Lyra's Magic: Witches of Manhattan Book One

by Langley Keaton

  “Yay for you. Now, how are we going to get down there?”

  Peter waved his hand and a hole opened up. I looked through the hole and saw the boiler room a good ten feet below us. “Are you going to answer my question? How are we going to get down there?” I asked again.

  At that, Peter jumped down to the floor and put his hands out, as if to catch me.

  “How did you jump down there without hurting yourself?” That was a stupid question, and I knew it even as I was asking it. Peter was some kind of a immortal being, so it stood to reason that he wasn’t going to get hurt, even if he did jump a long way down.

  “Jump,” he said. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll catch you.”

  How did I get into this situation? “Well, here goes nothing,” I said as I dangled my legs through the hole and jumped. Peter caught me, just as he said that he would, and, for just one moment, I looked into those violet eyes and felt a certain stirring.

  Great, great. You’re attracted to a…what is he? He wasn’t human, that much I knew. Then again, maybe I wasn’t a human either? If that was the case, then I had lived for 21 years without knowing that I wasn’t human. To say that this was a weird feeling would be understating things by a lot.

  Peter gently put me down on the floor. I looked up at his face, which was passive, but I thought that maybe, just maybe, I saw a certain hint of attraction on his face as well. Not that I could tell, because he was literally incapable of blushing.

  “Okay,” I said, patting my sides. “Now, tell me…”

  “Not now,” he said, shaking his head. “I told you, we have to go and see your mother and she can explain everything to you.”

  “You’re infuriating. I mean, I’m a human being, and I’ve been through a lot in these past 24 hours. No, make that about 18 hours,” I said as we exited the building. The sky had turned to nighttime, which meant that it was almost a sure thing that it had been over 12 hours since I was killed. That was why I estimated that it had been about 18 hours. “Why are you prolonging this?”

  “Because I’m not supposed to tell you what you need to know. I’m simply your…guide. And, to a certain extent, your protector.”

  “Well, then, as my guide and protector, you should also be my mentor. I know how this works. I saw Star Wars. Luke’s mentor was the one who told him all about his Jedi powers.”

  “You watch too many movies.”

  “Oh, come on, who hasn’t seen Star Wars. Or Twilight for that matter?”

  “I’m not your mentor.” Then he shook his head. “Oh, okay, I guess I am sort of your mentor. Nonetheless, I’m not the person who is supposed to give you answers. Your mother will do that.”

  “Now what does my mother have to do with anything at all?” I had lived with that woman all my life, and I had never, ever known her to do anything that even remotely could be considered to be magical. In fact, she was the most ordinary person in the world. She was a widow who worked as a veterinarian’s assistant for the love of God. If she were at all magical, she would have been the vet that she had hoped she could have been.

  Peter shook his head. “I’m sorry that you have to find out about this in this way. But the woman who you know as your mother really isn’t. Ruthann, the woman that you have always called mother is simply the person who raised you. Your real mother’s name is Rhiannon.”

  7

  “What do you mean, Ruthann isn’t really my mother?” I was incredulous, to say the very least. I was raised by somebody who didn’t give birth to me, and, somehow, I never knew this, but this perfect stranger did? “What are you going to tell me next, that my mother is like Rosemary in Rosemary’s Baby?” That would be just the thing to top off my day – to find out that I was literally Satan’s spawn. I had to admit, that thought did bring a smile to my face, because I had a bad habit, all my life, of referring to various people I didn’t like as being “Satan’s Spawn.” I was always facetious, of course, because I never actually believed that such a thing was possible.

  But what if it was possible, and I was the fabled spawn?

  “Lyra, you’re not the daughter of Satan,” Peter said, starting to sound slightly annoyed. “I do wish that you would stop getting so far ahead of yourself. Your imagination is really carrying you away.”

  “Well, maybe you should stop being so cryptic about everything and just tell me stuff that I need to know. Then I’ll stop asking so many questions and stop using so many movie references.” I sighed. “I do admit, I’ve seen all the classic horror movies. I even saw this movie called The Sentinel. See, there is this apartment building that is a portal to Hell, and this chick has to sit there, just sit there, for all eternity to make sure that the demons don’t escape.” I nodded my head. “That was a good one. It’s lesser known than some of the others, but spooky nonetheless.”

  “Okay,” Peter said. “I can see that you’re not going to listen to me. So, we just have to go and see your mother.”

  “Well, where is she? Does she live in one of the boroughs? I try not to venture off the island too much. I guess you can say that I’m one of those incorrigible snobs who feel that there’s not reason to leave Manhattan because you can literally do everything that you want right in your backyard.”

  “She lives just a little further than you might expect,” Peter said. And then he cleared his throat, and, for just a second, it looked like he was slightly embarrassed. Then he started speaking in Latin. At least, it sounded like Latin, not that I knew Latin. I just heard a lot of things that sounded like “domino this and domino that,” and I recognized that word from all the movies I had seen where a priest starts speaking Latin to exorcise a demon or a ghost or something of the sort.

  “Stop. You’re freaking me out with this,” I said, pointing to him. “Start speaking to me in English and tell me what is going on.” I shuddered. “If you’re trying to convince me that I’m not the spawn of Satan, you aren’t doing a very good job. Those priests in those movies only start speaking in Latin when they’re trying to vanquish an evil spirit.”

  Peter sighed. “Rhiannon lives in Rome.”

  I looked at him like I had no idea what he just said. In fact, I was having problems trying to comprehend it. “Rome? Listen, I have to work tomorrow. I have a shift that I need to meet, and then I have classes on Monday. Which is the day after tomorrow.” I shook my head. “No, wait, Monday is tomorrow. I have classes tomorrow. I’m really sorry, but I can’t miss class. My professors are very strict about that sort of thing. You pretty much have to be dead for them to excuse you.” I shook my head. “We’ll just have to meet my new mother another time.”

  Truth be told, I didn’t want to go to Rome with this guy. I didn’t want to go to Rome at all. It was all sudden, too sudden, and all that I wanted to do was go back home, see my sisters and crawl into bed. Dying, going to Hell, waking up in a body bag and finding out that the woman who raised me wasn’t actually my mother, all in the same day – to say that I was feeling overwhelmed understated the matter.

  Not to mention the fact that I suddenly knew a guy who was apparently some kind of undead or immortal or something. I didn’t know quite what he was, but he definitely wasn’t human. That was weird, in and of itself.

  “Lyra, you really have no choice in the matter. And don’t worry about missing class tomorrow. I’ll get you back here before you even have to go to class.”

  “You’re kidding me, right? Rome is…” I whipped out my smart phone to see how many hours it would take to get to Rome. “9 hours. So, even if we can just sneak onto a flight today, that’s 18 hours in flight time round trip. Plus, I’m going to have to take time out to drive to see this Rhiannon person, and I would imagine that this little meeting isn’t going to be five minutes long. So…” I calculated it all in my head. “I would say that there would be at least a 24 hour turnaround. I need to be in class tomorrow morning at 8.” I looked at my watch. “And it’s now 9 PM here. You do the math.”

  Peter just shook his hea
d. “You have much to learn, mate. Now, please don’t question me further.” He narrowed his beautiful eyes at me. “We first have to go to your apartment. I’ve contacted your sisters to tell them that you’re coming. They know all about me. And, I’m sorry mate, but I lied to you. Your sisters also know all about you.” He bowed his head, looking sorrowful.

  “Oh, nice. Nice. I’ve known you less than 24 hours and you’re already lying to me.”

  “I had to. You were asking too many questions, and I had to get both of us out of that hospital before Lorinda came back. I’m sorry that I didn’t time things better back there, but I’m not perfect. But I’m telling you now, your sisters know all.”

  “Okay. And Jordan and Olive? Do they know too?” I felt the keen sting of my sister’s betrayal. They knew all along about me? I didn’t even know about me, even now. Yet they apparently did? What next? Was Peter going to tell me that they also knew that Ruthann wasn’t actually our mother? Had they met Rhiannon? And what kind of name is Rhiannon? She’s an ancient witch who was named after a popular Fleetwood Mac song? That didn’t fit right at all.

  “Jordan and Olive don’t know about you, nor do they know about Sybil and Maddy.”

  “Oh, nice. Sybil and Maddy are witches, too? And they’ve known all along, haven’t they?” I was surprised that I never picked up on the fact that I was living with a couple of literal witches. I had never known them to do anything magical. They always studied for their courses, just like ordinary girls. They had problems with boyfriends, just like anybody else. They were occasionally bullied, and, as far as I knew, they didn’t make some of the high school mean girls grow hideous warts on their faces or something of the sort. They were completely normal in every way. I mean, Sybil was super-intelligent, so she was able to advance quite a few grades and finish college at the age of 20, but even that wasn’t unheard of. Yet, this man, this Peter, who already was caught in a lie, was telling me that, all this time, Sybil and Maddy had magical powers? I didn’t know what to believe, but I had a hard time believing that.

  “They are. But, please, Lyra, you’re doing it again. You’re constantly asking questions that I’ve told you, time and again, are to be answered by your mother. Only your mother. And I’m surprised that you haven’t asked about the most pertinent problem that faces you right now.”

  “What’s that? The fact that Jordan and Olive are going to freak out when I walk through that door of that apartment? Oh, trust me, that was going to be my next question.” I raised an eyebrow. “It seems that somebody didn’t think this whole resurrection scenario through.”

  Peter nodded his head silently. “Yes. That is what I was referring to.”

  “Well, you said that I healed myself. You didn’t explain how. I’m assuming that I’m supposed to conjure something up that will make both of those guys have their memories about my death erased. Am I getting warmer?”

  “You are.” Then he sighed. “But, technically, you’re not supposed to practice any magic until you meet with your mother. I cannot stress to you how important it is to meet with Rhiannon. And, no, she wasn’t named after a Fleetwood Mac song.” He rolled his eyes. “What did your expensive private school teach you?”

  “Not about people named Rhiannon.”

  “Rhiannon is the name of a famed Celtic goddess of the moon and inspiration,” Peter simply said. “Your mother is not the same goddess, but was named for her when she was born many, many years ago.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Well, there you go. In my private school, we didn’t learn about Celtic goddesses. And how did you know that I assumed that my mother was named for that Fleetwood Mac song? You’re reading my thoughts again, even though I told you not to.”

  Peter looked embarrassed. “I wasn’t reading your thoughts. I just…” He shook his head. “You strike me as somebody who would believe that. I’m very sorry if I’ve insulted you by saying this.”

  I sighed. Peter was right. I wasn’t exactly a scholar of Classical mythology, let alone Celtic mythology. How was I supposed to know that Rhiannon was an ancient name? I had literally never heard that name until the song came out. I loved that song, by the way. I started to hum it and the words popped into my head and I immediately felt embarrassed.

  Peter’s amusement returned when he looked at my face. “What is it?”

  “That song. If you think about the lyrics, it’s really about a goddess. Or some kind of otherworldly woman.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Why do I have a feeling that I’m about to look at the world in an entirely different way?”

  Peter smiled. “You have no idea.”

  8

  Peter and I caught a cab to my apartment. “Now, we still haven’t decided what is going to happen when I see Olive and Jordan,” I said to Peter. “I don’t get it. I mean, I’m just supposed to go up there and say ‘surprise!’ I know that you saw me shot in the heart, and my lifeless body being hauled away from the scene, but, you know, I somehow survived. Pop the champagne!”

  Peter did look worried.

  “Come on, you had to have thought about that! I mean, seriously, you thought of everything else. Although you did kinda screw up with the Lorinda thing. I’m not sure why it was that poor Lorinda had to witness me hollering from inside that body bag, when it would have been so easy for you just to have taken over Antoine without her being around at all.”

  Once again, Peter looked slightly embarrassed. Not that his cheeks got red or anything like that, because, of course, his skin was alabaster white and nothing seemed to change that. But he did bow his head and put his beautiful and elegant hand to the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. Then he shook his head. “You’re right.” He looked up at me. “I must confess something to you. You’re my first assignment.”

  “I am?” I felt surprised and just a little bit disappointed. “Oh, so you’re not ancient.” I was hoping that he was, because I was always fascinated with the concept of immortality. I always wanted to meet somebody who had lived through centuries.

  “I am ancient,” he said. “I was born the year 1010 A.D. During the medieval period. I was born to Scottish nobility.” He seemed insulted that I would question him. “But you’re my first charge as it were. I fear that something I did ran afoul of the Maleficus, and, well…”

  “Oh, I see. I’m your punishment.” I crossed my arms. “Well, thanks for that.” I looked out the window of the cab and, as it pulled up to the curb, I felt my heart start to pound. I was going in blind – Sybil and Maddy apparently weren’t going to be a problem, but Jordan and Olive were, and Peter was giving no guidance on how to handle this situation. Zero.

  “You’re not my punishment,” Peter tried to correct me. “You’re my assignment. I need to try to get back into the good graces of the Maleficus, and this is what they’ve asked me to do.”

  “Sounds like punishment to me. Anyhow, I’m quite sure that I’ve given you fits, so I’m making you earn your way back onto that council. Or whatever it is that you’re trying to do. And, by the way, if you’re from Scotland…”

  “My accent is Australian, mate, because that’s where I’ve spent the last two centuries.”

  At that, I started to laugh. I simply couldn’t help it.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You. You’re one of the guys who was sent to the Australian Penal Colony, weren’t you?” I was well aware that Australia had been “settled” by convicts from the British Isles back in the 18th and 19th centuries. Granted, many of the men who were sent to Australia were petty thieves, so, just because Peter was one of the ones who was sent down there didn’t necessarily mean that he did something really wrong. It was just a little bit exciting, though, to find out that Peter wasn’t as innocent as he tried to come off.

  “I was,” Peter said. “And I was sent down there for complicated reasons. That’s another story for another day, I’m afraid.”

  “I bet.” I paid the cabby and stepped out on the curb and looked up at my high-rise. I was re
ally lucky to be able to afford such a beautiful place in Lower Manhattan. I never really knew why I was that lucky, but I was starting to understand. My life was one of privilege, as Peter alluded to – private schools, nannies, a trust fund that covered whatever I wanted or needed, including a high-rise apartment in a brand-new building in Lower Manhattan. I was given all of this at birth, even though I was raised by working class parents, and I had no clue where that money was coming from.

  I now wondered how much of a price was going to be exacted for all of it.

  I would imagine it was going to be pretty steep.

  9

  Boy, this was weird. How do you greet your sisters after you’ve literally died and went to Hell? I decided that I would lead off with a joke, which was always my way. “Hey, guys,” I said, giving them both a hug. “It’s like that short story, The Monkey’s Paw, except I’m not sliced into a billion parts.” The Monkey’s Paw was one of my favorite stories growing up. It told the story of a couple who got three wishes, and one of their wishes was for money. Then their son was killed in an industrial accident, which gave them the exact amount of money that they wished for. The mother then wished that her son was alive. Her son rose from the dead and knocked on the door, but the mother knew that the son was probably in a million different pieces and had probably decayed, too, so she wished him dead again.

  “Ha ha,” Sybil said, hugging me hard. “And I’m not going to wish you back into the grave.”

  “You better not,” I said. “By the way, why didn’t you and Maddy ever tell me pertinent information, like the fact that the two of you are witches? And how did you keep that from me all these years? I’m kinda pissed, because you know that I would have liked to have some kind of magical spells to put on Tiffany Stone.” Tiff Stone was a mean girl who tormented me when I was in middle school. She called me stupid, she tripped me in the hallway, and she even threw me into a locker one time and slammed the door. I hated that stupid girl, who clearly thought that she was superior to everyone around.