Witch's Mystic Woods

by Marsha A. Moore

  Keir made eye contact with each of them. “I want you to close your eyes. Focus on a mental image of this room.”

  Larena closed her eyes, and his voice flowed over her like liquid bathing her in clairvoyance. She imagined herself inside a crystal ball, her second sight magnified by his powers.

  “Feel for the strongest, loudest, or most recent positive energy and hold it in your mind, whether it is clear or not.”

  An image of her mother recently grasping and massaging her hand focused then faded, replaced by a more detailed vision. Last fall, Mom and she had returned from a walk around the property to enjoy the color. Laughing, they’d carried home handfuls of yellow and orange leaves. One of many daily short strolls they enjoyed before Mom became bound to a wheelchair. Larena initiated those outings to keep up her mother’s spirits, but the benefits to them both were beyond measure.

  Larena heard plinks and thunks at the table’s center, as if Keir had dropped several small objects. He continued his directions, “Now, visualize the interior of this room once more, just the contents without any association. Then, consider what feels like the strongest or most recent negative energy that has occurred here. Don’t force the image. Let it come to you. Be receptive, without judgement. Accept the image.”

  His voice trailed off. A silence fell over the room that weighed upon Larena’s lungs, forcing her breath to become shallow and labored. The enormity of all the incomplete projects beyond deadlines crushed against her upper back and hunched her shoulders. One item clawed at her spine, scraping individual vertebrae—Ben’s bookcase. Why that? The wood had been so fascinating, an unusual journey. But a journey which did not originate from her artistry. She’d been trained to steer toward her own creative, magical center when learning to exercise her gift. The discrepancy made her head swim. She ached to open her eyes, to escape the horrid nausea spreading into her gut, but she couldn’t ruin the reading. She clamped her lids tight, holding the painful emotions without answering them, not letting them go deeper inside her. Instead, she listened to a bottle being unstoppered. Liquid splashed on the table’s center, followed by dull, scooting sounds.

  “Please leave your hands joined, but you may open your eyes.” The smoothness of Keir’s voice lifted with a glimmer of hopefulness as he invited them to awaken.

  Larena’s heart pounded as she swept her gaze across the objects on the table. A dozen stones, six bones, and six leaves lay in an arrangement which meant nothing to her, no matter how hard she squinted.

  Mr. Tynker squeezed her hand and nodded an encouragement.

  Aggie tiptoed to Waapake, who wagged his tail as she stroked his flank. She shut her eyes and massaged fingers deep into his thick, gray fur.

  The coyote flinched and pawed the floor. When Aggie released her hand, he zipped around his master’s feet, under another table, before halting inches from the bookcase with muzzle drawn into a vicious snarl.

  Aggie again touched his back and hovered her other hand near the bright pink wood. Her head fell back. Her body shook as if possessed.

  Unable to endure more of the woman’s suffering which she, too, could feel, Larena leaned forward to stand.

  Aggie broke down, her head and arms draped around Waapake.

  Logan beat Larena to his girlfriend’s side and helped them both back to seats near the other men.

  Waapake resumed his supportive stance beside Larena. She hugged his neck and said a silent thank you.

  “Aggie, can you relate what Waapake transmitted?” Keir asked.

  Between gulps of air, she said, “That bookcase is made of wood from a sacred tree, but infused with black magic to warp its natural purpose. It now serves as a barrier between a witch and his or her training with an inherited craft. I’m an elemental sun witch, which is more a tendency than an inheritance, and from a different coven. But I did feel as if darkness spread over me, trying to cut me off from my element.”

  “Who brought in that wood?” Mr. Tynker snapped.

  Larena gripped the table’s edge to steady herself. “A man about my age, not from the coven. His name is Ben, but he didn’t give a last name.”

  A storm passed over Logan’s eyes, turning them midnight with wisps of gray. “Ben Peterson.”

  Larena ground out her words, “How did he get that wood? From Sibeal?”

  “Let’s consult the bones and stones.” Keir pointed to where a river rock lay under one end of a twig. “Only the connected ones have significance. That stone is you, Larena, held down by the poisoned wood, which leads directly from the dark granite representing Sibeal. A small, plain stone connects to the twig’s shaft—Ben Peterson. A leaf lies between him and a similar stone, which indicates someone in his family.”

  “Maybe his brother, Reid?” Larena guessed.

  “Perhaps.” Lines etched the seer’s brow. “The leaf shows a caring but tenuous relationship between them. Also worthy of note is how your stone lies in a puddle of moon water that connects you to three important items: an ancient charred bone, which—”

  “The sacred grove,” Mr. Tynker interjected.

  “A safe assumption.” Keir nodded. “Also resting in the moon water is a piece of amber, representing love, and a quartz crystal, which shows powerful and unusual magic is involved. Clearly, lunar energy with the new moon about to coincide with Solstice works in your favor. They will bring you power, access to the grove, and love. I cannot say how those three arrange, whether any cause-effect relationships will exist among them.” He waved a hand around the table to disseminate the gathered energy. “You may now release your hands.”

  “How did Sibeal know to use the sacred wood against me?” Larena lips twisted to one side.

  “There is a reason we don’t speak the name of the sacred grove,” Mr. Tynker replied. “The word, when articulated by a human voice, is thought to carry energy. That energy is so distinct, it can be detected by some of our kind who are blessed with perception. Did you voice the name?”

  “Umm, I might’ve spoken it to Grandpa. But he did, too, and so did Cyril,” she replied.

  “Voices of empowered spirits and animals, like Cyril, transmit in a different plane,” the Councilman said.

  “How can this be undone?” Logan asked.

  “Maybe the effects will fade if I get away from the wood, clean it out of my shop,” Larena replied. “Who would know?”

  After a long silence, Mr. Tynker said in a quiet voice, “A tree mystic.”

  “Only me.” Larena sighed. “With my magic blocked, I can’t advise myself. Hopefully Grandpa will know.”

  “Or your father, if his spirit’s taken up a place on the homestead,” Mr. Tynker added. “Or best yet, the owner of Fable might be willing to barter his services.”

  “What do you mean? Isn’t he a mortal?” Logan asked, brows knit.

  Keir’s face lit with a tentative grin as he lifted the quartz crystal from the table into the air. “Fable’s owner, the King of the Fae Summer Court has ways unknown to witches, including Sibeal.”

  The Councilman addressed Keir. “You are good.”

  Trembling with anxiety, Larena clutched Waapake’s thick coat.

  Chapter Twelve: The Storm

  Armed with new information regarding her lack of magic, Larena crunched across the lane between store and house at the end of her Friday workday. She waved to Aggie and Logan as they drove out in his old green Nash sedan. They had stayed to keep her company after Keir and Mr. Tynker left and to remove as much of the poisoned nemeton wood as possible.

  The bookcase was finished, save for one more coat of tung oil, which Larena wasn’t about to finish and Ben would never notice. She doubted he actually wanted the piece or that he had a daughter. Logan wanted the black magic out of the coven, so he transported the bookcase to an unlocked barn over at Kilfoyle’s. Refusing to let Larena touch anything, he and Aggie cleared away all traces of the red sawdust and shavings, then deposited the trash off coven land.

  Although the affect
ed wood had been removed shortly after the meeting ended, Larena was still unable to use her forest sage skills.

  She tested it every few minutes, trying without luck to cause the store’s oak front door to lock itself after she conveyed mental guidance, or a verbal command, or a directive rap of her knuckles. “Darn. How much longer?”

  At the ironwood row along the driveway, she touched one of the limbs and began transmitting a wordless call for Grandpa, which proved an invalid test since he responded before she finished.

  “Been waitin’ fer you. Keir raised a torrent of black powers swirlin’ in the shop. What in tarnation’s happenin’? I thought the roof was gonna blow clean off.”

  “Yeah, felt like that inside, too,” Larena said. “Mr. Tynker and Logan and his girlfriend Aggie were there. We discovered that Sibeal turned my attempts to enter the sacred grove against me. She and Ben Peterson worked together to gather, mill, and hex boards from one of the trees there.”

  “Likely Sibeal used Peterson, a mortal, to get inside. No witch with her black heart would be allowed in.”

  Larena sagged away from the trunk, exhausted from the trying day. “Sibeal tweaked the lumber with a dark spell so when I worked with it, I’d be blocked. The lumber’s gone now; it’s all over.”

  Brittle limbs and twigs caught her arms and shoulders. Grandpa’s voice snapped in her face. “You leave her be, you hear? Get your head high and spend your time and thoughts on people who matter. Do some good deeds. Don’t let that hag pull you down with her.”

  “You’re right. I will.” She gave him the answer he wanted, but, in truth, she feared whether she could pull it off. “Can that negate Sibeal’s spell on me?”

  “Indeedy. A soft heart will let your magic sing. The answer to darkness is always light.”

  She struggled with his advice. It wasn’t something she could make or create. After Dad died, she’d run the business by churning out products, increasing her efficiency. What Grandpa wanted had nothing to do with production. To succeed, she had to change her emotions, all of them, and how they affected her entire outlook. How the heck could she accomplish that for more than a few minutes when a mountain of problems weighed upon her? Worst of all, her mother was dying. How could anyone be optimistic watching their parent die slowly, day by day? And worrying about their suffering? Mom’s gradual deterioration churned Larena’s emotions. Yet the positive ones, which would help her fulfill Grandpa’s demand, never rose to the surface. “What you say makes sense, but—”

  “Then do it! Lickety-split.”

  “But when people are trying to hurt you and your family, family who are helpless and suffering, how do you not get angry?” she pleaded, slapping hands to her thighs.

  “You let your rage out where they can’t see to gain satisfaction for the hurt they caused. Then shut them bad people from your mind, like puttin’ blinkers on a horse. That’s what you have to do to help yourself, you hear?” A strong branch shook her shoulder. “That’s the only way the nemeton will come to your aid. Don’t you give up.”

  She flinched when he said the name out loud, then remembered what Mr. Tynker had said about the varied vocal frequencies of spirits, animals, and humans. She wondered how that rule applied to faeries.

  Could the Summer Fae King save her magic and her family’s land in exchange for what she could offer him? Maybe the enchanted furniture she had in stock might interest him. She’d never even seen a faery, let alone a king. And the coming new moon would be on her side. Larena twisted to face the horizon where the moon always rose.

  “Moon’s not up yet,” Grandpa said.

  “This moon cycle, especially the next new moon at Solstice, will help me, Keir says.”

  “Dandy news. Who wouldn’t want a new moon on Solstice night to be their friend?”

  “When you see the moon tonight, will you say a prayer to her?” she asked.

  “I’ll do more than that. I’ll wish her well and ask her to do the same for my wonderful granddaughter who’s gonna stand up for what’s right, make the Lockwood name proud.”

  “Thank you, Grandpa. Thank you for believing in me. I’ll do my best.” She said the words slowly, letting them sink in, giving her courage and determination, which she would need.

  “I know you will, just don’t you doubt yourself. Whether you sell this place or keep it doesn’t matter. Make your choice with a soft heart. Do the most good you can along the way and everything will work out fine. I promise.”

  She hugged the tree trunk and hurried inside to where Betty buttoned her coat to leave for the night.

  In case any danger lurked, Larena watched to make sure Betty made it out safely, then joined Mom in her dining room bedroom listening to Christmas music on the radio.

  Larena sank into an armed dining chair. She should get to work on her Ogham staves. Besides being useful for her initial idea of divination, they might now be her sole means of using tree mysticism. All but two staves bore traces of her father’s magic. Hopefully, that connection to him had kept the set safe from Sibeal’s hex.

  Larena leaned forward and the motion caught her mother’s attention.

  Mom smiled and crooned the refrain to Frosty the Snowman, missing half the words and drooling from one corner of her mouth. Unbothered by her extended and unjust suffering, her heart was so light, so free. A soft heart.

  Amazing. Even though our roles are reversed and I’m her nurturer, Mom doesn’t realize she is still teaching me what I need to learn. I don’t want to lose her. I can’t lose her. I’ve been saying goodbye since she forgot my name, but I’m not ready.

  Larena pulled a crocheted throw around her shoulders and let the sounds of the season and the joy in her mother’s voice blanket her. She’d get up and work on the Ogham set in a few minutes.

  Larena started awake at the sound of bleating coming from the Kilfoyles’ goats. The radio played buzzy static, the station having signed off. She rubbed her neck, stiff from falling asleep in the chair beside Mom. The clock read after two. She’d been there for five hours.

  Curled in a fetal position. Mom snored.

  Larena stroked her mother’s gray hair, and listened to the rhythm of life-giving breath, both Mom’s and her own. Thank you for the gift of my life, Mom.

  How easy it was for Larena to be filled, no, overwhelmed with gratitude around Mom. Why couldn’t she keep that mindset through her workday? With her customers? While doing chores?

  She peered out the window at the crescent moon, almost diminished to the last quarter and whispered, “Mother Moon come to me. I call and ask this of thee, help me feel your strength again, and find the Goddess that resides within.”

  ***

  When Larena scurried to the store Saturday morning, it wasn’t the Goddess within her that stirred. Rather, the darned bleating of Kilfoyles’ angora goats assaulted her ears. After the recent ice storm and with another on the way today, the hired hand who tended the herd must’ve moved them to the back field adjacent to the Lockwood land. It allowed the goats access to the large barn during winter weather.

  When Larena was younger, she enjoyed those goats, fed them carrots and begged her father to buy wool sheared from the friendliest so she could spin and knit sweaters to always remember them. But through recent years, the raucous bleating seemed like one more annoyance associated with bitter weather. She added images of Ben and Reid Peterson to that negative association.

  A frigid gust blowing from the direction of that farm sliced at her exposed face and neck, the pain fusing her mental connections and spearing a new idea. She still had some of the wool roving, maybe some she’d already spun, too. Would her craft magic from Mom’s side of the family still function? It seemed possible. With Sibeal’s delivery vessel being wood, perhaps Larena’s tree mysticism had been affected more directly. She hadn’t tried any enchanted crafting since working on the bookcase.

  With vigor, she slid the workroom door open along its roller track, her mental wheels turning as fast. It w
ould take no time to knit a hat interwoven with a spell to give Ben when he came for the bookcase—a thank you for what he’d delivered to her. Not nearly as severe, not doing any real harm, but one that would make his life a little harder. While not exactly promoting good will, exacting a small hindrance wouldn’t make her guilty of vengeance.

  Thirty minutes before opening time, she pulled a large box down from the top shelf in the office and dug into what remained of her last efforts at spinning. Luck was on her side. She found a large ball of chunky, gray handspun, enough to make a man’s hat.

  Her mind made up, she had to make it ASAP and have it ready for whenever he came to pick up the bookcase. He’d mentioned next Wednesday. Should she call him so her spell could take effect sooner? Remembering the recent incidents over her decorations with Sibeal at the market, Larena decided against speeding up her plan. Sibeal might detect her charm in Ben’s hat and retaliate. Larena shuddered. She couldn’t endure that witch’s black magic coming at her again.

  Giving Ben the hat next week would be best. By then, the Summer Fae King might have restored her tree mysticism and she could fight with full force against a weakened opponent.

  Eager to test her plan, Larena checked the clock and darted outside to the farmhouse. Her pulse thrummed with excitement as she sped through the mudroom door, the kitchen, and past a corner of the dining room where Betty and Mom sat.

  “Forget something?” Betty called as Larena pounded up the stairs and into the sewing room.

  She raced back down, grasping a knitting tote stocked with needles. “Thought of a project I wanted to make for a client to go with his purchase.”

  From a chair at the foot of Mom’s bed, Betty looked up from her own crochet work and smiled. “That’s nice of you.”

  Propped up by the elevated head of her hospital bed, along with pillows on either side, Mom mimicked her caregiver. The magazine Mom had been staring at fell aside as she murmured, “That’s nice of you. Nice of you. Very nice of you…” Her repetition trailed off until only her lips moved with the silent words.