Crone by Jeannie Wycherley

Author:Jeannie Wycherley [Wycherley, Jeannie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bark at the Moon Books
Published: 2017-05-01T22:00:00+00:00

*

“I’m not having this.” Trent’s voice. Angry. “Whatever you’re doing, it has to stop.”

I was slumped on the bench once more, sobbing, hysterical. My chest hitching, my eyes streaming. I’d been within seconds of reaching my son, and now he was gone again. My fingers clutched at Claire who was bending over me. I was vaguely aware that I was the focus of all the attention in the room. Someone was muttering to a neighbour, but all eyes were on me. I tried to pull myself together, accepted the tea that Claire offered, brushed the tears from my face, and caught my breath, holding it just long enough to stop the hiccupping.

“I’m all right. It’s all right,” I said, trying to appease myself as much as Trent.

“This isn’t a circus,” he snapped. “What are you trying to do?” This last directed at Rose. I reached out and took his hand.

“I’m fine. I think I know.” I wasn’t sure what I knew, or whether I knew it all, but I was getting there. I turned back to Rose, who was sitting back in her chair, tired now. “My great grandmother?”

“Yes, your foremothers have been Guardians since the beginning.”

“But not my mother?”

“The calling was not so strong in her.” Dorothea sounded quietly disapproving, perhaps disappointed. I thought of my mother and her cold relationship with my father and I wondered what she had denied herself in order to please him.

“Am I a Guardian too?”

Rose nodded. “Yes,” she said simply.

“But your destiny is not to watch as we do,” Mercy spoke out. “The problem is this. When the Guardians were first allotted the task of watching over and protecting the great oak, there were over two hundred within our wider community we could draw on, and fifty Guardians. They were spread throughout the British Isles and even farther afield. There are now just twenty-four including yourself, and we span the globe. Eleven of us are in this room, one is close by.”

“We can’t do it anymore,” said Rose sadly. “Our resources are finite and the Guardians are a dying breed.”

“The great oak is not the only portal that Aefre and her sisters can use. Aefre and her kind can access a number of portals and move around at will, unless we close them down or lock them up. Where possible we enchant the trees and this is enough to prevent Aefre accessing the portal, and joining forces with her sisters. Each portal is a tree, a Sentinel. At any one time we might be called on to increase the enchantment and charms used on trees in Mexico or Nigeria or Myanmar for example. It is vital work, and it is imperative that Aefre and her sisters do not come together. Combined, they are a terrible force for destruction.”

“But what does that have to do with me?” I asked. “I’m practically middle-aged. My only son is dead. I can’t save the Guardians. I can barely look after myself. I’m not a … a witch.”

Rose and Mercy exchanged a glance, and Mercy smiled at me.

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