“Ghosts can put energy into objects,” Charlotte explained. “That’s how fortune tellers sometimes communicate with the dead through talismans. We each put a little of our energy into that belt of yours. Now it is a talisman. If you ever need help, hold the belt in front of a flame and call on us. It will only work once, but our spirits will respond and we’ll come find you.”
Awesome! Ghostly backup could definitely come in handy someday.
“Thanks,” I said, touched by their gift to me. “So where are you off to now?”
“We are going to seek out our living family members and friends,” Colleen responded. “They deserve to know what happened to us.”
I pivoted toward Elaine. “You’re going to visit your mother I take it?”
“Definitely,” she said. “Until we meet again, Crisa. Good luck.”
“You too—all of you. And Elaine, tell your mom I said hi.”
With that, the ghosts took off. Their forms glimmered brighter for a second and then each of them zoomed toward the sky and disappeared into the dusk. Once they were out of sight, I turned my attention back to the bridge. The group of my freed, former co-captives was waiting for me on the other side—their long red gowns dragging in the pebbly marsh that rimmed the lake. I sucked in my pain and exhaustion and slowly made my way to their waiting throng.
When I reached them, I was consumed in a swarm of hugs and cheers. The hugs hurt, but the cheers felt good. I walked with the girls to the edge of the forest as they gabbed and gushed and each tried to thank me individually. It was flattering. They made me feel like a hero. For a moment I forgot that in order for me to earn their praise I’d had to kill so many others.
The thought of it sickened me with moral conflict.
As I made my best efforts to swallow the guilt, I glanced up from a tight hug bestowed upon me by a girl with blonde bangs and thought I saw something in the distance. I moved my way through the group so I could see better.
There was a tall figure emerging from the forest—a familiar-looking person with dark brown hair and a posture I recognized. I continued walking toward the figure until he looked up and saw me. He stopped, just like my heart did for an instant when I realized who it was.
For a second we stared at each other across the expanse—both of us trying to be sure we weren’t seeing a mirage. And then …
“Knight!”
I don’t think I’d ever been so happy to hear someone say my last name.
“Daniel!”
A jolt of exhilaration and relief propelled me to run to him. I forgot all my pains and aches. I was so happy that when I reached him I leapt into his embrace and wrapped my arms around his shoulders. He threw his arms around me and lifted me off the ground, spinning me for a second.
“I was so worried!” I exclaimed when he put me down.
“You were worried? Knight, I saw you get shot. I thought you were dead!”
I shrugged, smiling at him. “Well, you know me. I’m not that easy to get rid of.”
He looked me up and down and noticed the new red dress I had on over my leggings. “I see you had a costume change,” he said.
“I did.”
He leaned in closer. “What’s wrong with your eyes?”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re kind of dull and gray. Actually …” He took a step back and studied me properly. “All of you seems pretty drained. What happened to you?”
“In a word, Bluebeards,” I replied. “But I’ll live. What happened to you?” I asked as I looked him over, noticing the thin scratches on the side of his neck. Without thinking, I reached my hand to his face and turned his chin to get a better look. “Are those cat scratches?”
“I had a run in with a not-so-friendly Puss in Boots,” Daniel said, swiping my hand away. “Let’s just say my dislike of cats is now irrevocable.”
“Crisa?”
I turned around to find Darcy and some of the other girls standing near us. “Who’s this?” she asked, staring at Daniel with intrigue.
“This is Daniel,” I said. “He’s a good friend of mine. Daniel, these are, uh, some new friends.”
Daniel lifted his hand in a wave and smiled. “Hi there.”
A flutter of giggles went through the group. Some girls waved, others said hello, a few just smiled and nodded. Their response irritated me slightly—like the mermaids’ reactions to the boys in Neverland—but I let it go. Daniel was handsome. Girls getting all girlie around him was part of the deal.
“Ladies, give us a minute, will you?” I said.
The girls went back to chatting lakeside. When they’d gone, I returned my attention to Daniel. “Are the others with you?”
His expression darkened and he shook his head. “No. I got separated from them in the Shifting Forest during the attack. I’ve just been heading north trying to find them and … maybe you too.”
“I thought you thought I was dead.”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “But I hoped you weren’t.”
Nightfall was imminent, and considering the Shifting Forest would be even more confusing after dark, our group decided to make camp for the night. The lakeside was flat and we could see clearly in all directions. No monsters or magic hunters could sneak up on us.
We didn’t have any food and the grass we lay down on was far from cozy, but nobody complained. Roughing it for one night sure beat an eternity of being prisoner to a human-trafficking monster.
Even though it was a warm evening, we built a campfire. After being captive for so long, the girls were happy to sit in the open around its glow. Daniel and I volunteered to collect more wood but were careful to keep the luminescence of our camp within sight in case the forest shifted again.
My pain had diminished, but I felt utterly exhausted. Daniel and I had too much to catch up on for me to go to sleep yet though. I told him about coming back to life after the hunters shot me, being imprisoned in Bluebeard Tower, and the development of my Magic Instinct. I told him everything except about the dreams I’d had. My visions about Chance, Mark, and him and me lying beneath that tree felt too personal, and I didn’t feel comfortable sharing them. Plus, they didn’t really seem important or relevant.
When I’d completed my recap, Daniel told me about the shenanigans he’d gotten into during our time apart. They involved a giant iguana, a duel with a local warlord who’d kidnapped some duchess, and a surprisingly vile encounter with Puss in Boots. The outcome of his adventures? The iguana was extinguished, the duchess was saved, and Daniel’s distrust of cats was cemented in stone.
“So, do you think that thing with your powers bringing you back to life was just a one-off, or will it work every time someone kills you?” Daniel asked as I split a branch with my axe.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” I replied. “I didn’t exactly mean for it to happen, and I have no way of testing it unless, you know, I get killed again.”
“Let’s call that a Plan B,” he said. “Still, it would be pretty awesome if you could learn to control it. You’d be unstoppable.”
“I don’t know if I want to be unstoppable,” I said with a sigh. “I’m not sure anybody should be. Power like that is too corruptible. It’s the whole reason Pure Magic is dangerous, and the whole reason I’m supposed to keep a tight rein over it. What I did today with Magic Instinct in Bluebeard Tower was necessary for my survival, and the survival of others, but I don’t want to unleash like that again if I can help it. You don’t know how horrible and wonderful it felt to give in to such power. It was sensational in a destructive way that I can’t fully describe.” I shook my head, feeling conflicted. “I have to contain it. If I start thinking of myself as invincible—if I let it go to my head—then who’s to say I won’t wake up tomorrow with a wicked heart?”
“I don’t know,” Daniel admitted. “But I think you’re being too hard on yourself. I know that every person with Pure Magic—apart from Liza and apparently Merlin—has changed. But you’ve been working reall
y hard with Liza. You’ve got your powers under control and I don’t think a few episodes of Magic Instinct are going to change that. You’re honestly the last person who I would ever worry about turning dark. That’s why Arthur knighted you in the first place, right? You’re like the poster child for the moral compass.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that …” I said uneasily. “Not after what I did to the Bluebeards and the tigermen today.” The air abruptly felt colder and darker. The mere mention of the merciless actions I’d taken this afternoon filled me with unease.
Like Daniel said, the whole reason Arthur had knighted me—given me The Pentecostal Oath and thus the gift of being able to claim Excalibur—had been because he thought I was honorable. But I had just taken so many lives. They may have been monsters, but did that really make a difference?
Was killing the Bluebeards and tigermen acceptable because they’d killed so many innocents themselves?
Could a person truly be good when they did things that seemed so outwardly terrible?
“You know, I passed my second Valiancy Test today,” Daniel said suddenly.
I turned toward him, surprised. “You mean—”
“I killed two magic hunters,” he said bluntly. “It was during the attack in the Shifting Forest. I didn’t mean for it to happen,” he continued. “But it happened.”
I stared at Daniel, the one person who always told me the truth even when I didn’t want to hear it. His eyes looked hard, but then, they almost always did.
“Do you regret it?” I asked.
A beat passed between us. He exhaled deeply. “I don’t believe in regret, Knight. It’s a waste of energy. What I believe in is learning from my mistakes so that I’ll be better prepared next time.”
He sat down on a large tree root with the bundle of firewood we’d been collecting at his feet. I sat beside him, returning my axe to wand form. Its glow made my hand look ghostly, like the dead girls from Bluebeard Tower.
“So, do you?” I asked. “View it as a mistake, I mean?”
“Honestly, no,” he responded. “Those guys were trying to kill us. Killing them was not an easy thing to do, but I know it was the right thing to do.”
“But even if it was the right thing to do? Was it wrong to do it?” I pressed.
Daniel cocked his head. “Are you asking me that question, or yourself?”
“I don’t know.” I kicked at the pile of branches at our feet and gazed into the shadowy forest.
“Well, let me ask you this,” Daniel replied. “Do you regret what you did to the Bluebeards and the tigermen?”
I thought on the question. When things were about to go down in Bluebeard Tower, I remembered telling myself that when the time came, I would trust my instincts. I would trust my heart to weigh the options and make the right call.
It was true that killing others—in general—was bad. But at the end of the day, I had acted defensively and protectively. I wondered if maybe that was the difference. I hadn’t sought out Daverose and his kind to end them. And while I’d harnessed darker emotions to evoke Magic Instinct, I’d been motivated by good intentions rather than revenge or hate. I had made the choice to take down the Bluebeards because it was the only way to save myself, the other girls, and the ghosts, while ensuring that future generations of innocents didn’t suffer the same ordeal.
I leaned back and glanced up at the starry sky through the canopy of trees.
“I regret that it was necessary,” I thought aloud. “But I don’t regret doing it. They’d already murdered so many people. And if I hadn’t stopped them, they would’ve continued. I made a decision. The morally superior might look down on me for that, but I stand by it. Whether that makes me a good person or a bad person, I’m not sure.”
“I couldn’t tell you,” Daniel said with great care. “I’m not an ethics professor. But it sounds to me like your heart was in the right place. That’s gotta count for something. Whether you’re able to justify your actions with your own sense of morality though is on you alone. I’m not your conscience, Knight.”
“Aren’t you?” I asked, half joking—but half serious.
We sat there in silence for a minute. Eventually Daniel picked up the pile of firewood and bundled it under one arm. He extended his free hand to me and helped me off the ground.
We started back toward the glow of the campfires. Just before we stepped into the lakeside clearing, Daniel spoke again.
“For what it’s worth, I think you’re a good person. I know you’re worried about your magic, and what you can do. But if I had to trust anybody with that kind of power, I’d trust you in a heartbeat.”
I looked up at him and found myself feeling grateful, not just for what he’d said, but for him too. “Thank you, Daniel. I mean it.”
“Any time, Knight.” He paused for a second then regarded me sincerely. “And I mean that too.”
I stood on the edge of a jagged cliff overlooking a gorge that seemed to go on forever.
The sky was honeydew green. Hazy sandstorms swept across a distant horizon while black and gold sparks of magic carried on swirling winds.
Tall rock formations stuck out from the misty depths of the gorge. The decaying remains of buildings protruded from them like blemishes. These intriguing buildings had nothing on the ones hanging from the sky. Like stalactites in a cave, severed castle towers, parapets, and turrets hung upside down from absolutely nothing. They floated across the entrancing sky like clouds.
The snap of a twig caused me to turn around. Mauvrey was standing behind me. Her golden-blonde hair was swept back in a long ponytail. She wore jeans, heeled boots, and a camel-colored leather jacket over a plain white t-shirt. Her fingerless metallic gloves encased her hands. There was an odd black vein pattern going up along the right side of her neck that was creepy like a viral crossword puzzle.
Despite this strange affliction, the expression on her face was even more unusual. It wasn’t filled with its usual condescension or superiority; rather, she looked at me with genuine concern.
Just past her, two other people were approaching—Natalie and Daniel. Natalie was the same early twenties age that I’d dreamed about recently. The wind swept her maple hair across her shoulders. It was redder in this light, as were her eyes. She’d been crying.
I was speechless at the sight of them all together. A person I cared for, a person I hated, and a person who I was supposed to save, all standing side by side in this unexpected place.
“You’re going to want to hide.”
I spun at the sound of the male voice. When I did, the fascinating dreamscape of the gorge and honeydew sky vanished along with Daniel, Natalie, and Mauvrey.
Now I was in a white void with an old man standing before me.
I recognized him. He was the only person besides Liza who’d ever contacted me through my dreams. The mysterious man was about sixty with a long white beard and a silver-and-dark-blue robe. He wore a utility belt with a variety of leather pouches around his waist and carried a staff with a ridged point like a mining drill in his right hand.
I didn’t know who he was, but he’d directed me to begin our search for Paige Tomkins in Neverland, which was how we’d ended up meeting Arthur and Peter.
“When you find the magic hunters, you’re going to want to hide,” he said. “I can take care of myself.”
“What?” I stammered.
Then the man brusquely vanished.
“Hey!” I shouted.
No response. He was gone, but I heard someone else.
“Would you like some more tea?”
I whirled around. Natalie was sitting in the void. But unlike the version of her I’d just seen, this Natalie was no more than nine years old.
While my side of the void was white and vacant, hers featured a field of flowers paired with a pink and purple sky. She was sitting at a round table with a lace tablecloth. The little girl wore a glittery lavender dress and a plastic tiara. Around her sat a raggedy stuffed bear, a fu
rry bright blue monster toy, and a plush peach rabbit with a bow around his neck and a missing ear.
Natalie poured tea into white teacups. Butterflies flitted around her, their wings sprinkling golden glitter.
As I drew nearer, I noticed the white clouds overhead were twisting into the most brilliant shapes—dragons, castles, pirate ships, and Pegasi. Looking closer, I also discovered the flowers in the field were like living drawings—renderings made by a child that had sprung up from the pages of a coloring book. All the scenery was that way. The trees and bushes and even the swirls of the sky were a living work of art.
I was a few feet from Natalie when I collided with an invisible force field. I placed my hand against it, sending out a glistening ripple that appeared to go on infinitely in both directions. I had no way of knowing where or if it ended, but the force field prevented me from getting any closer to Natalie.
“There now, Vincent,” she said as she poured tea for the peach rabbit. “See, all you needed was a little tea to get your inspiration back. Soon you’ll be good as new and we can paint some more.”
I pressed my hands onto the force field, causing it to warble. Natalie was so near, but she might as well have been a million miles away.
I gazed at her sympathetically. She was so young and happy. It hurt me to know that so much darkness was coming for her. She didn’t deserve enemies like Arian or that blonde witch Tara who would eventually come for her. Natalie was an innocent in all of this, an accidental pawn in the schemes of others. And the only thing that could help her was my intervention.
Closing my eyes, I pressed my forehead against the force field. “Don’t worry, Natalie. I will protect you. No matter what, I’ll find a way to save you. I promise.”
“Who said that?”
My eyes snapped open. Young Natalie was now on her feet, looking around curiously.
“Is someone there?” she said to the sky. “You said you’d save me. Save me from what?”
Crisanta Knight: To Death & Back Page 29