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“You’ve always been a brave one, my sweet nightmare.”
“Not always.” Sadie remembered back in Salem when she didn’t stand up to her father until there was no other option. She should’ve tried sooner, even though she’d only been a child when he’d hurt her brothers and mother, yet maybe she could’ve saved them. If she’d killed her father sooner, then perhaps she wouldn’t have turned into what she’d become.
River pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “I believe if I don’t hurt you, it could possibly break the spell if you continue to live your life. I can’t end my life here either—I’ve tried.”
Sadie jerked her head up and cupped his face, that anger from Harlow building inside her. “Don’t try that again. We’ll figure out a way to break the hex.”
“We just can’t be reckless,” he relented.
Sadie thought about each life after Salem—Blake and Heather, Keith and Kathy… Some of the lives were better than others. But as terrible as some of her parents were, none were as awful as her first father. He was tainted, and her mother hadn’t been a witch, yet that was what he’d wanted, to have power over her. And that was why he wouldn’t allow Harlow to marry Jasper because he’d wanted all his children, the two that remained, to have power over their spouses in the way he’d had. The bastard.
After killing her father and the deaths of the coven, she should’ve run away with Jasper, but she’d chosen a more destructive path, not knowing if a new village would be worse than hers. A pit formed in her stomach, growing larger—she’d been the root cause of the Salem Witch Trials… A history she’d learned about in school and had even vacationed with River in the very same town. She’d been infatuated with the town while there, and too many conflicting emotions were knotting together inside of her.
Before she could think any more on the matter, a piercing shriek came from somewhere above ground, rattling the walls. A horrific sound like she’d never heard in this life, but one she knew incredibly well from her first, familiar, so achingly familiar, haunting and beautiful. It was a sound that was created from the essence of their victims. Grotesque. Cruel. Perfect. She’d been a true witch, not gracious and charming, but dark and dangerous.
Her hand clasped her mouth. “They aren’t whispering screams now. They’re screeching, escaping.”
“Something doesn’t feel right,” River said, shutting his eyes, concentrating.
If she could use her chants, she would feed off their screams and their tears as she used to, then find a way to cast a spell to attempt to go back in time to Salem. But a horrified thought crossed her mind. Something she did care very much about. “The fiends! We need to get them down here!”
She lunged for the stairs, and River clasped her by the wrist, tugging her back. “Don’t be reckless, my sweet nightmare.”
“Then we’ll be reckless together,” she said. “As always.”
A wicked smile crossed his pretty mouth, and he gave in to her temptation. They ascended the stairs in a mad rush, and Sadie now recognized the wards along the walls. Protection spells to keep anyone from above out. Long ago, she’d etched them in alongside River, using their blood and various brews to bind the wards. The only way another could enter was if they spoke the secret words. Her stomach sank as realization struck her. Unlike the symbols on the crystal box, these didn’t last and continued to need to be strengthened … with spells. That she could no longer wield…
As they exited from below ground, the trees remained bound together. Shrieks and pounding reverberated inside them. Jagged cracks formed up their trunks, on the brink of splitting open. The moths swarmed above as Sadie screamed for them and the fiends to hide.
River grasped her hand, squeezed it while he started to chant for the trees to part, for the malevolent spirits to cease, but neither did, only the sounds of cracking and screeching.
If the spirits escaped and anyone locked gazes with their blood-filled eyes, their bodies would crack. Maybe that was what she should let happen to herself—she deserved it. But no, she needed to find a way to break this, to save the others. The spirits were complete darkness, darker—so much darker—than the blackened spot marked on her aura.
A silver form with gnarled limbs and a wispy body shot through the air. She watched with a lowered gaze, unable to do anything as the moths fell around her like snow, then ash when their bodies cracked and turned silver against the ground, their beady dark eyes now blood red.
With a bloodcurdling shriek, the spirit stormed away. Sadie lifted two dead moths, and her hands shook. Screaming tore through the woods, shaking the trees as Sadie sobbed and rested the moths back on the ground.
“We’re leaving for now. Don’t argue.” River scooped Sadie up while she writhed, hissing at him to let her down as he fled down the steps, his grip firm on her. Screeching echoed from above, yet the wards continued to hold them back for now.
“What if they slaughter the fiends?” she whispered as he lowered her to her feet in the main room. “Maybe we shouldn’t try to break the spell. Maybe you should just kill me now. Wouldn’t the cycle start over?”
“That’s a good question. But one I’m not willing to risk. I’m not going to have you and our child suffer again and again.”
Her shoulders sagged. That was true… If the cycle started over, if she got pregnant, she knew with everything in her that she would lose their child. A child who had done nothing wrong and needed this spell broken more than either of them. A child who deserved to live and not be punished by the deeds of their parents.
River’s jaw tightened as he peered toward the stairs, then at one of the doors. “Come this way. I want to show you something.”
She nodded, and he grabbed her hand, leading her to the door—their bedroom.
Inside, it looked as it had before, with the ornate wooden bed in the center of the room against the wall, a large dresser standing on four legs, and a writing desk in one corner, a rocking chair in the other. Her heart thrummed harder. The chair Jasper had made for Harlow to rock their baby in after he or she was born.
One of the doors led to their main bathing chamber and the other to the spell room. River opened the door to the spell room, and she stepped inside. In the center, an empty cauldron rested with cracked blood.
“Are you frightened of me?” River asked.
“Of you thrusting a blade into my heart?” Her gaze met his. “It’s in the other room, so it would take you a while to get to it.” She pressed her hand to his cheek and sighed. “That’s the least of my worries at the moment. But no, I’m not. I’m prepared this time. I know the look you get in your eyes, and you don’t have that hollow stare now.”
He leaned into her touch as he gazed at the cauldron. “How does it make you feel having this in our room now?”
