A remembered voice of his mentor chided him, “You must never deny the world of non-ordinary reality, the world of hidden things.
“Shaman Keir, are you all right?” Sam crouched in front of him. “Let me get Jancie.”
Keir hung his head. Sweat beaded along his brow. He touched the initials engraved on the snuffbox; he’d let Clement George Byre and his family down. “I’m okay,” he said too late. Sam’s footsteps sounded through the back of the house. No one heard Keir—not even himself; his ears wouldn’t accept the lie: he was not okay.
Jancie’s quick, light steps pattered behind Sam’s boot-clad footfall. With a gentle touch on Keir’s arm, she asked, “What happened?”
He levered from the chair. “I’m sorry, Sam. I can’t continue. I don’t know whether the tin is safe or not. Need more time.” Keir’s shoulders slumped as he felt Sam’s gaze penetrate him. Keir couldn’t bring himself to see the disappointment.
“Not a problem, Shaman Keir.” The farmer’s thick sing-song dialect sounded sincere, but Keir knew it only masked what he truly felt. “There’ll be another day. You take care of yerself first.”
Keir accepted Jancie’s arm, and she asked, “Do you want to go back to the couch?”
Keir shook his head. “I must find Waapake. I can’t let him die. I can’t bear the …” His words trailed off, unable to voice what he now knew: that guilt had its sights on his connection to the spirit world and maybe more.
Sam tilted his head. “Waapake’s gone missin’?”
“Yes, last night when we were at the fork of Owls’ Tail Creek.”
“Logan has organized a search,” Jancie added.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Sam said. “A lost familiar can cause a world of hurt. Can I round up some kin and lend a hand to findin’ him?”
Keir reached for the farmer’s arm. “I appreciate your help, Sam. It means a lot.”
“No problem. I’ll get three or four others and head down there right away.” With a nod and long paces, he left.
As soon as the front door clicked shut and Sam’s steps along the walk faded, Keir sagged against the back of the chair and looked down. His hissing conscience had been correct. The viscous yellow guilt now mixed with self-blame and a host of other shortcomings all roiled in his gut—a pain far greater than from the joint’s inflammation. I can’t endure this, not again. He glanced at Jancie’s patient face and pried himself from the chair. “I need to gather two things, then go back to the willow’s woods.”
Keir lurched, with Jancie bracing one arm, from the office to his private sitting room where he collected his grandfather’s cane. The carved serpent head had been worn smooth by its previous owner’s sure grip; within Keir’s hand, a measure of that man’s steadfastness became his, and he held the cane with gratitude.
Steeled, he denied the groan that rose in his chest as he leaned across the couch, snatched the dreamcatcher, and held it for Jancie to see. “I made this for Waapake when he was a pup. Before Sam came over, I felt positive energy coming from it. I have to go back to the willow where I last saw Waapake. This hoop came from that tree. There’s something there I need; I can feel it.”
Jancie helped him to the mudroom and fit the dreamcatcher into his coat pocket. “Do you want me to go along? I’ll drive you there.”
“Yeah, thanks. I appreciate that.”
After a quick call to Rowe to inform him, she pulled on her outside gear and wrapped an arm around Keir’s shoulders as they crossed the still-icy back walk to the passenger side of his car.
Once seated, she started and inched the long Packard from the garage so slowly that Keir commented, “Really, I can drive. If you’ll just come along in case my knee gets worse.”
“I’ll be fine—it’s just backing these long sedans makes me nervous. I’ve been driving Rowe’s Studebaker lately and have gotten the hang of shifting.”
Keir nodded and settled in, his fingers sensing the dreamcatcher’s energy while he scanned the roadsides.
Jancie turned onto the creek road, and Keir straightened. “See something?” she asked.
“No, but there’s a humming along the web’s strings, slight but definite.”
“Oh, that might be good.”
A couple miles down the road, she pulled off and parked behind Rowe’s car. Six vehicles lined the berm; the willingness of others to help, heartened Keir.
She glanced at him. “I’d like to go with you. The steep walk will be hard.”
He paused, considering. Her presence might interfere with the unknown energy, but without her, he wouldn’t likely reach the willow. “Thank you.”
Standing on the ravine’s rim, voices calling Waapake’s name echoed back and forth along the narrow corridor. Keir tucked the dreamcatcher into the inside pocket of his parka, took a firm grip on the cane, and allowed Jancie to cradle his free elbow.
Despite the day’s start overcast with icy mist, by midday the sun shone bright and warm, thawing the freeze. He removed his knit hat and gloves, then pointed with his chin toward the trailhead. “That path will be the easiest. Fewer steep drops.”
She descended ahead of him, often stopping to offer him a handhold or cautions about patches of slick mud, exposed roots, or where to step for good footing.
He didn’t mind the slow pace. It gave him a chance to listen for the clairvoyant woman who’d tried to warn him last night.
After a great deal of exertion, he arrived at the willow’s bank panting, sweating, and dizzy. Where the creek opened to a clear sky, the sun’s warmth became intolerable. He peeled off his coat and laid it aside while he sat on a rock, regaining his composure and studying the surroundings. The rapid pulse drumming against his ears made it impossible to hear much beside the loud shouts from other searchers. In this state, he’d miss what he came for: the woman’s soft soprano voice.
He adjusted his breathing with long inhales and exhales, forcing his body to calm. When at last he felt steady, he waved to Jancie and said, “I need to do this part alone.” He slid off the rock and limped to the willow’s curtain of branches. After a wave to signal Jancie of his whereabouts, he crept, with an awkward three-limbed crawl, inside the inner chamber.
Lacking the moon’s enchantment, the lights of the Otherworld fae were dark, yet still radiated plenty of magic. On this fair day, while stretches of the trail began the first thaw, within the great willow, spring had arrived. The leaf litter, stirred by his hands and feet, smelled alive with a fresh organic scent. Lines of ants crisscrossed his path. Other insects, within the trunk’s bark, chewed and popped with gusto as if gorging on their first meal of the season.
Despite this activity, the visionary woman was absent. Was she a faery? Should he return at night? With his knee in such poor shape, the trail was difficult enough to navigate in the daytime. Impossible if he traveled in the dark. Not until he healed. Desperate, he entreated the unknown, turning all around as he spoke. “If you are present, please speak to me. You foresaw my coyote’s disappearance. I need more details. Please,” he pleaded, his voice cracking. “Help me.” He sat still, listening but hearing only wood insects and trickling water.
Several minutes later, Jancie’s voice broke his watch, “Keir, are you still there?”
As he stirred, the motion set off new pain in his knee. Advanced swelling now pushed against his pant leg. It needed attention; he couldn’t stay long. Inching to the edge of the enclosure, he saw the dreamcatcher’s sinews glinting in the sun—he’d forgotten to test its abilities.
He reached for the catcher, too late—a white crow swooped in, snatched it with a dagger-like beak. The bird hung in the air, taunting him.
Keir grabbed a rock and hurled it near the crow. “Drop it!” he yelled, hoping fear would force the bird to release its hold. Instead, it flew upward. “Damn it. That’s the same bird that scolded me in my backyard.” He eyed Jancie with a scowl.
“Could it be a witch’s familiar? Who uses an albino crow?”
&
nbsp; “No one I know.” He stared after the bird as it disappeared into the southern sky, then bent to pick up his coat. “If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.”
Beside the parka’s open zipper grew a tuft of green growth, bearing a single white flower—five white-pink petals surrounding a yellow center. “Hmm. Perhaps I spoke too soon.” He touched one of the petals. “In the middle of January, this isn’t by chance. They don’t bloom here until March. Last night’s wind lady must’ve left me a windflower.”
Jancie knelt beside the flower. “That’s where the dreamcatcher was lying.”
He placed a hand on her shoulder. “That means Waapake’s dreams are still alive: I will find him.”
Chapter Five: Perceived Reality
Adara curled her lips and snarled back at the caged coyote. She’d have to be content with him for now, although snarling at his master would be so much sweeter.
As if able to read her salacious intentions toward his master, Waapake lunged at the bars and growled. His bared canines gleamed in the stark light from the single, naked bulb. The light swung, set into motion not by the stagnant basement air but by magic seething from both witch and familiar. Shadows loomed out of dank corners sending spiders creeping in search of cover across the mildewed concrete floor and stacks of warped crates.
She flinched, then steadied herself and laughed inches from the coyote’s drawn muzzle. “How nice. You must have read my designs for your master.” She clucked her tongue, considering how to include Waapake in her plan. “Perhaps you can be useful to convey to Keir just how serious my terms are. I’m about to write him a note, informing him how he can earn your safe release. A desperate plea from his familiar would do so much better to underscore the urgency. I assume you can communicate with him through the spirit world; a familiar of a seer would need that skill.”
With a wave of her hand, she replenished water and kibble to bowls inside the cage, then reversed her efforts, whisking away all provisions, including the blanket wadded into the corner. “My mistake—suffering will encourage your desperation to communicate.” With a smirk, she spun on a heel of her dress boots and made for the stairs.
A low snarl followed her up, rasping into the word “bitch.”
She lifted the hem of her tight skirt into one hand and made a graceful sashay that wordlessly proclaimed her indifference. At the top, she turned and swept aside the long wave of black hair that covered the scarred side of her face. She wanted not only a better view of the captive but also to appear more deserving of the moniker—bitch. With her best condescending tone, she replied, “Very good, Waapake. Channel that rage toward your master.” She laughed and flicked off the bulb, pleased that cracks of daylight seeping from around the outer cellar door did nothing to lift the imposing gloom.
Satisfied, she shut the door on her basement prison. Back against the door, she invited a calming breath to fill her lungs. But with the tranquility, a shred of guilt cracked her resolve—was she being too harsh?
The coyote’s distressed howl pierced her conscience.
Suffering from her own past barked through her chest and nipped at her heart. Times when her mother favored Adara least of three daughters—or didn’t favor her at all. The derision and neglect had branded Adara. Left her vulnerable even through the years she served as high priestess of Coon Hollow Coven—the only sibling to follow the tenures of their father, mother, and many Tabards before. Inadequacy bit Adara’s windpipe, gnawed at her spine until she cowered, arms shielding her chest.
On the toe of her black boot lay a notebook page scribbled with her mother’s handwriting. “Adara? Is that you?” Grizela Tabard’s grating voice verbalized the words in accompaniment to her cursive slashes.
Adara tried to kick the paper off, but a low draft replaced it, twice.
Her mother, now deceased and living there as an empowered house spirit, continued her caustic interrogation. “I thought that New Wish witch, Jancie, had finished you off last September. The way you’d let your guard down and pined after that Rowe McCoy, you deserved it. I thought I was finally free of having to teach you—”
Adara shut out the reprimand and retracted into the all-too-familiar shell where she’d spent most of her childhood. Head down and eyes glazed, she tried not to watch the script knifing the paper in unison with the cutting tone. She longed to close her lids or look away, but doing so would only exacerbate her mother’s lecture. Adara’s focus fell onto her upper arms. She clutched them with her unkempt hands, their nails only serving to illustrate Grizela’s low opinion of her. Bare of decoration, the finger where a silver marcasite snake once coiled during Adara’s priestship still felt exposed. Pride had swelled her heart when she wore that ring, passed down through the generations from the first Tabard priestess, her great grandmother. Adara’s nails, though still long, were now ragged, unpolished claws. Nothing resembling the manicured talons she maintained before her exile and recent weeks spent roaming the Hollow as a badger.
She’d wasted from her former self, the lost pounds straightening her feminine curves. Additionally, despite what she’d embraced as her new purpose—a new direction which promised fulfillment—something had withered inside. Adara now identified more with her badger animal form: its anonymity freed her from being identified as the failed priestess.
She folded further into herself, accepting she deserved her mother’s denigration and let the verbal assault continue to pummel and injure.
Adara’s head dropped lower, chin on chest. A glint of black against her chest caught her gaze. The onyx pendant—her father’s focus amulet, used to gather and enhance his magic that he’d left to her upon his death. It was the only thing she owned of his personal possessions, yet a generous gift, still containing a large portion of his incredible power at her access. But she longed to have more of him, a real interactive presence. She often wondered why Tercel Tabard’s empowered spirit had never returned to the family home.
The ponderous 1915 Victorian house breathed with countless deceased aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents—all except her father. The relations claimed residence in an array of inanimate objects, from old but fine leather wing chairs, tufted ottomans, and shabby window seats to Irish lace doilies, brocade wallpaper, and silver tea sets. When deemed necessary to ally with Grizela’s current mission against Adara, the others criticized her from within black and white photographs which hanging in every room, save the kitchen and her bedroom—her only areas of reprieve.
Even in quiet times, their icy glares were constant reminders that she’d inherited the family home by default, after her older sister and brother died in an accident and younger sister went mad. Grizela survived her husband and overruled the fondness for Adara he’d expressed in their will. She rubbed a thumb across the black gem’s smooth surface and thought of her father. I can understand why you didn’t want to spend eternity with Mother. Who would?
For that same reason, Adara dreaded returning to the Hollow and especially to the homeplace. She considered ridding the house of the soul-bearing artifacts and items, but doing so would dismiss her own soul’s empowerment, its ability to remain eternal in the real world. And though she detested the fact, she needed their collective Tabard power. Vengeance had beckoned her home. She’d lost her battle with Jancie Sadler, a novice witch who’d gotten lucky, thanks to some research into an historical family curse. Adara didn’t much blame the girl, although plenty of Coon Hollow witches who’d helped her did deserve retribution for besmirching the Tabard name. She owed that much to her father.
Adara tried to return earlier but was too weak, her power still drained. It took four months to heal and reconnect to her magic after what Jancie had done. And in that time, those same witches preyed upon Adara’s dearest friend Sibeal Soot. The coven’s female seer suffered unwarranted defamation and loss of clients, likely due to her association with Adara. Poor Sibby. Entrapped in an unfortunate love spell and made the laughing stock of the community.
/> Winter would not have been Adara’s preferred season to settle scores, despite the sharpness of her power element, the north wind; turbulent spring storms better matched her personality and would also do well to camouflage her deeds. However, her concern for Sibby ran deeper than any preference. They’d been best friends for thirty-eight years, since the start of grade school.
Bolstered by the passing of Yule, the time of new beginnings, Adara had paid a visit to the Hollow, a test to judge how she’d be received. Their looks of horror sizzled power through her veins—glorious and heady, like a perfectly aged bourbon. Her reputation still drew a delicious reaction; she couldn’t resist the intoxication. The time was right to exact revenge.
While acting as high priestess, Adara wore her father’s pendant sparingly, wishing to rule on her own merits. Now, without protection of her former office and its Coven Council, she needed all of his magic if she wanted revenge.
She rubbed a thumb across the smooth onyx and imagined her father’s face, his cheekbones high like her own. His power pulsed through her veins, and with it, resolve—the only way to prevent Grizela from detecting her presence. Adara regained composure, expanded her chest and straightened her spine.
The page fell from her foot and fluttered limply on the rug. The script grew dim and her mother’s voice sputtered a string of expletives. “Adara! How dare you turn away …”
With a deft twist of ankle and hip, Adara crushed the note into the rug as she moved past to Tercel’s roll top desk in the parlor. She shimmied into his large desk chair as he let her do when she was a child. Both then and now, it was her throne. The satin of her dress slid across its polished wood. She opened the top drawer and selected stationery embossed with an elaborate “T” and a silver ball-point pen. She’d missed these accoutrements during her temporary exile—if it could be called that—from the Hollow. But the retreat had nourished her soul and realigned her connection to the north wind.
She paused to admire the finery she’d taken for granted during her reign as priestess. In those years, a singular goal—power—routed her path, as if she’d worn blinders. Her thirst for power was limitless and addictive; she consumed it like wine, euphoric whenever coven residents revered her for not only magnanimous rulings but also for crumbs of benevolence. Especially for the paltriest courtesies. Fully backed by the founding families, who persuaded others through coercion, fear, or magic many shades darker than white, she could do no wrong. The ride had been amazing—until her father passed during the first year of her term.
Witch's Windsong (Coon Hollow Coven Tales Book 5) Page 4