Chapter 1

The night was black and moonless, but pitiless stars shone through the window. The only light was a single candle that he had lit in symbolic desperation. The lonesome, flickering flame was meant to be a combination of signal flare and source of energy for his ritual.

Historically, family and loved ones would put a candle in the window in order to help those who were away to find their way home. Joshua's mother hadn't been 'home' in days. She had slipped into a deep sleep as her illness progressed, and she hadn't woken up yet. She lay there in her bed, mouth hanging open, motionless but for the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest. Maybe she could still manage to find her way back home.

 She was a devout Christian, but he was a Wiccan. There were plenty of other people praying to God for her, but Joshua was grimly determined to try other methods. The rituals he tried were varied; everything from health spells to summoning spirits.

So many people that he had met during his life had sad stories about their childhood. Their parents had been alcoholics or drug addicts, they had lost one of their parents when they were young, they came from an abusive household. Everyone seemed to have a shadow over their youth.

Joshua had no dark memories. He remembered his mother as a vibrant force of nature that had brought love and light to everyone she touched. She was like June Cleaver and Martha Stewart rolled into one amazing person. His father, too, had been loving and involved; teaching him to play baseball and how to ride a bike; teaching him more important things like religious and racial tolerance. Even though his parent had divorced when he was only ten years old, he still looked back on it as an almost idealistic childhood.

But life, and people, have a way of changing everything.