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, wiggling 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?"
"Okay, I got spooked."
"Spooked how?"
"I woke up tonight to pee, which I'm starting to do at an uncommon frequency, might I add, and I sensed something in the house with Sebastian and me."
"Something or someone?"
"I don't know, both I guess. I feel like it used to be a someone, a woman, and now it's..."
"Dead?"
"Maybe, but it felt very much alive and it knew that I could feel it. What's more, it was in the nursery."
"You already have a nursery?"
"Well, not technically, no, but I knew it would be that before we even bought the house."
"Have you told anyone else that?"
"Yes. Sebastian. We talked about it yesterday."
"So, this thing may have overheard you rather than getting in your head?"
Abby shivered and scanned the room for a blanket. She found one and wrapped it around her, sinking lower into the couch.
"Maybe."
"Do you think it was Kanti?"
"I don't know. I saw a woman, maybe Kanti, but it was so dark and she seemed to be dying. The presence, the spirit, was not good."
"Not good, meaning evil?"
"I think so, yes."
Victor was silent for a moment.
"Kendra and I are coming your way in a couple of days. I'd like to get a feel for the area, energetically and all."
"For Trager?"
"Yes, I haven't been there in years. The curse obviously originated there so we'd like to do some research. I also want to visit the Ebony Woods. What I'm thinking is we could shack up with you guys and perhaps you and I could have ourselves a little ghost hunt?"
"Oh, that sounds like a fabulous time. After our last adventure into the Vepar's lair, I'm not sure we make the best team."
Victor laughed, but Abby wondered if she'd struck a nerve with that memory.
"No repeats of that disaster, Abby. I promise."
****
"Any news on Dafne?" Oliver asked, walking into the Vault.
Julian and Faustine sat at computers. Oliver bit back a laugh at Faustine's laborious, single-finger typing.
"No news," Faustine grumbled, clearly frustrated by the task at hand.
"Not entirely true," Julian quipped. "Select the Dafne File up there." Julian pointed at the giant touch-screen.
Oliver touched the corner of the screen and it filled with manila folders, each labeled with names. He looked past the files labeled Tobias and Sebastian, The Curse, The Lourdes of Warning, Ebony Woods and dozens more. He clicked the file for Dafne and grimaced when a larger-than-life picture of the witch appeared on the screen.
He knew the picture. It showed Dafne as a young woman at the Coven of Ula. Her black hair hung long and shiny and her gaunt body was hidden beneath a heavy dark cloak. She stood on the stone slab near the second lagoon, and a dazzling ball of fire erupted from the ends of her fingertips.
"She was a force to be reckoned with in those days," Julian said, standing up from his computer and moving beside Oliver.
Faustine continued to stare fiercely at his computer, and Oliver sensed that he could not stand to look at the picture. Not out of anger at the witch, but fear of what had become of her.
"I would have liked to have known her then," Oliver said.
"Ha," Julian laughed. "She was mean as hell. Now, at least, I understand why." Julian shook his head sadly. "If only she'd have told us. What difference a hundred years could have made in figuring all this out."
"She was traumatized," Faustine said sharply. "I almost wonder if she didn't block it all out for a couple of decades."
"She did a lot of good here," Oliver added, hoping to ease the tension between the two elder witches. "She was a brilliant hunter and she taught me a lot."
Julian ran his finger across the screen and a list of topics appeared. He clicked on Present Day.
"We know that she and Indra appeared in France right after we rescued Sebastian. We probably missed them by hours, if not minutes."
"And Sebastian said that he saw Isabelle's body in the charnel ground," Oliver added.
"Yes. We've been able to trace Dafne's journey to France. She flew first class, chose not to use any magic, which seems odd. She rented a car and we haven't found a record for any stops, so we're assuming she went straight to Isabelle's apartment. We think that she and Indra had planned to take Sebastian to anothe
r location to perform additional magic, likely because Isabelle alerted them that his memory was returning."
"Was it?"
"Not exactly," Julian explained. "But he had met an American woman who owned a store and who also happened to be a very good friend of mine."
"A witch?" Oliver asked.
Julian shook his head.
"No, but the daughter of a witch. Her mother lives in a coven in Italy, and she is quite adept in the ways of the magical world. When she saw Sebastian's ring, she knew instantly that it contained a spell of some sort and as luck would have it, she called me."
"That is lucky."
"Luck has nothing to do with it," Faustine said crisply. "Our world does not rely on luck. Dafne went against the laws of nature, and nature merely set things right."
"We know that Dafne and Indra stopped into the coffee shop where Isabelle last saw Sebastian. We wonder now if that's where the Vepar Alva intercepted them."
"Because Sebastian was speaking with Alva when you guys found him?" Oliver asked Julian.
"Yes, when Adora and Rod found him. We don't know how he tracked Sebastian down. We're speculating a link between Dafne and Tobias. You see in 1908, when Dafne originally came to us, she was somehow still open energetically to Tobias. That is how he made it into Ula. Either the curse closed on its own or Dafne shut it down, but we think the connection disappeared. However, we wonder if triggering the curse again reopened it."
"How do we find that out?"
"By sifting through this material, for starters," Julian said.
"And by speaking with the Lourdes of Warning," Faustine added, still not looking up from his screen.
"Why the Lourdes? What does she have to do with this?" Oliver asked, knowing that the Lourdes of Warning was not a witch to meddle with. Only months earlier, she had attempted to send Abby directly into the hands of Vepars waiting to consume her.
"She's in this material. She was clearly the witch afflicted by the curse before Dafne."
"That doesn't make sense. I thought the Lourdes was in love with another witch who turned bad, not a mortal man."
Kanti (Born of Shadows Book 3) Page 4