The Witch's Chalice

by Melania Tolan

  The Witch’s Chalice

  Melania Tolan

  Copyright © 2019 by Melania Tolan

  Cover by Andrew Dobell www.creativeedgestudios.co.uk

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  To Mitzu

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Melania Tolan

  Chapter 1

  I never thought I’d go to my own funeral. But here I lay in the black casket lined in plush red velvet with my hands folded over my chest. Everybody present at the service had zero clue I was very much alive.

  Technically, I was dead. I didn’t have a heartbeat and my skin held no warmth. I didn’t have to breathe. However, my mind worked a hundred times faster than before, and I was hungry all the time… but couldn’t have normal food. For now, I survived on a pure blood diet. This didn’t seem fair, as Traian—the person who’d turned me and who I loved—ate human food just fine, along with blood. There were lots of logistics to being undead I still needed to figure out.

  First on the list: get through this funeral.

  Traian stood in the back, behind one of the potted trees. No one could see him or was aware of his presence, I could feel him standing there even with my eyes closed. Padrick, whom I’ve always known as ‘Professor Perry,’ but has turned out to be an ancient elf, sat with my mom, offering her comfort. Mom and the rest of the humans were oblivious to the glimmer he used as a disguise. Stella, my sister, sat next to Mom, fuming.

  Why is she so pissed?

  I turned my attention to probably the most important person in my life. Mindy wept quietly, a few rows back. All these heightened senses were maddening. The layers of wood, foam, and velvet of my coffin weren’t thick enough to mute the sounds the human ear couldn’t pick up. I could even taste her salty tears. My heart may be unbeating, but the pain of my best friend broke it into a thousand pieces. My death had caused those who loved me an immense amount of hurt, but I couldn’t do anything about it except just lay there and pretend to be dead. This whole funeral thing seemed absolutely crazy.

  I counted twenty beating hearts inside the room. Yes, twenty people had come to my funeral. That was more than I had expected. There were a handful of students, my old boss, Carol, and a few of the nurses and doctors who had taken care of me over the years. My mom and Stella, sitting next to Perry, were the only blood family present. Though, I regarded Mindy as my soul sister.

  Mournful music played in the background. This wasn’t what I would’ve chosen for my funeral, but Mr. Black, the lawyer who’d handled my affairs, had arranged the service for me long before I even knew I would die on the street next to the cemetery where my grandmother was buried. He’d also known Grandma Grace.

  Everyone here thought I had committed suicide. That couldn’t be farther from the truth, but I couldn’t prove it to any of them.

  What had happened in the cemetery twenty-four hours before still seemed pretty incredible. I’d never experienced so much power coursing through my body. Nor had I ever seen so many different creatures from the fantasy realm in my life. My entire world had been rocked, shaken sideways, and dumped upside down. What I had once thought normal vanished, and my new reality had set in.

  The funeral director came up to the front, next to my coffin.

  “We are gathered together as friends and family of those who loved Miss Everly Greene. Today we celebrate a beautiful life gone too soon.”

  On and on, he droned for about ten minutes, but it felt more like ten hours. When he had finished talking, Mindy stepped forward and read a poem she’d written.

  A flower so beautiful and delicate

  A life cut too short and words spoken too late

  She lived with a smile on her face

  She filled our lives with warmth and grace

  Her body may have been weak

  But her spirit soared higher than a mountain peak

  She lived each day like it was her last

  Her time with us went too fast

  I am lucky to have called her ‘friend’

  And known her until the very end

  She might be gone

  But her legacy and light will live on

  I could feel my eyes tearing up. Crap. I can’t cry. That would be a dead giveaway I wasn’t totally dead.

  The funeral director returned to the front of the room and invited everyone to form a line and pay their respects to my body.

  Don’t cry.

  My mind raced to find something that would make me feel anything but sad and guilty. The image of Aidra, the woman who’d almost killed me, filled the back of my eyelids, and just like that, I went from weepy to pissy. That redheaded bitch was responsible for this mess.

  I focused on her face as I listened to each person say something nice about me, two feet from my body.

  The stories and sweet little details, shared from my multiple stays in the hospital to the few times I took part in school events during my childhood, surprised me. Two former nurses, along with Dr. Hansen and a bunch of other people I had encountered in my short life, had nothing but kind things to say.

  Some of the highlight had been how I handled difficult procedures like a champ, still turned assignments on time despite being in the hospital, insisting on joining my eighth-grade class volunteering at the soup kitchen the week of Thanksgiving even though I had just had surgery the week before. The tales continued. I hadn’t remembered them like that. From my point of view, I’d only tried to fit in and be normal as possible.

  As all my acquaintances filed through, they continued into the next room, where the reception would take place. There’s always food at funerals. I could smell the different dishes: pancakes, bacon, potatoes, and toast—all my favorite foods of my favorite meal of the day. Sadness threatened to overwhelm me. Of all things, I didn’t think food would be at the top of the list of what I would miss. The aromas wafted into the chapel and almost covered the smell of the hot, pumping blood in the humans in the room. Almost.

  A shift in the air drew my focus to a particular person. Stella approached the casket, cutting off my wallowing in self-pity. I could feel the heat of her stare on my body. But then she turned around and stormed out of the room. Mom called after her, but she never returned. After a moment of hesitation, Mom approached instead.

  “I miss you.” Her voice cracked. She sniffled, blew into a tissue, and then regained her composure. “I hope God will forgive you for your sin, Everly. You should never have moved into that cursed apartment. You should have never visited your grandmother’s grave. Evil has latched onto you as it did on to her long ago. I hope your soul can be saved.”

  She paused for a few minutes. Her breath quivered as she took out another tissue.

  “I love you. No matter what, no matter how you and I came together. I love
you, and that will never change.” She brushed my cold hand with her warm fingers and shuffled out of the room.

  Down the hall, a bathroom door opened. My hypersensitive ears could hear her sobs the other humans in the building never noticed.

  My heart broke. But her words felt odd.

  What did she mean by ‘how you and I came together’?

  Mindy approached a few minutes later. Her voice was steady, but sorrow dripped off every word. “I am so heartbroken. How can I go on without you? You were my best friend. You were my sister from another mister.” She paused. “I will find a way. But I will never be the same. I love you, Everly, forever. I hope you come haunt me.”

  When she left my casket and didn’t go to the reception, instead exiting the building, I almost got up and ran after her, but I couldn’t. Thanks to the Heme Patch that Traian had slapped on my shoulder, I couldn’t move for the next hour, maybe two depending on how my new metabolism processed the drug.

  The Heme Patch paralyzed a strigoi, the Romanian version of a vampire, for a certain amount of time. Once the body metabolized the drug, it developed an antidote, and the Heme Patch could never be used again. Therefore, it was used only at funerals for those fortunate, or unfortunate, enough to come back from the dead. The strigoi had to pretend to be dead, but a newly-made vampire needed blood; a roomful of hot-blooded humans weeping over the dead could be a dangerous situation for all involved. Therefore, the Heme Patch.

  Perry, I mean Padrick, approached and whispered so quietly only I could hear him. “You are the strongest patient, the smartest student, and the most compassionate person I have ever known. It has been an honor to watch you grow into the beautiful, strong young lady you are today. I will miss you, the human you. But I know what is coming, and I’m equally excited and terrified to see what you will become. I will see you in Romania, my dear.” He touched my hand and left.

  He went into the bathroom where my mom was, hugged her, and stayed with her until she could regain her composure. Footsteps approached my coffin a few minutes later. Even though my eyes were closed, I knew who those footsteps belonged to.

  “I hate you for leaving me. I hate you even in death.” Stella’s words carried daggers and sharp edges on every sound she pronounced. “I hate you for what you have done to Mom. I hope you rot in hell for the damage you’ve caused to my family. If you hadn’t been born, Dad would still be here, Mom would be happy, and we wouldn’t be so fucking poor. I hate you.”

  I lay there, stunned. I had not expected this from my sister. Yes, we’d had our differences and arguments growing up. We hadn’t always gotten along. But she’d always been there for me. She’d always told me she loved me when we saw each other. I didn’t understand why she was so angry. I had died, yet she hated me.

  How is that possible?

  The room finally emptied, and I lay there waiting for the next charade I’d need to perform before we could leave for Romania. The funeral home folks were supposed to come close the coffin and carry me to the cemetery.

  But then I felt him standing right next to me.

  A cool hand brushed mine. “Hello, my darling. I know this is hard for you, but I’m here. I won’t let you go through this alone. I love you.”

  And then, just like that, Traian vanished, and I was alone for the first time in twenty-four hours.

  I love you. Those words rung in my ears. Did he really? Maybe it was all the confusion of transitioning to undead, but I’d felt a coolness about him since I’d woken up in the morgue. I relished the quiet for a while, finally having a moment to sort out the bizarre events that had befallen me. I lay in my casket and enjoyed the silence—although it wasn’t total quiet, because I could hear all the muted conversations in the other room.

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Greene. Everly was just a bright light dimmed too soon.” One of the nurses comforted my mother. “I’m blessed to have known her.”

  I drew my attention to the far corner of the room, where three of my microbiology classmates huddled with Jen, my lab partner.

  “You think she was so unhappy that she opted to ruin that poor truck driver’s life by standing in the middle of the road?”

  I recognized the speaker as the guy who always sat behind Jen and me in class and lab. I’d never noticed him before—until today.

  How dare he? He didn’t know me.

  Jen let out a sob. “She was always happy. The happiest person I’ve ever met. You would never have known she suffered from so many physical ailments.”

  “That’s probably why she did it. It’s those overly cheerful people you need to watch out for.” A second guy to Jen’s left spoke. I didn’t know his voice.

  A third guy interjected, “The coroner's report did say lightning struck her, remember? She probably had no idea what happened when she stepped out in front of that truck. Kind of odd that her funeral is twenty-four hours right after she died, don’t you think?”

  “Good evening, lady and gentlemen. Thank you for coming and supporting your classmate’s family in this difficult time,” Perry interrupted the conversation. “There are school counselors available if you need help to process this terrible loss. And I’m here, too, if needed.”

  Of course, Perry had to interfere. And it will take me a while to get used to calling him Padrick.

  His hearing was just as good as mine. Part of me felt grateful that he had nipped it in the bud, but another part of me wondered what else they thought. I listened in on others’ conversations. The words “suicide” and “mental illness” popped up now and then, but the subject always changed quickly. Most of the older adults felt too uncomfortable discussing such dark subjects.

  Who would’ve thought I would be aware of everything happening at my funeral?

  My quiet respite was short-lived, as four men came into the room. One of them was Perry, the other three worked at the funeral home. Perry closed the casket, sealing me in my prison box. Then they hauled me off to the hearse.

  Thirty minutes later, we were at Lake View Cemetery. I wished I could just open my eyes and see what the place looked like. Twenty-four hours before, it had been a cemetery, but then I’d made a huge crater in it. I was surprised they were even letting me be buried here. Traian and Perry had worked some of their magic and closed the big hole in the ground, thank goodness.

  The news story went that there had been a huge lightning strike at the cemetery, which had caused the damage to the grounds and possibly screwed up my brain cells, causing me to run into the road, right into the path of a transport truck.

  But Traian, Perry, and I knew the truth.

  I still couldn’t believe I had been capable of creating so much damage. Piddly little me, with all my medical issues and weak heart, had channeled enough electricity from the sky to knock out the power for an entire neighborhood and create a minor crater. It still seemed unreal.

  And so did being in a casket.

  The door opened to the hearse, and once again my casket was being moved, this time to my final resting place—at least that’s what everyone thought. But I knew what would happen next. Soon my Heme Patch would wear out, and I’d be able to move again. Once I was completely buried, and the hole was covered, I would have to break through the casket and emerge from the ground. You know, like rise from the dead, Night of the Living Dead kind of shit.

  The whole thing seemed so cliché, but Traian, Perry, and Mr. Black had assured me I had to do this if I would survive my new form of existence. And if I had already survived the incident in the cemetery, and getting hit by a truck, and coming back from the dead in the morgue, then I would do my best to do this last ritual.

  A handful of people had gathered around the hole in the ground next to my grandmother’s grave. Even though I was sealed in a black box, I could tell where I was from the sounds echoing from the trees and tombstones. I also could hear my mother crying. My sister stood next to Mom, still fuming mad. The angry pheromones dripped off her body like sweat would in triple-digit temper
atures. Mindy was there, too… she still wept quietly at the back of the small gathering.

  The minister, who was my mom’s pastor, said a few words and read several Bible verses. Then they lowered me into the ground. Someone tossed a handful of dirt and a flower on my casket, and then slowly, one by one, people left. The last person remaining was my mother.

  “Rest in peace, my darling. I love you. I loved you as one of my own.”

  Her words rang inside my head over and over. She loved me as one of her own? What does that mean?

  I didn’t have much time to think about it, because a few minutes after she left, the workers from the cemetery filled up my grave. Each thump of earth over me sent new waves of fear through my body. And I still couldn’t move.

  I’m going to die. Again.

  Chapter 2

  Seconds ticked away into minutes, and then dragged on into hours. It seemed like maybe a whole day had gone by when I finally felt my pinky wiggle. Then my toe twitched, a knee jerked, and my eyes popped open. I was not sitting in the dark—I could see the outline of the satin lining the casket.

  I hated to break this beautiful plush bed, but I wanted to get the hell out of the ground.

  The desire, the need to rise up, drove me to madness, almost as much as my thirst for blood. With one strike, my fist went right through the top of the casket, bringing earth raining down on me. With both hands, I ripped the hole open enough for me to crawl out, and I started to dig faster through the dirt. I didn't have to worry about breathing because I didn’t need oxygen. The soft, moist soil coated my entire body. Parts of my dress ripped as I crawled through the six feet, five-point-three inches of dirt and rock.