Turning the Stone

by S. L. Perrine

  Chapter XXXVI

  Ophelia breathed a sigh of relief when Chester and Finis finally arrived. She was hoping they would have been traveling by car with a bundle in tow, but they arrived on all four, just as they were when they left.

  Ophelia placed the last of her supplies within a circle in the living room. A large full-length mirror, framed in gold. She placed a candle in front of it on the floor. Looked up at everyone in the room just as the boys shifted and stepped through the front door. Seraphine was the only one unaccounted for. She was told to stay behind. To stay close to Indiana and Sigmis. Making sure the elder Silas stayed where he was.

  “Shall we?” Ophelia motioned to the room.

  Elle begrudgingly moved from the sofa that had been pushed to the wall beside the staircase. Marcus moved in from the kitchen with Marshal and Chester. Finis and Hex took to a corner near the front door. They were talking in hushed tones.

  “Gentleman. They’ve lived through this long enough.” They nodded at her and joined the ranks around the circle.

  “How is this going to work?” Marshal asked.

  “Well. We are going to form a circle. Only I’ve never done one before. Not without Silas.”

  “We haven’t either, but I’m sure we can figure it out,” Chester added.

  “We won’t have the elemental magic Gwen can access, but maybe once we invite them into the circle she can add her magic to it.”

  “Invite them in? Where are they, that we can do that?” Elle looked wide-eyed.

  “They’re here. Think of it as a ripple in time. The world between this world and the after-life.”

  “So, they are here? Right now?”

  “Yes,” Ophelia said moving around the circle lighting large white pillar candles behind each of them. She moved to Hex and Chester and took each of their hands and closed her eyes.

  “I call upon the ancient powers of the goddess. Help us protect this sacred circle. Allow me the ability to protect and heal one of your own.” She looked at Chester.

  “We ask the power of the earth, water, fire, and air to join our circle. Protect us in this time of need as we do your will.” Chester looked to Marshal.

  “We call the powers of the ancient ones. Join our circle. Protect us in our hour of need as we do your will.” Marshal then looked back to Ophelia.

  The circle formed around them. The flames in the candles rose and fell acknowledging the presence of the elements. Ophelia moved to the middle of the circle and lit the candle in front of the mirror. She stood and stared at her reflection. It was angled so she could see the kitchen at her back. The exact spot Gwen would be in if she were reliving the horror she was forced to endure.

  “In this time, in this place, we call upon the ancient race. Ancestors from witches’ past, allow us to look through the veil and in this time the loop dispel. Give our priest and priestess a place to be, without harm, so mote it be.”

  The vision in the mirror changed. The pictured blurred and rippled. When the image settled, Gwen and Silas were standing in front of them in the mirror. Ophelia’s reflection was gone. Only the couple remained in the mirror standing in the kitchen.

  “Gwen, try to access the elements,” she yelled through the glass.

  “I don’t know if I can from here.”

  “You have to try,” Chester pleaded.

  Gwen and Silas faced each other in the mirror, they closed their eyes and began to chant, “I ask of you, the power of the Earth to entrust me with the power to protect this circle, as I do your will.” She chanted from within the circle. The ground shook in response. The house within the mirror groaned.

  “I ask of you, the power of Wind to entrust me with the power to protect this circle, as I do your will.” The air within the mirror image swirled around Gwen and Silas. Gwen’s hair flew into the air, dancing as the house continued to moan.

  Ophelia stared at the reflection in amazement as Gwen worked magic within their plane.

  “I ask of you, the power of Fire to entrust me with the power to protect this circle, as I do your will.” The candle in front of the mirror rose. It danced in front of the glass. The tip of the flame moved close to the mirror and then somehow entered it. It moved around the couple, never disconnecting from the candle outside of the mirror.

  “It’s connecting the two planes,” Ophelia whispered to the group.

  “I ask of you, the power of Water to entrust me with the power to protect this circle, as I do your will.” The mirror image rippled again. Moisture coated the surface and entered the mirror. It circled Gwen and Silas, weaving around them with the flow of the flame of the candle.

  “I ask of you, the power of the ancient ones. The spirts of my family, of the covens that have come before. Help me protect this circle.” She sounded desperate for the ancestors to help.

  Ophelia saw the tears filling her eyes, but they never fell. White lights moved into the house. They flowed into the mirror and then entered into Gwen’s body. She was standing there, her stomach swelled with the precious baby still inside her. Her body glowed white. She shook, and Silas caught her in his arms. The circle persisted around them.

  “What’s happening?” Chester called out to them, but they either couldn’t hear or couldn’t respond.

  Silas started screaming. “Gwen! Gwen, open your eyes, Gwen. Please open your eyes.”

  Her eyes shot open, but were devoid of color. White orbs stared back at Silas. He took the weight of her body on him and they sunk to the floor. Gwen stilled, and the white wisps of light left her form and flew from the mirror. The blue returned to her irises and she looked at Silas and smiled.

  “It’s over,” she said gasping for breath.

  “What happened?” Silas asked.

  “They spoke to me. The loop. It’s over, but they can’t move us from this place.” She looked out of the image to her friends. “Thank you. All of you.” Silas moved close to Gwen and thanked them all as well. He held her tight and kissed her temple.

  Ophelia could feel the heat rise to her cheeks. “You're welcome.”

  Gwen started to walk away, but Chester called out. “I found her. She’s beautiful.”

  Gwen moved to the mirror and placed a hand against the glass. “You did? Where is she?”

  He told them all what he and Finis learned on their trip. That the baby was where Sabina felt she had the upper hand. Only the maid was helping her as a means to an end to help the baby’s parents. She would be hidden from both families, raised not knowing who she is and what she was to become. She’d have a normal life. Then, when her eighteenth birthday came, Chester vowed he would train her. Bring her into her coven and help her to free her parents. With the power of both families; Sigmis and Crawford, she would have enough power to remove them from their prison.

  Ophelia smiled as Gwen and Silas faded away. The mirror once again showed her the image of herself. The elements having been released, the candles all went out as the wind left the house in a gust. Gwen had the power to call the elements to her. The ancestors took the time loop away. They were no longer forced to relive the same day over again. They would be stuck in a parallel world. Alone, except for each other for the next eighteen years. So close to their original plan, however, Gwen was forced to carry her daughter within her, never able to give birth. It was maybe the only blessing, or maybe a curse, but it was the drawback of the magic used to remove the loop. The payment she would gladly endure to be able to stop reliving the pain and loss of having her baby ripped away from her body. For the time being it was over. All that was left was to decide who would stay to take care of the house and property.

  Ophelia already took it upon herself to do so. She took it willingly for her thoughts of abandoning her friends. For planning to walk away from them once the baby was born. She would tend to them and the house, as she had told them she would from the beginning.

  The rest of the coven stayed for three nights. They wanted to make sure Sabina wouldn’t return. They also remove
d the wards from the house and grounds. Elyse would need to be able to find the house when the time came. Ophelia would need a way to make sure that she would find her way to the house without intervention. Chester vowed to help.

  The three days were spent making plans. Plans for them all. None wanted to abandon Gwen and Silas to their new world. The entire group decided to stay on in Pleasant Ridge. Elle was the only one who’d argued the idea.

  “My parents have lost too much already. My brother is dead. Now, Sabina, someone we cannot fight apparently may or may not be after all of us. She will be if she ever finds out what we’ve done here. I don’t want to end up like my brother.” She flipped her long blonde hair over her shoulder and plopped down on the sofa.

  Marshal gave her a stern look. “You already made a vow. Gwen is still alive. She is still the high priestess and you are bound to all of us. Like it or not, until Elyse is old enough and takes her powers, you’re in this.”

  “Fine. I’ll settle in Pleasant Ridge, and I’ll attend circles. Just don’t ask me to do anything more than that.” She got up and stomped out the front door, got in her car and took off.

  Elle went back to school and graduated with honors, top of her class. She moved into Pleasant Ridge and opened her own law practice.

  Marshal did the same. He finished school and moved back to work at a local hospital. He became one of the top general surgeons in Ohio.

  Hex and Finis remained close as well, but settled between Indiana and Ohio so they could look in on Seraphine from time to time, who remained in Indiana and kept her eyes on the Sigmis house.

  Marcus’s parents gave him the family business. His father took off after his mother died. None of them ever spoke about Crystal again, nor did Marcus acknowledge the fact that Elle used her best friend as a namesake for her own daughter.

  Chester kept Ophelia company for a while. He moved to Pleasant Ridge. Eventually, he found the love of his life who helped him see that what happened to Gwen wasn’t his fault. She gave him a son and passed away during childbirth with their second child. His heart broke for the second time in his life, and he vowed to devote the rest of his days to protecting Elyse and training his son to do the same thing.

  When Elyse Margaret Crawford was a year old, her caregiver was in a car accident with the baby in tow. The ancestors saved Elyse from the car, but the woman died in the explosion that followed. She managed to make a single phone call before the car was engulfed in flames.

  Chester arrived on the scene and took the toddler to a local agency. As luck would have it, the agency placed her with a family close by Chester’s own house. He watched over her from a distance and through the bond his son and she formed through their childhood. He kept his word and kept her safe.

  Look for the rest of this story in The Fate’s Seal, book III in the Blood Rites Trilogy. Coming July 2018.

  For more of Elyse Margaret Crawford’s story, check out The Crawford Witch Chronicles: Immortal Slumber (book one) by S.L. Perrine. Published by Burning Willow Press, LLC September 12, 2017.

  About the Author

  S.L. Perrine is a wife to a mechanic and mother of four crazy teenagers (3 are boys) who eat her out of house and home. While raising her children, she has obtained three degrees; Associates in Art and Criminal Justice is among them. She now works to feed this bunch as a Registered Medical Assistant in a private physician's office in the city she currently resides. She is a native of Schenectady and Saratoga Springs, New York, having spent equal time growing up in both cities.

  “Authors write stories to fill the world with imagination for those who have a hard time finding their own.”

  ~SL PERRINE~