The paper fell from Celia’s hands as tears fell from her eyes. She had always known she wasn’t a planned baby, and her mother had never spoken of her father. But she had always hoped they had at least loved each other, a relationship that went wrong. Now she knew the truth and she was finding it hard to breathe. She was a product of war, of rape and hatred.
She took a sip of the tea then laughed a little hysterically, like that was going to help? She picked up the letter and started reading again, wanting to get it all over with.
I love you daughter, and I have never regretted having you. You were the highlight of my life, never doubt that, no matter how you came about.
It was on your second birthday the first time you shifted. I hadn’t known until then what kind of shifter you would be, there were all different kinds there. You were a small tiger cub, white with black stripes. I sat amazed as you jumped from your playpen effortlessly and then onto my lap. There was nothing bad about you, or evil, but I was still terrified.
Not of you daughter, but of my fellow witches, and of course the shifters, should they learn of what you were. You know now the wariness the races have for each other, the deeply buried resentment, fear, and anger. Back then it was a hundred times worse.
So I did what I had to do. You are so strong daughter, so much stronger than you can imagine. I was one of the leaders in our war, often at the spear point of battle, conjuring storms out of still air, killing the enemy with lightning from the sky, funnels of air and fire, and spells of might. I don’t tell you this lightly, or to brag of my prowess, but so that you understand what is happening to you now.
I was so afraid both the witches and shifters would hunt and kill you if the truth were to be known that I bound your magic. You are one being however, so there was no way to bind just your shifter magic, and leave your witch magic alone.
Imagine my shock, when you were still able to create a zephyr, or light a candle when you were a young child. I don’t understand why, being only half witch should have weakened your magic, but the shifter in you seemed to have made it even stronger. I was at the height of my power, and yet my beloved young daughter was still too powerful for me to fully bind.
So here is your choice. It would be safer if you found the spell in our family book and bound your magic. You wouldn’t be hunted, or even just ostracized by the communities. If you choose this path, you must wait until after the full moon. Your shifter side will be more powerful then, and my binding which has been unraveling since my death will be overpowered.
Most likely you will shift, nothing will be able to prevent it. But once you come back to yourself, if you take precautions, no one will know.
The second option of course, is to keep your new power. It is a risk daughter, but it is also who you are, who you were meant to be. If you choose this course be cautious, hide in the beginning and study our book well and learn how to harness the true power of your magic. I can give you no guidance on how to deal with your shifter nature, and I fear to ask one of them would be to sign your own death warrant, but you must decide.
Whatever you choose, know I am so proud of you, and love you with all my heart.
She carefully folded the paper and picked up the book. It felt… welcoming. It felt like family, the magic had a familiar feel to it. She opened the cover and put the letter inside and closed it back up. She needed time to think, and decide what to do before she delved into its secrets. It hit her then, the cause of her headaches and she giggled, though it came out sounding unbalanced and not joyful.
As if she was losing her mind.
She got up and went downstairs, merely frowning as the pain intensified. She went to the four corners of her store, collecting the herb bags there and took them into the back room, dropping them in a bowl. They held the magic for the spell that held shifters out of the store. She had realized of course, that it was her mother’s binding on her magic unweaving that enabled the spell to find her.
Deep inside she wanted to deny what she just read, but the headaches and pain from being in the store was overwhelming proof. Or at least it would be in a moment.
She sprinkled some common salt in the bowl and muttered a few words under her breath as she focused on setting them on fire and dispersing the magic. Purple flames rose up a couple of feet off the bags, burning and cleansing the remaining magic in the spell.
She laughed again when the fire died and the pain faded away. She cleaned the bowl and put it away and just stood there for a while, her mind going in circles. She could bind her own power, she had long come to terms with being a weak witch, and it wouldn’t hurt to give up the power.
But she felt an anger rise in her at the thought, and she was afraid. Was it her shifter power that caused her mood swings and her occasional rages? That… felt right to her, but not quite. But she didn’t understand why that would be, it was just power wasn’t it? Or had part of her personality been suppressed along with her power, something intrinsic to being a shifter?
Had her calm and accepting nature simply been another side effect to binding her magic? Or was she drawing a false conclusion based on the cause of her headaches?
She needed to think this over before deciding anything. She really didn’t even have to decide right away, did she? She could always bind her powers later, although she would need to read the book. Perhaps the storms had been another side effect to the binding weakening, if she truly held sway over the weather. Her mood had certainly been foul enough these last few weeks. Perhaps she even had someone she could talk to about it if she could come up with the courage.
After all, Kelly had offered her help if she ever needed any. Shifters were unstable sometimes, had short tempers, and could be merciless. But from what she knew they didn’t lie either. It was still a risk. Without an anti-shifter spell affecting her she decided to try her luck at meditation and contemplation again, and went back upstairs and into her altar room.
She lit the candles and knelt at the altar. After she took a deep breath and let it out, she tried to cleanse her mind and fall into a deep mediation. She was able to do it, after a fashion. It wasn’t as easy as it should have been, and she was kicked out of it early on. All the little things were adding up in her head though. It hadn’t been the headache that made everything stronger to her sense of smell and hearing, her shifter senses were trying to cut in.
She considered the failed meditation, it was almost as if part of her mind was untrained and was rejecting it.
She wasn’t sure though, she could be reading into it and wondered if she was losing her mind. It seemed clear though, part of her, outside of just magic, had been repressed. Without being able to fall into a trance, what would that mean for her magic, and just how bad would it get when the binding completely failed.
She was frustrated that the answers her mother had given her had led to even more questions, and the few answers she had were disturbing to say the least. She felt a little numb. Finding out what she just learned on top of the last few weeks had overloaded her mind. She decided to sleep on it, and brewed another tea while she put her book in a safe place. She drank the tea down in quick sips and went into her bedroom to lie down. She tossed and turned for almost an hour before finding the elusive sleep.
She gasped and woke covered in sweat. She breathed deeply a few times trying to calm down, the dream had been expected. It was five in the morning this time and she carefully went over her dream. She had been running through the woods again trying to escape something. She had been terrified, not of death, but of being held against her will.
She shivered as a peculiar idea went through her mind but shied from the thought. She didn’t think it was a prophetic dream; her family didn’t have powers in that direction. It was definitely just a nightmare, or at least, that was how it felt to her. But what did that leave? The nightmare made no sense from her point of view, she’d never been held against her will. Unless… she really wanted to talk to Kelly, but she was afraid the knowledge of
what she was, was too big for a grateful stranger to keep. What if her secret got out?
As usual she started coffee brewing on the way to the shower, the familiar morning ritual was her lifeline. She still felt a little numb, her life wasn’t what she thought it had been, and the one person who she could have confided in had not only passed away, but had been the author of the deception. She had a few hours before work, so she got the book out and sat down.
She flipped through it slowly. There were other books of family magic that held all the plant and herb lore. They also held basic spells that were beneficial and helpful in nature. This book was different. It held the knowledge of controlling weather, and spells that were harmful in nature. Not evil, or black magic, but destructive nonetheless.
She ignored the spells for now; she didn’t need that knowledge at the moment. She focused on what the book said about controlling her weather magic. It seemed pretty straight forward in comparison to what she knew already. There were channels in her mind, one for each ability, it should be the same as fire, or air, but it would require more focus. Once a storm broke it was self sustaining, unlike a breeze or lighting a candle. Those were limited by the nature of what she burned, or the breeze she brought up.
But a storm was a different story, she’d have to keep complete focus on it, to limit how large it got, where it moved, and where the lightning would strike.
Focus she lacked at the moment. She could barely stay in a meditative trance, harnessing nature seemed like a really bad idea right now.
Worse, magic was highly susceptible to strong emotions. It was no wonder it had stormed for weeks while she was buried in her grief. It was ironic that she’d be getting the power now when she was the most unstable emotionally than any other time in her life. She sighed as she read on, maybe waiting would be a mistake, maybe she should bind her powers.
She remembered her dream and shivered. She needed to talk to Kelly as soon as she could, or perhaps Joe. She needed answers before she could do such a thing, just in case. If her guess was right it wouldn’t be a good thing.
The questions she had though regarded things shifters didn’t talk about, especially to witches. If witches knew too much about how their magic worked and what was involved, it would be easy to tailor a spell against them. It was almost seven thirty so she refilled her coffee and went downstairs. She cleaned and swept in the back and got things ready for opening. It actually felt really good to her to perform the mindless tasks.
She smiled when the door unlocked and opened a few minutes before eight. Berny walked in with her ever present smile.
Berny said cheerfully, “Morning Celia.”
She replied, “Morning,” she missed cheerful but came closer than she’d expected.
Berny was in a yellow sundress today and her heels clicked on the floor as she walked toward the register.
Celia looked down at herself, in jeans and a slightly nicer shirt than yesterday. Bernie was definitely exceeding the dress code.
She quirked a smile and asked, “Hot date later?”
Berny blushed and said, “Dan’s taking me to lunch today.”
She nodded encouragingly. Dan was twenty one at least, and from what she could tell a nice guy. He was part of the coven as well.
She hated herself right now; she wanted to say something encouraging but knew it would come out bitter because of the last few weeks. She needed to guard her tongue until she started to live again, at least around her friends. She didn’t want to chase them all off, she just had wanted to ignore them for a while.
She idly wondered if Fran knew what she was. She was there after all.
She didn’t have the bear shifter’s number, so she decided to go out there when Berny was done with lunch. Hopefully she would get a good reception. The door opened and she turned around. There were two men coming in the store. The first was tall, he looked in shape and a few years older than she was. The second man was in his early fifties, had a paunch, but otherwise still looked in decent shape.
The younger guy in front asked, “Miss Winters?”
I nodded, “Yes?”
He smiled politely and said, “I’m detective Jim Peters and this is my partner detective Brett Johnson. Do you have a few minutes to speak to us?”
She looked at Brett for a minute and saw he was closed off. She wondered if they were already playing good cop bad cop and wondered why.
She looked back at Jim and asked, “I suppose, what’s this about?”
Jim asked, “What can you tell us about Bruce Morrow?”
She answered in a stilted voice, “He’s my ex-boyfriend, why? What’s this about, is he in trouble?”
Jim looked at me in the eye and said, “He’s dead, murdered, know anything about that?”
Her eyes blinked in confusion, and a little shock, “Dead?”
Jim asked, “When is the last time you saw him?”
Celia blew out a breath, “Yesterday, around lunchtime.”
Jim nodded, “I see, so where were you around eight last night?”
She replied, “I was here.”
Jim asked, “Can anyone corroborate that?”
She felt a surge of anger at the fact she was a suspect, but it seemed almost a halfhearted effort on her part, she was still numb from all the revelations since last night, and her new questions. Now this? She wondered what the detectives made of her emotional state, or lack of one.
She shook her head slowly, “UPS was here a little after seven. Berny goes home at five. After that it was just me in the store. I didn’t even have any customers after six last night.”
Jim asked, “Do you have surveillance here?”
She winced, she didn’t of course. If someone tried to steal something she would know it, and she didn’t want any tapes of her doing magic either. So much for an alibi.
“No, we don’t. We’ve never had a problem so…” she trailed off.
She answered a few more questions. When he asked her about enemies that might want to hurt him she could only think of herself, but simply shook her head. Of course, she didn’t really want him seriously hurt much less dead. It was hard for her to wrap her head around it.
When they turned to leave the second detective finally spoke in a low untrusting tone, “Don’t leave town, we might have more questions for you.”
She blurted out, “How did he die?”
Jim turned back to her and said in a low voice, “We can’t divulge that information, if you think of anything else, please call us.”
Her mind spun in circles as they left. She needed to lay low right now, especially if she had to shift tomorrow night. Bruce dying meant it wouldn’t be just the police keeping an eye on her. The witch and shifter councils in Charlotte would no doubt send an investigative pair down of their own.
They worked in teams in an attempt to keep the peace. If a witch is found guilty, the witch investigator will kill them, if it’s a shifter, the shifter investigator will. The idea being the death won’t create another blood debt between the races while at the same time achieving justice. It was absolutely the wrong time for her to come under scrutiny. Even worse, if it was a shifter, now probably wasn’t the best time to go visit the bears. She had to though, later on.
Berny said slowly, “I can’t believe that, he was just here yesterday. I didn’t even like him, at all, and somehow that makes me feel worse.”
She nodded glumly; Celia knew exactly what Berny meant, she felt guilty because she didn’t really care.
Chapter 5
Celia was eating a chef salad and waiting for Berny to get back before she went to Kelly. Hopefully they would be home as she had no way to call ahead. She looked up as the door opened and saw a young woman come in. The woman walked with a confident grace. She had long dark hair and a beautiful face, she could see the woman’s eyelashes from across the room.
The young woman was dressed in jeans, boots, and a tight clingy shirt. She had an aura of confidence about her and an easy
smile on her lips.
Celia wasn’t sure how she knew, but she was positive this woman was a shifter. She put down her fork as the woman approached.
“Hi, I’m so happy you took down that spell Joe told me about. I’d just got done psyching myself up for the pain just to find out it wasn’t necessary. Oh, right, I’m Tina, the shifter midwife for the area. I’m also recently mated to the pack beta which is why I was out of town. Damn bear couldn’t wait one more day to drop.”
She couldn’t help but smile at her visitor who was giving off very nice vibes. The young woman must have been a year or two younger than she was, although she appeared five or six years younger.
Celia replied pleasantly, “Nice to meet you Tina, I took the spell down last night. What made you stop by?”
Tina looked around to make sure no one else was here and said, “That medicine you gave Kelly, I’d like to buy a supply. I understand I wouldn’t be able to make any?”
Celia nodded, “You could get the ingredients all right but it wouldn’t help without the magic.”
Tina sighed, “Will you sell to me? The problem Kelly was having is a common one, the way we fix it is a lot more radical.”
She asked in a curious voice, “Can you tell me what it is? I’m not sure if I understand the cause, I just treated the symptoms.”
Tina considered me for a moment, and then nodded, “We don’t spread it around, but it’s something that is fairly common. I don’t think you knowing would cause harm however. A shifter can’t shift during their third trimester without harming the baby. It’s instinct to lock our bodies in human form sometime during the second.
Witch's Moon: A Celia Winters Novel Book 1 Page 3