Come Witch or High Water

by Constance Barker

  “What was that?” A thick dumb voice asked from somewhere in the cavern. It was hard to know where the mob and Roger was. Everything reverberated and echoed, making it impossible to pinpoint where the noise came from.

  “Where’s Llyr?” Winnie asked as if I would know the answer. I looked at her and shrugged.

  “How should I know?” I whispered back to her. Even though we were speaking quietly, I could tell our voices were carrying.

  “They must have followed us,” I heard another voice shout. They had heard us. Winnie, Alan and I stood in the center of a large fissure. Large stalagmites that had taken hundreds of years to grow to their size surrounded us. I moved around one, my footstep sounding like a thousand different ones. There was an opening to a cave in front of us. There wasn’t time to do a location spell, but I had a good feeling this was the direction Tracy and Llyr headed in. I started to take another step when a voice stopped me, my foot still in the air.

  “They’re here!” Someone shouted...unlike before it came from the same room as us. I turned to face a young man who I recognized as one of Billy Joe’s friends. He was holding a large pocket knife in one hand and a flashlight in the other. I grabbed Winnie’s arm and patted my pocket to make sure that Alan was still tucked safely inside. I pulled Winnie and ran in the direction I thought Llyr and Tracy had gone. Billy Joe’s friend chased after us, trying to catch up. His footsteps sounded as if he was closing in on us. The cavern was larger than it appeared, and it took more than just a few paces to get across it.

  “We don’t care about them right now!” Roger shouted. “We’re after the creature!”

  “They’ll lead us right to him,” one of the pitchfork mob yelled. They were getting closer to us. I felt like I could even hear their breath on the back of my neck. Looking behind us though, I could see they weren’t as close as their voices made them seem. The path was treacherous, stalagmites shot up from the earth randomly. On top of that the ground was uneven and covered in small rocks. Winnie was focusing on clearing the path ahead of us.

  “There,” I said to her quietly. I caught a glimpse of red hair from around the corner ahead of us. I turned and looked behind as the mob ran after us. Roger was now at the helm. His hair and beard were blowing in the wind as he ran. His eyes looked as though he was possessed. Not by magic, but by something far more powerful. He was possessed by his own certainty that he was right and that he would finally be able to prove it.

  We rounded the same corner we had seen Llyr run down. As soon as we bounded around the corner, I reached for my wand ready for a quick and powerful spell. With a swish the stalagmites crashed behind us blocking Roger and his pack's pathway.

  “We’ll just go around!” Roger shouted after us. His voice echoed again, making the warning sound eerier than it ever had before. There was a determination in that voice. It was a voice of a man who saw his day of reckoning coming. Although we had magic, someone this possessed with rage could rebuff a spell thrown at him.

  There was a fork in the cave coming up ahead of us, and we had to make a decision quickly which one to run down.

  “Left!” Alan yelled finally hopping out of my pocket. He soared in the air towards the left opening. “Go, left!” I didn’t know what made him so sure, but I wasn’t about to question it. He was right as we turned and in front of us was Tracy and Llyr. I stopped just short of running directly into Llyr. They could go farther as a dead end wasn’t keeping them from movie, but for some reason they had stopped.

  Winnie acted faster than I did and hauled Tracy away from Llyr quickly. “We’re going to bring you home, don’t worry,” she said to Tracy, not taking her eyes off Llyr. She had pulled Tracy behind her so she and I now stood between her and Llyr. The nymph looked at us mystified and amused. The way only a nymph can. His eyes glistened with mischief. I was poised to bind him with the wand, it would be faster than a traditional spell and we needed all the power we could get going up against a nymph.

  I lifted the wand up, and his eyes only looked more amused. I didn’t understand why until I felt Tracy grip my arm softly. She had moved swiftly from behind Winnie to my side. She lowered my arm and the wand. I turned to look at her, uncertain of what was happening. Tracy smiled shyly at Winnie and me.

  “I’m not worried,” she said with a smile. She walked past Winnie and I and walked back to stand beside Llyr.

  “What are you doing?” Winnie asked her, reaching her arm out trying to pull her towards us. “What have you done to her?” She glowered at Llyr, distrustful of him.

  “He hasn’t done anything to me,” Tracy said putting his hand in hers. “I love him.” I looked between the two, shocked by the turn of offense.

  “What have you done to her?” Winnie asked again. It was as though she were ignoring Tracy completely. I was still looking between her and Llyr unsure of what to do. I had been so focused on getting Tracy away from Llyr, I hadn’t really considered the fact that she might not want to get away from him. I was already thinking ahead to trying to get Llyr back to Nikatomia, and their relationship was likely to cause problems with that.

  “I haven’t done a thing,” he said offended. “You know as well as I do that tampering with emotions is a crime.” It was true, tampering with a person’s emotions with magic was one of the highest crimes in Nikatomia. There it was akin to killing someone.

  “You don’t seem to care too much about the law,” I pointed out quickly. Alan was resting on my shoulder, but I could feel him ready to make a move at any point. His feet were moving up and down with anticipation.

  “I don’t know what that's supposed to mean,” Llyr replied, a genuine look of confusion flashed across his face. In a moment that look was gone and replaced with the cool demeanor he had worn earlier.

  “Why haven’t you come back home?” Winnie asked Tracy. Her and Llyr stood relaxed making me think that they weren’t going to run. I almost laughed as Winnie wagged her finger in Tracy’s face. “The entire town is out searching for you and your mother hasn’t slept since you’ve been gone.” Tracy’s feet shifted.

  “I know and I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize how long I had been gone. It was like time didn’t pass while we were together. Then all of a sudden it had been days.” If Llyr hadn’t been just a nymph, I would have accused him of altering time. With his power limitations, he wouldn’t have been able to do something like that though.

  “I was just bringing her back,” Llyr explained. “You were in the cave,” He pointed at Alan, who nodded.

  “And I heard her ask to go back, and you didn't let that happen,” he accused. Alan had just as much bias against nymphs as Winnie did. If I were honest, I had some bias too. Especially as Llyr was looking at us with such a smug expression.

  “We were reconnecting,” Tracy said, defending him. “It had been a long time since we had last seen each other.”

  “Your imaginary friend, right?” I asked. “The lake creature.” I could hear Roger and his crew clamoring around the cavern, looking for us. With the cave in I caused, it was harder to hear them. The echo wasn’t so dramatic. It sounded like they were far away, for now. That didn’t mean it wouldn’t be soon that they would show up.

  “Yeah,” Tracy smiled wide and looked up at Llyr. “We knew each other when we were young. I always thought I had made him up, but I guess I didn’t.”

  “What about all the people the lake creature has killed or hurt?” Winnie had her arms crossed now. She was still ready to take action, but just grumpy about it. Even though Tracy had put my arm and wand down I still held it at the ready.

  “I didn’t hurt or kill anyone,” Llyr said. “I was trying to save them all.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “What do you mean you were trying to save them?” I asked. That meant he was there when the ship went down and was involved at least somehow. I was tempted to pull Tracy back towards me again. Llyr looked regretful and guilty. He was losing his smirk and his attitude the more we spoke to h
im, which made me not hate him.

  “I was just a boy; my father and I had taken a trip out of Nikatomia together. We were meant to be bonding. As a joke we vacationed here in the lake as fish-people. My father always thought that it was funny the stories that humans came up with to explain the unexplainable. His favorite was the lochness monster,” Llyr explained. He had a way of talking that sounded like rippling water in its smoothness.

  “Nymphs,” Winnie growled and rolled her eyes. “You all create more trouble than you’re worth with your pranks.”

  “We didn’t create the trouble,” Llyr glared at Winnie. “A storm blew in that night, it was inexplicable. My father and I couldn’t do anything to stop it – it was beyond our control. To this day I don’t know why. It was like fate or destiny. We were swimming under water when we saw the ship start to rock with the storm. It was only a matter of time before they were going under. My father and I tried our best to save them, but we only managed to get one out.” His eyes were far away, lost with the memory. “Once the water calmed, we brought him to the surface.”

  “But you dragged them down?” Alan accused.

  “The water was raging on the surface; we couldn’t have brought them up. Our best and only option was to bring them to the caverns until the storm stopped.” I could hear Roger and his mob getting closer. “They fought against my father, and we accidentally cut the man’s legs. We created a legend without meaning to.”

  “What about the others?” I asked. I believed his story about the storm as he looked too upset when recounting it for it to be an act. I just didn’t know how he was going to explain the tourist. “You hurt more than just Roger.”

  “The others were not me,” he said shaking his head. “Nor where they my father. Once a story gets started it’s far too easy for imaginations to run wild. A tree branch caught on a leg becomes talons scraping into flesh.” He wasn’t wrong, but part of me was still concerned with how truthful he was being, but I didn’t have time to worry about it right now.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” I said. Roger and the men with him were not going to succeed in a fight against us, or the nymph. I didn’t want it to come to that, no one had to get hurt. Likely someone would if we ran into the group.

  “Why?” Llyr asked. He didn’t think of humans as something to be concerned about. Nymphs were also proud creatures. They don’t back down from a fight easily.

  “We don’t want a fight here. Roger and a group of men he gathered are on their way and are out for blood.” This time I looked to Tracy. “He thinks we are helping the lake creature, and he’s ready to go after him and us.”

  “Roger?” Tracy asked surprised. She had heard the voices but hadn’t been able to place who it was. “I thought for sure that was Billy Joe shouting out there.”

  “He’s been under house arrest since you've been missing. Everyone thought he had done something to you. That didn’t stop some of his buddies joining Roger though.” I was itching to get out of the caves now. I felt claustrophobic, not from the caves, but from the shouting voices coming down on us. Tracy looked frightened too.

  “We were trying to go back up when you used that whirlpool trick to try and find us,” Llyr said looking annoyed.

  “That was you?” Tracy asked, still trying to put together all the information she was taking in. She already knew about Llyr and his past, but not about us.

  “Yes,” Llyr answered for us. “They’ve been trying to bring me back to Nikatomia. It’s their job.” I was surprised that he knew so much about us. But it made sense considering he lived and grew up in Nikatomia. I was even more surprised by the fact that Tracy seemed to know what Nikatomia was.

  “Let’s go this way,” I said, Roger had to be close to where we were having gone around. I walked back the way we came. With the collapse I caused, I just had to wave the wand once more to clean it up and restore it to how it once was. The wand made the magic so much easier, I wondered and not for the first time why I didn’t use one all the time. It just wasn’t customary; it was more an accessory than a necessity.

  “If you were planning on going back already then it shouldn’t be a problem,” Winnie said. I turned back to see Tracy staring open mouthed at the magic she just witnessed. It was different seeing a spell like this and being told someone was changing the weather.

  “We have to go,” I urged. I grabbed Tracy’s arm and pulled her forward.

  “Why?” Llyr asked once more.

  “Come on,” Tracy said to him. “I don’t want you or anyone else to get hurt.”

  “I won’t get hurt,” he said with a laugh.

  “Can you promise me that they won’t?” She demanded. I liked seeing her take control, it made me feel for the first time like she had power. Llyr looked at her for a moment before starting forward. He took her hand once more and continued on.

  We left just in time. As we entered back into the large cavern I heard the men arrive to where we had been. They shouted in confusion since we were no longer there. I had redone the spell that collapsed the cave, so they had to go back around to get out. Hopefully by the time they were out we would be back in town with Tracy and possibly Llyr. They seemed to already have some kind of plan in place to explain Tracy’s disappearance. At this point I just wanted us to get back home with Llyr in tow, no matter how that happened.

  “So you two are witches? And Alan can talk?” Tracy said staring between the three of us. “Yes,” Was the only answer I could offer. I had almost forgotten that Tracy didn’t already know about us and Alan. Things had gone so quickly, and she had rolled with everything so well.

  “Okay,” she said with her eyes narrowed. “I guess let’s go this way.” She started walking towards another cave opening. She knew the way around the caves, like Roger did. I wondered if they taught everyone how to navigate them when they were young in case they got lost while wondering around.

  “We’ve got a faster way,” I said with a grin. Llyr knew where we were going with this and gripped Tracy tightly. Alan flew back into my pocket and nuzzled inside. We didn’t have to worry about the men anymore, they were essentially running in circles trying to get after us. Once we were back on land and Tracy was back with her mother, the mob would dissolve. We leapt from the bottom of the ground and back into the lake.

  We were back in the air pocket as we shot up towards the sky. It was the fastest way out. Tracy laughed joyfully as we flew. I half expected her to scream in fear. It felt like only a moment passed and we surfaced. We ended up right at the dock, but I lost some concentration and ended up in the water as I pulled myself onto the dock.

  “Really?” Alan whined inside my jacket. We were both soaked with ice cold water now. Winnie, Tracy and Llyr had avoided that. I found that since my memory came back, I had trouble focusing on any one thing for too long. Every time I did a spell it seemed like a new memory hit me.

  “Sorry,” I said quickly drying us off. I moved fast enough that Judy didn’t see anything as she bolted out of the bakery. She pulled Tracy into her arms hugging her tightly.

  “Where did you come from?” She asked breathlessly. Tracy hugged her mother back but looked as though the air had been squeezed from her.

  “I can’t breathe, mom. I’m alright,” Tracy assured her.

  “What happened to you? I’ve been worried sick,” Judy pulled away from her daughter. A spark of anger hit the woman after the relief from knowing she was alright and not in any danger. Judy eyed Llyr with judgment. For the first time I saw him squirm.

  “I got lost,” Tracy said looking chagrined. “I was swimming and Billy Joe and I got into a fight. I was upset and stormed off. I thought a walk might calm me down. By the time I started to pay attention I realized I was lost.”

  “You’ve never gotten lost before in your life,” Judy said looking at her daughter with suspicion.

  “Well, I was lost, but then I bumped into –,” She took a moment to think. “Matthew. He was lost as well, more than me even
. He used to visit here when he was young, and we got distracted catching up. Then the weather started acting up. The storm was too strong to head back, so we hunkered down in a cave until we got the chance to make it back.”

  “It was quite a storm,” Judy said thinking it over for a moment. “Did you hear Roger and his wild mob went out searching for their lake monster?”

  “We told her,” I said with a sigh. “I think now they can see Tracy is safe and not with a lake creature.”

  “Of course she’s not,” Judy exclaimed with a roll of her eyes. “Foolish men. I was sure that Billy Joe had done something to you.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Tracy said. “I told him that I was going to college, and that we were over. He was mean about it, but there’s nothing he can do to me now.” She smiled and stood by Llyr to illustrate her point. Judy looked exhausted once more at the prospect of her daughter already dating someone new. I had a feeling that this one was going to stick though. They looked as if they belonged together.

  “I’m just happy you’re okay,” Judy said. Then the shouting started again as the men ran onto the beach. It was like they were storming the beach with their makeshift weapons raised and their yells echoing. “What do you think you’re doing?” Judy shouted at them with her hands on her hips.

  The men all slowed, almost stopping. Their voices died down, as they lowered their weapons. Each of them had looks of confusion, then anger, then embarrassment as they took in the sight in front of them. Tracy was clearly safe and stable. Not the prisoner of some lake creature or monster like they were hunting. Winnie and I looked like nothing more than two tourists who happened upon Tracy and her man and led them home. One of the men looked around and then glared at Roger.