Shadows in Ravenwood (Daughters of the Circle)

by Lenore Wolfe

  FIFTEEN

  TARA

  Tara sat on the wide, flat banister of the front porch, with her face tipped to the full moon. The power of the night washed over her, as the veil thinned between the worlds the humans knew and spirit. This time of year, those hidden on the other-side, the side unseen by humans, could cross into the human plane more easily.

  Tara loved this time of year. This was the season when she sensed her loved ones all around her, and the phase of autumn, when those who’d crossed over now waited for them on the other-side. She set her champagne glass down, with a clink of glass against the stone, where the pillar met the rock wall below as she watched Claire and Morgan laughing with their friends.

  Tara still couldn’t believe they were all back at Ravenwood.

  The name had a ring to it. She hadn’t known what home felt like. Not for a long time. She hadn’t been old enough to feel like she didn’t belong. She realized she just missed something whenever she wasn’t here in Red Bluff. No place quite had the feeling of home—like it this one.

  She couldn’t believe their great fortune in getting to return. If she’d struggled these past years, she could only imagine how Morgan must have felt.

  Tara pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them as the temperature began to drop, and the crisp fall chill moved in. Her gaze followed her friends as they ate, talked and laughed. They seemed happy.

  She wished they didn’t have to face that shadow. They were too new at magick to face anything so evil. They’d been split up, and they hadn’t had a chance to learn how to work together. That in itself made what they faced, now, more dangerous.

  The screen door squeaked, and Tara turned toward the sound as Sophia came out the front door and sat down in the swing across from her.

  “What are you thinking about?” Sophia asked after a long moment.

  Tara tried for a smile and failed. “Wondering what it will be like now. Will we always be facing that thing out there? You know—the one who took their aunt—and plots how we’ll be next….”

  Sophia’s lips pressed into a line. “Likely,” she answered after a long breath.

  Tara laughed. “Not even going to spare me by lying to me, huh.

  Sophia grinned. “I can’t lie.” She sat there quietly for a moment. “I mean—yeah—you don’t believe in the Christian demons—but we both know there’s a lot of malevolent spirits out there, just the same.”

  Her head down, Tara nodded.

  “And unfortunately, honey, that don’t begin to count those who use magick in such a diabolical way.”

  Tara’s head jerked up. “You could at least sugar coat it a bit,” she teased.

  Sophia shook her head and chuckled. “You wouldn’t want me to,” she said.

  Pulling at a thread on her pants, Tara smiled wanly. “So, you think we’ll have to face more than one of these, now we’ve returned? Now we’re together? What—are we like a beacon now?”

  Sophia’s lip twisted at this. “Light is always a beacon in the dark,” she said.

  Tara stared at her, then nodded. She sat there studying Sophia. “I never realized you were so much like the Fae,” she said, then changed the subject. “The coven asked to meet with us after Halloween,” she told Sophia, with a sigh. “And I don’t know what we can say to them. More to the point, I wonder what they could possibly want from us? Claire said we’re gathering the Daughters of the Circle, but I doubt they even know why. I don’t get how I should feel about asking them for anything, since we now understand that it was their suggestion to hide the truth from us.”

  Sophia nodded, gazing out across the yard, watching Claire and Morgan. “I don’t blame you. I can’t imagine what they were thinking to keep us all blind to the truth.”

  Tara turned to gaze at her more fully, still sitting on the large, wide, banister. “I don’t know what to make of the knowledge that there’s a modern-day version of a Witches Hammer out there….” Tara said. “I mean, basically that’s what he is—just in the form of a warlock. And he’s hunting us.” She shook her head. “Do people still do that? Hunt witches? Right here, in the Twenty-First Century?

  “It seems ludicrous,” Sophia agreed.

  They both stopped for a long moment, to watch as Alex playfully chased Morgan around the yard.

  When they lost sight of them, Tara frowned. Would there ever be a time when people wouldn’t hunt the things they feared?

  The warlock—he was different. He didn’t hunt them because he feared them. He’d hunted their families forever. He’d hunted the witches forever. She shook her head sadly, watching the sisters as they laughingly rejoined their old friends from town, under the string of lanterns that hung from the porch.

  Right now, things seemed peaceful.

  Tara couldn’t shake the sensation that such peace was merely an illusion—and that the so-called other shoe was just about to drop—right in the middle of their new-found joy. “I hate this feeling,” she told Sophia.

  Sophia frowned, shaking her head.

  Tara threw up her hands in frustration. “I have this terrible feeling we’re going to have to fight for every night we get like this—fight for every moment of peace.” She leaned back and watched her friends for another long moment, then turned to look at Sophia. “I don’t know if we’ll get to have it—given the reason we’re here—and what we’ve been born to do.” She nodded towards Morgan and Claire. “They have their destiny to fulfill.” She frowned toward the sisters. “They know that.” She turned, eyeing Sophia. “We all know that,” she murmured.

  Sophia nodded, but she didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything to say.

  Some don’t feel destiny leaves room for free will, Tara realized, but that was short-sighted. They still got to choose whether they wanted to take part in that destiny. She reckoned they’d set the course for following their destiny before they even came to live in this lifetime. But once they got here—once they made it to a certain point—they made the choice whether to follow that destiny.

  That was free-will. They still had to make that choice—to follow the path they’d set for themselves.

  She wouldn’t have chosen anything else. Not everyone decided to follow their destiny—but Tara couldn’t see herself making any other decision. She didn’t see having any other choice.

  This was her destiny.

  Looking out at her friends, Tara knew that if each one of them could choose—right now—they’d still choose this path. Somehow, even if they knew exactly where this would lead—they’d still choose to fight Dante.

  It didn’t matter how it went down—they’d still chose to fight the warlock. Because it was the right thing to do.

  Some time later, Tara sat out on the back patio as the sun went down. The diminishing sun left a chill in the air, as the warmth slowly disappeared in the late summer night. She’d prepared for that, wanting to come out here and spend some time alone with her thoughts, and brought a warm, thick sweater-coat that she now pulled around her like a blanket, as she sat down.

  She took a deep breath, breathing in the woodsy fall air. Mother Earth felt indefinite.

  Tara couldn’t help but feel the same way. How silly. She knew she was young. But it seemed like she’d already lived this whole other life. A life that kept raising its ugly head—the more she considered letting someone else in.

  She leaned back in the porch swing, held in place by a large, wooden frame. She looked down at the journal she held in her hand, as she wrote about her attraction to the Gargoyle.

  She didn’t see her getting with the Gargoyle. Besides, Claire liked him. Till, Tara recognized that liking him—meant she had opened something inside her—showing she might be ready to be attracted to someone. She’d opened something that had been closed for some time now. Sure, this might be her first attraction with a non-human, but Tara still couldn’t fight the fear of opening her heart—to anyone. She’d rather go to war with the warlock, any day—than open her h
eart, again.

  That terrified her. Besides, like she’d already decided—Claire liked him too.

  She’d realized, long ago, it hadn’t been a boy who’d caused her to put this high, rock wall around her heart. It had been the abandonment of her own parents, who’d managed to do that.

  She’d been raised by her grandmother too—and not because her parents were dead. Nope. Her father hadn’t bothered to get to know her, from the moment he’d found out her mother had gotten pregnant.

  And her mother. Well, now, her mother preferred drugs.

  So, her Grams had been Tara’s saving grace. She’d been the one steady thing left. And she’d never given up on her—even when she’d wanted to give up on herself.

  The one thing she’d done, however, had been to take Tara to church—even while she’d practiced her witchy ways on the side. The church she’d taken Tara to had taught them that they were the only true religion—and before Tara had managed to graduate high school, she’d begun feeling she’d failed.

  She couldn’t abide what they taught her, and that caused her to wind up feeling like she wasn’t good enough. The more she failed them, the more they let her know how messed up she was. And the more she’d thought herself the bad one—the more she’d believed she deserved to be punished.

  This had set her up for allowing herself to get in situations that punished her, and she was wise enough to recognize that. However, knowing had only been half the battle. The other half had been not allowing such situations in the first place.

  That had been much more challenging.

  Tara stared down at her last sentence, not seeing it at all. She hugged her sweater tightly around her body in the cold air.

  She deserved happiness. She imagined everyone knew they deserved it. Still, on some level, she felt like she didn’t measure up. That had been a deeply hidden belief, causing her to sabotage each bud of joy that had tried to take root in her life.

  Tara liked Thorick. Again, she fought the dread this caused her because if she liked Thorick—that meant the potential was there for her to open her heart….

  She looked up and stared across the field towards the woods. Somewhere inside, she knew the fear came from the work it took to let herself get to know someone, more-or-less that if she did she’d surely invite heartache.

  After all, they were always out there now, fighting that warlock. Wouldn’t that put them in danger? And if they were in danger—wouldn’t that also put anyone they loved in danger too?

  Thorick lived in a whole different world from her own—a world completely removed from her own too. Maybe, she should get to know someone from his world?

  Well, she sniffed, gazing down at her journal—as it turned out, she might be as much a part of this magickal world as she was of the humans. She walked with one foot in both worlds, it would seem.

  She felt tired of always letting herself sabotage the first hint of finding something right for herself.

  She searched the woods. She knew Thorick was out there somewhere—and with him were a whole pack of magickal males. She wondered if they hunted the warlock.

  Tara felt the connection between them and their group. Felt that connection grow stronger each day. This time, she made up her mind to let fate take her—where it may.