A Wild Conversion

by Katherine Gilbert

  Benjamin stared at him.

  Suddenly, this last idea made several others pop into Frederick’s mind, all of it starting to become clear. Now, if he could only put in the last few pieces . . .

  Broken somewhat from his sadness by his visitor’s look, Benjamin stared at him. “What—what is it?” He leaned forward, dislodging cats. “What have you figured out?”

  But Frederick didn’t have the time to answer.

  A terrible sound seemed to vibrate every wall, an existential cry which he somehow felt stabbing through his soul, as well. Grabbing at his chest, letting out a sort of silent scream, he braced himself against the sofa. It felt as though his body were being ripped down the middle from the inside, while outside there was a shriek like the tearing apart of civilizations.

  Somewhere among all this torment, he heard his sister wake up, screaming in terror—the little luck witch down the hall and her newly-adopted family adding their own shocked cries, as well.

  He couldn’t quite notice Benjamin springing up in alarm, the man not even seeing his visitor’s physical and psychic distress—too lost to his own. “Emma’s wards! Something’s ripping them apart!”

  The cats were furiously racing around, hissing, or letting out mournful cries, as the man ran toward the door.

  “No! Someone’s coming!”

  And then night fell—and took all those in the house along with it.

  Chapter 17

  Natalie

  It was definitely a bad day, which was a term Natalie never used lightly. The last truly bad day she’d had was when she’d lost her entire family in the blowback from some magical experiment her father had gotten up to.

  To this day, no one knew exactly where they had all gone, the theories ranging from them having been killed by being taken apart instantly at a cellular level to having been blown into some dimension so far away that no one had been able to rediscover them. Then again, very few had tried. Natalie’s father’s magic was innovative but unstable at best. She suspected many had just been glad to live another day without the fear of its fallout.

  She had been taken in by Emma and her grandfather almost 35 years ago, then, hadn’t regretted that part of the change. Still, the sudden shock of losing almost everyone had sealed the moment in bad day status for good—but today was beginning to look like an entirely different kettle of fish.

  Not knowing how to process any of these recent events, she focused only on how she had gotten here. Once they had tried to escape Philbert Spear’s house, what should have been an exit had suddenly sent them through a dizzying array of worlds and landscapes, only to wind up in this oddly-colored one.

  Here, there was a strange tint of purple over everything. What should be grass seemed to be some odd, eggplant-colored silk, the sky a rainbow of shades of purple and violet. It made her a bit giddy and disturbed to look at it, so she had only glanced there once before putting her focus anywhere else.

  The rest of the wilderness was a beautiful, if barren, place, arched rocks towering over everything, plains stretching out toward the mountains in the distance, all of them in the same range of shades as everything else here. It put the whole “purple mountain’s majesty” thing into a weird sort of perspective.

  Strangely, too, it was eerily familiar and comfortable, made her want to settle down and stay, and also so disturbingly alien that she wanted to try to tear it all down before she found out a way to get away.

  Shivering, she worried. But the thing that terrified her the most was that the woman who was the dearest person to her in the world would not move at all.

  Kneeling beside her friend, she tried to wake her again.

  “Emma. Emma, please.”

  She had been shaking her, where she lay so still, but she knew that was just hysteria, so she took a deep breath, trying again, more calmly. Taking the woman’s shoulders firmly, she tried to push her will into her, which had never failed before.

  “Emma, please come back to me.”

  If Philbert Spear had done something irreparable to her, she would never survive the loss.

  No matter what she did, though, Emma would not respond.

  Part of Natalie worried that Emma might actually be dead, but another was certain that she would know. She had always had a sort of internal warning system when things were about to go bad. Right now, they were at “Oh Crap, everything’s gone entirely pear-shaped” but thankfully not at “Abandon all hope she who enters here.”

  But none of this meant that she could find any way to make the woman respond.

  Feeling a bit like pulling at her long, light brown curls, which had fallen so entirely out of her snood that she’d just ripped it off and abandoned it on the purple grass, she knew she had tried everything, but nothing she did seemed to be working. Every lure, every enticement, every comfort she could think of had been used, and still Emma just lay there.

  Thankfully, Emma seemed to still be breathing, simply appeared to be in too deep a sleep to rouse.

  Natalie sat back on her heels, frustrated and scared. It was always so much easier when she had someone to plan with.

  This wish was answered, although not in the way she would have liked, when she heard Frederick’s deep voice behind her. “Thank God!”

  Spinning around and trying to stand up, she only succeeded in falling over.

  Damn these long skirts.

  They were beautiful but a pain in the butt. If they ever got out of this, she was going to have to seriously reconsider her fashion sense.

  Nineteenth-century clothing was more a look than a requirement in magical Salem, but it was such a stodgy community that styles were believed to be the same as morality. While a few broke away from them—Hester certainly a startling example—most found it easier to conform.

  Besides, they were kind of pretty.

  None of this mattered right now, though, other than the struggle she had to get the darn skirt unwrapped from around her legs. Frederick was kneeling over Emma, only paid the scantest attention to her.

  “When I couldn’t find her in the other realms, I thought she might . . .”

  When he paused, she saw the way his eyes wanted to fade to gray, until he clearly held the feeling back. The fact that his irises were now strobing through the colors of the rainbow barely got Natalie’s notice, much too weary from other worries.

  “How did you find us?”

  Of course, as soon as she said it, she realized there really was no “us” about it. It was Emma he had focused in on. It was Emma he needed.

  Still, she didn’t grudge him this, had no jealousy, only a lingering fear that she might be forgotten. Her gaze took in her best friend. But that required getting the woman back to life enough to ignore her.

  The man wasn’t answering her question, which only made her want to scream more. Then, another thought occurred to her.

  “Why aren’t you taking her pulse or something? I can’t get her out of this faint.”

  Why the man wasn’t using his supposed medical skills to aid the woman he claimed to love both annoyed and worried her, a horrible new possibility pounding at the back of her mind. Maybe he knows something I don’t?

  Still, annoyance won, especially as the man wasn’t answering.

  “Listen to me, would you?”

  She slapped him on the arm with the back of her hand, forcing his attention—but, when he focused on her, his eyes were suddenly so deeply blue they nearly frightened her. She fell back a little. That kind of blue only existed in the contact box—and his eyes had been green before.

  When she spoke again, her voice was softer. “Wherever the hell we are, I need you to help me wake her up, so we can get out of here.”

  The look penetrating, he just stared, and she was starting to get really angry, tried to find something he would respond to.

  “Hester and the rest of them won’t be leaving your sister alone. If we don’t do something now, they might . . .”

  Finally, he said somethi
ng, cutting her off. “They have already attacked.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “I believe they have everyone but me held against their will.”

  Now, she was seething.

  How can he be so damn calm?

  Rising, she fought her skirts, which showed how disturbed she was, given how much of her life she had worn them, and pointed at him accusingly.

  “Emma left you in charge! How could you just leave them all . . .”

  Staring at the man, her rage dissipated as quickly as it had arrived.

  Why am I even asking him this?

  Converting sorcerer and seer he might be, but he hadn’t even heard either of those terms—in their truer sense—until earlier today. Hell, he’d never even been taught the simplest protection spell.

  Turning away, her skirts flouncing, arms crossed, she realized she was probably pouting.

  Great.

  Still, the only other place to put her anger was on Emma, who had left a complete innocent alone to defend against a sorcerer who had gone to the bad . . . or several of them, and that just wasn’t something she could do.

  Steadying herself, she took a deep breath, remembering that the real fault here lay with the conspirators. “How many of them were there?”

  She almost thought he had been waiting, just hadn’t known how to begin. “There were three—Hester, William . . .” He paused, and she knew he was shaking his head. “. . . or Philbert and another man. He was large, powerfully built, with very dark hair.”

  “Probably Randolph Spear,” Natalie shuddered. She had never imagined before that the awful man might be Emma’s father, although it was obvious now where her hair color came from.

  “Hester referred to him as ‘Randy,’ so probably so.”

  Refusing to look at him, or her unmoving friend, Natalie waited for the rest, but it didn’t come without prompting. “What else happened?”

  “Will—. . .”

  He broke off again.

  “Philbert took my sister.”

  He sounded angry, until he let out a deep breath, and she realized he was doing the best he could to keep the less-positive emotions out of his conversion. Turning back to him partly, she saw that his hands were clenched.

  “They took everyone else, as well.” Seeming to think about it, he added, “Except the cats. They fought like demons and then took off in a pack.”

  If his little feline followers had left Benjamin behind, things were serious—but she already knew that.

  Suspecting the answer, she asked anyway. “What did you do?”

  Looking down at Emma’s still form, he sighed, and she felt guilty for asking. The struggle to keep the rage out of his conversion was clearly perilously difficult, and he had been left in an impossible situation.

  When it came, his voice was incredibly soft.

  “I couldn’t do anything. When Emma’s wards ripped, it felt like they were tearing my body in two.”

  He reached out, stroking over the cheek of the woman he so clearly loved.

  “I’d never known such pain.”

  Natalie watched him, heartsick and worried for all of them.

  “I couldn’t even focus, just lay on the floor, as they destroyed all of her good work.”

  Her rage having settled somewhat, she saw once again the good man he was and was trying to remain.

  Kneeling down, she met his eyes, which had gone once more the deep sort of green that Emma’s were. Strangely, the rainbow lines weren’t evident, although she knew he hadn’t finished converting.

  “What did you do?” she asked softly.

  He sighed, and she saw the intense hurt in him. When it took him a moment to respond, she realized that he was probably having to fight against a good deal of nineteenth-century gender training to admit such weakness.

  “They were coming for me.”

  He looked away, and she let him.

  “I was still lying on the floor, felt like gashes had been opened up inside me.”

  He seemed to be in a fog of remembrance.

  “I knew I couldn’t let myself be captured, too. Benjamin told me about letting my magic pull me toward it, so I let it.”

  He looked up at her blearily.

  “It pulled me through to another dimension.”

  Natalie sat back, curious—and, despite herself, impressed.

  Damn, he’s powerful.

  She hoped he got a chance to do something good with it.

  “Here?”

  If so, it was a strange coincidence.

  He shook his head. “One of the other realms. I lay still for a while, until the light there helped me recover.”

  She didn’t understand this in detail, but, then, she wasn’t a seer. Since there was nothing to, she just watched him gaze so worriedly at her friend.

  “Then, I came to look for Emma.”

  Understanding, she too wished Emma were awake to help them find a way out.

  Emma always found a way out.

  Fearing they were all stuck here, that they would never wake the woman up, Natalie asked wearily, “How did you find her?”

  Frederick stared at her, and her mind switched, leaving her to smile. It was silly to ask, really. He and Emma were partnered now. No matter where the other was, they would always be together.

  Understandably, he didn’t answer her foolish question, looking away. “How did you come to be here?” He looked up at the odd sky. “Philbert?”

  Nodding, she was doing her best to avoid following his gaze.

  “We were trying to escape, but he opened some sort of portal, and we ended up here.” She looked down at her friend, her voice dropping. “Emma hasn’t moved since.”

  While he said nothing, the silence seemed disturbingly profound. When she found his face again, his look was wary, and a small fear awoke inside her. Gazing deeper into him, she realized why he hadn’t been answering her questions before, saw the worry for her in his eyes.

  He surprised her by reaching out to take her hand, as though she were a patient he had to tell a disturbing prognosis to. “It isn’t like you think, I’m afraid. I tried searching the other realms, and I tried searching this one. She isn’t in any of them.”

  The fear-alarm had started inside her, and she gripped his hand for strength. “But she’s breathing!”

  His shook his head, looked like he was trying to calm her. For a moment, his eyes went the same color as the deep purple of the silky grass they sat on.

  “You don’t understand. She’s not dead. It’s not as simple or final as that.”

  Rubbing a finger absently over the back of her hand, he still looked like the physician he was.

  The pause went on, as though he didn’t know how to begin to explain, his gaze searching the sky.

  Reluctantly, Natalie’s eyes followed and saw for the first time what she had not allowed herself to focus on before, making her let out a gasp. Within the swirls of purple, clearly visible, there were two giant, green, very familiar eyes.

  Frederick sighed. “We’re inside her mind.”

  Chapter 18

  Frederick

  Frederick watched Natalie worriedly, as she took this news in. Like a patient trying to comprehend a terrible diagnosis, a few long moments passed, which he couldn’t blame her for. Had his own mind not expanded so shatteringly earlier that day, discovering this truth would probably have been the end for his sanity.

  Fortunately, he had no such worries for the lady’s reason, Natalie clearly a very strong person. Had she and his beloved Emma not been companions since childhood, had the sorcerer been consciously trying to choose a faithful friend, she could not have done better than this tower of compassion, humor, and strength.

  Natalie wasn’t showing such amusement now, of course, simply stared as though begging him to change what he had said.

  He wished he could. There had been part of him which had been ready, in his search, to tear down every world he saw in his desperation to find his belove
d. It had taken a great deal to keep all that horror and need for her out of his magic.

  Not entirely certain whether his struggles had been effective, he dragged his eyes away from the poor woman before him, circling them over the horizon. He could see that this mental realm was Emma’s version of the one he had shown her earlier, and it was certainly beautiful.

  Still holding Natalie’s hand to comfort her, the question slipped out. “Why is it purple?”

  He hadn’t realized he had said it until he heard the sound of his own voice.

  A moment later, Natalie sniffed pathetically, and he realized she was crying. He felt like a cad for not holding her to calm her and also as though he would be erring against his beloved if he did, even though he was certain that neither Natalie nor Emma would think that he was making advances.

  Sometimes, it was very difficult not to be misunderstood.

  Staring into her, he waited for her answer.

  “It’s her favorite color.”

  It was probably comforting to her, then.

  There were many questions as to what had happened here, but even with the greater insight his conversion was giving him, he didn’t have the answers to them all.

  Poor Natalie was clearly trying not to shake, her terror and pain so obvious. After all, Emma was her strength, just as Natalie was hers.

  Knowing she still had questions, as well, he waited for her to ask. As much as they needed to get back to the battle, to protect those Emma cared for, Natalie deserved a minute or two to try to come to terms with what had happened. Besides, there were so many plans to be made, people to battle—and he would need this woman’s full focus for that.

  While his beloved Emma had referred to Natalie as less magical than herself—which was certainly true—that didn’t mean that she was entirely powerless. Just holding her hand, he could feel the immense strength which drove her comfort and friendship for Emma, knew that she would use every ounce of every ability she had in her defense.