The Bewitched Box Set

by W. J. May

  “Did you draw this picture?” At Storey’s nod, Paxton continued, “With...that?” He pointed to the pencil.

  Again she nodded. He closed his eyes and started speaking in some weird language. The same one Eric had used earlier.

  “Do you guys belong to the some religious group where you speak in tongues or something? I’ve never heard a language quite like that.”

  “You mock us?” shrieked Paxton, stiffening in outrage. “Do you realize what you have done?”

  “Obviously not,” she snapped. “Since no one will tell me what the hell is going on.”

  Eric’s eyes widened. He stared at her wordlessly.

  She glared at Eric, catching his wince before he covered it up. “Now what?”

  “We don’t swear here. It’s considered rude,” Eric whispered. “Paxton doesn’t know that word but anyone who’s studied your language might.”

  “Rude? I’m supposed to worry about my manners now? What the hell are you talking about? Over where?”

  He spluttered. “Please, show some respect. Don’t swear.”

  “All right, geeze.” His look didn’t improve. “Oh, for crying out loud. Geeze is not a swear word.” She glowered at him. What was his problem, anyway? And since when had he become such a prude?

  Paxton’s cheeks sucked in like small craters.

  “Whatever.” She held out her hand. “I’ll take my sketchbook now, thanks.” Hand outstretched, she snapped her fingers when Eric didn’t pass it over. “I don’t know what game you’re playing, and I don’t care. I want no part of it. So, I’m going home.”

  “No, you’re not.” Paxton drew up to his full height. Storey’s gaze widened as he stretched above her. How tall was he?

  “You’ll stay in our world until we get to the bottom of this.”

  “Your world,” she snapped. “What are you talking about?”

  “You are...” Eric paused...took a deep breath...then rushed to get the rest of the sentence out. “You are in another dimension.”

  “Oh, for the love of God.” Storey threw up her hands at the stony looks shooting her way. “Look, I’ve had enough. You zip me to another dimension, whatever that means, without asking my permission, tell me I can’t go home, give no explanation as to what is going on and then expect me to be calm about it!”

  Eric reached out a reassuring hand. She stumbled back out of range. “No.” She pointed at Paxton and said, “Hell, no.”

  This time, Eric grabbed her shoulder and gave her a good shake. Glaring down at her, he said, “Stop. I know you don’t understand. Just, please, calm down. I will explain.” He glanced over at the steaming Paxton. “I promise.”

  Storey stepped back, glaring up at him. “You’d better. And for your information, I swear when I’m pissed off, so don’t piss me off. That includes shaking me.”

  He closed his eyes briefly, dropped his hand and stepped away. “You’d make a saint crazy,” he muttered.

  Paxton gasped in outrage. “Which you aren’t,” he roared. “You should be able to control this...this female.”

  “Control,” she gasped in shock. For some reason the whole mess slid from bad into ludicrous. “I must be having a bad dream. Eric? Control me? I don’t think so.” She started to giggle.

  “Oh, thank you very much. See how she treats me?” He scowled at Paxton. “Why did you have to go and say that?”

  “That’s enough from both of you. This is no laughing matter. We have a crisis on our hands and need to find a solution.” He glanced down at the sketchbook now in his hands. “Quickly. Wait in my office while I call an emergency Council meeting.”

  Storey was still giggling as they took several more steps, then she stopped. This wasn’t just a room. This was some kind of laboratory. Stunned, she could only stare at the pristine white counters, walls, ceilings, even the huge monitors were white with a black trim. “Eric?”

  “You’re in my world now. It’s very similar to yours.” He hooked his arm through hers. “Don’t panic. Everything is fine. I walked you across a veil that exists between the two worlds.”

  “Veil?” Easy for him to say. Getting her head wrapped around the concept, not so easy. Still, there was no arguing that she walked on tiles and under some kind of weird fluorescent lights instead of grass and sky. “You’re not from my world?”

  “Nope.” As she stopped in front of a large series of monitors, Eric added by way of an explanation. “It’s Paxton’s communications center. He controls the crossings.”

  “There’s more than one?” She slid him a sideways look. “Does my side know about your side?”

  He pursed his lips and shook his head. “We don’t think so, but it’s possible. There are several crossings; we keep most of them shut down. We travel to your side when we have specific research to complete. To the best of our knowledge, there aren’t any crossings from your side to ours – at least not regulated ones.”

  “So, I’m the first to visit?” For some reason that concept tickled her. She’d always wanted to get away from her life. Now she was in the most bizarre, abnormal situation imaginable and didn’t know what to think. Contrary was her name. She should be scared, but it was as if the jumps into the mine had prepared her for this eventuality. Well, not quite this reality. Then his words penetrated. They’d been coming to her world whenever they wanted to – yet no one at home knew.

  “Come this way.” Eric tugged her arm, leading her toward a closed door. She followed, trying to take in everything. So similar and yet...different.

  Eric looked normal enough. Paxton didn’t. He was a little on the odd side. Then again, what if a monk, Goth or a Muslim person came here? Eric’s people would consider him representative of her world, too. “This isn’t fair. You know how to do all this and we don’t.”

  “Fair?” Paxton ran up behind them. “Look what happens when you do know a little bit.” He brushed past and through the door ahead of them.

  “Really.” She exhaled heavily. “Let’s not forget who left a stylus in my world in the first place. I wouldn’t have found it if you’d stayed where you belong.” She wasn’t going to take the blame for this – whatever this was. They shouldn’t have sneaked over to her side. Having perpetrated one wrong, they shouldn’t have compounded it by leaving something dangerous behind.

  “I know.”

  “Come, come. Don’t dawdle. We don’t have time. Everyone is almost here.” Paxton hurried ahead of them, tossing an urgent look back their way.

  Storey didn’t get it. “How did everyone manage to get here in the time it took me to walk the length of the floor?”

  “Things are a bit different here.” He grinned down at her. “You’ll see.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” she muttered. “Some info would be helpful. Does everyone look like you and Paxton, for a start? I don’t want to walk into that room and find talking alligators or some such thing.”

  He laughed. “No, we all look like you. Although, we call ourselves Torans. And Paxton is a little more unique than the rest of us.”

  “Is that what you call it?”

  Eric stopped at the doorway, twisting to look down on her. “You’re stalling. You can do this. Heck, I even went to school and attended classes with you. How bad can this be?”

  Glaring at him, she stormed through the doorway and came to a sudden halt on the other side. “No one ever smiles in your world, do they?”

  The normal looking room was full. Crowding around a large oval table in the middle of the room were dozens of people and even more stood in the back. Everyone stared, frowning at her. Too bad. Her dreams of a magical world spiriting her away went up in smoke. They all looked depressingly normal.

  “They aren’t that bad.” Eric stepped forward. Staring ahead, his back straight, he addressed the room formally. “Greetings, Council. May I present Storey Dalton. She’s from the other side of the veil.”

  Storey couldn’t help stiffening at the multitude of curious and judgmental
looks zeroing in on her.

  “So I understand,” answered a rotund looking man at the head of the table. So round and short, he took up almost two chairs yet could barely rest his arms on the table. And his face...she shuddered. Beady eyes stared out from between the fat rolls with a power that defied description. “And apparently you are responsible for bringing her here?”

  Eric’s voice deepened. “That’s right, father. I felt it best.”

  Father? Storey glanced between the two men, but didn’t recognize any family resemblance. One height challenged and the other height gifted. The change in Eric’s voice, however, yeah, there was that whole parent relationship mess between them.

  “And just how do you think breaking our rules, rules which have held for centuries, I might add, as now being for the ‘best?’”

  Eric opened his mouth to explain, when Paxton stepped in. “We don’t have time to sort out his punishment right now. We have something much bigger to deal with.”

  “Punishment? You’re going to punish him for bringing me here?” Storey couldn’t contain her outrage. Whether she wanted to be here or not, she knew Eric believed he’d done the right thing. “In that case, you can send me home. I’m not going to help if he’s in trouble over this.” It was all she could do to refrain from swearing. If they pissed her off more, then all bets were off.

  “Shh. It’s all right. I won’t be punished.”

  His father grunted. “We’ll make that decision without any input from you. Breaking the law is a very serious offense. It’s not like in your world, young lady. We care about doing the right thing here.”

  “It’s hardly admirable that you sit here and criticize my world when you’ve been sneaking in and out, taking whatever you want, for centuries. That’s called stealing in my world. We’ll have this discussion after my people’s scientists come over here for several hundred years and steal what they want from you,” she snapped in outrage. She strode several steps forward and stood with her hands on her hips, anger vibrating up her back. How dare they?

  “Uh, oh,” murmured Eric. He stepped up beside her as if bracing for a mortal blow.

  The temperature in the room dropped.

  Paxton rose and came running over to stand in front of her. “That’s enough. She doesn’t understand our ways. In this case, I believe Eric was right to do what he did.”

  A murmur rustled throughout the room. To have stood beside her, siding with her...had to be big. Storey didn’t care how big. She hadn’t been a conformist in her world, she wasn’t about to start now.

  The breath wooshed out of Eric and his shoulders relaxed.

  “Eric, take her over to the seats so we can get started.”

  Storey noticed the two empty chairs only when Eric motioned toward them. Paxton waited until they’d sat down before addressing the swelling crowd. “Now. This problem is one for both our worlds. Several weeks ago a research team, Denby’s team, I believe, crossed over. They were there for less than an hour when Sarcov, the head scientist, became sick. We think at this point he might have been allergic to some of the plants he was studying.”

  Eric shifted. Storey shot him a questioning look. He never took his gaze off Paxton.

  “...in the panic to treat him and get him home, the team missed packing up some equipment. As a result, his stylus was lost.”

  The murmur in the room swelled. Paxton held up his hand. “I know. I know. We weren’t made aware of this until Sarcov woke up in the hospital and asked for it.” He looked around the room. “We sent a team back immediately. And they were almost upon it when they saw a young girl stoop to pick it up. They followed her, hoping to recover the instrument, only they lost her in the school.” He nodded toward Storey. “This is the girl.”

  He stopped to pin the seated members with a cutting glare, before saying, “What’s important to understand is that she picked it up with her bare hands and had no problem in doing so.”

  Over the growing murmur of excited voices, Paxton glanced over at Storey. “I’ll explain in a minute.”

  “Storey didn’t know what she’d found. As an artist, she was happy with her find, thinking it was only a writing instrument. Except she soon found herself driven to draw on every surface from her textbooks, homework, even her own arms.”

  Storey pulled her sleeves down over her wrists. Her fingers clenched in her lap. She hadn’t thought he’d noticed. She’d tried to wash it off, but no go.

  Eric interjected. “Sorry, Storey. I didn’t say anything to you because I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.” He turned back to address the elders. “She was listening to the stylus. It’s been trying to come back home.”

  His father shook his head. “That’s not possible. She’s not capable of hearing the stylus. They speak only to their owners.”

  Paxton shook his head. “It shouldn’t be possible. However, as we’ve never lost anything over there, we don’t know what’s possible and what’s not. Especially with something soulbound.”

  Eric’s father’s gaze narrowed, sharpened. “Doesn’t that defy the term?”

  Another seated elder spoke. “Exactly. If the stylus was soulbound, how did she manage to pick it up?”

  “We’re not sure of anything in this case. It’s possible,” Paxton suggested, “that due to Sarcov’s illness, the bond between him and the stylus weakened. It’s also possible that crossing the veil changed something that contributed to the bond weakening. The stylus might have been able to detach.” Paxton shrugged. “We just don’t know.”

  Murmurs rose through the crowd.

  Paxton straightened and raised his right hand, commanding silence from the audience. “We don’t have all the answers here. There are much more important issues to focus on. We know that Storey picked up the stylus and used it for her artwork. However, without knowing what she was doing, she drew a doorway and actually managed to go through it, thus entering our world.”

  The crowd cried out in shock. “What? She came here? Without us knowing?”

  “Yes, that’s correct. Except the monitoring system tracked her movements.”

  Storey leaned toward Eric, her eyes widening in shock. “I have?”

  “Yes. The mine is partially on our side.”

  She blinked. Then blinked again. “So, when I went through the floor in my bedroom and ended up in the mine, that was the same as crossing the veil?”

  He studied her face then grinned, that same lopsided smile. Damn, he shouldn’t be allowed to do that.

  “Something like that. The stylus actually took you to a formal crossing zone in the mine. You couldn’t get out because it wasn’t active on our side. It’s only because the crossing notified Paxton of your activity that you were found at all.”

  Dismay crossed her face. “Are you saying I might have never gotten out?”

  “If we didn’t monitor the veil then yes. It’s quite likely you’d have died there and no one would have known.” He reached across to cover her clenched hands with his. “However, Paxton did find you. He told me and I opened the door on your side of the world to let you out.”

  “And the second time I went in?” Storey struggled to understand.

  Eric grimaced. “The stylus took you to a different gate entirely, presumably because the first attempt didn’t work. I had to make it look like Bankhead mine when you walked out.” He tilted his head, this time a glint of amusement in his eyes. “I also have a soulkey that unlocks almost anything. It has a few other functions that are dangerous to use if you are untrained.”

  The mine door. Storey shook her head and laughed. “No way. That’s not possible. How could I not notice?”

  He flushed then mumbled, “I did it while you were...distracted.”

  She blinked. Memories flooded in. That kiss. That hot, wonderful, mind-blowing kiss. “That’s why you kissed me?” she hissed. “Oh, my God.”

  Eric’s face slipped from the color of a sun-kissed peach color to a fat ripe tomato. Storey glanced around, not
ing multiple disapproving frowns deepened as they understood, too. “Oh crap. Sorry everyone. Swearing is common in my world. It’s not an insult against humanity over there.”

  “It’s not over here either; however, it is a sign of disrespect,” said another older male, this one just as disapproving as the others at the table.

  “Right.” She grimaced. “I’ll try to remember that.”

  Paxton took control of the conversation again, lowering the noise level in the room instantly. “The real problem is that Storey drew something else.” Paxton reached for Storey’s sketchbook sitting in front of him on the table. “This.”

  He flipped through the book until he found the right page, then held it up to show everyone.

  The crowd erupted into an outcry of shock. Storey grimaced as she looked at it. That hand was beyond creepy. “I don’t know if it matters or not, but I don’t remember much about drawing that picture.”

  Eric’s father groaned and smacked his hand down on the table. “That just makes it worse. How could you?”

  “How could I what? Draw? I’ve always drawn. It’s never created portals into another dimension. Keep in mind, I wouldn’t have done anything if you people hadn’t left that instrument behind on your invasion.”

  “Invasion? Did she just say invasion?”

  “What invasion? What is she talking about?”

  Paxton once again held up his hand to bring the conversation back under control. “We’re not pointing fingers here. A series of accidents has brought us to this spot. We have to focus. We are in a crisis, let’s deal with that.”

  Arguments and shouting broke out across the room. Storey slunk low in her chair. Who could get used to all this fighting?

  “Stop,” roared Paxton. “We have to find out what this drawing represents. And if it is what I think it is, we have to find a solution – fast.”

  Eric’s father shot a disgusted look at Storey. “This is just a drawing. She can’t possibly wield the power of the stylus.”