The Pond - Part 27

There was a room off the kitchen that Izolda had taken as her workroom. This room was off-limits to the rest of the household. It was where she made her tinctures and potions, consulted the bones and cast her spells. It was also where she kept her spellbook, locked in her trunk.

The room had a small fireplace with a rocking chair beside it, and a work table pushed against the wall, shelves above it. There were no windows, but there was a braided rug in front of the fireplace that she'd made herself. This is where Izolda came to think.

Since her arrival in America, Izolda’s life had been almost idyllic. She had embraced her role of wife, helpmate, and mother so absolutely that her life before was all but forgotten. Her real life began with her marriage to Nikolai, anything that came before was of no consequence.

But now she could think of little else but the past. She may not be proud of some of the things she had done, but neither did she regret them. Her ambitions had brought her to where she was today. Had she been a different person, things may not have worked out for her as well.

The entity in the pond was connected to her past in some way, but who, or how?

“You know who I am,” the voice had told her.

She paced the room while she thought.

Someone from her past, that was obvious, and the past was her old village.

The old village had been flooded, but that didn’t mean someone hadn’t survived. The negative feelings she’d been experiencing began with the birth of Mikhail, and word of the flood didn’t reach them until after the birth of Dmitri. Could the feelings have been a foretelling?

But that didn’t make sense. She had been gone from the village for three years before the birth of Mikhail. She couldn’t possibly be held responsible for the flood. And surely any survivors would have been mentioned before this.

She had been very careful in keeping her abilities to herself. Even if someone had found the cave, there was nothing to connect it to her, she’d left no trace of herself behind. In truth, only two people had an inkling of how powerful she was – Varnya, and her mother. Both dead by her own hand, and both with enough power to return from the spirit world. Both spirits would have reason to seek revenge.

Of the two, the spirit of Varnya was the more plausible. Her mother had been a kind-hearted soul, she would not have harmed others in her quest for vengeance. Although she would have wagered that Varnya, too, would take the more direct approach. But if not one of these two, then who?

The dreams and negative feelings, were they premonitions, or a warning sent by the entity? The sightings, the near misses . . . they spoke more of a building up of power than of something with unlimited resources.

It was cowardly, this entity. It chose to hide itself, playing pranks and stirring up trouble, then becoming more aggressive. It was toying with her, she realized. It wasn’t just seeking revenge for some slight, it wanted to torment her.

Izolda unlocked the trunk and pulled out her spell book. Taking it over to the rocking chair, she sat down and opened the book. First, she needed to find a way to force the entity to reveal itself. Then, she would banish it.