The Magick of Dark Root (Daughters of Dark Root)

by April Aasheim

  “So, you’re not sorry you did it, just that I saw it?”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Like I said, do what you want.”

  “Fine, Maggie. I’m done trying to explain. But if you had an ounce of faith in someone, things might get easier for you.”

  “Who says my life’s not easy?” I demanded, scooting out of the booth. “My life is fine, thank you. And stay out of my dreams!”

  “That’s our Maggie,” Shane hollered as he stomped into the kitchen. “The lone wolf.” I felt his eyes traveling back to Leo. “Or maybe you’ve found your pack-mate.”

  “C’mon, Leo,” I said, waking him. He rubbed his eyes and looked around the empty diner. “Merr-ee?” he asked.

  “No. Merry went home. But Maggie’s got you. Maggie won’t let anything happen to you.”

  He reached up and looped an arm around my neck.

  “Magg-eee,” he crooned, planting a kiss on my cheek.

  A glass broke somewhere in the kitchen.

  Sometimes all you can do is wait.

  Wait for a friend. Wait for a lover. Wait for winter to turn into spring.

  Wait for the man sleeping in your bed––who by all rights should be dead and buried right now––to get better and live again.

  But three days after his resurrection and, besides adding a few new words to his vocabulary––Pixie Sticks, Twizzlers, and gummies––there was little indication that Leo was ever going to get better.

  “I can’t do this,” I said, as much to him as to myself. “I’m not cut out to take care of anything.”

  Leo sat on my bed, watching ravens from the window. “Pretty birdies,” he said, tapping the glass with his finger.

  “Yes, yes, pretty birdies,” I agreed, looking around the room for something to do. We had hidden out for the last three days, away from the questioning eyes of Aunt Dora and the accusing looks of Shane. In that time I had done my best to educate Leo about the world. He showed no interest in any of it except for the Cookie Monster and “birdies.”

  And candy.

  Leo’s sweet tooth exceeded both mine and Ruth Anne’s put together. If he wasn’t fed constant sugar, he’d bang his fists on the walls and bump around the room, knocking things over until we gave in.

  Eve went on candy runs at least three times a day but it was never enough.

  “You can’t have anymore,” I’d tell him, then he’d ball up his fists and cry so loudly I was afraid it would alert Aunt Dora.

  “I’m done,” I said to Eve when she made her afternoon delivery. She dumped a bag of Tootsie Rolls onto the bed and Leo covered them with his arms to show he wouldn’t share.

  I stuck my tongue out at him.

  “What else can we do?” Eve asked. “We can’t take him to his mom’s yet. Not like this.”

  We stared at the slobbering, shirtless man with a mouthful of chocolate. Except for underpants, I had given up putting clothes on him because it was impossible to keep them clean.

  “You take him,” I said. “I’ve done my part.”

  “Oh, no! If you think you’re bad at it, I’d be worse. Even the thought of taking care of someone gives me the hives.” She scratched at her arms and the sides of her waist.

  “I’m calling Jillian,” I announced.

  “Whatever,” Eve said, still scratching as she left the room.

  “Don’t you walk out on me,” I said, tripping over the floor mattress and yelling at her down the hall. She didn’t look back as she descended the staircase. “Fine! Go back to work and leave me alone with him. That’s all you ever do!”

  I slammed the door and faced my ward. He held up the empty Tootsie Roll bag, flashing me a chocolate smile.

  “How did you eat them so fast?” I said in both awe and disgust. “Did you eat the wrappers too?”

  He shook the bag at me.

  “I'm not giving you anymore! You are going to get sick if you keep eating candy. Have some of that asparagus Merry sent over.”

  Leo looked at the plate on my dresser. “Yuck-ee.”

  “I know. But good for you. Look.” I took a bite, forcing myself to smile, even though it tasted like shoe. I handed him the plate and he shoved it away.

  “If you never get better, you’re never leaving!” I said, grinding my teeth together. “Now eat your damned vegetables.”

  Leo crawled backwards on my bed, bracing his back to the wall. His eyes widened with what I assumed to be terror at the plate in my hands.

  “Geez. I’m sorry.” I scraped the asparagus into the wastebasket. It smelled like urine. “Look, all gone.”

  Leo smiled sleepily. I tugged on the ends of his feet, pulling him prone. I gave him his favorite pillow and covered him up with a blanket. “Take a little nap, okay? Maybe we’ll take a walk later, if the weather’s nice.”

  He yawned. His eyelids fluttered shut and he fell asleep.

  I grabbed my cell phone and went into the hall. I hadn't talked to Jillian in almost a month. I dialed her old number, hoping it still worked.

  “Hello?” An airy voice picked up the phone. I immediately felt Jillian's energy, as crisp as a spring morning.

  “Hi,” I said, shyly. “This is Maggie.”

  “Maggie! I was expecting you to call.”

  “You were?” Relief flooded me and I realized how much I missed the woman. Though I’d only known her a short time, we had shared a strong and immediate connection.

  “How are things?” she said, her voice light yet prodding. “You didn’t call just to shoot the breeze.”

  I took a deep breath, trying to figure out what to say. Finally, I blubbered out, “Everything’s wrong, Jillian. Everything.”

  “Maggie,” she said, her voice calm and motherly. “I’m here. Now start from the beginning.”

  And so I did.

  I told her what had happened since our last conversation: how we had rallied to save Dark Root, how I’d cut off Leah’s hair, how Ruth Anne had returned, how my mother had recovered, and the discovery that I was pregnant.

  “Honey, I already knew all that.”

  “You did?” Bolstered by the confessions, I then told her how Mother was sick again and that she told us about her wand, and how Larinda wanted into Dark Root to gain access to the Lightning Willow so her daughter Leah could select a wand from it.

  I also told her how I could get my wand, too, and heal Mother.

  There was a tense, palpable pause on the other end.

  “Those things, I didn’t know. Larinda must be desperate. Maggie, listen to me, okay? She is a powerful witch. She is clearly not being fully forthcoming with you. Don’t bargain with her, no matter how enticing the offer.”

  This was all so confusing. I didn’t know what to think any more.

  “Maybe Larinda would hold up her end of the bargain?” I ventured.

  Again, another long pause. “Maggie, there is an important rule that you should know. Each tree only bestows one wand. Miss Sasha already selected a wand from that tree, so it is impossible for Leah, or anyone else for that matter, to get one from it. Unless…”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless your mother dies. Only then will the Lightning Willow be released from the pact it forged with her years ago.”

  My shoulders slumped. I cried into the phone. Low, unyielding sobs until I couldn’t cry anymore. I had thought I had this all worked out. I had no idea where to go from here.

  When I finally stopped, she said, “There’s more to this story, isn’t there?”

  “Yes. But please don’t hate me.”

  “I could never hate you.”

  Shame swept over me as I confessed to using my powers to hustle men out of their money, and how one of those men had attacked Eve, and I used my deathtouch on him.

  “We killed him,” I said.

  A tense pause at the other end. “I see.”

  “Am I going to hell?”

  Jillian was a psychic-medium, able to predict the future an
d communicate with the dead. If anyone knew who was headed for hell, she did.

  “Oh, honey, no,” she said, a smile returning to her voice. “No one goes to hell for trying to help someone they love.”

  “But he only attacked Eve because of her enchanted perfume.”

  “Honey, that’s not the way spells work. In order for a spell to take effect on someone, they must already have the tendency in their nature. Kind of like alcohol.”

  “Oh.” I cracked open the door and peeked at Leo, still sleeping on my bed.

  It was hard to believe that this naked man-child had that sort of degeneracy in him. I dredged up the memory of him grabbing at Eve, the lustful look in his eyes. The Leo of that night was not the same Leo I knew now.

  “That’s not to say that Eve should be creating perfumes like that.” Jillian’s voice tightened. “When you mess with the laws of nature, you have to expect there will be consequences.”

  “Yes.”

  “I sense there’s even more. Spill it.”

  “We found Mother’s wand. It was buried in her locked room. We used it on Leo, and brought him back to life.”

  There. It was out in the open now. I had shared my secret and I felt immediately lighter.

  “That’s not possible!” Jillian gasped. “Even with your mother’s wand!”

  “It is. And we did it.”

  “Oh, Maggie! Does anyone know?”

  “Just me and my sisters.”

  “Hasn’t anyone told you that you should never summon what you can’t unsummon?”

  “I-I…”

  “Talk about messing with the laws of nature! Even Sasha wouldn’t have attempted that!”

  After another long, aching pause she spoke again, her voice had softer.

  “I’m sorry. I blame myself, really, for not helping with your rearing. Sasha and Dora could only do so much for a woman with your abilities. Maggie, you must keep this secret, even from your mother and aunt. Their minds are old, and though they mean well, there are those who will take advantage of their fragile state. If Larinda knows the full extent of the Lightning Willow’s abilities, or yours for that matter…well, let’s keep this to ourselves for now until I figure out what to do.”

  “But what do I do with Leo?”

  “Leo?”

  “Yes, the man I, uh, well, he’s here with me now. I keep thinking he’ll get better but he’s not.”

  “Is he dangerous?”

  “Not at all. He’s sweet, actually. Nothing like he was that night.”

  I heard pages being flipped in the background. “He’s not really alive, Maggie. Not like me and you. You know that right?”

  I nodded into the phone, a sob catching in my throat. I was beginning to see that.

  “You must escort him back to the realm of the dead. There may be a spell for that in your mother’s book. And we’d need the right wand, one made for that purpose.” She sighed at the enormity of the task as she slammed her book shut.

  “A death wand?”

  “A Wand of the Underworld.”

  “But I only get one wand. I can’t choose that one!”

  “Time is short. If you don’t act soon, Leo may be trapped between the two worlds forever. He will grow weaker and sicker, slowing deteriorating away. That’s not fair. Not to him, and not to you.”

  “Why did I save him if I have to send him back?”

  She sighed. “Everything happens for a reason. Maybe you’ll find your reason.”

  “I don’t think I can send him back, Jillian. Isn’t there another way?”

  “Maggie, it’s the compassionate thing to do.”

  “I can’t. I just can’t.”

  “You don’t have a choice. I’m sorry, darling.”

  I finally convinced Eve to sit with Leo for a few hours so that I could get my head together. I ventured out into the woods, like I had when I was a kid, thinking things over in the solitude that only the trees could provide.

  Jillian was wrong.

  I did have a choice.

  She had warned me against Larinda, but I wasn’t afraid. Larinda’s magic was fed by fear and I’d stared death in the face, quite literally, and there was nothing Larinda could do that could scare me more than killing a man and bringing him back to life.

  I’d get Larinda to tell me the location of the tree. Trick her if I had to.

  Then, when Mother died, I would take my wand from it before Leah could. With it, I’d resurrect Mother just like I had done with Leo. My powers were stronger than anyone realized. With the aid of the Lightning Willow, I could bring them both back to full health.

  I could even charge people for healings and save this damned house in the process!

  It was a solid plan, except that it relied on Mother passing and keeping Leo healthy until then. The circle in all its glory. I also had to find Larinda, and my instincts told me that the shack in the woods was no longer there. But I was sure she’d make an appearance.

  Until then, I’d look for the tree myself.

  I returned to my bedroom, ready to share the news with Eve. When I opened the door, I almost fell over laughing at the sight. Leo sat on a chair, his hair twisted up in bows , wearing a face full of makeup.

  “What are you doing to him?” I asked, spitting into a Kleenex and swiping at the red on his lips. “He isn't a doll.”

  “I know.” Eve removed a bow from his hair. “But he saw me putting on my makeup and wanted me to fix him up, too. What could I say?”

  “No?”

  “Easy for you to say. You weren't the recipient of his puppy dog eyes. Leo, make your doggy eyes.”

  He widened his hazel eyes and turned his mouth down in a pout. It was comical––and horrible.

  “I suppose you taught him that, too?”

  Eve spread her hand. “We ran out of candy and he sucks at Scrabble. What were we supposed to do? I do have something to show you, though.” She reached into her handbag and removed her tablet. “Check this out.”

  Leo and I gathered behind her as she pulled up Facebook. A photo of Leo with slicked-back hair on a golf course smiled smugly back at us.

  “He looks like a real douchebag, doesn’t he?” she asked.

  “You cracked his password?”

  “I wish I was that smart,” Eve said, her eyes flashing. “It was all Leo.” She scrolled through pictures and instant messages, stopping on a picture of Leo with his arm around a woman half his age. “I guess it’s like muscle memory. I handed him the tablet and he typed in his password. He’s a good boy.” She scruffed his hair.

  “Well, at least he’s a good boy now,” Eve continued. “Maybe not before. Has about twelve girlfriends in four different states. None of them know about each other. Hasn’t seen his mother in two years. And, he admitted to a friend that he’s been scamming money from his work. Nope. Leo wasn't a very nice boy at all.”

  “Wow,” I said, as Leo pointed to pictures of him parasailing over sky-blue waters.

  What Jillian said, about spells only working on people who had that in their nature already must be true. Still, it was tough to reconcile this innocent with the pompous, scamming, womanizer on the Facebook page.

  “I don’t feel so bad about killing him now,” Eve said, putting her tablet back in her bag.

  “Eve! Don't say that!” I covered Leo’s ears, but he shook my hands loose.

  “It’s true. You should see what he wrote in some of those messages. Told three different women he was going to marry them. And he was practically stalking a fifteen-year-old in Washington. He was scum, Maggie. Consider it a public service.”

  I opened my mouth to defend him, but she stopped me.

  “Before you get on your pulpit, which you conveniently drag out only when it suits you, check this out. I got into Leo’s bank account. The guy is loaded. Nearly 14,000 dollars in his savings account and half that amount in his checking. And we have his password, debit card, and checkbook.”

  “Are you serious?”


  “Aren’t I always?”

  I sat on the bed, imagining everything we could do with that much money: Pay the taxes on Harvest Home, take Mother to a real doctor, buy diapers and formula for my kiddo. “We can’t take that. Can we?”

  “Well, we gotta feed him now. And clothe him. He eats his weight in gummy bears. He won’t be cheap.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “But what, Maggie? What’s he going do with the money, especially if he stays like this?”

  “We should at least try and make him better first, don’t you think?”

  “How? How is he going to get better? I think we are saddled with him for awhile now, and if that’s true, twenty grand isn’t going to get us very far. But it will at least buy us some time.”

  A lump caught in my throat. Eve was right. Leo was in our care, indefinitely.

  I fell back onto the bed, covering my face with my hands as I rolled across the sheets. Even if we were responsible for him now, it didn't seem right, taking his money.

  “Give me some time,” I said. “If we find that tree…”

  “We aren't going to find that tree. Wise up.”

  “Let’s at least wait until the holidays are over before we make any decisions. Deal?”

  Eve’s eyes became calculating slants. “Deal.”

  “I still have hope,” I said, sitting up and patting Leo’s arm.

  “That makes one of us. We can’t keep the wolves at bay forever. If we don’t do something, we will lose this house. And we may lose Mom.”

  “I know.”

  Twenty thousand dollars was enough to pay the back taxes, but it would also seal our fates. We couldn’t spend Leo’s money and then release him. I wasn’t ready to go down that road without trying to fix things myself first.

  Twenty-Two

  EVERYTHING TO EVERYONE

  Leo followed me through the denser parts of the forest, lifting up branches and carrying me over boulders as we trekked our way through the back woods of Dark Root.

  We set off from Harvest Home at dawn each morning, me driving Leo’s car, then traveled by foot through the woods, our faces turned upwards towards the sun as our boots sloshed through knee deep mud.