pick up the five-leafed clover.

I purse my lips and drop the five-leaf clover into the pickles. It sizzles—sizzles!—when it hits the vinegar and dissolves into a froth of green.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.