by Ian Fortey
The backdoor of the bakery opened. Mary-Ann continued her cupcake frosting. The customers seemed utterly ravenous for them, and they were selling them faster than they could bake them. She needed to focus.
“Is everything okay?” Mary-Ann asked.
“It is not,” Selena’s voice answered.
Mary-Ann looked up, piping bag in hand. Vincent Donnelly stood in the doorway where she had expected Abigail. But around the kitchen, on every stainless-steel surface, she did not see the man that had stolen her sister’s powers. She saw Selena.
Mary-Ann dropped the piping bag. She instinctively pulled on her primal energies to defend herself. The man raised his hand.
“Sister, please. Look at me. Truly look,” Selena said.
“I don’t understand,” Mary-Ann said quietly, her voice shaking. The man smiled.
“That makes two of us. I need your help, Mary-Ann. You and Charlotte and Sandra. I need to know... are you still my sisters?”
“Of course. Of course, we are! Why would you…?” She moved to approach the man but stopped herself. Hearing Selena’s voice in the man’s mouth was confusing. It didn’t make sense.
“This man did not murder me,” Selena said. “Know this. I swear it before the Goddess to be true. He is not my killer and to punish him for it is wrong.”
“But how? How does he have your power?”
“He does not, Mary-Ann. I have the power. That’s what you sense in him. It is me. It is all of me. My spirit is locked in this shell. I need your help to be free.”
“Abigail will be able to—”
“No,” Selena said, cutting her off. “I tried to go to Abigail already, at the house. She has changed, Mary-Ann. You must have seen it.”
“What do you mean?” Mary-Ann asked.
Abigail would have to know if Selena was here. She could help free her spirit. She would be over the moon to learn that their sister had not been destroyed as they feared.
“She has bonded herself to the spirit of Maggie Huxley. Abigail is using blood magic,” Selena said.
Mary-Ann shook her head. That was impossible. Abigail didn’t know blood magic. None of them did. And Maggie Huxley was long dead.
“Tell her about the cupcakes,” a man’s voice said from beyond the door. Vincent rolled his eyes.
“Who was that?” Mary-Ann asked. “And what about the cupcakes?”
“That is Desmond. He is... a friend. And he’s right. Look at what you’re making,” Selena said.
Mary-Ann glanced at the cupcakes on the table in front of her. There was nothing unexpected there. None of this made any sense.
“With Sight, Mary-Ann. Look at the enchantments weaved into the cake. They are cursed.”
“Cursed cupcakes?” Mary-Ann said, incredulous. “You are not Selena. She would know none of us would ever do that to people.”
“Not you. Abigail. Look and tell me I am wrong,” the man insisted in Selena’s voice.
Mary-Ann looked at one of the unfrosted red cakes. She lifted it before her face and weaved a tiny spell. Inside the cake, a glimmer of something blue sprang to life.
“The Withering Incantation,” Mary-Ann said as she stared at it. And something more. She turned the cake over, breaking it apart in her hands.
“A spell of Transference. But why? If people eat these…”
“Abigail is siphoning their life essence. She is using people to make herself stronger. She is killing them, bite by bite.”
Mary-Ann dropped the cupcake to the ground.
“But why? Why would she harm innocent—”
She faltered. She already knew the answer. She had heard Abby get worked up so many times lately, about the town and the tourists. She did not think they were innocent. Not one of them.
“I’ve eaten these,” Mary-Ann said. She’d eaten many. So had Charlotte and Sandra. So had hundreds of others. Abigail was being indiscriminate. It was cruelty that Mary-Ann had never seen in her before. A callous disregard for anyone.
“This is the work of Maggie Huxley?” Mary-Ann asked. The man nodded.
“Her spirit is angry. Fueled by blood magic. She wants everyone punished, and she is using Abby to do it.”
“She told us this man killed you! That he stole your power and we could reclaim it. That you would have wanted it that way,” Mary-Ann said. She felt the tears welling in her eyes. She called Abigail sister as she called every member of the coven sister. But she also meant it. She felt love for each and every one of them. She would have died for Abigail.
“Abby wants my power for herself. To add to her own, destroying me in the process. She plans to kill everyone who she feels has wronged the witches of this town stretching back through time to Maggie Huxley.”
Mary-Ann drew a deep breath. She knew Selena’s plan, what she wanted to do before she died. It was ambitious and, in Mary-Ann’s mind, impossible. To reach through time to save the women who were going to die. But Selena had explained it and had accounted for how it could be done. They would swap the women with enchantments, with soulless things that would stand in at the moment of death. History would record events exactly as it always did. And the women could be brought back to Burnham in the present to live new lives.
But Abigail’s plan would wreak havoc.
“What she wants is impossible.”
“I am not so sure anymore,” Selena said.
“Then it will unravel history. Unbalance time itself,” Mary-Ann said.
Selena nodded the man’s head.
“It will.”
“What will that mean?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t want to find out,” Selena said. She took a tentative step forward. Mary-Ann tensed but did not back away.
“Abigail has grown powerful, Mary-Ann. I need your help. We need to get her away from Maggie. Her spirit is not rational. Its anger will destroy us all.”
Mary-Ann sighed, trying to calm her nerves. Focus was what she needed. And some input from her sisters. It was clear Abby had been doing something to the baked goods. Maybe this man was telling the truth.
“I need to talk to Sandra and Charlotte,” Mary-Ann said. The man nodded.
“Of course,” he said in Selena’s voice. “But Abby knows we’ve escaped. She’ll be looking for me.”
Mary-Ann took a deep breath. She did not know how to manage a situation like this. This was something Selena, or Abigail, would have handled. But they were the problems now. It was more than Mary-Ann had thought she’d need to prepare for when she got up that morning.
“I need time to figure this out. Go to Widow’s Cave for now. It will be harder for her to detect your power there. I’ll talk to Charlotte and Sandra,” Mary-Ann said. The man smiled at her.
“Thank you, Mary-Ann.”
Mary-Ann nodded, taking another deep breath. She looked the man in the eye. She could feel Selena’s power on him. In him. She could still see Selena reflected in every surface of the room. She hoped she was doing the right thing here.
“If he didn’t kill you, who did?” Mary-Ann asked.
Selena sighed heavily and shook her head.
“I was… I wanted to be powerful. I wanted to be good. I thought if I tipped the scales too far in one direction, I could counteract it with an equal move to the opposite side. I believed that if I did something foolish and dangerous, it could be balanced by a good act, by saving Maggie Huxley and all the other women. But I was wrong.”
“You’re blaming yourself?” Mary-Ann said.
“I didn’t die by my own hand. But this man didn’t kill me.”
“Right. Okay, then,” Mary-Ann said.
“I’ll be waiting for you at the cave. Be careful, Mary-Ann.”
“You too,” Mary-Ann said.
The man slipped out the back door again, leaving Mary-Ann alone in the kitchen. She lifted another cupcake off of the table and then pushed through the double doors into the front of the shop.
Customers still swamped Sandra and Charlotte, the lineup was out the door.
“You bringing those red velvets out soon?” Sandra asked.
“We need to talk,” Mary-Ann said.
***
Vincent slipped out the back of the bakery into the alley behind. Dezzy was crouched next to the dumpster, his plastic bucket in hand, watching the mouth of the alley as passers-by came and went.
“No sign of her yet,” he said, referring to Abigail.
“Good. They’re going to meet us later when they can get away. It’s already late afternoon, it shouldn’t be long. We just have to lie low until then.”
“Ferris Wheel?” Dezzy suggested. Vincent shook his head.
“No, there’s a cave somewhere. Selena knows it.” He held up the mirror and looked at her.
“Widow’s Cave. It’s in the woods, just out of town. It’s the place where Maggie Huxley fled after the town accused her of witchcraft. There is power there that may be able to mask my own and keep us safe for a time. It’s also where Abby will want to go to perform the ritual to take my power, mind you.”
“That sounds... not so smart,” Dezzy said.
“It will empower my sisters, and me as well. It’s likely the best chance we have,” Selena said.
“Oh. Okay then,” Dezzy said. “Lead the way.”
“Back of the alley then down McNay Street, all the way out of town.”
Vincent and Dezzy followed Selena’s directions. The alley led to a fence they had to climb and then a shorter alley that ran behind some shops. McNay Street was busy, but nowhere near as busy as the main thoroughfare in town. As they walked farther away from the downtown area, the foot traffic leveled off until there was barely anyone in sight.
“Do you know how to separate Maggie and Abigail?” Vincent asked as they walked. He looked into the mirror, and Selena’s expression was thoughtful.
“Not really. I’ve never encountered anything like this before. But together we should be able to contain Maggie’s spirit and drive it off.”
“Could you separate any spirit that way?”
“You and me, you mean?” Selena asked.
“Me and Vincent,” Fix said.
“Oh. Perhaps. I am not even sure what you are.”
“What who is?” Dezzy asked.
Vincent waved a hand dismissively for a moment.
“He’s a person, like you.”
“Then he is dead,” Selena said.
“Who’s dead?” Dezzy asked.
“I don’t know what I am,” Fix answered.
“I can’t say what would happen. You could pass beyond the Veil. Or, perhaps, oblivion.”
Vincent shook his head. He did not want Fix to die. It sounded silly, especially since in all likelihood, he was a dead man already. But Fix had been helping him from the beginning. They didn’t even know his real name yet. Fix deserved to know who he was and how he ended up in that field then in Vincent’s head, as much as Selena and Vincent did.
“Vincent should not have so many people in his head. We’ll figure this out when we have stopped Abigail and Maggie,” Fix said.
“Oblivion isn’t a real place, by the way,” Dezzy said. “And all of it is technically beyond the Veil.”
“Right, sorry,” Vincent said. “We were just talking.”
“About the other guy in your head? No worries. It’s just confusing sometimes. Like listening to someone on the phone but you can’t hear the other guy on the phone.”
“The other guy?” Vincent asked.
“Not like we’re very subtle,” Fix said.
“Yeah, the other guy. The one you talk to sometimes. I can’t hear him, but you know... Was that supposed to be a secret?” Dezzy said.
Vincent laughed and shrugged. He had been keeping Fix a secret from both Dezzy and his uncle, but he wasn’t sure why anymore. At first, it was because he feared Stanley Crisp would think another untrustworthy spirit like Bogdan Dalca possessed him. Now it was just a habit.
“Not really, I guess,” Vincent said.
“That’s cool. It’s like always having a friend on board, which sounds fun. And plus, Miss Selena proved they’re not all bad people, so that’s cool, too. Can he use magic?”
“I appreciate your assessment, Desmond,” Selena said.
“No magic. I think,” Fix said. “Never thought about that, actually.”
“He’s just a guy. Trapped in here like everyone else,” Vincent said. The forest was visible ahead of them now, a distant blur of trees beyond the edge of town.
“How many people you got in there?” Dezzy asked.
Vincent shrugged again. He was with Selena and Fix for sure. But he had briefly spoken to another man in a dream once. The man who commanded a strange, twisting, burnt umber power flow. And then there was the child.
They had not been vocal, not the way Dalca and Selena had. But it did not mean they weren’t there. Weren’t listening. They could have been suppressed, pushed down by the other spirits. Maybe only so many could rise to the top at once. Or they could have been waiting intentionally. It was an idea Vincent didn’t like, but one he had to acknowledge.
The people at the ritual in the field had power. Dalca and Selena did. The tall man had shown it as well. Which meant Fix and the child probably did, too. Maybe Dezzy was right. Maybe they weren’t all bad. Selena had been trying to do good. Fix was helpful as well. But maybe they were like Dalca. There was really no way to know.
“Too many,” Vincent answered.
“Sucks, man. We’ll figure it out, though.” Dezzy said. Vincent smiled.
“Yeah. We will,” he said.
The pool of primal energy that seemed to saturate the whole town extended into the forest as well. They passed onto the tree line, and Vincent could see the blue sheen of energy across the forest floor. It rose up into some of the trees, like the finest of veins lacing through the bark.
“This place is powerful,” Vincent said.
“Old woods. Old magic. The Goddess was ever present in these lands before man was even a whisper of an idea. She holds sway still where they have not savaged her legacy,” Selena said.
“It’s like Earth magic?” Vincent said. He looked down at the mirror.
“Some might say that, but it is a limited understanding. The Goddess is of the Earth, but the Earth is of the Goddess. So is the sky, and time, and life itself.”
“Does she have a name? Is she a real being or just a concept?” Vincent said.
Selena laughed.
“What a silly question. Does Life have a name or is it just a concept?” she replied.
“Just curious. With the Prince of Nothing and Narg’thrasyk and all of these other cosmic titans skipping through eternity, I’m not sure what’s what.”
“Narg’thrasyk don’t skip. They don’t have legs,” Dezzy said.
“Not a term I am familiar with,” Selena said.
“Giant transdimensional sea monster, maybe? Still not sure where that came from,” Vincent explained.
“Well, please, keep it away from me,” she said.
“If you want legs, you need a Vollux Behemoth. They have like a hundred legs and a few heads. I guess an Ashkith larva has a lot of legs, too.”
“I don’t. I don’t want that,” Vincent said. He had experienced more than enough monsters already. He did not need more.
“To the right up here. There is a small stream. We’ll need to follow it,” Selena said.
The woods were very peaceful, away from the tourist frenzy of Burnham. Wide, green-leafed plants like tiny palm fronds grew between the large trees. Vines tangled about one another in clusters, and massive, moss-covered logs dotted the landscape. The treetops were alive with birdsong. Squirrels and chipmunks watched Vincent and Dezzy as they passed.
The stream, barely wider than a bathtub, wound and meandered along the forest floor. The water flowed at a brisk pace and looked cool an
d clean. Frogs clustered near green reeds at the banks, and dragonflies hovered at the water’s surface.
The water itself was infused with primal energy, which made it seem clearer and more vibrant than it should—like a thing alive. The entire flow of life in the forest was captivating to Vincent. Almost overwhelming, really.
“Everything seems alive here,” he said absently.
“It’s a forest. Of course, it’s alive,” Selena replied. He nodded, realizing how much sense that made.
At the back of his mind, he could feel Death as well. Nothing that lived did so without dying. He could sense the subtle spots of necromancy dotted through the woods. A dead bird here, a decomposing squirrel there. It was the order of things. But the primal energy overwhelmed it all.
Vincent reached out with his mind, trying to grasp at the primal power he saw. Like water, it slipped through his grasp, beyond his comprehension. But he did feel like there was order there.
He stopped at a tree—a big oak—and put his hand on the trunk. He could see the little rivulets of primal power flowing around his hand. It was like the tree itself was breathing it, in and out it pulsed.
“You okay?” Dezzy asked.
“I’m good,” Vincent answered.
“What are we doing?” Fix said.
Vincent stared at the tree, at the primal energy pulses, the lively blue color that saturated the world of Burnham. And within it, beyond it, he was able to start picking out the faintest glimmers of green and gold. They were like accents in the blue, nearly imperceptible. But they were what he had been looking for. The opposing force of necromancy; the glimmers of biomancy. It was the magic that gave life instead of taking it. And it was bonded to primal power here.
He did not know what it meant, that biomancy seemed to flow with primal energy in the tree. In the ground, where the primal power seemed to just be loose and free, he could not see the signs of it. But the flow was natural here in the woods. It was not a spell someone was casting. It was not being made to go into the tree. It just seemed to be part of the tree.