by Kizzie Hayes
It took Anna and Cheryl almost an hour to remove Ginny’s spell. I tested and became Anna. That got a good laugh. I shifted back and then we split up. Donovan and Anna went to Balden Street while Cheryl and I went to visit the Cantors.
Jennifer Street was on the east side, a nice quite little street in the gentrified Atwood neighborhood. There was a cop parked opposite their house but he didn’t think much about two women ringing the bell. Mark answered the door.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m Eileen Morgan from the Exposé.”
His expression softened.
“I want to know how you found out,” he said.
“And I do so want to tell you,” I said.
“Cops are looking for you.”
“Well, there’s one over there. You can flag him or you can invite us in.”
He opened the door.
*****
The place was nice but in turmoil. The Cantors also had a small son and the two kids were all upset about being taken out of school and wondering why they had to pack and go off to visit their aunt in Minnesota all of a sudden. Donna gushed over me and hugged and thanked me. She wanted to talk but she wanted to get the kids out of the room.
“It would be better,” I said, “if we all sat down in the living room. My colleague has something to show you.”
We sat in the living room. The kids were curious when Cheryl took the small clay pot from her bag. She lifted the top and a lovely intoxicating aroma of juniper and olives filled the room. Cheryl smiled, sang a soft chant and waved her arms slowly. The Tanners sat still and seemed quite enchanted.
“Now you see,” Cheryl began in a lilting voice, “once upon a time there was a bad man . . .”
She spun a yarn about how we found the guy’s postings on Facebook while I sat by Emma. I took the girl’s arm and pricked it with a needle. She looked at me impassively as the blood beaded.
“Emma,” Cheryl said, “this is the good part.”
The girl turned back to her and before the blood could drip I lapped it up. I pressed the tiny wound as I tasted the warm salty stuff. I had what I needed.
“And so,” Cheryl went on, “you are all so very wise to go to Minnesota for a few days. And, of course, we will be more than happy to house-sit for you. Is that okay?”
So saying she closed the pot and drew them back slowly.
“Oh wow,” Emma said. “Just like, oh wow.”
“That was a cool story,” the boy said. “Is it really true?”
“Of course it is,” Donna said. “Now let’s get packed. If we hurry we can be at Aunt Peggy’s before dark and you can play in her pool.”
The excited kids rushed upstairs. Donna thanked us again for everything, especially the house-sitting. Mark went to explain things to the cop. It took them an hour to pack.
After they had finally left, we went up to Emma’s room. I stripped and got into her bed, snuggling under the covers. Cheryl flinched when she saw my whip marks. I needed to wallow in Emma’s scent and space. I lazed a good long while staring at her things and feeling what she felt.
Then, with the shadow of the taste of Emma’s blood still in my mouth, I stood and began my own chant. An Embracing morph is slow and somewhat painful. Cheryl flinched and I tried not to groan as my body slowly shrank and my hair grew longer.
When it was complete I saw myself in the mirror through such bright eyes. I was twelve. My skin was creamy and my cheeks were blushed with strawberry. But best of all my flaming red hair was like gossamer.
“Get dressed,” Cheryl said.
She led me to the basement. We needed to be close to the earth. She drew a pentangle on the floor with charcoal. I stepped in the center. She lit incense at each of the five points and began a chant. I felt the air stir then the smoke begin to swirl around me.
“Tabatha,” she called softly. “Tabitha yellow-hair.”
It took a few moments, then the whirling air spoke.
“Who?” a small voice in the wind spoke.
“A friend,” Cheryl answered. “A friend with a gift.”
“Oh,” the voice said with an edge of excitement. “Oh dear woman!”
“I am Cheryl long-gown. You will remember me?”
“I will dear Cheryl. I will remember forever.”
And then the air began to glitter. There was a small gust of wind and a sparkle and I felt myself taken and carried away. I flew through the dark and cool of another plane as the lakes rushed beneath me and I was carried in that magic to a house with a turret.
I appeared in that turret room whole and sound but so very frightened. Frightened like a little girl. It was a delicate place. It was a feminine place. It had a round pink bed in the middle canopied with chiffon flutters and there was a sort of pink mist wafting in the sheets. The bed was in the center of a glowing golden pentangle. The walls beyond seemed so dark and through the distant windows I saw stars.
“Emma, you are perfect,” Tabitha said stepping from the shadows.
In the pastel light she looked radiant. The traces of veins on her face were faint and she seemed to glow. Then she stepped to me and she kissed me on the forehead. My little heart trembled.
“You are the one,” Tabitha said smiling. “You are chosen Emma. You are going to live far better than all of the princesses that you can imagine. You are going to live forever now. Just lie here by me on this bed. It will only hurt for a moment, and then . . . immortality.”
I looked at her like a twelve-year-old would. She took my hand and led me to the bed. We lay side by side.
Ginny wheeled in a drip-stand and set a needle into Tabatha’s arm hanging the bag low. The witch’s blood began to flow away. Then she pricked my arm and put the other end into Tabatha. I watched Emma’s blood flow from my arm to Tabatha’s.
“She is the one,” Tabatha sighed.
“This will be slow,” Ginny said caressing my cheek. “Just lie back and relax. Let your heart do the work.
I was going to let them have enough blood to feel that all was well, then I was going to morph into a Banshee. But an Embrace can be a tricky thing and little Emma had other ideas. I felt her heart race with terror. The blood was suddenly surging through my arteries and flooding Tabatha.
“Too fast,” Tabitha gasped, “too much.”
Ginny worked the flow valve but then the needle shot out of my arm. My blood spurted across their delicate chiffon bed-curtains spattering Ginny’s face. The woman gasped and Tabitha moaned in agony. I clutched my arm to staunch the bleeding. Ginny slapped me hard across the face and began to try to shove the needle back into me. I screamed.
“Ginny,” a soft voice from nowhere whispered, “Ginny Greenteeth.”
The witch startled and looked around.
“Ginny, would you destroy a child?”
“Who are you?” she cried out.
The swirling pink fog turned blood red and began to whirl faster but no answer came.
“It is just a child,” Ginny said. “Just one child who will live forever in the soul of my dear Tabatha.”
“She is a child,” the voice said.
“You don’t understand,” Ginny wailed, “you cannot understand! I love--”
“Your selfish ways are over, Ginny Greenteeth.”
“Who are you!”
“Crone”
Ginny screamed.
The red mist became a vortex speeding faster and faster as it coned upward, shattering the roof. Suddenly, through the fog, a werewolf sprang with a roar. Both witches shrieked. The wolf grabbed Tabitha and, with the might of Hercules, flung the witch up and into the screeching winds above. Tabatha shrieked as the winds sucked her. Ginny cried out and leapt desperately for her love. She caught a hand as the woman disappeared and, so, she too vanished.
Donovan clenched me desperately on the center of the bed as the winds closed in around us pulling the air from my lungs. I passed out.
I woke in the Cantor’s basement, Donovan holding me tenderly. I was naked and I
was myself again. I kissed him long and deep. Then I looked to the smiling witches.
“Okay,” I said. “What happened?”
“Tabatha was so desperate that she was stupid,” Anna said. “By accepting our gift she opened her spirit-plane to us and together Cheryl and I called upon the Moon Goddess Crone. Crone was, well, upset.”
“They’re gone now,” Cheryl said.
“Gone where?”
“Just, gone.”
We drove by the house on Balden Street. There were fire trucks there and a crowd of neighbors watching the turret burn. Cinders danced in the air. We got out to watch. Cheryl and Anna began a chant of cleansing. I looked to Donovan.
“Well,” he said. “You got quite a story.”
“I do,” I said. “Thanks.”
“So, what now?”
“Now, I suppose that now I release you. You’re free.”
He held me by my waist and drew me close.
“You are a skin-walker,” he said. “You hide in other guises, but in truth you’re hiding Eileen.”
“I don’t—“
“You play tough and cynical,” he went on. “But you didn’t put your life on the line for a story, you did it for a little girl. There’s a tender heart behind that bitch facade, and I want to draw it out.”
“Oh Donovan” I said falling into his arms weeping. “Sometimes that bitch feels like a frightened little girl. Stay with me? Please?”
He kissed me full and deep as ashes fluttered around us.
THE END
Another bonus story is on the next page.
Bonus Story 14 of 44
Endless Love
Description
What do you do when you’re in your thirties and forced to live at home? Go to your younger brother’s hockey games. This is Phoebe’s life and she hates it. Her brother is in the middle of everything, ruling her parents’ lives, while she’s simply trying to get back on her feet. Waking up early just to sit all day in a cold, dark rink is not her idea of a good time.
Just when Phoebe thinks she can’t take it anymore, she meets someone new. A tall, blonde and mysterious player from a rival team. There’s something about him. She can’t get him out of her mind. He brings some excitement into her cold, boring world.
Phoebe thinks she’s found the right person to light her fire, but her brother is in the middle again. Only this time they aren’t in a hockey rink. This is Phoebe’s life. And her family is keeping a secret that just might put this fire completely out.
*****
Phoebe was in paradise.
“Another mojito?” A tall, handsome, shirtless man said, wearing only a very small, very tight speedo that showed off his bulging thighs and the thick package right in the center, like a surprise ready to spring at her.
She couldn’t keep her eyes off him. Or more importantly, his speedo. “Yes, please,” Phoebe said.
She wasn’t even done with the first drink but who cared? This was just what she needed. Relaxing on a beach, surrounded by blue skies, clear water and the whitest, softest sand she had ever squished between her toes. Out here, in paradise, she was going to forget that she was thirty-one, newly unemployed and living at home with her parents and her younger brother in a house that was way too small house for four people. No, none of that mattered because her cabana boy was coming back with her second mojito.
This time he wasn’t wearing anything at all. Phoebe looked down between his legs with a smile and then up at him. He leaned down, holding the mojito on a crystal tray and whispered in her ear, “Rise and shine.”
“What?” Phoebe asked, her eyes falling shut, her heart speeding up in anticipation.
“RISE AND SHINE!”
A scream went directly into her ear. Phoebe bolted awake, sitting straight up with a gasp. Her dad and brother burst into laughter. Then instantly their laughter stopped, along with Phoebe’s heart. It was a night she had gone to bed naked. And now the covers were down around her waist.
“Meet us downstairs in thirty minutes,” her dad said gruffly. She pulled the covers over her head as quickly as she could but it was too late. The damage had been done. She hated living at home.
The nice part of her dream wasn’t real. The bad part was a nightmare. Once her door was shut, she wanted to scream. She could not stay in this crazy house.
***
Exactly thirty minutes later, Phoebe was downstairs in a sweatshirt and slightly baggy leggings from washing them too much. It didn’t matter. There was no need to look her best where they were going. No, instead she was just going to fade into the background and hope that nobody there even breathed in her direction. She hated going there. The hockey rink.
“Ah, there you are,” her mom said when she finally came downstairs. “Next time, sleep with your clothes on. You never know when there’s going to be a fire and we all have to be outside in thirty seconds!”
Of course, her morning humiliation had already made the rounds. Phoebe rolled her eyes and tried not to scream so loudly that she’d explode. Instead she just went to the fridge and got herself some water.
“It’s my room,” she said. “Dad and Brad just can’t come in there.”
“You know the rules in this house,” her mom said, shaking a finger over the sandwiches she was slopping together. “There are no secrets here!”
“I know, I know,” Phoebe mumbled. That was exactly why she left as soon as she turned eighteen. It didn’t matter if she was thirty-one, eighteen or eight, her parents treated her exactly the same way. Their house, their rules. And there was absolutely no room for discussion or anything else.
Brad came bouncing into the room, wearing his Warriors sweatshirt. “Mom, where’s my helmet?” he hollered, like he was twelve instead of twenty-seven. Phoebe couldn’t help curling her lip in disgust. Brad’s hockey gear always smelled.
“In the laundry room,” their mom said. “Hurry up, we need to get going. We’re wasting daylight.”
Daylight was a relative term. It was about five in the morning and the sun hadn’t even risen yet. Seeing 5 a.m. on a Saturday was pretty ungodly, but that’s how they did things in the Rutherford household. Because everything revolved around Brad.
“Let’s go!” Phoebe’s dad said. He was wearing his Warriors jacket and carrying the camera equipment. Brad had played hockey since he was a kid. Unfortunately, his NHL dreams never came true. Instead, he played for a very competitive city league and for some reason this was a big deal for their town. Probably because everyone was bored to death, being in the middle of nowhere. Brad traveled all over the state and even to neighboring states on the weekends, playing hockey. He was paid, but probably not as much as a manager at McDonald’s. And because this was such a rinky-dink organization, her parents both volunteered. Her dad was the official team photographer and her mom helped organized all the little details that man-children needed, like sandwiches. Phoebe always thought that it was so lame.
But the rule was, everyone in the household had to be involved. Everyone, including Phoebe. She just stood there, listening to Brad whine, to her dad stomping around grabbing last minute equipment and to her mom scraping her butter knife against the sandwiches. This was not paradise. This was Phoebe’s own personal version of hell.
“Let’s get out of here,” Phoebe’s mom called. After a few minutes, Brad had all his equipment packed, her dad had all his equipment and Phoebe was standing near the door, holding a cooler and hating her life.
The rink was a couple of hours away, in a small town that no one would even visit on their worst day. They traveled in a minivan like they were a family with children under the age of twelve, but it was really just Brad, the overgrown man-child who had all his equipment stinking up the back seats. Phoebe sat in the first-row bucket seats in the back and stared out the window. She watched cornfields roll by. She watched the sun come up. She wished for better in her life. Something new and excited. She wished that she believed that wishes actually came true.
>
They hit the ice rink around 8 a.m. Lots of other cars were already in the parking lot.
“We’re going to kick a lot of ass today!” Brad said, as the minivan doors unlocked. “All day, baby. All day!” Her parents laughed as if he were cute and endearing.
Phoebe got out of the van and hoped that the ground would swallow her right up. She stood there while Brad argued with her dad over who was going to carry his equipment bag. She crossed her arms over her chest so her mom might think she was doing something. When she looked across the parking lot for a means of escape, she found herself losing her breath.
There, across the parking lot, was a gorgeous man. Tall, hot, thick biceps stretching his sleeve, shirt tight against his flat stomach, pants tight in all the right places. He wasn’t naked this time. But Phoebe was sure he was the man in her dream.
*****
Phoebe didn’t know how long she’d been staring. It might have been two seconds or two days. But her brother shoulder checked her, hard enough to send her stumbling back and she almost landed on her butt if not for some study sneakers.
“Brad, what the hell?” she yelled in the middle of the parking lot.
“Heads up!” Brad said with an annoying smirk on his face. Phoebe could have punched him if she wasn’t for certain her parents would have her arrested on the spot for assault.
“Can you please,” Phoebe spat out. “Grow up!”
“Saw you staring at that guy,” Alex said, chomping gum that seemed to just appear magically in his mouth.
“So what? No, we are not talking about this,” Phoebe said.
“Just stay away from him,” Brad said. “He’s on the Troy Ice Kings.”
“You don’t tell me what to do,” Phoebe said, pushing past him. Of course that wasn’t true. Everyone told her what to do. But she wanted it to be.
