We're all assembled in the circle now, and the last two women to link up are Virago and me.
But as I reach across the space to take Virago's hand, that's when the doorbell rings, the ding-dong echoing strangely from the front hallway into the living room.
For a moment, I stand there, stricken. For all I know, it's a bunch of religious people on the porch with pamphlets, and if it is religious people, I can only imagine their terrified faces when I inform them that I'm a lesbian. They'd leap off the porch as if the house were on fire. This has actually happened. Or it could be some poor guy misdelivering a pizza. I pause in my thoughts as I realize that taking a pizza to a new world would make me a hero.
I should probably get the door, then.
All joking aside, I have no real idea why I'm so drawn to the door at this moment, but I really am. I need to open it. “I just... I'm just going to get that, okay? It'll take two seconds,” I tell the knights, holding up a finger and turning to hurry toward the door. Admittedly, I know it's probably not the pizza delivery guy; it's probably not anyone important at all, or even anyone I know. But I just really feel that I have to answer that door.
And I know exactly why once I open said door.
It's my brother, Aidan. He's standing on my front doorstep, and he's smiling at me with his good-natured smile, holding out a dozen cupcakes on a pretty silver tray. The cupcakes are pink and white, and I can tell he made them himself, because they're liberally sprinkled with edible confetti in the shape of witch hats.
“Hey, sis, I thought I'd bring these over, and we could have a fun night in,” he tells me with a wide grin. “I mean, I didn't know what your plans were, but I woke up this morning, and I was all like, I need to make cupcakes and go visit my sister and her girlfriend, so here I am! With cupcakes!” he tells me, beaming and holding the tray of cupcakes aloft.
Aidan is a witch, and—as such—he prides himself on his strong powers of intuition. Granted, these are the same powers of intuition that told him Britney Spears would become as classic as Madonna... But, often enough, my brother gets it very, very right. Like knowing that, tonight of all nights, he had to come see me.
I swallow, emotion filling me as I stare at my brother with wide eyes. “I...I can't believe you're here,” I manage. “We're...about to leave. For...um...Agrotera.”
My brother stares at me, and I stare at him, and then he's stepping forward, depositing the plate of cupcakes on the table beside the door. Then he hugs me very tightly. He smells of cotton candy (because my brother has a sweet tooth) and sandalwood incense from his shop, and it's one of the most comforting things in the world right now, my brother's scent and his warm hug...
I didn't expect to get choked up right now, but I am as I return my brother's hug.
“Oh, my God—are you coming back?” he asks me then, holding me out at arm's length to watch my face carefully.
I shake my head, drawing him in for another tight hug, setting my chin on his shoulder and squeezing. “Of course I'm coming back, silly,” I tell him lightly—even though my voice comes out as choked—as I step back. “I mean, I can't imagine living without your cupcakes, so...” I grin as I take up the plate and make a big show of hiding it behind my back, like I'm about to steal it from him. I hope the gesture conceals the fact that my eyes are full of tears.
Virago peers around the corner of the hallway just then, her brows rising when she spots my brother. “Sir Aidan!” she calls out, striding down the hall to embrace him tightly, smacking him on the back with probably a bit more gusto than would be comfortable. My brother winces a little, but he still smiles at Virago, until he clears his throat, looking from me to her.
“Virago, what's going on?” he asks then, searching her face.
“My friend, I go to protect the queen of Arktos during one of our tournaments,” says Virago, gripping his arm tightly in a knight's handshake. “I swear to you, I will bring your sister back unscathed after the tournament has run its course.”
“Well...I mean, unscathed sounds good,” says Aidan, turning to me then, his worried expression dissolving. “That doesn't sound so bad! Do you want me to watch Shelley while you guys are gone?” he asks me then, as if Virago just told him we were about to embark on a road trip to Provincetown, and not—you know—slide through a portal to another world.
“Thanks, but don't worry about it, Aidan. I'm going to be taking Shel with us,” I tell him, grabbing her leash from the little hook on the wall. “I, uh, admittedly don't know if a new world is ready for Shelley,” I quip, “but we're going to make the best of it. And that way you don't have to watch her, and Hex doesn't have to be a gigantic ball of hissing fluff for seven days,” I add apologetically. Hex is Aidan's cat, and the moment that Shelley and Hex met, it was hate at first sight. I would never ask my brother to watch Shelley when there would be such a blood feud going on in the sacred space of his apartment.
“That's nice of you,” chuckles Aidan; then he turns to look at Virago again as he chews on his lower lip. He sighs. “This is, sadly, where I have to be super macho and tell you that you have to bring my sister back safe and sound, okay?” he tells her, folding his arms in front of him and lifting a brow.
She nods seriously. “Of course. It will be my honor, sir,” she says, then curls her hand into a fist and taps it gently over her heart three times. “I have sworn it to you,” she says, lifting her chin. “By my blood and bone, it will be done.”
“Well, blood and bone—that's all right, then!” says my brother, winking at Virago and me. “Take the cupcakes,” he says, indicating the tray with a small, mischievous smile, “and you will be a hero among the knights!”
“So humble,” I smile, and then I feel a great wave of emotion move through me again, and I feel tears fill my eyes—but I don't let them even think about falling. I smile at my brother before he can notice a slip of my expression... But he's too perceptive.
“Hey, be good, okay? Don't do anything crazy or super valiant or whatever,” he says, stepping forward and wrapping his arms around me to give me another squeeze. His voice is thick with emotion, and I'm about to burst into tears if we don't blow this popsicle stand in the next minute.
Virago seems to sense that, too, because she inclines her head to my brother again and murmurs, “Aidan, if you could but help us... We are trying to open a portal, and who is better at opening portals but you?” She smiles widely at my brother, who rubs the back of his neck and actually blushes.
“You're going to make my head grow too big to fit through the door,” he grins at her, “but, sure, it'd be a privilege.”
“Um...there are a lot of other knights here,” I mutter to him, as we all turn and go back down the hallway, toward the living room.
“What now?” he asks, but he follows us, mystified, and stops in his tracks when he reaches the entrance to the living room.
“Wow,” he murmurs. “You weren't kidding.”
Charaxus is standing in the center of the circle, and she is glowering as she stares at me in all of her black-armored glory. From Aidan's eyes, seeing her for the first time...I mean, she looks positively scary, frowning like that.
“If the lady is done delaying the queen, we might get started,” Charaxus says, folding her arms in front of her as her tone conveys the sharpness of a horde of angry bees.
“I'm sorry, Your Majesty,” I tell Calla at the exact same moment that the queen waves her hand at me, shaking her head.
“Don't trouble yourself, dear Holly,” Calla says with a small smile. “But who is this?” she asks, gazing curiously around my shoulder at Aidan. Aidan, who is just as dwarfed as I am by these knights.
“This is my brother Aidan,” I tell Calla, putting an arm around him. “And he's a witch and can help us with the portal.”
“Thank the Goddess,” mutters Kell, rolling her eyes. “If we had to wait for Charaxus to summon it, we'd be here until the next full moon,” she murmurs, raising a brow and glaring daggers at Charaxus. Oh, great.
Their feud is apparently still ongoing.
But Charaxus doesn't even bother to glance in Kell's direction. “And if the knights who were put in place to protect the queen didn't kidnap her and take her to another world, thereby placing her in grave danger,” she says, with poison in her tone, “this portal would not even be necessary.”
“For the last time...” Kell snarls, and her gloved hands are suddenly in fists, her mouth set in a savage frown. She's about to lunge at Charaxus, starting a fight, but Magel steps politely in her way and locks her arm across Kell's shoulders, barring her from leaping forward.
Being restrained doesn't appear to matter to Kell, though. She keeps talking, anyway. “We did not kidnap the queen, and we have kept her safe,” she says, her lips drawn over her teeth. She reminds me of a wolf.
But Charaxus is no prey, and she actually laughs in face of Kell's anger. “Hotheaded as a pot of boiling water,” she observes, her eyes glittering like daggers. “Do you really believe that your temper aids your queen in any way? Or do you, perhaps, realize that your temper might get our beloved queen killed? Like someone else we once knew.”
“You go too far,” whispers Kell, in the suddenly still room. Her eyes are wide, and she stares at Charaxus as if the black-armored knight just tore out her heart. Kell pales as she stares at Charaxus, but Charaxus does not back down.
“Please,” says Calla then, and the word is thick with exhaustion. “Let us just return home.”
Kell is staring at Charaxus as if fire is about to come out of her eyes. Charaxus is ignoring her, already done with her... But after Calla speaks, Kell's intensity dies down a bit, and she actually takes a step back, Magel's arm going slack over her shoulders. Kell turns away from Charaxus and returns to her place in the circle, and though she won't lift her eyes, and though she grits her teeth, the fight appears to have been suspended. For now.
Virago said that she and Charaxus didn't get along in knight school. And I can tell, obviously, that Charaxus isn't the easiest person in the world to get along with, even if you're as easygoing as Virago. But what in the world could have happened for there to be such a gap between these knights and Charaxus? It can't possibly be that Charaxus is Vice Queen, and therefore more powerful than them. I don't think they care about power that way, because they defer to Queen Calla with love and admiration immediately. No, it has to be something else, something I haven't been made aware of yet.
I grasp my brother's hand and Virago's now, as Aidan steps into the circle.
“Hello, ladies,” he says reverently, inclining his head to the women assembled here, in my living room. “It's wonderful to meet you,” he says warmly, and it's obvious that he means it. He licks his lips and smiles with chagrin then. “I, uh...I'm by no means an expert at creating portals. But I can certainly try.”
“We appreciate your help, Sir Aidan,” says Calla, smiling and inclining her head to him, too. “My knights and I are strong, but our strength lies in things other than magic. Your aid is appreciated.”
Aidan closes his eyes then, grasping my hand and Calla's hand as he takes a deep breath. He practically inflates himself, as he's suddenly standing perfectly straight, his chest out, his shoulders back, and his chin lifted. When he speaks again, his voice is richer, deeper, stronger, and he begins to intone: “By the powers of air and fire, by the powers of earth and water, I call upon the elements to aid us this night.”
Whenever Aidan gets into his witchy mode, he becomes someone else entirely. Gone is the brother who ate booger candies in the eighties; instead, he's replaced by this strong, powerful guy who I couldn't be prouder of. He has a particular cadence when he speaks the words, and I shiver a little as I feel the energy in the room shift.
“Now, please concentrate on the center of the floor in the circle,” says Aidan, his voice dropping to a low whisper. “Concentrate on the center, and imagine that it is glowing with a bright...white...light...”
I take a deep breath, and I concentrate with all my heart.
And in the center of the floor, after a long, tense moment, something begins to glow.
It's odd: at first, I think my eyes are playing tricks on me. It's night, but the overhead light from the fan is very bright in the living room. My eyes shouldn't be playing tricks on me...but then there it is again, what I thought I saw a moment ago. A spark, floating in midair, a little like a firefly...
But then that spark starts to glow brighter, and I realize that it's really there, really glowing, about a foot off the ground, not imagined at all but real. It's small, this spark, about the size of a piece of hard candy, but then it grows bigger and bigger, taller than the knights now, as it grows and lengthens, growing brighter, too, as we stare at it, as we concentrate on it.
“Okay,” says my brother, and though he's still intoning the words as majestically as before, I know him, and I can hear his breathless excitement. To him, this is pretty much the coolest thing in the world. Modern Pagans don't ride on broomsticks, and the magick spells they cast don't usually have such, well, theatrical results.
The glowing oval is hovering about a foot off the ground right in front of us, taller than the knights themselves in height.
“This is it!” says my brother, whispering the words almost reverently. “I did everything just like before, so...I'm pretty sure this is a portal to Agrotera, you guys.”
And, indeed, as the oval spins slowly in front of us, I start to see something through the glowing white. Something that looks a lot like trees and a meadow in daylight. And something rising over the trees...
Is that...a castle?
“Knights, assemble,” says Calla, and one by one, the knights let go of each other's hands and form a line, lining right up to the portal. Charaxus is at the front of the line, which I find interesting. She must know the inherent danger of going through an untested portal, but she's the first one willing to go through. That marks her as having just as much fight as Kell, and just as much courage as Virago.
Again...interesting.
Charaxus lifts her chin, straightens her shoulders. And then she steps through the portal.
One by one, the knights step through, too, as the oval spins in front of them. One by one, they enter, until the only people remaining in my living room are me, Virago, Aidan, and Queen Calla.
I take up Shelley's leash from the coffee table and clip it to her collar. “Be good when we go through this, okay, baby girl?” I beg her nervously, and Shelley just thumps her tail against the floor, grinning up at me with her wide, collie grin as if to say, “I'm always good!” which is, in fact, a total lie. But I grasp the leash tightly and turn back to Virago.
“I will hold your hand,” she tells me quietly, reaching across the space between us and taking my free hand in her gloved one. “Stay right beside me,” she tells me, her eyes bright, “and it will be over in a flash.”
“Take care,” says my brother, then, and the words come out choked up; I think a see a tear in his eye, but I dart forward before he can say another word and embrace him tightly. One last time.
“Goodbye,” I tell him, and then I turn and take Virago's hand again.
And grasping Shelley's leash, holding tightly to Virago...we step through the portal together.
Chapter 5: A Whole New World
You know that scene in The Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy leaves her old house—that has been plucked up by a tornado and whisked away to Oz—and she steps through the door from a grayscale world into one of amazing color? I remember watching that movie for the first time when I was very, very little, and I still remember gasping with delight when the television's screen switched from dull monochrome to vibrant, jaw-dropping color.
I realize, as I step through the portal, as I take my very first step into a whole new world, onto Agrotera...that that's exactly what's happening now.
Not that Earth was monochrome, obviously. There's color everywhere—in bright billboards and flowers and people's clothing and the ocean and sky and g
rass and buildings. There's color everywhere on Earth.
I guess it's just a different kind of color.
Because when I step through that portal, gripping tightly to the leash and Virago both...I actually gasp out loud.
I glimpsed Agrotera for a moment through a portal once. That's the first time that I saw Magel and the other knights, as I stared down at a meadow. It had looked just like any other normal meadow.
But nothing looks normal now that I'm actually here.
Right now, we are standing with the rest of the knights in the middle of a meadow, just like the meadow I saw that day. The grass is a dazzling green and tall, up to my hips. Luscious. I reach out my hand, still gripping Shelley's leash, and, spellbound, brush my palm over the tip of one of the pieces of hay. It's soft to the touch, grazing my fingertips like a feather. There are flowers sprinkled throughout the meadow, and their color has been “turned up” so much that they're almost blindingly bright. I've never seen any of these flowers before, but there are ones that look a little similar to daisies that are bright purple, with pink centers, and ones that look a little like roses, though their stems aren't woody or thorned, their petals such an astonishing, burnished gold that I stare at them, mesmerized.
All around the meadow itself, lanky pine-like trees arch overhead, as tall as skyscrapers. What's odd is that these trees aren't as bright as the meadow. They're much taller than any trees I've ever seen, but aside from that, they look familiar, a deep, vibrant green that's beautiful, but, yeah, normal.
“What is this place?” I whisper, taking a step forward. I turn, searching for the portal, but it's not there; it's vanished.
We're in Agrotera for keeps.
For now.
Virago watches me happily, folding her arms in front of her as she glances about the meadow, taking in the flowers and grasses. The sunshine spilling down from the cloudless sky makes every golden rose glow.
“This is the Meadow of Memory,” she says, inhaling deeply as she lifts her chin up. She gazes at the meadow with soft fondness as she tilts her head a little. “This is where all knights are buried,” she tells me in a hushed voice.
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