Hide & Seek – A Reservations Short Story

Check out all the sections, including Book One & Two by clicking HERE

Hide & Seek

 My dad, whom I loved beyond words, died while I was writing Reservations. There is so much of him in this story. So much so that I literally tear up every time I read pretty much any of Lenten or Olive's sections. Grief is just such a powerful and overwhelming moment in time that consumes everything in your life for a time. But, like Pandora's Box, there is always hope. And it's that hope that gets us through. After I finished this story, my friends and I challenged each other as an exercise to write one of our character's fondest memories. This was my attempt to capture that glimmer of hope in the darkness.

Olive had loved her Daddy. Still did, even though it wasn’t the same now. She’d loved that, no matter what he’d been doing or how busy he got, he’d always stopped to play with her whenever she’d asked. Their favorite game was Hide & Seek. 

She was good at that game. 

Especially the Hiding part. 

Small and unafraid, she’d always picked the best hiding spots. Her favorite ones in their old house, where they’d lived before her uncle had taken her to live in The Elysium, were on the tip-top shelves in the basement and under the backyard stoop. 

No one had ever been able to find her there.

Except her Daddy.

He could always find her. Didn’t matter where she’d hidden, she’d known that it was only a matter of time before he found her. And, to be honest, she’d liked it when he did. Even though it meant the end of their game, there’d been nothing safer than the sight of him after being alone and waiting. 

Still wasn’t.

If she was really honest, a part of her was still waiting, always a little alone even in this big hotel filled with so many people. Even after more than thirty years, a part of her was still crouched in the tip-top, hidden places in her mind, knowing that it was only a matter of time before she saw that familiar face again. 

Until she felt safe again.

Read Reservations 

 

Available: 

Here

PayPal Copy

 

WANT MORE? 

FIND MORE STORIES HERE  

Extended Stay - Part Three (The End)

 

Check out all the sections by clicking HERE

Chapter Six: Extended Stay - Part Three

Leander

Leander sat on the ledge of the library bay windows, looking out into The Elysium gardens. Hugging his shins, he laid his chin on his knees.

The little Lenten girl, dressed in a somber but still pretty, black lace dress, tucked herself into the crook of her uncle’s knees, her fists clenching the neat, creased material of his black dress pants. They looked nice. Dark against the sunlit, mountain morning, but nice.

Black, the absence of all light and color, is often a sign or symbol of formality, mystery, and mourning.

Were they mourning?

Had someone died?

Leander wondered and stared at the sad, awkward expression on the little redheaded girl’s face. The tight, twisting grip she had on her little doll worried him a little, reminding him of something he couldn’t quite place.

Leander turned to squint into the rising sun, his hand drifting up to clutch the pointed arrowhead artifact hanging around his neck. He let the edge bite against the rough pads of his hand.

“You’re not ready.”

Leander turned to face a frowning Rowan who was struggling with a long, black tie. Leander lowered his gaze before rising to his feet and tugging at his gray T-shirt. “No.”

“Well,” Rowan said, still trying to tie the strip of cloth into a suitable knot, “we’re going to start the ceremony soon. You should get going.”

Leander blinked at the boy. “A seventeenth century man, Charles Boothby Skrymshire, committed suicide because he couldn’t stand to put on his English dandy-styled clothes.” 

Quirking an eyebrow, Rowan looked at him with amused chastisement in his green eyes. “So you don’t want to get dressed up?” he asked as if trying to decode Leander’s rambling words. “Fine.” He shrugged, removing his tie altogether to wind it around his hand. “I’m sure no one will mind.”

No, that wasn’t it. Leander bit his lip and shook his head, trying to decipher his own thoughts. “I can’t go.”

“Sure you can,” Rowan said. “But we have to go now, if we don’t want to be late.”

Leander shook his head, his fists clenching. No. Leander tried to order his thoughts, tried to find the words. “It’s said that, in some cultures, people aren’t buried immediately after death, but are instead placed in a large jar and kept in the homes of relatives for a year.”

Rowan looked at Leander curiously, even as Leander’s own face curled in confusion. Where had that thought come from?

“Do you need some more time?” Rowan asked. “I can see if everyone’s willing to wait a little bit, if you want.”

Leander shook his head again, more furiously this time. “Some cultures observe a mourning grace that can last for years.”

“You don’t like funerals,” the bright-haired boy said, “do you?”

He gave a little relieved sigh. Yes. Leander shook his head slowly, a little shameful.

Rowan nodded thoughtfully, pausing to pace a little. “Did you know,” he asked idly, “that funeral rites are as old as human culture itself? Dating back to at least 300,000 years ago, which predates the existence of modern homo sapiens.”

Leander stood straighter. Really? He pursed his thick lips, cataloging that fact away within his brain.

“It’s okay to be nervous.” Rowan took off his suit jacket. “But it’s important to be able to say goodbye to people who matter, to acknowledge their passing. I think Lenten and Olive really need this. I think we all do.”

Leander wrinkled his nose and closed his eyes. He couldn’t even remember the name of the person who died. He just knew — felt — that somewhere in the hotel there was an empty room that had once been full, a lingering scent of heather and lilac fading slowly.

“It would be nice if you were there.” Rowan’s voice sounded over the darkness behind Leander’s eyes. He felt him slide the soft, clean suit coat up his arms and onto his shoulders. “I know Lenten and Olive would appreciate it.”

Leander opened his eyes and looked at Rowan, pleading with him to understand. To accept. To not hate him for being scared and weak. “German writer of the twentieth century, Hans Fallada says that every man dies alone.”

Rowan smiled and held out his hand. “I’ll be right there. You won’t be alone.”

Leander tentatively laid his hand in the Rowan’s, his huge fist engulfing the slim, delicate hand. It took a lot of effort for him not to clutch it. He was afraid that, if he held on too tight, he might hurt the other boy on accident.

Rowan’s smile widened. He curled his fingers around Leander’s huge hand. “Jacket’s a bit short,” he said, eyeing the tight cuffs hovering an inch and a half above the other boy’s wrists, “but it looks nice.”

Leander nodded, thinking that this all seemed a little scary. He followed Rowan through the aisles and out the library doors. A little nerve-wracking, but kind of nice.

*

Olive

Olive toyed with the bow braided and wrapped into her hair. She frowned. It itched, pulling at her hair a few strands at a time, and made her scalp all tingly. She wanted to rip it off her head. Wanted to change out of the dress Uncle Lark had picked for her. It was too hot in the greenhouse, stuffy and sweaty even in the coolest part reserved for winter-blooming flowers where, since there wasn’t a casket or tombstone or anything, they’d planted flowers in place of a gravestone for Mei.

Heather, that was what they’d told her was planted in the dirt. Uncle Lark had suggested it, said that it was her flower.

“Hey there, sweet pea.” Flax crouched down next to her on the floor. “How you doing?”

She pushed her bottom lip out even further. She stared at the large, wide, white ash planter box, filled flat with black, wet dirt.

Soil.

That’s what Calla had called it.

“Dirt is dirty;” she’d told her today while Olive had watched the woman pack and pat the moist, dark stuff into the rectangular base, “soil has possibilities. Personality.”

Olive could hear her now. “I think it went well.” Calla came close to join them, followed by Rowan and Leander.

“Lovely service,” Rowan added. He leaned down to look Olive in the eye. “You did a wonderful job singing. I’m sure Mei would have really liked it.”

Leander even smiled at her. “ ‘You Are My Sunshine,’ the state song of Louisiana, has been performed and adapted by many different artists since its first recording in 1939, including a rendition by Ray Charles that reached number one on the soul singles chart and made the top ten on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.”

“Thank you,” she replied reflexively if half-heartedly.

“What’s wrong, petunia?” Flax touched her cheek softly.

She shook her head. She didn’t want to say it. It was going to sound so childish. And ungrateful. And petty and just plain bad.

She felt Rowan’s hand on her shoulder. “What is it?”

She sighed sadly and pouted. “There are no flowers on Mei’s plant.”

“Aw, sweetie,” Calla said and knelt down on the floor, “I told you before, there will be. You just need to give it a little care and a bit of time.”

Olive’s face scrunched with disappointment. She knew that. She knew that flowers started as seeds. She’d seen Calla tuck the tiny, impossibly small seeds into the soil. She knew that with water and sunlight the flowers would come.

Eventually.

She knew that. A small whining sob escaped her lips. It’s just that she wanted them now. She wanted flowers there and growing for Mei now, not sleeping seeds hidden deep underground.

It seemed wrong somehow.

Creepy and contrary.

“Sweetheart.” Calla cooed when Olive felt the woman wipe away a sneaky tear that squeezed out from the corner of Olive’s eye. “Please, don’t cry.”

She tried. She didn’t want to cry. She didn’t want to ruin the day with tears. But, as if the words called them forth like magic, the tears came hot and burning in the stuffy space.

Suddenly, she found herself surrounded, embraced from behind. The presence, familiar and comforting, smelled like home and haven. Uncle Lark, with his hands busy in front of her, was folding something quickly, the tiny creases and lines transforming the rather plain paper from the notebook he carried in his suit pocket with him into something special. She sniffled and leaned her back against his chest and watched him wordlessly push and pull the paper into a tiny, full flower.

Silently, he handed the pretty, little bloom to her before pushing her toward the empty tray with a gentle hand to her back. Peeking back, she saw him tear another page out of his ever-present book. “Go on.” He nodded encouragingly to her, smiling only slightly sadly, before he began to fold again.

She sniffed and turned to the tray. She pressed the small, fragile, paper flower to the soil — filled with its secret seeds waiting to grow under the layer of rich black. Gasping with surprised delight, she thought she suddenly saw the possibilities. Her uncle handed her another flower and then, after she planted that one, another. Olive stood back with her hands on her hips and stared with the others at the neat rows of origami orchids lining the potted soil.

“It looks nice,” Leander said.

Rowan nodded. “Perfect.” 

Olive thought so too.

More than that, it felt right.

Reaching over to touch one curled paper petal, she sighed, satisfied. “Goodbye Mei.”

THE END OF BOOK TWO

 

Available:

PayPal Copy

 

WANT MORE? 

FIND MORE STORIES HERE 

Extended Stay - Part Two

Check out all the sections by clicking HERE

Chapter Six: Extended Stay - Part Two

Rowan

What had he done?

Rowan stared at his hands, still seeing — feeling — what it’d felt like to wield that shovel, striking his aunt. He could still hear Gillian Drury screaming. Then, when she was bleeding and broken, the lightning came — the flash and heat of it.

He didn’t even know if she was alive, if somehow she’d miraculously survived. In a way — he supposed — perhaps that was a blessing, the not knowing. At least, he could hope. For as far as hope could go. At least it tempered the trembling horror he still felt at the memories.

“Rowan,” he distantly heard Lenten say, “we need to talk about this.” In the back of his mind, he was aware of the man lowering himself to the floor to sit beside him. Was detachedly aware of how awkward the man felt — shifting and smoothing his suit — while he adjusted to the unfamiliar position. “We—” He stopped with a frown. “I talked to you about this before. I know that you want to go home, but you can’t.”

Rowan pouted, pushing the man’s words — his damned lecture — away. He could. “I did it tonight.”

“What happened here exactly?” the manager asked.

Wanting the man to understand — to accept, even though it had gone wrong — how close he was to an answer, Rowan explained everything. Told him about the books and the spell. About the potion and the potholes in time. He told Lenten about the killer and his aunt. About how he’d been forced to participate in her murder. About how she’d sacrificed herself to save him. “She told me that it was important that I survive, so I can make it back to my family.” He turned pleadingly to Lenten. “I told you, they need me. They’re dying without me. I have to go back.” Rowan shut his eyes and shook his head. “I’ll not let my aunt’s actions be for nothing. She may have... ” He frowned, acknowledging a truth he’d rather not. “In all likelihood, she died.” Opening his eyes again, to stare at the man. “She sacrificed herself for me. For my family. I can’t give up.” He sat up straighter, determination in his voice and pose. “Please, don’t ask me to.”

For a long moment, Lenten just studied him shrewdly. His gaze narrowed, sweeping him from crown to arch. With pursed lips, the man nodded. “I understand that. I respect that,” the stiff-spined manager said. “However, I simply ask that you remember that The Elysium is home to over two-hundred permanent guests, not just you. I can’t have you endangering everyone here — not even to save your family.”

Rowan turned quickly to sit on his knees, imploring the man. “I never meant to—”

“I know,” Lenten interrupted. “I know you didn’t mean any harm, but I think you proved tonight that these types of attempts are dangerous and cannot be done without proper caution and understanding of the consequences.” He sent Rowan a pointed look that made him feel terribly guilty and sorry. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Rowan replied.

“No more rips in the delicate fabric of time and space?”

“No, sir.” He’d find another way, but Lenten was right. He had to get out of The Elysium, but he had no right to burn it down behind him.

“Good.” Lenten gave a satisfied nod. “One last thing,” he added before he brushed invisible dust from his pant legs, pausing thoughtfully.

Rowan looked at the man questioningly.

The man frowned again, his brow furrowing. “I don’t want Olive involved in your schemes. Not in any way.” Still staring at the perfection of his suit, he stated in a monotone voice, “She’s been through more than enough; she doesn’t need more nights like tonight to haunt her.” With a decided sniff, the man looked up at him. “Understood?”

Rowan nodded. Of course, he understood that. Remembering the frightened tears trailing sad\ness down her fragile, little, porcelain doll face, Rowan wouldn’t even consider letting her near another spell like that. It positively broke his heart to think of causing that child more pain and he wouldn’t do it anymore. “I’m sorry, Lenten. It won’t happen again, I swear.”

The manager simply nodded before they both settled into silence. They stared out the third floor windows, out into the starry night’s sky.

Rowan tilted his head, turning his attention instead to the reflection of the weary man beside him. Lenten was a good man. An honorable one. Reminding Rowan actually a lot of his father. Proud and protective, both men knew the value of responsibility and family. They both — no matter what they were going through personally — would do what was needed to take care of those around them. They would both put their emotions — their pain — on hold to do what needed to be done.

But Rowan’s father had his mother. Had Rowan and his brothers and sister. Had his own brothers and sisters and a whole houseful of aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, cousins and others, who would do for him in the same way he did for them.

Who did Lenten have?

Staring at the ghostly image of the man in the makeshift mirror, Rowan’s heart — his soul — bled for the lonely, stoic manager. With an awkward cough, Rowan reached out and asked, “Are you all right?”

“Sorry?” the man asked, startled as he turned back to Rowan.

“I mean, I know that I caused all this trouble just when you... ” He paused, shrugging his shoulders, and tripped all over his words. “At the worst time,” he settled on. “I’m sorry, Lenten. For this whole mess.” He pursed his thin lips. “And for Mei.”

Lenten gave a mirthless laugh. He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “It’s not your fault, Rowan. If you had come at a different time, before or long after Mei had... ” He gave another sorrowful laugh before putting back on his glasses with a sigh. “Well, maybe I would know how to deal with all this better.”

“I am sorry.” Rowan regretted — truly did — causing so much added trouble. “I know what it feels like to lose someone you love. How it changes everything.” Rowan winced when he saw the man bend over, his shoulders slumped and his head dipped low against his chest, and shake.

Dear Lord, was he crying?

Rowan crawled closer, putting a hand against the man’s bent back. “I’m so very sorry,” he said before he realized that the man wasn’t crying.

He was laughing.

Laughing?

“Lenten?”

Taking a shuddering breath, the man whipped his glasses off again, wiping wet eyes. “Sorry.” His voice shook with shuddering chuckles. “I apologize. I,” he said with a shake of his head, “don’t know where that came from.”

“Are you okay?” Rowan was more than a little worried and disturbed.

“Yes.” He tucked his glasses into the vee of his buttoned-down shirt. He wiped a hand over his face. “Yes, I’m,” he paused, “fine.” He turned to Rowan, his nearsighted, blue eyes struggling to focus on Rowan’s face. “Too fine.”

Rowan blinked in confusion. “What do you mean?” 

Lenten scratched his forehead idly. “This is going to sound bad,” he warned, looking sheepish before he whispered, “but I envy your grief, the strength, the passion, the fight in it.”

Rowan cocked an eyebrow at the man, not sure he understood. But he said nothing, not knowing what to say.

The man sighed and he propped his elbows on his knees, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “My brother, Ash, disappeared on May 18th, 1957. Officially. That was the day I filed a police report and the day Olive was placed in my care.” Lenten sighed. “But he’d been gone long before then. Disappeared into drink or drugs or whatever he did with the slick, slippery men he’d hung around town with for months before he vanished.” He shook his head. “I lost Ash long before he never came home. Then the search happened. When no clues or leads came, the case went cold.” He scoffed. “Then my final appeal to reopen the case was denied. And then came the threats.” He shook his head as if trying to shake the memories. He sniffed and then shrugged. “I don’t know. I just snapped.”

Lenten turned to look out the window again. “I bundled Olive in the car and just kept driving. I drove until the car gave out. When it died, I got out of the car, gathered her in my arms, and ran.” He let out a shaky breath. “I just needed to get away. I don’t even remember how I got to the hotel. One minute, I was running down along some river and, then, I was heading toward The Elysium.” Rowan watched the man frown, lost in his own thoughts while he ran a hand through his neat hair, disrupting the tamed strands. “My life literally stopped in that minute. The difference was there, felt, identifiable.”

Rowan still didn’t know where the man was going with this story. “I’m sorry, Lenten.” 

Lenten nodded. Putting back on his glasses, he looked at him. “With Mei, it was different. I always thought of her as my world. My rock. I thought that without her, my world would shatter.”

Rowan nodded and thought about the tear-soaked sorrow that had followed — still followed — the man. Yes, the man’s world had been rocked. Rowan made a small sympathetic sound.

“I thought that nothing would ever be the same again. That it would all just come to a crashing halt.” A confused look wrinkled Lenten’s face. “But it didn’t. The hotel — the place, the guests, the rhythm of it — stayed exactly the same. Going on without her.”

Suddenly, his words began to piece together, making a loose form of sense.

“How could everything look so normal, when nothing was?” Lenten wondered desperately. “But what did I expect? The world couldn’t break twice.” Letting his head fall again, Lenten asked no one in particular, “Where do you retreat when you’ve already retreated?”

Rowan sighed and studied the man with new eyes, understanding — as much as he thought he could. Poor Lenten. A part of the man — a corner of his heart, a space within his soul — had died and yet the world was making him limp on. Rowan understood that much. He could still remember seeing Paddy Drury dead and butchered on the foyer floor. He could now count Aunt Gilly among the number of people lost to him.

Because of him.

It was something he would have to live with for the rest of his life. And the thought of it — the grim imaginings he’d seen flash before his eyes just before the black had lifted — would haunt him for the rest of his life. It was horrible. Worse than anything anyone should ever have to deal with.

But, for Lenten, it must be even worse. Rowan had hope. He had a mission. A goal. He knew that he had to get home. That, if he could do that, his life would go back — maybe not to normal, but at least back to something he recognized and longed for.

Lenten was forced to wake up every day, walk through The Elysium, and watch the world move on, leaving him with the memories and the loneliness. Life would force him to go through the motions to act as if nothing had changed, when everything had. How was a person expected to do that day in, day out? “I feel like a shell,” Lenten muttered, shaking his bent head. “Like the walking dead.” Rowan felt chilled by the man’s words, worried that the man’s sadness went far beyond grief. “Sometimes,” the man whispered, his voice low and quiet as a confessional, “I think this is what checking out feels like. I wonder if this is what she felt.”

Rowan knew it was just his imagination, just his jumped-up, jumbled mind, but he thought he saw Lenten’s features begin to blur. The dull, once brilliant blue behind his glasses fading into flesh. Rowan could suddenly see what the man would look like Faceless and forgotten. In the man’s current, sad state, the difference wasn’t as shocking as it should be.

“I should have faded,” Lenten said simply.

“No.” Rowan shook his head. “Lenten, no, that’s not true.”

“Without Mei, what good am I?” he asked. “I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

“What about Olive?” Rowan looked at the man desperately. “She still needs you.”

“What for?” Lenten shrugged. “What can I do for her? What can I give her when I’m,” he said, looking at himself disgustedly, “like this?” He shook his head. “How can I help her deal with this — with the sadness, the loss — when I haven’t a clue how to deal with it myself?”

Rowan stayed silent. Lenten didn’t really expect an answer and Rowan didn’t have one to give. He wished that there was a spell he could cast — some magic words he could say — that could erase the man’s pain, could fix the man’s heart. But there wasn’t. No, magic wouldn’t help with this, wouldn’t work in this situation. If he’d learned anything from tonight, it was that he couldn’t force Fate to do what he wanted by casting a spell. Magic wasn’t a tool to be dusted off and used. It was a force to be taken seriously, to be considered carefully. He wouldn’t shy away from the history — the heritage — that flowed through his veins, but neither would he abuse it. He’d learn how to use it and when to use it and would limit himself to that. And he would admit that Fate — that life, that magic — had led him to this place and to these people.

We don’t work through magic, it works through us.

He would help Lenten. And Olive. And Calla and the others. But he didn’t necessarily need magic to do it.

“What about a funeral?” he wondered aloud.

“What?” Lenten looked confused, edging on offended, at Rowan’s words.

Rowan’s face flushed. He hadn’t actually meant to say the words aloud; he’d only been weighing the options. Trying to explain, he said, “You said that you don’t know how to deal with this.” He shrugged. “I don’t really either but, when a loved one dies, just about every culture — no matter the time or the place — has some kind of grieving ceremony.” Looking at Lenten, he bit his lip. “Some way to say goodbye.” He’d give anything to be able to replace the memories of his grandfather’s and his aunt’s last moments. To have images of blood and pain and fear be erased by those of flowers and family and love. Even with the inevitable tears and morbid pomp that accompanied funerals, Rowan thought that it would give a cleaner sense of closure, a way of making peace with the change.

Lenten took a deep breath, considering. “Do you really think that it will help?” 

Rowan sighed and shrugged. “Milestones and huge shifts in life are hard enough to define and accept. Sometimes it’s nice to give it a name, to allow it and acknowledge its time and space.” He shrugged. “And, anyway, I can’t see how it could make it worse.”

Lenten nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll think about it.”

*

Calla

Libra: Don't dwell on the past. Don't chase the future. Happiness lies in learning to live in the present.

Calla watched the numbers on her digital bedside clock change.

2:23.

Sleep.

Just close your eyes and sleep, she ordered herself, squeezing her eyes shut.

She wanted to just shut it all out.

The images.

The memories.

But she couldn’t get to sleep. Her mind just wouldn’t shut down, wouldn’t shut up, wouldn’t let her be.

She groaned at a knock on her door. Tempted to throw the pillow — or something harder — against the door, Calla rolled over onto her back and growled. “Who is it?” she shouted, unwelcome clear in his voice.

There was a pause before another knock sounded. Kicking the covers off her bed, Calla sat up, her auburn, autumn hair flying bed-mussed around her head. She yanked open the door. “What the hell do you want?” She glared at him. She should have known that the man couldn’t just leave her alone. Couldn’t just let her be. No, of course, he just had to meddle. “I’m trying to sleep,” she snarled at him.

Shaking a bottle of honest-to-Oz Bundaberg rum at her, Flax smiled his usual half-smile. Leaning against her door jamb, he drawled, “Now what kind of greeting is that for someone who comes bearing gifts?”

“I’m trying,” she repeated through gritted teeth, “to sleep.”

Flax just continued to grin. “Yeah.” He smirked. “How’s that going?”

Calla rolled her eyes, fighting her own curling lips. “What do you want?”

Flax cocked his head. “C’mon.” He turned around to start down the hallway.

“What?” She leaned out the door. “Flax, no. I’ve got to get some sleep.”

“Hurry up,” he called over his shoulder while he kept walking away. “C’mon.”

Arrogant, insufferable, irritating man!

Screw him.

She was going back to bed.

Turning, Calla gazed at the rumpled blankets and scattered pillows only to sigh. What was the point of going back to bed? She’d just be lying there. Not sleeping. She peeked out the door just in time to see Flax turn the hallway corner and disappear out of sight. She should just go back to bed, whether she slept or not.

Grabbing a blue, terrycloth robe off her door hook, Calla called herself all kinds of senseless and headed down the hallway after the crazy seppo costing her... well, not sleep. By the time she followed him to the kitchen, Flax had set up the island counter into an impromptu table of sorts with a couple of dishes of chocolate bundt cake and tumblers half-full of Bundy. Now this was her kind of tea party. She smirked and stalked forward, taking one of the tumblers. She swallowed the warmed hard liquor.

Flax laid a fork down next to the plate closest to her before pulling out her chair. “Have a seat.” 

With a shrug and another sip, she sat down. “What’s all this?”

This time Flax lifted a shoulder dismissively. “Just some warm rum and cold cake.” He picked up his fork even before nodding toward hers. “Try some. Chocolate. Dark. Universal comfort food.”

She picked up the utensil and took a bite. She gave a small moan; it was so good. She took another bite before she turned to him again. “Thanks.”

“Pleasure.” He watched her eat.

He let her eat her first piece in silence. He seemed to be content to study her while she licked the glazed frosting from her fork before he dished up another serving wordlessly.

She took her time with her second piece, feeling the tension in the room between bites. “You’ve got something to say,” she stated as she sponged up crumbs with her fork, “so say it.”

“Want to talk about what happened tonight?” He set down his fork to give her his full attention.

She’d known that was coming. Had known it when he’d knocked on her door. Had probably known it — somewhere in the back of her brain — when she’d walked through that damned window. She wasn’t any more ready to answer that question now that she’d been then.

She lifted her shoulder in a flippant shrug. “What you said. We cast a spell, it went bad, we got back. End of story.”

“Where’d you go?”

She ran her tongue along the tops of her teeth, more to stall than anything. “Back to Australia.”

“Sydney,” he said, his gaze steady and unwavering, “isn’t that where you said you’d been before you came?”

“Yeah.” She snatched up the tumbler before downing a swig.

“What happened there?”

She winced while the fiery liquid burned down her throat. “Nothing.”

“Something happened.”

She looked away, so he wouldn’t see the annoyance in her eyes. “It was nothing.” Or at least it was nothing to him. Or Rowan. Or Lenten. Or anyone but her. So why should she talk about it? It was pointless.

“No,” she heard him say, so damned sure of himself, “it wasn’t.” He paused so long she thought maybe he’d drop it, let her eat in peace. Instead, he pushed around a piece of cake with his fork, not looking at her. “You smile a lot.” 

Calla snorted. “What of it?”

“Laugh a lot too,” he said as he leisurely licked his fork. “People who do that do so for one of two reasons.” His brows furrowed as he shrugged. “Either they haven’t experienced enough bad to bother guarding themselves.”

Calla rolled her eyes, hating that she was playing his game even as she did. “Or?”

“Or that is their guard.” When she didn’t say anything to that, he sighed and continued on, “You work very hard to seem open, friendly. Almost… frivolous.”

She scoffed. “Well, fuck you too.”

He shook his head. “You do everything you can — created this whole outward face and way of being that flirts and flits through life, dances in a way that feels like an artful dodge — to convince us all that you’re shallow. All so no one even thinks about digging too deep.” He looked up at her, his eyes dark and sympathetic, like he knew what he was talking about. He pursed his lips and sighed. “Nothing doesn’t do that.”

Calla closed her eyes. She wasn’t a person who opened up often. Or well. And, the few times she did… Well, life was always quick to remind her exactly why she shouldn’t. Hadn’t Benji been the latest lesson in that. She blinked back tears, hating the idea of someone seeing something like that — something vulnerable and weak — within her. She squeezed her lids tighter and shook her head, her breathing rough and determined. With her guards down and her thoughts raw, she’d felt stripped of everything. She scrambled to build back up her walls. 

“I’ve seen it in your eyes even before tonight — the effort it takes to look so effortless — but never said anything,” he told her. “I figured you didn’t seem too keen on talking about it. Thought maybe that had changed.” He waited a while, thinking she might fill the gap.

Calla just sat back, fixing a smile on her face. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“Guess not.” He slapped his thighs decidedly before standing to put his glass and plate in the sink. “Well,” he said, his tone instantly lighter, easier, “if you ever do, I’m here. If it’s not me, you should find someone. Bottling and burying that kind of thing doesn’t make it go away; it just leaves you alone with it.”

“I have a question,” Calla blurted before she could stop herself. He paused and turned around. She kind of wished he hadn’t. It’d been a little easier with his back turned, when she couldn’t see his face, couldn’t read his expression. But she had to know. She had to understand. “When I went back, I went back to—” She swallowed hard. “I went back in time. Back to the last memory I had.” She frowned. “But Rowan didn’t.” Time had passed in his world. It hadn’t in hers. “Why would it do that?” 

Flax quirked a confused eyebrow at her. “What do you mean?”

“We did the same spell,” she said, frustrated and confused. “Used the same elements. Same procedures. Exact same conditions. But ended up with different results.” It shouldn’t have happened. But it did. And Calla had a theory. “The spell supposedly caused a mirroring effect between our worlds.” As far as she understood weird, woo-woo logic. “So a way to explain the difference in results could be,” she said, trying to science her way through the spell, “the spell delivered Rowan to that point because it found a concurrent place and time where his soul exists.” 

“And with you?”

“I don’t think she’s surviving the ride to the hospital.” She could hear the echoes of the paramedics’ voices in her head. “Pretty sure, given the state of her, even if she does, it’d be better if she didn’t.” Calla winced at the memory. “Doesn’t matter; we save every life. Until we can’t.”

What if they couldn’t?

“I don’t think there’s a world left for me to return to past that point.”

When Flax didn’t say anything, she looked up at him. He gazed at her with sad sympathy, but not surprise. “The Elysium offers sanctuary to those that need it.”

She wouldn’t have come here, if she had anywhere else to go.

She grabbed her glass and drained it, sitting with the burn in her throat. Despite the warning and the lectures — despite the detailed notes she’d taken on Mei and the hotel and fading — she’d always assumed that her stay at The Elysium would be temporary. A vacation of sorts. Eventually, she would go back and live her life.

Now she didn’t know.

“I don’t know.” Flax leaned against the shined steel edge of the huge, double-basin sink. “Honestly, I don’t think any of use truly know why it would do that.”

“If I try to go back again,” she asked, her voice small and quivering, “what if there’s nothing to get back to?” 

Flax’s lips thinned. “I don’t know.” He shook his head. “Time, at least the way we think of it, isn’t really real — not even in the best of circumstances. The question of whether time can move in more directions than one has plagued mankind since the start. And that’s just in the real world, that’s not even adding in the mess of flux running rampant in The Elysium.”

“It didn’t feel real,” she said, taking another bite of cake, chewing miserably. And yet somehow also all too real.

“Who knows what’s really real?” Flax turned around to rinse out his dishes. “Maybe the world you visited tonight was the real world or maybe it was just a facsimile of it. Maybe the hotel is what’s real and our other lives were the dream.”

“More of those -physices?” she asked, thinking the topic — while feeling safer, less personal — had gotten very heavy all of a sudden.

He gave a short laugh. “Something like that.”

He put the glass and plate in the dishwasher before grabbing her plate, but leaving her glass. “Fact is, none of us can know what waits for us out beyond The Elysium.” Pouring her another drink, he cocked his head a bit. “Never much gave it a thought before. Figure life here — for all its faults and flaws — still beats what I had back home.”

Calla frowned and clasped her glass in both hands. She studied the man with his back turned to her now while he washed her plate with clean, efficient movement. She sipped quietly, weighing the worth of his words.

READ PART THREE

 

WANT MORE?

FIND MORE STORIES HERE

Extended Stay - Part One

Check out all the sections by clicking HERE

Chapter Six: Extended Stay - Part One

Heather plant: (Calluna Vulgaris) This common, but resilient plant can survive harsh conditions, grazing, and can even regenerate following occasional burning. Heather was also used in the Middle Ages to flavor beer before the use of hops. Today, the brewing of heather beer is carefully regulated, as the undersides of the leaves may contain a dusting of an ergot-like fungus, which is a hallucinogenic intoxicant. Heather honey, a highly valued product, is revered in magic as a naturally alchemic substance often used in protective spells. In its liquid state, it is also often used in binding processes — such as love spells — as its subsequent solidifying stage symbolizing strength and constancy.

Lenten

Pray?

When was the last time Lark Lenten had ever really — honestly — prayed? Lenten didn’t even know if he believed in a God. Staring at the crying, screaming, scrambling girl at his feet, Lenten wondered whether both this world — filled with this kind of suffering, Mei’s fading, Ash’s disappearance, Olive’s pain — and a God could exist together.

“Are they gonna be okay?” Olive’s tiny voice whimpered.

Lenten looked up to the hallway corner, meeting his small niece’s large, blue eyes, wet with frightened tears. He sighed, not knowing what to tell her. Lenten turned to look at Flax, who hovered over Rowan and stared at Olive with a reluctant frown. It seemed neither of them knew what to say.

Lenten jumped when Calla let out a positively anguished groan before she curled in on herself, her arms wrapped around her body so fiercely it hurt to look at her.

“Please,” the girl begged. “Please, just let me go.”

Swallowing hard against the tightness clenching his chest, Lenten reached instinctively out to gently brush his knuckles across her cheek, wishing he could stop whatever torment the girl was under.

He hesitated. His scalp still ached, reminding him exactly how much, however well-meaning, Calla might not appreciate his comfort. But, when she just shuddered and cringed under his touch, he felt the breath leave his lungs.

“Please,” she wept, her usual sass replaced by a broken, tearful squeak.

Lenten’s jaw clenched. How had he never noticed how small she was? How helpless? So strong and brash and headstrong, Calla was a force. She swept into a room, rearranged everything — things, circumstances, people — to fit her own picture of them, and wouldn’t quit until the world fit her precise vision. She was the type of person others assumed were bigger than they actually were by virtue of her personality. Her dramatic dimensions forced you to take her measure in more than just inches and pounds. Because to do any less would do her a huge disservice.

But now, as she writhed, wracked with sobs and stripped of the strength of her force, she was small. Skinny. Just a slip of a thing. Her runner’s legs, muscled but thin, were bent and shaking like cold, brittle leaves. 

A surge of protectiveness overwhelmed him. He watched her shirt — a short, movie-poster patterned T-shirt — twist and bunch with every turn, flashing a trim waist and flat middle.

Lenten, embarrassed for her, quickly moved to tug the shirt back down, covering her body again from view. He flushed. He knew that they had bigger concerns right now than Calla showing a little skin — particularly when she bared more on her daily runs — but he couldn’t help wanting to preserve her modesty. She was already emotionally overexposed; she didn’t need to be exposed physically.

Brushing away a trail of tears from her cheek, he was shocked when she suddenly burst upward with a gasp, clipping his chin with the crown of her head.

“Ow!” He quickly leaned back, only to come closer again when he heard her wheeze and battle to breathe around her sobs. Her wide, unseeing eyes gaped unblinking as she stared out at nothing. “Calla?” He touched her shoulder gently, trying to comfort and ease her, just as he would with Olive when she woke still terrified from a nightmare.

“Let go of me!” The girl flinched away from his hand. She struggled to her feet on still shaking legs. 

Still on his knees on the floor, Lenten looked up at her, worried. “It’s safe now. You’re all right. You’re back at The Elysium.”

“I know that!” she snapped, her arms still wrapped around herself and her hands clamped on her shoulders, digging painfully at the bony joints. “I know that.”

Lenten reminded himself not to take her response personally. Still shaking as she hugged herself, a part of Calla was still very much there in her nightmare. Lenten could see that a part of her was still shaken, trying to come to grips with something shattered.

“Rowan!” he heard Olive scream from the hallway corner. “Why isn’t he waking up?”

Lenten turned and saw Flax furiously pumping Rowan’s chest in regulated compressions before tipping the boy’s head back to force breaths back into his lungs.

“Is he okay?” Olive’s voice cracked.

“Flax?”

“Not breathing,” Flax spat out harshly before he began quick chest compressions again. 

“Rowan!” Olive cried, taking a scared step forward, but too afraid to come any closer.

They all watched in tense silence when Flax bent again to breathe for the boy.

Oh God.

This was impossible.

People didn’t die in the hotel.

They faded, they got lost, they disappeared until the only trace of them left was in the meticulous annals of The Elysium.

But they didn’t die.

It just wasn’t possible.

“Wake up, goddamnit!” Flax pressed twined fists against Rowan’s frail-looking body. “Wake up!” He watched Flax blow breath past the boy’s pale lips for the third time, Lenten’s heart pounding with anxiety.

Then the boy burst up coughing and sputtering, his hand clenched over his chest as it rose and fell with rapid, shallow gasps.

“Is he all right?” Calla asked from her corner, cold concern in her voice.

“He will be.” Flax helped Rowan turn a bit to the side. “You gonna be sick, kid?”

“No.” Rowan coughed. “No, I’m…” He shook his head as he swallowed the instinctive, if inaccurate, fine. “What happened?”

“That’s kind of what we wanted to ask you,” Flax said.

“Later.” Lenten looked at the sad state of the boy. “When you’ve had time to rest and—”

“No,” the boy said, resisting and shoving Flax away. “Tell me,” he said, his breath still hitching, “what happened first.”

Flax huffed. “Not much to tell,” he snapped. “We figured out you two were messing with magic again, came to find you, saw the tiny willow weeping and crying over you, found you both unconscious, tried to wake you, couldn’t, then,” he stated matter-of-factly with vague shades of disapproval, “you both woke up on your own.” Flax tilted his head. “Well,” he amended, “actually Calla woke up on her own. You lay there on the floor half-dead before I brought you back from the brink.”

“Thank you,” Rowan mumbled contritely.

“Are you okay?” Olive’s voice squeaked as she sniffled and toed one more step closer to the window reluctantly.

Lenten looked at Rowan as he turned toward the little girl, the boy’s eyes growing sad and sorry. “Oh, Olive,” he murmured as he met the girl’s tearful gaze. “Please, please, don’t cry.”

“You and Calla were sobbing and screaming and I couldn’t wake you. I didn’t know what to do.” She began to weep even more in earnest. “I’m Lookout Girl!” she squealed. “Why didn’t I know what to do?” Tears streamed down her tiny cheeks. “I’m Lookout Girl.” 

“Oh, Olive.”

Lenten watched his little niece cry like a broken spout as words poured from her wobbly lips. “You wouldn’t wake up and you were screaming, like you were in pain,” she repeated, her face wrecked with sorrow. “So I went to get Uncle Lark.” She crumpled in on herself, bent over her doll. “I’m so sorry. I know I promised I wouldn’t, but I—”

“Shh,” Rowan murmured as he tried to stand, to go to her, only to be pushed back down by Flax, “it’s all right. You did the right thing.”

“Speaking of which,” Flax said, looking from Calla to Rowan, “since you seem so keen on speaking, let’s talk about what in the hell got into the two of your heads to think this was a good idea.”

“Flax,” Lenten said warningly.

“No,” Flax shouted angrily, throwing his hands up in the air. “What? You thought we didn’t have enough to deal with right now? What with Mei and the rip and…” He paused looking meaningfully at Olive then Lenten. “And everything. You felt the need to add to it?”

“I think they’ve learned their lesson.” Lenten rose to his feet before coming close to Calla who was staring intently out the window.

Not out the window, Lenten realized when he moved behind her. Taking deep, shuddering breaths, Calla studied her reflection cast in the clear, Elysium glass as if she’d never seen it before, and never wanted to again. He could feel her loathing — this hollowed out hurt — as it radiated out from within her.

“For right now,” he said before he touched her back, wanting to give her some kind of reassurance, “it’s enough to know that everyone is all right—”

But, just as his hand touched her body — just the briefest of brushes between her shoulder blades — she whipped around, a panicked sound escaping her lips. She whirled away, instinctively smacking his hand away.

He glanced up at Calla, the sheen of stunned regret mixing with the still vivid fear in her eyes. He straightened with a concerned frown. “Are you okay?”

She blinked at him for a few blank moments. “I need to be alone.” She turned to run down the hall.

“Calla, wait,” he called after her, feeling fairly useless and clumsy. “Calla.”

He started after her, only to be stopped by Flax. “Let her go,” the man told him.

“But—”

“You’ve got other things to deal with.” 

Lenten looked at Flax questioningly. The southern gentlemen nodded toward Rowan who was still seated on the floor, just staring at his hands in horror and shaking.

Lenten shook his head and backed away. “Oh,” he scoffed, “I really don’t think I can—”

“You need to shut this kind of stuff down,” Flax told him. “You can’t just let him go around playing wizards’ sticks willy-nilly. He nearly killed himself today. Tomorrow it could be Calla. Or Olive.”

They both turned to look at Olive who still stared worriedly at Rowan from her sentry post.

Lenten sighed.

Flax was right.

Of course, he was right.

This couldn’t go on unchecked.

Lenten knew that.

“Can’t you just…” He shrugged, sure he wasn’t up to this task today.

“No,” Flax hissed. “I’m done. I tried to be sympathetic, which you know, for me, isn’t the most natural thing in the world, but now I’m done. You’re the manager of The Elysium, Lenten;” Flax said, “manage this.”

Lenten bit his lip, undecided.

“This about Mei?” Flax asked, challenge and daring in his voice.

Lenten stiffened and turned away. “No,” he lied. He didn’t want to talk about Mei.

He just couldn’t.

Not until he knew what to say.

“Good.” Flax made his way to Olive. “Then deal with this;” he said, nodding to Rowan on the floor before lifting Olive into his arms, “I’ve got the girls.”

“Flax,” he called after the man who strode away with the small child — Lenten’s niece — curled up against his chest. “Flax.” But the man didn’t stop. Didn’t so much as turn around or even acknowledge him in any way.

Damn!

He looked back at the boy who was still peering into the palms of his hands as if trying to divine his fortune. Lenten looked nervously from the boy to the hallway.

“Flax?”

READ PART TWO

 

WANT MORE?

FIND MORE STORIES HERE

Back From the Brink - Part Two

Check out all the sections by clicking HERE

Chapter Five: Back From the Brink - Part Two

Rowan

Please.

Please.

Don’t do this.

Rowan moaned, trying to beg Fate. He begged, pleaded, bribed, and threatened. He cried out to God. To the Old Ones. To any and all deities that would hear him. But — like the killer, like his aunt, and the world as a whole — none seemed to hear him scream.

He tried to stop the man. He tried to somehow grab with his mind at the man’s leg, his arm, his hands, anything. But nothing he did helped. It was like grasping at smoke. Every time he tried to hold onto a piece of the man’s will, it would slip and slither insubstantially through his mental grip.

Rowan saw his aunt slink on her stomach into the bushes, searching vainly for escape. She tried to pull herself, arms reaching desperately, into the heavy brush, but the man just reached down on the ground, pulling her out by her ankle.

She screamed, clawing at the wet, soaked-through ground. But she couldn’t find a hold, her fingers just dragging through the mud and leaving long, damnable lines leading out of the dying leaves.

The man yanked her out under the clear, windy night, her messy, mucked-up hair sticking to her face and in her mouth. She begged him, with barely coherent words almost drowned out by her tears, not to do this. She pleaded with him to, please, have mercy.

But the man just smiled down at her. Rowan could feel the supreme joy and righteousness the man felt when he gazed down at Rowan’s bleeding, weeping aunt. The man didn’t even see her, not really. He couldn’t see her as a beloved aunt or a loving mother. Not as a woman or a person. He didn’t see a living creature.

All he saw was a witch.

“How’s that famous Drury luck now?” His voice bit with bitterness and bloodlust mixing with pride. He brought the shovel high into the air.

Rowan tried to close his eyes even though he knew he couldn’t. Instead, he just stared out of the man’s eyes at his aunt’s panicked, frightened face.

He had to stop this. Now. Now or it’d be too late. He had to do something. He couldn’t just let this man kill her. Couldn’t simply watch it happen. He couldn’t, but what could he do? He was trapped. Stuck. He was nothing but a Widdershins. Just a jinx. A klutz and a screw-up. He couldn’t even do a spell. A simple spell.

Foolproof, he’d called it.

And yet this was what happened.

What always happened.

He saw his aunt struggle, scrambling to her feet. On a twisted ankle, she limped away toward the forest, her whole body racked with panicked sobs. She ran, faster than Rowan would have granted her considering her injuries, but somehow she managed.

The man — a little surprised himself — followed her, lengthening his stride and jogging to catch up with her.

Rowan cheered her on when she clumsily but determinedly made it mere steps from the woods. If she reached it there, she might just have a chance to elude him in the thickly treed forest. But, just as she approached the woods’ edge, she tripped on a large, gnarled root, hooking her foot in its raised, above-ground arch. She fell to the ground, her scream cut off when she knocked her head on a low-hanging branch.

She looked back, blood pouring down her forehead in a thin river that dripped down her face, as she tried to decide what she could do, where she could run.

But it was too late.

He was already almost upon her.

Not slowing this time, the man didn’t even miss a step when she fell. No, he wouldn’t let her get away again. Swinging the shovel high in the air, readying for the final strike, he sprinted at her.

Rowan couldn’t believe this was happening. Couldn’t believe what he was being forced to endure. How was he meant to survive watching his aunt die, to feel the force of every blow as the body he was stuck in struck her? The man reared back, his weight on his back foot. Growling, he began to swing.

But, when his arm stretched back, his footing slipped, bringing him down onto the ground hard and knocking the breath from his lungs before his head hit a large boulder that knocked him unconscious.

Holy hell, that hurt!

But, before he could process much more than that, blackness — a great, blinding dark — descended down upon Rowan.

Panic rose.

He couldn’t see anything. Hear anything.

His aunt.

He needed to know what had happened to his aunt. Had she run away when the man fell? Or had the falling shovel, already armed with the man’s momentum, struck her on its way down?

Oh, God, Aunt Gilly, please, be all right!

Damn this cursed, useless, misbegotten spell! He tried to wade his way through the interminable black, that somehow stuffed his soul alongside that of this godforsaken, hell-spawned murderer’s!

“Rowan?”

He stopped, even his spirit falling silent for a shocked second. Aunt Gilly?

“It is you, right?” Her voice sounded strained and stunned.

Holy mother of an ineffable, fucking God!

He heard her laugh. “It has to be you.” Her voice wobbled between sobs of relief and peals of laughter. “No one in the family but you and Paddy swears quite like that.”

What was happening? How could she hear him?

“He’s out,” she told him.

The man attacking her? Was he dead?

“No,” she told him, “just unconscious. But I can hear you talking through him.”

He was talking through him? Was his voice, his words, coming out of this man’s mouth? The idea creeped him out even while he wondered what else he could do with it.

“I’m not sure, but I’d think, with you — a separate consciousness — in there…” she told him with a slight, bewildered shrug in her voice, “if he’s out, you’re in.”

Rowan tried to get up. Tried to move the body. If he was inside the man — if he were truly in the passed-out man — then he should be able to use the body to help. But no matter what he tried, he couldn’t make the body budge. Couldn’t even get the man to so much as open his shut eyes.

“I doubt you’re nearly strong enough to possess the body. That I can hear you at all is rather remarkable.” He heard Aunt Gilly coo sadly, sounding so much like she had when he or any of his siblings or cousins had come home crying with bumps or bruises from playing. Feeling six-years-old again, Rowan wanted to weep with homesickness. 

“Dear boy, you’re stuck inside of him, aren’t you?” She came close to stroke his hair. “And because of a spell. Oh, Rowan.” She sighed heavily before she tsked. “Which spell?”

He couldn’t remember its proper name, only that it was a window washing spell. The one that let a person see and enter through windows in time. But something had gone wrong.

“And now you’re stuck,” she replied. “Do you remember the counter spell?”

He hadn’t bothered to learn the counter spell, since he hadn’t actually planned to go back.

“You should always learn the counter spell,” his aunt admonished. “Magic, while useful and — in the right hands — fairly predictable, is uncontrollable. We don’t wield it so much as it wields us.” With another motherly tsk, she said, “I told your parents that they ought to have properly taught you the Old Ways.” She let out an aggrieved sigh. “Perhaps we all should have learned better.”

There were so many things he wanted to ask her. Like how Jack and his sister and brothers and cousins were. How his other aunts and uncles fared. And how his parents were. Were they all right? Were they hurt? Were they even alive? Where were they, that his aunt was roaming the castle grounds alone with a killer lying in wait?

“Oh, dear boy,” his aunt murmured sympathetically, “you don’t even know, do you—”

Rowan froze, feeling the body jerk slightly. Oh dear Lord. Was the man waking up?

He heard his aunt’s frightened gasp. Her hand — that had been stroking his hair comfortingly — was snatched away. Rowan sat still and silent, listening for the killer. The man moaned in pain, making Rowan start. With the man coming to, his aunt had to run. She had to flee as fast as she could.

“I won’t leave you,” she swore. “Not now when we finally found you again.”

Yes, she’d found him, but to find him here — what good did it do either of them? He was little more than a helpless, hapless ghost here.

“This isn’t about me, Rowan,” she insisted. “Fate did not bring you here to help me, dear boy.” She touched his cheek softly. “It brought me here to help you.”

Magic wields us, we don’t wield it.

“You must go back,” she told him, “back to wherever you were. This clearly isn’t your way home, but you must find one, Rowan. We need you. Do you understand?”

Yes, he understood. No matter how close he was to what he wanted, he had to go back to The Elysium. He had to go back, so he could come home.

“I’ll do what I must to get you out of this body,” his aunt told him, “so you can find another way back to us.”

But how? He didn’t know the counter spell. And even if he did, he could already feel the man starting to wake. Once he did, Rowan would no longer have even this small measure of control.

“We shall figure out something,” she told him. “Now, quickly, tell me the spell you used.”

As succinctly as he could, he told her about the spell and the potion he’d used. He’d told her that instead of using a proper casting bowl to mix the potion, they’d made do with an empty jar. How they’d substituted some of the spell’s more archaic words when they translated it into English and how, instead of squeezing the lemons by hand, they’d used an electric juicer from the kitchen. He told her how, without a second person to bless the water, he’d let Calla do it. It all seemed so foolish while he recounted it. He should have been more careful. He shouldn’t have let Calla talk him into cutting corners. He shouldn’t have even tried the spell in the first place.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” his aunt told him. “Your heart was in the right place; you just don’t have the knowledge or experience yet. And no wonder,” she said, gripping his hand, “as few of us left do.”

But, just as she squeezed his hand in comfort, the hand grabbed back with menace.

He heard his aunt scream. She tried to wrench her hand back. Rowan wanted to yell for her to run, but the man’s eyes opened suddenly, even as his mind struggled to right itself. Rowan felt himself get slammed back by the force of the man’s rage.

“What did you do to me, witch?” He growled, the angry voice still groggy. He backhanded Aunt Gilly, the slap cracking across her face, making her fall back only to be yanked back up by his grip on her wrist.

Blood and spittle sprayed from Aunt Gilly’s mouth. “Rowan!”

“What did you say?” He pulled her nearer. “What did you say?”

Rowan gaped at his aunt’s face, now smeared with blood. “Rowan!” Her mouth was bruised and bleeding from where his hand smashed her lips against her teeth. “Rowan,” she said again before she mumbled something unintelligible.

He couldn’t understand her. He wanted the man to bring her closer again, but instead he thrust her away, throwing her to the ground. “Was that a spell, witch?” the man yelled. “Did you just curse me!”

The man pulled his foot back and kicked Rowan’s aunt in the stomach again and again with steel-toed boots. “Shut your fucking mouth!” The murderer slammed his heel down hard onto her curved-over back. She rolled into a fetal position in an attempt to protect her sensitive middle.

Rowan, helpless yet again, winced and listened to his aunt wail and groan, all the while screaming something he still couldn’t understand. It wasn’t until the killer picked up the discarded shovel and raised it high into the air that Rowan heard what his aunt was screaming.

“Home in heart, from end to start, bring me back from what was part!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. “Home in heart, from end to start, bring me back from what was part!”

Rowan paused, trying to make sense of his aunt’s words, trying to commit it to memory even as his mind wrestled with the horror of the situation.

“Say it, Rowan,” his aunt yelled while she shielded her head and stomach before the man brought the shovel down hard.

His aunt turned and rolled, evading — or at least, deflecting — his blows. The man seethed. He struck and struck and struck, never hitting what he aimed at.

With a frustrated growl, he grabbed the shovel in both hands, hoisting it up and over his head. With a heaving swing, the man brought the shovel down. Rowan saw his aunt cringe and turn, sure that there was no escaping this hit.

But, as the shovel landed and struck, bone-rattling vibrations sent painful tremors traveling up both arms, shocking any thought from both the man and Rowan.

“Stinking, boot-sticking shit!”

“Rowan,” he heard his aunt yell, “say it! Say it now!”

But, right when he was about to — the moment he was able to — the man recovered enough to slam his fist into her jaw again.

Aunt Gilly!

Rowan tried to scream the words over and over again but, no longer in control, his voice did nothing but echo within the mental prison that held him.

“Fucking witch.” The man grabbed Gillian Drury by her hair, yanking her back with his fist. “You cursed me, didn’t you? Do you think a little bad luck is going to save you?”

Bad luck? 

Curses?

Rowan inhaled deeply when the realization hit.

We don’t wield magic, so much as it wields us.

Rowan was Widdershins. He had a Widdershins’s soul, no matter what body he was in. It was why the man couldn’t get a clear shot at his aunt. It was why he’d tripped. His luck — Rowan’s luck — had stopped him. Or, at least, stalled him.

If he could get the curse to work once more, he could gain control just long enough to say the spell and get back.

But then what would happen to his aunt? If he left, she’d be alone with this killer, without even the hope of help. He had to knock the man unconscious again. Give himself time to say the spell and his aunt time to run away. But how do I do that? he wondered while the man struggled with the shovel now stuck in the trees’ thick, heavy roots.

Rowan had spent his whole life trying to avoid the trips and follies of being Widdershins; he’d never thought he’d ever deliberately — desperately — try to fall into them. He had no control over his luck, no matter how he hard he willed it. And, even if he concentrated on the man, on the shovel, on the weather, on the land, nothing happened. It seemed that Rowan could make his luck no worse, any more than he could make it better.

Devil be double damned! 

“Rowan,” he heard his aunt pant, her strength all but gone.

He watched her, shaky-armed and weary, wrestle with the man over the shovel. Wrenching it one way, then the other, they both tried to force it away from the other.

“Rowan,” he heard his aunt call again.

“Shut the fuck up, witch!”

But she didn’t. Looking deep into the killer’s eyes, she peered past the man and into the dark, gazing straight at Rowan. “You won’t have much time, when the moment comes. No matter what happens, you must escape as fast as you can. You have to leave me—”

“What the hell are you going on about?”

No, he couldn’t leave her.

“You must, Rowan!” His aunt tugged the shovel — the man — closer. “No matter what happens. You must survive,” she said with such conviction. “You must get back. Our family depends on you.” With a sad, but still determined look on her face, she whispered, “My Jack’s life — his future — depends on you.”

Rowan sucked in a deep breath, an inkling of her words prickling his thoughts. Replaying her words — sure there was something more significant hidden within them — he tried to figure out what his aunt wasn’t saying. He wished he could ask her, could get her to explain.

With tears in her eyes, she whimpered with fear and regret warring in the deep, Drury green. “I’m so sorry, Rowan. We should have kept up with the Old Ways, with the rituals and practices. If we had, perhaps we could have protected you better.” Her lip quivered. “Your duty to our family is to protect us, but our duty,” she said sadly, tender guilt glittering in her eyes, “was and is always to protect you.” She swallowed hard — decisiveness steeling her gaze — before she finally smiled. “Let me do my duty.”

“What are you talking about?” Rowan could hear the suspicion that raced through the man clear in his voice.

With a great groan of effort, Gillian Drury yanked hard on the shovel’s hard, wooden handle. With a deep breath, she began to chant. It took Rowan a full verse before he was able to decipher the words. An old song, one he’d grown up listening to. He recognized the Song of Spring, that was always sung during the spring equinox rituals to promote rain, growth, and fertility.

The man turned his head up, stunned when the skies opened with a loud crackle of thunder before a great pour rained down hard on them, soaking them in just seconds.

“Stop it!” The man’s voice creaked with fear before he turned back to Rowan’s aunt. Crazed panic coursing through the man, he reached out one hand to crush Gillian’s throat in his fist in an effort to stop the torrent of words still sputtering from the Drury’s mouth.

“Stop it!” The killer jerked the shovel, but his aunt’s grip was unshakable.

Rowan couldn’t believe what was happening. Could hardly concentrate as his aunt yelled his name one more time. “Rowan!” she cried over the thunder and around the still choking grasp. “You must survive. Whatever happens.”

Rowan felt his spirit drop. He listened to the thunder pound — felt the storm rage around him — and his aunt’s words sunk in with heavy meaning.

No! 

No, she couldn’t mean what he thought she did. She just couldn’t. He saw her sob. “Tell my Jack that I love him. Always and forever.” And then she let the shovel go. “Goodbye, Rowan.”

The man raised the shovel, held in one large, beefy hand, high up in the air.

“Home in heart, from end to start, bring me back from what was part,” she said once more before a blindingly bright streak of lightning struck the shovel.

Rowan screamed as searing hot pain shocked through the killer’s body, his own silent cry a mental echo in the chorus of his aunt’s and the murderer’s cries.

He could feel them — all three of them — connected by the electrical current running alive within them, a burning wire killing them all.

This was his moment.

His only moment.

In the shock and scorching torment, Rowan knew the man had no control over his rigid, thrumming body. If he was going to say the spell, the time was now. But Rowan could hardly think of anything beyond the all-consuming agony.

Rowan!

She hadn’t said a word — the electric pain too much to speak — but he’d heard her. Aunt Gilly had sacrificed herself to give him this chance. Had given up her life to save him.

He wouldn’t waste it.

So, summoning up all his strength, Rowan focused on the spell. Feeling weakness and something infinitely darker threatening just on the threshold of his consciousness, Rowan yelled the spell on a last, dying gasp before the light exploded, plunging him into black.

READ THE NEXT CHAPTER

 

WANT MORE?

FIND MORE STORIES HERE