Page 95 of Witches of Dubious Origin
I turned to Jasper. “What if I can’t do it? What if it doesn’t work? What if…?”
He put his hands on my shoulders and met my gaze. “What if you can? What if it does? What if you just believe?”
Believe.And just like that, my anxiety spiral stopped.
“Try to remember the day your grandmother taught youthe words to go with those symbols. Allow yourself to be there fully and completely. I’ll watch out for you.”
Reassured, I closed my eyes and placed my hand on the page of the book right on top of the symbols. In my mind, I pictured that day at the beach. Mamie’s thick, dark hair streaked with silver was in a loose knot on the crown of her head. She wore her usual long, flowing skirt with a formfitting top that complimented her lithe figure. Her eyes crinkled when she laughed as I showed her a cartwheel I was trying to perfect. She kissed my head, hugged me, and said,You must believe, mon chaton. Warmth bloomed in my chest and I felt a smile curve my lips. Mamie lifted me up in the air, making me laugh, and then we crouched in the sand and she began to draw her magic symbols. I could hear her voice in my head as if she were right here beside me, teaching me the words.
“Come on, Ziakas!” Olive cried. “Hurry.”
“I am,” I snapped.
“Easy, Olive. Give her a chance,” Jasper said.
It was then that I heard the noise. The same unearthly cries and wails and the clacking of bones that I’d heard in the labyrinth. They were almost upon us.
“Okay, here goes,” I said. I could feel the hum of the connection between me and the book. The whispers I had never understood before became clear and I repeated them. “Matris mater reditus ad me…no, wait…mater matris…” I shook my head. In my panic, the words were getting mixed-up and fuzzy.
“Zoe, I don’t wish to rush you, but they are he—” The barn door boomed with the sound of bodies slamming against it, drowning Miles’s voice out.
We all jumped back and I closed my eyes, put myself back in the moment on the beach, let the magic unfurl inside me, and bellowed, “Mater matris ad me reditus!”
There was a crack as if some celestial being had snapped open the sky and a blue light so bright it forced me to squint lit up the entire barn. As it faded, I blinked to find Mamie standing in front of us. She looked exactly as she had on that day on the beach, right down to her usual flowing skirt and formfitting top. I didn’t hesitate but dropped the book and ran straight to her.
“Mamie!” I half expected her to disappear in my arms, but she didn’t. Instead, she hugged me back just as tight.
“Mon chaton.” She leaned back and cupped my face, studying it. “Look at you. You’re all grown up, my brave girl.”
“Toni!” Miles appeared at my side. “Sorry to interrupt your reunion but Ariana is just outside and we need you.”
“Of course,” Mamie said. She shoved me behind her as if I were still that nine-year-old girl. “I have a score to settle with that one.”
“She murdered you.” My voice cracked when I added, “And Mom, too.”
Mamie turned back to me and grabbed my hands with hers. She felt so real. It was hard for me to accept that she was undead like the horde now banging incessantly on the barn doors.
“She did.” An expression of devastation crossed over her face. “I took her power and the alliance exiled her. I thought that was the end of it, but she’s a…”
Mamie paused and I said, “A revenant.”
“Yes, we didn’t know that Eloise Tate had been sent toheal the land, that she would die and give Ariana an escape. Nor did we consider that she would harness the power of vengeance to become the one who was dead but returns. It was a grave mistake.” She glanced at Miles and he nodded. “I think she wants to wipe out the Donadieu lineage for revenge upon me.”
“She does,” I agreed with Mamie. “She plans to finish us by murdering me and bringing me back to be her undead Donadieu minion using the spells in the grimoire for her nefarious purposes.”
Mamie was already ghostly pale but still she blanched. Her grip on my hands tightened. “Your mother did not risk everything, hiding in time with the grimoire for all those years, only for me to let Ariana win now.”
“How did the grimoire come to me? Was it…Mom?” I asked. “Did she deliver it to me?”
“No, mon chaton.” Mamie cupped my cheek as if she knew the devastation I felt at the possibility that I could have seen my mother again. “The grimoire is spelled to appear to the next Donadieu in line one full lunar cycle after the last Donadieu has passed. That’s why it showed up a month after your mother died.”
“But the handwriting on the envelope was hers,” I protested.
“And the envelope disappeared in green witch fire?” Mamie asked. “That’s part of the spell. When you die, the grimoire will appear to the next Donadieu in an envelope with your handwriting and it will disappear in red witch fire—which is your magical color, yes?”
“Yes.” I nodded. “Did Mom know that would happen?She made me promise to never use magic. Why would she ask that of me if she knew the grimoire would come to me one day?”
“She believed she could find a way to break the grimoire’s succession spell,” Mamie said. “When it arrived in your mother’s life a month after you two left me, she knew I had passed on. Ariana, disguised as Eloise, found you immediately, which was why your mother took you on the run. She knew Ariana had murdered me and that she was next. She used those years to perfect the spell in the grimoire that allows a witch to slip through time.
