A figure stepped in front of him as he wove through the trees back toward the Sky Mothers. He stopped and squinted, trying to make them out.
"Julian?" he asked hesitantly. The person was too large to be Abby.
Binda moved from the shadows into the light. Her face looked pinched and angry.
"How did you get out?" she hissed.
Sebastian didn't respond, but turned and ran. He barely took three steps and his legs froze. He pitched forward and landed hard on his hands. In an instant, he lost feeling in his hands and arms and then his whole body grew numb. His head flopped onto the forest floor.
Binda rolled him easily onto his back.
He tried to yell, but his lips and tongue no longer worked. Only his eyes functioned, darting wildly around, with no hope in sight.
He watched her, terrified. Could Binda return him to the Forest of Purgatory?
****
Faustine paused at the warped tree that revealed the symbol of the fate triad. It looked different. The symbol had faded, sap filling the crevice and hardening into an amber sheath. Stranger still, tiny green buds stood along the branches of the withered tree. Faustine had never seen a bud on the tree. The forest beyond the tree had also changed. The ferns looked less vibrant, less unnatural, as if the magic that had seeped into them had disappeared.
As he approached the red willow, he paused again, watching and waiting. The willow's scarlet branches had lost some of their color. Many of them had fallen to the earth and sat in heaps rotting on the forest floor. Had the Lourdes somehow abandoned her lair? He walked closer, reaching into his cloak for the powder that Julian had given him. He did not expect to find a Vepar awaiting him, but wanted to be ready. He also did not expect to find the Lourdes. He could not sense her at all.
He stopped on the mushy red earth that surrounded the willow. At the hole that descended into her lair, a powerful aroma of death hit him full in the face. He immediately pressed a hand over his mouth and nose, his eyes watering. Had she left some animal, or worse, a human in her lair to decay?
He walked down the roots slowly, pressing his hands into the dirt walls, and training his ears for any sound. Silence greeted him.
The Lourdes lay slumped over her table. Her face was turned away from him, but he could see and hear the flies buzzing over her rotting body. The Lourdes was dead.
****
Binda did not carry him, but levitated his useless body and pushed him ahead of her. They did not return to the Sky Mothers. Instead, she turned away from the ocean and walked him deeper into the woods. After a half hour, they came to a small dark cottage. She opened the door and drifted him inside.
He had control of only his eyes and he took in every detail. The low plank ceiling stood only a few feet above Binda's head. In the corner, a bed piled with quilts abutted the wall beneath a dark window. Maps and papers cluttered a long wooden drafting table. A single well-worn chair sat next to a wood burning stove.
Binda directed him to the bed, she pulled back the blankets and rested his body on the mattress. It felt lumpy and old, but better than the vertigo he'd felt while floating.
She pulled the blankets back over him, despite the heat, and he couldn't help feeling he was being tucked in by an insane grandmother. He would have laughed if he had any control of his vocal chords.
"You'll be safe here until the amulet has been taken into the dream wood. Then I will set you free. Of course, you won't remember any of this, but that is for the best."
He wanted to ask why. A thousand questions rose to his frozen lips and were left unspoken. In the world of witches, questions did not have to be asked to be heard, and he knew that Binda heard, if not sensed, all that he wanted to know.
She poured a glass of water from the sink and sat heavily in the single chair. She looked ancient. The tough, solid witch he'd met when he first arrived at the Sky Mothers was replaced by a paper cutout of her former self-flimsy and empty. As she sipped her water, she watched him.
"Burning questions, you have, Sebastian. Not knowing is the worst thing of all. Once upon a time, I thought death was worse because then you must accept that someone is gone. Someone that occupied a whole portion of your life will never fill that space again. And they're irreplaceable. That's what no one tells you. People move through life with many partners. They marry and divorce, they change friends and roommates. But when you are truly connected to another, their loss destroys you. Even if you physically survive, the whole of you has been portioned off, cut away. Now you are a half-life. But not knowing is even worse than that. You limp around, obsessed. You are less than a half-life because the part of you that remains is haunted by not knowing, waiting, hoping and dreading."
Sebastian listened closely. Binda intended to wipe his memory and having had firsthand experience, he had no doubt that she could do it. How could he make himself remember? At some point, the magic that paralyzed him would wear off. Could he fight her? Somehow slip past her?
"When Meghan disappeared into the dream wood, it was like any other day. It rained that morning. The humid rain of summer, of the monsoon season. We ate papaya and oysters for breakfast. Meghan, troubled by guilt, had created a book of poetry for Clyde. She looked forward to giving him the gift and I looked forward to the smile she would wear when she returned from visiting him."
Binda stood and refilled her glass.
"I'm sure you're parched," she told Sebastian, moving to his bedside and tilting the water to his lips.
He could not drink, but the cool liquid slipped down his throat and took the gritty, dusty feeling with it.
She returned to her chair.
"I waited until hours after sunset and then I walked to the bridge. I called out her name. I believed she had merely stayed on with him for comfort. Her choice to confine him to the dream wood had been a hard one, but in his best interest, of course. Clyde was willful, deceptive. She didn't see it, dared not recognize him fully, but I did. He was only seventeen then, but already he'd wreaked havoc on their world. He murdered her other son, his own brother. A vicious act born of jealousy and hatred. I saw it the moment I met him, I felt it in his fingertips, the blood he'd shed. His brother was not the only life he'd taken, but beautiful Meghan in all her purity and kindness could not see the monster that she so desperately protected. I went home that night and slept soundly in our bed by the sea. I woke with the dawn, prepared a mango and some tea and returned to the bridge. We would greet the morning together, but she did not come. I stayed that day and into the night. I climbed a tree and sought the stars for guidance, but they held no great vision for me. It was on the second morning that the ball of dread formed in my belly. It lives there to this day like I swallowed a stone and it has grown and warped and filled me in the worst possible way."
Sebastian's right ear itched. He wanted to reach his hand to scratch it, but of course, his arm did not move. His fingers, however, did. A tiny movement, barely perceptible, but he knew. The magic had begun to wear off.
"She never came out of the dream wood," Binda continued, and her eyes had the glassy look of having left the present for another time, a sadder time.
Sebastian wiggled his toes. After another moment, he lifted his tongue within his mouth and fought the urge to lick his dry lips.
"You can't imagine the questions. They begin as logical things and turn sinister. She had an accident, she needed time to strengthen the magic, Clyde needed her help. Later, I believed he'd killed her, and after that, I feared she'd taken him and fled to another place altogether. Perhaps she no longer wanted to be a part of the Sky Mothers. What had been our dream had possibly been mine alone. Those are the worst types of realizations, that this beautiful, magnificent world you've constructed is built on a foundation of mistruths. Meghan needed me when she arrived with Clyde. She was alone in the world, on the run. Perhaps she never loved me at all, only clung to me in order to escape the witches who hunted her child."
Binda shifted and Sebastian stilled, n
ot wanting to alert her that he had begun to regain control of his body.
Chapter 15
Faustine walked through the burrow slowly. He allowed his mind to seek the book without looking too closely. A trunk in the corner of the room drew his attention. The trunk was open and the book lay on top as if she had left it there intentionally. The trunk contained other items, a jumble of letters wrapped in twine, a journal, more ancient looking books, some of them green with a layer of mold. Hunched down, he started to sift through the contents when he heard the snapping of a branch overhead. He stuffed the book, letters, and journal beneath his cloak and pressed back against the wall. In the part of the woods where the Lourdes lived, animals did not wander. They had learned decades ago to stay away from the dark witch who lived in the ground.
The crunching grew louder and closer. Faustine opened his mind, but only a blurry shadow arrived. He could get no real sense of the person above him. A hiker perhaps.
Faustine pressed farther into the dirt alcove until he had no space left. He whispered an incantation of invisibility and focused his energy on blending into his surroundings. He took the book and letters from within his shirt and turned to the wall behind him. He stared hard at the wall and without crumbling, the dirt shifted. He reached for Elda in his mind and the moment he connected to her, he sent a vision of shoving the papers into the opening. He felt her questioning thoughts trying to stay with him, but he immediately cut her off. He would need all his energy to conceal himself from the presence approaching. He moved to the other side of the space, distancing himself from the trunk and again focusing on invisibility.
Heavy footfalls pounded on the roots that descended into the cavern.
****
Kit moved toward the little cottage, pausing to peer into one of the windows. Abby surveyed the yard beyond the cottage noticing that it did not feel abandoned.
Kit made a little choking sound and quickly stepped away from the window. Abby knew from her expression that she'd seen something disturbing.
"What? Is there someone in there?"
Kit put a hand on her forearm to stop her going forward.
"I need a minute to think, okay?"
She started to pull away, but Kit gripped her harder and Abby knew she would have to call on her element to break Kit's hold.
"Tell me," Abby snapped, her voice rising.
"Shhh..." Kit whispered, holding her other hand over Abby's mouth. "Binda is in the cabin and so is...Sebastian."
Abby felt her heart lurch in her chest. It was enough to break Kit's grip. She ran toward the window, but a wall of fire blazed before her and she nearly collided with it. She stopped just in time and recoiled from the heat. She spun around.
"What do you think you're doing?" she spat.
Kit strode to her and held up a hand.
"Abby, please, just listen to me. Something is not right and Binda is edgy, we don't want to spook her."
"She has Sebastian in there! And you're worried about spooking her."
"Please," Kit pleaded. "She must have a reason. If we panic, we're lost."
"There are two of us," Abby insisted. "Start a fire or I'll make a rainstorm and we'll flush her out."
"You want to make a rainstorm in the cabin? Because I sure as hell don't intend to light it on fire."
Abby started to speak and then something hard hit her from behind and she sprawled on the ground.
"What the?" Kit spun around. "Hannah!"
"I heard you arguing. She wants to light someone on fire in the cabin," Hannah muttered, stepping out of the trees.
Abby tried to stand up, but Hannah waved a hand at her.
"No," she barked. "You stay on the ground."
"Hannah, you don't understand," Kit started, but it was too late. The forest, previously filled with sunlight, turned black as pitch.
Abby could see nothing. She crawled on hands and knees in the direction she believed the cabin to be. The wind started to pick up. The trees began to thrash and wail. Leaves and twigs pummeled Abby's back and stuck in her hair. Binda knew she'd been discovered.
****
The moment Sebastian heard the voice, he knew his chance to escape had come.
"No," the word, yelled, drifted through the open window and Binda sprang to her feet. She began to whisper in a language he did not recognize and as she raised her arms the world beyond the cabin went dark.
Sebastian could see Binda in the dim light of the wood burning stove and he knew that her focus had shifted. The howling of the wind shielded the sound of the window as he thrust it up. He dove out and landed hard on his right side. The bright day had been transformed into a screeching wail of wind and trees and darkness. He crouched and ran for the denser forest, knowing that Binda could release the storm at any moment and he needed to hide.
His foot struck something hard and someone yelped beneath him.
"Abby?" he exclaimed, dropping to his knees.
She sat up and though he couldn't see her, he felt her wrap her arms around his waist.
"Yes, yes, it's me. You made it out. I was so worried, Sebastian."
"Shhh..." he grasped her head and kissed her on the mouth. Putting his lips close to her ear, he whispered, "We need to get into the woods."
Holding hands, they stood and hurried for the forest, hoping that they moved away from the cabin rather than toward it. Sebastian knew that Abby could have illuminated their path, but the light would have also given away their location.
A sudden shriek from the cabin told Sebastian that Binda had realized he escaped.
****
"Did you have any sense of who it was?" Elda asked Faustine that evening at Ula.
They had both arrived home several hours before and Faustine filled Elda in on the discovery of the Lourdes's body as well as the stranger who nearly met him in the lair.
"It had to have been a Vepar," Faustine said, hoisting the trunk onto the desk and opening it carefully. "I couldn't get a sense of him though. He stopped when he heard a screech from the woods and I knew the sound, a skin-walker."
"You don't think the skin-walker was after him? Maybe he was trying to hide?"
"No, I felt a blast of frustration, almost like he was pissed at the skin-walker for making the sound."
"Well, thank the Goddess you're okay. When you sent me that vision, I was on the airplane. I was practically walking up the walls by the time we landed."
"I'm sorry about that. I should have sent another to let you know I was safe. It took all of my focus to stay invisible when I left the lair with this." He tapped the trunk.
Elda leaned forward and peered at the book. She touched it gingerly, concerned about damaging the ancient pages.
"Was she murdered?"
"She was in the later stages of decomposition," Faustine told her, grimacing at the memory. "But sitting at her table. It did not appear that any sort of struggle occurred."
"A natural death, then?"
"I doubt it," Faustine admitted. "The timing feels too convenient with all that has occurred. But maybe not a violent death, just an intentional one."
"She was never easy to deceive."
"No, but the last time I visited her, she spoke of a desire for death. Perhaps she simply allowed it."
****
After several minutes of hiking blindly through the woods, Abby and Sebastian left the darkness that Binda had created and returned to the light.
Abby stopped and hugged him, burying her face in his chest.
"I was terrified when you didn't come back out of the dream wood. I thought..." she stopped and sagged against him. As the relief settled in, the tension of the previous days began to disappear, and with it came a heaviness. She wanted to lie down and sleep for days.
He held her close and breathed into the top of her head.
"I would never have abandoned you, Abby. Even when I knew I was trapped, I also knew that I would get out, somehow I would get out."
"How did you escape?
What happened?"
"Wait." He held a finger to her lips and she heard it too. A vehicle coming down the road toward the Sky Mothers' Coven.
"Is it Binda?" he asked her.
"It's Oliver and Helena, I know it," she cheered
They ran through the woods, breaking onto the dirt road just as Oliver came around the corner. Sebastian flung himself in front of the Rover, waving his arms and yelling "stop."
Oliver slammed on the brakes and he and Helena jumped out.
"You're free!" Helena beamed, running to Sebastian and hugging him.
"What's happened?" Oliver asked, recognizing the panic in both Abby and Sebastian's faces.
"Best if we talk and drive," Sebastian said, glancing into the woods behind him. "The other way, though. We'd better not go back to the Sky Mother's just yet."
As they drove, Sebastian told them about his experience in the Forest of Purgatory.
****
Fuming, Julian stood in the wind tunnel at the Sky Mothers. When he had returned to Australia, Abby and the others had been at the airport to meet him. They told him all that had transpired with the Forest of Purgatory, Meghan, and Binda. Now he fought to control the magic that longed to explode from his flailing hands. How could Binda have betrayed them all? How dare Matilda defend her now?
"It is unacceptable," he spat, for the third or fourth time. "I'm of a mind to leave this instant, take the amulet and my witches back to Ula and write off the Sky Mothers completely."
"Julian, please," Matilda pleaded. "You cannot possibly understand how angry I am with Binda. All of us are angry, and you are right to have your misgivings, however-"
"Misgivings?" Julian roared. "Your elder witch has been lying since the moment we arrived. She had vital information that she intentionally withheld. She kidnapped Sebastian! And all of that after the disgrace you call Hannah lured Sebastian into the woods and conspired to send him into a dangerous, possibly deadly world of magic where other hybrids had vanished before."
Born of Shadows- Complete Series Page 101