Junie Lockewell’s heart raced. She woke with a gasp, kicking free from a tangle of sweaty sheets, and swung her feet to the floor. Her heartbeats rushed together at a frantic pace as she tried to root herself to feeling of the firm floor below. Five deep breaths. As she felt the firm floor, and counted the deep breaths, she looked up and focused on the moonlight slanting through the gap in the curtains. By the fifth breath, she began to hear the clock ticking lightly but steadily on the nightstand.
Feel the floor, count the breaths, see the moonlight, hear the clock ticking.
Her heartbeat began to slow itself and she felt the knot of worry in her chest loosen slightly.Thanks for reading Oh, Hex Yes!! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Feel the floor, count the breaths, see the moonlight, hear...
The clock had stopped ticking.
She swung her head around. The small second hand hung between two marks, caught in mid-motion. Junie blinked at it. Once. Twice.
The hand twitched, then resumed its ticking sluggishly, ticking once, twice, three times before it began to pick up its pace back to its original pace.
Junie took a shallow breath, swallowed. She had always struggled with keeping track of the time, but she was afraid this was becoming more frequent: moments that slipped their place and escaped her.
In the kitchen the next morning, Jade was making coffee and muttering about 19th-century witchcraft rituals while Jasmine leaned against the old island counter scrolling on her phone, occasionally humming tunelessly.
Junie walked in, rubbing her eyes. "Morning," she mumbled. "Did you both, ah, sleep well? Or, uh, did either of you feel… anything weird happen last night?”
She tried to sound casual, but Jade raised her eyebrows. “Define weird. Haunted? Hallucinatory? General sense of impending doom?”
Junie blinked. “Okay, now you define weird.”
Jade frowned while Jasmine smirked and tossed her phone on the counter. “Was it the locket again? Maybe it’s leaking spooky vibes or something.”
"No, nothing like that. It's just, um...." Junie wasn't feeling very confessional, but Jade and Jasmine were both waiting for an explanation.
“Well, I... I think... It's something about *time. *Something happened to it,” Junie said.
Both sisters kept watching her.
Junie struggled to recount the night's confusion and the clock, how the ticks of the clock lost their rhythm.
Jade’s brows knit together. “I don't know. Are you sure that's how it happened? I mean, you've never exactly had.... a great sense of time." She didn't exactly intend for her words to be hurtful, but Junie winced regardless.
But Jasmine's imagination caught, she leaned forward and tiled her head back, “Hmmm, dark of night, missing seconds. Maybe you're a time traveler!"
“No,” Junie shook her head. “Not missing, not like that. I didn't miss any time. The seconds just... took longer. Stretched themselves out like, like old leggings. And then they snapped back into place, like the leggings had gone through the wash and were back to normal.”
At this, Jasmine nodded sagely as if that made perfect sense. But Jade's lips went thin as she poured coffee into three mismatched mugs. “Well, a book I was reading last night said that some of the old witches believed magic often needs a trigger. Like an emotion, or a memory. Something that focuses your mind. Did you feel anything like that? Something that made you focus?”
That didn't offer any clarity for Junie. If anything, she'd felt extremely unfocused. Since she didn't know what to say, she kept her mouth shut.
“So what's next do you think?” Jasmine asked. “Think I could start blessing lotto tickets?”
Jade shot Jasmine a sharp look. "Sorry, bless stock portfolios?" Jasmine hastily added, winking.
Junie cracked a smile, grateful for Jasmine's distraction.
The day passed uneventfully for everyone, which each sister found a welcome relief. That evening, the three regrouped at the rambling old house on Larkspur Hill once again. Jade had something to share.
“I found something in an archived newspaper,” Jade said, spreading out some photocopies for everyone to read. “I was chatting with a colleague of mine, Mrs. Costello. She's a research librarian. Well, she dug up some mentions of a coven that was rumored in this area. The last mention is sometime in the 1880s, but before that, two cousins were rumored to be connected to it. It's mentioned in this local news section, citing an argument over land rights with a local banker." She pointed to a highlighted section.
Following her lead, Junie read the highlighted pieces. "But this just reads like some ancient burn book or gossip blog. It's just a bunch of quotes from the banker about all the trouble he's having and rumors about the cousins. I don't understand, why were they involved in an argument over the land?"
"I don't know," Jade shrugged. "I could try to dig for more about it, but keep reading."
Jasmine saw it first. "The cousins were Isadora Lockewell and Selene Dassance.”
“Isadora Lockewell,” Junie repeated, a chill crossing her neck. That name, her name, Lockewell… and in print from so long ago. It was a confirmation, rooting their family in something older, something stranger, that she wasn’t sure she was ready for.
Jade nodded. “Yep. I'm betting we're descendants or relations somehow. And I'm guessing it's these two in the old vision with the matching lockets.”
"Ok, I'm picking up what you're putting down," said Jasmine enthusiastically. "So now we've got a spooky ancestor, her magical locket, and, what, some cheesed-off old banker looking to recoup some bad investments?"
"And spooky ancestor's cousin," Junie added. "Selene Dassance. She had a locket, too."
For a second, satisfaction eased through Jade's smile. Then changed into a very familiar expression: Jade's thinking face. “Right, and her locket,” Jade agreed. “Which we don't have. But I think I know who does. Or did.”
All eyes on Jade. "The woman who just died. The one with dark hair laced with blue curls."
Jasmine snapped her fingers. "You think you saw her through the matching lockets. Like they are connected." She wasn't asking. Surprising herself, she knew she was right.
They paused, and Jasmine leaned forward, tapped a finger on the side of her forehead. Once, twice.
"It's a warning. That vision. Because the lockets are still bound by a protection spell."
Her words lingered between the three of them.
"Our blue-haired mystery woman," Junie finally offered. "Well, if we have a spooky ancestor, maybe she does - did - too. Maybe she's a descendant of Selene Dassance.”
No one disagreed.