by Shady Grim
“What’s happenin’, Shelly? Where’s my dad?”
“You’re so cold, Emmy. Let me get you some dry clothes. Stay here with Jimmy.” Big Jim guarded the door while Shelly retrieved a change of clothes for Emmy. It took her only seconds. Emmy noticed that Shelly was rushing, and that she was avoiding Emmy’s eyes. Shelly put together a change of clothes for Jimmy and laid them on the bed next to him. She rubbed her hands on his cold arms. “Everything’s going to be fine, Jimmy. We’ll be fine.”
“Where’s my dad?”
“You two get changed, and I’ll get you something hot to eat.” Shelly and Jim were out the door in a flash. Jim had just pulled it closed when Emmy body-slammed it. Emmy kicked the door and pulled at the knob while Jimmy sat on the bed and sobbed.
“She’s not coming back for us, is she, Em?”
“She ain’t comin’ back for me, that’s for sure.” Emmy peeled off her wet clothes and pulled on the dry ones. Jimmy did the same. “Where’s yer penlight?”
“Why?” said Jimmy, wiping the tears from his face.
“Yeh’ll see.” She rooted through the drawer of Jimmy’s bedside table. She pulled out the little flashlight and continued to search until she found a couple of disposable pens. “I think I can use these,” she mumbled as she removed the ink cartridges from their casings and handed the flashlight to Jimmy. “Hold this for me.”
“What for?”
“I’m gonna pick this lock. My dad showed me, it’s easy.”
“Isn’t picking locks illegal?”
“Dad says somethin’s only illegal if someone sees yeh do it.” Jimmy held the light for her as she knelt down at the door and started to poke around in the lock. Her first several tries were unsuccessful, and Jimmy was quickly losing faith. “I can do it!” she said through clenched teeth. “Just hold the light still.” After about twenty minutes of fiddling around, she heard the tiny click of success. She smiled at Jimmy, who clicked off his little flashlight. Emily carefully turned the knob and slowly pushed open the bedroom door. She poked her head out and checked the hallway for any sign of people. Satisfied that everyone had gone downstairs, she turned to Jimmy and waved her hand for him to follow her.
“I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t leave my mom.”
“Stop bein’ such a sissy, Jimmy. We have to save Dr. and Mrs. Zee,” whispered Emmy, and she pulled Jimmy by the arm into the hallway.
“They’re already dead, Em. You heard the gunshots.”
“Byron didn’t hurt us. He might not ‘ve hurt them either.”
“Wait, I need my cap.” Jimmy reached in the door and pulled his favorite green cap from the top of his toy box, and then put his hand on Emmy’s shoulder to let her know he was ready. Emmy turned around and carefully closed the door before she and Jimmy crept along the hallway and up to the third floor. She entered the third floor room and quietly closed the door behind her. She whispered to Jimmy to turn on his flashlight. She crept across the room to the bed, waving at Jimmy to follow. Emmy lay on the floor, peered under the bed, and found a rolled up blanket. She thought it must be the bundle that was left for her and carefully dragged it from under the bed. “What’s that?” Emmy didn’t answer. She quickly threw back the folded ends of the blanket to reveal an old backpack and the two rifles they had practiced with earlier. (When Ethan returned to Heather’s room to clean up the other rifles, he loaded the .22’s and put the box of remaining rounds in the pack. While he was out shopping, he’d bought an extra box of .22 caliber rounds, figuring that Heather would let the children use up all of the rounds that she had. He then folded the rifles up with the pack in an old blanket, and stuffed them under the bed. He knew that Heather wouldn’t have approved of small children running around unsupervised with loaded weapons, so he made sure that she didn’t know about it. If he’d shown her the single box of .22 caliber bullets, she would’ve known what he was up to.)
Emmy checked the breaches of both rifles and whispered, “They’re loaded.” She then unclipped the top of the pack and pointed for Jimmy to shine the light in it. Pleased with its contents, she clasped the pack closed again and stood up to slip it onto her back. She picked up her rifle and slipped her arm and head through the sling so that it hung securely on her back. She handed the second rifle to Jimmy for him to do the same, but he refused.
“We don’t know what they’ll do to us if we try to leave.”
“Fine, yeh can stay here.” Emmy laid the gun on the blanket and snatched the flashlight from Jimmy’s hand. She reached back and dropped the flashlight into her pack and turned to climb out onto the walkway. Jimmy stood for a moment, looking at the rifle and then back at Emmy. He thought about the events that led up to their imprisonment, and how strangely his parents had acted. He decided to go along with Emmy. He picked up his rifle and slipped his head and arm through, just as she had done, and followed her out onto the walk. Emmy pulled him down into a crouch as soon as he exited Heather’s room. He heard music playing.
“Someone’s down there,” said Emmy in such a low whisper that Jimmy barely heard her. Jimmy quickly peeked over the safety railing and saw a person sitting in a car. “I think we’re far enough away that we won’t be seen.” Emily was feeling around for the ladder Heather told her about. When she found it, she dropped it over the rail, and it made a light clanking sound as it swayed into the iron railing. She felt a sudden rush of fear and quickly hopped over the rail and onto the rope.
“I’m afraid I’ll fall,” whispered Jimmy as he looked over the edge.
“It’s just like climbin’ a tree. Come on.” Both children scrambled down the ladder with the kind of speed and agility that only children have. As soon as their feet found the ground, they headed for the canoe.
Chapter Twenty
We rose and followed Tim another hundred or so yards heading north-west. We settled down in the dense brush that Tim seemed to favor as camouflage and listened. I could tell by the way Ethan was looking around that he heard the shadow-beasts that were stalking us. Luckily for all of us, he wasn’t able to see them.
“Do yeh think anyone heard us?”
“You’re so loud a deaf man could hear you,” replied Tim.
“Just what are we listening for?” I said.
“We’re close to the water,” replied Tim. “Sound travels well here. I was listening for human voices. I didn’t hear any, so they must still be at the house. We have a little time before the ritual begins.”
“Care to elaborate on that last statement?” said Ethan, his full attention now on Tim.
“Are you familiar with the story of the witch that once inhabited this land?”
“Yes, we are,” I replied.
“Your home sits exactly where her home once sat.”
“What a happy coincidence,” said Ethan. “Let’s break out the confetti.” He was growing pale with fear, and the shadow-beasts were drawing nearer. I moved closer to him in the hopes that I could block anything that came too close to him.
“It’s not a bad thing,” said Tim. “All of the necessary precautions were taken before the house was built. It’s akin to capping a well. What is in the well cannot rise. What is above the well cannot descend.” Tim picked up a stick and drew a Latin cross in the dirt. He drew a triangle just before the farthest point, and drew a square between the three clustered points. “This square is your home. The three cardinal points that we represent are nearest to it. Ritual sacrifices, in this case us, must be performed at the same time, at exactly the same distance from the house, and on a cardinal directional point. Each of us was placed at exactly thirty-three point three yards from the house.”
“What difference does the distance make?” I said.
“Three is a sacred umber,” said Ethan. “It can represent either the holy or the unholy trinity–as well as a bunch of other stuff yeh don’t wanna know.”
“Why couldn’t it be three inches, or three feet?”
“The distance has been dictated by t
he planting of sacred trees. I was staked to the ground beneath an ash tree. Ethan was hung from an oak tree. You were tied to a hawthorn tree. Those three trees are sometimes referred to as the ‘magical trio.’ The three of them working together would lend a great deal of power to the person who knows how to manipulate it.”
“They’re just trees, Tim.”
“Here we go,” said Ethan, rolling his eyes.
My skepticism didn’t faze Tim at all. He continued undeterred with his explanations. “The hawthorn might be particularly powerful because it looks like a Faerie tree.”
“Okay, I’ll bite,” I said. “What is a fairy tree?”
“It’s a very old tree that is the only one of its kind in a given area and is inhabited by Faeries. The term can be applied to more than one kind of tree, but in our case it’s most likely the hawthorn. You should have been placed near it, not tied to it because that might make the Faeries angry and cause them to retaliate. They’re known for being ill-tempered, much like pukwudgies.”
“What are pukwudgies?” I was getting very tired of this question-and-answer session and it showed.
“Patience, doubting Thomas,” said Ethan.
“The short answer is this: they are small magical beings that can help or cause harm to passing humans. It’s best to avoid them. Byron most likely didn’t know that he tied you to a Faerie tree. He isn’t very bright. Hopefully the Faeries liked you.”
“I don’t believe this, people are trying to murder us and we’re talking about fairies.”
“Not like cartoon fairies,” said Ethan. “Tim’s talkin’ about the Fae. Spiritual bein’s who are known to be temperamental. Messin’ around with a Faerie tree can be really, really bad; unless the Faeries like yeh. Let’s hope they don’t like yeh too much, ‘cause the dude Faeries are known for stealin’ women to be their sex slaves.”
“Dude Faeries? You have a very peculiar way of speaking,” said Tim.
“I talk weird, and yeh are weird. I guess that makes us even.”
“How can something the size of a house cat make me a sex slave?”
“Bein’ tiny is an illusion. They’re magical bein’s. They can be any size they wanna be.”
“I’ve had enough of this,” I said and attempted to rise. Tim pulled me back down.
“Please be patient, there is a lot more. That particular type of hawthorn tree is called a downy hawthorn, which are sometimes called red hawthorns. Red corresponds with the south, so it was placed there deliberately. And that brings me to the colors we’ve been marked with. Each color corresponds to one of the four elements. Mine is yellow, which represents air. Ethan’s is blue, representing water; and yours is red, representing fire. Each element is associated with one of the cardinal directions.”
Ethan read the question in my eyes and answered before I had a chance to voice it. “The cardinal directions are the same as the main compass points.”
“That’s why I asked you about Ethan’s birthday. July ninth on the tropical zodiac makes Ethan a Cancer, which is a water sign. Water’s direction is west. You’re obviously a fire sign, which is why you were placed south of the house. My birthday is June twenty-first. As an air sign, my direction is east.”
“If yeh were born on June twenty-first, that makes yeh a Cancer, like me.”
“No, the cut-off isn’t by the day, it’s by the hour. The sun hadn’t fully entered the sign of Cancer when I was born, making me a Gemini.” Tim took his canteen out of his satchel and poured a little water on some loose dirt that he’d gathered up. He made a loose mud patty and smeared mud on his face and rubbed it through his hair.
“I don’t think that will wash off the paint,” I said.
“That doesn’t matter. I’ve already been marked. Even if I wash it off, the spiritual mark will remain. I’m using the mud as camouflage. White hair is easy to see.”
“Okay, we have one direction left,” I said. “What is its significance?”
“North is the most important of the four points,” said Tim.
“Why’s that?”
“North is associated with both God and Lucifer. It represents the concept of eternity,” answered Ethan. “There’s a problem with yer theory, Tim. There’s no tree on the lawn.”
“I drew the Latin cross for a reason,” replied Tim. “The fourth point is located across the lake, and will be exactly three hundred and thirty-three yards from the house, due north.”
“You said that the distance has to be exact,” I countered. “Thirty-three point three yards is a much shorter distance than three hundred and thirty-three yards.”
“Physically it is much shorter, but spiritually they are precisely the same distance because they contain the same numbers, in the same order, and the same frequency.”
“The point is silent,” said Ethan.
“Thanks for the clarification. So, by process of elimination, north corresponds to the element of earth. What’s its color, brown?”
“Green,” replied both Tim and Ethan.
“So we just need to find someone smeared with green paint, right?”
“Lizbet Fitzgerald is very clever. She could possibly have marked several people with the same colors. I need birthdates to find the fourth sacrifice. Emmy has a strong personality. She could be the fourth.”
“Emmy’s a fire sign,” said Ethan. “She’s a Leo, her birthday’s July twenty-fifth.”
“That rules her out,” said Tim. “What about Jimmy?”
“His birthday is October first,” I said.
“He’s a Libra,” said Ethan. “That’s an air sign. It ain’t him. Great, now all we have to do is ask every other resident of Twilight Falls about their birthdays. Simple, right?”
“Ethan, what was Kelly’s birthday?”
“May third–she’s a Taurus, which is an earth sign. Yeh don’t think they kidnapped ‘er, do yeh? Killin’ that bitch would be a good thing. Her evil spirit might hang around and fuck up all their plans. She always did it to me.”
“What if they mistook Kelly’s birthday for Emmy’s? Is a mistake like that possible?”
“Absolutely,” said Tim. “Spirits can make mistakes just like us–assuming that it was a spirit that gathered the information. They can also be given misinformation from other spirits, something like counterintelligence.”
“So how would that affect things?” I said.
“One of the rituals won’t work. We’ll die either way, of course.”
“What do yeh mean by ‘one of the rituals’?”
“There is a reason why water runs through the four directional points. Water is a source of life for most living creatures. We can’t survive without it. Some cultures believe that human life emerged from water. Even science has theories stating that humans evolved from ocean-dwelling animals.”
“Hold on a minute, Tim,” said Ethan. “That’s a freshwater lake out there, and it’s fed by an underground spring. Spiritually speakin’ water is a barrier to ghosts and certain creatures of the undead variety. Vampires can’t cross water unless they fly over it in bat form, or are carried over it. Ghosts are restricted by water and witches are too. How is anyone gonna do some magical ritual when a lake is blockin’ the northern cardinal point from the other three?”
“Water has a dualistic nature,” said Tim, “as do the four cardinal points, and the sacred trees, and virtually everything else in existence. For example, the hawthorn tree that Heather was tied to can be used to repel witches and evil spirits, but it can also be used to help them. There’s a very old rhyme that says; ‘Hawthorn tree and elder flowers, fill the house with evil powers.’ Even the term ‘witch’ has a dual meaning. Some witches are benevolent, others malign. The power of the elements can be used for good or ill.”
“Do yeh know how powerful a witch would have to be to do what yer suggestin’?”
“What is he suggesting? I’m not following.”
“The witch wouldn’t have to be as powerful as she is clever. The e
lements of the first ritual would give her all the power she needed.”
“Yeh said the first ritual won’t work.”
“What are you two talking about?”
“The purpose of the first ritual is to separate us. By placing the four of us at the four cardinal directions, we would be at the greatest possible distance apart–spiritually speaking. We wouldn’t be able to come together to stop the second ritual, and we wouldn’t be able to find each other in the future. We would be lost to time. If the wrong fourth is chosen, the real one would be able seek out the other three and bring us together again. It may take several lifetimes to complete, but we would be reunited.”
“How would the second ritual work if the first is done incorrectly?” said Ethan.
“It might not work exactly as the Fitzgeralds intend it to, but something will definitely happen. There are a great number of things at work here, all designed to harness an enormous amount of elemental energy. Even if the sacrifices aren’t the correct ones, they will still offer up much needed magical energy. I was born on the summer solstice, making my birth special. Killing me will lend great power to the second ritual. What is essential is that the witch performing the ritual knows how to redirect all of that energy. If it’s possible to correctly complete the second ritual, I assure you that Lizbet Fitzgerald is the person to do it.”
Ethan looked at me and the expression on his face disturbed me greatly. “Heather was born on March twenty-first, the vernal equinox.”
“Lizbet’s birthday is September twenty-third, the autumnal equinox,” replied Tim.
“Shame nobody’s sacrificin’ ‘er,” grumbled Ethan.
“I don’t understand what you two are talking about. What is the purpose of the second ritual?”
“Water is a symbol of life, of birth or rebirth, and of cleansin’. So, to put it bluntly, they’re resurrectin’ someone.”
“Ethan, of all the absurd things you’ve said to me over the years, that one tops the list.”
“Medical doctors bring people back to life all the time!” argued Ethan. “I’ve seen it on television.”