Shadow Realms

by M K Mancos

  Sadly, I hadn’t considered that perspective before. I thought it was more a power thing. Using two mages or witches, or combos in order to generate more concentrated spells to vanquish stronger shadow beings.

  I ran a hand over my heart as unease spread through me.

  We were back on our way, but my mind spun in fifty different directions. There was so much to do, and no time to do it in.

  The tugging in my chest increased the closer we got to the city. It had become downright uncomfortable, and I started to squirm in the seat and rub my hand over the spot.

  Colvin looked over and stared at my hand. “You need an antacid or a trip to the ER?”

  I shook my head and tightened my jaw. Panic laced from the cord attached to my heart. Not mine. Hers. I pressed down on the accelerator, and we shot forward, passing cars and weaving in and out of traffic.

  We arrived in the City and was immediately greeted by gridlock. I found a parking garage and pulled in. At this point, it was faster getting to the Village using public transportation.

  I can’t say how I knew we needed to go to the Village, but I was certain of our destination. I wasn’t going to question my intuition on this case.

  The closer we got to the nexus, the greater the number of wells cropped up on street corners, alleys, the front of buildings, and sidewalks. Not to open fully, only to make a wink that showed their intent.

  No way we had enough devices to place on every location just in case.

  My phone vibrated on my hip, and I pulled it off the holder. My sister Maddie.

  Hey! Just met a girl who can see time shifts. So weird.

  I didn’t text her back. I called her. This was too important to leave to chance. “Where are you?”

  “Well, hello to you, too,” she answered with a bite of offense in her voice. “I’m at the store.”

  “Is the girl you just met still there?”

  “No. She said she was going back to her hotel.”

  Panic lanced through my body like one of those medieval swords popular in historical dramas. “Did she mention where she’s staying?”

  “No, but she did mention it was on the Jersey side of the Hudson.”

  I ran a hand through my hair. “Do you know how many hotels are over there?” The question was rhetorical, Maddie’s answer was not.

  “Don’t get all pissy with me because I didn’t think to do an in-depth interview. I just thought you’d find it interesting. No need to bite my head off.”

  I stopped for a moment and took a deep breath to clear my head. “It is interesting. Too interesting.”

  By the Hand, I didn’t want to have to come clean with my sisters. I wanted nothing of my life touching them, but it looked as if the shadow realms were coming. If that was true, I had an obligation to warn them. Keep them safe.

  “Maddie, do me a favor. If she comes in again, let me know. I want to talk to her.”

  “All right. She said she’d be back tomorrow. She wants to interview us for her doctoral dissertation on generational witches.”

  Now that was unexpected. Caught off guard, I let my mind blank then race at the implications. Was she an agent of the shadow realms taken human form, or merely what she appeared—a witch like the Dorans?

  “Any other information?”

  “Not really.” There was a pause. “Are you in the City?”

  “Yes. I’ll be there soon. Don’t you or Kara leave the shop until I get there. Got it.”

  A slight hesitation filled the phone. “Yes. What’s going on?”

  “Your new friend isn’t the only one seeing time wells.”

  Six

  Kells

  New York in the 1920s was filled with congestion and chaos. The dirt and the smell took me by surprise, even as I turned to try and go back the way I’d come. My heart beat a constant drum in my throat, and my breath panted between my open lips. A full-court press of a panic attack eased over the horizon and landed square on my chest.

  Even as I stretched out my hand to try and make it back through, the portal narrowed.

  “No. Don’t do this.” The words fell as a desperate whisper from my dry mouth. I licked my lips in a nervous gesture.

  Every bit of magic I ever possessed came as a surge of lightning from my fingertips.

  Startled, I screamed.

  A flash lit the cross street. A small temporal explosion lifted me off my feet and straight into the path of a delivery wagon.

  I raised my arm—as if that was going to stop a ton of animal, wood, goods, and men. People shouted. Someone grabbed me under my arms and pulled me to safety. I looked around, trying to find my savior, but found only the surprised gazes of dozens of witnesses.

  “Who?” I pointed to the crowd that had gathered, but all I got in response was a few head shakes and questions after my health.

  Shaking, I scrambled to my feet and stood, unsteady, as those around me continued on with their day, not realizing how close I ventured to a breakdown. The closer I moved to the edge of the curb, the more my heart dropped.

  No sign of the portal remained. Not even a glimmer. I was stuck in the past with no way to get home to my own time.

  Panic was an acid taste in my throat. It coated my tongue until I had to clamp my teeth together to keep from throwing up.

  Any other time I’d have said, time travel…whoo hoo…but not this instance. Not only had I traveled almost a hundred years into the past, but I was a walking anachronism. Not even the money in my wallet matched the currency of the day. Most of my other funds were tied up in credit and debit cards. My clothes weren’t outrageous for 2018, but for the 1920s, they were beginning to cause some stares. Considering I was most definitely a woman, even more so.

  I brushed the dirt from my backside and sent up a quick thanks that I hadn’t landed in horse turds. The streets were teeming with a mosh of both combustion engines and their four-legged precursors. Honestly, my wits deserted me. Oh, I had enough about me to be able to figure out I couldn’t just show up at a hotel and hand them my debit card and expect to get a room.

  And that thought scared the shit out of me.

  I hitched my bag higher on my shoulder and held it tightly. I needed to find a newsstand and look at the date on the paper. Not so much the day and month, but the year. Had Prohibition started, or had I been plunked down in the months and years before that monumental mistake?

  People continued to stare at me as they walked by. The driver of the wagon gave me a dirty look and a few choice curse words as if a portal snapping shut was my fault.

  Of course, it might have been. Fear can generate an awful lot of power. If I’d thought it might help, I’d have told him where to stick his damn horse and wagon. Unfortunately, venting my horrible anxiety over the situation wasn’t going to get me out of trouble. What I needed was a job and a coven.

  The first of those might be easy to find if I was stuck someplace before the stock market crash of 1929. Judging from the fashions and the fact it looked as if the majority of the citizens still had hope, I’d bet it was sometime earlier.

  I ran down the list of possible jobs I might be able to hold in a city so far removed from my own time and came up with only a few that were legal and a couple that weren’t.

  First things first.

  A newsstand sat on the corner. I ambled by and stared down at the copies at the top. 1923. I searched my memory for anything that happened in New York in 1923 and didn’t come up with anything of note. Then again, I wasn’t strictly a history major. I don’t know why my mind went there—I guess whenever I’d seen time travel movies there was always a purpose to the travel. Some kind of mission or wrong to right. I’d be pissed off if I’d gotten thrown back like a latter-day Marty McFly only to realize I couldn’t save the clock tower.

  “Hey, lady, you going to stare at that paper, or you gonna buy it?” The surly voice came from the guy behind the wooden counter. He had a cigar clamped between his teeth and spoke around the end of it.
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br />   He looked like every hard-nosed New Yorker cliché that had ever been clichéd.

  I lifted a shoulder and affected a bored demeanor, despite the fact my hands still shook. “I was hoping it was going to dance, but I see it’s sitting this one out.”

  His shoulders began to shake, and a phlegmy cough came from the back of his throat. His lips pulled back into a semblance of a smile. The sparkle in his eyes told me he’d found my sarcasm amusing.

  He plucked the cigar from between his lips and used it to gesture. “You got a smart mouth for a dame.”

  “Yeah, well. It’s part of my charm.” I slid my hands down into my jacket pockets to hide the shaking. “Know of any jobs around here? I need one fast.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Look like you need a doctor more’n a job.”

  “What?” I rubbed at my face and my fingers came away sticky with blood. It must have been from flying debris during the portal explosion. “Just a scratch. If it was worse, I’d have felt it. Head wounds tend to bleed harder.”

  He clamped the cigar between his teeth again. “You sound like you got experience with that. You a nurse during the war?”

  It took me a few minutes to realize he meant World War I.

  “No. I studied anthropology in college.”

  “Anthro-what?” He shook his head. “Sounds like a lot of mumbo jumbo to me.”

  “It’s the study of man and cultures.” My explanation didn’t seem to faze or impress him any.

  He gave me a quick up and down. “That explains the weird clothes.”

  “Yes.” Easier to agree with the statement than argue. I just thanked the good goddess above I wasn’t wearing yoga pants. That might have gotten me arrested. “So, a job. You know of any?”

  “You might try Bollinger’s factory over on Kent. Or D’Lespie’s Deli down the street. They’re always hiring.”

  “Which raises a red flag as to why.” I thanked him and walked down the street. I had no idea where Kent was located, and I hadn’t heard the name on my few trips to New York of the future. Hell, street names changed. It might not even exist in my time. With nothing to lose, I decided to keep moving until I either found the places he’d mentioned or a business with a help wanted sign in the window.

  Fear dogged every step I took. For someone who had a master’s degree and made it their life’s work to study cultures, I was horribly afraid I would be stuck in the past and never see my home and friends again.

  I’d survive. I knew that. I didn’t really have a choice. Belief in myself was never in question, but not trusting another portal would open and allow me back to my time hovered in the back of my brain like an unmerciful ghost.

  Before I did anything, I needed to make myself look more presentable and wash the blood off my face. Plenty of people walking the streets swerved to get out of my way, though I posed no threat. Maybe they thought the blood was from a fight, or my pores spontaneously opened and bled. Whatever. I didn’t have time for historical nonsense. I needed to find a job and a place to stay and to figure out if there was a coven nearby.

  Not a coven of people who practiced witchcraft as hedge magic, but real generational witches like the Dorans and me.

  In 1923 New York there may have been quite a few, but I didn’t know them or a way to discover where they lived. It wasn’t like their names were in the local occult directory.

  I came to the corner and stopped. A trolley car ambled down the road to pick up passengers. A man in a dark coat brushed against my arm and turned around to say excuse me. Something in his eyes caught my attention and my talent spun out of control along with my head.

  Up was down and down was up. I became so dizzy I stepped closer to the side of a building to keep myself from falling. Visions pummeled me from every direction. Voices out of time and place. This was much different than seeing the time streams opening. No, these were only in my head and before my eyes. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make sense out of any of them.

  Hands on my shoulders again. Soft words in my ear.

  I was guided inside a dark room and down a hallway. A tiny nimbus of light came from around a door. My rescuer pushed on the wood, and hinges creaked as it opened up to a small but commercial-grade kitchen.

  I was forced into a chair and made to sit.

  “Tea. She needs tea.” The voice was female, deep and held an Irish lilt.

  “Poor dear is hurt. Someone’s bashed her wee head.” This voice sounded much like the first but more soothing.

  I sat there as a mug of hot tea was placed in my hands and I was given instructions to drink it.

  “You were the one almost stuck by that horse in the street.” Back to the first speaker.

  I still hadn’t opened my eyes, afraid if I did everything would spin. I lifted the cup to my mouth and steam painted my upper lip in warmth. I took a cautious sip.

  The irony wasn’t lost on me. Whenever I looked like I needed help, someone always shoved a cup of tea in my hand. Not that I minded. I loved tea.

  One of the women poked a finger to the middle of my forehead. My ears popped, and the spinning slowed to a crawl, which eased over a series of agonizing minutes. All right, so someone inside the room had some power. I wasn’t sure what kind, but it was power, nonetheless. At the moment, I’d take what I could get.

  Slowly, my eyes focused and I took in the sight of my rescuers. They were about as alike as a swan and a badger. Nothing in their physical characteristics suggested they were related. One was tall and regal, though wore a practical starched cotton work dress. The other was round, short and had arms like a linebacker. Both women were probably in their early to mid-forties. The first touches of gray in their hair.

  The tall one pursed her lips and turned toward the store front. “I have to get back to our customers. Make sure she drinks all the tea before she tries to get up.”

  I took another cautious sip to show her I was compliant. Those dark eyes of hers relayed more than her no-nonsense manner that not doing as I was told would be hazardous to my health.

  When she’d gone, the short one brushed my hair from my face and patted my cheek in a motherly way. She was the one with the soft voice—so incongruous to her appearance. “Never mind Mathilda. Drink what you can, and we’ll pour the rest down the sink.” She gave me a conspirator’s wink then walked to the sink in question and opened a cabinet above. “I’m going to wash your wound and see if it needs further care. I’m a right good hand with a stitch. My brother was always getting into mischief. Lord love and keep him.”

  I got the distinct impression her brother had passed but didn’t feel I should intrude and ask. “Thank you for bringing me inside. I had a sudden dizzy spell out on the street.”

  She made a huff of noise. “Yes. Well. It’s what one does.”

  I took another sip. The tea had started to cool, and I noticed the hint of healing herbs mixed with cinnamon and cloves instead of just hot.

  She turned back and came to the table armed with a cloth, small bowl of water, soap, and rustic bandages. “It looks as if it’s stopped bleeding, but it might start up again when I knock off the newly formed scabs.”

  “It’s all right. I’ll stop bleeding again.”

  She gave me proud smile. “That’s the spirit.”

  As she moved closer, I noticed she smelled of the kitchen. Not sweat and the evidence of hard work in a hot environment, but of cookies, dough, and the cinnamon from the tea. The scent was wholesome and honest.

  “What’s your name, child?”

  “Kells.”

  She stopped and looked down at me with a surprised expression. “Short for Kelly?”

  “No. As in the Book of Kells.”

  She stared at me for a moment, then shook her head as if clearing it and went back to work.

  “Is something wrong with my name?” My talent flared, and I saw she and Mathilda over a small bonfire in the woods. They were much younger at the time, which didn’t make sense since my visions usu
ally went forward, not back. Perhaps I picked up on something from her memory, though I’d never been able to do that before either. The time portal had messed with me more than I’d originally thought.

  She dabbed at my head. “No. No. Unusual is all.”

  I decided to veer off from my name and ask hers.

  “Oh.” She gave a little laugh. “I did forget to introduce myself in all the commotion. Beatrice. Most people call me Bea.”

  She stepped back and admired her handiwork. “I’ll just put a styptic on it and stop what little bleeding there is. It won’t hurt a bit.”

  I remember my grandfather using one of those. He’d always winced when it hit his freshly shaved and nicked face. However, I remained stoic. An odd feeling came over me where I felt I needed to stay strong in front of these two angels of mercy. I don’t know what compelled it, but it sat around my neck like a talisman.

  “Thank you, Bea. I appreciate you and Mathilda.” I wrapped my palm around the tea cup. “You wouldn’t happen to know of a job in the area, would you?”

  “Child, we are always looking for help. If you’ve a mind to put your hand to mixing herbs.”

  “I can do whatever someone pays me to do.” My voice had a ring of practicality to it. I smiled at her with all honesty. “However, I have helped my aunt to mix things in the kitchen. She makes holistic medicines in North Carolina.”

  Bea raised a dark brow. “I just bet she does.”

  It was that knowing look of kind meeting kind that put the thought in my head that nothing about this trip through time was a coincidence. Not entirely. And no, I didn’t think Bea and Mathilda were responsible. I believed they were an intervention.

  Seven

  Malachi

  We hurried to the Village, following the tug on my soul. The scent of ozone grew heavier as we neared the shop. The corner adjacent to our destination transfixed me. Pulled me closer. I went with the feeling, never thinking for a moment not to go where it led.