by Brian Harmon
“Each spell we cast shows us a grimmer outcome than the last,” Delphinium told him. “Something’s wrong.”
I’ll say, he thought, recalling his glimpse of the magic man in the burning forest. “We have to talk.”
“I know. But first…” She turned her attention to Alicia and Charlotte. “Thank goodness you’re both safe.”
“We are,” Alicia assured her. “Eric protected us.” Again her eyes came to rest on him and again she managed to make him feel a little uncomfortable.
“He’s pretty remarkable,” agreed Charlotte as she gave Delphinium a hug.
“I know,” she replied.
Eric wished she’d stop talking about him like that. He wasn’t the knight in shining armor she made him out to be.
“I missed you,” added Charlotte.
“Me, too.” She turned her gaze on Shondra and Siena. “And who do we have here?”
Charlotte introduced the Lowes and began telling her what had happened at the hospital, beginning with her discovery of the girl’s mother and her certainty that she was in mortal peril. Delphinium had no doubt heard some of this story already, since Isabelle had called to inform her of their delay, but she listened patiently to every word, taking in all the curious details.
Eric glanced at Alicia again and saw that she was still staring at him.
His cell phone chimed: I THINK SOMEONE’S TAKEN A LIKING TO YOU
He frowned at the message. That was ridiculous. He was almost old enough to be her father.
But those big eyes were still fixed on him. She didn’t even look away when he caught her staring.
I’M JUST SAYING
He stuffed the phone back into his pocket and walked toward the house, embarrassed.
Cierra met him at the door. “Wow. You look like shit.”
“Thank you.” He pushed past her into the house. “You know, I was thinking of you while those ogres were pummeling me.”
“How sweet. You remembered.”
“I did.” He dropped into one of the armchairs. “How’s everything going here? Delphinium said something about your spells not looking so good.”
“Earlier, it was showing us an uncertain future,” said Poppy from her place on the couch, a steaming cup of coffee cupped in her slender hands. “But the closer to morning we get, the darker the forecast becomes.”
“It’s like we’re doing something wrong,” said Cierra. “I don’t understand it.”
“Something’s not right,” agreed Poppy.
Eric nodded and ran a hand through his hair. That was an understatement. He kept running over the events of the night in his head. The magic man’s actions just didn’t make sense.
He was missing something. He was sure of it.
Holly entered the room and sat next to Poppy. “That was too close,” she told them. “For a minute there, I didn’t think we were going to make it back this time.”
“Ogres?” asked Cierra.
“Yes…but Eric killed most of them.”
Cierra raised her eyebrows. “How many?”
“A bunch,” replied Eric.
“But the imps…” continued Holly. “There were hundreds of them. And they were…changing…”
“What do you mean, ‘changing?’” asked Poppy.
“Mutating,” replied Eric. “Evolving. Transforming. They’re bigger, faster, smarter and tougher.”
“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” said Cierra.
Poppy shook her head. Neither had she. “What does it mean?”
But of course Eric didn’t know.
“They swarmed the van,” recalled Holly. “For a minute there, I really thought we were going to die.”
Alicia had entered the house behind Holly and was standing in the doorway. “It was terrifying,” she agreed.
Poppy turned to Cierra, a worried expression on her face. “He’s going to bring all those things to us in the morning. You know it. Imps and ogres by the hundreds. Maybe thousands.”
“Don’t forget the giants,” added Alicia.
Poppy and Cierra both looked up at her, surprised.
“Almost forgot about him,” grumbled Eric, recalling the enormous figure pushing through the trees as if they were cornstalks.
“You can’t be serious,” said Poppy.
Eric raised an eyebrow.
She sighed. “Of course you’re serious.”
Cierra cursed.
Delphinium entered the house with Charlotte and the Lowes in tow. “None of my spells showed me this.”
“I didn’t know where else to take them,” said Charlotte. “And I couldn’t leave them in that hospital. They weren’t safe there.”
“It’s okay,” Delphinium assured her. “You have to trust your instincts. They’ve never steered you wrong.”
“I can take them down the road, let them hide in the woods until the magic man is gone. He wouldn’t be looking for them. Whatever the outcome is for us, they’ll be safe.”
“We’ll consult the water,” Delphinium decided. “It’ll guide us. For all we know, they could be exactly the miracle we’ve been praying for. But we won’t let them get hurt.”
She crossed the room to the second arm chair and sat down, fixing her eyes on Eric. “Tell me everything.”
Eric described their encounters with the monsters in Clodsend State Park, including the giant. Then he told her of the bizarre creature he found in the basement of the hospital and of the mutating imps.
Delphinium shook her head and leaned back in the chair. “I’d say I don’t believe it, but I think I’m well past that by now.”
Eric leaned back in his chair. “Welcome to my world.”
“The magic man was there when we found Alicia,” Holly told her. “He burned the forest. We barely got out.”
“How is he staying so far ahead of us?” wondered Delphinium.
“A better question,” countered Eric, “is why he didn’t finish us off while we were there. I saw him in those woods. He could’ve attacked us, but he just left us to his monsters.”
“Maybe he just assumed the monsters were going to kill you,” suggested Cierra.
“I don’t know,” said Eric.
Delphinium stared at him. “You still think he’s letting you escape?”
“He didn’t exactly call off his monsters, but he didn’t attack us himself, either. I don’t understand it. I mean you said this guy was more than a match for Grandpa, but he didn’t want to face two teenage girls and a high school English teacher?”
“It was like that when I saw him, too,” recalled Poppy. “He was just staring at us from the upstairs window. He didn’t send any more monsters out after us or anything. I don’t understand why he didn’t finish us then and there.”
“He’s had a lot of opportunities to kill us,” said Eric. “From what I saw, he could’ve torched the entire forest and burned us all alive. He didn’t even have to bother with the imps and ogres. It’s like he’s after something else.”
“But what?” asked Poppy.
Eric turned his gaze to Delphinium. “You said this all goes back to Grandpa. I need you to tell me everything you know about him.”
Delphinium looked bewildered. “There’s not much to tell. He was a very private man.”
“Do you know anything about him?” pressed Eric.
“Of course.”
“What was his name?”
“Desmond.”
“Desmond?” asked Eric.
“Weizner.”
“Desmond Weizner was Grandpa?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about him.”
Delphinium looked uncertain. “He found me living on the streets when I was fourteen, pregnant and terrified. He was kind to me. He treated me like his real granddaughter. He didn’t want to use me like all the other men I’d met, only to teach me. I remained with him until he died. I never sensed anything false about him.”
“But what about before you met him?”
>
“He told me very little. Not about his life. He was born in London and he was older than he looked. He’d learned about magic from his mother, who died when he was still young. He traveled the world, honing his skills. Beyond that, he didn’t like to talk about himself. If I asked him about it, he’d just kind of blow me off. Or he’d change the subject. He liked to tell his mother’s stories about the old witches. He liked to talk about the crazy and fantastic things he’d seen in his travels. As for those things, I don’t think any of us didn’t wonder once or twice if he was exaggerating a little, but there was never any reason to think he was outright lying to us.”
“And the magic man? What did he tell you about him?”
“Only that he was the most dangerous man he’d ever met and that he couldn’t dismiss the possibility that he was still out there somewhere.”
“He never talked about how he defeated him?”
“Only that it was a fantastic battle. It almost killed him. He woke up in the hospital. But he never told us how it all went down or even what led up to it.”
Eric nodded. “And what about Desmond’s book?”
“Grandpa’s spell book?” asked Delphinium. “What about it?”
“How many people knew about that book?”
Delphinium looked confused. “As far as I know, only us. No one else knew about Grandpa’s magic. Why?”
“I asked how it was that everyone seemed to know about the imps and ogres. I was told they were written down in that book.”
“Grandpa wrote lots of things in the book,” said Cierra. “It was his life’s work. Lost the night he died.”
“But he told you it was impossible to conjure them.”
“He said he couldn’t do it,” explained Delphinium. “That it would take someone much more powerful than him.”
“So had he ever actually seen one?”
“I…” She glanced around the room. “I don’t…think so…”
“He made it sound like it’s been generations since one had been seen,” said Poppy. “He liked to talk about the old witches, the stories his mother told him.”
“A world filled with magic,” recalled Alicia. “Now on the brink of extinction.”
“I loved it when he talked about that,” sighed Holly.
“We all did,” agreed Charlotte.
Eric nodded. “So Desmond hadn’t ever seen any of these monsters before?”
“I don’t think so,” replied Delphinium. “Like I said, he thought it was beyond his power to summon even one.”
“He only knew of them from the book?”
“Or from what he learned in his travels in the old days,” suggested Charlotte. “Or maybe from his mother before she died.”
“Or maybe he did encounter them before,” suggested Cierra. “When he battled the magic man the first time.”
Delphinium stared at him. “You think the book has something to do with why we’re being attacked now?”
“I’m just throwing ideas out there,” said Eric. “Something’s not right. And I have a feeling the answer can be found in either Grandpa’s past or in that book.”
“Well, the book’s gone,” Cierra reminded him. “And so is Grandpa. So neither of them is talking.”
Eric pondered these things for a moment, then said, “Wasn’t it a little reckless of him to not give you more information about this magic man?”
Delphinium was quick to answer this: “He was protecting us.”
“I get that. But for someone so wise, didn’t it occur to him that something like this might happen someday? Was it really protecting you to leave you alone with no knowledge that might help you defeat this man?”
“He’s got a point,” said Cierra.
“Unless there is no way to defeat him,” offered Holly.
“Way to stay positive,” countered Cierra.
“But there must be a way to stop him,” said Eric, looking at Delphinium again. “You saw it in your spells. There was a possibility of winning.”
“Only a possibility,” she reminded him. “And it’s growing slimmer as we approach dawn. Each spell reveals a bleaker outcome.”
“But there was a possibility. That means that there must be a chance. Somehow, someway, if we play our cards just right, there must be a way to win.”
“But if we don’t know how to do it, what good is it?” asked Holly.
“Because if there exists a way to win…”
Cierra stood up straighter. “Then there exists a weakness!”
“Exactly.”
“But how do we find it?” asked Poppy.
But Delphinium knew. “The same way we find everything in magic. We ask the water.” She fixed Eric with her gaze. “We just have to ask it the right question.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Jude and Alicia brought extra chairs in from the dining room as they gathered around the steaming water bowl. They now numbered ten and no longer fit in the current seating arrangement.
“Don’t expect too much the first time,” Charlotte told Shondra. “It can take a while to learn to see anything.”
Shondra looked a little scared, sitting there on the couch between Charlotte and Poppy, still clinging to her daughter, who was sitting on her knee. Her eyes were nervously scanning the bowl and candles as if they might be implements of torture. “I still don’t understand any of this,” she said in a small voice.
“That’s okay,” Charlotte promised her.
“Anyone can learn to use the water,” Delphinium said. “Even those without gifts. But it does take time. I doubt you’ll be able to see anything, but you should sit in with us. Your presence might be helpful. Maybe it’ll tell us how you both fit into all this.” Then her eyes drifted to Siena. “I’m not sure, but I think this one might surprise us.”
Charlotte glanced at the girl. “I think she might have something,” she agreed.
But Delphinium only nodded. “I know she has something.”
Siena looked back and forth between the two. “Me? What do you mean?”
“You have gifts,” explained Delphinium. “I’ve been searching the world for girls like you for the past fourteen years.”
“Why?”
“To save them, of course.”
Eric took a chair from Jude and seated himself between the two armchairs. “So she’s one of the girls you’ve been looking for?”
Delphinium smiled. “No. I never would’ve met her if not for these circumstances. I look for special girls who are afraid and alone. My sisters need me, the way I needed Grandpa. They have no one else in the world, nowhere to go.” She turned her eyes on Shondra. “Siena has her mother.”
“She almost didn’t,” said Charlotte. “I hate to say it, but if all this hadn’t happened… The magic man… I keep thinking about it and I’m sure I never would’ve volunteered at that hospital if not for all this mess.”
Delphinium seated herself in one of the armchairs and frowned thoughtfully at Siena. “That might be true.”
“At least something good came of all this, then,” offered Eric.
“So far,” said Cierra.
“We can’t afford to be negative,” returned Holly.
“We can’t afford to be naïve,” countered Cierra.
Delphinium didn’t seem to notice them. She was still staring at Siena. She seemed to be pondering some deep thought.
“The sun’s going to be up soon,” observed Poppy. “Time’s running out and Marissa’s still out there somewhere. We have to get started.”
“Yes,” said Delphinium, tearing her eyes from the girl. She leaned over the table and lit the candles. To Shondra and Siena, she said, “Just relax and watch the water. Clear your mind. Be open to it. You don’t have to do anything else.”
Shondra still looked uncertain, but Siena was clearly curious. Her eyes were already washing across the bowl of water, searching for something magical.
Jude and Alicia seated themselves at either end of the table and everyone
fell quiet.
Minutes passed.
The water steamed before them. The candles burned.
Eric saw nothing but water and steam. He glanced around the room. Everyone was concentrating hard on the bowl except for Shondra, who kept glancing around at the others, as if she thought this was all some kind of bizarre prank.
He understood precisely how she felt.
Siena, meanwhile, looked curious, almost hopeful. She actually wanted something to happen, he realized.
He understood that, too.
He thought about what Delphinium said about her being special, like her sisters, and recalled the way she seemed to know that there were monsters in the hospital. He’d thought at the time that she was only feeding off the bizarre conversations that she must’ve overheard. After all, they’d discussed the “evil thing” that had ensnared her poor mother right in front of her, not realizing that she was taking in every word. But now he wondered if she might possess a special understanding of the world around her, not that unlike Charlotte.
“Siena,” said Holly.
Siena looked up, but Holly wasn’t talking to her.
“I see her, too,” said Delphinium.
“It’s true,” said Charlotte.
“What about her?” asked Shondra. She was looking around, concerned.
“She’s one of us,” replied Poppy. “Gifted.”
Delphinium lifted her gaze from the bowl and met Shondra’s eyes. “She’s been protecting you.”
Shondra squeezed her daughter a little tighter. “I don’t understand.”
“You will.” She returned her gaze to the water. “We’ll talk later. There will be time. Right now we can’t afford to linger.”
Cierra frowned at the water. “It still looks bad.”
“Pain and death,” agreed Poppy.
“And heartache,” added Alicia.
“We keep seeing those,” said Holly. “Even when it showed us we could win it warned us we’d suffer.”
“There will be sacrifices,” said Delphinium, her voice solemn.
Eric looked up at Charlotte. She glanced up from the water and met his eyes. Sacrifices. Mr. Hamblin had spoken of a sacrifice in his sleep.
“No matter what, there will be pain,” continued Delphinium.
“There already has been,” Holly reminded them. “Regina and Marie. Sylvia… I keep seeing Sylvia.”