The Magick of Dark Root (Daughters of Dark Root) by April Aasheim Page A

Root to practice her craft. The earth here is alive with electricity, and a witch’s natural powers are increased here. Surely, you’ve felt it?”
    I had. It was something I didn’t notice in my childhood, as it had always been a part of me, but when I left, I felt my abilities depreciating, and I began to wonder if I had imagined them all along. But now that I was back, I felt the energy move throughout my body.  
    “Is this the only place?” I asked.
    “No. There are spots all over the earth––if one knows where to look. And the ancients did, marking them with pillars and pyramids and stone. These regions form a grid across the globe. But Dark Root remained unmarked and only a local legend brought Juliana here. And the longer you are in one of these spots, the stronger you get. Armand spent a lot of time here. If he ever had a chance at summoning, it would be on this land.” She drew in a long breath, her lungs whistling as she exhaled. “I never meant to keep him from you, but we couldn't take that risk. There is a rule in the craft, and that is: never summon that which you cannot be rid of. And a demon is pretty hard thing to be rid of.”
    I swallowed, thinking of Gahabrien buried in the back yard of Harvest Home.
    True, I hadn’t summoned him and he was a lesser demon. Even so, he could cause trouble and he had never been successfully banished.
    With the aid of her cane, Mother stood, her knees popping as she rose.
    “That’s why I’ve been so hard on you,” she said. “You’re so much like your father, always walking the line. And someone who walks the line, I’m sorry to say, is a liability. The one thing you have going for you, however, is that you are not a man.”
    “But I don’t walk the line anymore,” I said, standing to meet her. As a teenager we stood eye to eye, but now I towered over her by nearly a foot. “I’m on your side. Dark Root’s side. Nothing’s going to change that.”
    “Magdalene, you are going to be the target of many people who will want to use your abilities, like their own personal magic wand. And you’re growing in strength, moving from the maiden stage into the mother stage of your cycle.” Her eyes narrowed as they rested on my abdomen. “Only a crone is more powerful than the mother. And there are an abundance of crones who will be threatened by you. Take that as a warning.”
    “I won’t cross any lines. You raised me. I’m not like my…I mean, Armand.”  
    “I hope not. But sometimes we do terrible things for the best of reasons.”
     

 
    Six
    ENTER SANDMAN

     
    It wasn’t the scritch-scratching sound of the branches of the great oak tree that clawed their way back and forth across my bedroom window that woke me from my sleep on that cold November morning. Nor was it the steady drizzle of the rain as it pounded on the tightly-packed shingles of our Victorian home. It wasn’t even the suffocating dream I’d been embroiled in, a half-mad montage of dark and light––my father’s face merging with my own, twisting and turning, flipping and whirring, without rhyme nor reason.
    Any of these things could have roused me from my sleep.
    But the real reason I shot up, just before the break of dawn, when not even Aunt Dora prowled the house, was because I had the strangest feeling that I was being watched.
    Pulling the sheet up to my chin, I gazed about my bedroom, scanning its corners and looking for shadows. The spaces where wall met wall were as dark as they needed to be, and not a shade more. I checked under the bed, lifting the bed skirt with utmost care, allowing my face to dip just beneath the frame.
    There was nothing there but piles of dirty clothes.
    Still…
    I couldn’t shake the feeling.
    Tiptoeing to the window, I peeked through the curtains.
    The glass was cold, covered in beads of precipitation that ran down its flimsy pane. Outside, I could make out the rough trunk of the oak tree and the moon, hanging on the horizon like a broken