Witch Clan: Matriarchs by John Stormm (best beach reads of all time TXT) 📖

was careful to only pull halfway down. Immediately, three bars slid up into the far reaches of the tower. Johnny dashed out of the cell and nearly knocked her down trying to hug her. Gregory perched on Johnny’s daypack. His gleaming prize tucked into his belt.

“We’ve got to get out of here before the Vough gets back down here,” she urged her cousin. “She’s sure to see the bars have risen from up there.” She pointed to the ceiling.

“I gotta get something,” Johnny insisted. “It’ll only take a minute.” He scampered over to a shelf by the door and found a secret drawer and pulled out a polished wooden scepter with an orb in its top.

Leona had her staff and was making the Rune of Opening with its tip on the inside door plate. As the door opened, the far bookcase was beginning to move and the children dashed out into the night heading directly into the forest.

This Will Be The Death of Me

Elvyra worked frantically that day. She grabbed her wand and her obsidian knife and ran out the back door and around through the gate to the front of the house. Crossing out the Sigils of Sealing on all the doors from the porch to the rooms inhabited by Behir and scratching the Rune of Opening in their place, she dashed back to the gate leading into her backyard and the plane of Abred and sealed it from the other side with scratched sigils and rune worked strands of black ribbon. Back inside the house again, she added more runes, sigils and spells around even the doorposts and walls to keep Behir from breaching them into this plane of existence. The entire house shook with the steadily increasing force of his blows upon the doors, but all appeared to be holding for the time.

She sat quietly by the hearth, occasionally stirring her cauldron of acorn porridge, and sipping hot sassafras. She sweetened them both with a little maple syrup. Emma had told her once, that the sassafras on this hill was some of the best and richest to be found anywhere around. She had to agree. The foods and medicines around here were fine and potent, but she rarely left this hill to explore farther into the plane of Abred. There was a noisy, bustling city surrounding this wooded park, with all manner of noisome contraptions racing to and fro up its busy streets, spewing their foul, acrid exhausts in her face. She didn’t like the city, but the woods were kind and fair. That was what she cherished most about Abred. Nature was ever so much more sweet and generous here.

The day wore on her. This situation would truly be the death of her, she feared. But shedding her mortal carcass would be preferred than to allow this sweet, shining space to be plunged into death and darkness. The mindless pounding continued, but the intensity was no longer increasing. Emma must have managed to retrieve her grandson somehow and stop the lightning from feeding Behir. This was a good omen. Still she doubted there was any way possible that Emma could defeat the Vough and Behir in his strengthened state. Behir’s only weakness could be exploited in moonlight, but it was the rainy season and overcast. It would only be a matter of time before Emma and her grandchildren would be hunted down and killed and the magick of this fine house be used to no good purpose.

The house was the magick that gave the rift between Annwn and Abred its structure and not the other way around. Few there would be who could fathom its design. Many years ago her father had managed to crossover from this point by sheer chance, and built it with wood from both planes for her mother and her. The Vough had sent him help in building it in return for crossing rights into Abred and the adjacent planes on this hill. The last time she had seen her parents, they had been summoned to the Unseely Court and had left that day in a coach that took them down the road in front of her house. They had never returned and she never heard from them again. Try as she might, her great grandmother, the Vough would never comment on this turn of events. She only insisted that she learn the craft of the Wise Women and report to the tower known as Dun Cruachan once a month for tutelage and testing. She never trusted the crazy old fae and determined never to let her get the upper hand. This house and the growing abomination in the next room were the sum total of the Vough’s obsession for revenge on ancient enemies, and it didn’t matter a whit who got hurt in the process of fulfilling her mad dream. There was no way around it. The house would have to be destroyed.

She had a large shoulder bag in her closet that she used when making the long, monthly trek to Dun Cruachan. She didn't have to worry much about taking food as Emma did, because her hybrid nature could easily metabolize the foods of both worlds. Still, it may be a while, if ever, before she might again taste the sweet abundance of Abred. So, she brought a few fruits and muffins. A hammered silver headpiece and matching medallion, along with her obsidian atheme and her wand were the tools she sought to bring with her. She had loaned out her water skins to Emma and Leona, so she would have to find water where she could. She pulled a can of olive oil from under her sink and went outside and covered the wooden fence and gate with rags and soaked them in oil and then returned inside to douse the walls and furniture with the rest. She was careful to set the fire in such a way that it started burning from the very back of the house and worked its way to the front. She left around the back and unsealed the gate and moved into Annwn, putting the gate to the torch as she left. It would not do to have Behir find his way through from there. As the structure began to fail, so would the magick fail that allowed it to be a portal between the two worlds.

The house was still only burning on the Abred side. Behir was not aware of his situation as of yet. She didn't want to be near when he found out and had to vacate, and he had only one way he could go. Tying up her skirts, she invoked the Spell of Swift and ran for the forest in hopes of joining up with Emma, Leona and Johnny. The little Sidhe gate master would be able to return them all to Abred... if they survived this. Still, she had to admit that they had fared a good deal better so far than she honestly expected. Emma was no adept matriarch like her mother, Ella had been, but she was a strong and competent witch. Perhaps being underestimated by her enemies really worked in her behalf. Who would believe that a human witch could pull herself out of a wine bottle, rise and defeat the likes of the Vough? She found herself quite proud to refer to this woman as “sister.” Her spell and her feelings lent wings to her feet as she flew tirelessly through the dark wooded trail towards the flood ravaged valley.

For the remainder of that evening she ran. Fae creatures do not fatigue so easily as the frailer human folk do, and she had her heritage among these here. She noted the runes carved on large stones along the trail. Daylight was gone but then fae also didn’t require much light to see. Past Emma’s first encampment she fled. Behir would not be too far behind her now. Her best clearing to work her Spell of Moonlight would be where the woods broke for the flooded valley. From there she had a chance of enlisting Emma’s aid in fighting Behir, where he would have to slow down to negotiate the flood on his way to the eldritch tower, Dun Cruachan.

Through the shadowy depths of the dark forest she raced the coming of the monster. She stopped only a moment to counsel with She-who-waits. While the giant matriarchal arachnid could not hope to attack such as Behir, still she would do what she could to slow him down. Elvyra tore down the trail, stopping only moments for a bite to eat and drink what rainwater she could get in a cupped leaf. She could hear the trees cracking far behind her as Behir forced his way through the web tangled trail. The sound of a raging river was only a short distance ahead of her.

It was still overcast and drizzling when she reached the flooded valley. The water was more than halfway up the gorge and the current looked very strong. The tree canopy stopped a good thirty feet before the trail broke into a switchback down into what was the wetlands below. She unshouldered her bag and drew out her implements and centered herself for a ritual under the open sky. Putting on her medallion and a silver headpiece with a large, silver crescent moon on the brow, she drew a large circle in the dirt with her obsidian knife and began the Ritual of Evocation for the Mistress Moon. She had purposely failed to learn to draw the lightning, but she had never neglected Sister Moon. Her night time brightness was the wonder of all Annwn. Raising her wand at the four quarters and then above her head, she cried out for all she was worth. Behir’s rasping breath was close enough to hear even with the rushing torrent behind her.

The clouds were beginning to part, and a bare needle of moonlight had found its way into her circle. Behir, for all his ugliness, was no fool. He could not personally breach her