Beneath the Black Moon (Root Sisters)

by Fine, Clara

  The only other time Cam had been so warm and felt so loved was when she was with Brent, feeling him touch her, with reverence, with fierce desire. Brent was all but lost to her now, but Cam needed something, needed some contact, something to hold.

  She turned away from the window and knelt beside her bed, reaching under it with shaking hands. After a moment of searching her hand brushed against leather, and she pulled out a small, striped valise. It had been years since Cam had touched the bag. It was dusty and faded, and Cam could smell a strange musty odor as she lifted it onto her bed. The night that Aunt Beth held her coming-out party, Cam had left the dance early and gone upstairs to pack her favorite childhood items into this valise. At the time she had been entertaining the idea of running away. Cam had abandoned that plan when she realized that there was nowhere for her to run to, but she had left her dearest possessions hidden in the valise, afraid that otherwise Aunt Beth might stumble across them.

  If she had been more relaxed, Cam would have taken the time to examine everything in the valise. It had been years since she had seen Betsy, her favorite doll, or Lee, the wooden lion that Sam had carved for her just a few weeks before his death. But Cam wasn’t looking for her old toys. There was a small exterior pocket on the valise, which she quickly unbuttoned. Nestled inside was a glass vial full of silver ashes. Cam pulled it out, along with several old stockings that she had stuffed in for padding, and cradled the item in her hand. She had collected the ash the day after her mother’s death. It had been a bizarre, disorienting morning. Everyone had been crying, and Cam’s father had locked himself in his bedroom. Diana had been the one to finally coax him out of it three days later, and Cam still wondered if her sister had slept at all in the hours between their mother’s death and their father’s emergence.

  Someone had told Cam that her mother was in a happier place, in the sky with the angels. She hadn’t believed it. Cam could remember staring up at the cloudy sky, which was white in some places and gray in others, and thinking that her mother couldn’t possibly be all of the way up there. It was too distant. How could one woman make such a long journey? On the other hand, Cam could imagine her mother in the ash. She could almost feel her there. She had raided the kitchen for a jar, but found only a vial, and under that dismal sky she had filled it with the ashes of the carriage house.

  At first the vial had been a comfort to her, but as she grew older Cam had come to see it as morbid. She had packed it away in the valise when she was sixteen, and that was the last that she had seen of it for several years. Now, with the vial in her palm, Cam’s finely honed senses could confirm what she had merely suspected as a child. There was the faintest echo of her mother in those ashes. It wasn’t much, but it was the closest that Cam could get to her and suddenly she didn’t care if it was morbid to keep the ashes.

  There was something else in the vial, the remnants of the very conjure that had killed Solange. It was dark and destructive, but it was also dormant, slumbering in the ash. It had been fourteen years since it had been called upon to harm anyone and Cam didn’t fear the magic as long as it slept.

  She put the valise back beneath her bed and climbed under her covers with the vial still clutched in one hand. The ashes had still been warm when she had collected them as a small child, and though that heat and long since faded, she tried to call it back, to force the warmth back into her hand.

  I feel as if I’m dying, mama.

  Help me.

  She was drowning again, this time in the coldness and the loneliness and the lies. For a while she didn’t feel any better, and when she finally succumbed to sleep her blood was still like ice and her heart was still burdened. But as her breath became softer and the tension eased from her frame, warmth began to return to her. Deeply asleep as she was, Cam still felt the warmth, and she dreamt of Brent. She dreamt of his face over hers, of the strength of his hands on her body and the scent of him. She could hear the low rasp of his voice and feel his breath on her skin, and it brought her peace.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The door to Brent’s home was unlocked. Cam hesitated, listening for voices or movement. All she detected was that same lingering darkness.

  She had seen smoke rising from the Anderson kitchen when she rode up, but other than that, there was no sign of anyone. Hating herself, Cam opened the door and slipped inside of the house. She half expected to be face to face with some horrified maid or butler, but instead she found herself alone in the front foyer. There was a grand spiral staircase to her right, and Cam headed that way.

  She had woken that morning from a full night of dreaming about Brent. His image was haunting her. She couldn’t forget about him, but she couldn’t be with him. And all of the while fear clawed at her, struggling to get the best of her. She had made up her mind that something had to be done, and so she had quietly taken one of her father’s horses and ridden to the Wickers Plantation. There was evil here, perhaps not the same evil that had drowned her, but evil all the same. She wanted to get to the root of it, to understand why there was such black magic in sleepy Gaynor County.

  Cam found Hattie’s door easily; it reeked of conjure and evil. Her heart was in her throat as she put her hand on the knob and eased the door open.

  The first thing she noticed was the overpowering scent of flowers. Somone, probably John, had filled the room with fresh flowers. He had probably hoped that it would comfort Hattie in her illness, but Cam found the flowers almost as unnerving as the conjure. They reminded her of the flowers that had filled the house after her mother’s death.

  The Cam caught sight of Hattie, and all thought of flowers fled her mind. At first she thought the girl was dead. It was only as Cam froze, horrified, that she noticed the frighteningly faint rise and fall of the woman’s chest. Hattie was dreadfully thin, so emaciated that there were hollows around her eyes and mouth. Her skin was bloodless, her lips pale and cracked, and even in sleep there was a pained expression on her face. Someone had brushed her hair recently, and the way the dark strands were spread over the pillow only added to the morbidity of the picture.

  Cam put a hand to her mouth, suddenly pitying Brent’s family so much that she was sick. At least Solange and Sam had died quickly. Seeing Hattie this way had to be the slowest and most agonizing of all tortures.

  But it was like Solange’s death in a few key ways. It was senseless. It was cruel. And it was conjure. Cam stared around the room at Hattie’s belongings, many of which were still packed. The woman must have fallen ill not long after moving to Gaynor.

  What is the connection?

  Someone had cursed Hattie. Someone had cursed Cam. Kat had cursed Solange. The pieces were all there, but none of them pieced together.

  The muffled call of a bird roused Cam from her thoughts. She likely only had a few minutes before some maid or even John came to tend Hattie. It wasn’t much time, but with a little luck Cam might be able to find the source of the evil that tormented Hattie.

  She hated the idea of rummaging through the woman’s belongings, but if she didn’t find the root of the illness then no one would. Cam closed her eyes and stood there, swaying as the evil pressed around her, skimming over her skin and making her sick. She summoned her own strength and senses, and began to walk with her eyes still closed. She stopped when she felt the evil level with her face, practically burning into her skull. She was almost afraid to open her eyes.

  Don’t be stupid, Cam.

  Actually, her fear was very intelligent, but the mental reprimand was enough to make her open her eyes.

  She was face to face with a…. hatbox. It was stacked on top of several other hatboxes and probably looked perfectly harmless to someone like Brent or John.

  She opened it with cold, numb fingers. The smell hit her first. It stank of decay, of a deathly rot. And no wonder. Inside were more than half a dozen reptile parts. Lizard limbs and the bones of snakes and skinks. Cam almost dropped the box, she was so revolted. They weren’t clean, bleached bones,
but were instead rotting. Skin still clung to most of them, and the combined scent of the flesh and the conjure was nearly enough to make her faint. It was a nasty way to curse someone.

  “We should talk.”

  Cam slammed the lid back on the hatbox and nearly screamed. Brent stood in the doorway. She could see his suspicion, like a shadow in those penetrating green eyes. Their eyes met and her pulse jumped. There was energy in his stance, power in the anger that was slowly rising on his handsome face.

  Cam was familiar with power. She knew power. She had seen it in the twisted, knobby hands of her grandmother as the old woman sewed charm bags and cast spells. She had recognized it in the quiet force of Caro’s rootwork. She had found it in herself when she practiced conjure, when the fury and the longing and the love inside of her were finally channeled and she could release all of the nightmares that lurked inside.

  Brent was different. His power was overt, masculine. He didn’t hide it and he didn’t flaunt it. It clung to him, coloring his gaze and lending the faintest air of menace to every movement. Now, as she remained silent, the suspicion was morphing into anger, and while part of her wanted to quickly mumble a lie and flee, the devil’s child inside was more interested in testing him. Her less prudent half envied his power and wanted to shake his control, to tempt him to the brink and give him a taste of the fury and the helplessness that she knew so well.

  Anyway, he likely wouldn’t believe a lie. He had probably been watching her for several minutes. He was always watching her, Cam thought, and couldn’t deny that the idea satisfied her.

  “What are you doing here?” Brent asked, and Cam could hear the division in his voice. The conflict between his desire and his outrage.

  “I wanted to see what was wrong with her.”

  “Oh?” Brent cocked an eyebrow, fury on his face. “And have you diagnosed her?”

  “Possibly.” Cam told him, refusing to back down. The man had no qualms at all spying on her family, but when someone else investigated his loved ones, suddenly it was a different game. “Do you know what’s in that hatbox?”

  She hadn’t thought it was possible that he could get angrier, but somehow he managed it. “Do you really think that I would stoop to rummage through my sister-in-law’s belongings?”

  “Have you looked in there?” Cam asked him again, raising her voice. She was glad that he had caught her, glad that he finally understood what it was to have someone prowling where you were most vulnerable. “Have you seen what’s in there?”

  “I will assume,” Brent said finally, through clenched teeth, “that you are not making this fuss over a hatbox that contains…. A hat?”

  “No,” Cam said, swallowing at the memory of the stench inside of the box. “And I don’t think that they belong to her, either. Unless she’s trying to curse herself. That seems unlikely.”

  “Curse?” Brent’s expression changed suddenly. “What do you mean?”

  “You’ll see,” Cam said, stepping around him before he could stop her. “And if you want her to get better— burn them.” She turned and walked quickly down the hall, hoping that he would look before he followed her. There was a pause, and then she heard him crossing Hattie’s room to open the hatbox. She broke into a run.

  Just as Cam reached her horse, which was tied to a short tree on the corner of the property, Brent emerged from the house and waved to her. The gesture was commanding, an order to turn around and return to him. Cam ignored it. She still had his poppet in her right pocket and the vial of ashes in her left, and they were all the reminder anyone should need that Camilla Johnson and Brent Anderson were not meant to be.

  ***

  “Cam!” Grandma called her as she passed the kitchen. Cam had just stabled her father’s horse and was hoping to return to the house without running into anyone.

  Oh, well.

  “What were you doing?” Her grandmother asked sharply as Cam joined her and Caro in the kitchen.

  “I was at Brent’s—”

  “We know where you were,” her grandmother said disapprovingly.

  “Mary had a vision.” Caro explained.

  “She saw you in danger,” Grandma said. “What were you doing?”

  “I was looking around,” Cam said. She was reluctant to tell them what she’d found. They’d find a way to blame Brent, and Cam didn’t want to hear one more accusation. “What danger?”

  “She says someone was watching you.”

  “I didn’t see anyone.” Cam said. Apart from Brent…

  “We’ve talked about this,” Grandma’s fingers clenched as she gripped the back of a kitchen chair in her frustration. “What were you thinking, going there alone?”

  “I needed some answers.”

  “What you need is to stay where you belong— here!” Grandma exclaimed. She frowned. “Cam? Are you listening to me?”

  “I’m going inside now,” Cam heard her own voice as if it was spoken from a long way away. “I haven’t been sleeping well.” She didn’t wait for her grandmother to respond. She felt slightly numb as she pushed the kitchen door open and stumbled out into the sunlight. She stared at the sunlit lawn around her and wondered when she had gone from loving Cypress Hall to feeling like it was a blanket wrapped around her face, stifling her and stealing her breath.

  ***

  She hadn’t been lying about not sleeping well. That night she faced her bed the way a warrior would survey a battlefield. She couldn’t bring herself to lie down, to surrender to the thoughts that tormented her. Cam reached for the ashes, but she knew even as her fingers closed over the vial that she needed more than dust and dead conjure tonight.

  Sorry, mama.

  No, the ashes couldn’t help her tonight, but she knew who could.

  No. You can’t. You know you can’t.

  She paced for hours, her distress growing with each moment that passed. She was tired of her own weakness, her own paralysis. Every way she turned she was confronted with secrets and problems that had no solution.

  Sometime after midnight, Cam finally gave in. She was almost afraid as she stood and walked to her window, afraid that he wouldn’t be there, afraid that he had given up. She was afraid that he had finally found someone normal and honest to want, and even to love. But no, there he stood. She could sense him watching the house, feel it with every fiber of her being. Her senses had always been sharp, but around him they were so fine-tuned that she could feel his essence rippling through her.

  She went to him. She walked beneath the fog that had settled over the forest. It was different than last time. Rather than burning desire she felt an overwhelming coldness that only he could banish. She wanted to touch his face, to hear his voice and revel in his strength. Last time she had gone to him because she wanted him. This time she went because she needed him.

  He met her halfway. He looked like a warrior, striding through the mist toward her. He must have read the longing in her eyes, because he didn’t speak. Their lips met as they stood under the silver crescent of the moon. Cam closed her eyes, allowing herself for the first time since her drowning to forget about black moons and blacker magic.

  This time when they made love it was gentler. It was just as intense, just as intimate, but slower and more precious. It felt like a vision. Like conjure. They moved together like dream lovers, without words because none were necessary. That which was needed was given. That which was offered was taken.

  They didn’t fall asleep afterwards, but the warm silence between them was just as restful. Cam rested her head on his shoulder and could feel his pulse thundering beneath her cheek. She felt incredibly relaxed. He shifted beneath her, inhaled as if he was about to speak and then hesitated.

  “What?” Cam asked. Even her voice sounded relaxed. She hadn’t felt this well in weeks. “What?” She asked again, when Brent didn’t answer.

  “Marry me.”

  Just like that, she was as tense as she had ever been. “What!” She pulled away from him, stood and star
ed down at him.

  If her reaction wasn’t what he had hoped for, he didn’t show it. “I love you. Marry me,” he said again, this time more commandingly. He stared up at with her with the green eyes that were imprinted into her very soul, and she had to look away.

  She had thought that the drowning was the most terrifying thing that could happen to her, but this… this came very close. It was as though he was trying to make things harder on her. One day her grandma was insisting that they make a poppet of him, and the next he was proposing marriage.

  It’s your fault, a little voice said. You’re the one who has been sleeping with him.

  That was true, it was her fault. But how was she supposed to know that he would propose marriage. Diana’s fling certainly hadn’t stuck around to get married. Hell, he’d left the state. But there was Brent, looking up at her as if her answer meant everything… And Cam wanted to say yes so badly she felt sick.

  “No!” She said anxiously. She wrung her hands, feeling devastated, crushed. “How could you ask that? Don’t you see what a mess this all is?”

  Brent blinked and then stood. He looked more concerned than angry, as though he could read her pain on her face. “What mess?”

  “Everything… you, me. My grandmother and Caro. Kat and my mother and Hattie and… what are you thinking?”

  “What do your grandmother and Caro have to do with anything?” He was alert now. The post-lovemaking warmth was gone from his gaze. “What do Kat and your mother have to do with anything?” He leaned forward and gripped her, holding her shoulders tight so that she could slip away. “What did they do?”

  “Who?” Cam asked, as if she didn’t know.

  “Your grandmother and Caro. They’re behind this, aren’t they? Everyone in the county talks about you and all the time you spend in that kitchen. What did they do? What could they possibly have in common?” Suddenly he stilled, his fingers digging into her flesh. “They both lost children. But where does Katherine come in? And what secret causes you such agony? What could be so horrible?” He gazed levelly at her and Cam quickly looked away.