Maria took it all in until Zimmy snapped her fingers, and the beauty was gone in the blink of an eye. Arachnids marched down the fences. Fire raged across the land. Buildings crumbled. Maria had drawn her sword, but Zimmy put a hand on hers and said, “No, Maria, you do not need that.”
Maria had no choice but to listen to her mother. It was the only time she had ever been given the opportunity to listen to her mother, and she was going to take it. As quickly as the village had changed into a burning graveyard of destruction, it changed back to its original peaceful state.
“Maria, see that? See how it changes? That is because of you. Because you are a shining beacon of light in a time of darkness. Because you are so pure and good and wonderful.”
Tears welled in Maria’s eyes. “Mom,” she moaned.
“Do not cry, my dear daughter. There is hope, yet. Hope because of you. I must go now, Maria. I must go on to the afterlife. But I will be waiting for you; though I won’t see you for a long, long time, know I will always be watching over you.”
Maria whimpered. “But I can’t— I don’t…Mom, don’t go.”
Zimmy turned, her colorful skirts swirling around her. “I must, Maria…unless—” She turned back around, her happy expression morphing into one of grim satisfaction.
“Unless what?” Maria asked. “Unless what?”
“Oh, no, Maria, I can’t ask you that. That wouldn’t be fair of me.”
Maria’s eyes lit up. “Anything, Mom. Anything, please. Please, tell me.”
“Take out your sword, Maria. Take out your grandfather’s sword.”
Maria listened. The steel glimmered in the sunlight, the rays dancing along its edge.
“Good, Maria, good. Now hand it over to me.”
Maria hesitated.
“What is it, daughter? Do you not trust your mother?”
Something had changed in Zimmy’s eyes. The deep color drained away until all that was left were tar-black pupils.
“I—” Maria began.
Don’t listen to her, Maria. Don’t. It’s a trick. Remember the Trials of Antenele; this is a test. Only a test. Her grandfather’s voice pleaded from somewhere so deep inside her head, that she could barely hear and understand it.
Zimmy held out her hand. “Please, Maria. It will only hurt a moment; then, my dear daughter, you can join me for all of eternity. Mother and daughter, together at last. I promise I will go straight for the heart. The pain will bleed into pleasure as death takes you and the void claims us.”
Maria drew her hand away from the thing posing as Zimmy Ba, and those black eyes turned red and heated; the voice coming from within growing distorted.
This was not her mother.
“Maria Apple, you will listen to me! Give me that sword and die honorably!”
The tears poured down Maria’s face. She took a step back and raised the sword. “Never!” she shouted back, and swiped the blade downward in a long slash, connecting with the thing’s shoulder.
There was no blood, no severed limbs, no screams of pain.
All that entered Maria’s ears was the sound of a great pane of glass, shattering beneath her blade. Zimmy Ba’s image crumbled, along with the background of Dominion, the blue sky, the swaying trees.
Maria fell to her knees, crying. The sword hit the ground in front of her, which was not ground at all, but a pile of shards of splintered world glass.
Maria bowed her head.
Will, she thought. The final test. Sheer will, and I have passed. But I will kill the man of the mountain for using my mind and my dead mother against me. Mark my words, I will kill him.
She looked up, and when she did, the skeleton man with the staff stood in front of her, the throne looming behind him. He rested the staff against his body and clapped slowly.
“Congratulations, Maria Apple. You have made it through the Trials of Antenele; you have done what no one else has done before. You have done the impossible.”
“Fuck you,” Maria said. “And give me back my dog.”
The man of the mountain didn’t look the slightest bit offended. In fact, he smiled, and Maria thought she saw a sick kind of pride in his eyes.
“Fine, Maria. I shall give you your dog back.”
“Unharmed.”
He nodded. “Yes, unharmed.”
“And you will let us pass toward the Land of Terran on the other side of the mountain. You will leave my grandfather, Ignatius Apple, and his traveling companion, Frieda, the dark witch, alone. They will come out on the other side unharmed.”
“Details, details,” the man said, twirling the fingers of one hand. “But yes, Maria, I shall do all of that.”
“Good, now never let me see your face again, because the next time, I do, I will kill you,” Maria said. She stood up shakily. Had she not been drained of all energy, she would’ve slain him right then and there.
The man of the mountain threw his head back in laughter, and he lifted his staff. The air shimmered and lit with flame. Sherlock appeared out of nowhere. Maria rushed to him. She petted him, but he didn’t wake up. With her right arm, she set his head into her lap. “Sherlock! Sherlock!”
No response.
The tears were back—had they really ever left?—and she hugged him close and tight, thinking the man of the mountain had lied, and who was she to trust a dark conjurer of such cheap tricks, anyway?
“Sherlock, wake up, please. If you wake up, I’ll round up all the Gnomes and Raffins and dead squirrels and trash ice cream that I can find, and you can eat until you pop or pass out.”
His eyes fluttered and opened. Tongue snapping back into his mouth, he said, What? Did I dream that? Or—
“Sherlock!” Maria hugged him again, tighter this time.
Oh, no…
Sherlock passed gas loud enough to echo off the cave’s walls.
Sorry about that.
“You know, I don’t even care. You can do that all you want.”
Really?
“No, please don’t.”
I heard it! That’s, like, a legally binding verbal contract.
“Maybe on Earth, but we’re on Oriceran. I don’t think the same rules apply here, buddy.”
Sherlock rolled over onto his feet and shook himself out. Drool flew in all directions, some even splashing onto Maria’s face, but Maria didn’t care. She was just glad that Sherlock was okay.
The man of the mountain was gone; so were his throne, his staff, and his terrible laughter. What took his place was not the pinprick of light. No. The pinprick had changed into a doorway. Maria and Sherlock walked toward it. As they got closer, they could smell the outside world, the clean, crisp air, the leaves, the trees, the dirt, and the rocks. No longer did the cold and damp sink into their bones.
“Don’t go running off yet,” Maria said.
Oh, I’ve learned my lesson, Sherlock replied.
“Whoa, that’s a first. Never thought I’d hear you say you learned a lesson. ‘Can’t teach an old dog new tricks,’ and all that.”
You can if you get kidnapped by some weirdo with a penis-shaped stick, like some kind of unsettling Gandalf.
“A penis? Did it really look like that? I couldn’t tell.”
Eh, maybe.
Maria laughed. “Ah, good ol’ Sherlock.”
They reached the opening and saw another white tree nearby. This one was full of leaves; it didn’t appear that even one had fallen off yet. They were a crisp and vibrant red, standing out starkly against the backdrop of the blue sky.
Can you see the town from here? Sherlock asked.
Maria was climbing up a boulder, trying to get a better look. She wasn’t having much luck. “No,” she answered. “Just more mountain. We’ve got a bit of a journey before we’re there.”
Let’s go.
“Nuh-uh, buddy. Gotta wait for Gramps and Frieda. Believe me, I want nothing more than to get to that town and save those people if they need saving, but we are a crew. We can’t go at it alone. I
t took almost losing you for me to realize that, and I’m not going to let that happen again.”
But Sherlock wasn’t listening. He was pacing back and forth, his head on a swivel, tail between his legs.
How do you know they didn’t get hurt or something in there? he said. Oh, God, Maria, what if they’re captured like I was? Who’s gonna feed me!?
“They’re not.”
How do you know?
“I just do.”
He eyed her warily, but Maria didn’t give him any reason to not believe her by her expression.
She sat down and patted the spot next to her. “Come here, boy. We have to wait. Shouldn’t be too much longer.”
Sherlock padded over, his tail finally gaining momentum and swinging wildly. It was hard for him to resist Maria’s invitations because—even though deep down he knew there wasn’t—the animalistic part of his mind thought there were always treats involved whenever he was a ‘good boy.’
Sherlock lay down, curling his body into a ball, while Maria leaned against the rock and stroked the Bloodhound’s back. Sherlock even set his head down on her thigh and looked up at her with pure love and admiration.
She slipped him a treat.
The wind blew, and soon they both drifted off to sleep while they waited for Ignatius and Freida. Lord knew they needed it.
Chapter Fourteen
On Oriceran, the quest was in full swing. Maria was battling her way through the Trials of Antenele, while Freida and Ignatius made their way through the Cave of Delusion, seeing their own personal ghosts and demons. Yet, despite Ignatius’s injury, he remained strong, and he eventually led Freida toward that pinprick of light at the other side of the mountain.
But Lois didn’t know any of this.
On Earth, the hours grew later. Lois, the Muffler twins—in all their oddness, she still found their company comforting—Agnes, and Salem played 500 Rummy deep into the night, until the sun began to purple the dark sky. She did not feel tired, though she kept taking her glasses off and rubbing her eyes, thinking about Earl. It sucked to leave him, but she had to do what she had to do, and they had both known that this task given to her from Lacey Trader was not going to be an easy one.
Near six in the morning, the laughter died down. Salem got up and gathered everyone’s empty containers of ice cream to throw in the trashcan. Lois had nearly drowned herself in the buckeye flavor; one of the few things she missed about the Midwest, besides the people.
She stood up.
“I’m gonna go look for him. I can’t wait anymore. I gotta husband at home, and Patsy manning my PDA line; she’s probably a trainwreck, now.”
Agnes got up, too, and put her arm around Lois’s shoulder. “All right, we’ll take you over to his house. Maybe we can find some clue as to why he’s not back yet.”
“Yeah, it’s not like him to stay over for so long,” one of the Muffler twins said as she paused between gulping down the last bit of melted ice cream.
“True, but we shouldn’t worry…yet,” Agnes said.
“That’s comforting,” Lois answered.
Salem came back. He had heard the conversation, and was glad to help Lois and the Silver Griffins. If there was one thing he’d learned in his many years on Earth, it was not to get on the Griffins’ bad side.
He turned to the Muffler twins. “I know you two don’t want to leave here, on account of I won’t be around to put a cap on your ice cream consumption.” Salem stroked his long beard. “So,” he said softly as he dug a hand into the pocket of his tweed trousers and pulled out a key ring, “there’s a chance I won’t be here to open the store. Two moons forbid that’s the case, but it’s possible. Would you mind opening up for me around ten?”
The Muffler twins nodded, sly grins on their ice cream-covered faces.
“Thank you kindly,” Salem said. “Knew I could count on you. Please, don’t—I repeat, do not—eat all of my inventory.”
“No worries,” they said simultaneously.
“Thank you, and try not to make a big mess, either. I got an image to uphold.”
“Yeah, of the old wizard who gives away free ice cream,” Agnes said, laughing.
Salem rolled his eyes and put his arm around Agnes. “Ready?” he asked Lois.
“Want the truth?” Lois replied. “I’m not. I’m kind of fearing the worst.”
“Don’t worry,” Salem said, reaching a hand out and putting it on Lois’s forearm. “Whatever’s wrong, we can fix. That’s what friends are for.”
And they all knew Salem was right.
No less than fifteen minutes later, they pulled into Ignatius’s driveway. Lois found it hard to catch her breath. She was nervous—dead and missing members of the Order, Arachnids, music boxes, and the world in between… could it get much worse?
The house seemed still and empty.
Salem walked right up to the front windows and peered in.
“TV’s on,” he said. “Someone’s here.”
Lois’s hand hovered over her 3-D printed, government-issued wand.
“Should we knock?”
“No need, I have a key,” Salem answered.
Agnes shook her head at Lois, and mouthed, ‘He doesn’t’.
Instead of a key, Salem took out his own wand and tapped the doorknob. Light flashed in the hazy morning, illuminating the brass. With a click, the lock undid itself, and the door creaked open.
He pushed his way in, Agnes and Lois following right behind him.
I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Lois was thinking. Her glasses were slipping off the end of her nose, but she didn’t have the time or the urge to fix them. No, she grabbed her wand instead, ready for a fight.
The TV wasn’t playing any program at all—just static and that awful fzzt noise that comes with a dead channel. And even though the sun was coming up, it was still quite dark inside of Ignatius’s living room; this was, unsurprisingly to Lois, as quirky as she had expected it to be for a wizard of Ignatius’s personality.
“We split up,” Agnes said, taking control of the situation from Salem. Lois felt a little better as she did. Witches and magical females, in her experience, were meant to lead. They stayed calm when shit hit the fan. Take Leira Berens of Austin, for example. Half-Light Elf and new to the hidden magical world, at that, and Lois had never met someone with such resolve in all of her years.
Agnes directed Salem toward the stairs and pointed up, then she motioned Lois to the living room, where the dead TV played its dead channel. She herself went to the left, toward the kitchen and another hallway that smelled like dog.
They went, each tiptoeing over the hardwood, not making a sound.
As Lois passed the couch, she stared at the TV. It was hypnotizing in its own way, and she hadn’t noticed the two covered lumps on the living room floor. Her shoe drove into one, and both Lois and the person under the covers cried out. Lois went stumbling into the opposite wall, catching her balance enough to direct herself into a ratty E-Z chair, while the other lump shifted underneath the covers and screamed.
“Ouch!” Claire said. “Tab, what the hell did you do that for?” Her eyes were bleary, hardly opened.
“Do what?” the other lump answered, which must’ve been Tab.
“Kick me in the ribs. Not cool.”
“What? I didn’t… I’m right here, Claire,” Tab said.
“Huh?”
Lois watched this exchange with strange fascination.
Claire turned toward the figure in the chair, thinking it must be Maria or her grandfather—who else would be up at this ungodly hour? She rubbed her eyes, wiping the sleep away from them. Suddenly, she stopped, and her eyes opened as wide as two full moons.
Lois looked at the Claire. “Don’t worry, I am an ally,” she said, raising her hand.
“What are you doing in here? Get out!” Tabby demanded from the floor.
“This isn’t your house. Get out, or we’ll call the police!” Claire echoed.
Thankfu
lly, Agnes and Salem rushed into the living room then, and recognition registered in the eyes of both young women.
“What is going on?” Claire asked, getting up, but still backing against the wall with Tab right next to her.
“We’re looking for Ignatius,” Agnes said, smiling. “Has he not come back yet?”
Everyone seemed to have calmed down a bit, though Claire rubbed at her ribs where Lois accidentally kicked her.
The girls shook their heads. “I, uh… geez, what time is it?” Claire asked, stifling a yawn. “Way too early to get kicked in the ribs.”
“Sorry about that,” Lois said. “It was an accident. Didn’t see you on the floor. I was coming over to unplug that TV. Damn thing was giving me the heebie-jeebies.”
They turned to look at the fuzzy station. Claire nodded. “Makes sense.” Then she turned it off.
It was Tabby who got them all back on track. “Ignatius came back sometime last night. He opened a door or a portal or whatever right here in the living room.”
“He did?” Lois asked, standing up now.
“Did he find the Gnome? Any news about the music box?” Salem inched closer to the couch and leaned his elbows on the back of it.
Tabby shook her head, one hand settled on her chin, deep in thought. “No, no—”
“He was with a dark witch, or at least she looked dark. Didn’t give off the kind of vibe you two give off,” Claire said, pointing to Agnes and Lois. “But she was nice enough.”
“What else?” Agnes asked.
“Something about a dragon and a seaside town where the Gnome was at. They were going to rescue him and the townspeople from the dragon, and then hopefully unlock whatever secrets they need to get into that dead place…you know, where Duke was at,” Claire went on. “But that was the last time that we saw them. Anyway, who is this lady who kicked me? I’m—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Salem said, standing straighter and putting his arms up. “What did you say? A dragon?”
The girls nodded.
Oh, no, this is not good, Lois thought. Not many have faced a dragon and lived to talk about it.
“It was only last night,” Tabby said, but she saw, as did Claire, the pained, ashen expressions on the witches’ and wizard’s faces.
Midwest Magic Chronicles Boxed Set Page 40