by B. J. Smash
As I lay there, I couldn’t sleep and was wide awake pondering what I had just heard. Something was confusing me terribly. Before I had left her doorway, the last word I thought I had heard her say had been, “Zinnia.”
Chapter Three
The following morning, I was lucky enough to avoid Ella. She was still asleep at 9:15am. This was great news as I didn’t want her to try to come with me to the forest. Uncle Royal, GG Edmund and Granddad sat at the kitchen table discussing how old cars were made better than cars now-a-days. Gran stood by the kitchen island making tiny sandwiches for a high tea platter. I grabbed a carrot from the fridge and tapped her arm. When I gained her attention, I motioned to the door and whispered, “I’m leaving now.”
“Go ahead, while you still can,” she whispered back. She didn’t appear to have gotten much sleep last night, either. Big bags sat below her eyes and she wore a permanent frown on her face.
Uncle Royal was about to look my way, but GG Edmund noticed me and tried to distract him. He called out, “Land sakes! Look what’s in the paper today!”
“What? What’s in there?” Uncle Royal leaned forward to peer at the paper that lay spread out on the table.
“They’ve got a bunch of puppies for sale up north. Might have to get me one,” GG Edmund said frankly.
“Oh. I suppose. I prefer cats though,” Uncle Royal scowled.
“Cats?” Granddad said. “Cats scratch up the furniture. I had me a cat once back in 1975. I got myself a brand new leather chair and it scratched the side right from it.”
“You have to get them declawed,” Uncle Royal said with a snort.
“Declawed? Then how will they catch the mice?” Granddad argued.
“I might get me one of each. A cat and a dog. How do you like that? Maybe a horse too,” GG Edmund said trying to shut them both up, but it only riled them up farther.
“Well, now they’ll be discussing cats and dogs for the next half hour, and possibly horses,” Gran whispered. She rolled her eyes and kept making the sandwiches.
I slowly crept toward the front door as Uncle Royal said, “Now that’s a very bad idea. It should be either one cat or one dog.”
I knew for a fact that my Granddad liked both cats and dogs. He still talked about his cat Charlie from 1975. But arguing with Uncle Royal was more important. Neither of them wanted to lose an argument.
Luckily, Uncle Royal never noticed me. I crept out of the kitchen and out the front door. As soon as my feet hit the gravel, I ran behind the house and sat at a tree. I meditated for about an hour, feeling the zinging energy whip through my back. Soon enough, I felt rejuvenated.
I had learned this technique from Drumm’s uncle, Conri, and it worked so well that it became like second nature for me. It soothed the nerves, and it was something I did once or twice a week. If I ever saw injured animals in the forest, I would help them heal by transferring the trees energies.
Soon, I was able to jump up, and run all the way to Cora and Clover’s café. Ian’s car picked us up, and we made our way through his gardens and to Izadora’s treehouse.
***
Aunt Clover didn’t need to climb the steps. Instead, Izadora stood on her balcony and pointed her staff at Aunt Clover. After mumbling some words, she picked her right up from the forest floor and flew her way up into the trees canopies.
“Holy Cow! This is cool!” Aunt Clover called out. “Just don’t drop me, Izadora! I don’t want any more broken bones.” She looked kind of comical floating in the air, spread eagle, arms out to the sides like a birds wings.
“I won’t be dropping you. It’s not like this is hard for me to do,” Izadora said.
Up and up she went and then back down several feet onto the balcony floor. Izadora then told me to hold out the crutches, and she floated those up too.
“That wasn’t so bad. I didn’t mind that at all,” Aunt Clover said.
“Good. Getting down is a little bit trickier,” Izadora said.
As they continued to talk, I ran up the stairs, and across the planked bridges. Many fresh blooming flowers and herbs of all sorts grew along the bridges, and I paused to eat a mint leaf. I also picked a few blackberries, and when I arrived to the house Aunt Clover was still hobbling toward the lilac colored couch. Izadora had been doing some spring cleaning and the place smelled heavily of lavender. The open ceiling revealed many branches that swayed with the breeze. A bird had made a nest in one of the overlapping limbs and he watched us with curiosity.
Izadora had scrubbed every colored bottle that hung from the tree limbs that sprouted up through the floor. The orange, green, and blue jars sparkled like jewels. I imagine she had used a cleaning spell on them, but whether she did or not, they were dust free and shiny.
“Sit. We must begin at once,” Izadora said, sitting across from my aunt.
“What exactly are we doing?” Aunt Clover asked. “Can’t I have some tea first? I nearly broke my neck crutching through the forest, trying to get here on time.”
Izadora looked to me, “Ivy. Get Clover some tea.” Then she turned back to Aunt Clover. “I am about to hypnotize you.”
“Ba ha ha ha!” Aunt Clover laughed. “I can’t be hypnotized. I’ve had several people try it in the past – it cannot be done. There is no way.”
“Is that so?” Izadora asked.
“Yes! Even Cora has tried and she’s like a master hypnosis person. This is a crock of sh…”
While I was pouring the tea, Izadora snapped her fingers and Aunt Clover’s head flopped back on a pillow, her mouth wide open.
“Clover, close your mouth so that you don’t drool,” Izadora commanded.
Immediately her mouth clamped shut.
I had to snicker. Yes it was true that my other aunt, Aunt Cora, was a master hypnotherapist. Her first love had been the café, but she had always had a thing for hypnotherapy as well. However, Izadora was the master of masters when it came to this stuff. So, it didn’t surprise me when Aunt Clover began to answer every question Izadora asked.
“Ivy. Bring me a cup of tea. This will be my seventh cup today, but its awful good tea. Drumm brought it back from the Port de Mer,” Izadora said, and then she focused on my aunt.
Port de Mer was the official name of the mermaid’s city on the coast of Merribay. I had never known that until Drumm told me like a week ago. I was continually learning new things about Merribay all the time.
I poured the tea, and placed the cup and saucer on a stand next to Izadora. Sitting down on the love seat opposite them, I watched.
“Where are you right now?” Izadora asked.
“In a rainbow of sorts. It’s beautiful and the colors shimmer. I feel so… happy,” she said.
“Alright. I want you to tell me an early memory from your childhood,” Izadora commanded.
“Cora and I are playing in the yard. I’m making mud pies. She’s got the hose and a bottle of dish detergent. Every time I make a pie, she dumps it out and cleans the dishes. She’s making me mad. ‘Cora stop it! I’m cookin’ a pie!’ I throw some mud at her. Her face scrunches up like a prune. She hates dirt. This makes her run away screaming, but she trips over a bucket and lands on a dog turd. It’s one of my favorite memories,” Aunt Clover laughs.
“Ok good. Now tell me a more recent memory.”
“Well…” Aunt Clover begins to sniffle. “I’m on the phone.” A tear runs down her cheek.
“When?”
“About six months ago.”
“He cheated on me. I broke off our engagement. I’m no longer a fiancé,” Aunt Clover pouted.
We hadn’t meant to find out this way. The whole family had suspected something had gone wrong with Aunt Clover and her fiancé, but she had denied it.
“I don’t mean to pry, Clover, but are you certain he’s cheated on you?” Izadora asked.
“Yes. He told me. And I’m so sad. So sad. I can’t tell my mother and father. I can’t tell Cora. I’m embarrassed. I lied. I told them the wedding was p
ostponed.” Another tear fell down her cheek.
“Alright. You’ve told me enough. We must move along…” Izadora paused. Normally, she wouldn’t intervene with love problems. She said no good came of it. So, what she said next surprised me. “However, you will not think of this cheat any longer. You will not be sad. You will move on. Do you understand?”
I smiled. That was a kind thing that Izadora just did if you asked me. Believe me…that was rare. But if there was one thing I knew about Izadora – she could not abide a cheat. My thoughts went to Egbert Winemaker and his wooden peg leg.
“Yes,” Aunt Clover said.
“And tell your parents the wedding is off. He should be embarrassed. Not you,” Izadora said.
“Yes, Izadora,” Aunt Clover said.
“Now. Listen up. It’s a sunny day, and you are walking your dog…um…”
“Posie,” I whispered.
“Posie. You are walking Posie and she has made the turns that lead toward Hunter’s Hollow. Tell me what happens.”
“Tinkling bells. Tinkle…tinkle…tinkle. Almost like wind chimes. It is everywhere. I cannot tell which direction it is coming from. It surrounds me.”
Izadora furrowed her brows and took a sip of tea. I could tell she already suspected what the tinkling bells were.
“These tinkling bells…did they make you feel relaxed or…”
“Overwhelmed. They made me feel nervous, and the wind picked up. Posie pulled the leash right out of my hands and took off into the woods. I followed her. I walked through a ditch and then through the tree line into a clearing in the woods. The little field was filled with beautiful spring flowers of every color. Pinks, white, yellows – it was gorgeous. I almost pulled out my cellphone to snap a shot but I didn’t want to lose the dog….”
She was telling us the same exact story as before.
“I took out a bag of dog treats. As I was shaking the bag—out of nowhere—a humongous white deer with long white antlers and big blue eyes ran straight for me.” She clenched her eyes tightly.
Izadora noticed this right away.
‘What is it? What do you see?” she asked.
“The little man. He’s riding on the deer’s back. He’s shaking a stick at me. He’s yelling at me… “Get outtt! Get outtt of my woods you trampy woman.”
“Little man, you say,” Izadora scowled. “Can you tell me…what is this little man wearing?”
“Oh he is funny looking. He has on a top hat with a golden buckle. Little black shoes with gold buckles. He has black breeches on and a deep green overcoat with a buckle. He has a beard but no mustache and it is white as bleached cotton. He can’t be over three feet tall! Haaaaa! But ohhhh…. even though he was funny to look at – he is mean. Nasty.”
Before Izadora continued, she glanced my way. “Ivy – get me a pie tin. Put a cup of spring water in it and hurry. I have to see this for myself.”
“See for you yourself?” I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Hurry!” she yelled.
I did as she told me to, and when I returned she held one of the little orange bottles that had been hanging on one of the tree limbs that came up through the floor.
“Set it down.” She nodded her head toward the end table beside her. She then touched the water with her finger and said a few words. The water warmed up right away, and then she poured one single drop of orange liquid into the pie tin. When it touched the water, it hissed and little spirals of fog drifted above. She then picked up the tin and held it beside my aunt.
“Hold the tin, and put the first three fingers of her left hand in the water,” Izadora commanded me.
To me, this was quite weird but I did it anyway. Kneeling down, I held the tin, and picked up my aunts hand and placed the first three fingers in the solution. When I finished doing this, Izadora reached into her robe pocket and pulled out a small crystal. She dropped it in the water, sat back in her chair, and stared at the misty cloud that had formed.
“Clover, show me the little man,” Izadora said forcefully.
For a moment, I thought she would see something in this cloud that I wouldn’t be able to witness. Like with her blue bottle. She could see things in there that no one else could ever see. However, moments later the cloud turned into a real scene. We could see everything that Aunt Clover was thinking.
Indeed there was a little man on the back of the white deer, and she wasn’t kidding – this deer was huge! The little man was comical looking, but I could see the sneer on his lips, and he meant business.
“Ishmael. That little turkey. If he thinks these are his woods, he has got another thing coming. I will turn him into a piece of wood and saw him in half!” Izadora’s face was becoming a scary shade of red.
“He said…he said something about you too,” Aunt Clover smiled.
“Oh did he now?” She clenched her lips so tightly they were turning purple. “And what would that be?”
“He said...to tell you…” and her tone began to mimic the voice of the little old man, “tell the old bat that I am going for the bottle. When I get my hands on it – she’ll be the one I’m coming for.” All the while she was saying this, inside the cloud, we could see the little man’s lips moving.
“Is that so? And did he say anything else?” Izadora growled. White currents began to zip around her body.
“Um. Nope. He waved his stick at me and I screamed as loud as I could. I jumped back. My foot landed in a hole and I fell. He told the deer to pick up the bag of treats and run for the woods.”
“So, the deer took the treats? I thought he just sniffed at them,” I asked. But there was no need to ask. I watched the vision, and the deer did exactly what she said he’d do. He picked up the bag of treats and ran off.
“Yup. They were going to eat them for dinner,” my aunt answered me. She then went on to explain what happened next. There was nothing new beyond what she’d already told us. Drumm came for her and he also went and found her dog.
“Dump the contents of the pie tin in my lilac bush out front,” Izadora said as she reached in the pie tin and grabbed the crystal and placed it back in her pocket.
I removed Aunt Clover’s fingers and walked through the kitchen and to the porch. After pouring the water into the lilacs, the flower buds changed from a pretty purple to a vibrant orange, and then back to purple. “Whatever,” I whispered and tip-toed back inside.
By this time, Izadora was walking back and forth, mumbling words, and occasionally thumping her staff into the floorboards.
“If he thinks he’s going to get that bottle before I do – he’s a damn fool. Oh he makes me so angry,” she said. “That blasted leprechaun.”
“Leprechaun?!” I yelped. My father had had an experience with a leprechaun once. I was about to ask her if it was the same one but she answered me before I could get the words out.
“Yes. It is the same one,” she said while she paced the floor.
I had not seen her this mad since she had fought with her siblings, Izaill and Magella. She had turned him into a rabbit and she had blasted Magella’s boat to smithereens.
“Izadora. Remember what you are always telling me. Rule number one: Don’t let anyone see how angry you are.” I couldn’t help it. The old woman was always nagging me about not showing any emotion. We had classes on the subject! I thought I was pretty good at hiding my emotions, but she was breaking her own rules.
She sucked in a whooshing breath and pointed her staff at me. “Pipe it down. You have no idea what that little man has cost me already. I will bop him right over the head with this very staff. He won’t know what hit him.”
“What is this little man even talking about? What bottle?” I asked.
“The bottle in the disappearing town. Inside Hunter’s Hollow,” Izadora said. “It is about to reappear any day now, and by gosh – you will be the one to find that blasted bottle for me.”
“Me?” I squealed. As I said before, I didn’t care for Hunter’s Hollow
at all.
And then she was staring off into space. “What is in that bottle has the power to extract the powers from any witch. When their powers are taken, they will remain gone for three full days. Let’s just say for kicks, that Ishmael gets the bottle. He can take my powers for that three days and wreak havoc upon the whole forest. You wouldn’t even recognize it when he was done.”
This was horrible news. “Any witch?”
“Any person with powers – except for Maximus. No one can take his powers. But mine can be taken if only briefly. Oh yes, and if this happens, you can kiss this forest good-bye.”
“Well, if he can’t take Maximus’ powers, why can’t he help us?” I had to ask.
“He can, but he probably won’t. He usually lets us fight our own battles. You see, Maximus can only intervene every so often. He mustn’t waste his time and energy on our little spats. We must play things out ourselves.” She continued to pace the floor. “Don’t you worry. I am sending you in, first thing. You will get the bottle for me. You will camp on the outskirts and wait for the veil to thin. That way you will be the first one in the town.” She rubbed her chin as she spoke. “Yes! That is it. You and Drumm will camp on the outskirts. That is the only way.”
“Izadora?” She reminded me of a madwoman and she was starting to freak me out.
“Yes?” She looked my way. Her eyes were opened wide when she said, “Believe me. It is the only way. Now hush up, and let me think.”
“Wonderful,” I said sarcastically. Of all the things I had come to learn in Merribay, this disappearing town had to be the ultimate secret. No one, not even Drumm had thought to mention it to me. It wouldn’t be the first time they kept things from me, nor the last, I’m sure. I wanted to ask her more questions about this town, but I knew that now was not the time. I could tell that she was starting to close me out. I would wait. While she was in this foul mood, I couldn’t risk being turned into a frog, or bat or something. I’ve no doubt she’d do it to keep me quiet until she needed me again.