Vervain and a Victim

by Ruby Loren

  Something inside me seemed to snap. I felt an anger I’d never felt before raging through my veins. Before I could get a grip on this strange and irrational reaction, I felt my magic leave me in a big whoosh. All of the glass jars of creepy crawly things, nasty poisons, and pickled creatures shattered like the shockwave from a bomb had rushed through the shop. The newly replaced shop window cracked and broke into a million shards, and even Hellion’s spectacles splintered.

  I tried to keep my expression blank. Inside, I was reeling.

  “All right, I didn’t mean it. Sheesh!” the magician said, looking from his shop window to his shattered jars.

  “I’ll be keeping a close eye on you,” I told him. With sudden clarity, I spun on my heel (a move learned from watching the Ghoul sisters) and strode out of his shop, before my expression could give the game away.

  What just happened? I wondered, trying to examine the sudden anger and rush that had come before the magical outburst. So far this week, I’d slammed a door without meaning to, and now I’d detonated some sort of magical bomb in Hellion’s shop. But I had no idea at all how I’d done it, or even if this was something I could control. My magic had slipped through my grasp and inflicted some serious damage.

  And it had felt like nothing.

  “I need help,” I said to myself as I walked away from the shop. Hellion hadn’t even asked me to pay for the damage I’d caused. I didn’t blame him. On the plus side, this could do wonders for your reputation! I mentally allowed. But on the downside, I had no idea what had happened, or how to control it. Only that it had been very, very powerful. And if my aunts were to be believed, that meant that my witch trial was going to be hellish.

  Unless my magic decided to pull another trick or two, my name would soon be added to the list of ‘Wormwood Missing Persons’.

  It was selfish and it was self indulgent, but I spent the rest of the day walking and left my aunts handling the shop. I didn’t go anywhere in particular. I don’t remember seeing anything memorable, but at the end of it, I did feel a bit better. Nothing had been solved or unravelled, but I thought that, somehow, I would get through this. I was going to ask for help, and everything would turn out okay.

  “Hi Aunties!” I said, rolling into the shop just as the evening was drawing in. “Sorry for leaving you all day, but I have good news. Hellion didn’t hex me. I actually did something to him, which I wanted to tell you about…”

  “Oh good. You’re back!” Aunt Linda said before turning and shouting into the kitchen. “Minerva! She’s home! We can go out and do that thing now!”

  I frowned at my aunt, whose hair was finally starting to look a normal colour again. Maybe as though she’d been in the swimming pool a few times, but almost normal. “What thing? I have a bit of an emergency I need to talk to you about. You’re supposed to be here to help me with this witch stuff, right?”

  Linda pulled an apologetic face. “Absolutely, and we will help you. Just… not tonight. Remember - I have every faith in you.” she gripped my shoulders before letting go.

  “We have every faith in you,” Minerva said, appearing behind her sister.

  This was starting to sound more and more ominous.

  “What’s going on?” I said, but they were already walking out the door, waving and smiling in a seriously creepy way. “What just happened?” I said aloud.

  The shop door swung open just as I’d started to walk into the kitchen. “Thank you for coming back! I really need to…” I turned around to face the door and realised it wasn’t my aunts returning. It was the man I’d seen talking to the mayor a couple of nights ago.

  “You’re Hazel Salem, right?” he said, an easy smile on his face. It was the kind of smile that I thought could turn into something vicious and feral - like a lion watching its prey.

  “That’s me,” I said, hoping that my magic was paying attention to this conversation. I hadn’t forgotten the weird energy void around this stranger, and the aura of danger that accompanied him.

  “I’m Kieran Franklin. I’m here in town to help the mayor out. I guess you could say I’m his new PA.” He was still smiling, but it was only getting more and more creepy.

  “You’re the mayor’s PA?” I found that about as believable as if he’d told me he was secretly a skin-suit wearing lizard. No, wait - the lizard thing would have been more believable.

  “Something like that,” Kieran said with a shrug that implied he didn’t care what lies I told myself about who he really was.

  “What do you want?” I asked him. It wasn’t polite, but there was nothing about this stranger that struck me as well-mannered. He was like a cold piece of steel, looking for the best place to cut.

  “I’m trying to help Mr Starbright out by checking up on one of his ex-employees. I think you know Jesse Heathen?”

  “Ex-employee?” I said, not answering his question.

  Something glittered in the stranger’s ice blue eyes. “Yes,” was all he elaborated, and then: “Tell me about him.”

  Something about the way he said it made me want to blurt out the truth. In fact, I felt compelled to. I opened my mouth, ready to spill everything I knew about Jesse Heathen - which honestly, wasn’t a lot - but I shut it again. Why should I tell him anything? my brain angrily demanded.

  I looked up at the stranger. He seemed surprised by what had just happened. What did just happen? I wondered for what felt like the twentieth time that day.

  “If you have questions about Jesse, you’d be better off asking him yourself. I don’t know much about him. He doesn’t share anything with me. Perhaps you’ll have better luck.” I narrowed my eyes at him. He’d definitely done something back then, something that was supposed to have got me to fess up. So why hadn’t it worked?

  “I suppose I’ll have to do that,” he said, still looking me up and down.

  “Who invited tall, blonde, and dead into the shop?” Hemlock asked, trotting by.

  I stared after him.

  What had he just said?

  I turned back to look at the stranger as cold realisation dawned on me. I wouldn’t have believed it, if it weren’t for that energy void - the void that seemed to be sucking the life out of everything around him… and now I realised it literally was, because the man standing in front of me was technically dead.

  He was a vampire.

  I’d hoped that figuring out what was off about the stranger would answer all of the questions I had about him being in town and seeming so close with the mayor. Instead, the knowledge that he was undead simply added several more burning queries.

  “I see you’ve figured me out,” he said, his mouth twisting into something nastier than a smile, now that he wasn’t pretending to be human any more.

  My eyes darted to the anti-vampire bags that were still hanging on the rack, waiting to be bought. Would they even work against a real honest to goodness vampire?

  “Don’t believe the fear-mongering,” he said, leaning in closer than I would like. Was it my imagination, or had his eyes just moved down to look at my lips?

  Or was it my jugular that he was so fascinated by?

  I took a deep breath and plunged in. “I want answers, and I want them…”

  My words were cut off by a swirl of shadows and dust. For one awful moment the world seemed to lurch sickeningly sideways, carrying me along with it. I caught one last look at Kieran’s comically startled expression, before he was gone, and so was the shop.

  What just happened? I wondered and then kicked myself for thinking it again. I needed to stop playing the victim.

  I opened my eyes.

  I hadn’t even realised I’d shut them.

  Things had stopped moving, but where was I?

  I looked around. It was dark. I could smell the damp leaf litter on the ground and hear the familiar rustling of leaves. I was in a forest and it smelled like the one close to home. The next question was, why was I here?

  I was still wondering that when a blazing arrow shot out
of the darkness. It would have skewered me like a marshmallow, had I not fallen on my face to get out of the way in time. “Stop shooting at me!” I yelled, but no one answered. The woods were silent, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was far from over.

  “Oh no,” I whispered as everything started to make a terrible sort of sense.

  This was my witch trial. And it had already begun.

  10

  A Shot in the Dark

  I stood still, listening and waiting. My only defence was my witch sight, and I used it as well as I knew how.

  The trees were glowing.

  I could see magic weaving in and out of everything. Whatever this place was, I didn’t think it was a normal forest. I heard the sound of something whistling through the darkness. I threw myself flat without thinking. Three more fiery arrows hit the trunk opposite me.

  It was time to move.

  I ran, dodging through the unseen missiles that seemed to fly around me. It was only thirty seconds into my mad sprint that I realised I had no idea where I thought I was running to. This thing was a test. I doubted there was any witch or magician who could proudly say they’d outrun their witch trial. At some point, I was going to have to use magic.

  Or die.

  Dying was the other option.

  It’s now or never, I thought, standing still in the quiet woods and trying to feel the whatever-it-was that lurked somewhere inside of me. I knew it was there. I knew what it was capable of, too, but would it come to me when I needed it the most?

  “I did not sign up for this,” I muttered when something whooshed through the air towards me. I turned to see the blazing arrow cutting through the darkness. Time seemed to slow down, as I waited for it to strike, hoping against hope that for the first time, I’d be able to get my magic to behave.

  I focused my energy on the arrow… before falling to the floor when I bottled it.

  “Nope. Can’t do it,” I said, but ‘can’t do it’ didn’t turn out to be an option. The first volley of arrows must have been the warmup. The night sky was suddenly alight with a barrage of burning death. “A simple shielding spell would get me out of this,” I muttered. I could even see the spell I needed in my head, written on the page of the spell book I’d studied at Aunt Minerva’s behest. I said the words and moved my hands through the motions. Predictably, nothing happened. Great. At least I could die knowing I’d done all the right prep work, only to end up dead on a technicality.

  There wasn’t time to take cover.

  I was about to become a flaming pin cushion.

  “This is so unfair,” I muttered right before the arrows struck.

  I blinked. I was still standing.

  But the trees around me weren’t.

  I now stood in a clearing that had suddenly formed in the forest. Judging by the trails of golden magic spreading out around the scene, I was the one responsible for the damage. “What…” I muttered, having no idea what had happened.

  But I didn’t have time to dwell on it. I could hear something coming through the still-standing trees towards me… and it sounded alive.

  I tried to think of something to do in order to prepare for whatever new adversary I was about to face, but what could I do when I didn’t know how to do anything? I ended up standing still and staring when the monster burst into the new clearing. It was hardly a smart combat tip, but it seemed like the only thing I could do. If I just stood still and waited, would my magic take care of the problem?

  The shadowy creature, formed of darkness and slime, seemed to hesitate. Perhaps it wasn’t used to the witches it attacked just standing there gawping at it. Or maybe it was savouring the hunt. Either way, it didn’t last long. With a roar of fury, the hell-beast swiped down with a shadow and sludge claw.

  I moved at the last second, but felt the razor sharp edge catch my arm and rip it open. Scarlett blood blossomed through my shirt, and I realised something terrible.

  My magic wasn’t going to save me this time.

  Aunt Minerva had been right when she’d told me that failing to prepare would get me killed, but what more could I have done? Less self-pitying more self-preservation, a stern voice spoke in my mind. I couldn’t just stand around here, bemoaning my sudden lack of convenient magic. If I wanted to live, I needed to start acting like it. It was time to do something smart.

  I ran for my life.

  I could hear the trees being crushed into matchsticks behind me as I ran through the forest, trying to buy myself some more time to figure something - anything - out. Did witch trials have a time limit on them, or was it an ‘until all adversaries are defeated, or you’re dead’ type deal? No one had told me. I was going to be having some serious words with my aunts when I got out of here. If I got out of here.

  Perhaps when there’d been a Witch Council, there’d been rules, but in this instance, I was with my Aunt Linda. To heck with the rules. They should have told me what to expect.

  As I ran, I tried to find my magic. Witches were supposed to be able to recite spells and wave their hands, and if you did that much right, stuff would happen. Why didn’t it work for me? But something had to work. Stuff kept happening. There had to be a secret to unlocking the power within me.

  “What is it?” I shouted out of sheer exasperation when I felt myself starting to flag. I was no sprinter and I was about to become shadow and slime monster chow.

  “Come on!” I shouted, throwing my hands towards the monster and hoping it would give my darned magic a hint. Do something. Blow the monster up. Just something!

  And then something did happen. But it wasn’t an explosion, or even a spell. Magic suddenly seemed to accumulate around my hands, like two blazing balls of light. Glowing fists. So useful, I sarcastically thought. And for the first time, my magic seemed to respond. The golden glow elongated and I discovered I was holding two curved swords, blazing with golden magic.

  I just had time to think I’m way out of my depth, before the monster burst through the trees and delivered its killing swipe. I made a swipe of my own, admittedly with my eyes half shut. I opened them when the swords cleaved through the beast’s outstretched claw. It fell with a wet thump to the forest floor.

  I wasn’t sure who was more surprised, me or the monster, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it. It was as if this one action of mine was enough to trigger the magic that had been waiting inside me all along… waiting for me to claim it. I felt it now, and I knew it would come when I called.

  The monster roared. This time, I didn’t wait for it to strike. I shouted some wordless battle cry of my own and directed my swords towards the beast’s heart. I sensed it pumping sludge and shadows, as if it were my own, and then with half a thought I turned my swords into a spear and flung it with perfect accuracy towards my target.

  There was another tree-flattening shockwave when the beast dissolved into darkness, slain by my weapon. I remained standing, an island in the midst of all of the destruction.

  That could have been worse, I thought, wondering if I’d completed the trial. Surely a scary monster like that was akin to the final boss in a video game?

  I was still mentally patting myself on the back when the rift opened up.

  At first, I didn’t know what it was. A patch of darkness had suddenly gone all shimmery, before tearing open with golden light leaking out from the edges - light that looked suspiciously like my magic. What was within the tear itself was harder to describe.

  It was another world.

  I could see figures moving around, but they looked dark and shadowy. Things writhed around bonelessly and I felt my skin automatically start to crawl. I’d sensed evil on a few occasions before, but it had never felt as dark as this. This was something different. Something too terrible for words.

  I took a deep breath. This surely had to be the final challenge. Step through and defeat the enemies, and I would be a witch. And hopefully a witch who was still alive to tell the tale of her witch trial. I took a step towards the tear.r />
  “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” a voice spoke from the darkness to my left.

  I turned and discovered a woman with white blonde hair watching me. She wasn’t wearing any clothing, but that didn’t seem to bother her.

  “It’s my witch trial,” I said, wondering if she was part of the test.

  She raised her eyebrows. “It might have been, but not any more.” She walked over to stand next to me, and I finally realised where I’d seen her before. She’d been delivering cakes to a tearoom I’d visited with Detective Admiral. I’d known there was something interesting about her then, even when I couldn’t see magic, but now that I could, I saw it swirling around her like a cloud of pure darkness.

  She smiled. “You’ve changed since I last saw you. I did wonder when I saw your eyes…” She turned back to the tear without elaborating. “I’m January, by the way.”

  “Hazel,” I said, struggling to keep up with this strange twist in the tale.

  “Nice to meet you,” she replied, still staring at the rip with its glowing golden edges. “So… how exactly did you open up a tear in the fabric of reality?”

  I didn’t answer for a full five seconds.

  “Wait… what?” I said when I finally thought I was understanding her.

  “This is not supposed to be here. There are different parallel existences to our own, but this is not one that I’ve ever seen before. How’d you do it?”

  I stood there with my mouth flapping open and shut. “I don’t know?”

  “Well… if you could close it up, that would be neat. Otherwise, bad things might find a way through. I’ve seen it happen before.” She reached out a hand and touched the empty space at the heart of the rip. I watched as her hand seemed to ripple and then pass through to the other side. A dark shadow now covered it, as if it truly were in a different world.