I looked over my father and realized that his arm was bandaged from a severe cut and I wondered what had happened to him.
“What happened to your arm?” I asked this but I already thought that I knew the answer to the question. “It was hurt when Eric and Marie and some of their coven came calling for you.” He looked down at his arm and then back at me. “I'm fine. They attacked to fast.” He stopped and his tone became chilling to me. “Your mom.... She didn't get out.”
I wanted to cry, but knew if I started to, then my dad would too. I wouldn't meet his eyes for fear that the tears would really start to come. My father seemed to sense what I was feeling and put his arms around me again. All of this was my fault. My mom, turning my parents’ lives upside down, everything. I felt bad for all of the things that had happened this last month and wished that it was all a bad dream, but it wasn't. “How did it happen?” I asked through his grasp.
“We were in the living room and they just came in. We had no time to get away. We always split up when we are being attacked that way we can get away faster, but she didn't make it out of the living room.”
I took that in for a minute. “Did you go back for her?” I wanted to know if she had a gravestone, but was too scared to know the real answer.
“Yes. She's just out back here in our private cemetery.” He pulled me to him, like he had done when I was a child. “I’ll go out with you”
“I was at the house not too long ago and she wasn't there.”
“Eric has the gift of illusion. He can make you see what he wants you to see.” I wanted to run out the door and see the grave for myself, but I didn’t. Could I even handle it? Knowing that she was really gone and it was my fault.
“You were just lucky that you know how to get out of a jam. Otherwise you might not have gotten away from Eric and Marie. They are not good people, you know.” He let me go and looked into my eyes. “And it’s not your fault. We knew what we were getting into when we took you in.” He let me go and walked to the other side of the room. “Conner will be here soon. He can take you back to a safe place.”
Sure enough, a couple of minutes later, Conner walked through the door with Anna in tow. He was furious, I could tell that much. I felt him look at me as mad as hell, but I was not going to look at him in the eyes. That would be admitting I was wrong and we had come too far for that now.
“What were you doing?” He said with a slight bit of caring in his voice, but mostly the sound of being completely mad.
“I screwed up. Live with it.” I said finally matching eyes with him. He was not my keeper and I was a grown woman. I was glad to see him, but his cutting words made me bitter with him.
“We have to get somewhere else. Somewhere safe.” Conner said to my dad as he reached for my arm. “No, not until I’ve seen my mom.” I snapped. He looked at the ground and then nodded. I turned from him and started for the back door. With every step my breathing became more and more hollow. I didn’t want to face the truth of it and know that she was gone, but I had too.
Before I knew it, my dad was there with me, holding onto my hand. We both walked out the door into the hot air. The cemetery was only a few feet away and I could already see the fresh mound. My mom is under that.
I stood in front of the grave thinking about what I was doing. Why had this happened and why did they take me in?
“It’s not your fault and your mom loved you more than you could ever imagine.”
“Why did you take me in if I was such a danger?” “We wanted to give you a chance. Love is the most pure form of good magic and we knew that you wouldn’t feel that with your true parents. You have the ability to make the right choices and to see the world as it should be. This is more than they would ever be able to show you”
“You guys were and always will be my true parents.” He pulled me to him and I melted into my dad. I closed my eyes and wished I had stayed normal.
“We have to get you out of here.” He said walking me into the house. “You could have killed us all.” Anna said bluntly and with a slight edge in her voice. She was right behind him in the doorway. Her hair was in a ponytail and her face carried a scowl. She didn’t seem to notice I had just been in front of my mom’s grave.
“I'm sorry. You have no clue what it's like not knowing where you come from.” I snapped at her. She pursed her lips and walked off to the other side of the room.
Conner looked at me then at my dad. Something was wrong. I could feel it and so could they. It was the heavy feeling that magic left when it was used. The air was so heavy that it let us all know that there was more than one person that we needed to worry about.
“Do you think they tracked her?” My dad said shooting for the window. “This place is magically protected. They shouldn't be able to find us.” Conner answered back to him grabbing my arm. I assumed there would have to be a quick escape if it was Eric and Marie and the other witches that they knew.
“They have been getting stronger with the moon and the full moon is only a few days away. Anything is possible.” My dad said this with a matter of fact tone. “You have to get her out of here.”
Conner nodded to my dad and pulled a bottle from his pocket. I knew what it was for and tried to pull away. I didn't want to leave my dad again, not now after losing my mother. His grip was to strong and he yanked me back into him. He threw the bottle onto the wood floor. The same purple smoke consumed us. I looked back at my father and knew that this was the last time that I would see him.
Ten
When I opened my eyes again, I felt the tears starting. I knew that they would probably not be able to get away and if they did, they would probably would be hurt or better off dead. Did they even have a place to go if they got away?
I looked through the tears that were trying to start and found that I was back at Conner's house. We were standing in front of that house and the sun was still high in the sky. I pulled away from Conner and looked at him.
“How could you just leave them there?” I screamed at him. My heart was pounding and I was very angry at the idea of just leaving my dad and his sister there.
“You aren't ready to face them yet.” Conner said as calm as could be. “Then why didn't they follow us or come first?” “Their trying to keep you safe.”
“What's it matter if all the good people are dead?” I was so mad and felt so helpless at the same time. My mom was dead and I feared that my dad would soon be too. That thought scared me more than anything that I could ever dream of.
“It matters a lot. Before long there will be a full moon and we'll both have to stop them.” He started walking to the house and I followed him unsure of what he meant by that.
When we got into the house he pulled a book from the drawer in the living room. I was not the same book that we had used when we were making the potions and spells that we had been working on the last time I was here. It looked a bit older and had a lot of writing in it. Not like the normal spell book that we had used in the past for our other spells.
He opened it and started flipping through pages. I watched as he finally settled on a page with a lot of different drawings on it as well as the writing. It was sloppy but could be read if you knew who it was that had written it.
“This was my mothers.” Conner said plainly as he read the page to himself. “She wrote all the dreams in it that she had so that she would remember them and so that others could as well if it was too far into the future.”
He stopped looking and started to read out loud to me. “On a full moon after there has been a big war between the good witches and the bad, there will be a time that black magic can take control and shift the balance.” Conner stopped and looked at me. “This is the right year and I think that's what Eric and Marie are trying to do. There are only a few left that can stop them.” He was calm, but there was something in his voice that read fear. He was afraid.
So was I. He looked over at me and saw the look on my face. He reached out to me and pulled me to him. I settled
into him and finally felt as though I was safe. He bent his face down so it was close to mine and met my lips. He kissed me hard and passionately. I let go of all of the things that had been going on and wrapped my arms around his neck. He picked me up and carried me up the stairs to a room that I'd never been in.
It was Connor's room.
He laid me down gently and kissed my lips again as he swung the door shut behind him.
Eleven
I opened my eyes and looked to the right of my bare body to see Conner sleeping peacefully next to me. His muscular chest rising and falling with each breath. I thought about what Eric had said and wondered if what I was fighting was real or if it was his gift controlling my actions. I thought about the first day that I'd seen him and the feelings that I'd had right away and realized it had to be real and I was just trying to find a reason to make myself crazy.
I got up from the large bed as quietly as I could to put my clothes on. The last thing that I wanted was for his sister to catch on to what had just happened. Even though it was a private matter, I still wanted to keep a good relationship with her as well as with Conner.
I couldn't help but look back one more time at him before I opened the door and a smile crept to my face. In all of this stuff that had been happening, something good had come from it and I might be able to hold onto that for once in my life.
I closed the door to his room behind me and started down the hall to the room that I had been staying in. I still assumed that it was mine to use while I needed to. When I got to my room, I opened the door and sat on my bed. There was no way that I was tired now. It was late at night now, but my mind was still thinking of what had just happened. The way that he touched me and the complete feeling of being safe and in love. Conner was not just a fling that I was having to forget what I'd been going through; he was one of only a couple to ever see me totally.
I couldn't help but to smile to myself as I thought about it. I just wanted to talk to a girlfriend and tell her all about Conner and who he was, but I couldn't. There was no one that I could trust, but Conner and myself.
This magic fight was coming all too fast and I knew that I had to be ready. I knew how to protect myself and how to travel around. I also knew how to defend myself if I had to, but I had no idea what my gift was and how far I could take it.
I had been having odd dreams lately. Maybe that was what it really was.
If that's all it is, then I'm screwed.
I laid down on the bed to try and get some sleep, but my mind was still full of thoughts and fear. When I finally got myself to relax I was waken in a start. There was a lot of noise coming from the front room of the house. It was not sounds that made a person feel safe at all and I debated for a moment about staying under the covers and closing my eyes.
I rose from the bed that I'd been trying to sleep in and started towards my door. It was down the hall a little from the stairs that lead to the front room below. The noise got louder and I realized it was people talking in the room below. I listened harder as I made my way to the bottom of the stairs.
The voices belonged to two people that I knew, Conner and my father. They were talking louder now. “You can't go there on your own.” My dad yelled at Conner “I have to. She was my sister.” Conner yelled back at my dad. He was pacing the short distance between the stairs and the front door as he spoke.
“She's already gone. There is nothing left for you to do.” “I'm going to end this right now. I can stop them before they hurt anyone else and keep them from turning magic like you know they are planning”
I rushed down the remainder of stairs to the front room and stood right in between them. My dad looked at me with frustration and sadness in his eyes. I looked over to Conner and he met my gaze with anger and rage.
“What are you planning?” I said to him, my voice was almost a whisper.
He looked at me and then back at my dad. “Anna was killed at the shack yesterday.” My dad answered instead of Conner. “Now he's planning on getting revenge.”
“It's not anyone’s business what I'm going to do.” He said coldly. “I care about what you’re going to do. If you go there..... You’ll die.” I almost was yelling this now. I didn't want him to go there. Not now.
“What do you know about anything? You’re just a naive little girl that thinks the world should revolve around you!” He yelled at me coldly. I almost burst into tears right then. It cut through me all the way to the edge. I felt the rage come after that and pulled the tears back.
“Fine, do it. What do I care?” I yelled and then stomped up the stairs. I heard the door slam shut to the house from halfway up the stairs and stopped. As mad as I was at what had just happened, I didn't want him to go. I loved him and now I really knew it.
Twelve
I heard footsteps starting up the stairs after me and turned really hoping that it was Conner, but the face that I saw was that of my dad’s. His face was still angry about the display downstairs, but he looked at me with love and fear all at the same time. Maybe he thought that I planned to follow him and get myself killed too. I knew better than that after my last run in with Eric and Marie. I didn't know what to do about Conner, but there was really nothing that I could do.
Except stop this whole thing.
“I have an idea.” I said to my dad who was looking straight at me.
“What's the idea?” He said as we walked down the stairs with me. “Remember the binding spell that Anamara put on me when I was a child.” He nodded as I spoke. “Could we bind their magic for good?”
“It will take your magic away too, but yes we could” He walked into the kitchen “That's what I was taught. That anyone in the line will lose the magic that they have. Do you really want to do that?”
“I can't hurt them. They may not be good people, but they are my parents.”
“I know.” He almost whispered this to me and he stopped looking through the pots in the kitchen. “Will you help me make the potion that I need?” I asked him this hoping that he would give me the help I needed. A binding spell is complicated and hard to do for a beginner, plus I really didn't know what I was doing.
“Of course, but when it's time, I'm coming to get you.” He was completely calm in the way that he said this and I knew that he would.
“One other thing that you should know. I had a dream about tomorrow. They hold the ritual in a clearing in the woods. It can't be too far from here.”
“I think I know of the spot. There is a sacred circle clearing not far from here. Before the witches war, it was used for good magic. It has a special spot on the earth that helps to boost the magic that's done in it.”
“That's probably where it will happen at.” I was not certain if my dream was real or not, but I trusted my dad and what he felt was right.
“Let's get started on that potion. We will need a few.” He said pulling the pots that we would need from the cupboard that he had been looking at.
He had already decided that we would need to have at least enough to stop each person in the coven. That was an easy number to remember for us. 13.
I worked on my half of the potion bottles, adding herbs and oils and corking the tops of them. I thought about the type of people that would work for Eric and Marie and wondered if they were all really that bad. Maybe they were just scared of him. After all, from what Conner had told me, Eric was the most powerful of any of them right now. I wondered if I was going to be enough to stop him.
I was a nobody. Just some girl who happened to be born into a family that was able to control magic and that had, what I was told as, gifts. I had never learned any of it though the normal channels and I was a complete amateur compared to, Conner who was the same age as me, but far ahead when it came to magic and potions and that. I felt silly making this advanced potion that I didn't even know was going to work for sure.
“I think we have enough now.” my dad said snapping me out of my trance. “You can take half and I'll take the other half. T
hat way we both will have some to stop them with”
“What if they find the potions?” I looked at the tiny bottles. It didn't take much to get the job done when it came to magic.
“You will have to make sure that they don't” He turned to me and put his hands on my arms kind of holding me there. He was smiling that smile that he did when he was worried about the same thing that I was saying, but trying to make me feel better about it.
He pulled me into him and held me close, just like he did when I was a young child. He could tell that I was scared of what could happen and he wanted to comfort me and keep me save just like he did when I would fall and scrap my knees.
“You'll do fine. When we get to the clearing, we will let them have it and then... it will all be over.” He sounded as unsure as I felt about the whole thing, but I trusted him. He was my father in every sense of the word.
“I have to go after him, you know.” I stated out of the blue. “He might still be alive.” “I know.” He said looking at the floor. We were both sitting on the couch now looking at each other. Tonight was the night that we would do this and hopefully all of this would be over. We both knew that we could die doing this, but couldn't let Conner die like all the others had and for nothing. We had to fight this dark turning that was coming.
Thirteen
The sun started to set in the distance and the sky was turning an odd orange yellow color as it was going. The wind was quiet and the birds were still. It was getting to be dark and time to go.
My dad and I were starting out of the house and into the distance towards the forest that was not too far from where Conner lived. It would be a short walk to the clearing that my dad had talked about. To my surprise, it looked just like the way that it had in my dream.
We hid behind a close enough tree to see what was going on. The tree was big enough for both of us to not be seen if we stayed low to the ground.
The 13th Witch Complete Trilogy Page 6
