“You need to get up to the house,” I told her.
“No need.” Evan pointed toward the house. “They’re coming here.”
I followed his gesture and saw he was right. Clark led the circle of seven to the lake shore, carrying the props they would need for the binding.
“We can always reverse it later,” I told Juliana. “Or come up with a better plan. This can just be temporary.”
She nodded, mutely.
When the group approached, Linda Eagle plucked Maya out of Juliana’s arms and held her gently while the others completed the circle. I’ll say this much for Maya: There was nothing at all wrong with her lungs. By the time Linda set her in the middle of the circle of candles, everyone was wincing or even covering their ears.
“Let’s do it.” Clark offered his hand to his wife first, then to Nicolas.
One by one, all seven members of the circle took his or her place, completely surrounding Maya and the candles. Then they began to chant.
Magic filled the air, hot and heavy, a veritable storm of power. I hadn’t been able to sense magical currents for long, and in the time that I had been able to, I’d never seen a working like this. They drew on their own magic as well as magic in the nature around them. They also drew on the power of the nearby node, taking their combined efforts to even greater heights.
This binding would not fail.
Suddenly, I felt a surge from the direction of the lake. I whirled, as did every man and woman on the shore. The binding was complete, the circle broken, but something was still happening.
A light flashed, coming right from the node, sending power upward like a fountain. I was momentarily blinded; I covered my eyes, and when I opened them again, I saw the two fairies fly out of their cages.
“No!”
But they weren’t free, not exactly. They were clearly struggling against something that was guiding them, pulling them inexorably toward that bright light. Toward that node.
Then I heard a howl and looked as, overhead, two – no three hell hounds, bizarrely black against the morning sky, unnatural in daylight, were pulled into the light of the node as well.
There was a rushing sound, a roaring, and then suddenly everything – the fairies, the hell hound, and the light – were all sucked back down into the water, disappearing as if they had never been.
No one spoke for a long time. Only Maya’s continued cries could be heard as we stared, unblinkingly, at whatever had just happened.
“They came from the node,” I said, finally realizing what my dreams had meant. “How-?”
No one else spoke. They didn’t seem to have words.
“What the hell is at the bottom of Table Rock Lake?”
Epilogue
MOM STILL WASN’T BETTER WHEN BELLE visited me a week later to begin our lessons. I had only seen her once in that time, and then only for a few minutes while Belle supervised. It made me feel like a criminal, but Belle said it had nothing to do with me.
“Can I get you some tea?” I asked when Belle settled herself onto a chair in the kitchen.
“Chamomile, please,” she replied. Did she look wearier than she had a week ago? More tired, perhaps?
“We can put this off, if you need to,” I offered, though I had so many questions I was nearly bursting with them.
She shook her head. “This is important. Grace despaired of the fact that an entire generation of boys got between her and the next seer; she never even met Little Grace before she died.”
“Grace?”
“Of course. The name has been handed down several times, through the centuries. The first one was born in England in 1602 and urged the family to move to Virginia.”
I added loose chamomile tea to two infusers and poured hot water into the mugs. I offered one to Belle before sitting across the table from her.
“Where are the kids?” she asked.
“Ana’s napping,” I said. “Michael and Maya are with Aunt Sherry.”
“Good.” She nodded. “I finally convinced her to work with me too, and the first thing I told her was to get more involved with her sister’s family. She put all her hopes in her grandson Jay, but she’s suffocating poor Kaitlin. Your family actually needs her.”
We did need her. We needed a lot of support, and I was beginning to understand that it couldn’t come from Mom. Not yet, anyway.
It was easier to find people to care for the twins now that their powers were bound. The circle had bound Michael’s powers shortly after the node had gone back to normal – or what passed for normal. Matthew was considering putting together a team of sorcerers to swim to the node and investigate further. I believed it was the right next step; my dream snippets kept fixating on the lake and the node.
“How’s Maya doing?” Belle asked.
“She stopped crying.” I played with the mug of tea in front of me for a moment to try to cover my feelings of guilt. Not that I could possibly fool an emapth. “Linda’s looking into it. Matthew is looking into it. Scott Lee, of all people, is looking into it. Someone will find something soon.” At least, I hoped so.
“Of course.” Belle sounded confident, but it might be an act.
“What about Mom? When will she be better?”
“When she’s ready.” Belle removed the infuser from her tea and gave it a quick stir. “I’m afraid we can’t rush this. She’s stable for now, but she’s hurting.”
“Why?” I let the question explode from me, frustration and confusion warring within me. “How much of this is the Fairy of Despair and how much of it is grief? Dad’s death was hard on all of us, but–”
“Grief can do strange things to people,” Belle said calmly, but firmly. “And your father was more than a husband do your mom. He was her hero.”
“Oh.” I deflated a little, not sure what to think. Mom had made plenty of mistakes even before Dad’s death, having children for the wrong reasons and becoming addicted to borrowed magic. One day, that could be me. A small part of me still feared it, even though I had begun learning from Evan.
Now I would learn from Belle, and she could teach me magic that would be wholly my own. Which led me to my first question, one I had been positively bursting to ask for a week.
“I haven’t dreamed about Little Henry at all this week,” I told her. “At least, not that I can remember. I wanted to see him again, to reassure myself he was real.”
Belle froze with her mug of tea halfway to her mouth. “You were dreaming of possible children?”
I nodded. “Why? What is it? What do you know?”
“Before Grace died, she told me a lot of things. She described lifetimes she’d lived in her head. She said her body might have been eighty-something, but her soul was eons old. She’d seen so much, some of it she could change. Some if it she had to learn, the hard way, that she had no power over.”
“Okay …”
“You can’t choose one of the children. They’re all just possibilities.”
It was my turn to freeze. I felt for a moment as if the Fairy of Cold had returned.
“But I was sure … I knew the day and the time and the place …” Not that I’d wanted to choose any one child over any other; I’d felt horrible about that part for a week and had planned to follow up with that confession, but I’d accepted Henry in that moment. I’d taken him into my heart.
“There were millions of possibilities even in that fraction of a second,” Belle said softly. “It all came down to random chance, not time or place or any of the rest. It was chance. A roll of the die.”
“But …” I shook my head. “When I first started dreaming, I dreamed of Ana. Of a little hearer who would save my life. I didn’t see her in detail, but some part of me knew she’d be a healer.”
“Gifts aren’t entirely genetic. They might run in families, but they’re tied to the soul. At that moment of desperate need, when your life was about to end, snuffing Ana’s out alongside, what’s to say her soul didn’t make its choice?”
“Seeing isn’t easy, and it’s going to be harder for you because you’re starting just when you’re having babies, and seeing doesn’t work at all well when you’re channeling. That’s why seers don’t tend to have a lot of children.”
“I want a lot of children,” I said hollowly. I wanted Henry and Abigail and even Belle, bizarre farsight and all.
I felt a hand on mine just as a strange warmth began to infuse my body. When I looked up, Belle stood over me, smiling slightly, her hand resting lightly atop mine. It’s going to be okay, she seemed to be saying. Everything will work out in the end. You’ll see.
“I’m not dreaming about children at all right now,” I said. Then a horrible thought struck me. “Am I pregnant at all?”
She closed her eyes and shrugged. “Too soon for me to tell.”
“Damn.” I shook my head. “All I keep dreaming about is the lake. I swear it’s calling to me.”
“Then let’s see if we can’t figure out what it’s saying.”
The End
Author’s Note
When I finished Stolen Drams, I honestly thought it would be the last Cassie Scot book. I wrote Madison’s Song and Kaitlin’s Tale because her friends had grown too big to be footnotes in Cassie’s story, and that, I decided, was that.
Then I moved on to other things. Or tried to. What actually followed was the longest, darkest period of burnout I have ever experienced. I didn’t write anything for eighteen months, between the spring of 2015 and fall of 2016, though I tried over and over again. Nothing would come.
Recovering from burnout and yes, depression, takes time. I did not wake up one day and feel better, though I noticed a sharp turnaround in August/September of 2016 due to some new treatments I was trying. My daily schedule now includes mindfulness meditation, walking, and yoga. Since Cassie has been meditating from the beginning, it might seem strange that it took me so long to work it into my daily schedule. I can only say that some part of me knew how important it was, but another part of me – the type-A part – refused to let go of the precious time. Now I know that taking time for me every day increases efficiency, focus, concentration, creativity, health, and happiness. All of which means I have more time in my day, not less, and the time I have is precious.
Between fall of 2016 and the end of 2017, I completed two novels and drafted two more. I have never written so much in such a short space and ironically, I did it by letting go of expectations. Years of focusing on goals, focusing on results, had kept me from enjoying the moment and from letting writing be the artistic outlet I needed. Now, I set myself daily word count maximums instead of minimums, to keep me from falling back into that race to the finish line that hurt me so deeply. I write first thing every day, putting “me first” ahead of all my other obligations, then I let it go to focus on freelance editing, marketing, correspondence, social media, household chores, and everything else that makes up my day.
Frozen was one of the two books I completed, obviously. It lived in the back of my mind for years before it made it onto the page, pretty much ever since I finished Stolen Dreams and swore I was done! But Frozen is not something I could have written while I was focusing on goals instead of on writing for me, and writing what I love. All signs suggest that a new series would benefit my career right now, and that a new Cassie book will only appeal to true Cassie lovers.
I happen to be a Cassie lover. :)
I know there are others out there as well. I’ve heard from some of you over the years, and I would love to hear from more of you. Nothing puts a bigger smile on my face than hearing from a fan with something as simple as, “I loved your book.”
I wrote Frozen for me; I published it for you.
There will probably be more Cassie books, but I can’t make any promises about when and how often. I am writing two other series at the moment, hoping to build my audience through new tales, and I’m enjoying the heck out of those too. Cassie fans should especially enjoy the new science fiction story Metamorphosis, even if you think you’re more into fantasy than science fiction. There’s a super fine line between those genres, and I like to straddle it.
For now, I’m brainstorming the next Cassie book and welcome your ideas. My current thought is that she needs an arch-nemesis. Not Alexander DuPris; she already beat him for all intents and purposes, but someone who could be a real challenge. It’s got to be a woman, right?
If you liked Frozen, or any of my other books, please take a few minutes to post an honest review. I cannot overstate the importance of reviews.
For the latest news, including cover reveals, new releases, and progress reports, sign up for my mailing list at http://eepurl.com/dhZ4Cn. You can also visit my website at http://www.christineamsden.com.
Sincerely,
Christine
About the author
Christine Amsden has been writing science fiction and fantasy for as long as she can remember. She loves to write, and it is her dream that others will be inspired by this love and by her stories. Speculative fiction is fun, magical, and imaginative but great speculative fiction is about real people defining themselves through extraordinary situations. Christine writes primarily about people, and it is in this way that she strives to make science fiction and fantasy meaningful for everyone.
At the age of 16, Christine was diagnosed with Stargardt’s Disease, a condition that attacks the retina and causes a loss of central vision. She is now legally blind, but has not let this slow her down or get in the way of her dreams.
Christine currently lives in the Kansas City area with her husband, Austin, who has been her biggest fan and the key to her success. They have two beautiful children, Drake and Celeste.
http://www.christineamsden.com/
Cassie Scot Mystery Series
Cassie Scot: ParaNormal Detective Book 1
Secrets and Lies Book 2
Mind Games Book 3
Stolen Dreams Book 4
Madison’s Song Book 5
Kaitlin’s Tale Book 6
Frozen: a ParaNormal mystery Book 7
Other novels by Christine
The Immortality Virus (SF suspense)
Touch of Fate (paranormal suspense)
Frozen: a ParaNormal mystery Page 22