Tales of Aradia The Last Witch Volume 1

  Chapter One

  “You'd think they'd tell us before we drove for twelve hours,” Ross Preston muttered, obviously bitter.

  “Did you say something, honey?” Liza, his wife, asked distractedly. She had been gloomily staring out the car window and to the horizon for the better part of an hour.

  Liza was normally quite cheery, and tended to elicit the same cheerfulness from others. A high school art teacher, she was a favorite among her students. Petite, with mousy blond hair, and a voice that was barely audible, Liza Preston was the perfect image of a ‘little woman.’

  Her small stature and gentle behavior contrasted quite starkly with her husband. He was over six feet tall, brown eyed, and had brown curly hair which simply never looked neat. He was almost obsessively focused on whatever he did and shined as a promising young assistant district attorney, but tended not to handle social situations well. Quite simply, he was a loudmouthed and outspoken hard-ass of a man.

  Yet to anyone who really knew them it was clear that Ross and Liza Preston complemented each other perfectly, as if they were the Batman and Robin of married couples. Ross was the father figure who could inspire even the most hardened criminal to go straight. Liza was the comforting mother figure who, just by using her soft voice and a few choice words, could convince anyone that they could change.

  As opposite as Ross and Liza were, what truly united them was a fiery ambition to help anyone who needed it, no matter how far gone a person might be.

  They found joy in every life they were able to influence. At that particular moment, however, the only life they wanted to guide was that of their own child, a child whom the specialists at Salem Fertility Center had just told them they could never have.

  "It’s truly unfair that some doctors, no matter how questionable their choice of practice, are able to make seventeen times the amount a criminal lawyer is paid working for the state. On top of the salary, that criminal lawyer has to deal with a lifetime of stress and sacrifice. And the lawyer’s salary is supplied by tax dollars, a tiny drop in an ocean of dues and fees and taxes. That’s the kind of revenue that should make the IRS burst out laughing!"

  Liza smiled weakly at Ross's comment and said, "I'm disappointed too."

  Ross sighed and said, "I don't think disappointed even covers it, Lizzy. We drive over twelve hours from Ohio to Salem, where they supposedly have the best baby-making clinic in the country, only to be told that we don't have a shot in hell of ever actually conceiving our own kid."

  "They didn't say that!" Liza protested.

  Ross glared at her as long as he dared before returning his eyes to the road. After an awkward and silent moment, Liza did begrudgingly rephrase, "Well... it wasn’t quite as explicit as that…”

  "Liza, they basically said the odds of us ever conceiving a baby are worse than the Redskins ever winning the Super Bowl. Genetically, it’s just not going to happen.” He chuckled sarcastically before adding, “We’re just not built to be parents.”

  Liza hung her head, and Ross immediately regretted his harsh words.

  "Honey, hey, I'm sorry–" he tried to apologize.

  "Don't!" Liza cut him off. "You're right. They had absolutely no right to speak to us like that. And to have the audacity to ask for more money to try experimental protocols on me? Please!"

  "I know," said Ross with a disgruntled sigh, glad they’d redirected their frustration away from each other. "Can you believe the nerve of those people?"

  Liza scoffed in agreement.

  Another awkward silence hung over them until Liza asked, "So what do we do now?"

  Ross proposed, "Well, we could always adopt."

  Liza stared at him and said hopefully, "You’d be okay with that?”

  Ross nodded.

  Her mood fell just as quickly as it had risen, though. “You know how hard it is to adopt. Who knows if we’d ever be approved, and even if we were, I imagine it could take years.”

  “It’s a chance at least. That’s better than what they gave us at the clinic.”

  "That's not the point!" Liza shouted.

  "Well, what else do you want?" Ross demanded angrily. "What else can I possibly do?"

  Liza just shrugged and turned to stare back out her window. Several minutes later she said, "I really don't know."

  Ross sighed and just kept driving.

  They drove another twenty minutes in complete silence before Liza finally said, "There is one thing I do want."

  Ross didn’t know how to feel about anything just then. Exasperated by the whole scenario, he asked, "And what is that?"

  "I want..." Liza started, "I want a sign."

  "A sign?" Ross asked curiously.

  "Yes! A sign!" Liza said excitedly, with the hint of a smile gracing the corners of her lips. "A sign of what we should we do."

  Ross glanced at his wife long enough to send her a look as if she’d just asked him to pick up a car or fly off into space. “A sign. Really?”

  She nodded excitedly. Despite himself, her enthusiasm was infectious. He broke into a broad grin himself as he prodded her, “Would you prefer a sign from God or aliens? Or are you not too picky?”

  The tension finally broken, she laughed and replied, “Oh whichever.”

  “From the future, perhaps?”

  “That sounds positively lovely, Ross.”

  Ross chuckled, shrugged, and said, "You never really know Liza, we might just get a sign. The real questions are where, when, and how on Earth will we be able to tell. I think the real trick to… to signs,” he paused to chuckle again before continuing, “is knowing how to interpret them."

  "Well, I think you summed it up," said Liza, eyes tired but cheerful. "We’ll never really know, at least until we get it."

  It was centered a distant way off, yet the flash of white light was so brilliant that both Ross and Liza instinctively jerked their eyes away. Ross slowed the car and pulled to the shoulder, knowing there wasn’t anybody behind him and not wanting to cause an accident, but not every driver on the road was as mindful. When his vision cleared, he was greeted by an F250 barreling down on him and his wife.

  Ross yanked the wheel to the right and stepped on the accelerator. Liza screamed as her husband drove them off the paved road and right into the forest. Either by his keen eye or miraculous good fortune, they found a narrow gap between trees. With the threat of a head-on collision behind them, he slammed the brakes.

  The car skidded on rough dirt smeared with wet autumn leaves, but ultimately halted safely. After a few silent did-that-really-just-happen moments, Ross let out a whoop of excitement and burst out laughing. Liza merely exhaled a sigh of relief.

  "You okay, baby?" Ross, still grinning, asked Liza.

  "I wish you wouldn't call me that," she replied.

  "I'll take that as a 'yes,'" said Ross with a big grin.

  Liza scowled and changed the subject. "What in the world was that?"

  "I have no idea," Ross said.

  "You think we should check it out?" Liza asked rhetorically, unbuckling her seatbelt.

  "No," Ross replied, which earned him a sharp look of disbelief from his wife. He went on, "I think I should check it out."

  She rolled her eyes, but nodded. She’d learned long ago that there wasn’t much point arguing with her husband once he’d decided to play the role of macho alpha male.

  Ross reached into the glove compartment and pulled out his mace.

  After flicking off the safety latch, he got out of the car, and paused dramatically with the door held open.

  “Stay here," he instructed his wife.

  Liza restrained herself from chuckling at his bravado.

  Before going into law as a profession, Ross had served a tour of duty in the Air Force. He had seen spotlights, flares, and all kinds of explosions, but he had never witnessed a light which was so brilliant and so piercing from so far away as the one he’d just seen.

  After ticking off all the likely causes he cou
ld brainstorm, he started thinking of unlikely ones.

  “Maybe it was aliens,” he muttered under his breath, only to sarcastically add, "Ross, if you really want aliens to be the perpetrators of crimes transfer to Area 51."

  He chuckled to himself and started to relax.

  His guard came back up fast, though, when he noticed a soft, otherworldly whimpering sound from somewhere nearby. After a bit of sleuthing he realized it was coming from inside what looked like a shallow cave. The eerie sound was echoing off the stone walls, which confused his sense of direction. With a hard look in his eye and his can of mace raised, he edged into the cavern.

  The setting sun cast almost no light through the east-facing cave mouth, and it took Ross’s eyes a few moments to adjust. What he saw perplexed him. He saw nothing.

  “Well that’s… weird,” he mumbled.

  Perhaps responding to his voice, the whimper returned, and now inside the cave, Ross was able to make it out much more clearly. It sounded like a child.

  Casting his gaze downward, he saw a little girl curled up, wrapped in brown linen which blended almost perfectly with the dirty stone floor. From her size, she couldn’t have been over six months old.

  At first Ross simply stared in shock. He’d been prepared for bandits or some sort of vicious mutant creature. A child threw him off.

  He checked her immediately, but found no signs of abuse or neglect, aside from having been abandoned alone in a cave. Near as he could tell, she was perfectly healthy and sound. Beyond that initial assessment, though, he was at a total loss for how to handle the girl. He completed a sweep of the cave, finding nothing out of the ordinary. It did not take long. Once again, he looked down at the girl in complete disbelief.

  “Now what on earth are you doing here?” Ross asked the baby as he again crouched down beside her. As a lawyer for the District Attorney’s office, he had come across too many unfortunate case of abandonment. A child comes to someone who does not necessarily want it, but has it anyway. Later the person comes to learn that having a child is not like having a complacent slave or an obedient dog. Then, rather than put it up for adoption, the freaks just leave their child somewhere to die.

  That pattern just didn’t fit the facts in this case, though, Ross noted curiously. He’d already seen that the little girl looked surprisingly well nourished and completely free of signs of abuse. “Camping, maybe?” Ross asked himself, or perhaps the baby. Either way, he didn’t get a useful response. “That wouldn’t explain the flash, anyway,” he thought aloud.

  “Well, I can’t just leave you out here,” he concluded. After a few contemplative seconds, Ross very carefully and very awkwardly scooped the girl into his arms. He held her for a few seconds, not sure if he was doing it right. He knew he had to support her head, but that was about it.

  She stared straight into his eyes, and he wondered what she was thinking. The warm little bundle clung to him with surprising strength. Then she hiccuped, which, strangely enough, set Ross’s mind at ease.

  He knew he was doing the right thing by taking her with him. More than that, though, he hoped she might cheer up Liza. “You know, kid, you are too cute.”

 

  "Oh Ross, she's too cute!" Liza exclaimed as she reached out to take the little girl from her husband.

  Her initial confusion at seeing Ross emerge from the forest carrying what seemed to be a small brown sack had evaporated immediately upon realizing he held a baby girl. Once she’d realized it was a child, she’d rushed out of the car, leaving the door hanging open behind her.

  Seeing his wife cradle the baby so comfortably and naturally in her arms, Ross chuckled at his wife's maternal instinct.

  "But… how? Why?" Liza sputtered, not taking her gaze off the girl.

  "Yeah, that’s the really weird part," Ross said. "I found her alone in a cave."

  "Excuse me?" Liza replied, tearing her eyes from the girl only long enough to cast him a brief look of disbelief.

  "I'm not kidding," Ross said, throwing up his hands to illustrate his seriousness. "She was just lying there all alone. I called out to see if anyone else was around but nobody answered."

  "Do you think they might have left for just a little while? To get food or water or…” she trailed off. Considering the baby’s odd attire, she finished the question, “or clothes?"

  "That thought did occur to me,” Ross replied. “I don’t think so though. I searched the surrounding area and didn’t find anything suggesting anybody had been there recently. There was no tent, no campfire, nothing.”

  “Ross, still,” she said.

  “I know, I know. I agree. I left my wallet in there with a business card and a note in it.”

  “Your wallet?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Flashing a handful of cash and cards from inside his jacket pocket, he replied, “No, I did not leave my credit cards or ID or Golden Spoon punch card."

  Liza closed her mouth and smiled. The girl’s eyes were wide open, and the two females gazed at one another.

  "What do you suppose happened to her?" Liza asked Ross distractedly.

  "You got me," Ross replied as he made funny faces at the baby over his wife’s shoulder.

  "Hm-mm..." said Liza. "We should take her home with us."

  "Pardon?" Ross replied.

  "Well, she is all alone and we were just talking about adopting."

  "I’m no expert, but I think that might technically be considered kidnapping rather than adoption," Ross replied, not nearly as surprised at his wife’s suggestion as most men would have been. "Actually, no, I am an expert."

  Liza scowled and said, "But we can't just leave her out here.”

  “Not the only two options, Liza.”

  “But she's just so...special."

  "Well, yeah," said Ross. "She’s adorable, but so will be the kid we adopt legally."

  "Look,” she said, flustered, “there is something about her that tells me she's more than that. She’s just too special to give up. We should take her in."

  As if in confirmation, the little girl cooed at her.

  "Sure, what’s the harm in the idea," Ross said as he stretched out his arms over his head and paced in a tight circle. “I’m sure that wouldn’t affect my legal career, or your job working with kids.”

  “Oh c'mon Ross,” she replied. “Somebody is bound to adopt her. Why not us?”

  He paused to stare at his wife.

  "I’m going to check out the car,” Ross said. “For damage."

  Liza chuckled. She let Ross off the hook without complaint.

  He leaned in through Liza’s still-open door and popped the hood release. After securing the hood open and fiddling for a minute, he seemed satisfied enough. Then he turned his inspection to the vehicle’s undercarriage. After uncomfortably crawling under the car, he released a clearly audible groan.

  "Bad, huh?" Liza called from across their little clearing while swaying the young girl side-to-side.

  Ross poked his head out from under the car and nodded solemnly. Liza bemusedly wondered how, in hardly more than two minutes, he’d managed to smear himself with so much dirt and oil. “The engine’s fine,” he replied. “But we snapped our rear axle. At least we have time to make up our mind about the kid. We’re not going anywhere for a while.”

  Liza made baby noises at the little girl who promptly giggled.

  “Hmph,” he replied. He climbed back out from under the car, checked his Motorola StarTAC, and groaned again. “No bars.”

  “I keep telling you to switch phone providers,” Liza replied, smiling.

  “Ha ha,” he faux laughed. He fished through his wife’s purse for her Nokia 6160. “Ha!” he repeated, this time triumphantly. “You don’t have any bars either.”

  “And you’re sure you’re happy about that, yeah?” she said, tilting her head and raising an eyebrow.

  For a few seconds he didn’t say anything. Then he just grunted, “Hmph,” again. Liza smirked.

>   “Okay, I’ll take a walk,” Ross decided. “The last exit was only a couple miles back. You should be fine here for a while. Maybe I’ll even get service back at the road.”

  “Not likely,” she replied, “unless you take my Nokia.”

  “Oh enough of that, you,” he said. He’d declared his plan, but for a while Ross just stared at the car, as if that might help. Giving up on that idea, he turned to look at his two ladies. The younger shifted her eyes from Liza to gaze instead at him.

  Ross smiled.

  "Well, firecracker,” he joked to the baby, “if you are so special, why don't you save me some exercise and fix the car for us?"

  "Don’t you put that on the baby," Liza said defensively, with a barely concealed smile.

  Ross looked down at his loafers. “I think I have sneakers in the trunk.”

  He opened it and sorted through a pile of junk.

  “Ross?” Liza called uncertainly.

  “Hey!” he called out. “I’ve got a whole change of clothes in here! Sneakers, t-shirt, exercise shorts.”

  “Ross?”

  “I know you’re always on me to clean my car out, but you have to admit it’s coming in handy now.”

  “Ross!”

  “Hmm?” he inquired, poking his head around the trunk.

  "Check under the car again.”

  “Huh?”

  “Check under the car again.”

  “No, I heard you. But why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I just said that, didn’t I?”

  They stared wordlessly for a few seconds, neither really sure what was going on.

  “So, you’re serious?” he asked.

  She just glared at him in response.

  “Okay, that’s the serious look. You really don’t trust me sometimes.”

  “It’s not that!” she protested in a way that he believed her. “Just trust me, I have a feeling.”

  He shrugged and again crawled under the car.

  “Well how about that,” he called embarrassedly.

  “It’s not broken, is it,” she said.

  He crawled back, even more dirty and greasy than the first time. “No, it’s not. Everything looks fine.”

  "But I thought you said it was broken?" Liza asked confused.

  "It was broken..." Ross said slowly. “I thought it was at least. No, it was. I saw it.”

  Liza shook her head. "I don't understand, Ross."

  "That’s both of us, then. I mean, maybe I was wrong, but I could have sworn..." Ross said.

  He rubbed his hand over his face, smearing it even further, and said, "Well, either way, it’s not broken now, so I suppose we should get going."

  Liza nodded in agreement.

  Glancing at his filthy outfit, Ross said, “I think I’m going to change before we go anyway.” Liza smiled and nodded.

  As he turned back to the trunk, though, he heard Liza gasp, “Honey!”

  "Yup?" he turned.

  She pointed at a nasty gash on his shoulder. His shirt was quickly staining with blood. “You’re bleeding!"

  He reached over his shoulder, then stared down at his grimy and bloody hand. “Hmm. Yeah, I felt my shirt catch on a gear or something.”

  “Didn’t it hurt?”

  He blushed enough to be seen through the dirt and grime. “I didn’t want to whine.”

  "Very smart, tough guy," said Liza with a sigh. "I honestly wonder how you got through law school sometimes. Um, here,” she said as she walked around, reached into the cluttered trunk, and draped a clean towel over his arms.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Because you’re going to hold the baby while I tend your wound, and there’s no way you’re touching her as dirty as you are.”

  She transferred the precious bundle from her arms to his.

  “You can do it, baby,” she said to him. “Just relax.”

  He nodded his agreement and shifted his grip so the baby would rest in the crook of his right arm.

  “It’s pretty deep,” she said. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this. I think you’ll need stitches. I'll get the first aid kit, at least we can clean it out and get some Neosporin on it."

  "Uh, Liza..." Ross interrupted.

  "What?" asked Liza as she swung back around.

  It was unmistakable. The hand with which the girl was reaching towards Ross glowed with a dazzling, white light.

  The light wasn’t as bright or blinding as the flash they’d seen from the road, but it was clearly different only in intensity, not in kind.

  Ross and Liza watched in astonishment as she reached over his shoulder and the cut on his back also began to glow white, shrink, and then disappear.

  She didn’t need to answer his question. He knew the girl had healed him.

  While the couple stared down at her, she gazed up at them, beaming like sunshine. By now, her sweet, tiny hand had stopped glowing and was resting its thumb in the girl’s mouth.

 

 

  "It has begun," Morgan gasped as she violently broke out of her meditative trance. Milky, swirling clouds in her staff’s crystal sphere slowed and disappeared.

  With a flick of her right hand, she summoned a crow into being. She whispered into its ear and sent it on its mission. A few tense seconds later, the Sovereign burst into the room.

  "What?" he demanded, less than thrilled at being so unceremoniously summoned. "For what purpose do you request my presence?"

  Morgan inhaled deeply, calming herself before speaking. "Torn asunder from time and space, I have sensed the child."

  The Sovereign was visibly taken aback. "The last witch? You mean to tell me the last witch lives?"

  “The one who escaped the slaughter of her people, last of her kind, does not still live, but lives again.”

  If the Sovereign had breath, he’d have taken a deep one himself. "Unbelievable. But it has been over three hundred years, and witches are not immortal. How is it so, demoness? Reincarnation?”

  "The substance of existence has been ripped and bridged,” she replied. She moaned in pleasure and added, “A mystery I felt three centuries ago and now have solved. How wonderfully satisfying.”

  “‘Safe where you and yours cannot touch her,’” the Sovereign quoted from the report Rome had given him so long ago. “That we will see. Morgan, I command you to scry for the location and identity of the last witch."

  “You ask what cannot be done.”

  The Sovereign growled in response.

  "My Sovereign, as a demon born with the sight, I have many capabilities, but I am not a witch. I cannot give more than I already have."

  The Sovereign didn't say anything. Instead, he sped to her and gripped her by the throat, lifting her over his head.

  Then his hand held nothing but air and wisps of blackness. Seconds later, she reappeared, a bit further away. Ignoring his attack, she added, “My inability to pierce the veil itself speaks to me, though.”

  “Speak to me, then.”

  “Rarely has so little been certain. A whirlwind is coming. Of what sort, though, will be a wonderful surprise to me.”

  He dug his nails into the palm of his hand. He found satisfaction in taking control of his pain. Opening his hand, the marks closed quickly, and he licked them clean.

  "Do you possess any means of guiding my search for her?" he finally asked.

  Morgan nodded.

  "How?" the Sovereign snapped.

  "Should the one you seek use her powers in extremity, and should I focus and reach, I will feel her."

  He reached his hand into his cowl and gripped a fistful of blonde hair. "How extreme would you need it to be?" the Sovereign asked.

  "She must find her limits and push far beyond them. The need must be great and the situation dire. She must do that which she believes she cannot. Sufficient would be a direct threat to her life or that of a loved one."

  The Sovereig
n moved toward her again, slowly this time, and Morgan let him.

  Inches away from her, the Sovereign stopped, and sighed. "Until that time, I will direct my agents amongst all the clans of the world to closely watch the hidden populations of their territories."

  "All around the world,” Morgan replied, breathing in the immensity of the directive.

  The Sovereign snorted and paced away. "Until you give me more, I have no choice. No choice at all."