Awakenings (A Witch's Coven Novel Book 1) (20 page)

I imagined Charles in the carriage that had brought him so far now headed back home. His hopes dashed and a life ahead of him without legs or his closest friend. I expected he would forget me in time, but the memory would be a wound that would stay thick in his heart and sour him for any woman to come. But I could not dwell on his feelings, I had a job to do, and I had to do it well.

That night I ate dinner in my room and went to bed at normal time. I had strewn my work across the room. Spells, potion lists, and the history of magic and its four disciplines covered my desk and the floor surrounding it. I had taken notes as best I could. The side of my left hand was smeared with ink from all the writing I had done. I kept my work out and went to sleep. He would watch over me and expect me to run, but I had another plan.

In the deep of the night, I awoke and grabbed a scroll and my quill, putting the bottle of ink in my front pocket. The night was cold, and a shiver went through me when my feet touched the cold wood of the hallway. I did not sneak or creep but walked normally to the stairs and headed up toward the top level. I could smell the remnants of a fire, the dried wood, and of incense that had been burned as well. My house lord lay asleep in his chair. He had reclined back, stretching his legs out before him. In the corner of the room, a blue light became strong for a few moments, stayed steady, and then lessened to almost fading out entirely.

I ignored the light, and with scroll and quill in hand I walked over to the chair, kneeling beside him. I watched his breathing and his eyes seemed to track under his eyelids in his sleep as though he was reading. But I kept still and took the ink out, dipped my quill in, and then with all the courage I could muster said, “Master.”

His eyes opened instantly, but he did not move. I could see his eyes unfocused still in a dream or traveling elsewhere in his sleep. Who knew if wizards truly slept? I did not.

He coughed a bit and started to sit up, but I showed him my scroll. “I want to show you what I found.”

“What time is it?” He took the scroll in his hands but still was disoriented and had not risen yet.

“It is late. Several hours before morning.” My voice was calm.

“Could this not wait …”

He said the words, and I lunged forward, stabbing the metal tip of my quill into his neck. I had watched his breathing, seen the pulse in his neck, and aimed as best I could. The quill sunk in and I pulled it right out and stabbed again. The second time I hit him true. He jerked up, and a look of fear crossed his eyes. He pulled away from me, helpless as a babe, as blood poured out of the wound. Grabbing the quill, he removed it, and the blood, looking black in the darkness, flooded down his neck onto the chair.

He tried to talk, but a gurgled sound came out instead.

Like an animal, I lunged forward and held him down. I let him see the coldness in my eyes, the detachment and resolve. He needed words for his spells, but none would come. Of the four disciplines of magic, he was most strong with verbal spells. But to be sure, I threw myself on top of him and pressed all my weight on him. He struggled, but the blood flowed and he rolled off his chair and I fell hard with him. His hand twirled and he cast a spell in desperation, but a thin bolt of lightning arced across the room and was absorbed by the glowing blue stone.

I said no word, kept firm and placed my arm against his neck. He threw me off, and I fell against his chair but turned back around ready to attack again. But he had already begun to ignore me, placing his hands around his neck, trying to stop the bleeding. His life blood pulsed out and in a frenzy as he turned to me with an unmistakable plea for help.

“Please.” He reached out toward me with a blood-covered hand.

I did not turn away but stared at him and shook my head.

He fell to his side, and I watched him twitch, his right leg shaking uncontrollably until it finally stopped. Blood pooled around his head, and I pulled myself up off the ground and glanced down at my hands. They were sticky with blood. I would need to get cleaned before I left. Beth would be sleeping down below. I made certain not to step in any of the blood but stopped to look at his face before I left. The light from the blue stone grew strong for a moment, and I could see my house lord’s eyes open wide in a last look of fear and his mouth agape as well.

I rushed over to the door and heard a calling. The stone. In my head, I heard its voice, and it wanted me to take it with me. And so I did. When I touched the stone, I expected it to be cold in my hand, but it was warm like a freshly laid egg of a hen. About the same size as an egg, I closed my hand around it and went back to my room. I used my basin to wash the blood away, cleaned myself well, changed into my traveling clothes, and left the house. If Beth had not been sleeping inside, I would have burned the dwelling to the ground. Instead I headed outside and made my way back south to the city.

I wrapped myself in my coat and placed my hands over my belly. Not enough time had passed for me to begin to show, but I knew you were there. From the beginning, I knew you to be a girl. I don’t know if it was the magic within me or a mother’s guess, but I knew. I walked far that night but kept off the roads and went through the fields and into the woods. With the moon high and bright in the sky, I walked onward, refusing to stop in case someone came after me. But no one ever did.

The rest of the illusion faded away and we sat with our backs against the cold wall. I watched Alessia, trying to gauge her mood. “I never returned to my house lord’s home, but went farther south to another town and worked in the kitchens of a religious order. I hid my pregnancy as long as I could, proving what a hard worker I was. The women in the order sheltered me as one of their own and helped me raise you until I found a woman who agreed to take you from me.”

Alessia faced me, and after I had finished she said, “So now his ghost chases you.”

“There are greater evils in the world than a ghost. He has allied himself with something dark and ancient. Something of the old ways.” I rubbed my hands together and then blew my breath into them. “You must leave this city and get to safety. I can face him and hold him off while you run.”

Alessia ignored me and asked, “And what of Stephen? What happened to him?”

“I tried to find him, but the war took many lives.” I shifted my gaze away, listening to the wind outside.

“Now that I know what to look for, you are an extremely bad liar,” Alessia said the words and laughed.

I shook my head and smiled. “You are right, but now is not the time to tell all of my stories. It is late, and we need to make a plan.”

“We can go wake John. He will help us.”

“Would he leave the city with you?” I asked.

“Yes, but horses would not make it through this type of weather.” Alessia stood up and brushed off her clothes.

“Or we could go back and face him.” I pulled myself up and watched her.

“Why would we want to do that?”

“Because I’m tired of running.” I pulled my robes around me to keep me from shivering. “I’ve been hiding for a long time. I can end this tonight, and it will be over once and for all.”

Alessia cocked her head at me and said, “Going back to face a spirit from the underworld without knowing you can defeat him sounds suicidal to me. Remember what you told me recently? That I should not run away with John and that I should stay in the coven? There are other ways to deal with this spirit.”

“I exaggerated what I thought the mayor would do on learning that John had run off with you.” I shrugged. “This is different.”

“Where is my father? Let’s go see him. Maybe he can help us.” Alessia pulled out the Moonstone and said, “I wonder if I can use the stone’s power to find him.”

“I know where he is.” I thought a moment about what I wanted to say next. “I check in on him from time to time.”

“You’re spying on him with scrying spells, aren’t you?” Alessia chuckled. “He doesn’t know it, does he?”

“I haven’t seen him in many years.”

“And that’s why we should go. We’ll leave this city, go find him, and check in on him.” Alessia came up to me and tugged at my robe. “Please, I want to go meet him. All of my life I’ve been wondering who my father is, and now that I know, I want to go to him. Don’t you think he deserves to know about me?”

I hung my head down. “I withheld the truth from him for all these years. Just as I did to you. He would be angry at me.”

“So is it right to not say anything and keep him from knowing the truth?” Alessia backed away, and an idea popped into her head. I could almost see the thoughts racing around in her head from how she shifted her weight onto her right leg and put her hand on her hip just as she did back in the coven during our lessons. “You can stay here if you’d like. I will go alone, or I’ll see if John wants to go with me. I have the Moonstone, and I’ll find him using that. It’ll be simple.”

“You’re not going alone.” I would not fall into her trap. “I would not be able to forgive myself if something happened to you.”

“But you have to stay. You’re the leader of the coven. Petronelle, Rosamund, and the rest of the initiates will need you to teach them.” She concentrated and started to activate the Moonstone’s power. “You take care of them and I’ll go find my Stephen.”

“You proved your point. Stop it already!” I grabbed her hand and broke her concentration.

She smiled and said, “I’m glad that you finally agree with me. I am still angry at you for all your lies, but not angry enough that I want to see you dead at the hands of a crazy spirit from the dead.”

“I wish I could take back everything that I did. I should never have given you up, but I needed to work to make money, and I had no family and help. I didn’t know what to do.” I wanted to give her a hug, but did not.

“We should get going before the sun rises. I’ll go wake up John, and he can help us find a sled that we can use to leave town.” Alessia walked over to the iron door and pulled the bolt back that had locked it. Together we opened the door, and it slowly opened.

“Do you think you can convince John to …” I stopped talking and pushed Alessia back into the wine cellar. “Go!”

She tried to argue with me, but I pushed her harder and positioned myself in the doorway. The cold seeped into the room and ice crystals formed on the floor in front of me. Little tiny lattices of ice that connected to each other and spread across the floor, over the ceiling and down the walls. The light from the lanterns dimmed, and I saw him materialize in the hallway. He reached out his arms to try and grab me. His skin clung to his bones, taut and dried, like a mummy. He pointed at me, and his voice rasped thick with darkness. “All these years I have searched for you, and now I have finally found you. I can smell you and your daughter. I will kill you, drink your blood, and devour your souls and restore myself to my former glory.”

I cast my first spell, always on my lips since I had killed him. “
Protégé
.”

White light streamed from my fingertips, melted away the ice, and a protective wall of translucent crackling energy formed between us.

My house lord grimaced and stopped at the wall, blocked by the spell. I turned around and saw Alessia searching for a way out. She rushed back, out of breath. “There’s no other way out. We’re trapped.”

“Give me the Moonstone.” I put out my hand.

“He’s broken through already!”

She searched in her pocket and gave me the gem. Its warmth felt pleasing to the touch. I clenched the Moonstone in the palm of my hand and turned around to see that my protective spell had dissipated and my house lord shambled onward toward us, only feet away.

Alessia spoke in a language that I did not know, and red, yellow, and green wisps of light shot forth from her hands. The floor before the mummy broke open, and thick green vines grew up out of the ground and wrapped themselves around my house lord’s legs. The vines grew thicker and secured themselves around his legs and lower body, holding him still. Alessia kept her eyes closed and chanted in a singsong way, leaning forward and shaking her hands to increase the spell’s intensity. The trap held him long enough. He stopped coming toward us but started to rip away at the vines, shredding the plants to pieces. Yet the more he destroyed them, the faster they grew back.

That was all the time I needed. I opened myself to the Moonstone and let its light inside. The energy pulsed through my body, and a thrill of excitement passed through me. I thought back and saw his face. All worries gone. I could see him and smiled and then I moved closer to Alessia and put up the stone.

“Grab my hand!”

The stone opened up and, like the moon, light streamed out in phases. First a tiny sliver of light but gradually the entire face of the gem opened and its light covered us both. Alessia broke her concentration and placed her hand over mine and the light poured through us. I glanced back over my shoulder and I could see him trying to get to us, but he could not. He reached out, but the light increased, the ground gave way, and we fell through the crack into the darkness below.

Chapter 9

Alessia opened her eyes and then rubbed them. She sat on the ground in a field of wildflowers. The warm sun beat down on both of us and off in the distance, I saw a farmhouse. She tried to get up but fell back onto her bottom. “What happened?”

I rubbed the side of my head hoping to rid myself of the headache I had. “I took us away from him.”

“But where?”

A bird chirped in the tree near us, and a fly buzzed around my nose. “I’m not sure, but we escaped.” I stood up and bent over to take in a deep breath. “I didn’t expect it to be so far away that the climate would be warm.”

“None of this place looks familiar to me.” She stood up and this time took it slow. She put her hands on the small of her back and stretched. “Should we go up to the farmhouse and see who’s there?”

“I guess so.” I opened my hand and glanced at the Moonstone. It felt cool to the touch and inert. “Here, take this back. It’s yours now.”

Alessia took the stone from my hand, and I saw a pulse of light from it as she put it back into her pocket. “I think I see someone working in the fields behind the house. Come on.”