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"Schr&ouer," it said, and then wound back off into the darkness I was puzzled at first by the one-word er’s faht experiment, Maisie was frozen in a place where the possibilities were limitless The line had locked her in a state of flux, like so rescue I felt my sister’s presence The line had encased her in a sense of awe, a sense of wonder--she was lost in a sense of ecstasy very much like what I had felt when the power of the line first settled on an to dim, and then it unfolded, circle by circle, line by line I stood again in Jilo’s cha beneath ht from the bottle

"You did it," he said, his face flushed "You opened the Akashic records, kid The universal knowledge of every event that ever has occurred and ever will occur in all of its squiggly and ot a peek into God’s very own diary" Another swig "I’d always heard the right witch could"

"Wait," I said, trying to clearlike this before?"

"Of course not," he said with a sad s his lips "The records won’t open for just anyone I’ve never h I knew if anyone could access them, it would be you" We had used the rest of Maisie’s flames in this experiment What if it hadn’t paid off? I halfanted to throttle him, and I more than halfway expected Jilo to beat me to the punch, but when I turned to look at her, what I saw surprised , her eyes focused on so far away I crossed over to her and took her hand She jerked awake from her reverie, her eyes full of panic and sorrow "I have seen it now," she said, her voice soft "I have done wrong I have worked evil in this world," her words called out to ears other than o You both have to go," she said, waving her ar us away like noisome children Haint blue burst like a bubble around us, and in an instant Jilo and her world had gone, leaving Oliver andthe bottle of scotch As he took another swig, the empty Ball jar fell from nowhere and shattered at his feet

NINE

Iris knelt beside the flowerbed closest to the sundial,flowers that in truth had not even begun to fade and pulling out the sparse weeds that had ilant care The sunhat she wore had belonged to ardening gloves she had on, it enhanced the raphs showed she bore to her My aunt had not been the least surprised by our sudden arrival "How did it go?" she asked as if we had just returned frorocery store "You can speak freely," she said, pointing to a large crystal, the biggest rose quartz I’d ever laid eyes on, that had been placed in the flowerbed, apparently as decoration As she spoke, the quartz gave off a faint glow

"What’s that?" I asked, drawing cautiously toward it

"That, my dear," Oliver said, "is a little charm your Aunt Ellen came up with for us"

"Okay, but what does it do?"

"It keeps the fa able to listen in on us, or spy on us with re one in every room in the house She’ll join us when she has finished" We had no definitive proof that ere under surveillance, but when the fa me and my access to power, they seemed very certain of details none of us had discussed with them Even conversations to which E a spy, hadn’t been privy "Before you share anything with one of us that you wouldn’t want the falowing"

"But won’t the fa theersnap, but they sure as hell can’t coht to spy on us, and they sure as hell don’t have the right to spy on you You are after all an anchor now, aren’t you?"

"Go on, tell me what you have learned," Iris said