Strega (Strega Series)

by Karen Monahan Fernandes

  "Rena, seriously? Not even funny," I said with irritation at her ill-timed humor. I yelled for her again but she still didn't reply. Then I felt a damp coolness through my fuzzy white slippers. I looked down to discover the cool grass beneath my bare feet. I was in the forest again, surrounded by towering trees. I was wearing the scarlet red dress. Someone was there. I couldn't see him, but he was close behind me. I ran as fast as I could, but I knew I would never escape him.

  A dark blur rushed toward me. Like smoke, it had no shape, no distinguishable form, but I knew it was him. Then I felt it. A blade, sharp and cold, plunged into my back. I gasped for air as I fell to my knees.

  Life drained from my body. My strength evaporated and I hit the ground. With blurred vision, I watched the black enigma take shape and move toward me. The bottom of his dark robe brushed against my skin. I struggled to look up, to see his face, but my eyes stopped at the familiar blade in his hand. Blood gathered at its sharp point and, one by one, drops fell through the air and splattered on the grassy earth beside me.

  As the last breaths of life seeped out of me, I slipped into unconsciousness. As I lay there dying, a familiar voice called to me desperately.

  Velia!

  It echoed in the recesses of my mind. Then everything went black.

  XLII

  I sat up sharply and drew in air as if I hadn't breathed in a century. I desperately clung to each breath, thankful for them. I'm alive, I told myself over and over until I actually believed it. The line between my dreams and reality was such a blur that deciphering the two had become impossible. And I was exhausted. My dreams took just as much out of me as my waking hours, and it was as if I never actually slept at all.

  "Jay! Are you okay?" Rena asked in a panic as she pounded on my bedroom door. I slid Gram's journal under my pillow.

  "I'm fine. Come in."

  "I'm sorry, did I wake you?" She sat on the edge of my bed. "Another dream?"

  I rubbed my eyes and pulled my hair back from my face. "Yeah."

  "Did you hear me last night? I peeked in and said goodnight, but you were dead to the world."

  "No, I didn't."

  Her choice of words couldn't have been more disturbing.

  "Well, I hope that means you got some rest." She paused for a moment, taking a closer look at me. "You look awful. Are you okay?"

  "Thanks," I said sarcastically. "I'm fine."

  But I wasn't. I was dead. In my dream, I died. The experience was as real as the air I was breathing, and nothing that I could have imagined if I hadn't actually suffered it. I'd felt myself detach from my body. And what killed me was the same terrifying creature that had come for me at Gram's house just hours before. Different from the human-like beast that had attacked me in the parking lot at school. Different from the blue-skinned beast from my vision, and that killed Mom and Dad. This frightful enigma was insidious, and more powerful than anything else I'd encountered. And when it stood over me, as I took my last breaths, I recognized its blade. I'd seen it once before. In my vision, in the underground tunnel, it belonged to the woman the blue-skinned beast called Invidia. All along, in my dreams it was not a man that was coming for me. It was her.

  I didn't understand why she was after me, why these other creatures were after me, but it was clear they had the same end game. They all wanted me dead, and they were getting closer to achieving their goal.

  Aside from acute emotional and mental trauma, my body was trashed. I felt as though I'd fallen off a twenty-story building. Surely because I'd been thrown across the room and into a wall the night before. The pain previously masked by raging adrenaline emerged in its entirety. My head was pounding and my neck and back ached. I shifted to alleviate the pain, but one spot on my lower back relentlessly throbbed.

  "No, I didn't mean it that way! You know what I mean. You just look exhausted." She sat beside me, fidgeting and picking at her nails nervously. I knew she had something on her mind.

  "I heard that a teacher from your school was killed. I saw it on the news last night. Is that why you needed me to cover for you yesterday?"

  "Yeah."

  Did you know him?"

  "Yes."

  "Oh Jay, I'm so sorry," she said sympathetically as her body caved in.

  "You must be...ugh...the whole thing is so awful. Stuff like this never used to happen here. It's so unsettling. Are you okay?" she asked with concern.

  "Yes, I'm okay." I reassured her with the best face I could conjure and then tried to change the subject. "How's Max doing?"

  "Oh, he's fine," she said dismissively. "He's getting used to doing everything with one arm. I swear he complained more the last time he had a cold!"

  We both chuckled, but her silence resurfaced. There was still something she was not telling me.

  "I have to wake him up soon. He's leaving for the airport at noon."

  "Airport?" I asked.

  "Yeah, remember? That Vegas event?"

  "Oh yeah," I said, still waiting for her to spill whatever she was holding back. Instead, she got up and grabbed my shoulder. It absolutely killed. I tried hard not to flinch.

  "Please let me know if you need anything, okay?"

  I nodded as she walked toward the door, relieved that I didn't have to pretend to be all right anymore. I just wanted to crawl back under the covers. But I couldn't let her go. I had to know what was on her mind, if only to avoid the bomb that would inevitably hit later when I wasn't expecting it. I didn't need any more surprises.

  "Rena, what's up?" I demanded, trying to lasso her back with my question. But then a troubling thought arrested me. What if she'd seen something the night before? Maybe she saw Gram's journal and read something that freaked her out. She half-turned toward me with a neutral look on her face. I still couldn't tell what she was hiding.

  "Please, Rena. I know something's on your mind. Just tell me."

  And please don't let it be what I think it is.

  "It's nothing Jay. Don't even worry about it."

  "Tell me!" I demanded again.

  "Well." She paused. "Margot's wedding is this afternoon."

  My face sank like a big fat ship.

  Oh noooo. Margot's freakin' wedding.

  "Oh Rena..." My voice reached the lowest pitch of dread. I'd completely forgotten.

  With all that was going on, Rena was afraid I was going to back out. She was anxious. She had desperation in her eyes. And she hadn't stopped picking at her nails.

  "I still have a story to finish for the paper. It's due by this afternoon! And I have nothing to wear!"

  "Okay, well, it's early," Rena said excitedly. Her fear evaporated and instantly she was in problem-solving mode. She didn't hear my doubts. Only the absence of an outright NO.

  "The wedding is not until four, so you have time to write your story and still get ready. And you have tons of good dresses and shoes at Gram's, so I'll run over and pick out a fabulous ensemble for you. When I get back, I'll help you with whatever else you need."

  "No!" I stood up in a panic. "Please, Rena. I can find something here. You don't need to go over there." After what happened there the night before, I was not letting her go.

  "Okay," she said. "Just tell me what you need and I'll do it!" She leaped up off the bed and ran for the door. "I'm going to wake up Max."

  From the other end of the hall, I could hear her shout to Max, who was still half asleep. "She's coming with me!"

  "Is it okay to use the bathroom?" I yelled, hoping to take a shower and wash the horrible feeling from last night's dream off me.

  "Go ahead!" Rena shouted.

  As I made my way to the bathroom, I slugged a couple of pain relievers with the last two inches of an open spring water. Rena ran past me excitedly.

  "Is the spare key still under Gram's big yellow plant?"

  "Rena, NO! Wait!"

  She grabbed her keys and ran to the stairs. I spun around to stop her, and she flashed a giddy, sly smile. But in an instant it disappeared from her
face.

  "Jay...Turn around again," she demanded.

  I slowly turned my back to her, straining my neck to see what she saw.

  "What the hell happened?"

  "What?" I asked, still struggling to see. It was probably a shiny new bruise from last night. My whole body felt like a big fat shiny bruise.

  She dragged me into the bathroom and flipped the light on.

  "Look!" She shouted, turning my back to the mirror. "What is that?"

  A huge blood stain covered the back of my shirt. In the very place I was stabbed in my dream. I pulled my shirt away to reveal a two-inch gash on my lower back, crusted over with blood.

  "Jay? Seriously. What the hell is that?"

  I looked at her, dumbfounded.

  "I have no idea."

  XLIII

  Rena ran to my room and tore my bed apart looking for a pair of scissors, a nail clipper, anything sharp enough to tear my skin open like this. I ran after her and immediately grabbed my pillow, as if to be helpful and move it out of her way. With it, I pulled up Gram's journal and folded the pillow around it. Rena finished her search and sat on the bed defeated. There was nothing.

  "We have to get you to the doctor, honey. That looks deep." Her face paled as she studied the bloody wound beneath my shirt.

  "Rena, I'm fine. It doesn't even hurt," I lied. "I probably did it last night and I don't remember."

  "Did what? Impaled yourself with no recollection how?"

  "I don't know," I lied. She would never have believed the truth. "I'm going to go shower and clean it out. It's probably not as bad as it looks."

  I did my best to reassure her, but inside I was a wreck.

  Rena sat on the toilet and talked to me while I let the water wash over me. She was so perplexed by the whole thing that, to my relief, she didn't leave for Gram's house.

  As the warm water cascaded over my wound and rinsed the blood away, I turned to look at it. It already appeared smaller and not as deep. The intense pain I'd felt in that spot when I first woke up had already begun to fade. The bruises on my shoulder and hip, however, throbbed beneath the hot, pelting water.

  I peppered Rena with questions about the wedding and her family, desperate to keep her distracted, and I closed my eyes and washed my hair as I listened to her fret. I hung onto every word, desperate to drown out the voices screaming in my head.

  Velia. The name played over in my mind. In my dream, someone was calling to me. Calling me by that name. Just before I died.

  I reached for a towel as Rena continued talking. As I dried off, I was careful not to touch the wound for fear of bleeding all over the towel. When I turned to see it and assess its severity, it was gone.

  I pulled back the curtain to find Rena with hydrogen peroxide, ointment, and a bandage.

  "Go get dressed and I'll help you clean it up."

  "Actually, no. It's fine. Seriously. It's not even bleeding anymore."

  She looked at me in disbelief as I slid past her, hiding my black and blue shoulder.

  I closed my door behind me and quickly threw on a clean pair of jeans, and a black sweater—just in case this bizarre wound was not really gone. Rena was already knocking at my door.

  "Let me see it!" she shouted from the hallway. I let her in and she turned me around and pulled up my sweater.

  "What the hell?" she exclaimed, inspecting my back for any trace of what had been there just moments before.

  I shrugged my shoulders, trying to dismiss the whole thing.

  "But I saw it, Jay. It was deep. There is no way...There's not even a scratch."

  "It was probably just a superficial thing. The blood made it look worse than it actually was. Doesn't even hurt."

  ***

  I went downstairs and grabbed the newspaper from the front step, and headed to the kitchen. Kate's story covering Mr. Whitmore's death was above the fold, front and center as expected. His face and the haunting headline stared back at me. High School History Teacher Killed. I'd never seen his professional faculty photo before. I made a pot of coffee and sat down to read Kate's account as I downed a giant cup.

  David Whitmore, a history teacher at Newburyport High School, was killed Friday morning. He was severely beaten and sustained a fatal neck wound, police said. His body was found on Middle Street beside his car.

  I felt nauseated. I couldn't read the rest. I threw the paper down on the table and ran back upstairs. I grabbed Gram's journal and sat at my desk. As I scanned the pages, I came across something I'd read the night before.

  They are coming for her. And her power of precognition grows stronger every day.

  I grabbed my laptop and typed the word precognition.

  Also known as future or second sight, precognition (from the Latin pre = "before" + cognitio = "acquiring knowledge") is a type of extrasensory perception in which information that cannot be concluded from presently available information is acquired.

  I'd seen a lot of strange things. Things that I couldn't explain. Things that made me think I was crazy or losing my mind. But the idea that I had some sort of ESP or magical ability was crazier than anything I imagined.

  XLIV

  I couldn't stop thinking about last night's terrible dream. After everything I'd experienced, all I'd seen, I was beginning to accept that my dreams, too, were somehow real. Page after page, these nightmares of mine were all Gram wrote about.

  Wednesday, July 16

  We're at Rao's, sitting by the window. Jay is talking to her new bear while picking at a blueberry muffin. She is wiggling to the beat of the music that's playing. This little girl is a bottomless fountain of optimism. Most people I know couldn't find the fortitude she manages to muster.

  All of us have secrets. But I wonder how many of these people sitting around us, passing by us outside, can fathom the secrets I keep? I do not dwell, but I would be deceiving myself if I did not admit just how isolating it can be. I am so thankful for Celia and Ruth. Without them I don't know how I would get through this. I am truly grateful for the gifts we have, for our ability to protect innocent people and the people they love from harm. But at times like this, I wish we had someone else to rely on. Nobody can protect Jay but us, and that terrifies me.

  I'm struggling with my decision to bind Jay's power. I know the consequences. But the alternative is a greater risk, and one that I am not willing to take. I will do anything to protect her. I've been fighting for decades. I've protected countless innocents, vanquished more demons than I could possibly count. But I have sacrificed so much, and lost so much along the way. My husband. My daughter. My son-in-law. Sisters. Friends. I cannot lose Jay. I won't. I do not care if I am interfering with destiny. Any destiny she is meant to fulfill is lost anyway if she is dead. And she has already been through more than any child should ever have to endure. She needs precious time without the burdens she will one day have to face. She will learn the truth soon enough, but not now. She deserves a normal childhood. As normal as can be expected after what she has already endured.

  Later that day, Gram wrote more.

  Ruth got home late last night to an answering machine full of messages from me. She didn't call until this morning to avoid waking me. I could wring her neck for it. I was up all night anyway.

  We met at Celia's shop this afternoon. I told them of the woman that came to me in the church, and her warning. I showed them the Lasa goddess entry in my book. She is a guardian spirit. But not mine. She did not come for me. She came for Jay.

  I looked up from the pages of the journal and my eyes settled on Mom's book. I reached for it, terrified to open it again after my last experience. For the first time, I noticed the dark words branded upon the brown leather cover beneath the triquetra.

  Libra dei Segreti

  I grabbed my bag and pulled out Mr. Whitmore's makeshift book. Beneath the hand-drawn symbol on the cover was the same title written in his neat scrolled handwriting. Libra dei Segreti. Book of Secrets.

  I opened Mom's book an
d slowly flipped through the pages of magical beings, some beautiful and brimming with light. Others, horrific and shrouded in darkness. For the beings of light, the accompanying text described ways to call upon them for protection or guidance. For the hideous and fearsome creatures, their strengths and weaknesses were listed, along with methods to protect oneself from them, or to destroy them. Other pages contained spell verses and incantations for rituals. It was clearly a magical reference book, just like the one Mr. Whitmore had discovered and then tried to recreate. I continued to flip through the pages until I found the entry I was looking for.

  The Lasa Goddess

  My hand swept across the page. She was beautiful. Like the Triune, her likeness was so realistically rendered that she could've walked right off the page. I prayed that she wouldn't. Her skin shimmered like a pearl. Her long, light hair flowed down her back and across her translucent wings. Beside her likeness, several lines of text were penned in a perfect scrolling hand.

  She belongs to a sisterhood of fate-goddesses, the Lasae. These guardian spirits watch over and protect their charges across lifetimes, usher their souls to the afterlife upon death, and guard their graves on earth. The Lasa is a divine creature, emanating grace and the light of the heavens. Her wings appear only to those that possess otherworldly power. She carries an alabastron of scented oil, which she uses to bring peace and calm to those she encounters. She also uses her gift in defense, to disarm any that intend to harm her.

  I reached for Gram's journal again and kept reading. I hoped everything whirling in my mind would soon settle together with some clarity. But one thing was already very clear. Page after page, I saw Ruth and Celia's names, and I knew that, like Gram, they knew more than they ever shared.

  Ruth and Celia had both called every day to check in. They were overprotective—I barely got Ruth to agree to go. It was the first time I'd been alone since Gram died, and they were worried. But the roots of their worry went a bit deeper, I was beginning to realize. There was a whole lot they weren't telling me. I hadn't bothered to call them back, but I was beginning to think it was time.