Witching Tree (Alice Gray Book 1)

30

"Holy crap. DPA. Home Office. What in God's name have you gotten yourself into?" Anne shrieked.

"Nothing! I don't even know what that stands for," I answered, annoyed that she would just assume it was my fault.

She was looking at me like I was a criminal. They all were.

"DPA, it's the Data Protection Act, right? You're not a hacker are you?" Anne squeaked, eyes darting around suspiciously. "Is your name even Alice Gray?"

The whole room, myself included, looked at Anne with disbelief.

"You can see me, right?" I asked, indicating my appearance, which resembled the photo of my mother so closely that there was no doubt I was her daughter.

"Oh yeah," Anne said, looking down as the blush rose over her face.

"DPA stands for Department of Paranormal Activity, the government's attempt to keep tabs on his kind. And hers, and we think yours too," Stephen said, glancing quickly at Thomas, Anne and then back to me.

"MY KIND? I'm human you asshole. Human. Just like you."

Stephen's eyes softened as he held my angry gaze, both of us knowing that it wasn't true. That it couldn't be.

His sympathy just made it worse. I didn't need that. Not from him. I needed answers.

"Just get on with the story already," I spat at Emily, sick to death of floundering in a sea of confusion with no life-boat in sight.

"I decided it was time to do some digging," Emily continued quickly, trying to divert the complete meltdown that was hovering in my very near future. "I needed to understand why we were protecting an ordinary woman with such a mundane lifestyle. There had been no indication that Alice had ever been in any danger. I was not prepared to continue unless there was real cause. When we had taken the case, I had, of course, made some initial enquiries, which came to nothing. In my enthusiasm to build our business, I had not pushed those lines of enquiry as hard as I should have. I regret that now."

Emily's eyes finally drifted to me, her expression full of compassion. It didn't suit her and I had no patience left with being pitied.

"Just get on with it," I snapped.

All Emily's leads met with dead ends. Someone with a lot of influence was blocking them. They could have dropped the case, but there was a conspiracy at play. What if the danger came from within the establishment? After five years of active surveillance undercover, they had a responsibility to the target to see it through.

What, was I supposed to be grateful?

Too right they had a responsibility. If I really was in danger then they were welcome to jump into the line of fire. It was the least that they could do after ripping my life apart.

But we still had to get to the crux of the issue. Why was I in danger, and from whom?

"What's all this got to do with my mother's pendant?" I prompted, remembering that Emily had mentioned my missing necklace in our earlier conversation.

"I'm getting to that," Emily said. "The only option left was to request a meeting in the DPA. It was to happen a month ago. The case-worker never showed. A few days later, we received a package through the post."

Emily reached into her messenger bag, drew out a delicate leather bound book and threw it on the table. It landed with a flop; ancient smelling dust rising from its pages. I cringed, fearful for the old manuscript, it wouldn't take much more of that rough treatment.

Then it hit. The room shrank as blood pounded in my ears. The embossed silver tree on the cracked black binding began to pulse and glow.

"That's not possible," Anne exclaimed, eyes wide and face paling. Her life-force buzzed around her hands, responding to her shock at the sight of the book.

"The silver, do you see it?"

Anne glanced over, worry etched in her features. "It's just the coven crest, Alice."

"No, the silver, it's moving," I hissed, darting my eyes to the silver flowing through the tree design on the manuscript.

Anne took my hand, shooting me a warning look. I pressed my lips together to stop anything else popping out. Anne didn't want my visions public knowledge, and from her response, this was another Alice Gray idiosyncrasy that I should be keeping to myself.

"I've seen that symbol, what does this mean?" I asked, changing track, it was exactly like the large tome that I had seen in Anne's bookcase.

"May I?" Anne reached for the manuscript before anybody had answered her. She carefully opened the fragile looking pages. "It's a copy of the section that describes our family. Wait, I've never seen this bit before. I..., I think you should read this," she said, shooting me a worried glance.

I took the manuscript carefully, open at the page that Anne had been reading. The throbbing migraine that had bloomed with the sight of manuscript pounded through my head. White noise buzzed in my ears, morphing into the sharp grate of metal against metal.

The worn discoloured pages felt brittle beneath my fingers. In the top-centre of the page was that design again: a tree, with intricate branches at its top, and roots in tangles beneath. Below that was a painting of a girl, pregnant belly protruding. Brown curls framed her face. Eyes flashing in silver ink, glaring out defiantly. You could distinctly see a pendant around her neck, it was red.

The image of the girl was incredibly life-like. And she looked exactly like me.

I looked around the room in confusion.

Thomas and Evan both moved closer to get a glimpse of the picture. Even Emily was interested to see it again. The only person who wasn't straining to see what I was seeing was Stephen. That was suspicious.

"What do you know?" I asked him bluntly.

"Look, just read it," Stephen replied.

There was an intense look in his blue eyes. Like he was waiting for something, a reaction from me.

On the opposite page to the picture was ornate calligraphy, hand-written, rather than printed.

It was tough going, deciphering the flowery font written in old English. The cacophony of sound in my head rushed forwards in ever increasing waves. It had to reach a crescendo soon, or my brain was going to explode.

"That's impossible," I finally said, the pain in my head blooming like a mushroom cloud of doom.

Hey, you've made it to chapter 30! Thanks so much for sticking with me. The action speeds up from here, keep reading for a load of exciting adventures for Alice and her new 'friends'.
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