by E J Elwin
The man— no, not man— the monster looked up at me, and chills of terror ran up and down my body. His eyes were a gleaming acid yellow. His face retained its basic shape, the human-like nose, mouth, and brow, but his skin had changed to a rough dark green. Most of his clothes had been torn off, and he flexed bare green limbs. Sharp black claws grew at the ends of his hands, and his legs bent at a strange angle. His human feet were gone and replaced by clawed green paws. He looked like a cross between human and crocodile. Some reptile demon… I thought, remembering the books I’d read in Jessica and Jasper’s library.
I felt sick and dizzy, my body throbbing all over from hitting the wall and from my dad’s blows, but I clenched my fists and forced them to ignite. My yellow orange flames sparkled before my eyes and I took strength from them, from my wondrous gift. The monster padded toward me, his clawed feet thudding on the stone floor. Then he spread his wings.
My breath caught in my throat as I watched the demon rise into the air, his massive dark green wings webbed like a bat’s. I threw out my hands and launched a torrent of fire at him but he dodged it. The flames flew at the wall behind the sanctuary and struck a hanging tapestry, which instantly caught fire. The demon flapped his wings and zoomed straight at me, kicking out his clawed feet. I felt a shooting pain across my chest as I flew backward onto the stone floor.
The monster laughed a hissing laugh and then spoke. His voice had remnants of the man I’d heard by the creek in the vision, even as the sound of the demon dominated it:
“Come on, Burned Witch!” he said, in a taunting tone like my dad’s. “You fight like a girl!”
There was an ear-splitting crash as one of the stained-glass windows was shattered, then the monster was thrown off his feet and vanished from my sight. I blinked around disoriented and then Sylvie appeared before me, gliding smoothly down from the air. I felt like I could cry from the joy of seeing her. Her hair and clothes were soaked from the storm outside but otherwise she looked unscathed. She smiled down at me, her hazel eyes shining.
“Sorry we’re late,” she said, holding out a hand to help me up.
Hortensia materialized out of the wall next to the shattered window, wielding her quarterstaff. She looked like she had just climbed out of a lake but grinned when she saw me. I expected to see Lizzie, Harriet, and Jessica follow in after her but remembered they couldn’t walk through walls. The stained-glass windows were just out of climbing height, but perfect for Sylvie. I looked around at the monster, who was blundering to his feet and watching us furiously with his acid-yellow eyes.
“Maybe I fight like a girl,” I said, “but not as good as they do.”
Deidre’s piercing squawk suddenly rent the air and I quickly grabbed onto the nearest pew to keep myself from being thrown against the wall a third time.
When it was over, I looked around at Sylvie and Hortensia, who were watching Deidre with mocking expressions. Sylvie stood a few feet back from where she’d been but otherwise they both looked unharmed. Sylvie had probably been thrown backward by Deidre’s power, but being the Hanged Witch, she couldn’t be harmed by falling and had presumably landed smoothly on her feet. The blast of the squawk had of course blown right through Hortensia.
“Oh, that’s cute!” said Sylvie sweetly, raising her sword. She started toward Deidre, but the winged monster suddenly leapt up from where he’d been sent by Sylvie’s flying kick, and reared up in front of us. “Ugh, gross,” said Sylvie as she looked the monster up and down.
“Deidre, go!” the monster yelled in his half-hiss, half-human voice. “I can handle them!”
Deidre vanished and was replaced by the dark swan. She spread her wings and flew into the shadows behind the votive candles, to where I assumed there was a back door to the church.
“Coward!” Sylvie shouted after her. The monster screeched and bared razor-sharp white teeth. His breath smelled like blood and rot. He lunged at Sylvie and she swung her sword at his bare green chest. A thin line of red appeared there and he let out a spitting hiss. Sylvie then shot up into the air and kicked him in the chest with both feet, just as he’d kicked me. I watched with pleasure as he flew backward and had to flap his wings to stay standing.
Hortensia lifted her quarterstaff up to shoulder height, the silver blade shining at its tip, then hurled it at the demon’s chest. I was sure it would strike him directly in the heart, but then he swung a claw through the air with surprising speed and slapped the weapon to the floor.
I took that moment to throw out both hands and launch another jet of fire. He flew into the air and just barely dodged it, hissing in anger as the flames grazed his clawed feet. The fire shot straight for the table of votive candles which exploded in a burst of yellow orange light. The wooden table and a second hanging tapestry were then set ablaze.
The monster screeched above us, beating his wings. I thought of the time a pigeon got into my bedroom in Wineville, and I’d watched it flutter around the ceiling as I tried to catch it.
“Alright,” said Sylvie, “this is where I earn my stripes.”
She gripped her sword and flew up toward the ceiling after the demon. It was nightmarish and yet captivatingly surreal, watching the green monster and the sixteen-year-old girl do battle in the air. She darted around him, gracefully dodging his attacks, and it was clear that he had only just started to fly a few minutes ago. No match for the Master of the Air.
Sylvie dived as if diving into a pool and rose up behind him. There was a gleam of silver and purple crystal, and then the monster shrieked in pain. He flailed wildly in the air, blood raining down on the pews from the long slash wound on his back. Sylvie hovered several feet above him, watching his pain with a wide smile, when he suddenly shot up at her.
She was caught off guard, clearly certain she’d dealt the fatal blow, and then was in the demon’s clawed grip. Hortensia and I cried out as we watched her struggle in midair against the demon. He held her arms in a way that she was unable to swing her sword. I ignited my hands and raised them but couldn’t fire at the demon without risking hitting Sylvie with the flames.
“I can’t get a clear shot!” I shouted. I looked wildly around for my crescent axe while Hortensia cast around for her quarterstaff which the demon had knocked aside. She spotted it and dashed across the room to get it, flying through the pews like they were smoke—
Then the demon screeched again. I looked up in time to see him spiraling out of the air, his wings flapping like billowing flags. Blood droplets fell scattered over the pews as he swung through the air before finally falling to the stone floor with a deep thud.
I looked quickly around for Sylvie and found her still hovering near the ceiling where she’d been struggling with the demon. She looked relieved but a little shaken, clutching her hand to her chest the way Lizzie always did when she’d had a scare. And that was when the Drowned Witch appeared.
She stood at the foot of the shattered window, her soaked blonde hair plastered to her face, her glittering crossbow held high. We all looked at her from our different places around the room and then raced toward her, Hortensia and I running, Sylvie flying. We reached her at the same time and had a sopping wet group hug that smelled of rain and mud, with a hovering whiff of fire and smoke as the blaze in the sanctuary grew.
“You have great timing, sister!” said Sylvie, her voice muffled in our tangle of arms.
“Just doing my part,” said Lizzie.
We all pulled back from each other and then looked at the green demon lying at the edge of the burning sanctuary. Lizzie’s shining arrow stuck out of his back, right between his wings.
“Deidre summoned that thing?” asked Hortensia. “Without the thirteenth heart?”
“She didn’t summon it, she made it,” I said. “And she got the thirteenth heart. From my dad.”
They all made noises of shock and confusion, but before I could answer their questions, I heard Harriet’s voice through the shattered window. “Are you kids alright?” she calle
d.
“We’re fine!” Lizzie called back.
“Are you okay?” I shouted.
“We’re good out here, too!” came Jessica’s voice.
“Harriet gave me a boost up to the window,” Lizzie explained. “They’re standing guard in case Deidre tries to fly out of here.”
“Did you get her?!” I called through the window.
“No sign of her!” shouted Harriet. “She’s not still in there?”
The girls and I looked at each other and then back at the burning sanctuary. There, leaning over the body of the demon, was the dark swan.
I ignited my right hand and the girls raised their weapons but before we could take more than two steps toward her, Deidre’s eyes glowed blood-red again and she let out one of her deafening squawks. But this time it was different. None of us flew backward but we all clapped our hands to our ears and recoiled against the sound, which was ten times louder than before. Rather than stopping after a few seconds, it went on, rising into a prolonged blood-curdling screech. I couldn’t speak the language of swans but I could feel the wrath in the sound as it vibrated over my hair and skin.
Suddenly, every single one of the stained-glass windows shattered around us, the shards of glass cascading down to the stone floor like shining waterfalls. I squinted at the swan and raised my flaming right hand, determined to fire at her even in the screeching cacophony— then she exploded.
No, it wasn’t she who exploded. The body of the demon burst into dozens of pieces that flew every which way. At the same time, Deidre’s piercing shriek finally ended. I noticed that the pieces of the monster weren’t falling to the ground, instead remaining hovering in the air…
Lizzie screamed as the four of us looked around at the pieces of green flesh. They weren’t chunks of the monster’s corpse. They were entirely new creatures the size of baby dolls that looked just like him. It was as if he had burst into dozens of miniature clones of himself. The air was suddenly full of hisses as the demon replicas swarmed above us like bats— then pounced.
Lizzie fired an arrow that hit a wall; Hortensia twirled her staff and smacked a few of the demons out of the air; Sylvie swung her sword and sliced one or two of them; my flames grew on my hands, but then I remembered something. I quickly put out the flames and shouted: “FORCE FIELD!”
The girls’ weapons all clattered to the stone floor and we grabbed each other’s hands. The dazzling rainbow sphere instantly bloomed up around us, and the winged fiends were thrown back with explosive force. They clawed at the shimmering barrier but it was impenetrable.
The four of us let out a collective sigh of relief as we looked around at our protective magical bubble, glorious in its many twinkling colors. It had expanded through the wall behind us and out into the rain, and I knew it had included Harriet and Jessica.
“The scepter,” I said. “The Banishing Crystal!”
“It’s in my coat!” said Hortensia. “Sylvie, can you get it?”
Sylvie, who stood at the right end of our row of four, reached into Hortensia’s coat and drew out the shining silver scepter with the diamond-like Banishing Crystal at its end. It glittered spectacularly in the sparkling lights of the colorful barrier.
“Ready?” asked Sylvie, raising the scepter.
The Banishing Spell we’d learned was written clearly in my head like bold black ink on a white page, and I knew it was the same for them. We all began to chant at the same time:
“Demons that walk the earth, raised with magic most dark
We repel you with our light, with our Sacred spark
We banish you from this realm, we cast you through space
To the land where demons dwell, the dark Hopeless Place!”
The Banishing Crystal glowed bright with white light, which then shot through the force field and struck the nearest demon. The winged monster writhed and hissed like a cornered snake, and then the light shot out in all directions. It jumped from one demon to the next, linking them all together as if in a shining spider web. I heard a loud squawk and saw the dark swan, suddenly illuminated, caught in the web of light like the many demons. Her squawking added to the demonic chorus of hisses as the light shined ever brighter. The entire room up to the high vaulted ceiling was bathed in white light, and then, all at once, they were gone.
The Banishing Crystal stopped glowing, returning to its sparkly diamond appearance, then Sylvie lowered the silver scepter. We looked around in quiet amazement at the room, now empty except for us. Deidre had been banished to the Hopeless Place along with the winged demons, even though we hadn’t meant to do it, and even though she technically wasn’t a demon.
“I think,” said Sylvie, “we handled that quite well.” All four of us laughed as we let go of each other’s hands, and the rainbow force field vanished with its usual soap bubble pop.
“Everything okay in there?” called Harriet from outside.
“Yup!” the four of us all shouted, then grinned at each other.
“Should we try to put out that fire?” asked Lizzie. We all turned to look at the sanctuary which was now fully burning. My dad’s body lay at the edge of it, soon to be consumed by the flames.
“The rain will put it out eventually,” I said, as a crash of thunder raged beyond the shattered windows. “For now, let’s just let it burn.”
CHAPTER 27
Hope
The rain continued to pour heavily, the thunder rumbling overhead like a growling dog as we walked through the thicket of trees in front of the house.
“Who wants a drink?” asked Jessica, as soon as we walked through the front doors.
We all gratefully accepted the offer as we pulled off our wet coats and shoes. Harriet alone didn’t have a coat. I had learned at the cemetery after we left the church that she had removed it and draped it over my mom’s body. The pouring rain had hidden my tears as I thanked her and gave her a soaking hug. She had lifted a block of dripping earth out of the ground and then gently buried my mom beneath it. Jessica had then adorned the grave with a colorful bouquet of flowers that she had made spontaneously sprout from the sodden grass.
Afterward, the two of them buried the remains of the two dozen teenagers that Deidre had resurrected into undead puppets. They lifted the dirt from each grave and replaced the body parts of the poor kids as best they could, given that they had been mutilated and scattered.
“I’m just going to the Concoction Cave,” said Harriet. “I’ll be right back.”
Sylvie, Lizzie, Hortensia, and I took seats around the wood and crystal coffee table as Jessica went to the kitchen and then emerged with a large bottle of Irish whiskey and six glasses. I watched her pour the amber liquid into each glass and thought distantly of the Irish bartender, Mr. McFadden, one of the many victims of Deidre and the Brotherhood’s rampage.
None of us touched our glasses until Harriet returned. She held a glass bottle of purple liquid and the large vase of dark green mud I had seen in the Concoction Cave.
“May I suggest a teaspoon of this in your drinks?” she said, holding up the purple liquid. “It’s Soothing Solution. It’ll eliminate any aches and pains on your body in minutes.”
The girls looked intrigued as they held out their glasses, and Jessica and I followed them. The magical liquid turned the contents of each glass light purple as Harriet doled it out. I swirled it around in my glass, grateful for a relief from the persistent throbbing all over my body. Harriet added a teaspoon to her own drink and then raised her glass.
“Sandra Atwood,” she said.
“Sandra Atwood,” Jessica and the girls repeated, while I let out a barely audible Mom.
I had expected the Soothing Solution to taste like medicine, but it had a very pleasant grape flavor. After only one sip of the drink, the aches in my face and back instantly lessened.
“This,” said Harriet, holding up the vase of green mud, “is Mending Mud. Dab a little on your cuts and bruises and they’ll be gone within fifteen minutes.”
<
br /> Sylvie and I were the only ones to reach into the vase of Mending Mud, as everyone else was uninjured. Sylvie dabbed the thick green substance on her forearms where the demon had held her in his clawed grip, while I smeared it onto my face and neck where my dad had struck and then choked me. It felt smooth and cool as lotion and, like with the Soothing Solution, my injuries instantly felt better. I reached under my shirt and smeared a generous amount of the stuff on my chest and abdomen where my dad and the demon had kicked me, then sighed with relief.
“Thank you,” I said to Harriet, who smiled tenderly at me.
There was silence as we all sipped our drinks. The mix of Irish whiskey and grape-flavored Soothing Solution was deliciously comforting.
“So I guess you all want to know what happened in the church?” I asked.
“Sweetie, you don’t have to talk about it right now if you don’t want to,” said Jessica.
“I want to.” I knew they would help me understand and deal with what happened. I also knew that the sooner I shared what I’d experienced, the sooner I’d be able to start healing from it.
I began to tell the story; how the church doors had locked and the candles had ignited as soon as I entered; how my dad had appeared and revealed himself to be a member of the Brotherhood; how he’d been so callous about my mom’s murder right before he attacked me.
“It just bounced off him?” asked Hortensia, when I described throwing my axe.
“I assumed it was some armor Deidre made for him,” I said. “Some enchanted vest.”
“I think you’re right,” said Harriet. “Shields can be enchanted just like weapons.”
I described how I’d lost my fire and had nearly been killed as a result; how it had returned in the nick of time, mere moments before my dad would have strangled me to death.
“How could I just lose it?” I asked. “Was it Deidre?”
“No,” said Jessica. “There’s no spell she could have cast to take away your gift.”
“Then why didn’t it work when I needed it so badly?”
