Dark Root, Oregon April, 2014 Harvest Home "Maggie! Ya gave us quite the scare yesterday."

Aunt Dora stood in the kitchen with her hands on her broad hips as Jillian escorted me inside the room. I tottered in, but that was due to hunger and not the curse, having purged my stomach no less than three times in the last day.

"Sorry about that," I said, with a weary smile. "I feel better now. Maybe it was a 24-hour curse."

Jillian laughed but Aunt Dora was not amused. "Curses are nothin' ta make fun 'o! Larinda's not doin' her job. We should summon the old witch back!"

"There, there, Dora," Jillian said. "I'm sure Larinda is doing the best she can. Remember, she made the deal." Jillian's mouth snapped shut and Aunt Dora looked at the clock on the stove.

"It's time you told me more about this deal you made with Larinda," I said.

"Nothin ta worry over," my aunt said firmly, making her way to the sink with the help of her cane.

"Tell me." I loosened myself from Jillian's grip. "It's about me. I deserve to know. What kind of deal did you make?"

The two looked at each other.

"Tell me!" I slammed my hand on the counter. The small appliances on the tiled surface the toaster, coffee maker, electric can openerbegan trembling. The vibrations increased in magnitude as the seconds pa.s.sed.

Finally, Aunt Dora touched the counter and the rumbling ceased. Sighing with resignation, she took a seat at the table and patted the s.p.a.ce next to it. I joined her, alarmed by the silence and the lack of color in both their faces.

"Please," I urged them. "I need to know."

"Might as well tell her," Aunt Dora said, throwing her hands into the air. "Might make her fight a little harder."

Jillian's eyes scanned the kitchen before settling on a watercolor painting portraying a vase of flowers, now cracked with age.

"Okay," she said, with a loud exhale. "But please remember, we did this to save you."

I nodded, tucking my hands between my knees to stop them from shaking. "Go on."

"In exchange for Larinda's help in holding back the curse...and to keep you out of that dark place..."

"The Netherworld?"

"Yes. In exchange for keeping you out of the Netherworld, we agreed to educate you on the history of Dark Root."

"You already told me that."

"Yes. But what we didn't tell you," Jillian swallowed, searching for the words. "Is that if don't discover the truth of the past"

"Then she won't help with the labor and I may die. I know this too. I've been going through the globes as fast as I can. I'll get them all done, I promise."

Aunt Dora lowered her eyes, staring into her lap.

"There's more, isn't there?" My stomach knotted. I placed my hands on the table and it started shaking, echoing my emotions. I immediately lifted them off and the quaking stopped.

Jillian looked squarely at me. "In exchange for her help, we promised Larinda..." Her eyes watered. She blinked, regaining her composure. "...that your child would live with her for its first six years if you don't learn the truth."

"What!?" The table jolted, the legs lifting several inches from the floor before crashing back down.

"Maggie, that's only if you don't finish the globes," Jillian said, her voice gentle but firm. "The knowledge is in them, and when you learn it, the pact will be fulfilled and you and your baby will be safe."

"But what if I don't do it? Or can't?" I glared at them. "With my baby as collateral, Larinda will do everything in her power to make sure I don't finish them."

"Larinda won't stop ya," Aunt Dora said softly. "She is bound by the pact as well."

I hardened my jaw, rubbing my thumbs and forefingers together, trying to calm myself. I was furious enough to set the whole house on fire if I didn't regain some control. I took a deep breath. And then another. At last, I felt composed enough to speak again.

"You two had no right to use my child in your bargain with Larinda."

"Maggie, we did it to save you," Jillian tried to explain. "If Larinda hadn't helped us, you would have been stuck in that awful place. You might not have come back."

I put a hand to my head, wondering if I was hot from anger or if the fever was returning. "I was sick after using that last globe. For all we know, Larinda hexed them.

Aunt Dora shook her head. "She doesn't know about them. I originally crafted them ta show Sasha the true nature of Armand, but she found out on her own. I've kept them safe all these years. No one has seen the memories they hold, not even I. For once the memories are witnessed, they disappear ferever. I wasn't sure why I kept them, but now I understand."

I stood up and walked to the cupboards, opening and shutting them in turn. There were dozens of mason jars inside with labels reading: Sage, Lilac, Lavender, Rose Petals, and so on.

"Is it too much to ask for some f.u.c.king Tylenol in this house?" I slammed the cupboard, ratting the jars inside, and then splashed my face with water from the faucet.

Aunt Dora started to rise. "I can make ya some tea, if ya..."

"I don't want any d.a.m.ned tea! I just want my baby to be okay."

I squeezed my eyes shut and leaned forward against the counter. The kitchen smelled like apples and bleach. The combined scent was making my stomach turn.

Jillian's firm hand rested on my shoulder. "Have some faith in us. Please."

"I'm trying. But maybe Michael's right...maybe I need to go somewhere where there's a little more logic and a lot less magick."

"Yer a witch." Aunt Dora folded her gnarled hands on the table. "We can't walk away from magick."

"To h.e.l.l with that," I said, pushing my fingers into my temples. "I won't be controlled by magick and I'll be d.a.m.ned if my baby is. Now if you two will excuse me, I'm going to check on the shop while I've got the strength."

"Maybe ya should rest instead."

I looked at my aunt like she'd just escaped from the looney bin. "I don't want any more tea, and I don't want any more rest. I'll rest when this is over. Who knows? With your help, that might be soon."

"Do you need a ride?" Jillian asked, following me to my room where I locked her out and packed my tote. I crammed in several pairs of socks, my wand, the spell book, and the remaining globes wrapped in my alpaca sweater, leaving the case behind. She followed me back to the living room where I gathered my shoes and wallet. "We can grab lunch afterwards. I know this cute little sandwich shop in Linsburg. We can talk."

"No, I don't need a ride," I said. "I need the air."

I looked around the living room, mentally saying goodbye to it. I had no intentions of coming back any time soon.

I didn't even slam the door as I left. I just felt an overwhelming sadness and a sense of disbelief.

EIGHTEEN.

A Day in the Life "What do you guys know about ankhs?" I asked my sisters casually as we readied to open Miss Sasha's Magick Shoppe. Eve cleaned the front window while Merry sampled peppermints and Ruth Anne lounged near the book section.

Without looking up from her reading, Ruth Anne answered, "Ankhs are the Egyptian symbols for eternal life."

"Is that all?" I asked. I already knew as much from my dreams.

"Is that all?" Ruth slammed her book shut and leapt to her feet with the surprising grace of a cat.

"Here we go." Merry popped another peppermint in her mouth and leaned across the register counter.

Ruth Anne lifted a finger and stood nearly motionless while the wheels churned in her head. "To the Ancient Egyptians, eternal life was everything. Why do you think they mummified their Pharaohs?"

"Because it was easier than sending them to the dry cleaners?" Eve volunteered.

"Or they had extra toilet paper they wanted to get rid of?" Merry shrugged.

I laughed at their attempt to derail Ruth Anne's impending dissertation. When they ran out of jokes, Ruth Anne removed her gla.s.ses and marched across the shop, her hands clasped behind her back and her head bent forwardher cla.s.sic lecturing stance.

She stopped in front of a crystal pyramid display, running her fingers along one of the statue's triangular ridges. "The Egyptians believed that life on earth was just one small step in the journey of the soul. They spent their entire earthbound lives preparing for their next adventure."

"You mean Heaven?" Merry asked, suddenly interested.

"Exactly! But not the Christian Heaven we think of today."

"That would be difficult since the Egyptian dynasty predates the rise of Christianity by several thousand years," Merry said, carefully unwrapping another mint. We all turned to her, our mouths agape. "Can't I be smart, too?"

"She's correct," Ruth Anne confirmed. "The Egyptians prepared their souls for heaven, but heaven as in the Great Celestial Dome. They believed that the most enlightened and important souls became stars in the afterlife."

Eve put her cleaning supplies away and turned the shop sign to OPEN. "Sounds boring to me. Who wants to be a star for all eternity?"

"As I recall, you did Eve." I smirked.

"A celebrity is one thing, but a ball of gas is another."

"Potato, potato."

"Becoming a star was reserved only for Pharaohs," Ruth Anne continued, undaunted by our asides. "Everyone else was promised a land of 'milk and honey' in a parallel world. No more hard work or suffering if they succeeded here. This life was seen as a trial they had to endure before becoming immortal."

"This is all interesting, but why the ankhs?" I asked, steering the conversation back to the topic I was most interested in.

Ruth Anne removed a pencil from behind her ear and twirled it between her fingers. "No one really knows how the ankh came into play. Some suggest it's the symbol of the union between men and women, thus ensuring the continuity of the human species, even in the afterlife. The female part being the loop and the male part being the stick..."

Merry raised her hands. "We got it."

Ruth Anne scrunched her eyes, the energy around her crackling with excitement. "At any rate, it was a symbol as common as the McDonalds 'M.' Hey, I wonder why Dark Root doesn't have a McDonalds?"

"Ruth Anne..."

"Oh, sorry. But yes, it was a constant reminder of the need to work towards immortality."

"So the ankh was plastered everywhere to remind people to behave," Merry said. "Like crucifixes were placed across Christendom."

"Gee. How much church did you attend in Kansas?" I asked.

Merry's blue eyes sparkled as she refilled the dish of mints. "Don't mistake quietness for ignorance," she winked.

"Never again."

Ruth Anne licked her index finger and doodled a spit ankh on Eve's clean window. Fortunately, Eve didn't see. "When an Egyptian died, their heart was weighted against a feather. If their heart was the same weight as the feather, they could move forward. If not, the journey through the afterlife was stagnated or dangerous. Not everyone made it. Some were just eternally stuck."

I swallowed, vividly recalling the image of my father holding the scale with the feather and the heart in the Netherworld. Was he stuck, too?

Ruth Anne pointed to a book on a top shelf. "I'm a bit rusty in my Egyptology, but we have a pretty good book on it."

"Perfect," I said, pushing the stepladder towards the bookshelf.

Climbing to the top step, I reached for the book. As I extended my right hand, I felt a strong gust of wind rush past me. It knocked me from the ladder, so swiftly I didn't have time to grasp what had happened. I both felt and heard a horrifying cracking sensation within my body, followed by a searing pain that shot into my pelvis.

I cried out, my hands instinctively cradling my belly.

Merry was instantly beside me, her warm, healing hands already on mine.

I stared past her. Hovering above me on the ceiling was the ghost woman, Juliana, looking down on me with her awful toothless smile. Her mouth stretched beyond her face as her coal eyes regarded me.

She wasn't my benevolent protector, I realized. She was trying to kill me.

NINETEEN.

Purple Haze "Maggie!" Merry tapped my cheek, bringing my eyes back to her. It felt like someone had shoved a dagger in my lower back, but I couldn't focus on that now. Juliana still lingered above, her billowy gray form staring down at me from the ceiling of her own daughter's store.

I rolled slightly to my right, feeling an accompanying surge of pain shoot up from my pelvis and along my spine. "Ruth Anne!" I called. "Get your camera!"

I pointed to the s.p.a.ce where Juliana hovered. Her eyes were two red points of light and her fingers flexed and clutched at the air. She watched me, and except for the taut smile pulled across her face, the specter revealed no emotion at all.

Merry administered her healing energy, laying her hands on my stomach, hips, and back.

"You're bruised," she said softly, keeping the fear out of her voice.