Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
The rest of the table went still, the weight of Marie’s words pressing down on them. Erielle blinked against the sudden burn in her eyes, her throat tight.
“My mother killed her?” Sam’s voice was barely audible, raw.
“I don’t know,” Marie said softly, steady but unflinching.
“Maybe Helen was scared to death. They never did an autopsy, so there’s no proof.
But the town whispered. And then Angeline found us—took us under her wing, taught us how to focus, how to control what we could do.
That structure…it calmed Leslie. But on her own?
” Marie’s mouth tightened. “She can be dangerous.”
Sam released his hold on Erielle, his hand curling into a fist on the tabletop. “Why now? Why would she want to start again? She didn’t practice when we were kids. Did she?”
Marie held his gaze. “When she met your father, she eased back. Once they moved home, though…” She exhaled, shaking her head. “The swamp, the history here—she couldn’t resist. He forced her to stop. And because she loved him, she did.”
Sam dragged a hand through his hair, restless energy rolling off him. “That doesn’t explain why she’d pick it up again now. Or why she’d steal the journal.”
The silence that followed was like a held breath. Hattie slapped her hands on the table, jerking everyone to alertness.
“Enough guessing. It’s time we go find out.” Her eyes flicked to the abandoned plates. “Leave the dishes. I’ll get them later.”
Sam shivered as he pulled up in front of his house, despite the heat already creeping into the day.
His truck was stuffed with witches and they were about to confront his mother, who was apparently a powerful witch herself.
Oh, and he might be related to the lover of the ghost haunting Erielle’s house.
He slid out of the truck and led the way to the kitchen door, opening it with more trepidation than he’d ever felt in his life.
The hair stood up on the back of his neck as he stepped into the cool house, and a weird earthy scent filled his nostrils.
His first instinct was to block the others from entering, to protect them—or maybe to protect himself—but they pushed in behind him.
“Mom? Dad?” he called, and took an uncertain step toward the living room. Then, deciding he needed to know the truth once and for all, he walked into the living room.
His dad slumped in his chair. Sam’s heart seized, Marie’s story flashing through his head. But Hattie darted past him, picked up the mug on the side table, sniffed, and grimaced.
“Sleeping draught.”
But Sam needed to be sure, and pressed his fingers to the pulse in his father’s throat. Strong, and warm. Alive. Sam’s knees weakened at the realization.
Marie and Allison were already heading for the stairs, but before he could follow, Hattie said, “She’s not here. Where else could she be?”
“The swamp?” Allison ventured.
“My house,” Erielle said. “The workroom?”
Hattie lifted her chin, acknowledging the possibility.
“The church,” Sam murmured. “No one would bother her in the church. Stay with my dad,” he told Erielle. He pivoted to head out the front door, not even aware of anyone following him.
The closer he got to the church door, the more certain he was that his mother was inside. He could literally feel the energy pulsing from inside. He closed his hand on the iron door handle, drew in a breath, and opened the door.
He hadn’t thought about how he’d find his mother, but it wasn’t this.
His mother stood at the altar with open mason jars around her, a mortar and pestle in front of her and the stolen journal propped in front of her.
Even more frightening was the charge of electricity he felt in the air, that raised every hair on his body, danced over his skin.
The charge Marie described from the night Helen died..
He swallowed the lump of fear in his throat, fear of his mother, of all things, and forced his footsteps forward.
She hadn’t noticed him, hadn’t raised her gaze from the journal.
Her touch moved with certainty from one jar to another, not measuring, just taking a bit from this, a bit from that.
Her lips moved, but he couldn’t hear what she said.
A slight haze appeared over the top of the bowl, and he told himself it was just the light from the stained glass window illuminating the dust.
But he couldn’t be sure.
“Mom,” he ventured. Then, clearing his throat, louder. “Mom.”
The blackness of her eyes when she looked up at him seared through to his soul. When Marie had said her eyes were black, he hadn’t been able to imagine the depth of the blackness. Limitless emptiness. His mother was not there.
Her expression didn’t change. She didn’t see him. Instead she turned back to her potion.
As he approached, he heard words he didn’t understand in a raspy voice he didn’t recognize. The woman before him was in his mother’s body, but wasn’t his mother.
He realized, as he stepped up onto the altar, he had no idea how to stop her. Did he grab her, hold her, hope she felt the love of her son through whatever spell she was weaving?
But then Marie was beside him, Hattie beside her.
Marie met his gaze and gave a jerk of her head to indicate he needed to back off, and she, Hattie and Allison approached his mother.
They joined hands behind her, trying to encircle her and the altar, but when they couldn’t reach, Marie said, “Erielle.”
Erielle hurried up onto the altar and joined hands with the other three women.
“You don’t need to say anything, Just stand with us,” Marie told her, as the other women began an incantation.
The power in the church pulsed through Sam, vibrating through his bones as he watched the women encircling his mom and the altar. His mom’s head snapped up, and her body crumbled. Marie broke the circle to catch her.
Sam was up in three strides to sweep his limp mother into his arms.
“Where?” he asked Marie, who was clearly the one in charge.
“Take her into the house, if you can,” she ordered, as Hattie stepped forward to collect the journal, and Allison closed and gathered the jars.
Adrenaline must have helped him, because he got her to the house, Erielle running ahead to open the door, and he placed her carefully in the recliner beside his father.
“You left my dad alone,” he said, unable to keep the bite of accusation from his tone.
“Hattie said he’d be fine, that they might need my help. And they did.”
He knelt beside his mother, taking her hand as the three other women entered the room.
“Allison, go make some tea,” Hattie ordered, standing on Leslie’s other side. “Better make enough for three. Sam’s not looking so great here.”
“Her eyes were black.” He looked up at Erielle, standing over him, her hand on his shoulder. “You saw that, too, right? Her eyes were black.”
She nodded, and sank to her knees beside him, just to be there for him.
Hattie left to go into the kitchen, returned with a bottle from the pantry, passed it under his mother’s nose.
Only then did he recognize it as peppermint oil.
His mother roused slowly as Hattie turned to pass the bottle under his father’s nose.
He came to more sharply, and looked up at Hattie with a frown.
“What are you doing here?”
“Did it work?” Leslie struggled to sit up in her seat, and Sam lowered the lever so she could gain her footing.
“Did what work?” Marie asked.
“The—” She gave her husband a look, then looked around the room, clocking everyone, landing on Hattie. “The mixture?”
“What was it supposed to do?” Hattie asked.
“It was…to take the pain away. To heal.” Her gaze darted from Hattie to Marie, back to Sam, then to her husband.
Sam’s gut tightened. What had his mother meant to do?
Behind him, his dad shifted in the chair toward her. “Les? What’s going on?”
The other women stayed silent, knowing the preacher’s opinion of Leslie’s witchcraft. So she was forced to speak.
“I got the journal. I found the treatment to end your pain, to heal your back,” she confessed. “But I don’t remember what happened. Did you take it? Where is it? How did I get back in here?”
“We brought you in, Mom. You fainted,” Sam told her.
She reached for him, placed her hand on his cheek. “But where’s the mixture? Your father needs to take it.”
“Leslie. I’m not going to take it. I’m fine. I’m getting better.”
Sam hadn’t heard his father use that gentle tone since he’d been home. His dad lowered his own lever and moved to the edge of his seat, reaching out a hand to his mother.
“You know how I feel about that. I know what it does to you, the power it has over you, and what it does to you after. I would rather suffer a thousand years than see you go through that.”
Sam had so many questions, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to get the answer with the other ladies in the house.
“I’m going to take the journal,” Hattie said to Erielle, softly. “Do you trust me to do that?”
Erielle nodded.
“Allison, let’s go,” Hattie said when the other woman brought the three cups of tea in on a tray. “You need to go pick up Hayden. Marie, let’s let them work it out.”
Erielle rose, too, her gaze on Sam. “Do you want me to stay?” she asked.
He did, more than he could say. But he knew his parents wouldn’t be as forthcoming with her there, and he had a lot of questions.
“I’ll be by before you go to work,” he promised.
She nodded, and left with the other women, leaving him alone with his family and their secrets.