by Teri Harman
Willa nodded absently as she watched another car drive down the road—still not Simon. “I know. I thought I was helping. I thought . . .” She shook her head and dragged a hand down her face.
“What?” Char said quietly, leaning forward.
Willa sighed. “I don’t know. I thought knowing would be better, even if it was bad news. Then we had our beautiful wedding, and everything seemed better, like it would work out no matter what. I thought, somehow, that would soften the blow.” She shook her head again and stared blankly at the road. “Did it make it worse?”
“Oh, Willa, no,” Char comforted sincerely. “I don’t think anything would have helped Simon hear what you had to tell him today. But at least he knows he has you here, waiting, wanting to help. That will bring him back.”
Willa nodded, fighting a rise of emotion in her throat.
Charlotte touched Willa’s arm again. “Well, I promised Darby I’d help her ‘wrangle up some supper.’ Her words, not mine.” She smiled and stood. She watched the road for a moment and then added, “I’ll bring some out to you.”
Willa nodded her thanks, her eyes already moving back to the empty road.
Finally, as the sun set, Simon pulled into the driveway. Willa stopped rocking and sat on the edge of the swing, her heart beating wildly. She was relieved to see him, but too much worry remained to let the relief sink in.
Simon got out of the Jeep and walked to the porch, his eyes on the ground and his shoulders bent with his burden. He sat next to her and, without looking at her face, pulled her hands into his, kissing them several times. Willa held her breath but answered his grip with strength. Shifting, he dropped his head into her lap. She cradled it, running fingers through his blond curls, still waiting. He wouldn’t have come back unless he’d decided what to do.
Somewhere down the street, children yelled to each other, playing, carefree.
Simon inhaled a shaky breath and finally spoke. “There was a wolf in the woods.” Willa didn’t say anything. “For the first time in my life, I hesitated. I wondered if it was right to heal.” He turned his face further into her legs; his next words were slightly muffled. “I walked away thinking my gifts are a Dark curse.”
Willa stifled a gasp and felt something inside her grow cold, an avalanche of panic. “Simon . . .” she began but stopped when she realized he was crying. It tore at her. At first, she hesitated, unsettled by such raw emotion, but then she wrapped her arms around him to hold the pieces together.
After a few aching moments, Simon sniffled and sat up, his face blotchy, eyes large and watery, mouth twisted in pain. She took his face in her hands and lightly kissed his trembling lips. “Tell me,” she whispered.
He hung his head. “I got halfway back to the car before I realized I couldn’t live with myself if I walked away.”
The coldness in Willa thawed instantly, and her heart beat with warmth. “You went back.” It wasn’t a question.
He nodded and sniffled. “Yes. All I could think about were the times my father forced me to leave animals behind, to walk away.” He held her eyes. “I never told you that.” Willa shook her head, her own eyes filling with tears. “That felt Dark—walking away. But turning back . . .”
“You made the right choice. There’s nothing Dark about you, Simon.”
He shook his head. “Yes, there is, but . . .” He pulled her delicate hands from his face and held them. “But it’s a choice, the same choice I have made every day of my life.” He smiled weakly. “Why would I stop now?”
Willa laughed, tears tracking down her cheeks. She threw her arms around him and held tight. “I was worried I’d made a mistake,” she whispered.
“No, you didn’t. It’s hard to accept, but now I know what’s really inside me. I’ll train it, control it. Maybe one day we’ll find a way to fix it.” He drew back, wiped the tears off her cheeks, and she the ones off his. “I can do it if you’re with me.”
A spark of heat flashed behind Willa’s heart. “I’ll always be here.”
“I know.” Simon dropped his forehead to hers. “I’m sorry about before, about running off. That was stupid. But I just . . .”
“I get it.” She pulled back and met his eyes. “I would have run off too. That was a lot to take in.” She smiled. “But you never have to run away. Even if it gets really bad, stay with me. I hate worrying about you like that.”
He nodded. “Sorry about that too. I would have been back sooner, but I had a little complication.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
Simon looked over at the Jeep and whistled, high and short.
A large wolf leaped out of the open window of the car and trotted over on his long, slender legs. Willa’s jaw dropped. The animal sat in front of her, so big, with eyes like gold coins, glistening in the evening light. She shrank away, nervous.
“It’s okay, Willa. This is not a normal wolf; he’s safe.” Simon reached out to pat the wolf’s head. The animal walked forward, rested his chin on Simon’s leg. “I tried to get him to leave, but he wouldn’t. He kept following me.”
Willa stared at the wolf. “Seriously?”
Simon laughed. “Yeah, it was really weird. I sensed a . . . connection when I healed him. Never felt anything like it.” He shrugged. “He wasn’t just there to help himself; he was there to help me.” He smiled. “We kind of bonded.”
Willa looked from Simon to the wolf. “I read about this in one of those grimoires. Some witches have a connection to an animal, a magical bond. Almost like a soul mate, only with an animal. The animals are called Familiars.” Slowly, she reached out a hand and rested it on the wolf’s head. The wolf looked up, meeting her eyes, and she could see a kind of human-like understanding and depth. She laughed and rubbed behind his ears. “He’s beautiful. Familiars are pretty rare, though.”
Simon shrugged. “Rare, huh? Sort of my calling card, I guess.”
She smiled. “What are you gonna call him?”
“I don’t know. I hoped you could help me with that.” Simon ran his hand down the wolf’s back.
“Hmm . . .” Willa put her hands under the wolf’s face and looked at him. “What’s your name? It has to be something strong and majestic, right?” The wolf licked her hand, and she laughed. Willa searched her mind for a minute. “How about Koda? It means ‘friend’ in Sioux.” The wolf stood up and wagged his tail, licking her hand again in agreement.
“I think he likes it,” Simon said. “How did you know that name?”
Willa shrugged. “I did a service trip to an Indian reservation in junior high. For some reason that word stuck in my head.”
Simon smiled and looked down at the wolf. “Well, Koda, welcome to the family.”
Koda looked back and forth between Willa and Simon.
Simon patted Koda’s head as his face fell solemn again. “Willa, I want to go with you to tell Solace.”
Willa blinked. Her mind hadn’t gotten to that through everything else, but there would certainly have to be that moment, the moment of walking into the museum to tell Solace how she had died. The ghost was already mad at Willa for not being able to go to her and Simon’s wedding, not that Willa could have done anything about it. But this . . . It wasn’t a conversation Willa looked forward to. “That’s a nice idea,” she said.
“I know I won’t be able to see or hear her, but I think I should be there.”
Willa nodded and took his hand. “She’ll be happy to have you there. We can go tomorrow.” Her stomach tightened. Oh, poor Solace. How will she take it?
Simon exhaled and offered a small smile. “Okay, sounds good.” He sighed. Willa settled into Simon, his arm comfortably around her shoulders. Koda lay down at their feet as if that had always been his spot.
The sun slipped under the horizon, and twilight turned the mountains to indigo shadows. The full moon winked above the mountains, taking over the sky for the night. Finally, Simon said, “What was it like going back to the cave?”
&n
bsp; In a whisper, Willa answered, “Terrible. That place is so . . .”
“Yeah, I know.” Simon pulled her a little closer.
“No, but there’s something else we didn’t get to tell you.” Willa shifted her head to look up at him. “We found bodies buried in the ground outside the cave.”
Simon flinched, pulling his chin in to see her face better. “What?”
“I know. The ground was all torn up, and Rowan saw the bodies. The trees told him that they were sacrifices. Sacrifices, Simon, of human bodies. The quakes in the spring, all those people missing.”
Simon shuddered and Koda lifted his head as if to listen more intently. Willa looked at the wolf as Simon said, “It all happened at the cave? That’s really . . . Holy moon! Does that mean it was Rachel? Who else knows about that place?”
“We don’t know. Some of us are starting to wonder if Archard really did die.”
Simon’s jaw dropped. “But Rowan checked.”
“Yeah, but it’s Archard.”
Simon exhaled. “Oh, man. How messed up would that be?”
She nodded. “And there was one more thing we learned up there. Remember the Lilly in Camille’s grimoire?”
“Yeah, of course. It’s your and Solace’s new mystery.” He smiled.
“Well—get this—Lilly was Amelia’s daughter.” Willa’s heart beat a little quicker. She couldn’t wait to tell Solace. Her friend had had a memory of Amelia having a baby a couple months ago; Solace had known Lilly. At least Willa would have some good news to go with the bad.
“Whoa. That’s crazy.”
“It’s possible she’s still alive. Amelia said Camille promised to get her to safety when the Dark covens came here. She’d be in her eighties, I think, but if she’s alive, that means the Plate bloodline still exists.”
“That’d be amazing.”
Willa nodded, her mind turning, working in historian mode. “How cool would it be to find her, talk to her?” She sighed, “But there are no clues in the grimoires as to where Camille took her. Maybe she took her to Italy. So it’s nearly impossible to find her.”
“Too bad,” Simon said. Thunder cracked in the distance, and both of them—and Koda—flinched.
Willa leaned forward. Angry clouds had gathered in the last few minutes, clogging up the sky and swallowing the mountains. “Where did those come from?”
Simon leaned forward too, eyes narrowed at the clouds. He shook his head. “No idea. It’s been clear and hot all day.”
A sudden wind plowed through the yard, yanking leaves off the trees, and throwing Willa’s hair in her face. She pulled it away in time to see several skeletal arms of lightning pulse across the sky. “Sun and moon!” she whispered.
Simon grunted in agreement, and Koda growled at the sky. “We better get in. I got a lot to talk about with Rowan anyway.” He looked over at Willa, eyes heavy with meaning. “If I’m going to learn to control all the mess inside me, we need to get started right away.”
Her heart squeezed tight. “Good idea.” Her smile was interrupted by a tremendous burst of thunder.
Koda stepped to the edge of the porch and howled at the darkening sky.
Chapter 32
Blessing Moon
July—Present Day
July’s full moon, the blessing moon, climbed the sky, steady and bright. Its bone-white light gave objects below a sublimely spectral quality, as if the world were something viewed through an ancient mirror.
Archard was ready, any margin for error eliminated. The time had come to test his skills. Dressed in his finest black suit with matching shirt, and shoes polished to a high sheen, he stood like a vogue wraith at the gates of the Twelve Acres cemetery. In his hands, he held the iron box.
Rachel, also in black, tight and sleek as a machine, stood next to him. Behind them, a passenger van. Inside the van, ten random strangers lay unconscious.
Rachel said to Archard, “I’ll go and set up the barrier.” As she trotted off, she pulled a vial of blood from her pocket. The spell—pulled from Bartholomew’s book, of course—would keep them hidden from the town and prevent any interruptions as they pulled the ghosts from the Otherworld.
When she returned, the spell in place, Archard nodded to the van, “Let’s get them into place.” Rachel stepped up to the van and threw back the door. She took a pouch from her jacket pocket. Carefully, she sprinkled a powdered potion on each face and then backed out of the van.
“Move!” she commanded. Soon the ten people stumbled from the van, reeling like drunkards, to follow her into the cemetery. Their eyes stared vacantly ahead, unaware of the danger.
Archard took a large bag from the van and followed. Anticipation was alcohol in his veins, making his head spin giddily. No one in history had ever attempted this. It was ingenious, revolutionary. Legendary. He imagined the stories to future generations. Archard the Dark created a Covenant of ghosts. He pulled the souls from the Otherworld as easily as pulling apples from a tree. Eyes would widen following such statements, and listeners would gasp in wonder, envy, and—best of all—fear.
Archard the Dark: the only witch worthy of the same title as Bartholomew.
His stomach fluttered, his smile grew.
Rachel organized the drones into a line behind the headstones of Ruby Plate and several members of her Covenant. Archard knelt and placed the iron box on top of her grave, the moans growing in pitch, floating out of the metal.
“I’m coming for you, Ruby,” he hissed to her grave.
The brilliant Light Luminary had escaped the clutches of his grandfather several times. Archard’s grandfather, Horace, had tried and failed to form a Dark Covenant. He had been able to break Ruby’s but nothing more. Tonight, Archard began the long-awaited process of erasing his ancestral shame. No one would remember Horace’s mistakes after Archard’s triumph.
While Rachel corralled their ten victims—randomly kidnapped from Denver for the occasion—Archard opened his bag of supplies. He placed white pillar candles all around the graves, a large flickering circle, yellow flames contrasting the white moonlight.
Finished with the victims, Rachel handed a moonstone marked with a black skull and crossbones to Archard. “Is it time?” she asked, smiling, but unable to hide a flicker of fear in her cool blue eyes.
Archard dismissed it; he couldn’t expect anyone, not even Rachel, to be as open to the Darkness as he. No one was like him. He bent and pulled Bartholomew’s grimoire from the bag, reverently running a hand over the round silver medallion on the cover. At least not anyone living . . .
He placed the book next to the box of souls but didn’t open it. Archard had all the elements of the spell memorized, etched into his brain. The grimoire was there for symbolic reasons only.
“Yes, it is time.” Shivers of pleasure moved down his spine as he thumbed the glass-smooth moonstone. It’s time!
Rachel nodded and went back to their victims, forcing each one to his or her knees. Their bodies bent easily but stiffly, their heads wobbling as she pushed them down. Brushing her hands off, Rachel then joined Archard at Ruby’s grave.
They knelt together in front of the boxed souls. Archard must open the box to release the power of the souls but must keep them contained. The instant the box opened the souls would try to flee to the Otherworld, but he had to harness them, ground them, or he’d lose their power. From the bag Archard pulled the needed ingredients.
First, he unscrewed the lid of a mason jar and carefully sprinkled crushed shells on Ruby’s grave to form a square. Next, inside the shell-square, the blood of a crow formed two intersecting arrows pointing in the four cardinal directions. Lastly, he placed the iron box in the middle of the square and folded several strands of dried seaweed over the lid.
Archard put his hands on top of the box—his fingers instantly growing cold—and mumbled the words that would keep the souls from escaping. Then he turned to Rachel. “Remember, it’s your job to make sure none of the souls escape. Keep close watch.
If they start to break the barrier, we must close the box at once. I’d rather start over than lose them.”
She nodded solemnly, her eyes fixed on the box. “We won’t lose any.”
“Good.” He inhaled. “Here we go.” With another spell, Archard pried open the iron box. The metal groaned in protest before the lid snapped open. In an icy rush, the souls flooded out of the box, only to be stopped by a dome of magic. The invisible dome filled with the ethereal white ghosts, their bodies without real form, mixing together like a cloudy, milky liquid. Faces, screaming in protest or pain, swirled inside the trap, mouths stretched wide, eyes elongated in frightened, angry grimaces.
Archard leered back, drinking in the potent power.
Pleased that the trap was solid, he stood and moved to his living victims. He paced, scanning their empty, unfocused eyes. Ten ignoramuses’ lives in exchange for ten ghosts pulled from the Otherworld. He swiveled his head. “Rachel, bring me the stones.”
She dug in the bag and produced ten moonstones, each strung on a length of twine and etched with a sinister death’s head. Archard hung one around each victim’s neck. They hung heavily at each chest, the small ovals nearly the same color as the trapped souls a few feet away.
The night, still and silent until a moment ago, now filled with the sounds of tossed leaves and rustling grass as the wind raged against the dark magic. Somewhere down the road, a screen door creaked open and shut again and again. Thick gray clouds gathered, swelling and crackling with lightning. The full moon soon vanished behind their thunderous walls.
Only half of the witches Archard wanted were actually buried in the graveyard. Their souls would be easy to pull, their graves acting as a magnet. It would require the exchange of one soul for the other, a sacrifice, to pull the five remaining ghosts whose graves were elsewhere in the world. He’d decided to use a sacrifice for all ten anyway as an extra precaution.
Archard moved back to the first of the kneeling victims. He held his hand to the man’s high, dry forehead and called to his fire. His palm flared red-hot. Numb to the pain, the victim only blinked as the witch branded a name into his head, the letters burned there for the Otherworld to identify.
