The Rebel Witch

by Chandelle LaVaun

  Um, they’re called…Warmth filled my cheeks again just thinking about that. I hadn’t been looking. I hadn’t. But now it only made me want to, like being told not to push the red button. I cleared my throat. Focus, Tenn.

  “It’s leading us off the beach?”

  I held my hand out and summoned a current to carry both our shirts back to my hand. “Let’s follow it and see.” I slid my free hand into hers and led the way toward shore.

  The water didn’t slow us down like it would’ve with other people. It made me weirdly happy that Tegan and I shared it as our elemental magic gifts. Sure, we also shared Earth and Air, but there was something different about Water. Maybe because it was a force of its own, too.

  When my feet hit dry sand, I stopped and looked down to my chest. That neon pink light flashed from my shoulder to my chest. I tucked our shirts into the waistband of my jeans and pulled Tegan to our left. Down the shoreline a bit, the world kind of vanished. Either the Garden of Eden ended there, or we somehow would have to go down, though both seemed equally unlikely.

  “Are you holding my shirt ransom?”

  I frowned and glanced over my shoulder as we walked. “What? No. Why— Oh. Um.” I probably should’ve given hers back to her, but I was preoccupied.

  Tegan chuckled. “It’s okay. You can admit it. You like seeing me in just a bra.”

  I gasped and froze. “No. Tegan, that’s not—”

  She interrupted me with a kiss. When she pulled back, her eyes twinkled mischievously. “Gotcha. Come on, let’s follow our love light.” She winked and tugged me along.

  We walked in silence, with only the soft crashing waves beside us. At first glance, the drop-off had seemed far down the beach, but we reached the edge in only a few minutes. Either my depth perception was off or…something. I shook those thoughts away and frowned. In front of us was nothing but white, puffy clouds and what appeared to be a spiral staircase, though I could only see the first few steps. After what we pulled with the plane, we probably could’ve walked on the clouds, but the light on my glyph rolled in a downward motion.

  One of the things I loved the most about Tegan was her bravery. She’d narrowed her eyes in suspicion of the suspect staircase, yet she said nothing. She knew we had to follow our guide, so there wasn’t much sense in complaining. The stairs were made of a light gray, smooth stone that matched the walls which closed us in. It seemed like we descended in a dozen circles before a flat surface finally found us again. My first instinct was to peek at my glyph, but then I realized there was only one path. Straight ahead.

  There was some kind of haze or mist blocking my view, so I had no idea what we were heading into. It was unnerving, but then again most of my life was. I swallowed through a rush of nerves then led us forward. With every step, the stones under our feet grew paler and softer until they were nothing but powder, or sand. The stone walls smoothed. We followed the path around a corner and I paused.

  Somehow we were at the bottom of a canyon. The walls and ground were the same shade of orangeish clay. I reached out and dragged my fingers along the walls. They were warm and soft, yet unyielding. The valley we were in was more like a trench. The sky was so far above us it was only a sliver of blue. The canyon walls swooped low and stuck out over the pathway. In a few places, we had to duck down.

  I had no idea how long we’d been in the canyon trench, but when it finally opened back up, the sky had darkened. To our right, stars twinkled against a navy-blue sky. The moon was full and shining its light down through tree branches. To our left, the ocean was calm and flat, only the tiniest ripple of waves. The sun hung low, half sunken beneath the horizon. The sky around it…took my breath away. All I could do was stare. Every shade of orange, pink, and purple swirled together in perfect harmony.

  “Wow,” Tegan whispered. “I wish I could take a picture of that.”

  I nodded. It was a good thing Gabriel made us leave our cell phones, or otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to resist the urge.

  Pride swelled in my chest. Tegan and I were chosen to be here, in the Garden of Eden, witnessing the most beautiful sunset in the world. I didn’t know what we did to deserve it, but I was thankful. Tegan sighed and leaned against my arm. My body filled with warmth, like sitting in front of a fireplace on a cold winter’s night. I felt lightweight, like I could float away from all of my stress and problems. I wanted to sit right here forever.

  I gasped and shook myself. I blinked over and over until whatever haze had washed over me vanished. I looked down at Tegan still leaning into me. Her eyes were half closed, and there was a small, satisfied smile on her face. Her chest rose and fell softly. I pressed my fingers to her throat. Her pulse was so soft it took me several seconds to even find it. Meanwhile, her eyes stayed locked on the setting sun. My pulse quickened. I had no idea what was happening, but I knew I had to stop it. I wanted to use my magic to snap her out of it, except I wasn’t sure what could be trusted to use. Her eyes closed a little farther, and panic surged inside me. I did the only thing I could think of.

  I kissed her.

  Sparks of electricity shot through my body, tingling down my limbs. Tegan gasped and jumped back. Her green eyes were wild and bright. A swirl of rainbow mist coiled around her fingers. She glanced around, looking for a threat.

  Finally, her gaze found mine. “What the hell just happened?”

  I raised my palms. “I have no idea. Some kind of ancient magic.”

  She frowned and pointed to her left. “That sunset?”

  “Let’s not look at it anymore, okay?”

  “Agreed.” She licked her lips and tucked her hair behind her ears. The golden cuffs Keltie gave her glistened as bright as the sun. “Never thought I’d fear the ocean over the forest.”

  I frowned and looked down at the glyph on her chest. With the setting sun, her fair skin was the same soft rosy pink as Cassandra’s favorite glass of wine. I smiled at the memory, but then forced myself to concentrate. The vines of the glyph etched into Tegan’s skin illuminated from the center crystal out to her delicate shoulder. I glanced to my left and found the forest she referred to. The same one I’d seen the moonlight peeking through just mere minutes ago.

  There were no artificial lights in the Garden of Eden, so all I could see were the line of palm trees separating the beach from the forest. Behind them was utter darkness with the exception of the moon’s glow lighting up the tops of the trees. It looked like there was fresh fallen snow. I took a few steps forward then held my left hand out behind me. Tegan grabbed it without hesitation. The pink light flashing on our chests lit up the darkness like a Las Vegas billboard.

  I frowned as Tegan’s words from before dawned on me. “Love light?”

  “Took you long enough.” She scoffed. “Yes, love light. The glyph is a symbol of our love, and it’s lighting up.”

  We couldn’t see a damn thing, and the flashing wasn’t helping. I kept reminding myself we were in the Garden of Eden. Nothing was supposed to harm us. But after whatever that was with the sunset, I wasn’t so trusting.

  I cleared my throat. “Okay, well, when we get back, let’s call it something else to the others.”

  She mumbled something, but I didn’t try to decipher it. I found the more we discussed how forbidden we were or about the law that prevented us from being together, the angrier she grew. Libby was right after all. Pushing Tegan away could’ve been catastrophic. But the path we currently walked was fraying with every step. She was going to snap. I was sure of it. I just wasn’t sure when or how.

  The ground lit up under my feet. Instead of darkness, I found a luminescent blue. With every step I took, the light returned. Curiosity urged me to stop and look, but my instinct told me to keep going. A blast of light slammed into my back. I spun on my toes only to find it was just Tegan.

  She held her glowing hand out to the side and waved it around. “What is it?”

  I sighed. Tegan had always been a curious cat. I couldn’t blame her,
but then again, it tended to lead her into dangerous situations.

  My spine tingled. Every nerve ending in my body screamed for me to keep moving. “I don’t know. Come on. We have to keep moving.”

  “Tennessee, just look at it for a second,” she whispered. Her green eyes were wide and shimmering under her body’s glow. She took a few steps away from me, walking straight into the darkness. “What is it?”

  I frowned and followed after her. She stared ahead like there was a sparkling, dancing leprechaun in front of her instead of…well…nothing. “Tegan, it’s nothing. Let’s keep going.”

  “Nothing?” she hissed and waved her hands in front of her. “How can you say that is nothing? It’s definitely something. Just tell me.”

  “Tegan, I only see pitch-black.” A cold chill slid down my spine. Whatever she saw, I didn’t. I cleared my throat. “What do you see?”

  Her eyebrows rose. She opened and closed her mouth a few times before words actually came out. “I don’t understand. It’s like that Aurora Borealis thing in Norway I’ve always wanted to see, but it’s floating up from the ground into the sky. Like smoke or something. There are these little shapes, almost like people. They remind me of the spirits I saw at The Gathering.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Tennessee

  Spirits. Fear prickled my neck.

  Tegan was the Aether Witch. I didn’t fully understand what it meant, but I knew she had a deeper connection to the world than any other witch. Can she see spirits we can’t? I didn’t know, and I didn’t have anyone to ask. We were in the Garden of Eden, so if she saw spirits, then there was only one place I could think of them going. And although I hoped to go there one day, I didn’t want it to be for several decades.

  Tegan reached her hand out into the darkness, and a sense of déjà vu washed over me. It was like in the Strait of the Dead, but it still made no sense.

  “Tegan, no.” I jumped forward and wrapped my arms around her, trapping her hands down at her sides. I leaned in with my lips pressed against her ear and whispered, “Tegan, come back to me.”

  She wiggled under my grip, fighting to get away from me. I kept saying her name, begging her to hear me through whatever hypnosis she’d fallen under. Words left her lips, but they were soft and not in any language I’d ever heard before. Whatever was happening in this holy land, it affected Tegan more than me. I had to break her of it somehow.

  Think, Tenn, think. The answer that popped into my head made my stomach turn. Using my magic on my soulmate felt like a violation of our bond.

  “I love you. Please forgive me,” I whispered as I summoned my magic.

  She may have had more gifts than I did, but I had more natural power. A gust of wind answered my silent call. It slammed into us head-on. Tegan’s hair whipped around my face. I willed the wind to wrap around her ankles like a lasso then yanked back. She dropped to her knees. The ground beneath her surged with blue illumination. The wind spun her around to face me and I gasped. I sank to my knees in front of her and cupped her face. She kept whispering in that weird language. But that wasn’t what scared me.

  It was her eyes. They were white as snow with golden rims and irises.

  “Haven,” she whispered over and over.

  What the hell? Her eyes matched the Angel Gabriel’s. Was she seeing some haven of the Angels? I wasn’t sure. This is not normal. “Tegan. Tegan, come back to me.”

  No response. I pushed my magic out until I felt the strength of the Earth, then called it toward me. The energy was raw and cold, like deeply buried dirt. A thick vine covered in wide leaves and little white flowers wrapped around Tegan’s head like a blindfold. Her grip went slack and her words died on her tongue. For a moment, she just froze, then she tried to throw her hands up toward her blindfold. But my wind was too strong. She wobbled side to side, then tipped forward until her palms landed flat on the ground.

  Two big splotches of blue light lit up under her hands, and it didn’t stop. It shot out from us like a wildfire, illuminating a massive oval shape. My jaw dropped. I’d heard stories long, long ago from a crone who visited Eden back when I was a child. She’d told me about the rumors of the Garden of Eden and what it looked like. What was supposed to be inside it. One of those things was the Lake of Holy Water. Back then, I’d assumed it was nonsense. No one had seen inside the Garden…but now, looking at my surroundings with new light, I realized she described it perfectly. Like she’d been here herself.

  Holy Water keeps what isn’t welcome. That was what she’d said to me. It hadn’t made sense then, but it did now. There was no way a person could swim in the lake and survive. The power inside would consume them. Yet there Tegan and I sat in the middle on our knees…on the surface. If we hadn’t both been gifted with Water as one of our elements, we would’ve died almost instantly. And in the darkness of the forest, even I hadn’t seen it coming.

  Leyka knew though. My worry over my deal with the Angel returned tenfold. He knew.

  “Tennessee?”

  I gasped at the sound of her voice. I’d been so lost in thought I’d almost forgotten. I shook myself and looked down at her. “Tegan? Are you with me?”

  “Of course I’m with you,” she whispered. She reached up and tried to grab the vine. “What happened? What is this? Why can’t I see?”

  “Let me.” I gripped her wrists then willed the vine to unwrap itself. It slithered away, back into the darkness. “Okay, it’s gone.”

  She opened her eyes, and they were back to her natural peridot-colored light green. She blinked a bunch of times before her gaze landed on me. “Tenn?”

  I sighed with relief. That weird entranced version of her was gone. “Hi.”

  “Hi.” She smiled for a second before it faltered, then narrowed her eyes. “Where are we?”

  I scratched the back of my neck. “I think this is the Lake of Holy Water.”

  Before she could respond, the lake surface rippled and sent little vibrations shooting up my legs. I frowned and looked down just as a black line shot through the space between us. Just after it passed us, the water split open, parting like the Red Sea. At first it was just a black hole, but then the blue illumination slipped over the edge and lit up a narrow staircase.

  My stomach dropped like we were on a rollercoaster.

  “We have to go down there,” Tegan whispered.

  “I know.” I got to my feet then held my hand out for her.

  She took it without hesitation, and it made my heart soar. Focus, Tenn. Her hand was soft and warm against mine. I tightened my grip on her then took the first step down. We didn’t speak as we descended, not that there were words to say. When we got to the bottom, there was nothing but more blackness. Maybe it’s a trick? Except the stairs were still there waiting for us.

  I sighed and ran my hands through my hair. “This makes no sense.”

  “We both need to work on our insecurities about being confused,” Tegan mumbled as she stepped away from me. But she didn’t let go of my hand. She walked forward, her eyes on the ground. “I was worried about my deal with Keltie before, but now I’m really concerned.”

  “I was just thinking the same about Leyka. They didn’t choose us by chance.”

  Tegan shook her head. “Exactly.” She pointed to the ground in front of her.

  I narrowed my eyes and stared at the spot, but I saw nothing. “I don’t see anything.”

  “But I do.” She pulled me closer so she could squat down without letting go of my hand. With her free hand, she traced her finger along the black ground. “I have so many questions, except we can’t even ask because no one can know we’re soulmates.”

  She wasn’t wrong. I kneeled beside her. “What do you see?” I, too, had many questions. Except I feared there wasn’t anyone who would know the answers even if we could ask.

  Tegan raised her left palm and held it open a few inches over the ground. Her rainbow-colored magic swirled around, then turned into little grains like dirt or
sand. It dropped to the ground. She waved her fingers, and the grains moved until they outlined the shape of a lotus flower. The black lotus flower Gabriel had shown us before reappeared on the back of her hand. Little white beams of light shot up from the ground, peeking through the lotus she’d outlined.

  The ground gave away in the shape of the flower, sinking farther and farther into darkness. The light grew brighter and thicker until we had to shield our eyes. When it suddenly vanished, I peeled my hand away. My jaw dropped. Sitting there in the place of the mark only Tegan could see was a chalice.

  “Tennessee…”

  “I see it.”

  It was about a foot tall and radiated clean energy. It was bigger than I expected, yet smaller at the same time. On the side of the chalice, there was a round purple crystal, and on either side of it were two purple half circles. Then two quarter circles. No. This is the moon phase. Similar to the Crones’ symbol. The chalice itself was a shiny, metallic color that was both gold and silver at the same time.

  “This is the one,” Tegan whispered beside me.

  “Yes.” I nodded. I couldn’t have said how I knew exactly. It was simply being in its presence. I felt its power seeping into my bones without even touching it. I turned to look at her. “Nothing here will harm you unless you drink from the wrong chalice.”

  Her green eyes sparkled as she stared up at me. “We have to drink from it.”

  “Together?”

  She nodded. “Together.”

  We reached out with the hands not holding each other and picked up the chalice at the same time, our fingers overlapping. My magic surged with power like I’d been plugged into an energy source. Together, we raised the cup to our faces. I looked inside and wasn’t at all surprised to find that blue luminescent water shining up at us. I had no idea what was going to happen after we drank Holy Water, but we didn’t have a choice.