by Kristin Cast
“Okay. See you in a sec.”
“Hey, Mag?”
Mercy hesitated at the door to the greenhouse and glanced over her shoulder at her sister.
“She was going to lick her foot!” Hunter said with a giggle.
“Right?! That cat!” Mercy shook her head, but grinned and felt a lot lighter as her sister’s laughter drifted through the evening air after her.
Twenty
Hunter parked in a corner of the lot that was made shadowy by several tall, stately white oaks. The girls briskly went to the largest of the trees, whose trunk was broad enough to conceal them both from the people who were jogging around the track and playing kickball on one of the softball diamonds.
The spell was simple, but effective—and one of the first spells Abigail had taught her daughters. Mercy could hear her mom’s voice lifting from her memory as Hunter struck the match against the rough side of the box. Girls, a witch always needs a good make-it-rain spell. We must keep our Earth Mother verdant and fertile—and without rain that is impossible.
In the car on the way there Mercy had braided the dry heather with the lush fronds of the maidenhair fern. As Hunter lifted the long, ceremonial match, she took the braid from her bottomless purse and held it to the flame. Together the twins invoked.
“Make it rain—make it rain—make it rain!” Three times, just as Abigail had taught them.
The entwined heather and fern began smoking and Mercy traced a pentagram in the air as they repeated thrice again, “Make it rain—make it rain—make it rain!”
All along Mercy’s arms her tiny hairs lifted as power billowed with the smoke. The air felt noticeably thicker as it filled with magically induced humidity. The scent of spring rain tickled Mercy’s nose until she sneezed.
“It’s working!” Hunter fist-pumped.
Above them, the white oak swayed in a new breeze that carried the scent of heather and fern and rain. Thunder rumbled and the girls smiled at each other as they put out the smoking brand in the dirt at the base of the tree and then went back to the car and waited.
It only took fifteen minutes for the sky to open and rain to begin leaking from the billowing clouds.
“And there they go!” Hunter pointed at the last of the people who were running for their cars as thunder rumbled overhead.
“Abigail would be very pleased at how quickly that happened,” said Mercy.
“Another good omen?”
Mercy nodded thoughtfully. “H, I hope so. Okay, ready to get wet?”
“Absolutely.”
Alone in the parking lot, the twins gathered their spellwork supplies and headed to the center of the park where, unbeknownst to the residents of Goodeville, the clump of doum palms had protected the town from ancient Egyptian monsters for generations. Close up Mercy saw that the damage they’d glimpsed from afar the night before was worse than she’d thought. Only the uppermost palm fronds were still green and healthy. The rest were dried husks that looked like brown knife blades jutting out from thick-armed boughs. The trunks were odd, and nothing like any other Illinois tree. Mercy had long thought they looked like someone had woven together gray corn husks to form the skin of the trees. Well, tree, she automatically corrected herself. Though it looked like there were five big palms placed in a close circle around one another, they were actually one tree with five shoots growing from it. Abigail had told the girls that when she was a child there had only been four shoots—that the smaller of the five had sprung up when she was in elementary school. I hope you feel healthy enough after this to sprout another tree, Mercy silently told the doum as she pressed her hand against its rough bark. Then she turned and got to work.
The rain drizzled lazily as Mercy wiped her face with the back of her sleeve and unslung her bag from across her shoulder to drop it beside Hunter’s basket. “I’m going to put the stang here.” She carried the forked bough directly in front of the clump of trees. “Then I’ll drape some of the mistletoe over it.”
“Okay, while you’re doing that I’ll set a protective circle with my moonstones.”
“Sounds perfect,” said Mercy as she pressed the pointed tip of the stang against the hard-packed ground.
“And remember our intention—to heal and protect,” said Hunter as she began to circle the palm, dropping a moonstone every three steps.
“To heal and protect,” Mercy murmured. She pushed the stang against the dirt until it stood straight and strong, forked end up. Then she went to the basket and gathered the mistletoe circle and returned to the stang. There she carefully unwound the prickly ivy so that she could form three separate circles of green. Two of the circles she rested at the base of the stang. The third Mercy draped around the stang’s fork so that it looked like a slender crown atop a very skinny stick drawing of a person.
Hunter rejoined her then and Mercy took the bottle of potent ancient herbs and modern insecticide from the basket. She swirled the bottle, mixing the oils. Inside the blue bottle the potion took on a moss-colored cast that appeared to be lit from within.
“It looks good,” said Hunter.
“It is good. A mixture of us.”
“And a mixture of tradition and today,” added Hunter.
“Let’s do this.” Mercy bent and picked up both of the mistletoe wreaths. She handed one to her sister. The other she lifted and said, “I crown you with the strength and wisdom of sacred mistletoe.” Hunter bowed her head so that Mercy could place the living wreath on it.
Then Hunter invoked, “I crown you with the protection and guidance of sacred mistletoe.” Mercy bowed her head and Hunter placed the green circlet there.
Mercy held the bottle aloft. “I’ll make the first circle, spraying as high as I can with the atomizer.”
Hunter nodded. “I’ll channel our intention through the stang and take the second circle.”
“Perfect,” said Mercy. “Just mimic what I say in your own words. Let your intuition guide you.”
“Got it. I’ll let Tyr guide me. He’ll give me the right words.”
Mercy felt a jolt at her sister’s confidence in her god—the being who could be responsible for all of this—but forced the doubts from her mind and made herself refocus. Protection and healing … healing and protection …
The twins faced each other and breathed together—in and out—three times. Grounded to the earth, Mercy was filled with calm. Then, Hunter walked to the stang. She turned to the trees and grasped the forked ends of the green bough with her hands, and raised her head as if she spoke directly to the cosmos—a channel between earth and sky.
“Heal and protect … protect and heal … heal and protect … protect and heal.”
With Hunter’s prayer litany as background magic, Mercy began to circle the trees. She talked to the palms and her voice, amplified by her connection with the earth and the ley lines that pulsed deep beneath her feet, sounded so powerful that Mercy was reminded of her amazing mother. “I call on the Powers of Wind and Earth—of Sun and Rain. By tree and bough, leaf and shoot, with all my heart and the workings of my hands, I bless this palm with life and love—health and growth—protection and strength.”
Mercy felt the magic swirl around her. With a feather-like caress, it shivered across her skin. Heat from the mistletoe crown flowed from her third eye and cascaded throughout her body. With every step—every word of the spell—she squeezed the atomizer bulb and misted the Awake and Alive Oil onto the dying leaves of the suffering tree. And as she did the scent of sulfur billowed with the rain-touched breeze. It burned her throat, but Mercy ignored it and joined Hunter at the stang.
Reverently, Hunter took the bottle and Mercy placed her hands on the forked ends of the stang just below the sacred mistletoe, and focused on being a channel for healing energy to flow through her body and into the earth all the way down to the roots of the ancient palms. Her hands warmed and a soft, moss-colored light illuminated the newly cut oak bough. Excitement fluttered through Mercy—it was working!
“I call on the Powers of Moon and Stars—of Sky and Earth. By tree and bough, leaf and shoot, with all my heart and the workings of this modern world we love so well, I bless this palm with strength and healing—growth and health—life and love.”
Hunter rejoined Mercy at the stang and placed the empty bottle at their feet. Then Mercy pulled the staff from the ground. Holding it in her right hand she grasped Hunter’s hand in her left and together they strode to the tree until they stood within touching distance of it. The rain had slowed to mist. The sulfuric smell was still there, but fainter. It had been diluted by the sweetness of herbs and citrus—and the sharp scent of modern magic.
Mercy lifted the stang.
“I honor you, earth’s child. I honor your growth—your boughs and leaves and thick, mighty trunk. I thank you for your protection and your energy and your spirit—may whatever ails you be gone, and never return. And may you thrive always. Blessed be!”
“Blessed be!” Hunter shouted joyfully.
The green glow intensified, and with magically enhanced power, Mercy drove the stang into the ground at the base of the tree.
There was a terrible sound like the ripping of a curtain, and all five trunks began to shiver. The ground quaked under their feet, causing the girls to stagger backward. And then the air quivered, and a veil that had until then been invisible, lifted from the center of the clump of trees to reveal a figure. His back was to them, but he whirled around, raising a spear, ready to throw.
“Foul demons! Vile monsters!” The creature lifted a shield and took a wide stance. The air before him rippled and glistened as if he were inside a fishbowl looking out, but that semipermeable barrier didn’t make him appear less menacing as the power he exuded blasted at them. Then, like a bizarre version of Gandalf the Grey, he shouted, “You shall not pass!”
Together Mercy and Hunter lurched back another step, clinging to each other’s hand like they needed an anchor to reality—which they definitely did because the creature in front of them defied any sense of the real that they had ever known.
His body appeared human and male. He was powerfully built. The short, woven leather skirt he wore wrapped low around his waist, and the golden protective plates that adorned his shins and forearms left most of that body exposed. He looked like a bronze statue—except for his head and neck, which were terrifying. He glared at them from behind the veil that separated his world and theirs and though the barrier between them caused his image to come in and out of focus, almost like it was pixilated, his raised spear and shield were a palpable threat.
“Tyr! What in all the hells is that?” Hunter pressed closer to Mercy.
“I don’t bloody know, but I’m not going to let it get us!” Mercy closed the few feet between them and her bag that rested on the wet ground beside her sister’s basket. Never taking her eyes from the creature, she frantically felt around inside her purse until her hand closed on the pepper-spray gun she always carried with her. Mercy broke the trigger seal. She held it in a two-handed grip in front of her, just like she’d seen Mariska Hargitay do a million times on SVU. She swallowed back the bile of her fear and began walking toward the creature that stood in the center of the glistening trees.
“Stay back! This is our world! You do not belong here!” Mercy’s voice was fierce with the adrenaline that surged through her body.
Then Hunter was there beside her, so close their shoulders pressed together. Her sister was holding part of a fallen tree branch over her head, like a club.
“We guard this gate! And we are not going to let you come into our world!” Hunter sounded powerful and confident and Mercy felt a rush of pride in her sister.
The creature tilted its monstrous head. His image wavered as he appeared to study the girls with large, almond-shaped eyes that were the color of fertile earth. They were the only things in that unbelievable face recognizably human. The rest of it was definitely reptilian—like a crocodile and a dragon had been mixed together. Small, onyx scales glistened smoothly up a long, sinuous, hooded neck to a crest of crimson horns that sprouted from his head down his back. His mouth was a muzzle lined with rows of dangerous fangs that he had suddenly stopped baring at them.
“You—you are Gatekeepers?” His voice was bizarrely human—deep and masculine—and even though the barrier between worlds made their view of him go in and out of focus, his words came to them clear and strong.
Mercy kept the pepper-spray gun pointed at him. “We are. Who are you?”
The creature put the spear down, so that its flattened edge rested by his feet, which Mercy noted, were dressed in golden sandals. “I am Khenti Amenti, son of the immortal warrior Upuaut, Gate Guardian of the Realm of Osiris. And you?”
Mercy lowered the pepper-spray gun, sent a silent prayer to her goddess, please give me the right words, cleared her throat, and said, “I am the Green Witch, Mercy, daughter of the mighty Kitchen Witch, Abigail, Keeper of the Five Gates of Goodeville.”
Beside her Hunter also lowered her club-like weapon and spoke with calm surety, like introducing herself to a half-man, half-dragon was something she did all the time. “And I am the Cosmic Witch, Hunter, also daughter of the magnificent Kitchen Witch, Abigail, and like my sister I am Keeper of the Five Gates of Goodeville.”
“So we three are demi-gods, Gate Guardians between the realms of the worlds,” said the creature. He took a small step back so that when he bowed his massive head it didn’t cross the flickering barrier before him. “Well met, Witches.”
Mercy was standing there, mouth flopped open, but Hunter recovered more quickly. She nudged her with an elbow before executing something that looked like a bow and a curtsey had had a baby. “Merry meet,” said Hunter.
Mercy quickly follow suit as she, too, dipped her head and her knees and murmured, “Merry meet.”
The creature put his shield down beside him. His body language instantly appeared more relaxed with the ease of his wide shoulders and the way he clasped his hands loosely in front of him.
“Forgive me for threatening you. This gate has been problematic, and when it called to me I assumed it had continued to deteriorate, perhaps allowing a beast from another realm to enter.”
“Wait, the gate called you?” Mercy asked.
“And what does problematic mean?” added Hunter.
He was looking back and forth between the girls, and his eyes suddenly widened. “You are twins!”
Mercy squelched the urge to roll her eyes. “Yeah, we are.” Then she added impulsively, “What are you?”
The creature’s head swiveled to her and through the glowing barrier it looked as if he were a bizarre deep-sea monster moving through water. “As I said, I am Khenti Amenti, son of the immortal warrior Upuaut, Gate Guardian of the Realm of Osiris.”
“No, she means what are you.” Hunter spoke up. “Not who. In our world there are no people who have the heads of, um, not people.”
“How odd,” said Khenti.
He raised his hand and waved it in front of his reptilian face. The air before him swirled with mist, dark as his onyx scales. Mercy squinted to try to see what he was doing, but her vision of him was just too unstable, though when the mist finally cleared she blinked rapidly and her eyes managed to focus well enough through the fishbowl-like glimpse into his world to see that in place of the dragon was the head and neck of a man—actually, not a man, Mercy thought. He doesn’t look much older than us. Even though his body was football-star strong and tall and muscular, his face was young and smooth. Now that the dragon head was gone, Mercy decided his skin wasn’t bronze like a statue, but more acorn-colored with a golden tint like it’d been kissed, a lot, by the summer sun.
“Thanks,”
Hunter said. “That face is easier for us to understand.”
His dark brows lifted. “You truly have no demi-gods or gods who use the visage of beasts in your world?”
“We truly do not,” said Mercy.
“Seriously,” said Hunter. “Now, what about the gate calling you and disintegrating?”
As he spoke the air between them continued to pulse and glowed, bubble-like, in the center of the trees. Even though Mercy tried to see what was behind him, it was too obscured by the strange barrier to allow her to make out more than darkness highlighted with splotches of colors. “I heard voices. I understand now they were yours, Gatekeepers. I could not catch the words, but I felt drawn to the gate. Though I will admit I have recently remained nearby as I could tell it was weakening.”
“How could you tell?” asked Mercy.
“In my world it is an orb—a glowing sphere—in a far corner of Osiris’s realm, the Underworld. It is usually colored brilliantly with violets and silvers, turquoise, sapphire, and the pink of a perfect lotus bloom, but over the past several phases of the moon the colors have changed, darkened and muddied. And the scent.” He wrinkled his straight nose. “It reeks of decay. So, I have remained near, standing guard so that none of those contained here can escape—and no creatures from other realms enter.”
Mercy felt a shiver of fear finger down the nape of her neck. “That can happen? I mean, our gate is sick, too, but it’s still standing.” She gestured at the cluster of trees he’d materialized within. “These palms keep our side of the gate closed. They’re not doing great, but they’re still alive. Can things go back and forth even now?”
“Yes, but only if a Gatekeeper is not strong enough to stop them.” He stood taller. “I am strong enough.”
“That’s what you heard,” said Hunter. “We were casting a spell to strengthen and heal the palms.”
Mercy nodded. “Yeah, we thought if we could heal the trees, the gate would be better, too. Does your side of the gate look any different since we cast the healing spell?”