"I'm the child's father, Maggie," Michael said. "And when I found out about your... condition, I came as soon as I could. I've been praying for you non-stop."

"You should be saving your prayers for yourself." I stood to confront him eye to eye, but lost my balance and staggered forward. He caught me and I yanked away from him, using the arm of the sofa for support. "I'm fine now, as you can see. You can leave and come back when I'm really in labor. I'll call. Scout's honor."

Michael's eyes flickered with amus.e.m.e.nt. "Maggie, I know very well you weren't a scout."

"Then witch's honor."

A lock of his dark hair fell against his brow and the lines in his forehead deepened. "I'm staying close. You'll need me in your condition."

"My condition? I don't even know what my condition is. And who told you about my condition anyways?" My eyes darted to my siblings.

"Don't look at us," Ruth Anne said. "That was all Shane's doing."

I shook my head, feeling the damp tendrils of my long hair clinging to my neck. Shane would never encourage Michael to come to Dark Root. This had to be one of Michael's tricks.

"Where's my cell?" I demanded.

"It's still at Dora's." Merry's eyes followed me as I stumbled around the living room looking for my things. No car. No cell phone. Even the robe was Ruth Anne's.

I glowered as I made my way past Michael, noticing for the first time that his hair was not only thicker than it used to be, but the few strands of silver that had once graced his temples were mysteriously AWOL. On his left hand I spied a silver band, the same ring I had playfully made for him out of an old spoon in one of our Woodhaven survivalist cla.s.ses five years ago.

"Mags." Ruth Anne sidled up beside me as I continued my rounds. "Shane was acting responsibly. He was afraid that if you didn't make it, one parent needed to be here for the baby."

Her lips momentarily trembled, giving me pause. Ruth Anne wasn't one to show sentiment, let alone cry.

"It's okay," I said, steadying myself on a small wooden chair near the breakfast nook.

Merry looked at Michael, then back at me. "No, Maggie, it's not okay. We didn't know what was wrong with you. One minute you were eating dinner and the next your eyes rolled into the back of your head and your face turned blue. Then you pa.s.sed out and wouldn't wake up, no matter what we did. We called for a doctor but he couldn't find anything wrong except that you were in a very deep sleep. He wanted to take you to the hospital in Linsburg but Aunt Dora wouldn't let him. She said you were only protected in Dark Root."

"Some protection." I laughed bitterly. "So what's her diagnosis?"

"Aunt Dora thinks you've been cursed."

Michael shook his head. "Cursed? You women are always so quick to blame everything on witchcraft and superst.i.tion."

"You women?" Ruth Anne challenged. "What does that mean?"

"Oh, I don't mean all women. Just you Dark Root women." He turned back to me. "Although, I do agree with Dora that modern medicine isn't always the answer. Some things are just part of G.o.d's plan."

"If this is G.o.d's plan, he can tell me directly and you can stay out of it." I turned back to Merry. "Finish, please."

"A week after you lost consciousness, Michael called your cell and Shane answered. They agreed that he should come, as the baby's next of kin."

They were correct, of course. Still, I didn't like how plans were being made without my input and that everyone had a.s.sumed I wouldn't pull through. I lifted my chin, staring into Michael's gray eyes.

"Well, I'm better now and you're free to leave until the actual birth. I'm sure Shane will call you when it happens, now that you two are besties."

"I'm afraid you're not free of me yet, my dear." Michael unzipped his track jacket and tossed it on the arm of the sofa, showing off a fitted blue t-shirt and lean muscular arms. "Dora has offered me a room in her attic for the next month."

"In our attic?"

"So it would seem. Now ladies, if you'll excuse me, I'm going for another run while the weather holds. I need the vitamin D."

He lifted the stack of books he had brought and arranged them on the end table: the Bible, What to Expect When Giving Birth, and Thirty Ways to Get Your Mojo Back After Thirty.

With that, he grabbed his jacket and departed out the front door.

"What the h.e.l.l just happened?" I asked.

Ruth Anne lifted a shoulder. "We told you we had more surprises for you."

"Surprise!" Merry said with jazz hands.

We gathered near the window, our eyes following Michael's jogging form as he criss-crossed the front yard.

FOUR.

Papa's Got a Brand New Bag "We should lock the front door." I continued to watch Michael's green track suit zip back and forth across the lawn like a bug on fire. He had the whole fricken wilderness to run in and yet he chose to lurk near the house. I crossed my arms and looked at my sisters.

"Really? Dora let him stay in our attic?"

"You're just in shock," Merry said. "You've gone through a lot. n.o.body blames you."

"Blames me?" I pushed the tips of my fingers into my temples. "Blames me for what?"

"Your edginess," Ruth Anne said.

"I'm not edgy," I shot back, even as I heard the incriminating tone of my voice. Out of the corner of my eye I caught Michael tying his shoelace, presenting his rump in the window like a monkey in a zoo. We shielded our eyes, except for Merry, who continued to stare.

I pulled the drapes shut. "After the craziness of last year, I thought we were finally going to be a normal family. What happened?"

"Life," Merry sighed. "But Maggie, a few days ago we weren't even sure you were going to live. Try and think of the positive. You are okay and your baby will be, too."

Merry knew how to put things in perspective. It was one of the many reasons I adored her.

"You're right," I said. "I do have a lot to be grateful for. But it's been so much to take in. Curses, fires...Michael. By the way, was the running man here before the fire started?"

Merry put her hands on her hips. "You aren't suggesting that he had anything to do with all of this, are you?"

I studied her. Something wasn't right. She had never liked Michael and now she was practically defending him. "I think it's a strange coincidence, that's all."

My sister crossed her arms and gave me a level look. "Mother would say there are no coincidences, and that everything happens as it's intended."

"And Aunt Dora would say never trust a warlock."

Merry laughed, waving off my concern. "He's not a warlock, Maggie. He's just a concerned daddy-to-be."

"I suppose."

I sighed so deeply I felt it in the bottom of my lungs. Scratching my head, I looked around the living room for my shoes. Surely I hadn't come over here barefooted. I had no recollection of the night I was afflicted, nor the days preceding it. The gaps left me feeling frustrated and helpless.

I was happy to discover my alpaca sweater in the entryway closet. It smelled newly laundered, though I was pretty certain it had never seen a washing machine. Most likely it was still fresh from a flick of Eve's magic wand a few months agoher attention to all things fashion knew no bounds.

I stepped out of the robe and pulled on the sweater. It barely covered my thighs. Merry sealed the drapes completely shut, as if the sight of my pale untoned legs would send Michael into a s.e.xual jogging frenzy. "Anything else I need to know about? Am I all better now or is the curse in remission?"

"There is something else," Merry admitted as she plucked the robe from the floor. "But Aunt Dora wants to be the one to tell you."

"It's about The Curse, isn't it? Does she think Leah and Larinda are behind it?"

Larinda was my mother's cousin, a powerful witch who had resented Mother's abilities and position as Council Leader. Leah was her daughter, a weasel of a woman who had not only used magic to seduce Michael back at Woodhaven, but had placed a spell on my mother in hopes of stealing a magical artifact from her. The two had also tried to get their hands on Mother's healing wand.

Merry sat on the sofa, pushing her elbows into her knees. She scrunched up her pretty face, deep in thought. "Aunt Dora doesn't think they could have penetrated the most recent dome we cast and entered Dark Root, but she hasn't ruled them out either."

Ruth Anne left and returned with Mother's spell book, a weighty, archaic tome with yellowed pages and a cracked leather cover. She set it on the coffee table and opened it to a chapter on curses. We scrolled through pages of images depicting people afflicted by all manner of terrible things: boils, warts, depression, madness, even death.

"There's some nasty stuff in here," Ruth Anne said, her finger sliding down page after page. "And here's a highlighted page telling how to make a man's hair fall out and his s.e.xual organs dysfunction."

We all looked at one another, drawing up the image of Mother, sitting in her rocking chair on a Sunday morning with her wireframe gla.s.ses, carefully highlighting curses in a spell book as casually as some women did crossword puzzles.

"Poor guy," I said, feeling sorry for the unknown victim.

"Oh, they get worse. Exploding t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es for starters. But that one's complicated."

Merry put her hand on the page, covering the horrific hand drawn image that accompanied the curse. "I think we get the idea, Ruth Anne."

"You never know when knowledge like that will come in handy, right Mags?" Ruth Anne winked and I had to laugh. "Anyway, my point is that these spells require a great deal of focused energy. Whoever did this to you must be a very powerful magician. As powerful as Mom was, maybe."

"If it wasn't Larinda, then who?" The image of the black door came back to me and I swallowed. "Armand?"

My father left The Council when my mother discovered that he was attempting to summon and control demons. I had not seen him since I was a child and my memories of him were vague.

If he was still alive, this could very well be his work...but why?

Merry continued to read over Ruth Anne's shoulder, chewing on her bottom lip as she came upon one ghastly image after another. She wiped her hands together and stood, looking me in the eye. "Aunt Dora has admitted that our father should not be ruled out. Oh, sorry, Ruth Anne, I didn't mean to be insensitive."

Eve, Merry and I were Armand's daughters but Ruth Anne's father was an unknown traveling salesman Mother met pa.s.sing through towna one night stand.

"Don't apologize to me," Ruth Anne said. "I'd take a normie father over a warlock any day."

"Me too," I agreed.

Merry offered me a comforting smile. "Aunt Dora must not be too worried about whoever put the spell on you. She hasn't handed out a single amulet of protection or placed one salt circle around the house."

"She thinks I'm the recipient of a random act of magick then? Just my luck."

"We've been trying to figure it out on our own," Ruth Anne said, tapping on a picture of an old woman giving a younger woman The Evil Eye, a hateful glare meant to cause misfortune. "Says here that even a few cross words can become a curse, if spoken with foul intention. Have you p.i.s.sed anyone off recently?"

"Recently?" My eyes slid to the far right wall where Merry's childhood collection of fairies stared back at me from a low shelf. "I don't think so. Unless you count that lady who didn't like the tarot card reading I gave her at the Haunted Dark Root Festival. But I think she got her revenge when she walked away without paying."

Ruth Anne closed the book and scratched the back of her neck. "I wonder why mother didn't seal off this part of the book like she did the sections on demonology, necromancy, and banishment. Some of this stuff seems far more gruesome."

She pulled at one of her short curls, as if trying to make it grow. A witch's power was in direct proportion to the length of her hair. Years ago, in a fit of teenage defiance, Ruth Anne cut her hair short and it never grew back.

"So, you didn't find anything on putting someone into a perpetual sleep?"

"Just a section on poisoned apples and other fruits," Ruth Anne answered with a wry smile. "Eat any strange produce that day?"

"Only Aunt Dora's rhubarb pie. I guess that qualifies as strange, as I have no idea what a rhubarb is."

My sisters laughed, at both my joke and the idea that our aunt would cause me harm. If there was one person we could always trust, it was our stalwart Aunt Dora.

Ruth Anne pa.s.sed the book to me.

As I took it, I felt the weight of its power. There were hundreds of spells scribed inside these pages, some that would have been lost to time had Mother not collected them from the four corners of the earth. As I was the newly-elected Council Leader, the book belonged to me. Someday I would pa.s.s it down to my son if he wanted it...after I rewrote the bylaws to say that males can lead The Council.

I looked around our grand living room, with its mixture of Victorian and 70's era decor. Red velvet and yellow plaid melded together, the latter taking a begrudging backseat to the stuffy 1890s furnishings. "The house feels so empty."

Merry took on a melancholy countenance. "With June Bug and Mama both gone..."

I examined her. Her belly had a softness to it and her face had rounded out. I was glad. She had lost so much weight over the holidays, fighting with June Bug's father on the phone and caring for our ill mother. We had all become worried about her health. The subtle plumpness of her features was rea.s.surance that she was taking better care of herself now. I was her final burden. Soon I'd be back home and she'd be off the hook.

Ruth Anne's cell phone rang and she reached into her back jeans pocket.

"It's Aunt Dora," she announced, then went into the kitchen to talk privately.

I gave Merry a questioning look. She shrugged. Ruth Anne wasn't one for secrets.

She returned shortly with a smattering of crumbs on her fingertips and chin. "Aunt Dora wants to know if you feel up to dinner tonight."

In another world, I might have found this question ridiculous. I had been asleep for an entire month and now I was receiving dinner invitations as if nothing had happened. But this was Dark Root and I'd accepted long ago that my world operated by a different set of rules. Mine was a world of curses and cures, spells and counter-spells, potions and pinp.r.i.c.ks, and logic without reason.

"I'll tell her it's too much for you right now," Ruth Anne said, reaching for her cell again.

"No, tonight's fine. I think I'll stay there, if that's alright?"

Merry nodded. "The sooner we come together as a family and figure this all out, the better. I'll brew more tea. You'll need it for the ride."

Ruth Anne lowered her head, peering at me from above the frame of her gla.s.ses. "Michael's staying there. You sure you want to go back?"

I bit my lip and stared at the grandfather clock that had stood guard over this house since its inceptiona gift, my mother insisted, from the Earl of Wellington. I could stay here and continue to hold Merry hostage, or go home to my bed and belongings, but also my pain in the a.s.s ex-boyfriend.

"Michael can stay here," Merry offered. There was a peculiar gleam in her eyes I didn't like and my decision was made.