"Why did Meghan flee the New World with Clyde?" Julian asked.
Binda frowned and looked at Matilda. Matilda brought her hands together and a glass of water appeared between her palms. She walked it to Binda. Binda took a long drink and thanked her.
"She would not tell me," Binda admitted. "I loved her so much. I wanted her to stay, so I didn't ask questions. In the beginning, I believed those who hunted her did so because they feared her power. Later, she told me that Clyde had committed murder against his own kin. It was not men that stalked Meghan and Clyde, but witches. Eventually, I learned the truth. Clyde had murdered his brother Eugene, a witch. Eugene was part of a coven known as The Serpent House and they wanted justice for his death. Meghan fled to protect him."
"Did he have a father?" Sebastian asked.
"Dead. Dead since the brothers were young. Meghan did her best, but one child was a witch and the other was a human. It was not an easy life for any of them."
"Let me stop you for a moment, Binda," Julian interjected. "Did you know that Clyde was connected to us? That he was part of this curse?"
"Of course not." Binda sighed. "I was very curious about Sebastian because he is a hybrid and only hybrids can enter the dream wood. However, I never had any intention of sending him in there. It was only after I learned of the amulet that I made the connection. You see, Meghan told me about the amulet. It was one of several items that disappeared from Eugene's coven after his murder."
"The amulet belonged to Eugene's coven? So, Clyde stole it?" Oliver asked.
"That was my impression, yes."
"Why does she want it back?" Julian asked.
Binda shrugged.
"She said that he would come, but she often says things, crazy things that don't make sense. He was only a man. How could he possibly live? He must have died centuries ago."
"Why would Meghan protect him?" Sebastian asked. "I mean, he killed his own brother!"
"He was her child. How could she not?"
Abby understood. Before her pregnancy, she would have had the same question, but now, she couldn't imagine any deed, however dark, that could cause her to abandon her child.
"Where was Clyde while the two of you created the Sky Mothers?" Sebastian asked.
Binda's face darkened.
"Lost in his own dark dreams. We built him a separate hut. He filled it with books and coins and valuable things. He was a thief and a gambler, but Meghan loved him and I loved Meghan. They had magic books. Meghan knew spells. She had spent time in a coven, she was practiced in the ways of magic. I was an earth witch. I could build, but Meghan was the creator. She could take a handful of dust and hand you a wooden horse that would grow into a beast that could be ridden through the forest. The dream wood was not merely a feat of expert magic. Meghan was a special witch, a uniquely powerful witch. Clyde loved the dream wood. He would follow her across that bridge, grinning. In the evening she would return, but he would stay for days, weeks. We finished the Sky Mothers compound. It was much less grand in those days. Two more witches joined us. Clyde rarely left the dream wood, but he had begun to create things that concerned Meghan. You see, the dream wood manifests the hybrid's desires. Meghan would stumble upon strange creatures in the dream wood, frightening beasts and evidence that Clyde was plotting something."
"Plotting what?" Julian demanded.
Binda shrugged.
"I underestimated him. He was young, foolish, and power hungry. I saw a man who was crippled by his longings, his lust for all that he did not possess. I didn't probe. I was busy with the Sky Mothers. But Meghan told me that she had created another level in the dream wood. If she had to, she could keep him there. It was a mirror image of the dream wood, but once inside, he couldn't get back out."
"It's not a mirror image," Sebastian murmured. "It's a nightmare."
"She didn't create that. Clyde found a way to manipulate it. He must have because he trapped her and escaped himself."
"Why did she want to trap him to begin with?" Helena asked.
"As I said, he had plotted something dark. I don't know what, but it scared her. He was happy in the dream wood. She didn't want to hurt him, but she had to ensure his safety, and perhaps the safety of others."
"How did he escape?" Julian asked.
Binda closed her eyes.
"I don't know. For a long time, I did not know that he had escaped. For years, more than a hundred years, I thought maybe they had both died in the dream wood. I knew nothing."
"And then you found the pond?" Abby asked, referring to the pond where Binda had been speaking to the witch beneath the surface, to Meghan.
"Yes. I would walk the forest for hours in those days. I felt dead inside. I wanted so much to find a way into the dream wood, but I'd given up. Then one day, I stopped at that pond and she appeared. I could not reach her and she could not leave. She was angry. She is angry."
"And insane," Sebastian added.
Binda glared at him.
"She sacrificed her life for her child, and for what? To spend eternity suffering for her kindness, for her love."
"You can speak with her, Binda?" Matilda asked, pressing her lips into a thin, concerned line.
Binda nodded.
"I visited her today. It was the first time in years."
"Why do you stay away?" Kit broke in.
Binda closed her eyes as if hearing the question caused her physical pain.
"I am helpless. I couldn't take it anymore. Her rage, her accusations. The witch I knew, the witch I loved, is gone."
"What can you tell us about Kanti?" Julian asked, steering the conversation back to the curse.
"I've never heard of him," Binda admitted.
"Her," Abby cut in.
"Who is she? Part of the coven that Meghan and Clyde fled?"
"Clyde wrote about her. He created a room in a cave in the Forest of Purgatory. Meghan couldn't reach him there. He filled the walls with his writing, his plans, maybe. He wrote about Kanti. He intended to abduct her," Sebastian explained.
"And eventually he did," Julian added. "But that happened in northern Michigan. So how did he get from here to there?"
"Probably the same way they came here originally," Binda offered. "Meghan never showed me the portal. I'm not sure she even remembered where it was, but Clyde had a special mind. He remembered everything. He could speak your exact words back to you months after you'd said them. He remembered where certain trees, rocks, and plants could be found. He didn't just read books. He memorized them. He knew the page numbers of facts that he quoted. Meghan thought he was a genius."
"But not you?" Julian asked.
Binda stared him hard in the eyes.
"I thought he was evil."
****
"Sorry about all this," Kit told them. They had returned to the yurts overlooking the ocean. Julian wanted to speak alone after their conversation with Binda, but he trusted Kit and wanted her insight.
"It's not your fault," Oliver reminded her, but they did not touch. He kept his distance and Abby was not sure if it was Kit or Oliver who wanted space.
"I have the amulet," Julian began. "However, I fear it's a fake."
Abby dropped the cup she'd been holding and her tea spilled across the table. She looked at Sebastian. Helena clapped her hands and the spilled tea disappeared.
"How could that be?" Sebastian asked. "I wore it, there was something alive inside that thing."
Julian nodded.
"You're right, there was. I felt it too. We all saw it. The original amulet was alive. But this amulet..." He took a black pouch from his bag and laid it on the table. "Is most certainly not."
Oliver peeled back the edges of the fabric and they stared at the golden snake devouring its own tale. The red stone gleamed in the center. It looked identical to the original and yet...it didn't. The original amulet had a presence, a power that emanated from its very core. This amulet looked like a beautiful trinket for sale in a jewelry store.
Abby reached out hesitantly. She brushed her fingers along the stone quickly. She felt nothing. Sebastian too reached for the amulet. He picked it up, hefted the weight in his hand and then held it against his chest.
He shook his head.
"You're right."
Helena looked stricken and turned from the table.
"I'll make some lavender tea," she told them. "And Abby, you're behind in your supplements. I will arrange a tonic for you." She busied herself at the counter and Abby could see her shoulders pinched with tension.
"How could the original amulet have been taken?" Kit asked. "Has it been unprotected?" She voiced the question in a neutral tone, no note of accusation. Although she was a Sky Mother, she was not invested in Binda's plight.
"The space that holds your Mother Tree, we have something similar at Ula. It is a room for magical objects. Only a friend could enter and they would have to be in the castle, which is a challenging feat in and of itself."
"Then you must conclude it was one of your own?" Kit asked, maintaining steady eye contact with Julian. Abby felt Sebastian bristle beside her. As the only non-witch, he expected to be accused.
Julian did not immediately answer.
"Ula has been breached before. And we also must consider the issue of the amulet and the spirit within it. She is powerful and aided with possession. I cannot say that she did not find a way to creep from that chamber and slip into the body of one of our witches to steal the amulet. In that regard, the witch would not be at fault, she would have virtually no recollection of the experience. I am concerned because Adora was at Ula when I returned."
"Adora?" Helena asked, hurrying over with her tray of tea.
"Yes, she escaped from the Vepar's lair. Bridget and Elda have largely mended her, but she is weak. How do we know that the Vepar's did not release her so that she would return to Ula and steal the amulet?" he thought aloud.
"Would she do that? You trust her, don't you?" Oliver asked.
"I trust her completely, but as I said, she has been compromised. Under possession, it would not be Adora who stole the amulet, but Kanti."
"Could this get any more complicated?" Sebastian grunted. "I'm sorry, Helena, the tea looks great, but I want a beer."
He strode to the refrigerator and pulled open the door.
"Make that two," Oliver called.
"You won't find any in there," Kit told him. "But I happen to make my own amber fluid. I'll go grab a few."
"That'd be great, thank you, Kit," Sebastian told her. He took a seat next to Abby.
Oliver watched Kit walk down the hill and shook his head.
"That woman trains spiders, takes care of the kangaroos, does all the deep-sea fishing, tends to the poisonous plants, speaks to the fire, and now she also makes beer."
"Better marry her." Sebastian elbowed him.
Oliver rolled his eyes.
"She'd sooner kill me than marry me."
"What makes you say that, honey?" Helena asked. "She has kind eyes when she looks at you."
"Okay, enough about my love life," Oliver grumbled. "Back to the amulet and the nightmare that has become our lives."
"Obviously, we already had a dilemma. Meghan wants the amulet, but we're not sure why. Sebastian has set up a plan with the hybrid Liam to escape during delivery of the amulet. We want to fulfill that promise and help Liam get out. If this were the real amulet, we'd be in trouble, but since it's a fake, we can safely send it in. However, once it's out of our hands, we can't use it to track who put it in Ula and someone must have put it there."
"Is it terrible to say that I could care less if Liam gets out. I mean his girlfriend is a pill. We'd probably be doing him a favor if we left him inside," Oliver offered.
Abby smiled, but shook her head.
"She's just desperate. I get it. I'd make everyone's life hell if Sebastian were trapped in there for a year."
Sebastian wrapped his arm around her and kissed her temple.
"Agreed. I'm not fond of Hannah, but I like Liam and he deserves his freedom. We have to send the amulet in. There must be other ways of tracking who stole the original, right?" he asked the question of Julian, but Helena answered.
"The Crystal of Sight. If Faustine wears that crystal, he can see into everyone's pasts, even under possession, I would assume."
"Smart thinking, Helena. That's what we'll do," said Julian. "Sebastian, are you up for crossing the bridge with the amulet? You said you could give it to your guide in the dream wood and she could deliver it?"
He nodded.
"I think so."
He had not told the other witches that his guide was Claire. He hated the thought of sending her to the water witch alone, but he savored the chance to see her a final time.
"What next?" Abby asked, sipping Helena's tonic and grimacing.
"We have to meet with Jack," Sebastian reminded her. "That meeting is set for April. I figured Julian and I would go."
Abby nodded.
She had forgotten about Jack, the man in Texas that the reporter Stephen had met with shortly before his death. Lorna had told her and Oliver about the man and how to reach him.
"Jack can shed some light on Kanti, perhaps, but it's clear to me that Clyde is another player in this curse."
Abby squeezed her hands into fists, digging her fingernails into her palms. It hurt and it felt good. The continuing chaos made her feel out of control, lost, and she wanted to scream, "make it stop."
Oliver shifted closer to her as if he sensed her agitation. He passed her a small pale pink stone, rose quartz. She took it and pressed it against her heart. After several seconds, she felt some of her anger dissipate.
"So, we get more information from Jack, but could he possibly know about Clyde?"
"Hard to say," Julian admitted. "Which is why we need to track what happened to Clyde after he returned to America. And I'd like to know what occurred before he left. Ideally, we get in touch with a witch from the Serpent House."
"Could that coven still exist?" Oliver asked. "I mean, we've been around Trager for years. Dafne grew up there. Wouldn't we have known about a coven?"
"Not necessarily," Julian said. "But in all likelihood yes. I find it hard to believe Dafne and her Trager witches wouldn't have been contacted if there was a local coven. I'd say they broke apart before Dafne's time. The question is when, and why?"
Chapter 17
Sebastian hugged Abby and she clutched him as if he might never return.
"Five minutes, tops," he promised.
She backed away and stood with Helena, Julian, and Oliver. Oliver gave him a thumbs-up and Julian offered a tense smile.
"Not a minute more, Sebastian," Helena called.
He waved and turned, trotting across the bridge. His stomach felt knotted and queasy. He could not shake the image of the water witch waiting for him on the other side. However, when he stepped from the bridge, the forest he'd originally encountered appeared. That forest gave way to other worlds, a dozen or more, but he did not look at them.
"Claire?" he whispered, searching the trees. "Claire?"
He took another step away from the bridge and then another, ready to spring back at any moment if Meghan appeared.
Someone grabbed him from behind and he lurched away, twisting around to face his assailant.
"Whoa there, cowboy," Claire laughed. "It was a hug, not an attack."
"Good grief, Claire," he cried, shaking his head. "You scared me half to death."
"Well, better half than the whole way."
"Very funny."
"I was worried about you," she said, taking a step forward and offering her hand.
He took it and pulled her into a hug.
"With good reason, but there's no time to get into all that now. I need a favor."
"Of course, big brother. Hand it over."
"You know about the amulet?"
She grinned and cocked her head to the side.
"Haven't you listened to a wor
d I've said? I know all kinds of stuff."
"And you can take it to her? The water witch?"
"Yep, she has no power over me, though she's going to be irate when she sees it's a fake."
"Yeah, which is why I need you to stall her as long as possible. There's another guy down there, Liam, and he needs time to escape."
"Shall I dazzle her with my knowledge of root vegetables?"
"You can tell her anything you want, so long as it buys us some time."
"Oh, she'll listen, all right. If she thinks I'm holding her prized possession, what choice does she have?"
"Good point."
"You've got about a minute and thirty seconds left," she said, smiling in that funny Claire way, sad and happy and mischievous.
Sebastian closed his eyes.
"I wish this existed at home in Trager. I wish I could see you every day."
Claire held his hand and kissed it.
"I'm there, Sebastian. I'm always there."
****
After Sebastian had escaped the Forest of Purgatory, Meghan punished Liam. She went into his head and played again and again the worst memories of his life. She created new, horrible memories of Hannah being tortured, of his family in Brisbane getting slaughtered in the night. When he woke in a wet heap of sweat and tears, he pressed his face into the mushy stinking ground and held the earth as if he clutched his mother and not the soggy wet grass of the Forest of Purgatory.
He didn't know how much time had passed, but he knew that Sebastian's friends would deliver the amulet at any moment. He couldn't consider the possibility that it had already happened. If Meghan had the amulet, Liam would never escape. He would never have an opportunity to jump from the bridge. He would be destined to die in the dream wood.
Eventually, thirst and hunger got the best of him. He stood on shaky legs and stumbled to the cave. He crawled into Clyde's room, drank quickly from the basin, and ate a handful of dried bark before racing back to the forest. He watched the floating pond for hours. The cycles of night and day, which sometimes lasted mere minutes before transitioning, shifted before him. When he saw the witch slithering up the tree and into the pond, he was close to nodding off. He sat at the base of a tree, hidden in shadows. Her movement jolted him awake. As she moved through the water, he sprang to his feet and ran for the old house.
Sky Mothers (Born of Shadows Book 4) Page 14
