Sky Mothers (Born of Shadows Book 4)

by J. R. Erickson

  "No," Elda said, shaking her head and trying not to reveal the sadness in her heart.

  Nora gave her a smile and a nod.

  "Meghan took him and ran. My coven hunted for them. My grandfather reached out to every witch he knew. He wanted justice for Eugene."

  "But that was not all?" Julian asked.

  "No, Clyde stole things from our coven. Ancient magical items of great value. We believe he staged the fire to cover his tracks, but our home had spells that protected it from a complete burning. He did damage, surely, but the house did not crumble."

  "What did he take?" Elda asked.

  Nora sighed. She leaned forward, with effort, and reached for the jade frog. She stroked it gently and the green shimmered beneath her touch.

  Ellen walked in a moment later.

  "Everything okay?" she asked. She walked to Nora and replaced her water glass with a fresh one and handed her a dish of peeled apples.

  "Ellen, my dear, could you bring me my scrapbook?"

  "Of course," Ellen told her, leaning down and planting a kiss on top of her head. "More coffee?" she asked Julian and Elda.

  "No, thank you," Elda told her.

  Ellen left but returned quickly with a large square album. She placed it in Nora's lap. After she left, Nora wheeled closer to Elda and Julian. She flipped through the pages and stopped on a large black and white photograph of a painting.

  "We had a painter in our coven. Louis, he came from Paris. A very talented witch. He painted many portraits of Serpent House, but most of them were destroyed in the fire. We managed to save this one. The original hangs upstairs. You can see it if you like, but this is a photo of that painting."

  Elda and Julian leaned over the picture. Nora did not have to point out the item she intended to show them. Julian spotted it immediately.

  "The amulet," he said, placing his finger on the necklace. It hung around a young woman's slender neck. She wore a dress, buttoned high, and the jeweled snake rested on the pale fabric over her chest.

  "You've seen it?"

  "Yes, unfortunately, we have."

  "My mother is wearing it in this portrait. My father hated it. It had come to us by accident. A ship wrecked a hundred miles from our island. One morning, my grandfather found a wooden box half buried on our beach. Inside, he found this amulet, a stash of precious gems and books from Egypt. He started to research the ouroboros. He discovered that men in Egypt believed these symbols granted their owner everlasting life. Within the alchemy of this snake, magic had already been bestowed. My mother found it mysterious and romantic, but my father believed it held dark spirits. My grandfather, ever the scientist, wanted to understand its magical properties. None of us had ever met a witch from Egypt and we were all curious. Eugene began to study the amulet with my grandfather. That is how Clyde learned of it."

  "And Clyde became obsessed?" Julian asked.

  Nora nodded.

  "Eugene confided in my grandfather that Clyde was stealing his notes on the ouroboros. He asked many questions of Eugene. He wanted to know about immortality. Could a man become immortal? Obviously, Eugene did not have answers, but he grew concerned about Clyde's mental health. He wondered if his brother was going insane."

  "What did your grandfather believe?"

  "Initially, he thought Eugene may have been right and Clyde merely suffered a weak mind, but later, after he met him, he felt differently. He told Eugene that Clyde was filled with hatred and lust. He encouraged Eugene to seal his vow with the Serpent House and cut ties with his brother. My grandfather knew that Clyde was dangerous."

  "And Meghan did not recognize the darkness in her child?"

  "Clyde manipulated her. He knew she suffered enormous guilt for the pain her non-magical child had endured. She could never do enough to make it right. She preferred Eugene and Clyde knew. She couldn't help it. She loved Clyde too and wanted desperately to prove as much. He made sure to give her plenty of opportunities. He still maintained a weak personality when Meghan was around. I saw it with my own eyes. In the presence of others, he was arrogant, boastful, cruel even, but for Meghan, he was petulant and slow. You see, Clyde had Meghan's power. She did things for him, gave him things. She needed to make up for the deficit, so she spoiled him with her magic."

  "And now she's trapped in purgatory for it," Julian murmured.

  "She's what? Do you mean to tell me that Meghan lives?" Nora asked, sitting straighter in her chair.

  "Yes, I did not see her with my own eyes, but she is imprisoned in a world that she created in Australia. She built it to confine Clyde, but somehow he escaped and trapped her instead."

  Nora scowled.

  "Sometimes, I still believe that it was all her fault. She was a powerful witch, an unnatural witch. Eugene told me stories, amazing stories. I cannot believe that she lives. You know what that means, though, don't you?"

  Julian shook his head.

  "That Clyde lives as well."

  ****.

  Lydie strode into the kitchen where Helena and Bridget stood over a wedding cake magazine.

  "I think the yellow flowers, surely. Abby and Sebastian have a love meant for the sunshine," Bridget enthused.

  "I was thinking an ashy pink color, Bridge. I mean let's be real here, their courtship has been a dance between dark and light. Don't we want to honor that?"

  "I found something," Lydie said, holding the paper up in triumph.

  "Or maybe this satiny pearl color? It's void of color, yes, but there will be so many other flowers..."

  "Hello? I said I found something important! Or have I become invisible now too?"

  Helena and Bridget both looked up, surprised.

  Helena dropped the magazine and hurried to Lydie.

  "Oh Lydie, I'm sorry. We've just been so caught up in the wedding plans that..."

  "That you forgot there was a curse that might destroy all of our lives at any moment? That we're the only ones that can stop it, but hey, let's worry about wedding cake instead," Lydie fumed and turned on her heel.

  The kitchen door slammed and she stalked down the hallway.

  "Lydie," Helena called, following her. "Honey, stop, please."

  Lydie stopped.

  She wanted to keep walking. But she simply could not blow off Helena. Helena was the most loving, gentle person she had ever known. Even in her moments of greatest frustration, she never blamed Helena.

  "I'm sorry," Helena whispered, touching her shoulder from behind. "I am so very sorry. Can we take a walk? Go to the floating garden? I want to hear what you've discovered and perhaps I could tell you more about Australia."

  Lydie nodded, feeling some of her anger dissipate at Helena's touch.

  They left the castle and walked to the floating garden. As always, it was in full bloom. The flowers, fragrant and dazzling, shifted toward them as they left the stone stairway.

  Lydie thrust the paper into Helena's hands and walked to the lemon tree that her mother had planted. The tree only stood a few feet high, but it burst with lemons. Lydie tugged one off and held it to her nose, inhaling the scent.

  She watched Helena as her eyes scanned the page, her brow furrowed. She chewed her lower lip, and Lydie could see as she read the names, her eyes darted again and again to the conclusion that the Lourdes had scrawled across the bottom. "She must kill us all."

  "I think it means that the only way to end the curse is to kill everyone in her family," Lydie announced. "Everyone that descended from her."

  "All of these names are women," Helena murmured, still going back and forth to dates and names. "If that's true, it would mean every single female descendant of Kanti and Clyde are dead except for Abby and her mother."

  "I know." Lydie's moment of self-satisfaction at finding the note had departed. Fear had replaced her pride and she suddenly wanted to be back in Florida where curses and Vepars and spirits of the dead did not exist. It was a paradoxical feeling for her. She had never been anything but a witch and didn't know another
life. Could she ever truly leave it behind?

  "We need to show this to Faustine," Helena started.

  "Wait." Lydie said. "I need to know what happened in Australia."

  ****

  Oliver intercepted Ezra on her way back to the loft. She had changed into running clothes and wore gray pants, drenched with sweat, and a loose-fitting black-t-shirt cut wide and jagged around her collarbones. She nearly walked passed him, but stopped when he held up two cups of coffee.

  "Coffee?" He shook a paper bag. "And croissants."

  Wiping an arm across her sweaty face, she lifted one of the coffees from the cardboard container and took a scalding sip.

  "Mmmm, thanks."

  She didn't walk into the building, but instead ducked behind a trash can and emerged less than a minute later dry and fully clothed in jean shorts cut just above her knee and a long-sleeved t-shirt.

  "That's a trick I have yet to learn," he told her, surveying her outfit.

  "I'm on the go a lot, it's worthwhile for me to conjure clothes on the fly. I originally did it to help homeless people, but realized I could benefit as well."

  "You'll have to teach me."

  She nodded and took another sip of her coffee.

  "You're right, I'm defensive," she started. "And the truth is that I haven't been here for a while, relating to someone intimately, if you will." She laughed. "Listen to me, I sound like I've spent too much time with a shrink."

  "Have you?"

  She cocked an eyebrow at him.

  "In another life, sure. How do you think I became so well adjusted?"

  He laughed and handed her a croissant.

  "I live with Victor and the other Guerrilla witches, but I'm on my own, we all are. There's an understanding in our kind of community. We don't tell, judge, spread misinformation. I don't have dinner with Victor every night. Sometimes I don't see him for days. He may take off without telling anyone where he's going. I do it too, and it's important to me to feel safe with my friends. I need to trust them for this carefully constructed world we've created to work. You dig?"

  "Yeah, I do."

  He got it, but he didn't at the same time. He didn't live in that world. He trusted his coven completely. He had trusted Dafne even as she sewed the seeds of her own destruction.

  "But silence is a choice too, Ezra. You're a witch, a witch who's devoted her life to helping others. Would you allow Victor to undermine that because you don't want to rock the boat?"

  "I've been rocking the boat my entire life, Oliver," she snapped. "This isn't a matter of trying to play it safe. I'm doing my best here. But yes, sure, Victor has been different lately. He's been vacant, physically and mentally."

  "Have you asked him why?"

  Ezra shrugged.

  "No. I've asked Kendra and she thinks he's become a bit obsessed with the curse on Abby and Sebastian. She thinks he wants to save the day and find out how to break it."

  "But you don't think so?"

  Ezra sighed and shoved the rest of the croissant in her mouth as if it might save her from saying what was on her mind.

  "I've been around a lot of darkness in my life. It's a courtship, a dance and when the devil ensnares you, it's hard to break away."

  ****

  "It's Victor," Oliver told Faustine.

  He stood on the curb watching car brake lights shining from the slick Chicago pavement. It wasn't raining so much as misting. Chicago's rush hour traffic made him long for northern Michigan. He had told Ezra that he needed to check in with Ula and ducked out of the loft to make the call. He and Faustine had pre-planned the contact so that Faustine could take a boat to the mainland where he had cell service.

  "Are you sure?" Faustine asked, sounding unsurprised.

  "Well, I haven't laid eyes on it, but yes. I saw a memory of Kendra's that revealed something that I believe was the amulet. And Ezra says he's been acting strangely."

  "Okay," Faustine said. "Don't confront him. I'm formulating a plan. Elda and Julian have flown to Montana to speak to a witch from Serpent House and they will return tonight."

  "The wedding is next week," Oliver reminded him.

  "Exactly, we'll have all of the witches here, Victor included."

  "You plan to confront him at Abby's wedding?"

  "Of course not," Faustine said, a note of irritation in his voice. "But it is an ideal opportunity after the wedding is over."

  "I see." Oliver heard a car honk and watched a woman stick her hand out her car window and flip her middle finger at a truck driver. "I'll be back tomorrow as well and I told Lydie we could stay with Abby and Sebastian for a couple of days."

  "Good, Lydie's found something concerning and we should discuss it."

  "What's that?" Oliver asked, glancing back toward the building. He didn't want Ezra to overhear his conversation.

  "We'll talk about it tomorrow."

  Chapter 26

  Abby opened the door to Lydie and Oliver, their arms filled with magazines.

  "Are we scrapbooking?" She laughed, inviting them in.

  "I wish," Oliver grumbled. "Helena and Bridget have marked about fifty million pages and we have to send her your feedback on flowers, decorations, and seating by tomorrow.

  "Good grief. Is there a magic spell that can make those decisions for me?"

  "Yes," Lydie announced triumphantly. "I found one before I left. We have more important things to talk about."

  Lydie showed Abby how to do the spell. It was quick and easy and involved lighting a candle, whispering a desire for the magazine to reveal only that which she would love in her wedding and then setting the magazine on fire. The fire would burn everything except the pages she would have picked anyway. After five minutes, they had a stack of eight pages.

  "Wow, good thinking, Lydie," Oliver told her, holding up his hand for a high five.

  "What did I miss?" Sebastian asked, shouldering open the door and carrying an enormous bag of kitty food.

  "Dinner?" Oliver asked.

  "You're more than welcome to it," he said, hoisting the bag into Oliver's arms.

  Oliver looked at the label.

  "Nope, chicken livers are not my style."

  "We're having lasagna," Abby said, cutting open the bag and filling Baboon's bowl. "And you missed the wedding stuff, which we can show you if you'd like, or we can get down to business?"

  "Wedding stuff later. I want to hear what Elda and Julian found out in Montana."

  "They got a pretty deep backstory on Clyde. However, it didn't tell us much about the curse. One thing is certain, he was a bad dude and obsessed with immortality. Between what this witch Nora said and what Faustine read in the Yarrow book that Dafne got from the L'Obscurite, it seems pretty clear that he was performing some very dark magic in an attempt to live forever."

  "There was something else too," Lydie broke in, avoiding Oliver's gaze. "I found a piece of paper in the Lourdes's stuff that listed dates and names for all of the women who descended from Kanti and you and your mom are the only ones left alive."

  Abby stared back at her, trying to make sense out of what she was saying.

  "That can't be, can it? I mean there must be dozens of women."

  "Thirty-six."

  "Thirty-six!" Sebastian exclaimed.

  "Unless she missed someone, which she could have," Oliver broke in. "But the names match what Victor discovered when he was tracing the bloodlines."

  Abby sat heavily on a stool.

  "What does it mean? How could they all be dead?"

  "It gets worse," Lydie said, and this time she looked to Oliver to break the news.

  "There were two names on that list that were a bit shocking. Your mother and sister, Sebastian."

  "I'm sorry, what?" Sebastian looked at them in disbelief.

  "But that would mean." He looked at Abby, shaking his head as if denying the possibility.

  "It's not a close relationship, but Alva, Tobias, and Sebastian all descended from Kanti and Clyde origin
ally as well. I don't know how she did it, but the Lourdes tracked the entire family tree. Kanti's child was named Kimi, which was later shortened to Kim. Kim had two children a boy and a girl. The girl is where Abby descends from and Sebastian, Tobias, and Alva come from the boy's family."

  Sebastian put his head in his hands.

  Abby leaned toward him and rubbed his back.

  "Are you saying my mother was murdered?" he mumbled.

  "Not necessarily," Lydie started.

  "So, what then? All the women that descend from them are just randomly dead? It's a coincidence?"

  "Probably not," Lydie admitted, looking defeated.

  "Faustine believes there's something happening to the women in your family right now because the curse is cycling back around for the third time. Three is a powerful number. The Lourdes wrote something disturbing at the bottom of the family tree. It said, 'we all must die,' referring to herself and the women in your family. Faustine thinks that Kanti wants to end the curse, or at least she wants to be free of whatever is tethering her spirit to the world," Oliver explained.

  "And if we die, she's free?"

  Sebastian slammed his hand down on the table.

  "No, no, we're done talking about this. I'm sorry, but I just..." He left the room and they listened to his footfalls on the stairs.

  "I'm sorry," Lydie sputtered. "It was too much, maybe Helena should have told you."

  Abby took Lydie's hand.

  "It's not your fault, Lydie, and Sebastian isn't mad at you. He's scared and with good reason."

  Oliver let out a long breath and stared at the ceiling.

  "It's not going to happen, okay? Julian has already gone to your mother. He added protective spells to her house and he's built a shield around her. It would take a highly skilled witch to break down the spell and the moment someone tried, he'd be alerted."