Light's Shadow (Copper Falls Book 3) Read online

  The pines along the highway were all sprinkled with new snow, and the bright sun made it look as if someone had dumped glitter all over the world. Sophie quickly put on her sunglasses and focused on driving. She wondered if Calder was back. She hadn’t seen his car over at his place.

  She tried not to be irritated by the fact that he’d actually left. Especially after the night she’d had, her body still tense and in turmoil over the dreams she’d had. She knew they weren’t his fault, of course, but she wasn’t feeling particularly reasonable, between the Shadow coven taking up residence in her meadow and the way she’d felt the night before using Shadow for its true purpose. It had felt good. Too good.

  She forced her mind away and turned on the road that led to the reservation. She parked in front of Thea’s small house and her friend stepped out onto the front porch. Thea was dressed for winter, a thick brown coat, mittens, and a scarf. Her long gray hair was, as always, braided over one shoulder. She raised a mittened hand in greeting and Sophie waved back. She watched as Thea maneuvered down the snowy sidewalk to the car.

  “Nice to see you again,” Thea said as she got into the car and closed the door behind her.

  “You, too,” Sophie said. “Thanks for this.”

  “Word is you haven’t left your house since the day of that funeral craziness,” Thea said, not wasting any time, not avoiding Sophie’s eyes the way most people seemed to want to.

  “It’s been limited.”

  “Why?”

  “You heard what happened.”

  “I heard you saved everyone’s asses.”

  “I did it by stealing Shadow magic. It was easy, because I was already turned.”

  Thea stared at her, then shook her head. “But you’re still you.”

  “I'm trying to be,” Sophie said.

  “So what’s this about?”

  “I'm trying to figure out how successful Marshall was at purging the area of Light witches. I know he was successful with Migisi’s line, considering what I am now.”

  “So you’re wondering how many more he destroyed.”

  Sophie nodded. “And just trying to get an idea of whether or not there is anyone around here that might be a threat. The person who told me about the sisters suspects that at least two are Shadow. He was unsure about the third.”

  “Is this person who knew about them a shifter?”

  After a moment, Sophie nodded.

  “I don’t know what they are. I know they’re not normal. I know they want nothing to do with just about everyone. There have been rumors forever that they’re witches, but you know those kind of rumors swirl about any woman who’s a little on the eccentric side.”

  “Yeah,” Sophie said.

  “So I don’t know what they are, but if you think this will help you, I’m happy to introduce you.”

  Sophie nodded, and Thea told her which way to go. Sophie already knew the general direction from what Calder had told her, but Thea told her which road to take to lead to the sister’s property. As the car bumped over the rutted dirt road, Sophie tried not to get her hopes up about the sisters. She believed Calder, that they were witches; it wasn’t the kind of thing he’d be wrong about. But they probably wouldn’t be much help at all, and would likely be downright antagonistic.

  Shadow witches weren’t exactly known for their sparkling, sweet personalities.

  “There, on the right. See that old wood sign?” Thea said, pointing a little ways up the road. Sophie nodded, and a few moments later, she was pulling into what at one point had been a driveway, she supposed. A glance at the trees flanking it didn’t make her feel much better. Twisted, tortured-looking things, things born of Shadow. Yet, somehow, the trees further back on the property, at least those Sophie could see, looked tall and healthy.

  She put the car in park and she and Thea walked up to the front door. A large amount of firewood was stacked neatly just outside the door, and smoke puffed from the chimney.

  Thea knocked, and a moment later, the front door opened, just a crack. Sophie caught a brief view of a tan face, dark hair.

  “Go away,” the woman said in a strong voice, and she started to close the door. She froze, and Sophie saw her eyes widen when she looked her way.

  “What the hell is this?” she demanded. There was a tremor to her voice, and a sick part of Sophie liked the hint of fear there. Sophie didn’t answer, and the woman looked at her more closely.

  “Motherfucker,” she muttered, and Thea was clearly taken aback by the outburst. “You get off of my property right now. You are a goddamn disaster, and I don’t care how powerful you are!” she shouted at Sophie.

  “Thea, maybe it would be best if you waited in the car,” Sophie said calmly, not taking her eyes off of the witch in the house.

  “No arguments here,” Thea said, glancing at the witch, then at Sophie before shuffling away.

  “I think you have me mixed up with someone else,” Sophie said after she heard the car door slam.

  “You get away from us, you bitch. How long are you going to do this?” the woman yelled, and a moment later, the door opened wider and two more women stood behind the first.

  Sophie could feel it the moment they joined them. Two Shadow, one Light. Sophie’s gaze went to the one that was of the Light.

  “How are you possible?” she asked her, ignoring the other two.

  “Everything is possible in the Light,” the woman said. “I can’t say we’re happy to see you again, Migisi.”

  Great. Not only were they angry old women, but they were probably suffering from dementia or something as well.

  “I’m not Migisi. I’m Sophie. She was my ancestor.”

  “You know nothing,” the first women seethed.

  “So why don’t you explain it to me?” Sophie asked. Shadow’s coldness steeled her against the sisters’ anger. Their fear, however, made her feel stronger. “How were you not under Marshall’s control?”

  “Who says we weren’t?” the first sister countered.

  “We’re not strong enough to be of much use to him,” the second sister, who had been silent up to that point, explained. “We thought we were done with all of this when we were freed a few weeks ago.”

  “And now we know we’re apparently supposed to bow to a new overlord. I hope you’re happy now. This was what you wanted, right? Absolute control?” The first sister demanded.

  “Look, I know Shadow witches don’t really age all that quickly, but I’m not Migisi. So any issues you have with her have nothing to do with me.”

  The sisters looked at her, dumbfounded.

  “She really doesn’t know,” the third sister, the one of the Light, murmured.

  “We are all fucked,” the first said, storming back into the house.

  “Is Luc back, too?” the sister of the Light asked.

  “What?”

  “He is, isn’t he? That’s the only way you’d be here. I can’t do this again,” the Light sister said, putting her face in her hands. Sophie felt ice up her spine. All she wanted to do was get back in the car and go back home. Shadow rose, awakened by her fear and stress, by the fear of the sisters, and she forced it back down.

  “I don’t understand,” she said to the sister of the Light.

  “I’m not doing this,” the second Shadow sister said, going back into the house. When she was gone, only the third sister, the Light sister, remained. She studied Sophie, and, after a moment, she seemed to nod.

  “I’d like to say it’s nice to see you again, but we both know that would be a lie.”

  “Look, lady. I don’t know you,” Sophie insisted. “All I wanted to do was verify that there were other witches here. Your presence means that Marshall hasn’t wiped out the Light completely—”

  “Nearly enough. I’m still here, but I’m not in danger of creating any children of the Light,” she said with a sad smile. “No, Migisi-who-is-not-Migisi, when I die, the last of the Light witches will leave this area, and as far as I know,
we may very well be the last, period. Your line was our last hope.” Tears glinted in her eyes, and she looked away. She sniffled quietly, and all Sophie could do was stare at her.

  “There have to be others. It’s a big world—”

  “Never very many. And Marshall has been at this for a very long time,” the witch said tiredly.

  Sophie didn’t want to ask the next question, but she couldn’t stop herself. “What happens to the world when you’re gone?”

  The witch smiled sadly. “Surely you feel what the world will become. The Light lives in all things, but it needs its warriors to survive. As long as even one of us still walks on the Earth, Shadow can never win. Marshall knows this. Why do you think he was so intent on destroying your line?”

  “I was weak, even when I was of the Light,” Sophie said.

  The woman shook her head sadly. “You were of the Light, and you lost it,” she said. Not a question, but a statement.

  “Yes.”

  “Jesus, do you really have to recreate it all over again? Even down to that detail? You are as sick as my sisters say you are.”

  Sophie’s temper flared. “I don’t know what this is, but I am Sophie Turner. I’m the daughter of Janet and Robert Turner, niece of Evie Turner, great-great-great-granddaughter of Migisi, great-great-granddaughter of Claire, I assume.”

  The woman’s face seemed to crumple, and she covered her face in her hands. When Sophie heard a small sob, she looked around as if trying to find an answer to what the hell was going on.

  “Claire,” the woman whispered, sniffling. She pulled a tissue out of her sweater pocket and loudly blew her nose. “She was a joy.”

  Sophie stared at her. “You knew her?”

  “Knew her?” she gave a bitter laugh. “I want to stab you in the throat right about now. And that goes against everything I’m supposed to believe in.”

  Sophie threw her hands up in frustration. “I don’t understand. You’re clearly confused about some things. I’m here—”

  “You’re here because of course you’d end up here,” the witch said. “Of course you would.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “I know you much better than I’d like to. In truth, I wish I didn’t know you at all.”

  “Well, you don’t,” Sophie said, raising her voice.

  “Do you hate us this much for giving your daughter the life you couldn’t?” the witch asked, and Sophie was about ready to walk away. This had been a waste of time.

  Loony old bats.

  As she turned away, she caught sight of what had apparently once been an old carriage, a two-seater. It was partially buried in the snow, but for a moment, Sophie had a flash of it, pulled by a large black horse, swishing flies away from its backside as Sophie and a much-younger Light witch sat in the seat of the carriage. Sophie blinked and turned around.

  The witch was watching her carefully. When Sophie looked at the house again, she saw it as if it was summer, the driveway dusty, the grass brown. A young girl sat on the front step, tears coursing down her face, loss and fear in her eyes.

  “What the hell?” Sophie breathed as she bent over. Why the hell was she crying? She wiped her eyes and looked at the Light sister in alarm. “What are you doing to me?”

  “It isn’t me,” the witch said, studying Sophie. “Is this the first time this has happened?”

  “Whatever the hell this is? Yeah, it’s the first time this has happened.”

  “Nothing on your own land?”

  “Obviously not,” Sophie said icily.

  “Have you run into Luc yet, or not?”

  “Would you stop that!” Sophie shouted, her voice echoing in the still air. “”Whatever the hell this is, stop it or I swear to god I’ll make you regret it.”

  “Spoken like a true Shadow witch,” the Light witch said.

  “This was a mistake and a waste of time,” Sophie said. She turned and started going back to the car.

  “We raised Claire,” the Light witch said, and Sophie froze. “When she was still just a small child, it all became too much for you— for Migisi,” she corrected. Sophie turned back around, looking at the witch. “She wanted Claire raised among our own people. Migisi’s people. So we took her in. And we raised her. And when she was twenty-three years old, we lost her. By that point, she’d already had a child, one that she’d hidden from Marshall.”

  “Not very well,” Sophie said, her chest constricting as she thought about her grandmother, who’d died before Sophie had been born, and her mother, and, worse, her mother’s death.

  “I have no doubt he planned to kill Janet as soon as he found her. She was saved by the move down to Detroit, at least for a while.”

  “How did you know we moved there?”

  “Evie. I kept in contact with the dear until she passed.”

  Sophie stared at the woman.

  “He would have killed you sooner, too. I think he sensed… well. I think he probably regrets that decision now.”

  “I’m so confused.”

  “You even look the same.”

  Sophie looked at her helplessly.

  “You are Migisi. Whether you want to believe that or not, that’s up to you. I knew you, and I’d know you anywhere. You destroyed everything around you, and you swore you’d find a way to come back and make it all right. And now, look at you. More Shadow than ever. And if you’re back, it means Luc is back too, and the whole damn nightmare is going to start all over again,” she said, shaking her head.

  “You are insane,” Sophie said. She clasped her hands, well aware of how they were shaking.

  “You and Luc managed for longer than anyone thought. I have to give you that. And I thought it was all nonsense when you used to rave about coming back. Looks like I was the fool.”

  “I—”

  “If there is even a shred of decency in you, I beg you to leave us the hell alone. We’ve been through enough, and they can’t handle much more,” she said, nodding toward the house and her sisters inside. “Keep your evil and lunacy away from us. We’ve given everything. More than you ever did,” she added bitterly. “Just stay away, Migisi.”

  Sophie was about to argue again, but in the next instant, the Light witch was gone, and it was just Sophie, standing alone under a steel gray sky, brittle snowflakes falling all around her. She slowly walked back to the car, shooting uncertain glances at the house. When she pulled the door open and sat in the driver’s seat, all she could do was sit there for a moment.

  “So it didn’t go well,” Thea said.

  “Not so much,” Sophie answered. “I think I’m losing my mind.”

  Thea reached over and patted her arm. “Let’s get out of here. Go home. Get some food in you and some rest. You look like hell warmed over.”

  “Thanks.”

  Thea let out a short laugh, and Sophie started the car and put it in reverse. She half-listened as Thea chattered on about her family and the kids she counseled at the youth center. She tried to nod and laugh in all the right places. When she finally pulled up in front of Thea’s house, she thanked the older woman and pulled away from the curb, taking a deep breath of relief.

  As she drove home, she went over the whole thing. And then she laughed, shaking her head. Nothing but a confused old woman. She didn’t doubt that they’d raised Migisi's daughter. She had read that Claire had eventually been sent to live with members of the local Ojibwa tribe. But the rest was utterly ridiculous, the result of Sophie’s resemblance to Migisi and the women’s advanced age.

  If it were true, Esme would have said something. She was there, after all. She knew Migisi. Marshall would have said something. She shook her head again and felt some of the tension leave her body. This was all crazy, and adding senile old women’s craziness into the mix definitely didn’t help.

  When she pulled into her driveway, it was to see Calder sitting on her front step. She warmed at the sight of him.

  “When did you get back?”

  “A
few minutes ago. I just wanted to check on you, but then I don’t see any lights on… what’s with those people in your meadow?”

  “Shadow witches.”

  “I know. But what are they doing there?”

  Sophie sighed. “They were under Marshall’s control until… you know. And they started seeking me out. I’m supposed to lead them.”

  “So tell them no,” he said.

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “It really is.”

  She looked up into his eyes. “That other witch? The one who wants to kill me because she thought I took some of her powers?”

  “Yeah?” he said, looking less sure.

  “She’s the next most powerful. What do you think she’s going to do with an army at her disposal?”

  Calder cursed and glanced away. “So what are you going to do?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know I have to keep them here, and under my control, until I figure something out.”

  He was silent, and she glanced up at him. He was studying her closely, and then he gave a little shake of his head. “I’m tired,” he said with a small laugh. “Look, honey… I know I’m supposed to stay away from you. But I haven’t slept in days, and—”

  “Calder,” she said. She knew the smart thing was to tell him to go home. He wouldn’t get a restful night beside her, either, with his bear raging at having Shadow so close. But she was lonely and freaked out and tired of feeling cold and empty. So she took his hand and led him inside. They curled up on the daybed in the living room together, a fire in the grate nearby, Calder’s arms around her, holding her tightly. She was grateful that he was being sensible about this. Before… before Shadow, before the conniving way she’d had to break his curse, they both would have been naked by that point. But there was still a chasm between them that she didn’t know if they’d ever find a way to bridge. For now, his arms, his solid mass behind her in the bed they’d made love in so many times, was enough.

  Chapter Four

  July 1, 1877

  Migisi woke with the dawn, as she usually did. She tiptoed out of bed, stealing a peek at Claire, who was still snuggled down in her bed. Her daughter was growing up to be a beautiful little girl, dark curls like Migisi’s, but with a smile that reminded Migisi of the girl’s father.