Sophie’s stomach turned as she read through some of it again. Migisi had embraced the Shadow fully, once she’d finally succumbed to the curse Marshall had cleverly hidden in Luc, making it so that the more time Migisi spent with her beloved, the deeper she was pulled into Shadow. In the journals, she’d called it a “fear curse,” and berated herself for not seeing it for what it was early on. “Any fool with an ounce of magic should have seen what was happening. And I was so focused on Luc that I never even saw it until after it was too late,” she’d written.
Luc, Calder’s ancestor. And Calder had carried that curse with him, as well, so that the longer Sophie had spent with him, the more she felt Shadow pulling at her. Her magic had gone haywire, and then finally fizzled to nothing. Not that she’d had much to begin with, she thought sardonically. She’d been a weakling, as far as witches were concerned.
The words faded away as Sophie became lost in thought. She’d started losing her Light magic, because of the curse on Calder’s line, and whatever it did, however it worked, that made Shadow rise within her line. And to break the other curse, the one that Migisi had put on Calder’s line, she’d embraced Shadow so that she would be strong enough to take his curse. She still was not a strong witch. Her Shadow magic was not any stronger than her Light magic had been, which was a relief.
But when the Shadow flowing through her was combined with the madness of Calder’s curse, it was a combination that terrified her. She could see, easily, how she could come to be a force for destruction. It would be all too easy. With no effort at all, plants died around her, and healthy animals became unable to produce milk or eggs, unable to reproduce.
It would be all too easy to bring that Shadowy magic to the people of Copper Falls, to watch the town slowly but surely die around her. Would it all extend to people? Would children fail in the womb? Would they become sick if she was around them too much?
All of the questions weighed on her, and so she turned, ironically, to Migisi’s journals. Not the words, but the drawings and paintings. Her artwork had changed with the Shadow as well, Sophie thought, turning her attention back to the journal on her lap. For a while, it had had an angry, uncontrolled feel to it. Black, bleak, and tired, were the feelings she got from it all. But, over time, it began to change again. It regained its control, the refined feel of Migisi’s earlier work. But it was different, too. Deeper, perhaps, though she wished she could find a better word for it. The drawings of the landscape around Copper Falls held a sense of yearning, of deep love that Sophie could easily relate to. It was in the careful lines, the intricate detail. Migisi had returned to the falls over and over again, and in at least a few of the drawings, the very boulder that Sophie and Calder had first kissed on could be seen.
Sophie wrinkled her brow. There were two enormous oaks, one at either side of the boulder. They had shaded Sophie when she’d sat there on hot summer days. She’d figured they were quite old, but they were not in any of the drawings Migisi had done of the falls. “Weird,” she murmured. Maybe Migisi had left them out to show the falls better.
What really made Sophie wonder, though, were the later watercolors. The watercolors of an enormous, shaggy black bear, sometimes with his head lifted majestically, sometimes looking mad, feral.
Luc.
She’d known, from what she’d learned from Thea, from that visit to the Copper Falls cemetery, that they’d found their way back to one another somehow. They’d been buried side-by-side, had died on the same day. She hadn’t quite believed it at the time, but here was the proof. And she was sure, for some reason, that these were not merely things Migisi had remembered and then painted. She recognized that feral look to Luc, because she’d seen it so often in Calder when he’d been burdened with the curse.
No, these had come later. After the curse, after whatever had happened between them. She wondered if they’d managed to love one another again somehow, even through it all.
She wondered if they’d somehow managed to be happy, in the end.
With a sigh, she closed the journal and placed it back in the bag, then clicked off the lamp and went back to Calder’s room, pulling the shirt from her body before she crawled back into bed beside him. As she watched Calder sleep, she hoped.
She hoped Migisi and Luc had found a way to make it all work.
Chapter Four
July 12, 1870
Migisi stood on the dirt road looking toward the neat clapboard house. It was long past sunset, and the windows were lit from within, the dim light that comes from candles and firelight. She had watched the house all that day, unseen but clearly sensed, the wrongness that surrounded her making the inhabitants tense and jumpy as they had gone about their business.
The forest, normally so full of the sounds of wildlife, was silent around her.
She could hear a baby crying, and her gaze hardened.
Luc’s child. The child he’d gotten on his new bride.
A child he had managed to make with another, when the ones he and Migisi had tried to make together had each faded away, her womb unable to support the life they’d so wanted to create.
She rested her hand on her own swollen belly. She was in her final month of pregnancy, and the baby kicked, strong and energetic, in her womb. A daughter, she knew. She would have a daughter. A daughter likely born to Shadow, when Migisi herself had had the glory of having been born to Light.
She watched, and she listened, and soon the baby’s cries quieted. The door of the cabin opened, and Migisi’s breath caught.
Him.
Light, his body was the same as always. Strong, broad. Her fingers ached to run themselves through his beard, and her body yearned for his touch.
After all this time. After nearly ten years of living in the Shadow, after cursing him and his entire line in a moment of loss and rage… After all this time, she still wanted him.
He stopped still, and his gaze swung in her direction. She made no effort to hide herself.
He closed the door behind him, then stalked to where she was, stopping when he was a few feet away from her, where the narrow road cut through the endless wildflowers.
They stood, and she regarded him in silence, as he did the same to her.
“What did you do to me, Migisi?” he asked, his deep voice low in the dark, the familiar French words soothing despite the anguish in which they’d been uttered.
“We both know what I did,” she answered quietly in his native tongue, the language one she hadn’t spoken since the day she’d turned her back on him.
“I still don’t understand what happened,” he said, watching her closely. “I did not know that woman. I do not remember meeting her, or touching her, or anything else. All I remember is sitting with my business partners, and then there I was, touching a woman I did not know, and you standing there with that stricken look on your face.”
Migisi swallowed, trying to control the emotions running through her. She could not speak.
“And you cursed me,” he said, as if he still could not believe it. “You made me this mad… thing. You did that to me, Migisi.”
She nodded, unable to look at him with it stated so clearly between them. And it hurt her more, somehow, that instead of anger in his voice, she heard disappointment. Sadness. Anger, she could have handled.
“I don’t know what you’re doing here, Migisi, but it’s time for you to leave. If I see you near my family again, I’ll destroy you. I don’t care about the bastard you carry.”
“Bastard?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
He came to her, took her chin roughly in his hand. “It’s not mine, which makes it a bastard.”
“You seem to have moved on, my love.”
He let loose a rough laugh. “That shows how little you know me,” he said. He released her and stepped back, running his hands through his hair in that way he always did when he was agitated. “It changes nothing. If you come near my family again, I will kill you. Keep your vile magic away from us.”
“Once upon a time, you found my magic beautiful.”
“Once upon a time, it was,” he answered simply, and it felt as if he had punched her. “We both know that you are no longer what you once were. Stay away from me, Migisi. Go back to whoever got that child on you and live happily ever after. Or don’t. I don’t care either way.”
And with that, he turned away, heading back to the cabin and the new family he had created without her.
Chapter Five
After two more days of struggling through work, a day off felt like reaching an oasis in a vast desert. She was grateful for the first time since she began working at the resort for the reduced hours that came with the end of the tourist season. Always, before, she’d had her aunt’s debts and the possibility of losing her land hanging over her head. Autumn had always brought the scurry for part time jobs to fill in the missing income.
This year, her meager salary would be enough to cover her living expenses, now that the debt had been paid. Sophie stood in her kitchen and smiled a little to herself. Though, at the time, when Calder had bought her house out from under her at auction, she hadn’t found the situation nearly as comforting.
She leaned against the butcher block counter in her warm kitchen, sipping a soothing herbal tea blend from her favorite antique tea cup. She forced herself to stay, to be calm, to focus on the moment. She forced herself to see the way the late afternoon sun gleamed across the newly-waxed wood floor, the way the light picked up the subtle floral pattern on the area rug in the living room. She held onto Calder’s advice, and hoped that if she could do this one thing, if she could slow down, and focus, and truly exist in the moment… if she could do that, then she could stay mostly sane.
So she stood, the herbal scent of her tea wafting toward her, sun shining in the windows.
And she needed it. She’d spent the entire day with Calder, but he had left a while ago to see Bryce about his ugly car and the hunt the two of them were planning. They did a long hunt every fall — Calder, Bryce, and Calder’s brother, Jon. Calder had initially called it off for that year, and, at Sophie’s insistence, he’d agreed to reschedule with his friend and his brother. She didn’t want his entire life changing, and she didn’t want him to feel like he was singularly devoted to babysitting her.
Though how she would manage for a week, when she was nearly out of her mind having him away from her for even an hour, made her break out in a cold sweat. Stupid, insane curse. This possessiveness was part of it, and she’d only gotten more possessive the longer she lived with the curse. Every time he walked away from her, even if it was simply to leave the house to grab the mail or feed Merlin, it made her edgy, as if she wanted to drag him back and keep him. She’d wondered, at first, how much of that was just her. After a lifetime spent wanting him, she had Calder. She had the one man she’d ever truly wanted, and she knew the rest of their lives wouldn’t be enough.
She smiled, remembering that conversation. How pleased Calder had looked to hear her say those words, the way his face had softened, the warmth in his gaze. The way he’d slowly run his hands down her sides, over her hips, and pulled her toward him. How he’d told her that the insane possessive thing was all the curse, but that she should remember that idea about forever not being long enough for those times when he would undoubtedly manage to piss her off.
She shook her head with a smile and gulped down the last of her tea. She had a quiet house, and time to focus, and she had other things to do besides stand there mooning over Calder. She glanced at the potted plant she’d picked up the day before, sitting on the windowsill near the table where she and Calder ate their meals. She’d bought it on clearance from the local nursery because it was wilted and potbound. That was reassuring, in its way. If she killed it as she seemed to kill so many other plants of late, at least she would have the comfort of knowing it was likely on its way out, anyway.
It had wilted a bit more in her presence, and she supposed it could have been from her Shadow magic. But it could not, as well.
She walked over to the windowsill and picked up the plant, its terra cotta pot cool in her hands. She carried it back to the kitchen and set it on the counter.
And she focused.
She called to mind the magic she’d worked so often, that healing, life-giving magic that had once come to her. It had never roared through her, and it had never come easily. Always, working her magic had been like coaxing a shy animal out of hiding. It had been delicate, painstaking work.
She looked at the plant, and focused first on her gratitude for the Light, for its beauty and richness, for its life-affirming energy.
The fact that she could not longer feel it was something she forced herself not to think about.
She spent a moment sending her apologies to the Light for what she had allowed herself to become. For allowing the Light within her to be profaned, to the point that she’d lost it completely.
She sent a prayer that she would once again be worthy, that the fact that her intentions had been those of a Lightwitch would be enough.
Those things done, she turned her attention once again to the plant. It was an English ivy, and its leaves wilted horribly. Some were brown, some a sickly yellow.
She focused, and recalled the spell she’d used so often.
She could see it. She could see the way the spell was supposed to work, just as she always had. She could see the way she was supposed to cast the spell, the way the magic was supposed to work, the way her power was supposed to wrap itself around the plant, the Light’s power combining with the inherent life force within the plant.
She could see it, and yet she could not call forth even a spark of the Light magic she’d once had.
She focused harder, no longer coaxing. Calling. Commanding.
Begging.
To her utter dismay, instead of Light answering her call, she felt Shadow rise within her. She tried to stop focusing, tried to let the spell drop. She could still envision the way her spell was supposed to work, and as she stood there, she could see Shadow twisting, working its way into the spell she’d been trying to perform.
Sophie gave a strangled cry and closed her eyes, shook her head to break her focus. She felt the spell fall apart, this time with some relief.
The plant looked no worse for wear, she noticed as she looked it over. It didn’t look any better, either, but at least it wasn’t worse.
“One more time,” she murmured to herself. She knew she was reaching the end of her ability to focus at all, as she stood there with her stomach growling in insane hunger, her throat dry with thirst, her body yearning for release. She forced herself to focus. She would have to learn to ignore the hunger. Master it, somehow.
She rebuilt the spell until she was able to see it. This part, she could do. It felt familiar to when she was learning to use her magic, when she was in her teens and early twenties. At first, all she’d been able to do was see the spells she read about online. See the mechanics of them, how they went together. Eventually, she’d learned to fill them with her Light magic, and had been delighted to see plants grow healthier, animals heal, and humans find themselves feeling heartier. She’d worked the magic over and over again, putting a bit of that healing power into the soaps and lotions she’d once made.
She focused then, holding the spell in her mind, her eyes closed, her hands in front of her, fingers moving every once in a while as she imitated the gestures she’d so often made when casting.
She coaxed. Pleaded. And once again, she was rewarded only with Shadow slithering its way through what she’d made. She groaned in frustration, and the spell shattered.
She plopped down onto one of the dining room chairs and looked at the plant in frustration. She held some hope. At least she could still see the way her magic was supposed to work. As she sat, she looked at the plant without really seeing it, her mind racing as her body nearly screamed with her endless hunger. She could see the way Light magic worked. Did Shadow work the same way? Wou
ld she be able to build the spells the way she did with Light?
She shook her head, pushing the thought away. She had no desire to learn how to work Shadow magic. She didn’t want it, and she certainly didn’t want to learn about how to use it.
That crazy, restless energy she’d inherited with Calder’s curse had her gritting her teeth, and she finally gave up. She stood and stepped into her sneakers. She let herself out the back door of her cottage, and headed for the woods, stopping to scratch Merlin’s ears on the way. He gave her a cranky bleat in return, and she shook her head, then took off toward the woods.
She would run off this energy. And then she would come home and try to cook. She hadn’t had the greatest luck in the kitchen since the brownie incident. The two times she’d tried, she’d burned everything, distracted by Calder’s curse.
But today, she’d surprise Calder with dinner, and she’d try to pretend that everything was just fine.
Calder pulled into his driveway and climbed out of his truck. He pulled the box he’d picked up at the post office out of the back. The taillights he’d been waiting for to complete Bryce’s slightly-less-ugly car had finally come in, which was a good sign because the details like this were signs that he was getting close to the end of the restoration. He opened the garage and looked the vintage Dodge over. It was coming along. It ran now, and he’d completed the body work, getting rid of the dings and rust that had accumulated over the years. Of course, there was still the interior to deal with, but he was happy with his progress so far.
He had two more restorations lined up after he finished Bryce’s, and one he was working on while he waited for parts to come in. He glanced at the other car he was working on, a 1970 Barracuda. He’d had more requests for Barracudas in the past few months, and he wondered at the sudden popularity again. There were cycles to all things, and which old cars were trendy was apparently one of them.
Shadow Sworn (Copper Falls Book 2) Page 4