Chapter Twenty-Two

 

Attack! Now! Devin didn’t need Calum’s ghostly encouragement. The minute Isabel jumped on Lucas’s back, he let loose his fury. Rage at every little thing this man’s presence had meant to Isabel. Fury for the fact he’d succumbed to evil as he had. And for shame, fury that he’d loved Isabel so well and didn’t do the right thing.

Yes, he’d heard every word Lucas had said to Isabel. Knew without doubt the man had found true love with her and turned from it for the sake of his coven’s orders, for the sake of not taking a chance. As he stormed toward them, Devin wondered what he should do. How to handle it.

Furious. Disappointed. Overprotective. All these feelings blew through. Enabled him to gain the power to gently toss Isabel aside… to find himself face to face with a warlock far more powerful than he and not afraid in the least.

Peering at Lucas, holding him in the grip of pure rage, he chanted over and over, “Go to God. Be free of this curse.” “Ituros ad Deum. VOCO maledictio.”

Dark spirits began to dance behind him. Their faces warped and contorted in rage. Lucas stood taller, his gaze flickered to Isabel then back to Devin.

Devin continued to repeat the chant even as Lucas tried to fight him.

Crying in agony, Lucas finally fell to his knees, the spirits behind him eager, cackling. Suddenly the wizard Adlin’s ghost appeared beside Devin and added his voice. “Ituros ad Deum. VOCO maledictio.”

Lucas struggled, rising up then falling back to his knees again. Fighting because he knew his coven stood behind him, rising up because he tried to remain true to those who had so well deceived him. Roar. The wolf cried forth from his face, warping in and out.

Calum’s ghost appeared through the darkness. His deep voice added to the chant. “Ituros ad Deum. VOCO maledictio.”

All three said it over and over.

As they did Lucas’s body shifted between man and beast, his cries of pain a heart-wrenching sound against the still Maine morning. The spirits behind caressed and nurtured the beast. They tried to remind him who he was. All he’d become.

Despite the fact he’d been man and perhaps kind at one time, he had chosen this path. He’d chosen evil over good and decided to be one of the creatures set to destroy Calum’s descendants.

As the first ray of sunlight broke through the forest and traveled across the lawn, the spirits leapt back into the shadows, their long, skinny fingers trying to reach one last time for Lucas.

Still they repeated the chant. Over and over and over.

Another ray of sun splintered through the trees. Then another. Then another. Lucas peered forward, eyes narrowed into the sun.

“No!” The spirits cried at once, covering their ears.

As the last shadows were stolen from the early morning, so too were the dark spirits, their shadowed forms torn from sight.

Devin met Lucas’ eyes. Dazed and confused, his lips formed few words without sound. “Ituros ad Deum.” All fell back as his form disintegrated, shifting and reforming into smoke. Devin turned as it drifted into the light morning mist then traveled up a ray of sunlight until it last vanished from sight.

Isabel felt the shift. Knew inherently that no matter how dark he’d become, Lucas had been saved. He would not be thrust into hell.

Everyone stood on the lawn watching, waiting. But nothing else happened. “It’s over,” Calum said at last. “This part of the curse has been lifted. You are free, Devin.”

Isabel released a small sob. When he looked her way, Devin realized it was not Lucas she looked after but him. Going to her, he pulled her up into his arms and protected her with his warmth.

How had they got here? When had they returned to the twenty-first century? The last he knew he’d been a wolf chasing her and Lucas into the house in the eighteenth century.

Everyone remained silent. A heavy silence hung over the front lawn. Pulling back, he looked down into her eyes. “Are you okay?”

The sudden apprehension and confusion on her face gave him pause. When a tear slipped down her face he repeated, “Isabel, are you okay?”

She shook her head slowly, closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Devin cupped her face and ran his finger down the scar on her cheek. She was here with him, somehow miraculously alive in the twenty-first century. “You’re beautiful. You’re here. We’re together. All’s well,” he said.

Calum appeared beside them, voice quiet. “She can’t hear you.”

Devin glanced at Calum then back to Isabel. “Can’t hear me? What are you talking about?”

Isabel shook her head and mouthed. “I hear nothing. I am sorry.”

Though they weren’t directly next to him, Devin suddenly felt the strength of his cousins. Though he continued to cup Isabel’s face he said to Calum’s ghost, “A temporary side effect of being trapped in the house?”

“No. A permanent effect,” Calum said sadly. “To be trapped in another dimension, within a curse, and then freed alive… has its consequences.”

Devin didn’t hesitate; he released Isabel’s cheeks and swung at Calum. His fist sailed through the ghost as did his body. Furious, he turned. “You jerk! Because of you she’s scarred and deaf?” Devin lunged at him again, only to once more fall through air.

“Devin, no. Please no, my love.”

He froze at the sound of her voice in his head. Turning to Isabel, he said, “Did you just talk to me within the mind?”

Nodding, she held out her hand. “I must have if you can hear me. I’m not afraid. It’s alright. Please, I’m tired of all the anger.”

“Tim?” Andrea’s voice sounded from behind. Devin turned and saw her stagger toward the house. “Tim!”

They watched as her husband walked slowly out of the house. He appeared as though he woke from a nap. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “One second I was talking to you, the next thing I knew I slipped and fell against the wall. Did I fall asleep or something?”

Running, Andrea nearly plowed him over as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders crying. Holding her he said groggily, “Still a little tired.”

“I love you,” She said again and again and walked with him back into the house.

Devin pulled Isabel into his arms once more and spoke within the mind. “I’m so, so sorry. You don’t deserve this.”

Isabel pulled away, shook her head and began to gesture with her hands. He stared, incredulous. “You know sign language?”

Nodding, a small smile formed on her lips and she signed the words, “Those years before I left Virginia, I met a boy. He taught me a new way to communicate, a way in which we could talk to the deaf through hand gestures. That’s when I first became interested in helping the deaf. When I first realized that people existed amongst us whom lived in a silent world.”

Devin turned and glanced at Seth, Leathan and Calum. They shrugged in confusion.

Adlin piped in, “Sign languages have often evolved around schools for deaf students. In 1755, Abbé de l'Épée founded the first school for deaf children in Paris; Laurent Clerc was arguably its most famous graduate. Clerc went to the United States with Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet to found the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1817. Gallaudet's son, Edward Miner Gallaudet founded a school for the deaf in 1857 in Washington, D.C., which in 1864 became the National Deaf-Mute College. Now called Gallaudet University, it is still the only liberal arts university for deaf people in the world.”

“Sometimes, in cases like Abbé de l'Épée, they learn from others. Perhaps by knowledge learned and passed down from a very talented Virginian tutor.” Walking over to Isabel he smiled and signed, “I was a cute little boy, wasn’t I?”

When her jaw dropped then Isabel burst into laughter, Devin shook his head. “I’ve heard it said you were a devious wizard. Guess I didn’t believe it until now.”

Adlin winked and Devin caught a flash of his Maine vagrants, John and Andy in his wizened old ghost face. “Oh, you’ve no idea, lad.”

“I am not afraid,” Isabel said within Devin’s mind. “This is a new life. A chance to start over.”

“But I’m still who I am. A werewolf. I know it without doubt,” he replied.

She touched his cheek. “But you’re my wolf. You won’t harm me. I know this without doubt.”

Still, he felt tortured and conflicted, as though they still had so far to go.

“Well you do,” Calum said.

Devin looked at Calum then back to Isabel and signed rather than speaking within the mind. “I want to know the truth. Why did you end up taking the stone into the Georgian with you? What did it say in Calum’s journal for you to take such a risk?”

Isabel and Calum’s ghost locked eyes for several moments before her gaze turned to his. “It was all rather simple in the end. And he wrote it in his journal for me to find. The stone was right there in his wooden trunk all along. And as we know, the stone traps the beast. But the stone also would lead me to you. Without one I could not have the other. As this particular haunting was locked in dimensions rather than clear set time, had I never brought the stone into the house you would have never come. You would have never freed me. In the same token, had you not come I would not have found the piece that ultimately freed both me and Lucas, and allowed you to defeat him.”

Silence.

“Huh?” Devin, Seth and Leathan said at once.

Adlin rolled his eyes. “Calum’s a devious, tricky warlock, he is. The old can’t-have-one-set-of-circumstances-without-the-other trick. Brought them together good, you did.” Turning to Calum he said, “I didn’t think you had it in you. Well done.”

Calum chuckled and nodded. “See, I’m not all that bad.”

“Oh, you’re bad,” Adlin said. “This all could have been done much more directly.”

“How so?” Calum scoffed as he walked alongside Adlin toward the forest. “This was a most direct approach.”

“They’re all staring at us with confusion. How was this the most direct−”

That was the last anyone heard from the two ghosts before they vanished into the morning mist.

All three remaining warlocks turned Isabel’s way and signed adamantly, “I don’t get it!”

Laughing, Isabel shook her head and signed back, “Is Andrea’s husband free?”

Everyone nodded.

“Do I look okay? Do I look happy?”

Everyone nodded.

“Then didn’t this story end well?”

Seth, Leathan and Devin all crossed their arms over their chests at the same time and frowned.

Raising her brows, Isabel signed, “I might be deaf but this is a reality in which I have some understanding. A reality I feel prepared to handle. With a man I know is ready to handle it with me. I’m not afraid to be in the future. I’m not afraid of change.” She paused to let her words sink in. “But I suppose you need a clear cut happy ending.”

Before anyone could say a word she stood on tip toes, wrapped her arms around Devin’s neck and kissed him soundly. Wrapping his arms around her, Devin lost himself in everything about her. In the amazing woman she was, is and would always be.

“I love you,” He said within her mind.

Isabel only deepened the kiss and replied, “I know.”