by J. J. Neeson
Sins of a Witch
Book One of the
Ancestral Magic Series
J. J. Neeson
Fallen Sea
Sins of a Witch
Book One of the Ancestral Magic Series
Copyright © 2015 by J. J. Neeson
All rights reserved.
Published by Fallen Sea.
www.fallensea.com
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Digital Edition
ISBN: 9780993099311
Cover Design by Fallen Sea
Cover Photos Licensed through Big Stock Photos: Blonde Woman © prometeus, Northern Lights © sdimitrov, Bayou © Sherri Raffety Hale, Stained Glass © velirina.
Created and developed by Andrea E. Scholer
To my mom, with love.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
“From Gymir’s house I behold forth
A maiden dear to me;
Her arms glittered, and from their gleam
Shone all the sea and sky.
To me more dear than in days of old
Was ever maiden to man;
But no one of gods or elves will grant
That we both together should be.”
-Poetic Edda, as translated by Henry Adams Bellows
Chapter One
“Later, Vegas!” Reigh shouted from her faded red 1973 Mustang convertible, speeding away from the city of neon lights, leaving her sins far behind her.
At least for now.
Surrounded on either side by harsh desert sands and jutting rock formations, the road east was near abandoned in a heat that knew no timetable. Reigh lowered her sunglasses from her pale blonde hair to protect her eyes from the glaring sands. The sunglasses were designer knock-offs from one of the sleazier casinos tucked away on the Strip, the casino small and insignificant amongst the giants. Her salary as a clerk in a thrift store didn’t inspire pearls and diamonds, only cheap imitations, but she didn’t care. The oversized shades were her favorite, a last souvenir of everything that vanished behind her as she drove. It was all in the past now—the glamor of the hotels, the thrill of the gamble, and the insecurity of growing up in a town with a lot of passion but no soul.
With little money and a single torn-up duffle bag in the passenger seat, this was her escape to freedom. Her exodus.
“Hell yeah!” she shouted into the dry desert air. Reigh pressed down on the accelerator, barefoot, her only plan to drive as far away as she could.
Turning on a classic rock station, she felt the speakers of the convertible vibrate next to her thighs, left exposed by her cut-off shorts. Her cut-offs were a staple in her wardrobe, usually paired with a flannel shirt or an oversized top, like the black kimono she wore today. That was the best thing about working at a thrift store. Her wardrobe wasn’t limited to the seasonal debris the retail chains put on their shelves. At the thrift store, she had access to decades’ worth of styles. She could wear whatever the hell she wanted.
But I don’t work at a thrift store anymore, she reminded herself. I have no job. No money. No home. And I couldn’t care less.
Speeding past a cactus with a sign I’m An Alien hanging around its prickly neck, Reigh flung her hands in the air, untroubled, like a cloudless sunset, until she thought of Calder, her only true friend in Vegas. When he was in town, they did everything together. Walk the strip. Go for bacon burgers. Party with her friends, if that was what the girls she associated with could be called. Unlike most of the people in her life, Calder hadn’t grown up in the Vegas suburbs. His morals hadn’t been compromised by the lights. He was genuine, and so was his friendship.
But Calder traveled with the wind, so he hadn’t been around when she’d decided she had enough, that change was needed. Claiming it was bad for the mind, he didn’t carry a phone, so she had no way of letting him know that she was leaving and that she was never coming back. Next time he was in town, she would not be there, gone forever, and he would have no explanation as to why.
He deserved an explanation. They had history. He’d never been her boyfriend, there was something about Calder that always made her feel he was off-limits, untouchable, but he was her best friend. He had been for many years, ever since she met him at the thrift store not long after her high school graduation.
But it wasn’t enough to keep her in Vegas. She needed purpose in her life, something more than what Vegas could offer. Calder would have understood, if he’d been around when she left.
Nothing I can do about it now, she thought, adjusting her sunglasses. I’m gone, baby. And I’m never turning around.
***
Chasing the twilight, Reigh drove for hours, until the enthusiasm of breaking free from Vegas dissolved into brutal exhaustion. Yawning, she scanned the highway for a rest area. She had passed Albuquerque, New Mexico less than an hour ago. The plateaus of the desert remained, but the bleached-out sandstone was slowly giving way to sprays of green, now shadowed by the evening.
A neon sign with a chunk of its letters blown out advertised a truck stop at the next turn, which turned out to be as rundown as the sign, particularly the restaurant. Though the lights of the restaurant were bright and welcoming, the hovel looked as if it’d been built during the reign of the Wild West and would crumble down with a turtle’s hiccup. From the dozens of semis lined up next to each other, it was clear the stop only allowed big trucks with big drivers to park, but Reigh pulled in anyway, bypassing the restaurant in search of an empty space to sleep.
The truck stop was safer than the open road, but she was still stuck out in dead man’s land. In her convertible, with no walls to shelter her in, she looked for a driver who would be a good neighbor, someone who looked like they wouldn’t creep up on her in the middle of the night. As she weaved through the rows of semis, many resembling the Hot Wheels she used to steal from her neighbor Jimmy as a child, she waited for the sign, her protection.
Then she saw it. Lasting no longer than a slight breeze, a golden rune shaped like a diamond with a fish tail shimmered on the ground of an unoccupied parking space, and then it disappeared.
“Thank you,” Reigh whispered to the unknown force as she pulled into the space, ignoring the part of her mind that told her she was hallucinating, that runes didn’t appear out of thin air. It was impossible, but it happened. A lot. Whenever she was in trouble, the rune appeared, the same way people saw white feathers or rainbows when they were lost or in need of comfort.
Folding her arms around her for warmth, Reigh sank down in her seat to sleep, but the darkness that should have been her dreams was interrupted when her neighbor stuck his head out of the window of his orange tractor. “You’re not supposed to park here,” he shouted. “Trucks only.”
With wild, greasy strands of ginger hair sticking out from benea
th his baseball cap, he looked like a woman’s worst nightmare, but Reigh read a gentleness in him. “But you won’t say anything to the manager, so we may as well both call it a night.”
He laughed as he reached into his cabin behind his seat, and then he threw her down a blanket. “You ain’t in Vegas anymore, sweetheart. Nights on the road are shit cold. Keep it.”
“License plate gives it away every time,” she said, catching the blanket midair.
“Anyone causes you any trouble, you just tell them they don’t want to get on the wrong side of Big Ben here. Especially not when he’s got a smok’n hot siren snoozing next to him.”
Once again, the rune had upheld its promise of protection.
Reigh thanked him. “Sweet dreams, Big Ben,” she bid and nestled into the blanket. It smelled of cigarette smoke, but it was surprisingly soft, made of a yellow-plaid fabric.
The floodlights illuminating the truck stop unexpectedly switched off, leaving the place black as oil.
“Don’t worry. The lights always flicker. They’ll come back on again soon. Night, sweetheart,” Big Ben called from somewhere in the dark. “If you’re gone in the morning, don’t forget to leave my heart behind.”
***
Lu examined the clay tile in her hand. Painted across the midnight blue background was a purple sun. She’d made it herself, like she had all the tiles she currently glued above the counters in her kitchen, each tile unique and colorful, a piece of a much larger mosaic.
“Es muy bonito,” Abigail sang from her spot on the counter next to where Lu worked.
“Thank you, sweetie,” she said to her daughter. “I thought the kitchen needed a bit more character.” She wiped a strand of her dark brown hair away from her face, forgetting her fingers were covered in glue. The strand stuck to her hand, causing her five-year-old to giggle uncontrollably.
“Sophia!” Abigail called out to her twin sister. “Come here, Mama is all tangled up!”
Sounding like a herd of wild horses, Sophia ran into the kitchen, followed by her younger brother Dylan.
“You look like a spider spinning a web!” Sophia cried.
“A black web,” Dylan added.
With one hand, Lu struggled to open the childproof lock to the cupboard under the kitchen sink. Succeeding, she searched for the rubbing alcohol amongst the litter of bottles, most of which were half-empty containers of engine oil. She nearly gave up, until her free hand wrapped around a small plastic bottle.
“Got it!” she said, victorious, pulling her head from the cupboard. “Kids, go outside and play. Mama has to wash up, and this stuff is pretty smelly.”
“Gross,” said Sophia, making a face.
Hearing her sister use the word ‘gross’ made Abigail want to stay. “Cool. Let me watch.”
“Go play,” Lu gently ordered, pointing to the huge yard out the back—the main reason she and her husband had invested in the colonial-style home. The mortgage was a little steep for the income they brought in from the auto repair shop they ran, but it was manageable. A little bit extra would help, but they could get by with what they had.
Supervising her three children through the kitchen window as they ran to the tire swing hanging from a huge round oak, she drenched the alcohol over the glue on her hand, breaking down the substance until she was able to pull her hair free. Her eyes watered at the potency of the alcohol, and she quickly rinsed her hair under the tap.
When she looked up, a face stared at her through the window.
Startled, she jumped back, holding her hand to her heart. An owl sat on the ledge outside, staring at her with conviction, its burnt-brown feathers ruffled high.
It was a warning. An owl visiting the home meant harm would come to her family.
“Please, no,” Lu gasped, horrified. She touched the glass of the window, pleading with the animal. “Help me protect them.”
Screeching, the owl flew away, gliding past her children as it circled into the sky—a sky that grew dark in the distance. It would rain soon. Returning the alcohol below the sink and securing the childproof lock, Lu summoned the little ones back into the house, marshaling them into their playroom before returning to the kitchen, a statue in her shaking hand.
With the greatest of reverence, she set the statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Virgin Mary, on the window-sill and placed a tea light next to it. Blowing into the white wax of the tea light, it lit up, the flame small but meaningful. She bent her head to the statue and said a prayer to the Virgin Mary for the safekeeping of her family. Her worry calmed as she prayed. The owl was a messenger, not the threat itself. If there was not a way to protect her family of the warning it brought, it would not have come.
“Looks like a storm is heading our way,” Samuel, her husband, noted as he marched into the kitchen. “We should probably bring the kids inside.”
Finishing her prayer, Lu turned to him. “They’re already in the playroom,” she informed him before kissing his cheek. “How was the garage today?”
“Slow, sadly. I think our winning streak is over. Business isn’t what it was before we bought the house. You sure you want to run the evening shift? Those clouds look pretty ominous.”
Yes, they do, Lu thought, but she said, “The longer our doors are open, the more money we bring in.”
“We’re not completely stuck for cash,” he protested. “We bring in enough.”
She leaned against the counter. “But we don’t exactly have a savings anymore, either. We spent it all on the down payment for the house. It frightens me, living month to month. We need to start rebuilding our savings.”
“Fine.” Samuel threw his hands into the air. “I know better than to argue with a Latina. I have a mother and sisters.” Her husband had the sexiest dimples when he smiled.
“Good, because you put your PhD on hold to help keep this business going. The sooner we can afford to hire extra staff, the sooner you can go back to your studies, future Dr. Robles.”
Samuel grabbed her in his arms and nuzzled her neck. “It’s only astronomy. And you, my dear wife, far outshine the stars.”
***
Thunder crashed overhead as the indicator on Reigh’s fuel gauge glared, the red glow taunting against an afternoon darkened by heavy clouds. Rain would soon fall. She couldn’t run out of gas, especially not when her convertible was mutinying against her. For the hundredth time, she punched the button to close the top, but it stuck halfway. Between the fuel gauge screaming at her and the top refusing to obey, Reigh had reached her quota of patience for the day.
“Damn it!” she sputtered and hit the button again as she slowed down, having read somewhere that the lower the speed, the lower the fuel used.
She didn’t quite know where she was, except that she’d crossed the border out of Texas and into Louisiana before turning south off the highway in search of twisty fries, not realizing her craving would lead her to her impending doom.
More thunder ripped across the sky. Towering woodlands covered either side of the road, obscuring her view of the lightning that preceded the crushing roar, but it sounded like it was close. She knew very little about the science of weather, but she was pretty sure tall trees and lightning were a bad combination, especially in a convertible.
“Stupid delicious twisty fries,” she mumbled, glancing up as the clouds grew even thicker.
The first drops of rain began to fall, but there was hope. Ahead was a town sign made of old lumber with silver lettering so pale, it reminded her of moonlight.
Broken Ridge.
She braked in front of the sign and set her head against the steering wheel. “End of the line,” she decided, dejected. Her car was about a Led Zeppelin song away from giving up, as was she. Physical exhaustion overwhelmed her, begging for an actual bed.
On the sign, a flash of golden light appeared, taking the shape of the rune, exactly how it had appeared at the truck stop. And every time before.
Reigh couldn’t bring herself to smile, her si
tuation was too pathetic, but she was comforted. She risked stepping out of her convertible and walked up to the sign, tracing the outline of the rune in the air. As if it were a living creature, the light of the rune glowed beneath her touch then exploded into flames, smoldering itself into the wood.
When she’d kissed Vegas goodbye, Reigh never thought her aimless compulsion to move forward would lead her to the sweet ice tea and bluegrass gospel of the South. She’d just driven, her foot full of intent on the accelerator but her mind gloriously free, not caring where she landed, as long as it was far from Vegas and the restlessness she’d felt confined to a city that trapped the fated in with its color and promise.
She didn’t know if the rune on the sign for Broken Ridge meant she was where she needed to be or if it was reassurance she would survive her own escapade, but she trusted its appearance, even if it made her a crazy almost-thirty-year-old, the drugs of her twenties catching up to her.
“I guess I’m home,” she stated, just as lightning struck directly above her, sparking the sky. When the thunder followed, it almost knocked her to the ground.
It was time to go.
She hurried back to the convertible, the seat wet against her cut-offs as she turned the ignition, the rain now a downpour. The road she drove down remained in the seclusion of the woods for another mile before the first of the Broken Ridge houses appeared, growing denser as she continued to drive. She sensed the center of the town was near, but something much more gratifying came into view—a garage with a gas pump outside. On top of the gas pump sat a rather bizarre looking owl, but it flew away as soon as she parked her car.
