I waited patiently for her to continue, knowing that the longer a secret has been kept, the harder it is to speak out loud. She had started talking, so I didn't think she would stop now.
“This sanctuary has been in existence for generations. At one time it was the home of both shifters and witches. Our family lived here for a long time, in peace with the packs. My mother, your grandmother, was a powerful witch and the leader of her coven. Even so, she didn't receive the mark until she was older, after Aimee and I came along. She wasn't born with it like you were.”
She kept her eyes trained on her hands, folded in her lap, as she spoke. I could feel the shame and embarrassment rolling off of her in waves.
“Getting the mark changed her. She'd never been a very affectionate woman, but she grew power hungry. She cared about nothing more than becoming more powerful. In spite of the long-standing rule that outsiders were not allowed in the sanctuary, she began bringing in outsiders in exchange for favors. Outsiders that never should have known about the sanctuary in the first place.”
I glanced at Isaiah, trying to gauge how much of this he might know. He kept his face blank and did not meet my eyes.
“Some of them began to practice black magic while they were here. It disrupted the natural magic of the land. She was so drunk with her own power at that point that nothing we said could dissuade her. Her coven grew tired of it. The ones she brought into the safety of the reserve began killing the shifters and witches to drain their power, and still my mother did nothing to stop it.”
She looked up, meeting my eyes. I could tell she was begging me to understand.
“I left. Aimee got married, which angered your grandmother because her new son-in-law was a wolf shifter, and part of the pack that had been trying to drive her out. When we came for the wedding, my own mother told me that you would grow up to be just like her, because of your mark.”
The tears were falling freely now. She didn't bother to try and hide her distress. Deep hiccuping sobs wracked her small frame. Isaiah left the room briefly and returned with a handful of tissues.
“The coven finally had enough. They moved on, left the sanctuary. But they came back once more. The wolf packs and the witches banded together one last time to overthrow your grandmother. They bound her power and cursed her to remain here for eternity. Out of all the witches, only Aimee was allowed to remain because of her marriage to Rick. The wolves chased out the outsiders who hadn't already left. With your grandmother no longer having any power, or so they thought, they left her spirit to wander the sanctuary.”
“I don't understand, if they bound her power, how did we end up where we are today? That makes no sense.”
“I missed much of the goings on because I wanted no part of it for either of us. I siphoned off all my magic and stored it for safe keeping. I wanted you raised with no magical influence. As you know, Aimee and I were never in agreement about that. I believe she realized that your grandmother's powers had not been bound completely, or that she somehow managed to regain them. That is why she imprisoned her in the temple.”
“You knew all about the magic in the world, and yet when I brought it up you tried convincing me that it wasn't real? You treated me like you thought I was losing my mind! You lied to my face over and over again!”
“Leah, please! I thought I was protecting you!”
“Protecting me? How? I almost died. And do you know, that when she was suffocating me, she told me that if either you or Aimee had trained me as I grew that I would be more powerful than she could ever hope to be and it would have been no contest between us? She said instead she would just drain all my power and use it for herself. Had you given me my birthright, Aimee wouldn't be dead either! Your selfish choices are what may have doomed us all!”
My mother covered her face with her hands and cried. Her shoulders shook with the force of her grief. Isaiah stared at the floor, his discomfort obvious. I watched my mom cry, trying to temper the anger I felt with some sympathy. In my head, I tried to tell myself she had done what she thought was best at the time. Yet, I couldn't help but think that maybe she had just done what was easiest for her.
With a last sniffle, she stood up. Her red-rimmed and puffy eyes bored into mine. “You don't get to judge me, young lady. I'm sorry about what is happening now. I never wanted this. I tried to bind your magic as well, but even as a toddler you were too strong. All I could do was relieve some of it. I-”
“You tried to steal my magic?! Are you kidding me?” Her admission was the final straw. My anger bubbled up and over, out of control. “Get out! Get the hell out of here. I cannot believe you would ever do such a thing! If I fail, it will be entirely your fault!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The door closed on my last words. Isaiah returned to the chair by my bedside. Rubbing my temples, I closed my eyes against the onslaught of pain, fear and frustration. My own mother had doomed me to failure.
“I don't think she did it to hurt you, Leah.” His tone soothed my stress, even if it didn't help the real-life situation any.
“She lied to me my entire life. She continued to deny the existence of any type of magic, even when I showed her what I could do. And when I suggested there might be such a thing as wolf shifters, she acted like I had lost my mind. And she KNEW about them. She just kept pretending. It's one thing to not acknowledge magic when there is no evidence of it. But once we got here, and I actually started asking questions? She still lied to me. That's unforgivable.”
“Give her some time. Now that everything is out in the open, she may be willing to give you more information. Just let her calm down for a while.”
“I cannot believe that evil spirit is my grandmother. She gave birth to my own mother. It's a little embarrassing. What if everybody hates me when they find out?”
“Come on now. Everyone loved Aimee, right?”
“But I doubt anyone knew about the connection.”
“Some of them might. Or at least they did once. You are doing everything you can to stop the evil spirit. Nobody will question your motives. That would just be crazy. She almost killed you for crying out loud!”
“Speaking of that, she also killed Aunt Aimee. She murdered her own daughter. Who does that?”
“We will defeat her. I promise. I'll be by your side every step of the way, and the pack will help in any way they can. Getting rid of her will be best for the sanctuary as a whole, and all of us living here.”
“I appreciate your confidence, because I'm feeling like a failure right now. A total, miserable, failure. I waltzed right in there and almost let her kill me without even thinking about it.”
Isaiah leaned over, bringing his face directly in line with mine. “You are not a failure. You made a mistake, and you're going to learn from it. She gave you some good information we can use against her. She said you are stronger than her. We just need to figure out how to use your power. She tried to kill you because she is afraid of you. We can use that.”
“I need to know her name. The one in the book is not her real name, just the name she was known by. Even my aunt didn't seem to know her given name. I'll ask my mom, but she probably won't remember either.”
“Let me go back to the pack and ask a few of the elders. Maybe they'll know. Someone, somewhere, must know her real name. I'll gather what information I can and be back later tonight. Just don't go anywhere alone, okay? Promise me, please.”
“I won't leave the house, I promise.”
He leaned in and kissed my forehead, barely brushing his lips against my skin. “Stay safe.”
Without another glance at me, he got up and left the room. I heard his voice as he spoke to my mom on the way out, but couldn't understand the words. I didn't hear her response, either, if she made one. The back door clicked shut and silence settled over the house.
The need to get out of bed and keep working on finding a way to destroy the spirit – my own grandmother – washed over me. The need to rest wasn't nearly as imp
ortant as ensuring she never managed to escape her prison. She would destroy me if she got another opportunity, and I couldn't let her get that chance.
A soft knock sounded at the door, followed by my mom poking her head in. “Can I come in?”
“Yes, please.” I swung my legs over the side of the bed once more, determined to get up this time. “I'm sorry, Mom.”
I needed to apologize to her, even though I fully believed that everything I had said was warranted. She deserved a little grace, too. Isaiah made a good point when he'd said that she hadn't done it to hurt me. If there was anything I truly believed in, it was my mother's love for me. She would never purposefully do something to endanger me.
She rushed over to sit in the chair Isaiah had vacated not long ago. “Sit. Wait. Please.” She held her hands out to keep me seated on the edge of the mattress. “I'm sorry. You were right. About all of it. I let my fear guide my choices, and in doing so, made some decisions that were not in your best interest, even if I thought they were at the time.”
My head shook from side to side as she spoke. “Let's just do what we can to fix it, okay? I'm going to need all the help I can get.”
“Well, I don't know how much help I will be since I no longer have my magic. But I'll do what I can. Perhaps you can try a locator spell to find the missing pages? The ones that have the spell you need?”
“Why didn't I think of that? There were a couple written in the books that I read. I just glanced over them and never even gave them a second thought.” I smacked my forehead with the palm of my hand in frustration, wincing at the stabbing pain that shot through my head in response. “Now, if I can only remember what book they were in...”
My mom grabbed my arm as I stood up, swaying a little with the dizziness. “Let me help you. Is it one of the books that is down here or do we need to go to the attic? I may not have any magic, but I do have a brain and I can make use of it.”
“Maybe that brown one on the dresser? The thicker one, not the skinny one.”
She handed me the book I had indicated, watching without speaking as I skimmed the pages. Unfortunately, my first guess had not been a good one, and the book didn't contain the locator spell I was looking for. My mom brought the entire stack to me and I flipped through each of them, page by page, finding nothing.
“I guess I was wrong. We'll need to go up to the attic.”
“Let me go, I can bring down whichever ones you need.”
I stood up, taking it slow to avoid any complications. “It will be easier if I go. I can recognize which books I have already looked through. It would be useless for you to just keep carrying books down that we may not need.”
She slipped her arm through mine to help steady me. “Let's go, then. I'll help you navigate.”
I winced at the pressure on my bitten arm, drawing her attention. She stopped, fixing me with her “mom” look.
“What is wrong with your arm?”
I gave her the abbreviated version of my encounter with the wolf. She shook her head, seemingly mystified.
“I can't believe one of them would attack you. In all the years our family has been here, there has never been an incident of one of us being attacked. Except your grandmother, of course, but that was warranted.”
“I don't know that it was a shifter. It could have been a regular, wild animal. I tried to communicate with it but I couldn't get through.”
“I wonder if she possessed it. Maybe she wanted to be sure you had no other options but to enter the temple where she could get her hands on you? And do you need me to take a look at it?”
That thought of possession had crossed my mind too, and I told her so. “I'm not going to worry about it anymore for now. The bleeding has stopped and we have bigger fish to fry. The bite wasn't as serious as I first thought. It should heal pretty easily.”
“Okay then. Let's get looking for that book.”
She moved to my other side and took my “good” arm. Together, we walked down the hall and made our way up the stairs. I had to take a breather before tackling the final staircase to the attic. Having the life almost sucked out of you really did a number on your body. By the time we got up to the attic, I had to sit down on the floor.
“We'll just go through them all up here and only bring the one we need back downstairs. That should give me enough time to get my breath back and hopefully you won't have to carry me back to bed!”
My mom chuckled, a sound I hadn't heard enough of lately. I looked up at her, pondering what she had been through. Not just these last few days, with the loss of her sister, but the majority of her life. Her childhood couldn't have been easy with a power hungry witch as her mother. Even after she escaped that situation, she ended up as a single mom, raising a baby witch who she never wanted to have any magic in the first place.
Her mother was bound and banished. Her brother-in-law disappeared without a trace. Then her sister was murdered by her own mother, who also tried to kill her daughter. I couldn't really blame her for not wanting much of anything to do with the magical community as a whole. I might have tried to get away from it too, had I been through all the things she had.
“Well, can you give us a little more light please?” She shrugged her shoulders at my incredulous look. “At this point we need to use all the help we have available to us, and in order to read books we need to be able to see.”
I spoke the single word, calling my own personal light bulb into existence with a grin. The thrill of doing any magic at all still felt very new to me, and I planned to enjoy it while it lasted.
“Did you know you can make it bigger, as well as brighter?”
My mom gave me instructions, teaching me how to adjust for the size and brightness I desired from the orb. For someone who hadn't used magic in a very long time, she still seemed to be familiar with it.
Of course, the spell we searched for ended up being in the second to last book in the pile, costing us a couple hours of time. We took it back downstairs, along with a few others my mom asked to bring, thinking we might be able to find something useful in them as well. We settled at the dining room table so I could read and practice while she made us something to eat.
“Food will help you get your strength back quicker. Your body needs fuel to recover. As you do more magic and begin working on bigger spells, you will find that your appetite increases exponentially. The more magic you do, the hungrier you will wind up being.”
“Great. Just what I need.”
My complaint was interrupted by a loud clap of thunder from the sky outside. Both of us jumped at the sound, which was strong enough to rattle the dishes in the cupboards. It sounded like it came from directly above the house. Peering out the window, I saw the little pair of chipmunks cowering on the window sill.
“Aw, the poor things. I'm going to let them in.”
“What? They're wild animals, you can't just let them in the house! They'll poop everywhere and chew up the furniture!”
Ignoring her, I popped the back door open. “Come on in, you guys. Do you wanna come inside? It's a little scary out there, huh?”
They stared at me for a split second before taking me up on my offer and skittering between my legs into the dining room. My mom eyed them warily, but didn't make any more protests. Rummaging in the pantry, I grabbed a box of crackers.
“Are you hungry? Do you want a cracker?”
The two of them bounded up the dining room chair and onto the table, chittering loudly in response. Curious if they would come closer, I held the cracker out in my hand, instead of putting it on the table for them to retrieve for themselves. After a very brief glance at each other, one of them crept forward, delicately taking the cracker from my outstretched fingers. He, or she, took it back to the other and then returned for a second one for itself.
My mom set a small bowl on the table. “Water. Crackers will make them thirsty.”
A grin was my only response. She loved animals of all kinds just as much as I did. A s
andwich and bowl of soup followed the bowl of water to the table.
“Eat, so we can do the spell.”
I inhaled my lunch, eager to find out where the journal pages were hidden. Without them, there was no hope of reversing the curse on the wolf pack. Or making any other progress, really. My mom ran me through the process of performing the incantation and gave me some pointers.
I read through the words one last time and spoke them out loud. Nothing. All I could see in response to my request for information was inky blackness. Looking at my mom out of the corner of my eye, I tried a second time. Still nothing.
“There is something powerful blocking the spell. We may need to...”
Before we could say anything more, another clap of thunder exploded from overhead, and the lights went out. The chipmunks raced out of the room and disappeared. Hopefully, they didn't chew up the furniture like Mom had worried about.
“Damn it. The storm must have knocked out the power.”
“Uh, Mom? Something tells me it wasn't the storm.” Inky black vapor had begun creeping over the windows, looking for a way in. “I thought Aunt Aimee warded the house to keep the bad juju out?”
My mom jumped to her feet. “She probably did. The problem is that once she died, many of her spells began to lose their potency. The safety spells have slowly crumbled without her magic to shore them up. I didn't even think about that. We'll have to take care of it, but first we need to drive this stuff away.”
An evil cackle filled the air. It brought me back to the moment in the temple when the spirit had begun to wrap her hex around me. I panicked. My mom, on the other hand, looked at me calmly. “You can take care of this. Follow my directions exactly.”
Crescent Marked: StarHaven Sanctuary Book One Page 12