She smiles as she looks around the circle and realizes that although their combined magic is more powerful than she anticipated, it is not powerful enough to hold against her when she summons all of her strength. To ensure she can break it, she decides to take the power of one of them standing within the circle, certain they don’t know how to block themselves from her.
She searches the minds around the circle for the weak link and her eyes fall on Rowan Alexander — the one whose abilities have not yet manifested. Excellent! She can sense the desire, the yearning, and the sadness in her. She smiles at Rowan and prepares to cast her spell to steal her energy, when Rowan smirks back at her. Suddenly Rowan’s eyes flare and Selene sees the bright white pentagrams glowing in her eyes. Selene gasps as she realizes that the little witch tricked her. She isn’t the weakest link; somehow she has become the strongest.
Drawing off the energy pouring from Rowan, she attempts to use the power in Rowan’s eyes to draw the elements to break the circle. She summons the wind, rain, thunder, and finally, lightning. She can physically see the magic around her as it bends the elements and gives her the power that she needs. The lightning is just within reach when she feels a blast of power slam against her, throwing her against the wall of the clearing.
Recovering quickly, she catches her breath and looks around the circle, searching for the source of the power. She is not at all surprised when she sees it was Xavier who threw her against the wall; she knew he was powerful, which is why she wanted him on her side. It appears that all the work she did to bind him to dark magic has been replaced with something lighter. Love, she thinks. He has fallen for the red-headed witch.
She smiles, knowing what he is in for now that she has seen the glowing pentagram in Rowan’s eyes. She shakes away the discomfort and raises her hands toward the sky again. She chants, calling to the elements — Wind, Fire, Water, and Earth. She waits for the explosion of lightning to strike the clearing, breaking the shield and the circle so that she can cast her own circle with everyone inside. She is already preparing herself for the spell to absorb all of their energies, giving her even more power than she anticipated, when suddenly, she hears familiar words being spoken.
She looks inside the circle, her eyes going again to Rowan, whose green eyes are still glowing with the burning white pentagrams. She is chanting the spell to absorb a witch’s power. She laughs at Rowan and holds out her amulet, “Your spell is useless while I’m wearing my protection charm. It’s much stronger than a rosemary sprig,” she mocks.
Rowan looks toward Kaiden, who lifts his hand and lights the cord aflame. Selene rips the burning necklace from her neck, tossing it to the ground and watches in shock, as it becomes ash. “NO!!” Selene screams, stumbling as she feels the energy within her draining away. Before she can move, the lightning she summoned crashes into the Earth at her feet, sending her sprawling uncontrollably toward the sharp contours of the manmade fireplace.
Rowan continues absorbing Selene’s abilities, drawing out her power, taking her abilities for her own.
When the lightning struck the Earth at Selene’s feet, everyone watched as she was thrown toward the sharpest rock inside the circle. Her skull cracked the moment it hit the stone, blood spilling and seeping into the ground. The Earth quaked and trembled and a small chasm opened in the ground. The blood from Selene’s skull dripped into the crack, adding more power to the already sacred land.
Rowan continues her chant, with the fire burning in her eyes until the blood stops running. Just as she comes back to herself, the hole in the ground widens and Selene’s body drops down into the crevice. Everyone watches in amazement as the Earth closes back up, leaving a black scar in the rock. The green moss soaked in blood is burnt black and the stone where the lightning struck has a jagged white scar.
Suddenly sunlight shines from above. Chloe looks at her sister, realizing that it was Rowan who was controlling the storm all along and not Selene. Rowan let Selene believe that it was her, which was why when Selene called the lightning, it didn’t strike immediately. Chloe looks up and sees that the lightning burned away many of the branches of the trees surrounding the clearing. Bright sunlight and a soft breeze fill the circle, removing the last of the darkness and cleansing the air of the smell of Selene’s blood.
Chapter 35
Chloe closes the circle and looks around at the amazed faces looking back at her, knowing hers looks the same. Cian rushes over and embraces her. Even though they both knew they would survive a confrontation with Selene, they had no way of knowing if everyone else would. Cian leans in and kisses her. This is the kiss that marks the beginning, the true beginning of their lives together. With Selene out of the picture, they know that nothing will come between them now.
Silent tears course down Brianna’s face. Kaiden goes to her and is surprised when he sees that her arms are no longer bandaged. “What happened to your arms?” he asks. She wipes her eyes and looks down at her arms. It dawns on her that the burns were caused by a spell that was cast inside Selene’s circle. She explains, “No one could heal me because the burns were not just physical; they were supernatural, and the only way to heal them was to break the spell. Once Selene died, all of the spells she cast were broken.”
Brianna wraps her arms around Kaiden and cries, both in relief that their awful Aunt Selene is gone and in mourning for her abilities, which seem to be gone. Rowan walks over to Brianna and asks her to stand up. Brianna, a bit surprised at Rowan’s tone, does as she is asked. Rowan grabs both of Brianna’s hands, closes her eyes, and chants a spell, returning her powers to her. “They were never gone, Brianna. I just needed to borrow them so I could predict Selene’s behaviors.”
As soon as Rowan releases her hands, Brianna can suddenly hear everyone’s thoughts bombarding her. She can’t help but giggle when she realizes everyone is thinking the same things.
“What’s funny, Sis?” Cian asks.
Brianna smiles and says, “It’s just that everyone is asking the same questions in their minds. We all want to know how Rowan borrowed my abilities, how Kaiden started the protection amulet on fire, how Xavier was able to physically push Selene, what happened to Selene’s body, did you and Chloe see all of this beforehand and what happens next?”
“All good questions,” Liam says, looking around. So much has happened here that the sooner they leave the clearing the better. Liam had no idea how powerful the land was with all of them here. “It’s been a long day. Let’s head back to the house and we can sort out everything there.”
On the way back, Liam says, “Cian, Xavier, Brianna — I’m so sorry about your aunt, and your parents. I want you to know that even before this happened, I was considering the possibility of bringing you three into our home. I know you can probably convince a judge that you can be on your own, since you are 17, but you should know that you are welcome here…”
“Thank you Liam,” Xavier says. “We’ll definitely talk about it. Without access to our trust funds until we are 18, we may just have to take you up on that offer.”
Cian interjects, “Yeah, we don’t need to talk about it. I already had the vision. I know it is going to happen. So thank you, Liam. Without knowing of any other family, we would have likely ended up in foster homes for the next year. We much prefer being here, together, with all of you.”
Xavier looks at his sister and brother and feels a deep sense of relief. The heaviness on his soul that he has felt since his dad died has finally lifted. When Xavier heard Brianna explain how her burns healed, he realized that the darkness he felt hanging over him was a spell cast by Selene. Now that she is dead, he feels more like himself again. Although he can’t shake how close he came to hurting innocent people, he can revel in the fact that he has the rest of his life to make up for it. He begins to think about the future — something he hasn’t thought of since his mom and dad died.
Brianna thinks of her dad’s voice guiding her in the house. The pain of his loss is as fresh as it was a
year ago. The abuse she suffered from her Aunt Selene has finally ended, but the pain of what Selene did to her parents lingers. She looks at Kaiden walking ahead of her and is glad that he will be there to help her work through everything. As if reading her mind, he falls back and grabs her hand.
Cian will always miss his parents, but somehow now that the woman who caused their death is dead, he feels a sense of peace. He realizes had things been different he might not ever have met Chloe, his soul mate. He could not imagine life without her and knows that everything really does happen for a reason. He squeezes her hand. She looks over at him, smiles sweetly and squeezes back.
Back at the house, everyone collapses into chairs around the table. Though Marcus suggested waiting to have the conversation until the following day, once everyone has had time to let everything sink in, the kids all look at each other and know this conversation has to happen now. Since Rowan’s abilities finally manifested, they all look to her to begin. Rowan starts by explaining that ever since the night Xavier saw the pentagram glowing in her eye, little things have been happening, but it wasn’t until earlier when Selene came to the house that Rowan knew for sure her abilities were manifesting.
“When Brianna showed up with burns on her arms, I knew she wouldn’t be in any shape mentally to fight Selene. I wished I could borrow Brianna’s ability to read minds, just for the night, so I could use it against Selene. As quick as I had the thought, I realized I was hearing Brianna thinking about the key and journal. So I asked her about the journal, but I guess because she was in so much pain, she didn’t even realize that she had never spoken about the key and journal out loud. I just knew that my ability had manifested. I knew that I could channel and use other witch’s abilities.”
Rowan isn’t sure how it happened, since all she did was think about Brianna’s powers, and then she had them. “I don’t know if everything was aligned just right, or if it was because Brianna was weakened, but all I know is I thought about borrowing Brianna’s ability and suddenly I was able to read minds.”
Chloe considers what Rowan said and then tells her, “Even though Brianna didn’t notice that she didn’t say anything out loud about the journal, I did. I didn’t know you took Brianna’s abilities though; I just thought your ability was mind reading. It’s pretty amazing that you can borrow abilities, Ro. We’ll totally work together to figure out how you did it.” She grabs one of the grimoires and adds, “I haven’t come across anything in any of the books about it yet, but we have so many, I’m sure we’ll find something.”
Chloe explains that she had a vision showing Rowan manipulating the weather, so she sent Rowan to return the journals, and left a grimoire open to the page about controlling the elements. She had hoped Rowan had gotten the message and understood what Chloe was telling her. Then when the storm moved in so suddenly, Chloe knew that Rowan believed that she could do it. “Although my vision wasn’t precise, I knew that Rowan would be the one to defeat Selene, with a little help from Kaiden.”
Kaiden smiles and says, “It was pretty amazing actually. When Selene lifted the amulet from her neck, it glowed red. Did anyone else see that?” When everyone shakes their heads no, he adds, “I knew that it was a sign for me to burn it. I didn’t hesitate or even wonder if it would work. Somehow I just knew that it would.”
Cian pops in and says, “I’m glad you knew, because I never got a chance to talk to you about it. When we were searching for proof that Aunt Selene was out of town I came across the amulet in the pocket of her jacket. I picked it up and immediately had a vision of her holding the amulet away from her neck. She was surrounded by fire. When I learned your element was fire, I knew you would be the one to burn it. I knew that was what the vision was telling me and I just had to make it glow at the right moment. When Selene pulled it out, I focused my energy and bent the light from the circle to make it glow.”
Kaiden nods, “Well, it worked, Cian. If you would’ve told me beforehand, I don’t know if I would’ve believed it. I still can’t believe no one else saw it though. What I want to know is how the hell you physically pushed Selene, Xavier?”
Xavier shrugs his shoulders, “I just focused my energy toward her and pushed,” he says leaving it at that. Brianna looks at her brother closely, and then nods her head. Xavier realizes she just read his mind and knows the whole truth, she knows how he feels about Rowan.
“Hey, Rowan,” Kaiden asks, “What spell did you cast at the end?”
Rowan looks at her brother and cautiously says, “When I was returning the book Chloe left for me, one of the grimoires fell open and I happened to read that when a witch dies, if you cast a spell, you can harness her energy. Then, when I set the grimoire down for Chloe out there, the page fluttered open to a spell to absorb a witch’s powers. I knew what I was meant to do, so I simply chanted the spell until I could feel Selene’s energy start pouring into me and I didn’t stop until she was gone.”
What Rowan doesn’t tell them is that at the end she saw what happened to Selene’s soul. The gate Selene had opened slammed shut with Selene’s spirit caught on the other side. Rowan sifted through Selene’s memories and saw that Selene offered her soul to open the gate, never expecting that she would die and be stuck in hell for all of eternity. No Summerland for her.
She shudders when she thinks about it, and instead focuses on the power coursing through her veins. She wonders if this is what her sister and brother have felt from the beginning. She feels giddy with power and it reminds her of how she felt at school when all of her friends flocked around her, multiplied by a hundred. The power! Oh, the power! She can’t wait to see what she can do with all of this!
While she was looking through Selene’s mind, she saw glimpses of the conversation between Selene and Grandpa Marcus. She knows that Selene was the reincarnation of John Scott and saw everything that led up to her wanting this land back. She realized that the journals are going to help her understand so much more than she ever thought possible, including what she can do with these powers. She has the strongest desire to learn everything, right now.
“Well, thank you, Xavier. Thank you, for protecting Rowan. Thanks to all of you, really, for protecting all of us,” Marcus says amazed at everything he saw and experienced.
“I have to say, I’m impressed and proud of each one of you for working together,” Liam adds, though he is also very concerned. Marcus makes eye contact with Liam, who understands his meaning. They both stand up and head into the family room to talk.
Once Marcus and Liam are gone, Brianna looks to Rowan and whispers, “I’m sorry I read your thoughts, but I want to read those journals, too. My dad left me a locked journal when he died and now that I have the key, maybe together we can find answers to help us understand everything.” Rowan nods, and they agree to learn more about their families together.
Cian overhears and says, “Brianna, I have a book from Mom. Mine needs a key to open it, too. Maybe the key will work for both.”
“Maybe. I wonder if yours is the second or third book. Dad showed me if I hold the book up to the light, I could see writing etched on the spine. Mine says 1 of 3, which do you have?” she asks Cian.
Xavier can’t help but feel slighted when he hears the conversation and finds it curious that he has never heard of the books before, nor was one left to him. Sensing his brother’s discomfort Cian asks, “Xavier? Do you have a book?” When Xavier shakes his head, Cian says, “Maybe Aunt Selene has it and was supposed to give it to you…”
“You’re probably right, Cian. It will likely turn up when we are cleaning out Selene’s stuff from the rental house,” Brianna says to Xavier reassuringly. Everyone chatters about what kind of magic they can create now that they will all be together.
∗ ∗ ∗
Marcus and Liam sit in the living room in silence. There is so much to say, but they are exhausted, both emotionally and physically. They just need a moment to let everything that has happened in the last 24 hours sink in, but they kno
w all they have is a moment. They don’t need to say what they’re thinking, which is that they’re both a little afraid of what happened here today. Between the death of Peter earlier in the day, and the spilling of Selene’s blood at the clearing, the land just became considerably more powerful. The fact that Rowan, of all of them, absorbed Selene’s powers is another cause for concern. It is way too much power for an almost 17-year-old girl to have and they have no way of knowing just how much of Selene, Rowan absorbed.
When the Silvans move up to the property, the land will only become more powerful, making all of their abilities stronger. The more witches who live and practice here, and the longer they do it, the power of both the land and the witches will increase. The thought makes Liam cringe. The silver lining is that it will get in their blood, and home will always call them back no matter how far they roam. On the flip side, they will not be able to contain the power of the land, making it even more desirable to other witches. If Selene told anyone about the land, anyone at all, there could be dire consequences.
Liam can’t help but question if he can even protect all of them anymore and knows for sure he can’t do it alone. For the first time in a long time, Liam wishes he had someone who could help him navigate through all of this. He finds himself asking if he can effectively serve as their protector anymore, when their power far exceeds his own. He has to acknowledge that all of this may be more than he can handle.
For now, Liam and Marcus can only sit back and observe everyone, and hope that they can fulfill their duties to them as soul guardians. They will continue to do their best to guide them to make the right choices, so they can stop the reincarnation cycle and stay in the Summerland.
After the Summerland (The Witches of Spring Hill Book 1) Page 23
