by J L Collins
Erie quickly nodded. “Right! Me and your mom can just take it back for you and put it away. We don’t want it to get dirty or anything.” She practically lunged for the wand, and Fiona-Leigh anxious to hand it over, accidentally let go before Erie could grab it.
The wand landed on the floor and propelled backward from the bright blue sparks emanating from its tip. A magical flame licked across the floor, spreading out dangerously close to our feet.
Everyone’s mouths dropped open all at once. Quickly thinking on my toes, I stomped out the little fire with my boot, wincing at the charred mark on Sully’s wooden floor. Even with the fire out, my heart raced even faster in my chest.
I looked up slowly, my mouth dry as a desert as I took in the look on Sully’s face first. “Whoops. Um. Maybe we could buff it out?”
13
Into the Woods
It didn’t take Marina muttering “Whoa,” to herself for me to understand the consequences we were dealing with. I gently picked up my wand, my hands shaking. Not ready to let it out of my sight, I held it tightly in my hand. What the heck just happened? Another magic leak?
Erie seemed to be wondering the same thing, her eyes steady on me as I stood back up. “Gwen—”
“—was that . . . was that like, real?” Marina asked.
Fiona-Leigh looked to me, biting her lip. The air was thick with the words I wanted to say. The incantations I knew I could say and make all of this magically go away. But that was just it. No magic was possible here—at least not controlled magic.
Mentally, I was smacking myself for not having a better back-up plan ready to go just in case. Being out of the academy this long was starting to become a real pain in the butt.
Sully took a few steps forward before bending down to inspect the charred spot caused by the blue flames. It was like time stopped, waiting for him to say something.
“Okay.” He cleared his throat and stood up, running his hands over his head until they were splayed across the back of it. “Okay. So. As someone who’s studied physics pretty thoroughly in college before going down the whole mortuary science road, this is either the best theatrical cosplay toy that’s ever been created and therefore probably worth way more than a kid in high school has access to . . . or, what? Somehow that wand just lit my floor on fire?”
I quickly shook my head. “It works like a lighter—you know, you can push a little button and colorful flames appear? I’ve seen Zippos that can do that.”
Sully didn’t look even slightly convinced. “Uh huh.”
Marina wasn’t really buying it either. “Then why didn’t the flames stay put at the end of it? They like, expanded or something. Like they had a mind of their own.”
“That’s not how fire works,” Fiona-Leigh said.
“Well duh, Fi! I know that! That’s what I mean. That,” Marina said, pointing directly at my wand, “isn’t some fancy lighter. A lighter wouldn’t do that. So maybe someone will explain why you’re acting so weird about it.”
Fiona-Leigh took a step backward and closer to me. The tension thrumming in her to just lay it all out for them was almost tangible. I could see how badly she was wanting to tell the truth.
I nudged her, and widened my eyes as she looked at me. “Maybe we will.”
“What?” she and Erie replied in unison.
“Maybe we can show them the truth about the wand,” I said. What I wouldn’t give for Aunt Bee’s telepathic ability right about now…
“Gwen? You know the rules,” Erie leaned in and whispered as softly as she could.
Even Fiona-Leigh looked completely confused. I couldn’t exactly blame them—what I was about to say was going against everything I’d ever told her before.
I took a deep breath, keeping my cool as I looked straight at Sully. “It’s not some cosplay toy.”
“I put that together,” he said slowly. “So, what is that thing?”
Erie yanked at my arm, shaking her head. “Maybe we should come back later. We could find a way to get that mark off the floor for you. I’m sure my cousin wouldn’t mind handling it herself!”
I wrenched my arm out of her grasp. “I wouldn’t, but first I need to show you something. Both of you,” I added, looking between Sully and Marina.
Fiona-Leigh let out a soft gasp, her dark blue eyes wider than ever. “Really?”
“What is it?” Sully repeated; his voice low. “Tell me the truth, please.”
“It’s a wand.” The truth, simple as that.
“Is it . . . real?” Marina asked again, staring at the wand as if it were going to talk back to her.
My mind was reeling, still trying to put a plan in place as quickly as possible. A magical leak was the only real explanation I could come up with, but it wasn’t something I really had a way of explaining to Sully and Marina—there wasn’t any time. The truth was that the longer we stood there, the harder it would be to pull off what I was planning.
So, I had to bite the bullet. “Yes. It’s real.”
“Gwen, no!” Erie groaned, her arms falling to her sides.
I threw her the most apologetic look I could. “Erie, just trust me, okay?” Turning back to Sully, I sighed. “I’m a Witch. And I know that’s a lot to take in, and I don’t expect any of this to make sense to you but this is who I really am.”
He studied my face carefully, probably to see if I’d crack a smile and admit to the whole thing being a joke. When he saw how serious I was he let out a long whistle.
“Oh. My. God! Are you freaking serious right now? Like a full-on Witch? Pointy hat, broomstick?” Marina shrieked, grabbing hold of Fiona-Leigh’s hands and jumping up and down. “This is so sick!”
“I’m not a Witch, dude,” Fi shouted over the thudding of Marina’s shoes. “Just my mom. And whoa . . . I cannot believe I just said that.”
“Neither can I,” Erie mumbled behind me.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I silently begged my head to stop pounding as hard as my heart in my chest. Looking at Sully certainly wasn’t helping things. He looked like he was working out a difficult puzzle in his head.
“I can explain more on the way,” I offered, gesturing toward the door. “We can show you what I mean.”
I don’t know how I managed to get everyone buckled up in the old beat-up Jeep, but we were turning onto the main road that led out of Midnight Pitch, Erie in the back with the girls while Sully was riding shotgun. Part of me wished he would say something—anything, really. He was so quiet that I thought for sure he was going to lose his temper or even his mind at some point during the long drive over the state line into Tennessee.
Of course, the gateway couldn’t be located any closer to me for convenience or anything…
Once we were parked along the side of the two-lane road cutting through the thick of the forest at exactly the right spot, I did my best to explain to them just where we were going and why.
“There’s a gateway inside the forest here,” I said, shoving my wand in the back pocket of my jeans as everyone else climbed out of the Jeep. “It’s a little bit of walk, but it’s not too strenuous.”
“Are you telling me we have to follow you in there?” Marina said, raising a pale brow. “This is usually the part where serial killers use chloroform to drug their victims and take them to some creepy abandoned old shack to murder them.”
Fiona-Leigh let out a nervous laugh, clutching at one arm with her hand. “Ha-ha. Creepy abandoned shack. That’s funny. Isn’t that funny, Mom?”
“Hilarious,” I replied, thoroughly unamused.
Erie caught my gaze, her dark blonde eyebrows knitted together. I pulled her a few feet ahead of the others. “I know this whole thing is crazy but just go with what I say, okay? I promise I have an idea.”
“If you say so . . .” She took the lead, her leather boots crunching over leaves and the not-so-worn path.
I glanced back at the rest of them. “Come on, guys. It’s really not as creepy as it seems,” I said,
trying to hide the crack in my voice.
We trekked on, Marina and Fiona-Leigh’s voices carrying over the sounds of the forest.
“Dude, I cannot believe you didn’t tell me about any of this! You’re the worst at keeping secrets—how the heck did you pull this one?” Marina sounded more in awe than angry with Fiona-Leigh.
Fi laughed. “I don’t know. I didn’t really have a choice, I guess. Mom only just told me the whole story at the beginning of the summer. Well, she didn’t really tell me. I sort of accidentally found out when my Great Aunt Bedelia kind of magically teleported into our living room right in front of me. Then Mom told me the truth.”
I could feel her eyes burning a hole in the back of my head but I refused to look back. It was no secret that things between Fi and I had been strained since she found out I’d been lying her entire life. We got through it but I wasn’t delusional. She had every right to be angry with me and it stung her each time my big lie was brought to life again.
Heavier footsteps drew closer to me, and for a second I thought the girls were trying to catch up. Instead, Sully took a couple of long strides until he was walking along right next to me. He cleared his throat.
“This whole thing is . . . I mean,” he began, staring straight ahead. “I don’t really know what to say.”
“That’s okay. You don’t have to say anything,” I said quietly. I was all too aware of how sad my words sounded. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him nodding.
“It seems too big of a thing not to say anything about, though. You’re a Witch. Wow. That does not sound any less crazy, out loud. Gwen, I . . .” his voice trailed off before he cleared his throat again. “Sorry. It’s a lot to take in.”
All I wanted was to skip the small talk. If I could just get to the gateway, this whole conversation could be over and I wouldn’t have to deal with Sully’s apparent revulsion of me. If only.
“Look, Gwen. I don’t know what I believe here, or what I saw earlier. But I do trust you. Call it a hunch, but you aren’t the type of person to lie about this kind of thing.”
Was he serious? “Except for the fact that I am. I mean, I lied to my own daughter her whole life. I’ve had to lie to anyone I’ve ever met since I’ve been here in your world. I lied to you. There’s no version of this where I’m the innocent one.” The bitterness in my voice surprised even me.
“But you didn’t have a choice. You said so yourself. You were just trying to protect your kid, and keeping something like this from everyone else isn’t really a lie. More of an omission. People are crazy out there—if I had something like this up my sleeve, I sure wouldn’t spill it to anyone either. Half the people in Midnight Pitch probably believe in the Boogey Man,” Sully paused, turning to face me and walking sideways. “Which isn’t real, right?”
Despite the tightness in my chest, I laughed anxiously. “No. At least not to my knowledge, anyway.” Both of us smiled, and for a moment my chest unclenched and I didn’t feel like I was bogged down in regrets.
Birds called out to each other from the treetops above us. “So, you don’t think I’m some kind of freak?” I finally asked. It was probably a stupid thing to say, especially since I wasn’t guaranteed an answer I wanted to hear.
“Freak? No. Unusual? Yeah, sure. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Take it from a guy who works with dead people for a living . . . being normal is overrated.”
My cheeks burned. I’d take unusual over a science experiment needing to be examined, any day. I glanced at my watch—anything to make me forget just how well he was taking this all in stride. And it’s not like I’d imagined telling him about me and the Other Realm, but I never figured he would be this understanding. It coiled the knot in my stomach even tighter.
“What isn’t overrated though? A pair of good hiking boots.” Sully winced as he paused to inspect his foot. “Sneakers probably aren’t a good choice for roughing it.”
Instinctively I wanted to pull out my wand and fix it for him, but I knew there was no point. Even with the random magic leaks, that’s not how magic worked in the Human Realm. It would have to wait until we got to Spell Haven.
“Sorry about that. I might be able to fix that up for you when we get to where we’re going.”
His dark eyes met mine again and for a moment I thought I might be sucked into them. But he looked away, nodding and walking on as I bit my lip and continued walking after Erie too. Behind us, the girls were whispering.
I had to admit… it was nice being one hundred-percent honest with him. It gave me the slightest bit of hope that the real me was something maybe Sully could handle, though it was just in vain. I pressed on deeper into the woods, not wanting to spend another minute of my time on what-ifs.
Once the cabin was in view, Erie threw me one last backward glance as if to make doubly sure I wanted to do this. I gave a nod and pointed out the cabin to everyone else.
To no one’s surprise, Marina screeched. “Oh my god, are you serious right now?”
It took us a few minutes to get her calmed down and convinced we weren’t actually going to murder her for ‘knowing too much.’ Sully was relatively unfazed by the admittedly creepy old cabin as we approached it. Whether it was because he figured all of this was a joke, or he thought Witches and creepy old places went hand in hand—I didn’t know.
“All right. Follow me around the side,” I said, nudging Erie to continue on. “Trust me,” I quickly reminded her in her ear.
The soft rush of air and the infamous whoosh of the gateway was in the back doorway of the small cabin. The gateway bent the shimmering air around it, swirling it around within it. It was one of the most purely magical things you could witness, and while I definitely wasn’t a fan of the weird feeling of going through it, it was pretty interesting to watch both Marina and Sully’s faces when they rounded the corner and saw it. While the gateway used to be nearly invisible to the naked eye, with the MARC opening it back up, the magical energy within it had turned a vivid blue.
Marina gasped, frozen on the spot. Sully’s eyes were wide, the electrical light reflected in the lens of his glasses as he took a few cautious steps forward. Behind them, Fi stood watching their reactions.
“What is that thing?” Sully finally said.
I swallowed against the slowly-forming lump in my throat. “It’s a gateway to the Other Realm. Where I’m from. We can step through it and it’ll take us there.”
Marina stepped forward along with Fiona-Leigh. “You’re going to take us with you?”
“So you can see for yourself!” Fi said, excitement lacing her words.
She looked at me, her eyes shining bright. I hated how beautiful and happy she looked only because I knew it would turn ugly shortly.
I sighed, gesturing to Erie. “You can go through first and make sure we’re good to go before we send them through.”
Erie didn’t say anything but took the steps up to the gateway, stepping through it as if she’d just stepped out of sight and into another room. Barely a minute had passed before we saw an arm with a thumb’s up extended back through the gateway. I turned back to the other three.
“Okay. Fiona-Leigh, you and Marina hold hands and walk through together. Me and Sully will go last.” I skipped the part about having to hold hands.
I had to give Marina some credit—as utterly terrified and amazed as she looked, she walked along with Fiona-Leigh without another word, except for mouthing something to Fiona-Leigh who laughed.
“Don’t worry. Splinching is not a real thing. At least . . . I don’t think it is. You ready?”
Marina quickly nodded and Fi pulled her through before she could say anything.
Watching them disappear, Sully let out a breath he must have been holding. “I still feel like I’m going to wake up in my bed any moment now . . .”
“You never know.” I smiled, pointing to the gateway. “Ready to take on some new science?”
He chuckled, his face pale. “Science? I though
t this was magic?”
“What else is magic, but a new type of science? It’s just learning how to manipulate the energy around us.” I held out my hand as we walked up the steps together.
Sully took it, his palm just as clammy as mine. I guess to him, he had a lot more to lose.
“Ready.”
Spell Haven’s breeze caught my hair, blowing it all around the both of us as we made it out through the other side. The overhang of rock that helped to hide the gateway’s alcove cast a long shadow under which Erie and the girls were standing, waiting for us. Beside me, Sully sucked in a shallow breath before letting it back out, laughing. I pulled my hand away, not wanting to kid myself any more than I already had.
“That was amazing!”
“Right? It was like whoosh, and then bam, we’re in a totally different place! Like someone just beamed us here or something,” Marina said, throwing her hands up into the air. “I can’t believe we just teleported here! Show me everything, Fi. This place is crazy! I mean, look at those cool flowers there. Is that actually smoke coming out of them?”
Fiona-Leigh giggled, leading her over to more of the smoke petals.
“We’re here. Now what?” Erie asked impatiently. She folded her arms across her chest.
I turned to Sully. “I’m so glad you didn’t freak out. It . . . means a lot to me.”
Confused but still in utter awe of Spell Haven’s fairytale-like landscape, he placed his hand on my shoulder. “I should probably be thanking you. This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”
Sighing, I nodded. “I know. And I’m sorry.”
With his head tilted to the side, he frowned at me. “Sorry? For what?”
I pulled my wand out, pointed it at him and quietly muttered my incantation, not wanting to startle anyone—especially Marina. “Calming lavender and willows that weep, let him fall into the forgetting sleep.”
Erie was behind Sully in an instant, my intentions dawning on her. He slumped back into her arms slowly, his gaze unfocused behind his glasses.
Holding my wand steady and making sure no one else was watching, I took in a deep breath. “Forget the images, forget the memories. Hear only my words as I speak to thee . . . Sully, when you fully awake from sleep, you will be in your bed after a long day of working on your truck. You finally fixed the timing belt but went to bed early after dinner. Marina is home and in bed after spending the day at the mall with Fiona-Leigh. You never saw me or my cousin today. I never introduced you to my cousin. You will forget everything you saw and heard and experienced after working on your truck. Forget the images, forget the memories. You’ve heard only my words as I’ve spoken to thee.”