“How do we put things back to the way they were before?”
A discomforting pause had ensued.
“I’m afraid we can’t,” Sage had said. “Things can’t ever go back to the way they originally were. There will be differences. I think we may be able to lift the longevity spell, but that is no easy thing to accomplish. Longevity is a unique category of magic. High magick. There are risks.”
“That doesn’t matter to me.”
“Significant risks.”
“I want to go ahead with it.”
“You could die,” Rosemary had said. “And since you have no soul, that would be the end of your existence.”
“But Justine would be okay? She would be safe?”
“She would be safe,” Sage said. “I don’t know about ‘okay.’”
They had decided to consult the coven. It had been unanimously agreed that they would participate as a group in the lifting of the longevity spell, and that above all it had to be done fast. They would meet at Cauldron Island and perform the ritual at Crystal Cove, at the old abandoned schoolhouse where they had conducted many successful rites and ceremonies in the past.
No one in the coven had objected to Jason’s request to keep Justine out of it. There was no way in hell that Jason was going to put Justine in the position of having to make an agonizing choice, or trying to sacrifice herself for him. Protecting her from that was the very least he could do.
His thoughts were dragged back to the present as someone knocked at the front door of the lighthouse. The first witch … covener … had arrived.
Following Sage into the main room, Jason saw Rosemary welcoming in a middle-aged woman, slender and tall, with artfully styled red hair and a fine-boned face. Her Stevie Nicks rock-glam vibe was enhanced by a crushed-velvet skirt, a skintight top overlaid with a delicate macramé vest, and studded wedge-heeled boots.
Rosemary and Sage both went to embrace her, and she laughed in apparent pleasure at seeing them.
As soon as he heard that distinctive throaty laugh, Jason knew who she was.
Looking over Sage’s shoulder, the woman caught sight of Jason. The amusement died from her expression. The atmosphere chilled. Her eyes were crystalline and smoked with heavy makeup, her gaze unblinking as she approached him.
“Jason Black,” he said, reaching out to shake hands, then curtailing the gesture as he saw she wasn’t going to respond. “I’d hoped to meet you under better circumstances than this. But it’s a pleasure to—”
“You can hardly do anything worse to a crafter than steal her grimoire,” Marigold said crisply.
“I gave it back,” Jason pointed out, careful to strip all defensiveness from his tone.
“You want credit for that?” Marigold asked acidly.
Jason kept his mouth shut. There was no way he or anyone could blame her for disliking a man who had put her daughter’s life in danger.
He studied her, seeing hints of Justine here and there: the slim and leggy build, the shape of the jaw, the skin as perfect as bone china. But Marigold’s face, for all its beauty, had a masklike quality, a façade that concealed the propulsive bitterness of someone whose worst fears about the world had been confirmed.
“As I understand it,” Marigold said, “you hired a pair of hillbilly crafters to perform a complex spell, and surprise, surprise … something went wrong.”
Rosemary answered before Jason could reply. “The spell was cast very competently. In fact, the strength of the spell is the problem.”
“Yes. The witch’s bane has been transferred to Justine. Does she know about what’s happening tonight?”
“No,” Jason said. “She’d only try to argue with me. It’s my fault. My responsibility. I’ll take care of it.” Jason paused before adding sincerely, “I appreciate you coming here to help, Marigold.”
“I didn’t say I would help.”
Rosemary and Sage wore identical expressions of bemusement.
“I have one condition,” Marigold continued. “I’ll only do it if you promise never to see or speak to Justine again. I want you to disappear from her life.”
“Or what?” Jason asked. “You’d let your own daughter be taken out by the witch’s bane?”
Marigold didn’t reply. But for a split second the truth was on her face, and it made Jason’s blood run cold. Yes. She was fully prepared to throw Justine into the volcano.
“Marigold,” Rosemary asked sharply, “is this bargain really necessary?”
“It is. He’s the one who endangered her in the first place. And Justine is equally responsible for breaking the geas. I want her to learn a lesson from this.”
“Teach her lessons on your own time,” Jason said irritably. “Right now the goal is to extend her life beyond the next three damn days.”
“So she can continue to screw it up?” Marigold stunned him by asking.
Jason gave her an incredulous glance. “It’s her right to do so, isn’t it?”
“If you were a parent, you would understand that sometimes the worst thing we can do is protect a child from the consequences of her actions. Justine may learn something from this comeuppance.”
There was a strange and disturbing note of satisfaction in Marigold’s voice. If Jason had had any questions about the estrangement between Justine and her mother, they would have been resolved in that moment. This was not a mother who would welcome back a prodigal child, unless that child came back crawling and decimated.
“Maybe,” Jason said. “But if my child were facing her comeuppance, I wouldn’t buy center-court seats and bring popcorn, and call it a great parenting technique.”
She shot him a hostile glance and spoke to Rosemary and Sage. “This entire problem could be solved easily if we tossed him off the cliff.”
“I would take a running leap if that was the only way to help Justine,” Jason said. “But in the hopes of preserving what little time I might have left, I’d like to give the spell-breaking thing a shot first.”
“Then give me your promise,” Marigold insisted. “Tell me you’ll leave Justine no matter what happens.”
“I can’t give a promise when I know I would break it.”
Without another word, Marigold turned on her heel and headed to the door.
Rosemary hurried after her. “Marigold! Think carefully about what you’re doing. Your daughter’s life is hanging in the balance. You must do this for her.”
Marigold’s mask broke long enough to reveal a glimpse of anguished rage. “What has she done for me?” she cried, and slammed the door as she left the house.
Jason and Sage stood alone in the silence. “I’ve got one of those, too,” Jason said after a moment. “Only it’s my father.”
Sage was bewildered. “Marigold didn’t used to be like this.”
“She’s probably always been exactly like this. She’s just gotten worse at covering it up.” Jason shoved his hands in his pockets and went to the window, staring at the blood-colored sunset. “Can we still lift the spell without her, or should I start practicing my long jump?”
“We can still lift the spell. But … I’m sure Marigold will return to help. She won’t turn her back on her own daughter.”
He gave her an incisive glance. “Her back’s been turned for four years, Sage.”
Rosemary entered the lighthouse, looking aggrieved. “The water taxi was still waiting at the dock. Marigold had no intention of staying. She just came here for a bit of grandstanding. I told her if she wouldn’t help the coven in a time of need, particularly when her own daughter’s well-being is involved—there isn’t much point in her belonging.”
Sage’s eyes widened. “How did she answer?”
“She didn’t.”
“She would never voluntarily leave the coven,” Sage said.
“No. Which is why we’re not going to ask her to leave voluntarily. After I talk to the coveners, I’m going to make certain she’s thrown out on her ass.” Catching Sage’s expression, Rosemar
y said, “I’ve defended Marigold for years. I’ve always tried to focus on the good in her and overlook the rest. But this can’t be overlooked, Sage. This makes it impossible to pretend, to Justine or ourselves, that Marigold cares about anyone but herself.”
Distressed, Sage went to straighten a stack of magazines on the table. “I think she might show up tonight and surprise us.”
Rosemary glanced at her partner with a mixture of love and exasperation. She turned her attention to Jason. “She won’t show up,” she said flatly.
“Personally I’m glad,” Jason said. “My sixth sense tells me she would have added an extra step to my ritual. Like evisceration.”
* * *
As the last smear of daylight faded from the dark lacquered sky, the coven arrived in groups of two and three. They were all dressed comfortably in jeans or long skirts, accessorized with colorful scarves and copper jewelry. They were a pleasant, chatty group, clearly relishing the opportunity to see one another. As they grazed among the food that Sage had set out, roasted red pepper dip with pita chips, artichoke and mushroom crostini, pumpkin dumplings on skewers, they could have been attending a monthly book club meeting.
“Jason,” Rosemary murmured to him at eleven P.M., “we’ll need to begin preparing the schoolhouse for the ritual. It’s about two thirds of a mile from here. If you wouldn’t mind driving the coveners there in groups of three, they can begin setting up.”
“Sure. What’s the significance of groups of three?”
Her tone was dry. “It’s the number of passenger seats in the golf cart.”
“Golf cart?”
“No one has cars on the island. The residents use bicycles or light electric vehicles. We keep ours in the green shed outside. Would you mind backing it out and pulling it up to the front door? We’ll have the first group of coveners and supplies waiting.”
“No problem,” Jason said.
Her gaze was speculative and kind. “This isn’t the usual weeknight activity for a man in your position, is it?”
He smiled slightly. “Chauffeuring witches in a golf cart to an abandoned schoolhouse at midnight? Not really. But it’s a nice change in the routine.”
One of the crafters, an elderly woman with white hair and bright blue eyes, approached Rosemary and gently tapped her on the shoulder. “It’s getting late,” she said. “Shouldn’t Marigold have arrived by now?”
“Marigold isn’t coming,” Rosemary said, her mouth tightening. “It seems she had other plans.”
* * *
After a couple of maddening attempts at trying to fix the time and date settings on her phone, Justine gave up and downloaded a Scrabble app. Maybe playing a few rounds against the computer would give her some insight into why Jason was such a fan of the game. Curling up in the corner of her sofa, she adjusted the setting of the game to “easy” and started to play.
A half hour later, she had reached a few conclusions: She would be a much more successful player if the Scrabble dictionary would allow the use of certain four-letter words, that quat was the name of an African evergreen shrub, and that there was something seriously addictive about the sound of the electronic tiles being clicked.
She was mulling over her deficiency in words starting with z when she heard a knock at the cottage door. Wondering if there was a problem with a guest, or if Zoë had decided to drop by, Justine hopped off the sofa and went to answer the door in her sock feet.
Opening it, she felt her heart stop as she was confronted with the last person she expected to see.
“Mom?”
Twenty-five
Whenever Justine had tried to envision a reunion with her mother, she had thought it would take place in cautious increments … an e-mail, a letter, a phone call, a brief visit. She should have known better. Marigold had always been a creature of impulse, following every whim and doing whatever was necessary to avoid the consequences. Showing up at the front door was to Marigold’s advantage; the surprise of it would throw Justine off balance.
Justine had always hoped that someday she and her mother might come to a new understanding and acceptance of each other. Some resolution that didn’t involve winning and losing, but instead … peace. But after four years of estrangement, her mother’s eyes were hard with the same anger that had underpinned every moment of Justine’s childhood. No visible signs of softening.
“Mom, what are you doing here?” Opening the door, she stepped back to allow Marigold inside.
Marigold ventured just past the threshold and looked around.
There was a time when Justine would have worried about her mother’s reaction to the cottage, the inn, the life she had built. She would have desperately wanted Marigold’s good opinion, so seldom given. It came as a revelation that she no longer needed her mother’s approval. It was enough to know that she had made the right choices for herself.
“Is there a problem?” Justine asked. “Why are you here?”
Marigold’s voice was threaded with contempt. “Is it hard to believe that I might want to see my own daughter?”
Justine had to think about that. “Yes,” she said. “You’ve never liked my company, and I still haven’t done what you wanted me to do. So there’s no reason for you to visit unless there’s a problem.”
“The problem, as always, is you,” Marigold said flatly.
As always. Those two words brought the past into the room with them as if it were a living presence. A giant standing over them both, casting an inescapable shadow of blame.
There had been no softening in Marigold’s heart. She had ossified until, like a beautiful stone statue, any change in posture would cause her to break and crumble. She would never be able to turn her head to look in a new direction, or take a step forward, or hold her daughter in her arms. How terrible it must have been, Justine thought with a trace of compassion, to stay so rigid while life changed around you.
“Does this have to do with the geas?” Justine asked gently. “Rosemary and Sage must have told you by now. You must be angry.”
“I made a sacrifice for you, and you threw it away. How should I feel, Justine?”
“Maybe a little like the way I felt, when I found out about it.” She saw from Marigold’s incredulous fury that it hadn’t occurred to her to wonder about Justine’s feelings.
“You’ve always been ungrateful,” Marigold snapped, “but I never thought of you as stupid. I gave you what you needed. I did what was best for you.”
“I wish you had waited until I was older,” Justine said quietly. “I wish you’d explained it to me first. Maybe allowed me to have a say in it.”
“I suppose I should have asked your permission before feeding you, clothing you, taking you to the dentist and the pediatrician—”
“That’s different. Those things are all part of raising a child.”
“Ungrateful,” Marigold spat.
“No. I’m grateful that you took care of me and raised me. I have to believe you did the best you could. But the thing is, you made a decision for me that wasn’t yours to make. Binding a lifelong curse to your daughter doesn’t fall under the category of dental visits or polio vaccinations. And you know that, or you would have mentioned something about it to me.”
“I kept it secret because I knew if you found out, you would ruin everything. I knew you would do something stupid. And you have.” The bleached white of Marigold’s face contrasted sharply with the red fury of her hair, the ruddy slashes of her brows over hard eyes. She burned like an angel of vengeance as she continued. “I’ve just come from Cauldron Island. They’re performing a midnight rite because of you and your selfishness. And if they don’t succeed, you’re going to die. The witch’s bane has turned on you.”
Justine discovered that her heart wasn’t entirely safe, after all. One human being could always find a way to hurt another.
“You fell in love with a man who betrayed you,” Marigold ranted, “and the witch’s bane is going to kill you unless they do somethin
g. It’s your fault. You deserve this.”
Justine tried to gather her wits. Her own voice seemed to come from far away. “What are they doing? What kind of rite?”
“They’re trying to lift a spell from the man you’re involved with. He’s there at this moment. I met him. He might die for you. And if that happens … the blood is on your hands.”
* * *
When the last group of coveners had been delivered to the old schoolhouse, Jason accompanied them inside.
The crafters had been busy. The place looked like a set for a horror movie, with black cloth draped everywhere and a wealth of flickering candles. Incense burned in a pedestal bowl, thickening the air with aromatic smoke. A huge pentagram had been chalked onto the floor, with handfuls of crystals placed at various places around the central star. Chalices and wands had been set all around the pentagram.
The hair rose on the back of Jason’s neck.
Violet, a crafter in her mid-thirties, came forward to take his arm and give it a comforting squeeze. “Sorry. I know it looks creepy. But we want to do the very best we can for you, so we didn’t hold back.”
“Tim Burton would be impressed,” he said, and she smiled.
As he glanced at the faces of the women around him, Jason was reassured. They were trying to help him, and in doing so, they would help Justine. “There’s something I need to know,” he said, and was surprised when they all fell silent and looked at him. A couple of coveners paused in their sweeping, while another who was arranging crystals looked up from her task. “I need to know that the results of what I did won’t cause problems for Justine in the future. In other words, whatever you have to do to make sure that Justine will be safe … go for it. No matter what the consequences to me. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“We understand.” Violet regarded him with patent concern. “Rosemary explained the risks, yes? This spell is hard to remove. Like separating sand mixed with sugar. And once the witch’s bane is focused on you again, you might have very little time left. No one knows what condition you’ll be in when the spell is lifted, or what will happen.”