by Jen McConnel
“I need a room for tonight.”
“It’s Christmas, lass. Don’t you have family to stay with?”
I shook my head and then felt like an idiot. She couldn’t see me. “No. I just landed. I guess I didn’t plan my trip very well … but I’ve always wanted to spend Christmas in Scotland!”
Her voice softened at my lie. “If you don’t mind sharing one of the dormitories, I can find a bed for you. But I canna promise you a hot shower!” She chuckled softly.
“That’s fine. What should I tell the taxi?”
She clicked her tongue. “No need to waste your money on a car, lass. We’re two blocks up from the train station. Just take the tram from the airport. We’re at the corner of Princes and Frederick. You’ll see the sign.”
I thanked her and hung up. It didn’t take long to find the tram, and soon I was walking along the steep, cobblestoned streets.
Despite the short walk, my fingers were numb by the time I reached the hostel, and my breath hung frostily in the air. I hadn’t packed any gloves for my trip, thinking foolishly that Scotland would have a temperate ocean climate. I had to grasp the door handle twice before I was able to turn it and step into the warmth of the crowded room.
The reception area was on the ground floor, and it was overflowing with people my age and a little bit older. Red and green decorations hung from every surface, and the clerk behind the desk was wearing a Santa hat that looked like it had been designed by Dr. Seuss. A big smile spread across my face as I walked up to the desk; the party spirit was infectious. The clerk spotted me and pounded on the old-fashioned bell that sat in front of him.
The chatter in the room quieted, and I felt everyone’s eyes turn toward me. A wave of paranoia washed over me; what if Hecate had spies watching me?
“What can I do for ye?” the man asked with a smile, unaware of my tense mood.
“I called earlier from the airport. The lady said you still had room available?”
He grinned broadly. “Of course there’s room at this inn!” He laughed, and a few people standing nearby chuckled at his Christmas joke. “Just need to see your passport, and your student card.”
I pulled both items from the deep inner pocket of my backpack and handed them over. He turned to make a photocopy, and I looked around the room, trying to slow my racing heart.
The party looked like it was just getting underway, and I could hear snippets of conversations in heavily accented English from all corners of the room. No one was watching me, and I exhaled slowly and grinned. It should be easy to blend in to such a mixed group of travelers for a day or two while I figured out what to do next. However, as I glanced at the map of Scotland tacked up on the wall behind the counter, my heart sank. The country was much larger than I had thought, and I didn’t have the slightest idea where to begin my search. It might take months before I found another Red … unless I used magic to help me.
The clerk shoved my passport and student card back toward me and grabbed a key off the wall behind him. “I’ll put you in dormitory five upstairs. Anything valuable in that sack?”
I shook my head, and he smiled.
“Just as well. If there were, I’m supposed to tell you to leave it locked up down here in the safe, but most folks don’t want to do that. Most folks aren’t traveling with anything of much value, either.”
I followed him up the steep stairs, which turned sharply at three small landings before he announced, “Dormitory 5C. Home sweet home!” He unlocked the thick wooden door and gestured to an unmade bunk bed near the window. “No one’s claimed that bed, so it’s all yours. Pity it’s not on the floor; are you scared of heights?”
I could tell he was joking, but I didn’t feel like getting into a conversation right now. I shook my head silently and turned toward the bed.
“Lights out is at one a.m., so I canna make anyone be quiet before that. If you’re wanting to sleep, I hope you brought earplugs!”
He shut the door and headed back down the stairs to join the raucous Christmas party in the lobby.
There were four sets of bunk beds lining the walls; I guessed that meant I had seven roommates. There wasn’t much space on the ground in between the beds, but that didn’t seem to hinder the other travelers: every bed but mine was strewn with clothes, bags, and other items. I tossed my backpack up on the blue and white striped mattress, and then climbed aboard. I set a loose ward on the door of the room which would alert me if anyone was about to enter. I didn’t want to be interrupted, and I knew that I needed to get to work right away, no matter how tired I was.
Breathing deeply, I crossed my legs, perching precariously on top of the bunk bed. When I straightened my spine, my head hit the ceiling with a deafening thwack. I always preferred to meditate in a seated position, but that didn’t seem possible tonight. Instead, I lay on my back on the bare mattress. One of the first things I’d learned at Trinity was the power of the mind to reveal necessary information. I didn’t usually have the patience for meditation, but whenever I bothered to slow down enough, I got results. I’d used a fire meditation last fall to help me begin to figure out more about Red magic, and it had worked like a charm. Tonight, I decided I would meditate to figure out where the other Red Witch was.
Wary of drawing too much attention to myself, I didn’t light one of the red candles buried in the bottom of my bag. Instead, I held Aphrodite’s mirror in my left hand and my other prized possession, my mother’s knife, in my right. There was one more magical item in the bag, tucked carefully in the bottom of a sock: the crystal sphere Hades had given me when I left the Underworld. These tools were bulky and it took a certain amount of magic to get them through airport security, but having them with me was worth the effort. I thought the tools might help ground me and remind me of the people and gods who were willing to help, and Witches always trust their instincts.
Mom had insisted I take her athame last year, even though I knew just how important her sacred knife was to her. I’d used it many times since she gave it to me, but I still thought of it as hers; a person’s magical energy doesn’t fade from an object just because it’s no longer in their possession. Feeling my mother’s presence through the knife made me breathe a sigh of relief. With a pang of guilt, I realized I hadn’t called home to let them know I made it to Scotland. I almost got up to call them on the spot, but I didn’t want to lose the opportunity of the empty dorm room. Doing this magic while the party was still going was my best chance to learn something.
Lying on my back with my hands at my sides, I stared at the ceiling. I let my focus go slack until it was as if I were looking through the ceiling rather than at it. The crack over my head doubled, and then tripled as my eyes started to glaze over. As my breathing slowed, I formed a question with my mind.
“Where is the Red Witch?”
At first, I only asked the question in my head, but as my trance deepened, I began to whisper the question like a chant. “Where is the Red Witch?” My voice grew slowly louder, until I was almost shouting. My vision blurred, and I could almost see the answer when the ward I had put on the door buzzed in my mind, yanking me back to consciousness.
Startled, I rolled over, concealing my tools with my body. Trying to look like I was asleep, I rested my head on my arm and shut my eyes, leaving them cracked just a sliver. The door opened and two girls stomped in. They looked like they might be a little bit older than me, but it was too dark to tell. I watched them through slitted eyes as they staggered to the bunk across from me.
“Come on, Joan. Where’s my toothbrush?”
Joan giggled. “He still won’t kiss you.”
Her friend smacked her playfully. “He might! It’s Christmas.”
Joan spun around and flopped down on the floor. “Woopsie.” She giggled again. I realized that she’d probably been drinking at the party; from the look of her, she’d never done that before, and I resisted the urge to laugh. She looked like an idiot.
Her friend rummaged around for
a minute, then let out a triumphant shout. “Here it is! Come on, I have to hurry.”
They didn’t glance at me as they headed out into the hallway. Once the door was shut, I counted slowly to ten, and then breathed a sigh of relief. At least two of my roommates would be too hungover to pay much attention to me in the morning. For a minute, I thought about trying to restart the meditation, but weariness overcame me. Still clutching the knife and the mirror, I fell asleep. Almost immediately, I started to dream.
I was walking through a dark forest, approaching a woman who was standing in front of a bubbling cauldron.
Her back was to me, but she was draped in black and cobwebs, and panic filled me. I thought I knew exactly who she was; Hecate had found me! If she harmed me in the dream, would I ever wake up? I wanted to turn, to run, to stop walking, but my feet kept leading me toward her. I was trapped.
When she turned, I saw the brightest green eyes I’d ever seen. The woman’s face was lined with age, but she was still frighteningly beautiful. I just had time to register that this strange woman wasn’t Hecate before the dream shifted and the woman vanished.
Now I was standing next to a dirt mound as tall as my head. Stones circled the hill haphazardly, and two stones seemed to form an entrance. As I approached, I saw that there was an opening, leading into the dirt like a tunnel. I walked forward, curious, but just then the light in the dream shifted, illuminating the inside of the mound. Piles of human skulls and jumbled bones leered at me from the darkness, and I stumbled and fell over backward. As I fell, I thought I heard a deep voice.
“You shall not enter my domain alive. Go back; you are not of the dead. Yet.” The voice rasped and echoed around me, and I sat up with a jolt, smashing my skull against the ceiling for the second time that night. I rubbed my head and bit back a curse, glancing around the dark room.
Still shaken by my dream, I lay there in the dark with my eyes open for a while. I had been so sure that Hecate had found me, but the woman at the cauldron was not the goddess I ran from. Whoever she was, she wasn’t someone I wanted to get to know—the entire dream had been creepy. I shivered, remembering the mound of bones and the standing stones. I had no desire to go to such a place—the voice in my dream had issued an unnecessary warning.
As my fear faded, it was replaced by irritation. The dream and the meditation hadn’t told me anything, and I was no closer to knowing where to look for the other Red Witch than I had been before. Sure, I was here in Scotland, but so far, that had been the only clue I’d had. How was I going to form an alliance with the other Red if I couldn’t even find her? Annoyed, I drifted back to sleep.
The next morning, I stepped out of the shower to find the shared bathroom occupied by a tall, blond girl who was industriously plucking her eyebrows over the sink. After a moment, I recognized her as the girl who had interrupted my meditations to find a toothbrush. Our eyes met in the mirror, and she blushed.
“Sorry if we woke you last night. Everyone was enjoying the party a bit too much.”
Her accent sounded Australian.
“It sounded like you were having fun. Did he kiss you?”
“You heard that?” Her long hair swayed as she laughed. “Nope. That bloke was gone by the time we got back downstairs. Pity,” she sighed, turning back to the mirror with her tweezers. “I made up my mind to have a bit of a romance on this holiday, and I’m running short on time!”
I leaned against the sink. “Where are you from?”
“New Zealand. Thank God you asked; I hate when people assume I’m Australian.”
I grinned at her. “Well, to tell the truth, I—”
“Don’t say it!” She shook her head. “I think I like you, and I don’t want a reason to hate you.”
Her words were playful, but I felt a chill when I met her eyes. Had she meant something by that statement? Nervously, I clenched my hands. I needed to get over this paranoia; the whole world couldn’t be working for Hecate.
She studied me for a moment. “You’re new to the hostel.”
I nodded. “Just got in last night.”
“American?”
I nodded. “Right in one guess.”
“You Yanks are easy to spot. How long are you here?”
I paused, considering my words. “I don’t really have plans. I’m just winging it, I guess.”
“Lucky! There’s no way my folks would let me go on holiday forever.” She pouted at her reflection and put her tweezers back in her bag. “I fly home on Sunday.”
“You’re not going to be here for New Year’s Eve?”
“Nah. The winter term starts right up, and as much as I like a good party, I can’t stand being jetlagged and hungover at school.”
“Fair enough.” I stood there nervously for a minute. “I’m Darlena, by the way.”
She smiled, showing her perfect white teeth. “Sandra. Don’t you dare call me Sandy.”
I laughed. “Okay.” I turned to leave the small bathroom, but her words stopped me.
“Want to explore with us a bit today? We’re going to the vaults.”
I glanced at her curiously. “What are the vaults?”
Her eyes lit up. “You’re kidding, right?”
I shook my head. I’d been ready to begin my search in peace, but her tone made me pause. “What are they?”
She turned around, ignoring the mirror. “That settles it. You’re coming with us.”
“But—”
“It’s an underground city.”
I stared hard at her, trying to read her expression. She looked thrilled. “But I’ve never heard of it.”
“Silly, not many tourists know about it yet. They’re still excavating.”
I stared at her blankly. “So why do you want to go there?”
“Ghosts. The vaults are bursting with them!”
My skin prickled, but I heard myself telling her, “Sure.”
An hour later, I was trailing the two Kiwis toward the South Bridge. I’d been right last night; they were a few years older than me. Sandra was in college, but her traveling partner, Joan, was taking a gap year. The girls had been surprised when I hadn’t know what that was; apparently, a lot of people they knew took a year off between high school and college to figure things out, but I’d never known anyone who did that.
Even though I was eager to get underway with my search for the other Red, I instantly liked Sandra and Joan, and hanging out with them in the unfamiliar streets of Edinburgh made me feel sort of cool. Sandra led the way down the crowded street, talking over her shoulder.
“It sucks that they give tours now, but I still want to see the vaults. My brother was here a few years ago, and he said only a few folks knew about this. It was much creepier then, I’m sure.”
“How did he know about them?” I almost tripped on a raised cobblestone, but Joan steadied my arm.
Sandra smiled. “He’s a ghost hunter. An amateur, but he loves it. If there are ghosts anywhere he goes, he’ll find them.”
Joan shivered. “That’s so creepy. Do you really believe there are ghosts down there?”
We stood beneath the bridge, facing a dark opening that was shorter than a doorway. I peered into the darkness, my stomach twisting oddly.
Sandra laughed. “Of course not, silly! My brother’s a bit addled is all.”
Joan sighed in relief, and I glanced at the two girls, confused. “But I thought you wanted to come here because of the ghosts?”
“Ghosts or not, I like a good scare, and this place is guaranteed to deliver.”
My uneasiness hadn’t abated, and I could tell Joan was still nervous, too. She reached into her bag and pulled out a flashlight with shaking hands. Sandra took it from her and stepped into the vault. It was dark and damp, and the strange musty smell tugged at my memory, but I couldn’t place it.
The beam of the single flashlight didn’t cut very far into the darkness, and I paused for a moment to draw up a little Red magic. Even if Sandra said she didn’t belie
ve there were any ghosts down here, I wasn’t so sure, and I didn’t want to be defenseless. My fingertips tingled as I followed the girls, and red sparks caressed my arms. I stayed a few steps behind them, hoping they wouldn’t notice.
Our footsteps echoed on the earthen floor of the passageway, and Joan crinkled her nose.
“It’s all wet! I bet we’re in the sewer.”
Sandra laughed, dropping her voice a bit. “These are the vaults, all right. Can’t you feel the ghosts?”
Despite her teasing, I felt something. But whatever presence was in the vault, it felt nothing like the dead in the realm of Hades. I shivered and glanced behind us at the receding doorway. The light from outside was almost gone, and the flashlight gave off an eerie, blue glow as we descended deeper into the vault.
“Why are we here again?” I called to Sandra.
“I told you! Ghosts!” She chuckled. “But really, this used to be a city, with shops and everything. I wanted to see it for myself.” She moved forward as she spoke, and Joan and I followed her, watching the thin beam of the flashlight bounce along the corridor. My skin prickled along my neck, and I struggled to ignore the strange sensation.
“But why isn’t it being used now?”
“I don’t know, but it hasn’t been used for centuries.”
The light flickered.
“Sandy, be careful!” Joan’s voice sounded tight.
Sandra laughed. “You girls are such drags. I thought you wanted an adventure.”
I caught a whiff of sulfur. “Something isn’t right.”
“Not you, too?” Sandra sighed heavily. “How did I get stuck with two big scaredy cats?”
Joan whimpered. “I want to go out now.”
The light moved ahead, and Sandra’s voice called from further down the tunnel, “The only way out is through!”
The inside of my nose burned, and I suddenly identified the smell. Hecate always smelled of sulfur. Panic gripped me. “We need to leave. Now.”
I stopped walking, and as soon as I was standing still, the earth beneath my feet began to ripple. A rumbling noise filled the air, and I lost my balance, tumbling into the rock wall.