AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“For every Heartmate of a Pruitt woman must and shall die by the hand of Milas James,” it went on. “His Spirit enters into them and drives them MAD until DEATH takes them. It is a most Vile and Terrible death and none has yet been able to break the Curse.”
I thought of that black door with the red X painted on it opening…thought of the gaunt-faced man with the burning red eyes coming out and going to find Rath…
“No!” I said out loud, pounding with one fist on the table. “That can’t be it! There has to be something I can do!”
There was more so I kept reading, but the image of Milas James and his glowing red eyes wouldn’t leave my mind.
“However, Hope has been given to us in the form of a Prophesy—which is why I am writing this account,” the book went on. “For today, the fifth day after the death of my beloved Heartmate, John, I was Scrying for to see the Future. And it was given to me to know that in the Eleventh Generation the daughter of a Pruitt Witch shall be born. She shall be a Natural Witch and need neither Charm nor Potion to work her magic. She will be strong enough to defeat Milas James once and for all and free her Daughters of this Curse. These are the Words that were Given to me for Her.
Where the stream runs Swift and Pure
There our Sorrow She shall Cure
There the Evil one she’ll Take
And at last the Curse she’ll Break
Though it may invade your Dreams
Evil cannot Cross the stream…
I frowned as I read the little poem several times. I knew that many superstitions held that evil things couldn’t cross running water, but what stream was my ancestor talking about? The stream that ran at the end of the backyard, maybe? The one that marked the boundary of my Grandma’s property?
But how did that help me if the mysterious door was appearing here in the house? What was I supposed to do—lure the spirit of Milas James out the back door and through the backyard to edge of the water? And even if I got him there—then what?
I went on reading, hoping to get more clues on what I was supposed to do, but there were only a few more lines—very sad ones.
“Until the Natural Witch comes, we must Endure. I weep for my John and I Pray to see him again some day in the Afterlife…”
These last words were blotched, as though my ancestress had been crying when she wrote them and the tears had made the ink she was using run. Poor woman! I wondered how long she’d had her own Heartmate before he was taken from her?
A bigger question was, was the prophesy talking about me? Was I a “Natural Witch?” But even if I was, how was I supposed to defeat the evil spirit of Milas James? I didn’t know and I was afraid for Rath. What if something happened to him? What if Milas James came through the black door and drove him crazy or killed him somehow?
I went back to the front of the book and looked at the family tree. Under the names there were dates. My heart sank all over again when I saw that the men in my family had all died young.
My Grandfather had been forty when he died and my own father had only been thirty-eight. He and my mother had been together about five years before he passed, I remembered. And it was shortly after that she’d had my magic bound and asked Baba Yaga to put the memory spell on me, so that I would forget my Grandma and all of Hidden Hollow.
I remembered now that Madam Healer had said that my Mom had just lost my Dad when she’d made that decision. She must have been half-crazy with grief and had decided that she would do everything she could to keep me away from the magical world in an effort to keep the Curse from affecting me.
But Grandma didn’t agree with her. She believed that I could break the Curse. Rapidly, I counted the names and lines. Yes, I was the eleventh generation removed from Mercy Pruitt. But was I really strong enough to take on the evil spirit that had been tormenting and killing my family for centuries?
I didn’t know but I was afraid that very soon I would have to find out.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
That night I dreamed of the black door again. But this time I could see the doorknob turning and the door beginning to open. In the dream, I did my best to stop it. I pushed on the door—leaned on it with all my weight. But there was nothing I could do to stop it. The door kept opening and as the crack widened, I could see a blazing red eye staring at me from the darkness…
“Mmmmrow! Mmrow!” Sebastian woke me by sitting on my chest and meowing directly in my ear.
“Huh…what?” I blinked and looked up to see his furry, whiskered face looking anxiously into mine. “What is it? Was I having a bad dream?” I asked him.
His “mmmrow!” was a definite “yes.”
“Okay, well I’m up now. Thanks for waking me,” I told him.
I sat up in bed and rubbed my eyes. I could still remember the baleful red eye staring at me from the open door, though. The dream hadn’t faded as most dreams do when you wake up. It was still lingering like some kind of warning.
It made me so nervous that I left my bedroom and went to look at the end of the hallway. Sure enough, the corner was back and when I looked around it, I saw the black door with the red X.
