by Blythe Baker
“When I accidentally touched what apparently turned out to be a real crystal ball,” I said. “I was helping a man clean out some of his antiques and the crystal ball, along with a twin, when I touched it and saw an image.”
“How peculiar…” Zara said. “What sort of image.”
“I think it was something in the past,” I said. “It was of the man’s wife and the crystal clock that she loved so much. But I saw that clock again later, and it ended up being an important part about the murder case I was investigating, though there was no way I’d have known that until I realized it…” I looked up at her. “But it doesn’t happen every time I touch one.”
“That’s how it begins,” Zara said. “You must focus your mind. When you do, you’ll – ”
Knock knock knock.
“Zara? Who are you talking to?”
Zara’s eyes darted to me, and before I could even react, she pulled her wand from her desk and gave it a flick in my direction, muttering under her breath.
Athena and I were abruptly enveloped in shadows. It felt as if we were suddenly placed beneath a box, except I could still see everything around me. A narrow beam of light filtered over us, and I opened my mouth to speak.
Zara glared at me, but I realized she was looking just past me.
What had she done?
Was that some kind of spell? I asked Athena with my thoughts.
No idea…Athena said, staring around.
Zara snapped her fingers, drawing my gaze back to her. She pressed a finger to her lips as she rose from her seat. “Coming, just one moment,” she said.
She leaned down beside my chair, and whispered.
“Just stay still. And quiet.”
I followed her with my eyes, glancing over my shoulder as she crossed to the door. She straightened the front of her silk robes before pulling the door open.
“Ah, good evening, Lady Rue,” Zara said, brushing some of her long hair behind her pointed ear. She dipped her head in a quick bow. “What a pleasant surprise.”
“Who are you talking to in here?” Lady Rue asked, brushing past Zara, her arms folded over herself.
My heart started to beat faster. What was she doing here?
“Just doing some research is all,” Zara said, walking around to her desk and closing up all the books. She deftly hid the one I’d brought among the others so Lady Rue wouldn’t see it. “Though I guess if I’m starting to talk to myself out loud, it’s probably time for me to retire for the evening.”
Lady Rue was standing uncomfortably close to my chair, staring at Zara with intense dislike. “I thought I heard a voice in here that was very different from yours,” she said.
Zara’s face remained calm and blank, though her brows furrowed as she looked back up at Lady Rue. “…My apologies, but are you feeling alright, Lady Rue?” she asked. “It is unlike you to be awake at such an hour.”
Lady Rue’s face turned scarlet, and her nails dug into the flesh of her arm. “Well, I wouldn’t have been awake if it wasn’t for the break in from someone who’d been exiled from the Hollow in the first place.”
“How dreadful,” Zara said, sliding some of her books onto her shelf. “I assume it’s all been handled?”
“Of course it’s been handled,” Lady Rue snapped.
“Wonderful,” Zara said, turning her back on Lady Rue. “I can always trust the council to do what’s best for the rest of us spell weavers.”
Lady Rue bristled, though it was easy to understand why. Zara’s comment was anything but sincere, and the look she was giving Lady Rue was as dangerous a look as I’d ever seen on her face.
Lady Rue’s nostrils flared, and she let out a groan of frustration. “If I find out that you saw the traitor, then you can be sure you’ll be exiled just as quickly as she was,” she said.
Zara said nothing, just looked coolly at Lady Rue.
Lady Rue, realizing she wasn’t going to get Zara to budge, turned on her heel and stomped out of Zara’s office.
Zara followed after her and closed the door behind her, sagging against it after she did.
With another twirl of her wand, the darkness pressing in on me disappeared.
“What did you do?” I asked, brushing my arms.
“Hid you and Athena,” Zara said. “It’s a sort of magical pocket for important items. Thankfully, it was large enough to hold a whole person. I wasn’t sure it would be…”
She hurried over to a smaller shelf beneath her window and pulled a small, green book out from the bottom. She turned and pushed the book into my hands.
“Here,” she said. “It’s a book of useful spells, something I’ve compiled over the years. I know I haven’t had a chance to train you myself, but this is probably the best we are going to be able to do right now. And there’s one more thing…”
She walked to a door along the wall, opening it, and I saw a closet behind it.
I got up and went over to her, seeing Zara lifting a carved wooden box from a shelf inside.
She came over to me and opened the lid, revealing a long, gnarled piece of blue wood.
“Is that from one of the trees?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yes. Take it.”
Frowning, I hesitated.
“Please, take it,” Zara said more insistently.
I took a deep breath and reached into the box, lifting the wood.
It began to glow green, and stretched outward in my hand, unfurling and straightening. It began to shrivel up, becoming thinner and thinner in my palm.
And just as soon as it started to move and change, the glow dimmed, and it lay still in its new form. No longer a branch, it looked more like a conductor’s baton, the very bottom tapered off in an elegant twisted knot.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I just gave you a spell weaver’s wand,” Zara said, snapping the lid of the box closed. “You shouldn’t be getting this until you pass all your classes, but I really believe we have no choice. You are going to need all the help you can possibly get in order to defeat this monster.”
“So this is a real wand?” I asked, staring down at the deep, cobalt blue rod in my hand.
“Yes,” Zara said. “I knew this was my only choice, because it is not going to be safe here for you in the Hollow anymore. You’ve been exiled, yes, but my fear is that someone might take it upon themselves to punish you if you were to ever return.”
I swallowed hard. “Ever?”
“Ever,” Zara said.
She laid a hand on my shoulder, her eyes serious.
“Marianne, I do not envy what you are facing,” she said. “You are going to have to prepare yourself for the battle that is going to come.”
I nodded, a chill running down my spine. “…Yeah,” I said. “Thanks, Zara.”
4
It wasn’t easy leaving the Hollow. What had taken Athena and I just under an hour when we arrived, took us until it was nearly dawn on the way out.
We couldn’t move more than a few feet without running into other spell weavers. We hid in the shadows of the council hall on our way out, and ducked behind the fountain as we walked outside to avoid being seen.
We also spent so long hiding behind a giant root in one of the trees that my knees were starting to buckle from squatting down behind it. People just kept coming, and the closer to the morning it became, the more people started to appear.
Eventually, though, we made it to the cavern of crystals and portals, and made our way home.
I collapsed on the couch, gasping for breath.
“Never again,” I said with a dismissive wave. “That was awful.”
Tell me about it…Athena said, laying down right on the floor where she stood.
I lifted my head, which felt like it weighed more than my whole body. “I need to close the portal…”
I dragged myself back to my feet and crossed to the bathroom door, using the tip of my old wand to erase the portal from the wooden surface.
I
then made my way over to the bed, where I lay down without even bothering to take off my shoes. “I’m just…going to close my eyes for a second…” I said.
I woke up three hours later, the bright sunlight streaming in through the windows.
I rubbed my eyes, groaning. The weight of a tiny creature pressed against my legs, and when I shifted, I heard Athena’s disgruntled thoughts in my mind.
Why are you moving? I was so comfortable…
“Sorry…” I said, squinting into the brightness.
The cabin was cold. The fire I’d started in the wood stove the night before had long since burned out, and the only warmth I felt was from my own body heat underneath my blanket and from Athena’s tiny body near my feet.
I wrapped the blankets more tightly around me.
As I lay there, everything that happened the night before came flooding back.
The library. The meeting with the council of eleven. The conversation in Zara’s office.
It was a lot to take in.
But one thing was for sure. There was a monster, and I was going to have to fight it.
Are you okay? Athena asked, opening one eye.
“I don’t know,” I said.
I looked up at the deep blue wand I’d set down on the coffee table the night before, alongside the book of spells that Zara had given me.
Athena yawned and stretched out her front two paws, here ears snapping flat back against her tiny head. I think it’s more that you can’t make up your mind about everything, she said.
“You’re right…” I said. “I need to talk to someone. I need to think these things through.”
I glanced at the clock on my cell phone, and it told me it was just after ten in the morning on Sunday. Banks were closed on Sundays, even in early December.
So I opened up my contacts, and called Lucan, knowing he wouldn’t be at work.
Less than an hour later, my doorbell rang.
I was just finishing tying my hair into a braid, a fire crackling merrily in the wood stove. “Coming,” I said, my throat growing tight as I hurried across the small cabin.
I pulled the door open, and my heart skipped.
Lucan was standing there in a wool coat in a soft shade of grey. A black scarf was tied around his neck, and his copper beard was flecked with tiny snowflakes.
“Hi,” I said, standing aside. “Please, come in.”
“Thank you,” he said, ducking inside the doorway. I heard him breathe a sigh of relief. “Oh, it’s wonderfully warm in here.”
“It was freezing when I got up this morning,” I said.
Lucan pulled off his scarf and coat, which I offered to take for him.
Even though I’d known him as long as I had, I still found myself getting tongue-tied around him. And after the conversation I’d had with Alessa in the café back in November, where she’d told me how Lucan really felt…I’d been even more nervous around him.
I laid his jacket and scarf over the back of one of my chairs, and when I turned back around to him, I found him smiling at me.
“I’m glad to see you well,” he said.
He looked so strange in the middle of my tiny cabin. He was all dignified and sophisticated, and my cabin was full of blankets and dirty dishes and an unmade bed in the corner…
I blushed, and gestured to the couch. “Would you like to sit down?”
“Thank you,” he said.
I sat down beside him and smiled nervously at him.
“So, what’s going on?” Lucan asked, leaning back as comfortably as if he were in his own home. “You sounded concerned on the phone.”
I took a deep breath, wishing I had something to hold in my hands, like a cup of coffee or something.
“There’s been…a lot going on as of late,” I said. “I found a way to sneak into the Hollow, and went to the library there to find more information about the monster…”
I told him about being discovered, about the meeting with the council and their outright disbelief in what I was saying, and then about everything Zara had told me and given to me.
“So even after everything that’s happened here, they don’t believe you?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No. They don’t even seem to care that the monster attacked me, among others…”
Lucan’s gaze hardened. One of those others was a member of his pack. “That’s just unacceptable,” he said. “To be so blinded by their own presuppositions…”
“The other thing that I wish I could have answers about is my newfound ability to use crystal balls,” I said. “I just remembered that I’d been talking to Zara about it when we were interrupted.”
“Wait…you can use crystal balls? Really?” Lucan asked.
My cheeks burned in worry. “Yeah…is that a bad thing?”
“No, it just seems that there is no end to your surprising gifts,” Lucan said. “When did you figure this out?”
“When I was solving the case of Adam Bailey’s death,” I said. “Before he died, I went to his house to pick up some antiques he wanted to sell, and I accidentally touched a crystal ball that had once belonged to his wife. As soon as I did, an odd image of a woman touching a clock filled my mind.”
“How strange…” Lucan said.
“Later I found out that clock had significance to that woman, who was Adam’s wife, Betty. And in the end, I ended up getting that clock.” I said.
I turned my gaze toward the lovely gold and crystal time piece that I’d set on top of my fridge. I got up and walked over to it.
“I wasn’t really sure what to do with it…” I said. “It’s kind of weird owning something that I know belonged to a recently deceased man, especially knowing how important it was to him. Not only that, but this piece is valuable, and I’ve never owned anything worth any amount of money…well, at least not before coming to Faerywood Falls.”
Lucan got up and walked over to the clock with me. His golden eyes narrowed as he studied it. “It’s exquisite craftsmanship,” he said, gently touching the clock face. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it before.”
“It was apparently Mrs. Bailey’s most prized possession,” I said. “Which is what I kept seeing in the crystal balls.”
I chewed on my bottom lip.
Lucan shifted his gaze to me. “What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know…” I said. “I just can’t shake the feeling that there’s something more to all this than what I’m seeing. The crystal ball, the clock, the monster…I don’t know why, but somehow…they all feel connected somehow.”
“At this point, I wouldn’t write anything off as merely coincidence,” Lucan said. “Perhaps this clock holds more answers?”
“I have no idea,” I said. “I’ve barely looked at the thing since I got it.”
“Well, then…” he said, lifting it off the fridge. “Let’s have a look, shall we?”
We wandered back to the couch where we sat together, and Lucan began to look the clock over, from back to front.
“I know that this clock ended up being the motive for Adam’s murder,” I said. “His neighbor was envious and wanted it from him, knowing how valuable it was. But then it ended up in my possession…”
“Again, I would say nothing is coincidence – ”
Lucan’s finger pressed against a small, gold filigree leaf on the lower left of the clock. When it did, a hidden compartment just underneath the clock face popped open.
My eyes widened. “What in the world…”
We leaned forward. The compartment was only big enough to hold a quarter, maybe something slightly bigger. But instead of money, there was a milky, pearlescent shard of something lying on a red, velvet cloth.
“Be very careful…” Lucan said in a low voice. “That looks like something magical.”
I swallowed hard. “But we won’t know what it is unless we look at it, right?” I asked.
Lucan’s eyes darted over to me, hard like granite. “Marianne, we should really le
t someone who has more experience with things like this look at it – ”
“Who?” I asked. “My first thought would be to take it to the Hollow and let Zara look at it, but I am forbidden from ever going back there. She said if I did, that some of the council members might take it upon themselves to find proper punishments for me.”
“Why in the world are they being so obstinate?” he asked. “It makes absolutely no sense to me.”
“Me either,” I said. “But I can’t think of anyone else that would be able to help us. Abe doesn’t know about the Gifted. Zara is the only psychic I know. And Cain might be able to help, just given his age, but he’s not speaking to me.” I sank back against the couch, frowning. “How about you? Have any other friends in high places?”
“Not any who might be able to help us,” he said. “What of Mrs. Bickford?”
I furrowed my brow. “I doubt she’d have anything useful to say. The only thing she’s ever interested in is her husband, and her juicy gossip.”
My eyes darted down to the shard again. “I’m sure we’ll be alright if we just – ”
“Let me touch it first,” Lucan said, holding his hand out to stop mine. He looked at me, his golden eyes blazing. “If something happens, I’d rather it be to me than to you.”
My throat grew tight. “Do you really think something like that will happen?”
“I don’t know,” Lucan said. “Which is why I’m going to try first.”
He reached out, his elegant, long fingers that looked as if they belonged to a pianist gently touching the outside of the hidden compartment. I saw him hesitate for the slightest second.
Then he touched the shard with the tip of his finger…
And nothing happened.
“Well…that was rather anticlimactic,” he said with a small, relieved smirk.
“Alright, my turn,” I said, reaching out.
“Hold on,” he said. “Just because it didn’t do anything for me doesn’t mean it won’t for you.”
“I realize that,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”
It was clear he was not convinced, but he sat back and moved his hand away.