by Blythe Baker
“Marianne!” Bliss cried. “She hurt Athena.”
“She what?” I called, darting out from around the stone and rushing over toward them.
“You’re such an idiot,” Delilah said. “Did you really think I’d let you get away with taking my book from me without recompense?” she hollered, pointing a long finger at me.
“Thank goodness you’re okay,” Bliss said.
My eyes fell on the bundle in her arms, and it took me a second to realize it was Athena…and she wasn’t moving.
I rounded on Delilah. “What did you do?” I snarled.
“After you ran after Isabella, she started reading through the book,” Bliss said. “I tried to get her to stay in case you needed help, but then she just started to attack us.”
“You severed my spell somehow,” Delilah said. Even in the darkness, I could see the brilliant anger in her violet eyes. “No one should be able to do that. So guess what, Marianne Huffler? I know your secret!”
It was like I’d swallowed ice.
“I should have seen it sooner…should have put the pieces together before,” Delilah said, counting on the tips of her fingers. She cackled. “Oh, you think you’re so clever, Marianne Huffler. But guess what? As soon as the council finds out, you’re – ”
I wasn’t really sure what happened. All I knew was that I’d pulled magic up from deep within me again, so much that it made my stomach ache and my heart beat erratically. I pushed it into a concentrated, solid form, and sent it flying at Delilah.
And it struck her square in the chest, knocking the wind clean out of her.
She gasped for air, clutching at her throat.
“Marianne, what did you – ” Bliss said.
“I don’t know,” I said, my senses coming back to me. I glanced back and forth between her and Bliss. “I don’t know what I did!”
“You’ll – ” Delilah said, pulling in a gasping breath. “Pay – for – this.”
A wand appeared in her hand, and with a flash of brilliant light, she was gone.
I sagged against the ground beneath me, and Bliss rushed to my side.
“What happened?” she asked. “Are you okay?”
“I – I think I’m okay,” I said. I turned and looked at Athena. “What did she do to her?”
“I don’t know,” Bliss said. “It was one of those spells in her book. Athena’s asleep. She’s still breathing.”
She gently passed Athena to me, and I held her tightly against my chest.
She was warm, and Bliss was right. I could feel the steady rise and fall of her tiny chest.
“There aren’t any visible wounds,” Bliss said. “I just…don’t know what it was.”
“Do you remember the spell she used?” I asked.
Bliss shook her head. “I don’t. We were in so much shock that I was just doing everything I could to keep the two of us safe. I got Delilah once, though. In the arm. I think she even bled…which is probably why she went off the deep end when she noticed you severed her spell.”
I pressed my lips to the top of Athena’s soft, furry head.
“Speaking of severing her spell…how did you do that?” Bliss asked.
“Isabella taught me how…” I said. I looked up at her. “And you won’t believe some of the others things she told me, either.”
“We should get the two of you home…” Bliss said, helping me back to my feet. She dusted off the knees of my jeans, and tried to smile encouragingly up at me. It was obvious it was forced, though. “So…do you know who your mom was now?”
“I do,” I said. “But it’s kind of bittersweet.”
“A lot of things in life are,” Bliss said as we started back toward the car. “And one of its many mysteries is why that is in the first place.”
10
“Okay, easy,” I said, shifting my body so Bliss could lean around me and unbuckle my seatbelt. “I don’t want to squeeze her too hard if she’s broken something…”
Bliss nodded, and proceeded more gently as she pulled the seat belt from around Athena and me.
I stared down at the silky body in my arms. She could have been sleeping.
The troubling thing was that she felt a lot lighter than I remembered her being. And a lot more frail…
I swallowed hard as Bliss helped me down out of my SUV. I’d passed the keys to her as we’d left the cemetery, wanting to be the one who held onto Athena as we drove back to the Lodge. I loved Bliss, but Athena was my familiar. And I was responsible for whatever happened to her.
Memories from the night I’d found her on the side of the road kept running through my mind. I’d picked her up, fearful even then for her safety. But now…it was a whole different story.
“Let’s get her upstairs. Mom can come and have a look at her,” Bliss said.
I furrowed my brow as I tried to keep my sweatshirt sleeve on my shoulder; without a free hand, it was slipping down, and it was cold enough outside to see my breath clearly against the night sky. “I don’t understand,” I said. “I thought Athena was hit with a spell?”
“She was,” Bliss said, grabbing the now empty backpack from the trunk before locking the vehicle with a loud, echoing beep. She slid the keys into her pocket. “But Mom worked as a vet tech before she met my dad.”
It was uncommon to ever hear about Bliss’s father. After her parents’ messy divorce, she hadn’t ever seen him again.
I’d never been brave enough to ask her how she felt about it. Whenever she spoke of him, she seemed indifferent or informative. I wasn’t sure if she was just tired of caring, or was too hurt to show me the truth.
“I didn’t know that,” I said.
Bliss nodded as we started up the stairs. “She’s taken care of a lot of animals that have wandered into our yard. Mostly juveniles that lost their mothers. We had a baby deer living in her room one summer. I got to feed it with a bottle.”
A small light of hope and relief lit up inside me. “Well, I’m sure Athena will be glad to have an expert around.”
Bliss gave me a big smile over her shoulder as she twisted the door handle.
The lobby was all but empty. Mr. Terrance stood at his post, and I was starting to believe Athena’s suspicions about him. Didn’t the man ever sleep?
“Mr. Terrance, where’s Mom?” Bliss asked, jogging over to the desk, pulling her thin gloves off her fingers.
“I believe she said she was going to the library,” Mr. Terrance said in his smooth, deep voice.
“Could you call her and have her meet us in my room?” Bliss asked.
“Of course,” Mr. Terrance said with a small bow. He noticed me as I walked up with Athena cradled in my arms. His face fell. “Oh dear…the poor thing.”
“And please bring some hot water and a sterilized cloth up to us, too,” Bliss said, patting the top of the desk and hurrying away toward the stairs.
“I will have it in just a moment,” Mr. Terrance said.
I hurried after Bliss, careful not to jostle Athena too much. I was desperate for her to move. I wished I could see even something small, like her eyelids flutter like they did when she dreamed, or the ends of her paws twitch like they did after she’d had a really good stretch. Even her ears, which were the most sensitive part of her…I wished they would indicate that she could hear me.
I tried not to think the worst. As long as she was breathing, then she could be saved.
But Athena wasn’t the only problem plaguing my mind.
I waited until we were up at the top of the stairs and heading down the hall to Bliss’s room. All the other guests in the lodge seemed to be asleep or resting; out of the windows along the stairwell, I’d seen some gathered out by the firepit Aunt Candace had built a few weeks ago.
“There’s another thing that probably needs to be dealt with sooner or later…” I said in a low voice as Bliss opened her door.
“What’s that?” Bliss asked, flipping the light switch on, and flooding the room with warm light.
“Delilah,” I said. “She has that book again. And if she has it, and we know how dangerous it is…”
“She can’t keep it,” Bliss agreed. She scurried into her bathroom, disappearing behind the doorway. I heard her pull open the linen closet, and she returned a few seconds later, her arms laden with fluffy towels. “She could do a lot of harm with it.”
“I agree,” I said.
Bliss hurriedly spread out the towels on her bed, straightening the blankets so the surface would be smooth and comfortable. “There you go,” she said. “Go ahead and lay her down.”
As gently as I dared, I leaned over the towels and lowered Athena down onto them.
She didn’t fight, didn’t move at all. Probably wasn’t even aware that she was lying on her side, which she hardly ever did at home unless she was completely content.
I straightened her paws so they wouldn’t cramp when she finally woke up.
That’s it, Marianne. Keep telling yourself it’s when, not if.
Her eyes were closed. Her nose wasn’t wet.
“She looks so peaceful…” Bliss said.
I swallowed hard. “So what happened – ”
“Oh my heavens!” said Aunt Candace, who burst through the door. Her face flushed, she stared back and forth between Bliss and I. “What on earth happened to you three?”
Bliss and I glanced back and forth between ourselves. I guessed we did look a little worse for wear. Bliss’s face was smudged with dirt on her cheek, and the front of my shirt was wrinkled and ripped from running through the trees.
Aunt Candace gasped when she saw Athena on the bed. “Oh, Athena…” she said, her brows downturned. She crossed to the bed and knelt beside her. She stroked Athena gently, and her eyes widened. “She’s still breathing.”
“Yeah,” Bliss said. “But she got hit by a spell.”
Her mother looked up at her, her eyes narrowing. “What sort of spell.”
Bliss’s cheeks colored. “I…don’t know,” she said. “It all sort of happened at once, and – ”
“Can you just check her over?” I asked Aunt Candace, kneeling down beside her. “Make sure she’s okay…for me?”
Aunt Candace sighed. “Of course, dear…”
She stood and began to touch Athena with deft, gentle hands. She pressed them against her limbs, her hind legs, her spine. She checked her neck, her snout, even pulled back her lips to examine her teeth.
“Well, she’s not bleeding anywhere,” Aunt Candace said after her assessment. “And nothing is broken, either. In all honesty, I can’t seem to find anything wrong with her. It’s like she’s in a really deep sleep.”
Mr. Terrance showed up a moment later with a steel mixing bowl partially filled with steaming water, along with a stack of white washcloths. “Here you are,” Mr. Terrance said, setting them down on Bliss’s desk. “Anything else?”
“No, Mr. Terrance, thank you,” Bliss said.
He nodded, but before he turned to leave, his eyes fell on me. “Ah, Miss Huffler? A message came for you this evening. From Dr. Lucan Valerio.”
My heart did summersaults in my chest. “What kind of message?”
“Asking if you were attending his Halloween soiree this evening,” Mr. Terrance said. “He insisted that the whole family was invited, of course. The festivities begin at eleven pm.”
I turned and stared at Bliss, who shrugged.
Aunt Candace sighed heavily. “I got that invitation weeks ago…but I’d completely forgotten about it,” she said. “Well, I don’t think we’ll be going, not with what’s going on with Athena.”
“Thanks, Mr. Terrance,” I said to him. “I’ll get back to him when I get a chance.”
Mr. Terrance smiled and bowed himself from the room.
Bliss sighed, running her fingers through her dark hair. “So there’s nothing wrong physically?”
“Not externally,” Aunt Candace said.
Bliss stared down at Athena, her jaw clenched. “I could try a basic healing spell, but I don’t know what good it’s going to do.”
“It’s a place to start, dear,” Aunt Candace said.
Bliss nodded. She extended her hand out into the air, palm upward, and her spindly wand appeared in it. She wrapped her hand tightly around it and pointed it down at Athena’s limp form.
“Heallarios.”
A green light filtered out from the end of her wand. Like glitter it glinted in the air as it fell over Athena.
Aunt Candace turned her attention to me. “How did this happen?”
I sighed. “It was Delilah,” I said.
I gave her a brief summary of what happened when we arrived at the cemetery; Delilah woke Isabella’s ghost up, who took off. I chased her. When I returned, I had found Delilah fighting with Bliss, and Athena unconscious.
“As soon as Marianne ran away, Delilah started to laugh,” Bliss said, her wand still trickling the healing magic down onto Athena, who was now haloed in a soft, green glow. “She flipped open the book and started to read, but then she stopped and looked at me. She said, ‘Wait a second…Marianne has the ability to speak to ghosts, too?’” Bliss frowned. “The way she asked the question, I didn’t think I needed to give an answer. I didn’t, either, because I was afraid of jeopardizing your identity, Marianne. Well…she got really quiet, and stared off after you for a while. I kept trying to talk to her, to ask her what she was thinking, but she ignored me. The longer she thought, the bigger her eyes became. And then, when her spell broke, it was like something inside her snapped, as well. She started shouting, ‘I knew it! I knew there was something wrong with her!’”
A chill ran down my spine as I stared at Bliss. “She said pretty much the same thing when I came back to you guys…”
Bliss looked away. “Well, Athena must have realized what Delilah meant, because she jumped between you and her, and she started to growl. Delilah became enraged, saying things like ‘She shouldn’t be able to do that,’ and ‘I should have seen it sooner!’”
“That’s when she attacked,” I said, finishing it for her.
Bliss nodded glumly.
Aunt Candace turned her wide eyes to me. “You don’t think she meant that she knows you’re – ”
The idea was deeply troubling. So much so that my stomach twisted into knots as I thought about it. “I haven’t exactly tried to keep all my cards close lately, have I?” I said. “I’ve been so eager to learn about my family that I may have been too open about what I can, or can’t, do. I don’t know…”
“It’s not very common for a spell weaver to be able to use spells and have a familiar,” Bliss said. “It’s not impossible, as you saw yesterday when we were at the Hollow. But it’s like, ten percent of spell weavers? And then when Delilah realized you could talk to Isabella’s ghost, it was suspicious. But then when you broke that spell…”
“I don’t get that,” I said. “Is it really all that weird?”
Bliss’s eyes widened. “You really didn’t know?” She seemed shocked. “Yeah. That’s…impossible. Spell weavers can only deflect or defend against another spell weaver’s spells. The only way their spells would break is if they ran out of magic themselves or canceled the spell on their own choice. But you went through and cut off the magic to someone else’s spell. And Delilah knew it.”
It was like I’d been doused in icy water. “…Isabella was the one who told me how to do it, too.” I said. “It seems that she and my mother were pretty close near the end of her life.”
Aunt Candace’s face lit up. “So you know who your mother is, then?” she asked.
I nodded. “Her name was Adriana Hart. Married to a William Hart.”
Aunt Candace’s eyes widened. “William Hart…that name sounds so familiar…”
“He died in an orchestrated accident at a saw mill,” I said. “Isabella and my mother seemed to think it was some Gifted trying to get answers out of her. They suspected she had faery blood, but my mother would never admit to it. Appa
rently, she was the head of the council of eleven – ”
“I thought her name sounded familiar,” Bliss said. “Adriana was one of the most notable leaders of the council in centuries. Talented and powerful, she was able to do things that no one else could…” Bliss shook her head. “And it’s because she was a faery?”
I shrugged. “I guess so.”
Aunt Candace looked at me with more concern. “Did Isabella also tell you how your mother…”
“Died?” I asked. My stomach sank. “Yeah. A vampire killed her.” I lifted my eyes to Bliss. “Rebecca Blackburn, actually.”
Bliss’s jaw fell open.
“What?” Aunt Candace hissed. “No…”
“That’s why Cain’s kept her locked up all these years,” I said. “And apparently, to cover it up, he also bribed Ruth Cunningham to destroy those records I’d been looking for.” It was like hearing this information all over again. My head swam and my chest tightened. “They both were lying to me.”
“Do you think he knows – ” Bliss said.
“I have no idea what he knows,” I said. “But he’s smart. I can imagine he’s probably put two and two together by now.”
“Did he know your mother was a faery?” Aunt Candace asked.
I hesitated. “…I don’t know,” I said. “He did her autopsy, I’m sure. Especially since his sister was the one who killed her…”
“I knew he was no good…” Bliss said through gritted teeth.
“There’s nothing to be done about it now…” Aunt Candace said.
“But I still have to worry about Delilah going around and blabbing what she’s figured out about me,” I said. “I just became an apprentice. What if she goes to the council and tells all of them?”
Bliss’s face paled. “You’re right…that’s probably exactly what she’ll do.”
“Will they even believe her?” Aunt Candace asked. “A faery in these parts is almost a myth at this point.”
“She has some believable proof,” Bliss said. “Unless you can get Mrs. Bickford’s gift back to her sooner rather than later.”
“But what about the spell break?” I asked.
“She can’t prove that,” Aunt Candace said. “Especially since you’re just a novice.”