Spring Rain (The Witchling #4)(41)
Maybe we could use the soul stone to capture Bartholomew. Decker’s idea had been swimming around Morgan’s thoughts, the most recent of her desperate ideas on how to be with Beck. Nothing Tandy had told her indicated this was possible, either.
Morgan let her head rest back against her seat and drifted into a light doze fed by the drone of the bus engines and road. Whenever she wasn’t actively redirecting her thoughts, they always returned to Beck, to the sense of belonging she couldn’t shake and the idea he felt it, too. She let herself experience the joy of possibly being with him, to fantasize about a more perfect, less dark world where she was allowed to be happy. The images in her head refreshed her from the exhausting reality she faced every second of every day.
Her mother awoke shortly after dawn, and Morgan shifted in the seat. She was stiff and sore from the bus traveling, and she yearned for a good, hot meal.
“Can I try again?” Tandy asked.
Morgan took the stone out of her pocket and passed it over, watching her mother’s face.
Fire leapt across Tandy’s skin the moment she touched it, along with the tightness of strain in her face. Morgan’s hope fell further.
“It’s not the same,” her mother admitted and passed it back. “When you turned seventeen, I knew I had to pass it off. I guess it’s the way the magick works.”
“That doesn’t help me,” Morgan whispered, thoughts on Beck.
“It’s more than duty bothering you,” her mother guessed, studying her.
“Yeah. There’s a guy I like. He’s Light. I can’t be around him with this,” Morgan rushed through the words.
“It’s part of the burden. Your grandmother and great grandmother committed suicide after their duty was up. Great-great gran ended up in a nuthouse.” Tandy frowned. “I don’t want that for us, baby, but I don’t think I have the answers you need either.”
Morgan tightened her fist around the stone and shoved it into her pocket. “Is there anything at all about our family that’s special?”
“We’re strong fire witchlings,” her mother said with a shrug. “It’s all your grandmother ever told me. We were chosen because of how strong we are.”
“There’s no way to contain it? How did you keep it hidden from Connor and me? We were into everything as kids.”
“I kept it in my pocket most of the time. When you were old enough to go to school, I put it in a jewelry box.”
Morgan had left the stone out on top of her dresser at the boarding school once. It was how Beck ended up touching it. She couldn’t imagine keeping the stone out of reach of children. “So nothing there,” Morgan said, shifting in frustration. “What about … fire witchlings? I didn’t learn much at school before being tossed out. What is special about a fire witchling?”
“Fire burns, warms, purifies. It’s a powerful element, one that is also difficult to control, which is how most fire witchlings go Dark.”
“Are there any Light fire witchlings in our family?”
Her mother was pensive. “One. The first in our family to be charged with the stone. It was a very long time ago. Do you remember me telling you kids about Elsa when you were little?”
Morgan nodded.
“She’s the only Light fire witchling in our family and pretty much the only one of any distinction.”
“What was special about her?”
Her mother shrugged. “She was stronger than the other fire witchlings. The story goes that her father was Hessian, which was a warrior tribe in Germany. He was a Dark air witchling who used his magick in battle to defeat other tribes. Elsa’s mother was struck down in battle, and her father went crazy and defied the Rules of Dark and broke them all to try to bring her back to life. She was sixteen, and there was no stone in our family yet. So she buried her mother and went to confront the Master of Dark, ready to burn him to a crisp if he turned down her pleas. The women in our family are fireballs,” her mother said with a smile.
Morgan returned the smile and leaned her temple against the seat, listening. She’d heard the story before as a child, minus the part about the soul stone, but paid as much attention as possible this time around for any clue as to why her family was special.
“When the Master of Dark came for him, Elsa begged for his life, knowing his fate was death. The Master of Dark felt sorry for her, but he couldn’t exactly let her father live after what he’d done,” her mother continued. “He was the son of Bartholomew-the-Terrible, the brother of the Restorer.”
“So, Elsa used her magick to turn her father from Dark to Light,” Morgan recited the end of the story.
“And the Master of Dark realized he now had the right person to safeguard the soul stone he and his brother didn’t know what to do with.”
“How much of it is true?” Morgan asked. “It sounds crazy that Elsa could turn someone from Dark to Light. How is that possible?”
“Stories are exaggerated and twisted as they pass from generation to generation,” her mother agreed. “But … how hard is it to want to believe it’s possible? I tried it with your father.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. I was already Dark when we met, and he went Dark soon after. I wanted to save him. It was stupid, teenage angst and emotion, but I tried to burn the Dark out of him. It did not go well.”