“Your family has never gone to retrieve it?” she asks, sounding a little astonished.
“No, never,” I answer. Procuring it isn’t a common practice, making the price outrageous. “What do you know about it?”
She shakes her head, trying to find the words. “My mother went annually, sometimes twice a year, but that was rare. I only remember her going alone once—a few months after my father died. She has green magic, and she’s a very talented witch,” she admits. “He was the brain and charm of the business. She never confessed it, least of all to me, but she struggled to get a firm grip on everything afterward.”
I rub her arm and tangle our legs together. She’s shivering again, but it’s different than when she was cold. It gives her anxiety to talk about her mother and her life before Briarhollow.
“She went to Calista, the—”
“The succubus demon,” I cut her off, my mind beginning to turn.
“Yeah, her.” Looking up at me, she shrugs and says, “After that, she took my sister Agatha with her. Every time they came back, Agatha was different for a few days. There was a haunted look in her eyes, and she’d just stand in the garden, not doing anything. For hours. It was like her spirit was in her body, but her essence was depleted.”
She’s quiet for a long moment, tracing patterns on my chest and working through the memories she tries so badly to forget.
“Agatha and I weren’t talking by that point, but I snuck into her room after the first trip. I was so worried about her. She was quiet when I laid and held her, and she wouldn’t talk. I begged her to tell me what happened.” She shudders and says, “She’d open her mouth like she wanted to say something, but couldn’t.”
It’s similar to everything I’ve read about everoot in the past. It’s common knowledge how to find Calista’s island and the general powers she possesses, but everything else, including the details of visiting her, are a mystery. Any time someone is asked about it, they physically can’t say another word.
Are there any books about the herb in Briarhollow? I have readThe Story of an Exiled Demontwice back in Junimere, but it’s vague. She’s the only being to ever grow the plant, and her price isn’t monetary. That’s it—that’s all it says about everoot.
It mostly goes into depth about the many theories about why she was exiled to our planet over a millennia ago, and how her powers are similar yet much different than Gray and Divination Witches.
I remember the hefty sum my father paid to our local healer when Sybil and I were ten, and she caught a virus. They were worried it was decay fever, but it’s uncommon in younger witches.
However, other than common flu symptoms, it can drain the healing components in someone’s magic at a rapid rate. Sybil’s immune system has always been a bit weak. I don’t think she would have lasted another night.
The healer was reluctant to use his personal stash. I remember thinking it looked almost painful when he scooped a teaspoon out of the jar. Despite the guilt in his eyes, he insisted that the high financial cost equaled the means of attaining it. I don’t know the exact amount. Even as a child, it made my head spin when I heard my parents talking about it.
“Maybe she couldn’t,” I say, thinking out loud. “I’ve only found one book about Calista but I haven’t been looking for sources on succubi demons in general. Maybe we can go look in the next couple of days?”
“Yeah, sure. What do you mean Agatha couldn’t tell me?”
“One of their abilities is compulsion. Calista has apparently used it on many of her lovers—at least, that’s what they like to tell their wives and families once she’s done with them. If she doesn’t kill them first.”
Rubbing her back, I try to remember everything from the book, but it’s all starting to get muddled in my mind. “Maybe Agatha was compelled to secrecy, along with every person who goes to barter for the herb.”
She sits up straighter, the sheet falling down her bare chest. Turning toward me and placing a hand on my stomach, she thinks it over before slowly nodding.
“Maybe she did. It would keep desperateandadventurous people coming back,” she says.
“It’s harder to say no once you’ve traveled thousands of miles to get it.”
She bites her lip. “Butwhatis it?”
Laying her head back on my chest, she lets out a sigh, not expecting an answer.
Succubi have many abilities, including holding a spirit captive and immediate, bloodless death. The latter is self-explanatory, but the former is distinctly different from a Gray Witch’s magic.
Renata can summon spirits and demons from other realms, often assumed to be the afterlife. No one is sure. She can resurrect a person if she has their body to reconnect with. Putting a soul into someone else’s body is much more complicated, and closer to a possession than a resurrection. She could do that, if she wanted. Deadwalkers are created, but not always controlled by, Gray Witches.
Calista, and all succubi demons, can hold a soul in their hands. They can stop a spirit’s journey from a physical body to the afterlife, keeping it for themselves. All they need is a vessel to put it in. The catch is, she can’t put the soul into a human body. She can only keep it captive in a sort of purgatory.
I can’t remember anything else useful from the book. Maybe Renata will remember something, since she has seen the consequences of visiting Calista’s island. Taking her compulsion abilities into consideration, I worry there are many questions we won’t find the answers to.
The silence hangs between us. I think she fell asleep until she whispers, “I saw Nestor returning home, and Barrett was anticipating it. Petra was surprised; relieved and heartbroken to see him stumble through the gate.”
I don’t say anything. I set her cup down and pull her body flush to mine. She nuzzles into me, but her gaze is zoned out again.
