“Why would Efa kill her mum? She said Zeta was her mum and John was her dad. Why would she kill her?”
Realisation dawns on all of their faces and for the first time in a long time they are all smiling.
“Ellis figured it out.”
Ellis grins, bashfully, but says nothing.
“You might be right.”
“She is right. Why would she kill her mum?”
Thea interrupts. “The others didn’t seem to know she was her mum though. Peri and Layland...”
“That was probably for our benefit.”
There’s confusion now. “What did Efa say before she killed Zeta?”
“I can’t remember.”
“Nothing nice.”
“Maybe we’re right, maybe we’re wrong. But it’s something. Mum, can we find out if Zeta’s alive? Ellis, tell them what you thought.”
Ellis looks uncomfortable but speaks up. “I wondered if Efa is Zeta’s daughter, and if she did only pretend to kill her, and if she is alive, did she maybe start all of this trouble because she wanted her daughter to be head witch instead of Fletcher?”
Sally laughs. “Females aren’t head witches.”
“They used to be,” Fletcher says, quick to defend Ellis. “For a long time.”
“Crones never had children before, either. You might be on to something, Ellis, and we can easily find out if Zeta is alive. You’re the head witch after all.”
Ember smiles at Ellis. “When you were in her head, when I was still in Scotland, did you get the sense that she was alive?”
Elodie shakes her head. “Ember, how would she even know the difference? Besides, because we thought Zeta was dead, I sent Ellis back, and into her head then. When she was alive. Anyway – this will be much easier than even that. Spark the fire up.”
Ember does as she’s told, and Elodie turns Ellis so she’s facing the flames. “Look at the tip of one of the flames, any one of them and concentrate, let your eyes go blurry and it will look as though the flame is getting bigger – it isn’t, it’s just a trick. When it’s as high as you can make it, call out her name. Say Zeta, but as though you’re calling her. Ze-ta!”
Ellis nods, nervous with everyone watching her. “What if I do it wrong?” Sally tuts but says nothing, and Ellis blushes. Elodie smiles at her, desperate to reassure her. “It can’t go wrong. It’s too simple. It’s like a school register. Try it with me first. Call my name.” Ellis does, and Elodie’s face appears in the flames before vanishing. “See? All that happens is my likeness appears in the flame. If someone is dead, then it won’t.”
Ellis nods. It does sound easy. She watches the flame, and everyone in the room watches her. Fletcher keeps his hand on her shoulder. After a few moments, that feel much longer, Ellis calls out. “Ze-ta!”
The flames rush and change and take on the shape of Zeta’s face. They all gasp and Ellis snaps out of her reverie. “Is she alive?”
Fletcher whoops and hugs her. “Yes. Good thinking Ellis. If Zeta is alive, it means she’s still controlling this. We can stop her.”
“We have to find her.”
“She wasn’t in Mumbles, we’ve been there.”
“Ellis can find her,” Sally says, her voice sweeter than usual, causing Fletcher to glare at her. Sally shrugs, then sits down on a chair, next to the twins.
Vann yawns and stretches. “I suggest we bed down. Eat, drink, sleep and then address this in the morning. I also think we should get the others down from Scotland.”
“What if some of them are in on this with Gregory?”
“Just the vamps and fairies then. Leave the shifters up there.”
Elodie holds a hand up. “I think you’re right. We should rest. I don’t think we should free anybody else until this is over. I trust you, Vann, but then I’m sure we all trusted Gregory...”
He nods, not taking any offence. “And Ellis can find Zeta?”
“Yes. It’s a witch thing. It was no help with trying to find Peri, Efa or Layland – though maybe it would have worked on Efa, if she’s half witch. But we can find Zeta. She’s the root of all of this.”
They all feel relaxed and calm, suddenly, and Vann and Ember deciding to make a feast, slope off to the kitchen.
“I think your aunt fancies him,” Ellis whispers to Fletcher, who laughs.
“Everybody fancies him.”
They stay grouped together while the smells of dinner being cooked wash over them. The twins huddle in a group, Ellis and Fletcher sit together, holding hands, and Elodie talks in quiet tones to Sally’s parents.
They troop into the kitchen when called, all helping out. Fletcher gets jugs of pep, Elodie’s energy-giving drink, while Ellis gets glasses. Thea and Talia get cutlery and placemats. The food is brought to the table and it looks and smells divine and then they all dig in.
The mood is still sombre – nobody can forget that Griff is dead, or Mya – but they know more than they did. They have more hope than they did. And as they eat and drink, the light, hopeful, feeling permeates the space, until they are all smiling, talking, even laughing a little.
It feels like they might be able to get back on track – to maybe win this after all. They start to clear up, music playing in the background, everyone feeling just a little better.
“Girls, will one of you take these bottles out, please?” Ember hands over the empty wine bottles for recycling. The garden is protected the same as the house, so Sally and the twins go outside, and the rest of them finish tidying up. They are all full and satisfied after their delicious dinner.
Ellis hands Fletcher another glass for the dishwasher, and they smile as their hands touch. The adults drift out of the room, and after checking they’ve all gone, Fletcher leans in and kisses her. “You’re so clever.”
She shakes her head. None of what she can do as head witch, is anything to do with her. She cannot control or command her magic any more than she could have before she had it. She knows she’s not a good witch, but she loves him for pretending that she is. They kiss again and then jump apart as an earth-shattering scream comes from the garden.
They run outside, Fletcher pushing Ellis behind him, telling her to keep back. “Girls!” Nobody answers, and as they turn the corner they see why. Ellis cries out, turning to run inside and get Ember, but Ember is already there, pushing her way past Ellis and Fletcher and dropping to her knees beside Talia.
Talia is sprawled over the grass; legs bent the wrong way; eyes closed. There is no sign of Thea or Sally.
“Stay!” Fletcher warns Ellis before rushing down the end of the garden – the only bit they can’t see, feeling sick that they might be gone or dead or not okay. “I’m here.” He hears his mother. “Us too.” Sally’s parents.
They reach the end of the garden – some sixty feet from the house, and then they hear them. Behind the green house, Sally and Thea are crouched, both bleeding, both alive, both out of breath, both crying.
“You’re safe.” Elodie gathers Thea in her arms, and Sally’s parents hold on to her. “What happened?”
“Is Talia okay?” Sally asks, as Thea starts to wail.
“Guys, come back to the house,” Fletcher says. “What happened?”
“Demons. Three of them. One of them got Talia.”
“Got her?”
“Attacked her. She tried to fight. Is she alive?”
None of them know the answer so they head back to the others. Thea and Sally can hardly walk, they are both bleeding and bruised, in obvious pain and so weak from the fight they both look like they’ll drop any second. Fletcher helps Elodie to hold Thea up. Sally’s parents have her.
Ember is still crouched next to Talia, Vann beside her. “Elodie! It’s not working, she’s not breathing!”
Thea cries out and drops the other side of her sister. “Let me, mum.”
Between them they try witch things, and normal things, magic, CPR, anything to get Talia breathing again. “What happened?” Ember asks, in between m
outh to mouth.
“Demons.”
The word is so stark, so awful, the shock so huge that the silence is thick in the garden, and the only noise – some birds twittering – sounds obscenely cheerful.
Ellis pushes past Fletcher and kneels by Talia’s head. She doesn’t even know why. Something is calling her to do it. A head witch thing. She touches the cold clammy skin of her forehead; Ember continues CPR and mouth to mouth and the witches all try their magic. Vann mutters something and sprinkles what looks like fairy dust over her, from out of his pocket. It lands on her skin like a fine dusting of icing sugar on a cake.
None of them speak, except for the mutterings of spells, none of them look at anybody else. They all have a hand on her, one girl, nine hands, hope, magic, love, science, spells.
None of it works.
Thea sobs, unable to help, Ember wails, helpless. They are all grief stricken and silent, giving up, and then Talia takes a breath. A small one, a shuddering one, and then another one. And then she opens her eyes, fleetingly, before closing them again, wincing with pain.
“Get her inside. Fletcher, lock up behind us. We can’t take any risks.”
Vann carries her, the fairy dust still sparkling on her skin, and lays her on the sofa, his hands red from her blood. She opens her eyes again and this time they stay open.
Ember kneels in front of her. “Darling, can you hear me? You’re okay, you’re safe.” Talia dissolves into tears, as do Ember and Thea, who tucks next to her twin, taking her hand. Ember starts cleaning her up, fixing her pain, stemming her blood, making her better, crying the whole time, anger and fury and pity and sadness all mingling with her tears.
Elodie turns to Fletcher. “Come with me – I want to put extra protections on the place.”
“How did they get past...” He trails off. “Zeta.”
His mother nods. “Zeta.”
The only way their protections could have been violated is by another witch. The only witch who wouldn’t want them to be safe is Zeta.
Ellis
You know when you hate someone and you wish terrible things would happen to them, but then if they do, you feel just awful, like maybe you cursed them, or you’re just a horrible, mean, spiteful, nasty person.
Yeah?
Well, that’s how I feel right now.
These three girls make my skin crawl. They make every negative emotion I feel about myself intensify. I feel uglier when I’m with them, more stupid, plainer, less interesting. I feel all of those things often enough anyway.
Always have.
I loved Molly so much, but I could never live up to her. She was always so much better than I could ever be.
All through our lives together I tried to be like her. I wore the same clothes as she did, I did my hair the same way as she did. And we were best friends, so she never cared, and nobody ever commented, but I was always a poor imitation. I knew that and she probably knew it. Not that she ever said so.
When she first got diagnosed with cancer, I felt the same way as I do now.
Guilty.
I felt like I had wished it on her, cursed her, because I sometimes felt – and I wouldn’t admit this to anyone, it really doesn’t show me in a good light – like if she wasn’t around people would see that I was pretty, funny, clever. That maybe without her I could be the centre of attention for once. I could be the star.
She outshone me and overshadowed me every step of the way. And she was never a bitch about it, she never left me out. She always included me and that’s why I’m such a horrible person. It took a long time for me to feel less guilty about her illness. Rationally, I know I didn’t cause it, but I atoned for it by spending all my time with her. I helped her through it, I did everything I could to make up for those ugly thoughts I’d had. I have never forgiven myself for being such a terrible friend. I probably never will.
And now, disaster has struck the three witches. Well, demons not disaster. And I feel awful. I know I didn’t cause it; I know I’m not that clever. But I still feel bad.
The mood here is horrible. We are all scared. Angry. Worried. What do we do next?
I have no idea, and so I wait to be told by the real witches.
There’s a bustle of activity as the three girls, and especially Talia are tended to with magic. Thea and Sally look back to normal almost immediately. Talia is still a little shaky. Her eyes keep glazing over and she looks confused by all the attention she’s getting.
Fletcher comes to sit beside me. They’ve added extra protections outside and all around the house to get us through the night. “Was it Zeta?” I ask him. “Is that how the demons got in?”
He nods, slipping an arm around me. I like having him close. I feel safer.
Elodie looks to Thea and Sally. “Can you tell us about the demons? What did they do to you?”
This is still like a dream to me. Today is Monday. Last Friday I went to college as normal, today I am discussing demons and how they best like to attack.
Weird.
Surreal.
My new life.
The demons I saw in my mind when I went inside Zeta’s head and the one that I saw at the portal weren’t how I imagined them to be. Did I ever wonder what a demon looked like? Probably not.
I think, if I had to guess, I’d say a bit like a zombie, maybe with less rotting skin hanging off. These were nothing like that. You’d know they weren’t human – they were too shadowy, too wispy – is that the right word? Not see through, but not fully formed. Like humans, but blurry around the edges. And their eyes didn’t look at you; they looked through you.
I shiver, and tune into what Thea and Sally ate saying, taking turns and stumbling through their story. Thea starts, her voice shaky, and I feel a wave of huge regret for how I feel about her. Why hate someone for no reason?
“We put the wine bottles in the recycling then we sat on the swing seat. Just me and Sally. It makes Talia feel sick.”
“I was teasing Talia, because the swing barely moves.”
“Then we were talking about...” She hesitates and sneaks a look at me, and I know they were gossiping about me, being mean, and I take a breath. It’s only what I would have been doing, if I had a friend to do it with.
“Stuff...”
Good recovery.
“And we heard rustling.”
“I told Sally it was probably squirrels. We get loads of them, don’t we?”
Ember nods at Thea, encouraging her to go on.
“We got off the swing seat to see if we could catch them.”
“I magicked up some nuts to give them.”
“Talia just rolled her eyes – said she’s seen a million squirrels.”
“But she followed us onto the grass.”
“We heard louder noises. We knew they weren’t squirrels.”
“But we knew we were safe because of the protections. We thought it might be James, the fox, that always visits us.”
“We went further from the house, looking for him.”
“Then Talia screamed.” Thea can’t go on.
“We turned around and the demon was on her, strangling her.”
I glance at Talia, and sure enough, you can see the bruises around her neck.
“It had hit her, she was bleeding. Thea launched herself on it, and I magicked fire. It ran away, but we chased it. There were two others down the bottom of the garden. They were what we heard. But we magicked fire and shot it at them. They vanished. I don’t know if we killed them...or...” Sally looks so gutted about what’s happened that I feel a wave of empathy for her, too.
What’s happening to me?
Thea lays her head on her sister’s shoulder. “I can’t believe you’re okay.”
Talia pats her, wincing with the pain.
I frown. If Zeta can get through the magical protections, why only send three demons? Why not send hundreds and finish us off? I shake my head; I don’t want to ask another stupid question. I can still see the withering lo
ok on Ember’s face when I got excited about my imaginary trip to Paris.
Is it stupid?
No.
I clear my throat. “Why only send three?”
Sally turns and snaps at me. “Three was more than enough to kill us all, thanks!”
Empathy vanishes.
“Isn’t that the point? If there were three of them and three of you, then you win. I know Talia got hurt, but witches always win in a fair fight, right. That’s your thing. You say it. Why not send twenty, or thirty, or forty?”
They are all silent. I have stymied them. Not such a stupid question, then.
Ember is pacing, while Elodie is asking my question out loud, repeating it to herself. Sally’s parents just look like they wish they were anywhere else but here right now.
And then I get a flash. Demons, surrounding the house. Peri. Efa. Layland. Others who aren’t demons or the rebels that I know. Definitely vampires, shifters, fairies – I can sense it.
And people like me.
Humans?
No, other witches.
I stand up, then sit, then almost faint, panic filling me up. “A diversion.” I manage to squeak the words out, then cough. “It was a diversion. They’re outside.”
They all stand, and I stand with them. Fury and fear are present in every face, in equal measure.
“Who? Who’s out there? How many?”
I close my eyes, remember the vision. The sight of them, uniform, an army come to hunt us.
We are surrounded. We cannot escape. Talia is still weak.
Then I make it worse.
“It’s Efa, Peri, Layland. And their supporters or followers. And demons. And...” I pause and take a breath. I cannot help it. “Witches.”
Ember jumps up. “They have hostages? Who? How many?” She is puce with rage.
I shake my head. “They aren’t hostages. They are accomplices.”
Everyone who had stood, now sits. Like the air’s gone out of them. They slump, silent.
Fletcher sounds hoarse. “Are you sure?” I can see from the sorrow on his face that he knows it’s true.
“I’m sure. There are less witches than there are of the other species.” I say this as though it helps.
The Accidental Invitation (The Chronicles of the Accidental Witch Book 2) Page 9
