Page 56 of The Water Witch (Fairwick Chronicles 2)

…where it was a calm and clear summer night. I stood on a grassy lawn beneath a twilight blue sky, surrounded by the flickering light of fireflies. The place tugged at my memory. The smell of smoke and night-blooming flowers riding the warm summer air, the thick blue dark pinpricked by pulsing fireflies, the damp grass beneath my bare feet…my bare feet? I looked down and saw my pale feet half-buried in grass, except…they looked smaller than my feet. I wriggled my toes. Definitely my feet…A noise caught my attention. A humming that blended with the cicadas and tree frogs but wasn’t cicadas and tree frogs. I looked up…andup, as though I had shrunk and the world had grown taller around me. A cloaked figure towered above me, arms raised to the crescent moon. As I stared in amazement, the figure took hold of the moon and drew it down toward her. I gasped and the figure spun around, robes billowing in the warm air, wafting the smell of smoke and something else toward me, something bitter…Then there was a flash of silver as a sickle knife arced down toward me…

I screamed and turned…and felt the coil wound inside me snap. Instantly, I was spun out into the void with the force of an exploding star. I’d broken the spiral by turning and now I was hurtling through space. Far away I heard a distant hum, an echo of that summer night insect hum…or of the circle trying to sing me home. But I was out of their reach. Out of anyone’s reach. Brock was lost and I was lost, all because I hadn’t had the courage to face my past. I had been that little girl standing in the grass watching the tall woman pull downthe moon and slash the air with it. That knowledge did me no good now. Without the spiral I had no path home…

Then I remembered Liam’s voice telling me that Aelvesgold linked true lovers together, no matter how far apart. I imagined Liam’s face and saw him, his face above me as we made love, a halo of gold light blazing around him, his eyes looking deep into mine, reaching into my core. Warmth uncoiled in my chest, wrapping around me and unspooling like a loose ball of yarn.

See, he said as the thread came to its end, his voice as clear as a bell in the emptiness of space,like I said. True lovers.

The thread snapped back, hurtling me back into space. I reached out my hands and felt a hand grasp mine. I slammed up against something hard.

Damn, I thought.Love hurts.

I opened my eyes. I was lying on the ground, surrounded by a circle of concerned faces, but not the one face I wanted to see.

“Brock? Is he …?”

“I’m here, Callie.” I saw Brock hovering over me.

“Oh thank God,” I said. “I thought I lost you.”

He knelt down on the ground beside me as Liz and Ann Chase helped me sit up.

“I turned around and the spiral broke. I thought we were spinning out of control.”

“We were, but you pulled us both back.”

“It was Liam,” I said. “I heard his voice…” I stopped as an expression of dismay crossed Brock’s face.

“That damned incubus!” he swore with unaccustomed anger. “It’s his fault I was trapped in the shadows in the first place. I was on your roof when I saw the storm coming, carrying something with it—a creature from Faerie…”

“That was Lorelei,” I said.

“No. I saw her descend into the woods, but the storm came on, carrying with it another presence and heading straight toward Honeysuckle House. I realized then that although I’d warded the house—”

“That was you!” I interrupted. “Duncan Laird said someone had.”

“Duncan Laird?”

“My tutor, and a wizard of the Ninth Order. The circle found him to train me.”

I noticed Liz exchanging a look with Ann Chase. The rest of the circle were picking themselves up from the ground, brushing grass off their clothes, and stretching cramped limbs. Ike and Amma approached from the house, tears streaming down the old woman’s face at the sight of her grandson restored. Brock, though, was focused entirely on me, his face creased with guilt.

“A wizard of the Ninth Order would have no trouble recognizing my humble wards. The problem was that I’d just put in a new section of roof thatwasn’twarded and that meant the creature in the storm could get in. I couldn’t leave you unprotected like that so I stayed on the roof until the storm arrived.”

“Oh Brock, you shouldn’t have! You shouldn’t have put yourself at risk to protect the house. It’s only a house…”

“It’s yourhome, Callie. If a creature breached its wards, it would have power over you. Power over your mind and body and even your dreams. That’s how the incubus possessed Dolly. First it possessed Honeysuckle House.” Brock dropped his head and covered his face with his calloused, work-worn hands. “I’m so sorry, Callie. I let the incubus back into your house.”

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