Page 63 of The Water Witch (Fairwick Chronicles 2)

The labyrinth exists outside time, Brock had said. I felt its spirals coiling around me now. I held my ground and looked up into…

My mother’s face.

I gasped at the sight of her, not out of fear but because she was so beautiful. I had almost forgotten. Black hair framed a white face and pale blue eyes that softened at the sight of me. She knelt in front of me until her face was level with mine and put a hand on my shoulder.

“Callie, what are you doing here? Did you have a bad dream?”

I remembered this moment. I must have been six or seven. We lived in a house on a college campus somewhere in New England. I’d woken in the night from a nightmare and called for my mother, but no one had come. Lights danced over the wall of my bedroom like a swarm of fireflies. I heard my mother’s voice coming from the backyard and had gone outside to find her, but found instead the frightening woman with the silver knife.

“You were warding me, weren’t you?”

Her eyes grew wide and her hand flinched away from my shoulder. I smelled the fear on her—my own mother looked at me as if I were a monster. Tears fell down my face, so many tears it was as if I stood in the rain. “Was that why you warded me? Because you were afraid of me?”

“Oh, my sweet baby, no!” she cried out, quicker to reassure me than to wonder what stranger had possessed her little girl, but then I saw the understanding dawn in her face.

“You’re Callie grown up, aren’t you?” she asked. A tear slid down her face. “Youwillgrow up then.”

“Yes,” I said, “but you…”

I couldn’t finish. Couldn’t tell her that she wouldn’t be there to watch me.

She shook her head and placed a finger over my mouth. “It’s okay. Don’t tell me. As long as you’re okay…” She looked at the glowing spiral. It had begun to spin. “But you aren’t, are you? You’re trapped here where I set the wards on you. Oh my darling, I’m so sorry. I only did it to protect you.”

“From what?”

“From your grandmother discovering your power. The Grove would have used you…” My mother’s eyes skittered away from me toward the perimeter of the circle.

“Used me for what?” I cried, my voice high and whiny as any six-year-old crying for her mother’s attention.

My mother turned back to me, fear in her eyes. “To close the door. They tried to do it with your father but we found a spell to stop them. We were afraid they would try to do the same with you if they knew you were a doorkeeper.”

“How?” I cried.

“It’s your blood,” she began, but then she looked back at the circle. This time my eyes followed hers. The glowing spiral was spinning faster, its coils contracting, drawing closer to us. I felt its heat on my skin. “I don’t have time to explain. The spiral is collapsing,” she told me. “You can’t stay for long in the past. I wish we had more time, but I’m grateful forthis, Callie; I can’t tell you how much. Just to know that you’ll survive. That you’ll be all right. You will be all right after this, darling, won’t you?”

I thought of how many times I’d wished that I could speak to my mother one more time. Of the questions I had…I knew I should use the few moments we had left to ask about the spell I needed to keep the door open, but I had Wheelock for that, so instead I asked something else.

“Mom, there’s this guy…and Ialmostlove him, but something’s in the way. Is there something wrong with me?”

“Oh baby, no! There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s these.”She held her hand to my chest. “It’s the wards I put on you to keep you safe. How can you be safe if you love?” She touched my face, brushed my tears away, stroked my hair. “But there are some things better than safe. If you’re ready, we can cut the wards away. Your power—and your ability to love—will be released as the wards unwind…but they might take some time. They were never meant to be on you so long. They’ve become intertwined with your fears and doubts. It might hurt as they unravel.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “It couldn’t be worse than how I have been feeling.”

A look of pain crossed her face and I was sorry I’d told her that, but then she steeled her face and laid the knife to the coils. Sparks flew from them and they lashed out at her.

“I can’t do it,” she said. “It has to be you.”

She handed me the knife. It felt cold and heavy in my hand. She showed me where I needed to cut. I lifted the knife to the coil…but then hesitated. I looked her in the eye. If I didn’t cut the coil, I’d be trapped in this moment with my mother. I could stay here with her forever, with the one person, along with my father, I was sure I loved, who understood me…as she understood me now. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. I was old enough to make my own decision. That look decided me. She had been willing to risk her own safety for me. I touched the knife to the coils.

Something inside snapped and I was back on the porch. Duncan was pulling my hand back, tugging me away from the rain. The coils were unwrapping around me, hissing in the rain, turning into white mist. My mother had been right. It hurt, as if someone was pulling a length of barbed wire through my flesh. Duncan tried to pull me out of the rain, but I was doubled over in pain. I got myself together enough to keep hold of his hand, and with my free hand I felt in mypocket for the bag of herbs I’d stashed there. I took a pinch out and held it up to the wind. Through teeth gritted with pain, I recited the last bit of the spell I’d memorized.

Carry these leaves on your wind.

Let all whom you touch put away their disguises.

You who reward the just and punish the false,

wash away all illusions with your rain.

Duncan tried to lunge at my hand, but he was too late. I let go of the herbs and the night was suddenly full of the scent of clary sage and bluebells. The wind blew the rain straight onto the porch. Duncan tried to step back but I had slipped my hand around his wrist and held on tight, aided by the power of the goddess I had called on. She was in me now. My wards were rising off my skin and dissolving in the mist as I turned around.

Claws slashed across my face, blinding me. I screamed and raised my hands to my eyes and fell to my knees. I heard Duncan’s footsteps running down the porch steps, then his cries of pain as he fled into the rain, and then nothing but my own ragged sobs mingling with the falling rain.

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