The Curse of Dark Root: Part One (Daughters of Dark Root Book 3)

by April Aasheim

  He stood, finished dressing, and stormed across the room.

  He stopped at the window, resting his elbows on the ledge. Nothing but fucking trees as far as the eye could see. He had begun to hate trees. Hate them in the way a prisoner hates iron bars. He should leave Dark Root, and sooner rather than later. There was nothing to keep him here. He’d served his time with Sasha and had trained up his abilities.

  Just think what he could accomplish in the outside world. And what he wouldn’t give for a really good brandy. Ah, hell.

  But something…something made him stay. And he no longer believed it was Sasha. He scratched his head, watching a squirrel run along a tree branch.

  He chanced a quick glance back at Larinda, watching as she put on a dress that matched the color of her hair. She was fun at times, difficult at others, and he liked the steady power supply she offered him. But she wasn’t what kept him here, either.

  It was as if he were waiting for…something. But what?

  The end of the world? Not hardly. Sasha and her minions could face the end huddled up in Dark Root but he certainly wouldn’t. When the end came, he’d fight it himself. Or join in, if it was advantageous.

  No. It wasn’t “the end” he was waiting for.

  Larinda joined him at the window.

  They stood in silence, watching as leaves tumbled downwards, covering the ground. Winter was on the horizon, and as much as Armand hated the trees, he deplored their nakedness even more. Exposed and without hope––not knowing if spring would return. Just like him.

  He searched his pockets, looking for a cigarette, an old habit he couldn’t break even after he had stopped smoking.

  Larinda handed him a smoke and a lighter, and he took them.

  After several minutes, Sasha’s dented Cadillac pulled into the dirt driveway. Armand leaned forward, his breath steaming up the window. He wiped away the fog and looked down. There was a woman exiting the passenger’s side of Sasha’s car, a young woman with chestnut hair that fell all the way to her waist. From what he could see of her face, Armand could tell that she was pretty. But it was her aura that struck him. It was white, like Sasha’s, but softer, pulsing rhythmically around her. There was a purity to it he had rarely seen before.

  He raised an eyebrow, his interest in the world renewed.

  “Must be the new Council member,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady even as his heart raced.

  Larinda narrowed her eyes as she pressed her nose to the window. “She’s a kid. Probably not even trained. I was expecting someone older.”

  “Me too,” he admitted, taking in the soft curves of her body and the way she held herself with both uncertainty and confidence. Her aura continued to resonate, calling to him in strong pulses. Though he had just quenched his thirst with Larinda, he felt the primitive wave of arousal stir him again.

  Larinda pulled him away from the window by his elbow and tilted her head, smiling. “I suppose trying to summon one small demon won’t hurt anything. We’ll have to be careful.”

  Armand lifted her and swung her around. His day was improving. “That’s great, babe. That’s really great.”

  Downstairs, the front door opened. Sasha’s voice called up to him. “Armand, I’m home. And I want you to meet Jillian. She’s a psychic medium with some telekinetic abilities. I’ll need you to help train her.”

  Larinda’s energy bristled.

  Armand was about to call down to Sasha when he saw the dark wisp flurry across the room again, its eyes red and searching. The thing floated into the closet.

  “Did you see that?” he asked Larinda, but the dark witch was too busy dressing to hear him.

  But Armand knew what he had seen.

  There was something in the room with them. A hitchhiker from the Netherworld.

  He pushed that aside, promising to deal with it later. For now, all he could think about was meeting Jillian.

  Dark Root, Oregon

  April, 2014

  Sister House

  It was early morning when I came out of the snow globe hallucination.

  There was no sign of Eve wandering the house, but Ruth Anne was still camped out on the floor, one foot inside the sleeping bag while the other had managed to work itself out through the partially undone zipper. She continued to snore, though it was lighter now, easier.

  I gave the globe a quizzical look and then another shake. There was nothing but glitter inside. There was something in the room with them; something they had brought back from the Netherworld.

  I looked up to the ceiling, towards the nursery, and then pulled my wand from my tote.

  Creeping up the stairs and down the hall, I found myself in front of the nursery door––the same room from my dream, and the room where I spent the early years of my childhood, terrorized by the demon Gahabrien. Was that shadowy wisp from the snow globe dream the same dark entity that I had trapped in glass and buried in the back yard of Harvest Home?

  I turned the doorknob slowly, remembering Jillian’s words that sometimes things get attached when entering or leaving the Netherworld. All those years I had blamed my mother, but my accusation had been misplaced. My father had been the one to unleash a demon upon us. Was there only one? Or were there more?

  I stepped inside, expecting the room to feel cold.

  But it wasn’t. In fact, it was warm, almost cozy. Rays of the morning sun shone through the window, spreading an orange haze across the recently polished hardwood floors. There were still toys from our girlhood in there––dolls and dollhouses, books and a creepy old clown––but for the most part, the room looked very different from the one I had grown up in. There was now a children’s easel, a plastic table and chairs, and a reading nook. Cheerful yellow curtains framed the window. The walls were painted a calming blue. Merry had been here, transforming the space into a retreat for June Bug.

  As I stepped across the floor in my bare feet, I noticed how different the room looked from the images in the globe. It seemed larger in the dream, but maybe things were always larger in our memories.

  I smiled in spite of myself as I walked past the spot where I imagined my father reading a book in his bean bag chair. Or resting in his sleeping bag. His energy was gone from here now, filtered out by time and paint, but I knew it had been recorded.

  The high window that I was unable to reach as a girl was accessible to me now and I pushed open the curtains. I could almost see Mother pulling into the driveway with a young Jillian in tow––could almost feel Larinda’s jealousy and my father’s deep curiosity. Another piece of the puzzle had been added but I still couldn’t make them all fit together.

  I was supposed to find out the “secrets of the past,” but all I’d gotten so far was that I was the daughter of a warlock who had a complicated relationship with my coven-leading mother, carried out an affair with her shape-assuming cousin, and had a strong interest in Jillian.

  He didn’t have a type, I realized as I mused it all over. Or maybe he did? All of these women were powerful magic-wielders.

  And there was something more I’d learned from the last vision. According to Aunt Dora and Jillian, my father never learned to summon demons. But I now knew that he had brought at least one back from the Netherworld.

  The thought made me shiver, even as the sunlight warmed my naked arms.

  Perhaps that was my lesson. I was my father’s daughter, destined to repeat history unless I learned from it first. Jumping from partner to partner is bound to give you trouble, and jumping around the Netherworld will bring back things that should have stayed put.

  But why should Eve and Merry not have to learn those same lessons? They were Armand’s children, too.

  I turned to face the closet door, leaning against the sill of the window.

  Perhaps it was because I was the closest to him. My temper. My hair. My restlessness. My inability to draw the line between right and wrong when there was so much gray in between.

  Armand didn’t seem evil in th
e snow globe memories. He seemed lost at times, confused, even jaded. By all accounts, he eventually became completely corrupted. Was that my fate as well?

  No, it couldn’t be. The globes were meant as a warning, I told myself. Nothing more. I had more good in me than bad, and the good would win out. The stakes were higher for me than for Armand. I was going to be a mother, bringing a child into the world.

  I continued to mull over the similarities and differences between my father and myself as I studied the outline of the closet door once again. With my mind’s eye, I focused on the knob, turning it to the right. It took tremendous energy to turn a doorknob, nearly twice as much as required to push or pull an object of equal size, and it was slow going. The knob twisted, creaking like it were in pain as it moved a full rotation.

  The door opened, just enough so that if I stepped forward I could see what was inside.

  My knees trembled. Perhaps there was nothing in there. Or maybe there’d be an inter-planar zoo full of demons, waiting for me to release them. Or perhaps––and this was the worst thought of all––I’d see that terrible image of my father holding the scale balancing the heart against the feather, beckoning for me to join him.

  I lifted my chin as the sun continue to warm my back. With one hand raised I said aloud, “I am Magdalene Maddock. And I am not my father.”

  A loud thud caused me to jump. I turned, seeing that The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh lay face down on the floor near the bookrack. My heart started beating rapidly. I focused on the closet door again, slamming it shut.

  Some things would have to wait.

  And then I heard a screeching noise at the window. Turning, I saw that a large ankh had been drawn on the glass with what looked like chimney soot.

  “Father?” I said, fighting back fear as I searched the room. “Juliana?”

  The soot ankh was more pronounced now, as if someone had added another layer to the image. It filled the entire window.

  A shuffling noise in the hallway startled me, until I recognized it as Eve’s heavy morning footsteps on her way downstairs for coffee. I touched the ring on my finger, Shane’s ring, to remind myself of who I was. I repeated my mantra, louder and to the powers that be.

  “I am Maggie Maddock, and I am not my father.” I concentrated on the Winnie the Pooh book and returned it to its proper place on the shelf.

  “Whoever you are, you will not break me!” I pointed at the empty air. “Curse or no curse, I’m stronger than you or anything you can throw at me!”

  I gave the room one final inspection, my eyes resting a moment too long on the ankh.

  The soot loosened and dispersed, streaming down like sand through an hourglass before disappearing altogether.

  I pressed my palm to the window where the symbol had been and then looked at my hand. It was clean.

  “Maggie, where the hell are you?” Eve called to me.

  I quickly left the room, closing the door behind me.

  Eve stood near the upstairs bathroom with a large-toothed comb in her hand.

  “Hey,” I said, smiling.

  She eyed me suspiciously. “You’ve been up to something.”

  “Just checking out the old nursery. It’s much cozier since the demon moved out.”

  She pursed her lips, probably wondering if I was joking or not. “Well, you look better than you did last night. Except for that hair. Let me get this comb through it. The Raggedy Ann thing you have going isn’t working for me.”

  “Might be easier to use a weed-whacker,” Ruth Anne suggested, emerging at the top of the steps with a coffee cup and a giant cookie. “Or cut it off altogether.”

  “Please,” Eve said. “Yours is short and you still manage to look like you put your finger in a light socket.”

  “Crazy hair is a sign of genius,” Ruth Anne fired back. “Haven’t you seen pictures of Einstein?”

  “It’s also a sign of crazy.” Eve took me by my shoulders and marched me to a chair in Merry’s bedroom.

  “Really?” I asked, as she worked painful knots out of my hair. “I am almost nine months pregnant and cursed. Do we have do to this now?”

  Eve’s response was a hard tug with the comb.

  “Fine,” I said, surrendering to Eve’s drill sergeant beauty tactics, even as my mind wandered back to the ankh on the window. “But the only one this is helping is you.”

  Eve smiled. “And that’s the only one that matters.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  All Along the Watchtower

  At sunset we left Sister House and set out for Main Street on foot, despite my avid protests that we had vehicles and should be using them. Eve insisted I could stand a bit of fresh air and exercise and Ruth Anne agreed, although she pulled June Bug’s wagon behind her in case I needed a ride.

  The roads were mostly dry as Dark Root stumbled into mid-spring and the weatherman proudly predicted we’d have at least ten full days of sunshine, almost unheard of in this region until late summer. Eve proclaimed it a blessing and Ruth Anne grumbled about global warming while I listened, keeping thoughts of curses and my missing boyfriend to myself.

  Even without the rain, it was a treacherous walk as my feet fell into pits and holes carved out by a hard winter. I leaned on my sisters in turn, declining Ruth Anne’s suggestion to “take a seat and leave the driving to her.”

  “The Power of Three will work, but for summoning, we really should have a fourth, one witch for each element. It would give us another layer of protection.” Ruth Anne dialed Merry’s number. “No luck, again.”

  “That’s it. I’m calling Aunt Dora,” Eve said.

  “No!” The others looked at me. “I don’t want her to know we’re performing this ritual. You know how fussy she gets about these types of thing.” I was still wary about Dora and Jillian’s involvement with Larinda concerning me and my baby. Even more than that, I didn’t want them to know I was trying to summon Shane. Not only would they lecture me on “dark magick,” they’d try to talk me out of it.

  The moon was out when we arrived at Dip Stix. Eve removed her key from her clutch purse and unlocked the door.

  “I still don’t understand why you got a key and I didn’t,” I complained.

  She shrugged. “Maybe he trusts me more.”

  “Do you have one, too?” I asked Ruth Anne.

  She blushed a little and pulled out a silver key from her wallet. “I dug mine out of my desk today,” she said. “Want it?”

  “No, I don’t want your key. I want my own key. Given to me by Shane.”

  Eve opened the door and we peered into the dust-filled dining room. Ruth Anne’s EMF reader immediately started sounding as she waved it out before her, into the darkness.

  “No lights,” Eve said, flipping the power switch. “Shane must have forgotten to pay his bill before he left.”

  “Or he turned it off at the breaker,” Ruth Anne suggested. “I think it’s in the back. We should have brought flashlights.”

  They both looked at me expectantly.

  I stepped inside and tried the switch myself. “Fine.”

  Grabbing the end of a line of twinkle lights that circumnavigated the room, I focused my attention, imagining the little bulbs coming alive. Just as I visualized, one by one they lit it.

  “Do you do overhead lights, too?” Ruth Anne asked, pointing at the fixtures above us.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and tried again, but nothing happened. “I think I’m tapped out for now.”

  “We just need to piss her off again,” Eve said.

  “Give her a minute,” Ruth Anne agreed. “Something will make her angry.”

  Eve shook her head as she wandered the dining room. This was the first time she had seen the café since returning to Dark Root.

  “I can’t believe this is the same place. It’s hard to look at.”

  She touched a black spot on the wall and some of the soot disappeared, but her small act of beautification magick took a huge toll and Eve’s face paled t
o the color of the twinkle lights. Even if she brought her wand in here, it would take months for her to eradicate the damage done by the fire. Still, it was a kind gesture and I was touched.

  Ruth Anne covered her nose with her arm. “This place stinks. The smell of smoke can take forever to go away.”

  I worked my way to the center of the dining room, where I could take it all in. The ambience of the soot-covered café at night was even creepier than in the daytime. The walls were so black in places it was hard to tell that they were solid, and not corridors leading off into an abyss. Here and there were splotches of white paint, areas that Shane had scoured clean.

  I imagined him with a bucket of water and soap, scrubbing in frustration and making little progress. I went to the wall and drew our initials into the chalky black, just as he had carved them into the yew tree: SD + MM. I laid my hand over the top of it, imprinting it on my palm, then quickly wiped it away.

  “I can’t believe it either,” I said.

  We stood then in silence, mentally surveying the damage.

  Dip Stix was Shane’s life. No wonder he was in no hurry to return.

  “Hey,” I said. “What if we cleaned this up for him? I mean there’s four of us, plus…” I waved my hand, unable to choke out Michael’s name.

  “I don’t mind cleaning,” Ruth Anne said. “But not this place. Especially at night. I’m sorry. Fire damage gives me the creeps.”

  “Plus, this place is full of negative energy, Mags.” Eve shuddered, raising her hands. “Can’t you sense it? The fire was no accident. Forget what I said about witches needing to use their abilities. We should get out of here.”

  I opened my senses to the space around me. Eve was right. The place oozed not only despair, but malevolence. But I wasn’t about to be bullied out of here, no matter who or what had caused the fire.

  “C’mon Eve,” I said, more cheerfully than I felt. “A few buckets of soapy water, some scented candles and fresh air, and a little sage smudging will fix this place right up. I promise to protect you.” I flexed my non-existent muscles and smiled.