“What is that?” I blink at it, lifting myself to sit upright once more and push off my fatigue and despair as the soft glow illuminates the space around it, and she lays it on the table. Acting like it’s made of precious and fragile crystal.
“It’s an elixir that contains Leyanne’s tears. She made it for my grandmother when she needed an ailment. I’m not sure what it does, but I used to play with it because it’s so pretty, and I was often scolded. A witch’s tears are powerful and only gift them to people they trust.” Sierra touches it once more lovingly, then retracts her hands and stares at it as though it will magically transform into something amazing. I just see a bottle of glitter water and sigh again.
“So, what do we do with it? How do we ‘locate’ her?” I ask tentatively, air emphasizing the word with my comma fingers. Sierra sighs and presses her palms to her chest, over her heart.
“We find the book which tells us how to perform a locator spell. It’s been nine years since I used it, and it’s rusty. I used it to find out where you were being cared for, Alora.” She smiles softly at me, and I gawp as I click on exactly what she means. The night Sierra crept into my room to bind us for eternity and protect me from Juan. She used a spell to know exactly where I was that night, and now that’s the same spell we need to find this witch. A vague feeling of full circle claws at the back of my mind, and the fates flicker through my head in weird ways. I can’t help but wonder if this is relevant.
“So, tell us what the book looks like, and we look.” Meadow interrupts my moment of reverie, on her feet and ready to do something more than sitting here, and I nod in agreement. Sliding up from my chair to get busy.
“It’s green, large like this one, with a dark vine wrapped around to keep it shut. Leyanne is a witch of nature, so it suits her. It’s where I learned the spell, and I know it’s here. No one ever removes the books, not that they can. The stairwell won’t let a book pass upwards, so it will be here wherever I left it.”
“Hmm, okay…. Let’s look.” Meadow jumps to it and starts trawling the lined cases around us, and I follow suit. Moving to the ones behind me, I gently pass my fingers along the shelves, making sure not to touch them. Something is tugging me to my left, and I let it guide me. Like an inner instinct, deep in my belly or my gut, I look that way in response to whatever is urging me onwards.
Sticking out slightly more than the others on a low shelf, almost concealed by shadow because of where it sits, I spot a green book and go to it immediately.
“This?” I call Sierra, pointing down, and she looks around and gasps in glee.
“If I didn’t know better, I would think you’re a part witch. The books are calling to you as though you are.” She beams at me joyfully, and I frown it away and go back to the table as she slides it free. Remembering we can’t touch without her saying so and eager to get this done. Sierra brings it to the table and flicks through quickly, finding a dog-eared page, and Meadow eye rolls dramatically. Slumping onto her seat and making a show of her extreme disapproval.
“You bent the corner? Who does that? Especially not hundred-year-old magical books? What is wrong with you?” her obvious distaste and disgust are heavy in her tone, and that glare is disrespectful towards her Rema. I giggle at Meds, an argument we have had in the house library many times, and it warms me out of my cold sadness for a few seconds. She believes in the sanctity of books and keeping them pristine, while I’m a page folder to keep my place, which drives her crazy.
“I did not. It’s how I found it.” Sierra retorts sharply, eyeing her up as though she’s just been incredibly rude, accusing her of a heinous crime she wouldn’t commit, and scans the words, nodding to herself as it refreshes her memory. A little flick of recognition goes off in her eyes as a small smile relaxes her pretty face.
“Okay, we need a world map, seeing as we are looking much further than I ever had to. There’s one on that wall. Bring it.” She nods to Meadow, who obediently goes and takes down a large, aged print of the world in one clear space on the wall by the stairway door. Sierra pulls off the long necklace she wears daily, a chain almost reaching her waist with a pointed quartz crystal hanging from it, pulling the chain together and holding it halfway down so the crystal swings freely. Meadow lays the map on the table, and I move our books to accommodate their large size.
Sierra carefully opens the little vial and dips the very tip of her stone into it before gently closing it and laying it aside. She is careful not to touch her stone again and lets it hang over the map and still by itself as she concentrates and regulates her breathing to keep her hand steady.
“Bring those candles, all four, from there. One on each corner of the map.” She points at a bookcase behind me with a nod, and I quickly move to collect four tapered candles in silver holders from the shelf and put them on the table. Moving them to the corners I can reach and handing Meadow the other two to lay out for me. Sierra clicks her fingers, and all four light immediately, with blue flames, like the passageway and lighting in here. She holds her pendulum still over the center of the map, closes her eyes as her hands begin to glow, and travels up as far as her elbows. She stays motionless and still as a statue as she softly utters the words with a faint breath that we almost don’t hear.
“Oportet te invenire me, quod mea proposito.
Super terram, mare caeli spatium non habet terminum.
Dirige manus, trahere lux mea, et in offuscatione.
Unus enim fas est inveniet te debere ostendere.”
Her words are haunting and foreign, and as she utters the last one, the blue light travels down the chain of her stone and lights it up like a bright beacon that scalds my eyes, and I squint to adjust to its brightness. The tip dipped in the potion turns a brazen green, and the pendulum starts swinging freely of its own accord as though it’s caught by a sudden gust and seems to tug Sierra across the map.
She opens her eyes but keeps her hand steady as the chain manipulates itself and tugs the stone towards a part of the world to her left. She follows gently, allowing it to guide her as though, somehow, it’s now a little life of its own. A dog on a leash is pulling its master home with impressive strength for such a feeble little object.
We watch in awe as it tugs her until it reaches the American states and draws nearer to where we are in the north, pulling up past the border. It lingers around New Mexico before pulling the tip down and planting with an aggressive stab on an area within that map section. It’s just left off the center of New Mexico on this map, at least in our part of the world and not overseas in Scotland!
“She’s not that far. That’s like a seven-hour drive if we don’t stop.” Meadow chimes in, squinting at the map carefully and a little frustrated we don’t have a more specific and detailed map to get a more precise location. We have a vague spot on a map that condenses the entire world, and she’s right. Arizona to New Mexico is not that far, but we will have to drive.
“The biggest problem is getting out past the fog.” I point out, and Meadow frowns, taking a moment to think hard, and then focuses on me with a very serious expression.
“Your powers, you can clear a path until we get out. Hopefully, the fog isn’t widespread. That means you and me, Chica. We have to go together.” I quiet and think of what she says, seeing the possibility in it, and nod as I agree without hesitation.
“It’s too dangerous. You can’t go out there. The pack is circling its own people, ready to take on any of you who venture out. What about vampires? Or the witch that did this?” Sierra grasps my hand and clings on tight, painfully so. Gripping my fingers with white fierceness, eyes washing with instant tears and fear, her light of hope seems to vanish in the reality that I might go out and not return. She sees me as her second child, and her intense maternal need to protect me almost chokes me half to death as I feed from her panic.
“If we don’t, how else are we supposed to save them? We can’t wait on the spell to end because it might never. Are we supposed to leave them out there like they’re dead? What about when we run out of supplies, or the witch finds a way to breach our border?” I respond anxiously, trying to keep my voice steady and patient as though dealing with a fearful and fragile child. Knowing that she’s right and it’s not safe, but at the same time, it’s our only solution so far. I can’t live without Colton, even if he’s close and cursed for eternity. I can’t live with my pack in a zombified state of feral, pacing our borders with a bloodlust against our kind.
“There has to be another way. Maybe that’s not what the book meant. Maybe I’m wrong.” Sierra releases me and goes back to yanking books to her, a look of pain on her face, determined to find a different path as tears fill her eyes while flicking through them erratically.
“You said the books will answer. And they did. We must do this if she’s as powerful as you say. It can’t be a coincidence that a Scottish witch is seven hours away from us when we need her. The book jumped to her name, and the bottle so freely dragged us to where she was. Maybe the fates are pushing us to her?” I point out. Afraid that what we’re about to do is not safe, but determined to save Colton and bring him home. To save Cesar, the subs, and my extended pack. I once doubted the fates, and yet they never abandoned me. They brought me to her, my new home, my love, and so many answers I never knew I needed before. They brought me to the position of Luna, and I have learned never to judge, doubt, or ask questions when the fates are showing me a path I may not understand.
“The fog, Alora.” Sierra despairs, but this time it’s Meadow who chimes in. Her face is set with a stubborn air, knowing this is what we need to do.
“And the only way we can think so far to get rid of it and take its power away is right here in front of us.” She taps on the little symbol of Leyanne Cruden’s mark in the book beside the locator spell and narrows her eyes. “Can you take it away? Break the spell? Can we? No, nosotras no podemos so we go get someone who can.” Meadow is in harsh mode, that version that often talks sense into me when I am dwindling. The commander who stands by Colton’s side, and I see a return of some of her fierce now she has her sights set on doing something to undo what’s happened.
I lean over to grasp Sierra’s hand, and as I pass the vial close by my wrist, where she left it, it starts to glow crazily bright so that it instantly stings my eyes, and I gasp and recoil.
“What the hell?” Meadow and I sing out in unison, and Sierra slumps down and cradles her face. A whimper of agony as fresh tears roll down, and she seems instantly defeated.
“The potion is calling out to its maker…. you need to take it with you. It’s a token of proof. That you come from this home and this bloodline, it’s a sign Alora that the book was right, and we shouldn’t argue. It’s our answer…. even if I don’t want it to be so.” She cries softly into her palms, and my heart pines for her, feeling the despair and knowing the why. I know there is only fear and genuine concern at its root because she doesn’t do well with danger or loss since she woke. She’s afraid I won’t return like Colton hasn’t, and she can’t bear it. Sierra isn’t as strong as she once was, and the thought of the people she loves leaving her is something she is working on.
“Colton can’t come home to us unless we do. And all three of us will be together again. Don’t cry about what needs to be done. Look after our people. Be their Luna in my absence. We will only be a couple of days.” I move to her and wrap my arm around her shoulder, rubbing her delicate frame and wishing I knew better to take away her heartache and terror for what must be done.
“No, I should come.” She tries in a last attempt to cling to me, but I only shake my head, looking for a way to explain why she needs to stay. I need her to stay here and be safe for my sanity.
“We should keep our entourage to a minimum. Maybe just the two of us. We are what’s left of the strongest; we should be okay with our combined powers. Someone needs to lead the people and keep them sane.” Meadow tries to reinforce my decisions, voices what I don’t know how to explain, and Sierra stifles a sob loudly. Lifting to turn and clinging to me with a possessive hug around my body,
“Travel only by day, find a place to stay safe at night, never out there. Go to human places where the vampires won’t stray. Maybe there’s a way to use the protection spell on a vehicle to create safe transport. Go fast, be swift, and then come home the same way as quickly as you can. Take no chances.” She urges us with a desperate begging in her eye, her face awash with warm tears that I try to wipe away, and I nod. Exhaling slowly so as not to let her feel the depths of my worry and nervousness about how dangerous this trip may be.
“We have some preparation to do, and we need to find a better map to narrow our route to at least a town. I want us to be ready to go by the next dawn. There’s no point in delaying this. I need my mate back, we need our alpha, and god knows we need our pack.” I state with determination, and Meds agrees. Standing as though to make it clear we have things to plan, start readying, energizing the air around us with a new sense of purpose.
“Yes, Luna, let’s get to it.”