by E J Elwin
She fanned her wings out like she had when she’d flown into the clearing, and did a cross between flight and a leap as she fluttered down gracefully into the creek. She glided effortlessly across the water, barely moving her body at all, her long curving neck perfectly S-shaped.
Swans were commonly seen as elegant creatures, with their smooth movements and their ability to both fly and swim. Before meeting Deidre, I might have agreed. Now I found them unnerving, the smooth movements sinister, the S-shaped neck reminding me of an upright snake, a cobra poised to strike. Gliding there in the creek, she looked like some demented bath toy. It was still difficult to link this dark swan to the poor child I had just seen, and even to her small grayish-brown form.
I knew that the purpose of this vision was to show us how she had become involved with the Brotherhood, and I wondered how exactly that was going to happen as she swam in this creek at the center of this beautiful isolated place.
A noise in the trees behind us made us all jump. We turned and I felt another prickle of goosebumps on my arms as a masked member of the Brotherhood crept out slowly from between the tree trunks, wearing the same all-black outfit that I was now so used to seeing. He was tall and broad, and I wondered if he was one of the forty-something we’d killed in the clearing. He held his gun steadily out in front of him, clearly on the hunt.
He spotted the dark swan and instantly darted behind a tree. His eyes were wide through the eyeholes of his mask as he watched her glide across the water. Just as he raised his gun, the swan suddenly dunked her head beneath the water and went upside down, tail feathers pointing straight upward and black webbed feet kicking water into the air.
The man lowered his gun, looking frustrated that he’d hesitated to take his shot. The water bubbled and splashed around the upside down swan, sending wide ripples throughout the creek, then she vanished beneath the water. A moment of silence went by, long enough for the ripples in the water to stop, and then the swan re-emerged— except it wasn’t a swan anymore.
What I at first took to be black plumage was instead a head of long jet black hair, clinging soaked to the milky pale skin of a woman in her early thirties.
The adult Deidre retained a faint echo of her younger self. She had the same porcelain doll features but they were much more defined and severe, as if she had whittled them to be sharper. The cinnamon-colored eyes were darker and harder than they used to be. Yet, even though they were clearly marked by time and trauma, there was also a certainty there, a firm sheen of confidence and power.
The masked member of the Brotherhood gaped at Deidre with an open mouth. It was clear that he had known he was hunting for a shapeshifting witch but had never actually seen the transformation. Both he and our group watched in fascination as Deidre ran her hands through her long black hair and then began to do a smooth backstroke through the water. She was naked, her pale breasts peeking out from beneath the water as she swam backward, eyes closed, looking entirely relaxed. She reached the edge of the creek where she had entered and then kicked off from it back in the opposite direction.
The masked man stared, his mouth still open, and I wondered if he was under a spell. Maybe Deidre had known that she was being hunted and had released some sort of defense against her pursuer, in the way that we had hidden Persuasion Powder in tree branches.
She reached the center of the creek again and floated on her back, eyes looking up at the orange sky and arms spread out to her sides like wings. The masked man now had a clear shot at her. He could run up to the edge of the creek right at that moment and shoot her cleanly in the chest, but he just stood there, his gun held loosely at his side.
Deidre took one last dip beneath the water, then swam to the edge of the creek where we stood. The masked man shifted nervously behind his tree as she stepped out of the water, her body completely bare and glistening wet. There was no towel or clothing in sight but she looked fully at ease as she wrung the water out of her hair. Her human movements were graceful and sinuous like a swan’s.
Suddenly, there was an electronic crackling, a burst of radio static. All of us and Deidre turned in the direction of where the masked man hid behind his tree.
“Tiger Shark, please come in?” came a man’s voice out of the static. “There’s no witch out here, man, and it’s getting dark. How’s it looking on your end?”
I moved to get a better look at the man behind the tree and saw him fumbling with a radio. “N-no sightings here,” he stammered, in what he clearly thought was a quiet voice. “Go ahead and head back to base camp, I’m going to do one last sweep.”
“Copy that, Tiger Shark,” came the man’s crackling voice out of the radio.
The masked man hastily turned off the radio and stuffed it in his jacket. Deidre remained where she was, staring curiously at the tree behind which the man hid.
“I see you,” she said in a clear voice. “Why don’t you come out and face me?”
The man froze in fear but then slowly peaked out from around the tree.
“I-I’m putting it down,” he said loudly.
Incredibly, he held his gun out to his side and then slowly lowered it to the grass. If it was Persuasion Powder he was under, I would have expected him to have shot himself already. Instead, he stood up, nudged the gun away with his foot, and faced Deidre with empty hands.
“Why?” she asked. “Why aren’t you trying to kill me? Tiger Shark?” She put smirking emphasis on the last two words, looking entirely unfazed by the idea of a pack of men hunting her in the woods. “What kind of a code name is that, anyway?” she asked.
“I, uh…” the man stumbled, “I was a big fan of Jaws as a kid.”
Deidre raised her eyebrows, amused. “So was I. That was a Great White, though.”
“I know,” he said quickly. “Tiger Shark just had a better ring to it, you know?”
“It does,” she agreed. “So, why aren’t you trying to kill me?”
“How can I?” he asked. “How can I when… when you’re so beautiful?”
All of us gaped dumbfounded at the man. I thought for a moment that this might be a farce, that Jasper’s spell must have gone wrong and that this vision was some mawkish fantasy.
“You think I’m beautiful?” asked Deidre. She registered no surprise at the man’s statement, and her question wasn’t mocking or sarcastic. She simply sounded curious as to whether or not the man had meant what he said. The whole thing was absurd, and I wondered if they were both totally insane.
“I think you’re exquisite,” the man said breathlessly.
“And you?” Deidre asked. “Why don’t you take off that mask?”
The man jumped and scrambled to take off his mask, as though embarrassed to still be wearing it. He whipped it off and threw it on the grass beside him next to his gun.
He was much younger than I had expected, in his mid-thirties at most. He had dark brown hair and bold, angular features. He had a light shadow of a beard like he hadn’t shaved in a day or two, and his chestnut-colored eyes watched Deidre nervously.
She was quiet for a moment, regarding him thoughtfully as though he were a complex art installation, tilting her head to one side and then the other.
“You’re beautiful, too,” she said finally, as though announcing a long-deliberated verdict.
She stepped toward him, still dripping wet, the fading orange light glinting off her skin. The man audibly took a sharp breath but held his ground. She stopped when she was only a few paces from his face. Then she reached out and touched a hand lightly to his cheek.
“A beautiful specimen,” she said in a soft, dreamy voice.
The man looked puzzled at her choice of words but was entranced all the same as she caressed his face. She brushed her fingers delicately over his dark brown hair, like he was a fragile, expensive object she was afraid of breaking.
“I’ve been hurt by men,” she said, “and women.”
“I won’t hurt you,” the man said firmly. “Never.”
<
br /> “Promise?” she asked. Again, it was something that anyone else in her situation would have said in a laughingly disbelieving tone. She asked it with utter sincerity.
“I feel crazy for saying this,” said the man, “and maybe I am crazy. I’ve never believed in love at first sight, no matter how beautiful a woman might be. But I believe in it now.”
“Love at first sight?” asked Deidre. She pursed her lips in a tight smile as she glanced down at the man’s lower body. He cleared his throat nervously and shuffled his feet in the grass.
“Sorry,” he said, his cheeks turning pink. “But I do mean it. I can’t explain it. It isn’t… something you’re doing, is it? Some spell?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” said Deidre softly.
“Then what’s happening to me?” he asked. “Something’s happening…”
Deidre stepped closer to him, her breasts grazing his jacket.
“I think I know what you mean,” she whispered. She leaned in as if to kiss him, her lips inches from his. He trembled, but then she pulled back. “Come take a swim with me,” she said.
She stepped back into the creek, sending new ripples across the water, and began to backstroke toward the small waterfall spilling over the rocks across from us.
The man watched her like he couldn’t quite believe his eyes, then he snapped to his senses and scrambled to pull off his jacket just as he had with his mask. Underneath, he wore a long-sleeved black shirt, which he quickly pulled off. He had a thickly muscled body that hadn’t been readily apparent under his bulky jacket. A muscle twitched in his back as he bent to untie his black boots. He then removed the black socks underneath, and then his black pants. Finally, he wore only a pair of white undershorts, his only item of clothing that wasn’t black.
He stepped one foot into the water, hesitated, then stepped back and removed the white underwear. The last lingering beams of orange light faded away as he waded into the creek, and the sky turned to a cool, inky blue. Nighttime was on the horizon as the man paddled to the small waterfall where Deidre was letting the cascading water fall through her hair. She watched as he swam toward her, then they gazed into each other’s eyes with a look that I recognized. It was the look of two people realizing that they had just happened upon something extraordinarily precious and rare.
Nightfall accelerated in the sky, and the indigo tones of twilight gave way to a black starry sky. Deidre and the man vanished in a dark blurry haze, along with the surrounding rocks and trees. I blinked and looked around at the now familiar meadow in the Irish countryside.
“There you have it,” said Jasper. “That’s how Deidre Lane became our traitor witch.”
“They fell in love…” said Lizzie softly.
“A witch hunter in love with a witch,” said Sylvie, amused. “It’d be kind of romantic if they hadn’t killed all those witches and then tried to kill us.”
“So they fell in love,” said Hortensia, with the air of trying to understand an equation, “and this random member of the Brotherhood just convinced all the rest of them not to hurt her?”
“They’d be enticed by her enthusiasm to kill her own kind,” said Jasper. “Also, by her ability to find witches using magic. The methods the Brotherhood uses have never been very effective. They’ve killed a lot of people over the centuries, but remember that most of them weren’t witches. They’d be excited to be able to find actual witches with very little effort.”
“What about Magick Malevolent?” asked Hortensia. “What were they hoping to get out of that? Other than summoning a demon and killing us, I mean. They had twelve hearts already before they even knew about us.”
“I’d say Deidre wanted some demonic gifts for herself,” said Jasper. “That’s the most common reason a witch does Magick Malevolent.”
“But what was in it for the Brotherhood?” I asked. “She had them running around chasing people like Harriet, Connor, and me, just so they could give her a power boost?”
“It’s arguable that killing witches was its own reward for them,” said Jasper, “whatever happened to the organs afterward. It’s also likely that Deidre planned to give them some demonic gifts.”
“She could do that?” asked Sylvie incredulously.
“It’s happened before,” said Jasper. “Non-witches being possessed with harmful spirits and demonic powers. The hefty tribute of thirteen witch hearts certainly suggests that it was part of their plan. It’s extremely dangerous for the non-witch, who is permanently altered into something less than human. They stay that way even after they die, and even if the spirit or demonic power is cast out of them. Just like with a witch practicing Magick Malevolent, a non-witch would have to be insane to agree to undergo something like that.”
Insane. “They were for her boyfriend,” I said, and they all looked at me. “That man we just saw with her. The demonic powers would have been for him.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” said Jasper. “There could also have been a little something in it for the Patriarch. The Brotherhood already has a wide reach, but imagine them with a demonically empowered leader. They would be… a formidable foe.”
“A vile villain,” said Hortensia softly, echoing the words from the prophecy.
“It’s a good thing we whacked them all then, isn’t it?” said Sylvie lightheartedly. “Really dodged that bullet— or, bullets.”
“Did we?” asked Lizzie. “We don’t know for sure if the man we just saw was in the woods last night. Most of them were still wearing masks at the end…”
“I took some blood from every body in that clearing,” said Jessica. “We can always test it and see if he was there.”
“He was there,” I said. “He wouldn’t have let Deidre go into that clearing without him.”
They all looked at me again, and Connor’s name hung unspoken in the air.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” said Sylvie. “They can’t do Magick Malevolent without a witch, and Arthur flame-grilled her ass like a ribeye steak.”
“You mentioned you used two out of the three feathers for these visions?” I asked Jasper. He nodded. “What about the third one?”
“I’m keeping it,” he said, “in case there’s another question that comes up about Deidre. The feathers each yielded a single vision to answer a single question. I didn’t want to use them all and then later find that there’s information we need to know about her but have no way of getting. It’s not like we can find her again and gather some more feathers or blood…”
I saw the squawking burning swan in my head again. “Sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be!” he said, waving a big hand. “You did what you needed to.”
He reached out and found a doorknob in midair. A long shaft of light split the starlit Irish meadow, and the third floor hallway outside the Illusion Room appeared before us, looking as unreal as a painting in the midst of the endless grassy landscape. He beckoned us politely through like a doorman, and we all walked back into the brightly lit house.
The afternoon sunlight shined across the third floor hallway through the two tall windows at either end. We had to have been in the Illusion Room for two hours at least. It was so easy to lose track of time in there, moving between night and day in an instant, not to mention different time periods and locations around the world. Sylvie, Lizzie, and Hortensia then decided that they wanted to go up to the library and get a better look at the vast selection of books on witchcraft.
“Jessica, do you mind?” asked Lizzie.
“Never!” she said. “Please, enjoy yourselves!”
They headed for the staircase to the fourth floor but then stopped and turned to me. “You coming, sister witch?” asked Sylvie cheerfully.
“I think I’ll pass,” I said. “I need a nap and a shower.”
“Hmm, that actually sounds like a good idea…” she said, before shrugging her shoulders and following Lizzie and Hortensia up the stairs.
“I’ll levitate you girls up some iced tea!” H
arriet called after them, and they shouted their thanks as they hurried up the stairs like excited schoolchildren.
Alone with the three adults, I seized my chance. “Connor wants to meet again tonight,” I blurted out. “I’m sorry to be a bother, I would do the spell myself if I could, but—”
“I’m happy to do it for you,” said Jessica. “But…” She looked uneasy, and I could sense what she was about to say, the way she and Harriet so often sensed what I was going to say.
“I’m a little concerned for you, Arthur,” she said, and my guess was correct nearly to the word. “People don’t often stay in the Halfway Place as long as Connor has. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing— it’s actually very impressive and a testament to your bond— but I feel like it’s keeping you from moving on. He won’t be able to stay there forever…”
“I know,” I said quietly. “I’ve thought about that. But he is still there… And I can’t not see him, you know?” She nodded in understanding but still looked troubled.
“I’ll do it,” said Harriet suddenly. “I’ll send him.”
“What?” said Jessica, caught off guard. “I really am happy to do it, honestly—”
“No, it’s fine,” said Harriet, glancing at me. “I think it should be me this time.”
“I’ll be secondary,” said Jasper.
“Honey, are you sure?” asked Harriet. “Don’t you need your rest?”
“I withstood those two visions just now without falling over, didn’t I?” he said. “I’ll nap for the rest of the afternoon, but wake me up in time for dinner.” He smiled and ruffled my hair like he had the previous night, then went off to his bedroom and closed the door behind him.
Harriet and Jessica went downstairs while I went for a quick stop in the Wardrobe Room for some new clothes to wear after my shower. When I got down to the second floor bathroom, which I felt strangely drawn to despite the horrible scene I’d made in there, I saw Harriet standing outside her bedroom a short distance away. She approached as soon as she saw me.
“I just wanted to say,” she said, “that I agree with Jessica. I don’t think that continuing these visits to the Halfway Place is very healthy for you.”
