He nodded, gritting his teeth.
“Also, I’m figuring a wedding dress curse would be associated with some kind of jealousy. It just seems to make sense to me.”
My man held his empty beer bottle out in front of him with a look of dismay. I gently took it from him, popped the top on a second and handed it over without missing a beat.
“And how do we break it?”
Ah, and that was the rub of it, wasn’t it? I tapped my bottle against my lower front teeth and then took a drink. “There are ways to break curses. It isn’t easy, but Granny says there are some spells in the book.”
“And if none of those work?”
“I need to find the root of the curse. Either the person who placed the curse or their family.”
He snorted. “They could be dead.”
“Nope.” I shook my head and drew my lips into a serious frown. “Curses die with the family.”
“Oh.”
“Oh is right. Even if I find the right spell, it will work best if I can try to find the family and get them to help me break it. If that doesn’t work …” I drew in a long breath. “Let’s just say if that doesn’t work, we’re screwed as long as the family lives.”
“Technically, we’re not screwed.”
It was a shitty joke, but my mouth popped open with a loud chortle. I covered my mouth with my hand since I had no desire to wake the kids. Beck and I sat there in silence for a few minutes, then finally he reached out a hand and grabbed my leg, giving it a squeeze.
I turned my eyes to him and studied his expression. He was still upset, but affection for me remained in those eyes. At one time he hadn’t wanted to be with a witch. He was scared of what the magic could do to him without his knowledge or control. It seemed like every time things got comfortable with us, some other spot of trouble reared its head to remind us of how different we were.
The thought that we might not make it as a couple frightened me, and no matter what, I couldn’t completely dispel that niggling fear. I hoped this would be a minor bump on our road.
Despite the worry, I smiled.
Beck smiled back.
“Let’s go to sleep. Morning will be here before we know it,” he told me as he took both our bottles and dropped them into the trash can.
~oOo~
My beer helped numb me enough to drift off to sleep, but in no more than a few hours I was awake, eyes snapping open and alert. I carefully extricated myself from Beck’s arm, which was draped across my belly. He grumbled and rolled over but otherwise didn’t wake.
It seemed I always had flashes of brilliance in the middle of the night. This time I’d suddenly remembered that although I’d gone through Charley’s spellbook, I hadn’t looked at her family memoirs.
I had a temporary office set up in one corner of the living area, but the books were being stored in a box in the shed out behind the house. I made my way outside as quietly as possible, easing the screen door closed inch by inch so that it wouldn’t squeak. After I was safely outside, I sprinted to the building and burst inside.
I was a little too short to reach the string for the light, so I just shook out my wand and conjured a glowing ball onto the tip to use as a flashlight. My memory told me that the memoirs were in the second box from the bottom. I considered snuffing my light so that I could use my wand to move the boxes around, but I stopped and decided to try some of the lessons Granny had been teaching me.
The stubborn old witch believed I should be able to access my powers without the wand. I crinkled my nose in a frown and imagined the top three boxes moving off the one I wanted. Before my eyes, they began to slide over, cardboard gnashing against cardboard as they went. I grinned and embraced the warm feel of my magic in the pit of my stomach, then tried to twitch my nose like Samantha on Bewitched.
Yeah, I never could manage to do that.
So, instead I snapped my fingers and pointed to the boxes. With a burst and then a thud, the top ones toppled to the ground and the one I wanted was revealed.
“Ha, how about that?”
Inside I found four leather-bound books of different styles. They each had a sticker on the spines that read, “Gould Family Memoirs.”
After about an hour of reading, I had discovered that Charley’s family was from Danvers, Massachusetts. For those who might not know it, Danvers is the present-day name of Salem Village, as in the Salem Witch Trials. These books didn’t chronicle back that far, but I had to imagine she was probably related to one of those infamous witches. My best guess was that there were more memoirs, but it was possible those had been destroyed long ago.
Also, as I suspected, Charley’s family had direct descent, which means their magic passed from the magical parent to the next closest descendent, usually their firstborn child.
Most witches, like those in my family, happened only every several generations. Hag-witches were different, and since their magic passed on so much more often, it was also much more diluted than others.
The fourth and final memoir appeared to be more like a diary, and after a few pages I realized it was written by none other than Charley herself.
I was still in pigtails when I realized I loved him. Cedric Stripling was no more than a child himself, but I still planned to be his bride. I’d endured the teasing and boyhood pranks of his youth to get him. I’d been the epitome of all that was lovely and wholesome to make him care for me. Our courtship was only just beginning with this horrid war began. And just like all the other young men with ideas of chivalry and glory, he mustered in at the first opportunity. Our wedding was rushed and we were never even afforded the chance to consummate our vows.
I thought that despondency about missing my beloved would consume me, but there is much to be done as war ravages our land. Ruth has chosen to go to Georgia where she might be a nurse in one of the general hospitals there. I, for my part, have taken to bottling tonics to send to her for the wounded, adding to them my special knowledge of herbs and ingredients.
“Huh, so she was sort of an apothecary in the Civil War. Wow,” I muttered, then started back towards the house with the book in my hand. Once inside I turned off my wand and then flipped on a lamp to curl up on the couch for more reading.
It was a tragic story. In the year before the end of the war, Charley’s family lost touch with her sister Ruth and feared she might be dead. After the conflict was over, Charley eagerly anticipated the return of her beloved Cedric, who did indeed survive the conflict. Her husband promised to return to her by the summer.
Only he never arrived. Instead, he was killed in a train derailment near Strawberry Plains, Tennessee.
I yawned, my jaw popping loudly as I continued reading, totally enamored with the story.
…and that was when Mama told me about Ruth. I was comforted at first. Somehow the universe had conspired to ensure that my beautiful sister and my beloved had died together. These two people I cared so much about hadn’t been alone in their final hours.
But the truth is not always so rosy. How could I ever fathom that Ruth and Cedric had come to know each other intimately? She was my sister, and he was my husband, but that hadn’t stopped their illicit love affair. And all of those months we’d worried of Ruth, she’d been silently keeping her horrible secret.
“Holy shit,” I muttered dragging my fingers through my hair, mouth askew in shock.
Mama had once told me not to go looking for things I wasn’t prepared to find. I shouldn’t have investigated it. I shouldn’t have gone seeking answers. But I couldn’t help it. And when I realized their love had been stronger than mine, it made me so angry that I could have killed someone.
But there was no one to blame but two corpses. And that simply wasn’t good enough. Someone had to pay for what they’d done…
Even though I could hardly wait to find out what would happen, my eyes just refused to remain open any longer. The lids fluttered, my head lolled to the side and the book snapped closed with a thwack.
; “Lynlee, wake up.”
I could hear the voice murmuring to me as if it were echoing down a long tunnel. I clenched my eyes closed and fought it. I needed more time. “C’mon, gorgeous. We’re leaving in ten minutes, and you said you wanted to come with us this Sunday … no, Jilly, you can’t wear that ...”
It was a good thing Beck was distracted by his daughter, because when I finally woke up, I did so swinging. My right hand made a long curve in front of me, but struck only air. When it did, I was thrown off balance and fell over the side of the couch onto the hardwood floor.
“Are you okay?”
I looked to see the upside down image of Justin, his head cocked to the side as he stared down at me. He had that sideways grin kids gets when they think adults are being weird. I put my hands out to push myself up and found that they were trembling almost uncontrollably. I tightened my fingers into fists to stop the shaking.
“Here, babe. Let me help you,” Beck said, standing over me and offering me his hands. I made a move to take him up on the offer, but I didn’t want him to detect their shaky clamminess so I muttered a “no thank you” and managed on my own.
There was a twinge of something deep in my belly. It was a throbbing sort of a pain. The memory of a vision assailed me along with the sound of my own screams. No, Rolayna! Stay here. No matter what, you have to finish the spell. I remembered the way the light reflected off the serrated blade just before it impaled me in my stomach.
The recollection was enough to cause a wave of nausea that made me gag.
“Want some?” Jilly asked, holding out a piece of toast slathered with grape jelly and peanut butter.
My gut churned sour, and I closed my eyes, shaking my head with one hand to my stomach. Before I could lose control and hurl all over the place, I made a run for the bedroom and barricaded myself against anyone following me in.
I was still standing against the door, working to catch my breath when I heard a little tap.
“We’ll be waiting in the truck,” Beck told me through the door.
I hurried into a pair of slacks and sweater, then brushed out my hair so that I looked somewhat presentable. My skin was pallid, and there were dark smudges under my eyes. With a shake of my head, I reached into the medicine cabinet and grabbed a few aspirin to help with my pounding headache.
Beck had started taking the kids to Sunday mass off and on not long after they moved back to their home. Last year, he’d become more regimented with them since Justin was scheduled to start making some of his sacraments. I wasn’t Catholic, and Beck had been good enough not to push his religion on me, instead just explaining some of the ins and outs of their beliefs over time.
As we made our way into the church and found our seats, I took a long cleansing breath to try to ease my nerves. Jilly was to my left and Beck to my right. The little red-haired nymph leaned into me, and I wrapped my arm around her shoulder. Strangely enough, the gesture relaxed me as much as it must have her.
I hadn’t begun attending services with the family until about a month ago. Even though I didn’t always understand what was going on, I somehow found comfort in the ceremony that was the Catholic mass. And hey, the fact that they no longer said the words in Latin was a boon, too. It was hard enough to learn Latin for spells.
I mentally considered my vision over and over during the service. As best I could remember, it had played out like a movie that I couldn’t in any way alter or change.
My dream self had been mixing different sorts of items into a big iron cauldron. I wasn’t one for spells and hadn’t ever owned a cauldron. But Charley had one, and when I cleaned out her house I’d decided it was silly to let it go to waste. The dream-cauldron looked identical to the one I now had stored in the cave outside my grotto.
But in the dream I had the cauldron out in a huge field, and I wasn’t alone. Beck and both kids were nearby, though Jilly was out in front of her father and brother, her hands folded in front of her with an intense expression on her face. Tig was there too, his back to me as if he were keeping watch on the forest, awaiting the arrival of someone. I saw a wolf pacing back and forth not far from him, and I knew it was probably Rhiannon.
My dream self raised her head and pointed to a woman I didn’t recognize immediately. She was familiar, but I couldn’t quite recall why. In the vision I clearly knew her, motioning her forward and calling her by name.
Rolayna, it’s time. Hold my hand. Do you remember the words?
The lovely woman with long wavy brown hair nodded, her brows pinched together with in a frown. But before she could speak a single word, I saw the woods erupt in fireworks of magic. Taking Rolayna’s hand, we began chanting in unison. Beck had the kids embraced, and I wondered why he wasn’t running to take them to a safer place. Little Jilly kept her eyes on dream-Lynlee as if she were waiting for something. The commotion got closer and closer to me, and Rolayna’s eyes widened as she tried to pull away.
No, Rolayna! Stay here. No matter what, you have to finish the spell.
I shook my wand free and looked over my shoulder to offer her protection. I’d no sooner turned than a wiry figure appeared behind me, his arm pulled back and a long jagged blade in his hand.
My memory of the vision was interrupted when the congregation stood. Jilly had my hand and gently pulled me to my feet. I peered down at her, and she grinned at me then returned her attention to the priest who was announcing the start of the reading from the Bible.
I was still trying to unravel my dream so my awareness of the present slipped away again until I heard the priest finish the Bible reading.
“ … Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light,
on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death, light has arisen. From that time on, Jesus began to preach and say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”
The kingdom of heaven is at hand, I thought, and I swallowed against panic as I played out more of the vision in my mind.
The sword-wielding man leaped three feet from the ground to lunge down at me. I heard Beck scream my name, and I was distracted no more than a split second, waving my hands in his directions in what I could only determine was my way of encouraging him to run. But it was enough of a distraction to cost me.
The blade dug deep into my stomach. All my strength immediately evaporated so that only that sharp steel was holding me on my feet. Pain as I couldn’t imagine it seared through me, and I cried out in agony. When he withdrew the sword, I slipped to the hard earth with a thud.
I blocked out the conclusion of the vision, squeezing my eyes closed. “I’m going to die,” I murmured, holding onto the pew in front of me to keep from falling.
As luck would have it, my amulet started buzzing just about the time we left church. When I was sufficiently far enough away from the crowd of parishioners, I tapped the stone, sighing through my teeth when I realized it was Rhiannon.
“Hey, there,” I said, pointing to my necklace when Beck gave me a quizzical gaze. He nodded as he ensured Jilly was buckled into her seat and then got into the driver’s side.
“Well, it’s Sunday morning, and your phone’s clearly turned off. Another visit to God’s house?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, we’re just leaving. Is there a problem?”
“Well, it’s Decimus. He’s got that weird skin problem again. I’ve got some ointment, and he says he has to talk to you. You have time to hop over so we can go see him together?”
“Sure, give me about thirty.”
Beck cocked his eyes at me as he exited the parking lot. “Guess that means you’re skipping lunch.”
I ducked my head, in shame. I knew he liked sharing a meal as a family after church. The truth was, I could probably have postponed the trip to see Decimus the bashful zombie. But I needed to get away from Beck so I could figure things out. I’d promised him some time ago that I wouldn’t keep things from him, but that didn’t mean I wanted to spill the beans just yet
on something I wasn’t sure about.
“Don’t be mad, Beck. It probably won’t take too long. I’ll be back for dinner.”
He nodded but didn’t speak. I raised up to check on the kids in his rear view mirror and saw Jilly studying her father closely. She had a strange look on her face as if she were trying to figure out a complicated algebra problem.
And so I focused on him too. And that was when I saw it. Something green and foggy surrounded his aura. It had little tentacles and it was wrapping around him. I knew instinctively that this was my curse.
Only now it was his curse too. Holy shit, I mentally screamed the expletive. Why hadn’t I realized it sooner? This curse was much more complicated than I’d imagined.
I wasted no time running to the grotto and orbing to Rhia’s house. She and I immediately orbed back to my transporter where we programmed in the coordinates to get to Decimus.
He was one of my longest running zombie clients and probably one of the luckiest. We caught his contraction of the zombie virus early enough that we were able to stop it almost before it began. That said, every once in a while his face would begin to decay on the left side. It was nasty and pretty embarrassing for him, especially since he was a withdrawn sort of fellow.
“How’s it hangin’ in the periodicals section, Deci?” Rhiannon asked when he allowed us inside his apartment.
Decimus blinked and pushed his eyeglasses up on his nose. “It’s quite dead these days.”
My BFF burst out laughing and I shook my head, not finding any humor in his response.
“Don’t you get it?” she insisted, slapping me on the back, “He said dead. He’s a zombie. Dead, get it?”
I plopped down on Deci’s couch while the good doc started examining him. “Yeah, I get it.” I muttered in a bland tone.
“I wasn’t referring to me. I was referring to the lack of visitors to the library. With the internet and ereaders people no longer want books, especially reference books. And if they don’t want books, they don’t need me.”
Reaping Trouble (The Lynlee Lincoln Series Book 4) Page 3
