She shuddered, trying to hold back her sobs.
“I may have found a way,” she said.
“I don’t want to come back,” Luc said firmly.
She shook her head. “Not to come back. Those are fairy tales, stories. I have looked into them, and they are lies.”
“What, then?”
“We can end our suffering. And in doing so, we can protect those who come after us.”
He looked at her, at this woman who had been his greatest joy and his greatest pain. “After us, this nightmare is over.”
She shook her head sadly. “I have foreseen it. The curse does not end with you.”
He felt like someone had hit him in the stomach. “My son?”
She nodded. “And your son’s son, and on and on. Someday, years hence, a daughter of my line will fall in love with a son of your line. The curse will end with them.”
He took a shaky breath. “What does this plan of yours have to do with protecting them? I don’t understand.”
“They will meet here. These woods will be where they fall in love.”
“My son and your daughter are both gone, God knows where. Why the hell would anyone in either of our lines come back here?”
She lifted her shoulder in a shrug. “I do not know. But they do.” She paused. “We both need to be sane and whole for the spell to work, and I have preparations to make before we can do so. But if I know you are in agreement and will do this with me, the next time we are both ourselves we can be ready to perform the spell.”
“My son,” Luc murmured, his chest tight.
“I know,” Migisi said softly. Her hand was still in his, and she squeezed his fingers gently. “I am sorry.”
“We have established whose fault this is, Migisi,” he said wearily. “At least his mother will be able to identify the signs when it happens. Hopefully she will have the sense to keep him and everyone else safe.”
“Louisa did not strike me as a stupid woman,” Migisi said. “Ill-suited for life here, maybe, but not stupid.”
“Our children are almost adults now. Do you realize that?” he asked.
Migisi nodded. “The past decade has been like a nightmare I cannot seem to wake from.”
“It has.” He paused, thinking. He could feel himself becoming edgy, irritable. That was always the fist sign that he would be losing control soon. “This plan of yours… it would end this nightmare for us?”
“Yes.”
“And it would protect those who come after.”
“Yes. Essentially, when we perform the spell, our power would provide a protective ward over this area. Our descendants would find themselves stronger here than they would be anywhere else. From what I have foreseen, they will need all the strength they can get,” she added grimly.
Luc blew out a breath, then nodded. “Make your preparations, Migisi. The next time I am sane enough to take part in the spell, we will do it. Let’s finally put an end to this.”
She nodded, tears falling from her eyes, and he leaned over and kissed her, claiming her lips, murmuring how much he loved her before his beast, his madness, forced him to leave her again.
Chapter Nineteen
Sophie and Calder arrived back at the house, and Esme continued peppering them with questions.
Sophie felt like she could barely breathe, still terrified and repulsed by the thrill she’d gotten from hurting Marshall, and still confused by what she’d done after.
She’d healed.
She needed air, and she needed quiet. She murmured to Calder that she was stepping outside and she would call if she needed him. Usually, he would have argued that it wasn’t safe to be out alone, and now they knew just how dangerous it was. Something in her eyes must have made it clear how badly she needed the silence. He merely nodded and pressed a quick kiss to her lips, then went back to answering Esme’s rapid-fire questions.
Sophie stepped out the back door and let it close behind her. The sun had just set, though the western horizon still held a hint of pink and orange. The birds were singing their end of day carols—
Birds?
Sophie froze, listening, sure she was hearing things. But, no. In the trees nearby, in the surrounding forest, the trills of songbirds filled the air.
She stood, and closed her eyes, and listened. There were not many. Definitely not as many as there had once been. But they were definitely there, and she’d thought she would never hear birdsong on her land again.
The sounds soothed her a little, and after a while, she opened her eyes and walked down the back steps, toward where her garden had once been. Maybe she should try growing plants again, she thought. She knew how to make things stay alive now, knew how to manipulate the magic so that it would act in ways that were almost antithetical to its usual tendencies.
As she strolled further from the house, her mind raced. She’d felt good doing some of it. The healing. Even the overwhelming lure of power didn't seem all that awful, in retrospect. The only thing that really concerned her at the moment was whether her healing would work long-term or not. Would Charlotte find herself weak and at death’s door again once whatever Sophie had done to her wore off?
Still. She’d seemed pretty healthy sitting there talking afterward. One thing was certain: Shadow was more than anyone imagined. She wondered if Migisi had known that. She’d supposedly been able to “see” the magic as well. Had she realized it could be as much a force for good as it was for evil? She’d made plants grow, when they were on the verge of death from the lingering effects of Shadow. She’d fought back death and brought a woman back to full health. It wasn’t about eliminating Shadow. It was about, as Esme had tried to explain to her, being in control of it rather than letting it control her.
It still felt oily and dirty to her, and she hated the way she felt when she destroyed with it. There was always that pull, that desire, to go too far. It would be so easy to do something she couldn’t come back from.
As she neared her old goat pens, she heard a sound and immediately raised her hands, expecting Marshall. Instead, there was a loud “bleat,” and a goat came walking toward her from the old goat barn.
Dark brown, with floppy ears and white markings on its face. Bleating at her as if it was swearing at her in Goat-ese.
“Merlin?” Sophie whispered. She stepped closer, and the goat stood by the fence, staring at her, bleating as if to tell her his food and water were both empty.
She reached over the fence, slowly, unsure, half expecting that this goat, Merlin or not, would suddenly go nuts on her and leap over the fence or something.
Instead, the goat looked at her hand, and then butted it with his head, over and over again.
Because this goat was an asshole, and she knew him well.
“Merlin, you little bastard,” Sophie said, scratching behind his ears. She was weeping, tears streaming down her face, and she was sure she looked like a crazy woman, standing there smiling and crying over a stupid goat.
This goat was different. This goat, and his two former cohorts, Gandalf and Dumbledore, were familiars. And familiars only ever bothered with Light witches. Even then, they were not common.
And somehow, for some reason, Merlin the Asshole Familiar had made his way back to her. Sophie lowered her head, crying like a baby, her hands, still patting his head and neck. She stepped closer and wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him like a long lost friend.
He bleated at her in impatience. And then he promptly pissed on her shoe.
“Ugh, Merlin,” Sophie said, taking a quick step back. “Asshole.”
Calder stepped up beside her and looked at Merlin.
“I am so confused right now,” he finally said.
“That makes two of us. He shouldn’t be here.”
“You did good things with Shadow. Maybe that was enough,” he said. She’d explained all about the familiars and Light witches, so he knew that it had hurt a little extra when they’d all abandoned her after she’d turned t
o Shadow. “If that’s the case, then he’s kind of a dick, leaving you like that and then coming back when he thinks you’re worthy of his presence. Yeah, I called you a dick, goat,” Calder said to Merlin, and Merlin raised his head and gave Calder a loud, rude-sounding bleat.
Sophie laughed. “I don’t think that’s it. I did something good, but I’m not of the Light anymore. This is probably temporary. Or he’s lost or something.”
Calder shook his head. “There’s still goat feed in the barn, I think,” he said. He went off to get some, and Sophie grabbed the hose and quickly filled Merlin’s water. “Temporary or not, I’m glad to see you again,” she told him. He butted her hip, shoving her out of the way so he could get to his water.
After Calder gave Merlin fresh food, yapping at him as Merlin bleated back, he took Sophie’s hand and they went into the house together. Esme was curled up on her daybed, reading.
She looked up when Calder and Sophie walked in. “That was your same goat from before?” she asked.
Sophie nodded. “Maybe he’s not a familiar after all. Just weird,” Sophie said.
Esme shook her head. “No, he’s a familiar. They protected you against Marshall that time. Even a weird goat wouldn’t bother, let alone would three of them gang up on someone like that.” She met Sophie’s eyes. “It’s a good thing he’s back though. From what Calder said, Marshall is quite strong now.”
“He is.”
“And you hurt him again. You know he’s not going to let that pass without retribution.”
Sophie nodded.
“I’m going back on the hunt after I get a little sleep,” Calder said. “We were so close today. And now that we’ve faced him once… honey, the shifters can take him. I know it.”
Sophie didn’t like it, but she knew there was no sense in arguing with him. She’d keep tabs on where the pack was hunting, and make sure to check on them every once in a while. If they did come up against Marshall, she’d know about it.
“Okay,” she said with a shrug.
He looked surprised. “What? Just like that?”
“Just like that. But you have to promise to come home sometimes, because I missed you.”
Esme made a gagging sound and went back to her book, and Sophie and Calder went to her room, where she was more than happy to have him hold her close until he slipped away, leaving to hunt again with his brother and friends.
She felt him leave, and lay there in silence for a long time.
Familiars had nothing to do with Shadow.
They were of the Light.
She’d healed someone, and he’d shown up. That couldn’t have been a coincidence.
She smiled to herself. Maybe this was a sign. The Light was returning to her. She swore, as she lay there next to Calder, that she could feel it, like a weak ray of sunshine fighting its way through the clouds. She’d thought it impossible, but maybe… just maybe.
Maybe acting the way a Light witch would had brought her a step closer to having the Light return to her. Impossible, yes. But she knew what she felt, and now Merlin made sense.
One step. She’d do her damnedest to put her Shadow magic to work that way as often as she could, saving, protecting, healing. She would work her way back to the Light, and Merlin was proof that it could be done.
Chapter Twenty
The next week passed quietly. It would have been all too easy for everyone to become bored and complacent, except that signs of Marshall’s presence were growing by the day.
Fights broke out in town at an almost unprecedented rate. People growing angry and aggressive was always a sure sign that a powerful Shadow being was nearby and, in this case, Marshall seemed to be actively goading their neighbors into fighting like idiots. Of course, whenever it happened, it was when the pack wasn’t nearby to catch him. They always showed up in the aftermath, frustrated to have missed him again, angry that their friends and neighbors were hurting one another based on nothing more than his sick, twisted whims.
The three witch sisters had been kept safe from him, because no one really trusted that he wouldn’t try for them again. Someone that hungry for power wouldn’t let something like a little beating stop him, and Marshall was nothing if not determined. So there were always a few shifters watching over their house, and Sophie made a point of checking in on them every couple of days as well. Besides just checking up on them, she wanted to make sure that her healing was actually a permanent thing. She wanted to make sure they felt safe, and she often asked if they remembered anything else about Claire and Migisi that might be helpful, but anything the could offer, they’d already shared with her. They chatted a bit about her aunt Evie, and Sophie was grateful to realize that Evie had been far from alone in her later years. She and Patti had been fairly close.
“I remember when you were a little girl,” Patti said, leaning forward and pouring fragrant herbal tea into Sophie’s cup. The three sisters, since the day she and Calder had showed up and saved them, seemed to have come around on the issue of whether Sophie could be trusted or not.
And there was no more talk about her being Migisi, which was a nice little bonus.
“You do?” Sophie asked. Patti nodded.
“Your father never wanted your mother around her family too much.”
“He was afraid of magic. And mom wasn’t very strong at all, so it was easy for him to overlook what she really was, as long as he didn’t have Evie sitting there telling him about the Light,” Sophie said, shaking her head.
Patti nodded. “Evie always believed you were stronger than anyone in your family in living memory. Even when you were little, she believed you’d be the one to bring power back to your line. I don’t think she would have believed how it’s happened, though,” she added.
Sophie took another sip of tea, and then decided to ask what she really wanted to know. “Is it possible to regain the Light?”
Patti met her eyes, then looked away.
“My goat came back. That has to be a good sign, right?”
“I wouldn’t get your hopes up,” Patti said after a few moments of awkward silence. “I know you want to believe his appearance means something… I understand. I do. But I’ve never heard of such a thing, and I know the Light well enough to know that it does not give second chances.”
“Then why is he back?”
“He’s old? Maybe a little senile?” Patti said with a shrug. “Maybe he got tired of wandering and decided that your yard was better than life in the woods or wherever it is he went after he left before. I don’t think you should read too much into it. False hope is never a good thing.”
“I swear I feel it, though,” Sophie said quietly. “Just a little hint of it, barely there, but there just the same.”
“I think you’re feeling what you want to feel,” Patti said gently. “I won’t agree with Esme on much, but on the point of you needing to embrace what you really are, which is Shadow, I agree with her completely. Trying to deny the power you actually have while wishing for something else will only weaken you.”
Sophie kept her mouth shut. Patti was wrong. She had to be. But it wasn’t something she wanted to argue about. She sat and talked with the three witches for a little longer, then stepped outside. She closed her eyes and was able to see the magic immediately. She’d been doing it so often over the last couple of weeks that it was becoming second nature, and she barely had to focus to be able to see it.
As she scanned the surrounding area, she found what she’d been looking for, and took a step, witchwalking to where she wanted to go. When she opened her eyes again, she felt sick. This area of the forest, which should have been green and vibrant, in the full flush of summer’s lushness, was withered and stunted. Brown, dusty leaves littered the forest floor, and the trees stood bare, their trunks blackening, their limbs twisting in ways that looked almost torturous. It was easy to tell that not a single wild animal was in the area, all of them having fled or died due to the sickness that had struck these few acres of for
est.
Sophie looked around. The pack had reported a few of these areas almost having sprung up overnight. Sophie had told them what she’d seen when she’d looked over the forest before, areas of condensed Shadow magic. Now, she knew that those areas had signified exactly what she’d suspected and feared.
The forest was dying.
And she knew who was killing it.
For it to happen this quickly, Marshall was doing it on purpose. And she suspected he was doing it for no other reason that he could and it would bother the shifters, who called this forest home. It was a show of strength, and probably a way to throw them off of where he was actually spending his time. So she’d told the pack to ignore these areas, and that she’d see what she could do.
Looking at the destruction now, she felt her stomach sink. She’d felt cocky, almost, when she’d brought one tree back to full health, but this… this was insane.
As she stood in the center of the destruction, she turned and looked around. Beyond the dead zone, she could see the vibrant green of the forest. She narrowed her eyes and walked toward the edge of the desolation. She looked up at the leaves of a nearby sugar maple, one that sat outside of the dead area.
Its leaves were turning a sickly yellow.
It was spreading. Of course it was, because this was Marshall, and he’d thrown a hell of a lot of power at destroying this place.
Sophie closed her eyes. There were at least a dozen areas, just like this one. And she had no idea if she was enough to heal them all.
“Only one way to find out,” she murmured. Eyes closed, she studied the way the magic flowed. The area Marshall had messed with wore the black, oozing shroud of Shadow magic. The Light, what was left of it, was a dim, flickering thing being suffocated by Shadow. Beyond, in the area not yet destroyed, Shadow and Light mingled, in balance.
Light's Shadow (Copper Falls Book 3) Page 21