Elda shook her head sadly.
“I wish that I could give you such news, Sebastian, but no, you are not a witch. Although you are a very powerful man.”
“Can I become more powerful?” he asked urgently.
“Yes, anyone can if they desire it and make it their intention, but vengeance is not a safe place to draw that power out of.”
Sebastian did not speak, considering her words. Vengeance had driven him for so long. What else did he have?
“You have Abby, Sebastian.”
Sebastian stared at her. Had she read his mind or just guessed his thoughts? He liked Elda. She reminded him of Claire, so kind and gentle, but strong too. He felt safe in the castle, not only safe from the Vepars, but safe from himself, from the murderous desire that had been in him lately. Perhaps at the coven he could rest, find himself again. Maybe he could discover another path.
Chapter 18
Morning arrived well after noon for Abby. Even as she opened her eyes, a flight of longing for her dreamless sleep beckoned her back beneath the covers. She stared at the vaulted ceiling, crisscrossed with enormous wood beams, and thought of the previous night. It was blurry and unreal, but her place in the elaborate bedroom rendered it concrete. Like so many things of late, this, too, was not a dream.
She pushed back the dense, silvery-pink comforter, allowing it to heap at the foot of the bed, and slid off the edge. The room was shaped like a hexagon. A floor to ceiling window stretched along a single wall facing the choppy waves of the lake. Straight down from the window, she could see a small ridge of sandstone cliff that plummeted into the water.
Dazzling sunlight poured over the shining blond wood floors, basking everything in a warm, summer glow. She traveled the room slowly and brushed her fingers along the velvet drapes. Intricate woodwork accentuated each piece of furniture, and she wondered how long it took to carve the tiny spirals and knobs. It all looked alarmingly antique and yet in impeccable shape, not a single scratch anywhere. A salmon colored chaise stretched beneath the window, several sets of clothes draped over it.
Abby picked up a silk blouse, eying it warily. They were beautiful and expensive, but definitely not her own. Dafne's, she thought, who was around her same size, but slightly taller. Probably not an easy feat - soliciting Dafne's clothes. She chose a pair of cream silk pants and a beige tank top. A pair of brown flat-heel Mary Janes sat on the floor with a note tucked into one of the soles.
“Hope everything fits - Helena.”
She put them on and cast a final glance around the room before leaving. The spiral staircase led her back to the vaguely familiar hallway, but she was clueless as to where to go from there. She looked stupidly at the blank doorways, curious because the castle held a million intrigues, but also dazed. She understood that another world existed outside of her own and that she was a part of it, but she still did not understand her role, which frightened her. After passing several doors and getting no closer to finding Sebastian or Elda, she started leaning her head against the heavy frames. Three doors and silence, then she heard voices, hushed.
She recognized Dafne's shrill tone followed by Helena, trying to calm her.
"Dafne, you have no authority to cast them out. They have every right to be here," Helena stated in a loud whisper.
"She might, but he doesn’t. Not only does he not deserve to be here, but he’s a danger to all of us," Dafne declared, sounding alarmingly close to the door.
Abby backed up, afraid that it may burst open and ran into Faustine, who huffed loudly, but put his hands out to prevent further damage.
“I see you’ve risen,” he told her shortly, turning on his heel. “Come with me.”
Jogging to keep up with him, she tried to gather her bearings, watching the hall carefully, but not getting much detail. Every door looked the same, and though they passed a few that were open, Faustine walked so quickly that she couldn’t see what lay inside them.
He turned left and opened a doorway into a long, rectangular room. Several buffet tables stood in the center, each heaped with trays of food. Small, round café-style tables scattered the wall’s edge, their white linen tablecloths brushing the peach carpeting. It looked like a hotel dining room, except for the thick, stone castle walls. Abby expected to see little waiters in tuxedos bustling about.
Sebastian and Elda sat at a small table butted against a movie screen sized window. They both stood when Faustine and Abby walked in.
"She wakes," Sebastian said, sounding relieved.
She gave him a quick, one-armed hug, briefly flashing on their kiss from the previous night, and tried to hide her blush as she sat down next to him.
“Lunch, my dear,” Elda told her, steering her towards one of the food-stacked tables.
Abby’s stomach moaned with longing as she surveyed the options. Pastries were piled next to a long tray of heavily stacked sandwiches and goblets of juice, lemonade and tea. At the end of the table sat two silver trays heaped with sliced fruit and vegetables. She filled a plate, any attempt at modesty buried beneath her hunger, and returned to the table between Sebastian and Elda.
She watched an enormous, charcoal gray cat jump from one of the tables and pad into a bar of sunlight, slumping onto the ground lazily. The cat spun in an alligator death roll, purring like a tractor. She thought of her own kitty, Baboon, abandoned in Lansing with Nick.
“How did you sleep?” Sebastian asked, mopping the crumbs from his plate.
“Good, really,” she reassured him between bites. "I feel like I've been put up in the penthouse suite."
"So, you liked your room, then?" Elda asked happily, sipping a glass of tea.
"Yeah, liked may be a bit of an understatement," she nodded with the pleasant memory of her view.
“Well, we have had quite a long talk, Sebastian and I, oh, and Kissy over there on the floor,” Elda told her, smiling as Abby stuffed a chocolate croissant into her mouth.
“But now, Abby, it’s time for you and I to talk, alone.”
Abby stopped, mid-chew, and looked from Elda to Sebastian.
“You see,” Elda continued. “Discussion is not our only task at hand. We are going to isolate your element of power today.”
“My element of power?”
“Yes,” Elda said and Sebastian nodded.
“It’s really amazing,” he said.
“You’ve already done it?” Abby asked, turning toward Sebastian with newfound interest.
“Oh no,” Elda interrupted quickly. “Sebastian is not a witch, only you are.”
“Wait,” Abby held up a hand. “What does that mean, I’m a witch? Everyone keeps talking about witches, and, frankly, I’m not prone to complete flights of fancy. I’ll admit some crazy things have happened and I don’t quite have a grasp on it all yet, but are we talking literal here or is witch like a metaphor for…”
“For what?” Elda asked.
“Literal,” Sebastian added. “But believe me, I know where you’re at. I’ve been there.”
“I’m trying not to feel freaked out right now, but this seems insane.”
“And that is precisely our goal of the day, understanding.”
The door rolled open and Oliver walked in, looking freshly rumpled, his blond hair swept back from his forehead.
“Food,” he grinned, stretching his arms overhead and yawning. He filled a plate and took an empty seat next to Elda. “I slept like the dead last night.”
Sebastian, Abby noticed, was pretending to ignore Oliver by stirring copious amounts of sugar and cream into his coffee.
“Morning,” she said shyly.
“Perfect timing, Oliver. Abby and I were just going to take a walk to the lagoon, and I thought that you might entertain Sebastian for a little while.”
Sebastian prickled at this suggestion, scowling into his mug and stirring it furiously.
“Love to,” Oliver said, taking a bite of eggs.
* * * *
In the daylight, the garden
s surrounding the castle were even more magnificent. Dazzling blossoms encircled the stone staircase, some of them sneaking onto the steps, their petals crushed into the rough stone. They were majestic and strange, flowers that Abby had never seen. Some of the blooms were as large as basketballs, their petals heavy and drooping over their skinny, green necks.
Abby saw their small rowboat tied to the dock. It reminded her of the previous night and she shuddered, wrapping her arms over her chest. The sky held billowing, marshmallow-like clouds that reflected in the calm lagoon water.
"Aren't we going down?" Abby asked, as Elda passed the stairway and continued on.
"No, we are going to another lagoon," Elda told her, gesturing in front of them where the pathway disappeared into a thicket of tall, flowering cherry trees.
As they entered the blossoms, the cobblestone path gave way to crushed shells, bleached bone white. They crunched underfoot, and Abby stared, in wonder, around them. The blossoms were so thick that she could barely see deeper into the outer forest or gardens. Although glints of sun peeked through the pale pink blossoms, the trail grew darker as they progressed.
Deeper on the trail, the ground sloped noticeably upward and back down again. Every few yards they passed a stone bench, and Abby longed to sit and stare at the plump flowers bursting around her. It reminded her of the sleep inducing poppy fields in the Wizard of Oz. Until then, Abby had never encountered anything remotely similar, but the cherry blossoms brought wafts of air, fat with a hypnotic perfume.
“Abby,” Elda began, breaking the silence, “have you ever experienced any strange powers?”
Abby shuffled her feet over the shells, not sure what to say. She tried to search for childhood experiences that stuck out, but found that she could only remember her mother’s stifling love. Every moment of her past seemed tainted by her mother’s watchful eyes and her mean little mouth, always pressed into a line of disappointment. Sometimes, she had pretended that she was special, a superhero or a mermaid, simply to escape the hot, dead stillness of her backyard where no kids ever came to play.
“With Sydney,” Abby said suddenly. “Sometimes I felt special with Sydney.”
“Who is Sydney?”
“My aunt. She always said that she could attract anything she wanted just by thinking about it and that I had that power too, that we got it from her mother, Arlene. And even though I thought it was a game, I really believed it, and sometimes, I think it actually happened.”
Elda nodded.
“Do you think that my Aunt Sydney is a witch?”
“No, if she was, she would know it, and she sounds like the kind of woman that would have helped you in your own unveiling.”
“But what if she doesn’t know? I mean, I didn’t know. In fact, I still don’t know.”
Elda chuckled and twisted a small silver ring on her pinky as she walked.
“You will know soon enough, Abby, and then you will never doubt it again. Your aunt may have some special abilities. The ancestors of many witches do. Take Sebastian, for example. He is not a witch, but he is a powerful man, and when he learns to harness it, you will see that even ordinary people have amazing powers.”
“What about my mother?”
Elda stopped and looked at Abby, searching her face.
“Your mother was just a woman, and the power that you give her is just that, it’s not real, and you can take it away any time.”
Abby swallowed hard, her mouth was suddenly dry and sticky. Was that true?
She remembered a day; she must have been no older than seven or eight. She had walked into the kitchen, looking for a snack or some insignificant thing, and her mother had been at the sink. Abby could see from the curve of her back and the steady rise and fall of her shoulders that she was crying. She wanted to ask what was wrong, but her mother had turned and saw her. “You don’t even know,” she’d said, and her eyes were red rimmed and her face blotchy with emotion. She said nothing more, but stared at Abby as if she loathed her, and Abby had run. She hid in the shed for an hour, and when she returned to the house, her mother was ironing and her father was watching television, and they never spoke of it.
Her mother had seemed filled with magic that day, but the worst kind, the sort of magic that worked slowly and invisibly, killing everything it touched.
Abby slowed, almost stopped, but Elda continued on. Abby hurried to catch her.
“I have a million questions,” Abby said.
“And in time you will have the answers.”
“Yes, but what if I need some answers right now?”
Elda sighed. “Abby, this is a gift, not a burden. Don’t embark on this journey like you’ve been cursed and have to dissect it and make a decision about whether to seek a cure. Be patient and everything that you need to know, you will.”
They moved out of the cherry trees into another large clearing that sloped down to a second lagoon. The water sparkled emerald green, kissing the white sand. A massive greenhouse, shaped like a scallop seashell, stood on the far side.
"Wow," Abby breathed, staring at the glass structure in wonder. Abby had never gardened, but always felt a longing to learn. Once, when she was ten, her mother bought her a Venus Flytrap, which had withered and died in a matter of days.
"That is our herb and vegetable garden," Elda told her. "It is one of a kind."
Abby nodded, shuffling along in wonder. Sandstone cliffs stretched up behind the foliage surrounding the lagoon. It felt safe, like a new world.
Elda led her to a pair of old wind-worn chairs perched high on a stone slab, which extended over the water. As they stepped onto the slab, Abby felt a rush, as if someone had blown on the back of her neck. She spun around, but the trail was empty, the only sounds were the waves rhythmically caressing the shore.
"Please, sit," Elda told her. Her voice had changed and she closed her eyes for a moment, reveling in the vibrations around her.
Abby sat, folded her hands in her lap and leaned her head against the overworked chair back. It groaned, but not in protest, it sounded gratified to have its space occupied. For a moment, she continued to ponder her surroundings, but slowly an inviting calm engulfed her, as if she’d slipped into a warm bath, and she closed her eyes.
Neither Elda or Abby spoke. It was time for silence.
A million thoughts crept toward the edge of her consciousness, but none penetrated, as if held back by an invisible force field. The temperature of her body climbed, the silk pants shifted from cool to sticky. She might have felt guilty or even worried about sweating in Dafne's clothing, but her mind was a blank slate of swirling energy. A tornado of blue light formed in her brain, churning and swelling. It continued to build, like a piece of bubble gum blown to maximum capacity. It pressed inside her skull, too full, and then it streaked down her spine. It awakened her chakras, beginning at the crown and ending at the root. The energy moved like a swarm of bees, stinging her cells to life.
She sensed movement and forced her eyes open. Elda stood on the edge of the slab, her eyes trained on the lagoon, her white shawl billowing behind her like a parachute. Abby turned, with great effort, to follow Elda's gaze. The water was swirling, a jade circle widening in fury. Suddenly it reversed and began to twist upward - a writhing cone raised out of the water. Abby’s entire body vibrated, her skin prickling with gooseflesh, while inside her body raged with fire. The chair shook beneath her, the wooden frame lifting and smacking the cement. Surely it would break, splinter into a thousand pieces in an explosion that would deafen their ears and leave them both picking slivers from their burned skin, but it did not. The fiendish power pooled back into the cool blue ball and slipped out, as if Abby was a sponge and someone had wrung her dry.
Chapter 19
Sebastian drank two more cups of coffee, wandered the sunlit breakfast room, stared out windows and ignored Oliver. Oliver chewed too loudly; he slurped his coffee and talked to the cat like it had insider information that Sebastian wasn’t privy to.
“Kissy,” Oliver laughed, “don’t you love breakfast at the castle? Man, Bridget is the best cook ever. Here have another sausage.”
Then he dropped a sausage to the already obese cat, who ate it ferociously, darting his eyes toward Sebastian and growling like he might try to steal the morsel of fried pork.
“You tried the quiche, Sebastian?” Oliver asked, holding up a forkful. “Goat cheese.”
“No,” Sebastian told him and returned to the window.
He couldn’t see Abby and Elda, but wished they had invited him to join them. He had observed Claire summoning her element, not the first time, but later when she got better at it. He was curious to see Abby do it, partially because she seemed so rigid. He had to admit that he was somewhat surprised that she was a witch, though he didn’t have many examples to draw from. However, with Claire it had made sense. She was a hippy child who grew up on wheat grass shots for breakfast and bonfire prayers beneath the full moon. His parents had raised Claire and him to see Mother Nature as the divine, to shirk off regular society and to question convention at every level.
Learning that Claire was a witch hadn’t come easy, especially when he realized that no one was talking about a pagan witch who burned incense and read tarot cards. However, her changes left no room for disbelief, and, in the end, he felt that maybe they both knew all along.
He believed that Abby would struggle with the realization and wondered if discovering her element would open the portal of belief that hadn’t yet appeared.
“I planned to do a bit of shooting, practice my aim. You in?” Oliver asked, standing and stretching down to touch his toes. He bent to each side and then stretched above him again. “After some yoga, that is.”
“Sure, got an extra bow?” Sebastian asked hastily, ready for a challenge. Maybe now he would have a chance to redeem himself.
* * * *
Abby slumped back in the chair, her hands gripping the wooden arms painfully. They felt real, solid, they were not a swirling mountain of water conjured from nothing. Her heart pounded in her ears. Elda had turned and stood watching her, a small smile curving her pink lips.
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