The Magick of Dark Root (Daughters of Dark Root) Read online

  “Yes,” I said, tucking my hair behind my ear and feeling like I’d just been released from the principal’s office.

  We said our goodbyes and Aunt Dora trundled into the living room. As I left the house I couldn’t help but wonder who, or what, it was that watched me?

  Two

  UNTIL I FALL AWAY

  The wind whipped across the porch, picking up an assortment of sticks, bugs, and leaves, generating mini-cyclones around my feet as I sat huddled on the front steps waiting for Shane Doler to arrive. Raindrops the size of marbles plunked against the top of my head, threatening to put me out like a match.

  I pulled the collar of the alpaca sweater up over my head, but it wasn’t enough to keep me dry.

  The land around the house was barren now, except for a few splotches of oatmeal-colored grass, the last remnants of summer. The small animals who’d been hunting for food only a few weeks earlier had all disappeared into their hidey-holes to ride out the coming winter. Even the sturdy maple trees that aligned the property had succumbed to seasons, their branches bare and exposed as they shivered in the wind.

  The only signs of life were the miles of fir and pine trees that dotted the landscape in every direction, those green, steadfast soldiers who stood vigil over Dark Root all year long.

  It will all return, I reminded myself, as I looked at my bracelet once again.

  The circle continues.

  My hands fell to my belly, cradling the small bump that had only now begun to show. Spring would bring life again; there was no stopping time.

  I heard a rumbling in the distance and I craned my neck down the long dirt road, searching for Shane’s white pickup truck. It must have been thunder. I considered walking the mile and a half to my mother’s house, but I didn’t want to risk getting caught in one of Dark Root’s famous storms. I stood and paced beneath the balcony to pass the minutes.

  Through the bay window, I spotted Aunt Dora lounging in her recliner, knitting what I hoped was a doily and not another baby hat. She hummed as she worked her yarn, glancing up now and then to watch the monolithic TV, the only luxury she had allowed herself in thirty years.

  I felt a wave of love for the woman who had forfeited a family of her own to help raise me and my sisters. I wished that she was coming with me today, but the arthritis in her hip made even short travels difficult. Perhaps I could bring Mother here to visit, instead, when she had fully recovered.

  I was a nervous wreck, I knew.

  Nervous about seeing my mother, nervous about seeing Shane, nervous about being a mother. My chest tightened, making it difficult to breath, and I reached for the crystal pendant that hung around my neck. A gift from Michael. He claimed it would help calm and center me. It was one of the few things I kept from my days with him.

  I laughed at the irony as I looked down at my belly.

  “Michael, what have we done?”

  I sat again, out of the rain, and closed my eyes, allowing myself to focus on what the baby might look like. Would it have my red hair, green eyes, and pointed chin? Or would it look like Michael, with brown hair, gray eyes, and a serious set to his jaw? Would it have my temper or Michael’s pragmatism? Or some strange combination of both?

  I settled deeper into my meditation, concentrating on the baby’s face.

  The veil around the child’s image lifted and I could …a boy.

  I was going to have a boy. Large hazel eyes, a thatch of auburn hair, and fingers so small they didn’t seem real. The nurse handed him to me, his tiny hands balled up into fists and his lips smacking as he searched for food. I tucked him into the crook of my arm, supporting his wobbly head. His eyes met mine and we stared at one another in awe and recognition.

  “Baby,” I whispered. “My beautiful baby.” I stroked his cheek and kissed the tips of his fingers. “Mommy’s here.”

  And then he screamed.

  A heart-stopping shriek that pierced the halls. In an instant, his skin color changed from rose to ash and he fell silent. Deathly, deathly silent.

  Yer father had the deathtouch.

  My eyes flew open, my heart pounding in my ears.

  I jumped up, clawing my way up one of the white pillars that supported the porch roof. It wasn’t real, I told myself. This was not a prophecy. My sister Merry had given birth to June Bug and nothing bad had happened.

  If our father did have the deathtouch, it wasn’t genetic.

  I placed my hands on my midsection, protectively. I had seen his face. He was mine now. I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to him.

  A raven fluttered down from the rafters, landing at my feet and regarding me with black, unblinking eyes.

  A chill trickled up my spine, catching in my throat.

  “Get!” I yelled, stomping my foot. “Get!” It hopped backwards, cocked its head, and then launched itself into the steel-gray sky.

  My sweater constricted around me, soaked in perspiration. I tore if off and wadded it into my tote bag. When Shane’s truck finally came into view I was overcome with relief. As much as I dreaded seeing him in my current condition, it was far preferable to being alone.

  He didn’t notice me as he rolled into the lot.

  Lost in the lyrics of one of his country or classic rock songs, he tapped his thumb against the steering wheel and bobbed his head, managing to keep his cowboy hat on in the process. His lips drawn taught and his eyes half-closed, he pulled to a stop, leaving the truck running while the song played out.

  When it ended, his head remained bowed, as if he was trying to digest every last bit of meaning from the lyrics before letting them go. At last, he lifted his slate eyes and spotted me, his terse expression morphing into a broad, welcoming smile. His teeth were perfectly white, made even brighter by the contrast of his tanned skin and lightly-stubbled jawline. He set his hat on the passenger seat and a lock of sepia-toned hair fell across his forehead.

  My heart forgot to beat as I took him in.

  It had only been a week, but it felt like an eternity. I noticed him appraising me too, and I pushed my hands in front of my stomach, wishing I had kept the sweater on.

  I forced a quick smile and a wave as he hopped out of the truck.

  “My lady,” he said, sweeping towards me with twinkling eyes. He knelt before me, taking my hand to kiss it, like a knight returning to his queen after a long battle.

  “Don’t be a dork,” I said, smiling as I pulled my hand away.

  “Good. You’re insulting me. That means everything’s back to normal.”

  I clicked my tongue. “There’s no normal in Dark Root.”

  “Perfect.” He examined the area as if he hadn’t seen the house in years. “I’ve had my share of normal. Now I want Maggie Maddock, the abnormal.”

  “If that’s how you Montana boys sweet talk your women, I think you need more practice.”

  Shane rubbed his jaw, considering. “Works on cattle. Guess something gets lost when you try and transfer it from heifer to woman. I’ll work on it.”

  “Please do.”

  “I’ve missed you,” he said, draping an arm around my shoulders as he led me towards the truck. He stopped just shy of the door and sniffed me. “You smell like a farm, my dear. You’ve been wearing that alpaca sweater again, haven’t you? We really need to take you shopping.”

  “If it’s good enough for the alpacas, it’s good enough for me.”

  I climbed inside and turned on the radio, hoping the music would distract him before he could ply me with questions about my recent hermitage.

  He immediately turned it down.

  “How about this weather?” he said, maneuvering the pickup into a neat U-turn in the dirt driveway. “Another month of rain and then we’ll probably start getting snow. Maybe even ice. I sure hope Dora’s done something about the heating in there. I’d hate to think of you ladies turning into snow people once winter hits. ”

  “I know what the weather’s like around here,” I said. “In case you haven't forgotten, I
grew up here. Unlike you.”

  A bitch move, I knew.

  Though Shane had not been born here, he loved Dark Root more than anyone I knew. I could tell I hurt him by his sudden silence, but I couldn't take any more of him talking about snow and ice and the winter to come. I had enough to worry about without him reminding me that things were going to get worse. I stared out the window, watching the trees pass by as we bumped our way along the beat-up dirt road towards Sister House.

  Shane finally broke the silence by slapping the palm of his hand against the steering wheel.

  “Damn it, Maggie,” he said, his voice heavy with frustration. “We spend a night together, a great night, I thought, and then I don’t hear from you for a week. Not a phone call, an email, a smoke signal, nothing. And now you’re sitting here, looking great I might add, and I guess I was hoping that you’d been avoiding me because you were sick or something. Maybe that would explain things…” He reached for his hat and pushed it back onto his head, his eyes staring accusingly at me. “But now I know it’s because you didn’t want to see me. I’m a big boy, Maggie. You could have told me.”

  I glanced at him, unspeaking.

  “Did I do something wrong?” he continued. “I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure it out, but I keep coming up empty. I’m a guy, Maggie. Sometimes we don’t know we’ve done something stupid until a woman tells us.”

  I shook my head, willing my face to remain stoic. “No, you haven't done anything. It’s me. I’m going through something.”

  I reached for Michael’s pendant, finding comfort in the smooth lines of the crystal.

  Shane caught me fingering it and tightened his jaw.

  He blinked as we hit a pot hole. A few large splats of rain pummeled the windshield and he wiped them away.

  “Okay,” he said, shaking his head. “Whatever you say.”

  We traveled through a thicket of small pines and I rolled down my window, breathing in their pungent scent.

  “I’ve missed the smell of pine so much,” I said. “Michael never let us have Christmas trees at Woodhaven. Said that holidays were an excuse for consumerism. So I’d sneak off to tree farms and the Home Depot every December just to smell the trees. They reminded me of…”

  “…home,” Shane finished my sentence and rolled down his own window, letting the scent of the forest circulate through the cab of the truck. “It’s cheaper than getting one of those car fresheners that hang from your rearview mirror. Only suckers spend two dollars on luxuries like that.” He tapped the side of his temple with his index finger and grinned.

  I smiled back, glad the mood had lightened.

  He turned to me, his eyes alight. “Hey, since we’re out here, let me show you something, okay? It will only take a few more minutes”

  He had a wide, dopey smirk on his face and I conceded. My mother had waited seven years to see me. Surely she could wait ten more minutes.

  Shane spun the wheel, changing directions, and we thumped down a road so narrow the trees scraped the sides of the truck, forcing us to roll our windows back up. We were deep in the woods now, where trees grew twice tall as light posts. We stopped in front of a cluster of evergreens, the ground beneath them covered in a blanket of red berries and needles.

  “Get out,” Shane said, opening his door and jogging around to mine. “C’mon,” he insisted, pulling me out before I could object.

  Though we were shielded from the rain by the forest, there was dankness to the air, and a soft mist sprinkled my face. The ground was spongy and red and I could make out the prints of raccoons and squirrels.

  “So, you brought me here to see trees?” I teased. “Because I don’t see enough of them already.”

  “Not just any tree,” he said. “This way.”

  Shane pulled me along, leading me over mounds of needles, twigs, and worms.

  “Here,” he said, pointing to a yew tree tucked in amongst the pines.

  “And?” I asked, surveying the tree. “Is he a friend of yours or something?”

  Shane crouched down, running his fingers over a spot where a patch of bark had been chipped away. I stooped behind him.

  “See?” he said, pointing to a crude, angled heart the size of my palm that had been chiseled into the side of the tree. Within the heart were the letters S.D. + M. M. I looked from the tree to Shane’s eager puppy face. “I carved this when I was eleven,” he said, almost blushing.

  “And it’s still here?”

  Shane was in his mid-twenties, meaning the carving would be about fifteen years old.

  “Amazing, huh?” He ran his fingers along the angles of the heart.

  “How do I know you didn’t come carve it this morning?” I asked, crossing my arms. “Or that the M.M. doesn’t stand for Merry Maddock?”

  He continued to stare at the engraving, not taking the bait.

  “What were you doing out here in the middle of the woods anyway?” I asked, pushing my fingers into the grooves of the heart.

  “Trying to follow my inner Thoreau, I suppose. Living deliberately and sucking the marrow out of life.” He glanced at me over his shoulder, as if expecting a reaction. When it became clear that I had no idea what he was talking about he shrugged. “Sorry. I forgot you’re not much of a reader.”

  As I pondered whether or not I should be insulted, he added, “Truth is, I’d come out here to think about mom and dad. Uncle Joe said it was okay to talk to him about them, but…” He dropped his hands, thrusting them into his pockets as he stood. “Uncle Joe had enough on his plate with the diner and your ma. No offense to your ma, of course.”

  “None taken. I know she’s a handful.”

  “Besides,” he continued as he reached out to help me stand. “I liked having my alone-time with my parents. Talking to them. Asking how they were doing. Telling them about school. Sounds selfish now but I didn’t want to share those moments with anyone, even Uncle Joe.” He looked at me, brushing my cheek with his thumb. “Except for you, Maggie.”

  I had spent most of my life complaining about my over-bearing mother and absent father, but Shane had lost both of his parents to his dad’s drunk driving when he was a kid. How did anyone get past something like that? Yet he had.

  “Why me?” I asked as his thumb found its way to my chin. I didn’t understand why he liked me now, and I certainly couldn’t understand why he had liked me then, when I was all legs and temper.

  “Dunno. But from the first moment Uncle Joe brought me to your house and I saw you sitting in the kitchen all alone, stewing because your ma had just reprimanded you for setting the curtains on fire, I knew you were the one for me. Maybe it was because you seemed as lost and alone as I me.”

  “I never set the curtains on fire!”

  “You did too!” He leaned back against the tree, crossing his arms. “Your ma wanted you to light a candle with your mind and you kept telling her that it was impossible. Finally, after an hour of this you got so angry that you lit the curtains on fire instead. When I got there she told us the story and showed me the damage. You had her in quite a tizzy that day.”

  Shane howled and I shot him a cross look as the memory came back to me. Mother had placed me in lockdown that week, insisting I spend my evenings reading up on punishments inflicted on poor witches who hadn’t been able to control their powers. Hangings, burnings, stonings, drownings. And my personal favorite: pressings.

  Was it any wonder that I was such a neurotic mess today?

  Shane and I stood facing one another, silently reminiscing about our shared history as we listened to the sounds of small animals scurrying in the forest around us.

  “How did you find it again, after all these years?” I asked, stealing one more glance at the tree.

  “That, my dear, is a silly question.” He winked.

  “Oh,” I said, feeling dumb.

  I had recently discovered that Shane could locate things that were lost, as long as he had seen them. Even things that everyone else had gi
ven up on.

  Without warning, he pulled me into his chest, wrapping his sleight, muscular arms around me. I could feel his warm breath on the side of my neck, the tips of his fingers pressing into the small of my back, his hips locking onto mine.

  My breath caught his, syncing up, our chests rising and falling as one.

  The sound of his heartbeat through his thin, cotton t-shirt was almost deafening. I wanted to crawl inside him, fuse with him in a way I’d never wanted to with Michael. I reached around, thrusting my hands into the back pockets of his jeans, and pulled him even closer. He moaned softly, growing hard against my leg.

  “Shane,” I whispered, lifting my chin with eyes closed and parted lips.

  If he wanted to take me here in the forest, I wouldn’t object. I’d been objecting to too many things for too long. I wanted to lose myself in his touch.

  “Oh, God, Shane,” I moaned.

  “I love you, Maggie,” he said, putting his hands on either side of my face and kissing the top of my head. “I love you so Goddamned much.”

  “What?”

  I opened my eyes.

  His jaw was hard, his eyes soft.

  “What do you mean, you love me?” I asked, pulling away.

  “I’ve waited so long for you, Maggie. Longer than you know. I realize I shouldn’t be laying this on you, not like this. You deserve better.” He reached for my hands, clasping my fingers in between his.

  I shook my head, trying to make sense of it all. Waited so long? I’d only returned to Dark Root two months ago.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  He dropped his head. “I’m sorry. I forget sometimes.”

  “Forget?”

  “Forget that we don’t have the same memories.”

  I tried to process this. I had almost given myself physically to this man, but he had said he loved me. In the blink of an eye everything had changed. Even if I did have similar feelings for him, my life was too complicated for love right now.

  “Shane,” I said, “I can’t…”