Shadow Witch Rising (Copper Falls Book 1) Read online

  by Colleen Vanderlinden

  Published by Peitho Press

  Detroit, Michigan, 2015

  © 2015 Colleen Vanderlinden

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email the author at [email protected].

  Contents

  Books by Colleen Vanderlinden

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Letter from the Author

  About the Author

  Dedication

  As always, for Roger;

  My Light in the dark.

  Books by

  Colleen Vanderlinden

  The Copper Falls Series

  Shadow Witch Rising

  Shadow Sworn

  The Hidden Series

  Book One: Lost Girl

  Book Two: Broken

  Book Three: Home

  Book Four: Strife

  Book Five: Nether

  Hidden Series Novellas

  Forever Night

  Earth Bound

  Hidden: Soulhunter Series

  Guardian

  Betrayer

  Zealot

  The StrikeForce Series

  A New Day

  One More Day

  Darkest Day

  Day’s End

  The Exile Series

  Exile

  * * *

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  Give light,and the darkness

  will disappear of itself.

  —Desiderius Erasmus

  Chapter One

  Sophie unlocked her front door with a sigh of relief. Long day. A busy day, which was always good, but she was more than ready to take a cup of tea out to her garden and lose track of everything other than the perfume of herbs and the trilling melodies of the songbirds in the woods that bordered her cottage.

  As she turned and grabbed her mail out of the box, she noticed a rumbling motorcycle turn into the driveway down the road. The farm had been empty for nearly a year. She grimaced. The idea of hearing a motorcycle all the time wasn't exactly appealing. She shook her head and went into the house.

  The second she walked in, everything just felt right. She breathed in the scents of the herbs drying from the beams above, a pungent bouquet of rosemary, lavender, and thyme, mingling with the refreshing aroma of spearmint. Just below that, a subtle, sweet hint of the beeswax she used in her candle making. The soaps she'd made the day before were curing on wooden racks in the next room, and they perfumed the entire house. She flipped on the radio, started bobbing her head immediately as Nirvana wafted from the speakers.

  She shrugged out of the crisp maid's uniform she wore for work and pulled on a pair of well-worn jeans and a faded Detroit Red Wings t-shirt.

  That done, she headed for the kitchen, passing through the cozy living room, debating over whether she wanted a salad or scrambled eggs for dinner. The tiny cottage she'd slowly but surely made into her home was little more than one large room; a living room with a daybed set into an alcove, which led into a small, serviceable kitchen that was separated from the rest of the house by a small island, its butcher block top gleaming from the oiling she'd recently given it. The kitchen window looked out over the land behind her home, and it was a sight that never failed to make her feel as if she was living in a dream.

  She'd just decided on a salad of peppery arugula when there was a knock at the door. She glanced in that direction, then at the clock. She rarely got visitors out here, and never unexpected ones. That was one of the reasons she'd been so thrilled to have inherited the little stone cottage and the surrounding twelve acres a little over a year before. One of many reasons, but a reason just the same.

  Sophie waited a moment, thinking that maybe the visitor would just leave. That really was the preferred outcome. Yet, the large, hulking form she could see through the wavy old stained glass in the front door remained. Even after all this time, it irritated her that a knock at the door could knot her stomach and make her palms slick with sweat.

  She shook her head, chastised herself for overreacting, and peeked out of the small window beside the front door. The man on her porch was clad in denim and a t-shirt. He faced away from her, looking across the road, and even though he stood still, he looked as if he was capable of pouncing at any moment, coiled energy evident in his posture. His wavy blond hair was in need of a trim, the strands just brushing the tops of what she couldn't help noting were impressively broad shoulders.

  Sophie opened the door slightly, bracing it with her leg. “Yes?”

  The man turned around, and Sophie's mouth went dry.

  His hair was unruly, as if he'd just climbed out of bed, and it contrasted with his short, neat beard. Long black lashes. Dark blue eyes.

  Eyes she'd dreamed, eyes she remembered as if they were burned into her very soul. Eyes that accompanied the occasional nightmare that spoke of danger and heartbreak, which she'd wake from confused and in pain. Longing for something she'd lost.

  “Hi,” he said, and his voice was deep. Low. Almost a growl. “I just moved in across the road. There's a goat in my yard. Wondering if it's yours.”

  She blushed. “Oh, shit. That would be Merlin. Sorry.” Sophie stepped into the sandals she kept by the door and forced herself out onto the porch on legs that seemed to have forgotten how to function. She tried not to stare. Tried to remember how to breathe.

  Just breathe.

  Beside him, she felt tiny. He was easily over six feet tall, and her five-six put her roughly at chest level.

  And what a chest it was, she thought to herself. Holy broad-and-muscled, Batman.

  “I'll get him. I'm so sorry about that. I just got off work and haven't even checked on them yet.” Stop babbling, she told herself, and clamped her mouth shut.

  “It's not a problem.”

  “It will be if you plan on having livestock. I've been putting off reinforcing the fencing. I'll have to get on that.”

  “Not planning on any livestock,” he said as he followed her across the road.

  “No? You've got over sixty acres, right?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Mostly, I just wanted somewhere quiet and where I could spread out a little. No neighbors on top of me.”

  She smiled to herself. He sounded like her. Sounded the same. “And your first day in, you have a neighbor's goat in your yard.”

  “Well, goats I don't mind so much,” he answered
, and she could hear the smile in his voice.

  They crossed the two-lane road side by side, and it occurred to her that she was walking away from her home, her sanctuary, her safe haven, with a man she didn't really know, because memories and dreams aren't knowing, and she, maybe more than anyone, should have known that.

  If she was one of those witches who could summon fire or wind or something, she'd have less to worry about.

  She cursed her stupidity, but walked with him nonetheless. It was entirely possible this was not the man from her nightmares. But she knew even as she thought it that even that was a lie. She knew he was, and why, though the dreams were memories. She wasn't prepared for this.

  She followed him around the side of the tall, narrow farmhouse, numbly noting that the white paint was flaking off, exposing the gray wood below, and then up a long gravel driveway and around a rusted blue monstrosity of a car. A gleaming black Indian motorcycle was parked behind the house and a few feet away was Merlin, calmly chewing some grass near one of the fence posts.

  “Merlin, you devil,” Sophie muttered under her breath. She clicked her tongue at him, and he raised his chocolate-brown head and studied her. She walked toward him calmly, nonchalantly, as if she had no intention whatsoever of grabbing the blue nylon collar he was wearing and leading him home. She was aware of tall, muscled, and gorgeous watching her and felt even stupider for the ploy she was making.

  Sophie sprung at the goat and he tried to buck away, but she grabbed his collar and held tight when he tried to fight his way away. He pulled, and tried to pivot, and she planted her heels in the soft soil and tried to hold him fast. After a few attempts of breaking free, he just gave her a bored look and bent to chew at the grass near their feet.

  That settled, Sophie chanced a glance toward her new neighbor. He was watching her, an unreadable expression in his eyes.

  Sophie gathered as much dignity as she could and led Merlin back toward the driveway.

  “Sorry about that,” she muttered, well aware that her face burned with embarrassment.

  “No problem,” he answered. “Does he get out a lot?”

  She pulled Merlin down the driveway, and the fact that her neighbor joined her only made her nervous. “Yes. I'll fix the fencing. I just need to get the replacement fence.” And the money to pay for it, she thought to herself. “Goats are a major pain. Wish I'd known that before I bought them,” she said aloud.

  “Why do you have them, then?” he asked, shoving his hands in his jeans pockets as they crossed the street again.

  “For their milk. I make soaps,” she said, shrugging. “Made more sense to have them around for that. I was stupid to accept a male, though, since I could just borrow a male when I need one for the girls. I felt sorry for him,” she finished, feeling like a babbling idiot.

  She glanced toward him, caught him studying her before he was able to look away.

  “Anyway. It won't happen again,” she said, looking with hope toward her door. Something in her told her to run from him, to get away and stay away. She'd be setting wards tonight, she thought. Weak as hers were, they were better than nothing.

  “If it does, at least I know who he belongs to,” he answered. “I'm Calder, by the way.”

  “Sophie,” she said, glancing toward him again, feeling relief once they stepped into her yard. She could feel the energies of her own magic, that of her ancestors, there. It was the only place she felt safe. “Um. I recognized you, actually. I mean, I remember you. We were in pretty much every class together through middle school. Sophie Turner?”

  He was watching her, a blank look on his face.

  “We hung out at the falls in the summer with Layla and that whole group, acting like idiots.” You were my first kiss and nothing's lived up to it since. I told you every single secret I had, and you were the one bright spot in my life, she thought, trying to keep her expression neutral.

  He shook his head. “Sorry. I don't remember you. There were a lot of girls around when I was thirteen,” he said, a crooked smile on his mouth.

  “Right,” she said. He wasn't wrong. There were. Not that their town was huge, but there had always been a decent number of girls around Calder and his younger brother Jon.

  “Well, Sophie—“ Calder began, when a delivery van pulled up and stopped on the shoulder of the road. The driver jumped out, noticed Sophie standing with Calder at the end of her driveway, approached and shoved a clipboard into Sophie's hands. He was holding a manila envelope, waiting for her to sign. She knew what it was already, tried not to show her panic. She signed, and the driver handed her the thin brown envelope and departed with a nod. She looked down at it, hating the way her hands trembled.

  She'd failed.

  She took a breath. “Sorry again about the goat. Welcome to the neighborhood,” she said absentmindedly. “Excuse me.” She led Merlin to the yard and put him back in the enclosure with her other three goats. She heard gravel crunching as Calder walked away. Calder was her neighbor, she thought with some disbelief.

  Well, not her neighbor for long. She looked down at the envelope again, opened it with trembling hands.

  She'd failed.

  “We regret to inform you that, due to your inaction in satisfying the lien against your property at 113 Mayfair Road, the property will be put up for auction on September 30th to satisfy the debt owed to the holder of the aforementioned lien. You will have thirty days after the auction date to vacate the premises. If you do not vacate, law enforcement may be summoned to remove you.”

  It was signed by the lawyer she'd been trying to deal with, unsuccessfully, since learning about the lien in the first place.

  Sophie sank down onto the bottom step of the back porch, the stone cool and unforgiving beneath her. She looked around at the animal pens, the vegetable garden overflowing with tomatoes, lettuces, and zucchini; the herb garden buzzing with bees. She looked at the two beehives, the tiny chicken coop and the woods beyond that. She'd tried to save it and had lost it all.

  “Damn you, crazy aunt Evie,” she muttered, swiping tears away from her eyes in anger. Her aunt Evie had, apparently, taken on a loan from a local handyman at some point to make repairs to the old cottage. Roof replacement, repairs to a crumbling foundation. She'd let the loan slip more and more into default, partially from forgetfulness, Sophie believed. And whether out of pity or something else, the handyman had never called in the lien and his son had taken over management of the family business.

  It was just Sophie's luck, as Evie's only living relative and new owner of the property, that the son decided to call in the lien at the worst possible time. Over twenty thousand dollars owed, with interest, plus court fees. She'd been fighting for the last year to scrape money together, to come to some kind of agreement with the son and his lawyer. It had all come to nothing.

  She looked around again. Felt the spirits of her ancestors, witches, every one, mourning with her. They'd lived in this little cottage in Copper Falls, at the very tip of Michigan's upper peninsula, for over two hundred years. Witches, warlocks. Sophie's mother had been the one with the lineage of witches, though she had no actual power herself. Her father had thought it was all nonsense, and when Sophie slipped up, and he caught her doing magic when she was thirteen, he'd moved the family away, seeming to sense that the place and the magic were entwined. Even after they'd moved to Detroit, and she continued to feel the magic within her, he insisted she was imagining it, that she was playing childish games.

  Her life away from Copper Falls had been a nightmare pretty much from the moment she'd left. She closed her eyes and remembered more than she wanted to. Fear. Death. Endless threats and her own desperation. That feeling of being trapped, of being helpless, came to be all she knew and she hated it. All of that had changed two years ago when she'd gotten her letter from the attorney, telling her she was the sole beneficiary of Evie's will, and that the property was now Sophie's. The timing couldn't have been better, and she'd felt like the universe was fi
nally giving her a second chance.

  She let out a sardonic laugh as she sat there, staring at the letter. So much for that idea.

  She forced herself back up and into the house. Well. She might be losing everything, but she had a book club meeting in an hour. She washed up, then started slicing vegetables and setting out the cheese platter. A local wine, some hard cider. She could feel the beginnings of fall in the air. A magical time in this part of the state. And she would miss it.

  “Nope. Not thinking about that now,” she said aloud. She carried the cheese platter to the living room, set it on the old pine coffee table in front of the overstuffed sofa. She glanced around, made herself stop as another wave of melancholy hit her.

  She grabbed a few glasses for the wine and cider and set them on the sideboard in the living room, along with the ice bucket and a large punch bowl of ice cradling the cider. She glanced around. The wood floors gleamed, the cushy sofa beckoned, and candlelight danced over the walls. Candles she'd made, with beeswax from her own hives and essential oils she'd bartered from another witch for a few bars of her handmade soap. The clean white plaster walls made everything feel airy and comfortable. Serene.

  Her heart ached. If it hadn't been for the sound of two female voices in her front yard, she would have started crying. Instead, she shook her head, walked to the front door and threw it open. She watched as her best friend, Layla, and her sister Cara pulled themselves together, adjusting clothing, pulling shoes on. Layla's head was lifted, smelling.

  “Hey, girl,” she called to Sophie.

  “Hey, yourself,” Sophie called, stepping off of the porch and toward her friends.

  Layla's eyes widened. “Whoa.”

  “What?”

  “You had a bear here. Better keep your trash locked away or you're going to have a mess.”