Veiled Existence

by Pietron, Barbara;

  Seconds later they were out of sight and Ice dipped the oars into the water, maneuvering the skiff into the river’s current. The boat floated away from the pleasure craft headed upriver as he leaned forward and grasped the cord on the motor, breathing a short prayer that the engine would start. Although the small motor would have a hard time keeping up with the other boat, Ice knew he’d have no chance at all to follow under his own power.

  The motor chugged and sputtered out. Using more force, Ice pulled again but achieved the same result. With a pang of alarm, he grabbed the handle on the gas tank and lifted it, judging that it was about half-full. He grasped the ball on the fuel line and squeezed it three times. Then he yanked the pull cord again.

  After a brief stutter, the engine caught and roared to life. Ice adjusted the throttle and aimed the boat upstream. He could barely make out the lights on the vessel ahead.

  Both sides of the river were dark past Marquette, tree-covered bluffs rising to the left and a large, swampy island on the right which hid Prairie du Chien from view. Ice shivered as he picked up speed and the crisp autumn air tried to creep into the neck and sleeves of his jacket. Growing up in Minnesota—the “land of 10,000 lakes”—he was familiar with being on the water, but found the sheer size and might of the Mississippi River to be intimidating nonetheless.

  Switching hands on the tiller arm, Ice fumbled his phone from his pocket. Thumbing it on, he balanced it on his lap to at least leave a message for Jeni on his whereabouts, and then slid it back into his pocket so it wouldn’t end up in the sludgy water at the bottom of the boat.

  The land to his right tapered off to an expanse of black water that Ice assumed was the Prairie du Chien branch of the river which circled the other side of the island.

  Two pin pricks of light marked the boat ahead; Ice’s egg beater of a motor was barely keeping up. Wondering how far they might be going and if his gas would hold out, he tried to remember how far upriver Harper’s Ferry was. Although he had no idea of Elletre’s ultimate destination, the area around the church and cemetery containing Deirdre’s bones was his first guess.

  Ice straightened, noticing a change in the lights ahead. The green starboard light winked out and the red light on the port side seemed to separate from the white light on the boat’s stern. He knew what that meant. The boat was turning left.

  Ice frantically scanned the left bank, looking for anything that might help him mark where Tyler and Elletre headed inland. His eyes darted to the other side of the river and he made out the shadowy forms of trees, seemingly in the water. A small island perhaps. He kept one eye on the island as he watched the lights disappear into the dark shoreline.

  Unlike shifting to an owl or stone, where she had to concentrate on that reality, in between worlds, Jeni was free to think her own thoughts. She was fascinated with her sight, finding that when she cast her vision toward something, it almost seemed to zoom into view. Focused on a church steeple, the scenery raced past until she was gazing at the stone church on a country road. Looking down was freaky, seeing through the layers and layers of rock.

  Worried, she puzzled over how Elletre and the witch being the same entity affected their plan. Their ultimate goal was to kill the witch, releasing Ice from the geis. Assuming Ice successfully followed Tyler and Elletre to her lair, Ice would look for her talisman, but assume Tyler was safe until the witch arrived.

  But Tyler was not safe. He was already in the witch’s clutches.

  Jeni desperately wanted to talk to Dale, wondering if this new information might help them defeat the witch. But if she revealed herself too soon, they might never find the witch’s home base and the source of her immortality.

  That was, assuming Elletre—the witch—would take Tyler to her lair.

  Jeni’s mind spun with unanswered questions.

  Her impatience grew as the moon inched its way into the night sky, her gut urging her to take action. Jeni decided that in this space where druids worked their magic, she should trust her intuition.

  Reaching for her own reality, she shuddered as an icy chill flooded her body. She opened her eyes to pale fingers splayed on rock. The bones in her hands and wrists ached with cold. Her jeans, soaked on the bottom from contact with the wet stone, were also wet on the top of her thighs from the fine spray billowing from the base of the falls. Forcing her frozen joints to move, she fumbled the flashlight from her lap with numb fingers, then attempted to rise, groaning as pain shot through her knees. Water droplets rolled off her hood and splashed onto her nose.

  Jeni brushed her shaking hands on the back of her thighs where her jeans were marginally dry, attempting to regain feeling. Dale, she thought. How far would she have to go for cell service? All the way back to the car?

  Moving like an arthritic old woman, Jeni picked her way out of the damp, rocky ravine. Without assistance, she couldn’t heave herself back onto the platform the way she’d come down so she clambered up the hill the structure was built into, using boulders and small trees to aid her ascent. She slipped once, adding mud to the algae on her jeans and a bruise to her knee, but a couple steps to her left brought her to the boardwalk and she ducked under the rail.

  Groaning out loud at the new torture brought on by climbing stairs, Jeni relied heavily on the rails until her body started to warm up. She managed a fast walk, phone in hand, checking every few minutes for service. While clunking across the wooden slats, her text alert chimed, and she stumbled, nearly falling.

  The chime sounded two more times as she steadied herself and raised the phone. All of the messages were from Ice. First, “They took a boat. I’m following.” Jeni knit her brow. A boat?

  The next message read, “Turned left into a small outlet not far upstream. Near E mounds? Yellow?”

  She instantly knew what Ice referred to. They’d looked at a lot of maps in the libraries, and Jeni remembered the Yellow River because she’d lingered over a fascinating aerial view of the Effigy Mounds Monument.

  She read the last text. “Heading inland on foot. Not far past overpass.” That message had been sent twenty five minutes ago. Jeni hoped she’d stayed in between worlds long enough for Elletre to lead Ice to the lair.

  Anxious, Jeni dialed Dale. Like déjà vu, she listened as his phone rang and then went to voicemail. “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” she muttered, redialing.

  He answered immediately, his voice obscured by a hubbub of voices and music. “Sorry I missed you. It’s loud here.” The background noise faded quickly. “What’s happened?”

  “I’m pretty sure I did it, Dale. But I saw something. The witch is Elletre. I saw her transform.”

  “You saw this between worlds?” His voice was tight.

  “No. I was an owl.” Jeni spewed out a quick recap. “Do you know what Elletre is? Will it help us?”

  “Did you say it was dusk when she changed?”

  “Yes, but I hadn’t made it between worlds yet.”

  Rustling came from Dale’s end of the phone. “I may know what she is. Hang on, I’m looking.” Paper crinkled and snapped. “Here,” he said. “A korrigan.” He began reading out loud: “Siren-like female entities who inhabit springs, rivers and wells. Born of magic, they are thought to be fairies or ancient druidesses. By day korrigans have the wrinkled skin and white hair of an old woman but are very beautiful when seen at dusk or night. The lustful flaxen-haired women with red flashing eyes use their beauty to lure men into their beds but when a man falls in love with them they will kill him. If the man refuses her advances or seduction, she will angrily curse him to a doom. Korrigans are especially malicious towards celibate Catholic priests.”

  Jeni’s jaw dropped as pieces of the puzzle fell into place. “So Deirdre’s nurse turned herself into this?”

  “She must have. Everything fits.” Dale swore. “I should have figured this out.”

  “Hey, we didn’t have much t
o go on,” Jeni said. She continued walking, picking her way over the planks. “You said they’re water creatures? One of the books I looked at this morning on druid magic talked about the four talismans of the…people who first settled Ireland.”

  “The Tuatha Dé Danann. Yeah, I know what you’re talking about.”

  “The talisman for the water element was a cauldron. Could that be what we’re looking for?” Jeni asked.

  “Yeah, good chance. Really good chance. There’s a legendary cauldron of rebirth that belonged to a sea god’s son.” Again the sound of pages turning.

  “I saw a picture of a large metal bowl with figures hammered into it? Is that what I’m looking for?”

  There was a pause. “Um…possibly. From what it says here, she would bathe in it, so it’ll be good-sized.”

  Jeni swallowed, the gorge rising in the back of her throat as she remembered Dale saying the witch may be killing men for more than just revenge. “It won’t be…” Her hand went to her abdomen. “It won’t be filled with blood, will it?”

  “No. I never heard of anything like that,” Dale assured her. “The cauldron itself is magic. The act of bathing in it rejuvenates.”

  “So how would we destroy it?”

  “I was looking for that. Emptying the water should at least weaken the korrigan. To destroy it…I guess you’d have to break it apart. In one myth, a man demolishes a cauldron from the inside, but I can’t find the reason how or why he was able to do that.”

  Uneasiness roiled in her chest. “I need to get there, like now.” Jeni picked up her pace. “By now Elletre knows I’m alive and will have figured out it’s a trap. Ice doesn’t know she’s the witch. And I still have to find them.” Every concern took on new urgency as she spoke them out loud.

  “Are you still at the falls?” Dale asked.

  “No. I’m probably halfway back to the car. Why?”

  “You managed idircheo; you might be able to teleport. It’s supposed to be fairly easy to do from the between.”

  Jeni stopped walking, her chest rising and falling with the pounding of her heart. “Level with me, Dale, do you think I can do it?”

  “Your spirituality seems extremely capable,” he said in a neutral tone.

  It was risky, going back to try something she had no idea if she could do. But going by car to the Yellow River wasn’t a sure thing either and would take much longer.

  Jeni blew out a breath and turned back toward the falls. “Okay, you’ve got about ten minutes to talk me through this.”

  Ice paused, flicking the beam of his flashlight over the pine needles. The trail leading from the boats through the tall grass had been easy to follow, but here, at the base of the bluff, tracking became more difficult. Scanning the rocks, he finally spotted a footprint in a sand deposit left by rain runoff. To the right, a broken branch revealed that Tyler and Elletre had passed this way.

  No longer able to send messages and unsure if Jeni would be able to follow the trail herself, Ice chose a stone that marked the rock like a stick of chalk and drew large arrows. The sooner she arrived, the better.

  About halfway up the side of the bluff he paused, methodically searching with his light. He advanced, making another sweep of the area, frowning when he didn’t see any disturbances indicating human passage. The trail had disappeared.

  Swearing under his breath, Ice turned and went back to the bent scrub grass that was his last clue. Broadening his search, he examined a small tree clinging stubbornly to a ledge below him, looking for broken branches. Then he realized the tree’s shadow eclipsed a vertical crack in the face of the bluff. A knot formed in his gut when he confirmed the trail continued into the crevice.

  He scratched a couple of arrows for Jeni and then stood, trying to suppress flashbacks of his ordeal just days ago. Turning sideways, he stepped inside, his legs turning to jelly as the stale air enveloped him. Frozen, with his pulse hammering in his veins, Ice reminded himself that Tyler’s life was on the line and this was the only way he could have a future with Jeni.

  As sweat beaded on his forehead, he closed his eyes and filled his lungs with air, blowing it out his mouth. He repeated the exercise until his heartbeat slowed to almost normal. The smell of this cave was organic: dirt, rock and water—a world away from the putrid sewers and brewery caves. Shaking off his apprehension, Ice wiped the sweat from his head with the back of his hand. Elletre and the witch must be stopped.

  Shuffling onward, Ice breathed easier as the passage widened enough to walk normally. A few paces farther, his light revealed that the tunnel split into two branches. Hoping to save a little time, when he reached the fork he covered the end of his flashlight with his hand, plunging his surroundings into darkness. A faint glow came from the shaft on his right.

  Moving in that direction, he kept his light trained on the ground and took care with his foot placement. As the glow at the end of the passage grew stronger, Ice also detected the murmur of voices. He thumbed the flashlight off, giving his vision a moment to adjust before advancing in the dim residual light. Nearing the illuminated chamber, he pressed his back to the cave wall, inching forward to peer into the large space.

  He gaped, taking in the strange sight. Magic could be the only explanation for the scene before him. Woven rugs in muted colors lined the floor and tapestries of ancient rites and ceremonies—two in megalith circles similar to Stonehenge—covered the walls. To his left, a fire burned in a hollow carved out of the rock wall, which, along with numerous candelabras, cast a low, flickering light. The effect was warm, inviting and rather disturbingly romantic.

  Tyler and Elletre stood face-to-face near an old-fashioned fainting couch situated in front of the fire. The witch was nowhere in sight. Ice caught the end of Elletre’s sentence. “…waiting for this for a long time.” She reached out to stroke his cheek. “Stir the fire, love, and then take your jacket off.”

  Immediately, Tyler knelt before the fire and took up the poker leaning nearby.

  Elletre glided to the back wall of the chamber and Ice shrank farther into the shadows as she stood in front of a mirror. Opening a drawer of a long narrow table, she withdrew a cloth and wiped her lips. “I’m doing you a favor, Tyler, because I think you might have genuinely liked me. I want you to feel like you’re getting what you want—even though you’ll be influenced by my suggestions.” Her reflection showed eyes set in a hard expression and lips curled into an evil smirk.

  Tyler stood, the fire blazing merrily, and shrugged out of his jacket.

  Elletre had removed a tube of lipstick from the drawer and was running it over her lips. Ice scanned the rest of the chamber. Inside the doorway to his right stood a gilded table with a glass top, flanked by two wing-back chairs in charcoal gray fabric that shone in the firelight. A candelabra in a floor stand stood nearby. In the corner, a deep jade bust of a delicately featured woman—Deirdre perhaps—was perched on a tall pedestal. Two more candelabras stood on the table beneath the mirror, and when Elletre moved, two shallow drawers were revealed.

  Aside from the drawers there were no obvious hiding places.

  Surely the witch was too smart to stash an essential magical item in a drawer, which meant it must be somewhere nearby. If he was right, that most of what he saw was illusion, then some of the images must mask other openings in the chamber.

  Elletre drew Tyler down on the couch beside her. “Come on, love, relax. This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” Her chortle sent cold fear through Ice’s veins. “It’s what all men want.”

  Ice shuddered, remembering Elletre whispering in his ear. “I can make it easier on you.”

  Ice wanted to burst into the room and tear Elletre away from Tyler, but there was a bigger picture to consider. If the witch had yet to arrive, Tyler’s life wasn’t in jeopardy. Facing the fire, their backs were to the rest of the room which gave Ice the opportunity to sneak inside, movin
g to the right. Keeping low, he moved cautiously, trailing his hand along the supposed tapestry-covered wall. The illusion was only visual; the surface felt damp, rough and cold.

  Rounding to the wall directly across from the couch and fire, Ice pondered how he could manage to search the entire area without being seen. Without warning, his hand slipped into space, nearly toppling him. He dodged through the opening into absolute subterranean darkness. The lights in the chamber didn’t penetrate the walls of the illusion.

  Taking the chance that his flashlight also wouldn’t breach the imaginary wall, Ice toggled the switch, placing a hand over the light to mute the glow. Once his vision adjusted, he saw that the natural cave walls narrowed into a passage. He followed it, emerging in a hollow cavern where water trickled down stalactites into a pool. He searched the area quickly but methodically, finding evidence of human and animal habitation, but nothing else. Not even another cave shaft. He’d reached a dead end.

  “It was a trick!” The screech echoed from the large chamber and Ice spun in his tracks, dashing back the way he’d come.

  He concluded two things: Jeni had returned from between worlds and the witch had arrived, sensing that Jeni was alive. Squatting, he pressed his face through the illusionary wall.

  In a fury, Elletre paced in front of the fire. “She lives. She lives!” she howled at Tyler. “How long must I wait to fulfill my need?”

  Still in a stupor, Tyler sat unmoving.

  Ice’s mind raced. Where was the witch? How did Elletre know that Jeni was alive?