Seeing Magic (The Queen of the Night Series Book 1) (13 page)

I fell down to my knees, cupped my hands over my ears, and prayed for the pain to stop. Tears started streaming down my face.

Immediately, Evan picked me up and started to run. He shouted over my shoulder, “Get the door for me, Fi!”

The door opened and he placed me onto a car seat. I was not in Fiona’s truck, but in the passenger seat of his Jeep. The door slammed. A few seconds later he was in the driver’s seat next to me. The engine turned over and we were squealing backwards, stopping abruptly, and peeling out of the parking lot.

Chapter Fourteen

The Druid’s Egg

Within minutes, he’d slammed on the brakes again and cut the engine. He raced around the car and opened the door. He scooped me out, carried me up the steps and into the cabin.

Fiona’s truck pulled up behind us. She entered the cabin, saying, “Where should we put her?”

“What’s the deadest spot in your house?”

“Pardon?” questioned Fiona.

“Where would you say you have the least amount of living things?  This is, after all, a creaky, drafty old cabin in the woods. Where would we find no insects, mice, plants or other living things?”

“It’s not that drafty!” Fiona seemed genuinely insulted, but after a moment she said, “The fireplace is probably your best bet. Sit her down on the hearth.”

Evan carried me through the foyer and into the great room. Gently, he put me down onto the hearthstone. With his hands on my shoulders he slowly leaned me backward until my back rested against the fireplace. He removed the ace bandage and pulled off the cotton.

Carefully, I opened my eyes. The golden mist still surrounded him. Behind the gold many other colors floated and, through the haze, I could barely make out Evan himself. Fiona stood behind him, enveloped in her many shades of green and gold.

She spoke first. “I’ll tell Grog and the others to keep their distance.”  She drifted out of my field of vision. Evan backed up, sat down on the couch, and put his head in his hands.

A few minutes later Fiona returned. “Okay,” she asked “what are we dealing with?”

“I’m not sure. Dariene put a curse on her to give her the same abilities as powerful Seers, but the gift never develops this way. Slowly, when you’re still young, you start to see the auras around your family members. As you age, you can read other people, animals and, if you’re highly gifted, insects and plants. She read the aura around a mosquito tonight.”  He held up his hands in a gesture of futility. “I have no idea how to break this curse.”

“Wait a minute,” Fiona said, “I might know something. Find out if she needs anything. Perhaps she’ll drink a little water.” 

They both left and I continued to stare blankly ahead, willing the pain in my brain to stop throbbing. I wondered vaguely if I was in shock, since I couldn’t move or speak.

When I had first investigated Fiona’s office, I’d found several extremely old, leather-bound journals. They were the personal diaries and records of all Great Healers who had come before her. I guessed she searched for a potion or spell that would cure me. Evan’s golden aura floated back into the room. He placed a glass of water into my hands. I drank gratefully. Until then, I hadn’t realized how thirsty I’d become.

Soon after, Fiona returned, carrying one of the journals. The book had a misty, gray haze surrounding it.

I felt compelled to speak. “Is that one of the old Healer’s journals?” 

“How would you know that?” She answered my question with one of her own.

“It’s alive. It’s glowing with a dull, gray haze.”

“It’s a book. It’s not alive. I don’t understand.”  Fiona was confused.

“I understand,” Evan interjected. “She can actually see the microorganisms living in the dusty pages of the moldy, old book you’re holding. This is much worse than I thought. I can’t even read an aura around it. This is dangerous. We have to work fast, or her psyche might suffer permanent damage.”

“Then let’s get to work. Here it is. I remember coming across this entry a long, long time ago. It’s a transcription of a report from a Healer who lived in Scotland in the 1700’s. It’s a potion titled ‘How to Reverse a Fairy’s Curse’.”

“That sounds promising.”

“Yes, but a few of these ingredients are extremely unusual. Oh no,” she drifted off into silence.

“What is it?”

“It requires a Druid’s Egg.”

“What on earth is that?”

“Listen. ‘A dark gray egg-shaped object can sometimes be found amongst the heather. It is created from the saliva of a snake, which circled its own tail around a clump of heather emitting froth from its mouth. When dried, the egg-shaped mixture of saliva and plant would be hard as a stone, but light as a feather. The Druid’s egg has many healing properties and, if picked just before sunrise on a summer’s day would be powerful enough to even break a fairy’s curse.’”

“We don’t have moors of heather in West Virginia.”

“That’s true but this is a journal from Victoria MacDougall, a Great Healer who lived in the early 1900’s. In 1907, she transcribed the paragraph I just read, and then goes on to write that she was able to obtain a Druid’s Egg in a meadow of wild phlox.”

“Did she happen to say which meadow she found it in?”

“As a matter of fact, she does. She was wandering in a meadow located just south of Fifteen Mile Creek and east of Green Ridge.”

“Holy Macha, I’ve been to this place!  It still exists. Last summer a group of us went hiking in Green Ridge State Forest. It’s just west of Hancock on the Maryland side of the Potomac.”

“That’s right. Victoria says she crossed over the Potomac River at Boyd’s Landing and wandered for a day before coming to the meadow. You don’t have a day. You need to find the egg, and harvest it, by sunrise, which is five hours from now.”

“Yeah, but I have a car. I can take route 522 to I-68 and get there in about an hour.”

“Still, you’ll need more than luck to succeed. If a Druid’s Egg is out there, you’ll need a team to find it.” 

They started plotting a strategy. Fiona left and returned with maps.

“There’s way too much ground to cover, and you can’t go hunting snakes in the dark,” Fiona thought out loud. “You’ll need a couple of Hunters to track snakes.”

Evan queried, “Do you think a Dowser could sense a large ball of saliva in the grass?”

“Maybe a really strong Dowser could.”

“John McCormack owes me a favor because of that thing in Capon Bridge last fall.”

“Oh, he’s very good, and he’s nice. He might not kill you for interrupting his Litha. I just hope he’s sober.”

“I just hope they’re all sober.”

“Steven McCoy won’t be.”

“Why would I need him?  He’s a Warrior.”

“Take at least two Warriors, in case the Sidhe try to stop you.”

“Do you think we’ll be in real danger of that?”

“Make sure they’re armed with silver arrows.”

“I guess you think we’re in real danger. Okay, what’s so special about Steven McCoy?”

“I overheard his father. Connor witnessed what happened to Maggie. He thinks we should attack the Sidhe. He thinks they’ve committed an act of war against us by cursing her.”

“A war with the Sidhe is suicide.”

“That is why you’re going to take Steven with you. His father won’t rush into battle without his first lieutenant by his side. It will buy me time to assemble the council and let him come to his senses. I need to make a couple of phone calls. We need to find you two really good Hunters. You should go home. Gather the things you’ll need to make this happen. I’ll tell the others to join you there. If you work fast, you’ll have three to four hours to find the egg before first light.”

“Connor has a point. Why do you think Dariene did this?”

“I don’t have time to ask questions now. I need to save Maggie. While you’re finding the egg, I’ll get the rest of the ingredients and start making this potion.”

“Okay, let’s hope this works.”

“It has to,” Fiona whispered.

Before Evan left, he came back and sat next to me on the cold stone hearth. He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me down so my head rested on his shoulder. “Hold on, Maggie. Hang in there. You’re gonna be okay.”  He dropped a kiss on my forehead and walked away.

Shortly after, Fiona left the room and I sat alone in the dark. With the curtains drawn, the only thing I sensed was a low throbbing hum that seemed to emanate from the earth itself. I sat in a stupor. Not moving. Not talking. Not wanting to do anything but wait for the pain in my head to subside. I wished desperately the hum which reverberated throughout my entire being would just stop. I couldn’t sleep. I felt too nauseous to eat or to even finish the water Evan had brought me. I sat and stared at the darkness.

***

I had no idea of how much time passed. It could have been minutes, or hours, or even a day. My whole world was the headache and the hum. I waited for someone to come and help me.

Eventually, the light streaming in through the cathedral windows in Fiona’s great room grew brighter until the rays pouring in reached my perch on the hearth. Sunrise had passed. I continued to sit, unable to move. At one point, Daisy entered the room. She was shrouded in green and gold and dusty pink.

She squeaked timidly, “Mistress Maggie, shall I fetch you anything?  Perhaps you want something to eat?”

I spent a few moments pulling myself together enough to answer. “No thanks, Daisy. I’m fine just sitting here.” 

She tiptoed back out of sight.

A woodpecker swooped up and perched on the frame of one of the window panes at the top of the cathedral ceiling. The bird was bathed in shades of orange and a beautiful auburn with spikes of a vivid aquamarine. It pecked a few times at the wood and flew away.

Finally, when the sun was high and strong in the sky, voices returned. They came from the foyer.

“Thank Goodness! You’re back safe and sound. Did you get it?”  Fiona sounded relieved.

“Yes. You won’t believe what we had to go through, but we got it. Has she been like that the entire time?” 

Silence followed his question.

“I’m scared for her, Fi.”

“Me too…Okay, give it to me. Everything’s ready. It’ll take me about twenty minutes to brew the potion, and then we’ll find out if it will work. Come into the kitchen. You can tell me what happened while I work.”  Their voices grew fainter, but I could still hear them.

“Well, we drove over to the main entrance of the state forest, but it’s closed after dark, so we had to park in a new housing development near the park. We walked back to the entrance and were about to hop over the gate when Liam McFadden stopped us. Have you met Liam?”  Evan interrupted his own story.

“Yes,” answered Fiona dryly, “I helped bring him into this world.”

“Oh yeah, I guess you meet most of the kids around here that way. Embarrassing…you’ve seen us all in our birthday suits, ha ha…anyway,” he continued, “Liam goes to high school with me, and he’s one of the best Hunters I’ve met. He has a knack for knowing when you’re being recorded by a hidden camera. Don’t ask me how I know that. I had nothing to do with the AMC Pacer that was left on the roof of the high school two years ago. Right as we were going over the gate, he stopped us. We had to backtrack and skirt around the cameras to break into the state park. We easily hiked down M. V. Smith road until we got to Fifteen Mile Creek. The meadow was on the other side. We had to find a narrow part and wade across to get to it. Eventually, we reached the edge of the meadow. Wildflowers grew everywhere, as Victoria had written.

We were trying to be quiet because we wanted Liam and his cousin, Ben, to find the snakes before the snakes found us, but the McCoy brothers were too drunk. Liam started shouting at Steven about how they were going to scare off all the snakes. Right then I had my first premonition. I saw Peter McCoy stepping on the Druid’s Egg. I shouted at Liam to stop shouting before we got caught by a forest ranger. I told the McCoy brothers to stand completely still while the Hunters searched.

Liam and Ben fanned out and started hunting snakes. I waited at the edge of the meadow, and had my second premonition of us finding the egg, but not before sunrise. I was able to make out a few identifying markers in the vision, so I could direct them to a general location. That narrowed down the search area and helped a lot.

Ben found a snake trail and they started to follow it. Then John used his dowsing abilities to sense a large pile of saliva. I couldn’t believe this whole plan was working and got really excited, until my third premonition where John reached out for the egg and a huge snake jumped out of the grass and bit him, so Liam and Ben circled around behind it while John and I followed the saliva trail. In the end, I got the egg, which is disgusting, by the way, and Liam and Ben went home with a four-foot, extremely poisonous, snake. Of course, the head is separated from its body, but the boys are very pleased, and everyone has a new story to tell.”

“Thank goodness you all are all right. You’ll have to give that story to the Poets so they can save it for posterity. How are the McCoy brothers?”

“They’re sober now. I think one of them got sick when we showed him the severed snake’s head and told him he almost stepped on it.”

“Well, let’s find out how this story ends, shall we?”

I didn’t hear them talk for a few minutes, but soon both of their glowing auras entered my field of vision.

Fiona held a steaming mug. “Okay Maggie, you have to drink this.” 

Automatically, I held my hands out for the mug. She helped guide it to my lips. I took my first sip and practically choked, but she held her fingers over my mouth and said, “Oh no, you don’t. It tastes horrible, but you have to drink the whole thing. It’s the only way.”