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Light had flashed, followed by thunderclaps but no rain. There had been a tall, slender woman with long auburn hair and bright, almost-colorless eyes. Silver. I’d thought they were pretty. She had taken my hand, walking me toward the pond.
Where was my mother?
I shifted the focus of the memory. My father had been on the ground, unconscious, and my mother had been getting up to her feet. Steam had risen from her. Or maybe it had been smoke?
“Let her go!” she’d screamed.
The woman holding my hand had smiled back at my mother. “She’s not going to feel a thing.”
More lightning had arced through the sky as my shoes had splashed into the water.
The woman had released my hand and tipped her head up to the sky.
Suddenly, the mud had shifted under my feet. The earth had jutted up, lifting me out of the water. Six-year-old me had shrieked in terror as the ground had begun to move like a wave made of dirt. I hadn’t been able to keep my balance as it had rolled toward the trees.
Lightning had flashed again, and I’d seen the silhouette of the stranger attacking my mother. Before I had been able scream, the trees had bent, wrapping small me in their branches as they’d lifted me higher into the air.
My eyes popped open as I gasped. I was still inside the Crow’s Nest.
I struggled to process what I’d just seen. Was it a repressed memory? If so, then my mother had been more than just an earth witch. My mother had been an Earth Elemental.
My hands were trembling again as I turned them over, studying them like I’d never really seen them before. If my mother had been an Elemental, then the moment she’d died…her power had become mine.
I shook my head. That couldn’t be true. It had been years since the fire took her life. I would’ve noticed something by now.
Lillian came into the back room, and I flinched. She stopped behind me and smoothed the back of my hair. “You remember?”
“I…” I looked up at her. “I saw something.”
She took the chair across from me. “Your mother used her gift to save you, but the shock of the experience left you catatonic for days.” Lillian waited for me to meet her eyes. “When you finally spoke again, you didn’t seem to remember anything about the night Sienna came for you, and your mother thought we should keep it that way. So I gave her my word we wouldn’t tell you she was an Earth Elemental. She thought you would remember when you were ready, but…we can’t wait any longer.”
My mouth was dry, my words tight in my throat. “Why would the witch you banished come for me?”
Lillian sighed. “She’d been part of our coven so she knew all the Elemental Witches.” She pressed her lips together. “I believe she was trying to kill you all before your powers manifested.”
“Why? I was a harmless little kid.”
“That’s exactly why. You wouldn’t have your mother’s powers until she passed from this world. If she went after your mother, the power would have shifted to you.”
“Kill me while I was defenseless.”
Lillian nodded. “Then she could go after your mother.” Lillian shook her head slowly. “Shortly after that day at Spring Pond, I started sensing the dark magic infecting Salem. We found birds dropping from the sky, their lifeforce stolen as they glided through the air. Whispers spread through the magic community that the Coven of Shadows was recruiting. I ignored the rumors, but now I think Sienna started her own coven.”
I frowned. “I thought you didn’t know where she was?”
“I don’t.” She sighed. “In hindsight, I should’ve pursued her, but we never saw Sienna again, and I believed she’d never risk returning after your mother defeated her at the pond.”
My mother defeated her. I rubbed my chin, thinking out loud. “If there were no more Elemental Witches, would Sienna have been able to take over both the Coven of Shadows and the Coven of Light?”
“Possibly, twenty years ago.” Lillian shrugged. “It doesn’t matter now. If she’s still alive, she’d be a year older than me, but she was an Energy Elemental, and back then if the other Elementals had been out of her way, no one would’ve been able to defeat her.”
Energy…lightning. The fire.
I narrowed my eyes. “She killed my parents.” Anger bubbled in my belly, but I didn’t rush to snuff it out. “She could’ve hired that law firm to find me.”
Suddenly, the entire store jolted as the earth quaked under our feet. Lillian grabbed my hand, tight. “Pull it back, Ruby.”
I blinked and took a deep breath. “She wants me dead.”
