Antebellum Awakening (15 page)

“You may be surprised what you find in that book,” Stella said, pulling me back out of my thoughts. “I believe your family is mentioned in there.”

My eyes widened. “Really?”

“Yes!” she declared with a warm smile. “It wouldn’t be complete without mentioning them. They helped Mildred a great deal during the Resistance, and were loyal from the beginning. I know she still appreciates all they did to help her. I’d be pleased to hear your thoughts on the book when you finish.”

“Of course,” I replied. “I’ll bring it back when I’m done. And thank you for telling me about my family.”

Stella put her hand around my shoulder as we strolled to the door.

“I had a son once, you know,” she said, her voice laced with a deep sadness. “Your fortitude and determination remind me of him a little.”

“Where is he now?”

“Gone,” she said with a melancholy tinge. “He died when he was very young, but I’d never seen such a stubborn child.”

I looked away, suddenly unable to meet her eyes. Any wind of grief triggered something dark and frightening inside of me.

“Oh, dear,” she said, pressing a hand to her heart and searching my face. “I’ve made you sad. I’m so sorry.”

“No!” I said, meeting her eyes with a sheepish smile. I didn’t want her to feel bad. “You didn’t.”

“Well, I’d never want to,” Stella said with a bolstering smile. “We are all mourning something, Bianca. All of us. Keep that in mind, for you are never alone in your grief. Anyway, thank you for your assistance. I hope the rest of your day fares well. I’m sure we’ll see each other around Chatham. At least, I certainly hope we will.”

•••

“What are you reading?” Papa asked at breakfast the next morning, setting a loaf of bread and a block of cheese out on the table. My stomach growled.

“I haven’t started yet,” I said, setting aside
Mildred’s Resistance
and straightening my stiff back muscles with a grimace. My body was already starting to tighten up after an early lesson with Merrick. We’d spent the time practicing footwork, lifting heavy logs, and working me into a frenetic appetite for food. “Stella loaned it to me yesterday.”

“
Mildred’s Resistance
? I’ve heard of it but never seen a copy. I think that may be the only one.” His eyebrows lifted halfway to his hairline with a pointed glance that clearly said
control your usual luck so you don’t destroy this book.

“So using it to start a fire later tonight is out?”

He smirked and threw a piece of cheese at me. It hit my cheek with a slap. A morning breeze made the herb pots hanging from the balcony ledge bob up and down. Basil, and a hint of rosemary, drifted on the wind. Papa sawed away at the bread with a long knife, handing me the first warm slice. I tore off a corner and took a bite. It tasted slightly sweet and soft, like chewing on a cloud. I sighed in contentment and sank farther into the chair.

“Everything going okay in the Borderlands?” I asked, studying his face. Tiberius had come for Papa in the middle of the night. Papa had returned to the castle with a fat lip, a cut on his jaw, a purpling bruise, and no explanation. His eyes flicked to mine.

“Do you really want to know?” he asked. The deep, rolling timbre of his voice made me shudder.

“Yes,” I said, although I wasn’t sure.

“No, it’s not going well at all. They started digging an exceedingly large trench last night.”

“Trench?” I questioned, and he nodded. “So your suspicions were right. They are going to divert the river.”

“Yes. What I can’t figure out is their magic. They’ve found a spell that can control hundreds of thousands of shovels. They have Guardians supervising, but for the most part the West Guards aren’t doing anything. Because they have so many shovels at work, and because the work is so well synchronized, the trench is growing fast.” He dragged a hand through his hair, his eyes focused on something in the distance as he worked through the problem. “They must be using an older magic.”

My mind sped back to my encounter with Miss Mabel and Isadora’s words rang in my head.
She’s using Almorran magic.

“What is your plan?” I asked, wishing I could tell him what I knew. If I mentioned Miss Mabel at all he’d grow suspicious, and that was the last thing he needed right then. He rubbed his face, infused with a sudden weariness.

“We’re going to siphon off as much water as we can,” he said. “Probably start creating a river of our own further above them.”

“Near the Northern Network?” I asked in surprise. The small tract of land we called the Borderlands lay wedged between us and the Western Network, but it also reached our border with the Northern Network.

“Yes,” he said, and left it at that.

“It’s a good plan,” I said. “At least you’re doing something.”

“It was Zane’s idea. He has a tactical mind. Anyway, if it doesn’t work we have a few other things in mind.”

His tone sounded dark, and a grim feeling creep over me.

“Is there any active fighting yet?”

“Not yet. I think Dane wants to weaken us first. He knows we can stand against them from a military perspective, but not if our witches are starving and in a panic. It’s smart. I’d do the same thing if I were in his position.”

His casual mention of Dane, the acting High Priest for the Western Network, made me shudder. Almack, the actual Western High Priest, was still deathly sick. The war would truly begin once he died. Unlike in our Network, the Western Network only allowed one governing witch at a time, and the ruler was always a male. No woman had ever taken power in the West. Would Miss Mabel be the first High Priestess? It seemed likely, if Dane could be manipulated. She seemed to think he could; perhaps she held a binding over him as well.

We ate the rest of our meal in the quiet, content to just be with one another.

“See you later, girl,” he said, planting a kiss on top of my head once he finished. “Love you.”

“Love you, Papa.”

Once the apartment door closed, I grabbed
Mildred’s Resistance
and hauled it onto my lap, eager to get the grim thoughts about the war with the West out of my head.
Mildred’s Resistance
was like new. The edges of the heavy cover had frayed a little, but the pages looked undisturbed, as if someone had carried it around often but never read it. I turned to the first page.

Dear Reader,

This book is written by an unknown author. That’s the name I’ve chosen and it’s the only name you’ll ever know. My identity is not nearly as important as yours.

Suffice it to say that you may trust me; everything in this book is true. I tell the story of the people of the Resistance and all that it meant at the time. Perhaps it means something to you now, but it will never mean anything to you like it did to us.

The Resistance wasn’t an explosion. Rather, it was a slow burn that turned to flame and then to fire. As to blame, I ask you to draw your own conclusions, for you now hold the truth in your hands.

Sincerely Yours,

The Unknown Author

The next page began:

Mildred was a young girl, only she didn’t know it.

I read a few paragraphs, skimming through the beginning of the High Priestess’s life. Unable to focus on the story, I skipped ahead, searching through the words. I would read about the High Priestess later. For now, I was on the hunt for something, although I didn’t know what.

Several minutes of perusal later, my eyes snagged a word.

Mabel.

Startled, I straightened, my interest rekindled. The original Mabel started popping up quite often. When Evelyn became High Priestess, Mabel gave the school to her granddaughter Miss Mabel and took a job as Evelyn’s personal assistant.

“Mabel, you old devil,” I whispered. I dog-eared the pages she appeared in as I continued to read. The more often Mabel’s name appeared, the darker the picture seemed to grow. She must have had an awful personality.

Her countenance hides the ice beneath.
Sharp eyes in a pretty face.
Selfish soul beneath all that beauty.

Miss Mabel’s blonde hair and ruby lips flashed through my mind.
Selfish soul, indeed.
The dreaded grandmother had rubbed off on her protégé. I shook away the terrible feeling, hoping to keep the dragon in my chest at bay.

The sun crept higher in the sky, forcing me indoors. I sprawled out on a comfortable divan, hidden by shadows. If Leda could see me so enthralled by a book, she’d die with happiness. I slipped through the pages, uncovering scattered snippets of information as I went.

As time went on it became clear to all that there was more to Mabel than a smooth voice, but whether Evelyn realized it or not was another matter entirely.

Rumors swirled that Mabel had kicked her daughter, Angelina, out of her house when she came home pregnant. No one could confirm it, and Mabel never spoke of it. When anyone tried to ask, she placed a hex on the witch who broached the subject. It rarely came up twice.

Mabel fled the final fight, leaving Evelyn to battle Mildred alone.

The execution of Mabel was particularly sad, as there was no one there to attend her or keep her company in her final hours. No one showed remorse at her passing. Any attempt to contact her daughter or granddaughter was futile. They both rejected the messages.

By the end of the book, I had little doubt that Mabel had been a horrid, evil, conniving woman: characteristics she shared with her granddaughter. Perhaps a potent evil ran through Miss Mabel’s blood. But what of Miss Mabel’s mother, Angelina?

Even a book this detailed couldn’t give me all the information I wanted, and I couldn’t ask the High Priestess without inciting suspicion. I drew in a deep breath and slammed the book shut. Before I moved forward with my plan to destroy the binding in the West, I needed to visit someone. Someone who knew Miss Mabel better than anyone else.

Miss Celia.

Miss Celia

M
errick called to me from across the Forgotten Gardens the next day.

“This is going to be your new best friend,” he said. “Bring it with you every day.”

I lifted my gaze just in time to see a long piece of wood hurtling toward me through the air, and caught it just before it kissed my face. The smooth wood snagged one of the healing blisters on my palm, causing a smarting pain. I bit back a grimace and glared at him instead.

“Good catch,” he said with a surprised smile that almost offended me.

“A wooden sword?” I asked, studying it. It was thick and heavy, whittled from a light yellow wood. Its shape resembled a sword, but it was too thick to be real. The sword with which Papa had taught me a few things with as a young girl was nowhere near as hefty.

“We’ll use it to practice. You have to earn a real sword. This one is weighted and heavy. Learning it heavy makes it easier to use the actual sword.”

Earn a real sword?
I wanted to ask.
With what, bruises?

Merrick held his own wooden sword in his right fist. His white shirt stretched tight over his broad shoulders, and he had pulled sandy hair pulled away from his tan face. I hadn’t really paid attention to it before, but Camille was right. Merrick was handsome in a rugged, intense kind of way.

“Why do I have to earn a real sword?”

“So I know you won’t cut your own leg off,” he said in his usual dry tone. “Let’s review the footwork we’ve been going over the past week. Show me a forward attack, and then a lunge.”

The sun shone around us in the early morning light, echoing off the ivy screens of the walled garden. We had almost total privacy out here on the edge of the gardens, close to Letum Wood. Only the birds fluttered around, keeping us company. The sweet hold of spring had slowly started to fade into the hot days of summer. Although the mornings and evenings still smelled like honeysuckle and carried a cool breeze, the days were getting warmer, and this morning was no exception.

We reviewed the footwork, although the heavy weight in my hand often distracted me. Merrick introduced a new footwork pattern for me to practice the rest of the day, and then we started into swordplay.

“You’re going to need to be fast,” he said, grabbing a stick from the ground, “and accurate. Having a sword to defend yourself won’t mean anything if you can’t hit your target.”

He tossed the stick straight up, swung his own wooden sword, and cut the stick into two equal parts with very little effort. After the experience chopping wood at Sanna’s, I knew this would not be easy.

“The wooden swords aren’t sharp,” I pointed out.