by KT Webb
“Hey, Grace! I got you some punch,” said a boy she hardly recognized. Shane.
She jumped slightly as she heard the name whispered to her by a disembodied voice. In other circumstances, she may have believed her mind had suddenly recalled the name, but this time it was almost like he was telling her his name without moving his mouth.
“Thank you, Shane,” she accepted the punch from the now-beaming boy.
She remembered me!
Grace furrowed her brow at Shane. His mouth hadn’t moved. How was she hearing him speak? She shook her head and took a sip of the drink in her hand. Grace continued making her rounds and discovered that Shane wasn’t the only person communicating to her through a psychic connection of sorts. She didn’t know what was happening, but she shrugged it off as coincidence. She must have been remembering their names as they had told them to her.
A few kids moved to the dance floor leaving a break in the crowd. She saw a group of girls standing together at the edge of the party. She’d never seen them before. Two of the girls made eye contact with her almost in unison. The chills that ran through her body were undeniable; their eyes were so like her own. Just like the girl from her dream the night before. The memory came to her all at once; red hair, green eyes, black smoke and dark figures. As the lights whirled around, they caught the unearthly green hue in their eyes and amplified it to the point that Grace was certain their eyes were glowing.
Some of her guests stepped into her line of sight and blocked her view of the strangers. When they moved out of the way, the girls were gone.
“Let’s dance!”
Someone caught her hand and dragged her to the dance floor. She let the music work its magic on her and she swayed and moved with the others. A guy grabbed her wrist and twirled her around to face him; Shane. He pulled her close for a slow dance and placed his hands on her waist.
I can’t believe I’m this close to her.
Grace snickered a little. Maybe she was going crazy, or imagining things. She hadn’t slept well the night before so she could be suffering from a lack of sleep. Every time she’d drifted off she had ended up dreaming of the girl with red hair. In her mind’s eye, she locked eyes with the girl again; she was surrounded by darkness and screaming in agony. Harper. The name surfaced in her mind like a long-forgotten memory.
“Grace, are you okay?” Shane whispered.
She shook her head. “I’m fine. Why?”
“You’re really pale. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I’m fine, really. Thank you for the dance. I’m just going to go take a seat for a bit.”
As she rushed off the dance floor and away from her party, she caught sight of the mysterious party guests again. Despite her curiosity at their attendance, she didn’t want to stop to find out who they were. She needed to get away from everyone and take a deep breath.
Someone called her name but she ignored the plea. Once outside of the crowd, she found the relative silence and darkness left her feeling disoriented. Grace sat down on a bench near her favorite tree. She leaned forward and closed her eyes.
“Don’t move, daughter of Samhain.”
Great, more voices. She stayed where she was and waited for the dizziness to pass. Strong hands grabbed her shoulders and dragged her backward off the bench. Grace let out a yelp that was cut short by one of the hands covering her mouth. Someone flung her over their shoulder and began to run with her. She struggled against the man but couldn’t get free. Her mouth was uncovered so she screamed as loud as she could.
“Grace! No!” An unfamiliar voice called to her.
She tried to see who was calling to her but only managed to catch a glimpse of four glowing emeralds floating in the darkness.
Grace
Chapter Ten
Kidnapped
She had no idea where she was. After being carried across her lawn she felt a strange energy current rush through the air. The temperature dropped and the South Carolina humidity disappeared.
“Put the girl down. I have the altar ready.”
The alarms went off in her head; what were they going to do to her? She was lowered onto a cold, hard surface. She strained her eyes against the darkness. Rough hands grabbed her hands and feet, and she struggled against them.
“Don’t move, witch.”
She wasn’t given a choice; one of the men began binding her feet together. Grace flinched at the sound of metal against metal. Was he sharpening a knife? How many of them were there?
As her hands were bound together a flame sprang to life nearby. Her eyes could make out three looming shapes—they must be her kidnappers. With her hands and feet tied together she couldn’t exactly get away.
Grace began to twist and pull at the ropes holding her in place. No one noticed her movement. From the light cast by the lantern, she could see that they were in a small clearing surrounded by trees. She was lying on a stone table that one of them had called an altar. That could only mean one thing; these guys were psychotic devil worshippers.
A blindfold slid over her eyes as one of the men roughly tied it behind her head, snagging her hair in the process. Before she could recover from the sting of having her hair pulled, a hot pain sliced through the skin on her chest.
“Ahhh!” Grace screamed.
Another slice was accompanied by a warm oozing sensation spreading over her shoulders. She winced and struggled against the ropes again. There was no hope for her now, she was going to die. The knife cut into her again as she fought to remain conscious.
Snap. The sound reverberated through the clearing. Grace allowed herself a few shallow breaths as she desperately tried to free herself once more.
“Well, crap,” a female voice muttered.
“Ah, Daughter of Beltane, we weren’t expecting you. Dub, grab the girl. We’ll deal with her in a moment. I can’t stop the ritual now.”
Dub? What kind of name was that? She didn’t know who Beltane was but it didn’t sound good for her either. Grace could feel her heart beating wildly against her chest. The pain of another cut shot through her and she wriggled to get away.
“Don’t fight me, daughter of Samhain. We need every drop of that blood for the sacrifice.”
She gulped. That was the second time one of them had referred to her as a daughter of Sa-win. But, it was the first time they’d mentioned the words blood and sacrifice. She struggled again, this time the rope fell away with no warning. She pulled the blindfold off her eyes.
Something was wrong with her hands. A pale green light emanated from them.
“What the. . .”
Before she had time to ponder her sudden ability to glow, one of the men turned to capture her again. Flinging her hands up in front of her, she realized the men were suddenly floating.
Grace looked between her hands and the men a few more times before violently flinging her arms to stop them from glowing. Instead of stopping, it intensified. The men flew in three different directions; each landing with a thud against a tree.
Grace didn’t stop to see if they’d get up; she ran. She needed to get as far away from them as possible. As she stumbled blindly through the darkness, using the fading glow of her hands to light her path, she wondered where they had taken her. They hadn’t put her in a car. How could she be in such a strange and different place?
She was losing a lot of blood and felt woozy. Grace tried desperately to get her bearings but between the darkness and blood loss, she felt disoriented. A hand clapped over her mouth from behind and she fought to get free. She had been so close to freedom.
“Shhhh! Don’t move.” It was a girl’s voice. How had she forgotten the girl who had interrupted the ritual?
“Ouch! Would you stop it? Do you want them to hear us?”
Grace fell still and silent. She took a few steadying breaths when the hand released its grip on her mouth.
“You’re bleeding! What did they do to you?”
Grace looked down at her chest. She had thr
ee long slices on her chest. One along each collar bone and one running the length of her sternum. Blood was still streaming from her wounds, and her dress was ruined. She closed her eyes as a wave of nausea came over her.
A jolt of energy surged through her and the pale green light started coming from inside her. The light grew brighter until the cuts healed from the inside out. She reached up and traced the faint lines that remained until they faded completely.
“Wow. Grace, this is gonna sound crazy, but we’re here to help.”
She whipped around to face a pair of stunning jade eyes.
“Harper?” She asked.
“No, I’m Sutton. This is Lucy, and that’s my friend Dee.”
“Who’s Harper?” The girl identified as Lucy asked.
“I don’t really know. . . I just. . .”
“Had a dream about her?”
Grace sucked in a breath of surprise, “How did you know?”
Lucy stepped forward and took both of her hands; “Because I dreamt of you before we found you. In my dreams, I was too late to save you from those men.”
“You’ve seen them? Who are they?”
“We’re not really sure yet. They tried to kill me, then they came looking for Lucy. Now, they’re after you. Which means logically. . .”
“Harper’s next,” Lucy whispered.
“I saw you guys at my birthday party.”
Dee pulled out a notebook, “Hmm, today is your birthday? That means you were born on the Summer Solstice. Lucy was born on the Spring Equinox and Sutton the Winter Solstice. Which means we need to find Harper before the Autumn Equinox.”
“Who are you people?” Grace demanded.
Sutton looked around and shook her head. A twig snapped nearby causing all four girls to go into high alert.
“We have to get out of here. Those guys used a portal or something to bring you here and it took us awhile to figure out where you ended up.”
Grace sighed. “Would you please just help me get home?”
“No way. You can’t go back home.”
“But my parents won’t know what happened to me!”
Lucy put a hand on Grace’s shoulder, “I know it’s hard, but you have to leave them behind for now. For some reason, we’re all connected. It’s better if your parents think you were kidnapped than for those men to return to your house looking for you.”
She knew Lucy was probably right, but she still didn’t know who these girls were. They showed up at her party uninvited then followed her through a—did that girl say a portal? She was snapped back to reality by a crackling blue hole.
“Is that. . .”
“A portal.” Dee finished her sentence.
“We all go through together so we end up together on the other side. I still don’t really know how this whole thing works,” Sutton said.
Grace wasn’t exactly reassured by her words, but she did as she was told. So far, it seemed more prudent to stick with these girls than it did to take her chances with the men she’d escaped. They stepped through the portal, and into a large empty room.
“Where are we?”
“My grandpa’s old hunting cabin in Michigan. It’s been abandoned for years. Mallory always wanted to get back up here and fix it up. We just never have,” Lucy said, shrugging her shoulders.
Grace decided it was time to get some answers; “Okay, now that we’re away from those psychos, who’s going to tell me what this is all about?”
Lucy and Sutton exchanged a tense look.
“I think you should probably sit down for this,” Dee suggested.
Grace
Chapter Eleven
The City of Witches
“I’m sorry, we’re what?”
“Witches. I know, it’s a lot to swallow but it’s true,” Sutton told her.
“But who told you all this? What makes you think I’m one of you?”
“Well, first, the eyes. It appears all of us have the exact same color of eyes. Second, your hands were glowing green when we found you in the woods. Mine glow purple when I do magic,” Lucy shared.
“Mine glow blue.” Sutton held her hands up and wiggled her fingers.
“What about you?” Grace asked Dee.
“Oh, I’m just along for the ride. I didn’t want to get killed after the trio of crazies showed up at my house with their menacing weapons and murder threats.”
Grace was still trying to wrap her mind around all the crazy things she’d learned. Apparently, she was a true witch. Not like the crazy lady who had a shop in her town; Grace was an actual bona fide witch. There were three men after them, and somehow Lucy’s great aunt was involved too. Now Sutton, Dee, and Grace were all “missing persons,” on the run from who knows what.
“Sutton, I could really go for some pizza right now,” Dee said with a wink.
Grace raised an eyebrow but Sutton rolled her eyes.
“I only actually conjured food once, and it was ice cream.”
“Fine, we can eat ice cream,” Dee sighed.
Lucy smiled and nudged Sutton. “Let’s give it a try.”
Grace had learned that the other two girls were practicing their control over their powers, but they admitted they weren’t very consistent. They kept waiting to just suddenly know what they were doing. Grace didn’t feel any different, so she didn’t think she’d be much help.
Lucy and Sutton closed their eyes and held hands. Dee sat with her arms folded and watched her friends concentrate. Grace felt a shift in the air around her as blue and purple light mixed together and the smell of freshly baked pizza permeated the air. The girls let out a whoop when they opened their eyes to find a steaming hot pie with extra cheese sitting on the coffee table.
“We did it.”
“What, no breadsticks?” Dee whined.
Grace laughed. Now the only other thing she needed was a change of clothes. There was no way she was going to run around in her now torn party dress. She joined the girls as they dug into the pizza.
Lucy showed them to two bedrooms. One had a double bed, the other housed a set of bunk beds. Sutton and Dee volunteered to take the double which left Grace to share a room with Lucy.
“Here.” Lucy tossed a t-shirt and a pair of yoga pants at Grace. “They might be a little long on you, but they’ll be more comfortable than your dress.”
“Thank you.”
Once she was changed, she climbed onto the top bunk. The blankets were extremely dusty, but the bed was comfortable and they had a roof over their heads. It didn’t take long for her to drift off to sleep.
“Have you figured it out yet?”
She was standing in what looked like a museum. Harper was casually leaning against a counter, looking directly at Grace.
“Figured what out?”
Harper tossed her fiery red hair over her shoulder. “What’s going to happen next. Once you guys find me you’re going to figure it all out.”
“Where are we?”
“In my home away from home. You’ll find out soon enough.”
Grace was getting tired of riddles from the strange girl. She tried to look around to get a better idea of her surroundings, but every time she tried to focus on anything it faded away.
“You have to get here before my birthday. They’re looking for me now. I can feel them coming.”
“How do I find you?”
Harper threw a quick look over her shoulder then leaned in to whisper, “Look for me in the City of Witches.”
Her eyes flew open. The sun was up, but Lucy was snoring lightly in the bed below her. She leapt down from the bed and shook Lucy.
“Where is the City of Witches?”
“Huh? Dude, I’m sleeping here.”
“Wake up! We need to find Harper. Now!”
The other girl opened her bleary eyes, “What are you doing?”
“I had a dream. It wasn’t like the other one. I dreamt I was talking to Harper in a museum. I don’t know what kind of museum, but I could jus
t tell it was one. She told me they’re coming for her now and we have to get there to help her.”
Lucy blinked a few times while Grace stood in front of her, dancing back and forth. The raven-haired witch threw her hands in the air and left to find the other girls. To her surprise, Sutton was in the living room, wide awake.
