A Witch's Trial (Witch's Path Series: Book 3) (8 page)

"Greetings," the woman in the image said. "I am Gretchen Tomlin, minister of the Wapiti. We would like to welcome you to our clan. You should feel honored to receive such and invitation and will soon receive a letter detailing the process for transitioning from a clanless state to being a full member. Welcome, Michelle." The oval shrank down to a single blue sparkle that twisted and wiggled before flattening out into a baby-blue envelope that drifted down and landed on the bottom step.
 

"What under the moon…" Before I could finish, the pink sphere glided to the bottom of the stairs and reformed into a ribbon.

The tip of the ribbon rippled, and a soft, gentle voice spoke. "Ms. Oaks, it is a pleasure to introduce myself to you. I am Ingrid Burch, minister of the Kamelos. I would be honored to meet with you and discuss the possibility of extending an invitation for you to join my clan. Rest assured we will make no further attempt to contact you without invitation, and I would be pleasantly surprised if you chose to meet with me. Best wishes in your future endeavors." The ribbon fizzled into nothing.

I stumbled the few steps to a rocking chair and plunked down before I toppled over. Dropping my head in my hands, I sat there vacillating between tears and manic laughter.
 

This wasn't going to end. These offers would keep pouring in no matter how often I said I wanted to be left alone or how firmly I expressed a desire to be independent. Even joining a clan might not make the invitations end. Some of the more persistent clans would keep sending letters, or voice ribbons, or talking pictures.
 

At least the last one, Ingrid, had been polite. Half the offers had read more like an order, and Gretchen sounded like she was certain I would be at her doorstep as fast as I could drive there.
 

"I'm sorry, Michelle." Landa patted my shoulder. "You might as well take this." She pushed the letter from Gretchen into my hands.
 

"What am I going to do?"

"What you've always done. You will stay strong and true to yourself. There is nothing else for you to do." Landa wrapped an arm around me and pulled me against her thin chest.
 

"But… but, I've gotten five letters and two glowing whatchamacallits today. What if those glowing things don't just come to my home but follow me? I don't need to have those things announcing their intentions in front of the police. Or, worse, my parents! What do I do?" I knew I was whining, but I couldn't seem to help it.

"Be you."
 

I pulled myself out of her arms so I could glare at her. "What does that mean?"

Her eyebrows shot up. "Don't take that tone with me."
 

My shoulders dropped and I nodded, looking at her feet.
 

She slipped her hand under my chin and raised my head until I was looking into her brown eyes. In the rocking chair, I was shorter than her, and it was odd to look up to meet her gaze. "You need to be you. The Michelle I know is strong enough to face down a hundred Gretchens and smart enough to make herself unattractive to these clans. There is a strong, determined woman in there"—she moved her hand to my chest—"who solves impossible problems."
 

"That woman is tired."

"Is she, now?"

"Yes, I'm tired. It's been one problem after another, and I don't see an end to it." That wasn't true—I could see one end, a very final end where the demon won. I wanted to put the problems behind me while I was aboveground.
 

"Can you fix these issues?" Landa asked.
 

"I don't know."
 

"You didn't know if you could help the mermaid, but you did. You had no idea if you'd be able to fix Ty, and you did that too." Landa sighed. "Michelle, I've yet to see a challenge you can't defeat. Are you sure the current ones are so different?"

I sat there, looking into her eyes, unable to answer. The clans and demon were different than what I'd dealt with in the past. They were bigger, scarier, more powerful adversaries. But demons had been killed in the past, and clans could be tamed, even if I didn't feel like the kind of person who could vanquish a demon or stand down a clan.
 

Landa kissed my forehead. "Think about it. Ty could use some company, and the altar soothes you."

She went back inside, and I started walking around the outside of the building. I found Ty, a twelve-foot-tall pink-and-purple T-rex, sunning himself in the side garden. He was the result of a magical experiment that had gone wrong, and after I stopped him from squishing a town, he adopted me. I sat down and scratched his chin and talked to him. He was a great listener, letting me pour out my troubles. When he got restless, we played fetch until he flopped back on the ground. I gave him a hug and continued to the altar.
 

The trees, the feel of the smooth stone, and the air were welcoming. For some time, I let my eyes drift over the stone slab that held a candle and wooden bowl, past that to the ferns, and to the white pine standing guard. Next to him were two stately maples. The ground was littered with their leaves, each larger than both of my hands. On the lodge side of the garden were a few dogwoods, naked this late in the year.
 

Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes. For a few minutes, I stopped trying to think and simply existed. The air danced across my cheeks, and the trees gently rustled in the breeze. Beneath me, the earth was a steady, comforting presence. At some point, my breathing slowed and I felt the stress and worry drift away. When I came back to myself, I was relaxed. The worry and fear were still present, but I had enough distance from the emotions that I could think and plan.
 

I hurried back inside and pulled out my copy of the diary. There had to be clues in here. If Sylvia was on our side, she wouldn't have risked exposure for a simply diary. I just needed to find the answer.

After my eyes were dry, my throat raw, and my mind numb, I tended to my body's needs: first to the washroom and then the kitchen where I drained two glasses of water. Although I could hear my stomach gurgling, I did not feel hungry. Nonetheless, I choked down a handful of nuts and seeds with a third glass of water.

The darkness outside the windows was comforting, matching the feelings inside me. Going from wall to wall, I turned off every light. I had betrayed Sylvia with Michelle. When the bond between us had been sundered and her pain was replaced by emptiness, I thought I felt Sylvia's death. When elves take a mate, we're warned of the void we would feel upon their death. What I felt fit with the elder's account of that particular loss.
 

 
The older elves also explained that the bond could be broken if both parties were willing to separate, but the process was neither quick nor comfortable. In all my years, I'd only heard of one couple willing to sever the bond.
 

Regardless, I had failed to keep Sylvia safe. How could I have believed she was dead? Why hadn't I helped her? Could she still be alive? Did she hate me? Why hadn't I looked for her? I was worthless, stupid, a blight upon this earth. It should have taken me. I was of no value, a waste of space who never did anything productive.
 

Time blurred as I lost myself in unfriendly thoughts and unhappy emotions. One morning, I saw the diary sitting on the floor. Picking it up, I turned it over in my hands, dragging my finger down the spine. The leather was cracked, worn thin in some areas. I opened the book to the first page. The paper was rough and the ink faded. I turned on a lamp next to me, forcing my eyes to adjust.
 

Now that the shock had worn off, I could face the pages without ruining them. One page turned into ten, each of them digging farther into my heart. After finishing the book, it rested in my hands, but I couldn't stop. I had more questions. Returning to the beginning, I read it again. And again.
 

When I finished the book for the third time, I made myself the largest meal I'd had since the book had come into my life. After my meal, I realized I was filthy. A long shower later, I could tell that my rooms smelled. I opened the curtains, blinds, and windows before cleaning the apartment. It was nearly as unkempt as I had been before my shower.

I could hear the forest again. It was calling me, begging me to come visit. The hallway was empty, and I slipped past Michelle's door and outside without seeing anyone. The woods were happy to see me. Between the sun, wind, and earth, I felt better than I had since Michelle handed me the diary.
 

After thanking the woods, I headed back to the lodge. As I got closer, the grief and guilt returned. By the time I was inside, I knew I couldn't go in my apartment. If I was alone, the feelings would consume me.
 

As I neared my apartment, my pace slowed and my feet turned in a different direction. I wanted to resist, but the Call had helped me before, and I trusted it to help me now. When I was in front of Michelle's door, I knocked before I could doubt my reception.
 

The door opened, and she was just as beautiful as ever.
 

I had to clear my throat twice before I could form the words. "I need you. I need your strength."

As I stepped forward I tripped, and something inside me clicked into place. Perhaps the Call wasn't about saving Sylvia. Perhaps it was saving me.

A pounding at the door interrupted my reading.
 

"What now?" I muttered as I walked over. I wasn't expecting company, and Landa didn't knock like that.
 

I pulled open the door and found Elron. This wasn't the Elron I was used to. He was pale, with hollow cheeks and puffy eyes.
 

"I need you," he whispered. "I need your strength."
 

He took a step, stumbled, and pitched forward. I kept him from hitting the ground, not because of my catching ability but because he fell on me and I managed to keep both of us on our feet.
 

"What do you mean? What happen to you?" The second question was pointless—I had a copy of what happened to him sitting in my workroom.

I shifted him around until I could get my arm around his midsection. After toeing the door closed, I hauled him across the room. We weaved back and forth, but I kept him upright until we got to the couch. Sitting him down was the easy part since he'd been trying to melt into the ground for the length of the apartment. I sat down next to him, and he lurched off the arm of the couch and toppled into me. As soon as he got his head in my lap, he stopped struggling, sighed, and relaxed.
 

Pushing his hair off his face, I could see the dark shadows around his swollen eyes. The news had not been kind to him.
 

"You didn't answer me," I said.
 

"What was the question?" he mumbled.
 

"What did you mean when you said you needed me and my strength?" Those words had to be important; otherwise he'd have given me a different greeting.
 

"I'm not… I can't." He stopped and twisted around so he could look up at me. Swallowing, he resumed talking. "I need you. You are strong and brave. I'm brittle." A tear dripped out of the corner of his eye. "Right now I need to be strong, but I can't do that on my own."

I shook my head. "I don't know how I can help you with that."

"Around you, I am better than I am on my own. Other people let me wallow and ignore life. You challenge me to be more."

Closing my eyes, I tried to figure out what to say. I'd wanted him to experience life after spending so many years buried under pain, but I hadn't tried to change him. None of my actions had been focused on making him into someone else.
 

"You cannot see it?"

"No, I can't. I don't know how to be what you need." My voice broke.
 

"Be you."

Looking at him, I smiled softly. "I can be me."
 

He closed his eyes, and I trailed my fingers up and down his arm. We sat like that as I tried to understand why he'd come to me. It had been days since I'd seen him, and Landa had told me he wasn't doing well. As pale as he was, I would've guessed he'd sequestered himself inside the lodge if not for the fact that his boots were dirt stained and there were grass smudges on the knees of his pants.

As the minutes slipped away, his color improved and the harsh lines on his face relaxed. At some point I drifted off, comforted by his presence and relieved that this part of my life wasn't broken beyond repair. He was still my friend.
 

"You shouldn't think so hard."

 
I flinched, his voice pulling me out of the relaxing half-asleep thing I'd been doing. "What?"

Elron lifted his hand and rested a finger between my eyebrows. "You get a wrinkle right here."
 

"Oh."
 

He trailed his fingers down the side of my face before dropping his hand on his chest. "Alas, I am going to give you more reasons to have that wrinkle. I think there is more to the diary, more you need to know."

I tilted my head, curious now.

Elron sat up and turned to face me. "The note to me was more than absolution; 'twas insurance. Sylvia knew few elves other than myself would understand the importance of what she penned. Many of us were told stories of demons as children, but even when I was a child they were more fantasy than reality. After Sylvia and I married, she told me her mother insisted that demons had at one point been real. My opinion then was that while I was sure there was some truth to the stories, expecting them to be firmly based in reality was ridiculous." He swallowed, a faraway expression on his face. "Sylvia shook her head and said that, according to her mother, the stories were more truth than fiction. At the time, I just agreed as I didn't wish to argue. We never spoke of it again."

I nodded and tried to relax even as my stomach knotted.