by E J Elwin
I didn’t know what to say, so I shoveled some more mashed potatoes into my mouth.
“She would have been so proud, so excited to meet you. Imagine, her own daughter stumbling onto one of the Sacred Four!” I only nodded as I chewed my potatoes. It was so weird to hear myself being talked about as some sort of fairy tale character from the folklore of witches. “There was no stumbling involved, of course,” Harriet added.
I looked up at her. I swallowed my potatoes and finally spoke. “What do you mean?”
“It was no accident that we met,” she said. “We were meant to find each other in Wineville. I was meant to hear your cries for help, to reach out and meet you. We were fated to end up here in Seaside, where I’m sure we’ll find the three girls of the Sacred Four.”
“Fated?” I asked.
“Well, think about it,” she said. “Isn’t it incredibly lucky that we met? Of all the places in the world I could have been living for the past nearly two decades, I chose Wineville, where you’ve lived your whole life. You needed help, and I was there to hear your call, right at the time in your life where you were about to discover your gift and your destiny as one of the Sacred Four. Now you have me, Jessica, and Jasper to tell you all about it, and help you learn the craft and master your powers.”
“You think this was all fate?” I asked. “That it was all supposed to happen this way?”
“Of course it was,” she said.
“So Connor was meant to die? Twice?”
Her face fell. “Arthur, terrible things often happen to good people. It’s painful and unfair, and there isn’t always a reason for it, but in this case, there definitely is. In it’s way, yes, Connor’s death, both of them, played a huge part in leading you to your destiny.”
I stared at her. I could think of nothing else to say except: “That’s fucked up.”
“I know it is,” she said. “I’m sorry. But everything that’s happened, the Brotherhood killing Connor and those other people in Portland, all the people they’ve killed throughout the centuries, you have the power to right it. You can stop them from inflicting that kind of pain on other people. You and your sisters have the power to stop them.”
“Sisters?” I repeated, dazed. “I don’t even know them.”
“You will,” she said, and her eyes shined in the dim light. “Even now, the four of you are more bonded than you can even imagine.”
I was silent. I took some grapes from the side of fruit on the tray for something to do.
“Jessica was right about finding them as soon as possible. We should do it tonight.”
I coughed and nearly choked on a grape. Harriet thumped me on the back.
“To-tonight?” I sputtered.
“Sure,” she said. “There’s no time to waste.”
“But— but—” I said, stalling for time, “how do we even find them?”
“It’s simple,” she said. “All we need is your blood, just a tiny bit.”
“My blood?” I asked, confused. “I thought that tracking spells needed the blood of the person you’re looking for?”
“Generally, that’s true,” she said, “except within covens. If a witch is part of a coven, she can always use her own blood to find her sisters. It’s very useful and one of the perks of being in a coven. You and your sister witches haven’t had your Bonding Ceremony yet, haven’t even met, but I’m sure it’ll work. There has probably never been a more powerfully bonded group of witches in history.”
Her eyes were alight with excitement, the same way Jessica looked when she’d described my gift of conjuring fire. I hesitated. “Um, I need to take a bath,” I said. “I smell like seaweed.”
“Of course! There’s a really nice bathroom down the hall.” She went to the tall wooden wardrobe against the wall and opened it. There, hanging from the same wire hanger as that morning, was the red bathrobe. “It’s been washed,” she said, as she handed it to me.
I followed her past the many closed doors to the end of the hallway. To the right, there was a staircase that led up to the third floor, and to the left there was a plain white door like all the others along the hall. Harriet reached for the curvy brass doorknob and pushed the door open.
It was a really nice bathroom. It was about three times the size of the bathroom at my parents’ house, and all white, like the bedroom down the hall, only here the floor was made up of tiny white tiles. There was a gleaming old-fashioned sink with shiny silver fixtures, and a large oval-shaped vanity mirror above it. An elegant antique-style tub with silver clawed feet sat beside a wide rectangular window that, in the daylight, would offer a stunning view of the ocean. It looked like the bathroom of a luxury suite in a very chic, very expensive hotel.
Harriet turned on the bath and tested the water with her fingers, then turned to me. “I’ll go see about getting you some clothes. I’m sure Jasper has something for you to wear, though he’s not exactly your size. Maybe we’ll conjure you some clothes…”
“Thank you, Harriet.”
“Relax, enjoy your bath, then we’ll get started on that tracking spell.” She crossed to the door and grasped the brass handle, but then looked back at me. “I know things are scary right now, but you’re in for a great adventure. Tonight, you’re going to witness something incredible.”
I gave the best smile I could muster, and nodded. She turned and left, closing the door behind her. I stood against the door, listening to her footsteps as she walked back down the hallway. When I was sure she had gone back downstairs, I quietly locked the door.
**
I stood in front of the large oval vanity mirror, examining every detail of my face. I had dark circles under my eyes, but those had always been there, even when I was little. People often looked at them and asked if I was sick or tired. I told them no, that was just the way my face was.
I looked at my eyes, which were a slightly lighter shade of brown than my hair. I’d always thought of brown as a boring and common eye color. Connor had told me early on in our relationship that he thought my eyes were beautiful. I had scoffed in disbelief.
“They’re nothing like yours,” I had said, referring to his stunning ocean blue eyes.
“Well, no,” he had responded. “Yours are warm. Mine are cold.”
I had never thought of it that way. He had gone on to list all the comforting things he said my eyes reminded him of: chocolate bars, caffè mochas, gingerbread cookies. I had laughed myself silly because of course, in true Connor fashion, it all had to do with food. He would look at me and see things no one else could, not even me, and he loved what he saw. How incredible, how unimaginably wonderful it had been to be seen and loved by him.
Now, it was over.
I pulled open the vanity mirror and found three small white shelves. There was a tube of toothpaste, some eye drops, some tweezers, a small glass bottle of perfume that was nearly empty, some lip balm… and a pair of nail scissors.
I took the nail scissors and the nearly empty perfume bottle and closed the mirror. I poured out the last few drops of perfume into the sink and rinsed out the bottle. Then I opened the nail scissors and dragged one of the gleaming blades across my left palm, making a cut about an inch long. Blood oozed out of the wound, and I closed my hand into a fist and held it over the empty perfume bottle, shaking out the drops of blood into the small opening.
I paused and scrutinized the blood. It was a very small amount for such a deep cut. I brought the scissors to my left wrist, dragging the blade across the area just below my palm where blue veins were visible. A bright red droplet of blood bloomed out of the intersection of veins, and I held it over the bottle opening. In very little time, there was a solid inch of blood and I decided it was enough. I rinsed the tiny spray nozzle and put it back into the bottle, twisted it tightly closed, then placed the bottle on the sink next to the faucet. Then I turned to the bathtub.
I turned off the water, pulled off the red robe and climbed into the tub, lowering myself gently into the
warm water and lying back against the porcelain. I looked out at the sky beyond the window, at the ocean I knew was there but was hard to see in the night and through the glare from the bathroom lights. The water around me was turning pink from the blood now flowing freely out of the wounds on my left palm and wrist. I lowered myself into the water until it was up to my chin and then my lips. I lay there for a moment, watching the water become slowly more and more red. Then I went under.
I kept my eyes closed and held my breath. It was human instinct, programmed into us over millions of years of evolution, to fight to stay alive. The fact ran hazily across my brain as I hovered there in a murky red limbo, and I worried for a second if maybe that instinct would keep me from my goal. After all, there was no instruction manual for how to properly drown oneself.
I remembered holding my breath when I was little, when I and those same neighborhood kids I had first knocked on Harriet’s door with, would compete to see who could hold their breath the longest. After a short while without air, I’d felt dizzy and not entirely there. I had always forfeited the game and taken a breath before I passed out. This time, I wouldn’t. When I could no longer hold it, my lungs would take in bloody bathwater. I would pass out, permanently.
I lay there in my soon-to-be bloody wet grave, feeling surprisingly calm. There was no sadness, no fear, only the promise of peace. I felt the world falling away around me, and could no longer hold my breath. Dazed and half gone, I said goodbye to the world and finally inhaled.
**
A shining bright light dazzled my eyes. I couldn’t see anything else.
“Arthur?”
“Connor?” I couldn’t see him. The light was too bright. But I could feel his arms around me, could hear his heartbeat. I was overcome with joy. I was free. I was with him again. I saw blue eyes coming out of the light… but they weren’t happy. They were afraid and full of pain. I wondered why. How could he be in pain when we had left the terrors of the world behind?
I felt a jolt in my chest, a cold sucking feeling, like my heart was being torn out through my throat, then I was choking. I coughed and warm liquid poured out of my mouth. A painful, stabbing breath entered my lungs. I still had lungs. I could still breathe. I was alive. I had failed.
The bright light flickered and the blue eyes came into focus. They were a lighter blue than Connor’s. I blinked. They were Harriet’s.
“Arthur?” It had been her voice calling my name, her arms holding me, her heartbeat that I had heard. It had been she who had gotten the water out of my lungs.
I opened my eyes wider. The bright light hadn’t been some otherworldly glow; it came from the lightbulbs in the bathroom. I lay on the tile floor, cold and soaked and completely naked. I looked up, taking shaky breaths, and saw Harriet looking down at me. As soon as she saw me looking back at her, she pulled me to her, not caring that I was dripping with blood-tinged water or that I wasn’t wearing anything. Then she made a sound unlike any I had ever heard from her: a sob, a deep, wrenching cry that brought me rocketing back to earth, to the reality of my life and the inescapable pain of it all.
“How could you do this?” she sobbed. “You can’t leave us. It’s not your time to go.”
I held onto her as she cried, and shame coursed through me like bile. Shame for causing her such pain, shame for making her walk in on such a hideous scene. Yet, despite these feelings, I found that I still wished I had succeeded, that I had died in the tub— and I hated myself for it. I shuddered and fell apart in her arms, clinging to her the way a child clings to its mother and weeping with abandon, letting all the pain, all the guilt, all the hopelessness spill out of me in a deluge of despair. I was at rock bottom, no longer just fractured, but shattered into jagged pieces.
I saw, through swollen eyes, Jessica standing at the bathroom door which had been thrown open. She gazed down at this terrible sight, tears falling silently from her green eyes.
**
“How did you know?” I asked.
We were in the living room. I sat in one of the four armchairs around the wood and crystal coffee table, sipping from a glass of whiskey. Harriet and Jessica sat across from me in two of the other armchairs with their own glasses. Jasper sat to my right in the fourth chair, still meditating, as quiet and motionless as he had been that morning when I first saw him. He still hadn’t moved or said a word in my presence, but I had moved past waiting for him to wake up.
“How did you know what was happening?”
“The candles,” said Harriet, gesturing around the room at the various white candles perched on the wooden end tables. “They went crazy. Flames a foot in the air out of nowhere. The fireplace also went wild. We knew right away it was because of you.”
“Looks like your gift saved you from drowning too,” said Jessica. “Indirectly, at least.”
“To say that it wasn’t your time to go is the understatement of the century,” said Harriet. “I’ve never seen candles behave that way on their own.”
I took a sip of whiskey and looked down at the clothes Jessica had given me to wear, a baggy t-shirt with the words “Harley Davidson” on it above a picture of a motorcycle, and some loose-fitting sweatpants. They belonged to Jasper and were at least four sizes too big, but I didn’t mind. I no longer wanted to be in the red bathrobe.
“What is this, by the way?” Jessica asked.
I looked up and saw that she was holding the perfume bottle of blood. I glanced at Harriet and then back down at my drink. “I was leaving it for you to use,” I said. “For the tracking spell. To find the three girls in the Sacred Four. Harriet told me the spell would need my blood.”
Harriet took a shaking sip of her drink. Jessica looked at me thoughtfully.
“And why did you do that?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, why did it matter?” she asked. “What difference would it have made to you if we found them or not?” Her tone wasn’t angry or aggressive. It was more like she was asking an intellectual question about a topic she was curious about.
“Um, well—” I struggled to word my answer, “you said we should find them as soon as possible because the Brotherhood will know about the Sacred Four…”
“And?” she prompted me.
“I, well I—” I stammered, “I didn’t want them to die.”
“That’s good!” she said with a smile. “That’s good that you understood the danger and that you thought to help. You seemed to have forgotten about the we part, though. I said we should find them. That included you.”
“Well, that’s why— that’s why I left the blood…” I said in a small voice.
“And it didn’t occur to you,” she said, “that by checking out on us, you would be putting them that much more at risk? It’s the Sacred Four, not the Sacred Three.”
I looked down again.
“I’m not saying this to be mean, sweetie,” she said gently. “I just want you to understand how important you are. Your life, as a young man, as a witch, as one of the Sacred Four, has untold value. These gifts came to you for a reason. You must feel it on some level or you wouldn’t have spilled some of your blood to help these girls you haven’t even met.”
I considered her words. As broken as I was, as ready as I had been to drown upstairs, I had still felt a compulsion to help these unknown girls. It was hard to understand how that feeling could exist simultaneously with my desire to die, to leave the world forever without actually having met them.
“I know how much it hurts to lose someone,” said Jessica. “I lost my mother at a young age. Harriet and I both did. There were so many days where I felt like I couldn’t live with the pain, but it is possible to heal. People do it all the time. You want to know how?”
I looked up at her.
“With the help of their loved ones,” she said. “With friends and family. Even someone who feels they are completely alone in the world always has the chance to go out and make a new friend. You, though, are far fro
m alone. You have us. You have Jasper, even though he hasn’t opened his friggin’ eyes around you yet. And you have your sisters.”
I took a sip of whiskey. The truth was, as horrible as it had been to watch Harriet cry over my near drowning, and as much as I believed that both she and Jessica genuinely cared about me, I couldn’t stop myself from feeling like the world was too painful a place to live in anymore. I still wasn’t equipped to climb the mountain. I was still broken. I had not been magically put back together in the time since they found me in the tub.
“You still want to die, don’t you?” asked Jessica. I was startled at both the bluntness of her question and at how she seemed to read my mind. “I’m not reading your mind,” she said, ironically saying exactly what I was thinking. “I can just tell. You still want to die.”
I stared at her, dumbfounded at her powers of intuition, magical or not. She wasn’t asking. She knew. I looked at Harriet and could tell that she knew too. Her eyes became glassy with tears again and I looked away, unable to bear the pain I was causing her.
“Take my gifts,” I said. “One of you can take my place in the Sacred Four.”
“It doesn’t work that way, sweetie,” said Jessica softly.
I shook my head, still unable to look either of them in the eye. There was nothing more for me to say. They already knew the truth of what I was feeling.
“What if I told you,” Jessica said, “you could see Connor again? Tonight?” My heart skipped a beat. She didn’t look like she was joking, and it would be a very cruel joke if she was.
“Jessica,” said Harriet warningly. “We talked about this.”
I glanced at Harriet who looked uneasy, then back at Jessica. “See him? What do you mean?”
“There’s a spell,” she said, “that allows a witch to visit the spiritual realm between the land of the living, where we are, and the land of the dead. It’s a place where souls go after they die but before they move on to their ultimate destination. We call it The Halfway Place.”
“That’s where Connor is?”