by Cate Corvin
I felt it respond in kind, thrilling to my affection. Cold sweat beaded my forehead when I opened my eyes, but it had been worth the effort.
The wood floors gleamed as though freshly polished, each window in the hall shining and whole. The walls were once again fresh and white, the scent of peppermint, lemons, and lavender from the gardens wafting through the air. Looking back at the gray and abandoned foyer, it felt like standing on the cusp of a different world.
I suddenly felt like I was walking through the past. I chose the first door on my right, pushing it open and stepping inside dreamily.
It had once been a bedroom, unoccupied for years but kept ready for visitors. A brass bed was pushed against the far wall, the white linens neatly tucked. Watercolor paintings were hung on the walls and the curtains pressed and drawn shut. It was impersonal, but I needed impersonal. I wasn’t quite ready for the human touches my parents or I had left behind.
I dropped my rucksack on the bed and strapped my sickle on my belt, just in case. Eric had chosen the room next to mine, just as spare, but clean and homey.
“How much did it take out of you?” he asked. I wiped the sweat from my forehead, trying to hide my shaking hands. I would need to eat more than sticky-sweet protein bars if I was going to use any more magic to restore the manor.
“A lot,” I admitted. There was nothing to be gained by lying to him here. “It’s happy to see me, which makes it easier, but there’s no way I’ll be able to do the library yet. I’m going to wake up the waystone tonight.”
Eric stepped in front of me, one finger tilting my chin up to look him in the eye. I held as still as a statue, refusing to lose my composure. His eyelashes were dark and thick beneath straight brows, the planes of his face something one might find carved on a Roman statue.
He searched my eyes deeply, looking for any hint that I might be in over my head, that I was lying about what I could handle.
“We’ll need to go down into Woodhill and get some food before we even start,” he said dryly. “I don’t want you collapsing in the middle of research. You sure you want Joss here for this?”
“Yes,” I replied defiantly, raising my chin higher. “Two witches are better than one. Besides, he practically lived here all those times Melinda kicked him out-”
Eric’s eyebrows twitched. “Are you going to let him feed you his life-force? This is going to take far more than yours alone.”
It was none of his business what I took from Joss, servitor or not, but the implication irritated me. “No,” I snapped, pulling away from him. “I’m going to fix Bellhallow on my own, even if it takes years. It’s my responsibility.”
He lowered his hand, allowing me to retreat. “You have me,” he said. “Take my life-force first. It was my home, too.”
I met his dark, glittering eyes, crossing my arms over my chest. The easiest way to absorb another person’s life-force was by kissing them, exchanging the energy via breath… which he knew perfectly well.
“I will if it comes to that, Eric,” I said, meeting his dare, and strode out of the room to find the comfort of the silent gardens and the sleeping waystone.
The Past: 16 Years Old
Morena stalked through the dust of the halls, her rowan hunting knife steady in her grip. Somewhere in this maze was another mirror, the objective and a portal to the next level. Windows lined every corridor, the mist roiling outside as the walkers flittered by.
She ignored them, no matter how close they seemed to come. They were of no importance.
She turned the corner, finding another long corridor with nothing but windows in sight. With a brief sigh she plunged forward, finally finding herself at a crossroads.
The dust had erased almost any footprints, but she picked out the faintest indentation of her own boot to her right. Left it was, then.
The hallway finally ended in a wooden door, scratched and dull. She pondered it for a moment, her senses on high alert, but the likelihood that it led outside was low. None of the misty half-light filtered in through any cracks, nor around the edges.
She opened it cautiously, though, peering through the thinnest sliver she could manage. The room beyond was dark and wide, and completely empty but for a wardrobe. A large mirror hung on the wall opposite.
Morena smiled, swinging the door open. She approached the mirror slowly, eyeing the wardrobe reflected in it. The one behind her was dingy, the doors closed tight. The one reflected in the next level canted to the side, a door hanging loosely from the hinges.
A rusty nail protruded from the wall just above the mirror, with a tarnished golden chain hanging from it. She plucked it from its resting place, careful not to allow even the tiniest part of her flesh to touch the mirror or enter it.
As Morena tucked the chain into her blouse, a slithering whiteness poured from the wardrobe in the second level of the deadside. She looked up in alarm, backing away from the mirror as the spirit slid through, its humanoid mouth stretched wide to engulf her.
She immediately snapped a sharp kick at its face. The needle teeth caught her boot, sending her sprawling in the dust as the snake-bodied spirit writhed around frantically, trying to dislodge itself from her foot.
Morena laughed aloud as she plunged the rowan knife into its heart and sprinkled the salt over it, chanting the words of banishment. It crumbled, the dust of its body becoming one with Death again.
“Easy peasy.” Her voice sounded unnatural against the silence, and she threw the rowan knife with a single precise movement. The blade buried itself in the skull of a hag creeping out of the wardrobe, which crumbled without making a sound.
Too easy. She jogged back through the deadside, following the notches she had carved in the walls with the rowan knife. Far too easy, really.
Still, when she emerged from the mirror clutching the chain she’d been sent to retrieve, falling into Eric’s arms with a broad grin, she thought she might burst with pride.
The celebration that night was raucous as Morena accepted the mantle of full-blooded witch of Bell coven, her journeyman apprenticeship complete. She disappeared under a crush of her peers until Joss lifted her up on his shoulder. Even Sophia and Samara embraced her carefully with soft words of congratulations. The older girls had passed their own apprenticeships a year before her.
Bell, Black, Thorne, and even Wolfe had joined to celebrate the newest addition to witchkind’s professional ranks. Vivienne Wolfe watched her with gleaming gimlet eyes, a circle of pearls crowning her perfectly-coiffed bun of silver hair as she studied Morena with approval.
John Bell raised a toast to his daughter, his black eyes sparkling. “To the latest and greatest of our coven, Morena Rose Bell,” he said. She downed her rosé champagne, laughing as Joss’s jokes grew dirtier while they got drunker.
The moon was full overhead when she stepped out into the gardens and let the noise ebb away behind her. Champagne sparkled through her veins as she breathed deeply, the night air thick with jasmine. There was only one more thing that could make this night completely perfect.
As though her own thoughts had summoned him, her dark protector stepped into the still night with her. Morena smiled, turning just so the light caught her ink-black hair and the shining scarlet of her clinging silk dress.
“I needed to breathe,” she said. “It’s not easy being the latest and greatest.”
Eric looked down at her, his eyes crinkled. “Well, you’ve lived up to everybody’s expectations. They said you beat Rosalind’s time.”
Morena shrugged. “The exam was easy. The spirit got its fangs caught in my boot.”
Eric laughed quietly and she bit her lip as he brushed against her, her heart thrumming in her chest like a bird. “Will you walk with me?” she asked. “I just need a moment to collect myself.”
Ever the guardian, he nodded, keeping pace alongside her as she drifted towards the gazing pond. The manor fell behind them, the warmth of the torches giving way to the cool and heady moonlight. The darknes
s and silence of the night fell around them like a curtain, concealing them in their own secret world.
She stopped at the edge of the water and gazed up at Eric, the moment between them as fine and sharp as the edge of a knife. Every angle of his face, the deep smolder in his eyes were hers, a face she knew as well as the mirror. His arms would always catch her, no matter how far she fell. He would always hold her candle.
She reached up, clasping her hands behind his neck, his long, thick hair curling around her fingers. “Morena,” he said. His entire body was still, as hard as marble as she leaned against him, rising to her tiptoes and pulling him down to kiss her-
His hands clasped around her arms, pulling her away. “Don’t,” he said, his voice flat and hard. Morena froze, watching the moonlight reflected in his eyes. They were wide with alarm, his arms an implacable obstacle.
“But, Eric-” she whispered, unable to understand. Unable to believe. He’d caught her forever. He’d held her in his arms a thousand times or more, always with her, always watching…
“No,” he said, just as quietly. He pushed her back, stepping out of the circle of her arms. She stared at him like a stranger, her heart clenched tight in her chest. He stroked her hair, and embraced her when she struggled, and was always at her side.
He was her anchor to this world. If she didn’t have him, what did she have?
“I’m not a child anymore,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “I’m a full witch. I’m a woman. I’m free to choose my own life.” She hugged herself, suddenly cold despite the lush heat of the night.
“No, Morena,” Eric said. She looked down, her eyes full of mortified tears. “I can’t be that for you. You’re only sixteen… and a witch. I’m your servitor. Nothing more.”
“I don’t care what they’d say! It doesn’t matter what we are.” She wanted to grab his hand, but it felt like he was standing a thousand miles away instead of a few feet. “I’ll be the covenmistress someday. I can make new rules, and it doesn’t matter to me that you’re human-”
“No. You’re not yet grown, Mor. You don’t have the experience of an adult yet, no matter what you think right now.” Eric took a deep breath, looking out at the lake with a deep frown. “Look, I’m leaving soon. I’m going to serve a different coven for a few years. It’s what’s best for everyone.”
The idea of not having him there, after he’d promised to always be there, felt like having her heart ripped in half, bleeding all over her insides.
When she’d wiped away her tears, he’d gone, leaving only the wood and salt smell of him behind. She still felt the silk of his hair in her hands.
Morena sighed, closing her eyes to the moon. She imagined walls around, an impenetrable fortress, higher than the eye could see. She felt nothing but cold and stone and iron, caging her true heart deep inside.
With her mask of serenity, she returned to the celebration, accepted another glass of champagne and laughed the night away. She was finally a full Bell witch. Joss even planted a sloppy kiss on her cheek as she scowled when the clock struck three.
She didn’t see Eric again that night and told herself that she didn’t care, even if that was a lie.
11
The moon was high overhead as I knelt on the great disc of white stone set on the front lawn, the runes inert beneath my hands. Spills of dead or dying plants surrounded me as the thick night air buzzed with the sounds of a thousand insects.
The wards over the waystone felt like thick and impenetrable cobwebs. A sweat had broken out on my forehead before I’d managed to clear even a fraction of them away, and I was already depleted from restoring the guest wing.
Soft footsteps moved through the overgrown grass and I looked up at Eric. His hands were shoved in his pockets, and he at least had the grace to look abashed. He deserved to feel bad for taunting me with something he knew was painful for me.
“Let me help,” he said, kneeling next to the waystone and spreading his fingers over the cool granite. With Eric’s added energy the wards broke down faster, the cobwebs swept away to bring Bellhallow back on the covenstead grid, so to speak.
Together we managed to clear it enough that Joss would be able to travel from Rosethorne if he was so inclined. The rest of the covensteads were still blocked, but I didn’t have the energy left to care about them.
My servitor glanced at me sideways as I sat up, wiping my forehead. “I’m sorry I was an ass,” Eric said.
“You should be,” I muttered. I didn’t know what to make of his new approach, no longer holding me at arm’s length but… openly daring me to have to kiss him? With our history? If I’d had the energy, I would have been furious. Being completely mortified once in my life was enough. “But you can make it up to me by finding some peanut butter.”
If I ever moved back here permanently, I was definitely bringing Carrie and her homemade cinnamon buns.
“Deal,” he said, getting to his feet and holding out his hand for me to take. I wrapped my fingers around his, my knees wobbling as I rose. Black spots floated in front of my vision for a precarious moment. I took a deep breath and steadied myself. It had been a long time since I’d needed to expend this amount of energy all at once and the sensation was unnerving.
Eric held me close, his thick, tattooed arm wrapped around my back to support me. When the black spots faded, I found myself looking straight into his dark eyes, leaning against him. “Are you okay, Mor?”
For once, he wasn’t rejecting the contact, but initiating it. His heartbeat pounded under my palm. “Um. Yes. I think.”
“Lean on me.”
I swallowed hard and moved away of my own accord, forcing my wobbly knees to stabilize. “I can handle it, Eric. I’m not dying yet.”
It was too much like another night in the past, here on this same lawn.
As I walked back to Bellhallow it was almost like seeing the ghosts of the past: young Morena in her red silk, so self-assured and certain of everything, unaware that everything was about to come crumbling down around her.
And Eric’s newfound warmth and touchy-feeliness wasn’t making it any easier to deal with. Just when I thought I was beginning to find solid ground, it all shifted under my feet again.
We returned from Woodhill after midnight, laden with groceries and stuffing them in empty rucksacks to cart back to the manor. I gave the gate a friendly pat as we trooped back up the drive. Bellhallow had shuddered in protest as I’d walked out, fear spilling through its wards that it would be abandoned again, but several whispered reassurances and promises had calmed it again. Whatever strange sentience lived in the magic of the wards was aware that I did need to eat, and with no food stored in the kitchen, it felt bad that it couldn’t feed us itself.
We’d bought mostly canned goods, along with several pallets of water and three loaves of bread, and Eric hadn’t given up until he found crunchy peanut butter, my favorite kind. It was an acceptable apology for now.
I didn’t have any spare energy to restore the vast kitchen, so we stored the groceries in Eric’s bedroom, which had become our impromptu base of operations.
My phone’s reception flickered in and out while in Woodhill, but I thought I’d managed to get a text through to Joss, letting him know that the waystone was finally cleared.
I immediately opened a can of chicken noodle soup when we returned to the guest wing and began eating it cold. Eric made a face at me as I slurped the soggy noodles from a plastic spoon.
“That’s disgusting, Morena.” Eric watched me with a fascinated sort of horror. He was barely paying attention to the fireplace he was kindling to life.
“It was a food emergency,” I said, licking my spoon. “I didn’t have time to wait after this piece of work.” I waved the spoon around the clean, cozy guest room, making my point.
Eric had found several dry branches outside to use as fuel, breaking them into manageable pieces and stacking them over the tiny flame. The fire roared to life and warmth washed over me. The groc
ery trip, and Eric’s need to take care of my burgeoning frailty, had somehow repaired the awkward rift that had grown between us since this morning.
It felt good to be able to talk to him normally again- as long as he kept his hands to himself and didn’t remotely imply anything about kissing him.
I had spent most of the ride back up to Bellhallow with my eyes closed, meditating on that inner fortress. The manor, exactly as we had left it, was bringing back far too many memories for my own comfort.
I watched him unpack his clothes as I shoved several crackers in my mouth and chewed enthusiastically. Did being here awaken his memories as well? A slip of scarlet silk slid across my mind’s eye, catching the moonlight like bloodied water-
No. I wouldn’t allow myself to be pulled under. I was a fortress now.
I ate another cracker and yawned. I would just bring the entire sleeve of saltines with me to bed. “I’m going to sleep,” I announced. “If I can, I’ll restore the library tomorrow, but I’ll probably have to eat more than just cold chicken soup.”
Eric quirked a crooked grin at me, his eyes warm again. “Good night. See you bright and early, Mor.” What. The. Fuck? I was starting to get emotional whiplash.
I raised an eyebrow and vanished to my room.
Mercifully, there were no mirrors in the room I’d chosen. Even the bathroom had a blank space above the iron bowl of the sink.
I’d forgotten what it felt like to be living in a house that understood the needs and desires of its tenants, providing for them the most comfortable home it could muster. Such was the way of living in a witch’s house, reflecting the family of the coven living within.
If it had pulled all the mirrors away, Bellhallow must be trying very hard to impress me. It hadn’t liked to take away what it perceived as basic amenities when I was a child.
I brushed my teeth and fell into bed, burrowing deep beneath the cool linens that smelled of rosewater and cedar, as though they had been stored and waiting for me to come home instead of rotting away in neglect…