by N. K. Vir
Protect Daisy…
Two words that could mean so many different things; maybe they’d got it wrong. Maybe they had gotten so many things wrong.
You’ve regressed baby witch…
That damn sentence kept replaying itself. His life had been complicated but so much simpler then, so much simpler B.A. (before Adam). He loved everyone, and everyone loved him. Sure his relationship with Wills was still solidly in the ‘friend zone’; but he felt sure he would have eventually jumped and admitted his feeling for her. Tanith was still safely hidden upstate and Lucas wasn’t pacing the house like a caged animal; back then he was little more than an earth witch that ran his parents botanical shop. Back then was only a few weeks ago. He wondered if he would have done anything differently…back then.
He shook his head disengaging the incomplete questions from his mind. Focus was again becoming a problem too much unanswered and unsolved; he needed to concentrate on the one problem they had to solve…saving Tanith. They had a plan; maybe not a great one but it was a course of action and at this point they all needed something to do.
Before any of them could proceed he had to apologize.
He searched the small horizon surrounding the house that he’d come to think of as a home. He had hoped that with his relationship with Wills taking on a different tone that it could be his home with her. It always had been in reality; Marian had seen to that. Long ago she had helped form a bond between three small children that existed still to this day and well past the normal span of friendship. They had grown up together in this house and even built a tiny version of it in the backyard. It was a place they could go when the world of adult’s had become too overwhelming.
That’s when he realized where Daisy was. A silly snicker escaped his lungs. Of course it was the place she would escape to; it was the place they’d all escaped to more than once…the treehouse; also she was the only one who still fit inside the treehouse.
She still fit, that was the first thought that passed through his mind when his head popped through the trap door.
Of course she looked like a slightly overgrown child; but she fit better than he did. Just to be able to sit inside he had to curl up into an uncomfortable ball resting his chin on his knees. This apology had to happen quickly he couldn’t bend into uncomfortable positions as easily as her.
“She let me borrow it because it was giving her nightmares when she awake,” Daisy explained turning the familiar moonstone over in her hands.
It was a stone he had once worn around his own neck until very recently. It was the same stone that had burned Tanith, stopping her from killing Wills. He could easily understand how it had become a nightmare for her. In the hands of Daisy though…
“Is it talking to you?” he asked curious.
Daisy had always had a way with stones. When they were younger he thought that she might be a witch like him. Since she had been adopted her linage was, and still remained a mystery. He had whispered his suspicions to his parents, who in turn secretly had her assessed by a fellow coven member. The conclusion had been that she was too young. When her thirteenth birthday arrived and she still showed no signs of developing a magickal path any debate of her being a witch quickly faded away. By the time she entered high school Daisy was always hovering on the edge of what was considered ‘normal’ as she had drifted heavily into the occult. She began to spend more time loitering around his parents’ shop that they decided it would be better if they hired her. To this day she still had a way of wielding magick without a proper classification in the magickal community. She was one of the rare people in the world who did not seem to fit into any mold.
In recent days Wills had begun to allude to a strange new breed of humans who, before now, where not recognized as being magickally defined. There was a small boy in Danvers whose dreams were said to become reality; while his half-sister possessed the uncanny ability to heal those she touched. A woman hidden in the wilds of Montana was unable to touch another human without seeing deeply into their future. These were just a few of the many cases of unclassified magick that had begun to crop up around the country. Perhaps Daisy was like them.
She squeezed the stone in her right hand, closed her eyes and listened. She listened with more than her ears she was investigating, she was feeling the gentle vibrations translating them into sound and then words only she could hear.
She nodded her hear; her body still listening to the silent hum of the moonstone pressed deeply into her palm. The stone had worked for him one way; as a means of defense, he hoped for her, it would work in a different way.
“It’s singing,” she whispered.
He studied the serene angles and relaxed lines of her face. All of this came so easily for her; it always had. When they were children she would collect rocks, stuffing them into her pockets until they were overflowing with stones of every size, shape and basic composition. They all sang to her and they all sounded different; each stone had its own unique voice, its own unique song.
“I figured as much,” he responded with a faint smile colored in nostalgia. “What’s its song?”
“It’s not from here,” she responded as a tiny frown line of concentration creased her brow. Her magenta-dyed eyebrows lifted as if they suddenly understood a great mystery and was surprised by the outcome. “It’s from the Otherside…The Otherside of this world and it wants to go home. It wants to bring them both home.”
He’d heard enough. The usually smooth skin of her forehead was creased and coated in a thin sheen of seat. “That’s enough,” he whispered gently wrapping his hands around hers.
She gasped; exhaling a sweet scent that was slightly fragrant. It smelled of sweet almonds, vanilla and long meadow grass that had bathed for an eternity in the warmth of the sunshine. He wanted to wrap himself in the warmth of that scent; and he did for just a second. In that second he saw a world beyond imagination, a place where crystal spires touched the blue of the sky and refracted grassy hills below. It was a place of light and beauty that was barely holding back the shadow. There was darkness out there; and it was old, held back by a gossamer veil that had almost outlived its usefulness.
“It’s a key,” Daisy mumbled in wonder.
“Let it go for now,” he calmly instructed. He was amazed when she listened. Her chocolate eyes met his and he silently begged for an apology. He needed to say the words though; he needed her to hear him. “Daisy… I’m…”
“Sorry?” she asked a goofy grin spreading her full mouth. With the cheerful light back in her eyes, melting away the heavy tension which had moments before thickened the air, he couldn’t help but return her smile.
“Just promise to tell Wills I said the actual words,” he said laughing. It was a strange sound; one he had not heard himself make in what seemed like a very long time.
“I will,” she promised grasping his hand. “But Kieran,” she interjected her eyes suddenly turning serious. “Don’t let anything separate you two,” she implored. “Anything,” her dark eyes bore into his trying to impress the importance of that one word.
“Not a chance,” he promised amazed at how easily the words fell out of him.
Of course he’d had doubts. He had inflicted harm upon her; damaged her. Ever since then she’d changed, calling on the comfort and protection of Lucas. He tried to stop the damaging poison of jealousy from seeping into his bloodstream but it was there already pumping through his system. A little over a day ago he would have thought such a feeling was impossible. He had held her in his arms, felt the warmth of her skin beneath his hands he had even uttered the words; but then he’d broken them. In one stroke of rage he’d erased everything. He was supposed to do no harm; she had accused him of that very thing.
A set of cool hands upon his cheeks disrupted his negative though pattern. “She will need you,” a distant angelic voice pleaded. “She always will,” the voice said fading from his ears. “The two of you are a link,” Daisy’s voice said overtaking the distant ech
o. “You are a link that reaches from the ancient past straight through to the now; to the present. And she will need you Kieran Sinclair,” his eyes were sucked back to hers. A thin film covered the dark chocolate irises like an oracle of old speaking past the smoking vapors. “She will need you to pull her out of the darkness.”
With a gasp he pried his hands away from Daisy’s. The sudden disconnected jolt pressed against both of their chests causing them to strain for oxygen. For a moment he feared that his magick had plucked something from the ether and used her as a channel to deliver the message. She stared down at the moonstone in her hand. His eyes followed hers and together they saw the raw stone alight for just a moment before the otherworldly light faded. He hadn’t done this the stone had connected with Daisy and together they had.
“What?” he gasped amazed he found a word to utter.
Her eyes locked on his. “Don’t let her go,” she whispered; her words still laced with fear.
“Never,” he instinctually answered. That would not be a difficult promise to keep.
Chapter Twelve
More Than A Chance Meeting
The sun had faded from the sky leaving a bruise to stretch over the Earth. The color of the sky seemed to mirror the mood as they sat silently; cocooned inside Daisy’s little blue bug, watching the sun set and the moon rise. Even Daisy was quiet; he marked it on his digital calendar to make sure he could remember the time and date and show it off whenever her mouth ran too far away from her. Tanith, barely sitting on the edge of the backseat, was digging her claw-like nails deeper into the leather seats. He was not much better off as he began to question whether or not it had been a good idea to arrive at his first coven meeting in years with a shifter and a human.
The moon was riding high but still a few days off form being full. Years ago the coven had changed their meetings to the weekend before the full moon so that more members would attend. Life had changed a lot since covens would meet at the exact pinnacle of the full moon. Just in case he checked the side mirror, confirming that he hadn’t completely lost touch with the world around him. In this moment he realized he was running on instinct; he hadn’t glanced at a lunar calendar in years. Every being, magick or not, was pulled, pushed and driven by the world. Running on instinct felt strangely good, connecting and grounding him to his ancestors long dead. His vision began to blur; pulling his sight from studying the darkly clad figures that were slowly passing through the large wooden doors of an old stone church. The thick stone walls and pitched roof was replaced in his mind’s eye with long, tall columns of hand-hewn rock that, fashioned in a circle, appeared to hold up the deep black sky.
The stars were stronger, brighter, but even their light appeared dim next to the silvery roundness of the moon. The warmth of an orangey flame flickered and flared as it devoured the wood it had been feed. The hot light threw thick towering shadows against the rough granite columns. Several figures ringed the raging bonfire in the center of the stone circle; their hooded heads bowed, muttering silently, utter words that sounded foreign, an ancient guttural language that only the fire seemed to understand. The fire translated the words into smoke carrying them towards the sky, giving them to the wind, taking them to the ears of the gods.
He could hear them; understand their spell, their prayer. They were calling out to him; they were calling to the Sinclair Witch. A figure rose up from the center of circle dressed in a crimson robe. The features of the face were blurred out, hidden by the dark shadows cast upon them by the dancing flames. The crimson figure raised their hands slowly upwards pushing the rising voices of the coven into the sky. Above the group a cool mist appeared barely visible at first but as the chanting grew louder the mist began to take on not only a color but a shape.
The mist transformed into a funnel. Its wide mouth reached towards the heavens while the narrowed tip pointed down towards the crimson figure. He felt drawn, pulled towards the figure as if his soul, his spirit belong buried deep inside.
They were connected.
They were one.
The figure raised their head and for a moment their eyes locked. He saw a set of earthen green eyes staring back at him; eyes that were the mirror image of his own. Both sets of eyes held the same expression…one of shock and recognition.
A reflection of polished metal caught the light of the moon. He felt the stab as the knife pierced through his chest. He gasped in sync with the witch from the past and together their eyes landed upon their chest. The tip of the blade was not painted in moonlight; it was drenched in a liquid red.
“Kieran!” Daisy hissed loudly. “Did you hear me?”
He shook his head, trying to free his eyes from the cobwebs of the past. “No,” his voice gurgled. He swallowed uncomfortably; pushing past the acid that had risen up in his throat.
The salty tang of metal coated the tip of his tongue. The end of vision collided violently with reality, resulting in a moment of confusion. He could still smell the char of the fire, the damp moss that thrived only on the extreme northern edges of the stone circles. He could even almost feel the soft feel of the dewy grass beneath his feet. His hands instinctually flew to protect his chest, to plug the hole he was sure that had invaded his chest.
“No!” he screamed terrified that he’d reached the end…too soon.
His own coven had turned against him.
His own coven had murdered him.
He felt many hands grasping at him, trying to hold him, trying to persuade him, trying to subdue him. In the end it was a pair of steel grey eyes, filled with warmth, love and life, unaffected by the sickness he had inflicted upon them, that pulled him back; grounding him to reality. It surrounded him; soaking him in the tiny cramped space that the real world existed in.
Daisy sat to his left, the fuzzy steering wheel almost pinning her against the driver seat; both of her hands clutched his, pulling them away from his chest. He couldn’t move and it took him a moment to realize why; Tanith was pinning him to the seat from behind.
“Don’t let the memories haunt you; don’t let them suck you in,” Tanith whispered in his ear.
He slowly pulled his hands out of Daisy’s. They moved carefully; afraid that any sudden movement would bring back the terror and pain he had just experienced. He gently grasped Tanith’s hands grounding his body to this time and place. Her grip was like iron but had the relaxing feel of a security blanket. He clung to her as reality snapped fully back into place.
He was sitting in a tiny car with two of his best friends, at night, waiting for the last of the coven members to arrive; Marek Grey.
His breathing evened out and the rapid race of his heart slowed. When he felt the edge of normalcy return he released his grip on Tanith and she, in turn, slowly slid her arms away from his chest drawing back into the solitary shadows of the backseat.
A silence fell over the three of them again. They had all witnessed his vision in varying degrees and for the moment he chose not to dwell on it. He needed to stay focused and be able to carry through with the task Wills had set for them. He needed to succeed. He did not want to let her down again. He cleared his throat buying himself time to readjust to the present. His vision, a gift from the past, could easily be interpreted as a warning. He had only ever taken one thing away from the dull history classes he had been forced to take in school; history often repeated itself.
The slow dribble of coven members had siphoned off and he feared he had missed the entrance of the man they had all come to see. Kieran adjusted impatiently in his seat and had almost given the order to drive home and abandon the night, retreating home in failure; but a set of quiet headlights pushed his body into an alert position.
Marek Grey had finally arrived.
He slipped through the door, silently like a shadow moving in the corner of your eyes. Watching him was like witnessing grace in motion. He was hypnotic and Kieran felt instantly drawn to him. He had vague, dreamlike memories of the famous Marek Grey; the greatest Earth witch t
hat had ever existed. He reveled in the shock of feeling momentarily star struck. Even back then Marek had been the rock star of the witching world.
“Kieran,” Tanith spoke up intercepting his thought pattern. “He’s just a man. You are the Sinclair Witch,” she reminded him laying a hand on his shoulder. “Second only to-.”
“I know that,” he angrily replied ripping himself away from Tanith’s tight, grounding grip.
“Hold on,” Daisy interjected curtailing an argument before it gained momentum. “You’ve been experiencing more memories?” Daisy questioned from left field.
“Strange-,” Daisy slapped her hand over his mouth abruptly stopping his reply.
“Not you,” she explained. “Her,” she said turning her head to look at Tanith who was suddenly struck silent and sunk into the shadows of the backseat.
His eyes widened in surprise and drew Daisy’s own stunned look back to his. Her eyes locked on to his and they shared a brief moment of telepathic communication.
‘Tanith has no memories’, the voice inside his head spoke as it tried to make sense of what Daisy had said.
‘The stone,’ Daisy replied her whispered voice echoing inside his head. Whether he had imagined her voice or tapped into his magick he could not say but he was leaning heavily towards the later.
Their eyes moved in sync, drawn back to Tanith who was now cowering in the backseat.
“I’ve had a few,” her voice trembled with fear.
He pried Daisy’s hand from his mouth “Memories? What memories Tanith?” He quietly demanded.
Her back pressed deeper into the bench seat that supported her back as she tried to hide in the shadows; in the darkness. “Memories of another place,” she finally admitted.
Together he and Daisy pushed her closer to the darkness. “What other place,” Daisy pressed. When Tanith seemed reluctant to answer Daisy encouraged her. “I’ve seen it, remember?” she quickly added holding up Tanith’s moonstone.
The waxing moon’s full rays grabbed ahold of the raw moonstone igniting the fiery iridescent glow it held captive deep within. “So have I,” he said as the words fell out of his mouth; a rare occurrence for him. “Great crystal and ivory spires shining like a beacon across an emerald Earth.”