Free Spellbound: The Awakening of Aislin Collins by Margeaux Laurent

father
untouched. I wanted him to remember what it felt like to be
betrayed by someone you love.
     
    ********************
     
    I heard the Marthalers’ leave. Mr. Marthaler
was apologizing profusely to my father and after a few moments of
awkward silence, the front door was shut and locked.
    My mother knocked on my bedroom door and I
quickly pushed the dresser back so she could enter.
    “May I sit with you for a while?” she
asked.
    She walked into my room and I closed the
door behind her. What I was about to say was something my father
could not hear.
    “I cast a memory spell so the Marthalers
will not remember that I said anything about you being a slave… I
am so sorry about what I said. I never meant to say anything about
you. It just came out with my anger.” I felt horrible for what I
had done. Even though the spell would erase my comments from their
minds, it could not change the fact that I had spoken of forbidden
things that haunted my mother.
    “I knew you would not let those thoughts
remain in their minds,” she smiled at me half-heartedly, “But using
your magic to conceal thoughtless mistakes is too risky in times
such as these.”
    I nodded in understanding. “What happened
after I left?”
    My mother shook her head and clasped her
hands tightly until her knuckles were turning white. “It did no
good. They have kept to their agreement, although your father seems
more concerned after witnessing their violent nature. He did not
know that you were struck before. They never told him that part. So
the whole outburst came as a great surprise.”
    I felt a cold chill run through my body.
“What shall I do?”
    “Tomorrow is Samhain. We will pray… ask the
spirits of our ancestors for assistance and see what comes.” She
got up, hugged me, and left the room.
    I watched her close the door behind her. I
went to my dresser and retrieved Greer’s letter. This time I read
the letter slowly, somehow feeling as though he was standing right
next to me and would stay next to me if only I could keep
reading.
    After I had finished reading, I took the
letter and placed it in the back of the book, pressing it close to
the binding.
    I sat thinking about Greer and wondered if
he thought of me as often as I thought of him. I felt content as my
mind played back the moments we spent together, although I had so
much to learn about him. Who was he? What did he like and
dislike? Yet, I felt as though in some way, my heart already
knew the answers to these questions. Although, certain things I did
not yet understand. For instance, he was so strong. When he
picked me up by the stream, it was as though I weighed nothing at
all. Perhaps some men are just stronger then others, but he also
moved with a swiftness I had never seen before. Then there was his
ability to enter my dreams. How could he do that?
    A knock on my door shattered my
thoughts . My father did not wait for me to reply and opened
the door. I pushed the book far under my pillow and sat back so
that it was completely covered.
    “Aislin we must talk,” he sounded timid and
broken. His face was swollen and his eye blackened.
    “I have nothing to say to you.”
    He ignored my indignance and walked to the
edge of my bed, sitting uncomfortably on the very end of it. He
held onto one of the posts as though to steady himself.
    As I surveyed him from where I sat, I
realized that he looked rather old and worn. His greying hair was
loosening out of its ponytail, the lines around his eyes seemed
deeper and his coloration seemed rather pale.
    “We have much to talk about. I am sorry that
I did not consult you in this marriage arrangement, but it happened
very quickly and it took me off guard. In my eyes, you are still a
small child, but in the world’s eyes, you are
nearly twenty years old and more than ready to become a
wife . When Zachariah and his father walked into my shop,
they assured me that you were deeply in love with him and that this
was a proposal that would