Page 2 of A Circle of Uncommon Witches

TWO

The Dead House did not exist on any map. No uncloaking spell, no revealing incantation or scrying could bring it into Doreen’s reality. But there was that small memory, curled up like a child hiding during a game of hide-and-seek, just out of sight.

Only one witch would dare to alter Doreen’s memory.

Stella.

Doreen sat beneath the supermoon a few short hours after speaking to Margot, preparing to open herself up to that which had been hidden from her sight. This night was typically a night of celebration. For charging crystals, casting, and calling down the moon.

The trees on the estate of the MacKinnon family weren’t like other trees. Oh, they looked like the rest of the deciduous plants you might find growing in the forest. There were tall ones, squat ones, full and flowy ones. Romantic weeping willows with their roots tracing zigzags underneath the ground, stately pines with their erect spines staring down at the more compact, sophisticated magnolias. Nothing was amiss if you glanced at them as you passed by, not that you could—the MacKinnon estate was all-knowing—but it was what might happen if you climbed into any one of these ordinary-appearing trees.

Branch magic is old magic, started by the goddess of the Celtic broadleaf forests of Scotland, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. Thousands of years ago, one single tree was planted from a special seed. This tree was less of a tree and more of a portal. Meant for use by witches alone, it had the ability to carry the witch anywhere they wanted to go. Unfortunately, the goddess soon discovered that witches traveling from the tree would end up trapped where they landed. On another continent, a lonely island, or even in the otherworld. She decided to plant a handful of trees throughout the world so there was always a way to find your way home. Over time the trees were forgotten, except by a few old witch families who kept the locations guarded, and who planted new seeds in a few precise locations. Eventually, the MacKinnons even built their family home near one, and over the years they watched as the roots of one special tree spread and infected the others on their property.

Today, many of the trees on the MacKinnon estate were magical, ready to spirit them away to any number of exotic locales at first daydream. And because it wouldn’t be prudent for children to start disappearing on MacKinnon land, the wards were strong, and the way was shut… unless you were a MacKinnon woman.

(It should be noted, there were rarely males born into the MacKinnon family, and on the few occasions they were, they were never magical. Whether it was a byproduct of the curse, as Margot believed, or simply, as Stella stated, “Women are stronger and we are strength,” Doreen couldn’t know for sure.)

Doreen looked up at the moon, and she brushed each of her seven chakras with a charged amethyst, opening herself up to remembrance. The wind sighed as the earth beneath her warmed, and Doreen whispered the four words Margot had gifted her with: “The Dead House exists.” No sooner had the words left her mouth than a haze in her mind shifted, and the forgotten memory arose with new clarity.

When Doreen was twelve and Margot thirteen, the branches were traversed and the estate filled with aunts and cousins under the light of the full moon. Picnic blankets and tents spread across their yard, leaving it looking more like Burning Man than a family reunion. Bonfires were scattered across the land, altars erected, and circles drawn. Into each circle went the eldest MacKinnon from each corner of the family line.

These women chanted in unison: Welcome, Mother of all life, gale in the air, spark in the fire, sapling in the earth, droplet in the endless sea. Come into me, into us, bring your knowledge, protection, and love. Be true to Me, we honor that which you have created, we are true to you. With harm to none, so it shall be.

While they called down the moon and one of her goddesses, Margot and Doreen were eavesdropping on two aunts who’d had far too much wildflower wine.

“It’s not fair that we don’t get to see the Dead House when we’ve traveled all the way here,” Aunt Sweetie, who was neither an aunt nor very sweet, bemoaned to her sister Helena as they sat on the picnic table nearest to the house, unaware of the two girls hiding beneath it.

“They won’t let anyone near it, and there’s no getting our hands on the Secretum Veritas either,” Helena said, hiccupping softly as she built a crown from fallen sycamore bark and fat maple leaves. “All secret truths are hidden away. It’s Stella’s domain.”

Sweetie swayed, shifting her elbows forward, and a hunk of petals rained down on the girls. Margot handed them up, and Sweetie thanked Helena, while Doreen tried not to laugh. “Don’t you think she might have too much domain? I heard she keeps a sharp eye on her two girls, terrified that the thirteenth line has the power to undo us all.”

“Hogwash,” Helena said, while Margot elbowed Doreen. “She’s just overprotective, is all. After how she lost her mama, who wouldn’t be? She knotted that grief to herself like it was a cape to keep her warm. Can’t put it down, won’t take it off. She’s just doing what she thinks is best. Trying to give them as much of a childhood to dream about as you can with our situation.”

“Yeah, right, Stella the benevolent.” Sweetie snorted, the bench creaking as she shifted her weight. “Keeping the Ambrose witch hidden from us all.”

Doreen and Margot exchanged a look. What witch? Margot mouthed. Doreen shrugged and pointed back up to the aunts.

“I’ve heard he was a fine specimen,” Helena said. “You think it’s true?”

“I think he’s like the Order of the Dark Shadows, the Sgàilean Dorcha . A myth that sounds like it must be real. If he exists, he is the Sleeping Beauty in the Dead House. Ambrose MacDonald is on ice, and there’s no way to get the key.” Doreen wrote the name down in the journal she always carried with her, while Margot stared on, her eyes wide. “I tell you what,” Sweetie continued, “I think she’s given up. We’ve all given up. Destined for heartbreak, the lot of us.”

“She doesn’t view it like that. It’s power, not being chained to love,” Helena said, the soft timbre of her voice coated in sadness.

“I don’t know that I believe that ,” Sweetie said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I think there’s more to life than power and family. It’s why I want a peek inside the Dead House. The secrets kept there are our answers to the curse, and I have to hope that life is meant for more than this.”

“You mean more than your five paramours and fifteen dogs.”

“Flip that equation around, darling Helena, but yes.”

They broke into giggles at that, and Doreen and Margot crept out from under the table, slinking toward the house.

“The curse can be broken,” Doreen whispered, her voice caked in excitement.

“The Dead House,” Margot said, slipping her hand into Doreen’s and tugging her forward.

“And the Secretum Veritas,” Doreen said, squeezing her palm.

Behind them, the chanting MacKinnons levitated into the air, fireworks filling the sky as the other witches shouted with joy. Neither Margot nor Doreen looked back; they were too busy focusing on the future.

“That’s where our answers await,” they said, looking at one another with hope before running inside.

But no matter how often or hard they tried, Margot and Doreen could never remember the name of the Secretum Veritas. There was a book, they later were told, rumored to contain power, but you could only call it to you by giving up what you valued most. The one time they’d tried to summon a key for it, thinking they could outsmart a silly old book, Stella appeared at the door of the attic.

“Do you want to lose one another?” she’d shouted, her face a molten purple. “Calling that book will rob you of what you most love, you fools.”

Terrified, they’d helped her scatter their rose quartz circle, apologized profusely, and spent the rest of the day collecting thyme and tearing up at what they might have done, had Stella not found them in time.

But times, like the seasons, change. Doreen had lost everything that mattered to her. Margot was gone, the clock was ticking down to her death, and Doreen refused to ever do to another man what she’d nearly done to Jack just to save herself.

She knew what to do now that the memory was made clear. And there was only one reason it had been hidden to begin with—Stella was working against her, trying to control her actions and keep her on the path she preferred for Doreen.

It was time to go against Stella, call the Secretum Veritas, find the house, and wake Ambrose MacDonald.

It was time to break the curse.

In the middle of the country, surrounded by rolling hills and towering trees that never failed to shed their sap and needles, the town of Pines existed. Green, lush, and quiet, it was a calm place, but it was never a silent place.

Especially not for Ambrose MacDonald.

Birds chirped, tweeted, cawed, and occasionally quacked from beyond where he was suspended in a state neither here nor there. Rain thrashed against windows that rattled, thunder cracked, and the world around him shook. He could not touch the world, but sometimes, he could taste it.

It was honey, sweet but bitter, pressing against his lips. There would be a waft of jasmine, and the sound of steps coming to and from nowhere.

He didn’t always smell or know or hear things. At times, he lived in the dark. At other times, he thrashed against the darkness. Fought the terror that clawed down his throat and ripped away pieces of his memory, gnawing on them over and over. Those heartbreaking memories showing him Lenora in the meadow, dancing beneath the stars, writhing with passion in his arms. He tried to hold on to them, but they shifted to smoke, wafting out of his grasp. Instead, he was wrapped in soaked muslin, dipped in a hundred petals of rose, sprinkled with anise and a poison so sweet it curdled his blood. Then he was no longer in his body. Or any other body that he recognized. He was here, but not. Time was here, but not.

Every so often, he would hear words whispered over him. Or under him. Or from somewhere near him. A chant sung low, an incantation that soothed him to his soul. Other times, he was awoken to the sharp words of a language he no longer could claim to know. Sounds more than words, and they opened him up like an ax slashing into a melon, splintering it wide. Images would flood in when this happened, of the world around him, of those he had loved—who were now lost. Of time moving on, and finally of him. Trapped forever. Cursed. By the witches MacKinnon.

So, he bided his time and he waited, knowing that one day, he would take his revenge.

Doreen went deep into the woods and drew her circle with fresh salt from the Dead Sea. She laid a line of herbs inside it and used her wand to clear the air, keeping the circle closed to prying eyes and ears. Then, placing the bloodstone in her bra, over her heart, she set about making a fire, using fallen wood, along with leaves and twigs. She had her fire steel, and struck it over the kindling until it caught, blowing gently as she placed it into the wood. The flames began to catch, crackling in the air as they sparked. She pulled a small cauldron from her bag and gently sat it in the fire, before adding the vial of moonwater she had collected.

Once the water began to boil, she removed the bloodstone and dropped it in, adding a lock of her own hair and the last of the herbs.

She sat in front of the cauldron, her eyes closed, and breathed deeply, drawing in the smoke, and opening herself up to that which she sought. Her head swam, and the ground beneath her shifted from firm to air, her bones light, her thoughts clear.

“Sometimes, you just have to be willing to believe,” Margot used to tell her. “Allowing what you need to find you is half the battle, especially when you spend most of your life being told you’ll never have what you want.”

There was a lot that Doreen wanted, but did not have. Her mother. Margot by her side. True love.

A pair of eyes flashed into her mind, and at first Doreen thought she knew them. Jack Morgan. The man she almost married. Her hands shook and she dropped the spell. Doreen took deep breaths, trying to shake off the memories pressing in.

“It’s not real, it’s not him,” she said out loud. She wasn’t going to look into the past, not right when she was trying to change her future. She didn’t want to think of Jack, of Stella and the sharp sting of betrayal she’d suffered.

Doreen knew what she wanted. She wove the spell back into place and asked for words hidden from sight, hidden from her. She offered the pain of the heartbreak she’d suffered so long ago with Jack and cast the spell.

She raised her hands high, and the words lifted off the page before floating down into her palms, running up one arm and down the other. Doreen had stolen the spell from the book like a thief in the night, cracking a vault on the first attempt. This spell came with a warning. Magic, like so much in life, was born of give-and-take. Doreen did not mind the giving if she could finally get what she needed. The words faded into her skin, and the knowledge settled deep inside her. She opened her mouth and spoke the name: “Ambrose MacDonald.”

The wind howled, lightning split the sky, and thunder rumbled so deeply across the forest that it shook the ground beneath her. Doreen did not so much as twitch a single muscle.

“Show me,” she commanded.

The sky darkened from violet to navy to a deep charcoal, the stars overhead blinking out one by one. Doreen opened her eyes and saw the sheen of a single star lighting the world. It was all that remained in the skies, illuminating a path into the forest.

Her pulse quickened, her heart beating rapidly in her chest. She stood on shaking legs, and her hands trembled. She was clumsy in clearing her circle, nearly knocking the cauldron over twice as she sought to disperse the fire and circle. It took her three times as long as it should have, and when she stepped onto the lit path, a vibration rocketed up her arms and nearly blasted her back. She planted her feet, took a deep breath, and began to walk. One slow and forced step at a time, into the woods, toward a house that time had almost forgotten.

October usually came calling with its chilling bite. The month of shawls and cardigans, of gourds and pumpkins, spiced ciders and steaming-hot cocoas. There should have been a chill in the air, but instead the wind blew hot as Doreen walked out of the woods onto Willow Road. The street was mostly abandoned. Not even desperate teenagers came here to vandalize or throw rowdy red-Solo-cup parties. Willow Road had been a “residents’ row” once upon a time. Home to multiple asylums that ran out of money at the turn of the century, the people had been displaced after a cut in funding, and the buildings shuttered one morning without fanfare or warning.

Doreen found the street quiet and peaceful. She walked to the end, following the last of the light, and came to a stop in front of a home that stood out like a redhead in a sea of blondes.

The town of Pines, Georgia, featured tasteful Craftsman-style houses these days, in shades of neutral grays and navy and dark green. This house sat far enough back from the road for the weeds and trees and bushes to grow over its lower half like a bushy, determined beard, and it was hard to say what style it was. From the corner of her eye, Doreen thought it was a seventies-style Mediter ranean home, but when she looked again, it was a gray brick building without windows resembling a castle dressed as a prison. She blinked and it was a ranch house, and when she looked at the home from under her lashes it was a Victorian. The house clearly couldn’t make up its mind on what it was, but that wasn’t its fault. Doreen knew a spell when she tasted one.

She spit out the flavor of ash and brine water. Her lips tingled as though they had been stung by a family of bees. This was no simple magic.

But she was no simple witch.

Doreen had always been clever, though she hadn’t been strong. That was Margot’s lane. Margot, who stood up for her when other kids taunted her for being too strange because she only wore black and would rather be inside with a book than speak to them. Margot, who taught Doreen to stand up straight, stare people in the eye when they intimidated her, and repeat their mantra in her head, “I am magic.”

Margot was no longer by her side. Doreen had failed her in not being more active in helping break the curse before she got married. Doreen had been too complacent, refusing to go against her family because she was happy with her life, with Margot and the shop. That was gone. Now Doreen would have to be the strong one.

“This is a MacKinnon curse, and I am a MacKinnon witch.”

She pulled a small athame she had named Delores from her bag and slid the blade across her palm, wincing.

Doreen walked up to the house, digging deep to push forward as the feeling of a hundred snakes slithered over her skin, the sound of a thousand bees buzzing in her ears. She was gasping, out of breath, and shaking when she reached the front door. The door shifted from brown to red to rotting, the handle a glimmer that never seemed to be where it claimed. With a sigh, she closed her eyes, opened her fisted hand, and smacked it on the wood. At her bloody handprint, everything went utterly and totally silent.

When Doreen opened her eyes, she was looking at a black door without a handle. The house itself was as gray as the sea after a storm. The space for windows was outlined with pointed arches and bricked in. The roof was steeply pitched, and delicate wooden trim ran along front-facing gables. It was a Gothic masterpiece, and she couldn’t suppress the excitement that rose like bubbles in her even as a wicked shiver wracked its way down her spine.

Her handprint stood out, the blood soaking in to reveal a pale outline of her palm and fingers. MacKinnon blood. MacKinnon magic. She took a breath and pushed at the place where her hand was outlined. The door creaked open halfway. Enough for her to slip through.

The light of the moon followed her in, its sweeping rays sufficient for her to see the room she entered. The walls were blue, the color of a cerulean sea, and when she brushed a finger across, she touched soft fabric. Velvet. An intricate design of vines formed a pattern beginning at the door frame, where a single line stretched out and branched across the walls. As her eyes adjusted, she realized the spell kept the house hidden and locked away, and whatever was inside bolted in. A binding spell woven into the very fabric of the home.

The floors were a faded dusty wood, and there was a single velvet chair in the corner. If there were other rooms aside from this single one, she could not see them. It was a cage. Ornate and beautiful, with thick crown molding along the ceiling, at the base of the floor, and framing the arched windows that showcased nowhere.

In the center of the room was a storm.

A cyclone of mist and sand and wind and rain. Lightning sparked inside it, in a flash of brightness before the wind cut through and a dark mist swarmed within. In that brief moment, Doreen saw into the storm, to the man suspended inside.

Like Margot, she’d assumed that if he did exist, Ambrose MacDonald was locked in the curse like Sleeping Beauty. Perhaps it was the child who’d first heard the story still writing it in her mind. But this was no easy sleeping curse. This was a nightmare.

She’d only been able to catch a glimpse of his features. Furrowed brow, somber, thick slashes over closed eyes. His lashes had been dark and long, and his mouth pursed in pain. For three hundred years he’d been fighting the storm that raged around him, and it struck her that when she set him free, he might turn whatever rage had been building just as long directly on her.

She stared at the swirling black mist, and her gaze dipped to his left hand. It was held out, as though reaching for help. As though he were begging.

“And harm none,” Doreen whispered. This was the opposite of the creed she followed. This was torture.

She decided it didn’t matter. She needed his help, and he needed hers.

Doreen was all in.

She wasn’t sure how to break him free, having never come across a binding quite like this. Her instinct was to cast a circle, to see if she could pull the magic into it and buy enough time to yank him out.

“Kill me.”

Doreen’s breath caught in her chest as she looked up to where Ambrose was suspended. She met his now-open eyes. They were aqua, bright, and focused on her. He let out a low moan. His pain shook the house, and the storm grew more punishing.

“Kill me. Please.” He gasped as whatever the spell was doing to him escalated at his words.

Doreen knew what it was like to feel hopeless, to feel defeated. She had never known what it was to feel broken, but she understood as she stared at him what it looked like, and she hated the sight.

She was clever, but she’d never considered herself strong—until she threw down her bag and ran as fast as she could toward the storm. She dove into it, her cut hand still bleeding, and slammed it into Ambrose MacDonald’s chest. His hand came up and wrapped around hers. On instinct, she twisted her hand so their fingers were entwined and looked into his aqua eyes.

The storm exploded around them, wind and rain slamming into the walls and shredding the wallpaper, sending the single chair crashing into the door. Ambrose collapsed to the floor, and Doreen threw her hands up, sending the storm toward the single sliver of a skylight in the far-right corner of the ceiling. The glass shattered and the wind, rain, and lightning rushed out as the spell broke apart.

She crouched down on the ground next to Ambrose. Her heart raced, her hair was soaked, and the cut on her hand wouldn’t stop bleeding. The cost of expending so much magic had the edges of her vision fraying, but she forced herself to stay as steady as she could. He rolled onto his back, looking up at her.

His dark hair hung in thick clumps down to his shoulders. His eyes glowed that strange green and blue, and up close she saw there was a black circle around the outside, as though trapping the color in. He had sharp cheekbones and a defined jaw covered in thick stubble. His mouth was drawn into a frown, his lower lip fuller than the top.

“What have you done?” he rasped, his deep voice low and dangerous.

“I think the words you’re looking for,” Doreen said, meeting his eyes, “are thank you.”

She crawled to her bag, reaching in for a bandage and doing her best to quickly dress her palm. She could feel his eyes on her but didn’t look over. She needed a moment to gather her thoughts without his features burning into her mind.

“You’re not her.”

She looked up. “I’m not who?”

He didn’t answer.

She picked up the bag and crossed back to him. He jerked away from her, flinching like a wounded deer caught in a sniper’s range.

“Who are you?” he asked, his voice a deep rumble that made her stomach dip.

“I’m Doreen MacKinnon,” she said, then hesitated and shifted back a step. “You’re Ambrose MacDonald, and you’re going to help me break the curse you put on my family.”

He froze. Then he burst out laughing.

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

He tried to stand and staggered, falling back to the floor.

“You’re not in much of a bargaining position,” she said.

He locked his bright but shadowed eyes on hers, and it was her turn to resist flinching. “I could kill you.”

She lifted a brow, praying he couldn’t hear the pounding of her heart. She reminded herself she was safe; he didn’t know she was a mimic. “I could call the storm back and return you to its heart.”

He swallowed and dropped his head to the ground. She blew out a quiet sigh of relief.

“Doreen,” he said, and the way he rasped her name had a chill prickling along her arms. “Daughter of Frances, niece of Stella.” He nodded, as though to himself. “I dreamed of you. The one they do not see, the one they turn from.”

She shivered at the wonder in his words and reminded herself he was a witch. The witch.

“When my insides were being turned out, when my eyes would bleed into my mouth, when a thousand bees were stinging my face, the pain would overtake me, and I would dream. Of you, of the others in your line. I saw you looking for me, and I saw them keeping you in the dark. I wonder why.”

Her stomach rolled at the truth in the accusation. This witch knew her family did not trust her. Not only had her family locked him away, they had tortured him, and now his words did the same to her.

The unfiltered menace in his voice left her shuddering. “It turns out I didn’t need them to find you,” she said, grateful her voice didn’t shake. “I don’t dream. I’m the only one in my line who doesn’t.” She tried to speak as matter-of-factly as she could, as though she wasn’t speaking with a person who could fillet her insides with a snap of his fingers. “But I do plan, and I refuse to die by your curse, so you will tell me what I need to undo it.”

He laughed. This time the sound was a weak hiss. “I fear you are—what is the modern term?—screwed, then. I have spent centuries watching the world, losing everything I ever loved all because of your family.” He rolled his head to face her, and she had to force herself not to get lost in the study of him. This witch who was ancient and broken.

He’d drained himself of expression, and staring at Ambrose was like examining a painting of a dragon slayer come to life after he fought a great battle and lost.

Doreen needed a win.

“If you help me, I promise you your freedom,” she said, holding her palms up. “I will make sure no MacKinnon witch ever curses you again.”

“How can you promise such a thing? Your ancestors lived to torture me. Who do you think that chair was for?”

She glanced to the broken pieces of the velvet armchair scattered across the ground and swallowed back revulsion.

“Stella likes to throw poisoned darts,” he said, almost—but not quite—pulling off sounding bored. “Her mother, Victoria, used to pull the wind from the room so I would lose consciousness, but just before I’d expire, she’d flood it back in. Poor Victoria, she was the only one foolish enough to leave herself open. She bled for an hour when the wind cut through the overhead window and brought glass down on her. That was almost a good day.” He paused, his breath steady even as his words shook. “The women in your line have been tormenting me for three hundred years.”

“You did curse us first,” she said, the knee-jerk defense of her family rising before she could stop herself.

“I fell in love with one of you,” he said, his voice a near growl. “That was the first curse; the rest has been nothing compared to that betrayal.”

“Boy, she must have done a number on you to have the Torture Curse be less traumatizing than falling in love.” She looked up at the ceiling. “I bet you did it wrong.”

“Did what wrong?”

“Falling in love. It’s not a curse. It’s a hope.”

“You are a fool.”

“Excuse me?”

“To think such a thing… What do you know of it? Love is not hope; it is destruction and madness. It cost me everything. Your kin cost me everything.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I am the thirteenth generation in the line of MacKinnon witches. I am the cleverest of my line and I am not giving up. If you really won’t help me…” She shrugged. “I can return you to your storm and your curse.”

The corner of his mouth curved into a feral half smile. “You’re the color of a new dawn’s snow, and you’ve bled your magic to the point of harming yourself.” He sat up, stretched. Doreen realized the coloring in his cheeks had returned to a deep rust, and his eyes were bright. He stood in a fluid motion and crossed to her in two languid strides.

Doreen shrank back before she could stop herself. She’d thought him weak, even terrified, but as he towered over her, water dripping off the cuffs of his black shirt, flexing his hands at his side, she realized she’d made a terrible mistake.

If Ambrose MacDonald could survive three hundred years twisting, quite literally, in the wind, he was stronger than any witch she’d ever met.

“Now,” he said, “why don’t we stop wasting time and you tell me—”

He was cut off as the door to the Dead House flew off its hinges. Stella rushed inside, her hands out and the storm riding on her coattails. Words flew from her lips, arrows aimed for Ambrose.

“Winds of my daughters

Blood of my blood

Salt of my bones

Hear my words.

Wrap this man

Hide him away

Seek our vengeance

Do as I bade.”

Stella called for the cage of a storm to return to Ambrose, her eyes barely registering Doreen.

Doreen thought of her hard work, of all her dreams of true love and a life worth living, and they dissolved like water into mist as she realized what Stella meant to do. If she succeeded, Stella would make certain Doreen never found Ambrose again. Stella would win, again, and Doreen would be truly damned.

She could hear Stella’s whisper in her mind, the same thing she always said to Doreen, a refrain she’d heard year after year: “You’re clever but not wise, Doreen MacKinnon.”

Margot thought Doreen was more than clever; she believed in her. Doreen had gone against her family, her coven, breaking the bond they had forged. She’d lose everything if her aunt prevailed at trapping Ambrose.

She’d likely lose her aunt and Margot forever if she did what she needed to do.

Doreen gave a resigned sigh. Sometimes there was only one way forward. She climbed to her feet, shook out her aching arms, and lunged in front of Ambrose at the last millisecond, as the storm wrapped itself around her instead of him.