by Ava Day
“Yeah, but the doors were stuck and Penny was able to open them no problem.” Nate looks at me skeptically. “Do you lift weights?”
“I just tried the door handle and it opened. Probably just the child safety lock thing got jammed,” I offer. Nate scratches his head but stops asking questions as Brent and I exchange worried glances.
“Are you ok? Joy called and said the alarm was going off. You seemed to have scared the intruder off,” Brent says.
“Yeah, I'm fine. They ran off. We can talk about tomorrow,” I explain, cautiously eyeing Nate. The last thing we need is another person who knows about magic.
“Since your ride is toast, do you need me to give you a lift home?” Joy asks Brent as she slaps the hood of his truck. An arc of electricity jumps from Joy's hand and the headlights turn on by themselves.
“How the…” Nate trails off, stunned.
“What?” Joy feigns ignorance.
“You just jumped started the truck with your hand.” Nate points excitedly. I can tell that Joy is trying to balance her bursting happiness at finally discovering her power with keeping Nate in the dark about all the strange goings on at the Beacon.
“Must have been an optical illusion. Right?” she says, turning to Brent and I for confirmation. Brent's eyes are still bugged out of his face but he slowly nods his head in agreement.
“Please get him out of here,” I whisper to Brent, “Laverne finally appeared to us again tonight.”
“Oh, great,” he whispers. “We’ll go, but I'll be over in the early afternoon for a more thorough explanation.” Brent gives me a quick peck on the forehead. “Come on Nate. We should let these ladies get some rest after that scare.”
“Yeah, I could use a beer,” Nate replies.
“See you two tomorrow,” Brent says as he climbs into the cab of his truck.
Nate jumps up into the passenger seat as the truck roars to life easily. Joy and I watch as they back down the alley. As soon as they turn the corner and are out of sight, Joy lets go of her tightly held excitement.
“Did you see that? Oh my gosh! I have powers, too!”
“I knew you would. I'm so happy for you,” I squeal as we crash into each other for a hug. “Seriously though, I need some sleep. Verne better be around when I wake up because there are so many questions that we need answers to.”
“Please, let's get some sleep,” Joy agrees. I make sure to bolt the basement door tightly once again. Verne is nowhere to be found so we head upstairs for some much needed rest.
Chapter 17
I wake up late in the afternoon with Verne's unblinking eyes staring at me from across the room. The events from earlier come crashing back to me.
“Nice to see you again,” I say to Verne while I try to stifle a yawn.
“Something has changed in the energy of this place.” Let’s just jump right into it then. “It was easier than it has ever been to become corporeal this morning,” she informs me, her voice emanating from the amethyst around my neck.
“Penny? Are you awake in there? Who are you talking to?” Joy asks from the other side of my closed bedroom door.
“I'm awake. Come on in. Verne is here too,” I reply.
The door swings open and Joy steps across the threshold. She waves at Verne before sitting at the foot of my bed. “What a crazy morning, huh?” Joy says.
“Yeah, let's hope this day doesn’t get any worse,” I reply.
“Where is my sister?” Verne asks.
“We don't know. We’ve never seen her until this morning. I had no idea she was mute,” I say.
“She's not or at least she wasn't when I was alive,” Verne explains.
“Although, Beth is obviously the person who's been trying to break into the Beacon,” I say.
“That's absurd. She could just use the front door,” Verne scoffs.
“Well, she hasn't tried the front door yet.”
“The more important question is, who murdered you?” Joy interjects.
“Murdered? I wasn't murdered,” Verne replies incredulously.
“We found your body stuffed into a closet that had been pushed in front of the door to a dressing room in the basement,” I explain.
“Yes, that sounds about right. You see I sacrificed myself to keep this building safe from the evil that was trying to infiltrate this sacred ground,” Verne replies like it's the most common thing a person could do.
“Well, it didn’t seem like you weren't directly killed by an individual. We figured someone was after you, so you hid in the basement to stay safe. What's with all the talk of evil anyway? Harry warned us that evil was stirring,” I say.
“Harold! That is one of the handsomest men I have ever laid eyes upon. What is he up to?” Verne asks, trying to switch the subject.
“He's fine. So back to why you felt the need to sacrifice yourself. There weren't any evil spirits when we bought the place,” I tell her.
“In fact it was pretty much untouched,” Joy says.
“Untouched? I wonder why Beth never came to find me.” Verne's image wavers as sadness creeps across her face. “The Beacon was built upon a magical hotspot.”
“We know a little about that, ley lines and such,” I say.
“Yes, that's it. Anyway, I bought this building with my sister to protect it and make it a magical safe house. The two of us should have been able to handle the evil that kept trying to force its way inside, but we couldn't. We were under constant assault by wraiths, goblins, liches, and anything else you can think of.”
“And somehow the townspeople never noticed any of this?”
“Don’t worry about that. I have personally fought a three headed giant and won. Is that hole still in the ceiling of the auditorium? That's where the giant tried to smash it's way inside,” Verne explains.
Maybe we can send the giant the bill. “Okay, we're following you so far,” I say, urging her to keep talking.
“One night while Beth was recovering in the hospital, I was left here alone during the most brutal assault that had been tried on the Beacon. The entire building had been breached and I was not willing to let this sacred place fall into anyone's evil clutches. So I did the only logical thing I could think of. I took the most powerful warding artifact I had and barricaded myself in the basement. The spell took several minutes to complete, and as I’m sure you ladies know, spell casting isn't exactly easy. I traded my life to protect the Beacon. I was the final reagent. No evil has been able to penetrate the ward I created. That same ward has also trapped me inside of the Beacon,” Verne explains.
“Wow, that sounds intense.”
“You did that just to save a building?” Joy asks.
“I thought you said you understood the significance of this place? Ley lines and such?” Verne raises a ghostly eyebrow in my direction.
“We know it's special but why exactly does it matter so much if evil forces control this building? The Beacon is awesome and all, but I don't know if I would die to defend it. No offense Verne,” Joy says.
“None taken, novice. If evil ever takes root in this spot, the magical energies will wither and die. If that is allowed to happen, it would cascade around the entire planet allowing the balance of good and evil to tip. Can you guess which way?” Verne chides Joy.
“Towards evil,” I surmise.
“Okay, I get it, global disaster. Maybe I would sacrifice myself for that,” Joy replies.
“Now I am left wondering why Beth never came back to protect the Beacon. It's obvious that my spell is still in place because the world is humming along blissfully ignorant. I need your help finding her,” Verne says.
“Yeah, we'll help. Harry's warning sounded ominous. What do think that means?” I ask.
“It's possible that a powerful mage is planning another assault. My warding is failing after all these years with no one to keep it intact,” Verne says.
“Like a necromancer?” I offer. I read a lot about those.
“Exactly like
that,” Verne agrees.
“How do we stop them if we don't even know where or who they are?” Joy asks.
“I can't do anything, I'm dead. You ladies need to find my sister Beth,” Verne replies.
“She ran away from us,” I say. “From you more specifically. How are we going to track her down?”
“I want to know what she was doing trying to break into the basement. Why all the subterfuge?” Joy interjects.
“Those are all great questions. I have the answer on how to find her, but as for the rest, you'll need to speak with Beth. It's possible that she's trying to solve this issue on her own,” Verne says.
“Isn't it also possible that she doesn't want to be found?” I ask.
“It is, but that doesn’t matter. We have magic for problems like that. It's a simple matter of scrying for her location,” Verne replies.
“What do we need to do that?” Joy says.
“I'll help you find the reagents in the auditorium, but we'll need something of hers. Luckily, Beth and I planned for problems like this and each hid a lock of hair in case we ever needed to rescue each other,” Verne explains.
“Well, why are we still sitting here?” I say.
Shooing them both out of my bedroom, I get dressed for the day ahead. When I enter the kitchen, Joy is hunched over a map of Spring Valley and the surrounding area. Verne is floating over her shoulder, explaining something.
“Alright, Verne gave me the list of reagents. Since you're better at reading the runic language, you should go gather them,” Joy tells me.
“What are you two going to do?”
“A scavenger hunt for a lock of hair I guess,” Joy replies with a hint of laughter.
“That brings up another question that's been bothering me, Verne,” I say, grabbing the list from Joy's hand.
“What would that be dear?” Verne glides in my direction.
“Why is everything here labeled and written in this old runic language? When we were at Harry's magic shop, all of his stuff in plain English.”
“That was my own paranoia. It's been more of a pain in my rear end to be honest. I had found this wonderful magical bauble that would instantly transcribe things from English to the runic alphabet and back again. It was a great idea until I lost the bauble. By that time, I had used it on almost every single book and label as a way to protect them. That's when I needed to learn the runes myself,” Verne explains, her musical laughter filling the room. “I'd also imagine that since it didn't stop you from using magic, it wouldn’t have done much good. Just a waste of time trying to keep everything safe. I ended up dead anyway.”
“Is there any way to revert them back to English?” I ask.
“Sure, one item at a time. The item I used could do a stack of books in an instant. It's not worth the effort, it's easier to learn your runes,” Verne replies.
“Gee, thanks,” I grumble. “I'm off to the auditorium to gather the list of stuff. Have fun together.”
Entering the auditorium, I pull the list from my pocket. There are only 5 reagents to gather so I quickly start searching the shelves after making sure they aren't already listed in the ledger we started keeping on where everything is located. Reading runes is getting easier every time I do it. I'm going to have to talk to Verne about how exactly all of these things were organized to begin with. They seem to be randomly scattered amongst the shelves. Maybe it's one of her security measures?
I hear rustling around in the balcony so I take a break to go investigate. As soon as I turn the corner, Verne's voice starts chattering through my necklace. Joy is busily pulling books from the shelves and searching them. The exasperated ghost is standing behind her, pointing to what book to look inside of next.
“No, not that one the other one!” Verne says.
I should have given Joy the amulet. “She can't hear you,” I say casually.
“I know that, but talking helps me think. Plus she doesn’t know what I'm saying about her,” Verne replies.
“Hey, I can hear you now! How do you not remember where you stashed the in-case-of-emergency hair?” Joy asks, looking over her shoulder.
“Here, you take this for now,” I say, slipping the amulet over my head and handing it Joy. “Now you two can communicate and Verne won't be calling you names behind your back.”
“Thanks. Let’s meet you upstairs after we're done looking,” Joy replies. I turn around and head for the stairs but as I'm walking away I hear Verne's voice.
“You know what? I think it might be in the basement somewhere. Let's check there.”
Chapter 18
I can't help but laugh. Poor Joy probably wants to throttle Verne. It's a good thing she's already dead. Back to the task at hand, I come into some luck because all of the reagents are on the same shelf. Scooping them into my arms carefully, I take them upstairs and leave them on the kitchen table before heading back downstairs to find Joy and Verne.
Once I'm finally in the basement, I follow the sound of their voices. The tunnels twist and turn. We haven't spent that much time down here and I've never been this far into the basement. In fact, I didn't even know this section of tunnels existed. The walls are different in this area, not painted brick but actual stone and the rooms off to either side don't have doors, just archways. How big is this place? Despite my unease, I continue to walk towards them. Finally as I come around yet another bend in the tunnel, I almost bump into Joy.
“Why the heck are you all the way down here?” I ask.
“I'm down here because our new friend is leading me on a wild goose chase,” Joy replies.
“Where is she? I thought I heard you talking to someone?”
“I was. She disappeared and told me she would be back when I 'cooled off a bit',” Joy says, making air quotation marks with her fingers.
“That bad huh?”
“Yes, so bad. She had me dig through a pile of rags and a rat scared me half to death. Verne laughed at me. I think she's messing with us,” Joy replies.
“It's possible. But She seems pretty genuine about protecting this place,” I offer. “Hey Verne, it's safe to come out now. I'm here.”
“Yes, please. You deal with her,” Joy pleads.
“Where are we anyway? Is this even under the Beacon?” I ask.
“I don't think so. I swear that I checked the basement for every possible tunnel and this was not here a week ago,” Joy answers.
“Oh, it was here. You just couldn't see it until your magic was unlocked. There are many things that are such,” Verne says through the amulet before materializing next to me.
“What does that even mean? Why is everything so cryptic with witches?” Joy asks, clearly fed up with this whole venture.
“It means that you need to listen to your elders,” Verne replies with a sigh.
“Ladies, can we quit bickering and just find what we are looking for?”
“I went ahead and found it myself. Searching went much faster without having to hold Joy's hand. I just need one of you to grab it.”
“Where is it?” Joy asks.
“In the apartment hidden under a floorboard in the living room,” Verne says. “That’s not where I left it, by the way.”
“You're telling me this whole thing really was a wild goose chase? It was in out apartment the whole time?” Joy exclaims.
She pulls the amulet from around her neck and rolls her eyes. I see Verne's lips are moving, but no one can hear her anymore. I snatch the amethyst out of Joy's hand and put it on. Verne comes back mid-sentence.
“… furthermore, if you ever speak to me like that again I'll...,” Verne lectures.
I quickly remove the amulet so her words don’t offend Joy more than they already have. Without asking either of them, I start walking towards the exit. Those two are more alike than they'll ever admit. Joy follows me but Verne is still standing there, probably talking, who knows. After a few twists and turns, it becomes obvious that we won't find our way out of this magical basement
addition without Verne's help so I put the amulet back on.
“I told you two not to go that way. It will never lead you back to the entrance. You have to go forward to go back. Besides, I wanted to show you another secret about the Beacon,” Verne says as she catches up to us. She motions for us to follow her through one of the arched doorways. We enter the room but it's empty. Verne floats over to the wall and points at a specific stone.
“Here, just push that inwards and watch,” Verne explains.