Bayou Moon - Andrews, Ilona [125]
Lagar’s face thrust through the rustling leaves, framed in the cascade of flowers, his skin dusted with golden pollen.
Raste Adir had answered the call.
Lagar’s eyes glowed with verdant wild green. Thin shoots snaked from his body, hidden beneath the moss and leaves, reaching out to her, ready to drain her dry, filling her mind with promises. Cerise saw herself caught in the branches, her body a dry husk, one with the green; saw the shoots surge further, saw kneeling Catherine become a spire of green; saw Ignata lifted off her feet by a vine, her face serene and lost among the blossoms . . .
Cerise jerked back, raising her defenses. No. You get back!
The old magic hovered just beyond reach. Its pull was so strong.
On the ground Catherine sobbed, happy tears spilling from her eyes. The vines reached for her.
Cerise stepped in front of them and gathered her magic. It rose behind her in a dark cloud, splaying forth. The shoots shrank back, shivering.
That’s right. Get back, stay in your place.
Cerise squared her shoulders. She was a swamp witch like her grandmother and her grandmother’s mother and her grandmother’s grandmother before her. She had skill and she had power, and the old magic wouldn’t wrestle her mind from her.
“Where is my mother?”
Lagar’s mouth opened. A cloud of pollen erupted from his throat, swirling in a glittering cascade like golden dust.
“Answer me.”
Ignata made a small mewing noise behind her.
A shimmer ran through the pollen. An image rose within the cloud: a vast field of water with a lonely gray rock rising out of it like the back of some beast, and beyond it, a hint of a large house . . . Bluestone Rock. Only a day away!
The branches reached for her. She snapped her witch’s cloak and they fell back.
“Where is my father?”
The pollen shifted. No image troubled the cloud—Lagar didn’t know.
“What does Spider want from our family?”
The branches swirled, winding tighter and tighter. Lagar’s eyes flared with dark green like two swamp fire stars. Something burned deep in that glow, something terrible and powerful, clawing its way to the surface.
“Obey!” Cerise snapped.
The pollen glittered once again, shifting into a tattered notebook . . . It looked like one of Grandfather’s journals.
Lagar’s body split like an opening flower. Dark blue tentacles sprouted from it, streaming to her through the image in the pollen.
She pushed her magic before her like a shield. The tentacles smashed into it with a ghostly howl. The pressure nearly pushed her off her feet.
“Run!”
Behind her Ignata grabbed Catherine and pulled her up to her feet. Cerise backed away. Her nose bled. Her head grew dizzy.
“Clear!” someone called. She stumbled out of the circle. The tentacles flailed behind her, reached the ash, and shrunk, shriveling.
“Burn it!” Richard stepped into the circle and hurled gasoline onto the leaves from a bucket. Someone flicked a match. The greenery went up in flames.
A howl of pain burst from Lagar. He screamed like a living thing being burned alive.
Catherine sobbed, rocking back and forth.
Cerise curled into a ball and tried to block out Lagar’s cries. Now they knew. Now they knew where to look.
KAITLIN opened the lid of a mother-of-pearl box. Her fingers brushed the treasures within. A lock of Lagar’s blond hair, cut when he was a child. The tip from the first arrow Peva had shot. One of Arig’s twigs . . . She remembered when Peva had told him that his fingers were too weak for a good draw, and for a while wherever Arig went, he had a twig in his hands and would be snapping little pieces off of it.
She pursed her lips. Where did she go wrong? How could she have raised weak sons that had failed her?
She looked up at the mirror that hung on the wall and touched the wrinkled skin around her eyes. Old . . . She had grown old. She had given all of herself to her children. That’s what a mother was supposed to do. And they failed her.
Kaitlin glared at her