An owl hooted near the garden. I turned to look at it, and saw it roosting on the wrought iron gate. It regarded me with wide, knowing eyes. Its face was the color of day-old snow.
There was another noise above me, a scuffling sound, most likely a bird caught in the rafters. I looked up, expecting a robin or a wren.
Instead, there, in the nursery window, was a woman’s face, deeply lined and so opaque I could nearly see through her. Wiry white hair framed her aged face. I swallowed, my heart nearly in my throat.
“Miss Sasha?” I asked, standing. “Mother?”
Her thin lips cracked into a smile. A sound followed but it was not human. It was the high-pitched screech of a yowling cat.
I spun towards the forest as terror supplanted grief. I would have run were I able, all the way back to Harvest Home. As it was, I walked fast enough to lose my breath, not looking back as I sensed the ghostly old woman in the window staring after me.
TEN
Strawberry Fields
“Back from your date so early?” Michael’s eyes never left the TV as I slammed the front door.
Shane’s confession, coupled with my quick exodus through the woods, had left me raw and unnerved. “Go to hell.”
“No can do.” He lifted the cross around his neck and dangled it for me to see. “The big guy might object.”
“In your case I’m sure he’d make an exception.” I wiped the matted hair from my face and looked upstairs. I wanted nothing more than to shower and then crawl into bed for the rest of the day.
Ruth Anne, who had been sitting at a desk near the kitchen, removed her earmuff-style headphones and glared at me accusingly. “My computer just shut off. I can only guess that means you’re in a bad mood. You could have let me save first.”
I removed my boots and kicked them across the living room. “What makes you so certain it was me?”
As soon as I spoke the words, the TV fizzled, sparked and went dark. Michael punched the buttons on the remote control to no avail.
“You’re going to be the one to tell your Aunt Dora about this,” he said, calmly placing the remote in his lap and stretching out his legs.
“I’ll add that to the list of fun ways I’m going to spend my evening.” I tried to stomp my way up the staircase but without shoes the effect was missed.
Eve was waiting on my bed, a magazine open across her lap. “Why is Michael sleeping in the attic? That’s Paul’s room.”
“I don’t know. I only work here.”
“Well, he shouldn’t be there. What if Paul were to come back right now? And what if he brought Nova with him? We’d need that room. You go talk to Michael, pronto.”
Michael appeared in the doorway, carrying an armful of towels. “Did I hear my name?”
“Eve wants to know why you’re living in our attic.” I said, tossing my tote on the floor.
“Because those life-sized dolls are the closest things I have to real love right now.” He set three towels on my rocking chair and left without saying another word.
“It’s almost incestuous,” Eve complained, crossing and uncrossing her tanned ankles. She leaned forward, her perfect eyebrows forming a perfect V. “I swear he keeps looking at my boobs.”
“You wear a triple-D bra, Eve. Everyone is looking at your boobs.”
“Well, I’m going to have this out with him.” She rolled up the magazine and marched from my room, cornering Michael in the hall. I half-listened as the two argued over whether or not Michael had been leering at her breasts. I shut the door and hedged my way to the bed, ready to bask in my own self-pity while trying to forget the face I saw in the window. My solitude didn’t last long as Eve returned, shaking her head.
“He’s a perv, Maggie. I know the type. Prays on Sundays but by Monday he’s out stealing panties.”
“He stole your panties?”
She gave me an exasperated look as she opened the closet door to inspect herself in the mirror. “It’s just a saying.”
“It is? How come I’ve never heard of the panty-stealing expression?”
“You’ve never been to New York.”
“I’m never going there either if people are running around stealing panties.”
Eve removed her sweater, leaving on only her slim leggings and her Victoria’s Secret bra. Cupping her breasts she said, “Sometimes I regret going so big. I mean, they were great when I worked at Hooters but Nova keeps asking if her boobs will get as big as mine one day.”
“What do you tell her?”
“I tell her yes, if she saves up eight thousand dollars.” Eve turned and winked, dropping her hands to her hips. “Or if she gets a sugar daddy. I didn’t tell her that last part, of course. She’ll figure that one out on her own.”
“She’s lucky to have you as a role model.”
“I know, right?”
As Eve lamented her choice in breast sizes, Jillian poked her head into the room. As usual, her hair was neat, her makeup perfect, and her outfit impeccable. She was slim and unfairly pretty, especially for someone her age. Standing next to Eve she could pass for her mother, minus the enormous bosom.
“Am I interrupting?” she asked politely. Her eyes fell to the corner of the case that poked out from beneath my bed, lingering a moment too long.
“Eve was just complaining about the Michael infestation,” I said.
“It’s creepy, right?” Eve put her sweater back on. “Nobody warned me that Professor God was going to be here.”
I pressed my hands into the sides of my temples. “Nobody warned me either. If they had, I might have fought harder to stay asleep.”
Jillian laughed, though the lines between her brows deepened, evidence that her mood was anything but light. She took a seat in the rocking chair.
“Eve, can you give us a minute?” I asked, sensing Jillian’s need to talk privately.
“Alright.” She placed one foot in the hallway. “But if I get arrested for poisoning that man, you better post bail.”
“Deal.”
As Eve shut the door, I worried there might be truth to her words. She had be-spelled him once when he came for me last fall, giving him a love potion to redirect his interest. It had worked swiftly, and well, and Michael ran off in search of an actress he never met who lived on the East Coast. More recently, she concocted a perfume she dubbed Man-Catcher, which caused us to go down a very dark road I had no intention of revisiting. I almost called after her when I caught the strained look on Jillian’s face.
Michael was on his own.
Jillian leaned forward, pressing her elbows into her knees, her face kind yet concerned.
“Are you going to scold me for being mean to Shane or to Michael?” I asked. “Because if you are, I don’t want to hear it.”
She put her hands up, palms out. “No, Maggie. I’m staying out of that mess. Your men. Your battle.”
“Good. I think.”
She leaned back again, tugging on the corner of her silk scarf, letting it glide through her fingers multiple times before speaking. “You're strong, Maggie, and that means you are going to attract strong men. Like many things, it’s both a curse and a blessing.”
I chewed on my bottom lip, ingesting what she said. My so-called strength allowed Shane to think it was okay to leave me when I needed him most, and threatened Michael to the point that he looked outside of our relationship to have his ego stroked. How was it a blessing?
“That’s the way of men,” Jillian said, surprising me.
I tilted my head, then laughed. “I always forget that you can read people.”
“Only sometimes.” She spread her palms flat across the sturdy armrests of the rocking chair. “That is also a blessing and a curse.”
Jillian’s eyes clouded over, as if she had tapped into an old memory she wished to forget. She flicked her wrist and smiled, returning to the present. “Life is full of contradictions.”
I wanted to know more but knew she’d come to discuss another matter. “
You’re worried about me, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Very much so.”
I sighed heavily. “I’m worried about me, too. I can’t manage my own life, let alone a child’s.”
“No one is ever prepared for their first child. It’s on-the-job-training. You’ll be fine.”
“That makes me feel better. But I still haven’t been to a real doctor yet. What if something’s wrong with the baby?”
“Merry said a doctor came while you were asleep.”
“A witch doctor?”
“Well, an old friend of Sasha’s. But rest assured, your baby is fine. She had a midwife come in several times as well. We’ll get you to the hospital straight away for a checkup, though. That’s a priority.”
I bounced on my bed several times, my eyes avoiding hers. Finally, I confessed what troubled me most. “I don’t think I’m going to be a good mother.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Well…”
I fidgeted, wondering if I should remind her about the door from the Netherworld. Truly Good people didn’t see that door, I bet, only those who had a shot at entering it.
“Michael says we are all born into sin, but do you think some of us are born with larger doses than others? Armand is my father. Does that mean I’m doomed? And my baby, too?”
Jillian’s eyes softened and she came to sit beside me. Pulling my head onto her shoulder, she smoothed my hair. “Maggie, you shouldn’t think like that.”
“Mother always worried about me. Called me a fence-sitter, like my father.” I looked up at her, steeling myself against the wave of emotion that attacked. “And Jillian, you of all people know the bad things I’ve done in my life. I’ve been petty. I’ve been selfish. And then there was Leo…”
“Oh, Sweetie, we’ve all done bad things. We’re all just scrambling through life, each of us doing our best. The fact that you know what you’ve done, and that you’re trying to make things better, says volumes about you.”
I nodded uncertainly, hoping she was right.
“As for your father, you’ve only heard Sasha and Dora’s side of the story.”
I sat up. “You mean he wasn’t the devil incarnate?”
She laughed, mostly to herself, then lifted her chin. “He was like anyone else, Maggie. He had his bad side, and yes, it was a very bad side… but he also had his good side. There are very few souls that are either pure black or pure white.”
“That’s reassuring. And depressing.”
“It is, isn’t it? What I’m trying to say is don’t worry so much. Bad people don’t care about being a good person, therefore, you must be ‘good.’”
“When will I stop worrying?”
“Never, ever, ever. That’s the blessing of Motherhood.”
“And the curse.”
“And the curse.”
“I wish you had been my mom,” I said, then immediately regretted it. She had her own daughter, and though I had a complicated relationship with my own mother, Miss Sasha had molded me into the person I was today.
“I’m sorry. I just meant that you’re so easy to talk to.”
Jillian gave me a side hug. “We do have a special bond, don’t we? And I would have been honored to raise a daughter like you.”
We leaned in close, her crossed legs revealing a bit of her slim upper thigh. There was something on her, a dark mark near the side of her knee. It looked almost like a butterfly. Was that a tattoo?
“That, my dear, is a witch mark. Many of us have them. They are unique to each family, passed down through lineage. Mine happens to look like a butterfly but I’ve seen flowers and numbers and even one that looked like a snowman.” She rubbed her thumb along the mark. “In the middle ages they were used to identify, and subsequently burn, witches. Thank Goodness we aren’t living in those dark times anymore.”
I checked my own legs. I didn’t have one. “I guess I would have been spared from the bonfire,” I said.
“At least in that regard,” she winked.
We sat without talking, listening to the sounds of the house. Someone tromped through the hall. Downstairs, pans clanked in the sink as Aunt Dora and Merry prepared dinner. I even thought I heard the Ruth Anne’s fingers hammering on the keyboard as she gave birth to her latest novel.
A sensation in my belly jolted me from my thoughts. “Jillian! My baby just kicked!”
I lifted my shirt and revealed my stomach. We sat very still, watching and waiting, and were at last rewarded by another bold thump near my navel.
“Did you see it?” I whispered.
Jillian beamed, pressing her hand to my stomach. “I told you all is well. Have you figured out what to name him?”
“What do you think of Trouble?”
She clapped her hands. “I can see it now,” she said, “Here comes Maggie’s little Trouble. Apropos.”
“And if I have twins I’ll name the other one Double.”
“Perfect.”
“I guess I shouldn’t joke. Mother said that all names are magical, and that you get exactly what you name your child.”
“As is most often the case, Sasha was right. Names have meaning. Make sure you pick the right one, okay?” Jillian’s hand went to my wrist, tracing the smooth crystal bracelet I had inherited from Mother. The Circle.
“What do you know about this?” I asked, lifting my wrist. “I think it magnifies my abilities but I’m not sure.”
Jillian looked closer. The cracks that were once deeply etched into the crystal had nearly vanished. The bracelet had healed itself. “Though Sasha never took it off, I don’t know much about it. She collected artifacts from all over the world: Egypt, Ethiopia, Ireland. Wherever there was legend, there was Sasha.”
I imagined Mother trekking across the globe in search of her relics. I wished I’d known her then, when she was young and full of adventure. My only memories of her were after she had settled into motherhood late in life, and then into old age.
Jillian tapped the bracelet. “I do know that it has some protective abilities. I can see that in its energy field. It might be part of the reason you have been able to survive the curse.”
My purse vibrated on the bed. Someone was texting me. And since most everyone I knew was right in this very house, it could only be Shane. I ignored it and returned my attention to Jillian.
“Sorry for the huge detour,” I said. “You came to tell me something.”
“You haven't used the first globe yet, have you?”
I shook my head, embarrassed at being caught.
“You need to do it tonight. You grow weaker by the day. It’s a strong spell Maggie, and we can only hold it off for so long.”
“But I still don’t understand.”
“Trust, Maggie, trust.”
“I hate that Larinda is a part of this.”
Jillian sighed, long and heavy. “Me too.”
I reached under my bed and slid the leather case. “I’ll start right away. I promise.”
“Excellent.” Jillian stood, smoothing out her navy blue slacks. “And Maggie, remember, whatever images appear in those globes are there for a reason.”
“Okay,” I said, not knowing how else to respond.
With that, she left and the room felt suddenly cold.
I glanced at the clock. It wasn’t even dinnertime. I had come up here to cry in private, but now I was too tired for even that. Perhaps a nap was all I needed.
I opened the case, marveling at the collection of globes nested within their snug, velvet homes. My fingers trembled as I lifted out the first one in the line and scooted my way towards the headboard. I raised it to the light. There was a glittering substance pooled near the bottom of the globe, but it was otherwise empty. The inscription on its base read: Dark Root, Oregon. January, 1968.
Leaning back into my pillow, I gave the globe a gentle shake. The glitter rose up, swirling about the ball. The bauble hummed in my hands, as if awakened.
The swirl took form.
A house appeared––a white, sprawling Victorian surrounded by a vast forest. Sister House.
A car rolled into the wide dirt lot. It was the dented blue Cadillac I remembered as Mother’s.
My eyes felt heavy. They were drooping, even as the scene unfolded before me.
ELEVEN
White Rabbit
Dark Root, Oregon
January, 1968
Sister House
Armand removed himself from Sasha’s Cadillac, carrying his only possessions: a hastily packed suitcase and his cowboy hat. The suitcase he’d acquired just months before. The cowboy hat he’d worn nearly every day for the last five years.
Though he had grown up in Los Angeles and had seen cows only on television, he wore the hat with conviction. Chicks dug the hat. It had become so much a part of him that he felt naked without it.
“What do you think?” Sasha Benbridge asked, spreading her arms wide to showcase not only the massive house before them with its imposing columns and wraparound porch, but the deep woods that surrounded them as well.
Armand took it all in and shivered. “It’s spooky and smells like car freshener.”
“That’s pine,” Sasha said, her boyish chest heaving with pride. “Pine for miles and miles, with some oak and fir and cottonwood scattered in.” She lit a cigarette and puffed on it twice, blowing the smoke out through the side of her mouth. “We could die right here today, and no one would know for weeks. That’s how isolated we are. Isn’t it grand?”
“Grand?” Armand scratched his head, wondering once again why he had followed her here. She certainly wasn’t the most beautiful woman he had ever known, or the most charming, but she had the ability to persuade him, in more than one way. “It’s not L.A.”
He followed her up the porch steps to an imposing door with an oversized brass knocker. He tried the door and found it locked.
Sasha pushed him aside and tapped the doorknob twice with her right index finger.
It swung open.
“Hell, I can do that too,” Armand said, looking at his own hands.
“Yeah, but you’d break the entire door in the process. That’s the problem with warlocks. They don’t know how to rein in their powers, even when they should.”
The Curse of Dark Root: Part One (Daughters of Dark Root Book 3) Page 10
