Arch of Shadows

by C. L. Bush

  “Why did she do it?” Clara whispered, horrified. “Why did she enter the Arch and sacrifice herself?”

  “That’s not my story to tell,” Helen said sharply. “As you can see, many have sacrificed a lot to keep Richmond and the rest of the world safe. There were many, besides the five, who helped place the spell, lending their magic, their abilities. And yet, something went wrong.”

  “How do you then expect me to help?” Clara frowned, tossing her hands in the air. “As far as I heard, they were all people who knew what they were doing.”

  “Because, Clara, destroying things is similar to offensive spells. It takes greater skill to create something or to defend yourself while destroying and attacking something takes greater power.”

  “And what are the odds of the Arch resisting?”

  “Nonexistent,” Helen answered firmly. “All it takes is one more life, one more magical overload, and the Arch is gone.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Beginning of March

  SAM

  Sam shuffled her feet, moving her heavy bag onto the other shoulder as Damen followed her in silence.

  Finally. It had been almost three months since her last coven meeting and going to one now felt crucial. Hard work in the previous month had paid off, and Zoey managed to influence the coven enough to let Sam, JJ and Damen back – at least as observers. Of course, Samantha had no intention of just observing. She knew the coven hadn’t yet made any proper steps into getting Clara back. Well, none that counted and that was why she was going to make them leap onto her plans. However, she was aware that her credibility was basically nonexistent, so Sam decided to take a page out of Clara’s book.

  Her backpack was filled with notes, explanations, plans and questions. Sure, the color coding Clara did was way out of her league, but Sam had given her best in the previous weeks to make each idea she had bulletproof and sound. She had worked harder than ever during her sessions with Zoey and could finally sense her magic getting stronger, finally moving forward. Her mind was recovering, and in the previous two weeks, she’d managed to handle her emotions and thoughts well enough to catch some actual sleep.

  There were still nights when even Damen’s sleep stone couldn’t keep the nightmares away. Usually, they consisted of flashes of Clara’s face, going through a desolated Richmond, alone, pale and hopeless. At times, she was sure Clara was trying to cast an unknown, violent spell, but before she could call out her friend’s name, Sam would wake up. The nightmares only pushed Sam to work harder, and tonight’s meeting felt like a chance to do something tangible. Sam was determined to use that chance, regardless of how slim her odds were.

  “It would’ve been better if JJ came with us,” Sam said finally. Damen shrugged, and reached to clasp her hand. Since Sam had lifted the spell that filtered and numbed her emotions, JJ went back to avoiding her. Sure, she understood the inner struggle behind it and she didn’t blame him, but it stung.

  Actually, she did blame him quite a bit, especially today.

  “We need to look united, like the coven they want us to be, so we have a chance to be heard. It would’ve looked better if we all showed up together,” Samantha said, voicing her thoughts out loud, not commenting on the disapproving looks Damen threw her. “I’m just saying,”

  “I think the only thing JJ is trying to achieve, Sam, is sanity,” Damen retorted with underlying anger in his voice.

  “Well, good luck with that,” Samantha said with a sour smile. Damen’s frustrated look proved that he was even more annoyed than before. He let her hand go as they got to the end of the drive.

  “You know, Sam, I get that this meeting is important to you, but there have been other things happening around you. In case you haven’t noticed.”

  “Oh?”

  Damen stopped and stared at her. She couldn’t tell if he understood she was mocking him or if he was genuinely surprised. “You’re damn right, Sam,” he said, turning suddenly to face her, whispering forcefully. “You haven’t been part of your own life for months now. There’s no room for anything. It’s just magic. Lessons with Zoey, going through the Grimoires, ditching JJ and me.”

  “JJ’s the one who decided my presence is too heavy of a burden,” Sam said innocently, but there was the poisonous sting of someone deeply hurting. She leaned away from his overwhelming presence. His broad shoulders were pushing out any light from the street lamp behind him.

  “That’s not fair.”

  “None of it’s fair.”

  “Exactly! So, if everything is going to shit, we might as well be decent to each other,” Damen exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air and spinning towards the light. Samantha rolled her eyes impatiently.

  “Damen, can we not do this now? The meeting will start in-”

  “Okay! Yeah, we’re going to do this now! I haven’t seen you the whole week. You don’t answer any of my messages, except to diss me. And I get it, you miss Clara. We all do. JJ and I feel it, too. But she’s not here and you can’t just let the rest of your life go down the drain because you feel guilty,” he blurted out. He hugged himself as his face turned red with anger. He looked scared and angry, but mostly desperately lonely. It hurt Sam just to look at someone she loved feeling that way. “Just talk to me, Sam, because this is getting insane. I have no idea what’s happening with you. It’s like you’re not even there. Just... say anything. We don’t have to talk about Clara and magic and all the craziness, but let’s try to go back as much as we can to the way things were. I had to find out from Hannah that you’re failing Spanish.”

  Samantha’s anger boiled, and she dropped her backpack on the ground, pointed her finger, and turned to him with a threatening look she had never given him anymore.

  “See, that’s the thing, Damen. That’s how I know you don’t get it. Not really. Because you can still worry about your weekend practices and my Spanish tests. You still think it matters. But it doesn’t! None of it matters! The test scores, the grades, the scholarships - it means nothing! We don’t get to have those lives. We don’t get to be selfish. Instead, we get this crappy town and we get stuck with either holding up the crumbling Arch our whole lives, or fighting whatever the hell the stupid Arch is protecting all these people from once it cracks. So yeah, excuse me for not giving a crap about Spanish or keeping you in the loop with my academics!” Her body was tense as she tried not to scream. Her magic was suppressed but that didn’t mean the small amount that was allowed out couldn’t do some damage. Not to mention they didn’t want anyone in the coven to hear them fighting at the end of the driveway.

  Damen studied her, immobile and in shock, his arms at his side in defeat “You can’t be serious,” he whispered. “You can’t be serious, Samantha. Those aren’t going to be our lives. And that’s why Spanish and practices are important because graduating is the only way out of this mess. We didn’t choose this, Sam. None of us did. We didn’t choose any of it - the magic, the Arch, friends getting killed, saving the world. That’s not on us.” He reached for her, wanting to pull her into a hug, but Sam stepped back.

  “So, what? We’re just going to run off to college?” she asked ironically, a laugh escaping her before she realized how fundamentally things were about to change. Her heart hurt at the thought of him not getting what their life was now. The frustration of knowing they could do something to help and he just wanted to pretend it all didn’t exist. That Clara didn’t exist anymore. “Is that your plan, Damen? To graduate and pack your bags, move into the dorms? Are you outta your damn mind? What about the Arch? What about Clara?”

  “There’s nothing we can do about that, Samantha. We learned how to light up a candle a year ago. There’s a full coven that knows what they’re doing. They’ll figure it out.” Damen turned away from her, hoping that not looking at her face would make it easier to say what needed to be said. To convince her there was a future for them outside of this tiny, messed up town.

  “Figure it out?” Sam whispered incredulously,
her anger and shock mixing together at the realization that he really meant what he said. Damen McDooley, son of the coven master of Richmond and destined to follow the same path, was going to walk away from his friends, his family, his magic, and any hope of a future with Sam. “And what then? What if they do? What if they don’t? Who’s going to be here to make sure nothing else goes wrong in twenty years?”

  “It’s not our job to save the world, Sam,” Damen said, his voice quiet and determined, staring off at the street light that flickered in the wake of Sam’s anger and pain.

  She stomped her foot “That’s exactly our job! You don’t just get to find out you have abilities,” she whispered, nervously checking the street before continuing, “and go play football for a college. This is our responsibility now, or it’ll be one day! You can’t just turn your back on it all.”

  “God, you sound just like my parents,” Damen said bitterly, turning back to her with a frown.

  Samantha extended her arms, as if to willingly accept the insult. “Maybe they’re right,” she said and he shook his head in anger. Samantha stepped forward, confident and assertive - her usual self but unhidden and unapologetic. “Christopher has been leading a coven most of his life. Maybe what he’s saying is sound.”

  “I can’t believe you’re actually agreeing with him.” Damen paced in front of her, struggling against his own inner demons. He avoided her pressing gaze, walking up and down the street, his head in his hands. “You can’t be.”

  “We don’t get to be children, Damen. Not anymore. It’s on us now.”

  “No, it’s not! If it’s on anyone’s conscience, it’s on you, Sam - because you had to go and try and save everyone, and instead you fucked us all!” Damen yelled, his body arching in fury. Sam smiled painfully. “I’m not going to be like him, and I’m not going to have my whole life dictated by some medieval hocus-pocus. I don’t give a damn! I have no intention of spending my whole life in stupid Richmond or getting married for the good of the coven. I have no intention of living a pre-arranged life because of some mystical possible evil. They don’t even know what’s on the other side!”

  Sam watched him in silence for a second, dumbfounded by the outpour.

  “Getting married for the good of the coven?” she asked finally and he fell silent, pacing once again, pushing his hands deeper into his pockets. “What are you talking about?”

  “You must’ve noticed,” Damen said, smiling cynically as he glanced at her, his eyes glistening. “The jokes about our wedding, how strong our kids’ magical abilities would be.”

  “Our parents have been making jokes like that since we’ve been kids.” Sam lowered her voice as the night slowly embraced Richmond around them. “They just added magic to it now, but the rest is the same.”

  “You don’t get it, Sam. I don’t think they’re jokes. I think they’re serious,” he said, frustrated and unwilling to speak. He flinched and trembled. He looked like a dam ready to crack. She wondered how long has he been like this, on the edge, inhibited, and lonely. She wondered if she had any strength left in her to help him.

  “So what?” she asked gently, realizing deep down that she had failed one more person she cared about. She reached out to touch his arm, stopping his pacing, and pulled him into a hug. Her head nestled into his chest as his arms came around her waist. They fit together so well. “Since when does it matter what our parents say?”

  “Since-” he started but quickly swallowed his words. Sam never imagined there would be secrets between them, but here there were - hers packed in a backpack and his boiling over under pressure. She hugged him tighter, hoping this wasn’t the last she would be able to. “I keep trying to explain it to you. Magic isn’t just the chanting and oneness that they’ve been teaching us, Samantha. It’s not just about the elements and the rituals and the craft of it. It’s politics and deals. It’s worse than politics because there’s no getting out of it. Magic is poison to people’s lives. Look what it did to us, to our friends, to our families.”

  “Because we screwed up,” Samantha interrupted him softly, doing her best to hide her disappointment at his words. “Or at least, Xander and I did. It’s a tool, and it can be a gift. We can protect so many people with it, Damen. We can make so many lives easier.”

  Damen’s disagreement seemed almost desperate. His breath washed across her hair as he spoke softly. “What about our lives, Samantha? Who’s going to make our lives easier?”

  “Where’s all of this coming from?”

  “It’s coming from reality, Sam, that’s where it’s coming from.” He pushed her away and her agony only increased. She was losing him. “You’re getting sucked into it all, but you don’t see the bigger picture. It’s dying out. People with magic have mixed with people without it for too long. They’re less and less covens, and magic is dying.”

  “I’m aware,” Sam acknowledged. “That makes what we do as a coven even more important.”

  “Forget the coven for one freaking minute. Are you really willing to agree to the life you described? To give up on everything you ever wanted for magic?”

  Samantha absentmindedly shook her head, crossing her arms and shifting from one leg to other. Damen seemed to swallow any words he was planning on saying next, calming himself or maybe just giving up.

  “My parents have an arranged marriage,” Damen finally let out, piercing Sam with his teary eyes and a sense of defeat and panic in his tone. “My grandparents arranged it as an alliance between the Richmond and New Orleans coven.”

  They stood in silence for what seemed an eternity, Sam unable to find proper words, Damen shaking under the weight of the revelation.

  “Yeah, my dad told me. Apparently, it was important for both covens to have an heir with magical abilities,” he explained bitterly with a sour laugh, unable to look her in the eye. “He thought he was giving me proper advice. A good example of a life well spent for the good of a coven. So you see, it’s not all about lightning up the candles and saving the world. I’m a product of a coven to coven merge.”

  “Damen...” Samantha started softly, unsure what to say. She leaned in, putting her arms around his shoulders and pulling him close again. He held onto her as if a life raft. “We don’t have to be that way. We’re not our parents.”

  “But that’s what we’re becoming, isn’t it?” he responded with a crooked smile that held no happiness. “That’s what they’re pushing us to be. And that’ll be our lives. Those would be the lives of our children.”

  “You’re taking this too far, Damen,” she tried, but Damen was a verbal train that had no intention of stopping. Not now, when he finally said it out loud.

  He pulled back a little, arms still around her but so he was able to look into her eyes. “I’m not. Our kids, they would be the merge of more than four ancestral covens. I did the math. With their genealogy, there’s no way they could have normal lives. Their magic would be too strong. I’m not sure that even cutting them from magic like they did us would work. They would just be sucked in, just the way we were.”

  Samantha blinked, frozen in shock by the outpour. Damen took a breath and pulled her close again, she wasn’t sure if it was to comfort her or to avoid looking her in the eye.

  “What are you saying?” she whispered into his chest.

  She could feel him pull away before he actually did. As if their magical souls were already entwined. Sam watched him as he paced before her, nervously ruffling his hair. The wind whistled around them, plucking the emerging leaves off the surrounding trees. The cold crept into her bones as the temperature dropped.

  “It’s like you said. Our lives are already limited, and I- I don’t want any of it. I never wanted it. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life here, and I’m sure as hell not going to sentence any kids to a life like ours. I don’t know what’s real anymore, Sam. What were my decisions, and what was already decided for us before we were even born? And if you and I... If you and I hadn’t gotten together, I’m
not sure they wouldn’t have made it happen anyway.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Damen,” was the only thing she managed to voice, unable to verbalize the collision in her mind. The whirlwind of knowing her whole life could have been a set up. The friends she chose. The boyfriend she picked. All of it, fabricated as part of a magical conspiracy to protect a doorway to another world that their parents had made before they were born.

  “Am I being ridiculous?” he asked, uncertainty sharp in his tone. “Did we fall for each other because we fell for each other, or did we because they’ve been planting it in our minds since we could walk?”

  A piercing, unknown pain thundered through Sam’s body at his words and at his expectant gaze. He was desperate for answers, but at the same time, he was looking in the wrong place for whatever answers he so existentially craved. Sam took a deep breath, trying to settle both herself and Damen before they caused a typhoon. There wasn’t time for a typhoon now. She straightened her clothing and allowed her magic to settle. There was no time for mistakes now.

  “I’m not going to convince you that your feelings for me are authentic. That’s something you have to figure out on your own,” she slowly said, reluctantly aware of the pain in his eyes. Her own eyes were shedding tears silently. A sharp pain went across her chest as she placed her hand over her heart, trying to protect it from further cutting words from the boy she had loved since she was a child. “Neither am I going to try and prove my feelings for you. If you can’t take them seriously by now, there’s nothing for me to do here.”

  Damen was silent. His face was a mask of struggle. As if he was trying to find the right words that wouldn’t hurt her. His body drooped, as if all the fight had gone out of him.

  “All of the things that you said... I’m sorry about your parents. I am. But I can’t do this right now, Damen,” Samantha said, solidifying her determination and wiping away the tears on her cheeks. “It’s too much. We have a coven meeting to get to, possibly one of the most important ones in our lives and we can’t afford this right now.”