by E M Graham
It loomed at the end of the tunnel-like space. The medallion could only be hidden behind it, yet when I examined the rusty padlock, I could tell by the layers of dust and grime on it that it hadn’t been disturbed for decades, except when I lightly touched it the other night. No one had handled that lock since then.
Yet it was inside that inner cellar, it was unmistakable now, that’s where my sensors were locating it, faint though the impression still was. I set down my knapsack onto the dirt floor. I was still carrying around the tools I had collected from my house, those old-fashioned iron keys which I might be able to use to jerry-rig the padlock. If not, I had an assortment of hatpins and screwdrivers too that would help me get past this barrier.
I’d studied lock picking the summer I was twelve, after binge reading a bunch of British children’s books - The Famous Five, The Secret Seven – all stories of intrepid children who led amazingly free and rich upper middleclass childhoods during the Second World War. They were leftovers from my grandfather’s upbringing which were still lying around the family library. I was confident this lock would not get the better of me.
If I had only stopped to ask how the medallion could get behind the door without Willem having touched the padlock, I might have saved myself a bunch of grief, but I guess I just wasn’t on top speed that night.
The lock wasn’t budging, anyway, no matter how hard I picked at it, and the sound of raised voices from above caused me to leave off it as I tried to hear what was going on up there. There were three voices. Willem, Alice. My heart sank as I recognized the third. Brin, and he sounded very agitated.
I grabbed my bag and stuffed everything inside it including my phone, and stumbled through the dark to the old wooden stairs. When I reached the top I quickly took in the scene before me, Brin gesticulating, his shadow like a dancing spider in the candle light. Alice had transferred her adoring gaze onto the elf, and I could tell she wasn’t acting anymore.
Willem merely stood stock still, flabbergasted and furious and speechless at this rude interruption of his imagined seduction of my friend. His eyes darted over to me as I burst through the curtain and a look of understanding and triumph replaced his anger as he realized what I had been up to.
He laughed casually and turned away from Brin.
‘Didn’t find what you’re after, did you?’ he said, sneering as he did so. His malicious eye caught mine. ‘I’ve hidden it well.’
He turned back to the elf faction and dismissed them. ‘Leave,’ he commanded them. ‘Dara and I have business.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘We’re all going. Come on, guys.’
Willem laughed again. ‘No matter. You have my number,’ he said. ‘I’ll expect a call. After all, that’s the only way you will ever get your hands on your little treasure, is it not?’
‘What is it to you, Willem?’ I asked, tired now. ‘What good is it to you?’
He paused before answering as if savouring the moment. ‘You’re right, I have no use for the object itself,’ he said, then continued. ‘There’s magic in that medallion, but it’s magic gone wrong.’
He saw the effect his words had on me, and pushed on. ‘So it’s no good to me whatsoever except that you want it so badly. I can use your assistance with some... work. You know how to find me. I’ll expect a call before the end of the week.’
HE HAD ME OVER the proverbial barrel. I did want that medallion he had secreted away, for it was the first hint of my mother I’d had since her disappearance. It was my only clue as to what had happened to her. And I knew it had been meaningful to her.
But he said magic gone wrong. I shivered. What did he mean by that?
We rode our bikes slowly back down to Water Street and to the old station, Brin keeping pace.
Along the way, the elf tried to explain, offering excuses as to why he had gone against my orders. He knew he had pissed me off.
‘I could see through a crack of the curtain,’ he said. ‘And that creature, that sorcerer, was mesmerizing this precious gift and I could see he meant harm, he wanted to use her for his nasty ends. I could not allow it! As an Elf and a gentleman, I could not let that happen!’
‘Alice was fine,’ I told him. ‘It was an act. Wasn’t it, Al?’
‘It was very brave of you, Brin,’ she said. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her smile at him as he strode alongside us.
‘Come on,’ I said roughly as we turned into the yard, giving a small spurt to the bike. ‘Let’s get you back where you belong.’
I found the spot where we had landed back in real time, the grasses all trampled by our feet. Alice came to join me.
‘Not you,’ I instructed her, motioning her away with my arm. ‘Just him. I need to flip into Alt and drop him back.’
I watched as they approached each other to say their farewells. All this back and forth to Alt had exhausted me, to say nothing of the debacle in Zeta’s store, and I just wanted the evening to end. I needed to go home and curl up on my bed and think.
Alice left off their embrace and looked to be leaving the scene, heading back towards the footbridge, but she stopped midway and called out to me. ‘Why can’t Brin stay?’
‘He doesn’t belong here,’ I said, turning to her with a sigh. ‘It may be dangerous for him.’
‘It’s dangerous for him in Alt,’ she said softly. ‘All the elves, his own people, have rejected him because he’s different, and everyone else there hates him because he’s an elf. He should stay. He wants this, desperately.’
Alice, who had been in total denial of the supernatural at the start of this evening, had become a true believer.
‘It doesn’t work that way,’ I told her gently. ‘Now come on, Brin, let’s go.’
I turned back to him but he wasn’t there. In the faint light from the distant streetlamps I could see a long shadow running through the grasses toward the shrubs and trees growing along the river’s edge. With his long lean frame and elf powers, I knew he could easily leap the river or at least wade through it before I could catch him and haul him back to the world he was desperate to leave.
‘No!’ I cried as I watched him disappear into the shadows. He was gone.
‘Sorry,’ Alice whispered to me from the bridge. ‘But Brin needs to stay here.’
How could I explain to Alice that this action of his might cost me my future career, all my dreams of witch school and being taught to do the one thing I was good at? If Hugh’s elders got so much as a whiff of this I would be banished before I even arrived in Scotland, my magic would be bound and my life in total tatters. Even my pseudo trust fund from Dad would dry up, I knew, for he wouldn’t have to pay me to keep my powers leashed. The elders would do that for him.
12
MY LIFE WAS NOW OFFICIALLY and irrevocably a bust. The only saving grace was the fact that Hugh was thousands of miles away, safely across the wide North Atlantic Ocean in Paris and could have no inkling of the damage I’d done. For that I was truly grateful.
How would I ever convince Brin to go back to his own dimension? This world held hidden dangers for him, used as he was to the realities of Alt. Even a simple act like crossing the road would be a hazard for the elf, not being familiar with modern vehicular traffic and the speeds reached by cars even on city streets. He would be like a child here.
And where would he live? How would he eat? He had no birth certificate, so was a non-person in the eyes of the law and could not even legally hold a job. Brin was now an illegal immigrant, but a case which would surely confound the system.
This was foolishness, I would have to somehow deport the elf myself. I stormed and cussed at Brin in my mind, not admitting my own fault in this at bringing Alice over to Alt in the first place just to prove a petty point.
And Willem, God, what price was he planning to exact for that medallion? I couldn’t even imagine what he wanted from me, but whatever it was, I would have to do it just to get my hands on the medallion, the only clue to Mom’s disappearance.
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br /> And on top of all that, I still had to do that paper, that stupid paper for Folklore. I played with the idea of just not bothering, and mentally calculated what the lack of a term paper would cost my final grade. Nope. It had to be done or I would flunk the semester and Hugh would use it as an excuse to cancel my education on his Scottish island.
My life sucked so bad I turned up the volume on the boom box to eight. Might as well spread the misery around, and I totally ignored Maundy’s wailings from the next room.
Of course, there was no way I could even think of working on my paper, not when my life was so shit. For lack of anything better to do, I grabbed the more interesting of Hugh’s pile of books, the Encyclopedic Knowledge of How Everything Works. It had been written before World War II, that’s how ancient and out of date it was, but at least it had pictures and diagrams in it, so I flicked through and learned all about steam engines. Then locks from the medieval era, then early filmography. Like, how this crap was ever going to be helpful, I couldn’t see. Hugh was just out to punish me, give me a hard time in order that I could prove my dedication and jump through all his hoops. Really?
BEFORE GOING TO BED for the night, I checked my phone. I’d been so miserable and wrapped up in my own troubles I had totally forgotten about it.
Jack.
Crazy busy on this end with Mom’s events & the band. How’re things with you?
Our date the other night had sort of fizzled out. My head had been too full with my new dilemma of finding myself falling for a normal guy just when I was on the brink of reaching my true magic potential – a guy who couldn’t even sense ghosts, for God’s sake! That could never end well - look at what had happened with my parents. Not that I was tied up with all the traditional Witch Kin rules like Dad was, but still. I had told myself I couldn’t allow myself to be distracted by Jack.
Yet we had kissed as we parted, and damn! I liked him.
Same old, same old. Well, I certainly couldn’t tell him the truth, could I? Couldn’t tell him how I’d gotten mixed up with an evil (yes, I’m sure he was evil) sorcerer and brought an elf over in to this world.
I didn’t think there was anyone who could understand my dilemma and help me out of it, at least no one who would act with sympathy. Hugh, Dad – they would both be furious.
Unless... perhaps Sasha? I sat up straight on the bed and considered this latest idea very carefully, looking at it from all angles in terms of possible negative fallout on me and my future plans.
My half-sister, the legitimate offspring of Dad, owed me big time for last September. At least, she did morally, in a way that maybe only sisters would understand.
Once, we had been fast friends until life and the actions of grownups had gotten in the way. As teenagers, she and her friends had terrorized me in high school, she acting out of fear and her friends acting because they were asshole Witch Kin kids who looked down on half-bloods like myself. Things had come to a head this fall when her ill-chosen boyfriend tried to kill Alice, and we had sort of made up our differences and called a truce. Sort of.
But now it was time for payback. She owed me and I planned to collect on the debt.
WE MET IN THE BASEMENT cafe in the Sciences Building at the university, far from her usual gathering space at the top of the Arts Building, that glorious airy coffee house that the Witch Kin kids had claimed for their own hang out. Sasha, in her thigh high suede boots and tightly fitted dress from a Montreal designer looked out of place amongst the denim and flannel clad Biology students and the IT nerds who occupied the rest of the tables in this dingy old space.
‘No,’ she said, her sleek black hair moving like a waterfall against her shoulders as she shook her head. ‘I’m not having any part of this.’
I hadn’t even gotten to the bit about Willem, just told her of the Brin dilemma.
‘And what are you doing flipping into Alt?’ she asked in a scandalized tone, leaning closer over the table to me. ‘How the hell do you even know about that place?’
Hugh had explained to me that only the topnotch witch students were allowed to take the course on Alt, and that was only after courses of study in which the rules were explained to them. Not like me, who had found the place on my own. I was still sort of smug about all that.
‘I’ve always known about Alt,’ I told her, letting a note of scorn enter my voice. ‘I mean, it’s all around us isn’t it?’
That made her go quiet, and I rejoiced in that small victory. But only for a moment.
‘You’re going to be in so much trouble for this,’ she said, a tiny smile forming on her lips. ‘When Dad and Hugh find out.’
‘Sassy,’ I said, purposely calling her by her old childhood nickname, the one only I had used. We had been so close, once upon a time. ‘Don’t. Please. You know I have to go to Scotland after Christmas, and if this gets out I don’t stand a chance. I need to contain the damage before it goes any further.’
She shrugged. ‘And what do you want me to do about it?’ My sister stared across the table at me, her expression unreadable now. ‘I’m not getting involved in your mess.’
‘I thought... I thought maybe you could talk to the elf and convince him to go back, tell him why he needs to return to Alt...’ Even as I said the words, I realized how weak it sounded. Brin had made his choice and now that he had his so-called freedom, nothing would dissuade him, even a de Teilhard Witch would hold no sway on this wayward elf.
‘Of course, you could always try to magic him back to where he belongs,’ she said casually. ‘Seeing as how you’re such a powerful witch.’ She raised a finely manicured eyebrow at me.
Well, that was something I couldn’t do actually and I had no idea if she knew that or not. Hugh had helped me learn some things about using my power, but only as it related to me, to things I could do like sending my mind flying out over the city, or learning how to camouflage myself so that I blended into the background. I’d never been able to touch another being with my magic, and Hugh had expressly said that spells were, quite frankly, bullshit. But Sasha seemed to think otherwise and she set off a flare of hope deep within me.
‘Can you help me with that?’ I asked her quietly. ‘I haven’t gotten that far with my education.’
‘No, little sister, I cannot be of assistance there,’ she said, standing up and preparing to leave. ‘I have to go for a fitting for my ball gown. You know, the big do that the Witch Kin have every year to kick off the Yule season? Oh, you obviously don’t. It’s invitation only.’
She leaned down to speak closely in my ear, away from the gob-struck nerds who sat around us, awed at her presence. ‘And only witches get the invitations. So what does that make you?’
My half-sister straightened up again, but continued in a low voice. ‘You’re either a witch or you’re not. If you’re stupid enough to go messing about with things you shouldn’t, with things that are beyond your control, then perhaps you need to learn a lesson. Perhaps despite that innate power you claim to have, you’re not fit to be a witch if you don’t have the wisdom to figure out the consequences of your actions before you act.’ She leaned closer to hiss into my ear. ‘Perhaps this is why half-bloods are not welcomed into the Kin.’
She gave a smirk and with a toss of her beautiful hair, sashayed out of the cafeteria, leaving me to sit and stew in thoughts of revenge - sweet, unattainable revenge. We were sisters, yes, but would never be equal for Sasha would always be the oldest and the full blood witch, while I would always be the castoff half blood.
But there was also truth deep within her words, and that’s what hurt the most.
THAT BEING SAID, she had put an idea inside my head, one that buzzed around like a bee and wouldn’t quit.
If I could only get my hands on a book of spells, surely I could work some magic and get Brin to go back into Alt before he caused me grief. I had no training in spells, true, but how hard could it be?
The only real problem was, I didn’t know where I could lay my hands on said
book. The libraries in town were useless, even the one at the university, for I had already scoured them all for anything magical. Perhaps I could sneak into Dad’s house, there was probably something in his office...
And I laughed at myself. There probably was a lot of good stuff in his house which would help me if I was to be so foolhardy. Even if I could let myself in, Cate would smell my presence and have me brought before the Witch Kin so fast my head would spin. Worse, all my support would be cut off and I’d have to go trade school, be a plumber or something.
Out of the question.
The only other person I knew who worked in magic was Willem. He wasn’t involved in the Kin, in fact like myself, he was shunned by them. He was a creepy guy, yes, but this was my future was at stake. I couldn’t take the chance that Brin would behave here in real time because, well, because he was an elf and they were notorious for their self-absorption - he simply wouldn’t realize he was misbehaving. If any hint of my inadvertent actions came to Dad’s ears, then my future was finished.
The only catch was I might have to explain to the sorcerer the whole situation in order to request his help. Unless... unless I maneuvered all my ducks in a row.
I walked over to the student center deep in thought. Willem would have no love for the elf, for I’d seen the desire in the sorcerer’s eyes, the longing kindled by Alice. Brin had stymied his attempt at the seduction. Willem would be on board with sending the elf back to where he belonged.
After climbing the stairs to the center where I planned to buy myself a slice of pizza, a buzz of laughter interrupted my thoughts. Looking up, I saw a gathering of students, all clustered around a table but keeping their distance, and there in the center of the crowd bobbed a tattered black silk hat. I stretched my neck to see around their backs, and my heart sank.
Jesus, that frigging elf was here at the university and making a spectacle of himself. He had a sub sandwich before him, and was picking out the bits which looked distasteful and laying them to the side. This wasn’t so bad, but he was singing loudly to himself as he did so, a long and monotonous elven song which must have caught people’s attention. He looked like a mad man, with his spindly long legs and arms and the hat set askew on his head. The pointy ears were painfully visible through his untidy long hair.
