Thea continued. “Even so, any reports about her after she got back here are sparse. There’s an article in there about her saving a child in the tribe from a bear attack. I assume we both know who the ‘bear’ was, yes?” she asked, raising her eyebrows. Sophie nodded. “And later, there’s a small mention of her daughter. It was after Migisi’s death, but the article talks about how she was a healer, but too many remembered what her mother had become and few trusted her. Apparently she went to live with the rest of the tribe when she was a teenager, but I didn’t find any mention of why, or where Migisi was at the time.”
They walked in silence for a while. The crisp fall leaves crunched under their shoes. Sophie could smell woodsmoke in the air, the scent of decaying leaves and, underneath it all, the clean, refreshing scent of the stream at the back of her property, which she and Thea strolled toward. She could hear the falls from where they were. She was hit, all at once, with how much she loved this place, while also envisioning what the land around Esme’s house had become. This, as much as the curse, as much as her own sense of her self, was why she had to find her way back to the Light. She had the weirdest sense that her own well-being was tied to the health of the place she’d come to see as her sanctuary. If it failed, so would she. But to save it, she had to find a way to keep Shadow from overtaking everything and everyone around her.
She had no clue how to do that. Which was another reason she clung to that tiny, impossible hope that Migisi had figured it out.
If she had, it would have been super if she’d have written it down somewhere, Sophie mused irritably. No chance of it being that easy; Sophie had looked through everything Migisi may have touched, scoured the journals she’d left for hidden messages… nothing. Other than those later watercolors of Luc, there had been nothing.
“Have you run across anything about Luc?” Sophie asked Thea. They reached the stream, coming out of the woods near the boulder. Her and Calder’s boulder, Sophie thought to herself with a smile. They’d first kissed on it as teenagers. They’d done a heck of a lot more on it in the time since they’d found their way back to one another.
Thea shook her head. “No. Other than his death notice, there’s no mention. In his obituary, they mentioned his wife and son, but there’s no mention at all any of his ancestors after that.” That made sense. Sophie knew from what Calder had said, from what she’d seen with Calder’s own father, that the men in their line usually died at home. There were no obituaries; the family tried hard not to draw attention to itself, for obvious reasons. Thea continued. “In fact, the next mention I found of the Turcotte line was Calder, and that’s because he started getting attention for his car restorations. A couple of papers in the area have written about him.” She paused, then smiled at Sophie. “Those are in there, too. I thought you might like to see them.”
Sophie smiled. “Thank you.”
Thea nodded, and they stopped and looked at the stream, and the falls beyond, a little way down the stream. “Good lord, it’s beautiful here,” Thea murmured.
“It is,” Sophie agreed.
“No wonder you were so desperate to save it.” Sophie had confided in Thea about Calder and his curse and how he’d used her house to try to force her to help him. He’d given the house back to her; it was in her name again, as it should be. He hadn’t accepted any offer of repaying him for the money he’d spent on her house at the auction, waving it off and saying that she’d held up her part of the deal. The curse wasn’t in his line anymore. Of course, now, Sophie had it, so it wasn’t gone, exactly. She still had to try to find a way to destroy it completely, now that she had it contained in herself instead of in Calder. The key was managing it before she completely lost her sanity.
“This area, especially along the river and near the falls is steeped in folklore,” Thea said. She grinned at Sophie. “It was one of the things I used to bore my students with when I taught.”
“You were never boring, Thea.”
“Not many ten year olds are interested in stories about wise women and windigoo.”
“I always liked it when you shared those stories,” Sophie said.
Thea looked out over the river. “Do you remember the story of the falls?”
Sophie smiled. “The forest loved the lake, yet neither could live where the other reigned. Forests drown, and water dries on land. So lake came to forest in her own way, and twist and turns through it, and gives it life even in the driest seasons, and the falls are lake’s overflowing love for forest.”
Thea beamed. “You remember!”
“I loved that story.”
Thea went over to the boulder and looked up at the two enormous oaks that flanked it. She put her hand on the rough bark of the one nearest to her.
“Funny story about these trees, too,” she said, still looking up at the branches with their rattling, dry leaves. “Have you heard that one?”
Sophie shook her head.
“This came from one of the old timers, who said that one day, a group of youths was fishing in this area. The fish were plentiful here, the water cool and clean. They played on this boulder, and leaned against it when they were resting. And they left, vowing to come back the next day.” Thea kept looking up at the tree, her hands on the bark. “So they came back the next day, and they swore to everyone they knew that these two trees had not been there the day before, but had appeared out of nowhere, as enormous and majestic as they stand today.”
Sophie looked up at the trees. “These were teenage boys?”
Thea transferred her gaze from the trees to Sophie. “Yes.”
Sophie let out a small laugh. “They probably were screwing off and didn’t notice the trees the first time around. It’s a forest full of trees. Something probably just drew their attention to them that second day.”
“You are no fun at all, Sophie Turner,” Thea chided, stepping away from the tree after giving the bark a gentle pat. “So logical.”
“Yeah, logical. That’s me,” Sophie said with a smile. “Obviously.”
Thea shook her head, and they started walking back toward Sophie’s house. “Thanks for walking with me. It was a long day and it’s been too long since I’ve given the old legs a good stretch.”
“Anytime. Thank you for coming out. And for this,” Sophie said, holding up the manila envelope.
“My pleasure. Make sure you come and see me, though!”
“I can stop by on Thursday if you like,” Sophie said as they reached Thea’s truck.
“That would be fabulous. We’ll try the new pizza recipe and you can take a look at the new art on display in the community center.”
“It’s a date,” Sophie said with a nod. “Oh, hey,” she said, a thought coming to her. “One of the guests at the resort had one of those supernatural Michigan books, and there was a story in there about a witch in the woods. Do you know anything about that?”
Thea laughed. “I’ve read that book. The place doesn’t exist. You can keep driving down South Mine road and see nothing but forest. That road curves out onto another highway, and nowhere along it are the woods dead,” she said with a roll of her brown eyes.
Sophie tried to hide her surprise. One more thing to ask Esme about. “Oh. Well, yeah, I figured that,” she said. “She was going to try to find it, and I told her it probably wasn’t worth bothering.”
Thea nodded. “Tourists,” she said with a grin, and Sophie forced herself to smile back.
“I—“ Thea began, but whatever she’d been about to say was interrupted by an earth-shaking, terrifying roar from the forest. Sophie and Thea both spun, looking toward where the sound had come from. Sophie recognized the sound immediately; Calder had roared just like that the night of the first full moon after he’d made the deal with her about the house. The sound echoed through the forest again, loud, enraged.
“What the hell?” Thea asked.
Sophie shrugged. “Bears, maybe. They’re settling in for winter, right? Maybe fighting over food.”
Thea gave Sophie a look that suggested she knew exactly what kind of bear it was that had made the sound, but Sophie didn’t feel like talking about it. “You should get back to town before it gets dark. I hate driving these roads at night.”
“Me too. All right. If you’re sure?” Thea asked, looking closely at Sophie.
“I am. I’m in no danger,” she said, trying to reassure the older woman.
“Sweetheart, the biggest danger to any of us is the one we love most. They’re the only one who can truly break us. That’s what makes love such a damn terrifying thing. And it’s even more so, in your case.”
“I’ll be fine,” Sophie said, pulling Thea’s truck door open for her. “I’m going to go in, and have some tea, and look through these files.”
Thea gave her a nod, then got into the truck. Sophie closed the door once she was in, and, within moments, Thea was turning down the highway, heading back toward town.
Another angry roar thundered through the woods, this time sounding farther away. Sophie rubbed her arms against the sudden chill in the air. She went to the front of her house and sat on the stone steps outside her front door, looking at the woods across the road, waiting for some sign of Calder. She waited for a few minutes, then went inside, lit a fire in the fireplace, and grabbed a thick wool sweater, pulling it around her tightly. Then she went back outside and sat on the front steps again. She was starving, thirsty. She wanted to run. She wanted to find Calder and reassure herself that the crazed sound wasn’t really coming from him.
Another roar pulled her back from her own desperation. In truth, the roars were angry, mournful sounds. Unhinged, she thought. Too much like the sounds he’d made the night of the full moon.
Sophie lost track of how long she sat there. Darkness settled in around her, millions of stars and a sliver of moon bright in the sky above. The roars continued, sometimes sounding near, sometimes farther away. She heard another crazed, angry roar, and made up her mind. He could be hurt, and she was sitting around hoping everything would be okay, Sophie chided herself. She went into her house, grabbed the big, heavy Maglite flashlight she kept near the door, then jogged down her driveway. She’d start with the woods around his house, she planned. And then go out further if she didn’t catch any sign of him.
Just as she stepped onto his side of the road, she notice a light come on in his kitchen. She paused for a second, then ran toward his house. Her heart pounded, and her nerves were a wreck. She felt like she was on the verge of snapping, after having listened to his insane roars for so long, not knowing what was going on, only knowing that those roars should not have sounded the way they did. Not if everything was okay.
She knocked on the front door, waited a few seconds, then knocked again, louder. She chided herself for not getting a set of keys to Calder’s house, the way he did for hers. He’d offered to have them made, and she’d brushed it off, saying they usually spent the night at her place, anyway.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she muttered to herself as she ran around to the back door, past Calder’s motorcycle, past Bryce’s ugly car. Her feet pounded up the wooden stairs and she tried the knob. Locked.
She knocked, loud, and called Calder’s name. “Calder, open the goddamn door,” she shouted, pounding on the door again.
She glanced down at the handle, wondering if she could break it, when she saw something that made her even more determined to get inside: a smear of blood.
“Calder!” she shouted, knowing, in some sense, that she was probably looking and sounding completely insane, knowing that her curse was making her even more obsessive about getting to him, but, for once, not caring. She glanced at the kitchen window, which she could get to by standing on the railing of the back porch. She knocked one more time, called Calder’s name, then went over to the garage and grabbed a piece of wood that was leaning against the side of it. She ran onto the porch, climbed up onto the railing, and hit the kitchen window with the short piece of wood. It shattered, the sound seeming to echo through the night. She used the wood to clear away as many shards of glass as she could, then she pulled herself up into the window.
Inside, she jumped off of the kitchen counter and listened. She could hear the shower running upstairs.
Her face heated. If she’d just broken Calder’s window, and the only reason he hadn’t answered was because he’d been in the shower, she was going to feel like a complete ass. And maybe her curse was making her more nuts than she realized.
But her mind went back to that smear of blood, and she ran up the stairs. On the wall of the stairway, there was another long smear of dark blood, and, in the hallway, another. The bathroom door stood open, steam pouring out of it.
Sophie stepped into the bathroom, then let out a strangled sound and ran to the bathtub. The shower was on full blast, hot, and Calder lay unconscious in the clawfoot tub under the spray. Several long cuts along his side turned the water in the tub red before it swirled down the drain.
He was so still, Sophie had a moment of frozen panic, then she snapped herself out of it and bent over him. The water scalded as it hit her arm, and she quickly turned it off, noting the angry red tone of his skin from the too-hot water.
But those cuts… three down the side she could see, another three on his shoulder. She wondered if there were more on his other side. He was on his side, head on the side of the tub, body laying in the tub. Naked, which sickeningly enough had her body aching in need thanks to the vile, stupid, asshole curse Migisi had put on his family.
“Calder, honey,” she said, patting his face gently. “Honey, wake up,” she said. Terror rose in her, the fear that she’d been too late, that she shouldn’t have waited on the porch for so long, that she shouldn’t have spent so much time trying to get him to come to the door. She flashed back to the day she’d found her young husband, David, cut and bleeding in a bathtub, and a strangled cry came from her throat as she started shaking. “Calder,” she sobbed. She put her hand to his throat, where she could feel his pulse, thankfully. It seemed slow, and she lifted a shaking hand from him. He couldn’t keep bleeding like that.
She had to call an ambulance, she realized. She dug her phone out of her pocket and nearly hit 911 before realizing that that would raise too many questions. How had it happened? Why was he healing so fast? Shifters healed unnaturally quickly, and there as no way to explain it well to a non-magical person.
If she didn’t do something, she’d lose him. Even though he’d heal fast, it needed help. The cuts down his side definitely needed to be stitched up, and she knew she could do it, but there were too many and he was bleeding heavily. There’s no way she’d be fast enough, she realized, and she screamed in frustration. She could have healed him with her Light magic. Now, she was without it. She hit Jon’s number instead.
He answered on the first ring, and she gave him the whole story, barely stopping to breathe.
“Okay, Sophie, listen to me. Listen,” Jon said in a calm, steady voice over the phone. “Sophie.”
“Okay,” she said, staring at Calder.
“Okay. He got into a fight with something. Probably another bear. Good job not calling 911. He’ll be okay, and we don’t want any goddamn questions. Okay?”
“He needs stitches.”
“He doesn’t. He needs someone to put pressure on the cuts until they knit back together. I’d come, but I’m in Iron Mountain right now.”
“Why?”
“Calder sent me here to pick up a car he’s going to be working on. Sophie, you can do this. Okay?”
“Just put pressure on it? You should see these things,” she said, grabbing a towel off of the rack and kneeling next to the tub. She put the towel on his side, on the worst of the cuts, and held her hands down, hard, on it. “They’re deep. Long. Are you sure?”
“We had stuff like this happen all the time with my dad,” he said, his voice kind of trailing off. “Shifters get into fights all the time,” he said. “He’ll heal. Can you stay wit
h him and keep pressure on the cuts?”
“Of course.”
“Okay. That’s all he needs, Soph. He’ll be okay.”
“He’s bleeding a lot,” She said, looking at the way the blood was already beginning to soak through the towel.
“I don’t doubt it. Trust me on this, Soph. Calder and I went through all kinds of shit with dad, and with each other. He’ll heal, but you need to keep an eye on him. Keep pressure on his cuts, clean them as soon as you’re able so he doesn't get infected.”
“I found him under a scalding hot shower,” she said.
“Well, that’s Calder. He knows what he’s doing. Just keep pressure on them, then. He’s going to be cold from all the blood loss. I doubt you’ll be able to move him, but try to keep him warm.”
“Okay.”
“Okay. It’ll be all right, Soph. I was going to stay the night here, but I’ll head out now.”
“No, you don’t have to do that. You’re sure he’ll heal?”
“I’m sure.”
“Okay. Well, no need to drive all that way in the dark, then. I’ll take care of him.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah.” She pulled another towel off of the rack, replacing the first, blood-soaked one, and put pressure on it again.
“Okay. I’ll be by in the morning then. Call me if you need anything.”
“Okay.” She let the phone drop from her shoulder onto the floor, her focus completely on Calder. “You hear that, Calder? He says this is all you need. Don’t prove him wrong, okay?” she asked, and her voice caught. Tears sprung to her eyes, that first flash of remembering her first husband, the fact that the scene in Calder’s bathroom had been too similar, still making her tremble. She was still raw, all these years later, still able to see every detail from the day she’d lost David. Because of Marshall.
She blinked back the tears that wee threatening to spill over, and looked at Calder’s face. “Did he do this?” she whispered, knowing there would be no answer. He’d threatened that he’d take Calder from her, just as he’d taken David from her. She’d thought he was convinced that she was tied to Calder, but maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he didn’t care. “I won’t let him destroy you,” she promised Calder. “I don’t care what it takes. I’ll do anything.” She knew she as babbling. She was trembling, her teeth chattering so hard she clamped her jaw to try to keep them still.
Shadow Sworn (Copper Falls Book 2) Page 15
