17. Beth

"What did you do?" Beth demanded.

"Who? Me?" Matilda asked, putting on an innocent fa?ade.

"Yeah, you. I know that you did something to Conner's horse."

"I didn't do anything to his horse. That beast hasn't done anything to annoy me. However, I might have put a little surprise in the arena for him."

"Knock it off and leave Conner alone."

"I'll leave him alone when he leaves town. Or…" Matilda said calculatingly.

"Or what."

"I need a potion to help me with a special project I'm working on. You give me what I need, and I'll leave your little boy toy alone."

"I would never help you," Beth spat.

"Suit yourself," Matilda replied. "You can't say that I didn't try to be reasonable and compromise with you."

"You know that I love Conner and he loves Taryn. That doesn't hurt you at all."

"Give me what I want, and you can have all the love you want."

"I can't do that," Beth said.

"Then, my darling daughter, I can't leave Conner alone."

Matilda started to walk away when something caught Beth's eye. Beth grabbed her mother's arm and whirled her around.

"Wait a minute, Mother. Is that the Amulet of the Shadow Realm?"

Matilda smiled smugly. "So, what if it is?"

Beth's eyes nearly bugged out of her head. The center of the amulet was a blood-red crystal with even darker red lines radiating inside of it. A gold setting holding the crystal had tiny ancient sigils engraved in it that were rumored to represent powerful dark magic.

"Where did you get that?"

"I can't talk about that outside of the coven. If you were a part of the coven, then I could let you in on a few secrets."

"The last time that amulet was seen was in the year 562 around the neck of Matilda of Costenshire, when she was burned at the stake."

"Was it now?" Matilda said.

"The legend said that a strong wind blew in and ripped the amulet from her neck and it was never seen again."

"Hmm. Imagine that."

"Mother, what have you been doing? This isn't a good thing. That amulet is evil. It possibly contains more power than even you can contain."

"Get rid of Conner. Join Lyla and me. You can revel in the power."

"No," Beth said. "Not going to happen."

"Your loss," Matilda said as she swept away.

Beth hung her head. She could actually picture her mother wearing the dark robes of an evil witch, pouring blood into a cauldron from human sacrifices, and drinking the thick red liquid from the skulls of her victims.

This is why I don't enjoy the horror movies like Taryn does. I see it coming to life in my mother.

Beth went back to her seat in the stands. Apparently, Zephyr was okay because Conner was coming out the chute behind the steer. The hazer kept the steer in line while Conner slid off his horse and wrestled the animal to the ground.

She wasn't a huge fan of the sport because she thought it was cruel, but when she researched it, statistics showed that very few animals were hurt. The same thing with the calf roping. Beth always turned around when they did that event because she thought it was cruel.

After the rodeo, they watched a movie at Beth's house, and then Conner hugged Taryn and kissed Beth before heading to the hotel.

"I'm exhausted and would just fall asleep on the couch if I stayed longer," he said. "I'll be back in the morning. Should I bring donuts?"

"Yes," Taryn yelled at the same time that her mother said, "No."

"Sorry, Kiddo. Mom rules."

The three of them went to the spot on the mountain where Beth always took Taryn to shift and run. Beth watched Conner undress and fold his clothes neatly before putting them in a plastic bag. She sucked in her breath. His body was magnificent. Beth felt a rush of heat explode between her legs. He shifted and let out a howl. Beth laughed.

Taryn popped out of the woods. She was a beautiful gray wolf – a smaller version of her father. She dropped the plastic bag of clothes at Beth's feet.

"I'll follow the trail to the river," Beth said. "You guys have fun."

Father and daughter took off into the woods.

Beth picked up their bags of clothes and meandered over to the river and sat down by the bank, dangling her feet in the cold water. She laughed as a couple of minnows swam over and nibbled on her toes.

"I don't have any bread or anything else for you," she said. "Next time, I'll bring some."

She stared into the water, wishing with all of her might that a water sprite would jump out of the rolling waves and give her all of the answers to her questions. Unfortunately, the water sprites were not feeling talkative today, and Beth was left with her uncertainties.

Her brain was a messed-up mixture of thoughts. Images of Conner and feelings of overwhelming love she felt swam around in her mind for a few seconds. Then, those were replaced with the pride and love she felt for Taryn. The little girl was just rolling with the fact that her father wasn't part of her life and then, bam, here he was.

That led to thoughts of her mother. Beth pictured the amulet in her mind. It reeked of evil. The biggest question was how her mother got ahold of it. It was genuine.

Had the gust of wind that snatched the amulet from Matilda's neck been her mother? How could that happen? As far as I know, time travel wasn't possible. Was it some kind of spell?

An icy hand gripped Beth's heart and squeezed it. Although there was no real documentation, lore said that the amulet could summon demons, cause deadly storms, and even deadlier epidemic plagues.

What is your endgame, Mother?

Beth knew that there would be no way to trick her mother into thinking that she was going to join her mother's evil coven. Matilda would be able to see right through her.

"Ugh," Beth groaned loudly.

"What's wrong, Mom?" Taryn asked.

Beth squealed and jumped. "Don't sneak up on me like that. You're going to give me a heart attack."

"What's wrong?" Taryn asked.

"I was just thinking of your grandmother. Here's your clothes. Go get dressed."

Conner appeared out of the trees, grabbed his bag of clothes in his mouth, and went back into the trees. He appeared a moment later fully dressed.

"The fish were nibbling my toes," Beth said. "Next time, I'll have to bring some bread to share with them."

"Do you want me to catch one for you?" Taryn asked. "You can take one home as a pet. Or, you could snack on it."

"No, thank you, to both offers." Beth laughed, pulling her socks and shoes back on.

Conner growled when they got back to the truck. It wouldn't start.

"I can feel the magic. Hold on," Beth said.

She closed her eyes for a minute and focused on the source of the negative energy.

"Out of the truck for a minute," she ordered.

Everyone got out and Beth reached under the driver's seat, fishing around for something. Finally, she could feel the cotton bag with the tip of her fingers. She whispered a couple of cuss words under her breath and was finally able to capture the bag between two fingertips and drag it out.

"A hex bag designed to make you have bad luck and cause you to get sick. I'll give you three guesses as to who is responsible for this one and the first two don't count," Beth said, quoting Conner from the other night.

"Captain Kangaroo, Mr. Rogers, and your mother," Conner said, mimicking Beth's answers.

"Give the man a cookie," Beth said. She looked inside the bag. "Standard items. Here is a chicken bone and some hair, probably yours. Oh, look, she found some coffin nails, a piece of obsidian, and devil's apple root. This is a tiny vial of dried blood. I hope that she hasn't started doing human sacrifices."

"Standard hexing items, I take it?" Conner asked.

"Yep. I would say that she has no imagination, but then why fix what isn't broken. If it works, there's no need to go out of her way to do something different."

Taryn shuddered and turned pale. "What do we do with it?"

"Do you have something I can bury this with?"

Conner grabbed a shovel out of the back of his truck. "Where do you want the hole dug and how big?"

She walked to the edge of one very old tree and pointed. "Here. About a foot deep."

He dug the hole and she dropped the bag in, muttering an annulling spell over it, so the bag didn't poison the tree or the ground.

Conner covered it up.

"The tree is very old. All things from nature have pure energy, unless they have been polluted somehow. The spell and the tree will nullify any negative energy this bag has."

"Grandmother is awful," Taryn said. "I know that she has a bad heart and wants us to have one, too. I would never do the things that she does."

Beth hugged her daughter and said, "I know that. She does too, which is one of the reasons she is not your biggest fan."

"I don't want her to be in my fan club, anyway. She would be like Yolanda, the president of Selena's fan club who killed Selena."

"Good analogy," Beth said.

Conner's stomach rumbled. "I'm hungry. Hopefully, she didn't do any lasting damage to the truck."

They piled in and headed to the fairgrounds. Taryn opted for some chicken fingers and fries while the two adults got cheeseburgers and fries.

"When this rodeo and fair are over, I'm going to have to put you on a strict salad-only diet for an entire month just to clean all of the grease out of your system," Beth told Taryn.

"That's just not going to happen," Taryn said. "I'm a carnivore so I need meat to survive. You wouldn't want me getting up in the middle of the night, sneaking out of the house, and hunting down mice and squirrels to eat."

"You would eat them raw?" Beth asked.

"That's what wolves do. I've never seen one start a campfire and roast their food over a spit," Taryn said, seriously.

"The little one has a point," Conner said. "I think that it's in all of our best interests, including that of the neighborhood rodents, if we just keep feeding her regularly."

Beth laughed and said, "I could win an argument when it was just one against one. Now that there are two against one, I can't win."

"I was on your side about the donuts earlier," Conner said. "I'm the objective observer and tiebreaker."

They laugh.

This feels good, even if there is a shadow hovering over us. We'll figure something out. Good always defeats evil – doesn't it?