Descended from Shadows: Book of Sindal Book One

by D. G. Swank

  “I know it is, Ro.” I sighed. As the middle sister, my peacekeeper role was as automatic as breathing. “But have you stopped to think it’s wearing on her too? More than usual?”

  Rowan bit her lip. For all of her posturing, she was as worried about our little sister as I was. Only her worry came out as irritation, while mine manifested as doting, both of which annoyed the hell out of our sister. “Well, what do you think we should do? Therapy is obviously not the answer.”

  “Of course it’s not,” I bit out. “I only arranged it because I promised Mack.”

  “Mack is worthless.”

  “Well, Mack is the only reason she’s keeping her job, which is the only thing that is helping her cling to her sanity.”

  “Besides the vodka.”

  “Sometimes she drinks gin,” I quipped.

  Rowan barked out a laugh. “Okay, sis. You win. I laughed. And I’m knee-deep in half-written articles, so…” She turned off the ignition and stepped out of the car.

  I got out too, and walked by her side to the house. “Do you think we should, I don’t know… help her?”

  “How are we gonna do that?” Rowan was exhausted too. We all were. And if we helped Celeste with her role, we would be doubly drained from having already played our own roles in the ritual. But there was no mistaking the interest in her voice—over the years, she’d paid less attention to Celeste’s magical gift than I had—partially out of fear, I suspected, and maybe a little bit out of jealously. Rowan considered herself to be the weakest of all of us, and her own talent of glamouring to be pointless.

  While most witches and mages could perform rudimentary magic, like simple glamouring or turning lights on and off, we three were also gifted with a stronger talent. Celeste and I had been born with rarer magical skills—Celeste with expression magic and I with ancestral—but Rowan had been gifted with the simplest of magics, a talent even a five-year-old could perform with rough skill. Rowan was capable of casting highly detailed, complicated glamours, but she still found herself lacking compared to her two younger sisters.

  Neither of us knew what Celeste did specifically. She had never offered to tell us, and we had never pressed her, knowing she was sensitive about her role. Besides, it was safer if we didn’t know exactly what was included in her fortification ritual. Our mother had always tried to impress that upon us—she wouldn’t even discuss what she did to protect the book with our father, much to his increasing frustration. It wasn’t until she died that we realized why it was safer if no one witch knew all kinds of secrets about the book’s protection—breaking all of its protective spells would require torturing information out of all three of us.

  I shuddered at the thought.

  “Well… how are you feeling? Strong?”

  Rowan shrugged. She knew I meant magically. “As ever, I guess.”

  “Me too,” I replied, chewing on my lip. “If we offer to help with her part, she can draw on our life energy, right, instead of using only her own?”

  Rowan’s eyebrows arched up. “Neither of us really knows how it works, but we could offer, even if it means all three of us will be laid up for a few days.”

  “I can call in sick to the library, and your editors barely know what you’re doing as it is.” I poked her. “The audience of your cooking vlog will miss you, though.”

  My sister, usually so stoic, might have blushed. Celeste and I had both encouraged her to do something more with her talent for delicious vegetarian cooking, but none of us had expected our reserved, introverted sister would become a bit of an internet sensation.

  She wasn’t the Pioneer Woman, but she was good, and people had noticed. People who, presumably, also refused to eat bacon because pigs were smart.

  “Let’s go tell her before I change my mind,” Rowan grumbled, choosing to ignore my teasing.

  I slung my arm around her shoulder and squeezed her close to me. She grumbled again, and I laughed. For a second, things felt sort of normal.

  Just stepping foot inside our farmhouse tugged my taut muscles loose and shook a sigh of relief from my rib cage. It smelled like it had our whole lives, and despite the clutter, felt like home.

  We found Celeste huddled in the breakfast nook in the corner of our kitchen, wrapped in a blanket. She tipped her head up to the remnants of light filtering in through the east-facing window. Steam rose from her mug, which she clutched with the desperation a drowning person would show a life preserver.

  It wasn’t a cold day. In our little corner of Ohio, most mornings had an edge of damp chill to them, but the air conditioning would kick on just after high noon.

  “Hey, honey,” I said, sliding onto the bench next to her. She looked so fragile, I was almost afraid to touch her lest she break. An odd thought, because I knew she was much, much stronger than that. Stronger, magically speaking, than Rowan and I put together. “Ro and I were just saying, we feel like we’ve been lazy this month. Can we tag along with you for your part of the ritual? Maybe help?”

  Slowly, Celeste raised her eyes to stare at me, then shifted her gaze to Rowan before looking back to me. “Why?” she asked. The thick suspicion in her voice stabbed me like a knife. “What are you trying to do?”

  I forced a laugh, to make it seem like it wasn’t a big deal at all. Rowan and I exchanged a glance, one that said this clearly wasn’t going the way we’d hoped.

  I decided to try a different tactic, maybe explain that my worry for her well-being infected every moment of every day. That I was terrified our duty would kill us, or that the stupid book would continue to drive an immovable wedge into our sisterhood.

  My biggest worry was too horrible to speak aloud. I feared that we might keep the world safe but, in the process, lose our baby sister, who was slowly wasting away to nothing while we watched.

  Before I could react, Celeste pressed on, a storm building in her emerald green eyes. “Either you’re trying to learn how I do what I do to protect the Book of Sin because you expect something awful to happen to me and you’ll need to carry on in my place when I’m gone, or you think I need your help in some way.” She snarled the last part. “I know you think I’m weak, Rowan, and you can’t stand weakness because you think you’re weak yourself.”

  I gaped at her in shock. “Celeste, that’s not true!”

  “And you,” she spat out in disgust. “You’re playing us both, trying to make peace, but you’re wasting your time. Rowan hates me and there’s no changing that.”

  Rowan’s eyes flashed in defiance. “Stop being dramatic, Celeste. I don’t hate you.”

  “I know you blame me for Mom’s death.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Rowan demanded, and I was just as curious.

  “It was my fault she died. My fault she was on the road that night. If she hadn’t—” She shook her head and the dishes on the shelves began to rattle.

  “Celeste, honey…” I reached out to her on instinct, then pulled my hand back. I was afraid to touch her, afraid to set her off even more. “Neither one of us blames you. It was an accident. Nothing more, nothing less. How could it be your fault? You were miles away.”

  “She’s right, Celeste,” Rowan said, her anger softening. “It’s never occurred to me to blame you. I swear.”

  “It’s not easy,” she said with tear-filled eyes.

  I couldn’t keep from touching her then, resting my hand on her upper arm. “I know your magic is difficult.” I flashed a glance at Rowan, then back to my baby sister. “Maybe we can approach Xenya on the Small Council. She’s sympathetic to us and was a friend of Mom’s. She might know of a healer who can help you.”

  “I’m not talking about the book,” she said, her anger rising again. She slammed her mug down on the Formica tabletop. Hot coffee sloshed in the cup in slow motion, licking at the edges and threatening to spill over. “I’m talking about you two. Your special bond. It’s always been Rowan and Phoebe, and weird Celeste left on the outside watching.”

&n
bsp; “No,” I protested. “We—”

  “Stop this nonsense, Celeste,” Rowan said in a harsh tone. “You need to stop taking everything we say so personally. We were only trying to help.”

  “Just like Mom tried to help, only I got her killed.”

  I blinked, sure I’d misunderstood her. “What are you talking about?”

  She shook her head again and the floor under my feet began to vibrate. “I’ve been doing this a long time without you. I’ve been struggling with it for years. And now, suddenly you care? Why? Because I screwed up once at work, and now you’re worried I’m going to go mental and make you look bad with the Small Council? Isn’t that what’s going on here?”

  She tried to scoot away from me, but her blanket cocoon kept her trapped. The ensuing battle against cotton made her look ridiculous, and the thought crossed my mind that if she couldn’t get out of a blanket, she truly was in no shape to tackle the fortification ritual alone. She was in no shape to do anything besides sleep.

  Halfheartedly, Rowan moved to block her from leaving the bench. But Celeste planted her feet and stood anyway, putting her face as close to Rowan’s as she could manage without the additional inches in height. My baby sister stared up into Rowan’s eyes without fear, anger radiating out of every pore, and spat, “You two have never, not once, wanted to know about my part of this ritual. You only cared that I made sure it was done, that the book was safe. If anything, you acted terrified to be anywhere close to me while I was doing it. Excuse me if now, after all this time, I’m the one who doesn’t give a shit about you.”

  The blanket fell from her shoulders, and she stalked off, letting the blanket go like she was discarding a mantle she’d thought she needed but that was only weighing her down.

  Rowan and I cringed, listening to her bang around her room, probably changing into warmer clothes for the next couple of hours outside.

  “There’s some truth to what she said,” I whispered.

  “Which part?” Rowan asked, sounding defeated. “It was all a bunch of crazy talk.”

  “I’ve never heard her talk about Mom’s death like that before, but you have to admit a lot of the times it’s Team Rowan and Phoebe and Celeste is left to herself.”

  “She’s always preferred it that way, Bee.”

  “I know,” I said with a sigh, “but what if it’s her magic that keeps her distant from us? What if part of her really wants to be with us?”

  Rowan was silent for a moment. “That’s too depressing to consider right now.” Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “I’ll try harder. I promise. And I think you’re right about approaching Xenya. Celeste is growing more unstable by the minute.”

  When Celeste emerged seconds later, we were still in the same spots.

  “We really do want to help you, CeCe,” I said. “Please don’t be upset with us.”

  “You two can help me,” she seethed, “by doing what you’ve always done. Just make sure your own parts of the ritual are up to snuff and leave me the hell alone.”

  With that, she was out the door, slamming it behind her.

  My heart was sick with worry over our sister, but I had to put it aside so I could have a clear head for my part of the ritual.

  “We’ve been through so much together already,” I said, making my way to the front hall closet for my coat. The early autumn chill was seeping back into the air as the sun went down. By the time I was done walking the perimeter of our property and headed back to the house from the graveyard, I’d be freezing and in need of it. “This is tearing us apart.”

  “Nothing is ever going to tear us apart, Bee. We all know that. Even Celeste, even now. Thick or thin, coven bond or not. We’ll always be there for each other.”

  I nodded, a thick lump pressing against my throat. “You want a sweater?”

  “No, I won’t be long.”

  Rowan had an impressive talent for glamouring. She could change the appearance of any object so flawlessly that no one but the strongest mage would guess at its true nature. Each month, she’d spend half an hour or so tweaking everything down to the smallest detail of her illusion’s shadow, making the book indistinguishable from a berry bush, the entrance to a rabbit’s warren, or a large rock.

  Strange as it might have seemed to some, the book was safest outside our house, smack-dab in the center of a triangle-shaped tract of land that ran about a mile on each side, since that’s where Celeste’s expression was the strongest.

  Celeste had been right about one thing: Neither of us had ever asked her why she was tied to that particular spot of land, or what she did out there to hold up her very heavy end of this bargain the three of us had made with the Small Council. We didn’t know what she did that sucked so much of her away. In some ways, we didn’t really want to know.

  We Whelans protected the book at any and all costs, and we served at the pleasure of the Valerian Small Council.

  It was that simple, and that difficult.

  We just didn’t expect that Celeste being so very right would be the beginning of everything going so very, very wrong.

  Chapter Two

  “I don’t even think she was wearing shoes,” groused Rowan as we tromped through the crunching leaves that had begun to fall with a vengeance earlier in the week. Ash trees dominated our land, their foliage turning a vibrant ochre and gold in the autumn and setting the landscape on fire. By late September they were dropping their leaves, creating a luxurious carpet for the walks I loved to take.

  About a quarter of a mile from the house, Rowan and I stopped at the edge of a copse of trees next to the family graveyard, from which I drew magic. We would part ways so she could uncover and reglamour the book and so I could walk the perimeter of our land. I wanted to make sure I was hidden from public view for my contribution to protecting the book today, since it was best if I started completely nude.

  I shrugged out of my coat.

  “What’s it gonna be today? Wolfie?” Rowan asked.

  I shrugged. A wolf’s form made me feel safe, and that went at least double for a bear. There were drawbacks to walking in the skin of a predator, though—they angered too easily, and my reduced impulse control when I shifted into them made me nervous.

  Plus, they tended to draw attention, should anyone happen to see me in those forms. “Too volatile. I think we’ve had enough instability today, don’t you?”

  Rowan gave me a half-smile as she watched me toe out of my boots. “Just promise me you’ll be careful.”

  On impulse, I reached out for her and tugged her against me in a fierce hug. I was used to experiencing these strong waves of emotion when I was near our ancestors’ remains. When I tapped into their powers, aspects of their personalities often grafted on to mine as well.

  I’d come to know Margaret Abbott, my great-great-great-aunt on my mother’s side, whose skinwalker powers I’d be borrowing in just a moment, as a mother hen. Perhaps it was because she never had children, or because she spent her whole life caring for her twin brother, Samuel. By all accounts, he had been widely considered a simple man, though that hadn’t compromised his power to communicate with animals. Margaret and Samuel had shared twin-sense in more ways than one, and today their combined powers would help keep the Whelan sisters safe, even from the grave.

  Some people—myself included—thought ancestral magic felt morbid. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t grateful for the ability to access so many talents that otherwise would have been gone from this earth forever. A day never passed without me saying thank you to one dead family member or another.

  “You too, big sis.” My words were muffled by Rowan’s neck.

  She chuckled. “How about a Netflix binge when we get back? And maybe pizza? We’ll try to get Celeste to join us. I’ll even agree to one of those weird documentaries she likes to watch.”

  My heart warmed, relieved that Rowan really did want to fix this rift with Celeste. I knew Rowan had work to do, and her YouTube audience really would be missing he
r, but there was no denying we could all use some sister bonding time.

  “I’ll order and clean up,” I offered.

  “And pay?” Rowan asked as she walked backward out of the hidden area.

  “Greedy bitch!” I shouted, smiling as I shrugged out of my faux-fur vest and popped the button on my skinny jeans. “You know librarians make squat.”

  Her laughter rumbled back toward me even as she disappeared, and relief flooded through me. We would be okay. We just had to keep moving.

  Once she was gone, I let out a long, slow breath, undressed the rest of the way, and turned my thoughts to the past, and to Margaret.

  Margaret, with her waist-length hair that had rarely seen a pair of scissors, her perpetually ragged fingernails, and her forest-green eyes, a trait my mother’s family shared. Her eyes had always been open and accepting, her heart ready to embrace any creature she might encounter. She loved every animal, every person, and whether that had been the source of her immeasurable talent or a side effect, I would never know.

  Sometimes, when I was feeling sentimental, I still saw ghosts of my ancestors when I accessed their powers, They seemed to know when I needed to see their form, instead of accessing their memory. Margaret always appeared as a kindly older woman, while her brother’s ghost was forever a child. I drew strength from both of them. Tonight, though, my energy was low and my impatience to get back home was high.

  Now, with my whole heart, I humbly asked her and Samuel to lend me the powers that had been theirs in life. With this sort of witchcraft, there were no words or incantations to be recited, like so many books and movies would have people believe. Magic was either part of you, down to your blood, bones, and soul, or it wasn’t. Every magical person could access a basic set of abilities—glamouring objects, summoning items, simple conjuring and transfiguration, for example. As children, most of us were taught to master these simple manipulations, as well as tested to see whether we displayed any other talents. Still, all types of magic shared one trait: pure intention and practice made it easier to summon. My access to ancient power also didn’t hurt, but other than that, accessories and chants usually didn’t do much more than make a person look foolish.