I stopped in my track and Keith crashed into me this time. My skin hurt from scratches but immediately regenerated and healed. Keith was scratched up and scabby all over his arms and face. I would have felt worse except my eyes opened wider staring at the apparition in front of us. Keith looked as freaked out as me.
Several feet in front of us a clearing had been made, right in the middle of the dense forest. It almost looked like a crop circle except instead of crops; thick gnarly branches surrounded the clearing, protecting it from being seen.
I sucked in my breath. The skin under my necklace danced. My shoulder throbbed.
“She’s here,” I whispered to Keith.
My newfound bravado disappeared.
I wanted to sit down and take some time to think all this new information through. I hadn’t seen my mom in over a year. That’s a lot of days of anger. And now, not only was she not crazy like I’d thought, she was a witch. A witch who apparently did not have powers because my dad stole them from her. I was a witch who did have powers and now he wanted mine. How hilarious was that?
“You know, I never even wanted to meet my stupid father,” I grumbled to Keith. “Nope. Not me. I kind of figured he was dead. Or if he wasn’t dead, then I didn’t want him to come back and mess things up. I liked having Mom and Nana around, both of them living with us. I certainly didn’t ask to meet my Dad as a freak hiding inside Jenny Truman’s body.”
Keith grabbed my shoulder and squeezed hard. His hand on the tattoo almost seemed to burn my skin. I tried to pull back, to break contact, but he held on, squeezing tighter.
“Ow. Keith, stop it.”
He didn’t answer. He kept squeezing, increasing the pressure as if he were trying to take the tattoo right off my skin. I got dizzy, almost nauseous with pain.
His round eyes seemed hypnotized and he stared down at my necklace. When he looked at me his eyes blazed. Almost with hatred. He titled his head as if he were listening to someone speak. I tried to hear, but there was no sound.
“Keith?”
He pulled away quickly, dropping his hand and shaking his head. His eyes cleared up but he seemed afraid.
“Go,” he said. “Go inside. Quickly. Your mom’s in there. I can’t come any further. You have to go alone.”
He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. It was slick with sweat.
“Are you crazy,” I asked him. “I’m not going alone. That’s not the deal. You promised you’d stay with me.” I wanted to stamp my feet up and down. To heck with it. I did. I raised a foot and stomped it down on the musky ground as hard as I could. Of course, it made no noise. Apparently if a girl stomps her foot in the forest, no one hears. Great.
“I’m not going without you. That was not our deal. You said you’d be with me. You promised.”
“Go, Sydney. Hurry.” Keith zipped his head, ducking. “They’re trying to get to me. I can’t hold them off. They’re too powerful.” He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, pawing at his temples with his fingers.
I blinked and searched for “they” but I didn’t see anything. I reached out to touch him and instantly pulled back. The hair on my arms stood straight up. The air whispered. Voices chanted from within Keith. I knew they weren’t on my side.
I took a step away from him and gnarled branches in front of me parted. An old stone building became visible in the clearing, like an old castle from Scotland. Ancient, but not in ruins. There were no windows on the brick just a huge door, almost like a moat with stones piled on top of each other very high.
I felt like Dorothy again, standing at the entrance to Oz. The huge front door creaked open from the side instead of the top. I half expected to see the Wizard with a turban on his head pop out to greet me.
“Follow the Yellow Brick Road,” I mumbled.
Keith glanced at me, his eyes clearing again, looking annoyed.
“What?” I asked.
“You have to take this seriously,” he snapped in a deeper voice.
I glanced at him. “Uh. Yeah. I kind of got that back when my Dad was impersonating a girl.” The door opened a little wider and a shadow passed by the door.
Keith pushed me. “Hurry up. Go in, go inside. Now,” he yelled. “I can’t hold them off much longer.”
I shuffled from foot to foot. “I don’t’ want to go in without you.”
“I can’t, Sydney, I can’t come in.” His voice sounded strangled, he clawed at his ears.
“Then I won’t either.”
Keith held onto the side of his head. “Oh God. They’re right inside my head, Sydney. They want your powers.” He groaned. “GO NOW.”
Keith’s scream was louder than I’d heard him say anything in his life. It freaked me out so completely I rushed forward to get away from him and zoomed right into the castle door. The heavy old door swung close behind me.
“Sydney,” a voice called.
It wasn’t whom I’d expected.
She walked around the corner.
I laughed with relief.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Oh my God. Nana!”
“Sydney,” she rushed forward and hugged me. “Thank God you choose to come in. I’ve been standing here, waiting. I couldn’t come get you. You had to come on your own.”
“Why?” I said, holding her without plans to ever let go.
She squeezed back hard. “Rules. There are rules. So many you don’t know.”
I pulled away from her arms. “Of course,” I replied, abruptly. “Let me guess. Witch Rules? Because, oh yes, you and Mom didn’t tell me about any of this stuff.”
She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t avoid my hostile glare either. I blinked. She wore a long grey cloak with a huge hood. With her tiny body, she swam in it, like a kid dressing up for Halloween in her big sisters outfit. Nana’s gray eyes sparkled and with her white hair poking out of the hood she looked like an eerie Halloween witch.
Hey, nice outfit,” I noted with as much sarcasm as I could muster. “It’s very slimming.”
She tsked me. “There’s no time for jokes. And the rules are sacred, in place for a reason. Remember that. They may not make sense right away, but they have a purpose. Now. Come on. Let’s move. We need you to get your mother out of here. We don’t have a lot of time. They’re getting stronger.”
Nana reached for my hand. I pulled back.
“Keith is outside. I’m worried about him. He wouldn’t come in. Something’s after him.”
“If he can’t come in, that’s a good thing. Believe me.” Her expression changed. “He’s in trouble I’m afraid. I just hope he’s strong enough…”
“In trouble from who?”
She glanced towards the door. “The SHIELDERS.”
I frowned, remembering the passage in the book. “And the SHEILDERS are?”
She glanced around the hallway. “I’ll explain in private. Come on. We have to move. We have to get your Mom out before it’s too late.” She started scurrying down the hallway and I had no choice but to follow.
“Too late for what. You know. I am really trying here Nana, but everyone seems to know things I don’t. And why didn’t you just get her out of here on your own? Why me?”
She reached down and pulled me close, still moving us along. “We have so much to explain.”
I frowned. “What about Keith? Is he going to be okay?”
“I hope so. I hope so,” she muttered, grabbing my hand with more force, and yanking me around a corner. She glanced back as she tugged, keeping her eye on where we left. It wasn’t exactly the kind of reassurance I’d been hoping for.
“Only you can get her out now. Things changed once your powers found you. This is The Institute, Sydney. And if a witch is found by the SHEILDERS, only a stronger witch can set her free. Otherwise she must stay within the walls. For the rest of her days. It’s for protection.”
“Protection from what?”
“Later, Sydney. We’ll talk about this later.”
“
Later? Like when?”
“When we’re home. Come on, sweetie. You’re stalling. We have to get to your mother.” She strung me along behind her. My heart thudded in my chest and my eyes opened wider as she hauled me through the old castle hallway. The majestic stones in the walls were wide but nothing decorated them. They were bare, piled high on top of each other. The stonewalls seemed muted and cold. The ceiling barely visible, the lighting dim. The stones vibrated with loss.
“Why is this place so sad?” I asked.
“This is not a place most witches want to come to.” She glanced at me. “Wait a minute. Do you feel the stones already? That’s crazy. How many powers do you have?”
“I don’t know,” I mumbled. I thought about her question. I could make wishes come true. Well. Sometimes. I could see things when I touched people. Sometimes without even touching them. Cody heard my thoughts and spouted weird things at me. I’d made my dad evacuate Jenny Truman’s body and then parted trees using my mind.
What else could I do?
“I did wish myself a smart phone. It’s has a pink cover and it’s bedazzled. But it kind freaked me out and I left it at the house. Hey. If I get used to it, can I keep it?”
“If we all get out of here you can have as many phones as you want.”
Man. She was worried. I held on to Nana’s side tight as we scurried along, tempted to wish she’d never let me go, but I’d seen the trouble my wishes caused. Going through the rest of my life with Nana stuck to my side wouldn’t win me any popularity contests. If we got out of this mess.
“You said you were bringing Mom home,” I pouted
She stopped for a moment, taking my face in her hands. “I was trying to. But I couldn’t. The SHEILDERS found her. You. You’re the one who has to set her free. I know you’re scared, Sweetie. But you can do this.”
“I’m not strong, not really,” I confided. She wrapped me inside her arms again and I inhaled her cloak’s scent. It smelled suspiciously like all her clothes. Most unwitch-like.
“You are,” she said. “You’ve come this far already.”
I held on tight. “Only with Keith’s help,” I told her cloak. “I couldn’t have done this alone.”
Nana pried me off of her and started moving again. The hallway seemed to be an optical illusion. It went on and on without an ending.
“Trust me,” Nana said. “It would have been easier if you’d come alone. You would have come on your own. We didn’t even call for you yet.”
I didn’t try to understand what that meant. “Don’t be so sure,” I told her.
She didn’t answer me. I tried to drag my feet on the concrete floor, but Nana was determined and kept pulling. “Where are we going?” I glanced ahead, but all I saw was the long, narrow hallway.
“This way.” Nana pushed me in down a smaller hallway that materialized from nowhere. “Keep moving. We’re almost there.”
She pressed me along for several feet, then stopped in front of a wall exactly the same as the rest of the hallway, closed her eyes and mumbled a chant under her breath.
“What are you doing?”
She sighed and opened her eyes.
“Powers? You’re a witch too?” How could Nana who couldn’t even bake a decent birthday cake, be a witch?
I stared at her. Worried. This Magic stuff scared me.
She smiled slightly, waving her hand in the air. Just like a witch would. Just like I’d done in the forest. A stone door appeared and slowly swung open.
“How come you never told me you were a witch? Don’t you think that would have helped? Why didn’t you get Mom out?” I spit out my questions out without taking a breath. “I’ve never seen you use your magical powers before. You could have told me.”
“Your mother never let me use powers around you. And I thought about telling you, Sweetie, but I decided to wait until you got more familiar with everything. Besides, I didn’t want to scare you and I’d promised your mom.” She tilted her head. “I didn’t know this would explode as quickly as it did. I should have expected it. The SHEILDERS are stronger than ever.”
“The SHEILDERS again.”
She put her hand on the small of my back and pushed.
“Go inside, Sydney. We’ll explain more inside.”
I stiffened.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “Go.”
I did what she said, because that’s what I always did. “Anyhow,” she bent forward and spoke in my ear. “I’ve been hiding my powers so long it becomes habit. Your Mom’s fault. I’m rusty. And old.”
I stepped through the doorway.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The dingy vibes of the hallway vanished. The sudden assault of vivid color and bright light hurt my eyes. There were no windows in the room, but it glowed with natural light. The walls were lavender. My mother’s favorite color. Framed pictures of Lilies hung on the wall. There was a large black and white photo of Cody and me taken not very long ago on the wall. I didn’t remember posing for the photo.
Pushed up against the farthest wall was a beautiful old-fashioned bed, with old-fashioned cream lace bedding. Beside the bed rested an oak bookshelf filled with books. I glanced around. An empty rocking chair rocked in the middle of the room.
I turned to Nana. “Where is she?”
“Look again.”
Mom sat in the Cherry red rocker.
“I gave her a cloaking spell, but you can see through it.”
I swallowed my surprise that Nana really could perform magic to hide my mom from my eyes. I stared at the woman in the chair. The woman I hadn’t seen for almost a year. Her long dark hair, the hair I’d been jealous of since I was old enough to know mine would never look that way, cascaded around her shoulders. It had a few streaks of gray that hadn’t been there before. Other than that she looked just as I remembered her. Beautiful. Strong.
She smiled, but it was a tentative smile. Her eyes swam with moisture. My throat dried up looking at her. She wore a flowing floral gown, just like the ones she always wore no matter what the current trend or how often I teased her. Dresses I’d told her were frumpy and ugly when I was being mean. Over the last months she’d be gone I’d longed to see her in one of those dresses. And now, here she was with Magic curled up in her lap, watching me. My cat purred and stared at me as intently as my mother did.
“Traitor,” I said to Magic. Tears gushed into my eyes. My mom spoke quietly. “Magic’s been in the family a long, long time. He came to you as a kitten so it wouldn’t frighten you. He protects the necklace and its powers. Helps protect the witch,” she said softly.
“No, Stevie gave him to me.”
Mom nodded. “Stevie’s a Kindred. Magic chose her to come to you. Stevie’s a good friend for you.”
Mom and I stared at each other for a moment. I wanted to yell at her. To accuse her of abandoning me. Condemn her for lying to me. Not telling me what was going to happen to me. Running away.
And then she lifted her arms as if to hug me. Without thinking, I ran to her and bent down, diving into her and squeezing her tight. Her arms folded around me and I inhaled her wonderful scent. She buried her nose into my hair.
“It’s black,” she said, her fingers picking up strands.
I pulled away a little.
“And you have a nose piercing.”
I stiffened and pulled back further, ready to retreat from her arms.
“Oh, Sydney. No. It’s okay. I’m not mad. You’re a teenager. God. You haven’t had your mother around for a year. You thought I was mentally ill. I’m surprised you don’t have purple hair. And tattoos.”
“I do have a tattoo,” I said. I stood up and backed away, glancing down at her in her chair. “But I didn’t even get it done. It appeared after my birthday.”
She smiled. “I know. I had one once, too. But not as powerful as yours.”
I frowned at her but she kept talking.
“You look so different. You’re so grown up. Sixteen.” She chuckled. �
��You’re stunning. Beautiful.”
It was the voice from my childhood. My Mommy, who could do no wrong. My Mommy who could fix my owies with a kiss and a Band-Aid.
Except, I’d grown up. And she’d left me. I crossed my arms in front of my chest.
“You’re angry with me,” she said. ”I don’t blame you.”
“Good.” I frowned. I wanted her to make everything better. She wasn’t doing a very good job.
“I’m sorry I left you the way I did, Sydney. I thought it would save you from harm. I thought if I came to the Institute it would keep the powers away. It hasn’t exactly worked out the way I planned.” She shook her head. “We have so much to talk about. You’re a witch now. I owe you so many explanations.” The corner of her mouth turned up. “And now, I need you to help me.”
I glanced at Nana. My rock for the last year when Mom had been gone. She didn’t step in or move closer to help. She kept her distance and her lips pressed tightly together.
“You’ve got great powers,” Mom said. “The best witch yet.” She sounded almost proud. Strange, since she hadn’t wanted me to have powers in the first place.
“Not so great,” I countered. I stared down at my feet. “I messed it all up with a stupid wish about a stupid boy.”
“Boys are hard,” she said softly. “That I know.”
I looked up, quickly.
“Your dad,” she said. “You met your dad.”
“You could say that. He was in Jenny Truman’s body.” I made a face and tried not to cry. “He came disguised as a stupid girl.”
She nodded, not dropping her eyes from mine. “I know.” She sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m saying that a lot, aren’t I? Sorry. I should have handled this all so differently.”
“Here’s the thing, Sydney. Your father is part of a powerful group of rogue Sentries. The SHEILDERS. They got hold of him and haven’t let go.” She rocked slowly in her chair, her eyes staring at the floor. Magic purred and she stroked his fur, absently.
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