The Shadows of Dark Root (Daughters of Dark Root Book 5)

by April Aasheim

Armand rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  “No! You can’t take him either. He’s a grown man,” I argued.

  “But my heart is clean,” Michael said. “Armand, you know that. You didn’t show me on your scale.”

  “True,” Hecate agreed. “He has purged his guilt and asked for forgiveness. It is a rare concession from a man - especially one who has made so many mistakes.”

  Michael dropped to his knees, his hands clasped. “Take me, Armand, I beg you. Please don’t take my son.”

  My father turned to the goddesses. “Will it fulfill my contract?”

  “It should,” Lilith shrugged. “Technically speaking.”

  Without another word, Armand pressed his finger into Michael’s forehead, twisting it, as if extinguishing a cigarette. It all seemed to happen in slow motion – Michael shrieking as his body turned to ashes, holding his form for the span of a breath, before falling into a loose pile on the drifting rock .

  Then, everything went silent. I couldn’t even hear my own scream.

  This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real. The father of my child, my former lover, and my friend. Murdered by my father, right before my eyes.

  “No!” I roared, rushing Armand.

  Shane grabbed me before I could strike, pulling me into his arms and out of Armand’s reach. “Not today, Maggie. Montana needs his mother.”

  “Listen to the man,” Armand said, raising his chin. There was resignation in his eyes as he adjusted his cowboy hat. “I’m sorry. It’s business. Speak well of this man,” he said, stepping over Michael’s ashes. “It was an honorable death. We’ll take good care of his soul.”

  With that, my father snapped his fingers and transformed into an eagle. He squawked and took flight, disappearing into the darkness of the cavern.

  I crumpled to my knees near Michael’s ashes. “I’m sorry,” I said, as some floated away.

  Eve reached into the cradle and handed me my son. I was afraid to look at him, for fear of seeing Michael in his face. “I love you,” I said, pressing him to my chest. He smelled like rose petals and salt.

  “You should go now,” Hecate warned, looking around the cavern as if expecting someone. “Your father’s patron won’t be pleased about the new deal, even if he has to abide by it. We should all leave, in fact.”

  I looked at the pile of ashes, shedding my final tear in the Netherworld. “Goodbye Michael,” I said, rising to my feet. “I promise, Montana will know who you are.”

  “We’ll all make sure of that,” Shane said.

  “And thank you,” I said to Hecate and Lilith, hugging them.

  “Don’t thank us,” Hecate said. “Thank Jillian and that aunt of yours. If we hadn’t heard they’re prayers, we wouldn’t have known.”

  “We’ll meet again, I promise,” Lilith said, backing away.

  “I can’t wait. Now, we’d better go home.”

  Shane, Paul and my sisters crowded around me while I gripped the ankh. I said a silent goodbye to the Netherworld and snapped the chain.

  “Safe travels, Seed Bringer,” Hecate said.

  Seed Bringer!

  I had forgotten to plant the seed! I desperately rummaged through my pocket, searching for the acorn as I felt myself thinning out. At last I found it. I scrambled to pass it to Hecate, hoping she could plant it on my behalf.

  But it fell through my dissolving hand, bouncing into the magma .

  22

  The World

  I had never really seen my world before the morning I emerged from the Netherworld. The rainbow of colors in our garden; the crisp green leaves that framed our home; the white fence that marked our property; the majestic blue sky that camouflaged our domes. Nor had I ever truly savored the smells of my hometown – the summer apples, the fresh grass, the wet earth, and the eternal scent of impending rain.

  I was awakened now, to every birdsong, to every whisper of the winds. I breathed in the real air and tilted my head towards the real sun, relishing that the warmth was not a product of my mind.

  I looked into the bundle in my arms. My son was real, too. And we were home.

  “Where’d he get that?” Shane asked, standing beside me. He could have been there a moment or a millennium. He lifted the blanket from Montana’s face, revealing a blue knitted baby cap. “This kid has talent. If he’s a wilder like you, we’re gonna have our hands full.”

  One by one, I noticed the others: Merry, Eve, Ruth Anne, and Paul. We were all together, standing in front of Harvest Home. Only it wasn’t the desolate property we had left behind. It was brimming with life and color, overflowing with abundance. The garden was full. The paint was new. The flowers bloomed. The blight had not only been lifted, but had possibly reversed

  “Home,” I said to Montana, lifting him high to see.

  “Someone must’ve brought in a cleaning crew,” Ruth Anne said.

  “Or cast a cleaning spell,” Eve agreed.

  “I just hope this isn’t another dream,” I said.

  Jillian and Aunt Dora bounded from the back door, smiling and crying as they ran to meet us. A willow branch was cradled in Jillian’s arms and Aunt Dora no longer used her cane. We all embraced, more tightly than ever before.

  “Ya did it!” Aunt Dora said. “I knew ya would. And so quick, too.”

  “Quick?” I asked.

  “Aye. Was hardly more than a breath.”

  Was she kidding? Her face was unreadable as she cooed over Montana.

  I looked at the branch in Jillian’s arms and panicked. “I…I didn’t plant the seed! It fell into the magma river and now it’s gone forever!” What good was bringing Montana back to a dying world? We were all doomed now. “Oh, Jillian. What have I done?”

  Jillian smiled as her eyes lingered on my abdomen. “As above, so below. You are the vessel that carries the seed planted in the Netherworld. Soon, that seed will bloom in ours. And your daughter will be a part of both.”

  “I’m pregnant with a little girl?” I asked. “How did this happen? I can’t have two children so close together! I just lost my baby weight.”

  “Ya know how it happened,” Aunt Dora said. “An’ if ya need a refresher, I’ll show ya the globe.”

  “No, it’s okay,” I said, feeling myself blush. I guess they really had kept a close eye on me.

  “Whoo-hoo! I’m going to have a daughter!” Shane grinned, setting his hand on my stomach. “And you’ve never looked more beautiful.”

  “Oh, hell no!” Eve said, shaking the sand out from one of her boots. “Maggie gets two husbands and two kids before I get even one? So unfair!”

  “Mark my words,” Aunt Dora said to me. “Any daughter o’ yers is gonna be a handful. I better stick around a few more years. Yer gonna need me.”

  I looked down. Really, it was all such happy news, but I was grieving for Michael. “My son will never meet his father. He gave himself up for us.”

  “Aye,” Aunt Dora said. “So don’t squander his sacrifice.”

  “I won’t.”

  “We brought Montana a gift,” Jillian said. She opened her hand and revealed a crystal globe mounted on a pedestal, just like the memory globes I had seen my father’s story play out in. She tapped the globe twice and snowflakes spun within it. When the white powder settled, a scene appeared.

  “Look closely,” Aunt Dora said.

  It was a moving picture of Michael - painting Montana’s crib in the nursery. He hummed as he carefully dipped the brush into the yellow paint. I tapped the globe again and another picture appeared, that of Michael sitting beside me on the porch swing, singing to my pregnant belly. I was laughing at the goofy faces he made.

  “This breaks my heart,” I said, touching the globe to Montana’s hand. “Thank you.”

  Aunt Dora shrugged. “I ne’er trusted a warlock, but he grew on me. Now, Montana will have a few memories o’ his father.”

  As everyone talked and caught up, I stepped quietly away. I rocked Montana in my arms as I wandered the n
ow plentiful gardens. The magick and balance of Dark Root had returned. And somehow, reclaiming my son had been the key.

  Even so, I knew that time was short. Time might not matter in the Netherworld, but there was no stopping it in the Upper World. My father and the goddesses had spoken cryptically of wars and endings. What were our roles in all of this? And what of my unborn daughter, conceived in the Netherworld and brought to life on earth?

  I found the apple in my pocket. There was one bite left. I could take a nibble, and it might show me the future if I asked for it. I lifted the apple to my lips.

  But did I really want to know what was coming? Could I live a normal life knowing how it would end? What were the odds that my story concluded with Shane and I sitting side by side on our porch rockers, white-haired and recounting our glory days? I threw the apple core into the woods before I succumbed to temptation.

  “You’re going to love growing up here,” I said to Montana, as he gummed my finger. “You’ll be so spoiled! We’ll eat fresh tomatoes every morning and carve pumpkins grown from our garden. And we’ll dress you up every Halloween and take you to Haunted Dark Root. No one will be more loved than you.”

  My son cooed and smiled, revealing one crowning tooth.

  I looked at the others, all still chatting. Paul and Eve shared an embrace as Ruth Anne regaled Jillian and Dora with a dramatic recounting of our adventure. Merry stood off to the side, dabbing her eyes. I promised myself that I would be there for her; she was going to have a rough time ahead.

  We had all had our lives splayed out before one another - our most embarrassing moments, our darkest deeds, and our innermost secrets. Nearly a year ago we had all straggled back to Dark Root, carrying those secrets like wounds. But Dark Root had healed us. And now that we had traveled to the Netherworld together - and had shared those intimate moments - there was a bond between us that wouldn’t - couldn’t be broken.

  Shane wandered my way. “How are you doing?” He asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s surreal, isn’t it? I still can’t believe we made it out alive.”

  “I told you, it’s my lucky horseshoe. It gets me home, every time.”

  “Then you are never allowed to leave without it!”

  “Deal.” He looked at Montana, and then at me. “I still can’t believe we’re having a baby. A little girl! I just realized that between us, we’ll have three kids. How are we going to handle that?”

  “I have no idea,” I admitted. “But it will be a fun adventure. And I wouldn’t want to do it with anyone other than you.”

  “I love you, Maggie. Forever. And I’m sorry about Michael.”

  “I am, too. It’s funny - I never really forgave him, until the moment he died. Why did I wait so long?”

  “We all take time for granted.”

  We made our way back to the others, and Jillian noticed my new wheel pendant. “Keep that safe,” she whispered. “It’s priceless.”

  “Should I be worried?” I asked.

  “Not now. That day will come, but not now. Stay present, Maggie. Stay awake.”

  Jillian took my hand. I took Shane’s. He took Eve’s, and so on. We formed a circle around Montana.

  I settled into the moment, vowing to squeeze every ounce of joy and meaning from it that I could. And to do it again the next moment. And the next.

  Life went by far too quickly to always be looking towards future. The only real time, was now.

  I kissed my son and my husband, but promised them no happy endings. I refused to think of endings, as there were far too many livable moments in between.

  So mote it be.

  (Coming Summer 2018)

  The Children of Dark Root

  Bonus Reading: A Touch of Light

  Please enjoy the first chapter from Book One of my new series: Touch of Light: A Paranormal Mystery

  A Typical New England Town

  There are many beginnings to the same story.

  Perhaps mine began two years before my return to Reed Hollow, when my husband, Ryan, went on a weekend hunting trip and never came home. His friends all testified that he was there one minute and simply gone the next.

  Or maybe it began on the evening of my parents’ demise. Edward and Vivi Bonds, married thirty-five years to the day, were driving home after an evening out. A flash of blinding light illuminated the gray winter sky and my father lost control of his truck, plunging into a steep ravine. My mother died on impact. My father’s body was never found.

  It could possibly be traced back to the morning I received a phone call from my brother. After six months of incarceration, he was finally eligible for release, but only if I took responsibility for his supervision.

  But these events were only the catalysts that brought me to my current story – a montage of prologues to a much deeper and longer tale. For in the nine months since my return to Reed Hollow, there has been nothing noteworthy to report. The sleepy New England town functioned as it had for the last three hundred years. Quaint shops opened and closed like clockwork. Children went to school, parents went to work, and then everyone gathered around the dinner table to discuss their day. Church bells rang on Sunday mornings and police sirens interrupted bar fights on Friday nights. The only difference between this year and any other in Reed Hollow was the unpredictable weather.

  Winter was especially harsh, coating the world in a thick layer of white, too deep to venture out into without full Eskimo attire. The frost persisted well into spring, robbing gardens of their normal color and ushering in a summer that was inhospitably warm. Even the tourists that kept Reed Hollow’s economy churning reacted to the heat, grumbling over store prices and the terrible cell phone reception. We all breathed a sigh of relief as the last of the summer visitors packed up their campers and boats. Now, in early autumn, we were holding our breaths, awaiting the next round of invaders - weekenders carrying baskets and cameras, eager to capture the town’s famous autumn foliage.

  Though I can’t pinpoint the exact moment my new story began, I think perhaps it was on a Thursday. It was early September, of that I am certain. I stood inside The Aunt-Tea-Query, at the end of the coffee line, watching maple leaves swish across the cafe’s large front window. The leaves had already begun to yellow and crinkle at the edges. The heady scent of ripened apples wafted through the door whenever a customer entered or exited. And the children in the cafe toted shiny new lunchboxes as they held the hands of their caffeine-inhaling mothers.

  The line inched painfully forward, as there was only one person manning the latte machine. I listened to the conversations ahead of me – most regarding the pumpkins and squash growing in their gardens.

  “It’s gonna be a bountiful harvest this year,” someone declared.

  “Yup,” someone else agreed.

  Dreadfully boring, I thought, stifling a yawn. But that was Reed Hollow. There was so little to talk about that even pumpkins were interesting after a while.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I reminded myself, stepping forward. I wasn’t planning on staying much longer than the new year, anyway. Let the locals be happy with their pumpkins and squash. I had my eye on the future.

  That, and a large blueberry muffin in the center of the glass dessert tray, dusted with powdered sugar.

  “My stars,” I whispered, tapping the glass with my pinky finger. “Where have you been all my life?”

  I’m normally a woman of discipline, but when I took ownership of my parents’ business - complete with illegible ledgers, mountains of debt, and shoddy inventory management - I rediscovered my childhood sweet tooth with surprising ease. It was cheaper than alcohol, I reasoned, even as my skirts began to feel the strain of my addiction.

  I surveyed the muffin, studying its sugar-to-bread distribution, before moving on to the strawberry shortcake beside it. The presentation was magnificent - topped with homemade cream and garden strawberries - but not exactly what I was looking for. When the line finally dispersed, I stood up straight, pulling my
vintage gray hat with its raspberry rosettes down over my ears. Looking the barista in his sleepy brown eyes, I asked, “Might you have any crumpets?”

  “Now what the hell’s a crumpet?”

  “It’s like an English muffin, but from England.”

  “Wait, aren’t all English muffins from England? Never mind.” He shook his head. “Do you want an English muffin?”

  “They’re not the same. Are you sure you don’t have any crumpets?”

  “No, Baylee. I don’t have any crumpets.”

  “How about scones?”

  “Not today.”

  “But you said that yesterday.”

  “And I’ll say it again tomorrow.” He leaned over the counter, planting his knuckles on the glass like a gorilla. “In fact, here is my official statement on the matter: Baylee Scott, I don’t have any crumpets or scones. I never have and I never will.”

  I touched my gloved finger to the name engraved on the man’s gold-plated badge. “Alexander,” I said, batting my lashes. “If you have a customer who asks for something every day, perhaps you should oblige. It’s smart business sense.”

  “Don’t call me Alexander.” He yanked the badge from his chest and tossed it into the nearest waste bin. “You know I hate that name.”

  “And I hate that you don’t have any crumpets or scones. It seems that we are at an impasse, doesn’t it, Alexander?”

  “Damn it, Baylee. I would take your abnormal love of crumpets and scones more seriously if you helped me make them, or even worked the counter, for God’s sake. But since you’re my sister--”

  “I’m also part owner! I while away my life here, sorting through boxes and cataloguing people’s things and…sniff...my hands get calloused…and…. sniff…”

  “You’re so dramatic, Baylee. I know for a fact that you don’t ever cry. Still, great performance.” He clapped twice, slowly. “Your eyes misted up that time. You should have been an actress, like Mom.”

  “But then I’d be in Hollywood and you’d have to run this place alone.” I waved my arm, to demonstrate the enormity of my sacrifice.