Spellbound - Cara Lynn Shultz [49]
Ah! So they are yours, to keep and to hold
My soul, my love, I give to you now
Gloriana never had the chance to finish her poem. Cradling his wife in his arms, the despondent Archer left his steed and walked to his wife’s childhood home. There he met the servant Mary, who helped him bury Gloriana in her family garden, underneath the roses where they first met. Mary stayed with Archer, aiding him in caring for Alexander, who still battled with illness, and gave Archer and his son safe refuge in her family’s home.
Still grieving too much to contact his father, Archer spent weeks with the servant girl’s family. Apart from weeping for his beloved and cherishing Alexander, the only thing that occupied Archer’s anguished mind was his family crest. He was obsessed with designing a new crest to memorialize his lost love. He melted his dagger into a small disc, agonizing over the new design.
Seeing the true anguish in Archer’s eyes, Mary’s father Gregory—an opportunistic, manipulative man—tasted an opportunity for gain. He promised Archer that he could reunite him with his bride, for a price.
Desperate, Archer promised the man everything—land, wealth, women of ill repute—if it meant he could meet with his cherished Gloriana again. “You will have to pay me handsomely,” Gregory said. “But remember, another price you pay may be even greater.”
Archer was willing to suffer any cost to see his true love again. Knowing a woman as good and honorable as Gloriana would surely be in Heaven was no comfort to Archer. Gregory led him to a small stone cottage in the middle of a dark wood. He stood yards away with the nervous horses, which bucked and reared at the sight of the home. Gregory told Archer that if anyone could reunite him with his love, it was the woman who lived there.
So this is the home of the dark witchcraft feared by so many, thought Archer, as he knocked three times on the door. A small, withered old hag answered, a dirty, dark cloak wrapped around her hunched shoulders. Soft, fine hair dotted her chin, and her right eye was milky white.
“Archer, yes, I’ve been expecting you.” The hag cackled. “It’s love you seek, yes? A fine woman?”
“I don’t seek a fine woman. I seek the woman, the fairest and finest.”
“Ah, the one you seek, she’s got the magick in her, yes?” The hag rubbed her papery hands together as she regarded the distraught man.
“She is well-versed in some spells…” he began, but the witch cut him off.
“Is?” she spat out. “She is not anymore. She is no longer of the mortal realm,” the hag replied. “Still, I can help you. Have you anything personal of Gloriana’s?”
Archer was surprised to hear that the hag knew his beloved’s name, but in his desperation, he continued his quest.
In his vest, Archer carried Gloriana’s final poem, her last profession of love. He handed it to the hag, whose one black eye sparkled and gleamed when she read it.
“You own her soul!” the hag bleated. Gloriana’s poetic words did, indeed, dedicate her heart, her life—and her soul—to her husband.
The hag started cackling again, and, placing her veiny claw on his arm, drew Archer close.
“I believe I can help you,” she said, explaining what she could offer the heartbroken lord.
She would not raise Gloriana from the dead. “They always come back wrong,” she hissed mysteriously. But the hag said when death comes to an innocent early, the soul may linger—and she believed Gloriana, a magickal soul troubled over her son’s health, had not yet moved on. The hag said she could keep her soul earthbound until Archer’s own mortal shell had perished. Then, Archer’s soul would be reborn, as would Gloriana’s. Reincarnated, they would be destined to reunite, a lifetime away.
“It is your soul that aches,” said the hag, licking her chapped lips. “So what care you if you see her in this life time? You’ll reunite in the next.”
Archer agreed to the contract, believing it to mean that, reborn in new lives, he and the dearest Gloriana would reunite and enjoy the marriage of which they were robbed—and eventually, old and ailing,