Shadows in Ravenwood (Daughters of the Circle)

by Lenore Wolfe

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  MORGAN

  Morgan lay there wide-awake with only three or four hours’ sleep, but she had a notion that the mixture of the excitement of having her aunt back here at Ravenwood, and the fear of what they were about to learn from her, accounted for her lack of exhaustion at having little sleep.

  She did try to go to sleep but couldn’t relax long enough to get there. Finally, she gave up grabbing at that elusive thread of rest and headed down to the kitchen for breakfast. When she got there, she found her aunt sitting at the table doing the same thing.

  Jacelyn glanced up at her and smiled. “Couldn’t sleep either?”

  The aroma of oatmeal with cinnamon greeted her senses. Grinning, Morgan grabbed a bowl and sat down next to her.

  “This is like old times,” Morgan said.

  Her aunt stopped midair with her empty spoon, starring at her. “You remember?”

  Morgan laughed, then hoped her aunt hadn’t heard the nervousness she felt in her laughter. Turning, she nodded.

  They looked up as Claire entered the room. The three of them chuckling. “I guess I wasn’t alone,” she said, going to the cupboard to grab a bowl. “Hmmm,” Claire sniffed at the smell of the spices her aunt used—as well as the splash of vanilla and the dab of pure sweet butter.

  Her aunt eyed her. “Well,” she said. “Since we’re all up—maybe we should talk?”

  “Right to business,” Claire said, grinning.

  Her aunt nodded but didn’t smile back. “Yes. I know you didn’t want to talk about this last night—but we can’t wait one more minute. I don’t think there’s any more time to waste, unfortunately.”

  Morgan’s stomach dropped. The feeling from the night before raced back through her. “That sounds ominous,” she said. “I’ve had the horrid feeling you were going to tell us something like this.”

  Her aunt gazed at her and grimaced. “I’m so sorry you had to come home to this,” she said. “We’ve wanted you back for so long, and it doesn’t seem fair.”

  Morgan stared at her with a spoon full of oatmeal paused halfway to her mouth. “And that sounds worse,” she said.

  Her aunt tried to smile and failed. “You might think so—after you hear what I have to say,” she said.

  Ten minutes later, Morgan’s oatmeal sat like a weight on her stomach as they went to find Sophia and Tara and climbed the stairs to the attic. She sat down in one of the overstuffed chairs, tucking her feet up under her and pulling a blanket over her legs.

  Her aunt sat on one end of the couch, Claire on the other. Sophia and Tara sat in the two of the other over-stuffed chairs. Her aunt swallowed. Morgan wanted to groan. If it were this difficult for her to tell them what she’d come to say—Morgan wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it.

  Her aunt Jacelyn took another blanket off the back of the couch to pull it onto her lap. Then, glancing up at her, then her sister, she started talking.

  “Dante killed your mother,” she said.

  Morgan hid her shaking hands beneath the blanket. They knew this, but no one said anything, only waited.

  “He has been hunting our ancestors—our friends for many lifetimes. He is immortal—he doesn’t die. We do.” She glanced around at the expressions on their faces.

  Morgan swallowed as her gaze touched her and moved on. Could her aunt see how much it terrified her to hear this?

  “Your mother—she was powerful,” their aunt said. “He targeted her because of this.” She glanced down, picked at a thread on the blanket. “He shouldn’t have been able to kill her. I couldn’t understand how he’d managed to do it.” She didn’t look up. “So, I went to the coven.”

  Morgan saw her take a deep breath.

  “I swore them to secrecy—to never let you kids know what you were.”

  Morgan heard Claire’s gasp. She’d looked directly at her sister, as she heard her aunt’s words. She knew Claire would feel betrayed. The coven’s secrecy bothered her sister a lot more than it did her.

  She hadn’t been here to learn from their Grams. Claire had. So, had Tara.

  Morgan eyed Tara and flinched. She saw rage there, in her eyes. She studied her aunt, Jacelyn. She saw her flinch, but she continued.

  “I need you to understand something,” she said in earnest. “It was the only way.” She regarded each of them again. “If he knew what you were—he’d have killed you before you ever got a chance to do what you were born to do.” Her voice filled with power now. “Be angry with me,” she said. “But know this—if he could kill your mother—not one of us could stop him from killing you too.”

  Morgan sucked in her breath. Claire still sat there mute. So, did Tara. Sophia—on the other hand—didn’t seem surprised by any of this.

  Her aunt contemplated Morgan. “I made a plan to save you.” She considered each one of them. “All of you,” she said. She studied Morgan. “I got your father to take you away.”

  Claire flew off the couch. “What!”

  Jacelyn didn’t budge. She just glanced calmly at Claire. “I took you to help me find her.” Her gaze narrowed on Claire. “I sent you back to your grandmother during the summers, hoping she would still teach you. She was angry at magick when he managed to kill your mother. I wasn’t sure she would do the right thing.”

  Morgan stared at Claire. Claire stood over her aunt, her chest heaving. “You put me through hell,” she said. “I died each day that Morgan was gone….”

  “I am sorry for that,” their aunt whispered, tears in her eyes. “But he would have killed you. I had to convince him you weren’t worth his time. I had to convince him he’d succeeded, destroyed any threat by destroying you—and scattering the rest of you.” Tears slipped down her face now. “He put you in a comma.” Her lips curled as her tears came down in earnest now. “Morgan was catatonic. I wasn’t sure she’d ever be okay again.”

  She stilled, her body shaking. She looked at Tara and Sophia. “You believed you went running from the beast who’d scared you. But you don’t remember how they even got injured do you?”

  Morgan started as Tara flinched, then shook her head. “I always thought that strange. I never could figure out how that happened when all we did was run,” she said.

  Sophia nodded. “It made even less sense to me. I knew the Gargoyle was Thorick. In the chaos, he chased the shadow, so it didn’t make sense how Claire and Morgan got hit with anything.”

  Jacelyn nodded. “He hit you with an energy field. He has the power to impress your mind, influence what you think, what you remember. You were just kids. If he’d had more time, he’d have scrambled your brains. Thorick chased him away before he’d finish the job.

  Morgan swallowed again. Memories filtered through her mind, remembering how her blood had boiled. At least, that’s how it had felt. Her head had felt hot, t, he pain stabbing through her. Then, she’d passed out. When she’d woke, she remembered nothing.

  Not her name. Not her friends. Not even her family.

  She gazed at her aunt. “You did the only thing you could do. You saved us all.”

  She saw her aunt swallow, tears slipping down her cheeks unchecked. Relief caused her aunt’s shoulders to drop.

  Claire leaned back and eyed Morgan. She sensed Tara did too. She stared back at her sister. “We’d be dead if she hadn’t convinced him. She saved us—and she paid the highest price of all.”

  Claire sat back down, staring at her aunt. She seemed to digest this. Finally, she glanced at her aunt. “Okay—no matter which way I look at it—he’d have killed us any other way.” She frowned. “How on earth did you convince Morgan’s dad to take that kind of a risk?”

  Jacelyn sneered at that. “That was easy. He always thought she’d be better off with him. I told him your mother made a mistake—that he needed to set it right. If I had told him the truth—he’d have run screaming.”

  Morgan studied Tara and noticed her eyes had softened now.

  Sophia leaned forward, and Morgan shifte
d her gaze toward her. “You’re very brave,” she said. “My mother’s people said as much. I always wondered why.”

  Jacelyn stared at her. A shudder went through her. “Really?”

  Sophia’s smiled at her—a soft, compassionate smile. “They said you gave up everything—sacrificed your life—to save us.”

  Surprise showed on her aunt’s face. “Thank you for that,” she whispered.

  Morgan got up and went to squeeze in next to her aunt. Claire scooted up to her from the other side, and they hugged her as she cried—till there wasn’t a tear left in her.

  “Dante is going to want to kill you when he figures out just how you tricked him,” Tara said.

  Shocked, Morgan lifted her head and looked at her. She sensed her aunt nod.

  “I know,” her aunt muttered. “I’ve been expecting it.”

  Morgan saw Claire touch her aunt’s shoulder. “Well…,” she said. “We’ll just have to stop him,” she said. “Once and for all.”

  Agreeing, Morgan sniffed. He’d stolen her childhood—all their childhoods. And he’d taken her mother’s life—and caused her aunt to dedicate hers to saving theirs. She stared at Tara.

  “It’s time we turned the tables,” she said to Tara. Her voice sounded strange to her ears. “I will see him in hell—before I let him take another thing.”

  Tara nodded. “Good—then so will I.”

  That night, five women made a pact to destroy the enemy who’d hunted their ancestors, their family, and their friends.

  Tonight—the hunter—became the hunted.