The Curse of Dark Root: Part Two (Daughters of Dark Root Book 4) (48 page)

I RACED FROM the truck as Shane pulled up to Harvest Home, not even waiting for him to come to a complete stop. I leapt onto the porch and burst through the door. Jillian was as expressionless as a mannequin, her eyes unblinking as she gripped the stair banister. Aunt Dora was on the couch, wailing into a throw pillow. Paul stared straight ahead, stunned.
 

Michael gripped the arm of the couch with one hand as he frantically pushed buttons on his cellphone with the other.

“Maggie!” he said, dropping his phone and rushing towards me. “I’ve been trying to call.”

“Where’s Montana?’ I looked around the room. Faces stared back, grim and expressionless.

“Michael?” I swallowed.

I pushed past him, to the carrier by the couch. My son’s bottle lay cold and half empty inside. “He’s not in his carrier. Michael, why isn’t he in his carrier?”

Michael stammered unintelligibly. His hands shook as he pulled at his own hair.

“When I left, you were taking him to the doctor! Where is he?!” I bared my teeth and screeched. “Where’s my son?!”

He shook his head, his eyes swollen and red. “Gone, Maggie. He’s gone.”

“What do you mean he’s gone?” I rifled through his carrier, tossing out blankets and flipping it over, as if somehow my son had crawled beneath it. “How can he be gone?”

“My GPS screwed up. It took us down the wrong road into Linsburg. There was so much morning fog I could hardly see. When I got out of the mist and back on the right road, I looked in the rearview mirror and... our son was gone. Just gone. I never stopped, Maggie, not even once. There was no way someone could have taken him.”

“No!” I flew at Michael, fists closed. Paul or Shane pulled me off as I pummeled his shoulders. “You lost my baby! You lost my baby!” I was unable to articulate anything more. My mind couldn’t even form a question.

I broke free of whoever was holding me, ready to find Montana myself, when Mother’s crystal bracelet slipped from my wrist. It shattered into countless pieces as it hit the floor.

I looked from the scattered shards to Michael and back again. My sisters were now beside me, swarming me, holding me up.

“He’s out there,” I protested. “I’m going to find him. He’s out there.”

“No, Maggie, he’s not,” Jillian said.

Michael reached into his pocket. “This was inside the carrier.”

In his palm was a black feather, long and sleek.

THIRTY-SIX

Stand by Me

WE SPENT THE remainder of the day in a desperate search, attempting to retrace Michael’s route to Linsburg. But the foggy road had also vanished. Even as we searched, in my heart I knew we wouldn’t find him on this plane.

“Larinda’s taken him to the Netherworld,” Jillian said, as we gathered together in the back yard.

“The Netherworld?” Paul asked.

“The shadow realm,” Jillian explained. “The world between worlds––where the half-dead roam, spirits traverse, and humans visit in their dreams.”

“Tell me how to get there,” I demanded.

“I can take you there, Maggie,” Shane stated. “We’ll get Montana back.”

Michael slammed his hand on the table. “You’re not going to get my son! I am!”

“You’re the one that lost him!”

“Gentlemen, please,” Jillian intervened. “It’s not that easy. Even dream walkers can’t enter the Netherworld directly.”

“Why not?” Shane said. “I do it all the time.”

Jillian pressed her lips together. “You created those dreamscapes. You’ll be entering a collective world created by countless souls from countless dimensions. You’ll get lost without an anchor. Armand had one, but we do not.”

I looked at Shane and we nodded to each other resolutely. “I have Juliana Benbridge’s ankh. She led me to it, in a secret attic above Dip Stix.”

 
I ran to the truck and returned with the jewelry box. With the tip of a butter knife, I wedged open the tight mahogany lid. There were gasps as I snapped it open. A golden ankh glistened at us from its thick chain. A folded notecard in Sasha’s handwriting read:
Property of My Mother, Dark Root’s Founding Witch.

“It was in Joe’s apartment all this time,” Jillian said in wonder.

“So I can go now?” I asked.

Aunt Dora narrowed her eyes. “It’ll be very dangerous. There’s madness within.” She scratched at the lone hair growing out of her chin. “Ya may not come out at all, an’ if ya do, ya might not come out the same.”

“It doesn’t matter. I have no choice.” I took the ankh out of the box, sensing its immense power––the same power that had ignited my father’s quest for immortality. I slipped it around my neck, feeling its archaic origins. “This will tether me, and Shane can help guide me. I saw my father take people with him in the globe dreams. We’ll stay close together.”

“You’ll need a portal,” Jillian said.

“We just closed one in the nursery of Sister House,” Merry chimed in. “I bet we can use it to get through.”

“We?” I asked.

“You said you’d follow me to hell and back. I’d do the same for my sister.”

“Me too,” Ruth Anne added.

Eve looked at Paul. “I’m sorry. That’s my nephew in there. I’m going.”

“Well, you know I’m going,” Michael said. “Even if I have to fight the devil himself.”

“Nearly a full Council,” Dora counted, one eye turning towards Paul. “Ya’ve got six, but seven is a magickal number.”

“Me?” Paul looked around, his eyes finally resting on Eve. “Nova will be here in a few days.”

I scissored my hands. “No! None of you are coming except Shane and Michael. Merry––you have to be here for June Bug. Eve––you have Paul and Nova to think about. And Ruth Anne, well, this isn’t your problem.”

“As I see it, little Monty is my problem. He’s family, and that makes him my problem.”

I smiled weakly, nodding.

Merry grabbed my hand. “Maggie, we’re with you. We are sisters.” She made a muscle. “And with these guns, we’ll be back in no time.”

“You can’t stop me either,” Eve said. “Paul, tell Nova I love her.”

Paul inhaled deeply. “Tell her yourself when she gets here. I’m going with you. I’ll tell her mother I’ll send for her as soon as I can.”

If I had any tears left, I would have shed them then. “Thank you all,” I said, humbled.

Jillian’s eyes rolled to the back of her head, her lashes fluttering, as if entranced.

“The Road to Eagle Mountain is not as it seems,” she said, her voice guttural and ominous. “Illusions. Lies. Danger. This is the Netherworld. Keep close to one another and guard your secrets well, or they will be used against you.” She shook her head, shivering as she emerged from her daze. “Dora and I can’t go. We are too weakened to survive the journey. But we’ll be watching over you from afar.”

“Aye,” my aunt agreed.

The sun was lowering into the trees. I watched it disappear, wondering if this would be the last time I’d ever see a sunset. I wasn’t sure what awaited me in the Netherworld, but I’d seen glimpses of it. Brightly lit tunnels with beautiful gardens waited on some paths, dark skulking shadows crowded others. But somewhere in that endless labyrinth my baby cried for me and I would never stop until I brought him home.

“Look,” Eve said, pointing to the ground. A white asphodel bloomed in the otherwise parched earth. The area’s magick was returning.

Jillian draped her arms around me, wetting my shirt with her tears. It was a bittersweet irony to finally have my real mother in my life, only to immediately leave her. When she stepped out of our embrace, her eyes fell to my wrist. “Maggie, remember that you no longer have your crystal bracelet. The Circle was your protection.”

I rubbed my bare arm. It had aided me in the past, but its absence would not change my decision.

Shane stepped forward, taking my left hand in his. He stared deeply into my eyes, licking his lips before he spoke. “I told you that marriage was more than just a document. It carries a magickal protection with it. Marry me, please. You lost one Circle, but I’ll give you another.”

He reached into his pocket and produced a gold ring, slipping it onto my finger. The ring from our dream world. The ring I had buried and then lost.

“You found it!”

“Finding things is what I do.” He pressed my hand to his lips, holding it there. “Please be my wife, Maggie Mae.”

“As soon as we get back, Shane.”

“No, marry me now. Michael’s a minister and can perform the ceremony, right?”

We all turned to Michael, whose grief was plastered over his weary face. He couldn’t be expected to do this, not now, not when he had already lost so much.

He ran his hands through his hair, locking eyes with mine. Between us, we reached a silent understanding. There was love there––love forged through time, parental duties, and even friendship. But that was all it would ever be.

“I’ll marry you two,” he said softly. “I owe it to Maggie.”

We got married in the back yard of Harvest Home, in a one-minute ceremony, as the sun set on the day of my son’s disappearance. Michael’s voice cracked as he spoke, barely able to pronounce us man and wife. He looked away as Shane returned the ring to my finger then kissed me on the lips.

“I just want you to be happy, Maggie,” Michael whispered in my ear, before wandering off to a solo corner of the yard. I knew in that moment he loved me unconditionally, misguided as it was.

Shane and I held hands and I felt the hum of our joined energy. I caressed my ring, sensing the new protection it offered.

“Thank you for going with me,” I said as the fireflies gathered round us, the last light in the waning sky.

“I’ve already been dead, once,” he joked somberly. “I hear the second time is easier.”

Everything I’d learned had prepared me for this journey. There was darkness ahead, but there was also light. As long as I kept love and family and faith, I knew things would be okay. They had to be.

Neither Larinda nor her minions were a match for us. The Council of Seven had been reformed. Heaven help the witch who kept my son from me.

None slept that night. We were all consumed with our private fears and secret hopes, each of us wondering what awaited us in the Netherworld.

I tossed and turned all night through, trying to ignore Jillian’s ominous words.

“Keep close to one another, and guard your secrets well, or they will be used against you.”

Lightning crashed, splitting a limb from the oak where a raven sat watching me. There was not a cloud in sight.

 
* * *

Want to read more by this author?

Try
The Good Girl’s Guide To Being A Demon

Part of the Woodland Creek Project