Ula

by J. R. Erickson

  “No, of course you have questions,” Helena cut in. “Let’s go to the library and we’ll talk. Sometimes it’s difficult for the others to be entirely open, but I’m a firm believer that knowledge is power.”

  Abby felt a mixture of relief and gloom. She had hoped to get some time alone with Sebastian, but she also wanted to know what was happening.

  A fire radiated in the vast stone fireplace when they trailed in, each pulling a chair closer to the blaze.

  “Those are beautiful,” Sebastian commented, pointing at the zodiac murals on the ceiling.

  “Aren’t they?” Helena agreed. “They were painted long before I arrived here and yet they have not changed a bit.”

  “Is there anything to it? The Zodiac?” Sebastian asked.

  “Oh, yes. We can understand a great many things through the Zodiac. For instance, I know that you, Sebastian, like me, are a Scorpio, and you, Abby, are a Cancer.”

  “How do you know that?” Abby asked.

  “Well, some of it is your personalities. Sebastian, I can see your sign through your secretiveness and your passion, which is almost uncontrollable. Cancers, Abby, are led by their feelings, and at times they are a prisoner to those feelings.”

  Abby and Sebastian both nodded, but neither asked for further insight into their identities. It was enough that she could so easily discern their signs. Abby had never been a huge fan of horoscopes; it felt too invasive. How could one tiny paragraph provide insight into her life or even her day, for that matter?

  “Let me tell you about the candle,” Helena began. “When a candle flickers out, here at Ula, it is not the wind. You see our candles are lit by a spell that enforces a constant flame in our presence. When a candle extinguishes, it is an omen of death.”

  “Where was Oliver tonight?” Sebastian asked gravely.

  “He has gone again after Tobias,” she told them calmly, speaking over their groans. “Oliver is a hunter. That is his place in our coven. He is a powerful witch, and it would take a great force to defeat him. That being said, he had to pursue Tobias. If he didn’t, the Vepars might sense weakness in our coven. They have murdered one witch and almost claimed a second. It is our responsibility to stop them.”

  “But is he?” Abby choked. She barely knew Oliver, but felt sick with grief and guilt.

  “No, it is an omen of death, a warning. It does not mean that anyone has died, and it certainly does not mean that Oliver will die,” Helena assured them.

  “Who else, then?” Sebastian asked.

  “Someone that he is near. You see, our spells are meant to encompass our coven; however, death is a violent event and greatly affects an area much larger than a single individual.”

  “What about Tobias? Maybe he killed Tobias,” Sebastian asked eagerly.

  “No, believe me, Sebastian; I am as eager as you for that moment. However, the spells that reveal the state of our coven are not impacted by Vepars.”

  Sebastian’s face fell, shoulders sagging as he slumped further into his chair.

  “Do not worry,” Helena soothed. “You are not in the presence of ordinary individuals. Having faith in each other is an important practice within our coven.”

  “Are Oliver and Dafne an item?” Abby asked, thinking that she might understand the venom behind Dafne’s earlier scowls.

  “No. Dafne, like Oliver, is a hunter, and they are very close. Dafne mentored Oliver when he originally entered the coven. Usually they would hunt Tobias together, but we felt it safer to keep Dafne here with us in case Tobias continued to pursue you, Abby.”

  “But is that necessary?” Sebastian asked. “I mean, there are so many of you here already.”

  “Yes, but Dafne and Oliver have certain instincts as hunters. Instincts that are especially strong if Tobias is near because they have stalked him for so long.”

  “Why do they target Tobias?” Abby asked.

  “Proximity,” Helena stated simply, fingering a green glass bead around her neck. “He belongs to a pack that began to murder here about ten years ago.”

  “Pack?” Abby asked. “Like wolves?”

  “Well, that is how we define them. I’m sure they choose much loftier classifications for themselves, but to us they are merely animals.”

  Sebastian tilted his face towards the fire, watching the pointed shadows on the carpet.

  “Tell us more about them?” Abby asked, slipping into the thrall of the mysterious world unfolding.

  Helena hesitated as if she preferred not to indulge the visitors in a Vepar Q and A.

  “Yes, please,” Sebastian added.

  Abby looked at him, but he trained his eyes on Helena, willing her to open up.

  “Okay,” she decided. “This is usually left to Oliver and Dafne. It is not that we do not all know and understand the Vepars, but they are constantly changing. It is only Dafne and Oliver who truly know them. It is their skill, not only to hunt the Vepars, but to become them, in mind only, of course.”

  To become them? Abby could not stand the thought.

  “The Vepars are our greatest enemies. They, like witches, have descended from an ancient bloodline. They are not born with natural powers, but they have the capacity to unite with darkness. I have heard them called demons, and others say that they communicate with demons, but it is almost impossible to know. They seek to destroy witches because it greatly increases their power. The witches that they gain from the most are new witches, purest in their magic and weakest in discipline. New witches do not have control of their energy, which is both to their detriment and benefit. The uncontrolled energy is unbelievably strong, and a Vepar absorbs this power if he or she does the proper rituals.”

  Abby followed closely, remembering the ritual and her conversation with Elda that day.

  “They are nightmares, not only to us, but to regular people as well. They have been known to control minds, to kill without any actual contact and to commit unspeakable acts in their quest for power.”

  “What power does it give them when they kill a witch?” Abby asked.

  “There are many,” Helena conceded, watching them darkly. “But I believe killing becomes intoxicating and supercedes the powers gained. Evil and the strength that accompanies it is always the goal.”

  “So where have the others gone? To find Oliver?” Sebastian blurted as if ready to join the fight.

  “No. They will try to contact him first through Faustine. Faustine is telepathic.”

  Abby’s eyes widened in surprise.

  “Faustine has a constant line of communication with each of us at the coven, but there are many earthly elements that block these signals. There is a tower in the castle that is designed for this purpose. He goes there, alone, and attempts to reach Oliver through his mind.”

  “And if he cannot reach him?” Sebastian asked on the edge of his chair, his feet tapping rapidly.

  “Then we wait. We cannot send Dafne and allow our defenses to be weakened if Oliver has fallen. Likewise, we cannot search for him ourselves because he may still be hunting Tobias and we would only alert the Vepars to Oliver’s presence. You see it is much easier for them to sense us than to sense Oliver.”

  “So we’re helpless? We do nothing?” Sebastian clambered to his feet and patrolled the room nervously.

  “We are far from helpless, Sebastian,” Helena replied, looking suddenly tired. “We have fought and survived here for a very long time.”

  “Are many witches telepathic?” Abby asked, wanting to change the subject.

  “That is a very hard question to answer because there are many witches that I have never encountered or even heard of. The diverse powers exhibited by our kind are innumerable. Some come naturally while others must be created or invoked.”

  “Invoked, how?”

  “By performing a ritual that directs your power toward a very specific goal.”

  Abby started to ask more, but Helena held up her hand.

  “I understand that you have questions,
but we have ways to teach you all of this in a more streamlined fashion.”

  She nodded and busied herself unraveling a string from her sleeve. Sebastian sat silently, his face a shadow.

  “Can Faustine communicate with me?” Sebastian asked.

  Abby knew that Helena had grown reluctant to offer more information. She wondered if Sebastian’s interest bothered her, if she could be counted among the witches who subscribed to an 'Us vs. Them' mentality.

  Her mind prickled at this thought, and again the tiny bloom began to unfold. She could feel Sebastian’s anguish, his desire to bring Tobias down, his grief, so why couldn’t they? How could they imagine that his knowledge could ever damage them? She considered pushing her chair closer to his, a silent show of support, but didn’t. He needed to stand alone, she was sure of that. He seemed reluctant to fully give in to her, as if he feared that falling for her would only suck him deeper into a world that he could never be a part of. What scared her was that he could be right. Had she even been accepted into the world of witches yet? Or would it take years of overcoming people like Dafne before admittance became a reality? She bristled at Dafne’s image, her scowling face across the table, her accusatory eyes. How could she blame them for Oliver? Abby suddenly wished that Dafne were in the room with them so that she could confront her. Ask her why she thought that it was okay to pass judgment on them so quickly. The flower fed on her anger, growing larger as she imagined Dafne’s scowling face.

  Helena and Sebastian both gasped, and Abby whirled toward them, realizing that her thoughts had taken her elsewhere. Sebastian had ripped the arm off his chair. He held the arm of golden wood in the air as if he could not imagine how it had gotten there.

  “What just happened?” Abby asked, staring from Helena back to Sebastian.

  “I… I don’t know,” Sebastian stammered, continuing to stare at the wood like he’d never seen it before.

  “You just ripped it clear off,” Helena breathed, her voice tinged with awe. “For no reason…” But her eyes drifted toward Abby as she spoke.

  “Was it loose?” Abby asked, walking to his chair and shaking the other arm, which held firmly in place.

  “No, I didn’t even know I had my hand on it,” he said, turning to stare at the jagged piece still sticking from the chair back. It had not ripped clean, and the leftover arm looked lethal.

  “Well, must be time for a new one,” Helena joked, continuing to eye Abby and Sebastian strangely.

  “I’m really sorry about that,” Sebastian told Helena. He stood up and dragged it deeper into the room, selecting a simple beige ottoman to sit on instead. “I hope it wasn’t an antique.”

  “No apologies necessary, Sebastian,” Helena laughed, waving her hand dismissively. “I do, however, have to go now.” She gave Abby an especially long smile. “It is after ten pm and it is best that I join Faustine.”

  She stood, without saying more, and began to brush from the room, her red skirt swirling out behind her. A mad tapping at the window stopped her, hand poised above the doorknob, and she turned, her eyes seeking the tall dark window on the opposite wall. Abby and Sebastian turned as well. A purple-black raven clutched the castle ledge, his beak rapping on the thick pane, his feathers oily in the moonlight.

  “Oh.” Helena’s hand flew to her throat, seizing the green bead that hung around her neck.

  “What, what is it, Helena?” Sebastian asked.

  “A raven,” she whispered, “carries the spirit of the murdered…I have to go.” She did not continue, but instead glided from the room, her eyes blank.

  Abby and Sebastian watched the Raven as it fell from the edge in flight, its long wings stretching to catch an updraft. It soared away, and neither of them spoke for a long time.

  They left the library and walked side by side, his hand on the small of her back. The pressure felt good, and she longed to turn, stand on tiptoe, and kiss him hard on the mouth. Instead, she ambled beside him in silence, afraid of potential rejection, still fighting old ghosts.

  At the foot of the spiral staircase he stopped and turned her towards him.

  “Sweet dreams, my Abby.” He kissed her feather-like on the forehead and pulled away, his eyes crystal clear, alert. He was not tired, would not sleep.

  She wanted to hold him, make him stay with her, but he turned and strode down the hall, his long legs pumping in his gray slacks. She wondered who he borrowed clothes from. Oliver most likely, poor Oliver.

  She stood on the bottom step of the staircase, her hand clutching the metal rail, her eyes absorbing the castle hall. The ceiling arched high; thousands of tiny iridescent circles reflected the hallway candelabras, as though the entire ceiling were imbedded with golden opals.

  In a remote place in her mind, bed sounded nice. She could climb beneath the warm duvet and surrender another day of commotion to the night. But how could she sleep? Was Oliver dead? Would Sebastian be alone in his room, brooding, angry and despondent?

  She was a witch after all; couldn’t she provide some sort of help?

  She slipped off the step and started down the hall. There were so many doors, each with a tiny skeleton keyhole. She did not know the castle layout and wished for a fluorescent mall map with a little arrow that said, 'You Are Here.' Instead, she opted for snooping, creeping to each door and pressing her ear gingerly against the thick wood.

  At the end of the hall, two more small sets of spiral staircases drifted upwards, probably to bedrooms. The front door lay ahead and the hallway branched to the left and right. The halls were nearly identical, the floors covered by the same gold rug, the walls adorned with candelabras, every waxen tip burning with a bright orange flame. At the end of the hall to her right stood a blank wooden door. No door closed the end of the left hallway, instead a dark archway led down.

  She chose the left, reaching the end and staring into the darkness, which revealed a dimly lit stone staircase that curved and disappeared out of sight. Beginning down the stairs, she stopped abruptly at the loud clack of her shoes. She reached down, slipped them off and clutched them in her hand. The stone was cold on her socked feet.

  Moving into the castle’s belly, she was not afraid, but exhilarated. She might have had her palm pressed flat against a plasma globe with the hot pink streaks of electricity tickling her fingers and surging out into the air around her.

  She stopped abruptly when voices drifted up the stairwell, echoing off the stone walls.

  “Lydie, focus please.” She heard Max reprimand, but in an entirely mild manner that his feisty counterpart would probably ignore.

  “That is as likely as a snowball in hell,” Lydie sang back to him and Abby could hear her dancing feet as she skipped about the room.

  “Now, Lydie, is that at all appropriate?” a slightly sterner Max asked.

  “Half a loaf is better than none, Uncle Max.”

  Uncle Max? Was he really her uncle?

  Abby crept further down, her eyes adjusting quickly to the darkness. When a trickle of light appeared along the wall before her, she slowed. A faint sulfur smell tinged the air, like fire, but no crackling greeted her, or warmth.

  “Let’s return to the goal at hand. Your astral body. Come, sit.” Max sounded tired.

  “All work, no play,” Lydie moaned.

  Abby had come to the open archway now, but remained in the shadows.

  Max and Lydie were in an enormous vault-like room, nearly empty except for two green, velvet-backed chairs sitting on a raised stone slab. Max stood behind the chair that Lydie had plopped into, a grimace on her delicate face. Behind the other chair sat a small, wooden table, balancing precariously on two legs, a small, rose colored bowl sat in its center, flames leaping out.

  “Now,” Max encouraged gently. “Focus on the flames, Lydie. That is your power, and it is your way to the cave. Your astral body can connect directly through the fire.”

  Lydie’s element was fire. Abby didn’t know why, but it made sense.

  Lydie’s
eyes closed, the lids like the white wings of light-struck moths. Her hands hovered above her lap, moving in small circles like a cat held over a pool of water.

  Max spoke softly. Abby could not hear him, but saw the tiny stirring of his lips. Edging forward, she smacked into a low table. It struck her shins and sent searing pain up her legs.

  “Ouch,” she howled, instantly sorry when Lydie’s eyes snapped open.

  Max turned towards her and the brief glower that fell over his face disappeared almost instantly. He hurried across the room to aid her.

  “Abby?”

  “Yes, sorry, this is embarrassing,” she stammered, bending to rub her sore shin.

  “Not a worry,” he interrupted, pulling a jagged purplish rock from his pocket. He leaned down and rubbed it over her shins.

  The pain subsided, cooling to a dull ache and then vanishing.

  “Wow, how did you do that?” She watched in wonder as he held the stone up.

  “Amethyst.”

  “Better to have and not need than to need and not have,” Lydie chirped loudly from her chair.

  Max shook his head and slipped the rock back into his pocket.

  “I dare say you have properly met Lydie?” Max asked, as Lydie stood from her chair and bowed dramatically.

  “More or less,” Abby agreed, walking further into the room. She shivered at the coldness of it – like a meat freezer.

  “It’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey, isn’t it?” the girl twittered.

  Abby bit back a laugh and Max shot Lydie a scathing look. She grinned and spun in a wide circle, her knee-length periwinkle dress fluttering around her like the belle of the ball.

  “Best not to even acknowledge it,” he said curtly and returned to the table on the slab. He raised his hands above the rose bowl and the flames extinguished.

  “Not burning the candle at both ends this evening?” Lydie asked, with a quick giggle, before darting across the room.

  Abby’s mouth fell open, she’d moved faster than Abby’s eyes could follow, covering the dungeon’s length in seconds.

  “She’s a bit of a show off,” Max told her with a pleased smile that he unsuccessfully tried to muffle.