Origins

I could not wait for the evening.

11. Spelling a Death Drink with Dark Powers

Falkner delivered me to the path to Ma’s cottage, and I waved good-bye to my friends with a firm resolution to work things out before nightfall. But as I neared the clearing, I noticed a group of coveners lingering outside our cottage. Panic ran cold within me. Something was wrong. Their expressions were somber as I ran up to them.

“What is it?” I called breathlessly. “What’s happened?”

“’Tis your ma,” Ian MacGreavy answered. He came to me and took my hand. “She’s been hurt, Rose.”

Gripped with fear, I broke loose from him and pushed past the others into the cottage. A few women from the coven were huddled around Ma’s bed, stroking her hair and speaking in hushed tones. As I pressed closer, I saw Ma lying there, her eyes open but glazed. A pool of blood stained the blanket beneath her.

“Ma!” I knelt beside her, taking her hand. “What happened?”

Her face was a mask of pain, and from the look in her eyes I could see she was not completely in this world.

“She ca

“I’ll wager it was an arrow from a rival clan,” Aisli

“We don’t know that,” Mrs. Hazelton pointed out.

I stood and looked over Ma’s body. The arrow was still in her back. “This must be removed,” I said, wondering how deep it had penetrated.

“But the heat in her body is high,” said another elder who went by the name of Norn. She was a shriveled prune of a woman, but I had always been fond of her humor and her spirit. Norn touched Ma’s forehead, clucking her tongue. “ ’Tis dangerous to take the arrow while she is feverish.”

“Then we must take care of her fever.” I pushed back my hair, then went to the basin to wash my hands. If there was ever an occasion that I needed to call upon the magick I had learned, this was it. I handed the broom to Aisli

“Anise in the tea will help her sleep,” Norn told me. “And rosemary will help the pain.”

“Add caye

I nodded as I leafed through the book. Finally I found a remedy for fever. “We’ll need boneset in the tea to lower the fever,” I said, rushing over to the jars and pouches to retrieve the herbs. “Pray Goddess that she’s able to drink this at all!”

Norn had already put the kettle on the fire. Working together, we steeped a strong tea for Ma. As it brewed, I went to the altar and consecrated the tea and the comfrey poultice that Norn was preparing. I don’t know what I said in the heated, dreadful moment, only that I summoned the Goddess to heal Her daughter and to work through my hands, and the others chanted, “So mote it be!”

We managed to prop my mother up so that the tea could pass over her lips. Still dazed, she sipped most of the contents. After that, her eyes closed and her breathing slowed.

“’Tis working,” Norn said, dousing my mother’s head with a cool cloth. “The fever is lifting.”

Thanking the Goddess, I set to work on the arrow. I had to cut the skin a bit with my bolline to remove the barbed head, and as I worked, Ma’s blood ran out steadily. At last the arrow was out, and I dressed the wound with the poultice and covered it with a clean white cloth.

“Now. she must rest,” Norn said, her own voice cracking with weariness. “As should we. We’ll know more when she awakens.”

I lifted the plate containing the bloodied dressings and the arrow that I’d removed. Glancing down at the base, I noticed that it was marked with runes.

My body went cold as I deciphered their meaning. “Vykrothes...” So this was no hunting accident. The arrow was part of a spell cast by Siobhan, I was sure of it. Had not Mrs. Hazelton said that a hunter had never appeared? Surely a hunter would come forward to claim his prized deer or rabbit? No, this was not a normal arrow. It had been spelled by Siobhan.

Had she intended to hit me? I couldn’t be sure. But one thing I was sure of: Siobhan had gone too far. She had to be stopped.

“A Vykrothe arrow...” Norn gasped.

“What?” Aisli

“It might have been an accident,” Norn pointed out. “Come along now, Aisli

“Oh, some accident!” Aisli

“Quiet, girl!” Mrs. Hazelton hushed her. “You’re loud enough to wake the dead, and Síle must sleep.”

“Sleep, she will,” Aisli

“Enough!” Placing a wrinkled hand on Aisli

I nodded, my lips twisted with pain as the women filed out the door and returned to their own cottages. I closed the door and sighed, alone but for the quiet breathing of my mother in the bed. I cleaned up the bloodied things, dumped the old water, tidied the cottage, nursed Ma’s head with a cool cloth. All the while I felt embittered and frightened.

I had brought a Vykrothe arrow upon my mother.

It was time for Siobhan to have a taste of her own evil.

Listlessly I paged through Ma’s Book of Spells, praying for an answer. Aisli

I turned to a spell called Death Drink and paused. I had never had much interest in this ritual. It called for a covener who wanted to visit their own mortality to drink a bitter brew. The potion sometimes made them a bit ill, but it was never fatal. As far as I was concerned, this was a tedious mind journey. So what if it led to i

But now, in this light, I wondered if I could use the death drink as a spell upon an unwilling victim. Siobhan.

I would add a few poisonous ingredients and a dark spell that would send Siobhan to death’s door. She would not die, though she might wish she could. As I doused Ma’s forehead with a cloth, I imagined Siobhan writhing in pain. Oh, I would send her a spell to end her viciousness.

“I’ll need bitter ingredients,” I whispered as I combed Ma’s hair back with my fingers. “Cranberries from the bogs. Toadstools. And bitter essence of appleseeds.”

Ma sighed contentedly, and I realized her fever had cooled. She slept soundly while I shuffled about the cottage, assembling herbs from our collection. When I was sure she was resting comfortably, with no sign of fever, I slipped out to consecrate the brew at my sacred circle.

Along the way I found a small wren hiding in the bushes. I paused, my life force pounding in my ears. I had never hurt one of the Goddess’s creatures before, but everyone knew that the blood of a living animal made for potent dark magick. Quietly I knelt beside it, taking a large pouch from my belt. In the blink of an eye I swung the open pouch over the bird, trapping it with such deftness, I felt sure the Goddess intended it.