Redeeming Vows Read Free

at the year the book was published. 1998. Selma Mayfair, the author, thought she was a witch. In truth, she was most likely a Druid who didn’t know it. She’d capitalized on her heritage and gift of premonitions to help the local police when a child vanished in rural Ohio. After the child was located exactly where Ms. Mayfair said she’d be, the media caught hold of her story and posted it all over the national news. Before long, Ms. Mayfair had every publisher and his brother asking for a book deal.
    The first one, Sixth Sense , hit the New York Times Bestseller list, which made her an overnight sensation. But that book wasn’t the one Liz looked at now. This book was labeled Seventh Sense . The book lacked the drama of a child’s abduction and consequently didn’t do nearly as well in the bookstores as the first. Liz remembered the hype and the syndicated talk shows all blasting Ms.
    Mayfair’s “abilities” when Seventh Sense came out.
    Because the book teetered on a religious fence, most of the spiritual community ostracized the author and called her a fraud.
    8

    Redeeming Vows

    By the time Seventh Sense was in paperback, the only people picking it up were those self proclaimed witches who went around smoking pot and saying “Blessed be.”
    Before Liz’s desired trip back in time, she’d bought the book for her sister. She meant it as a joke. However, it wasn’t an accident she’d remembered Ms. Mayfair’s plight long after her fifteen minutes of fame were over. It wasn’t an accident that while Christmas shopping for how-to books, she came across Seventh Sense in the closeout counter. And it wasn’t an accident when Liz first touched the tome of paranormal that a current of electricity jolted her down to her toes. No, the Ancients knew what the hell they were doing.
    “Mom?” Simon’s voice bellowed down the hall as he approached her sanctuary.
    “In here.”
    Her son sauntered in the room with newfound confidence. He had grown in the short time they had been in the sixteenth century. At thirteen, he started to look more like a man. His features lost the baby fat of his childhood and his limbs started to fill out.
    Already his height threatened Liz’s.
    She couldn’t help the proud feeling every time she saw him. He was her life.
    He plopped down beside her and nodded to the book. “Still at it?”
    “We’re not home yet, are we?” She repeated the words daily. Liz wouldn’t stop reading and trying new things to rid the MacCoinnichs of Grainna and find the stones that would take them home.
    Simon looked around the room built of stone.
    “No, we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
    Rolling her eyes, Liz laughed. “We never lived in Kansas.”
    “Yeah well, we’re not in California anymore doesn’t have the same ring.”
    9

    Catherine Bybee

    Liz reached out and ruffled his long hair. “No, it doesn’t.”
    Simon cast his eyes to his hands that plucked at the wool fiber of the bedding.
    “What’s on your mind?” Liz set the book aside.
    “I ah, I need to tell you something.”
    Oh, geeze. Nothing good ever came of that statement. “You can talk to me about anything.” And Liz hoped he always would. Realistically, she knew he would hold some secrets.
    “I don’t want you to freak out.”
    She swallowed. Hard. “I won’t freak out.” Oh please don’t let me freak out.
    “I’ve noticed my powers increasing.”
    “Okay.”
    “I mean really increasing.” Simon bit his bottom lip, but didn’t meet her eyes.
    “How, Simon? I know you talk to animals, can feel their desires and needs. What’s changing?” Her and Simon’s powers changing, morphing as they became aware of them was apparently normal.
    When she’d first lit a candle without a match, it took tremendous effort. The ease of it now was laughable.
    Simon scrambled off the bed. His posture slightly hunched. He stopped in front of the mirror on her vanity table. There he stood taller and met her gaze through the