The Curse of Dark Root: Part One (Daughters of Dark Root Book 3)

by April Aasheim

  Even as the words came out, I realized I was lying. I had been feeling the fever coming on since we closed Mother’s store, but I was so preoccupied with contacting Shane, and then distracted by the call and the spirit activity at Dip Stix, I had nearly forgotten that I was ill. But I was worse now than I’d been earlier. My head was starting to throb and my vision was blurred. It was getting harder to catch my breath.

  “You’re turning green,” Ruth Anne commented with a suspicious look in her eye.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  “Right,” she said. “Or cursed.”

  Our eyes met, both registering the same thought at the same time. We were still no closer to figuring out who or what had cursed me than when I returned from the Netherworld, over two weeks ago.

  “I’ll have Eve make some tea.” Ruth Anne leapt from the couch. “It won’t be as good as Merry’s, but it should help.”

  “Isn’t there such thing as a Healing Latte?” I teased. “I’ve had about all the tea I can stomach for the time being.”

  “I’ll see what we can do.”

  I made up my bed on the couch while my sisters bustled around the kitchen like two old women, arguing over ingredients and brewing times. A cup crashed, shattering on the floor and I heard words coming out of Eve that didn’t fit her pretty face. I smiled as I listened to the two of them, reminded of the days when Aunt Dora and Sasha used to bicker in the same way.

  Sisters, I thought.

  Only…

  Aunt Dora wasn’t Mother’s real sister. And that meant she wasn’t our real aunt.

  It was silly, I knew, but once again I felt betrayed by the discovery. The woman who had practically raised us was no more related to me than to the potted plants on the wraparound porch.

  I flung a throw pillow onto the sofa as I tried to will the thought away. Merry was right. Blood wasn’t what made us family.

  Even so, I didn’t like that this had been kept from us.

  Eve appeared with a tray in her hands, balancing three white cups and a teapot. Ruth Anne followed, carrying two giant mugs emblazoned with the words The Grateful Dead Tour 1973 in a flowery font.

  “Sorry,” Ruth Anne shrugged. “The latte didn’t pan out. But guess what? We have tea!”

  “Ugh.”

  Eve sat the tray in front of me. When she spoke, there was a stiffness in her voice. “I talked to Merry. She’s spending the night at Harvest Home. Says she’s doing a sunrise meditation thing with Michael, followed by morning yoga. Gag.”

  “I second that gag,” Ruth Anne said, pulling half-broken Oreos out of one of the mugs and passing them around. “You should have told her to get her butt over here. Maggie needs her.”

  “No, I’m fine,” I lied, to keep my sisters from further worrying. In the time they were making tea parts of me had grown even hotter, while other parts were so cold I had to bury them under layers of blankets. My hands shook and my heart was beating loud enough to vibrate in my ears. “A little Oreo therapy is all I need,” I said, mustering a smile.

  I must have looked awful because they passed a concerned glance between them.

  With a shrug, Ruth Anne turned off the lights and we huddled together, watching the rest of Frankenstein. An hour later our eyelids were drooping, though no one made a move to go to bed. Around midnight, I finally insisted we all get some sleep.

  “Fine,” Eve said. “But I’m staying here at Sister House. I can’t handle another minute of listening to Michael and Merry ramble on about organic foods and sun salutations.”

  With that, she cleared the tea and marched upstairs, presumably to sleep in Merry’s bed during her absence.

  “I’ll camp out on the living room floor, if that’s alright?” Ruth Anne said. “It’s good for my back.” Without waiting for a response, she jogged upstairs and returned with a sleeping bag and two lumpy pillows.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I didn’t want to be alone.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. In case you’ve forgotten, I snore.”

  I smiled. “I haven’t forgotten.”

  I settled into my sofa bed, rolled on to my side, and stuffed my face between two couch cushions, hoping to regulate my breathing so that it was slow and steady enough to fool Ruth Anne into thinking I had fallen asleep. It must have worked because within minutes she was snoring loud enough to keep the ghosts away.

  I floundered onto my back, staring at the high ceiling and the shadows cast by the rays of moonlight seeping through the crack between the drapes.

  Even with Eve’s tea, my fever had worsened. I was drenched in my own sweat. The shadows took form, parading across the ceiling like circus animals under a big top.

  Whatever evil spell had taken hold of me was tightening its grip. I was tired and wanted to give in to it, to go back to the Netherworld where I could rest.

  But I couldn’t give up. It wasn’t just my own life that needed saving. I would get through this and when I found out who was responsible…

  Thunder cracked outside, followed by a bolt of silver lightning.

  But there was no rain. In that moment, I understood that the thunder and lightning had been manifested by my unchecked emotions.

  I tossed and turned for nearly an hour, attempting to tune into Shane. I sent energy out to him but received nothing in return.

  Eventually, I searched my tote bag, pulling out the remaining globes. I found the next glass ball in the sequence and held it in my hand, lifting it to the moonlight.

  “Ah, hell,” I muttered, then caught myself. Was I turning into my father because I had gotten to know him through these memory dreams? Or was I already similar to him to begin with?

  I shook the globe and watched the glitter dust fall.

  November, 1975.

  The image of Sister House appeared, and the crystal band around my wrist flickered and warmed, as if in approval.

  Before I could wonder about the bracelet, I was asleep.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Magic Carpet Ride

  Dark Root, Oregon

  November, 1975

  Sister House

  A blinding, gold flash of light illuminated the nursery of Sister House.

  Since Sasha needed more time alone to “reflect on the state of the world,” Armand had moved out of the room they had shared and into one down the hall––the bedroom that had been Sasha’s as a young child.

  Her energy was gone from the room now, as if it too had grown up and moved away. That suited Armand fine. Her energy was so strong he needed to escape from it now, even as he was attracted to it before.

  There was no bed, or bureau, or even a basket to put his things in, but Armand didn’t care. He hung his clothes up in the small closet near the window, read his occult books in his beanbag chair, and slept in a sleeping bag he had found lying in the woods on one of his morning walks. Hippies, he guessed, wishing he were as free as they were.

  He spent most of his days in the nursery now, and all of his nights. He didn’t mind the solitude. In fact, after Council meetings and festivals and tea parties and dome building, he rather welcomed it. For company, he had his records: Hendrix for dreaming, The Doors for spell work, The Beatles for reflecting. He even laid down some Credence Clearwater Revival when the mood was right, although looking out the small nursery window, Have You Ever Seen the Rain caused him to either grumble or smile at the irony.

  The music was good company. These were groups that got life, knew what it was about, and weren’t afraid to sing about it. Besides, music was one of the few things he and Sasha had in common anymore. Some nights, he’d entice her downstairs with a little wine and they’d listen to The Mamas and The Papas or Steppenwolf until the break of dawn. On good nights, high on wine and old lyrics, they’d make out and more.

  It was those better times that got him through the worst.

  And to be fair, he wasn’t completely alone. Sasha might have gone a bit frigid but her cousin Larinda hadn’t. And she was more than willing to share his
sleeping bag, and his adventures. It was one of these adventures the two were returning from.

  “Well, that was fun.” Larinda laughed as the two materialized within a gold flash in the center of the nursery. They grinned like children as the light around them brightened, filling the room, then dimmed and disappeared altogether.

  “Bet you’ve never done that before,” Armand said, clasping the ankh that hung around his neck.

  “No, I’ve never traveled back in time before,” Larinda agreed. She wrapped her arms about his neck. “Such power! You never cease to amaze me, Armand.”

  “Yeah?” He smiled at her praise. “Too bad your cousin doesn’t see me that way.”

  Larinda released her hands from his neck and pulled away. “Sasha is misguided in her views. A witch needs a warlock, not the other way around.”

  Armand listened but didn’t respond. Instead, he removed his cowboy hat and tossed it onto the beanbag chair. “I almost lost the hat in one of those tunnels. Navigating the...what did you call it?”

  “The Netherworld.”

  “Yeah, navigating the Netherworld is going to take some getting used to.” He shivered, feeling bumps rise up on his arms. “Too bad the ankh didn’t come with an instruction manual. I hope we don’t get trapped there.”

  “Armand, that’s the realm of spirits and dreams. As long as we aren’t dead, or sleeping, we are okay.”

  Armand stifled another shiver as images from the Netherworld returned to him.

  It was mostly a series of dark tunnels, but there were also residents there. Some he recognized as past human forms––perhaps ghosts now, while others were formless shapes, dark and lurking or white and gleaming. They seemed to sense that Armand and Larinda did not belong there and withdrew whenever they advanced.

  Except for a few of the brazen ones.

  Those were the braver, darker entities.

  Armand felt their icy fingers reaching out, trying to latch on. It reminded him of the haunted houses his mother took him to when he was a kid, with monsters hiding in every corner. But these monsters had no need of masks.

  “We need to map it,” Larinda suggested, sidling up beside him. Her perfume was strong and brought him back to their night before. It immediately aroused him.

  Whoosh.

  A dark wisp flitted across the room, causing the hairs on Armand’s neck to stand on end. “What the hell was that?”

  “What?” Larinda asked, following his gaze around the room.

  He rubbed his eyes. They had been traveling in the dark for an unknown amount of time and he hadn’t adjusted to the light of the real world again. The shadow was gone.

  “Probably just an aftereffect.”

  Larinda regarded the sleeping bag with crossed arms. “We really should get you a bed. The floor is starting to hurt.”

  Armand smiled. “Then you can be on top.”

  “That’s your answer to everything.”

  He fell theatrically to the floor, did ten pushups, and then rolled onto the sleeping bag, patting the space beside him. “I feel a little dizzy after that experience. How about you?”

  Larinda dropped down beside him and nuzzled into the crevice between his arm and chest, unbuttoning his shirt. When she reached his navel, her hand slid down below the gap in his jeans. “I’m dizzy too, but it was worth it. Like riding a roller coaster, only you aren’t sure if you’re ever going to be let off the ride.”

  He relaxed, wondering how far down her hand would go. “I love how adventurous you are. Sasha used to be adventurous…”

  Larinda abruptly retracted her hand and sat up. “If you mention her name one more time, I’m going to curse you. Or scream. Or both.”

  “But you’re the one who wanted to come here to her house.”

  “That was for my amusement. Listening to you reminisce about her is not amusing.”

  Armand closed his eyes and slung his arm across his face. “Ah, hell,” he said. “Every time we’re having fun, you have to say something to fuck it up. Do you have to be such a goddamned buzzkill all of the time?”

  Neither spoke. Armand used the silence to review their time in the Netherworld.

  Somehow, they had ended up in Rosa’s kitchen, and judging by her home décor and her youthful appearance, it was circa 1950-something. Young Rosa busied herself preserving jams, unaware that she was being watched. The event itself wasn’t exciting, but the actuality that they had traversed time was something Armand had trouble wrapping his head around.

  Of course, the reason for their success was partially due to Larinda, or rather her body. Prior to their journey he had taken Larinda, siphoning off a bit of her life force. That extra reserve helped them to cross over.

  She had her faults, but her uses outnumbered them.

  Speaking of which, he needed a fix.

  “Fuck me,” he said, opening his eyes and twisting his neck to look at her. From this position, she was even starker and more severe than usual––with her pointed chin and nose, her lash-less eyes, and hair that coiled too tightly near her head. She was striking but not beautiful. Not even pretty. Handsome best described her. But he wasn’t interested in her looks. He wanted her spirit.

  “What did you say?” she asked, raising both eyebrows.

  “I said fuck me.”

  “After you mentioned that woman’s name? No.”

  “I need you.”

  “You need any woman, Armand. I’m not special.”

  “No, I need a powerful, magical woman. And those are in short supply.”

  Larinda lifted her fingers to count upon. “There’s Rosa…”

  “Too old. Even the 1950s version looked like my mom.”

  “Dora.”

  “Too much like an angry Aunt Bea.”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind.”

  Larinda gave him a sly, sideways smile. “There’s always Joe. He’s not quite a woman but he’s got enough feminine energy to keep you charged up. And I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

  “You’re not funny.”

  “Oh, but I am! And of course there’s…” she nodded to the door, to the person who slept in the room just down the hall.

  “I thought we weren’t going to speak of Sasha.”

  “I was wondering why you charge up with me, when you have her right in the house?” She placed a finger to her lips. “Oh, that’s right. She won’t charge you, will she?”

  Armand sat up on his elbows, before pulling himself into a cross-legged position.

  He was irritated at Larinda’s reference to his relationship status, and more irritated that she was correct. Sasha was one of the few women he couldn’t draw from, even when they were making love. She had put up enough shields to guard Fort Knox. But he wouldn’t admit it out loud, even if Larinda already knew it.

  Instead, he said, “You have been misinformed, Larinda. The reason I’m not with Sasha is that she’s become an old woman. Not just in her looks, but in her spirit. Siphoning from her would probably put me in an early grave.”

  She nodded approvingly, seemingly pleased that he was insulting her cousin.

  He continued. “You two are about the same age but you seem so much younger. And Sasha doesn’t use her wand much on you anymore, does she?”

  “Someday, I will have that wand,” she said with a tightened jaw. Then, relaxing, she tilted her head back and raked her fingers through her tight curls. “For now, I take care of myself.”

  “That you do. But there’s more than that. I know your magic helps…”

  She glared at him, her aura flickering a red warning.

  Armand knew that women had their tricks to stay young, but Larinda never liked to be reminded of them. At least Sasha admitted that she used the wand to “perk up” from time to time, while Larinda insisted that she was naturally youthful, without any magical help at all.

  “Sorry,” he whispered, leaning into her neck and biting softly. Most women tasted like salt; Larinda tasted like chalk. �
�What I meant to say was that Sasha’s become an old maid while you are still vibrant and sexy.“

  Her energy shifted, warming. He nibbled on her neck again, and she offered up a small protest before giving in to him. She had her abilities. He had his.

  Larinda smiled as he blew on her neck and cupped her small breasts in his hands.

  “We are the same person, Armand. The same sort of soul. When you’re finally free of that noose Sasha has around your neck, we’ll leave Dark Root, taking all that we can carry with us.”

  He grabbed her by the shoulders and laid her down, forcing her to the floor. As he took her, he thought about her words.

  Was she right? Were we the same person? There was certainly a camaraderie between them he hadn’t found with any other woman, an understanding that they should not squander their abilities building invisible domes for a future they may not be a part of. There was certainly a meeting of the minds. But what about their hearts? Did it matter?

  He finished with her then rolled off, putting his hands to his temples. The dizziness had receded but a mad headache took its place. Larinda kissed his cheeks, but her kisses were as warm as a rattlesnake’s.

  At least he got his charge. Now he’d be able to try some of those stronger spells he’d been studying in Sasha’s spell book.

  “Here’s a thought,” he said, strumming his fingers across his bare chest. “Wanna try to summon a demon?”

  His eyes never left the ceiling as he threw out the suggestion.

  Even adventurous Larinda had balked at demons in the past, claiming they were impossible to control, even if you could bring one to this plane. But according to the spell book, there were lesser demons they could practice on. Plus, he was growing in power every day. With Larinda’s added energy, he was convinced they could do it.

  Her reply was curt and firm. “No, thank you.”

  “Come on. What could go wrong?”

  Larinda sighed heavily and Armand knew her answer. Everything. He pulled on his shirt and sat up again.

  “Fine,” he said, using her tactic. “But I’m about to go mad from boredom in this town. You’re either going to join me, or lose me.”