by Beth Byers
“Damn!” A flash of concern crossed Lucian’s face so distinctly and quickly, Circe knew in her heart that he had feelings for Ariadne. Lucian was out the door before Circe could even turn, and she glanced back at the others, who followed more slowly, including a man who looked rather like Lucian but of a greater age. He struggled down the steps with his cane and Circe wondered if this was the father of the person who had almost ruined her.
Dominic Blacke, Lucian’s brother, had dabbled into black magic, manipulating a genetic witch without training into spells that had infected Circe and Medea with ghost illness. Circe had turned on her sisters, and when cleansed, healed for months.
Was she supposed to simply put a smile on her face and not care about what this man’s family had done to her? She shook her head. The muting of the magic pressure hadn’t been enough and Ariadne needed more help than Circe could provide. What else mattered but that?
ARIADNE EUDORA WISTERIA WODE
“Oh dear,” a low voice said minutes, hours later. She had no idea how much time had passed. Only that she was cold and the house was only getting louder.
“I knew she couldn’t do it.”
“We knew something was wrong,” the low voice said. “We should have prepared her. Father?”
“The previous Wode wore a talisman,” someone said, an unfamiliar, deep, rumbling voice. “She needs it. It’s a Celtic cross, carved of wood, with a large piece of amber in the center.”
“It’s in the safe,” another voice said, and Ari could make out the sound of beating footsteps. Ari clutched at the rhythmic pulse even as the footsteps faded. If there was help and someone was running, she could hold on.
“Take her to the grove,” the deep, rumbling voice said. “If she’s the Wode, the pentacle in the grove will calm her.”
“She is the Wode, Father,” the familiar voice replied. “It’s been established.”
“Well, we’ll see. Being the Wode of the London house isn’t the same as being the Wode of this place.”
Ari was lifted from the auto and taken somewhere; she was guessing that grove. She cracked her eyes enough to see the flickering of shadows. When she stopped moving, she was seated on someone’s lap. They must have been inside a pentacle because the pounding of the magic immediately stopped. Slowly, Ari opened her eyes and looked up, only to find Lucian Blacke.
“Hello,” she said, because she didn’t know what else to say. She was in his arms and she felt human again with the barrier of the pentacle providing what Circe’s rune could not.
“Hullo,” he replied, his eyes crinkling at the edges. “Does that help?”
Ari nodded, and he pressed a handkerchief into her hands. It took her a moment to realize her face was wet and when she dabbed her tears, she gasped to see blood on the handkerchief. Had she been crying blood?
“It seems that all is not well at the Wode country house,” he told her gently.
“I would say so,” she replied with quiet sarcasm.
She knew she should push away from him and kneel in the pentacle on her own, but she wasn’t quite ready to let go of the comfort he provided. Ari looked around the edges of the pentacle and found Circe at the top point with Medea, Cassiopeia, and Echo each taking another point of the star. Circe led a low hum, and Ariadne could feel the strength of her sisters pouring into her own barriers. “It’s like the magic here is…is…ready to blow.”
Lucian winced and Ari rubbed her brow. The lack of pressure after so much intensity was dizzying. “We only heard today that those who were invited to return to the house have been unable to stay. I’m sorry, we’d have warned you if there was time. We came as soon as we learned.”
Ari nodded and then her mouth twisted. “Are they blaming me?”
Lucian didn’t soften things for her when he replied, “Some. You’ll have to get used to it for a while, I fear, while you find your place. No one is very happy about an American Wode.”
Ariadne wasn’t surprised by the answer, so she only nodded. A few minutes later Hadley and Margot Wode approached the pentacle where Ari was kneeling next to Lucian. He had tangled his fingers with hers, and she felt his other hand resting on her lower back. She should have pulled away, but there was something ineffably comforting in the weight of his hand on her spine.
The pentacle was helping, but she was still trembling. Without her sisters, she’d have crumpled even with the pentacle and the grove. Hadley stepped forward to hold out a necklace over the lines of the pentacle and Ariadne accepted his offering.
“The house has long since been too much magic for most of the Wode,” Hadley said, ignoring his sister’s dark sideways look. “Delilah rarely came here, but our grandfather lived here. If the spells are maintained, the magic drained, and the cross worn, you’ll be all right.”
“Probably,” Margot inserted snidely.
Hadley ignored his sister as he added, “Grandfather never needed to put the cross on until he reached the house itself, but—you’ll be all right, Ariadne. If what I felt of your magic is accurate, you’re the first Wode in some time whose magic is well-suited for this house. One can almost scent plants and earth in your magic. This is something you can do.”
Ariadne examined the Celtic Cross. The cross had four branches of equal size with an amber stone from the center.
“The amber is from the heart-tree of our grove,” Hadley said.
Ariadne slowly put the cross around her neck and felt the immediate strengthening. It was as though the overload of magic were bypassing her. She could still sense the rhythm of it, but it couldn’t smother her anymore.
“Oh,” Echo said, “I can feel the way the pressure lightened for you.”
“As can I,” Hadley said, eyeing his sister pointedly, who didn’t say anything at all.
Ariadne let Lucian hand her to her feet and thanked him.
“Something is wrong,” she announced. “Obviously.”
“It’s the dead,” Echo told her. “They’re not where they should be. At least that’s part of it.”
“The dead and the grove then,” Ariadne said, finally taking a moment to look around her. Once again, it was as though she’d arrived home, to where she belonged even. It was so odd to feel at home and also as though she were entirely out of her element.
Ari’s gaze focused first on an old log, breathing deeply and trying to process all of what she was feeling. She noted the blue butterflies surrounding the log. Her frown deepened. At mere days before Christmas, it was hardly the season for butterflies.
The trees around her were moss covered, ancient, and full of voices, a haunted forest of magic. Every voice seemed to be saying, “Wode, Wode, Wode, Wode.” She knew they were speaking to her. This part of the grove was dark even though it was not yet evening. The trees were so thickly woven together that there was a canopy overhead despite it being winter.
“Oh,” Ariadne said. She knew the heart tree the moment she saw it, and she reached out with both hands.
“Wait,” Hadley said, but Ariadne couldn’t wait.
She let her palms settle onto the trunk and the magic rolled through her. There was an excess of it to the point where it was poisoning the grove. She lashed out with a hand and released the magic. Every tree in the grove bloomed, the leaves maturing and then falling on the ground, a full year’s seasons in mere moments.
“That was amazing,” Echo breathed from across the clearing, and Ariadne heard her as clearly as though they were sitting side by side in the parlor, gossiping and discussing Ari’s fashion magazines.
Ariadne fed more of the magic through her, letting it roll across the Wode property, strengthening wards and spells that had been abandoned for far too long. As she did, she felt a righting inside of her head and knew that the grove at least, would slowly drain of the excess of magic.
“You said the dead?” Ariadne asked Echo.
She nodded. “The dead are not in their graves or on the other side of the thinning.”
“Am I go
ing to get sick again?” Medea asked, sounding scared. She was shaking her head as she added, “I didn’t like that.”
All gazes turned to Circe, who had been the sickest of them all. “I’m fine,” Circe snapped.
“It’s not like that—” Echo frowned.
“It’s like they’re drunk,” Lucian said. “The dead are…ah—playing pranks. Which is why the other Wodes didn’t stay.”
“Pranks?” Ariadne asked, hearing the disbelief in her voice.
“Humbert Wode had his hand placed in a bowl of warm water and then was chased from the house by howling ghosts after he woke. They weren’t chasing him to scare him, they were only hooting. Like schoolboys when the newest class comes in. They howl down the halls and then giggle like children. It’s impossible to sleep. They drove out the maids, I fear.”
Ariadne’s brows lifted while her heart sank. The last thing she wanted to do was clean the house, but she wasn’t sure that the magic of the property could be used for such a delicate task while it was running wild.
“Mr. Piebalt, the caretaker, has had to put up all the breakable things and remove the keys from the property.”
Ariadne licked her lips. “So you’re saying they’re drunk, wild, and mad?”
“I believe one of them has been known to howl, ‘Eat, drink, and be merry for you’ll die too.’”
“For the love of goodness,” Circe muttered as Medea and Cassiopeia giggled.
“I like to eat,” Medea whispered to Cassiopeia.
“Especially desserts,” Cass replied.
“What is making the dead so lively?” Ariadne asked Echo, the necromancer of the sisters.
“I believe they could be giddy from the build-up of magic. All of this energy running around and they may not need the living to feed them.”
“Giddy and merry?” Ari clarified.
Echo nodded.
“Just what we need,” Ariadne muttered. “Restless, merry dead. Merry Christmas, everyone.”
“Here,” Margot Wode said snidely, “we say Happy Christmas.”
Medea’s gaze narrowed and Cassiopeia shot Margot a dark look. Cassiopeia started to snap back to Margot, but Ariadne shook her head. Cass snapped her mouth closed and then left the grove calling, “Come with me, Medea. Let’s make sure there aren’t any spirits in our room.”
Chapter 3
ECHO BEATRIX AZALEA WODE
Echo followed Ariadne, who had laid her hand on Lucian’s arm and was letting him lead her through the grove. She was either far more affected by what had happened to her than one would expect or she liked Lucian Blacke more than she wanted to admit.
Ariadne had told Echo after their early adventures with Mr. Blacke that he was a man with baggage that Ari could not help carry. He had two small children of his own, a brother who had dipped into dark magic, and he had lost his first wife. It was more than Ari could handle, no matter what else may lie between them.
Ariadne was bowing under the weight of being the Wode on two continents, and had been raising Medea since the day she was born, and had cared for Cassiopeia even when their mother was still alive and declining. Echo knew that Ari felt the same responsibility for her and Circe.
Echo didn’t follow Ari. Instead she felt in her mind for the direction that led her to the dead and buried. She turned aside and knew that Circe had followed.
“The graveyard?” Circe asked without really needing to.
Echo nodded but didn’t speak. She was following the cool, white trail in her head that led her to the concentration of the dead. There was, Echo thought, a thinning forming here. The thinnings of the veil between the dead and the living could take centuries to form or happen in one evening. Ariadne would need Echo if it were far along.
Echo, however, didn’t want to stay in England. Not even with the knowledge that Ariadne would. The second Ari had walked into the grove, something had adjusted on her face, and she’d relaxed. Ari belonged here.
Echo, however, had her own dead at home. Didn’t she? Her mouth twisted. Technically, these were her dead too, but Mama was in America.
“Do you think she’ll give up being the American Wode?” Circe asked quietly.
Echo glanced at Circe, not liking the subtle undercurrents in Circe’s tone. Echo, however, answered honestly. “I think she’ll have to eventually. That or find someone to take the role here.”
“There isn’t anyone here,” Circe said sourly. “These English Wodes have to have been looking. They’d lost access to their ancestral homes, funds, and magic.”
“What do you want her to do?” Echo asked seriously, pausing in her tracking to face Circe.
“What I want I can’t have.”
“Are you still mourning Lindsey Noel? He was a snake in the grass, Circe Euterpe Magnolia Wode!”
“I know!” Circe folded her arms over her stomach as if she weren’t feeling well. Softly she added, “I know he was—”
“Then why are you still punishing Ari? It wasn’t Ari who took me captive and brought me to Blind Bobby. It wasn’t Ari who put on a white cloak and coned hat and lit a cross on fire in front of our house. It wasn’t Ari who turned on you. So why are you punishing her?”
“I don’t know,” Circe said, wiping away a frustrated tear. “I can’t seem to stop myself.”
“Get over yourself,” Echo advised. “It’s hard enough to be Ari right now without you making it worse.”
Circe frowned and muttered, “It doesn’t seem so hard when you see the castle she inherited.”
“She was just bleeding from her eyes, foolish twit.” She turned from Circe before saying something that she couldn’t take back. Echo reached for the white, cool line in her head and followed it silently, knowing that Circe continued to trail after.
They found the ancient family graves that went back for hundreds of years. Echo, however, knew the graveyard itself went back far, far longer than that. She could sense the ancient graves, those who spoke old tongues instead of English. Even back to those who were here before the Conqueror arrived and the family called the Wode claimed their piece of the country.
Echo felt them all and not as they should be. She frowned and opened her second sight, focusing on the graveyard, and she could make out a trail from the graveyard towards the house and the grove.
Things were out of balance and something had to be done, but in between making their pumpkin pies and seeing the little girls had the Christmas that their mother had given Ariadne, Circe, and Echo. Traditions were demanding to be kept despite the wakeful dead.
“Well?”
“The grove and the house are haunted.”
“What do we do?” She sounded afraid.
“Circe, darling,” Echo laughed. “I’ve been layering you in protective wards and spells against the dead since—” The events that happened just after they arrived in England.
“Will you be able to get rid of them before Christmas?” Circe asked. “Or are we having a haunted holiday?”
“Given that Christmas is in two days,” Echo replied, “I would guess so.”
“The merry dead sound all well and good until you think about what else could happen.”
“These ancient houses have spells that are worked into them to protect against the dead in the way you suffered, Circe. If you hadn’t been struck when we were on the steamship, you’d never have been affected as you were.”
“I feel like I’m being punished for that still,” Circe admitted.
“No one holds you accountable for any of it.”
“Then why—” Circe let her voice trail off, but Echo wasn’t going to let Circe miss the answer or ignore it.
“Ariadne is an intuitive enough witch to recognize the truth behind your attacks. Circe, you’re jealous of all the good things that come from being the Wode and don’t bother to acknowledge all the terrible parts of it. You’ve been jealous of Ari since Mama died and left Ariadne in charge.”
Circe’s mouth twisted.
�
�You should mediate on that,” Echo told her starkly. “Ari can’t help being who she is, and you’re punishing her for it. You love your magic, and if we were mostly a siren family, you’d be the Wode.”
Circe didn’t answer and Echo left her to it.
ARIADNE EUDORA WISTERIA WODE
“How many of the family want to return to the house?” Ariadne asked Hadley and Margot. They, along with Lucian and his father, walked down one of the many halls while Ari searched for a room that felt comfortable to sit in.
They met each other’s gazes and then Hadley answered. “Before Delilah died, there were five members of the family living in the house. Of those, one has died and one has married. The remaining three, Humbert, Sally, and Fanny Wode, don’t want to return with the dead running amuck.”
Before Ariadne could reply, a ghostly head appeared in the wall. The eyes were perfectly centered to match the wallpaper, but they winked alternatively with each eyelid at Ariadne. She sighed as she examined the ghost, who met her gaze merrily. Whoever it was, it was delighted she had seen it.
She didn’t want to encourage it however, so she stepped into the nearest room.
The head followed, moving into the room, and about two-thirds of the way up the wall and higher than anyone else could have been without a ladder. And there was a ladder, as she seemed to have found the library.
“Hullo, hullo, hullo, what have we here?”
Ariadne replied, “Ariadne Wode.”
“You’re the one the house is moaning over? By George! You’re an American!”
“I am,” Ariadne replied evenly.
“I’m rolling over in my grave!” the ghost groaned. “Are you Benjamin’s get? All I can hear from the house is ‘Ariadne, Ariadne, Ariadne.’” Her name was said as a high-pitched sneer. “Why you?”
“Get? I’m not some prize winning pup,” Ariadne said smoothly, refusing to let her voice rise.
The ghost chuckled and then lifted a book from a dusty table and chucked it at Ariadne. Before she could engage her own magic, the magic of the country house clicked into play and the book stopped in mid-air before slowly settling at her feet.