A Little Town Called Mercy
A Collection of Short Stories
By
Wendy Saunders
Also By Wendy Saunders
The Guardians Series 1
Mercy
The Ferryman
Crossroads
Witchfinder
Infernum
A Little Town Called Mercy
The Carter Series
Tangled Web
Twisted Lies
Blood Ties
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1st Edition
Copyright © 2018 Wendy Saunders
All rights reserved.
CONTENTS
Part 1: Daughter of Fire
Part 2: The Salted Bone
Part 3: Storyteller
Scarlett: Chapter 1
Author Bio
Part 1
Daughter of Fire
1.
Olivia’s body swirled in a cloud of witch smoke, her boots sinking into the soft powder of a shallow snowdrift. She blinked slowly, her eyes the color of deep aged single malt. Her attention was drawn by a small cough, a strange cross between a hiss and a delicate sneeze. Tilting her head she glanced up at the small fire drake padding his feet and gently flexing his claws as he gripped at her shoulder in a reassuring squeeze. His dark liquid eyes blinked at her, his beautiful sinuous body undulated restlessly and his dragon-like wings snapped silently with brightly colored, jewel-toned flames.
‘Easy there Manny,’ she crooned to him lovingly, her voice soft and soothing.
A small yip drew her attention to the frozen snow-covered ground, where her beloved dog Beau wound around her swollen ankles, rubbing up against her legs with his soft golden fur. Manny curved his head down over Olivia’s shoulder, snorting quietly in a muted communication only Beau seemed to understand.
The two of them were unlikely friends and yet completely inseparable from the moment they laid eyes on each other. The pair of them had also become her shadow; wherever she went, they were never far behind. It was usual for a witch to have a familiar, but it was rare for a witch to have two, and certainly not such an unconventional pair at that.
Reaching down absently with a small indulgent smile, she stroked Beau’s head, her hand smoothing the length of his long floppy ears. Looking up at the clearing for the first time since the night she had become a Guardian, her eyes locked on the tree that dominated the center of the circle. No longer a dead, hollowed-out husk, it now stood proud and tall.
The clearing had formerly been known as Boothe’s Hollow, the location of the devil’s trap that Olivia’s own ancestor Hester West had created to trap the demon known as Nathaniel. The trap was gone; the tree itself, no longer a marker, was the living, breathing, pulsing life of the circular clearing. She could feel the heartbeat of the tree, throbbing with the remnants of her mother’s life force…her mother’s soul. There was no consciousness, just a whisper of a memory, a fading dream that had once been Isabel West.
But there was something else, Olivia thought, as she studied the tree. The last time she’d seen it, when it was in full bloom, she was certain it had been a cherry tree, covered in a riot of delicate pink and purple blossoms. That was no longer the case, now… now…she frowned in confusion. It looked like an oak tree, a very old and ancient oak.
‘It changes,’ a quiet contemplative voice spoke from behind her.
Olivia turned to find a familiar figure sitting on a strange bench which sat opposite the tree and seemed to be comprised entirely of thickened gnarled tree roots. Although dressed warmly against the bitter winter, his face was ruddy and pink, belying how long he’d sat staring aimlessly at the curious tree.
‘Dad,’ she answered softly, ‘I’ve been looking for you.’
‘Well you’ve found me,’ Charles murmured, glancing back at the tree that contained the remains of his dead wife.
Olivia crossed to the bench, her step an ungainly waddle as she carefully lowered her swollen body to the seat next to him, with Beau sitting obediently at her feet and Manny still crouching on her shoulder, watching Charles with unreadable eyes.
‘You shouldn’t be out here,’ Charles spoke absently his gaze still fixated on the tree, ‘you should be resting.’
Ignoring his lukewarm concern she turned her own gaze back to the tree.
‘What did you mean, it changes?’ she echoed his earlier words.
‘Isabel’s tree,’ he replied quietly, his eyes dark and unreadable, ‘it changes. It was a cherry tree originally, then it was a maple, a cypress, a magnolia… it changes.’
‘Why?’ Olivia frowned.
He shrugged.
‘Dad,’ she spoke slowly, her voice filled with suspicion and a hint of concern, ‘how many times have you been out here to mom’s tree?’
He shrugged again non-committedly.
‘What does it matter?’
‘It matters,’ she whispered, ‘it’s not healthy. Mom’s gone…for good this time. Sitting here trying to give yourself pneumonia is not going to bring her back.’
‘I know that,’ he replied quietly.
‘Then why?’ she blinked in confusion.
Charles turned to look at his daughter. His eyes, dark with grief and so many other conflicting emotions she couldn’t name, flickered over to her shoulder, landing on the fire drake who was playfully gnawing on the thick fur collar of her heavy winter coat.
‘You’ve come such a long way Olivia,’ he replied softly, ‘you’re not my little girl anymore.’
‘I’m still your daughter,’ she whispered.
‘I gave up that right when I abandoned you,’ Charles turned back to gaze blankly at the tree, ‘you were right about that.’
‘No, I wasn’t,’ Olivia shook her head, letting out a deep regretful sigh. ‘I’m sorry for the things I said to you; I was angry and lashing out. You were in prison, it wasn’t as if you had a choice.’
‘We both know I could have walked out of there any time I chose.’ He blew out a long breath, his brow folding into a frown.
It was true. With his powerful magical abilities he could have been out of any facility they’d tried to lock him in within a matter of hours. He could have disappeared and no one would ever have found him. Olivia tried not to dwell on it, tried not to call him out on it, but, sitting with him in the silent circle, surrounded by the muted hush of the snow, she found she couldn’t help herself, and before she knew it she’d opened her mouth.
‘Why didn’t you then?’
‘I should have,’ he shook his head in what, she wasn’t sure, may have been disgust? Or perhaps something more like regret. ‘I should have escaped the minute I was able to. I should have found you and taken you away, spent every minute of every day making you happy, making sure you knew you were loved,’ his darkened pain-filled eyes met hers. ‘I should never have made you doubt, even for a second, the depth of my love for you.’
‘Then why?’
Charles looked back at the tree as if somehow it held all the answers but he was unable to reach them.
‘I loved her so much,’ he whispered, ‘she was the air I breathed,’ he closed his eyes painfully. ‘I thought she betrayed me in the worst possible way… that she betrayed you… betrayed her mother… her family. I rode that wave of pain and anger, I let it fuel me. It was what kept me going, my hatred for the woman I had loved so desperately.
I told myself that I was doing it for you, that I was doing it to protect you from her, but the truth was that somewhere along the line I stopped seeing you and it became all about punishing her for hurting me.’
‘I know,’ Olivia replied quietly.
‘But it wasn’t a lie, our marriage, our love,’ his voice cracked, ‘it was real and I was the one who destroyed it. I was the one who betrayed her.’
‘Don’t do that to yourself, Dad,’ Olivia shook her head, ‘no one is blameless in this whole sorry mess. Nana lied and manipulated everyone, aunt Evie was so damn loyal to her sister she was blind to everything else, you made the wrong call and trusted the wrong person too much and the right person too little…but Dad, mom is not a victim here.’ Olivia told him bluntly. ‘When I found out the truth about nana and about her, I have to tell you, I felt sick. I too played my part, unknowingly, admittedly…but still, a part in making mom who she was. I’m not saying she wasn’t treated terribly by the people who were supposed to love her and believe in her, but you also have to remember that she chose to embrace the bitterness. Although her mother may have killed those men back in ‘94, mom chose to kill the others last year. She chose to raise Nathaniel and start this whole shitstorm. What happened to her before was terrible, but she chose to embrace the monster and you need to remember that, or all this misplaced guilt and doubt will just eat you up.’
‘Is it?’
‘Is it what?’ she replied.
‘Misplaced guilt?’
‘Yes,’ she nodded, ‘like I said, we all played our part, intentionally or otherwise, but we all also made our own choices. Mom made hers and she paid for them. Don’t drag the weight of the dead with you, Dad, because that isn’t living.’
‘I still love her,’ he answered quietly.
‘I do too,’ Olivia sighed, reaching out and grabbing his hand, although she could barely feel it through the thickly padded gloves they both wore. ‘Maybe it’s time to accept it, not just the pain and anger and bad decisions but the love too,’ she blew out a sad and resigned breath. ‘It’s okay to love her.’
She felt a brief pressure on her fingers as he squeezed her hand in solidarity.
‘You want to know something?’ she asked quietly.
‘What?’
‘The night mom died, there was a moment,’ she frowned, ‘I was holding the book and Nathaniel was heading for me. It all happened so fast I had no time to process it; he was lunging for me and then mom was there too, heading toward me. For a second there, I didn’t know if she was trying to protect me, or if…’
‘If she was going for the book too?’ Charles finished for her.
She nodded silently.
‘I still don’t know for sure,’ she admitted slowly. ‘I’ve gone over and over that moment in my mind and I still don’t know if her lifelong desire for the book won out over her love for me.’
Charles blinked at her, at a complete loss, with no words of comfort. He wanted to reassure her that Isabel was trying to save her, that she would never have chosen the book over her own child, but the truth was, he couldn’t. If there was one thing that recent events had made painfully clear to him it was that he’d never really known his wife at all.
‘Do you know what I realized in the end?’ Olivia spoke up.
‘What?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she shrugged. ‘It’s all about choices and I choose to believe, whether it’s right or wrong, that she was reaching for me and not the book. I choose to believe that she loved me… that in the end…I was enough for her.’
‘When did you get so smart?’ he nudged her sardonically.
‘About the time my head got stuffed full of limitless ancient wisdom and power,’ she chuckled.
‘Yeah,’ he smiled, ‘I guess that’d do it.’
He watched as she shivered, and wrapped his arm around her, drawing her in close and planting a kiss on her forehead.
‘We should get you back to the house, you really shouldn’t be out here in your condition.’
‘Well, if you’d answered any of my calls, I wouldn’t have had to come looking for you,’ she replied.
‘I know,’ he sighed, frowning in concern as she shifted uncomfortably. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ she blew out the breath she wasn’t even aware she’d been holding, ‘just really tired and I’ve had really bad backache ever since this morning.’
‘Come on,’ he stood and held out his hands, helping her as she climbed awkwardly to her feet. ‘Let’s get you home before your husband has my head for keeping you out in the cold.’
‘Well I am quite hungry,’ she mused, ‘I really want an apple.’
‘An apple?’
‘Yeah, a dark red one, just a little bit tart.’
‘I thought you were craving kiwi?’ Charles replied in amusement.
‘That was last week,’ she shook her head, ‘and the week before that it was peaches. I could have murdered for a ripe peach but they’re out of season. I seriously could’ve cried.’
‘Over a peach?’
‘It’s not my fault one or possibly both of your grandchildren are craving fruit. At least it’s something healthy this time. Right at the beginning of my pregnancy it was doughnuts dunked in chocolate milkshake.’
‘A small mercy indeed,’ Charles’ mouth curved in amusement.
‘Stop mocking me,’ she pouted, ‘I still want a peach. I was going to use the compass to jump forward to the right season but Theo wouldn’t let me. He said it was a misuse of its power and not the reason Hades gave it to me in the first place.’
‘Well he is kind of right,’ he shrugged.
‘That’s easy for you to say, you don’t have irrational hormones to deal with.’
‘And thank God for it,’ Charles smiled, ‘I couldn’t live with the mood swings.’
Olivia chuckled in amusement as she took his hand, and with her fire drake still sitting on her shoulder and Beau dancing around her feet they disappeared in a hazy swirl of witch smoke, unaware that the tree had once again shifted, and this time its branches were covered with mouth-wateringly juicy ripe peaches.
2.
By the time Olivia had returned to the house, not only had her father’s mood darkened but he’d predictably made his excuses and departed, leaving her on her porch with a peck on the cheek and a vague promise to call her soon. Sighing in resignation she slowly and painfully climbed the few short steps up to her front door, feeling as if she’d just scaled Kilimanjaro. There wasn’t an inch of her body that wasn’t heavy and aching; the pain in her back had kicked up another notch and was making her miserable.
Maybe it was just as well her father had left, she thought idly to herself. She could feel her patience wearing thin as she neared the end of her pregnancy, and putting her father and herself together for any period of time was bound to end in a heated bickering match with optional bloodshed. They were too much alike, she concluded silently. He was still trying to work through his turbulent emotions when it came to the loss of her mother and, like her, he preferred to nurse his pain in private until he was ready to face the world again.
Manny leapt down from her shoulder as she reached for the door, and as she pushed it open, both Manny and Beau charged playfully into the house. Stepping through the door after her familiars, she watched as Manny shimmered and disappeared. He was still there; she could feel his presence, as could Beau, she suspected. However there must have been someone else in the house, someone he was unfamiliar with.
Her gorgeous little fire drake was more than comfortable with all of her family and close friends. Even Tommy had become accustomed to the strange little creature who, unlike her dragonflies, which were an extension of her power and had to be summoned, seemed to be a permanent manifestation.
It was hard to explain and even harder to define. Manny was a part of her and yet he was most definitely also separate; she didn’t control him in any way, he
was completely self-aware if not, she thought with a smile, a little mischievous.
However, he seemed to instinctively know to hide himself from strangers, and when presented with a presence he wasn’t familiar with, he automatically took steps to make himself invisible. For that she was extremely grateful. For the most part, the people of Mercy were very open-minded but explaining a magical fire drake was probably a step too far, even for them.
She looked up, distracted from her thoughts by the appearance of her husband and a tall willowy woman in her forties. Slim and attractive, she was dressed professionally in tailored slacks and a gorgeous teal-colored cashmere twin set. Her red hair was cut in a no-nonsense bob and tucked elegantly behind one ear, which sparkled with a tastefully understated diamond.
Judith Tate was nothing if not impeccable, but she was also approachable, and Olivia knew from experience that she was a very warm and friendly woman. She ran the local art gallery and was friends with Roni.
‘Olivia,’ she smiled, stepping forward and extending her hand with a smile, ‘it’s good to see you again, you’re looking…well.’ Her gaze flickered over Olivia’s huge belly.
‘I’m looking enormous,’ Olivia chuckled, shaking her hand. ‘Tie a piece of string to me and you could probably float me above Times Square in the Macy’s parade, but thank you for being diplomatic.’
Judith laughed, her voice light and melodic as her eyes danced with amusement.
‘You look like you’re ready to pop, how long have you got to go?’
‘Any day now,’ Olivia blew out a breath, ‘and I have to say I’m looking forward to having my body back to myself.’
‘I can imagine,’ she replied. ‘Twins, if I recall correctly?’
‘That’s right,’ Olivia chuckled ruefully, ‘Theo and I don’t do things by halves apparently.’
‘I can see that,’ Judith smiled, ‘Theo has just been showing me the last of the pieces that he plans to show in the upcoming exhibition. I’m hoping you can convince him to allow me to show the painting of the young couple in love.’
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