The Secret of the Sacred Four

by E J Elwin

  “I didn’t do that!” I said quickly. “There was a spell on it or something, I didn’t do it.” I didn’t know why I sounded so defensive.

  “It’s fine,” said Harriet. “I’m sure it’s Deidre’s idea of a cute party invitation.”

  “I thought Arthur torched her!” said Lizzie, looking stricken.

  “She must have power over other swans,” said Jessica. “I’ve never known anyone with the gift of shapeshifting but it makes sense. The swan Arthur killed in the woods was just an ordinary black swan that Deidre forced to do her bidding.”

  Lizzie made a noise of pity and my stomach turned with guilt, which then became disgust at Deidre for turning an innocent swan into her kamikaze slave.

  “Looks like you were right, Hortensia,” said Jessica. “It was too easy.”

  There was a moment of foreboding silence and then Jasper spoke. “Someone’s about to take out the trash,” he said, indicating the metal door.

  We all jumped, clearly having forgotten that we were standing right outside a crowded restaurant with four dead bodies at our feet. “Stand back,” said Harriet.

  We all moved to stand behind her as she put her hands out over the four bodies. She clenched her hands into fists rather than her usual open palms, then slowly raised her arms, looking like she was lifting a barbell at the gym. The four dead men and their guns rose into the air, and then Harriet steered them in a neat line toward an opening in the trees.

  We followed her up the hill, the four men gliding stiffly in front of her as if they were being carried on invisible stretchers. A loud metallic thumping noise from the lot down below told us that someone had just thrown a heavy trash bag into the garbage can.

  “Your gift is amazing,” Hortensia told Jasper. “If you guys hadn’t come here and warned us…”

  “Thank you,” said Jasper. “But it was actually Arthur who had the vision.”

  They all stopped to look at me in surprise. “How?” asked Jessica in amazement.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “It came to me in the Halfway Place…”

  Jessica started to ask another question but Harriet interrupted. “Let’s wait on Arthur’s story until after we bury these bodies, shall we?”

  “Of course!” said Jessica, hurrying to Harriet’s side. The four corpses dropped with muted thumps onto the leaf and twig strewn dirt. Harriet moved them into one pile, adjusting them with flicks of her hands like she was directing someone on how to straighten a picture frame on a wall.

  She and Jessica then put their arms out in front of them like they had in the woods when they buried ten times the amount of bodies. Just like then, the earth rose in a thin circle of dust around the men before thickening into a solid circular wall of dirt. At the same time, the ground beneath the bodies began to sink as the earth was rapidly scooped out of it.

  The dirt wall rose to the height of the surrounding tree branches, and a smooth dome-shaped hole about six feet deep took form in the ground. I thought again that it resembled a giant cereal bowl. Harriet and Jessica slowly lowered their arms and the dirt wall shrank back to the ground, flowing smoothly over the bodies like liquid. In seconds, the earth was back to the way it had looked when we found it. No one would ever know there were four witch hunters buried beneath the hill behind the charming Mexican restaurant by the sea.

  CHAPTER 24

  Through the Fire

  So what happened in the Halfway Place?” asked Jessica.

  We were back at the house, in the same seats in the living room where we had sat two nights ago when the girls first arrived. Jessica, Harriet, Sylvie, and I all had glasses of whiskey, while Hortensia and Lizzie had bottles of beer. Jasper was the only one with a non-alcoholic drink, gulping instead from a large mug of coffee. His eyes were no longer glowing blue lamps but they drooped with exhaustion. He had only just removed the Sight Heightening Spell after having ridden back from Huerta’s on his motorcycle. I had ridden with him because I was grateful for everything he’d done for us and didn’t want him to ride alone. Harriet had ridden with Jessica and the girls in the Mercedes, not wanting to take an unnecessary risk in flying when she didn’t have to. They all watched me with ardent gazes, eager to hear about what I’d seen in the Halfway Place.

  “It appeared on the moon,” I said. “There’s this big full moon in the Halfway Place, or at least there was in Connor’s section of it…” It was the first time I’d spoken his name since saying goodbye to him. I took a sip of whiskey and swallowed hard before continuing.

  I described to them everything I had seen in the vision on the moon’s surface; how the four Brotherhood members had torn through the restaurant killing anyone they saw; how each of them— Hortensia, Sylvie, and Jessica— had fought bravely against them in their own ways.

  “What about me?” asked Lizzie, sounding dispirited.

  “I’m sure you fought well too,” I said. “I just couldn’t see you.”

  “Oh, right,” she said.

  “Anyway, that’s when I came back,” I said. “That’s when Connor… when I came back.” I was nervous about admitting that I’d been on the brink of abandoning them. I wondered if I could get away with not mentioning it tonight.

  “But how did you stay there for so long?” asked Harriet. “I clocked you at seventy-four minutes. I’ve never heard of a traveling soul being recovered after so long. You should have died. Jasper and I thought you did… but you had a pulse. Your heart was beating, just barely…”

  Her eyes shined with tears and I felt nauseous with shame. I owed it to her, to all of them, to tell the truth, to own up to my actions.

  “I was going to stay with Connor,” I said quietly.

  Sylvie, Lizzie, and Hortensia all gasped in shock. The three adults were silent but looked equally dismayed.

  “He was about to move on,” I said, looking down at my whiskey. “He told me that it was time for him to leave the Halfway Place and go… beyond. This ship came. This giant old ship with these big sails, and he said it was going to take him to what came next. Then my hour was up, and I saw the light of the Crossing Crystals coming to take me back. And I just couldn’t… I couldn’t let him go. I pushed the light away and told him I was going with him…”

  Harriet wiped a tear from her eye and took a sip of her whiskey. I felt like I could actually be sick from the shame of seeing her expression. Then I realized that it wasn’t just my second brush with suicide that was upsetting her. She was the only person in the room besides me who had known Connor. Cared for him. She had brought him back to life, had given him a place to live. I remembered how happy the two of them had looked when I barged in on them while they were watching that Shirley Temple movie with a big bowl of popcorn…

  “We were about to get on the ship,” I pressed on, “and that’s when the vision appeared. Connor saw it with me. When it was over, I told him I had to come back. I freaked out because I thought I was dead, but then he told me I wasn’t. It turns out that one of our special new powers as the Sacred Four is we can survive being outside our bodies for longer than an hour— much longer, according to Connor.”

  “But how did he know that?” asked Harriet, astonished. They were all wide-eyed with fascination. Jasper’s mouth hung open, his tiredness apparently at bay for the time being.

  “There are voices that whisper in the Halfway Place,” I said, hearing how odd it sounded. “Connor wasn’t sure who exactly was whispering but they told him only things that were true— that it was called the Halfway Place, that I had survived the explosion because of my gift…”

  “I’ve heard whispers like that when I’ve gone,” said Jasper thoughtfully. “Living visitors to the Halfway Place aren’t meant to hear them the way the dead do, but I think Seers are an exception…”

  “They told Connor how I could get back here without the Crossing Crystal light,” I said. “The ocean around the building was a portal. I jumped into it to get back.”

  “Wow!” said Jasper. “I’ve ne
ver heard of anyone coming back that way!”

  “They did other things besides whisper,” I said. “They helped Connor plan a party…”

  I told them about the jukebox and lanterns on the roof; about Connor’s tuxedo and my clothes changing to match; about the candlelit table and champagne appearing out of nowhere; and even the swan-feather quill and sheet of paper that had popped up when I needed it.

  “After, he told me it was the best way he could think of to say goodbye…”

  I heard a sniffle and looked up to see tears falling down Lizzie’s face. The other girls and Jessica were equally misty-eyed. Jasper, however, looked lost in thought, his brow furrowed.

  “Wait a second…” he said, and then jumped to his feet. “I’ll be right back!” He dashed to the winding staircase and bounded up the steps two at a time like an excited child.

  “Be careful!” Jessica shouted after him, looking worried.

  We all stared after him curiously and sipped our drinks. Not even a minute later, we heard his heavy footfalls on the stairs again and looked up to see his flushed, excited face.

  “The third swan feather!” he gasped. “It’s gone!”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked nervously, imagining that Deidre had broken into the house and stolen it, even though I knew that was impossible.

  “It burned up!” he said. “There’s a small pile of ash up there!”

  When we all still looked confused, he huffed somewhat impatiently.

  “That’s how I cast the spell! That’s what I did to the feathers to get them to show us those visions! I burned them and dropped them into the cauldron. Somehow, Arthur was able to burn the feather with his gift and get it to show him the vision of the restaurant being attacked!”

  “But— how?” I asked. “I didn’t mean to. I wouldn’t have known how!”

  “You didn’t mean to survive the explosion in Portland,” said Jasper, “and you didn’t know how to teleport, but you did! This is the same. Your gift did it for you. It helped you defy death— again! It helped you help others defy death!”

  “Holy crap,” said Hortensia, watching me as if I were some rare other being.

  “It’s incredible magic,” said Jasper fervently, pacing back and forth. “You not only set the feather on fire and commanded a vision out of it from down here in the living room, but you also did it from another realm, and brought the vision to you there! On the face of the moon, of all places! It’s impressive, very impressive…”

  It was nice to be complimented but I felt a stirring of insecurity like I had after the teleporting. It was hard to own these extraordinary acts when I hadn’t made the conscious choice to perform them.

  “How can I do so much without meaning to?” I asked.

  “Your gift, the Secret of the Sacred Four, is the ability to defy death,” said Jasper. “It started with defying death by execution, but now it includes other things like death by suicide.”

  The girls shifted uncomfortably but Jasper was unfazed.

  “I don’t believe that you had no part in it, though,” he went on. “On some unconscious level, you must have wanted to survive. Somewhere inside, you knew that you were meant to keep living, to help people. That’s why you chose to come back. That’s why you—”

  Suddenly, his eyes became unfocused and he swayed alarmingly, as if he’d gone from sober to massively drunk from one second to the next.

  “Jasper—” Jessica began, frightened. His eyes closed and his mouth lolled open, then he tipped, falling forward like a board, straight onto the wood and crystal coffee table—

  Harriet’s drink went flying onto the rug as she threw out her hands to catch him. His face was inches from the crystal surface of the coffee table when he froze abruptly in midair.

  Harriet sighed in relief, her palms outstretched. She stood up and then moved her palms upward like she was picking up an invisible baby. Jasper rose back into a standing position, stiff as a board, looking like a knocked-down door being raised back into its frame. Harriet slowly lowered him backward onto the soft rugs with their swirling patterns of blue and purple.

  The rest of us were nearly as stiff as Jasper from the shock of what happened. Lizzie’s hand was characteristically clutched to her chest. Jessica had risen halfway from her seat and was tightly gripping the arms of her chair. She reached out and took Harriet’s hand in both of hers.

  “Thank you, Harriet,” she breathed.

  “Is he okay?” asked Lizzie, looking anxiously down at Jasper. “He looks really pale—” The rest of her words were drowned out by a loud noise that sounded like a foghorn, and I realized it was Jasper snoring. I was flooded with relief as I watched his chest rise up and down. He definitely wasn’t dead.

  “He’ll be fine,” said Jessica over her brother’s snores. “That second Sight Heightening Spell just drained him. They’re dangerous enough as it is but two in two days…”

  I looked down at the sleeping Jasper and felt a stab of guilt. He had been up helping Harriet send me to the Halfway Place when he should have been sleeping. Then he had cast the Sight Heightening Spell to get us both to Huerta’s safely on his motorcycle because I didn’t know how to fly a broomstick yet, and hadn’t found command over my power of teleportation either…

  “I’m going to take him up to bed,” said Harriet. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  She clenched her hands into fists like she had when she lifted the four men outside Huerta’s, and did the same barbell motion. Jasper stiffened again and floated up smoothly from the ground to the height of Harriet’s waist. He reminded me unpleasantly of a dead body, and I was grateful for his continuing loud snores as Harriet levitated him toward the winding staircase.

  We all watched him glide up the stairs as though it would be rude to get back to our drinks until he was out of sight. He and Harriet reached the second floor, then she steered him toward the staircase at the end of the hall. Jessica looked sentimental as she watched them go.

  “She carried him up the stairs a lot when he was little,” she said. “Any time she was visiting and he fell asleep down here, she’d carry him up to his room. She showed us her memories of it in the Illusion Room. After a while, I’m sure he started to fake it just so she would carry him.”

  The girls looked touched by this recollection. It was heartwarming to imagine a little Jasper wanting to be carried by Harriet. Again, like when Jessica told us about the naming of the Broom Room, I imagined a little boy even though I knew Jasper had looked female at the time.

  We all sipped our drinks and then Lizzie looked down at Harriet’s fallen glass on the rug. “I’ll pick that up,” she said, starting to rise from her seat.

  “Oh sweetie, don’t worry about it,” said Jessica. “This house is self-cleaning, remember? I will pour Harriet another drink, though…” She rose from her chair and went to the kitchen.

  I thought of the magic Jasper had worked on the house to make the rooms clean themselves. He had such talent with witchcraft. If he were in my place, he almost certainly would have mastered his powers by now, would probably be teleporting all over town…

  Jessica returned with a new cocktail glass just as Harriet came down the winding staircase.

  “He’s nice and tucked in,” she said. “He definitely shouldn’t cast any more Sight Heightening Spells for a while. We’ll probably need an air horn to wake him up for breakfast in the morning…” She gratefully accepted the fresh glass of whiskey Jessica poured for her, took a healthy gulp from it, then sighed. “Now, what to do about this traitor witch…”

  “How did she get a thirteenth heart?” asked Sylvie. “I thought all witches were on alert?”

  “Those are just the witches we know,” said Harriet. “She could still have found another one somewhere… But I don’t believe she did. I don’t believe she has the thirteenth heart.”

  The girls and I looked at her in surprise.

  “It’s obviously a trap,” she said calmly. “Her lit
tle invitation to the cemetery on Tuesday night is just a ploy to get the four of you to go there so she and what’s left of the Brotherhood can have another go at you. She sent that swan into the woods because she knew she wouldn’t be able to take us on. I’m sure she kept that boyfriend of hers away too. She watched it all happen from the sky. That’s how she knew about the force field. Pretty little bubble, she called it?”

  “But how do you know for sure she doesn’t have the thirteenth heart?” I asked.

  “Well, think about it,” she said. “If they have the thirteenth heart, why let you know? Why not just cast the Malevolent spell and then attack us afterward when they have their demonic powers? Why give you the time and place of the spell so you can show up and stop it? They obviously still need the thirteenth heart and they’re hoping to make it one of yours.”

  “That does make sense,” said Hortensia.

  “But if we beat them already,” said Sylvie, “what makes her think this time will be different?”

  “They must have something new,” said Harriet. “Some weapon they didn’t have before.”

  “What could that be?” asked Lizzie, looking like she was imagining untold horrors.

  I thought back to the Brotherhood’s letter. There had been something different there…

  “The surprise guest,” said Jessica.

  As soon as she said it, I saw the curly black letters clearly in my mind: Festivities will be held at Seaside Cemetery… with a special appearance by a surprise guest.

  “It has to be someone we know,” said Jessica. “Someone associated with one of us, someone important. The Brotherhood doesn’t really know anything about Jasper and me, or about any of you girls. That only leaves Harriet and Arthur…”

  Ice filled my veins as I realized who the surprise guest was. Someone important. Harriet never talked about close friends of hers other than Jessica and Jasper, and she didn’t have any immediate family nearby… I did. And the Brotherhood knew exactly where they lived.