by K.N. Lee
"Who did she survive before?"
Lester's question drew Melina's attention away from the conversation and back to the young man walking with her. She shook her head.
"That's really not important."
"I think it is. She lost someone to magic, obviously. She's afraid she'll lose you as well. Who was it?"
"My Father. He went away one night and didn't come back. I can't say magic is responsible. Probably just his nature."
She shrugged the whole thing off and headed for the front door.
"I should drop you off at home."
"I'd appreciate that."
Home. He was going to have some explaining to do. A good bit more than some actually. Skipping school was the kind of thing that had gotten him into trouble in previous schools. Now he was, at least according to his parents, up to his old tricks again. Just what he needed right before embarking on a trip that could save or end his life.
Upstairs in the library, Patricia sauntered in and put her hand on her sister's shoulder.
"Did I hear right? Is she really going to try and reach the Melesan by going between the realms?"
"Yes," Phoebe almost sobbed but refused to show such weakness before her sister, whom she knew probably meant her ill.
"I'll tell Pauline. At least with our wills united, she may have some measure of protection."
Or find herself in a far worse situation than she began.
Phoebe brushed away the paranoia reaching too close her throat and smiled up at her sister.
"Thank you, sister, I appreciate it."
"Anything to keep her from ending up like poor Grimm."
Phoebe found herself concentrating on every one of her sister's footsteps as the other woman moved away. It was hard not to, they sounded, each of them, like a bell tolling at the beginning of a funeral.
11
Sleepover
Charlotte Jameson had taken the call from Sun City High School with a look which had gone from summer sunshine to summer thunderstorm over the course of two minutes. Skipping school again. The thought made her want to smash something. Hadn't they had a talk about this? Of course they had, but this was Lester and while Lester was, at heart, a good boy; he could also be entirely too thickheaded for her taste.
"And do you have any idea where exactly he's gone?"
Murphey, sitting on the other end of the phone, had chosen not to tell her Lester had been seen leaving the property in the company of one Melina Camp, a girl whose name was being banded about in the worst possible way. Instead, he simply said, no one was exactly certain and the young man had been missing for most of the day.
"Thank you," Charlotte said quietly. "Thank you very much, Principal Murphey. I'll have a talk with him just as soon as he makes it home." Then, after putting down the phone, she went about dinner preparations. Dinner would not be late simply because her son was truant. Again. It was the again part which rankled. The awareness he had, once again, chosen to flout her authority as a parent in order to do what exactly... he would have to answer that when he returned from gallivanting about.
Keton Jameson came home to find his wife in that rather icy demeanor he took to mean, immediately, something was wrong. As he had only been in the house two minutes, he could only assume it had nothing whatever to do with him. Instead, and far more likely, it was something to do with their son. He entered the kitchen on cat-like feet and stood leaning against the door jamb, well out of Charlotte's immediate reach and the reach of the knife in her grip.
"What's he done now?"
"Skipped school again."
"And no word from him about it?"
"Is there ever?"
"I suppose not."
With the cause of her sour disposition established as not being him, he slipped closer and planted a kiss on the side of her face.
"Smile for me, sunshine. I'm sure there's a good reason for this."
Keton didn't tell her he was fairly certain that girl Melina was involved either. That premonition was one he didn't want to admit to much less voice aloud. They might have been a family of witches, at least the Jamesons were, but that didn't mean he thought all witches, warlocks, and sorcerers were good news. In fact, he could be fairly certain a good number of them, meaningfully or not, were just bad news.
Dinner, pan roasted chicken, a selection of garden vegetables from a plastic bag, and white rice, was on the table when Lester let himself in the front door. Melina had dropped him off around the block from his house so as not to be seen by his family at all. No use in creating questions. She had enough discretion to understand that idea. He looked at his parents sitting at the table and put his bag down by the door. Instead of going straight to the table, he headed for the bathroom.
The bathroom was blessedly empty, exactly what he needed with the awareness his heart was hammering in his chest hard enough to make his vision spotty. In the car, or even at the coven house, it had seemed so simple to tell them what was going on. Now, looking at their faces across the table, he wasn't so sure. He washed his hands and splashed water on his face, immediately regretting the darkness which spread along the edge of his collar. Now he looked like he'd been trying to get rid of something. Just the kind of thing he didn't need with his mother already on the warpath. Well, he mused to himself, gotta come out sometime.
He made his way back to the table and sat down before the empty place set out for him.
"I didn't dish yours up because I wasn't exactly sure when you'd get home."
"I'm going to guess the school called," he said.
"Why yes, they did. Principal Murphey was concerned about your sudden disappearance." Her voice was all mildness, which Lester knew full well was just a mask for exactly how furious she was.
"Can I explain before you blow like Mount Vesuvius?"
"I'd say you had better. She's been hacking things up with a rather large knife all afternoon, probably imagining one of your limbs beneath each stroke."
The joke fell flat on the table, dead as the chicken.
"Dad already knows that I got the ring of Love the other night, the night Mother Skya died. You both know I was running from something when I disappeared and ended up across country. Well, that girl, Melina, the one you told me to stay away from, she's involved with the same thing. The same creature, woman, whatever is trying to kill her too and that's why I followed her out of the school today. I needed to find out what was going on and how she was involved."
He paused for breath and when Charlotte opened her mouth to say something, he kept going. It was now or never.
"She wants to go meet with the Melesan, the Immortal of Knowledge, but in order to do that we have to go to the places between realms and that's dangerous. I know you're going to say no, but it's really important."
Charlotte closed her mouth with an audible click and Keton who had been in the process of putting a spoonful of the barely recognizable vegetables in his mouth stopped there, mouth gaping wide.
"Say that again?" Keton recovered enough to put the spoon back down on his plate.
"We have to go between the realms which is really dangerous in order to go see the Immortal of Knowledge and find a way not to get killed."
Charlotte screamed. That scream had no words but held exactly every ounce of displeasure she had felt over the past few days plus the fear for her son's life she hadn't quite been able to articulate since finding her son gone from his bed in the middle of the night. Though she wouldn't admit it to herself, she had seen the shadow of a woman that night, standing in the doorway of her son's bedroom. Her mind, ever the clever thing, had made her believe it nothing more than the movement of an unfastened curtain.
"No," Keton was more articulate. He got up and wrapped his arm around Charlotte who rocked in her chair as if she had forgotten how exactly to get out of it.
"No what?" Lester immediately returned.
"No, you are not going out into the middle of nowhere and possibly getting yourself killed."
> "There is already someone trying to kill me, DAD! If I stay here, it comes back. If I stay here, I'm on my own against it and I don't think I'll make it that way, do you?"
Charlotte said nothing, but her sob said more than words could.
"Lester, the answer is no and if you want to make an issue of it, by heaven, I will lock you in that room of yours until you start to see reason."
"You aren't listening to me." He pushed back his chair hard enough to overturn it on the floor, only keeping his own balance by gripping the table. "Either way, I'm in danger. I just want to choose my danger."
"Go to your room. Just go. Get out of here." Keton brushed the whole thing off, his face dark and empty at the same time. He bent his head to kiss his wife on her forehead. She moaned in response.
Lester looked from one adult in his life, his stricken mother, to the other, his overprotective father, and then with a huff departed the dining room, leaving his overturned chair on the floor. The smell of chicken reminded him that not everyone else was having a much better day.
His bedroom was still a half-unpacked notions counter of things he owned. His clothes were for the most part put away and a couple of posters graced the walls, but for the most part, it was still terribly incomplete. Part of him wondered if he would make it back from the trip to finish it up. It didn't really matter at the moment. He fished a gym bag out of the shambles of his closet and stuffed a couple shirts into it. The idea of taking a toothbrush crossed his mind and he had no choice but to laugh.
Yes, let's go fight giant monsters, but I have to stop and brush my teeth first if you don't mind.
It was with those gales of laughter his father was greeted when he entered.
Keton Jameson looked as if he had aged considerably from the time he had spent down at the dinner table. He closed the door behind him and absently flicked the lock.
"We need to talk."
"There's nothing to talk about." Lester continued to pack without looking at his father, the glance at his ashen face had been enough to tell him everything he needed to know, both of his parents were very much bothered by the idea he had presented. Almost as if he had done it just to spite them.
"Lester, you have to understand our position--"
"Which position is that, the one where I'm not trustworthy enough for you to believe me?"
"We do believe you and that's why your mother is currently laid up on bed with enough drugs percolating through her system to kill a small country. She's terrified of what could happen to you. What will happen to you if you do this."
"What about what will happen if I don't? Did you think about that? What if that thing comes back here and tries to kill me? It burnt down a house around a man, Dad. Killed him and burnt down his house for his ring." Lester shoved the offending object under his father's nose. "For a little piece of silver. That is what my life is worth. Is that all it’s worth to you?"
The blaze in his eyes didn't abate. For the first time, he truly noticed the line of connection between him and his father. It was strong, thick, almost a chain and pulsed with flakes of star swirling through the red. Another, similar chain led out of the room through a wall to Lester's mother, the love of Keton's life. Lester took a hold of that chain in his mind and yanked.
"And if my life isn't worth that much, what about Mom's? It burnt down a house. It didn't stop to check if everyone was gone. How do you think Mom would do against something like that?"
"Lester, don't you dare throw that up in my face."
Keton Jameson's voice had dropped to the level of a whisper and for the first time since he was about seven years old, Lester was actively afraid of his father enough to have sweat pop up on his brow.
"Dad, I'm sorry. It's just..."
"This is too important for you not to risk. I know. Trust me, I know."
The weariness was enough to drag Keton down to the bed, where he sat, looking at his shoes for a long moment. When he looked up again, the first touch of tears were in his eyes.
"If you go, you promise you'll come back."
There was something small in that voice, childlike, and frightened.
"I plan on it. I really do, Dad. I don't want you and Mom to be afraid, but I'm scared too. I'm so scared I'm thinking I might not go, but if I don't go, I risk bringing that thing back here and leaving Melina to face whatever is out there on her own. You raised me better than that."
"I hope I did. I also hope I raised you strong enough to come back in one piece."
Keton Jameson, father of one Lester Jameson, departed from his son's room with a sigh, not at all like the near roar with which he had entered hoping to dissuade his son from a course of action which - amounted to near suicide. Lester found himself sitting in the same spot, in a position which mirrored his father’s, except he kept his head up and looked at the mirror across from the bed. It showed nothing but a boy sitting on a bed, but that boy was him in another place, maybe a place where he didn't have to face the possibility of fighting dragons or some kind of killer demon trying to destroy him.
Then again, there could be something worse in that mirrored world. Lester let out a nervous chuckle. Better to stay here and deal with the known, if only barely understood threats than to trade for perhaps for a much worse position.
Night was drawing along, the moon moving through her stately dance across the sky toward dawn. It twirled high at midnight when Lester finally made himself move. He opened the door to his bedroom and stuck his head out, listening for the sounds of his household. His parents, safely tucked away in their own room, were mostly quiet. The sound of soft snoring was very familar after so many years of closeness.
In the preceding hour, Lester had considered asking one of his parents for a ride back to the house out in the middle of nowhere, but he felt it was probably better, and less likely to cause a lot of tears he wasn't prepared to deal with, if he simply found his own way. That left actually finding his own way. The dancing moon looking down through his window as if checking to see if he was watching offered him no solutions. Instead, he found himself wondering at the old stories of a woman in the moon who aged as the year wore on until at the first full moon of the new year when she was reborn. It was a silly story, but just the kind of tale which made the most sense to think about just now.
He shut the door to his room and sat down on the edge of the bed again. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. How? His muttered the word aloud as he thought it.
From the level of his chest, somewhere in his ribcage, something thrummed like a guitar string strummed and he looked down. The lines of connection with his parents were still thick, red, and clear. There were others, smaller, faint things in the moonlight almost transparent on their own. Except one. One more stood vibrant and alive in his vision.
Melina.
He'd noticed in school, but before it had always happened when she was much closer. Now, though he was certain she was far away, there it was again. Beautiful and solid. He touched the string with his finger, it vibrated under his touch and held.
"I need to get to her, but I don't know how."
The answer rose up like the moon over the eastern horizon. He had run away as he was screaming for his Dad, the one person he hoped would protect him against whatever Cassandra really was. It had carried him hundreds of miles and nearly dropped him in his Father's lap. Couldn't he get to Melina the same way? Getting up, he shouldered the bag he packed. There was a way. With sure steps, he went to the door of his bedroom and concentrated on Melina as he had seen her, not the last time when she let him out of the car outside of his house, but as she had stood in the library talking to her Mother. He recreated the sound of her voice as she spoke and, unconsciously, the heartbeat in her chest. His magic could feel and hear so clearly.
He put his hand on the doorknob and pulled the door open.
The hallway stood before him.
"Okay, that wasn't it," he said letting out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding. It
came out as a slow sigh as he closed his eyes, his ears pounded with his heartbeat.
The breath of wind across his face chill and full of the smell of water and grass like the forest near Melina's house shocked him into open his eyes again.
"What?"
He was standing not far from the rocks where they had spoken with Gergot. Turning around, he could see the lights of the house in the near distance.
"How?"
The only thing he had felt was a sudden lightness. Now here he was.
"Hey!" A voice called to him, a figure appearing out of the dark coming up from the river.
"Hey?"
"You came back." Melina smiled. "I almost thought you wouldn't."
"If it were up to my parents, I wouldn't have, but I knew I couldn't just leave you to handle this stuff on your own." He adjusted his bag and threw an arm around her shoulders. "Are we about ready to do this because I’m afraid I may lose my nerve if we have to wait too long."
"We need to get Phoebe and Gergot, and some supplies. Unless you brought some candles and focus stones with you in your pack."
"My family doesn't really do this magic thing, so no, just a change of clothes or two."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
He trailed behind Melina as she walked away.
"I didn't mean anything by it," he said.
"Yeah. I know."
The moon danced toward dawn without stopping, heedless of the preparations going on beneath it. Melina gathered all that was needed. Gergot watched. Lester attempted to stay out of the way. Phoebe occasionally offered advice. By the time 2 a.m. had darkened the sky even further, they were prepared. The gargoyle led the way out to the ritual circle and sat at the edge while the humans, those with opposable thumbs and no claws, set the circle and brought the flames to life.
Gergot and Phoebe, despite her reservations, had practiced the spell necessary to send those who wished into the Wilds and it was to her the gargoyle turned once the circle was set.
"Are you ready?"
"Yes, but I wish we weren't." Phoebe clasped her hands in the manner of prayer and began to speak. The wind whipped up by her voice carried her words away, spreading them over the grass and the trees and the river beyond. The circle of flame became a circle in truth as the flames at the tip of each candle lengthened and swirled. Inside the ring, Gergot stood with the children, one wing protecting each of them from the rushing wind which began to howl in a single low tone around them. The fresh scent of river water was replaced with salt and brine, the howl morphing in the crashing of the sea upon rocks. Ankle deep grass was replaced by the feeling of gritty, gravely sand.
