There was something in the sand, something buried. I fell to my knees and began digging with both hands. This was why my fingers were sharp. Not to hurt her, but to save her.
I dug and dug, expecting to find her body just below the surface, so I could set her free, but there was only more sand. As soon as I excavated an area, it filled from below with more sand that bubbled up like lava.
I knelt before the giant stone face and pressed my hands together. My fingertips were bleeding, and I was melting into the water.
And then I was praying. Speaking words I didn't know, in a language I'd never heard.
The water around me turned from cold to warm. Warmer and warmer. I hadn't noticed I was freezing, trembling from the chill, until the warmth set in. I hadn't known what I had until it was gone.
The words continued to pour from my mouth. My eyes were pinched closed now, and I didn't dare open them.
The warmth around me turned to light. Pure-white light.
My body hummed with light and purity, and it pierced my heart with a pain that bordered on divine.
I would open my eyes, and I would gaze upon her face, and she would look into my soul, and everything would be set right in the world.
I would open my eyes... any minute now.
Just one more minute in this light. Just a little longer.
Suddenly, there was pain.
I fell forward on my hands and knees. The ground beneath me was no longer soft sand, but broken shards of discarded pottery, broken shells, broken glass. My hands and knees bled, clouding the water.
The warmth was gone. The light was gone. Everything was dirty and broken and wrong. All was decay and destruction. Darkness.
The ground ripped open beneath me, and I was falling but not free. Sharp points were everywhere, piercing my skin, shredding me, tearing at my flesh until I all I could see was the rich, fiery red of my blood.
Chapter 18
TWO HOURS LATER
“You broke her,” Zoey said. “I loaned you my mother, and you broke her.”
I was back in my house, sitting on the sofa, with only a dim recollection of how I'd gotten there.
“Give her some space,” Chet was saying to my daughter. “Get her some water, or something to eat. What's her favorite kind of food?”
“Cherry cheesecake,” I murmured.
Zoey clapped her hands. “She speaks! Mom, we don't have cheesecake, but would you settle for vanilla ice cream with maraschino cherries on top?”
I agreed, and she brought me a sundae with three kinds of cookies, a sliced banana, and ice cream covered in bright-red cherries. I forced it down like a champion.
The vision or dream state I'd entered at Chessa's bedside had been intense. I was still unraveling what all the imagery meant. The giant stone face had presumably represented her. I'd sensed she wanted to communicate with me, but I wasn't able to get her stone eyelids open before a malevolent force had opened the ground beneath me.
Back in the coma ward, as soon as I came out of the vision, I'd described everything to Chet, in ragged sobs.
I'd been crying. Devastated. Because for a brief moment, I'd felt the radiant goodness of Chessa, and when the darkness had swallowed me, I'd been torn apart by her absence, by the loss of her. The world was a darker place without her.
Chet had helped me to my feet and dragged me away from her bedside. I clung to the footboard of her bed, despondent. I didn't want to go. I told him that I understood finally how much he loved her, and why men would die for her. But I was weak, and finally, I let him pry my fingers from the bed frame.
I'd been inconsolable on the drive back home. Even now, my pink blouse was soaked from the ocean of tears I'd shed. My eyes, however, were dry now, and the pain had been replaced by numbness.
“Another sundae, please,” I said politely. Zoey was already bringing one from the kitchen. We'd run out of cherries, so this one was heaped with toasted nuts, butterscotch syrup, and those rubbery green and red squares—candied citrus rind—that we'd bought before Christmas with the intention of making fruitcake as a gag gift for friends. Doing magic ate up calories in the body, and the vision in the coma ward had been intense. These sundaes were medicinal.
“What did you do to her?” Zoey demanded of Chet.
Guiltily, Chet said, “Nothing.”
“Her eyes don't look right.”
“She's got normal eyes,” Chet said.
“Thanks,” I said flatly. “I've always dreamed of being told I have normal eyes.”
They continued talking, as though I'd said nothing.
“They keep changing,” Zoey said.
“That's what hazel eyes do,” Chet said. “They look brown one minute, green the next, sometimes blue or gray.”
“Her pupils are weird. They just shifted into keyholes, like goat eyes. You broke her!”
Chet said, “I don't see whatever it is you're seeing. But stop saying I broke your mother. I told you already, she volunteered willingly to come with me to the place where I work—”
“The DWM,” Zoey interrupted. “I know everything, Mr. Moore, so you don't have to talk in code to me. She went there to channel the spirit of the fiancée you never told her about until yesterday, when she magicked it out of you.”
I asked, “Are we using magicked as a verb now?”
They suddenly regained the ability to hear me talking. Both turned to stare at me.
Zoey asked, “What happened?”
I pointed my sticky spoon at Chet. “He kissed me in the elevator.”
Zoey covered her ears with both hands and squeezed her eyes shut. “Grosssssssssss.”
Chet gave me an amused look. “She's been spending a lot of time with Corvin, and he's rubbing off on her.”
I kept pointing my spoon at him, swirling it like a wand. “I'm feeling more lucid now. Did you already tell my daughter everything?”
He got up from his seat on the coffee table in front of me and circled the room uncomfortably before settling in a chair. I took his silence to mean no. He hadn't told my daughter about the document Chessa had been decoding in her free time before her accident, or attack, or suicide—whatever it was. He leaned uneasily on the armrest of the chair. I'd never seen a person make a comfy chair look so uninviting. I wondered if he was more comfortable in wolf form, when he wasn't expected to talk.
Zoey took a seat next to me on the sofa. “What do you mean by everything?”
I licked my spoon clean. “The DWM has an ancient scroll with your name on it. Literally. It's some sort of prophecy, and next to your full name it says Soul Catcher. But wait, there's more.” I waved the spoon in the air. “They opened the vessel containing the parchment before you became you, if you know what I mean. The prophecy might be responsible for your existence.”
Zoey twitched her nose. “Mom, I thought a six-pack of Barberrian wine coolers was responsible for my existence.”
I dropped the spoon in the empty bowl with a clatter. “I guess the prophecy made me drink the Barberrian wine coolers.”
“Really?” She gave me a look that was pure Aunt Zinnia. “A prophecy made you drink a bunch of wine coolers?”
I turned to Chet. “You can go home now. We're about to have a mother-daughter discussion about life choices.” I made a shooing gesture with both hands. “Get out while you can.”
Zoey said, “I called Aunt Zinnia, and she'll be here any minute now.”
I widened my eyes at Chet. “Run for the hills!”
Chet shot up from the chair as though being ejected. “You know where to find me,” he said.
“We have to talk to Chloe,” I said. The vision at Chessa's bedside had been intense, but I hadn't forgotten about what happened in the elevator. Chessa had used my lips for more than kissing Chet. She'd told him to talk to her sister, and she'd claimed to have been attacked by a flying creature. I didn't know how to get a spirit back into a body, but learning more about the circumstances leading to her situation could help.
If we could find the chunk of poisoned apple, so to speak, we could dislodge it from Snow White's mouth.
Chet paced the room again. “Chloe doesn't know anything. We've talked plenty.”
“Fine. I'll talk to her myself. I can stop by the bakery before work tomorrow.”
He growled disapproval.
“Chet, you heard her speak. She said Chloe knew something.”
“Don't go by yourself,” he warned.
“I'll bring protection. I could wear welding goggles to prevent myself from being gorgonified.” I looked over at Zoey and raised my eyebrows at my new word. “Gorgonified,” I repeated.
“Gorgonified,” she said, nodding her approval. “Good idea about wearing eye protection, but due to neither of us being welders, we don't own any welding goggles.”
Chet made an exasperated sound. “I'll go with you. Knock on my door in the morning when you're ready.” He glanced down at the pink poodle on my skirt as he backed away.
“Don't worry,” I said, smoothing my crinkly skirt. “I'll wear something appropriate.”
“Yup,” he said, or maybe it was just a gulp. He was safely out the door within seconds.
The living room itself seemed to relax in Chet's absence.
Zoey turned to me and asked, “What was that all about? Is it a wolf shifter thing? He ran out of here like a woolly dog who just got offered a B-A-T-H.”
“Guilty conscience, I'm guessing. He really did kiss me in the elevator.”
She wrinkled her nose. It was understandably gross for her to hear about her mother smooching someone.
“It was brief,” I said. “No tongue.”
She made a gagging face.
“And to be fair, it was right after I channeled his fiancée, who told him she'd been attacked by some flying creature. And I want to believe that, even though our feelings and memories were getting mixed together, and it's possible she was remembering what happened to me in the woods, thinking it was her.”
“Getting possessed is more complicated than one would imagine.”
“On the plus side, I'm gaining skills. Thanks to Winona, bless her heart, I could plan a six-course meal if I wanted to. And thanks to Perry Pressman, rest in peace, I've gained the ability to understand IRS tax forms. That will come in handy at the library in January.”
“What skills does Chessa bring to the table?”
“She's a cryptanalyst. When I was in her office, I noticed she'd been doing crossword puzzles with a pen.”
Zoey made an O with her mouth. “You might be able to beat me at Scrabble.”
“At the very least, I'll make you work harder to defend your champion status.”
Zoey's expression clouded over. “If Chessa wasn't attacked by a creature, what do you think happened to her?”
I weighed my words carefully. “She might have harmed herself. She was found washed up on shore, all cut to—” I stopped myself from saying cut to ribbons. “Cut up,” I said.
“Suicide?”
I felt an echo of the pure-white light radiating from the underwater statue. My heart filled with hope and goodness.
“Absolutely not,” I said. “Her heart was full of hope. She was excited about something that was going to happen.”
Zoey looked at my wrist, at the bracelet.
We were both quiet. In the silence, I grew more certain of Chessa's state of mind before her accident. She'd been keeping a secret, but soon all would be revealed, and it would bring joy to everyone she loved. She'd been teeming with life.
“Mom?”
I smiled at my daughter. “I'm still me.”
“Did the prophecy really have my name in it?” Zoey held her hand up to cover her mouth, but I could see by her eyes she was smiling.
“Chessa's translation to English did. The parchment was pretty much triangles and squiggles. Why are you grinning?” I blinked. “Oh. It's because you've been waiting for some sign you're a witch, and that your powers are coming.”
“Uh, you think?”
“I'm happy for you, kid, but promise you'll be careful. And remember, you don't need a prophecy to tell you that you're special.”
The doorbell rang.
Zoey yelled, “Doorbell!” She sprang up from the sofa, ran to the door, flung it open, and greeted Aunt Zinnia.
* * *
“I have one pressing question,” Aunt Zinnia said after we'd caught her up on recent events. “What's a Barberrian wine cooler?”
“A local winery made it for a few years, but it never caught on nationally,” I explained. “It's a sickly sweet beverage with three kinds of berries, and it was the leading cause of teen pregnancy in my hometown.” I levitated the teapot to refill my aunt's teacup. “Please tell me that's not the only part of today's events that concerns you.”
Aunt Zinnia smoothed one hand over her lush red hair, which was dashed with a handful of white streaks and tightly fastened in a bun. “Don't be so dramatic, Zara. I'm simply trying to understand the big picture of this situation you've gotten yourself into.”
“Me?” I overfilled her teacup, flooding the saucer. “Chet Moore is the one who got me into this situation.”
She tapped the tea-flooded saucer with one finger, and the excess moisture disappeared.
“Cool spell,” I said.
Zoey also cooed in appreciation. She'd been quiet for most of the conversation, her nose in the old mythology book, where she'd been trying to locate a creature that matched Steve the Lawyer's description.
We were sitting in the formal dining room because it was the room Zoey and I rarely used, and therefore the most clean and tidy place to entertain my aunt. A Scrabble board lay on the table between us, but Zoey had suddenly become interested in reading a book. She swore it had nothing to do with her worry that I might take the crown of House Scrabble Champion from her.
Aunt Zinnia glanced at the unplaced letter tiles as she lifted her teacup with a delicate grip, pinkie stretched out. “And how are your novice studies coming along?”
“Good,” I lied.
“Zara, without the appropriate effort, one cannot expect to acquire the skills necessary to make a difficult spell appear to be effortless.” She gestured at the sugar cubes, which were forming a cheerleader pyramid formation with practiced ease.
I squirmed guiltily in my chair. “Uh, I've been a bit busy trying to not get gorgonified.”
The sugar cubes spiraled through the air in a perfect circle before locking back into a block formation.
Once the cubes stopped moving, I tried to repeat the trick, but I was so tired and distracted that the cubes collapsed into a heap of loose sugar.
“Ta da,” I said, as though that was what I'd meant to do.
By the shade she was throwing with her eyes, Aunt Zinnia wasn't buying it. She sipped the tea, set the cup down, and flung up both hands with an exasperated sigh. “All I know is that today's the second day in a row that your daughter called upon me for guidance. I would have thought, after the events of last week, that you'd take some time for quiet reflection, and stay out of—”
“Trouble?”
“Exactly,” she said. “You should not have cast the convincing spell on Chet Moore. His type have a particular distaste for spells, more so than others.”
“What? His type? Do you mean wolf shifters?”
“Oh, all shifters.” Aunt Zinnia blinked rapidly, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world and everyone knew, and why was I so stubbornly ignorant anyway? “They find spells to be vulgar, something to be performed in private only, and as infrequently as possible. Surely I told you that. You must not have been listening. Sometimes I look at your face when I'm speaking, and I can see by your expression that you're too busy formulating your next smart comment to even hear what's being said.”
I'd had just about enough “motherly help” from my aunt, but I held my tongue.
“Mmm,” I said, nodding. Frank was a shifter, and he'd squealed with delight over my powers, so
if it was true that shifters found spells disgusting, it was a learned prejudice.
Zoey held up the mythology book, pages facing us. “Mom, did you say Steve the Lawyer had a forked tongue and a scaly iguana face, like this?” The page showed a woodcut illustration of a beast with a cat-like body.
“Close, but Steve was more regal, more refined.”
“But only because of his law degree,” Zoey said. “If this dude here had gone to a fancy college, he'd look refined.”
Aunt Zinnia pushed her chair back and got to her feet. “Thank you so much for inviting me over,” she said politely.
“Thank you for coming,” I said. “Honestly, I'm so glad Zoey and I have you. I'm trying to be a good witch.”
Her mouth tightened. “I know you're trying,” she said.
“I'll try harder, and I'll take a break after I finish helping Chet.”
“Good luck with that. Perhaps by the next time I see you, he will have gotten the closure he needs. Then he'll be able to move forward pursuing a romantic relationship with you, as you desire.” She turned and exited the dining room. I had to jump up and chase her down the hallway to catch up.
“That's not too likely,” I said. “If his kind thinks that my kind has magic witch cooties, how would that even work?”
She gathered her light summer coat from a hook next to the front door and pulled it on gracefully—possibly using magic, but I couldn't tell for sure.
“Some mixed couples find a way to overcome their differences,” she said. “But if you ask me, their kind isn't worth the trouble. To be perfectly honest, I find the whole animal-shifter thing rather repugnant.” She scrunched her nose.
“It's a moot point if his fiancée wakes up,” I said.
“She's been in this coma for a year now, Zara. Life is not a fairy tale. People enjoy those heartwarming stories because in real life, Sleeping Beauty doesn't wake from her slumber.”
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