Witching There's Another Way

by Constance Barker

  “I’m only thinking of you,” Aiden said quickly, and then closed his mouth. It was out now, though, and so he passed a hand over his eyes, looked everywhere but Bailey for a second, and then sighed. “What’s said is said, then. I care for you, Bailey. I have for some time. There are things you still don’t know, and I want to tell you; all of it. But if we go to Faerie, we could be in a great deal of serious danger. You and I have magic, and I suspect that in Faerie that magic will be much stronger—but Faeries are creatures of magic. They live and breathe it as naturally as you and I breathe the air and walk on the ground. We aren’t equipped, and I’m not sure any mortal is.”

  Bailey’s heart fluttered a bit, and then clenched tightly in her chest. She searched Aiden’s eyes a moment, and found only sincerity there; she had no need to search his mind with hers, even if she could; even if he let her. So she took his hand again. “We’ll talk about all of it when we get back. We have to convince Rita and her sister to help us, Aiden. We have to try. If we know what needs to be done and don’t do it... I’m not sure I could live with myself. I’m not sure that I should be able to live with myself if that’s the case. I just have to try. With or without you, or anyone else. You understand that, right?”

  Aiden smiled down at her, a mix of admiration and sadness. He nodded once, and then bent to kiss her cheek. “I do. If the women will help us, you won’t go alone. I promise.”

  “Good,” Bailey said. “Because it terrifies me. So come on; stay close, let’s catch up.”

  Chapter 8

  THE EIGHTH CAVE WAS an impossible place.

  The tunnel opened up into a great cavern that appeared to have no ceiling—the night sky above them, momentarily clear, showed stars shining down onto a broad, green pasture large enough to hold a simple cottage with a yard dotted with planter boxes and lawn gnomes. The gnomes in particular seemed somehow out of place—an incongruously normal element.

  Except, some of the gnomes weren’t there the second time Bailey looked at them.

  “This is... impressive magic,” Aiden said from behind her shoulder. “I’ve met some remarkably gifted and powerful wizards who couldn’t accomplish something like this. I wonder how they did it...”

  “A great deal of time and energy over many generations,” Frances said pointedly over her own shoulder. “Don’t go poking around where you don’t belong; you’re a guest here.”

  Rita waved her cane vaguely in Frances’ direction as agreement.

  The cottage itself looked similar in style to the building that Grovey Goodies was in; that same dutch style of stucco and clay walls crisscrossed with dark wooden beams and a pointed, A-shaped roof. Except here, vines crawled up every wall. Honeysuckle, grapes, roses, and other more exotic flowering vines covered nearly every square inch of the structure, while still somehow appearing organized, as though they’d been grown intentionally where they were.

  On the porch were a number of rocking chairs, and in one of those chairs sat another old woman, knitting furiously as she watched the party approach. If it were possible, she looked somehow older than Rita. Anita Hope looked a great deal like her sister, but where Rita’s long, white hair was usually kept wrapped into a bun, it seemed that Anita preferred a classical blue-washed perm. She wore wire glasses with thick, coke-bottle lenses that made her eyes seem larger than they should have been as she watched the guests’ journey. A bright blue shawl covered her shoulders, and a heavy checkered blanket covered her legs.

  The tick tick tick of her knitting echoed through the cavern.

  “I suppose we’ll be having tea with warlocks soon, will we Rita?” Anita muttered when Rita ascended the steps of the porch and angled toward her own rocking chair. There were five others on the porch arrayed between the two women.

  Bailey wondered at that. Did they always keep seven chairs on their porch, or had Anita foreseen this moment?

  “Stuff it, Nita,” Rita grumbled as she sank into her own chair with a sigh of relief.

  “Well?” Anita asked drawing the eyes of witches and wizards alike. She jerked a jowly chin at the empty chairs. “We’re civilized here. Have a seat. I’ll have tea brought out.”

  Bailey took the instruction, and looked between the two ancients. “Is there... someone else that lives here with you?”

  Rita only chuckled ruefully. Anita, however smiled with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes—which, Bailey now realized, were the milky blue of eyes long blinded by cataracts. Why the glasses, then?

  There was a scurrying sound at her feet, and Bailey reacted automatically by jerking her feet up from the ground only to find that there was nothing there—then she nearly toppled a cup of steaming tea on the table that was, mysteriously, beside her chair when she turned back to Anita.

  Chloe and Frances seemed, again, entirely unsurprised by this. They also had been served tea.

  Aiden narrowed his eyes suspiciously at his cup, while Avery appeared excited and entertained.

  “Is it temporal suspension?” Aiden asked as he lifted the cup gingerly from the little saucer it was served on.

  “Temporal whosit?” Anita asked, and then snorted rudely. “Wizards.”

  “It’s the gnomes,” Rita told him. “They take care of us wizened old ladies. And they do more than just serve tea, so you take care, hear me?”

  “Certainly, Madam,” Aiden said. He nudged Avery as well.

  Avery glanced around, still delighted by the ‘trick.’ “I wouldn’t dream of making any kind of trouble. It’s a pleasure to see you, Rita. You know, Thomas is in town—”

  “Of course I know,” Rita said, exasperated. “We know everything that happens in this town. Plus, Thomas emailed me months ago.”

  “Everything?” Bailey asked. “Did you know about my father being arrested?”

  “Ryan?” Anita clarified.

  Bailey didn’t know if the woman could see or not—the glasses really did confuse things on that point—but she shot the old woman a not entirely polite look. “Yes. You know everything that goes on—did you know about Gloria killing Professor Turner?”

  “That sort of thing is none of our business anymore,” Rita said. “We don’t get involved with those sorts of things.”

  “We guard the Caves,” Anita said. She was still knitting, though what it would become when she was done wasn’t clear yet. “That’s our duty, and that’s the extent of it.”

  “You didn’t need our help anyway,” Rita said. “It all worked out in the end.”

  “But it might not have.” Bailey’s neck was beginning to ache, and she wondered if the crones did this on purpose, going back and forth, and sitting at opposite ends of the row.

  “But it did,” Anita insisted. “You did a fine job. You’ll continue to do a fine job. Probably.”

  “Did you come all this way to complain about your lot in life?” Rita asked. “You know what they said they came for, Nita?”

  Anita sighed, and missed a beat in her knitting. She had to carefully feel for the skipped loop and carefully reset the stitch. “They want to get into Faerie, I’d wager.”

  “They want to get into Faerie,” Rita said.

  “It’s possible they have a mental illness,” Anita said pointedly.

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Rita admitted. She surveyed the five interlopers. “Do any of you suffer from mental illnesses?”

  Avery was the only one who answered, and that quietly. “Not that I know of...”

  There was a momentary pause in the back and forth between the two women, and then both burst out laughing, their high pitched cackling echoing off the cave walls around them.

  Bailey smiled at Avery, who looked nervously proud of himself. Who knew either of the women had a sense of humor?

  When the laughter petered out, Frances spoke with greater confidence. “Can you or can you not assist us in getting into Faerie?”

  Rita waved a hand. “Bah. We can. But who says you’re going anywhere?”

  “Frances and
I can’t let Bailey go into Faerie alone,” Chloe said. “If at all.”

  Bailey opened her mouth to protest that, but Chloe shut her down with a warning look.

  “Neither of you will be going,” Anita said. “There are other maidens. Aria can barely magic her way out of a paper bag. No, Bailey will go.”

  “Alone?” Chloe asked, alarmed. “That’s insane, she can’t—”

  “Of course not alone,” Rita sighed. She pointed her cane at Aiden. “He’ll go. Won’t you, wizard?”

  “I will,” Aiden said. “You couldn’t possibly keep me from going with her.”

  “Don’t test me child,” Rita said softly. But she smiled nonetheless. Almost as if in approval.

  Bailey marked it, and pocketed that for another day.

  “I’ll go as well,” Avery announced.

  At this, Rita’s smile melted to a frown. “Absolutely not.”

  “But, I’m Aiden’s—”

  “We know who you are, boy,” Anita laughed. “And now we know you don’t listen so well.”

  “Wizards rarely do,” Rita said. “But the reason you’ll stay here has nothing to do with being a wizard.” She leaned in a bit, and leveled hard eyes at him. “It’s to do with my nephew. You didn’t even tell him you were coming here, did you?”

  “No,” Avery said insistently, “I haven’t told him anything about any of this. Magic, or Faeries or anything. I swear.”

  “We know,” the crones said as one. They rolled their eyes—even Anita.

  “You aren’t to tell him anything,” Rita went on. “He’s not part of this world. But you’re not to break his heart so casually, either.”

  Avery’s face reddened, and he dropped his eyes to the porch before he sipped his tea.

  “Bailey and Aiden will go,” Rita said with finality. “That’s the final word on the matter, or you can take my earlier advice and let the matter rest.”

  “This... passage into Faerie,” Aiden said carefully, “is it... here? In this cave? Have you always known how to open it?”

  “So many questions,” Anita said, shaking her head.

  “And none of them any of his business to be asking,” Rita added.

  Aiden closed his mouth, and the muscles of his jaw bulged momentarily. He didn’t speak further.

  Bailey had questions. Questions that she felt were her business. Like why the crones lived here in the cave in the first place. Was it the cave that made them so long lived, or was that just a perk of being a witch?

  “Aren’t gnomes Faerie creatures?” Avery asked, staring at a cheerful little statue of one at the base of the stairs leading up to the porch.

  “No,” Anita said, “they’re elemental spirits. Different thing altogether.”

  “Nothing a wizard needs to worry about,” Rita told him.

  Avery stilled his expression in the way that Bailey recognized as his fervent attempt to hold his tongue. In any other circumstances she’d have stuck up for him—but somehow, this didn’t seem to be the time or place for that, and there was still every chance that the Crones would still refuse them. If they did, she wasn’t sure that even working together with Aiden they could open the door safely themselves.

  “In answer to one of your questions,” Rita said, “no. We haven’t always been able to open the door to Faerie. It’s recent. The whole system’s been weakening gradually for the past century or so. Only within the last few years has it been possible.”

  Aiden straightened. “Possible? Can they open the door from their end yet?”

  “If they could,” Rita sighed, “they would have. For someone who’s seen Mab herself, you show an awful lot of ignorance, child.”

  “How could you know that?” Aiden wondered.

  Rita only winked at him.

  “So,” Chloe said, “do you have any idea what they can expect? Can we prepare them in some way?”

  Both crones were quiet for a time, except for the creaking of Rita’s rocking chair, and the ticking of Anita’s rapid, rhythmic knitting.

  “There’s no way to know,” Anita said finally. “Faerie isn’t a world like ours, with hard lines and rules. Here, a rock is a rock, a tree is a tree, a house is a house. There, anything can be anything at any time, for any reason. The Faeries themselves make the rules, and they change them at a whim. You might see anything. You might see nothing. You might fall into an endless void and never return.”

  “There are some rules,” Rita said, “which are inviolable. Faeries are creatures of magic, bound by laws more ancient than even they.”

  “They cannot lie,” Anita said, “but they may tell half a truth, and use the truth to mislead.”

  “They cannot stand the touch of iron,” Rita said, “nor cross a threshold made of it.”

  “They may not refuse an offer to dance, but once accepted you may not end the dance until the music is finished—and it may never finish.”

  “Faeries may punish rudeness with impunity; but they must return good manners with politeness themselves. What they consider polite, though—be wary even of polite Faeries.”

  Bailey and Aiden both looked back and forth between the crones until Bailey’s head was dizzy. She felt as though she should write all of this down. “Wait... if they can’t cross a threshold of iron, or refuse a dance, or lie, or even be rude if you’re being polite... I’m not sure I fully understand what danger they pose us.”

  Rita and Anita both sighed heavily, and shook their heads.

  “That’s precisely why we recommend you not go,” Rita said.

  Anita laid her knitting down. “To prepare you for a journey into Faerie would take decades. They are clever creatures, all but immortal, and they entertain themselves with intrigues and games of wit. They are spiteful creatures who know precisely the rules of their own nature and how to turn those rules against their foes. Or their allies. They are fickle, and prone to turn violent at the slightest provocation and with no warning—they take gleeful enjoyment in all they do, good or evil.”

  “Do you still wish to go?” Rita asked.

  Bailey and Aiden looked at one another. She looked for doubt in his eyes, but found only confidence and strength. It was her decision, she knew. But if she decided to go, he would go with her without question.

  “What will happen to Isabelle in Faerie?” She asked quietly.

  Anita picked up her knitting again, and went back to it.

  Rita rocked thoughtfully for some time before she spoke, and when she did it was with great sadness. “We were once three of us, long ago, when we were young, and pretty, and naive. Our sister—our coven sister—Esme, was very curious about Faerie. She learned of it from our elders back then, when she wouldn’t stop digging for it.”

  “A terrible shame,” Anita sighed.

  “Yes,” Rita said regretfully. “Yes, it was. She wanted to go into Faerie and see it for herself. She found a ring of stones, some ways up north, and used old magic she had no business messing around with to attract their attention. She wanted an invitation, you see.”

  “And she got it,” Rita said. She was quiet for a long moment. Frances and Chloe both stared into their tea cups, and Bailey wondered if they had heard the story before.

  “Shortly after... the first murders started,” Rita went on. “We wanted to go after her, to find out what happened. But the crones forbid us to follow. Instead, they handled it themselves. They went, and they found her. And, they brought her back but...” Rita’s lips thinned, and she turned to stare out over the yard, eyes distant as they looked into a painful past. “She wasn’t herself anymore. She’d been there for too long; she couldn’t even say how long. She was driven mad by whatever they did to her. Whatever games they played with her. Faeries do love games.”

  “If she’s there long enough,” she finished, “I imagine the same will happen to the girl.”

  “She never recovered?” Bailey asked, breathless.

  Rita shook her head slowly. “No. The crones bound her magic—it was
too dangerous to leave it intact—and she was given over to Lakeview; it was just a few years old then. She died there in nineteen fifty-seven.”

  “Do you still want to go?” Anita asked.

  Rita smiled at Bailey then. “Of course she does, Nita,” she said, and sighed heavily. “Of course she does.”

  Chapter 9

  THE MAGIC WAS NOT SIMPLE. After they had finished tea, Rita and Anita collected the key stones that were hidden away in nooks around the cavernous eighth cave, and handed them to Bailey, Frances, and Chloe. Aiden reached for one initially, when it looked as though he’d be carrying it for the women; Rita scowled at him, and waved her cane until he moved out of the way.

  With the stones in hand, they were led up a narrow, winding path that, inexplicably, came out in the seventh cave.

  When Bailey looked behind her, the passage was nowhere to be seen.

  “Follow me, young ones,” Anita said, as she hobbled around the edge of the cave. Periodically she stopped, and called one of the younger witches to place their respective key stone on the hard stone floor. To Bailey’s surprise, when she was called she found that there was a very slight, very shallow impression where the stone fit perfectly.

  They marked out, effectively the other four directions, with the cave drawing of the door-like shape at the far end marking the fourth—roughly east, no doubt directed toward Stonehenge if a line was drawn across the globe toward that place.

  Chloe and Frances were given the simplest task, a chant in what Bailey recognized as Gallic though it was a language she hadn’t yet cracked. Rita and Anita both drew objects and materials from woven shoulder sacks they had stuffed with materials from the cottage in the cave and the surrounding garden boxes. Frances and Chloe practiced the Gallic chant, while Rita and Anita marked out a complex pattern on the ground.

  Aiden watched carefully as they did this, but neither crone seemed concerned about his observation. Avery, meanwhile, leaned against the cave wall with Bailey.

  “I want to go with you,” he said. “It isn’t fair for them to keep me here.”