Esme had taken the phone and was staring at the screen. “Jesus, it’s like seeing Luc all over again,” she said softly, and for the first time, Sophie heard a note of softness in her voice.
“Really?” Sophie asked gently.
“Same eyes, same smile,” Esme said, transfixed by the photo. She glanced up at Sophie. “And you look so much like Migisi. It’s like being back there all over again, like having both of them haunting me in the flesh instead of just in memories.”
“He’s a good man, Esme. He works hard, and he’s dealt with this curse, with seeing what it does, for too long. You can hate me all you want. It’s fine. I don’t know what happened between you and Migisi, but I don’t blame you for hating any memory of her. Just help me save him.”
Esme looked at the photo for a moment longer, such yearning in her eyes that Sophie practically felt it. She sighed, and then handed the phone back. “You say she left instructions for how to end it?” she asked.
Sophie’s heart leapt, and she followed Esme toward the house. Once inside, they went up to her study and sat on opposite sides of the cluttered desk.
Esme was watching her. “Did you say the curse was coming back to Calder?” she asked, and Sophie nodded.
“I took it, but it seems to be affecting him again. He tries to hide it, but he forgets that I know what it looks like. He finally admitted that it’s back.”
“How did you know to take the curse? Because that’s some super Shadow nastiness. Taking any kind of magic from another, curse or not, is simply not something that’s done.”
“Marshall told me to. He told me that if I turned Shadow, I could take what I wanted. And it worked. For a while.”
Esme stared at her for a moment, and then she shook her head. “You are utterly clueless. You played right into his hands.”
“What are you talking about? It worked, at first!”
“Did you specify which curse you took?”
Sophie looked at Esme in confusion. “I just focused on taking the curse.”
“You’re aware there were two curses, yes?”
Sophie didn’t answer, her mind twisting, turning, just on the edge of piecing something together.
Esme sighed. “There was the curse that made him crazy, yes. But in your brilliance, you’re forgetting the initial curse, the one that started it all. It was what turned Migisi to the Shadow, and what worked to turn you as well. I’m guessing you felt the darkness flowing into you long before Marshall turned you?”
Sophie nodded.
“The curse is a pretty basic one, but ingenious in its design. It makes it so, with extended contact with a cursed person, that someone becomes that which they fear most. For you and Migisi, it was Shadow. For Calder, it was…”
“His curse.”
“His curse,” Esme agreed. “So you took his curse, but you took the other one too. Which means that he’s getting pulled back into his initial curse, because it is his nightmare. And this is why children shouldn’t meddle in magic.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Of course not. And Marshall played you beautifully and you’re a complete moron for believing a single word that came out of his mouth.”
“It bought me time,” Sophie snapped, her face burning with shame.
“Maybe. Anyway. You were asking about breaking the curse Migisi put on Luc, which is the more worrisome of the two. If that curse is broken, Calder and his family have no reason to worry about the other one.”
Sophie pulled Migisi’s journal out of her bag, opened it to the page where she’d written what Sophie believed were instructions for ending the curse, and set the book in front of Esme. “This was hers. Read the words written in the backgrounds of each of the next four drawings,” Sophie instructed.
Esme gave her in irritated look. “You can’t just tell me what it says?”
“I may have missed something. I want to see what you think.”
Esme sighed again, then began studying the drawings. She spoke, reciting words Sophie had long memorized:
“I have wronged
The one I loved above all others.
Corrupted by the Shadow,
Distraught and alone,
I became that which I disdain.
Some years hence, a son of Luc’s line
Will give everything he is to a daughter of mine.
He will love her fully and absolutely.
And she will destroy him.
On that day the curse will be lifted
And Luc’s line will be free
And my soul will rest in peace.
She who reads this is chosen by Migisi.”
They sat in silence for a few moments. Finally, Esme sat back in her chair. “She was a really shitty poet.”
Sophie groaned. “Come on,” she said.
“You’re making some assumptions here. First off, you’re assuming that this actually means anything. She was a complete fucking psychopath at the end. Second, you’re assuming that he actually does love you fully and absolutely—“
“He does,” Sophie said quietly.
“Of course he does. Just like Migisi,” Esme muttered. “And third, you’re assuming that you’re the first to have read this and the one ‘chosen’ by Migisi.”
“The two lines have avoided one another when Luc’s line hasn’t been killing Migisi’s. I don’t think there were many of Migisi’s descendants falling in love with Luc’s,” Sophie said. “You know as well as I do that this is something.”
Esme read the words again. “So what was your takeaway from this shitty poem?” she asked.
“That I have to kill Calder to end the curse.”
“You are a bloodthirsty group of bitches, I’ll give you that,” Esme said.
“I didn’t say I want to kill him!” Sophie said, clenching her jaw to keep from saying more and risking angering Esme further.
“You’re not all that smart, either,” Esme remarked, and Sophie bit her tongue, hard. Esme smirked. “You’re taking it too literally.”
“How else should I take it? What do I have to go on besides what she wrote?”
“Think. It says ‘destroy,’ not ‘kill.’ What caused Migisi’s destruction?”
“Shadow?”
Esme shook her head. “Shadow was the tool, as well as the punishment. What made her curse Luc?”
“I don’t know!”
Esme watched Sophie. “You don’t know this story?”
“I know there are stories about him cheating on her and her losing her mind. Is that the destruction you mean?”
Esme nodded. “Luc went away for a few days to meet with some of his business partners, and for some reason, Migisi decided to go to him,” she said with a shrug. “When she got there, it was to find Luc plowing some camp follower against a tree. She snapped, and cursed him in that instant.”
Sophie watched Esme. “So her destruction came from a broken heart?”
Esme nodded. “Sappy, huh? She watched the man she loved screw someone else, and it broke something inside of her. She cursed him without even needing to think about it. Instantaneously.”
“So I need to break Calder’s heart?” Sophie asked slowly, not wanting to hear it.
“If your theory about this is correct, that these are the crazy bitch’s final instructions for breaking the curse, then yes. That’s a big ‘if,’ though, and you need to do more than just hurt his feelings if that’s the case. You need to crush his heart so completely that he’ll never want to love again.”
“Well that’s just great,” Sophie muttered, looking at her hands folded in he lap, even as dread settled over her.
“It’s better than killing him.”
Sophie didn’t answer. “I can’t do that to him,” she said after a while. “I can’t kill him, and I can’t do that to him.”
“Then the curse will keep going,” Esme said with a shrug. “You said Marshall’s after everyone who matters to you? Don’t worry about it, though. Soon you’l
l be too insane to realize it’s even happening.”
Sophie glared at Esme. “Do you have any heart at all?”
Esme gave her a bored look and leaned back in her chair. “Even if you manage to break Calder’s curse, it doesn’t rid you of Marshall.”
“No. But it will make it more possible to focus what little magic I have so I can actually protect people from him. It’s not much, but it’s pretty much all I have.”
“So you’ve finally realized that your powers are useless for battle,” Esme said, and Sophie nodded. “We can focus on shielding now without you bitching that I’m not teaching you what you think you need to know.” Sophie nodded again.
Sophie took a breath and met Esme’s eyes. “You say you can’t touch Marshall.”
“I can’t. Pacts made in magic are unbreakable. I can’t harm him and he can’t harm me.”
Sophie nodded. “Can you protect someone from him though? Can you create some kind of spell that protects Calder from Marshall?”
Esme didn’t answer.
“I don’t know what Luc was to you. I don’t expect you to tell me, but it’s clear that you cared about him. Can you help him one more time? Can you protect Luc’s grandson from Marshall? Because I’ve already lost one husband to Marshall’s rage, and I can’t lose Calder too. Even if I can’t be with him anymore,” she added, her heart aching as she realized what was going to happen.
Esme studied her for a while, then nodded. “I can do that.”
“Can I ask you something else?”
“Your questions are annoying.”
“Please?”
Esme gave a short nod.
“You’ve lived here all this time, and so has Luc’s family. You never interacted with them?”
“Shadow magic,” she reminded Sophie. “You see what the land around my home looks like. You see what happens when someone with my amount of power goes out in public. Undoubtedly, you’ve caused a bit of unease even with the small amount of magic you have. No, I have kept my distance, from Luc’s family and everyone else. I came to your property that day, and other than that, I have not left this land in nearly a hundred years. And before that, I left it rarely,” she said with a shrug.
“Is this what I have to look forward to? An empty house and dead land?” Sophie asked quietly.
“You already know the answer to that. Come on, let’s work on your shields now. Then I can avoid seeing you on Saturday.”
“You’ll do the spell to protect Calder, right?”
“I already said I would. He’ll be protected. Not for you, but for Luc, and for Calder.”
“Thank you.”
Esme waved it off, and they went out to the back yard. A light layer of snow covered the dead ground, outlined the branches and trunks of the twisted remains of trees. Again and again, Esme threw power at her and Sophie raised her shields to protect herself. She tried to focus, but the curse, her stress over Layla, and Marshall, and the things Esme had told her she had to do to save Calder from the curse all wore at her, and she slipped in and out of focus, sometimes being jolted back by being struck with Esme’s power.
“Again. And focus this time,” Esme spat, and she readied another blast of power.
Sophie had every intention of raising a shield, but she blacked out again.
When she came to, it was to hear Esme screeching in rage and throwing a considerable amount of power at her. Sophie flew across the yard, landing in a heap on the ground, and then she found herself being lifted into the air again, held there by an invisible force.
“What the hell did you think you were doing?” Esme screeched. Her face was a mask of rage.
“What are you talking about?” Sophie asked, shaking her head, keeping her eyes on Esme so she would be ready if Esme decided to throw her. Or worse.
“Did you think you were being cute? Trying to augment your measly power with mine? Give it back!” she screamed, moving her hand in such a way that Sophie was shaken around in midair like a rag doll. “Give it back!” she shouted again.
“What are you talking about?” Sophie shouted, trying not to vomit as Esme shook her again.
“You started siphoning my power, you worthless bitch,” Esme shouted, shaking her again.
“I don’t even know how to do that!”
“Fuck you. You do so. How do you think you took Calder’s curse in the first place?” Esme shouted with another bout of shaking.
“I didn’t even know what was happening. I didn’t try to take anything from you.”
With an enraged shout, Esme hurled Sophie through the air, and Sophie came to a bone-crunching landing on the gravel driveway.
“If I see your face again, I will kill you,” Esme said, her voice full of rage. “I don’t make idle threats. The only reason I’m letting you walk is to give you the chance to lift Migisi’s curse so Luc can rest in peace. Do not cross my path again.”
Esme stormed into the house, slamming the door behind her, and Sophie was left, bent over double in the driveway, trying to breathe again after having the air knocked from her. Her body ached, and, once she could breathe again, it hurt every time she inhaled. She slowly limped back to her car, got in, and headed back toward home, knowing she was lucky to be leaving alive, whether she’d meant to do what Esme claimed she’d done or not.
One thing was abundantly clear: no matter how much Esme had hurt her, it was nothing compared to what was coming next.
Chapter Twenty-Three
In the end, she put it off.
A week.
Two.
The first major snowfall fell on Copper Falls. Calder respected her wish for space, even though she knew from the set of his shoulders the few times they talked that he hated it. It only made her love him more, that he did the one thing he didn’t want to: he stayed away from her.
Layla’s condition hadn’t changed, and Marshall had been suspiciously quiet since the day of the mall riot.
It lulled Sophie into the belief that she had time, that she could maybe just live out the rest of her life as long as she kept herself holed up. She thought she felt power wash over her once in her sleep, but when she woke, she didn’t feel it anymore and wrote it off as a dream. She dreamt once that she’d woken to find herself in the woods, in Marshall’s arms, his fingers tangled in her hair, when the goats showed up and chased him away.
She tried to practice with her Shadow magic, with the paltry things she’d managed to learn from Esme. Her life became a blur, a mix of consciousness and an increasing fuzziness that she knew was Calder’s curse getting worse. And if it was getting worse for her, it was getting worse for him as well.
She spent another night dreaming of Marshall, of his arms around her, his hands on her body. Hoarse whispers in her ear, and the goats appearing as if to save her.
She woke to find the bottom of her pajama pants wet, her boots sitting in a puddle near the back door.
She ran to the bathroom mirror, remembering her dream, and when she saw the bite marks on her neck, bites she’d dreamed Marshall giving her, she bent over the toilet and vomited.
The curse. He’d figured it out, and he was using it against her. First for his own sick sense of victory and control and later, who knew? Sophie rinsed her mouth out and leaned against the bathroom vanity, trying to steady herself against the way her body shook, against the terror flooding through her, the sense of wrongness.
The knowledge that her time, time when she was still even partially in control of herself, was coming to an end. She went back into the living room and paced, because sitting still was impossible. Sitting still would drive her insane. Every time she turned, her gaze landed on the leather bound journal Migisi had left her descendants.
I want to remember planning our wedding.
I will love you for the rest of my life. I always have.
All we need is you and me, Sophie. We have those two things, and we have everything.
Beside the journal, her phone sat where she’d tossed
it after she’d gotten back from Esme’s house. She hesitated for another moment, dialed a number she never thought she would.
“Hey, it’s Sophie. I need your help. Do you have time later today?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Calder walked into Jack’s for his weekly meet-up with Jon. Bryce usually joined them, but he spent most of his non-work time at the hospital, waiting for a miracle to happen with Layla. He didn’t even especially feel like being there, but it beat being home alone waiting to lose track of himself again. And Jon knew it, too, which was why he’d called twice making sure Calder was coming and that he was still coherent.
Persistent little shit, Calder thought to himself when he spotted his brother sitting where they usually sat, at the far end of the bar. He clapped Jon on the shoulder, and the barmaid got him his usual. He and Jon sat, looking at the hockey game on the television over the bar without really seeing it.
“How’d it go today?” Jon finally asked.
Calder glanced around. The bar was pretty busy. Jack’s normal seat, at the other end of the bar, was empty. Calder was glad. He wasn’t in the mood to see the alpha’s obnoxious ass just then.
“It was okay. I think I came close to losing it once, but then I did the icy shower routine and it snapped me back into focus.”
It was quiet for a moment. “I remember dad doing that. I remember at first, I just thought he was nuts. Why would you take a freezing shower in the middle of winter?” Jon said, and Calder nodded.
“He hid a lot from us, for as long as he could.”
“Kinda wish he would have told us more before he lost it completely.”
Calder nodded.
“How’s things with Sophie?”
Calder didn’t answer, looked at the TV instead.
“That good, huh?”
“She asked for space, and she doesn’t seem to have changed her mind in the past few weeks, so I’m giving her space. And I fucking hate it, but I understand. More than anyone, I understand what she’s going through. At least part of it. I’d feel a hell of a lot better if we were going through it together, but what she wants, I want to give her. She wants time and space.”
Shadow Sworn (Copper Falls Book 2) Page 22
