Page 13 of A Circle of Uncommon Witches

ELEVEN

Doreen stood facing a cliff. The earth beneath her feet was bright and green, the air filled with the salty sweetness of the water below. The sky overhead shifted from a somber gray into a faint, friendly shade of violet. There was a mist below blanketing the ocean, and behind sat the stone cottage with its chimney diligently pumping smoke.

It was not an unwelcoming picture, what surrounded her, and yet, as Doreen stood at the edge of the cliff, she could not feel her hands or her feet.

Eleanor had rushed her outside when Doreen swayed into the door.

“Fresh air, or as fresh as dead air can be,” Eleanor said, guiding them both down to the cliffs.

She wasn’t wrong. It did seem to help Doreen put her feet on the soil and focus her gaze on the distant horizon. Eleanor’s proclamation had knocked Doreen into a new plane of fear. Their whole family was cursed, true, but there was more to the curse. What Eleanor had told her—that the curse went beyond the grave, that the very souls of MacKinnon witches were trapped in the underworld—had shaken her to her core. Doreen was the one, and the only one, who could break this curse.

It was impossible.

“I really don’t understand,” she said, taking in a breath that didn’t really fill her lungs. Deep breaths in Not Scotland were like eating cotton candy. They were tasty but you didn’t get full, and after a while you ended up lightheaded with a stomachache. “Ambrose cursed our family from finding love because we sent Lenora away and she died. How could that affect our souls in the afterlife?”

Eleanor blinked. “Whoever told you your history, it is sorely dotted with holes.”

“No one told me anything,” Doreen said, her voice rising. “No one tells anyone anything, which is why Margot and I had to discover practically everything on our own, and even then, it was clearly not enough.”

“Secrets have a way of ruining everything,” Eleanor said, slipping a hand into Doreen’s. As she did, the panic that had been building in her like a fragmented song shifted. It went from a crushing melody into a coda resonating in a single focused chord for long seconds before her terror finally faded into silence. Doreen realized, as it settled, that the aggressive melody of the sigil had stopped following her. No more raining words or song, no more fear peppering her back.

“I can’t hear the sigil here,” she told Eleanor.

“You can only hear yourself on my land,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because I was loved.”

“Love,” she said. “It all comes back to that. Is it Ambrose’s curse affecting me like this, damning us to this purgatory?”

“No, it isn’t,” Eleanor said. She squeezed Doreen’s hand, released it, and reached into one of the deep pockets on her dress skirt. She pulled out a small pouch and passed it to Doreen. “Sit, please, you’re making the skies nervous. Reach in and pull out a handful. Toss them as you sit down—not too far, mind, just in front of us so I may see.”

Doreen took the bag and undid the burlap strings. She didn’t even think to object. She was overwhelmed and operating on the rise and fall of adrenaline. Sitting sounded ridiculously nice.

She reached in and her fingers brushed over coarse wood. She pulled out a handful of what appeared to be tiny branches and tossed them at their feet. Then she sat and stared at the symbols presented back to her. Three wee branches with their surface bark scraped free, with five carvings soldered into them.

“Excellent work,” Eleanor said. “The ‘Ambrose’ curse is a nuisance. It is a curse within a curse. It is not what led you here, not precisely. You were always on your way here.” She looked up at Doreen, meeting her eyes. “Did you never wonder of your past?”

“We moved to the Americas to escape from King James VI and his minions of horrific kill-mongers,” Doreen said, resting her head on the curve of her arm. “You think I was always doomed for the underworld?”

Eleanor grunted but continued studying the spread before her. “It is not doom, and that isn’t quite right. We had not moved yet when Ambrose met Lenora. When a young man and a thrill-seeking young woman had a whirlwind love affair that was not approved of by their families. When the woman betrayed the man and changed the course of his life.”

“Yes, it’s very Romeo and Juliet, isn’t it? Wait, she betrayed him?”

“That wasn’t the story you were sold, was it?”

“No,” Doreen said. “I was told Lenora died because of a broken heart. Ambrose lost his mind and cursed us in his grief.”

“Did she die of a broken heart? Or did she die before her heart could love?”

“What are you talking about?”

“There is more to their story than you, than even your Ambrose, knows.”

“He is not mine, and you’re wrong,” Doreen said. “She haunts him. At his castle. It’s a love that stands still to this day.”

“I very much doubt that,” Eleanor said, finally looking up from the spread. “It’s not love that leads a ghost to haunting. It’s debt. Either way, that’s not the origin of the curse.”

Doreen’s head spun. “Then what is?”

“It started with love, true enough, but it was unrequited love, which is the origin of your true curse, and it began long before Ambrose and Lenora. It ended in death, as curses so often do. The MacKinnons and MacDonalds are bound to one another in tragedy. You will have to come full circle to do what you need to free us all, and especially if you wish to free yourself.”

“Free us all.” Doreen closed her eyes. “Ada said the trials will break the curse.”

“The queen of the dead is an amoeba of a spirit. She is at fault for the original curse.”

Her eyes fluttered open. “What is the original curse?”

“It is her story, and I cannot tell it on this land.”

“How can I break a curse I don’t know?”

“The true trials give you an opportunity to transform.”

“The true trials?” Doreen’s head spun as she stared at Eleanor. “What are these , then?”

“You are a pawn in a game that was started long ago. This world is not the world of the gods, but of a creature who wishes she were one. It is a prison world.”

Doreen shook her head and realized her whole body was shaking too. “I don’t understand.”

Eleanor’s mouth shifted, her lips moving, but the words didn’t come free. She looked up at the sky and then back to Doreen; this time when she opened her mouth, the words followed. “I have said more than I thought I could, and it is all I can say.” She tapped the earth, flicking a finger out to point at the pieces of adorned wood. “Here is the truth, for the ogham does not hide it, not even in the motherlands.”

“You want to read runes now?” Doreen asked, wrapping her arms around her trembling body.

“Saints, no—runes keep their secrets; they are made of mystery. We’re trying to clear that away, and that is why we have the ogham.”

“These will tell me the truth of the trials?”

“What they can.”

“You can’t just tell me?”

“I can only say so much.”

“Oh, for goddesses’ sake,” she muttered.

“Ogham are connected to the earth, from which we come and return. They are also tied to spirit, of which we are made. They reveal .”

“In threes?” Doreen asked, eyeing the three twigs in front of her.

“You chose three. It could have been six or nine, but as you are a witch who walks with purpose, it makes a certain sense you would choose three. You aim to harm none and you practice knowing a curse can come back on you three-fold. Three times the curse. Once from Ada. Once from your Ambrose, and now there is you—you will be the curse of now or the freedom from it.”

“Terrific.”

“You are shaking.”

“You are observant.”

“And you’re angry.”

“Of course I am,” Doreen said, gritting her teeth. “I’m trapped here and you’re telling me there aren’t trials, that the curse isn’t the same one I need to break.”

“There are still trials, they are simply not the ones you expected. The rules of the trials are Ada’s, and as she completed the original trials, hers are the same. You will complete them and free us.”

“Fantastic. Ada made a prison world, we’re in it, and I still have to do the trials.”

“It is good you are angry. You will need that fire.”

“I’m nothing but fire,” Doreen said, and looked down. “What do these three not-runes say?”

“They speak clearly,” Eleanor said. “One is beith of the birch, one is fearn of the alder, and lastly, nion of the ash. Love magic is at work. Wise counsel must be heeded—that’s where I come in—and finally, the strength of women will succeed to conquer all.”

“You do realize readings are always vague enough to be applied to anything.”

“Not when you’re open.” Eleanor pushed the runes toward Doreen. “Your quest is not an easy one. You must keep your heart and head open. Seek wise counsel and refuse that of those wishing to sway you onto the wrong path. Your ancestors have the answers you seek and when the time comes, you will have the opportunity to join them and transform that which needs to be changed. If you don’t screw it up.”

“Of course,” Doreen said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her tone. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“There is also the problem of Ambrose.”

“Seeing as how I have lost him, how big of one can he be?”

“That depends on you,” Eleanor said. “On your kind and caring heart and integrity.”

“What does my heart have to do with it?”

“You wandered off the path, but into where you were meant to be. You found me, the wise counsel.”

“That’s what you are?”

Eleanor shot her a look. She reached into the bag and pulled out a single ogham. “ Tinne of the holly. The holly king is your Ambrose. It is uncertain if he is working for or against you; he perhaps has yet to make up his own mind. A warrior, but a bullish fool too. Still.” She tilted her head from side to side, as though deciding something. “Ambrose did not let you go. He kept looking for you, and he did not find his way to where he could have been aided by his own wise counsel. He found his way down into a pocket of time, and time is not kind here. Not when it holds an echo of the past. It is a torturous existence to step into, and he has fallen inside. You can help him, or you can continue on your own.”

“He fell, as in literally?”

“Yes.” She leveled her gaze at the horizon. “He found a cave that is not a cave and it trapped him.”

Doreen shifted her weight, unthinking, preparing to stand. “The cave of echoes?”

Eleanor nodded.

“Then I have to go.”

“Says who?”

“His valet. We met her in the castle, and she said we needed to go there for the trials. That’s where he is, and where I should be.”

Eleanor raised a brow. “This valet is a ghost of his line?”

“No, but a ghost he knew.”

“Or perhaps a spirit seeking mischief.”

“Or seeking redemption? Why is there a cave of echoes if these aren’t the true trials?”

“These are trials, only not the ones you were promised. These trials are for your freedom. And for mine, and the rest of us trapped here. Trapped like Ambrose is now.”

There was a brief flash and Eleanor shifted from black-and-white into Technicolor. Once, and then again, so fast Doreen almost thought she imagined it.

If not for the pained expression on Eleanor’s face.

“Are you okay?” Doreen asked.

“The queen of the dead keeps her shades close, and you are now in her personal hell. None of us are okay.”

“Why would Ada want to trap us?”

“You know what the Order is?” Eleanor asked.

“The queen and her shadow army.”

“Yes.” Eleanor flickered again. She leaned closer. “They are the souls that do the queen’s bidding and keep her going, give her the long life that sustains her over the centuries. She can control them in death, and she wants to control you in life. She needs you, and she has trapped you so she can take your soul.”

“No,” Doreen said, swallowing past the panic. It couldn’t be true, and yet.… Ambrose had tried to tell her. He’d said that Ada had wanted to eat her soul in the cave, and if he was telling the truth…

“I have nothing to gain and everything to lose by telling you this,” Eleanor said. “Yours is a difficult path to tread. You have the choice now: to save Ambrose and to fight, or perhaps you prefer to take the easier path. One where you forget and live like us? It’s painless, the crossing over.”

“Ada sent us here,” Doreen said. “You’re telling me she orchestrated it all.”

“She couldn’t take you straight out, so she found a workaround. Her army is her captives. You would make a great addition. She could eat on you for centuries.”

Doreen shuddered. She ran her hands through her hair, grasping for sense in the senseless. What if it was true? What if it wasn’t? Should she trust Eleanor, this strange creature she’d only just met? What if she was lying to her about everything?

She turned back and stared at Eleanor. “What would you say if you were wearing another face?”

Eleanor smiled. “I would say the same, as I am always truthful to my own. You are mine and I am yours.”

A shimmer of light shifted from Eleanor and into Doreen. The truth of her, of the woman before her, wafted around her. There were no lies in her soul.

“Shit.”

“I am sorry to be the bearer of this news.”

“I can’t leave Ambrose,” Doreen said, rubbing at the chill settling into her skin. “I won’t abandon him in some—what did you call it? Cave that time forgot—the cave of echoes. I can’t allow him to be tortured again. That is not who I am.” There was more to her decision, an undeniable truth blooming under Doreen’s feet that she didn’t want to examine too closely yet. The punch to her stomach at the idea of anything happening to Ambrose. “And I sure as anything don’t want to become whatever you are.” She swallowed. “If this is all a trap, if Ada is trying to lock us away, then I have to break out. To break us all out.”

“I hoped that is what you would say,” Eleanor said. She took the ogham bag and dropped the pieces back into it. She passed them to Doreen. “These are yours now. Keep them close.”

Doreen accepted the bag. They stood on the edge of the cliffs, facing one another. She was uncertain what move to make next. Eleanor reached out and pulled her close, holding her tight. That same sense of peace descended over Doreen, and she squeezed back.

“We all wear many faces, but it’s the truth inside us that reveals what we need most. Look to yourself when you are lost and stay open. Remember, true love is tricky but worth the leap, wise counsel does not judge or ask for payment, and your sisterhood will never desert you.”

Then she was gone, walking back into her stone cottage, and Doreen was stepping onto a path that led her to an uncertain future. Her lost Ambrose awaited.