by Jay Barnson
Her voice didn’t sound as confident on the last sentence. She tied the bottle to a nearby tree, lit a candle, and recited the spell from the diary as she poured wax from the candle around the cork. Evelyn completed the spell, and a flash of electric blue surrounded the bottle, causing a vibration in the air. The first spell completed, Evelyn recited the protection song. Jenny felt violated and ill hearing the woman speaking the rhyme Jenny’s mother had taught her as a child. It wasn’t right.
After that, Evelyn put on a silver necklace, and spoke a brief incantation. Jenny found herself looking at the ground. She looked back up, still searching for Evelyn even after her eyes passed over the woman several times. The necklace didn’t make her invisible, so much as hard to notice or focus on. Much like the Rose house. Or Waldo from those books. She blended in.
It took Jenny a couple of minutes to realize that Evelyn had gone entirely, and wasn’t just hiding in plain sight with the aid of the necklace. The witch had gone ‘Round the Bend. With the witch-bottle in place, there was no way for her friends to get back.
Jenny immediately began escape efforts. After her previous mistakes, she didn’t dare pull the cords around her wrists. Whether they were magical, mechanical, or just cleverly tied, she didn’t want them to tighten again. She slowly rubbed the cord against the tree trunk. It wasn’t a thick trunk, so either the cord would break, or she’d saw through the trunk. It might take days, but what other choice did she have?
Could she cast spells without speaking? Not that she knew any other spells. She remembered seeing references in the diaries, but hadn’t committed any of them to memory. They hadn’t seemed important at the time.
Jenny looked where Evelyn had been sitting. Both of the journals lay forgotten in the dirt. Evelyn had taken her pack, but had left the books. She abandoned the things that were no longer of use to her.
The bonds behind Jenny tightened in spite of her care. Jenny relaxed her arms, hoping they’d loosen again over time. She focused on trying to chew at the cloth tied in her mouth. Within a minute, she began to realize how futile it was. She grunted through the cloth in exasperation.
It was at that point she realized she wasn’t alone.
Something prowled in the growing shadows behind her. It slid along softly, patiently, brushing against the ground like a soft breeze. A small animal?
Jenny called the protection song to mind. She might not be able to say the words, but could it work just by thinking them? She fought the cloth to mouth the words from memory. When she was done, she felt the slightest tremble of vibration, movement of magic. It was nowhere near as powerful as usual. It might not be enough to protect her from an ogre’s strike, but maybe it would be enough to stop a snakebite.
The sound was a few feet further away now. Jenny could almost feel a presence, and in her mind’s eye it grew bigger, more dangerous. Its steps were larger now, heavier, if still slow and measured. Jenny began shaking in spite of herself, her ears sensitive to any sound. The creature was stalking closer, deliberately, near enough to strike. She felt something right behind her, on the other side of the tree.
“Is she really gone?” Jessabelle whispered.
Jenny half-screamed Jessabelle’s name into the cloth, breathing heavily. Jessabelle worked the knot on the cloth. Jenny spat it out as it slipped loose.
“Oh, thank goodness. Yes, I think she’s gone.”
“I was looking for Sean’s knife. He dropped it in the fight, but I didn’t want to just stand around looking for it in case Evelyn showed up. Do you have a knife somewhere? I can use it to cut these cords.”
Jenny motioned with her head to a tree. “Evelyn tied a witch-bottle to that tree. Maybe you can break it and use the broken glass?”
Jessabelle stalked to the tree, swiveling her head as if she expected to be attacked from any direction. She untied Evelyn’s bottle, held it by the neck, and smashed it against the tree. Nothing happened, so she repeated the action, harder. On the third hit, the bottle shattered, but the fragment in Jessabelle’s hand held a sharp, jagged edge. She returned to Jenny and used it on the cords.
“So what happened?” Jenny and Jessabelle asked simultaneously as Jessabelle sawed the cords.
Jenny answered first. “Not much. When I woke up, I was tied to this tree. Evelyn tried to get information out of me, but I didn’t know how I’d sent you three down the path.”
“Protection spell,” Jessabelle offered.
“Yeah, she figured it out. That’s been it. She mainly taunted me. What about you guys?”
A cord snapped, and Jenny was able to free her hands. Jenny worked at the knots on her ankles, but they were far too tight. Jessabelle handed her the glass shard, and told her what had happened when they found themselves ‘Round the Bend. She finished just as Jenny cut through the cord and freed her ankles.
“So we came here, and Grandma Annabelle cast the protection spell on me. She wasn’t too happy about me going through, but as a cat I reckoned I had the best chance of anyone of not being seen. I heard Evelyn talking to you when I came through. I’m lucky I got here before she used that bottle. Once she put on the necklace, I couldn’t tell where she’d gone.”
“Where are the others?”
“Just on the other side. Waiting for us. Or waiting for Evelyn.”
“Evelyn’s protected.”
“So are they.”
They spent a few precious seconds hunting in the darkness for Sean’s knife, and getting the feeling back into Jenny’s hands and feet. Giving up on the knife, they both took several bold steps along the crossroad path. Jenny could almost see it with her strange Sight.
Nothing happened.
They tried again, with no success. “What am I doing wrong?” Jenny asked. “What’s different? I am pretty sure I got some version of the spell cast on myself when I heard you. And you still have it, right?”
Jessabelle shook her head. “I don’t know. It was easy both times. Maybe because it was cast on me when I was in cat form? But if it ain’t working for you, neither, I don’t know what’s going on. It’s like we can’t get traction.”
“I can cast the spells again.”
“Don’t! Not yet, anyhow. We don’t need you fainting away again. We gotta think. What’s different?”
Jenny looked around. The shallow pond seemed black against the murky, darkening sky. It was no longer daylight. The mosquitoes weren’t attacking. There was no bottle on this side blocking inbound travel. “Evelyn is different. She had a second bottle. She probably sealed off the other side.”
“Oh, no!” Jessabelle’s hand covered her mouth and her voice tightened. “The others weren’t too far from the entrance. If she was able to use the bottle without them being able to stop her, they could be in trouble.”
Jack watched the clearing from their hiding place. As the sky darkened, the lightning bugs came out, pulsing with random, flitting pinpricks of light. A few feet away, Annabelle and Sean spoke in hushed tones about a subject Jack didn’t really want to know anything more about.
Sean asked, “So what do you mean when you say Debbie isn’t a normal ghost?”
“I’ve seen a lot of ghosts. It’s one of those occupational hazards. While they are all a little bit different, hers is unique. Maybe it’s just because we were good friends. I don’t know. For the longest time, I thought I had reason to believe she wasn’t actually dead.”
“Why?”
“Does it matter? Whatever happened, it’s been so many years, even if I was right, she’d be dead by now. It was the work of the man in the white suit, though. She wasn’t just going to Morgantown to learn to be a nurse. He was creating a new crossroads there, a shortcut to his daughter. She got information to us, and mama got the information ‘Round the Bend, and the folks here took care of it. Nipped it in the bud. She disappeared shortly thereafter, and her spirit visited us three or four times over the next two years.”
Sean started to say something, but Annabelle shushed him. She lay
quietly for a moment, and then whispered, “Jack, do you see anything?”
Jack peered into the darkness. He watched for several tense seconds, as Annabelle and Sean crept up to get a better view. The lightning bugs continued their yellow-green dance. A minute later, a flicker of light caught Jack’s attention, subtly different from the rest of the bugs. He scanned for it again, but it was gone.
“Anything?” asked Sean.
Jack answered truthfully. “No.” Still, he tightened his grip on the baseball bat.
“Maybe it was a false alarm,” whispered Annabelle. “But it smells a little like magic.”
“Then it’d be Jenny or Evelyn,” Sean suggested.
The moments ticked by. Jack began to harbor hope that it was a false alarm, but faint shadow of motion caught his attention. It was closer than the flicker of light had been. Jack whispered Sean’s name and pointed. Sean followed Jack’s gesture, but didn’t give any indication that he saw anything.
Annabelle followed their gaze, squinting into the air and frowning. After a moment she muttered something unladylike under her breath, and began casting a spell. The words were quiet, as if being spoken at a distance, and Jack couldn’t catch every word, but it was loud enough to give them away.
Another incantation rose, challenging Annabelle’s, but the words were in Spanish.
“Guys?” Jack said in alarm, but it was too late. Sean and Annabelle collapsed. Jack felt an incredible weight hit him. He fell flat, and his leaden eyelids drooped. Cotton filled his brain, and the unreal world around him seemed like a distant movie he half-watched and couldn’t care about. Every part of him but one conscious, terrified part of his brain wanted to shut down and sleep. He might be resistant to magic, but he was not immune.
He peered through half-closed eyelids and saw a shadowy form close by. Whatever had camouflaged her a moment ago was gone. The faint moonlight glimmered off of the knife-blade in her hand. It was Sean’s knife.
“I hate to have to do this. I don’t like killing people. But like I warned you, Sean, I will when I must.”
Jack fought against the weight, summoning the terror that he knew he should feel, deep and suppressed in his struggling consciousness. As Evelyn knelt by Annabelle’s unconscious form, terror and alertness hit Jack with full ferocity. He threw off the effects of the spell and leaped to his feet. His swing with the bat was unwieldy, both from the fog of the sleeping spell and his caution to avoid hitting Annabelle.
He missed. Evelyn shrieked, dropped the knife, and scuttled backwards. Jack stumbled forward, swinging at her. She rolled to her feet. Jack’s swing struck her in the arm, not solidly, but enough to know he’d struck flesh. Evelyn swore, and tore off down the hill in the darkness. Jack gave chase long enough to make sure she was gone, before returning to Sean and Annabelle. They were vulnerable, and this was a land of deadly predators and enemies.
He shook them, but they slept soundly. He slapped their cheeks and lifted their eyelids, but nothing roused them. Until the spell wore off, or he found some other cure, they weren’t waking or going anywhere. Jack shook off the lingering feeling of fatigue from Evelyn’s spell by running in place, and taking more practice swings with the baseball bat. Then he stood over his friends, holding the bat in both hands, guarding them against anything that might come their way. He might not stand a chance against a giant, but he’d make sure nothing hurt them while he was alive.
After an hour, Jack was finally convinced that Evelyn was nowhere nearby, and let his guard down by increments. With that, fatigue and sleepiness began creeping in. He thought it might be due to natural causes rather than lingering effects of Evelyn’s spell. A few minutes later, he found himself dozing off. To keep himself awake and alert, he walked out to the clearing. The moon had risen, giving enough light for Jack to see where he was going.
He walked out to where he’d spied the flicker of light just before Evelyn’s attack. When he was just a few feet away, he glimpsed reflected moonlight near a tree. He bobbed his head around and shifted position until he saw the reflection again, and pursued the glint until he found the source.
The bottle he discovered was new, but otherwise similar to the one they’d seen on their own side. Evelyn must have put it there. He unwrapped the leather lace tying it to the tree branch, and held it up to the moonlight. It bore no identifying marks that he could see, but it was placed there by Evelyn, and that was a bad thing.
Jack hurled the bottle at the tree trunk. It shattered into dozens of fragments, which disappeared against the darkened ground. Just like any other bottle. If anything, the lack of any big Hollywood special effect made him wonder he’d actually accomplished anything.
He was halfway back to their hiding place when he heard sounds behind him. He spun around to see Jenny and Jessabelle standing behind him. Jenny looked around in amazement. Jessabelle spotted Jack immediately and called to him. “You’re okay! How are the others?”
Relief flooded through him as a warm wave of pleasant fatigue. “Evelyn came through and tried to make us all fall asleep. She was about to slit our throats, but I ran her off.”
Jack took them to where Annabelle and Sean were sleeping. Jenny stared at the woman lying on the ground. “That’s my grandmother?”
“Our grandmother,” Jessabelle said, nodding. “Annabelle Rose. I knew her before.”
Jenny exhaled deeply. “I guess she kinda looks like mom.” She opened her shoulder-bag and said, “I have almost everything for removing the curse. Um, Jack…?”
Jack pulled out his pocket-knife and said, “My blood, right? Here, take extra. If we’re going to go up against her, we ought to be prepared and make more of them charms.”
Even Jenny rolled her eyes. “You don’t have an infinite supply of blood, Jack.”
“A few more drops won’t make no difference. Besides, you can always heal me up afterwards.”
She sighed. “I’m not sure I always can.”
In the darkness, they put together the ingredients. Jenny applied a portion of the anti-charm to Sean’s and Annabelle’s foreheads and recited the spell. Nothing happened at first. Jessabelle gave both of them a slight shake, and they awoke with a start.
“Woah, what happened?” asked Sean.
Jack answered. “Evelyn hit y’all with a whammy and made you sleep.”
“How long ago?” Annabelle asked.
“A couple of hours. I guess her spells still don’t work so well on me.”
Annabelle sat bolt upright, staring at Jenny. “You… you look like Amy.”
Jenny answered. “I’m Jenny Morgan. Patricia and James Morgan’s daughter. Um, Amelia, I guess.”
“Oh, my heavens. Yes, I knew she changed her name to Patricia. Come here!”
The two embraced, a little uncomfortably and clumsily at first. But even in the darkness, Jack could see the hungry expression on Jenny’s face as she closed her eyes.
“We have so much to talk about,” Annabelle said, “but so little time!”
Jack pointed along the trail. “Evelyn took off down yonder.”
Annabelle frowned. “She’s going to run smack dab into a village of giants, then. They’ll kill her if they see her.”
Jack said, “She’s good at not being seen. She turned the minds of half of Maple Bend all at once, when they were all in the church.”
“Would giants be any harder?” Jenny asked.
Annabelle shook her head. “No. Giants are simple. Even I can confuse them and give them some suggestions.”
Jenny exhaled. “Are giants as bad as that ogre?”
“Worse,” everyone answered in unison.
“We can’t fight them,” Sean said. “One at a time, if Jenny was fresh and we had guns, maybe. But we got lucky against the ogre.”
“Nobody’s fighting the giants,” Annabelle said. “Unless they are the U.S. Army. This is my problem now. It’s why I’m here. You kids are going to haul tail back through the path, and seal it.” She hesitated. “Jenny, Je
ssabelle, you didn’t happen to notice if Evelyn strung up a witch-bottle on the other side, did you?”
They nodded. “I broke it,” Jessabelle said.
“Oh, good. For a moment there, I was scared y’all might be stuck here with me. Not that I wouldn’t mind the company, but y’all belong back home. Evelyn’s way out of our league, and if you’d left that witch-bottle up, there’d be no going back. Not for a long time, at least.”
Jessabelle said, “There must have been a witch-bottle on this side, too. We’ve been trying to get across for a while, but we couldn’t.”
Jack motioned toward the clearing. “Evelyn set the witch-bottle up by that tree over yonder.”
Jessabelle grinned and gestured wildly. “Jenny tried to make up her own magic to get us across. It worked!”
Annabelle looked Jenny up and down. “That is amazing. It would take me weeks to break through a seal set by a competent witch.”
“I don’t think…” Jenny looked confused, then turned to Jack. “Did you break the bottle?”
Jack nodded. “Seemed like a good thing to do, what with Evelyn trying to kill us and everything.”
Jessabelle dropped her hands and said, “Oh.”
Jenny laughed. “Figures. I didn’t know what I was doing. I wish I knew how to try and break through.”
Annabelle said, “I wish I had time to teach you. Oh, I’m so glad I got to meet you, Jenny. If only… well, no sense in crying over spilled milk. If that witch has any brains in her head, she’ll know better than to leave an enemy witch guarding her escape route. A least I wouldn’t. She’ll be back once she’s rested, or sooner if she can control the giants. You four go back home, and we’ll seal that side up with a new witch-bottle. I’ve got one ready to go right now. Evelyn will be stranded here for weeks, at least.”
“What will you do?” Jack asked.
“Me? I skedaddle. And I figure out how to stop her from getting to the sorceress.”
“What sorceress?” Jenny asked.
“Thadeus’s daughter,” Sean answered. “She’s imprisoned down by what would be this world’s equivalent of Morgantown.”