Chapter 18 #2
“No, but the shadow man did, and he ran away. Maybe it was a good monster?”
This was bad.
This was really fucking bad.
I scooped her into my arms. “How did you get in here? It’s surrounded by thorns. Are you hurt anywhere?”
“I’m not hurt, don’t worry. The shadow man made the thorns after we got to the tree stump.”
“The shadow… he made the thorns…”
“I’ve never seen black thorns before,” she said. “Matri, I’m scared.”
My palms plastered against her neck as I winced through the thorns once more. “It’s all okay, Prism. You’re safe, I’ve got you. I won’t let anything hurt you.”
She gasped just as we made it out of the circle of thorns. “Matri, you’re bleeding.”
“Just a few scrapes.” But my throat was tightening as I said it. “It’s fine. Let’s get you home.”
Holding her tight, tighter than ever, I trudged home. Each step heavier than the last, each breath short and shallow. My mind muddled, my thoughts coming rapidly and without coherent fluidity.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. At least, I hoped it was merely the roar of clouds above and nothing behind us, nothing fanged and following the scent of my blood.
When I pushed through the back garden gate, rain started falling. I dropped to my knees, and no sooner had I fallen, was Spirit by my side.
“My love,” she gasped, holding me in her arms. My eyes grew heavy. “Prism, run and pick a stalk of amaranth and tansy. You remember what those look like, right, dear?” Footsteps pattered quickly off.“Rumor, you know the loose floorboard in my room? Go inside and bring me the red grimoire.”
Spirit stroked my hair. “Black thorns,” she whispered thinly. “They took her, didn’t they? Why now?”
“I won’t… let them.” I forced the words out.
“Don’t speak, my love. I’m going to heal you.”
I shook my head. “No… more… magic. The rapture…”
“Fuck the rapture. Let it come for me. I will save my wife.”
My every will was to stop her. If I could manage to die and stop her from the horrors she could unleash upon Willowspire in effort just to keep me breathing, I would.
Though, no such luck came. Only the rushed motions of Prism and Rumor appearing by my wife’s side as I lay on my back in the middle of her garden.
Spirit glowed a soft shade of white. Moonlight dancing over midnight waves as they crashed on the shore.
Rumor, dark purple, like a slash of depth across a night sky above the sea.
Prism, a golden haze mixed with shimmering pink, like a sunrise over the ocean.
Seeing auras.
The veil was thinning.
An ancestry of sea witches awaited me in the great ocean beyond…
it would be so simple to swim out to them in my mind…
but my thoughts stayed with my girls. They needed me here.
My time wasn’t done, couldn’t be done, not yet.
Not while the colors of their magics burned so brightly for me, fighting to save me, each of them.
Bones aching and mind weary, I swam against the tides of death and reached for the shoreline, feeling as if the strength of the sea was against me… until suddenly, a wave of warmth enveloped me. Gently, the tide turned, drifting me to a beach of awareness.
When I opened my eyes, the storm had passed and sunlight shone through the hair of the three people surrounding me. One of my wife’s palms rested on my chest, the other held open a leather-bound book.
Rumor’s eyes grew wide and she nudged Prism. “It worked. I told you those grimoires were magic.” My eldest daughter’s gaze was pleading as it searched mine. “I’m sorry I lost sight of Prism, Matri. You could have died, you almost died, and it’s all my fault.”
Prism wiped her cheeks with the sleeve of her dress. “I won’t follow the shadow man again.”
Spirit’s face paled even more than it had already. Her palms frozen in place as if she were afraid whatever spell she cast wouldn’t hold if she moved. I cupped my daughters’ little faces. “Everything is all right. You two run along inside and put on some tea, would you?”
The girls nodded and got up.
Prism whispered to her sister, “Mother used magic… does that mean the—”
“Shut up, Prism. Don’t say it,” Rumor snapped. “Get in the house where I can make sure you don’t run off again.”
“Alchemy?” Spirit pulled me to sit up. Brushing the fallen curls from my eyes, she surveyed me.
“Goddess, you scared me. You managed to get yourself ensnared in black thorns, my love.” She thumbed at a magically fading cut on my arm.
“Black thorns are made from the darkest of magics and endowed with venom. They only grow around…”
“Daimons, withers, demons, and devils.”
“Shh! Don’t say the names out loud.”
My gaze scanned my now blemishless arms and legs. There had to have been a hundred jagged scrapes before. My pants and shirt were torn and bloodstained, yet the skin beneath was now untouched. “Spirit.” I cupped my wife’s jaw. “What have you done?”
“We’re already in trouble, Alchemy. They’re coming for her.”
“They’re already here.”
“Yes.” My wife’s eyes welled with tears. “Yes, they are.”