"Quite the little spy."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Sebastian shrugged.
"I haven't celebrated my birthday since Claire died. She used to make a big deal out of it and after her death, I just couldn't."
Abby leaned her head on his chest and sighed.
"I'm sorry, Sebastian. Sometimes I wonder why this witch stuff doesn't come with a power to take away grief."
"You have," he told her, seriously. "You've transformed my life, Abby. I should say it more, I know. I can't tell you how much knowing you and loving you has drawn me out of that darkness."
Abby scooted to the edge of the bed and reached over the side, shuffling through her backpack. She returned with a small gift, wrapped in black and silver paper.
"What's this?" He took the package and sniffed it. He shook it and held it to his ear. "Hmm, obviously not a puppy or a meatloaf."
"Or a bottle of tequila," she laughed, remembering a drunken night when they first met. "In my state, I thought booze might be inappropriate."
He chuckled and pulled Abby against him, kissing her for a long time. She pushed her hands into his silky curls and cupped his head in her hands.
"Thank you." His face turned serious. "Before I found you, I was lost."
She understood. Before Sebastian, she too had felt lost.
"You and me both," she told him, kissing his nose. "Now open your present."
He sat up and traced his finger along the edges of the box. He opened it slowly, as if savoring the experience. He took off the paper and looked at the small wooden box. On the cover of the box, a heart with the inscription A + S was burned into the wood. He lifted the lid and Abby watched his face. A wide platinum ring, set with an emerald stone, was nestled in the black velvet.
He touched the ring and smiled.
"Emerald," she told him.
"Claire's birthstone."
"Yes. I figured if we're getting married, you would need a ring too and..."
Before she could finish, he pulled her into a bone-crushing hug.
"I love it, you know that, right?" he told the top of her head.
"It's becoming apparent," she laughed.
He put the ring on.
"Have you seen my ring?" he gushed, in a high feminine voice. He held his hand out, wiggling his fingers.
****
"It scans the documents on its own and then searches for the names Kanti, Dafne, Tobias, Alva or Milda. It also searches for the word curse. It automatically stores all of those documents in this folder here." Victor pointed to the huge touch-screen computer that depicted images of a dozen folders. The label on the folder said "Important."
"Seems simple enough," Julian said, scratching his chin.
Julian, Bridget and Helena had gathered in the room that Julian had coined the vault. It used to contain a series of inventions, many created by Max, that Faustine moved to the dungeon. The vault was near the library, which made for easier investigating. The witches, mostly Victor and Kendra, had installed three state-of-the-art computers. One entire wall was a touch-screen that revealed scanned images of letters, photographs and articles taken from the boxes Abby had brought. They were calling those the Kanti Files. Abby kept the originals, but the witches at Ula and those in Chicago had copies.
Victor and th Chicago witches lived in a high-tech world. All of their projects operated through Internet based programs.
In the corner of the room, Victor had set up an elaborate scanning system.
"Is there magic involved here or just computer wizardry?" Helena asked.
"Both," Victor told them. "The magic is the self-scanning aspect. Watch."
He went to the boxes of documents and set them in a metal bin next to the scanner. He hit the "on" button and the machine whirred to life.
The papers immediately began to levitate, and one by one the scanner lifted its lid, copied the document and then released it. Victor had arranged twenty cardboard boxes on the floor. After the documents were scanned, they floated to a box and settled into the bottom. Black words then appeared on the box, as if drawn by marker. "Trager Disappearances" materialized on one of the boxes. On the second box, the coven's name "Ula" emerged.
"All the documents that show up in the Important file on the computer will also get separated into the Important box."
"I think this will be very helpful, Victor," Bridget said, watching the papers lift and sort themselves. "Thank you."
"We're in this together," he replied. "Kanti's been contacting me for years. I want to know why."
****
Sebastian pulled his scarf up to cover his face as he walked with Elda and Faustine to the second lagoon. The wind lashed, causing the few dead leaves, still clinging to the trees, to swirl through the air around them. He glanced longingly at the mystical gardens that he knew lay further on. He thought of Abby's news from the previous night and smiled, shaking his head in disbelief, still reeling from the idea that he would be a father.
"Have a seat in the chair," Elda told him, squeezing his shoulder for encouragement.
He walked to the wooden chair, that sat on the stone slab, and settled into it. He watched the gently lapping water of the lagoon, but felt nothing. What did he want to happen? He honestly didn't know. The experience in the cavern had floored him. Shock and disbelief still clouded his thoughts when he remembered it. There had not been another moment like it since, and not for lack of trying. In secret, he had tried several times to tap into the power. Despite his attempts, nothing had happened.
Faustine and Elda watched him, their faces expressionless. He knew they didn't want him to feel any pressure to perform the magic again.
He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. He imagined lightning streaking from the sky and rocks exploding on the beach. Nothing. The wind caused the trees to groan. The dune grass blew and rubbed together in a scratchy song. He heard Faustine's heavy breath and Elda's softer and slower. He felt the steady thud of his heart and the perspiration on his hands. His feet itched in his heavy wool socks.
Finally, he opened his eyes and looked at Elda and Faustine.
"I don't feel anything strange. I don't think it's going to happen."
Faustine nodded and Elda gave him a warm, conciliatory smile.
"Sometimes that happens, even out here," Elda offered, wrapping her heavy black shawl tighter around her body.
"Go on back to the castle, dear," Faustine told her, kissing her on the forehead.
Elda smiled and gave Sebastian a pat on the arm before hurrying back to the warmth of the indoors.
"Let's go up the dune," Faustine said, beckoning Sebastian toward the sand dunes rising in the distance.
They plodded along slowly, the sand cumbersome beneath their boots. When they reached the top, Lake Superior stretched out in glorious abandon. The waves rose and crashed, creating a spray of white on the rocks below. The dune edges on the back of the island were windblown and packed hard, not the soft sand of the interior. They dropped with dizzying steepness and then gave way to the craggy rock sheath of the island.
"Mesmerizing, isn't it?" Faustine asked.
"It is," and before the words had left Sebastian's lips, Faustine shoved him from behind.
Sebastian stumbled and sought to turn his body and reach back for Faustine, but he was already catapulting through the air. The wind whipped his face and his eyes bulged as he watched the water rushing to meet him. He closed his eyes and braced for the impact, sure that he would die instantly.
****
Abby left the castle and welcomed the biting February wind. She pulled her cloak tighter, but let the hood rest on her shoulders, savoring the cold on her face. Overheated after sitting in the library, she had told the others that she needed a walk. Sebastian was at the lagoon with Faustine and Elda, and she wanted the opportunity to slip away on her own. She also knew that a dream pricked at the backs of her eyes. Is that what they were? Dreams. The visions she had of Kanti were more
like nightmares, but worse still, she knew them to be memories.
She walked between the bare trees of the cherry orchard and wound her way through the forest until she came to the disintegrating steps that led to the floating garden. Lit with its own enchanted sun, the warmth of the garden startled Abby as she left the frigid hillside and moved into the dome. She sat among the flowers and removed her cloak and her shoes. Then she lay back in the soft-scented grass and allowed the vision to take her.
Kanti held the baby with exhausted arms. Every inch of her body ached. Her womb pulsed painfully as it shrunk within her body. The baby nursed hungrily on her tender, sore breasts. Beneath all the surface pains, beneath the sweat and gore that coated her slick and sticky body, she felt the bone-numbing cold. She shivered and clenched her chattering teeth. Through the single window in the cabin, the snow gusted and swirled. Night would come soon, and the temperature would drop. If she stayed as she was, she would die, and the baby would die. She considered it. She thought of fighting through the blizzard and flinging the baby into the icy waters of Lake Michigan.
As the baby, a girl, drifted into sleep, Kanti shuffled her onto a pile of blankets. She stood and braced both hands against the cabin wall to keep from collapsing as dizziness washed over her. The blood on the blankets had pooled and thickened. With numb fingers, she pulled the most saturated pieces away and threw them into a corner. She took the single wooden chair in the cabin and thumped it against the floor over and over. It took an eternity. She had to stop and rest every other minute, but finally a leg broke away. She took the leg and slowly beat it until it splintered. She piled the pieces of chair beneath the window. Remembering her teachings by Ehtamwa, she lit a fire by grinding one of the wood pillars into a groove in the chair base. It lit quickly, not due to method, but Kanti herself. Ehtamwa sometimes called her the Fire Dancer. It was the first time she had been alone with a fire since the giant had taken her. She remembered that first night, how she longed to speak through the fire to Ehtamwa. More than a year had passed. As she watched the growing flames, she imagined calling him forth. They would come for her. They would take Kanti and the baby home, and welcome her back to the community of her blood. The men of her tribe would hunt for the white man and the giant; they would kill them both.
She didn't seek her people the flames. She stripped out of her soiled underclothes and wrapped the furs back around her body. She settled onto the straw with the baby and watched the billows of smoke sucked through the window. She began to plan her revenge.
Abby stirred in the garden. It took her a moment to readjust to the brilliant colors of the garden after the drab bitterness of Kanti's memory. Abby could not shake the image of the baby. Tiny and dark, she had watched Kanti, her mother, with riveting blue eyes. They were the eyes of the man who'd stolen Kanti, who'd raped her and impregnated her. Abby did not merely see Kanti's memories, she felt the spectrum of her emotions and she shared her thoughts. Kanti hated her child. She hated her innocent baby with an intensity that Abby had never felt for anything in her life. It was such a deep emotion that Abby struggled to reconcile its existence at all. Moreover, she struggled to to understand it in connection to the tiny, beautiful child who looked back at her mother with such adoration.
Abby pressed her hand against her belly. She would not begin to show for months, but her sense of the baby had already changed her. She no longer felt like a single being, but a creator, a mother. Would she feel the same if it were not Sebastian's baby that she carried, but instead the child of a monster?
****
The impact didn't happen. Sebastian opened his eyes and looked around wildly. He stood at the top of the sand dune, solid ground beneath his feet. Faustine watched him curiously.
"What just happened?" Sebastian sputtered, backing away from Faustine. "You pushed me!"
"You thought that I pushed you. It is true that I planted the experience in your mind, yes, but I did not physically push you."
"What the hell is wrong with you? Why?" Sebastian continued to back away from Faustine, feeling an odd mix of shame and relief.
"Because I wanted to see what your mind would do if I got you, Sebastian, out of the way."
"Well, obviously my mind nearly fell to my death."
"No, you slowed and floated back to the cliff. Your body knew how to save you. Your greater mind knew how to save you. There is power in you, Sebastian. It was not a fluke in that cavern. Your ego is in the way."
Sebastian started to argue and then stopped. What good would it do anyway? Arguing with a witch who was hundreds of years old would likely end with him feeling an even bigger fool. He also wanted to know more. Had he really floated back up? Would that have happened if he'd actually fallen?
"Are you sure I wouldn't have just died?"
"Would you like to try a real push and find out?" Faustine asked, arching an eyebrow.
"Is it masochistic if I say yes?"
Faustine released a short bark that Sebastian recognized as laughter.
"I knew you had a sense of humor in there, somewhere."
"I save it for very special occasions," Faustine informed him. "There is no need for a real push. What is real in your mind is real-it is that simple. The task ahead will be to harness that power."
"Like Abby has been doing? A school of sorts?"
Faustine fixed his gaze on the distant horizon. A gathering of greenish looking storm clouds had assembled.
"With all that has happened, we cannot wait, but I must acknowledge that everyone needs a bit of adjustment time. Let's keep this between ourselves and I will form a plan for your training."
Chapter 4
Abby woke in the black room. In her disorientation, she nearly fell from the bed, but caught the side table and steadied herself, breathing heavily and gradually tuning in to the pressure on her bladder. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, the alien landscapes of her dreams melted away and she saw the familiar outline of the bedroom that she shared with Sebastian in their new home. He slept deeply, his chest rising and falling with his breath. She edged along the bed and felt for the wall. The moonless night left their home cast in an inky darkness that unnerved her. She crept into the master bathroom, relieved when she successfully found the toilet.
Somewhere in the house a floorboard groaned. She assumed that her cat Baboon lurked the hallways, but her justification felt dismissive. She listened again. Another creak and this one louder. Baboon seemed hardly capable of such a sound.
She stood and walked to the Zen water fountain that sat atop the bathroom vanity. Closing her eyes, she placed her hand into the trickle of water. The tiny blue light pulsed at the base of her spine. She channeled the energy and directed it through the house. She could not literally see the rooms, but she could sense them and when she entered the nursery, her roaming stopped as if thrust against a brick wall. A big energy occupied the space, and it was not a benevolent spirit merely passing through. The tiny hairs on her arms prickled.
She sat down on the edge of the bathtub, suddenly dizzy, and pressed her hands into her forehead. She could still hear Sebastian's steady breath from their bed, but she wished they were not alone in the house. Well, actually, she felt quite sure they weren't alone, but she wished that Oliver and Lydie still slept nearby.
They had stayed behind at Ula, and Abby remembered the reluctance in Oliver's eyes. She'd almost considered inviting them to visit until the New Year, but knew he would say no. Helena and the other witches had worked hard on Lydie's dream room and the other changes to the castle. They wanted, maybe even needed, Oliver and Lydie to return to the Coven of Ula.
When her breathing slowed and the dizzy spell passed, she stood and walked down the hallway to the nursery. The door stood closed, though she always left it open. She touched the handle and drew her fingers quickly away. The metal was so cold it stung. Overcoming her fear, she pushed the door in. It swung into the empty room on creaking hinges.
She stepped into the room, wigglin
g her toes in the soft blue carpeting. The sheer white curtains trembled softly.
"Just a breeze from the door," she whispered.
As she stepped fully into the room, she felt her breath sucked from her lungs. For an instant, she stared at the ghostly image of a woman clawing to escape some dark, tiny space.
Abby felt a wave of panic as the same heavy darkness closed around her. She fell to her knees and clutched her chest. She felt void of breath, like she was being suffocated.
"Help," she croaked, but barely a whispered emerged from her constricted throat.
Her breath came back in a rush and the room returned to focus.
She gasped and coughed, welcoming the sweet cold air. For a moment, she stayed kneeling on the floor and then carefully climbed to her feet.
"What do you want?" she asked the room.
Silence.
The woman had vanished and with her, the oppressive darkness, and the cold.
Abby plodded downstairs to the sitting room and dug out her cell phone. Victor had given phones to all the witches at Ula. He insisted on handing them out, despite Faustine's declaration that they would get no cell reception at Ula. The phones were untraceable and operated on a network that he and the Chicago witches had created.
She scrolled through her contacts. All the witches were listed, and she paused at Oliver's name, knowing he would likely be awake at two in the morning, but unreachable on the isolated island. She pressed Victor's name.
A self-proclaimed night owl, he answered on the first ring.
"Goddess of the North Woods, why have you called me during your hours of beauty rest?"
Abby laughed and immediately relaxed.
"I just wanted to get your input on Ula and everything we talked about."
"Ha, liar! I didn't mention it, but one of my witchy skills is detecting BS, and you're serving it up right now."
"Victor!"
"Abby, it's true, I heard it in your voice when I picked up the phone, and no way are you roaming around in the middle of the night without a reason better than What did you think of Ula?"
Born of Shadows- Complete Series Page 65