“What’s the worst that can happen,” I whisper, my voice sounding like a siren’s wail in the silence of this place. The question is logical though. I’ve already through a gate that led me to this place full of decay; opening a cottage door can’t do much more harm.
The door swings open at the lightest touch and before me is a bare pit of a room that more resembles a cave than a cottage. The floors are dirt; the walls a gray, ash colored stucco, and in the center of it all a cauldron hangs above a blue fire.
“Come in,” says a woman’s voice, creaky from disuse. “Hurry now. And, latch the door behind you.”
I can’t see the voice’s origin, but I’m quick to obey. “I thought I was alone,” I whisper.
“As did I,” the woman says. As soon as I latch the door, she appears, well, a form does, a form cloaked head to toe in grey, with a hood pulled up so that her face is not visible.
“Who are you?” I dare to ask.
She does not answer me, but I can feel her eyes scanning over my body and begin to feel as though I am being sized up for a stew. “It is good to see you again,” she says, going over to the fire and gesturing for me to sit on a stone bench.
“I-I’m sorry...” I don’t know her. I cannot see her face and her voice is foreign to me.
“Of course.” From the folds of her cloak, she takes a cup and dips it into the cauldron. With a sigh she offers it to me. “Do you want to go back?”
I don’t know how to answer. More than anything, I want to be gone from this place, but I came here to find my daughter and I did not mean to leave without her. The cup in her hands seems to glow with a brightness that recalls someone. It’s a long time before my mind remembers my mother’s friend Aine. All of that seems a lifetime away. I shake my head. “No. Not yet.”
“Very well.” She pours the liquid back into the cauldron and takes a seat upon the stone bench. Again, she gestures for me to join her.
“What is this place? What happened to those people?”
She stares back at me. Though I cannot see her eyes, I can feel them, sizing me up once more. “It is unfortunate, isn’t it? I’d do anything to wake them, if it were only in my power.”
“So you mean, they’re not...dead?” There’s no way I can believe her. And yet...
“They would have been,” she assures me. “I froze them instead. Froze them in their memories. It was the best that I could do, and it would be best for you...unless you wish to go back. Please, do go back...”
“I came here to find my daughter. I did not go through that gate just to go back without her.”
I hear her ragged breath pause “You came through the gate?”
“How else would I get here?”
“That changes everything.” In an instant, she is on her feet. Long, slender fingers of tight burnt parchment skin grip my hands in what feels like desperation. “We must hurry. We haven’t any time to lose.”
My heart pounds. I don’t know what she wants of me, but I know I am powerless to refuse.
# # # #
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
You can find her online at https://amystilgenbauer.wordpress.com/ and on twitter @Rosainverno
If you like this series, please consider supporting it on Patreon.
And, be sure to read the other parts in the Season of the Witch series:
DAUGHTER OF DETROIT (coming in April 2015)
The Curse of Mnemosyne Page 3