“Do tell,” she said. “I love a good story.”
“The place in my dream with no doors or windows,” I said. “That represents your imprisonment here, doesn’t it?”
“How should I know, dearie? Perhaps you should ask your vampire therapist. She seems so astute with her open bar and her tough love approach.”
I ignored her. “I thought the dream was about the criminals my mother apprehended.”
Raisa’s tongue darted out and she licked her chalky lips. “And what makes you think it isn’t?” She was trying to tell me something without actually saying the words.
Slowly, an idea began to emerge. “Raisa, did you know my biological mother?”
Raisa clicked her iron teeth together, creating a sound that made my blood run cold. “I believe I did, dearie.”
I stared in disbelief at the witch. “All this time? Why would you not tell me?”
“I didn’t realize it right away,” Raisa said. “By the time I did, I decided some secrets were best left buried. Like my bones.”
My stomach was in knots. Raisa had lied to me. It didn’t matter that I’d never asked. A lie by omission was still a lie. “How did you know her?”
“She was a Warden of the West, or at least a trainee, when our paths crossed.” Raisa returned to her feet and ambled across the room to her cauldron.
“No more spells,” I demanded. “Just talk to me.”
“I’ll do as I please in my cottage,” she spat.
“You were here. Do you know why my mother cursed the town?” I asked, thinking of her letters. “Do you know how she cursed the town? Maybe you can help…” Something in her expression stopped me. “Raisa, what are you not telling me?”
“Your mother came to this town in pursuit of me.” She busied herself with ingredients for the cauldron. I barely registered her movements, I was so astounded by her bombshell.
“You?” I repeated. “Why? I thought you’d left your coven in Europe and were passing through here when the curse took hold.”
“Much of what I told you is true,” Raisa said. “I did leave my coven in Europe. I had to. Then I was hounded by the enforcers everywhere I went.”
“Who are the enforcers?”
“Paranormals like your mother, of course,” she replied. “Wardens, keepers, whatever their title, they pursued me. I had no choice but to flee to America to escape them, but they found me here.”
“Why were they after you?”
Raisa continued her story, focused on the contents of the cauldron. “Your mother tracked me to Ridge Valley. She stumbled onto my trail quite by accident.” Raisa stopped talking and looked at me. “Not unlike you, dear Emma. Once she had my scent, she refused to give up.”
I struggled to make sense of her story. “So what happened? She cursed the town to keep you from leaving? Why would she subject everyone else here to the same fate? It isn’t fair.”
“No, it wasn’t fair, dearie,” Raisa said. “It also wasn’t your mother who did it.”
Relief swelled within me. “You have no idea how happy that makes me. I did not want to have to tell everyone my mother is the reason they’re all trapped here.” I hesitated. “How do you know she didn’t do it? Everyone says it was an enchantress. She could easily have been undercover.”
Raisa’s voice grew quiet. “Everyone says it was an enchantress because that’s what I made them believe.”
“You told everyone that? Why?”
Raisa focused on me. “Why do you think, dearie?”
The pieces began to fall into place and I felt a rush of nausea. “You cursed the town?”
Raisa rubbed the bald spot on her head. “I had no choice. They were closing in on me. Your mother was cleverer than I’d given her credit for. I thought I could outsmart a trainee. I’d dodged so many before her.”
My head was spinning. “So you cursed the town to…to lock yourself in?”
“To keep the paranormal enforcers out,” Raisa said. “I knew they wouldn’t cross the border and risk getting stuck here.”
“But you essentially ended up creating your own prison world,” I argued. And dragged an entire town with you.
“And what a pleasant prison it’s been,” Raisa replied. “Do you think I would have fared better if I’d gone to their prison? Your dreams were accurate, my dear. The places they keep dangerous criminals are hell for the living.”
“Why does no one remember what happened?” I asked. “What else did you do?”
“A confusion spell on the whole town,” she replied. She winked at me and one of her eyes popped out in the process and fell into the cauldron with a splash. “I was a powerful witch in my day, you know.” She scooped the eye out with the ladle, licked off the liquid, and popped it back into its socket.
“So subsequent generations never knew the truth because the original residents couldn’t remember.” A genius plan. A horrible thought struck me. “Do you know how many residents blamed Daniel for the curse? For seducing an enchantress?” An even worse thought pushed its way out. “Spell’s bells. Daniel didn’t get involved with my mother, did he?” I was pretty sure I tasted bile.
Raisa cackled softly. “That would be an interesting twist, wouldn’t it? But no. As far as I know, dearie, they never met. Your mother tracked me here, but I managed to curse the land before she could enter.”
“How did you know that she found you if she didn’t come knocking on the door?” I asked. It was surreal that my mother could’ve stood at the front door of this very cottage.
Raisa sighed. “I had a familiar once. Her name was Zima.”
“You’ve never mentioned her before.”
“No. I choose not to speak of her,” she replied. “She was my eyes and ears in places where I was not. Traveled with me from Europe. It was she who was out roaming the day your mother came. Zima alerted me in time so that I could act quickly. Thankfully, I had prepared for such an event.”
“The curse was ready and waiting?”
Raisa nodded. “It pays to be forward thinking. How do you think I evaded capture in Europe?”
“How did my mother figure out what you’d done?” I asked.
Raisa wore a satisfied smile. “Because I told her. I was on Curse Cliff when I saw her coming on her broomstick. I warned her if she flew any closer, she’d be trapped forever. She chose to leave.”
“Your cat spotted a broomstick far enough away to give you time to run out to Curse Cliff and work your dark magic?”
Raisa cast a sidelong glance at me. “I never said my familiar was a cat.”
“I thought all witches had cats,” I said. “Isn’t that why I have Sedgwick? Because I’m a sorceress?”
“Your coven’s knowledge has been severely hampered by its isolation, my dear,” Raisa said. “Zima was a hawk.”
“Why were you being tracked by law enforcement? What did you do that was so terrible?”
Raisa used the ladle to scoop some of the contents of the cauldron into two bowls. She placed one in front of me and saved the other one for herself.
“Raisa, I can’t eat until you tell me,” I said.
“Do you trust me, Emma?” she asked.
I balked. I wasn’t sure anymore. First, Lady Weatherby. Now, this. “I…I don’t know,” I said. “I did before…”
“Before I confessed?”
“Well, you have to admit, that’s one big whopper of a lie you’ve been hiding. Can you blame me for being wary?”
“If you eat from the bowl, I’ll tell you,” Raisa said.
I stared into the murky liquid. “Why? What have you concocted? I’m getting married, Raisa. I don’t want to lose my memories again.” Or die.
“Not to worry, dearest,” Raisa said. “I only want you to prove that you trust me. Eat and I will reveal the rest of my story.”
My spoon hovered in mid-air. Did I dare? I was frightened now. She was no longer the Raisa I knew. This dead witch had kept secrets from me—important ones.
I set down my spoon and looked her boldly in the eye. “Raisa, you’ve already admitted you’re a planner. What’s in this broth? Do you want to silence me now that I know the truth?”
Raisa folded her hands in front of her. “Emma, dear, if I wanted to silence you, I could’ve done it a long time ago. I made a choice not to harm you.”
“Why?”
“Who knows? Atonement? Because I like you?” She stared out the back window. “It was lonely here, after the curse. I was as shunned by the residents of Spellbound as I was in Europe. And, as far as they knew, I hadn’t done anything wrong.”
“You do have a boneyard in front of your cottage,” I said. “That might make a statement about the kind of witch you are.”
“True enough.” She paused. “When you came to town, I was suddenly less lonely.”
“You were also dead.”
“Makes no difference. Do you think Gareth wouldn’t be lonely if you went away?”
I exhaled loudly. I knew he would. Gareth needed me. “Okay, so you and I get along. That means I should trust you now?”
“It does.”
I closed my eyes and gathered my courage. “If anything happens to me, Raisa, there will be consequences.”
“Your threats are adorable,” Raisa said.
I ate.
Nothing happened.
Raisa beamed, her iron teeth glinting in the sunlight. “Thank you.”
“Spill it, Raisa. And I’m not talking about the broth.”
The dead witch sucked down a spoonful of broth. “I was once a wicked witch. The kind of witch children read about in stories.”
“You mean like the witch in Hansel and Gretel? The one who wants to eat them?”
“She was my cousin,” Raisa said. “No, I didn’t want to eat children, but I did have a habit of killing them.”
My heart seized and time seemed to slow. “You killed children?”
Raisa’s nod was almost imperceptible. “As a young witch, I adored children. I always had a group gathered around me in my village. I told them stories and crafted with them.”
“That doesn’t sound very wicked.”
“No, it was the day I went into the woods and decided to make them each a whistle.” She puckered her wrinkled lips and whistled. “The children loved the toys I made for them.”
I tensed, waiting for the horrible details.
“I spent the whole day there, crafting these whistles. I brought them home in my basket and distributed them to every child in the village. The next day, every child in the village was dead.”
My gasp was audible and my hand flew to cover my mouth.
“I had used hemlock on the beaks of the whistles.” Raisa squeezed her eyes shut.
“Why would you do such a thing?” My voice was scarcely a whisper.
“It was an accident,” she replied. “I wasn’t proficient in herbology then. I was more artistic.”
Tears stung my eyes. “If it was an accident, then why…?” I choked on my words.
“An entire of village of children, Emma. A whole generation of my coven.” She shook her head. “There’s no coming back from that. I developed a reputation.”
“And you decided to live up to it?”
“I was on the run for a long time,” she said. “I did many things I’m not proud of to survive.”
“Cursing this town? Are you proud of that? Trapping generations of paranormals here?”
“No,” she said quietly. “It is my second biggest regret. The first, of course, being the children.”
We sat together in contemplative silence.
“Why didn’t you tell law enforcement it was an accident?”
“I didn’t trip over my neighbor’s garden gnome and break it, Emma. I murdered every single child in the village! Mothers and fathers were left to mourn the loss of their families.” Her face contorted in grief and pain. It was the most emotion I’d ever seen her express.
I couldn’t bear to see her suffer. I reached across the table and clasped her hand. “I’m so sorry, Raisa. Maybe if they’d known the truth, you would’ve received a lighter sentence and you wouldn’t have felt the need to run.”
“Yes, you and your modification of the sentencing guidelines.” Raisa offered a vague smile. “One of the reasons I decided to trust you.”
“So you could have reversed the curse all this time,” I said. “Why didn’t you?”
“Selfish reasons,” she said. “Why does anyone do anything? I put my needs before the needs of others. A protective mechanism, as your vampire therapist would say.”
“What difference would it have made once you were dead? You told me you were destined to haunt these grounds forever,” I reminded her. “That your fate was to be stuck in a ghostly prison.”
Raisa released my hand. “I may have lied, my dear.”
“Why would you lie to me about that?”
“Because I know what will actually happen to me once the curse is broken.”
Now she had my full attention. “What will happen to you? Will you go to Hell?”
“Of a sort,” Raisa replied. “A very deep, dark level in the Underworld from which there will be no escape.”
“So you don’t want the curse to be broken,” I said.
“No, dearie. I really don’t.”
My hands began to tremble. “I guess that leaves us at an impasse.”
Raisa lifted a balding eyebrow. “I’m already dead, Emma. What do you expect to do to me with that power of yours?”
“Truthfully, I don’t want to do anything to you,” I admitted. “I care about you.”
Her gaze met mine. “And I care about you. Although I won’t break the curse for you, I won’t stop you from doing it, either.”
“But you’ll go to that awful place in the Underworld,” I protested.
“And I deserve it,” she replied. “I’ve cheated my punishment long enough.”
I felt conflicted. On the one hand, Raisa’s mistake resulted in the deaths of many innocent children. But she was Raisa. I knew her, or at least I thought I did. As much as she frightened me, I’d always felt like I could come to her in times of need. She wasn’t a malevolent force, despite those iron teeth.
“Thank you for your honesty, Raisa,” I said. “It means a lot that you finally told me the truth.”
“Goodbye, Emma Hart,” she said. “Enjoy your life. Enjoy your husband-to-be. Try to think well of me.”
A lump formed in my threat. “I do think well of you, Raisa. Truly, I do.”
Chapter 16
Members of the coven sailed through the air on broomsticks in a V formation. In our official cloaks and pointy black hats, we would have been quite a sight if anyone had bothered to look skyward. Professor Holmes took the lead with Meg and Ginger to the left and right behind him, respectively. I clutched the front of Millie’s broomstick like my life depended on it because…well, it did. Millie made me take a double dose of anti-anxiety potion before I left the house. She even stood and watched me to make sure I didn’t fake the dosage. That witch had serious trust issues.
“I still can’t believe Lady Weatherby’s treachery,” I heard Meg say to her sister. “It’s such a crushing disappointment. I can’t help but take it personally.”
“I think we all feel that way,” Ginger replied.
The coven and the council called a joint emergency meeting and decided to let Professor Holmes fill the role of head of the coven until an investigation could be launched. So far, there was no evidence to suggest he supported her cause. In fact, he seemed as upset by the news as anyone.
Millie landed close to Curse Cliff but not on it. “I don’t want to risk skidding over the side,” she explained. “Those rocks are slicker than they look. Sometimes a broomstick glides over them instead of stopping.”
I swallowed hard, thankful to feel the earth under my feet again.
The group assembled on Curse Cliff. Laurel emptied the contents of her bag on the
ground, including a copy of the parchment and the sacred unicorn horn.
“I was afraid to take it out of the vault,” Meg said, inclining her head toward the horn. “I worried someone might try to steal it from me in a last, desperate attempt.”
“That’s one reason this little excursion is secret,” Professor Holmes said. “We don’t know who we can trust. And if we break the curse now, no one will complain that they weren’t included.”
“I sure hope the curse isn’t booby-trapped,” Begonia said. “Or we’ll be the ones to pay the price.”
“I think it’s unlikely,” Laurel said. “Raisa would’ve told Emma. I’m sure of it.”
“I never trusted her,” Professor Holmes said, with a sad shake of his head. “She was always so different from the rest of us.”
“Different doesn’t automatically mean untrustworthy,” I countered. “You get into that mindset and you may as well join Lady Weatherby’s cause.”
Professor Holmes frowned. “Yes, I take your point. Be that as it may, the witch was a traitor to us all.”
I couldn’t argue with that. “And here’s our chance to make it right. So let’s not screw it up.”
Laurel began to review the spell.
“How many times do you need to read it?” Millie asked. “The words and symbols aren’t going to change.”
“It’s not a how-to manual,” I said. “There are many possible interpretations and we don’t get too many bites at the apple. If something happens to the horn and we’re wrong, we miss our chance.” And the summoning had been a rare event. It wasn’t like another sacred unicorn was going to wander through town to nose through Trinkets for a gift.
“Everyone gather around,” Laurel said. As always, I was impressed by her poise. Every adolescent girl should possess Laurel’s confidence and maturity. “Professor Holmes, as the interim head of the coven, maybe you should perform the incantation.”
Professor Holmes rubbed his new beard. “I think it should be Emma. Her power is the strongest.”
All Spell Breaks Loose Page 14
