Chapter 16 #3
Malcolm stepped toward her, hand outstretched, but she recoiled.
Persephone meowed loudly, clawing at Calli’s legs.
She picked Persephone up, holding the kitten close, needing the strength of her familiar just to keep her on her feet.
Her ears began to ring as she stared at the man she’d fallen in love with.
The man she’d wanted to spend eternity with…
But he’d killed her parents. He’d destroyed her life.
“Calli…” Malcolm’s voice was a choked whisper. “Please don’t. Honey, I—”
His voice was a slap to her senses. Her eyes felt as though they were on fire because the tears were burning so fiercely as she kept them at bay.
In a single instant her life had been thrown into chaos and grief all over again.
She stepped back, desperate to retreat, to put some distance between her and the man she loved…
the man who’d killed her parents. Her body was still sore from his lovemaking…
and her lips still tasted of the cocoa he’d made for them…
A bittersweet betrayal that ran as deep as the mythical River Styx.
She couldn’t meet his gaze. If she did, she might not go through with what she had to do next.
“I… I think you should go back to Boston.” Calli managed to hold herself together, but barely. “Your father needs you.”
The words I don’t want you here went unspoken, but the flash of pain in his eyes told her that he had sensed it.
Malcolm searched her face for some sign of hope. “I’ll go, but when he’s better, I’m coming back. We have to talk.”
She shook her head. “No… you won’t.” The words cut as she spoke them. “I want you to go.”
“But we—”
“I said GO!” Calli shouted.
The large picture window behind her exploded in a burst of glass, wind rushing through the room. Malcolm flew back, slamming into the wall opposite her. He winced, touching the back of his head, and got to his feet. He took a limping step toward her.
Part of her wanted to run to him, heal him, seek comfort in his arms. She almost succumbed to the urge before the very real, very present anger at what he’d done crackled through her like a bolt of lightning. The vines began to slither out of the tattoos upon her arm.
“Don’t move, Malcolm!” Lady Batsford snapped. “She’s not in control of herself right now.”
The vines began to twin around Calli’s wrists, as if preparing to lunge to prove the Council woman right.
Lady Batsford turned to Sarah. “Find the other traveling totem. We must return to Boston immediately.”
“It’s a baseball…” Reginald said. “That one…” He pointed to a baseball which had rolled out from underneath the couch during the commotion.
Lady Batsford reached out to Malcolm. “Quickly, take my hand!”
Malcolm stared at Calli across the chasm between them. It was only a dozen or so feet, but they might as well have an ocean apart. He placed his hand in Lady Batsford’s. Sarah took the baseball and held onto Reginald, who held Lady Batsford’s other hand.
“Calli…” he said, the name a plea for understanding. She didn’t move, didn’t speak. She felt only rage.
“Take us home!” Reginald rasped.
A second later, he and the others vanished, the baseball dropping onto the floor, waiting to be used once again.
Hades, too, disappeared in the same instant.
The kitten in Calli’s arms suddenly screamed, raking Calli’s arms with her claws.
The kitten leapt to the ground, running to the spot where the giant schnauzer had once been.
The rage faded.
“They’re gone, Sephie…” Calli swallowed hard, her throat tight. “Everyone’s gone.”
She couldn’t breathe. It was as though she were dying, and she could feel every second of it with stark clarity.
Prophecies. No wonder her grandmother hated them. Malcolm had caused the death of her parents, and that had caused him to lose his connection with magic. That eventually had brought him to her.
Was this the universe’s idea of a joke? Was it supposed to be some kind of cosmic balance?
Malcolm had killed her parents. It was so much worse than losing them.
He had directly caused their deaths. That was the worst thing she could ever imagine.
It was unforgivable. Even though he’d only been a boy, he’d still taken a life…
two lives. And in a way three because she’d never recovered from losing her parents.
Calli sank to her knees, her body numb. The fire in the hearth died out, and the house, with only the sound of the wind whistling through the shattered window, had become a cold tomb.
* * *
Without any magical fanfare, Malcolm and the others arrived in the front hallway of his parents’ home in Boston. Lady Batsford picked up a small silver mirror off the nearby end table, and they were transported to the Salem Witch Council Chambers.
Twelve witches were waiting in the room when they materialized. Dozens of candles had been lit, and a spell circle was painted on the floor of the chamber to enhance the power of their unified spellcasting.
Malcolm was barely aware of any of this. All he could think about was the look on Calli’s face before she vanished, the vines on her arms ready to attack. Just like that, the life he’d wanted had vanished. Now he was here, to become part of a life he had no desire to be a part of.
Because of a damn prophecy.
His mother guided his father into a chair out of the way of the spell weaving circle.
Hades sat down by his father’s side and his father’s familiar, Onyx, curled up against Reginald’s feet.
Hades looked intense as he watched Malcolm from across the room.
Serafina brought out a cloak of midnight blue velvet and draped it around Malcolm’s shoulders as another older warlock stepped forward.
The silver-haired warlock had warm brown eyes and had to be in his late seventies, but offered Malcolm a gentle smile.
“Malcolm, this is Lord Bromley. He is to retire, and you will take his place.”
He held out a hand to Malcolm. “Thank you for taking my place, Mr. Wellesley. I wish you great luck and wisdom.”
Still numb from events, Malcolm couldn’t dredge up a smile, but he placed his palm in Bromley’s hand. His entire world had been destroyed so Lord Bromley could retire? As if Lord Bromley read his thoughts he caught Malcolm’s eye.
“My hour has ended here, Mr. Wellesley. Your importance, the power you will bring, the balance to our world, that is what truly drives tonight’s events. Never forget it. You can make great changes in our world.”
Make great changes… hadn’t Calli said something like that? He could make real change… and now that victory, once so tempting with her, felt all the more hollow because he could not share it with her. He could only move forward to act to help her and other hedge witches like her.
“Thank you, sir.” All he could think about was Calli’s face when he left her behind. The emptiness he felt when all he wanted to do was make things right.
Serafina pulled him out of his straying thoughts. “I will bind your hands and speak the transfer spell. Then we will sign the contracts of assignment and termination.”
She bound their hands in a red ribbon that radiated with power.
Then she motioned for Malcolm and the other warlock to step into the center of the weaving circle.
There were no windows and drafts in this room, yet the candles sputtered momentarily, as though they sensed the magical exchange that was coming.
The witches and warlocks that formed the circle began to chant as one.
“We greet the strength of the northern wind,
We face the welcoming warmth of the southern sun,
We hear the whispers of wisdom from the west,
We raise our glasses to toast the good fortune and joy sent by the east,
One whose service has come to an end,
steps away so a new power may ascend.”
Serafina broke away from the others and approached Malcolm.
“Malcolm Wellesley, do you agree to take a place upon this Council? To serve thirty years and ensure the peace of the witching world?”
Malcolm’s throat ran dry. All he wanted was to go home. To Calli. Because she was his home. She held his heart, and not five minutes earlier he’d broken hers. He had to make things right. But he couldn’t, not yet. Not until he’d saved his father.
“I—” Malcolm’s gaze turned to his father’s gaunt face. Reginald’s eyes were haunted as he watched the proceedings, knowing he was responsible for all of this.
But he was as much of a victim as anyone.
He’d bargained his own life for the chance to give Malcolm a normal childhood with his own family, only to see it backfire in the worst possible way.
He had carried that burden in silence for years.
Despite all his demands and pressure, his father had still wanted it to be Malcolm’s choice.
But making Malcolm choose between his own freedom and his father’s life had left him with no real choice at all.
Malcolm knew what he had to do.
“I do.” He answered firmly.
Serafina breathed a sigh of relief. She retrieved a slender dagger and approached him.
She separated his hand from Lord Bromley’s and let the ribbon fall to the ground in the center of the spell circle.
As it fell, the magic infused within it spread out across the circle, illuminating the intricate scrollwork painted on the floor.
Serafina took Malcolm’s hand and pricked his index finger with the knife, then pricked the index finger of Lord Bromley. A warlock stepped inside the circle and presented them with a long scroll of parchment.
“Sign your name in blood to seal your active service and your retirement,” he instructed.
Malcolm pressed his finger beside his name, as did Lord Bromley. Their names suddenly glowed bright red upon the page. The glow faded, and a flash of light, momentarily blinded Malcolm.
When his vision cleared, he looked toward his parents. His father’s face was warm with color again, and he seemed to be breathing much easier. But his face hadn’t lost the haunted look, it had merely transformed to encompass tonight’s events with a deep regret.
Their gazes locked across the room. Father and son. In that moment, Malcolm forgave his father all that had happened. He let go of all the resentment he held against his father for the past even though nothing could bring back the future he’d been so close to having with Calli.
His mother threw her arms around Reginald’s neck, but she turned towards Malcolm.
“I’m so sorry…” she mouthed at him.
Malcolm was sorry too. All that mattered in his life had vanished in a mere instant. He was a hollow shell. He was nothing now, to himself or others. It was as though the Malcolm he had been had died. This Malcolm was only a specter… a ghost. He faced Serafina.
“What are my duties?”
“You will come whenever you are summoned. Otherwise, we meet once a week to listen to the petitions of witches across the country. In our group of thirteen, we have three senior members and you, our youngest, will be a junior member. Your duties will be to primarily observe how we operate, help in spell casting, and within a year, you may start hearing and voting upon issues brought in front of the Council. We will assess your current skills and powers and teach you to amplify them so that we may discover why you have been chosen by prophecy to be a leader in our world. We will visit places that require the Council’s advice and guidance which means traveling frequently across the country, and sometimes across the world.
You will be on call, as the humans say.”
The other Council members surrounded him, sharing smiles of welcome and words of congratulations, but Malcolm couldn’t find it in his heart to care. He didn’t belong here. He didn’t belong anywhere. Not anymore. Hades whined softly at his side, but Malcolm ignored his familiar.
One of the witches crowded closer. “Is it true you have almost witch-locked with a hedge witch?”
Before he could answer, a silver-haired warlock said, “A hedge witch, you say?” His brows then drew together in thought. “Quite unusual.”
All around him, Malcolm winced at the rising voices, the crush of the bodies crowding too close when he needed space to think.
Now that his father was safe, his thoughts had gone back to Calli, and that tormented look on her face before he’d left.
The pain she must still be in. How could he possibly make things right with her?
The answer was he couldn’t. He couldn’t undo her parents’ deaths, nor could he change the role he’d played. It was a burden he’d have to live with for the rest of his life.
He tried to reach out to Calli within his heart, the way he’d been able to do in the last few days as their bond had strengthened, but was met with cold silence. Whatever bond had been forming between them had been severed. Possibly forever.
With a sinking heart, he faced the fact that he might have truly lost her.
I will serve my thirty years. And when that ends…
nothing else will matter to me, nothing.
That was the only vow that mattered to him now, and the only vow he thought he could keep.
The one thing he wanted to matter… hurt too much to think about.
His heart could only shatter so many times before he’d never be able to piece it back together again.
The scar on his palm from the night of the accident that had changed everything suddenly itched, and a flash of pain cut across it like he’d been cut with a dagger. He swallowed down the blinding agony, burying it so deep it would take a century to claw back to the surface.
Hades nudged his other hand and whined again.
“Enough, Hades! Go away!” he shouted. His loyal familiar, the one creature who’d been his dearest friend in all the world for so long, looked at him with a hurt expression in his eyes. Then, the giant schnauzer vanished in a swirl of dark and silver smoke.
“Hades?” he gasped, but the dog didn’t appear. “Hades! Come back!” He yelled more desperately, startling the nearby Council members.
But the dog was gone.