Behind the Eight Spell

by Samantha Silver

  Amy had never done anything to him. Her only crime was being one of my best friends.

  I had to save her. I would do anything to save her.

  Chapter 6

  My mind whirled with thoughts. What should I do? Should I tell Ellie and Sara? No, if I told them what I was about to do they’d insist on coming with me. But if I didn’t tell them, they were sitting ducks. What if Titan came after them, too? What if he wasn’t satisfied with just taking Amy?

  Whatever I did, I had to do it on my own. But I needed more information first.

  I retraced my steps, heading back toward the lake. Maybe it had more answers for me. But then again, maybe it didn’t. As I walked through the gardens, however, my attention was caught by something in the grass. It hadn’t been there the last time I was here, I was sure of it.

  I felt drawn to the object, and immediately warning bells went off in my head. There was something magical about it. Despite knowing it might be a trap, I still made my way toward it. If it was part of a trap that would lead me to Amy, I was going to have to take it.

  As I got closer, I realized it was a piece of paper. I reached for it, then stopped. If this was a trap and I was captured, Ellie and Amy would begin to panic about me, as well. I had to let them know I was ok.

  I pulled out my phone, keeping a close eye on the piece of paper. I didn’t want a wayward gust of wind to blow it out of reach or into the lake.

  I need you guys to lie low. I think Titan took Amy. Don’t come after me. It’s not safe. Find somewhere to hide for a few days, please.

  I bit back tears as I hit send, then immediately reached for the sheet of paper. I paused as I touched it, wondering if it was enchanted somehow. Maybe as soon as I touched it I’d be transported elsewhere, like Harry Potter had been when he and Cedric Diggory grabbed the Goblet of Fire. Maybe as soon as I touched it I’d be paralyzed like Amy was, unable to move anything except my eyes, and then I’d be at the mercy of Titan. But I had to risk it. I just knew this paper held a clue to Amy’s whereabouts.

  And yet, as I looked at it, I frowned. There was nothing written on it, just a picture of a symbol. It seemed vaguely familiar somehow, but I couldn’t quite place it.

  It looked like the symbol for woman—a circle with a cross underneath it—but with a semicircle on the top of the crown. I knew I’d seen it, but I couldn’t quite place where.

  Then it hit me. It was the symbol for Sailor Mercury. Who knew that a childhood spent watching cartoons every Saturday morning would eventually pay off? Mercury was a water coven, I knew that. They were primarily based in Australia, in the biggest city there, called Gnargagin. Amy had been telling me only a few weeks ago that it was a word meaning ‘place of water’ in the language of the local Aborigines.

  I had to get there, and fast. But before I got a chance to do anything else, my phone buzzed, and I checked the screen. Ellie was calling me. I tapped the mute button, but a minute later she tried calling again. After five attempts, I received a text.

  Answer me, Ellie typed. Don’t do this alone. Please.

  I have to. He took Amy. I can’t risk him taking you, too. Please, just hide for a little while. I paused before hitting send and added two more sentences. I love you, and Sara. Thank you for everything.

  My eyes watered as I sent the message, and a lump formed in my throat. I really hoped I wasn’t saying goodbye to them forever, but if that was what it took to get Amy back, well, so be it.

  Another ding a moment later alerted me to yet another reply, but I steeled myself and refused to read it. Not right now. I couldn’t think about how I was abandoning my friends. It was for their safety’s sake. And right now, I had to find Amy. She was in trouble, and I was going to find her.

  I made my way to the portal in the woods, where I knew the dragon that guarded it most of the time. His name was Drake, and I knew he would keep my secret if I asked him to. He had always been nice to me, which I appreciated, since he was the first paranormal I had ever met.

  Before reaching the clearing where the large tree that acted as the portal sat, I stayed in the woods and looked around carefully for a minute, in case Ellie and Sara had figured out what I was going to do and were waiting for me here. I knew they would want to come with me, and a part of me did feel bad leaving them out of this. If the situations were reversed I’d be out of my mind with worry and helplessness. But I couldn’t risk it. I had already cost one of my friends her freedom, and possibly her life. I couldn’t risk the same happening to Ellie and Sara. This was for their own good.

  When I was confident that my two friends weren’t here waiting to join me on whatever was going to happen next, I made my way through the clearing and over to Drake. He raised an eyebrow as soon as he saw me.

  “You’re out late tonight.”

  I shrugged. “What can I say? I have an appointment on the other side of the world. It’s just coming up to morning there.”

  In reality, I had absolutely no idea what time it was in Australia. Checking the time zone difference hadn’t exactly been high on my list of priorities. Hopefully Drake wasn’t about to catch me in this lie.

  “Alright, well, have fun,” Drake replied. I paused and bit my lip before stepping over to the tree.

  “Thanks. Listen, if Ellie and Sara come looking for me, don’t tell them where I’ve gone, ok? I’m planning a surprise for them, and they’ll know what it is if you do.”

  “Sure,” Drake said with a casual nod. Thank goodness he wasn’t going to ask any more questions.

  “Thanks,” I said, flashing him a smile. I placed a hand on the tree. “Gnargagin,” I said, closing my eyes for the couple of seconds it was going to take to transport me to the other side of the world.

  When I opened them again, I found myself standing on a beach, facing west. The sound of gulls on the wind reached my ears as I breathed in salt air. I was on the west coast once more, but of a different continent this time, looking over the Indian Ocean instead of the Pacific that I was used to. I took a moment to look at my surroundings.

  I had never been to Australia before. It was on my bucket list, and I would have much preferred the circumstances of my visit to be different. It was almost the middle of the day and still fairly hot. Considering on this side of the world winter was just coming to an end, I couldn’t believe it was just a few degrees cooler than the summer weather I had just left in Western Woods.

  There were a number of boats on the water, and a few witches and wizards on brooms in the air above. A couple were even holding fishing rods, casually sitting on their broomsticks while they waited for a nibble.

  I turned to look at the city behind me. It was modern and large, built on both banks of a river that led directly into the ocean I had been staring at. Tall buildings—by paranormal world standards—stood up, built of steel and glass and overlooking the water. Despite the businesslike feel of the town, most of the citizens looked fairly relaxed, dressed casually and no one appearing to be in much of a hurry.

  “Excuse me, miss,” someone drawled from next to me, and I turned to find myself facing a shifter—I wasn’t one hundred percent sure if he was lion or wolf, but definitely one of the two. “Could you please step off the portal in case someone else would like to come in?” he asked nicely.

  “Oops, sorry,” I said quickly, stepping off the old surfboard that apparently acted as the portal here. “This is Gnargagin, right?”

  “That’s right,” the shifter replied. “Welcome to Australia. Your first time?”

  I nodded. “Is it that obvious?”

  “Hey, all the newcomers have that look about them when they get their first look at this country. And you picked a beauty of a town to start with. As we like to say here in Western Australia, west coast, best coast.”

  I grinned. “We have a similar saying in Seat—Western Woods. On the west coast of the USA.”

  “Right,” the shifter said. “Well, if you’re after some good tucker”—he pronounced it tukka—“y
ou can’t go wrong with Wands on the Barbie. Just take a left at the street up there. They’ll get you sorted with the best fish in town.”

  “Thanks for the suggestion,” I said politely. I was about to walk off when I thought maybe this shifter had seen Amy. I pulled out my phone and brought up a selfie of the two of us taken a couple of weeks earlier. “Can I ask if you’ve seen this woman? She’s a friend of mine, and she hasn’t been seen in a bit. I’m worried about her, and by all accounts she’s been here recently.”

  The shifter looked at the picture carefully, frowned, then shook his head. “Sorry. Don’t recognize her. But then, I’m better with smells than faces.”

  Ah, he was a wolf shifter, then.

  “Ok, thanks anyway,” I said, wandering off in the direction of Wands on the Barbie, simply because I really didn’t know where else to go. Had Amy even been here? Was that piece of paper a clue? Maybe it was just someone’s scrap of trash. No, it had to be a sign. I’d been attracted to it in a strange way. Or had I? Was I just imagining it, wanting to have found a clue so I could get closer to my friend? Or was I actually in the right spot?

  Right now, I had no way of knowing. I just hoped I was on the right track, for Amy’s sake.

  “I’m coming, Amy,” I whispered as I made my way toward downtown.

  Chapter 7

  I began wandering aimlessly, my chest filling with anxiousness with every passing minute. Every minute that passed was another minute that Amy’s life was in danger. I had to find her.

  Finally, I spotted a small symbol of Mercury on a lamppost. Of course, it could have been a coincidence, given the witches and wizards in this town were governed by Mercury, but I could just feel that it was something. I stood in front of the lamppost and looked around. Nothing happened. I touched the symbol. Nothing happened. Finally, I pulled out my wand and touched it to the symbol.

  It suddenly glowed gold, and a sheet of paper fell out.

  I opened it, anxious to read what it said:

  What has hands but cannot clap?

  I groaned inwardly. I hated riddles. They were the absolute worst. I’d been given a book of riddles for Christmas one year when I was a teenager and had managed to solve exactly zero of them before I’d gotten annoyed and thrown it out. What has hands but cannot clap? I didn’t know. A pair of mittens? No, that was stupid. Besides, where was I going to find a pair of mittens here, in Australia, in a city where the weather in the winter was similar to our summers back home? Obviously nowhere.

  I began wandering down the street, wondering how I was going to solve this. Maybe I could find a library. That was where the smartest people hung out, right? Maybe someone there knew. Amy would have known the answer to this instantly, I was sure of it.

  Above me, the sound of a grandfather clock chimed, indicating that it was one in the afternoon. I did some mental calculating to figure out what time it was in Western Woods and how long it would have been since Amy disappeared. Then it hit me.

  “A clock!” I shouted out loud, earning a couple of confused-looking stares from the people around me. What has hands but cannot clap? It had to be a clock. It just had to. But where was the sound coming from? I glanced upward but saw only the buildings on either side of me. They were office towers, about five stories high, which was pretty huge for the paranormal world. I didn’t see a clock.

  Still, it had to be somewhere here in town. The sound had probably been magically amplified to ensure all the residents could hear it, but the noise had to start from somewhere.

  I made my way back to the beach and found the wolf shifter guiding a couple of sunburned vampires toward a van advertising surfing lessons to complete beginners.

  “Excuse me,” I called out to him, and he smiled as he looked over and recognition passed on his features.

  “Oh, hello again,” he said. “Are you enjoying your time here?”

  “I am, thanks,” I replied. “I do have one question, though. I heard the chimes from a clock, and I’m curious as to where it came from.”

  “Oh, the clock is at the very top of town hall. See the restaurant on the corner over there?” he asked, motioning to a small bistro. “Go down that street and follow it to the end. When you see the shiny black building, you’re there. The clock tower is at the top of the building.”

  “Perfect, thanks,” I said, flashing him a smile.

  “No worries,” the shifter replied, turning to guide another new arrival to the portal. It seemed tourism was a major draw in this part of Australia.

  I made my way toward the street the shifter mentioned and kept walking. The city quickly went from a downtown full of hustle and bustle to a series of smaller, single-story shops and houses. I wasn’t sure how long I was going to have to walk for, but after about five minutes, I saw exactly the building the shifter was talking about.

  It was about four stories tall and so different from the town hall in Western Woods it was like they were in different universes.

  This was the sort of building that famous architects in the human world designed, and that people all over the world whined and complained about for being a waste of money and not the least bit functional. The building was black and shiny, reminding me of a gigantic piece of onyx. Its shape…well, it didn’t really have any shape in particular. Instead, it was like someone had taken large, randomly shaped chunks of black rock and pasted them together until they made a structure that was about six stories high. At the very top was a large, three-dimensional clock that seemed to work as an optical illusion, where the clock appeared to be facing directly at me no matter where I stood.

  I made my way toward the entrance and realized there was a slight problem—namely, that there was no entrance. The whole building was so dedicated to its aesthetic that there wasn’t even a door, anywhere.

  How on earth did anyone get in or out? I looked around, spotting an elf about fifty feet away. I was about to go and ask him if he had any idea how town hall worked when a wizard just popped out from the walls like it was nothing. My mouth dropped open and he noticed, giving me a small smile.

  “New to town?” he asked. “No worries. It’s an easy entrance; just walk into the walls wherever and you’ll be right.”

  “Thanks,” I said cautiously. I made my way toward the building’s wall. Even though I had just seen this wizard walk through the wall like it was nothing, a part of my brain still didn’t quite trust it. And yet, as I pressed my hand against the black stone, it passed through like it was nothing. There was a cool sensation, like cold marble on the skin, but that was it. This had a real platform-nine-and-three-quarters vibe to it.

  “Well, here goes nothing,” I muttered as I closed my eyes and forced the rest of my body against the wall as well. Sure enough, a moment later, when I opened my eyes once more, I found myself in the center of a gilded atrium. Where the exterior of the building was dark and shiny, the interior was light and shiny. Gold framed the marble walls and floors, and the gilding rose straight up to the ceiling. The upper floors had balustrades looking out onto the ornate lobby.

  Instead of lights, crystals floated all around the large space, casting moving bright lights all over. This place made the Four Seasons in Seattle look like a tin shack. Talk about fancy! A bear shifter wearing a three-piece suit came up to me politely.

  “Hello, can I help you with anything?”

  “Yes, I’m wondering how to get up to the clock tower?” I asked.

  “I’m sorry, it’s not open to the public,” he murmured demurely.

  “Oh,” I replied. That actually probably made sense. I didn’t think Titan would be holding Amy hostage somewhere easily accessible. “Alright, thank you. By the way, you haven’t seen this woman around here, have you?” I asked, showing him the photo of Amy, but the shifter shook his head.

  “I’m afraid not, sorry.”

  “Ok, thanks. If you don’t mind, I might just have a look at the architecture. This building is fascinating.”

  “Of course, you�
��re more than welcome. We get thousands of people every year to come and appreciate the beauty of Black Swan Town Hall. It’s one of the most popular attractions in Gnargagin, designed by the famous architect Ryordir over six hundred years ago.”

  “Wow,” I said, my eyes widening as I realized how long this building had been standing here. I’d just naturally assumed it was built sometime in the last hundred years.

  “If you’d like to learn more about the history of this magnificent structure, every hour on the hour we have tour groups that depart from this lobby. To join, just make your way to that sign in about twenty minutes, and one of our fairy guides will show you around,” the shifter added, motioning to a large sign floating about ten feet in the air a little to my left.

  “Great, thanks,” I replied. I had absolutely no intention of joining a tour. I had a friend to find. Instead, I looked around to see how the upper floors were reached. There seemed to be two different ways: the completely normal-looking stairs, that no one was taking, or a strange sort of magical elevator. I watched as two witches made their way toward a shimmering golden circle on the floor. As soon as they reached it, they both said “three” in unison and began rising upward, like they were in an invisible elevator cage. As soon as they reached the third floor, they stepped out onto it like it was the most natural thing in the world.

  “Nope, don’t trust that,” I muttered as I made my way toward the stairs. I was mostly open-minded when it came to new paranormal experiences here in the magical world, but I drew the line at being lifted tens of feet into the air without being able to see or feel floor beneath me. Riding a broom was already bad enough.

  I climbed up to the third floor, the highest accessible by stairs, and started looking around. I tried to look more like a tourist than someone trying to sneak my way up into the clock tower, occasionally peering over the railing and looking back down into the lobby before spying upward. There were a few open hallways that led to offices serving the local paranormals, but nothing that looked like it would take me up to the clock above. And yet, that had to be my destination, which meant there had to be a way to get there. I hoped I wasn’t going to have to find a broom and fly to it from the outside of the building. I really did hate flying.