Spiral Path (Night Calls Series Book 3)

SPIRAL PATH

Night Calls Book 3

Katharine Eliska Kimbriel

www.bookviewcafe.com

Book View Café Edition
September 16, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61138-440-6
Copyright © 2014 Katharine Eliska Kimbriel

This book is dedicated to:

Andre Norton

Barbara Burnett Smith

Lori Wolf

You’ve waited a long time for it. I know you’ve
been reading over my shoulder as I work.

Hope you like it.

Never let it be said I am not determined. I had to become
a wizard to get this book written.

Allie never would have returned to the world without the
help of so many people. How they helped varied, but at some point they were all
crucial to the cause. Some people are obvious, like my parents and my sisters
Beth and Karen. Others are not so obvious, but whether they were proofing a
manuscript, babysitting a cat, or nagging me about my health—all were necessary.

Alan, Alexis, Amy, Andre, Ardath, Barb, Beth, Bev &
Michael, Bobbi & Tom, Carla, Carrie, Cathy, Charlene, Deborah, Deborah, Doranna,
Ginger, Ginny, Glen, Gordon, Jane, Jen, Judy, Julie, Julie & John, Karen,
Kasey, Katie, Keith, Kirby, Kit, Laura, Laura Anne, Laurell, Lynne, Marla,
Maya, Michael, Michelle, Mindy, Mitch, Nancy & Liten, Pat, Patrice, Patricia,
Richard, Roy, Ru, Sheilagh, Sherwood, Silona, Sofia, Susan & Matt, Vonda,
Wanada, Whit

. . . along with every fan who found me
through Live Journal, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Book View Cafe . . .
you have all helped in so many small and large ways. You know who you are. Pat
yourselves on the back. The reason Allie Lives is because you believed.

You’d think I was Peter Pan asking if you believe in
fairies.

Good thing you believe in Alfreda.

Also many thanks to the best production team ever: Jennifer
Stevenson, Sherwood Smith, Vonda N. McIntyre, and the wonderful members of Book
View Café who kibitzed on cover and back copy. Thank you all.

This story is a work of fiction. All characters are fictitious,
and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All medicinal and culinary references in this novel are for
entertainment purposes only, and are not intended for actual use. Herbs, if
used improperly, can be harmful or fatal. Do not attempt self-treatment with
herbs without first consulting with a physician or qualified medical herbalist.
Neither the author nor the publisher can be held responsible for any adverse
reactions to the plants mentioned within.

It is said among folk of different gifts—those who cannot
straddle the worlds—that when a wizard is born, the very church bells announce
the blessed event.

Practitioners know better than that.

Gifts are not so easily recognized, and how they reveal
themselves is tricky. Shifting wind might announce the birth of an Air child.
We see a sudden thunderstorm for Water children, a ghost for a Medium . . . a plant
blooming out of season for an Earth babe. Even attracting a Good Friend, a
friendly spirit that aids the practice of magic, can show magical potential. It’s
more like that, and if the child’s future power is great, the sign can be felt
from many miles away.

Occasionally—such as during the birth of my sister
Elizabeth—the wall between worlds rips open and the mysteries drop into your
arms.

Sometimes literally.

From the first labor pain to her last ancient breath, my
sister Elizabeth was a surprise. She always looked so normal, so agreeable, so
docile . . . and then her gift seized her by the throat, and you
fell back before the terror of it all. Momma wasn’t due until the month of
Flowers, but when my kinswoman Marta and I arrived from the south, worn thin
with winter travel, the fact that it was a month early mattered not at all.
Marta laid her practiced hands upon my mother and announced:
It’s true labor
.

Suddenly the household was in a tizzy. Marta was my teacher
in the Wise Arts, and healthy babies were her life. She set Papa on the road to
fetch Aunt Dagmar from Sun-Return, the boys to tending the animals and trap lines,
and me to scrubbing clothes and grinding herbs. Momma hadn’t spoken about where
we’d been; she’d just hugged me and said, “Alfreda, child, thank God you are
safe.”

Papa had given lots of thought to his own home, and had
anchored our log cabin with a huge chimney open on two sides. We had a great
central fire that allowed cooking in the kitchen and warmth and company for the
main living area. This island of light in the midst of organized labor saved us
wood and made the flow of people much easier to manage.

Three months ago, about when I was kidnapped from Marta’s
home, Papa and the boys built another room of our house. This small room was
next to the main room, and larger than the stillroom off the kitchen. There
would be a chimney when this became our parlor, Papa told us, but not yet. For
now, Marta and I would carry hot water and bricks to Momma in this snug little
room while she had her baby on the birthing mattress Papa made.

Aunt Dagmar arrived and took over the kitchen, and I took up
the spinning wheel, so we were ready for Momma’s confinement. Momma’s oldest
sister didn’t always approve of me—I was much too outspoken for her, plus she
was a tad jealous of Momma having the only wizardly child in the current
generation—but while Momma was lying in, we called a truce. I complimented Aunt
Dagmar on her cooking (which was very good) and she exclaimed over my thin,
fine wool thread and tight weaving. Momma was pleased to have peace in her
house, and Marta merely smiled and held her tongue.

This was Momma’s seventh baby to go almost the full time,
and the more you had, the less time you spent in labor. Usually. Elizabeth’s
birth was different. Fortunately we’d made it back in time—I shudder to think
of Aunt Dagmar delivering Elizabeth by herself. Of course we weren’t supposed
to know that Momma and Papa had decided on “Elizabeth” as the name for a girl.
But the universe had already whispered it to me, long ago. I had seen Elizabeth
standing by my side as I looked into a dark mirror one night. She had Momma’s
dainty form and dark hair, and a shy smile all her own. My reflected self could
have passed for Marta in her youth. Tall and golden like my father, I
represented the Norwegian side of this Sorensson family, while Elizabeth looked
very Irish.

As time crawled on, pressure built throughout our big log
home. Elizabeth took her time arriving. It wasn’t until the second day of slow,
intermittent labor that things fell into a rhythm. The boys went up to the loft
room or tended stock, which kept them busy. As Momma paced, Marta carded wool,
and I worked at the huge spinning wheel before the fireplace in the living
room. In the kitchen Aunt Dagmar cooked and talked non-stop, but Papa sat and
kept her company—and away from Momma, Marta and me.

Momma knew why we’d come from the south. A family of
sorcerers had taken me down to the Indiana Territory for “who knew what reason.”
But Momma feared the dark on the other side, and had quit training in the
Mysteries after she learned herb lore. We didn’t tell her anything about how we
bested the sorcerers of Hudson-on-the-Bend. I do not know if she suspected
there had been a battle, or thought Marta, Cousin Cory, and Shaw Kristinsson
simply took me back from those who had kidnapped me. I was alive, healthy (if
thin) and not throwing up, so I wasn’t pregnant. I was back with kin—nothing
else mattered.

We were very practical people, back then.

What of Shaw Kristinsson, you might ask, from my own village
of Sun-Return, fifteen year old son of a blacksmith and an innkeeper? I suspected
he was a shape shifter, like his parents before him. Now I knew he was an
apprentice practitioner, and believed he was my friend. He’d come with Marta,
Cousin Cory, and old Joseph to rescue me. Shaw had stopped talking to me for a
while in there, his shyness overcoming him. I wasn’t even a woman grown, and
yet he was always looking at me and blushing.

But five days into our trip home, our tales of
Hudson-on-the-Bend spent, Shaw had finally begun to talk to me again.

He’d started by handing me a letter he’d written to me.

He had words . . . he just had trouble getting them out to my
face.

“You did just fine, Allie,” was where he began.

Those words had meant the world to me.

Momma’s voice filtered into my thoughts. “I tell you, Marta,
this doesn’t get—” A contraction folded Momma over in the midst of her pacing
around the kitchen and living room.

“Breathe, Garda,” Marta said, moving to the table. “Slow and
deep; try to keep your shoulders down.” Marta just stood there, tall and
straight as an ash tree, hands on Momma’s shoulders. Momma’s face eased, and I
wondered if Marta had used a small magic, or just the power of her presence. “Let’s
check how far along things are.” Bending her fair head over Momma’s dark one,
she walked my mother back to the new parlor room and the birthing bed.

In moments Marta peered around the doorway. “Allie, come
bring the linens, quickly.”

I rushed to get the towels, which were warm and wrapped
around a pot of coals. By the time I was across the main room and into the
parlor, Marta was holding Momma’s hands through another contraction. Elizabeth
was coming soon? I glanced at Marta and then went down to the foot of the bed.

Papa had made a long mattress, so the baby would come out on
solid padding. I felt a bit shy about helping my mother with a new baby, but I’d
helped others before—Lord and Lady, I’d delivered twins! So I checked—

Pressure
hit me in
the face, like rising steam or opening the door to an oven. It was magic, not
real heat, so I just ignored it. “Marta, I can see her!” Oops—I wasn’t supposed
to know the sex yet. As the top of her head peeked out, I set my fingers
lightly on her hair to make sure she didn’t come out too fa—

Heat seared my fingertips, roaring up my arm as if I had run
up to a solstice fire on a cold winter’s night. I could see nothing but flames,
the mass heaving like a cauldron of molten sugar. Shiny black and golden
flames. The vision was much like a bright bed of coals. The baby was coming out
fast, so fast—

Allie, catch her!
The mental words rang out like a command.

Blinded by the blazing light, I fumbled to seize hold of
little Elizabeth, cursing my gift and praying I wouldn’t somehow fail and hurt
my mother or sister.

Earth heaved beneath my feet, trying to throw me to the
ground. I could no longer separate magic from Now. The stench was awful, then
choking, the rain of ash burning. I held on to the baby and leaned into the
plump mattress, trying to flatten us into the softness of herbs and husks,
trying to keep us from sliding off the face of a mountain—

And then the top of the mountain blew off.

Clouds—no, steam—rose into the heavens, miles into the sky,
carrying rock and ash and liquid stone halfway to the rim of the world. Winds
churned above, carrying evidence of the deed far and wide.

Whimpering called me back. Stunned, I realized that
Elizabeth
saw with my eyes. She cast her
Vision out into the beyond, trying to channel something she had no possible
chance of understanding.
A seer
.
Powers that be, my baby sister is a seer
.

It’s all right
, I
whispered to her mind, hugging her into the clump of toweling and cradling her
bloody body close.
We’re safe, it’s all
right, it hasn’t happened yet, and we will warn people that it’s coming
.
Over and over I tried, with silent words and warm hands, to reassure her that
there was nothing to fear.

Finally I could see again. Time had not stood still.

Marta bent over Momma and gently slapped her cheek.

“Marta?”

“Clean up your sister, Allie. I need to wake your Momma. Is
the placenta—ah, good. Take care of her, dear. Do you have your embroidery
thread with you?” Marta was watching carefully, her hand on Momma’s shrunken,
wrinkled belly, but there was apparently nothing to fear—no bright blood, no
change in her breathing, no sudden swelling. My cousin’s other hand checked
Momma’s pulse, and since Marta did not look concerned, I bent to tie off the
cord and, when the last of the blood had drained into the baby, tied the knot.