Covenkeepers

by Denise Gwen

  She stopped, listening. Far above her head, she heard the sound of footsteps. A light tread, surely Bettina, who fairly skipped everywhere she went.

  How long did I go missing?

  With a slowly dawning horror, Maddie realized that Bettina’s soft footfalls didn’t sound urgent. She sounded as if she were happily burbling around in the kitchen, making dinner. A dart, a stab of fear cut Maddie. Did they even suspect her disappearance?

  And if that were the case—that nobody suspected her absence—then what waited for her down here in the cellar?

  The eerie prickling sensation at the back of her neck started up again, the short hairs tingling. She knew, with a dull, aching certainty, that she was no longer alone. A presence hovered here in the cellar with her; someone—or something—stood nearby, watching her.

  I’m getting really fed up with this. And really scared.

  A rumbling at her feet distracted her; she looked down, then found her attention drawn to the center of the cellar, where the hard-packed earth looked squishy and wet, as if a cistern or a well were situated below this particular circle of earth. At the same time she noticed the wet spot in the center of the dirt floor, she glanced up at the back cellar wall and a tiny glimmer of hope shot up in her heart.

  I can escape! I can escape through the coal chute!

  Of course, she ought to have known that coals used to heat old houses like this one. And how else to get the coals into the house and to the furnace than through the coal chute? The steel-covered door to the coal chute, located halfway up the foundation wall, unused since the beginning of the last century, beckoned to her like a beacon. Her escape hatch. All she need do was climb through it.

  She stepped forward gingerly, drawing close to the wet circle in the ground. She couldn’t get to the coal chute without walking near it. Something in that wet, sticky ground made her uneasy. She didn’t know why, but it just looked wrong, all that soppy wetness in the middle of an otherwise bone-dry cellar.

  This circular space is really giving me the creeps.

  She looked at the coal chute again. All she needed to do, step around the wet circle—

  Hm, that looks strange.

  Did the wet gloppiness . . . move?

  Why yes, yes, it did.

  She watched, mesmerized, as the wet ground shifted and roiled.

  Dear me, I’m not dealing with mice again, am I?

  She drew near, her wand at the ready.

  I’m getting really tired of all this nonsense!

  The wet ground burbled like molten lava, then shuddered. A wet, slurping sound emanated from the center of the mass and the dirt in the circle transmogrified from a muddy brown to a viscous black sludge. The sludge swelled and shifted, then oozed out over the circle onto the thick-packed dirt floor.

  Maddie stood there, rooted to the spot as the black sludge oozed greasily across the floor, slithering toward her feet.

  * * *

  Maddie jumped nimbly out of the way as the sludge slithered toward her. “What in the world is going on?”

  “Maddie!”

  “Mama, is that you? Mama? Nana?”

  “Maddie, where are you?” The voice sounded frantic.

  Well, thank goodness. At least someone was looking for her. She gazed down at the oozy black puddle as it undulated menacingly toward her toes.

  Well. That’s enough of that.

  She pointed her wand into the thickest, most viscous section of the blob. “Buddy, you are so wasted.”

  She opened her mouth to utter an incantation, but the oil sludge did something strange. Or rather, it did something stranger. It bubbled and festered, roiling around within itself as if in a kind of agony.

  Despite her desire to kill it, Maddie watched, fascinated.

  “Maddie?” Bettina called out, her voice muffled. “Maddie, where are you?”

  “I’m down here in the cellar!”

  The black puddle reared back within itself as if it were an enormous wave preparing to crash against a shore. It rose up high, high above her head, and she thought it might consume her whole. She jumped back and watched in horror as the black blob split open and disgorged thousands of black, venomous-looking spiders. Huge and hairy, with thick legs and rows upon rows of black, beady eyes; and every one of those beady eyes stared right at her. They erupted from the tear in the oil slick like a grotesque kind of afterbirth, scuttling across the black fluid, their gnarly legs scrabbling straight for her.

  “Oh, crap,” Maddie moaned. “I hate spiders. She held her wand aloft and shouted, “Levitation!” She floated up to the ceiling and grabbed ahold of a copper pipe, wrapping her arms around it. The moment her feet left the ground, the first of the hideous spiders jumped after her, barely missing her toes by inches. She clung to the copper pipe and gazed down in disgust at the mass of spiders writhing below her.

  “Maddie!”

  Mama. Her voice sounded muffled, as if she were on her knees, shouting through the floorboards.

  “I’m in the cellar!” Maddie screeched.

  “We can’t find the staircase, sweetheart! What did you do with it?”

  Maddie rolled her eyes.

  As if I know where a staircase can be found?

  As if she were the one responsible for this madhouse of shape-shifting hallways, floating staircases, and treacherous dumbwaiter cupboards? Did she pick out this house? No, she did not. This was so not her fault.

  The spiders massed together, jumbling and jumping around in a writhing ecstasy of chittering fangs and sharp pincers. As she watched in horror, they started devouring one another.

  Oh, that’s so nice.

  One particularly nasty specimen bit randomly at whatever came his way, legs, bodies, heads. It didn’t appear to matter to him what he ate, just so long as his jaws gnawed on something. It reminded her of the way the boys devoured their lunches in the cafeteria.

  Another spider jumped after her, and he jumped pretty darn high. Hooking her elbow over the copper pipe, she pointed her wand at the Mexican-jumping-bean spider. “Splatotoreium!” One of the easiest incantations, and in this instance, the most instantly gratifying, for the incantation caught the jumping spider mid-jump and he split apart as if he’d swallowed a grenade. He simply burst into pieces.

  Bits of gooey blood and gore splattered all over the writhing mass of spiders below. Big, fat, greedy, I’m-going-to-eat-you-all-up spider scrabbled over to the remains of the spider she’d just eviscerated and dug into the remains.

  “Splatotoreium!” she shouted, pointing her wand first at one spider, then the other. She kept repeating the incantation, pointing her wand at the spider in question and watching with a delighted glee as each spider exploded into bits and pieces of blood and snotty-looking spider gore.

  Only one problem; her elbow grew sore and the spiders kept jumbling up and down, one on top of another, trying to get at her, so she abandoned the sick pleasure she derived in watching each spider explode, and focused instead on just killing them all as fast as she could.

  She pointed her wand indiscriminately into the mass of writhing spiders and shouted the incantation. She kept at it grimly for a few moments, until at last the mass of spiders appeared to be growing smaller. Her elbow really ached. It felt as if it might break off, that was how bad it hurt.

  “Maddie!”

  She looked over in the direction of the voice and saw Nana. She was hanging out of the abandoned coal chute door. She must’ve run outside and pushed open the coal bin door and slid down the chute. She clutched the chute ledge with one hand, and a wand in the other. She gazed impassively at the spiders swarming on the floor, then raised her wand. “Splatotoreius!”

  And with that, the entire mass of spiders burst open; bits and pieces of splattering legs, blood, gore, and spider snot shot all over the walls and floor.

  And then it was all over.

  Nana slid down the coal chute, landed in the middle of the black oozy puddle as it receded back into the ground
, and scrambled to her feet, her hands slung on her hips. “How many times do I have to tell you, young lady, that Splatotoreius is the plural of Splatotoreium?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Maddie whined. “I keep forgetting. Help me down from here, will you? My arms are aching.”

  Nana rolled her eyes and pointed her wand at Maddie. “Well, well, well. I think a certain little someone needs a refresher course in basic incantations, doesn’t she?”

  “Just get me down.”

  “Floatatation!” Nana called out, and Maddie released her arm from the copper wire and floated back down to the dirt floor.

  Once she’d landed back on terra firma, Maddie felt immediately better. She also liked the cellar so much better, now that Nana was here with her. She and Nana inspected the cellar, surveying the detritus of dead spiders. It resembled a particularly gruesome railway accident. Nana tut-tutted under her breath.

  “This place,” Nana said, “is a grim and hideous mess.”

  “Tell me about it. Dead spiders, dead spider parts, and bits and pieces of dead spider are covering every surface and much of the walls.”

  “My goodness,” Nana muttered, pointing her wand at the spider mess and uttering a cleaning incantation. As if she were hoovering them up, the spiders disintegrated into dust and flew away up the coal chute door.

  That job finished, Nana then tackled the sludge. From one of the many pockets in her skirt, Nana produced a small glass jar. She scooped up a bit of the black sludge and closed the lid securely.

  “Why are you doing that, Nana?”

  “Research.”

  Nana then hoovered up the sludge in the same way she’d cleaned up the spiders. After a few moments of work, the cellar looked exactly as it’d appeared when Maddie first burst out of the dumbwaiter.

  Nana inspected the cellar with a critical eye. “All right, then. Let’s get upstairs and eat some dinner before it gets cold.”

  “Nana,” Maddie pointed out, “the stairs are missing.”

  Nana glanced around the cellar and shrugged. “We’ll deal with that later. For now, we can get outside through the coal chute.” She smiled dryly. “I’m hungry, and I don’t feel like finding a staircase until after I’ve eaten my dinner.”

  Maddie smiled faintly.

  Nana pointed to the coal chute. Maddie hurried over to it—while studiously avoiding the wet circle where the sludge came from—and lifted the heavy steel door. Just as she prepared to scurry up the chute, Nana noisily cleared her throat. She stopped and turned around. “What’s up, Nana?”

  Nana looked, well, a little sad? Confused? She glanced around the now-clean cellar. “Er, don’t share every gruesome detail with your mother, all right? She’s got enough on her mind right now.”

  “Okay. I won’t.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Nana said. “Let me tell her. I know how to share information with her in such a way she won’t suffer heart palpitations.”

  “Okay, Nana.”

  “Oh, and Maddie?”

  “Yes, Nana?”

  “No more running around the house alone, hm? From now on, take an escort with you, wherever you go.”

  Maddie allowed the words to sink in. Nana didn’t give advice that often, and when she did, Maddie knew to listen.

  “Yes, Nana.” Maddie ducked her head inside the chute and scurried up the incline. She scrabbled out through the coal chute door and fell onto the sweet, green grass behind the house. She rolled in the grass and breathed in the lovely, fresh air.

  What is Nana thinking? Does she think I’m dumb or something?

  She lay on her back and inhaled the fresh air—boy, did it feel good to be outside the house. She scrambled to her feet and dusted herself off.

  What does Nana think I’m doing? Does she think I’m wandering aimlessly around the house, asking to be frightened out of my mind? These things are attacking me!

  Nana emerged from the coal chute door and took Maddie’s hand. They walked around to the front of the house and into the kitchen where dinner sat on the table.

  But Maddie wondered; why did Nana make it sound as if this was all her fault?

  5

  Another silent, stressful dinner.

  Great. Just great.

  The witches huddled over their bowls of stew, eating quietly, not speaking. Shortly after their return from the cellar, Nana gave Mama a carefully edited debriefing, so now Mama knew her younger daughter’s after-school, extracurricular activities included being attacked by rampaging mice and poisonous spiders.

  But no toxic clouds. Hey, I should get some credit for not being inhaled by toxic black clouds, right?

  “So Maddie,” Mama said with a shaky laugh, “you’ve managed to find your way to yet another hidden facet of the house—a maniacal dumbwaiter. What next, sweetheart? Will you uncover a trove of poisonous frogs in your bedroom cupboard? Or perhaps an anaconda in the bathtub?”

  Mama’s laughter turned hysterical.

  Nana gazed with concern at her daughter.

  Mama reached for a soup spoon, but her fingers shook so much the spoon slipped from her grasp and clattered to the floor.

  Bettina rose quickly and pulled a fresh spoon from the drawer. “Don’t bother washing it, Mama. I’ll get a fresh one.”

  “Thank you, dear,” Mama said, accepting the fresh spoon. She flashed Maddie a baleful look. “Really, Maddie. You very nearly plunged to your death. You do realize that, don’t you, dear?” Tears shone in her eyes.

  “Claudia,” Nana remonstrated. “There’s no need to be so dramatic.”

  “But it’s true, Mama.”

  Maddie looked, first from her mother to her nana, saw the worried expressions on their faces, and ducked her head, focusing on her stew. Maddie didn’t want to say this aloud, not with Mama so tense and upset, but she did think she deserved credit for bringing her wand with her. For Maddie, this was cause for celebration; for Mama, cause for worry.

  Mama dropped the spoon onto the table and rubbed her temples. “I can’t begin to imagine what would’ve happened if Maddie’d left her wand in her schoolbag when she started wandering down the hallway. And then to be trapped in a dumbwaiter, of all possible things.”

  “Claudia,” Nana said in a warning voice. “That’s enough.”

  Maddie and Bettina exchanged glances. Mama, they knew, possessed a particular dread of being confined in small, dark spaces; it seemed only natural that her impressions of her daughter’s escapade would be far worse than Maddie’s actual feelings concerning it. And Maddie also knew it’d do no good to try to persuade Mama otherwise; she just wouldn’t listen.

  “Now, now, Claudia,” Nana said brusquely. “You’re being silly. Maddie’s a first-rate little witch. Of course she took her wand with her. Maddie wouldn’t be caught dead without her wand, would she?” As if to emphasize her point, she cast a steely gaze at her younger granddaughter. On several occasions in the past few weeks, Nana did catch Maddie without her wand on her person, a serious violation of The Witches’ Code of Conduct.

  Maddie gulped.

  Oh, and that brought on a fresh set of tears and lamentations, as Mama had fretted over what might have happened if Maddie hadn’t had the presence of mind to call upon her vast body of knowledge of incantations and spells. What might have happened occupied a good deal of Mama’s fears and concerns in general. Mama oftentimes worried about what might have happened in any given situation, no matter how prosaic or mundane.

  The night of Maddie’s birth comprised one such moment, but Claudia possessed a ready reserve of additional stories to prove her point—that life was an endless series of one bad what might have happeneds after another.

  And here, for all her worrying, for all her fretting, one of her what might have happeneds almost did, and in her own house, no less.

  “This is getting out of hand,” Nana said, watching Mama with mounting disquietude. “My darling, you’re getting yourself all worked up.” She tapped her long, thin fingers on
the table. “I can see now what I must do. I need to prepare a draught to help you relax, so you can sleep this evening.” Nana cluck-clucked under her breath. “And I’m fresh out of frogs’ legs.”

  “I’m sorry, Mama.” Claudia fretted. “I’m just so upset. I’m not of a mind to go looking for frogs’ legs in my black bag.”

  “I can see that dear,” Nana said kindly. “I suppose I can substitute a dollop of foxglove for the frogs’ legs, but it doesn’t carry quite the same kick, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh,” Claudia said. “Why don’t I look in my black bag, find some frogs’ legs for you?”

  “Well, of course, darling,” Nana said. “If you’re not too upset to look. Otherwise I can easily make a substitution.”

  Mama opened her black bag to take a peek but was suddenly overcome with a fresh wave of tears, and so Bettina checked her pockets and managed to produce a pair of frogs’ legs for Nana to make her draught. As Mama cried and wrung her hands and clutched Maddie to her chest, Maddie became just the tiniest bit offended. Wasn’t she a full-blooded witch, descended from venerable and august bloodlines? Didn’t she rank first in her class at Salem Witches’ School? Didn’t she, after all, earn the highest grade in Incantations and Spells? Wasn’t she supposed to be prepared for just such a situation as the one that’d presented itself to her this evening? She’d spent years drilling, mastering her conjugations, enduring countless repetitions, until the spells simply tripped off her tongue; years of drilling so she’d be prepared for just such a situation, just such an emergency.

  Isn’t this what witches are supposed to know how to do?

  To be sure, it did come as a bit of a surprise to find herself having to defend against attack in her own home, yet by the same token, young witches and warlocks at Salem Witches’ School were constantly reminded of catastrophic events that’d occurred to witches in their homes. It was not unheard of. And yet, Mama behaved as if this were the worst thing that’d ever befallen them.

  Nana was doing her best to minimize the entire incident, but the more she tried to assuage Mama’s fears, Mama railed and cried further.