by Leanne Leeds
“What are you talking about?” I asked her, my voice hoarse.
“I have been waiting for you to join with the huntress,” Ethel said as she waved her cane in Devana’s direction. “Now that you have, things are going to get a lot more complicated. I need you to pull it together.”
“Ms. Elkins, perhaps now is not the time,” Gunther told her respectfully.
“There is no other time, boy. This is the time. This is the time that was foretold in the time that must be,” Ethel snapped at him. “You should know that.”
Gunther hung his head.
“Who is this woman?” Uncle Phil asked. The others murmured the same question.
“I am the old woman that’s going to save your butts,” she told Uncle Phil, making her way loudly over to him and looking down into his face. “More importantly, who the heck are you? Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”
“I am dead,” he told her politely.
“Well, then, shut up. This conversation concerns the living.”
“Well, I never…”
“Maybe if you had, you wouldn’t be dead,” she snapped. “Listen up, children, because I’m only gonna say this once. Devana and I will be joining your rustic little nomadic circus. So will Gunther, at least for now—”
“Now, wait a minute, he can’t—”
“He can, and he is,” Ethel told Uncle Phil, cutting off whatever argument he would make.
“Don’t I have to approve who joins the circus or not as a ringmaster? Isn’t there some kind of petition and binding ceremony or something?”
“Not in this case, Charlotte,” Devana told me. “We three are already bound to the Magical Midway through—”
Ms. Elkins slammed her cane down on my coffee table and glared at Devana. Ouch. That would leave a mark.
“Who’s telling the story, you or me? Do you speak for fate now?”
“My apologies, your Holiness,” Devana said as she bowed her head.
“I am so confused,” Fiona said.
“You and me both,” Anya agreed.
“In just a month’s time, you will have to attend the Witches' Council meeting. We have little time to prepare, and the easiest way to do so is if the three of the balance are here,” Ethel said.
“So, you, Devana and Gunther are the three?” I asked.
“Did I say that?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Stop asking questions and listen,” Ethel snapped. “I’m an old woman and its way past my bedtime. We can’t do this all night. For one, I have to sleep, and two, Faleena Hobb is on her way here.”
Gunther jumped out of his chair and headed for the door. “What is she coming here for?” he asked Ethel over his shoulder.
“I don’t care!” I shouted. “I don’t care why she’s coming here. Don’t you understand? Did any of you bother to listen to me before? I can’t do this anymore!”
“Oh, not this again,” Ethel murmured as she shuffled to the couch and plopped down. “Okay, go on. Have another meltdown. We certainly have time for you to freak out just a little more. Nothing else going on. Please, go ahead.”
“Come on,” Fiona said as she grabbed my hand.
“Where do you think you’re taking her?” Ethel snapped as she brandished her cane like a weapon in Fiona’s direction.
“I’m getting a little tired of people I don’t know coming in here and thinking that they have a right to boss my friend around,” Fiona told her, dropping my hand and advancing on the old woman. “Now, I’m not going to even pretend to understand any of this prophecy garbage, but I can see that my friend—who I’ve known, by the way, before any of you people showed up—is about to break!”
“Fiona, you don’t understand—” Uncle Phil said.
“I understand you’re all making Charlotte crazy. So back off. Give her a break.”
“The kelpie means Charlotte no harm,” Devana said.
“Lady, you’re lucky I don’t clobber you where you stand. I certainly don’t need some woman that looks like she walked out of a horror movie to tell everybody that I, who have known Charlotte since we were girls, don’t mean her any harm,” Fiona told her.
“Devana, we know that. It’s just that Charlotte—”
“Needs her friend,” Devana said with finality. “It is not yet the hour of destiny, and we can spare them a moment of privacy.”
“Follow me,” Fiona said, grabbing me again.
I followed her out the door into the night.
“Here,” Fiona said, opening the door to Ningul’s log cabin within the centaur yurt. “The kelpie tent has no privacy at all. Ningul won’t mind. I’m practically living here, anyway.”
As I looked around, it was easy to see Fiona’s touches in the decor. Her favorite flowers, white roses, were in vases all over the living room. Her sweater was flung across the couch. Were Ningul and Fiona living together? Had I become so wrapped up with the Witches’ Council and Gunther in the Magical Midway I didn’t even know their relationship had progressed so far?
“Yes,” she answered.
“You read my mind?”
“I read your expression, Charlotte, and I’ve known you long enough to know what you’re thinking without needing any magic to tell me,” Fiona said as she came back from the kitchen with pink cans of some paranormal concoction. “It’s rose water delight. It’s good for overly emotional women.”
“Thanks, I think,” I told her, grabbing the can.
“I’m not judging. You have a right to be,” she told me. “I feel like I should apologize to you for not being there for you. I thought you had all of this stuff under control, and I realized too late just how much pressure you were under. I clearly was wrong.”
“No, you were right. Or at least I thought you were right. This week has been… it’s been more than I can take, really. It’s just been piling up. I feel like I can’t relax for a minute.”
“Relax now,” Fiona said. She held up the can, and we clinked. “To relaxation.”
“Even if it’s only for a fleeting moment,” I said, taking a sip. It tasted like roses and sugar and something I couldn’t place. Fiona was right, though. I felt better. Clearer. Not so weighted down.
“I’m almost afraid to ask you what on earth all of that was. And who was that scary old woman?”
“Ethel Elkins. She’s a norn from the Makepeace Circus,” I told her. “She’s caught up somehow in this Thirteenth Witch prophecy that everyone is all freaking out about.”
“And you're the Thirteenth Witch?”
“Honestly? I have absolutely no idea. Maybe? Maybe not? I’m a thirteenth witch, and so is Gunther. Am I The Thirteenth Witch? I have no idea. Everyone seems to have a piece of the story, but before this trip, that’s all it was. It was just some story I heard vague snippets about here and there. Mostly from Ethel Elkins and her crazy ranting the few times I’d seen her.”
“And now?”
“Now, it’s…” I couldn’t think of the words to explain it, but Fiona just waited. “Now it’s people I don’t know closing in around me. Like a noose. I wish that I could slow things down. Go back.”
“What would that solve?”
“Nothing. But I was happier before I knew all this.”
I was happier before I knew this. Even when my father and Uncle Phil fought over my connection to the Magical Midway, even when I first showed up as ringmaster and screwed one thing up after another. None of it felt severe. None of it felt life or death.
Now it all felt serious. It all felt life or death.
And it all felt like it had already been decided for me.
“I’m a control freak,” I told Fiona, and she laughed.
“I never would have guessed,” she chided.
“No, I mean, I’m used to being in control. Growing up with my witch talents, I just knew everything, you know? I knew how the teachers felt, I knew whether kids liked me. I walked through the world with this extra knowledge of what everyone’s motivation
s were. And when I got overwhelmed, my mom was there with her talent to soften my emotions so I could think through almost any situation.”
“The world was clear to you and came in measurable waves. Clear, and understandable. Handleable. You’re fortunate that you grew up that way, Charlotte.”
“Yeah, I mean, I may not like the way certain things unfolded, but I could understand why they did. I had a leg up on everyone else in judging a situation almost all the time. I had extra help in dealing with things. I always knew the most in nearly every situation except when I was around my parents.”
“And now?”
“Now I know the least. And it feels like I can’t influence anything anymore. I have all this power, and the least control that I have ever had in my entire life, Fiona. Everyone is telling me what I have to do, what I have to save, who I have to be. Heck, even who I’m supposed to marry. And yet I don’t understand any of it.”
“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,” Fiona murmured.
“Maybe. I don’t know that it’s that simple.”
“Here’s what I know. Are you ready? Do you want to hear it?”
I was touched that Fiona respected my fragile state so much she asked me for permission before unloading all over me with both barrels. It was a very un-Fiona thing to do.
I nodded.
“We are all creatures of myth here. We throw ourselves into destinies, into patterns, whether we should or naught. We do these things without thinking, ya kin’? It’s who we are, who we have always been.”
I nodded.
“You’re not that. You were born into that soil, like us, but you grew under very different sunlight. You lived, you learned, you grew into something… something else. Something just a little bit different. Like us, but not completely like us. Agree?”
“Yeah, I think I get what you’re saying.”
“Maybe that is what you bring to this. Maybe what you are, who you are is exactly what you need to be. Maybe that’s what the prophecy is about. Maybe you should stop struggling to bury your head back into the soil you came from, Charlotte. Stop trying to give up the control you’ve learned to have, stop trying to fit into the myth.”
I stared at Fiona.
“Maybe, Ringmaster, you are not supposed to become just like us, a leaf on the wind of destiny ordered about by the universe and beholden to old stories. Maybe you are supposed to stand upon who you are and bring us into your light.”
“You lost me,” I told her, tilting my head.
“Don’t be who everyone says you are supposed to be, Charlotte. Be who you are. Maybe that is what will save us.”
14
Fiona and I returned to my yurt after about an hour. The same crowd was there sitting. Waiting.
Ethel Elkins moved to begin what I assumed was a continuation of whatever statement she felt compelled to make, but a fierce glare from Fiona silenced her.
“Has Faleena shown up yet?” Fiona asked.
“No,” Gunther responded.
“Then I suggest we all gab about what the plan is when she does,” Fiona said. “That’s the focus right now, and that’s the solution we need to come to. We're not going to talk about anything else. No one’s going to bring up any other issues with Charlotte until Faleena walks through that yurt door.”
“Fiona—”
“I believe Fiona has made it clear what’s going to happen,” Ningul stated quietly as he rose from his chair. “It is as good a plan as any, and we should follow it.”
Fiona smiled at him gratefully across the room.
“Look, we know that she had to be the one that killed Chase. The simplest and most straightforward way to deal with this is to have Gunther freeze her with the lawgiver powers, and compel her to tell us what’s going on,” I told them.
“Why Gunther and not you?” Fiona asked.
“Whoever catches her takes responsibility for her,” I told Fiona. “She has to be maintained within that person’s custody, and that person may have to testify or explain to the courts at Democritus what’s going on. I don’t think that should be me on the off chance this isn’t part of some big magic war with the Witches’ Council.”
“Fair enough,” Fiona said. “Are there any risks we need to know about?”
“If she’s a werebear and she’s guilty, not really,” Gunther said. “The powers are pretty strong against the guilty. If she’s guilty, she’s subject to them.”
“It’s that simple?”
“Pretty much, as far as I know,” Gunther said. “Mr. Astley, is there anything I’m not clear on that you’re aware of?”
“The lawgiver powers are effective against any guilty paranormal. You really just need to let her walk into the room and when she’s here, tell her to freeze. She’ll freeze, and we’ve got her,” Uncle Phil told him. “It’s not much more complicated than that.”
“Then we wait, and that’s the plan,” I said. The group nodded and settled in to wait for Faleena Hobb to arrive.
I walked across the room and sat down beside Gunther. Reaching for his hand, I leaned in so our shoulders touched. “Stay next to me, okay?”
“That’s pretty much my goal, Charlotte,” he told me smiling.
“No, I don’t mean like that,” I rolled my eyes and squeezed his hand. “Once Faleena arrives, and this whole thing starts, stay next to me. This all sounds easy, but things never seem to be easy at the Magical Midway. I just want to make sure that if something goes wrong, you’re not too far from me.”
“Nothing’s going to go wrong, Charlotte. Have faith.”
“My faith in the universe is a little shaky at the moment.”
Barely twenty minutes passed before Faleena burst into my tent. Breathing heavily, sweat rolled over her chubby cheeks. Her face was flushed as if she’d been running.
“I’ve been looking all over for you, Anya,” she told the naiad. “What are you doing hanging out with this sad looking group? There are at least three parties going on that I know about, and we’re invited to all of them.”
“Freeze,” Gunther said quietly as he stared at the werebear. Her head snapped around swiftly, and she stared daggers at him. Then she smiled. “Freeze,” Gunther said more emphatically.
Faleena swung her head to one side and ran her hand through her hair. “Okay, you got me! What is this, some kind of game you all are playing? Do I have to tag someone?”
“Is she not guilty?” Fiona asked, confused.
This was impossible.
There’s no one else it could be. I heard her.
I jumped off the couch and took three steps that brought me directly in front of Faleena. Grabbing the woman’s wrist, I looked her in the eye. She jerked away, but we were locked together.
Magical Midway super-strength. Yay superpowers.
Opening my mind wide, I focused every bit of intuition and attention on her and whatever she was trying to hide. Sifting through images and emotions as they flowed into me, moving block after block out of the way as if I was tearing down a brick wall by hand. Finally, something broke through.
And then I understood.
“She’s guilty,” I said. “She’s just not a werebear.”
Faleena yanked her arm from my grasp and stepped back. “That’s awfully rude, Charlotte. I don’t know what kind of ridiculous game you people are playing, but I’ll thank you for keeping your hands to yourself.”
“I’m not following any of this,” Gunther said.
“She’s not Faleena,” I told Anya. “This is the witch from Impy that got your sister to sell out her fiancé. The one that bought Bolt’s ring. The one that sent her back to the Magical Midway to ensure we were vulnerable to the Council by kidnapping Mark.”
“I have no idea what she’s talking about. Anya, you know me,” Faleena told her friend. “You’ve known me for years!”
“I have, but I…” Anya trailed off as she stared at the woman. “Charlotte, this can’t be right. My friend is not a witch.”
“She looks like Faleena, but she’s not?” Uncle Phil asked.
“Oh, enough of this,” Faleena snapped. “Fine, you figured it out, you’re all bloody brilliant. Did you truly think the Witches' Council was going to give you any quarter, any rest? Any comfort, any time to regroup?”
“But where is Faleena? And who are you?” Anya asked her.
“Your friend is dead,” the woman shrugged. “Some magic demands a price. The spell would not work if your chubby friend still breathed the same air.”
For a moment, no one reacted.
Then Anya exploded in a rage.
The naiad’s hands clawed into the air as she launched toward the woman. Devana jumped in front of my angry friend and stopped her just before she reached the doppelganger of her now lost friend.
“Do you all feel better about yourselves now that you know?” the woman asked them. “Because, truthfully, everyone here knowing means absolutely nothing. Everything I’ve set up is going to happen, and both of your stupid little circuses will fall.”
“Then you may as well tell us the rest of it,” Gunther said, clasping his hands politely in front of him. “Our lawgiver powers hold no sway over fellow witches.”
“Fellow witches,” the woman scoffed. “As if I have anything in common with the three of you.”
Ethel Elkins was remarkably silent during this. While I could feel the tension in the room as I sampled everyone witnessing this confrontation, she sat in her chair and had none of their concern. She merely watched as if she was enjoying a play at the theater. There was no tension in her. No fear.
“Why did you kill Chase Trout?” Devana asked.
“The huntress witch speaks,” the fake Faleena rolled her eyes. “The Witches' Council has been giving him directives to bring this merry band of bears further into compliance with the expectations of the government. Chase finally balked at the reformations, and the Witches' Council lost its patience. It was hoped that his idiot brother would be more… compliant.”