Witch’s Mark

by Sarra Cannon

  “I’m still not sure. Only that Elisha’s at his most powerful these days during the full moon, but that each cycle that passes, he seems to grow weaker overall,” he said. “My dad thinks Elisha is running out of time. That whatever’s kept him alive this long is no longer working. That’s why he’s been on edge lately.”

  “When were you planning to leave town? Do you think you could spare an hour or two before you head out?” I asked.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying you want me to stay?” he asked. “I’ll do whatever I can to try to get us out of this, Anna. I don’t want to leave.”

  I swallowed, scared to think about what he meant. Scared to imagine that there could still be a future here for us once this was over.

  “We’ll talk while we drive,” I said, looking away from his eyes. “I’ll leave my car here for now and ride with you back to Gran’s. She’s worried that Elisha will come here to Willow Harbor. She doesn’t entirely trust that he’s not on his way now. Do you have any reason we should believe that he’s a threat to us here?”

  Slade shook his head. “Not right now,” he said. “Not unless he has some way of tracking me through this mark, but I find that hard to believe since you’ve had the mark all these years, and he hasn’t been able to find you. As far as I know, Elisha doesn’t know where I am other than in a coastal town in South Carolina. And he doesn’t have any reason to come after me just yet.”

  “And when you’re back home?” I asked. “If you tell him you didn’t find me, do you think he’ll be able to figure out where I am, even if you don’t plan or want to tell him the truth?”

  Slade cleared his throat and rubbed a hand on the back of his neck.

  “Look, I’m willing to do everything I can to keep this information from him, but Elisha has ways of getting the truth,” I said. “Anna, I can’t absolutely guarantee that you’re going to be safe from him. Did your Gran suggest sending you away somewhere I don’t know about? Because that might not be a bad idea. If I don’t know where to find you, I can’t tell Elisha, either.”

  “She did suggest that, at first, but I don’t want to run from this,” I said. “I would rather face him than let him control my life by making me live in fear.”

  Slade studied me for a moment, as if he was considering something important.

  He stopped, about to tell me something when Ms. Ackerman’s ugly pug sank its teeth into Slade’s shoe and started growling.

  “Hey,” he said, trying to shake the dog off of his shoe.

  Ms. Ackerman didn’t move to help him. Instead, she placed a hand on her hip and stared at me. “Well, I certainly missed your breakfast this morning,” she said. “I got up early just to walk out here and get some of your fresh cinnamon rolls. Imagine my disappointment when there was no truck.”

  “I’m sorry Ms. Ackerman,” I said. “I had kind of a rough night last night.”

  She glanced at Slade and gave him a dark look. “So I’ve heard,” she said.

  Slade rolled his eyes and sighed as he continued to try to get that dog off his shoe without hurting it.

  “Can I expect that you’ll be out there tomorrow morning on time?” she asked. “Or are you planning to take a few days off? We’ve got the biggest Sundays on the Square event of the year this weekend, and I know everyone was planning to see you there.”

  “I haven’t decided yet,” I said, feeling a bit guilty about disappointing people by not showing up. “I’ll see if Loran will let me post something about my upcoming hours at Urban Grind.”

  Right now, though, I had more important things to worry about than food.

  Finally, Ms. Ackerman made a few kissy sounds and her pug let go of its hold on Slade’s shoe. I wondered if she had actually told the dog to attack him or not, which made me laugh for the first time all morning.

  “Are you laughing?” Slade asked, unable to hide his own smile. “That has to be the ugliest dog I’ve ever seen. And I swear she wanted it to attack me.”

  “He didn’t hurt you, though,” I said.

  “Tell that to my shoe.” He pointed down at the gnarled shoelaces, which only made me laugh harder.

  God, it felt good to laugh again. It had only been a few hours since he broke my heart, but I’d honestly worried at first that I would never be happy again.

  But it was such a relief to know that sorrow—even devastating, bone-deep sorrow—didn’t destroy my joy.

  “You really have the most beautiful smile, you know that?” he asked. He started to reach for my hand, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do, but he stopped himself, shoving it into his pocket instead.

  “Come on, let’s get back to Gran’s,” I said. “She’ll want to hear anything that might be helpful against Elisha if he does come looking for me.”

  Slade’s expression darkened as he started walking toward his car again.

  “I’ll give you everything I know,” he said. “But I still think hiding for a while might be your best course of action. I don’t want you to get hurt, Anna.”

  “I don’t want to get hurt, either, but what kind of freedom will I ever have if I’m in hiding?” I said. “And I don’t want your sisters to be hurt, either.”

  “Let’s hurry, then. “Slade touched something hidden in his back pocket I hadn’t noticed until just now. A group of folded pages. “There’s something you and Gran both need to see.”

  “What is that?” I asked.

  But he just shook his head. “I’ll show you later,” he said. “But what I found just might hold the key to defeating Elisha forever.

  Twenty-Three

  Slade

  An hour later, I sat down at the table with Anna’s grandmother, several aunts, and a few of her cousins that were close to her age. I took a sip of the tea Anna had given me and shook my head.

  Most of them looked at me like I was the enemy, which I knew in their eyes I was. But I was honestly trying to fight for the right side this time.

  I wanted to keep Anna safe every bit as they did. I just needed their help in coming up with a plan that would also save my sisters. If we could destroy Elisha and put an end to the Disciples of Light altogether, it would change everything.

  Right now, though, I was too scared to even hope things could work out that well.

  I was fully preparing myself to lose my own life in sacrifice for the women I loved.

  But no one at this table trusted me right now. And if we were going to work together, we needed to be able to trust each other on some level.

  I needed them to know I was telling the truth.

  “I have never been great with honesty,” I said, meeting the eyes of the women gathered around the table. “I didn’t start out wanting to be that way, but I was forced into this life by the same man that took Anna’s mother away. He’s powerful and manipulative. He’s dangerous. And he’s very hard to trick.”

  The women stared at me, many of them with arms crossed or harsh stares, but I deserved it.

  “All I have cared about for a very long time now is finding a way to get my family out of the Disciples of Light,” I said. “I closed off my heart to everything else, obediently serving Elisha so that I could keep my sisters safe. I did come to the area specifically looking for Anna, and I did plan to bring her back to Elisha if and when I found her. I understand that makes you angry with me. I understand how much you love her, but I want you all to know that I had doubts about what I was doing from the moment I met Anna. I didn’t want to go through with any of it, but I honestly didn’t feel as if I had a choice.”

  One of the aunts cleared her throat and shook her head, as if she didn’t believe a word coming out of my mouth.

  “I don’t know how much Anna has told you about the details of last night, but I’m going to tell you this. The more time I spent with her, the more I knew I simply couldn’t turn her over to her father,” I said. “As much as I wanted to be near her, I was going to walk away. I did walk away, even though it broke my h
eart to do it. If Anna hadn’t stopped me, I would have left Willow Harbor last night and made sure that Elisha never knew about this place at all.”

  “And how are we supposed to believe that?” one of the cousins said.

  “It’s true that he was leaving,” Anna said. “I was the one who tried to stop him. That’s when I saw the mark.”

  “How do we know you haven’t already told Elisha where Anna is? How do we know you’re not just stalling us now, so he can make his way here to us?” Anna’s Aunt Laura eyed me with contempt as she spoke.

  “You can’t,” I said. “I can’t prove anything to you right now. All I can tell you is the truth. It’s up to you whether you decide to believe me.”

  “He’s telling the truth,” Anna said, trying to hide a smile. “I put one of my favorite truth potions in that tea he’s been sipping on for the past half-hour. He couldn’t lie even if he wanted to.”

  My mouth dropped open, and I was both shocked and impressed. I hadn’t even realized the tea had a potion inside it. Very clever.

  Anna’s eyes met mine, and the corners of my lips lifted slightly.

  “Well, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I think you’ll all be interested in the fact that instead of leaving last night, I stayed, hoping Anna would come back to talk to me. When she didn’t, I went to the library where a woman named Mattie let me into the archives downstairs.”

  I pulled out the pieces of paper that contained copies of the most important parts of the book we’d found.

  “These pages explain several possible ways a mark can be removed,” I said.

  “What?” Anna asked, stepped forward to take the pages.

  “One page explains a ritual we could cast on Elisha on the night of the full moon that might free everyone who is bound to him, including Anna and me. That would also mean that anyone who’d been harmed by him would finally have the power to hurt him and make him pay for things he’s done.”

  Gran took the pages and looked over them.

  “You found these spells in our library?”

  “This could all be part of the plan to make us believe you,” Laura said. “He’s a warlock. Maybe he had some way of disabling the truth potion.”

  “Yes. Mattie’s actually the one who found them, and if you want to, you can call her right now and ask her if I’m telling the truth,” I said. “But I would never have gone into that library looking for a way to defeat Elisha if I was really on his side. If I truly supported Elisha, I would have subdued Anna last night and taken her with me the moment she saw the mark.”

  “Someone call the library so we can be sure these pages came from Mattie,” Gran said, holding up her hand to quiet the room. “Just to put all this truth nonsense to rest. I, for one, don’t see any reason for Slade to bring us such a powerful weapon against Elisha other than to help us put an end to that man’s terror once and for all.”

  She looked up and met my eyes.

  “I certainly don’t like what you came here to do. I don’t like that you lied to my granddaughter for as long as you did.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “But I know that Anna cares for you a great deal,” she continued. “I can see in your eyes just how much you care for her, too. People don’t end up in this town on accident, and yet, here you are. That means something. And so does the effort you’ve put into finding this spell and trying to come up with a way to save your sisters and Anna at the same time.”

  My heart raced as she spoke. Was she saying she trusted me? That she would help me?

  “Anna tells me you know a lot about the compound where Elisha keeps the Disciples,” she said. “If we are to face him in just a couple of days, we’re going to need to know everything you know. And I mean everything. His weaknesses, the location of all the buildings at the compound. We need to know where the children will be at various times of the day, what types of tactics and magic he uses, all of it.”

  I nodded, reaching into my bag and pulling out the pages I’d written last night when I couldn’t sleep.

  “I already have a lot of those things written down here,” I said. “After Anna left last night, I couldn’t sleep, so I spent hours going over anything I could think of that might help me save the people I love. Just tell me what else you need, and I’ll tell you what I know.”

  I passed the pages around and the room erupted in conversation about how to go about defeating Elisha, what potions might come in handy, and whether or not we could possibly pull this off by the full moon.

  After several minutes, the front door opened, and everyone grew quiet. I could feel the witches in the room reach for their defensive powers, but they all relaxed as Eva and Nik walked into the room.

  “This is a family matter,” Gran said. “I’m sure Anna told you we were here and what we were discussing, but we don’t need to get you involved. This is dangerous.”

  “I am family,” Eva said. “Maybe not by blood, but this entire family has taken me in over the past year, and I’m here to repay that.”

  “I wouldn’t be standing here, either, without Anna’s help, and I consider her a part of my family, as well,” Nik said. “If there’s danger coming our way, I’ll be right there by your side to fight with you.”

  As they spoke, several more people from town showed up.

  Lucy and her twin brother, Jon. Anna’s friends, Roni and Padma. I didn’t even know some of the people who poured into the house, and I had no idea how they’d all found out about this meeting, but it was clear that everyone here cared deeply for Anna.

  This whole town wanted to keep her safe, and they were willing to face whatever dangers came their way in order to do that.

  Which gave me an idea.

  “If the town of Willow Harbor is willing to stand by Anna and the rest of the Tillman family, and everyone is concerned about invading the compound and endangering the lives of the children and women who live there, then why don’t we forget the idea of going to Elisha,” I said.

  All eyes were on me as I stood.

  “Instead, why don’t we bring Elisha to Willow Harbor?”

  Twenty-Four

  Anna

  Half the town had showed up to offer their support, and I was overwhelmed by their love and willingness to fight.

  We spent a few hours discussing the plan, and when Gran was satisfied that everything was in order, she picked up the keys to her car and motioned to Slade and me.

  “It’s time,” she said. “I’m sure you two want to say goodbye, but as much as I want to trust you, I’m not letting Anna drive with you to the border alone.”

  “Drive to the border?” Slade asked.

  “Just to be sure that when you leave the town’s limits, you don’t forget all of this,” Gran said. “Stranger things have happened.”

  Slade smiled and glanced over at me. “You don’t have to drive me to the border,” he said. “Before I made up my mind to check out the library, I did leave town. But only for a minute. The second I crossed the border and realized I hadn’t lost any of my memories, I knew I had to turn around.”

  His words hit me hard.

  So, him coming here hadn’t been a true accident after all. Willow Harbor had been his destiny, and for all the heartache it had caused me, we had met for a reason.

  What that meant for our future, I still didn’t know, but hope rose within me just the same.

  “Okay, then,” Gran said. “So, you’ll leave from here alone. And you’ll contact us as soon as the plan is in place. We’ll need to know exactly when Elisha is planning to come and what he’s planning to do. The more information you can get to us, the better.”

  “I’ll do everything I can,” Slade said. “And thank you for believing in me.”

  Gran smiled at him and placed a weathered hand on his cheek.

  “Everyone deserves a chance to be free,” she said. “To follow their heart. If I’d realized that was all my Maura wanted when she left all those years ago, I would ha
ve given her more space. More freedom to do what she felt called to do. Maybe then she wouldn’t have left in anger and put her trust in someone like Elisha.”

  Gran’s words brought tears to my eyes.

  She had carried so much guilt within her all these years, and I understood now why she’d tried so hard to hold onto me. To keep me safe.

  But when she turned to me, I could also see that something important had changed.

  She saw me as a woman now. Someone free to make her own decisions and go her own way.

  I squeezed her hand, so grateful for everything she’d done for me that my heart was overflowing.

  “Go on,” she said, swiping a finger under her eyes. “Say your goodbyes in private. We’ll start getting the potions and things ready here. And Slade?”

  “Yes, ma’am?” he said.

  “Blessings be with you,” she said. “I know the next few days will be dangerous for you. Thank you for being willing to take that risk to save my grandchild.”

  “I’ll be safe,” he said. “And I’ll see you in a couple days.”

  Gran nodded and turned away, giving orders to all the witches and towns people who had come to help.

  I turned to Slade and motioned toward the hallway.

  He followed me out the front door, and we sat together on the porch as the sun began to set in the distance.

  “I know it’s too much to ask you to forgive me,” he said. “But no matter what happens next, I want you to know that what I feel for you is real. I have never been very good at love. I had a warped view of it growing up in the Disciples of Light, and once my mother was killed, I was too scared to really open my heart to anyone ever again. You changed that for me, Anna.”

  He reached over and took my hand, bringing it up to his heart.

  “No matter what the next few days brings, I want you to know that you opened my heart to something I didn’t even know was possible,” he said, his words taking my breath away. “I love you, Anna Tillman. And I always will.”