Table of Contents

  The Blessing

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Acknowledgments

  More Books by Erica Lucke Dean

  About the Author

  Splintered Souls

  Book 1: Flames of Time™

  A Red Adept Publishing Book

  Copyright © 2014 by Erica Lucke Dean All rights reserved.

  First Edition: August 2015

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  To

  the doctor

  who prescribed the medication

  that gave me insomnia, which resulted in

  three glorious weeks of unfettered writing.

  Thanks.

  The Paradox of Time

  Time goes, you say? Ah no!

  Alas, Time stays, we go;

  Or else, were this not so,

  What need to chain the hours,

  For Youth were always ours?

  Time goes, you say?-ah no!

  –Henry Austin Dobson

  “Into every soul, love is born; it calls back the separate halves of our original selves and tries to make one from two and heal the wounds of the human heart.”

  –Plato, The Symposium

  The Blessing

  1654

  A chill cut through her, and Lady Catherine Fairchild melted into her cloak. She forced herself to keep to the shadows as she followed her maid along the darkened path to the stables. Even with no moon to light her way and wearing a pair of borrowed boots at least two sizes too large for her feet, she lost her footing only once.

  The girl hurried inside to retrieve the horse while Catherine listened to the wind howling through the trees. Panic clawed at her insides, and she fought to push it back. Foolish idea or not, she would carry it out. What choice did she have? She feared her husband dead—or worse. And if they implicated him in the failed plot to restore Charles II to the throne… She shuddered to think what that would mean for her unborn child.

  “My ladyship, are you certain you won’t permit me to accompany you?” Tension lined the young maid’s face as she steadied Duchess, the anxious mare, and Catherine read the unspoken words in her eyes. A lady should never travel alone, especially at night.

  With one foot in the stirrup, Catherine threw a shaky leg over and climbed into the gentleman’s saddle. She thanked her good fortune that her brothers had insisted she learn to ride like a boy. “I’m quite certain.”

  “Perhaps we could take the carriage. The sky is ripe with a storm, and with you being so newly with child—and riding like that.” She nodded to Catherine’s skirt.

  Catherine’s face flamed as she rearranged the fabric to cover her thighs. With her legs astride the horse, she’d exposed more skin than would have ever been considered proper.

  Mary’s eyes burned a hole through her. “What would Sir Thomas say if he saw you?”

  Catherine flinched at her husband’s name, that familiar feeling of dread seeping into her bones yet again. “Thank you for your help, Mary. But what I must do, I must do alone. Storm or no storm.” A change in the wind sent a tremor through her, and she tugged her heavy woolen cloak tighter around her slight frame, keeping her flaxen curls hidden beneath the dark hood.

  Catherine knew Mary had good reason to worry. She couldn’t afford to forget the dangers awaiting her along her journey, but with her husband missing and England in an uproar, she needed to seek out the help of someone not under the influence of Oliver Cromwell’s rule. She might not have sided with the old king, but poor Charles hardly deserved a public beheading. In the years since abolishing the monarchy—thus scattering the king’s heirs to the wind—Cromwell had ruled her beloved England with an iron fist. And with the latest plan foiled, her child would be born the son of a traitor unless she took matters into her own hands.

  “I’ll be fine. You’ll see.” She gave Mary a faint smile and slid her hand over the horse’s neck. The mare snorted, as if the anxiety straining just below the surface of Catherine’s skin had worked its way from her delicate fingers and into the beast. Its sinewy frame shifted beneath her as it pawed the damp ground, making the saddle creak. “And God willing, I’ll be home before sunrise.”

  “Then safe travels, Lady Catherine.” Mary stepped back. She dropped her tortured gaze to her battered shoes before her head snapped back up, her eyes wide. “Be sure to keep to the main roads as long as you can. And don’t pay her a single crown more than what I told you. She’ll try to take you for more if you let her. And my dear lady, whatever you do, do not permit her to use the dark arts. Nothing is worth the price you’ll pay for that.”

  Catherine clenched her thighs against the warm saddle and gave her maid a quick nod before reaching out with trembling hands to take the reins. Gripping the leather straps until her bare knuckles went white, she urged her husband’s fastest mare forward until the sudden jolt sucked the air from her lungs. Giant hooves thundered down the path, kicking up mud like musket fire in their wake.

  As if racing to catch her, a bitter wind rolled in from the south, bending bare tree limbs until they creaked and groaned, brushing their branches against the muddy earth. In the distance, bright flashes lit the horizon, and the sky rumbled its displeasure, dark clouds hanging like an omen.

  “Faster, Duchess.” After riding until her bones felt like jelly, Catherine clutched the reins tighter and nudged the horse’s flanks with her heels. “We can’t afford to be caught in this storm.”

  The inky-black mare snorted out a white breath as the first drops of rain splashed against her mane. With a lunge, Duchess increased her efforts, the corded neck muscles bunching and tightening as she bore down toward the thick woods and the tiny cottage hidden just beyond.

  A twinge of fear gripped Catherine. Under normal circumstances, she would have never considered seeking out a witch. The penalty for getting caught would be far too harsh. But with her husband likely lost forever and her child’s life at stake, she would risk the noose for even a whisper of white magic.

  What was the harm? She shuddered, leaning forward in the saddle to grab ahold of Duchess’s mane, and jabbed her heels into the horse’s side again. She focused her attention on the pounding of hooves, ducking her head against the coming downpour. Rain sliced through the sky at an angle, pricking her exposed skin like pins. She was almost there, though she’d be soaked to the bone by the time she arrived. She could only pray the rain would wash away her sins—she could never confess such things in church.

  Chapter One

  2014

  In all my eighteen—almost nineteen—years, I couldn’t remember a colder day in August. Instead of drenched in sweat like usual, I’d woken to temperatures colder than a witch’s tit. And in Annandale, Virginia, that was almost unheard of.

  I shot off a few texts, responding to the handful of people who actually gave a damn that instead of taking advantage of my academic scholarship to my father’s alma mater, the school I’d busted my ass for four years to get into, I was moving to bum-fuck Maine with my mom and my little brother. Then I unplugged my phone from the charger and crawled out of bed, twisting my honey-colored hair into a loose topknot before stalking off to the bathroom. The movers were due to show up at eight, and I still had to grab a shower and something to eat before diving i
nto what would be the second-worst day of my life.

  I only had myself to blame. It was my choice to go to a small local college—a branch campus of U-Maine—so I could stay close to Mom and Josh. After everything that had happened, I just couldn’t leave them. But I would have done almost anything to take my mind off the move, even sit through one of Dad’s exaggerated stories about his years as an Army brat, moving from one end of the globe to the other, all before he was my age. Then again, if he’d been there—if he hadn’t died—we wouldn’t have needed to move at all.

  My cat-pee-yellow cap and gown and the brand-new red bikini I’d ordered the minute the new swimwear catalogues showed up in the mail back in February taunted me from my empty closet. I couldn’t decide what to do with either of them. Pack or pitch? Those were my choices. With one last lingering gaze, I wadded them together and shoved them into an open box along with the rest of my memories.

  The air conditioning didn’t kick in once while I stuffed my entire life—what was left of it, anyway—into two-foot-by-two-foot boxes, but I wouldn’t have minded if the furnace had. Unfortunately, Mom’d had the gas disconnected a week ago, so I had to settle for one of my dad’s old Georgetown hoodies and a pair of his thick wool socks. Somehow, I knew he’d sent the cool weather to take the sting out of packing or maybe to remind me of what was in store for me in New England: snow up to my eyeballs, from October through April.

  So much for the red bikini.

  One by one, I sealed each cardboard square with clear tape and stacked them by the door for the movers. Five boxes and one hot-pink duffel bag later, I stared at the vast emptiness of my room as if we were total strangers—every hint of Ava Elizabeth Flynn wiped clean. I shivered and pulled my hands into the sleeves of Dad’s worn blue-and-gray Hoyas sweatshirt. The only clues that I’d ever lived there at all were the imprints in the carpet where the bed and dresser used to be and the clean spots on the wall where my classic rock posters had hung. I’d started collecting them when I was thirteen, and Dad introduced me to Zeppelin and the Stones. Soon, even those faint shadows of me would be gone like footprints after a fresh snow.

  “Ava, you about ready?”

  I flinched and spun around to find my mom leaning against the doorframe. Her haggard appearance made her seem much older than thirty-nine, especially without a stitch of makeup to cover the dark circles under her honey-brown eyes—eyes that were an exact match for mine—and with a new crop of gray peppering her dark hair. She’d obviously skipped her last hair appointment, and instead of wearing it in shiny waves over her shoulders, she’d taken to haphazardly tangling it into a loose bun at the back of her head. I guessed losing a husband would do that to a woman. Not that I knew firsthand, but I did feel as if I’d aged a dozen years after losing my father.

  She must have felt my eyes dissecting her appearance like a science project and pushed a loose curl behind her ear. “Honey, did you hear me?”

  “Oh, um, yeah.” I pointed to the stacked boxes by the door. “That’s the last of them, I think. Hard to believe my whole life fit into five boxes, huh?”

  “Tell me about it. Though it took me a few more than five. And I have several more to donate to the church. I don’t think we need to cart your dad’s old clothes with us to Port Michael.” Sadness leached the warmth from her voice.

  Sharp pain sliced through me, and I swallowed to keep from crying out. “No. I guess not. Except maybe his old sweatshirts. I mean”—I glanced at the faded bulldog on my chest—“I like wearing them. And I’m sure the peanut will want a few… someday. When they don’t swallow him up completely, that is.” Imagining my eleven-year-old brother wearing our father’s clothes like dresses triggered an unexpected giggle.

  Mom’s face lit up for a moment, and she nodded. “You’re right. You and Josh should have something of your dad’s. I’ll drag the boxes with us, and we’ll dig through them later. We can always donate some to the local church when we get there, right?”

  “Sure. I’ll bet they’d like that.” Not that I had a clue what the churches in Port Michael, Maine, would or wouldn’t like. I’d supposedly spent summers there when I was a toddler, but other than a few fleeting images of chipped croquet mallets and bloodred roses climbing a white trellis, I didn’t remember a thing, not even the little shop on the square where Mom swore I had my first banana split—and where Jackie Kennedy supposedly bought ice cream cones for her kids when they were little. I remembered the story well enough—Mom had told it at least three times since she’d decided to pick up and move—but if I’d ever been there, that memory was as lost as Miley’s innocence.

  “Okay, good. The movers should be finished packing up the truck within the hour, and then I need to drop the keys off at the real estate office.” Mom stared past me out the window and pushed another loose lock of hair out of her face. “After that, we’ll hit the road. We have a long drive ahead of us, and I’d like to get there before dark.” She studied me for a long moment, as if trying to see my future or something. She still worried that I’d regret my decision to give up my dreams and follow them to Maine. She never asked the question, but I saw it in her eyes every day.

  I meant to ask her if I could help with anything, like scrubbing the bathrooms or vacuuming the cobwebs from the corners of the kitchen. The words were right there on the tip of my tongue. At the very least, I should have asked if my brother had packed up his crap or if he needed a hand. Instead, I watched as she turned and disappeared down the hallway then sat in my barren room, picking at the twisted strands of purple shag carpeting as if they were blades of grass in a field. I let my mind wander, running through eighteen years of milestones as I tried to commit every single detail—every whiff of nail polish, every bedtime story, every creaking floorboard—to memory.

  As promised, the movers came to take my boxes sometime in the next hour. I didn’t speak a word, just grabbed my pink duffel and left, scooping my phone and charger from the floor on the way out.

  “I call shotgun.” Josh bolted through the house and out the front door after my mother, a bright-blue backpack slung over his shoulders. “Can we stop at McDonald’s?” He threw his bag into the back of Mom’s new cherry-red Durango then ran around and climbed into the front passenger seat.

  Mom loaded the last of her bags, glancing at him then at me before huffing out a breath and closing the hatch. “No.”

  With the front seat taken, I climbed in behind Josh and shoved my stuff to the floorboards beside my feet. Having the backseat to myself was hardly a sacrifice on a road trip.

  “Burger King?” My brother bounced, making the entire car rock from side to side. With each jump, the brim of his baseball hat crested the top of the headrest.

  With an exasperated sigh, Mom climbed behind the wheel. “No.” She turned the key, cranking the SUV to life.

  “Wendy’s?” With another bounce, his hat taunted me from the front seat, and I reached out, timing my movements to his bopping head.

  Mom blew out a breath as I swiped for the cap, missing it entirely. “I told you, no fast food.”

  “But why?” My brother flopped back into his seat, putting my goal completely out of reach. “You won’t let us eat anything good anymore.” He continued to whine as Mom backed out of the driveway.

  “Because I’d like to see you reach adulthood.” Mom’s voice wavered, and she shot me a pained glance in the rear view mirror. Moments like that were why I’d made the sacrifice. Even if she’d never say so, I knew she needed me.

  Josh tossed his ball cap up and caught it, repeating the action a second time. “It’s because of that stupid documentary, Super Size Me, isn’t it?”

  When the hat hit the air for a third time, I leaned forward, reaching out my hand to snatch it as it came down again.