The Void (Witching Savannah Book 3) (26 page)

THIRTY-FOUR

Change a word here, a word there. We’re not talking about rewriting the history of the world, just a judicious editing of events that are truly minor in the grand scheme of things. There may be a momentary sense of confusion, an uneasy déjà vu, but the chattering of seven billion minds will join in to drown out those odd but passing sensations. History might cough, but in a day or so, it will feel just fine.

A young woman lies on a bloodstained bed. The color of her hair is very nearly a match for the color of the life that has been bleeding out of her. Ellen holds the stillborn child, reaching into the deepest well of her magic, and when that seems to be failing, matches magic with prayer. “Come on little one,” she whispers. “Come on.” The baby is blue. It doesn’t move. Perhaps the child had never truly been meant for this world. “Don’t you do this to me. You breathe. Take a breath. One small breath for Ellen.” The child gasps for air and cries. Ellen can’t suppress the sound that peals from her, a groan that speaks of the deepest relief mixed with joy. She turns back toward the mother, reaching out with her magic to grab the escaping spark and hold on to it for dear life, but she realizes her aid has come too late. The spark is at first just out of grasp, then fading as it moves away at an exponentially increasing speed. Before Ellen can blink, it has moved beyond the veil. Ellen sits on the foot of the bed and clutches the orphan tightly to her chest.

Iris closes Emily’s eyes. Iris blames herself. She should’ve taken better care of her little sister. Played a more active role in her life. Emily had seemed so lost since Mama and Daddy died. Then again, so has Iris. No time for self-pity now, though. She will find time to fall apart. Later. Now, Ellen sits crying and rocking a little girl who’s just lost her mother. Iris goes to the foot of the bed and kneels before Ellen. A wave of anger strikes Iris out of the blue. Why had Emily been so stubbornly insistent about not telling them who the baby’s father is? The child has the right to grow up with at least one of her parents. Then again, Iris has heard rumors her baby sister had been venturing into places better left alone. That club she’d been going to, what is it called? Tillandsia. Iris has heard stories about what went on at those gatherings. It may be that Emmy herself wasn’t sure of the child’s sire.

“The baby is out of danger now?” Iris asks her sister. Ellen trembles, won’t or can’t speak, but she begins nodding. “Then you’ve done all you can do. Let me have her, sweetie,” Iris says to Ellen. “Let me take her and clean her up. Then I’ll give her right back to you. I promise.”

“Emmy wanted to name her Maisie,” Ellen says.

“And so we shall.” Iris has never really cottoned to the name Maisie. It strikes her as a somewhat unfortunate choice. Had Iris ever had a daughter, she would have named her Adeline, after her own mother. “Come to Auntie Iris, Maisie. I’ll take good care of you.” She places her first gentle touch on the newborn. “Oh,” she says aloud, shocked by a psychic form of static electricity.
Well, this
, she thinks,
is something Erik and Ellen will have to work out between themselves.
She takes the baby from her sister’s arms.

A young man, so hurt, so angry, stands at an open door. A heated exchange is occurring between him and a dark woman, beautiful, proud, too young to understand the danger of pushing a desperate lovesick fool a step too far.

“If you believe Adam really loves you, then prove it to me.” Oliver pauses, the darkest of thoughts fighting its way to the surface. The one bit of magic he couldn’t perform, that it came so easily to her made him physically ill. Grace would give birth to Adam’s baby. No matter what, she would always have a hold on him. She stood there gloating, taunting. It would be oh so easy to make her undo it.

An unseen hand on his shoulder, a whisper to his heart. A reminder of what true love means. The words that have begun to form fall away, replaced with “You raise that baby right.” His face turns red, and his body shakes. “You hear me? You fall one step short of being the most perfect mother this world has ever seen, and I will come for you. Believe me, I will. Now get the hell out of here and leave me the hell alone.” Oliver slams the door in Grace’s face.

A man raises his hand to strike his wife. Iris doesn’t know why, but this time something snaps within her. “No, not this time,” she says, raising her own hand and sending her husband flying against the wall. His eyes open wide with surprise. He struggles to stand, but finds he has been pinned in place.

Iris’s sister has died, and she’s been left to raise her girl. She had hoped she could count on Connor’s stepping up and being a father to Maisie. God knows her real daddy isn’t stepping up. He isn’t even owning up. But no, Iris is not going to raise the girl in a house with a man who’d ever consider hitting his wife. She can’t risk Maisie growing up believing on any level that this way of life is okay. If it had only been for her own sake, Iris isn’t sure if she’d ever have found the strength, but it isn’t just about her anymore. Connor squirms and tries to free himself, but defying all gravity, he begins to slide up the wall. His head bumps roughly against the ceiling.

“Pack a bag and get out of here.” Iris lowers her hand, and the man who just stopped being her husband tumbles to the floor. “You got five minutes.”

T
he rain falls so heavily it’s nearly impossible to see the road. The semitruck ahead jackknifes. Not enough time for thought, let alone magic. The father dies on impact, but by some miracle, just the slightest amount of additional force holds the boy tight against the seat as the car flips and rolls for what seems to him like an eternity.

Ellen rushes to the hospital, nearly crashing en route herself. At the sight of Paul, she snatches him into her arms, rocking her son as she holds him tightly to her breast. Paul is traumatized by his father’s death. He cries for Ellen as he endures X-rays and examinations, but in the end everyone is left to wonder at the accident that took the father, but left the son without a scratch.

A young woman lies on a bloodstained bed. The color of her hair is very nearly a match for the color of the sunshine flooding through the window. Ellen and Iris look at each other, and in that silent stare promise never to tell Maisie or her redheaded giant how close they’d come to losing both Maisie and their boy.

It had come with no warning. Maisie had gone from a perfectly normal pregnancy to crisis in a matter of minutes. Iris reckons sometimes it just happens that way. To look at them both now, mother and child, you would never guess they had ever been in the tiniest shred of danger.

“Go on,” Iris says and smiles at Peter. “Go call your parents. They are going to want to see this carrottop boy of yours.”

Peter is not budging. “You okay?” One hand holds tight to his wife’s, the other lies carefully on his son’s back.

“Yeah,” Maisie says, and for the first time in her life, she feels she really means it. “I’m incredible. Aunt Iris is right. Claire will take a switch to you if she finds out you made her wait a second longer than she had to.”

“Go on, we’ll get everyone cleaned up and presentable.” Iris gives her final command. She watches her sister leave the bedside and cross to look out the window. Maisie begins singing a lullaby, the same Iris remembers singing to her, about a place called Cill Airne, a place neither of them has ever seen.

Iris joins Ellen by the window. “I guess you can take a family out of Ireland, but you can’t—” The look in her sister’s eyes makes her words run dry. Ellen stares at the horizon, as if she can see something there Iris can’t.

Ellen’s eyes fill with tears. “I didn’t fail her, not this time.”

Iris shakes her head and pulls Ellen into her arms. “No, sweetheart, you didn’t fail Maisie at all.”

Ellen seems confused. “I don’t mean Maisie.”

Iris strokes Ellen’s hair. “You mean Emily, don’t you?”

Ellen considers the question. “Emily? No.” She pushes back from Iris’s embrace. “Honestly, I don’t know who I mean. Something just seems a bit off.”

“You’ve just worn yourself out. That’s all,” Iris says. “You go rest up a bit. I’ll take care of things here.”

Ellen hesitates. She wraps her arms around herself and tosses a nervous glance in Maisie’s direction. “You sure?”