Magic and Mayhem: A Collection of 21 Fantasy Novels

by Jasmine Walt

  It’s not that I’ve ever been a very religious person, as far as I know. I believe in God, I’ve said my prayers. After all of this, one might think any faith I held would be shaken. That the miracles of this world have been explained to me now, and I should no longer believe in some unknown deity. But if anything, I believe more.

  I just don’t know what it is I believe.

  Is the Universe God? Or does the Universe render God irrelevant?

  I’ve entertained that thought, too, in this new life...a life I am ready to leave.

  The mysteries of this world may never be completely answered, and I don’t care one way or another, so long as the great powers that be reunite me with my daughter.

  But something still nags at me: Will I remember all of this? Will I remember Tess? William?

  Right now, I can’t bear the thought of losing them, even if it’s only in my memories that I keep them, and yet I wonder if forgetting them would be a type of kindness.

  We hike by foot, avoiding travel in fear of alerting the Maltorim to our location. This battle may be over, but that won’t stop them from killing us if they can. The closer we get to our destination, the more my steps wobble. I’m anxious to return to Anna, and at the same time, I dread saying goodbye.

  William must sense my distress, because he squeezes my shoulder and says, “Relax. You need to reserve your energy, especially as you don’t know exactly what you’re returning to.”

  Then he releases me and hikes a little further ahead, scanning the woods in every direction before pointing down the path we will take next. We need to be as far from any other elemental populace as possible before I attempt to travel.

  My Ankou night vision is a blur around William. I’m breathing in this last moment as I stare up at his wide shoulders and the way the muscles in his neck move when he looks from side to side. The determination of his strong jaw and the purpose of his stride. The golden Ankou shimmer on his skin is more beautiful on him than any other Ankou I’ve seen. And yet, all of this beauty does not hold a candle to who this man is, and my heart aches because this is the last time I will watch him lead the way.

  We reach a clearing on the other side of the mountains, far from where the Maltorim last spotted us. Fresh blooms of early spring sprout from the ground, and I avoid stepping on them; it’s more of a distraction from the impending goodbye that awaits.

  Why am I sad? I’m returning to Anna. I barely know William or Tess—I can’t give good reason to the way I feel around them. How could I miss them? How can I be so heartbroken about leaving them behind?

  How is it that I have fallen in love with William?

  Deep down, I know the answer. I know that love cannot be explained. Though Mama would never agree, I know you can love someone at first sight; even before first sight, as was the crashing love I had for Anna—how I knew I would lie down and die for her, do anything to protect her.

  But I never knew I could feel a fraction of that love for anyone else.

  Until now.

  At far end of the clearing, we stop. Tess walks over to a tree and leans her forearm against the bark. I can’t stop staring at her—at her long dark braid, her smooth, pale skin, her juvenile wrists. She’s still in a child in many ways.

  I open my mouth to say something to her, to say goodbye, but I don’t know what to tell her. Not while she’s still mad at me for stealing Adrian’s memories of her.

  She picks at the fray near the waist of her medieval dress. The toe of her boot digs into the dirt, pressing up against a root that protrudes from the ground. Slowly, her focus slides to me, and she tugs on her earlobe.

  She clears her throat and says something so fast and rushed that it takes a moment for my mind to make words of the sounds.

  “Bye, Cordovae.” This is what she’d said.

  “Bye,” I whisper.

  The air thickens; it’s harder to breathe. I want to say goodbye to William—I feel him staring at me—but I can’t look away from Tess. Though Adrian had betrayed her, he’d also helped save us. And I’d taken him away from her.

  “Tess—”

  “Screw it,” she says, turning toward me, tears in her eyes. She crosses the distance between us impossibly fast and wraps her arms around me, pulling me into her. “Fuck you, Cordovae. You’re really leaving us.”

  Tears pinch my throat, and I’m suffocating. I wrap my arms tightly around her and bury my face in her shoulder. “I have to, Tess. Anna needs me.”

  She pulls back and wipes her eyes with the back of her wrist. “Yeah, I know. I’d hate you if you didn’t leave, too.”

  I smile sadly, and a small smile breaks through her turmoil as well.

  Tess tilts her head toward William. “The hardest part, huh?”

  She walks away before I can answer, and I let my gaze fall into William’s. This is the moment I have dreaded. The moment where I must acknowledge the decision I am about to make. I am forced to choose between the only man who has never betrayed me and a daughter I can’t fully remember but will never forget.

  But as hard as it is to leave, my decision is easy. Anna needs me. Her life depends on my return, while William and Tess will be fine without me. And if I don’t return soon, there will be no undoing time, no undoing all that has happened and will happen to her in my absence. In the end, it comes down to one irrefutable fact: I can live with losing William, but I cannot live without my daughter.

  The choice is not difficult to make, and yet, acting on it painfully cripples my heart.

  “We never had a chance here,” I say.

  “No...” he says, and there’s more hanging there, but his frown presses too tight for any more words to slip through.

  My heart rate picks up in my chest as I try to find the bravery to ask him the scariest and most important request before I leave. “Come with me,” I say. “You and Tess.”

  His head drops back, and he lets out the saddest bark of laughter. “God, Cord, you’re killing me.” He shakes his head and takes both my hands in his. “It’s not that I don’t want to. I hope you know that. But we can’t go where we never belonged. Understand?”

  “I know you’ve traveled outside of this time,” I tell him. “things you have said, things that belong hundreds of years from now.”

  He nods. “I have—when the Universe has needed me to. I wish more than anything they needed me to go with you. But, Cord...they don’t. I can’t...leave here.”

  “Then I’ll bring Anna back here,” I say. “If I can. If I’m still Ankou when I get there.”

  I already feel defeated. What if once I travel home, I can never travel back again? What if I lose all of my abilities once this is really over?

  “Will I be?” I ask meekly. “Will I be Ankou when I return?”

  If I am—if it’s possible—then I could save Mama and Pa. I would never be able to look at them again, but I could save them. I could make them whole again.

  “I don’t know,” he says quietly. “Normally, no. Because it is Abigail’s body that is Ankou, not Rose’s. But things are different for you.”

  “So then maybe I might be able to come back.” I don’t feel the excitement I should. William’s expression is so forlorn. If I could come back, wouldn’t he be happier?

  “Anna doesn’t belong here, either,” he says finally. “And even if you could bring her here, would you, really? Would you want this life for her?”

  “It’s not worse than where I come from,” I say.

  William presses his fist to his mouth and sighs deeply. “I’ll never forget you.” I shake my head, but he doesn’t stop. The words just keep pouring from his mouth. “I fell in love with you even when I knew I shouldn’t.”

  And for some reason, that is my breaking point.

  All this time, I have wanted him to tell me how he feels, but now I desperately want to stuff those words back into his mouth, to undo them, to make them never happen so I can leave this place without knowing I am leaving someone who loved me back.<
br />
  I can barely speak. Barely squeak out the whisper of words. But eventually, they come. “No one falls on purpose.”

  And I know this. I know this because I love him, too. I don’t know when it happened, but I know it’s been happening since the day I met him, since that first spark that eventually ignited to a fire that can’t be ignored.

  Except I need to ignore it. I need to leave.

  “All this time,” he says, “I thought I knew my greatest weakness. That my capacity to love was what endangered my obligations in this world. But I was wrong, Cord. It was my fear of losing. You showed me that when no one else could. And as much as it pains me to see you go, I would never, never ask you to stay. Because I love you. And because I know your daughter will bring you a happiness I cannot substitute.”

  My shoulders tremble, and I wipe tears from my eyes. “Why would you tell me this now, William? It’s cruel. Couldn’t you just—”

  He presses his finger to my lips. “Shhh. Shhh.” He pulls me into him and strokes my hair. “I would never ask you to stay here for me, but I couldn’t let you leave without telling you how I felt. I’m sorry if it makes this more painful for you, but I know you are strong enough to still do what you need to do.”

  “Right,” I whisper. It’s all I can get out.

  I feel his Adam’s apple bob against the top of my head. “Please understand that I deserve to follow my heart, too,” he says. “I had to tell you how I feel or those unspoken words would have haunted me forever.”

  His words only make my love for him burn deeper. Burying my face into his shoulder, I can still smell the wood smoke on his clothes from the campfire earlier. I can still smell his sweat. Still smell me on him.

  “Don’t fall apart now,” he says soothingly, brushing an amber wave of hair from my eyes. “I was wrong about you, you know. I said you were selfish, but really, no selfish person would make the sacrifices you have. But now it’s time for one more of those sacrifices.” He holds me at arm’s length. “Great love can both take hold and let go, Cord. And now it’s time to let go.”

  I swallow and shake my head, but in my heart, I know he is right. I turn to face the open clearing. As badly as I want to get back to Anna, I don’t know how I’m going to do this. I don’t know how I’m going to run from the man I love. The guilt over feeling this way is only another weight holding me where I stand.

  A butterfly floats by on the warm breeze and settles on a dandelion by my feet. It has waited all this time to make its flight, and now it’s free. But I cannot relate. I am destined to never learn the feeling of freedom.

  “Go,” William says from behind me. When I don’t move, he shouts. “Go!”

  I tense, then take a deep breath, centering my thoughts on Anna. Remembering the way the earth felt between my bare feet as I ran to save her from Pa. I take another breath, breathing in the pain I felt that day. In my heart, in my lungs, in my womb.

  I take the first step.

  Though my stiff and achy body has begun to relax, tension is already returning as I fight the magnetic pull I feel toward William and Tess. I push through it and take another step.

  Then another.

  I’m scared. Terrified, really. I can’t imagine going back. I can’t imagine what awaits me there. Can’t envision it at all. Salem has a magnetic pull on me that I can’t explain. Leaving feels unnatural.

  Shouldn’t returning to my daughter feel like the most natural thing in the world?

  I feel trapped, and each step I take I have to push through that feeling. I have to accept that part of my heart will always belong here, but it’s not where I belong. With Anna is where I belong. Only her.

  It’s always been her.

  I take two more steps.

  And right now, she’s alone with Pa. I can’t leave her with him.

  My steps turn quicker.

  Five more steps.

  I miss her, and I love her, and the love of a mother is stronger than any other kind of love. Finally, I’m returning to her. To my Anna.

  Ten steps, then with my next breath, I am breaking across the clearing.

  My hair whips back, out of my face, like flames on the wind behind me. Tears are streaming my face as I run, but my heart is soaring ever closer to her. I can feel it. Back to where I belong. Back to Anna.

  I run harder, my legs burning, until I break through space. Through darkness and light.

  And then . . .

  37

  April 1692

  I’m still here. I’m still with William and Tess. I’m still in this clearing with the chirr of crickets and the light thudding of deer running in the fields behind us and the soft roll of thunder that threatens a storm.

  I crumble to my knees in the clearing, and my calf rubs against a fallen log with bark softened from an earlier storm. I press my forehead into the ground. Sobs heave from my body. I’m going to be sick.

  William and Tess run over to me. I hear them shouting at me, but it’s all a haze.

  “Cord! Are you okay?”

  “What happened?”

  I don’t even know which of them is talking. William puts his hand on my back, but I just feel numb where he touches me.

  “I did everything I was supposed to,” I mumble through my tears. “I need to get back. Anna needs me! I did what you said. Why am I still here?”

  I grab fistfuls of the fresh spring grass and cry against the earth and hate the moon for casting her miserable light on my failure.

  I’m angry and I’m upset and I’m ripped up inside and out and my heart and my soul and my mind all want to explode. I can’t do this. I can’t take anymore. I can’t bear being alive. I can’t stop crying, I’ll never ever stop crying.

  If hope is gone, I have nothing.

  William and Tess are talking, but I can’t make out anything they say. It’s all muffled, drowning. The words are mushed and warbled.

  I cry until I fall asleep. I wake up in the night again, crying. William and Tess help me to my feet. My mind is foggy and my vision blurs, but I stumble with their help toward wherever we are going.

  To wherever we could possibly go from here.

  The next day, I’m well enough to hear William and Tess speak, but I’m only willing to listen if they’re trying to help me get home. I no longer care about leaving them. I hate myself for having ever felt that way. I hate them for existing.

  Tess hands me a cup of tea made from nightshade that she brewed over a small campfire just outside the cave we’ve taken shelter in. I sip it gently, and my stomach gurgles its thanks as the tart, poisonous berries that flavor the water start to recoup my body. The heat of a nearby fire warms my face and ears, and I drop the blanket from around my shoulders—early spring and already I feel overheated, perhaps from all the crying.

  “Maybe you’re still torn about where you want to be,” Tess says quietly. I can tell it wasn’t easy for her to suggest this, but I glare at her just the same

  Her words also pang my heart, feed my guilt. I may be torn, but I’m not unsure. Part of me may have wanted to stay with William, but all of me wanted to return to Anna.

  “You might just need time to give it all more thought. Meditate for a little and try again.”

  This time, William glares at her.

  “There is nowhere,” I say, not attempting to hide the edge in my voice, “that I’d rather be...than with Anna. If it’s too late to return, then what did I fight for? This world is dead to me without her.”

  Tess stares at me in pity, and I both love and hate her for it.

  “You don’t think...” I swallow around the painful lump in my throat. “You don’t think it’s too late, do you? It can’t be, not now. Not after all that.”

  Tess makes a sound—the start of a word I’ll never hear, because William lifts a hand, effectively silencing her. He stares down at where I lie, and I can’t tell if he’s angry or if he’s hurt, but he’s clearly not happy. And I don’t care.

  “We’ll take you t
o the Chibold,” he says. “They might help.”

  Tess scoffs. “Don’t do this to her, William. Don’t give her false hope.”

  I bolt upright, life returning to my body at these words. “It’s better than no hope,” I say. “When can we go to them? Can we go there now?”

  Tess throws her arms up in the air and rolls her eyes. “You’re an idiot, William. A real idiot.”

  He pulls her aside. I can’t hear what he says, but I hear Tess’ not-so-quiet whispered reply: “She needs to accept her fate, just as everyone else has. We can’t risk taking her to them.”

  “She deserves any chance she can get,” he says, loud enough that I know I’m meant to hear. “We can’t deny her that.”

  The Chibold William knows don’t live the same elusive life of the Oracle, but William seems to think they will be equally wise in solving my problem. We find them not living hidden in some cave, not tucked away in some forest up in the mountains, nor any other inconspicuous location. Instead, they live in a small colony of ordinary Strigoi. We travel, even before nightfall, under the protection of my wings.

  Under the shadow of the early evening, the small town is gloomy and eerily calm. The fog lends a muddy darkness to the atmosphere, and I beg the darkness to come early, to hide every feeling I have, to leave me be to feel it alone and unseen.

  My body aches with every step. Even the fabric of my dress is like sandpaper on my skin. I’m freezing, but the cold comes from a feeling of loss instead of the lingering chill not yet overcome by the moist, early spring evenings.

  “Can they really help?” I choke out quietly.

  William wraps his arm around my shoulders. “If they don’t have the answers, they can get them.”

  Tess clears her throat and gives William a sideways glare.

  He twists toward her, never letting me go. “They’ve always been receptive to helping us in the past.” He turns back to me. “I’m sure they will do their best.”

  “But there are no guarantees,” Tess says daringly.

  William growls beneath his breath. “There never are.”