Edie in Between

by Laura Sibson

  “Haven’t you ever wanted to be normal?” I ask Rhia.

  “God, no. Normal is boring.”

  “Liar,” Tess says with a smile. “In sixth grade, you tried to tell everyone that your real name was Emily.”

  “Oh, man, I totally forgot that. My name was so different. No one could spell it. Teachers never knew how to say it. There were already like three Emilys in the class, so it seemed like a good bet. Now, though, I love my name and I’m glad it’s different.”

  I think of similar times I tried to blend in. Truth is, I’m relieved not to be pretending anymore, not to be hiding who and what I am. Blending in means erasing what’s special about each of us. I walk to the middle of the clearing and kneel. I dig in my bag for the candle and rosemary, and something else tumbles out. I pat the ground, but I can’t find what fell. It seems like I still have all the ingredients I need, though, so I don’t worry about it. I’m focused on this moment of seeking the key. I set the candle on the ground, lighting it with a match because I’m still hesitant about making fire, especially after the beech. I crumble rosemary into the flame and when I smell its fragrance, I repeat the incantation for finding a lost item:

  “As I hold this image in my mind,

  Help me see what I hope to find.”

  Behind me, I hear Rhia say, “As it is above, so below.”

  The illumination that comes from magic is followed by an image appearing in my mind: a long skinny skeleton key tied to a tree branch with a red satin ribbon. “The key must be attached to the hawthorn, on one of the branches.”

  “Wow, your mom was not messing around when she hid stuff, was she?” Tess mumbles.

  “Guess not,” I say, still uncomfortable with what my mother had done.

  “She couldn’t risk someone finding all of the five items and dismantling what she’d created,” Rhia said.

  “At least the hawthorn isn’t a tall tree,” I say. “But it has thorns, so be careful.” I tuck my long ponytail under a baseball cap.

  “Good thing I brought these!” Tess holds up three pairs of work gloves. “I really brought them so that none of us has to touch the key, but they’ll help with thorns, too.”

  “Always thinking, Tess,” Rhia says.

  The bright moon is our light as we peer up through the branches seeking the key.

  “Ow,” Rhia exclaims. “Damn branch caught on my hair.”

  “Let me help,” I say, moving to where Rhia stands. I work to disentangle her hair from the thorny branch. Standing so close to Rhia here in the dark awakens every part of me. I wonder how long I can drag this out because I don’t want to step away from her. But a moment later, she’s free. “All set.”

  “Thanks,” Rhia says, turning to face me while rubbing the spot at the back of her head. “Maybe the tree was getting me back for taking your hair earlier.”

  I laugh. “I’m not sure this tree is that protective of me, but who knows?”

  “How’s it going, Tess?” Rhia calls.

  “I think I found the key!”

  We gather around her and she guides my hand. There it is, the skeleton key protruding from the branch. It had been here so long that the wood had begun to consume it. I tug gently and the tree releases the key to me. I pull off one glove to touch my palm against the trunk in thanks.

  “See, no need to be afraid of witchy clearings in moonlight,” Rhia says to Tess. “And we will get back in time for you to jump Jorge, if you’re so desperate.”

  Tess punches Rhia playfully in the shoulder. “Jealous! You wish you were getting some.”

  “Not some of that,” Rhia counters.

  I blow out the candle and place it and the matches in my backpack along with the key. As I zip up the bag, I wonder once more what fell out earlier. I’m pretty certain I have everything I came here with, so I don’t dwell on it. I take a last look around and my thoughts naturally turn to Mom and how much she loved this place.

  “Okay, to get back to the ordinary woods, we need to do the same thing in reverse.” I shrug the bag onto my shoulder. Then I grab Tess’s hand and Rhia’s in each of my own. I say the reverse chant. Nothing happens.

  “Let me try again.”

  I repeat the chant and suddenly there’s a rushing sensation that has nothing to do with this place or our ritual. There’s a roaring in my ears and bone-rattling cold envelopes me. Before I know it, I feel as though I’m falling. And I’m bringing Rhia and Tess with me.

  * * *

  * * *

  When I open my eyes, Rhia is lying on her back and Tess is slumped on her side. The cold clutches me and I begin to shake. Tendrils of dark swirl toward us from all sides. I crawl toward Rhia. Her eyes are closed. I manage to pull Rhia close enough that I have her on one side of me and Tess on the other. Maybe my hands on their skin will keep them safe or at least limit any damage.

  I place my left palm on Rhia’s bare shoulder and my right palm on Tess’s bare forearm. The susurration of a thousand feathers fills my ears. I continue to press my hands to the girls’ skin and close my eyes tight, hoping to concentrate on a magic that can help us.

  “Deliver us from this place,” I yell. “Please hear me!”

  “Don’t worry.”

  I flicker my eyes open. Rhia stands before me.

  I look down where my hand had gripped her shoulder. Rhia’s body is not there.

  “Come here,” she says.

  I stand. “We need to leave. It’s not safe here,” I say. Tess remains slumped and unconscious on the ground. She’s beginning to sink, the ground turning viscous like tar.

  “You don’t need to leave,” Rhia says. “Come here.”

  This doesn’t make sense, does it? And yet, I step closer.

  “Haven’t you dreamed of this?” Rhia says. She reaches out to touch my face. She runs her finger down my arm. I recoil.

  But I like Rhia. I like her a lot. Don’t I?

  “Haven’t you been waiting for my touch?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I whisper.

  “Come closer.”

  I am hesitant, but I step forward.

  She leans in like she wants to kiss me. She’s right. I’ve been dreaming of Rhia wanting me, and I can’t resist her. I incline my head toward hers. My mind wonders why this is happening now. But my body wants what it wants. I part my lips.

  She whispers, “Yes, that’s it. Take what you deserve.”

  My head snaps back. Rhia would never speak like that. And Rhia isn’t something to take. My eyes fly open to look at her. But it’s not Rhia. The eyes of the thing looking back at me are black all the way through. And its smile twists into an awful grimace. I stumble backward. Falling, I land on something soft. I turn. It’s Rhia. Still unconscious where I’d left her and now, she’s sinking, too.

  “No!” I lean over Rhia. “Wake up, Rhee.”

  “I was so very close.” The not-Rhia thing’s voice has changed into a thousand, thousand voices. Its shape swirls into something undefinable, not a coherent form so much as a loose manifestation of all things shadowy, unknowable. There is a hint of wings and deadly claws. “You’re more intuitive than I had guessed.”

  “What are you?” I ask.

  “I am ancient, child. As old as death yet called by the living. Your grief.” The thing sighs in pleasure and my skin breaks out in goose bumps. “Your grief sustains me.”

  This thing is feeding off my grief—I need to block it somehow, to stop it. I remember Mom’s song. I open my mouth and I begin to sing.

  “Darkness, darkness, not welcome here,

  Return from where you came.

  Sunlight, starlight, please be near,

  I call you in my name.”

  I finish singing, but nothing happens. There is no burst of bright light and no shrinking of these shadows from us.

  “That
little spell won’t work here, child. This is where I came from.”

  Tess’s legs are fully submerged. Rhia’s left arm and leg are sinking fast. If I don’t do something soon, they’ll be gone.

  I grip the acorn pendant in my hand. Think, Edie, think. The first time I went to the cabin, I did something that made the shadows back off. What was it? The blackened handprints on the floor rise up in my mind. GG has told me that I need to master my element. She said to make friends with fear and I’ve never been more afraid that I am right now. I hold my palms up.

  “What do you think you’re doing, girl?” the thousand, thousand voices ask.

  I don’t answer. I calm my mind. And I call the fire.

  “Magic is about intention.” Repeating Rhia’s words gives me confidence. “And I intend to get us out of here!” Power surges through me. I hope that I don’t hurt my friends with this magic. But right now, I’m more worried about them dying down here. I clap my hands together and a burst of sparks fly out.

  “Send us home,” I yell. “Now!”

  The world spins around me. The ground disappears beneath my feet. Rhia is tugged in one direction and Tess in the other. There is a rushing in my ears. My stomach is pushed to my throat.

  “She’s back!” I hear Rhia’s voice, but I won’t be tricked a second time. “Hey, hey.” Her voice is closer to my ear now.

  I am screaming.

  “Edie!” That’s Tess’s voice.

  Suddenly, there is the bright sting of a smack on my cheek. My eyes fly open and I jump to my feet. My surroundings come into focus. There is no tar-like ground. No enveloping blackness. No shadowy being floating near me, mocking my desires. We’re in the forest, beside the hawthorn tree that marks the entrance to the perpetual woods. My eyes skip from Tess to Rhia.

  “How do I know you are you?” I ask.

  Rhia frowns at me, not understanding. “What happened to you?”

  Shame burns my face at the memory of almost kissing that thing. “How do I know?”

  Rhia holds out her hands. “Um, you always sneeze after you eat chicken wings.”

  I sigh out my fear. That doesn’t seem like something that the shadow being would say. A wave of dizziness—from adrenaline or magic leaving my system, I don’t know—forces me to grab onto the closest tree.

  “Are you two okay?” I ask.

  “Are you?” Rhia asks me. “Looks like your shirt is singed. Did you call your fire?”

  “I didn’t know what else to do. We were trapped in that nightmarish place and you two were sinking. And there was this—thing—trying to keep me there. Do either of you remember anything?” I ask.

  Tess and Rhia look at one another.

  “What?” I say.

  “We weren’t with you,” Tess says.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  Tess shakes her head. Rhia says, “It was a bumpy ride—the transition from the magical woods to here. Nothing like when we entered. But we were here, and you weren’t. For a long time. We weren’t sure what to do. I was getting ready to go get Miss Geraldine. Then there was a bang and you appeared.”

  “I thought you both were trapped. I thought you were going to die.” My breath hitches when I say the words out loud. I was so scared, but Rhia and Tess being in danger had been an illusion.

  “What was the thing? Have you ever seen it before?” Rhia asks.

  I shudder to remember it. “Definitely not. It looked human at first”—I don’t say that it took Rhia’s shape—“but then it was sort of a collection of shadows. It said”—I frown as I try to remember—“that it’s as old as death yet called by the living. And then it seemed like it was feeding on my emotions, my feeling of missing Mom.” I shudder at the memory.

  Rhia purses her lips. “I’ll have to do some research.”

  “Edie, look.” Tess gestures to my arm. “The black veins have reached your shoulder. I knew I was right to be scared.”

  “How long was I gone?”

  “Over an hour,” Tess says.

  “It felt like a few minutes,” I whisper, shocked. Then I shake my head to clear it. I can’t dwell on what could happen to me if I get stuck in that place, if the veins reach my heart. I’ve got to focus on the finish line. “At least we’ve got one more item,” I say, trying to convey the positive outlook that I need if I’m going to get through this.

  “There is maybe one more tiny silver lining,” Tess says.

  “What’s that?” Rhia asks.

  Tess holds up her protection bag. “Seemed like these worked.”

  I cock my head in thought and then poke through the items in my pack. No protection bag. “I must have lost mine.”

  “Where?”

  “How?”

  “Maybe back in the perpetual woods. I heard something fall from my bag, but I couldn’t see it in the dark.”

  “Should we go back?” Rhia asks.

  I run my hand over my mouth. “I can’t magic us back there right now.”

  I am so weak when Rhia and Tess drop me off at the marina that I can barely get myself to my room. I could use some of GG’s curative tea, but I don’t want to wake her and I’m not up for making it for myself. The nausea and dizziness are way more intense than when I’d held the watch or the photograph. But the bone-chilling cold is truly awful. I wonder if I’ll ever feel normal again.

  As I burrow under my covers, I file away a new piece of information. The song Mom used to sing to me, which I thought was a lullaby, turns out to be a spell. And that creature— whatever it is—knew that it was a spell. I curl up with Mom’s journal. I haven’t read it since Rhia gave it back and I wonder what light she might shed on what I’m going through.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  MAURA

  July 19, 2003

  Jamie and I are together every chance we get. Now that we finally had sex, we can’t keep our hands off each other. He comes to the boat most nights. Mama never comes down, so we have all the privacy that we need. Nothing allays my pain like Jamie’s touch. The world with its chasms of loss washes away when we shed our clothes and find solace in skin against skin. And at that moment when I shudder with the force of the storm that rolls through me, I forget myself completely.

  But . . . almost as soon as we’re done, even before he leaves, the razor-edge of reality carves into me once more.

  I’m starting to crave being with Jamie as soon as I wake up. I’ll need more yarrow, though!

  We’re going to move the boat to the marina soon. Jamie is going to have it pulled out of the water so that we can work on the hull. I’m sure that the shade of purple I picked is perfect. Of course, I could always change it if I don’t like it.

  I’m getting close to telling him. I almost told him last night. But he started talking about the Peace Corps and I wanted to listen.

  I don’t know what Mama is doing. The few times I’ve gone up to the cabin, she’s not around. I guess she’s out gathering herbs or something.

  July 24

  Jamie has a team of guys working on sanding and painting the hull of the boat. It’s going to be finished before he leaves.

  We do it almost every night now. I’m actually a little sore down there. But when we skip a day, the emptiness yawns its jaws wide and threatens to consume me. My father dead, his ghost not appearing, and my mother barely here as well. She is gone more and more. I want to know where she’s going and how she’s filling her time. But she’s still not speaking. The other night I thought I saw flickering lights—like candles—in Dad’s workshop. I meant to check it out, but then Jamie showed up.

  I’m going to tell Jamie about my magic soon. I can feel it. I can’t wait to see his face when he knows what I can do. Last night, after we finished, I joked that the only thing he was wearing was the coin necklace I’d given him. He lifted it up and asked me to kiss it
so that he could always have my kiss near his heart. I cried a little when I kissed the coin, out of joy. Then we fell asleep together.

  Chapter Thirty

  EDIE

  The morning after our trip to the perpetual woods, I’m very weak. GG helps me to a chair and starts a pot of tea. I tell her about the shadow world and the spirit, or whatever it was, holding me there.

  I force out the question that’s been on my mind since my ordeal. “Is that where I’ll be stuck if we don’t stop the infection?”

  GG shuts her eyes tight and gives one curt nod. Then I tell her how I called fire and got out. She lights up a little when she hears that.

  She places her warm hand on mine. “That’s good, Edie! Exactly what you need to do.”

  But I sense the fear she’s trying to hold back.

  “Do you know what it is?” I ask, as I sip the green tea she gives me. “That shadow thing?”

  GG seems lost in the stirring of her tea for a moment. Finally she speaks. “Luctus spirit.” GG practically spits the words out, like they burn her lips just to say them. “Awful thing.”

  “And that is what we are going to banish?” Candles flicker, casting dancing shadows on our walls and catching on the witch balls hanging in front of our now-dark windows.

  “We will try.” She lets out a long exhale. “We will try.”

  GG’s age is showing tonight in her stooped shoulders and down-turned mouth. Her natural vigorous nature seems tapped out. At this moment, I can relate.

  “Oh, I almost forgot!” I take off my necklace and I show GG the tiny vial of Mom’s blood hidden in the acorn. GG’s eyes widen.

  “Oh, Maura, you clever, clever witch!” she says.

  “What?” I ask.

  “This is what we need,” she says, holding up the tiny vial. “Keep this safe and I’ll get to work on the final step.” She hands me the vial. Then she cups my face with her palm, her energetic nature returning. “Now we can dare to hope, Edie. Now we dare to hope.”