But that's all our plans ever amounted to––dreams.
It was time for some hard reality.
I gave Merry a stiff nod as I slid the ring from my finger. “Yes, I'm sure.” I felt the cool band drop into the palm of my hand.
“Goodbye Shane,” I whispered, touching the ring to my lips.
I released my grasp and let the ring roll from my fingertips into the open hole. It landed with the softest of sounds, but it seemed like the whole world should have heard it.
I kicked at the loose dirt around the edge of the plot with the toe of my sandal, covering the golden band with damp earth. When it was done, I took a deep breath and held it while my sisters edged in closer, waiting for my tears to start up again. But I had cried too many tears over the last few months, and I wasn’t sure I would ever cry again.
“What stage is this?” Eve asked, checking her phone for the time.
“Let's see...” Ruth Anne lifted a hand and began counting. “There's denial...”
“Check,” Eve said.
“Anger.”
“Double check!”
“Bargaining? Mags, did you bargain at all?”
I ignored them both, my eyes never leaving the burial plot. In truth, I had been bargaining every day, begging whatever powers were in charge for one last time together. I'd be nicer. I'd keep my cool. I'd work on my jealousy. Anything, to have Shane back.
“If she's done bargaining,” Ruth Anne continued, her tone as clinical as a doctor’s checking off a list of symptoms. “There's depression, and finally acceptance.”
“She's been depressed the whole time,” Eve announced. “I sure hope this is the acceptance stage. She's become a drag.”
“We need to support Maggie,” Merry said, her voice both kind and firm. “Grieving is a process, Evie. Despite what Ruth Anne would tell you, it's not done in five easy steps.”
Eve blew her bangs out of her eyes. “Yeah, I know. I watch daytime TV. But how much time? It’s been a full season, which is how long it takes on a show.”
“This isn't TV. It can take months, maybe years.” Merry swallowed, looking at me with pity. “But Maggie's strong. She'll get through this. Faster than most, I think.”
I wasn't so sure about that, but I nodded to comfort her. As always, she worried over me at the cost of her own health. It was one of the reasons I wanted to move on, and burying the ring was the first step. “Let's finish this,” I said. “I'm ready to go home.”
“Home?” Merry asked, a note of hope in her voice. I'd been staying with her and Ruth Anne. I hadn’t been ready to face Jillian and Dora back at Harvest Home yet.
“Sister House,” I corrected.
“Gotcha,” Merry said, with false cheer.
We crouched down and each placed a handful of soft dirt on the plot, smoothing it out and patting it into place. Merry planted a grayish-white flower beside it. Once done, she lifted her hands, closed her eyes, and released a silent blessing into the wind. Then, she plucked a petal and handed it to me. “Chew.”
“What's the flower?” I asked, taking it.
“Asphodel. It's to honor the dead. It links your life and his, forever.”
I put the flower in my mouth, chewed and swallowed, hoping she was right. Even if Shane died, I couldn't bear to think that the cord between us had been permanently severed. There were other planes of existence and I hoped to meet him again. The burial was an external proclamation that I had moved on, but inside, I still wasn't ready to let him go.
“Are we done here?” Ruth Anne asked, shaking the dirt from her hands. “There's a game on.”
“In case you’ve forgotten, this is Dark Root. We can't get games,” Eve reminded her. “Or reality shows,” she added wistfully.
Ruth Anne scraped her muddy fingers through her short brown hair. “Who said anything about Dark Root? I'm going to Linsburg. There’s a new sports bar called Wings and Wenches.”
“That's sexist,” Eve said.
“Didn't you used to work at Hooters?” Ruth Anne teased, pulling a crumpled flyer from her back pocket. “Heck, I guess it’s called Wings and Wrenches. Nascar theme. Too bad.” She frowned and put the flyer away.
“We're not done until we're home,” Merry interrupted. “Can you two show some respect? We're at a funeral.”
Ruth Anne scratched her head. “It's a funeral for a ring. I think that falls lower on the totem pole than a funeral for a dead pet frog.”
“God, Ruth Anne, let it go,” Eve said. “I was five and it was raining. It’s not like you couldn't have waited until the sun came out.”
“In Dark Root?”
Merry took a long, patient breath. “This ceremony today is symbolic.”
“And to give some closure,” Eve agreed. “For all of us.”
A shadow crossed Ruth Anne’s face. “We all miss Shane. I’m just trying to lighten the mood.” She gazed upwards, stuffing her hands into her pockets. “But I’m running out of things to talk about, since we can’t discuss the weather, romance, or the ‘C’ word anymore.”
“Ruth Anne!” Merry fixed her blue eyes on her older sister. “Act like a lady.”
“Why? Ladies have no fun.” She chuckled. “I meant curse.”
Everyone's eyes fell on me.
We hadn't talked of “the curse” since Montana's birth. I delivered him and he was beautiful and perfect and that was all that mattered. I stopped viewing the globes then, too.
In truth, I didn't know if I was still cursed. I'd been sick, tired, feverish, and hysterical, but that could be because I'd given birth and lost Shane. In Dark Root, one witch's curse was another's postpartum depression. I was fighting it, the best I could.
“So you think you've still got the hex, Maggie?” Ruth Anne asked again.
I shrugged and collected my tote bag. Merry's car was parked on the side of the road and we began the hike back. “I'd prefer we talk about the weather,” I said over my shoulder.
“Really?” Ruth Anne asked, jogging to catch up.
“Yes. I never said we couldn't talk about the weather.”
“No, but Merry did.”
“I'm a big girl, Merry. You don't need to protect me. I'm pushing thirty now.”
“I know. I just wanted everyone to be sensitive to your needs for a while,” Merry said, joining us. She squeezed my shoulder. “You sure you're okay, Maggie? It's okay if you're not okay.”
“I'm fine.” I lowered my head and lengthened my stride.
“You should burn something,” Eve said. “Whenever I end a relationship, I usually burn something big. Did Shane own a TV?”
“She didn't end a relationship,” Merry corrected. “Shane...”
She couldn't get the word out.
None of them could. They'd been tiptoeing around “the word” for weeks.
But I could say it.
“Died. Shane died. And I don't think burning something will help in this situation. Besides, most of his things have already been burned.” I grimaced, remembering the fire that scorched Dip Stix shortly before he disappeared. A fire of mysterious origins.
“But he was with another woman at the time,” Eve continued.
“Now Evie, we don't know why Shane was with Irene,” Merry argued. “Just because they were together doesn't mean anything happened.”
“They were married,” Eve protested. “And he never told Maggie about it. She should be angry!”
We reached the car and I stopped, my hand gripping the door handle. “I'm not angry. I'm just... lost.”
We stood around Merry’s sedan, no one moving to enter. I knew they were trying to help, but the only help for me was time.
“I'll be fine,” I added for their benefit. “Really.”
“So,” Ruth Anne said, after an appropriate pause. “If the weather's not off limits anymore, I have a question: Who's glad it stopped raining?” She raised a dirty hand and grinned.
Merry and Eve both tentatively put up their hands as well, smiles crac
king their faces. I tilted my head, a smile tugging at the edge of my lips.
I raised my hand, too. Halfway.
“Not a moment too soon, either,” Ruth Anne continued, scraping rocks into a puddle with her boot. “I drew up blueprints to make an ark and was about to collect the passengers. Unfortunately, we don't have two of everything. Just one missing cat, a teething infant, four sad women and an annoying religious guy.”
I laughed out loud. The annoying guy was my baby's father, Michael. And he would literally be the last man I’d want to spend forty days and forty nights on a boat with.
“Seriously,” Ruth Anne continued, opening the passenger door. “I've never seen so much rain. Wettest spring in Dark Root's history. What was that about?”
“Coincidence.” I crawled into the back seat beside Eve. Two baby socks and a rattle blocked my way and I scraped them into my bag. “You all assume it was me causing it. We live in a rain forest, for Jupiter's sake.”
“All's I'm saying is, the rain began the day you had Monty, and then stopped two days ago when you announced you were burying the ring. According to Miss Sasha, there are no coincidences, right?”
I leaned over the front seat, pushing my head between Ruth Anne and Merry. “First of all, don't call my son Monty. It makes him sound like a game show host. His name is Montana. And second of all––”
“Secondly,” Ruth Anne corrected.
“Second of all,” I repeated. “Since when did you listen to Mother?”
“Hell, I'll quote anyone who'll validate an argument. I once wrote an entire research paper based on something Captain Kirk said.”
“The cereal man?”
“That's Captain Crunch. Hey, why don't we ever buy that? I'll put it on the list.”
“I didn't start the rain and I didn't stop it,” I said before Ruth Anne could launch into a dissertation on Crunch Berries or Star Trek. “The rain just happened.”
“I hope you're right,” Ruth Anne said. “Because we can't have the weather being controlled by a wilder. I'll be damned if I'm going to wear a parka all summer.”
“Noted. I'll take that into consideration the next time you try to freeze us out of the house with the air conditioning.”
“One time! And I wasn't trying to freeze you out. I was testing to see if ghosts materialize more often when it's cold.”
“And please stop invoking spirits, Ruth Anne. You're going to summon something you can't get rid of.”
“You're lecturing me on spirit summoning?” Ruth Anne spun back towards me, knocking her glasses into her headrest.
“I got an idea,” Merry interjected, swerving to the right to avoid a deep chasm of water covering most of the road. “Let's all eat dinner together tonight. We'll keep it light and festive. Celebrate the summer and new beginnings.” She looked to Ruth Anne. “If our darling sister can keep her wing-eating to a minimum, that is.”
“There's always room for more.” Ruth Anne patted her belly.
Merry looked dreamily up into a sky as blue as her own eyes. “I'm just ready for us to return to normal. The nice weather is a good sign.”
“There's no normal in Dark Root,” Eve said. “There's creepy, spooky, and bizarro. Normal split the moment our grandmother built her house in this town.”
I silently acknowledged Eve's observance as I rolled down the window. I breathed in the clean air. The scent of damp leaves, wet earth, and pine needles overcame me.
Goodbye, I thought, waving the tips of my fingers as we left the forest. I knew I wasn't just leaving Shane's ring behind, I was leaving a part of myself there, too.
“We need a new normal,” I said decisively. “We need to make some changes or we'll all end up in the looney bin.”
The others gave me quizzical looks but didn't speak as Merry turned onto the road that led to Sister House.
TWO
Son of a Preacher Man
WE PULLED INTO the expansive property of Sister House, the rambling Victorian home built by my grandmother Juliana Benbridge over a century ago. The bucketing rains had ripped pools as large as dragon's feet across the yard, and Merry had to park carefully to avoid pits. The trees surrounding the yard seemed to wave a greeting as their limbs bobbed in the summer breeze, but otherwise all was still and quiet at the estate, and Michael's white van was nowhere to be seen.
I jumped from the car and whipped out my phone as I bounded up the porch steps. Where the hell was he? I dialed Michael's number, even as I opened the front door, shouting his name.
“Michael!” There was no answer in the house or on his cell.
After several hysterical redials and a scouring of the house, he finally picked up.
“I'm pulling in now, Mags,” Michael said. Sure enough, his van rumbled into the yard a moment later. I raced straight to the driver's window.
“You weren't supposed to take Montana out of this house!”
Michael stepped out of the van and nudged his chin towards the bag still slung over my arm. “I had to. You took all the supplies.”
“Didn't you check the pantry?”
“Of course I checked the pantry,” he answered, moving to the passenger side. “And the cupboards, and the bathroom, and even the old nursery.”
I bristled at the last word. The nursery, though not used anymore and cleansed of spirit activity, was still a room I didn't like to enter. It had been inhabited by both a demon and my father, possibly at the same time.
The residual energy inside was still too strong, cleansed or not.
“You could have waited for me.” I peered over Michael's shoulder as he removed our son from his car seat. When Montana saw me, he grinned and squirmed in his father's arms. With one jagged tooth coming in, his thatch of bright auburn hair, and his large eyes so green they were almost golden, he looked like a jack-o-lantern.
He was beautiful. And he was mine.
Michael handed him over and I stared into my son's eyes, still marveling that I could create something so perfect. No one had that right.
“Eee-eee,” Montana gasped, happily clawing at my hair.
“Montana James! Mommy missed you!”
“You've only been gone two hours, Mags,” Michael said.
“That's the longest we've ever been apart,” I retorted.
I wiped the drool from Montana's mouth and pulled him into my chest, breathing in his scent of baby powder and jarred peas. “I love you so much!”
He pecked at my neck, indicating he was hungry. I lifted my blouse and slipped down one side of my bra, feeling my engorged breasts tingle as I slid his mouth over my nipple.
Michael watched with too much interest.
“Do you mind?” I asked, returning to the porch where I took a seat on the far end of the swing, covering us both with a small blanket from the bag.
Michael sat at the other end, kicking off his shoes. “You never minded being naked in front of me at Woodhaven,” he said, referencing the religious compound in Northern California he had founded––and failed.
“I liked you then.”
“A lot of men saw you naked at Woodhaven, as I recall. I hope you didn't like them all.”
“I might have.”
“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow and brushed a strand of dark hair out of his face. “Did that include Jason?”
Jason and I were Michael's first recruits. He was like a brother to me, nothing more. I snapped a glare at Michael, startling Montana. He'd been funny about my milk lately and I was afraid he'd stop nursing if he sensed my irritation. Be calm, I told myself.
Eventually, my body relaxed and Montana finished his lunch.
“Well?” Michael pressed, leaning into the corner of the swing.
“Why? Were you jealous of Jason? Is that what this is about? I haven't seen him for nearly a year.”
“I had my... moments.” He turned away, gazing at the tree line that opened into the woods. The trees were lush now, courtesy of the rains. There were birds out, gathering food and advert
ising their nests. Something small and furry scurried on the ground near the apple trees, then disappeared. “Of course I was jealous, Maggie. You two were good friends.”
“You never showed it. In fact, you encouraged our relationship.”
“I like to keep a poker face.”
“I think you were testing me.”
He spread his hands and shrugged. “Maybe. I was a different person then. Were you ever jealous? Aside from... Leah?”
Why did he have to bring up Leah on a beautiful day like today? She was the source of many of my problems. She'd poisoned my mother, tried to steal her bracelet and wand, and even seduced my boyfriend. Granted, it was all done on the orders of her mother, Larinda, but that didn’t make me like her any more.
“I don't want to talk about Leah,” I said.
“Fair enough.”
Montana was nearly sleeping, so I gently maneuvered him to the other side and helped him latch on. “But to answer your question, yes, I have been jealous of someone besides Leah.”
“Merry?” Michael placed his hand on my knee, saw the look in my eye, and promptly removed it. “You know I care for Merry, but not in that way. I'm more like her therapist than her boyfriend. We haven't even kissed.” He smiled and added, “Yet.”
I felt a sharp electrical surge push through me, the one that usually precipitated the blowing out of light bulbs. I held my breath until the feeling passed. “You're lucky I have my hands full.”
“You really are jealous! That's interesting.”
“I'm not jealous. I just think Merry could do better.”
“So do I.”
“Ouch!”
“You do realize we were both insulting me, right?”
“Not everything is about you, Michael! My yelp was because your son just took a bite out of my boob. He only has one tooth, but I swear he's part werewolf. I'm not sure how much longer I can keep nursing.”
“You read the brochures I brought home, right? Nursing is the single best thing you can do for your baby. If you don't do anything else for that boy, try and nurse him as long as you can.”
“I think giving him life was the single best thing I could do for him. And I'll decide when it's enough. Not you. If you don't like it, grow some boobs and feed him yourself.”
The Curse of Dark Root: Part Two (Daughters of Dark Root Book 4) Page 2