Shadow Witch Rising (Copper Falls Book 1)

by Colleen Vanderlinden

  She flipped to the next page, the one of the bleak forest and its depressing moon. She still hated this one. It felt wrong. Her eyes went to the word Thea had pointed out, the Ojibwa word for “death” at the base of the tree.

  She turned the page quickly, to the final painting, a barren meadow in what looked to be late summer, the grasses dry and dead looking, the sky hazy and gray. “Barren” was the only word she could think of, other than “menacing.” Even the birds in the trees, mere splashes of dark paint, looked menacing. How a summer scene could look so frightening escaped Sophie, but it did.

  She kept flipping. Something about the paintings bothered her, but she couldn't put her finger on it. When she flipped to the page with the falls on it, she sat looking at it for a long time.

  And she had a feeling she knew where she'd find Calder.

  She jumped up, pulled on a sweater, stepped into her boots. The falls were a short hike through her field, then through some forest. It was already dusk, but she hardly cared. She closed the animals in their pens as she headed out, thinking to herself that she might as well find someone who could use them. She was a lost cause.

  She trudged through the tall grasses of the prairie behind her land, through the woods, which got thicker and darker as she walked. She could hear the rushing of the falls, the owls hooting in the trees nearby, already active and ready for their nightly hunt.

  As she emerged from the woods to the mossy, log-strewn shoreline of the river, she saw him immediately. Calder sat on the huge rock, looking at the falls.

  “What are you doing here, kitten?” he asked her softly.

  “I missed you. Had a feeling you'd be here,” she said, walking the rest of the way toward the rock. He held out his hand, and she took it, and he pulled while she scrambled up onto the rock.

  “How'd you figure? I wasn't planning on coming this way,” he asked. He let her hand go, crossed his arms over his chest.

  She shrugged. “I was looking at that journal of Migisi's, and she had a painting of this place in it. I knew you weren't home, so… I just took a guess,” she said.

  He didn't answer.

  “Honey, I'm sorry,” she said softly. “This morning—“

  He shook his head, took her hand in his. “You don't have anything to apologize for. You needed to be alone.”

  “I hurt your feelings, though,” she said, bringing his hand to her lips and kissing his knuckles gently. “I'm sorry for that. I was just not feeling right.”

  He was watching her. “That's happening a lot lately,” he said. “When we started this, I thought I'd always be the one running out on you. You do it as least as often to me.”

  “I know,” she said, still holding his hand. “It wasn't you. I hope you know that. I love you, Calder. Every second of last night was perfect. I've never felt that loved in my life.”

  “I'm glad. I actually figured it wasn't me. I mean, at first I did, because I just wanted to spend all day in bed with you and I figured you were fed up with me.”

  “Never,” she said, and he smiled a little.

  “But then, once I had been out running for a while, I realized this isn't new. You keep having this reaction to me when we're together, where you just start getting pissed off out of nowhere. I want to know why.”

  “So do I,” she said softly. “I'm working on it. I think maybe there's more to the story than just Migisi going dark out of nowhere.”

  He seemed to pick up her thoughts. “You think Luc had something to do with it?”

  “Maybe. I don't think he meant to, probably. I wonder if someone did something.” They sat in silence, hands clasped.

  “Like someone messed with Luc to get to her?” he finally said, and she nodded. “And what? I still have whatever it is that they used to get to her, and it's messing with you?”

  She didn't answer.

  “That's it, though, isn't it?”

  “We don't know that.”

  “But you think so.”

  After a while, she nodded. “And if you even suggest staying away from me as a solution, I will lose my mind.” Sophie looked over at him to see him watching her intently. “I'm fine,” she said.

  “I couldn't stay away anyway,” he said. “I have something for you.” He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a long envelope.

  “What's this?”

  “Open it.”

  She slid her thumbnail under the flap of the envelope, pulled out several sheets of white paper. She stared at them, her breath caught in her throat.

  “This is the deed to my house,” she whispered.

  “Signed over to you. All it needs is to be notarized, and we can do that whenever you want.”

  She stared at him, the papers trembling in her hand. “Calder, why?”

  “Because I love you. Because I'm not going to hold your land, which you need and I don't, ransom. Because I don't want this,” he said, gesturing to the papers, “between us. It was wrong in the first place, and it's more wrong the longer it goes on.”

  “You've given up, too,” she said.

  He looked away from her, shaking his head.

  “Calder.”

  “Sophie,” he said, still not looking at her. “I know you want to fix it, kitten. I know you're going to try.” He turned and looked at her, finally. “But you just said yourself your magic is messed up. I can tell it is. The way you act sometimes around me isn't right. And if I'm causing that, and us being together makes it worse, and we both seem determined to keep seeing one another…yeah. It's over. I'll take what time I have with you, and when it starts getting too bad—“

  “Calder!”

  “We'll figure it out when the time comes. It's coming on fast, sweetheart. It wasn't like this with my dad. He had years. I intended to come to you earlier. I couldn't remember how to shift back,” he finished, and his tone sent shivers down her spine.

  “No,” she whispered, dread settling over her like ice.

  He cleared his throat, seemed to be trying to keep his voice steady. “So we have what we have, and I'm going to do everything I can to give you something good to remember. And I know you are determined to fix this. I hope you can. But I need you to start preparing yourself to let me go. Because it's going to be sooner rather than later.”

  She shook her head, denying it, and he pulled her into his arms. Her tears spilled down her face as he kissed her, and when they broke apart, breathless, he rested his forehead against hers. “I love you. Promise me, kitten. Promise me you won't try to follow me when I take off. Promise me you'll know that I love you, and that walking away is the hardest thing I'm ever going to do.”

  She held him tighter, made a promise to herself right then and there.

  It wouldn't come to that.

  She didn't say a word, just jumped down off the rock and held her hand out. He followed her, back through the woods, through the meadow, and into her house. She loved him frantically, desperately, giving him everything he and his beast desired, until she fell asleep under his weight, his breath warming the side of her neck as he slept, having exhausted both of them.

  When she woke up later, the room was pitch black, and Calder was beside her, arm thrown over her waist. She could feel the darkness swirling within her, agitated, fed by his nearness. There would be no more sleeping now.

  She carefully, slowly slipped out of bed with a wince, her body sore from his frantic attentions. She knew that, if he woke, he'd want her again, and she'd want him just as much, and there would be no peace for the rest of the night.

  She managed to get out of bed and creep to the living room, pulling on the t-shirt he'd discarded. She breathed it in, loving the clean, wild scent of him surrounding her. She clicked on the small electric space heater she used sometimes, not wanting to start a fire, and clicked on the reading lamp near the chair in the corner, bringing Migisi's journals with her. She turned the pages, drawn to the paintings. Something about them wasn't right. There were four watercolors all together:
one of Luc on the rock, one of the falls, the gray and black death one, and, finally, that dry summer scene, hazy sun giving everything a harsh glare, a feeling of complete exhaustion and defeat, just as the gray and black moon one had.

  It wasn't the subject matter of them. They were all essentially scenes from around Copper Falls, and Sophie recognized them. She flipped through them several times. There was something there. Something in the lines, something that she saw was different, but couldn't figure out why. It was always along the base, the ground. She looked closer at the one on which Thea had noticed the word “death.” She let her eyes sweep over it. There, to the left, in what she'd also thought was leaf litter, tiny letters, three lines of writing, disguised as shading, as light and shadow.

  Her heart sped up, and she quickly got up, wincing again, and grabbed her notebook and pen, as well as the magnifying glass from the drawer in the kitchen.

  Sophie set the journal on the floor, craned the lamp to better illuminate it. Whereas “death” had been written in Ojibwa, and the journals themselves had been written in French and Ojibwa, she was shocked to see that the new bits of text, tiny though they were, were recognizable. English.

  “What the hell, Migisi?” she whispered. She flipped her notebook open, inspected the painting, started copying what was there. When she'd completed the four lines, she had:

  “Some years hence, a son of Luc's line

  will swear everything he is to a daughter of mine.

  He will love her fully and absolutely.

  And she will destroy him.”

  She stared at it in horror. Shook her head, and flipped through, transcribing hidden bits of text from the other paintings in the book. In order, all four paintings' text read:

  “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.”

  She read over it again and again, hating the words more every single time, wondering if there was some way to rearrange the lines to make them mean something else. Her heart was pounding, and it took everything in her not to start crying again.

  She shut the book, stuffed the notebook under the chair. She turned off the light and sat in the chair, hugging her knees.

  She didn't want to believe it. It had to mean something else. The words were burned into her mind. She'd been right when she'd suggested that maybe the way to break the spell had nothing to do with spells.

  Destroy him.

  She looked toward the bed, where Calder was still sleeping, snoring quietly.

  She got up, peeled her clothing off, and climbed back into bed with him. There had to be another way, she thought as she snuggled closer to him, as he sleepily pulled her against his body.

  Killing Calder was something she could not do.

  She was awakened a while later by the feeling of Calder moving, and she missed his warmth as he stood up. She heard a phone ringing.

  She watched his shadowy form in the dark room as he bent to where he'd tossed his jeans and dug his phone out of his pocket. The conversation on his side was minimal.

  “Hello? Hey. Wait, what? Slow down…. Okay, I'm on my way. You have the gun, right?” He hung up and started pulling his clothes on. She climbed out of bed.

  “What's going on?” she asked, pulling her panties on, then slipping into her top.

  “My dad's raging. That was my brother. He's worried the fences we're using to keep him contained won't hold. I have to go help him reinforce them.” He was pulling on a shirt. “What happened there?” he asked, gesturing to the boarded-over window. He'd been in such a frenzy to be with her the night before, he hadn't even noticed it.

  “Oh. I was clumsy,” she said, waving it off.

  Calder gave her a look that said he didn't completely believe her and was about to press her on it.

  “I'll come,” she said, pulling on her jeans.

  “No.”

  “Calder—“

  “I don't want you anywhere near him. Especially not when he's like this,” he said. “If he got out…”

  “He won't. Besides, I can help. I could try warding the fences.”

  He stopped moving for a moment, watched her. “Would that work?”

  She knew better. It wouldn't. Her wards had already failed her. But she had to try. “I can try. I'm not sure how well it will work, considering how messed up my magic is. But I want to try.”

  He was studying her. “Yeah. Maybe you should come along.”

  “So I can help.”

  “Sure. And so you can see what's in our future. See how smart this all looks when you see what I'll become.”

  She glared at him. “Stop it, Calder,” she said, her heart twisting inside her.

  “I should have left you alone,” he said, turning away from her.

  She didn't answer, didn't trust herself not to start bawling. Instead, she stayed silent, stalking past him. “Your car or mine?” she managed to mutter.

  “Mine,” he answered after a moment. She waited until he stepped out of her house, then locked the door and followed him across the street to his driveway, to the truck he drove sometimes when he wasn't riding the motorcycle. He opened her door for her and she climbed in. She put her seatbelt on and crossed her arms over her chest, looking straight ahead out the windshield.

  He got in and started the truck. They drove wordlessly, the only sound the truck's engine as they wound their way along a dark two-lane highway, the trees at either side of the road getting thicker the longer they drove. She started seeing signs for Copper County State Forest, and she knew they were getting closer.

  “I love you. All I meant was that I regret that this is going to make everything harder for you. For my own selfish ass, I don't regret a second that I spent in your arms. You're going to see what I'm gonna become. If you love me, how hard do you think it's going to be for you to end it with me? Because you're going to need to. I fucking hate that I'm going to put you through that, okay? That's what I regret. I regret that I can't give you the life you deserve, that I can't love you the way you deserve.”

  She didn't answer.

  He let out an irritated breath. “I become a complete idiot around you,” he said.

  “You know what I'm tired of?” Sophie said, still looking straight ahead. “I'm tired of everyone underestimating me. I'm tired of everyone seeming to think I'm this weak, stupid little thing who can't handle what life throws at her. I've made it through years of having a goddamned Shadow warlock stalking me. I've made it through the death of my parents, the death of a husband, and all of their deaths were on my hands, to get to me. I made it through wanting to take my own life so badly that it was all I thought about for days on end. But no, Sophie's so fucking weak we need to protect her from every stupid little thing.”

  “I never said you were weak,” he said.

  “Right,” she said, not looking at him. Part of her felt like an absolute jerk for fighting with him at a time like this, when he was already stressed out about his father. And part of her understood and believed what he was saying. But part of her, a pretty big part, if she was being honest, was sick and tired of being underestimated. She could have all the power she wanted…

  She shook her head a little, bile rising in her throat. And she understood what that page in Migisi's journal had meant.

  “The darkness rises.”

  He was doomed.

  As she had the thought, he turned up a long gravel driveway, then put the truck in park. She gathered the small sack of stones, herbs, and ca
ndles, she'd brought with her and got out of the truck before he could say a word to her. She could hear insane, pained roars coming from behind the house, and she winced. She knew those roars. She'd heard them, the night of the full moon. She could hear the sounds of metal slamming, crashing. Calder took her hand and they ran down a path that led around the house and toward the sounds of the roars.

  Jon stood there with a rifle in his hands, aiming it at the raging bear behind the huge iron fence. At that moment, the bear roared again and slammed his body into the fence.

  Metal squealed.

  “Let's get this done,” Calder said.

  Jon glanced at him, then at Sophie. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

  “She's going to try to ward the fences to keep him in.”

  “Her line did this. How in the hell could you think this was a good idea?” Jon asked, gesturing at their father, who was raging.

  “Watch it,” Calder warned, looking at his brother. “I'm already on edge, and you really, really don't want to piss me off right now.”

  “It's making him worse,” Jon said as the three of them watched the beast behind the tall fences rage, its roars becoming louder, its leaps toward the fence getting more desperate. “Don't threaten me, man,” Jon muttered to Calder.

  “Shut it,” Calder warned, that growl she knew all too well entering his voice. Jon clearly recognized it too. He shot Sophie a concerned glance and set the gun down, leaning it against the garage wall. Without another word, he grabbed a tall iron bar, and he held it while Calder climbed up onto a ladder just outside of the fence where their father was penned in. Calder hammered the steel into the ground, strengthening the existing fence. They did it again a few feet down, and though their father continued bashing against the fence, it started shaking less.

  Calder and Jon continued to the other side of the pen, and Sophie approached where they'd been working, taking stones out of her bag. She laid them on the ground, black tourmaline, one of the stones she used often around her home to anchor her protective wards. She set one on each side of the square pen, focusing on what she was doing rather than Calder and his brother, who continued to pound steel into the ground. She reached the first stone she'd set, and she knelt near it, a few feet outside of the pen. Calder's father stood there, growling, snapping at her, foamy saliva dripping from his mouth. The smell of him was terrible. He stunk of decay and lack of care. She met his eyes as he raged. “I am sorry,” she whispered to him. “I am going to fix this.”