by E J Elwin
“How do you know?”
“You know things when you’re here,” he said, looking around at the room. “I knew when I showed up and you weren’t with me that something magical had happened. Most people don’t stay here very long, but I knew I should wait, that you would come here somehow.”
He paused and then said: “I saw you earlier.” I blinked in confusion. “It was only for a second. You were naked and wet and bloody… It was really scary.”
I looked at him in shock and then down at my feet, unable to meet his eyes, like I hadn’t been able to meet Harriet’s or Jessica’s.
“Arthur, how could you?” he asked quietly, echoing Harriet’s words. “How could you, after everything we went through?”
The hurt in his voice sliced me up and I forced myself to look at him. “I couldn’t handle losing you again,” I whispered. “I couldn’t handle any of it. I can’t handle any of it…”
He took my hand, his fingers cold as icicles, and led me to one of the tables. I let him guide me to my seat like I had forgotten how to walk, then he sat down across from me. There were two foaming mugs of beers on the table, looking like they’d just been freshly poured from the tap. Connor picked one up and took a hearty gulp from it. I was momentarily distracted from my pain and guilt.
“Is that— can you—?”
“I can drink it,” he said. “Isn’t that funny? I don’t have a pulse but I can still get a buzz going. The power of beer, huh?”
I managed a laugh. His spirit was alive as ever it was. I reached for the other mug and took a big gulp like he did, and was amazed to find that it felt and tasted just like any beer back on Earth.
Connor wiped his mouth and then was serious again. “Arthur, you can’t die yet,” he said plainly. “You just can’t. It’s not time for you.”
“And it was time for you?” I asked. “How does that make any sense?”
“If I had a choice,” he said, “I would have stayed with you, you know that. It wasn’t for lack of trying. We can’t fully understand why it was my time, at least not here and not yet, but it was. I know that much, just like I know it wasn’t your time. You walked away from the car accident with barely a scratch, and then you walked away from being blown up without even a singed eyebrow. I mean, come on, that’s awesome!”
I smiled in spite of myself, at the look of boyish excitement on his face.
“Arthur, you’re a witch,” he said. “You have magic powers. How could you even think of walking away from that?”
“Because they couldn’t save you.”
“They saved you,” he said. “And that’s enough to make them worthwhile.”
I looked into his shining ocean eyes which were so earnest. “It should have been you,” I said. “You should have gotten these powers. What cosmic joke is it that I got them instead?”
“It’s not a joke,” he said seriously. “It wasn’t a mistake or an accident. I’m sure Harriet has already told you that.”
I took another gulp of beer. “I’m only here for an hour,” I said. “After this, I’m supposed to go out and find my sister witches. They call us The Sacred Four.”
“I know,” said Connor. “Someone or something here whispered it to me. You’re kind of a big deal, you know.” He smiled and winked at me. That tiny gesture, that small wink, was enough to show me the depth of how much I needed him, how much I would miss every one of the million little things he did that made me love him so much.
“I don’t think I can do it,” I said. “What they’re expecting of me…”
“Of course you can do it!” said Connor. “You were born for it. You’re not doing it alone either. You have Harriet and your new friends, and there are three girls out there who will be standing with you and who will understand exactly what you’re dealing with. How cool is that?”
I wished I had that light inside me that he had, the one that allowed him to see things in such a positive way. The world as he saw it was full of possibilities for joy and greatness. I had gotten a taste of what that was like when he came into my life, but now it felt like any capacity I had to do it had died along with him, was sitting here in the Halfway Place, soon to be beyond reach forever.
“They could do it without me,” I said. “Harriet, Jessica and her brother Jasper, and those three girls. They could take the Brotherhood down. They don’t need me.”
“Arthur, you know damn well that isn’t true,” said Connor.
“I’m not cut out for this,” I said. “The truth is—”
I broke off, feeling the weight of what I was about to say.
“What?” he asked.
“The truth is, I’ve never felt like I was cut out for life at all. I’ve always felt… wrong, like the world was a place I’d accidentally been dumped in and I really belonged somewhere else, somewhere completely different. That feeling finally started to go away when I met you.”
He smiled and grasped my hand.
“I felt like I could belong somewhere, like I could be someone. But now you’re gone,” I said, my voice breaking, “and I feel like I’m right back where I was. I feel like I can’t do it, Connor.”
He got up and hugged me, and I winced from how cold he was but held him tight all the same.
“You know, Arthur,” he said, “maybe you don’t belong in the regular world. Maybe you never have.” He pulled back. “But you want to know the good news? You no longer live in the regular world. Look at where you are! We’re having beers in another dimension! Your new circle of friends are a bunch of witches! You have powers that people in the regular world can only dream of! You also have something else that most people only dream of— a purpose. You have a mission. You’re meant to do great things. It’s been foretold!”
He opened his eyes wide and put a theatrical flourish on the last word. Only he could manage to make me laugh in such a dark mood.
“Could I share a little truth of my own?” he asked.
I looked into his eyes, drinking him in, because I guessed that most of our hour must be up. He indicated for me to lean in close to him like he was about to whisper some great secret.
“I always knew you didn’t belong,” he whispered. “There was never anything regular about you. It’s part of why I fell in love with you. Even though you’ve struggled with it, it’s what makes you who you are. It’s what makes you my favorite person in the world— any world.”
I wrapped both of my hands in his, warm into cold.
“You do belong somewhere now, though,” he said. “You belong with Harriet and your new friends in the world of witches. And you belong to me, just like I belong to you.”
“I’m not ready to say goodbye,” I said. “I’m not ready, Connor.”
I gave up trying to keep it together and fell apart in his icy embrace.
“Then don’t,” he said. “It’s not over yet. Not this second.”
We held each other there and I kept my eyes open, terrified that if I closed them, he would be gone when I opened them.
“You will be ready,” he said. “Even though it doesn’t feel like it, you will be ready. You still have a life to live… and there it is.” I looked up and turned to where he was looking. A ball of violet light, the color of Jessica’s crystals, hovered by the door. It was about the size of one of the lanterns that had hung over the giant party, except that it was pure light, with no casing and nothing holding it up. As we watched, it began to glide slowly toward us through the air.
“I don’t want to go,” I said.
“I’m not leaving tonight,” he said. “You can come back.”
“Really?” I asked desperately, as the ball of light advanced on me.
“Come back tomorrow night,” he said. “I’ll be here. You can tell me all about meeting your sister witches!”
“Okay!” I said, as the light enveloped me in warmth. “I’ll see you tomorrow!”
He gave me his bright, joyful smile and I smiled back, overcome with gratitude that I still ha
d at least a little more time with him to look forward to.
The last thing I saw before the light completely surrounded me was his smile and those beautiful eyes. I was lifted up into the air, through the ceiling of the pub and the two floors above, then launched into the starry sky, somersaulting through space, spinning and spinning.
I took a huge gasping breath, like I’d just been underwater for a long time, and opened my eyes to find Jessica and Harriet looking down at me, their faces still in the shadows cast by the candlelight.
“Oh, thank goodness,” said Harriet, looking relieved.
“Fifty-four minutes,” said Jessica. “Told you I’d get him back in time.”
The room was no longer beset by wind, the candle flames were now still on their wicks, and the music issuing from the record player, a jaunty 1970s disco song, was at a lower volume.
“Arthur, are you okay?” asked Harriet, looking down at me.
I nodded, then sat up and hugged her. I heard her sniffle but when I pulled back to look at her, her eyes were dry. I then turned to Jessica, who opened her arms wide to embrace me.
“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you so much for sending me there.”
“It’s great, isn’t it?” she said. “What did it look like for you?”
“The pub in Portland where the explosion happened.”
“That’s what I guessed,” she said. “It was different, though, wasn’t it?”
I nodded. “He wants to meet again tomorrow night.” Jessica and Harriet exchanged looks. “Is that okay?” I asked, looking from one to the other of them.
“Of course,” said Jessica. “I’ll be happy to send you tomorrow night. Now, though…”
“Right,” I said. “What do we do first?”
She started to speak but was interrupted by a voice from the shadows.
“The Burned Witch, as I live and breathe.”
It was Jasper, finally out of his meditative trance and looking at me with fascination. His bearded face was lit very softly by the candlelight, but I was able to see clearly that he did in fact have eyes and not the gaping black voids into nowhere that I had seen during the spell.
“Hi,” I said.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Arthur,” said Jessica. “This, finally, is Jasper. Jasper, this is Arthur.”
I stood up to go and greet him and he stood up too. He was just a bit taller than me, like Jessica was. He put out a large, hairy hand and I took it.
“It’s an honor to meet you,” he said, his voice deep and gravelly. “I always believed in the prophecy of the Sacred Four, but I never imagined that one of you would come right to my house. It’s a real privilege to have you here.”
His grip was firm and heavy. He wore a shirt similar to the one of his that I was wearing, bearing a picture of a motorcycle and the same Harley Davidson logo. He both looked and sounded like the type of man who would shout words like ‘faggot’ at me in the street, so it was strange to hear nice things coming from his mouth. I remembered then that he had been born female, that his appearance now was made possible by the dark blue Concealment Crystal he wore on his thick ring finger, and that he had only looked like this for the past ten years of his life. It was hard to fathom, though, because he exuded masculinity so powerfully.
“Thank you for having me,” I said. “And thank you for helping with the spell. Um…” I hesitated, nervous about offending him but consumed with curiosity. “What was up with your, um… with your eyes?”
“Oh, that,” he said. “I’m sorry, did it scare you?”
“Just a smidge,” I said.
“It’s what my eyes look like when I meditate,” he said. “It happens when I leave my body, partially or completely, sort of like what you just did. It’s called astral projection.”
“How do you leave your body partially?” I asked.
“Well, part of my consciousness will travel somewhere,” he said, “but another part of me will stay here, still aware of my surroundings. Only witches with the gift of Sight can do that.”
I was about to ask where he traveled, what other places there were to visit besides the Halfway Place, when Jessica spoke up. “I’m sorry to break this up, guys,” she said, “but it’s nearly ten o’clock. We should get going on finding those girls.”
“Right!” said Jasper, clapping his heavy hands together. “I’ll get the ball!” He strode toward the tall oak cabinet.
“The ball?” I asked Jessica.
“The crystal ball,” she said. “We use it for the tracking spell.”
Crystal ball. The term made me think of small-town carnivals and scam artists, so-called psychics who claimed to be able to see the future and bring prosperity… for a small fee. What I was about to see, however, was anything but a scam, and I felt a surreal thrill as I watched Jasper emerge from the oak cabinet with the exact shiny crystal sphere that I pictured in my head.
He placed it gently on the coffee table, atop a dainty purple velvet cushion. I leaned in and squinted into its depths but there was nothing to see there but clear crystal.
“Will we see them through this?” I asked.
“It’ll show us where we can find them,” said Jessica. “Most likely it’ll be their houses, although it is Friday night, so they could be out somewhere…”
I had completely forgotten what day it was. For two years, I had spent just about every Friday night with Connor. We would go to the movies or to the bowling alley, any place we could be free of our dads breathing down our necks. Most of the time, we wouldn’t actually see a movie or bowl, we would just talk and be together. It was my favorite night of the week. It all now seemed so foreign, so crushingly far in the past.
Jessica knelt down in front of the coffee table. “Ready, Arthur?” she asked.
I knelt down next to her, while Harriet and Jasper sat in the armchairs on either side of us.
“We’ll need a few drops of your blood again,” said Jessica. “I know that you very thoughtfully bled into that perfume bottle but fresh blood is better.”
I held out my right hand, which she very gently took into hers. She picked up her sapphire knife and brought its shining silver tip to my middle finger, where a soft poke was enough to bring forth an oozing of fresh blood droplets. She then moved the blade over the two tall candles she had used for the Halfway Place spell, only this time she held the point over the flame of the white candle instead of the black. Just like before, as soon as it was hit with the first drop of blood, the flame shot up a few inches and turned bright red. I watched the crystal ball for any activity but there was nothing yet.
Jessica cleared her throat and began to chant:
“A witch is lost, a coven is sought
Sisters in arms, in heart, soul, and thought
Guide us to them, through forest or shore
The girls with gifts, the three out of four
A path in the night, a break through the crowd
A bond made of blood, with magic endowed
Reveal to us now, inside of the sphere
The place we may find, the witches so dear.”
As soon as she spoke the last word, the crystal ball glowed with a shining white light that illuminated the whole room. I squinted against the brightness but a second later, the light was gone and the crystal was back to the way it had been— except it wasn’t.
I blinked several times to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. The depths of the ball were no longer clear and empty. There were dark shapes there and flickers of light…
I leaned in closer and audibly gasped as a nighttime city street materialized before my eyes, bustling with life and as clear as if there were a tiny TV screen inside the crystal. Cars drove past and people strode in and out of the frame under flickering yellow streetlights. A small building with a glowing neon sign stood at the center of the moving images.
“The Purple Haze…” murmured Jessica next to me, squinting into the ball. I looked at the sign on the building, which read “The Pur
ple Haze” in purple letters. “Is that a bar?” she asked, looking up at Jasper, who was also squinting at the ball. “That’s a bar downtown, isn’t it?”
“I think it is,” he said.
“What are they doing at a bar?” she asked. “Aren’t they all supposed to be sixteen?”
“Maybe they have fake I.D.s,” I said. “I have one.”
“Ha!” she said, amused. “The Sacred Delinquents, I love it.”
“They’re all there together?” I asked, looking at the building inside the ball. “Does that mean they already know each other?”
“Maybe,” said Jessica. “More likely, it’s just one of them. Either way, the spell will lead us to all three. This is just where we start.”
Then I remembered. “I actually don’t have my fake I.D. anymore,” I said to the room at large. “It was lost in the explosion, with everything else…”
For a second, I was surrounded by roaring flames but quickly pushed the thought away. I caught Jasper’s eye and remembered that he had used his gift to see what had happened in Portland, and could recall those terrible images in his mind as clearly as I could…
“Oh, that’s right,” said Jessica softly. “No worries. We’ll just dust the bartender with some Persuasion Powder. We’ll also conjure you up something to wear.”
She blew out the white and black candles. At the same moment, every other candle in the room went out with them, and all the lamps came back on, bringing the room back to its electric brightness.
“I’ll get the cauldron started,” said Harriet. “Jessica, where do you keep your magazines?”
A few minutes later, Harriet and I stood in the sunroom in front of her rusty old cauldron, and there were bright blue flames burning on the surface of clear water. Jessica had gone up to her bedroom to get dressed. Harriet explained that the same blue flames that could change and disguise faces could also change and disguise clothing, effectively conjuring up new outfits on demand.
The flames danced on the water just like they had when Harriet, Connor, and I had taken turns changing our faces and hair color. It was hard to believe that not even two days had passed since then, when I felt like a whole life with Connor lay ahead.
