44. Farren
Farren
I must have just sat in that chair for hours. Or at least, that’s what it felt like as Roan hummed at my revelation and backed off to give me some space. I was only faintly aware of him moving around the room, inspecting everything, but my mind was still firmly wrapped in what the letter had said.
This, Peregrin Hawkins, claimed to be aware of the curse, and he made it appear that he knew of a time before it was cast. But how could that be? Was he the first victim?
I needed more information, and clearly, this town had a very good chance of having the answers. Surging to my feet, I folded and tucked the letter away into my bra and left the room.
Roan called me after I got about halfway down the hall, and I just called back to him over my shoulder.
“I need more information, Ro. Maybe there’s an archive still standing!” I pushed open the main door of the house and saw the other two guys standing guard. “Let’s go. I think I got our first clue.”
Hope filled me for the first time in forever. Maybe there really was an end in sight?
“Really? What’s the clue?” Benny asked, and I nervously handed him the letter. He read it over a few times before returning it. “This certainly does sound like it could be the start of something. Not much information to go on though, I’m afraid.”
I deflated a little at his words. I truly had thought this was a key piece of information in the breaking of my curse. Why can’t any of this be easy?
Off in the distance, thunder roared, and we all turned in that direction. The sky was clear, and the air was calm, but something was whipping the trees into a frenzy. Locke rose with his hackles high and low warning growls in his throat.
With gentle jaws, he wrapped his mouth around my arm and tried to pull me away. When the wind kicked up, it brought a very familiar darkness with it, one that I hadn’t really felt since I first met my Portlocke.
“It’s the curse. It’s here,” I whispered. Dread filled my very being as I saw the beginnings of the darkness rise above the shattered treeline. “We need to hurry. Maybe to the town hall?”
At my words, the other two scrambled to push me along with Locke towards the largest building in the center of the town.
Inside, everything seemed to be crumbling around us, and my chest deflated as the winds whipped at the world outside. Benny moved around me to grab my other arm and pulled me to the back of the building and into a small office.
There in the middle of the room was another desk, but this one had an old journal in the center. Something about the book called to me and before I could stop myself, I reached out and picked it up.
The writing looked familiar and as I looked at it, I realized it was almost identical to the journal I kept with my family history. But I was confused when I opened it up and saw it was dated August 20th, 1774.
Finally. It took me several years of tracking scraps of information and hearsay, but I’ve finally made it back to the place where the curse was started.
For so reason, not a single surviving member in my family wanted to discuss, or even acknowledge its existence. But we are being wiped out faster than we can put our heads together to figure out how to break it.
The only thing that my family could agree on is that it goes back to a man named Peregrin and his unholy relations with a woman who herself had several other lovers.
After looking into the records that remained as this godforsaken town had fallen to ruins, it looks like I hail from a long line of witches. What’s more, a fall out between a man named Morfran and Peregrin’s lover, Melisande, is the source of everything.
Dark magic was used to destroy the families of this Melisande’s consorts. My assumption is that because, from everything I could uncover, Peregrin was among the first to run, his blood, my blood, would be destined to run forevermore.
Nothing in these old tomes even hints at a way to break this curse, but maybe there can be hope somewhere in time that someone will find a way.
But not if I let my parents and grandparents lies about who we were are persist. This will be my last entry as the blind. Let this be my contribution to breaking the curse, the restoration of my family’s magic.
I have heard tale of an older colony that suffered under something that might be similar to what I do now. So I think I will leave notes that should help guide the future to search there for possible answers, and hope that we never have to return to this haunted hell again.
“What the hell?” I muttered to myself as Roan looked over my shoulder, and I tilted the last journal page to him.
“Strange, but this could very well be why you thought that you had a connection with Roanoke. Do you think that this Peregrin fellow knew that he was going to flee before he actually left?”
“Yeah, it would make sense if that was the bad thing he mentioned in his letter. But I do think that this person was wrong in one part of her thinking. I think that I needed to return here to beat this curse. If it was cast here for a reason, then it would stand to reason that it would have to be broken here as well.” I nodded along as I skimmed the entry once more. “I just wish I knew more.”
Roan grunted and turned to give me some privacy as he checked on the others.
I just pray that I will be stronger than my ancestors at my time of reckoning.
My thoughts were interrupted as the remaining windows broke under the force of the harsh winds and the screams of my lovers came from the entrance.
The curse was here. It was time to face the demons of the past. This was my last chance to run, but I was done running.
All of my life I had done nothing but run. Never had I had the chance to build a foundation. Never had a chance to put down roots. My family was the exact same.
I didn’t know why this curse was placed on us. I didn’t know why my ancestors decided it was better to run than stand and fight.
But I did know that it had to end. Now. Today. With me.
There was something about this town that called to the very core of who I was, more so than any other place I’d wandered to all these years. And I would be damned if I let that be stolen from me.
I bolted out of the town hall to see my men being swept away by the curse and swore as I watched them get flung across the town and I turned to face the clouds of death that rose from the east.
The winds buffeted at me, trying to pull my soul out of my body as I stood my ground. I stared up and pushed my magic into the one thing that could stop what was between me and my only real chance at peace, love, and happiness.
I quickly knelt and drew a rough pentagram in the dirt before me, leaving a drop of my blood in the air corner. A sharp gust blasted me off balance as I rose, but warm hands grabbed at my right arm and the scent of campfires filled my nose.
“Remember, my goddess, that no matter what comes your way, I will always be there to light your path,” Benny whispered in my ear as he righted me. His warmth flooded every part of me, blocking the cold of the curse as he held me firm.
I turned to face him with tears starting their tracks down my cheeks as I saw his face was scratched and bruised. His breath was winded as he must have fought his way back to me as fast as he could. I watched a small droplet of his blood fall to the pentagram, igniting the fire spoke.
Thunder rolled again, lightning cracked before the heavens opened above us and a deluge of rain fell. Just as I felt Benny’s fire drown out, cool fingers curled themselves over my shoulder.
“My love, I do believe that it is time that we let the rains wash away the pains of our yesterdays and embrace a better tomorrow,” Roan said as the rains stopped around us. We were encased in a bubble that shielded us from the water. It was just too damn bad that Ro’s barrier couldn’t stop the few drops that still managed to hit my eyes. Or the ones that landed on my spell, filling the symbol with his water.
As my second lover came to stand to my side, limping at the effort as his leg was twisted at the wrong angle, the storm got stronger. Its winds blew harder and nearly succeeded in throwing us off our feet.
Something was still missing though. I felt it as my strength waned, but still, I stood my ground and pushed all my magic at the spell to combat the darkness, willing it to be banished for eternity.
Locke roared in pain from where he trudged back to us. I barely risked a glance to see what had happened to my bear. The winds had broken off a large tree branch and sent it through his torso. I cried out and nearly broke from my position to run to him, but he turned and locked me in his gaze.
My eyes burned with the freely flowing tears as I watched him force himself to his feet and padded slowly to where we stood, blood trailing behind him in thick rivers. I held my free hand out to him and prayed the Goddess would grant him the strength to stay at my side. The very place he had been since day one.
As he neared us, another gale struck, and he was forced to buckle to his knees. I screamed and tried to reach farther out to him and just barely touched my fingertips to his ears.
Please, please don’t leave me.
My mind chanted those words as Benny and Roan carefully guided me so I could kneel next to my bear but stay in their grasp. Now that I was close enough, I wrapped my arm as far around his neck as I could and buried my face in his coat to breathe in his pine-scented fur.
Out of the corner of my eye, I barely saw slivers of wood from the branch land amongst the pentagram and it glowed with our combined power. I clenched my eyes shut as energy erupted from the pentagram, blasting at the dark clouds. Somewhere in the wind, I swore I heard the voice of an unfamiliar male yell as a much smaller branch rose and flew at my head.