The Curse of Dark Root: Part Two (Daughters of Dark Root Book 4)

by Aasheim, April

  As at Sycamore Manor, the light became its own door, now large enough to step through.

  Was Montana inside?

  I reached my arm in. It was colder than anything I could imagine, as if reaching into liquid ice.

  “Montana?”

  Inside, a baby cooed. Its coo turned into a cry.

  I stepped through the portal with one foot. Glacially cold air stabbed my leg, snaking up my body, edging its way into my heart.

  “Maggie! Stop!”

  A firm hand grabbed me, yanking me back into this world. Ruth Anne.

  “Montana's in there,” I said, fighting her off. “We never fully sealed the portal.”

  “No, Maggie.” Ruth Anne shook her head. “We found him. Merry’s got him.”

  I didn't wait for an explanation. I sprinted past her, down the stairs, and into the living room. Near the window, Merry held my son, stroking his hair as he rooted against her shoulder.

  “My baby!”

  “He's hungry,” Merry said. “I'll make him a bottle.”

  She handed him over. He looked into my eyes and yawned. I resisted the urge to squeeze him, fearing I’d break him with the intensity of my relief. “Merry, thank you. Where was he?”

  Merry threw up her hands and shook her head in bewilderment. “In his bassinet.”

  “That’s not possible! I tore that bed apart.”

  “I know.” She gave me a strained smile and brushed a loose piece of hair from my face. “I'm not sure what happened, but he's back and he's safe. That's all that matters.” She bit her lip and scanned the room warily. “For now.”

  “Do you sense any presences?” I asked.

  “No, not a thing.”

  I kissed Montana's head. He smelled like chocolate. And roses.

  Ruth Anne came to my side, her face grim. “Mags, you should know we found something in his crib.”

  I didn't want to know. I brushed past her on my way to the sofa.

  “It was in his hand,” she said, catching me by the arm.

  She opened her palm, revealing a tuft of orange cat hair.

  ELEVEN

  Hello, Goodbye

  “GET IT OUT of here! All of it!” I pointed to the pile of junk on the coffee table, and to the stack of boxes near the door.

  We’d spent the morning collecting everything remotely related to witchcraft––baubles, trinkets, tarot cards, photos, pendulums, even Merry’s teas. As my final act, I stuffed the leather globe case into a box where I would never have to see them again.

  “You sure, Mags?” Ruth Anne asked, clinging to her collection of paranormal romance books and ghost hunting supplies. “If whatever took Montana comes back, we might need documentation, or a way to track it.”

  Merry nervously smoothed her ponytail. “Don’t scare her, Ruth Anne. We don’t know if something took Montana. All we know is that he disappeared.”

  “And came back with a big chunk of cat hair,” Ruth Anne countered. “That can’t be good.”

  All I knew for sure was that magick was involved. Dark magick. And all the stuff in this house was like a giant beacon, drawing it in.

  “Yes, get rid of all of it,” I said, opening the door.

  Ruth Anne blinked against the sun, then reluctantly set her equipment bag onto the porch. “Books, too?” I rolled my eyes and pushed an empty box towards her. Ruth Anne exhaled and gently placed her stack of novels inside.

  “It feels better in here already,” I said, breathing in.

  Merry looked dubiously around the near empty room. “If you say so, Maggie.” She lifted Mother’s spell book and placed it at the top of the heap. “This is all just temporary. As soon as we figure out what happened to Montana, we’ll come up with a game plan.”

  I put my son in his baby swing and wound it up. “Maybe,” I said, half-heartedly. “If spells only work on people that are susceptible, I refuse to be susceptible.”

  “How will that help Montana?’ Ruth Anne asked. “Howdy doesn’t know anything about spells.”

  “Don’t call him Howdy.”

  “Doody’s more accurate,” Eve said, entering through the open door. She turned to Ruth Anne and handed her a Styrofoam cup from a coffee cart downtown. “The only Goodwill I could find is in Linsburg.”

  “We are not taking any of this to Goodwill!” Merry threw her hands in the air, pacing. “This is our history. We’re not getting rid of any of it, understood?” She stopped, pointing her mom-finger at each of us in turn.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Ruth Anne said as Merry stomped off.

  “What got into her panties?” Eve asked. “Not a man, I’m guessing.”

  “Not unless she’s got one locked in the basement,” I said, immediately regretting it. “Merry has a hard time getting rid of things.”

  “I don’t know why. It’s all clutter. And who knows from which dark corners of the world Mom and her coven-cronies dug it up? This stuff is probably dripping with dark magick.” Eve’s eyes wandered to my bracelet. “What about that? If anything has bad juju on it, it’s probably Mom’s bracelet.”

  I twisted the crystal bracelet on my wrist. I hadn’t removed it since I first put it on. But Eve was right––if anything was a magical beacon, it was Mother’s Circle. I pulled on it, but it wouldn’t slide over my wrist.

  Merry returned wearing a checked apron and a softer expression, though her eyes narrowed as I continued to twist on the bracelet.

  “What?” I asked her.

  She placed her fingers on the bracelet and frowned. “The energy seems off. It doesn’t hum anymore. It’s almost dormant.” She peered closer. “And look, Maggie. There are more cracks in the crystal––cracks that I’m sure weren’t there before.”

  I lifted it to my face, inspecting the bracelet closer than I had in a long while. “Ah, hell!”

  Sure enough, there were several new splinters I hadn’t noticed before. They ran around the circumference of the band, nearly connecting at the ends. As much as I didn’t want it on my wrist, knowing that the bracelet was continuing to decay disconcerted me. A bad omen, for sure.

  “Don’t worry,” Merry said, gently touching my arm. “I’m sure it’s just natural erosion.”

  Eve smirked, folding her arms. “It’s a bracelet Merry, not the Grand Canyon.”

  “I’m just saying she shouldn’t worry,” Merry said. “It may break off on its own soon.”

  “Like a bad tooth,” Ruth Anne agreed, finishing her coffee.

  I rubbed the band. Jillian said the bracelet may have saved me during my time in the Netherworld. “Maybe this thing has been protecting me all along.”

  “Might want to get some Gorilla Glue then,” Eve said.

  I massaged the smooth crystal, wondering if it was something I should fear or protect.

  Ruth Anne lifted the heaviest box and stepped out onto the porch. “Any more prices you want to slash at Maggie’s Going out of Business Emporium?”

  I looked around. The house looked the same but cleaner, and the energy felt lighter. Looser. I wiped my hands on my shirt. “Nope. I think that’s about it.”

  “How about some clothes?” Eve added. “Are you sure you don’t want to get rid of your wardrobe? I know some orphans who might want to donate them to worse-off orphans.”

  “I’m fine. By the way, Hooters called. They want their orange shorts back.”

  “They did?”

  I smiled.

  “Can we at least keep the brooms?” Merry asked, then snapped her mouth closed. I had forgotten about them. I went to the broom closet and collected them all. “Guess not,” she said, as I handed them over. “Good thing we still have a vacuum.”

  They each took an armful of relics, old and new. We hadn’t gotten everything, though. The ‘secret room’ was still overrun, but I’d lock the door and sprinkled salt around the threshold. I planned to do one final protection ritual in that room, as well as close the portal in the nursery, followed by an overall house smudging. And then my days of w
itchcraft would be behind me.

  I watched as the others loaded Merry’s car. I would stay behind. The less I knew about where they deposited the stuff, the better.

  Ruth Anne saluted me before climbing into the sedan. Merry gave me a warm smile. They drove away, leaving Eve behind. I joined her on the porch.

  “Looks like the only witchy things left in the house are us,” Eve said, grinning.

  “I’m not a witch.”

  “You can shave a cat, but it’s still a cat. An ugly cat, but a cat nonetheless. Speaking of,” she said, leaning against a pillar. “Still no sign of Maggie Cat?”

  “None. We combed this damned house again today.”

  “Cats are resilient,” Eve said. “I wouldn’t worry.”

  “I’m trying not to, but the timing is just too coincidental.”

  “Coincidences happen, Maggie. Even in Dark Root. Even to witches.”

  We both knew she was trying to make me feel better. Things were happening in the world; things we will never see. It all happens behind a curtain.

  In short, Eve was wrong.

  AS FAR AS I could tell, the cleanse was working. The next two days were both boring and unremarkable, which I welcomed. I even began to feel better, though I couldn’t tell if it was real or just wishful thinking. Still, I felt stronger, more in control. The best way to fight magick was not with more magick, I’d learned, but with its absence.

  I bundled Montana in the baby sling, carrying him around the house with me as he screamed and squealed with both joy and angst at his confinement.

  “Shhh.” We tiptoed past a napping Ruth Anne. She was somehow sitting upright on the couch, yet asleep. Her head warbled off to the side and a string of drool dangled from her lower lip. Montana saw her and screeched with excitement.

  Auntie Ruth Anne had become a favorite––making funny faces and fart noises and sharing her pudding when she thought I wasn’t looking. He screeched again, startling Ruth Anne into swatting at the air. She knocked the glasses from her face in the process.

  My sister rubbed her eyes and smiled when she noticed Montana peddling his feet, trying to get to her.

  “I haven’t decided,” I said out loud.

  Ruth Anne wiped her glasses on a Wings and Wrenches napkin and replaced them on her pert nose. Her brown eyes narrowed. “Decided what, Mags?”

  “Which Peanuts character you remind me of the most. You act more like Peppermint Patty but you look like Marcy.”

  “You’re a funny woman. If this ‘mom thing’ doesn’t work out for you, maybe you’ll pursue standup.”

  “Personally, Montana thinks you’re more of a Thelma from Scooby Doo type, but I don’t know.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment. Thelma rocked those turtlenecks! And do you think they’d ever solve any of the mysteries without her? I mean, Fred and Daphne were big helps, huh? And Scooby and Shaggy? C’mon! What do you think they did in the Mystery Van to have the munchies like that?”

  She looked around, making sure we were alone. “Speaking of which...”

  “Uh-oh.” I knew where this was going. “We’re not opening a mushroom business, Ruth Anne.”

  “Why not? I can pick them myself. It would be all profit.”

  “Geez, Ruth Anne. Don’t you have enough going on with the writing and the ghost hunts?”

  “That’s why we should open it. I need a distraction. And the revenue... Just think!” She held up her hands, creating a frame. “This can be the new cog in Dark Root’s economy wheel. I sell Ruth Anne’s Magick Mushrooms to the tourists. They eat them and want to do fun, crazy things, like play with tarot cards and learn to contact their dead aunts. So they wander over to Sasha’s store, where Eve sells them the necessary supplies.”

  I laughed. “I like the name of the product anyway, and it’s not like we’d be using real magic. But you’ll never get Merry to agree.”

  “Agree to what?” Merry came through the front door with a basket of purple flowers. Another was tucked behind her ear.

  “Oh, just another one of Ruth Anne’s business ideas,” I groaned.

  “Do what I do,” Merry said. “Just nod and smile. She’s harmless and doesn’t follow through.”

  “Hey!” Ruth Anne protested. “I’m right here.”

  Merry turned her attention to me as she went about filling up the new vases scattered about the house. “Where are you off to, Sunshine?” she asked as I hedged towards the door.

  “Just a nature walk with my son.” I smiled, trying to hide the lie. Knowing my sister’s empathic ability to read intentions, I wasn’t sure if she bought it.

  “It’s a great day for it,” she said, opening the drapes and flooding the room with light.

  “I better get started,” I said with a nod. “You know this Dark Root weather. So unpredictable.”

  “Yes.” Merry studied me, her gaze flickering between me and my son. “The weather can be very unpredictable around here.” With that, she went upstairs.

  Ruth Anne joined me at the door. “Just because we’ve ‘cleaned’ this house, doesn’t mean you’re out of the woods. Got it?” Her face was pale and serious, and her eyes large and concerned.

  “Got it,” I agreed. “I promise to be careful. I’m just going for a walk.”

  “Yeah,” she said, inhaling deeply so that her chest expanded, adding temporary curves to her tomboy figure. “But these are Dark Root woods––restless and wild, just like you. Trouble attracts trouble.”

  “Not this time,” I said confidently. “I’ve turned over a new leaf. I’m trouble free.” I smiled reassuringly.

  But my sisters knew me better than I know myself.

  I WAS GOING for a walk. That was the truth. I just hadn’t told my sisters that I had a particular destination in mind––the stone building where I viewed my father track a young Jillian in the snow globe memory.

  While I did want to be free of magick, I couldn’t shake my curiosity. And perhaps I could solve these riddles without more globes, if I returned to the scene in my physical body.

  I followed Armand’s path, trying to recreate the route I’d seen in the dreamscape. It was difficult, especially since he took an alternate route to throw off Mother. The land had changed somewhat over the years, and the undergrowth had swallowed the trail. I looked for landmarks, but seeing nothing familiar, decided to follow my instincts more than any physical path.

  There were several times I heard things––rustling, tromping, grunts and growls––but as long as none of these things were supernatural, I wasn’t turning back. And Montana seemed excited to be going on this grand adventure.

  I felt called to visit this dwelling, though I wasn’t sure why. “It’s not magick,” I defended myself to my son as we tramped through the vast greenery. “It’s a memorial.”

  A memorial to my warlock father?

  Deep in thought, I soon found myself lost. Nothing but trees and leaves as far as I could see. Everything looked the same. Montana gazed up at me with his gold-green eyes. He had faith in me. I looked around, determined to dig my way out or dig myself further in.

  “Stop searching with your eyes and search it in your mind.”

  It was Shane’s voice, coming to me through a memory, though I couldn’t remember ever having that conversation with him.

  I vaguely saw an image of the old stone structure in my mind, but it was drowned out up by the realization that I would never hear Shane’s voice again. I touched my ring finger. The hurt was so bad I stopped walking. Montana continued to study me. I smiled to comfort him. “We’re going the right way,” I said, with a lilt in my voice I didn’t feel. “Mommy has you.”

  Sit with the pain, I told myself as I marched on. The image of the ruins was softly imprinted on my brain, propelling me forward. I had loved. Deeply. And that was more than most people got.

  I was lucky. Wasn’t I?

  I walked in solitude and Montana drifted to sleep. I stepped over a tree trunk, heading down a path of d
angling limbs. I no longer tried to remember. I just let go.

  The sun disappeared for a stint, and in the moment that it reemerged, I saw it ahead of me––the small stone building now covered in moss and vines. Above it draped a canopy of knotted tree branches, twisting like a steeple, a cathedral built by nature herself. The structure had lost more stones. Time had taken its toll.

  Still, the building radiated peace.

  Was it Jillian’s energy that permeated the dwelling, even after all this time? Had she left the spirit of her youth here? I could almost smell her soap and shampoo in the air. As I approached, I saw the nearly invisible outline of a bubble encasing the building, though it was now thin and fragile. Jillian hadn’t only visited here––she had loved this secret place.

  As in the snow globe, there was a doorway without a door, and windows without any glass. The building felt ancient, tribal, primitive. But there were no markers to signify who might have built it.

  My body buzzed, as if I’d just drank several shots of Ruth Anne’s espresso.

  The stones. There was something about these stones.

  I inspected them, noting granules of sparkles embedded throughout. Crystal? Quartz? Whatever it was, they made me light-headed.

  Montana’s head flopped against my chest and I cradled his neck with my hand. I had wanted to be rid of magick but magick was thick here, preserved in these stones. So what was I doing out here?

  “Maggie...”

  I spun quickly, my free hand pushing out protectively. It took me a second to realize it was only Merry. “How did you know I was here?” I asked.

  “Sister’s intuition.” Her pretty face was serious, though her voice was light. “Ruth Anne said you were acting funny so I followed.”

  “We don’t get a lot of privacy around here, do we?”

  “Welcome to Dark Root.”

  TWELVE

  Let the Sunshine In

  MERRY AND I entered the ruins shoulder to shoulder. Though peaceful from the outside, the energy inside was claustrophobic. Merry reached out, extending her calm presence, staving off the oppressiveness like a lantern pushing against the dark. When the room cleared enough to breath comfortably, we grinned like two kids in a treehouse.