by Eva Alton
Stray Witch
by Eva Alton
COPYRIGHT © 2020 EVA Alton
All rights reserved.
First Edition.
Editing services provided by Elatoria.
It is forbidden to copy, reproduce, transmit or adapt it by any means, electronic or mechanical, unless you obtain express permission from the author. This is an independent publication.
This is a work of fiction and any names or circumstances that save resemblance to reality or with real subjects are purely coincidental. Names, places and events are the product of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously.
We thank all the artists who created the fonts and images included in this book and its cover (sources: Depositphotos, MagicSparkle, Main Stage, Guatemala).
Table of Contents
Other books in this series
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Epilogue
About the author
Acknowledgments
Other books in this series
THE VAMPIRES OF EMBERBURY
Stray Witch (Book 1)
Witch’s Mirror (Book 2)
The Vampire’s Assistant (Book 0: The Vampires of Emberbury Prequel: Julia’s story)
You can visit the author’s website at:
www.evaalton.com
“That path has no returning. For already Love and his strength drag you on and now henceforth forever never shall you know joy without pain again (...). In that cup you have drunk not love alone, but love and death together.”
Brangien
The Romance Of Tristan And Iseult, M. Joseph Bdier
Prologue
Clarence
One of the rare perks of being a creature of darkness was the remarkable ability to behold the city from above, with its buildings glistening under the blazing sun like jewels strung in a necklace. If I spread my wings, I could soar above the silver streets and study the habits of the busy, distracted humans, who went about their days in oblivious bliss.
A long time ago, I had been one of them.
Unfortunately, I didn’t hold many fond memories of those days, and flying kept my mind busy enough to forget, at least for the brief duration of each journey, the misfortunes and depravities of my past. So much blood had been shed to feed the monsters―the monsters like us.
Volunteering for the search had allowed me many years of perfect distraction, for it wasn’t a light task: some in The Cloister said there were no strays left, and whined that the quest would be in vain. But I had been gifted with the patience of the immortal, and I pursued my goal until, one day, the wind brought me the bitter scent of witches’ blood. Feelings of ambivalence flooded my chest when I realized my work would soon be done.
There she was, so lovely in her humble simplicity. So ordinary, so frail. Not for long, I told myself.
I turned back to The Cloister to relay my news to the others. They would be relieved. But I? Not so much. I enjoyed the thrill of a good quest. And I hated idleness.
When I knocked on the queen’s door, she was already expecting me.
“I found her,” I said with a slight bow.
Elizabeth nodded and started to get ready for the new guest.
“We need to act fast,” she said. “Before anyone else finds her, too.”
Chapter 1
Alba
“I want a divorce,” Mark said, smoothing the silk tie which peeped out of his perfectly tailored blazer. “Actually, I just filed the paperwork this morning.”
Despite the warm summer morning, I felt something turn to ice inside my chest. Divorce had been on his lips many times before, but I hadn’t expected him to just go and file the paperwork without telling me first.
Not that he hadn’t mentioned it before―he used divorce threats as the ultimate approach to get his way. But Mark was an attorney, after all, so I had always thought that marriage termination must be a natural and intrinsic part of his life; a singular kind of small-talk reserved for those who paced the halls of courthouses with coffee in paper cups and watches which cost more than an average person’s car.
Still, it took me by surprise because the pressure had dropped for a while, as I had tried really hard to please him, foregoing my own wishes and naively believing we could reach a truce and be happy again.
Although again was a bit of a stretch. I couldn’t really recall one single happy day in this doomed union of ours. And somehow, I sensed it was my fault for not being the beautiful, patient, sexy creature he had expected. I had fooled him with my ephemeral youth and carelessness, and he was good at reminding me about it every single day.
Mark left the room, closing the door carefully. Things should be treated with respect, he used to say.
A cool draft swept across the room as the door clicked into place. It carried the smell of freshly cut pinewood and rusty iron. A raven had been sitting on a branch of the magnolia tree in our garden while Mark spoke. I closed the window, feeling cold and somehow spied upon by the silent dark bird. I had seen it before, and it had bizarre eyes. Too profound and bright for a simple bird, so much so that it made me think of grandma’s stories about ghosts and demons inhabiting foreign bodies.
I tripped on a naked, legless Barbie, then bent down to pick it up, mulling absentmindedly about how much Mark hated finding toys lying on the floor. He always got edgy and raised his voice, or worse. A good way to keep our frail, homely harmony was to find bothersome items before he did.
So that was it. Mark had finally thrown the dreaded D-bomb at me, not caring that I stood in front of an ironing board holding one of his luxurious French couture shirts, the one he would wear tonight in order to impress his boss. My hand lingered on the iron for a couple of seconds too long, and the satisfying smell of burned fabric filled the room, as a brownish triangular mark formed on the back of the garment. It had cute, symmetrical rows of dots on each side: almost too nice. I wished I could just breathe fire like a dragon and burn his whole business wardrobe at once, forcing him to present himself in front of his colleagues wearing a greasy paper bag. My fingertips started to tingle with excitement at the thought, as they usually did when I held back my anger.
In my late twenties, I was almost too young to grow gray hairs. Still, I had a few: a mute testimony of the hundreds of arguments it had taken to remain sane in my better half’s company.
I could envision Mark’s fury when he found out about the shirt later that evening, and my pulse accelerated, fearing his reaction.
Breathe, Alba, breathe.
He’s just a man. An ordinary human, just like you. The law doesn’t allow him to harm you. And you know that Law is his only true love.
I counted up to eight with each exhale.
There were other forms of torture which didn’t leave marks, and my darling
husband excelled at all of them.
“I’ll find a way,” I told myself.
I sat on the bed, reaching for my phone, just to throw it back among the pillows as I realized I had nobody to call. I was about to divorce an attorney at law, and one who wanted to destroy my life at that. My worst nightmares looked like fairy tales in comparison.
Just as I was digging through a drawer in search of a tissue to blow my nose―not that I was crying, but the magnolias were in full bloom and spreading nasty pollen all over Emberbury―my five-year-old daughter, Katie, came into the room. Her arms were full of the remainders of a torn book, and she was followed by a black stray cat that she and her sister had found a couple of weeks ago, roaming in the garden.
The animal had gold and purple eyes, an uncommon trait in black cats. I figured it must be a very rare and expensive cat breed―like that hairless beast my neighbor, May, had bought her son for the price of a spa weekend in Bali―and someone must be searching frantically for it in our fine neighborhood.
“Mommy, Iris tore the cover of my favorite book. Can you glue it back?”
“Let me see, maybe I can,” I said, caressing my girl’s head as I inconspicuously wiped my nose right after hers, with the same tissue.
The book was a glitter hardback monstrosity, full of pink and purple illustrations of witches and fairies. I found some glue in a drawer, put the pieces together and pressed them firmly. “Now we wait for it to get dry, okay?”
I eyed the black cat, which had jumped on Mark’s shirts and was purring and kneading them. Hopefully, it would leave plenty of claw marks all over the costly Egyptian cotton.
“Did you name it already?” I asked, telling myself we had to adopt that animal, if only to upset Mark.
“Yes, mommy! She’s Miss Jilly now. Like the witch from my book.”
“Great name!”
“Thank you, mommy,” Katie said, kissing my cheek. “You know,” she said, giving me a mysterious look. “I think you are just like Miss Jilly. The witch, not the kitty.” She pointed at the cat, who was now trying to remove a button from one of the shirts with its bare teeth. I considered the possibility of stopping her, but I was enjoying the sight too much.
“Oh, really?” I smiled at the occurrence. I had yet to grow warts on my nose and get myself a flying broom, but hey, why not? At least I didn’t remind her of a gryphon.
“Yes, you always make everything good again. I love you, mommy.”
Then she hugged me with her tiny arms and left with the book.
“Almost everything,” I said quietly to myself, as I daydreamed about being Miss Jilly and fixing my life with a magic wand. “But sadly, magic wands don’t exist in the real world,” I mumbled absentmindedly.
I sprang to my feet when the raven on the magnolia shrieked really loud in reply. I would have sworn it was trying to tell me that it didn’t agree with my opinion.
Chapter 2
Alba
“So, Mrs. Andersson, tell me about your work experience.”
The woman wore an expensive suit and was rattling nervously with her pencil, which had been engraved with the rubric MSTDA Engineering. I was probably the fifth candidate she was interviewing that day, and she was visibly fed up to the back teeth.
I swallowed, raking my mind for an elegant answer. I had an engineering degree, but my résumé was emptier than my spouse’s heart. Back in the day when I still thought he cared for me, Mark had suggested I should find a more ladylike career―his words, not mine―away from slush-drenched boots, concrete and shadily shirtless construction workers. Maybe try to work from home, so I could take proper care of our family. Over the years, this had led me to many failed attempts to sell all sorts of useless things to my scarce and distant relatives, who had acquired some of that crap out of sheer pity. Now my parents were dead, and I still had a garage full of essential oils, sports apparel and allegedly natural cosmetics which had probably gone rancid in the meanwhile.
“I’m a civil engineer,” I said in a quiet voice, my eyes fixed on the table. My pencil skirt, a remnant of long-gone office days, had become too tight around my waist after two kids. That was why I was trying to breathe as shallowly as possible, in case the zipper burst and poked the interviewer’s eye out.
“Sorry for asking this question, but do you have any children?” she said, not looking sorry in the least.
“It’s all right.” I sighed. “I have two daughters. One is three, and the other is five years old.”
She nodded, her lips pursing into a fine line as she wrote something into her file.
There we go again. Kids get sick all the time, and mothers miss work because of that. Particularly, soon-to-be-divorced mothers were a very much feared species among employers.
“I see,” she continued. “Tell me, Mrs. Andersson, why do you want this position?”
A simple question I didn’t feel like answering, frankly.
“Because my soon-to-be-ex-husband is an elite solicitor who has threatened to use all his knowledge and connections to rob me of everything I own and love.”
The truth somehow didn’t sound right, so I sugarcoated it a bit. “I have been idle for too long, and I miss feeling useful to society,” I uttered proudly. “I used to work for Reismann and Reismann, and I enjoyed that job very much.”
The woman raised an eyebrow.
“You mean the Reismann and Reismann that closed down five years ago?”
“That one, yes,” I answered, squirming in the chair.
“And after that?”
I remained silent. What was I supposed to say? “I sold essential oils on a godforsaken website?” “I nagged all my neighbors to buy moisturizer from me?”
“I was a stay at home mom,” I said, shrugging, well-aware of the repelling effect this answer usually had on interviewers. This wasn’t my first interview after Mark’s divorce notice, and not even the worst one.
I glanced around the sleek and sterile office, with large floor-to-ceiling windows which overlooked Emberbury’s modestly sized business district. My stomach rumbled, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten anything since dinner, apart from a few spoonfuls of mushy cornflakes the kids had left in their bowls after breakfast. I had given instructions to the nanny and spent one hour trying on corporate clothes that a) were too tight or b) were out of fashion, or c) lacked buttons. All of that just to be left to wait for forty-five minutes and be asked how many children I had and why the company I used to work for had been closed for more than five years.
The interviewer’s cell phone rang, and she excused herself. I stood up and admired the view of the city: we were on the eighteenth floor, and for someone like me, used to living in a suburban home, the feeling was akin to traveling by plane. Tall glass skyscrapers reflected the early morning sun, blinding me. Many feet down, people walked, all in a hurry and all minding their own business.
All except for two.
There were two men dressed in black right in front of the entrance to MSTDA Engineering, and they were both looking up in my direction. I recoiled as a strange energy buzzed over the back of my neck. I’d seen them somewhere before, but where? After a second, I shook my head. There was no way they could be watching me through the mirror glass, especially when I was so high above them. The situation with Mark was starting to get to me, and I had begun to see danger behind every corner.
When the interviewer came back, she went through a couple more customary questions, then checked her watch, widened her eyes with feigned surprise and opened the door for me.
“Time’s up, but thank you for your time, Mrs. Andersson,” she said, waving me towards the exit. “We will let you know about our decision very quickly.”
Probably as quickly as one could write the word “rejected.”
WALKING IN BROAD DAYLIGHT, I strained to focus on my fellow pedestrians and traffic lights but couldn’t help shambling like a drunk ostrich. The problem was that I could only focus on one thought: how was I going to keep my c
hildren if Mark was determined to use all his powers to take them away from me?
After finding out what had happened to his favorite shirt, Mark had been oddly calm. I had expected a storm, but he had embraced my audacity with a single evil smirk.
“I thought you’d like to know that I’m going to fight for custody of the girls,” he had said, the smile never leaving his lips as he unbuttoned his double cuffs. “Those post-partum depression records... and all that yelling, you know... I think they’d be safer staying with me three weeks out of four... or just permanently, don’t you think? That way, you’d have enough time to sort out your deeply messed up existence. And hair.”
Always a beautiful remark from him.
Mark had never expressed much interest in child rearing, so his suggestion could only have one explanation: he hated me so much that he had decided to sink me. But why? When I had met him, he had been all charm and attentions. But then, his charismatic façade had slowly collapsed. Behind closed doors, he had become nothing short of a monster.
I wondered how I would fight someone like him. And I didn’t even have a job to cover the expenses.
A loud horn restored me to reality: I had just walked in front of a moving bus. The driver was yelling at me, his eyes almost bulging out of the sockets. I didn’t blame him. I was so distracted that I hadn’t even noticed stepping over the curb.
I shook my head; I had to pull myself together.
My first priority was finding a way to sustain myself until things became clearer; maybe an apartment in case he also took away the house as he had hinted. Even something temporary would do, just to start filling in that flagrantly blank résumé. I would get myself a good attorney―hopefully one who wasn’t Mark’s friend―and fight for custody of the kids.
He counted on me giving up, as always.
I was in the middle of my silent self-pep-talk when a big black bird crossed my path, blocking it.