The Water Witch

by Juliet Dark

  Skald smirked at Lester and clicked the smooth gold ball embedded in her tongue against her teeth. “Would you like to know how long you’ve got to live while I’m at it?” she asked sweetly.

  “Stop it, Skald,” Verdandi told her sister. And then to Hank she added, “Don’t pay her any mind. The future she sees is only one possible future—it’s always changing and she’s wrong half the time. But she should be able to plot out Callie’s future for the next hour and tell us if we’re going to have a problem in the circle today.”

  “Yeah, I can do that,” Skald said, hunching over her phone. She moved her thumbs on the keypad rapidly, her eyes flicking over the screen.

  “Is that my future?” I craned my neck to see Skald’s screen, but all I saw on it were enigmatic runes, squiggles, spirals, and, in the center, a huge ugly knot. My future looked like a mess. Skald seemed to think so, too. When she looked up, her customary smug expression was replaced by one of perplexity. It made her look very young. “I can’t read you at all,” she said. “You’re all tangled up inside.”

  I nearly laughed. That was exactly how I felt—not sure whether I really loved Liam, afraid to move forward with Duncan Laird, torn between the promises I’d made to my grandmother and my loyalty to Fairwick. I felt the knots inside tightening as I looked into Skald’s wide-open pale-gray eyes.

  “If even Skald can’t read her, should we really risk another circle with her?” Moondance asked. “She might be working with the Grove to sabotage us. After all, her grandmother is a member.”

  Liz cleared her throat. “Callie’s already discussed her connections to the Grove with me and I’m confident she’s not working with them to undermine us. As a token of her sincerity she’s brought the Aelvestone with her. With this much Aelvesgold, we should be able to help Brock find his way home.”

  “How are we going to release him?” Ann asked, her voice oddly hushed. Glancing at her, I noticed that her eyes were locked on the Aelvestone and that her hands were curled into tight fists. Of all the witches in the circle, she was the last one I’d have predicted to be so affected by the stone, but then I remembered her daughter and realized she was probably thinking about what that much Aelvesgold could do for her.

  “We’re going to use the spiral labyrinth to send Callie on a vision quest.”

  “A vision quest?” I asked. “You mean like the Native American rite?”

  “Sort of,” Liz replied. “Witches use a vision quest to journey along the spiral path to tap into their essential power. I’m hoping that you’ll be able to find and bring back Brock.”

  “A vision quest requires days of fasting and preparation,” Moondance said. “How can you possibly think she’s ready?”

  For once, I agreed with Moondance. I’d read up on vision quests for a paper I’d done in grad school on Native American mythology, and I knew that initiates sometimes prepared for months for the rite.

  “I don’t think we have a choice,” Liz replied. “We don’t have time for Callie to fast and pray. The Grove and IMP meet on Monday.” She knelt in front of me and clasped both my hands in hers. “The transformative magic you’ve been doing with Duncan Laird hasn’t unlocked your power. I confess I’m disappointed he hasn’t been able to help you, but perhaps there’s some reason why he hasn’t been the right guide for you …” She faltered and I wondered if she guessed about the conflicted feelings I had for Duncan and suspected they were why he hadn’t been able to help me more. “Be that as it may,” she continued, “this might be the only way to save Brock. I wouldn’t suggest this if I didn’t think it was the right thing for Brock—and for you.”

  I looked into Liz’s eyes. The thought of taking a walk through that tangled mess inside was not appealing; it was terrifying.

  “What exactly will I be doing?” I asked.

  “You’ll walk the spiral path into the shadowland where Brock is lost. If you can find him, you can lead him back.”

  “If you can find him,” Moondance parroted.

  “Do you have a better suggestion for getting him back?” I asked, anger spiking my voice though I tried to keep it calm and level.

  Moondance’s chin jerked back. She shook her head, the soft flesh under her chin wobbling. She looked frightened.

  “I think someone should explain to Callie how dangerous the vision quest is,” Ann Chase objected, her voice trembling. “Not everyone who walks the spiral path returns. She could get lost in the shadows, as Brock has.”

  I took my hands out of Liz’s grasp, laying one hand over Ann’s twisted and shaking hands. “I want to do it. I need to.”

  What I didn’t add was that I suspected I was already half-lost in the shadows and needed to find my way back out.

  TWENTY

  Liz placed the Aelvestone at the center of the labyrinth, beneath the bench where Brock lay. Diana placed four candles around Brock and lit them while Tara poured salt around the outside perimeter. We all sat on the ground, spaced out around the circle so that we could just reach one another’s hands.

  “It’s important to be grounded when summoning this kind of power,” Liz explained.

  Liz looked around the circle, her gaze resting on each face. “Before we join hands, I want to remind everyone that once we send Callie down the spiral path it’s essential that the circle remain unbroken so that we can bring her back. Anyone who breaks the connection will be putting her in grave danger—and will answer to me.” When her gaze reached mine, Liz said, “Skald will keep a record of the energy so we’ll know if anyone breaks the circle.”

  I wondered why Liz thought it necessary to make such a warning. After all, I was the one who had broken the circle last time. Shouldn’t the rest of the witches know it was dangerous? Instead of reassuring me, Liz’s warning made me even more nervous. Did she have some reason for thinking that someone in the circle might be planning to sabotage my vision quest and send me spinning out into the void?

  “Is that understood?” Liz asked. When everyone had voiced their consent, Liz directed us to join hands. When the circle was complete, I felt the surge of energy as a sizzle at my core. Liz began a wordless chant—kind of like the om my yoga teacher used to begin and end class but made up of different sounds. As the others joined in, the sounds merged into one liquid rush—like water flowing or wind blowing—and I found myself joining in, my own voice merging as seamlessly with the rest as a drop of water in a flood or a gust of breeze in a storm, as if I’d been born knowing this wordless music. Just as my voice merged with the voices of the others, so my energy—all that prickly tangle of conflicting urges—spun out into the circle and joined the flow.

  I saw the energy racing around in the circle, a gold band of light created by each of us, feeding off the Aelvestone in the center. The Aelvesgold was filling each member of the circle, suffusing their faces with light. Skald no longer wore the ironic scowl of a teenager. Leon had let go of his hipster pretensions. The lines of pain and anxiety had fallen from Ann’s face, leaving her looking twenty years younger. Even Moondance’s face, drained of her perpetual annoyance and skepticism, was as radiant as the heavenly orb she had taken as her name.

  I wondered for a moment what my face looked like, what freight of worry might have fallen from me, but then I was filled with a greater wonder as the band of golden light began to spin up from the circle, spiraling into the air above our heads. The spiral rose into a cone shape, the energy moving faster, the voices growing louder, the light burning brighter, obliterating the faces around me. I heard, among the human voices, the ululations of owls and the howling of wolves, and saw in the light every color of the rainbow—and a few colors that weren’t. There was moonlight and sunshine, the tender blush of dawn and the cobalt blue of twilight, and the whirl of stars before they became stars. The spiral contained all time. Just as it reached its peak, a voice—perhaps all our voices—cried out.

  Now!

  The spiral cone hurdled into space … and I went with it.

  I
was traveling through the darkness, through shadows so deep I could almost taste their darkness on my tongue. I felt that if I breathed the inky blackness, it would rush inside me. I nearly panicked but then felt the coil of the spiral around me and knew I was protected as long as I stayed in the circle. Dimly, in the distance, I heard voices keeping me afloat. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I caught flashes of images illuminated by the spiral—a sea cave filled with reflected light, a clearing in the woods, a stone circle on a heath—the places I’d glimpsed the last time in the circle. These places were always inside the circle, outside of time, layered within the spiral. And always at the center of each circle stood the same figure—the hooded woman wielding the silver knife.

  I hadn’t known she was a woman the last time.

  When I saw her I wanted to retreat, but then a voice spoke in the shadows.

  Here.

  It was Brock.

  I willed myself—and the spiral—to stop. The coils dropped from me like a discarded hoopskirt and I stood inside a six-petaled flower inscribed in black on pale stone—the center of a labyrinth inside a vast cathedral. The outer edge of the circle was lined with lit candles. Outside the circle a man sat on a stone bench.

  “Brock!” I called and started walking toward him, but the instant my foot passed over the lines of the labyrinth a jolt of electricity shot through my body. I took another step within the lines and felt nothing but a warm hum. Apparently I had to walk the labyrinth to reach him. As I carefully trod between the lines I recognized where I was—the medieval Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres. I’d visited it during my junior year abroad. When I reached the exit of the labyrinth Brock smiled at me and patted the spot on the bench beside him.

  “Cailleach, I thought you might come,” he said as calmly as if we’d run into each other at the Village Diner.

  “The circle has been trying to find you since you fell off my roof,” I explained as I sat beside him. I wanted to throw my arms around his neck, but aside from how much I knew it would embarrass him I was also unsure if we should touch in this … dimension, or whatever it was. Although he looked like the Brock I knew—plaid flannel shirt straining over muscular arms and broad chest, his face pockmarked, his eyes as kind as ever—he had a strange glow.

  “I thought they would,” he said. “That’s why I came here. Dolly told me about it once when she was writing a book about medieval France. She told me that in the story the heroine waited in the labyrinth for her friend to rescue her. I figured you would know the story, too, and that you’d come if I waited long enough.”

  “The Unicorn and the Rose,” I said, recalling the Dahlia LaMotte novel in which the heroine, Rosamond du Montmorency, time travels back to medieval France by walking the labyrinth at Chartres. I was touched that Brock knew I would come looking for him. “Are we really in Chartres?” I asked, looking around the vast cathedral for signs of tourists.

  Brock chuckled and shook his head. “Not the Chartres that’s in France, but a replica of it inside the spiral. I don’t really understand,” he admitted sheepishly. “Dolly said that the labyrinth exists outside time, but I’m not sure what that means.”

  “I’m just relieved to find you,” I said. “Everyone will be so happy to see you … but how do we get back?” A mist crept across the floor, blurring the lines of the labyrinth.

  “We have to walk the labyrinth back to the center,” he said, taking my hand in his broad, calloused one. “And I’m afraid you must go first.”

  “Okay,” I said, taking the lead and looking for the entrance, which was barely visible in the fog. I had to crouch down to see the lines of the labyrinth, which made it awkward to hold on to his hand, so he let go, promising to stay close behind me. I slowly moved forward. Whenever my feet touched a line, I felt an electric jolt warning me not to step over the boundary.

  “What would happen if we stepped out of the lines?” I asked Brock. When he didn’t answer at once I started to turn around, afraid I’d lost him, but he caught me by the shoulders and turned me back away from him.

  “You mustn’t ever turn backward when walking the spiral!” The fear in his voice and the strength of his grip startled me. Brock was the gentlest of men. He’d have to have good reason to handle me so roughly. “Just keep walking,” he said.

  I crept on. I could tell by how small the revolutions had become that we were near the center of the circle. A few more turns and we were at the six-petaled flower at the center of the labyrinth. It was filled with a twilight blue mist that seethed and roiled like a storm cloud. Veins and sparks of lightning crackled within it. I was terrified to step inside.

  “What’s in there?” I asked Brock.

  “Something you have to face in order to be free. You have to go alone …” His voice faded. I wanted to turn and look for him, but I didn’t. I stepped into the roiling eye of the hurricane …

  … where it was a calm and clear summer night. I stood on a grassy lawn beneath a twilight blue sky, surrounded by the flickering light of fireflies. The place tugged at my memory. The smell of smoke and night-blooming flowers riding the warm summer air, the thick blue dark pinpricked by pulsing fireflies, the damp grass beneath my bare feet … my bare feet? I looked down and saw my pale feet half-buried in grass, except … they looked smaller than my feet. I wriggled my toes. Definitely my feet … A noise caught my attention. A humming that blended with the cicadas and tree frogs but wasn’t cicadas and tree frogs. I looked up … and up, as though I had shrunk and the world had grown taller around me. A cloaked figure towered above me, arms raised to the crescent moon. As I stared in amazement, the figure took hold of the moon and drew it down toward her. I gasped and the figure spun around, robes billowing in the warm air, wafting the smell of smoke and something else toward me, something bitter … Then there was a flash of silver as a sickle knife arced down toward me …

  I screamed and turned … and felt the coil wound inside me snap. Instantly, I was spun out into the void with the force of an exploding star. I’d broken the spiral by turning and now I was hurtling through space. Far away I heard a distant hum, an echo of that summer night insect hum … or of the circle trying to sing me home. But I was out of their reach. Out of anyone’s reach. Brock was lost and I was lost, all because I hadn’t had the courage to face my past. I had been that little girl standing in the grass watching the tall woman pull down the moon and slash the air with it. That knowledge did me no good now. Without the spiral I had no path home …

  Then I remembered Liam’s voice telling me that Aelvesgold linked true lovers together, no matter how far apart. I imagined Liam’s face and saw him, his face above me as we made love, a halo of gold light blazing around him, his eyes looking deep into mine, reaching into my core. Warmth uncoiled in my chest, wrapping around me and unspooling like a loose ball of yarn.

  See, he said as the thread came to its end, his voice as clear as a bell in the emptiness of space, like I said. True lovers.

  The thread snapped back, hurtling me back into space. I reached out my hands and felt a hand grasp mine. I slammed up against something hard.

  Damn, I thought. Love hurts.

  I opened my eyes. I was lying on the ground, surrounded by a circle of concerned faces, but not the one face I wanted to see.

  “Brock? Is he …?”

  “I’m here, Callie.” I saw Brock hovering over me.

  “Oh thank God,” I said. “I thought I lost you.”

  He knelt down on the ground beside me as Liz and Ann Chase helped me sit up.

  “I turned around and the spiral broke. I thought we were spinning out of control.”

  “We were, but you pulled us both back.”

  “It was Liam,” I said. “I heard his voice …” I stopped as an expression of dismay crossed Brock’s face.

  “That damned incubus!” he swore with unaccustomed anger. “It’s his fault I was trapped in the shadows in the first place. I was on your roof when I saw the storm coming, carrying somethin
g with it—a creature from Faerie …”

  “That was Lorelei,” I said.

  “No. I saw her descend into the woods, but the storm came on, carrying with it another presence and heading straight toward Honeysuckle House. I realized then that although I’d warded the house—”

  “That was you!” I interrupted. “Duncan Laird said someone had.”

  “Duncan Laird?”

  “My tutor, and a wizard of the Ninth Order. The circle found him to train me.”

  I noticed Liz exchanging a look with Ann Chase. The rest of the circle were picking themselves up from the ground, brushing grass off their clothes, and stretching cramped limbs. Ike and Amma approached from the house, tears streaming down the old woman’s face at the sight of her grandson restored. Brock, though, was focused entirely on me, his face creased with guilt.

  “A wizard of the Ninth Order would have no trouble recognizing my humble wards. The problem was that I’d just put in a new section of roof that wasn’t warded and that meant the creature in the storm could get in. I couldn’t leave you unprotected like that so I stayed on the roof until the storm arrived.”

  “Oh Brock, you shouldn’t have! You shouldn’t have put yourself at risk to protect the house. It’s only a house …”

  “It’s your home, Callie. If a creature breached its wards, it would have power over you. Power over your mind and body and even your dreams. That’s how the incubus possessed Dolly. First it possessed Honeysuckle House.” Brock dropped his head and covered his face with his calloused, work-worn hands. “I’m so sorry, Callie. I let the incubus back into your house.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Liz insisted on driving me back. “Diana can drive my car back to the inn,” she explained as we walked to my car, “and I don’t think you should be driving so soon after your … journey.” She started to say something else but then glanced out at the fields and motioned for me to get inside the car. As soon as we were inside, with the windows rolled up, she didn’t waste any more time getting to the point. She turned to me. “Brock’s right,” she said. “Your incubus is back.”