Myths and Magic: An Epic Fantasy and Speculative Fiction Boxed Set

by K.N. Lee

  Patricia grumbled, but she turned and left the library just the same, leaving Pauline alone with the tome. She turned a few pages and began to take a second set of notes. The two potions were similar, but where one induced sleep the other was meant to drive a person to the point of death. She would have to decide which to give to her niece. The sepia colored pages slid beneath her fingertips. Again Pauline smiled, this time a wolfish smile. She would have her way, regardless.

  Patricia found Pauline standing above the central pedestal, a bowl in front of her.

  "Here's your clover root." Patricia tossed it down next to the bowl and turned her back on her sister. "It was a devil to get."

  "I seriously doubt that." Pauline picked up the dirty clump and carefully pinched off a few of the very white roots. With a few flicks of her fingers, she flung the roots into the bowl. The liquid smoked and changed color from the placid of water to the roiling of boiling blood. Pauline stepped back momentarily as the smoke coalesced into a small mushroom above the brew. Patricia was already on her way back up the stairs, ignoring what her sibling was doing. The dim lights of the room played across the pool and Pauline waved her fingers over the top, turning it back the color of water.

  "It's ready." She spoke as though her sister still stood there to hear her. With careful hands, she tipped the bowl over a small vial and poured off a little of the contents. It made slithery splashing sounds as it moved from bowl to vial. Once the vial was full, she held it up to the nearest light and watched the refracting colors. "And it's perfect."

  She had been wracking her brain to come up with a way to get Melina to ingest it since the plan first solidified in her mind. She had the perfect potion to do away with her niece but she had to find a way to insure the girl would drink it. She stomped her way up the stairs and found Patricia sitting at the kitchen table cleaning her fingernails.

  "We have it," Pauline said. "Now to give it to her."

  "You'll never get her to take it."

  "Yes, I will."

  Pauline moved through the kitchen, picking up a cup along the way. Pauline poured just a finger of the liquid into the cup, then poured water over the top of it. She set the cup on the table and stowed the vial in a pocket.

  "Here, give this to her." Pauline thrust the glass at her sister. Patricia made a face and took the cup.

  "Why me?"

  "She likes you better." The two sisters stared at each other. Neither of them moved for a full moment then Patricia put the cup down on the table.

  "She doesn't care for me any more than she cares for you," Patricia said. "And I won't try to pretend it isn't so."

  Pauline growled and picked the cup up. "This has to be given to her."

  "Then you give it to her," Patricia spat before turning on her heel and leaving her sister standing alone in the kitchen. The mess on the kitchen table was the only testament to Patricia's prior place.

  Standing there, holding the cup in her hand, Pauline had a moment of wanting to pour the entire thing down the drain and leave Christina to try her luck against her cousin without any help; however, she wasn't willing to be defeated so easily. She put the cup down and nibbled on her knuckles. She would have her way. Picking up the cup again, she strode through the house in search of her niece.

  Melina was up in her bedroom, her school books strewn across the floor at her feet. Other than the books, there were clothes thrown about as though the person had been taking them off in the middle of a whirlwind.

  "Melina." Pauline called her from the hallway.

  With a sigh, Melina looked up and closed the book in her lap.

  "Yes, Aunt Pauline?" The teenager looked at her aunt with disinterest.

  "I brought you a glass of water."

  "Why?" Now she seemed more interested, though also quite guarded. She didn't reach for the cup. Instead she sat a little further back. "I really am not that thirsty."

  "It's just a glass of water. A peace offering."

  Melina set her book off to the side and watched her aunt stand there with her glass of water. Finally she moved forward and took the glass.

  "Thank you," Melina said and then put the glass off to the side.

  "Aren't you going to drink it?"

  "Maybe later."

  Pauline could have cursed, but she kept her composure. She had given the girl the water. Now all that was left was for her to drink it. It would happen. Yet she clenched her fists. It might not happen.

  "Well, thank you for at least taking it." Pauline stiffly walked away leaving the door to Melina's room open.

  Hours later, when Pauline crept back into the room, the cup was empty and Melina lay curled up in a blanket with a book right at her hand.

  Melina rolled over to find herself not in the bed where she had lain but in a larger bed with four posts. It was hidden in gray fabric that moved with a life of its own. Sitting up, she looked around. The room was sparse. Though at one end a vanity sat with a mirror so large it appeared it might topple from its moorings. It was a full length mirror, ringed in silver, reflecting back everything in the room. She pulled her legs from the covers and stepped onto the floor. It was a touch chilly and at the thought, a fire sprang up in the grate at the far side of the room. Melina stepped back a moment in shock. She was still wearing her clothes but she was alone in a strange room in an even stranger place where she recognized nothing. Turning, she looked to the head of the bed and there, leering over it, was a detailed skull woven as a tapestry. It seemed so real that it might jump up from the fabric and descend upon her. Melina stepped away from it as well.

  A door opened and Melina turned to look at it. A woman strode in, the twin of her mother Phoebe. She had her dark hair coiled at the base of her skull with two twinkling straight pins in it. Her gray dress hung from her shoulders and fluttered with her movements. She came to the vanity and sat down, uncoiling her hair until it also hung heavy about her shoulders. Then she began to brush the length of it. Melina walked toward her and said,

  "Hello?"

  The woman did not respond. The brush made slight singing sounds against her hair.

  "Hello?" Melina tried again, but there was nothing. She stood there in the mirror watching this woman and the woman made no effort at all to ask her why she was there or what she was doing. Melina watched. She had seen this woman before, fleeing through the rain. She had been the one in the dream leaving behind the baby. It had to have been her. Melina wanted to rush forward and grab her shoulders but nothing could make her move any further. She sought the motion, but it was as if her limbs were encased in concrete, she couldn't so much as wiggle a finger any longer. Her mouth wouldn't open to allow her to speak. Now she was simply a spectator.

  The woman finished brushing her hair and proceeded to wipe her face with her hands once, then twice. She batted her eyelashes in the mirror before standing up. It was only then that Melina could see the slight rounding at her waist. She was carrying a child now. Fighting all the harder, Melina sought to speak. The words were there on her tongue a warning against those who might do this one harm. Why? Because she felt a kinship to this woman. She looked like Phoebe, she had given up a baby. She could have been Melina's mother.

  The words wouldn't come.

  The woman moved from her place, walking out of the room on silent sandals and Melina was pulled along as though she were caught in the current of the woman's motions. They traveled down a hallway, other tapestries rich in color around them. The sound of her footsteps sounded like light pattering. They turned a corridor then another and came to a large door, well decorated with studs. It opened into another hall, this one dark with a few globes of white light decorating along its length. There were no windows. Melina slid along the hall as the woman practically skipped. She came to the door at the end of the hall, another great high door. With a touch, the door opened to her hand.

  The sitting room within was dominated by pillows in pastels of rose and yellow and blue. The chairs that sat among the cushions w
ere highbacked and seemed very hard in comparison. The room smelled of lilies and roses. The woman moved through the room and into another. This room was dominated by a bed with posts so heavy they stretched towards the ceiling. A man sat on the bed with a book in his hand. He looked up with a smile when he noticed her and opened his arms to the woman.

  Melina could only stop and wonder at why her mother was meeting with Death in so private a place.

  The room lost its distinctness as the entire scene seemed to melt before her. She started to wake, and the whole thing took on the air of nothing but a dream, wiped away by morning.

  After leaving her Aunt, Christina went to find herself some free space so she could think. Not that she felt much of a compulsion not to take the ring, which was responsible for the death of her father, but because she wasn't certain of what her aunt wanted out of it. To say she didn't trust the older woman would be an understatement. Her father had told her time and again never to trust her aunts because they had their own way about them and they would cut down anyone who was in their way. That was probably the only reason she had agreed to steal the ring anyway, because it would give her a strong piece of leverage against her aunts and Melina who couldn't possibly be trusted to keep that kind of power anyway. With a flip of her hair, Christina turned her back on the house and headed out into the woods. It was more peaceful out under the trees and she wouldn't be seen unless someone came looking.

  Several yards back into the encapsulating darkness of the heavy boughs of Brevan, Christina stopped and sat down. Closing her eyes, she whispered the words to summon a small ball of light from her palms. It was an easy spell and she accomplished it with little fanfare. Then she said,

  "Dad, I don't know what to do."

  The ball floated at eye level, a tennis ball of golden light.

  "Aunt Pauline is up to something and she's dragging me into the middle of it. I want to do it." The ball sank a little lower until it was throat height. "But I can't be sure what's going on."

  The wind whispered through the trees above her, rattling some of the branches together like a wind chime. With a slow deep breath, Christina continued. "I have the chance to take away her magic, maybe even avenge you." The metallic taste in her mouth could only be what that vengeance would taste like. It was sour and made her feel a little queasy. "I could take her life like she took yours."

  It was an inspiring thought, knowing how Melina would look on in terror as the very power she had used was turned against her. Christina rubbed her hands together to warm her fingers before reaching out to grab the ball. "I should do this."

  Though she often summoned the ball to give her a focus while she spoke to her father, now long gone into the realm of the dead, it was no link between them. It was just a ball of light, a parlor trick most of the young cousins could do with little trouble. One of their favorite games was to make them in multiple colors and then explode them against things into fireworks. She received no guidance from it, just her own words ringing back to her. That made it very easy to find counsel. She would do whatever she pleased and the consequences be damned.

  She squashed the globe between her hands, disintegrating it into a dozen star-like sparkles and got up from where she sat. Looking toward the house she could just barely make out the edges of the building. She would wait until her cousin was asleep, then she'd go in and steal the ring just like her aunt asked. After that, if Melina resisted, she would turn the ring on her. If she let it happen without a word, Christina would spare her life. It seemed only fair.

  Christina wiped away the touch of grass from her jeans and headed back toward the house. There were hours to waste before she could move and she had homework to do.

  Night fell heavy around the manor house, the few children still awake seeking their beds for a good night's rest before the next day of school. Christina was down at the kitchen table, her books in front of her though she hadn't opened one in hours. It was all for show so that the others would leave her alone and think she was studying when what she was really doing was waiting for the house to quiet down enough for her to do what she planned. She hadn't seen Melina that afternoon, but since she hadn't she knew exactly where she was, hiding out in the room they used to share.

  Her room. Christina picked up a pencil and doodled on the edge of a piece of paper hard. It was her room. Melina was just some foundling Mother had taken pity on. She didn't deserve a room of her own. But then she didn't deserve a family like this either. She should have been left wherever the Mother found her. Christina had heard the story many times over the years how Melina had been found at a church as nothing more than a baby with strange powers and how the Mother had, in her wisdom, chosen to bring the child up among her own family. Christina had only been a baby then as well. They might have grown up as friends, if it weren't for the fact that Melina didn't belong. While she thought little of her other cousins, it was Melina who was always the one to draw her ire. Now she was staying in the room that belonged to Christina. She wasn't going to let that stand.

  The house grew dark, everyone seeking their rooms. Christina could and probably would spend her night on the couch, she didn't want to share space with the foundling anymore than Melina wanted to share space with her. But that night, she made her way up the creaking staircase, careful of every step, and went to the room they had shared.

  Melina lay half curled in a blanket, her books still on the floor where she'd left them. Christina sniffed at the mess. Melina couldn't even be trusted to keep her room clean. The blond girl stepped across the floor, each footstep placed so as not to disturb the other girl. Melina didn't stir. There Christina paused. Melina could rot her to her bones with a touch. Christina didn't want to make contact with her skin if she could avoid it, but she needed something that would allow her to twist that ring off her finger.

  She could see it there in the light, silver laid against the darkness of Melina's hair. The skull sat with its mouth wide. Christina could even see the tiniest suggestion of fangs in its mouth. With furtive glances, Christina looked around for something she could use to shield herself from her cousin's powers. She found a shirt on the edge of the bed which Melina wasn't sleeping in and shoved her hand through it to make it into a glove. Moving into position, she lightly moved Melina's hand and froze waiting for some kind of reaction. Nothing happened. Christina took a hold of the ring through the shirt and tried to twist it free but the fabric slipped along the surface despite her efforts.

  Cursing under her breath, Christina tried again. This time she felt the ring begin to turn. She had the skull under her thumb and her fingers underneath the ring turning it ever so slightly. However, though it would turn it refused to be pulled from its place on Melina's hand. It was turning, it practically spun in place but every time Christina tried to yank it off, it wouldn't budge. Sitting back on her heels, Christina tried to think her way through things.

  "Why would Aunt Pauline send me to steal a ring that can't be stolen?"

  Looking down on her cousin, Christina contemplated that question. Rewrapping the shirt around her hand, she reached for the ring again. Beneath her, Melina's chest rose, fell, and then did not rise again though Christina didn't notice. The ring, which had simply spun, began to slide, coming off with Christina's grip. It was so sudden that she nearly sat down on Melina's leg. The ring was off Melina's hand.

  It lay in a perfect circle in Christina's covered hand, the skull head wide mouthed and hungry looking. She had it. Then she clamped her hand closed over it. With quick eyes she looked around as if to see someone looking at her. No one was awake to know what she had done.

  Then came the muffled laughter. It seeped out from between her fabric covered fingers, a mellow boisterous laugh of amusement. Christina opened her hand and the skull was laughing, the jaw moving up and down as fluidly as though it weren't made of metal. Clamping her hands closed over it, Christina tried to stop it but it just kept going.

  Below, Melina's chest rose and her eyes sta
rted to open. Christina took a step back from her and caught her heel on one of Melina's textbooks. Stumbling backward, she threw out her hands to protect herself and the ring fell. Melina sat up, rubbing her eyes. Christina darted from the room on her knees to avoid Melina's gaze. The girls didn't see each other and Melina sat there a moment before she too heard the laughter. She oriented toward it and quickly picked the ring up off the floor.

  "How?" she questioned as she fitted the ring back on her finger. "First strange dreams and then you decide to go on a field trip. That's enough for one night."

  Out in the hallway, Christina sat against the wall. Throwing her head back with a small thump, she huffed through her nose. She had been so close. Padding away, she headed for the living room and the couch she would be sleeping on. No use in dwelling on what she had done wrong. The chance was gone.

  Awake in her own room, watching through the mirror, Pauline cursed. The fool girl had been so close. So very close, but she'd lost it at the last moment. If only she had been a touch more agile. Blanking the mirror, Pauline laid down in her bed and switched off the light. She would have a word with her niece tomorrow. They would try again and this time she would have that ring.

  10

  Brewing Trouble

  It had been three days, a long three days, since Melina had returned to Sun City High School wreathed in flames. Three days because she wasn't ready to go back yet, nor was the building safe enough to admit students. Those who had gone to the hospital were not all out, one remained, though several others had been released. The last, a boy by the name of Arther Merrick, was in critical condition. His backpack had caught, along with his jacket and his hair. According to some more graphic reports a large portion of his face had fallen victim to the fire. Melina didn't want to think about how that was going to effect the rest of his life, much less his high school career. Her head, on that day at least, was full of just getting through the day.