He’d built a cabin for her here with those arms, a small luxury to keep out the daily showers and the chill night air. And the nymphs had woven them clothing from spiderwebs, soft bark, and the wool from a herd of golden sheep that called the garden home. They’d been tempted to make those sheep dinner on more than one occasion, but both they and the golden apples were strictly forbidden. The nymphs had warned them early on. The last thing they wanted to do was alert Hera to their presence.
Another birthing pain crushed her, and Alena screamed. This time her body knew what to do. With a series of contractions that seemed to bleed into the earth, one, then two, then three tiny beings were born.
“Girls,” Orpheus said breathlessly. He tipped her back on a soft bed of moss and cradled her head. “Three sisters, Alena. They’re perfect.”
Thank the gods the nymphs knew what to do. They tended to the babies and to her as Orpheus mopped her brow and helped her bring the firstborn to her breast.
“We should call her Circe,” Orpheus said, “in honor of the goddess whose magic you carry in your blood.”
Alena nodded. “And this one will be Medea,” she said, taking the second child from Nala’s arms. The two girls had a shock of black hair and stunning lapis eyes like their father’s. The third child was handed to Orpheus to allow the first two time to nurse. She might have wailed, but instead she stared at her father with wide, knowing eyes of the darkest blue. So dark, in fact, that Alena could hardly make out the black pupil at the center.
“This one is cunning and fearless,” Orpheus said. “What shall we name her?”
Alena thought for a moment. “Isis. After the one who brought us here.”
Ensing whispered something into Orpheus’s ear, the nymph’s pearlescent pink lips bending softly.
“She thinks we should name one Hera in thanks for the protection of her garden.”
Alena frowned. “Hera doesn’t know we’re here, and I doubt she would offer her protection if she did.”
Ensing lowered her gaze and looked away.
“Isis, Medea, and Circe then,” Orpheus said. “Three sisters, descendants of the sorceress Medea and the goddess Circe, conceived in Hades and born in the garden of the gods. Surely they will be blessed beyond measure.”
Many seasons later…
“Don’t tell Mother,” Medea said to her sisters, Circe and Isis. “I’m going to conjure something.”
“Conjure something? You know Mother and Father do not like us to do complex magic without their supervision.” Circe placed her hands on her hips and shook her head. “It is ill-advised. Remember that time you attempted to conjure water from the stream?”
“Water sprang from the floorboards for days,” Isis said. “I swore I never wanted to see another puddle.”
Medea scowled. How could her sisters hold that against her? She’d made the mistake before she was even fully grown. This was different. She was an adult now. All three sisters were women who had honed their individual talents through the years. She knew in her heart she could do this.
“Of course I remember,” she said. “But it was a long time ago. I realize my mistake now. I was missing a way to focus my power.” She rubbed her palms together in small circles. “Father uses his voice. I’ve never been any good at singing, but I knew there had to be something I could use in the same way.”
Isis shifted and the shadows followed, her black eyes reflecting Medea’s excitement. “Sister, are you saying you found such a way?”
Medea drew a tapered stick from the folds of her robes. “With this.”
Circe gasped. “Where did you get that? I can feel it. It pulses as if it is still alive.”
“I cut it from the tanglewood tree.”
Both Circe and Isis took a step back at that. The tanglewood tree had sprouted the day they were born from the exact spot where their mother had birthed them. The sapling had grown strong as the three of them had, the trunk splitting into three distinct sections that twisted and tangled toward the sun. The three sisters had grown up playing in its branches, and it didn’t take them long to notice that their powers grew stronger when they were near it.
Several years ago, as an act of solidarity, each of them had chosen a section and carved their names into the bark. Medea remembered well how hers had seemed to whisper to her, how her name had glowed in the bark as if the tree was lit from within. After that, it was clear each was bound to the tree just as they were bound to each other.
“From which section did you take it?” Isis asked through a tight smile.
“My own, of course,” Medea promised, hand to her heart. Under her palm, it pounded with excitement to share her new discovery with her sisters. “Don’t you see? With this, the tanglewood tree is always close to me. With this… wand… I can wield my magic more effectively.”
“You think you can,” Circe said. “Or it might explode in your face.”
Her sisters crowded around her, staring at the wand, and Medea displayed it openly for their perusal. To think what they could do if Isis and Circe made their own. How powerful they would be!
“If you die, sister, I can bring you back,” Isis said darkly.
“Can you? For certain?” Fighting back a chill, Medea gave her a sideways glance.
Isis shrugged. “I’ve done it with animals. A baby bird that fell from a nest, a sheep born too early.”
Beside her, Circe shivered. “You scare me sometimes.”
Isis grinned in a way that showed all her teeth, sending goose bumps up Medea’s arms. Medea swore that sometimes her sister enjoyed scaring her and Circe with her dark magic.
“So,” Medea asked through an impish grin, breathless with anticipation. “Will you help me conjure something?”
“That depends. What do you plan to bring forth?” Circe asked.
Medea took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Do you remember when Mother was teaching us our lessons and I asked her where she had learned it all from?”
“She said she learned it in a book,” Isis said. “I’ve never seen a book.”
“Neither have I,” Circe said.
“It’s a source of knowledge. Something that can teach us spells. If we had a book, we could grow stronger and even better at magic.” The wand tingled in Medea’s grip, begging her to use it.
“Oh, a book would be very exciting!” Isis rubbed her hands together.
“So will you help me?”
“Mother and Father would not approve of this.” Circe chewed her lip.
Medea nudged her side and bounced on her toes. “If we do it quickly, they needn’t know. They left on their walk of the gardens not so long ago. It will be some time before they return.”
“But to conjure something, you must hold the thought of it in your mind in a clear and focused manner. How can you conjure a book when you have never seen a book?”
Isis placed her hand on Medea’s. “We have seen one. The paper on which Mother writes her recipes. The one that she says she brought here in her basket. Not quite a book, but you can picture a stack of those papers. A stack of knowledge. I stack of magical knowledge.”
Medea swallowed. “I think I see it in here.” She pointed to her head. “I will concentrate on bringing us the most powerful book of magic that exists anywhere.”
“Oh!” Circe squirmed. Of the three of them, disobeying their parents was the hardest for Circe, but even she could not deny that a book would be a welcome distraction. The garden was so boring, and it seemed they’d exhausted their parents’ knowledge of magic. “Yes. Do it. Do it quickly before Mother and Father return.”
Medea closed her eyes and raised the wand, allowing the power of the tanglewood tree to flow through her. She could feel the energy of the garden below the floor under her bare feet and the pulse of power she was born with deep in the marrow of her bones. With a quiet mind, she concentrated on what she thought a book must look like and her desire for the knowledge it must contain. Her entire body tensed for it. Sh
e could almost see it, glinting at the corner of her consciousness.
It was all too much. Sweat dripped down her temple, and her knees began to shake. She swayed on her feet. Isis and Circe held her up, imbuing her with their strength. Isis’s strange power over life and death whirled in her veins like icy water while Circe’s magic grew down her arm like a twisting vine and left the taste of basil in her mouth. Together, they ignited something fierce inside her. What was a glint at the edge of her consciousness became a rush of gold heat.
A heavy weight plowed into her chest, knocking her backward onto her bottom. The fall broke her sisters’ contact with her, and their power cut off abruptly. The absence of her sisters’ touch left her hollow inside. Her eyelids fluttered.
There was something in her arms. Something cold and heavy. Something gold.
“By the gods,” Circe said from above her. “Are you injured?”
She shook her head but truly could hardly breathe beneath the thing. “Heavy,” she rasped.
Isis and Circe reached down and together lifted the weight off her and slammed it onto the table where it rattled the wood. Medea climbed to her feet. She was holding her wand so tightly her knuckles had turned white. Shakily, she placed it back inside her sleeve.
“Is that…?” Medea took a step toward it. A massive pile of papers was clinched inside a solid gold cover. It was larger than she’d expected, larger than her entire torso.
“A book,” Isis said, eyes widening.
“It worked!” Circe hugged Medea’s aching shoulders.
A man’s laugh cut through the window of the small cottage, and Medea stiffened. “Mother and Father are back! Come, help me hide it.”
She gestured toward their sleeping chamber. Using all their strength, the three lugged the book into the room and slid it beneath her bed, covering it in their old blankets. They’d only just hidden it and returned to the hearth when their father entered the cottage.
“What have you three been up to?” His blue eyes flashed beneath a quizzical brow. Could he smell the magic in the air? He ran a tanned hand through his graying hair, seeming to war with himself over what to say next.
Medea met his gaze and shrugged, saved from having to explain by their mother’s arrival.
“I’m going to harvest some herbs,” Circe blurted, heading for the door at unnatural speed.
Isis’s gaze darted toward Medea before mumbling, “Help me fetch water for supper?”
“Yes, sister.” Medea rose and grabbed a water jug from the wall. They ignored their father’s confused expression and jovially kissed their mother’s cheek as they passed her outside the doorway.
They didn’t stop walking or say a single word until they’d reached the tanglewood tree, well out of sight of home and their parents’ prying eyes.
Medea leaned against the tree, exhaustion sending her sliding down the trunk onto her bottom. “I can hardly keep my eyes open.”
“But you did it,” Isis said. “Do you know what this means?”
Circe hopped up and down, her eyes twinkling with possibilities. “It means we have a book. Oh, I wonder what secrets are inside.”
“That one and more,” Isis said. “Today we proved we can make things happen. Together we can bring the universe here, to us. Learn about everything from the safety of the garden.”
“Or go to the world,” Medea whispered.
As one, they cast a glance in the direction of the gate. Circe, rule follower that she was, shook her head almost immediately. They were not allowed outside the garden. Not ever. But Isis gave her an understanding nod. She, like Medea, was not ready to dismiss the possibility so quickly.
“What happens now?” Circe asked.
Medea held out her hand, and her sisters both clasped it. “We do as we’ve always done. We three sisters stay together and we make magic.”
Part II
Her Dragon Guardian
Chapter One
Many seasons later…
The Garden of the Hesperides offered a paradise of fragrant blossoms, lush green trees, and delectable vegetation, roots, and berries. For Medea’s entire life, this protected, sacred space, a gift from Gaea to Hera on her wedding day, had provided her and her two sisters with everything they needed to grow and thrive.
Everything until now.
Lately the garden was short of one very important thing—privacy.
Since the day their parents, Orpheus and Alena, with the help of the goddess Isis, had snuck in through the front gate, the two had lived in a simple cottage built by their father’s own hands. When Alena gave birth to the three of them, Orpheus had added on a second room, and for most of their lives, that had been perfectly adequate. Until Medea, acting contrary to their parents’ wishes, had conjured the golden grimoire.
She and her sisters, Isis and Circe, had spent years studying the book in secret, as well as other books they’d covertly summoned during stolen moments alone.
Only, their thirst for knowledge had far exceeded what they could attain in tiny sips of guarded study. They needed a way to easily hide and transport the book so that they could practice the spells on its pages anywhere in the garden, not only in the confines of their chambers. The book itself had inspired their plan. A spell inside held the promise of freedom and opportunity. If this worked, it would change everything.
“Why didn’t any of us think to use a spell to make this blasted thing lighter?” Medea grunted from the effort of carrying the massive tome. The thing weighed a ton. Even with her sisters gripping the corners of the sling they’d created to tote the tome from their family’s cottage, the dead weight made her stagger, and fresh beads of sweat broke out across her skin.
Medea was relieved when they arrived at their intended destination, the field of ever-blooming marigolds that decorated the area near the front gate of the garden. The golden scrollwork of the front gates rose into the clouds.
She gazed through the bars into the empty field beyond and wondered at the stories she’d heard about the Guardian at the Gate. Her father had spoken of a fierce dragon with razor-sharp teeth, massive horns, and impenetrable black scales. Nothing but a small stone cottage stood on the other side of the bars. The heaviness of disappointment weighed on her heart. As afraid as she should be, her curious mind was desperate to see the beast for herself
“Medea, are you sure about this? Mother and Father would be furious if they knew we were here. It’s forbidden!”
Medea whirled to find Circe’s face distorted with worry as she dropped her corner of the sling and let the golden grimoire dent the field of marigolds. Circe hated to break the rules. Since they’d obtained the contraband spell book, she’d been wracked with guilt over their secret activities. Admittedly, Medea and Isis had pressured her into going along with this idea. But what was the use of having powerful magic if you couldn’t use it to hide that very magic?
“They won’t find out, sister,” Medea said. “And if you stick to the plan and help me execute this spell, they’ll never know. We can do this. We’re ready.”
“We’re grown women and powerful witches. Why do we need to follow the rules anymore anyway?” Isis added. As always, she did not share Circe’s qualms about breaking their parents’ rules. Despite resembling her sisters in the most basic sense—black hair; straight nose; a pink, bow-shaped mouth—Isis had always carried an aura of darkness about her, from the deeper olive tone of her complexion to her navy-blue irises, only a fraction of a shade lighter than her pupils. Her gaze held an intensity the others did not share.
“You know why we have rules, Isis,” Circe said defensively. “It’s for our safety. Hera doesn’t know we’re here. If we break the rules, she could find out and… execute us, I suppose.”
That was the story their parents had always told them anyway, although the longer Medea lived, the more she questioned if the stories were actually true or inventions of exhausted parents who needed their three rambunctious daughters to obey.
&nbs
p; The nymphs who tended the garden had agreed to keep their secret as long as, their parents explained, they followed three simple rules. One, they must never eat the golden apples that grew in the orchard. Two, the sheep with the golden fleece that grazed along the hillside were off-limits to eat, although using their wool for weaving was permitted. And three, the rule that applied to them on this day, they weren’t allowed near the garden gate.
The first rule made sense to Medea. Nothing living in the garden ever ate the golden apples. Not rabbits or the aforementioned sheep or the tiny, spindle-legged deer that frequented the brook near their cottage. The only beings that ever touched the apples were the garden nymphs who collected the ones that fell from the branches in giant baskets. None of them had any idea what the nymphs did with the apples, but they’d never seen them eat the fruit. Perhaps, Medea assumed, the fruit wasn’t edible at all.
The second rule was trickier to understand. Something did eat the sheep. Occasionally one would go missing overnight, silently disappearing from the flock with no explanation. But Medea had a horrific memory of a loss that was not so silent. She’d awakened in the middle of the night to the bleats of panicked sheep and the distant thunder of stampeding animals. There had been blood the next morning, splattered across the hillside.
For many nights after that, she’d feared the unknown. What was killing the sheep? As far as she was aware, there were no predators in the Garden of the Hesperides. Time and again, she’d asked their father Orpheus for an explanation. He’d answered only that there were rules for a reason and if she followed them and was within the wards that protected their cottage before nightfall, she had nothing to fear. Someday, he said, when she was older, she’d understand. Now she was older and she no longer feared the mysterious sheep thief, but she still had no explanation for it.
The third rule was the most perplexing. Why couldn’t they come here to the field near the gate? She understood why they should not leave the garden of course. Their parents had explained to them that they had made enemies among the gods. Was it simply protection from being seen through the gate that their parents were after? Then again, after all this time, was anyone still watching?
The Tanglewood Witches Page 7