Page 34 of Wandering Witch

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.

Farren

Igroaned and tried to roll over as a pounding in my head woke me from the most pleasant dream I’d had in a while. I was living in a cute little village surrounded by people who felt like friends as I watched an adorable little girl frolic around in a small flower garden. She had just turned to me and called me “mommy” before I had awakened.

“If you’re awake up there, Fare you need to come down and get something to eat!” Roan called out.

I groaned again and tried to open my eyes to see if I could glare at my ghost, but the sight that awaited me was not what I had been expecting.

Above me was a large canopy that looked to have definitely seen better days, even though the mattress under me felt soft and supportive. The bedding looked familiar and as I pulled the dark green travel blanket up to my face, Locke’s comforting scent still clung to them.

I choked on a sob as I hid my face in the cloth and tried to curl in on myself. His scent brought memories flying back to me of breaking the curse. Of my beloved bear being impaled on a massive branch, and the blood that gushed from his wounds. Of my other mates being battered as they were tossed aside. Of Roan’s broken leg.

I was so consumed by my grief that I barely took notice of the sound of creaking floorboards approaching me. I really only looked up when I felt the mattress dip beside me and a large hand rested on my back.

“My mate, why do you weep so? The curse is broken. Benjamin confirmed it after we were sure you weren’t injured too badly.” Locke, sweet, warm, supportive Locke, was sitting beside me. Alive.

I blinked at him a few times, hiccupped a sob, and blinked again before I threw myself into his arms.

“I-I thought that-that you-you,” my voice kept breaking as I struggled to take in air.

“The wound will still leave me weakened for a few more days, but I am more than strong enough to protect you still,” he murmured in my hair as he rocked me in his lap. I didn’t care that he wasn’t at full strength, the only thing that mattered to me now was that he was here and alive. “We should probably go downstairs before the others get too worried and come looking for you.”

I wasn’t given a chance to reply before I was scooped up and carried through what I realized now was the house of Peregrin Hawkins.

“What happened?” I asked as he moved into a quaint little kitchen and settled us at a table that had been buried under prepared food.

“Eat first,” Benny demanded as he passed me over a loaded plate. Roan was seated across from me with a much smaller portion. Both looked much better than the last time I had seen them. “Then we’ll catch you up on what you have missed.”

I pouted but ate my food. For a ghost, Roan was the best cook I’d ever had the pleasure of coming across, and this was from a girl who had eaten at some of the best truck stops in America.

After Locke and I finished our meal and the table was barren of food, who knew that a demon and shifter could eat so much? I was carted off to what might have once been a large family den and placed in a familiar-looking rocking chair.

“I’m sure Locke told you that the curse was broken, and we were all pretty drained from the magic you pulled from us and saving the big guy’s life. But that was all a couple of days ago. Since then, we talked and agreed that as comfortable as you seemed at my cabin, it was nothing compared to the peace you felt in this house. So once the bear was awake enough to watch over you, Roan and I returned to my cabin and gathered everything we could carry,” Benny explained as he parked himself on what I now recognized as his nylon rope stool.

“A decent enough amount of the furniture proved to still be fairly functional so that made things a lot easier. Benny boy did have to magic his old mattress to fit the bed frame though,” Roan added.

That explained the bed and attested to the craftsmanship of the time this house was built if all the bones still stood.

“One of our neighbors agreed to help out with any projects we needed after they finished fixing up their own house. It turns out that this village was once home to several witch families, ones with stories loosely similar to yours. But I figured we had the rest of our lives ahead of us to deal with whatever comes our way,” Benny continued.

“The important thing to us was to make sure you would have, at least the start of a home to call your own by the time you woke up,” Roan tacked on.

“And a family to support you,” finished Locke.

Farren

Five Years Later

I stood on the back step of my house as I watched my children roll around in the rough grass that had finally started to soften with last winter’s melt with one of their fathers. It had taken us a lot of time, sweat, blood, and tears, but we’d revived the Hawkins’ coven house.

And we weren’t the only ones to make the effort to revitalize the coven houses. Many of the other families who lived in the eight houses that ringed the center of town rebuilt as well. Although we were the main family to make this our forever home, much to the chagrin of the others in the beginning.

They couldn’t understand why we were happy to live in a town that was still trapped in the late sixteen-hundreds. But after running for my whole life, there was no way I was going to surrender a chance at a permanent roof over my head.

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