The Night Sorceresses

by Erica Griswold

  Damian poured the liquid into the beaker. Melvil placed the crystal in the liquid. Much to their horror, the crystal turned black. Melvil took the crystal out of the liquid. “Take this to Banderon and tell him what you have seen.”

  The two of them walked out of the room.Melvil said, “There was a Nature Sorceress who died of natural causes and left all her magical things to the Knowledge Sorcerers. Among them is a scrying crystal that can show you any place or anyone you want to see. It may be able to show you where Halvor lives.” He walked out of the room and returned with a small crystal ball, handing it to Damian. “Just tell it to tell you what you want to see.”

  Damian said, “Show me how to get to Halvor Thorngrind’s house.” The image in the crystal ball showed the path from Mount Pyraxia to Ethermoor City. It was the same path Damian had taken from the city to the mountain. Then, it showed roads leading from Ethermoor City to an ocean. The image suddenly showed a castle on an island. “That’s impossible! He can’t travel all that distance in one day!”

  “Unless he uses a transporter spell. You said he was able to do magic,” Melvil replied.

  “True.”

  He spent the night at the library and began the journey back to Ethermoor City in the morning. Two weeks later, Damian was back in the capitol. He’d decided to confront Halvor before telling King Banderon about him.

  “Show me where Halvor is!” Damian said to the crystal ball. The crystal ball showed him an image of Halvor walking through the middle of the forest. Damian walked out to the spot in the woods where the crystal ball had shown an image of Halvor walking, but no one was there. “Halvor,” Damian yelled. No one answered. Suddenly, there was a flash of light, and Halvor appeared out of thin air, standing right in front of him.

  In the firelight of Damian’s torch, he saw Halvor grin, flashing all his white teeth. Fear flooded Damian. “Halvor, I am going to have to take you to the nearest police station for questioning regarding your methods for catching magical people.” His heart pounded in his chest. Damian heard a piercing screech off in the woods and wondered what kind of terrible animal made the sound. He heard Halvor mutter something and felt a gust of wind brush his neck.

  In the firelight, he saw his Knowledge Sorcerer necklace and quill pendant glistening as Halvor clutched it in his right hand. Damian felt his neck, and sure enough, Halvor had taken his pendant by magic. He looked at his wrist, and his bottle bracelet wasn’t there either!

  “Well, well, well, a Knowledge Sorcerer. Looking for this?” Halvor taunted as he held the necklace and the pendant in the air.

  Damian had forgotten to hide his pendant under his shirt like he usually did when among non-magical people. “How did you?” Damian gasped. He froze in horror when he saw five bluish-white ghost-like creatures float out from behind the trees.

  “I knew you weren’t really working for Banderon when I saw this just now. I sensed it about you when I saw you last month, but this confirmed my suspicion,” Halvor sneered. He dangled the necklace high into the air.

  Damian desperately wanted to run, but the ghosts held a strange power over him, and he could not move.

  Halvor stuck his hand out and said, “Agomoth! Valgoterh! Imajak! Veol!”

  Suddenly, Damian felt his soul completely detach itself from his body, and his corpse fell to the ground. He was now one of the Faeblood Wraiths.

  “I’m sure I will find some use for a Knowledge Sorcerer’s powers,” Halvor said to himself as he put the necklace around his neck. A blue mist that was Damian’s magic floated out of his body and dissolved into the necklace pendant. The scrying crystal disappeared out of Damian’s hand. Halvor searched Damian’s pockets for the scrying crystal, but could not find it.

  Chapter One

  Willow Nightshade was a young sorceress who lived in the village of Fernhollow, which was in the principality of Aralin. One of Willow’s ancestors was a Rain Fairy, and Willow possessed the ability to conjure thunderstorms.

  Fairies were nature spirits, and all descendants of fairies had a natural talent for creating healing herbal potions and infusing them with their own magic. Their magic enhanced the healing properties of the materials they used in their potions.

  Willow and her parents owned the Fernhollow Apothecary Shop, and their shop was well known for the herbal remedies they made.

  One day, Willow’s parents were working in the shop, and it was Willow’s day off. Her mother, Andaria Nightshade, was working at the cash register, and her father, Garrison Nightshade, was sweeping the floor.

  Two young men walked through the door of the shop, and they walked around for several minutes, looking at the potions that lined the shelves. Andaria decided to find out if they were looking for a particular remedy.

  She walked down the aisle to where the young men were standing and asked, “Excuse me, may I help you?”

  One of the men looked at her and asked, “Do you have medicine for acne?”

  “We sure do! Follow me!” Andaria replied, smiling. The men followed her down another aisle. “Here it is!” Andaria took a bottle off the shelf and handed it to him. The label on it said “Bear Blood Acne Remedy.” Judging from the consistency of the red liquid inside the clear bottle, that was precisely what was in there.

  The other man choked back vomit at the sight of the disgusting concoction. “I’ll take it,” the man who held the bottle said.

  Andaria smiled and said, “Follow me. I’ll ring it up for you.” The two men followed her to the counter in the back of the store. “That will be ten Galdorians and sixty-five Ozerians,” Andaria said.

  The man fished around in his pocket, dug out eleven Galdorians, and handed them to Andaria. She turned her back to the men, opened the cash register drawer, and started counting out the change. Garrison looked up from his sweeping and saw one of the men pour something out of a burlap sack onto the floor beside the cash register.

  The other man poured a pile of salt on the countertop. Sometimes teenagers poured salt in front of the door of the shop because they thought it was funny to watch Andaria stand and count each and every grain of it. Fairies and their descendants had to count every grain of salt upon seeing a pile of it.

  Garrison thought this was rude behavior. After all, these men were adults, not children. Garrison walked up to the men and said, “You two need to clean up this mess.” Andaria looked up from counting the change, and her eyes were suddenly transfixed on the little pile of salt. “Andaria, don’t count the grains!”

  She was so transfixed by the pile of salt that she did not hear him. She picked a grain out of it and said, “One.” She picked out another grain. “Two.”

  Garrison felt anger welling up in him. Suddenly, one of the men whirled around and flashed a badge that read, “Ethermoorian Police Force.” Garrison’s head began spinning. “You and your wife are under arrest for practicing magic.”

  Salt. One of the methods the government uses to catch magical people, Garrison thought. “What do you mean?” he asked, his mind reeling with terror.

  The man grinned and said, “We have been watching this shop for a while. We bought a bottle of toenail fungus remover, and no matter how hard we tried to recreate the remedy according to the ingredients listed on the bottle, which were dry leaves, tree bark, cherry juice, and bird feathers, we could not do it. The government has now created a formula that can detect fairy magic. We tested your toenail fungus remover with it, and it tested positive for magic.”

  Undercover cops in my shop! Garrison wondered who was working in the government and knew about the consistency of magic. He didn’t know what it was, and he didn’t think Andaria knew what it was either.

  He saw the other officer grab Andaria’s arm and pull out a pair of iron handcuffs. She was engrossed in counting the salt grains and did not appear to be aware of what he was doing to her. Garrison grabbed the man and yanked a dagger out of his holster.

  An elderly woman ran up behind the officer, held a can over his head, sho
ok it, and doused him in purple powder. He collapsed on the ground, unconscious.

  The other officer grabbed the hilt of his sword and prepared to rip it out of his sword belt. The woman reached over the counter and doused him in the powder. He collapsed on the ground behind the counter.

  “There. Now you don’t have to be arrested for murder as well. They will be out for a good eight hours,” the woman said to Garrison, smiling.

  “Thank you!” he said gratefully to the woman.

  She put the cap back on the canister and handed it to him. “Take it. You need it more than I do right now. It’s sleeping powder. The effects last for eight hours, and it would have made the sorceress who created it very happy to know it was protecting a magical person.”

  “Twenty-six, twenty-seven,” Andaria mumbled, utterly oblivious to what was happening around her. Garrison walked behind the counter, grabbed her, and yanked her out from behind the counter. She screamed as she was pulled over the salt pile as if being unable to count it was a painful experience for her. “What did you do that for?” she spat at her husband.

  The elderly woman took off her cloak and laid it over the salt line so that Andaria wouldn’t see it.

  Andaria blinked, slowly coming out of her salt-induced stupor. Garrison leaned his face close to hers. “Andaria, listen to me. These men are police officers who were trying to have you arrested for magic.” He bent over, picked up the guard’s hand that was still holding his badge, and showed it to Andaria. All the blood drained from her face, and it turned ghostly white.

  “Oh!” she gasped. She stumbled a few steps backward.

  “We have to get out of here!” Garrison said.

  “We need to do something with these two men so they don’t wake up in your shop,” the elderly woman reminded Garrison.

  Andaria said, “Let’s take them out the back door and put them in the filthy puddle I saw this morning as I was coming in to work.”

  Garrison chuckled. He locked the shop’s front door to prevent customers from coming in and seeing the scene. Andaria unlocked the back door, which opened to a small alleyway between their shop and another building. She, Garrison, and the elderly woman lifted one of the men off the ground. “Thank you so much for helping us. What is your name?” Andaria asked.

  “My name is Cecilia. My granddaughter, Celestia, was a Sea Sorceress,” the woman said.

  “Was?”

  “Yes. Celestia’s mother was a mermaid, and her father was a human. Celestia was murdered two weeks ago.” Cecilia’s face turned serious. “You have to be very careful. The police threatened me if I spoke about her death!”

  Andaria, Garrison, and Cecilia dragged the body out the back door and laid it in the filthiest puddle in the back alley. It was full of food scraps that had blown out of the trash bin behind the restaurant on the other side of the alleyway.

  “What did you mean by saying that the police threatened you?” Andaria asked.

  “Let’s get the other body out here, and I’ll tell you.”

  They dragged the second body outside and laid it next to the other man. Andaria smiled, thinking about how those officers might react upon waking and finding themselves lying in a puddle full of rotten food. The two women and Garrison walked back inside the shop and shut the door.

  Cecilia lowered her voice and said, “The police threatened to have the witnesses who saw the murderers break into my granddaughter’s house arrested if they told anyone about what they really saw!”

  She took a deep breath and continued. “A family friend stopped by my granddaughter’s apothecary shop and saw that it was closed, which he thought was odd because it was open every day. He came and told me that the shop was closed and wanted to know if she was okay. We went to her house to check on her, and that’s when I saw her.” A faraway look came over Cecilia’s face.

  “Was she the apothecary in Seaside who passed away?” Andaria asked.

  A wild expression suddenly came over Cecilia’s face. “Yes! And don’t you believe what they said in the paper about her having a heart attack! When I told the police about how I found my granddaughter’s body, they told me they would arrest me if I said anything to anyone about the expression I saw on her face. Now, when was the last time you heard of threatening the families of heart attack victims?”

  “Well, never,” Andaria replied.

  “The next day, the story the police made up about Celestia dying from a heart attack was on the front page of the paper. Some people who were walking down her street the night she died went to her next-door neighbors and told them what they’d seen. They said they saw three ghosts float into her house! Her neighbors contacted me, and I met with them and the people who saw the creatures. All of us went to the police and told them what the witnesses had seen, and the police threatened to have all of us arrested if any of us said anything about the ghosts!”

  Cecilia leaned in and said, “I think the police made up the heart attack story for the paper to try to keep people from asking questions about her death.”

  “How did you find out about our shop?” Andaria asked.

  “Don’t you advertise in the Seaside Sunrise?”

  “Well, yes, we do.”

  “That’s how I found out about your store.”

  Garrison saw a customer try to open the shop door.

  Cecilia said, “You really must get out of here for the time being. I’m sure there are more officers around.”

  Garrison walked to the shop door and flipped the sign around from the side that said “Open” to the other side that said “Closed.” The customer looked upset and walked away. Andaria felt terrible about having to close the family business. It had been in her family for 140 years and had never been closed for more than a week from time to time due to either illness or a family vacation.

  “Thank you for all your help,” Garrison said.

  “Yes, thank you!” Andaria chimed in.

  Cecilia said, “You’re welcome. It’s the least I can do. Oh, and there’s one other thing. There were some other people—they called themselves Knowledge Sorcerers, and they found me about a week ago. They wanted to talk to me about my granddaughter’s death. I was too afraid to tell them much for fear that they were government agents. They told me there was a place where I would be protected called the Pyraxia Library.”

  “Really? Where is it?” Andaria asked, interested. After all, they were desperate to be safe from the government.

  “It’s in the Celexia Mountain Range.”

  “Did they give you directions to it?”

  Cecilia pulled a notebook out of her purse and showed them the directions and map that had been given to her. Andaria walked into her office and returned with a piece of paper and a quill pen.

  The directions read, Here is the way to the Pyraxia Library and the Pyraxia Vault, which are both located in the Celexia Mountain Range. Look for these two rock formations. Snow covers both of the doorways. To melt the snow away from the door, stick your hand in the snow and say, “Florida.” The snow will melt away, revealing a door. The second magic word to say to open the door is “Please.” Use these words when opening both the door to the vault and the door to the library.

  Andaria wrote the directions down on the paper. She copied the map that Celestia had drawn from Seaside to the Celexia Mountain Range, along with the rock formations she was supposed to look for when she arrived there. Then, Andaria folded the paper up and put it in her pocket.

  “Would you like to come with us to the library?” Andaria asked.

  Garrison turned to Andaria and asked, “Is that where we are going to try to hide? How do you know that those people who claimed they were sorcerers were being honest?”

  “Well, where else do we have to go?”

  “I wish I could go with you, but I must stay behind and protect my granddaughter’s magical materials from the government,” Cecilia said.

  They all walked out the back door. Andaria felt very sad as she shut the do
or to her shop for what could be the last time.

  “Hopefully we will see each other again sometime,” Cecilia said.

  “We will be sure to come to Seaside and look for you when we return,” Andaria replied.

  Cecilia walked down the alleyway. Andaria and Garrison walked in the opposite direction.

  Willow Nightshade was spending her day off work tending her garden, which was where she grew the ingredients she used in her potions. She was a young woman with long, curly brown hair and brown eyes.

  Willow heard footsteps, looked up from her plants, and saw her parents walking toward her.

  “Willow, we have to leave town immediately. Go pack a change of clothes,” Andaria said.

  “Why?” Willow asked.

  “The police found out that you and your mother are sorceresses,” Garrison said. Willow felt light-headed, and the world began spinning around her. “They came into the shop and tried to arrest her. We’ll explain the rest to you later.”

  Willow hurried upstairs and shoved a dress in a bag. She thought about what items she might miss if the family was unable to return to Fernhollow. Willow opened a drawer and pulled out two ancient books. One was a journal written by her fairy ancestor, a Rain Fairy named Raven Rosenthorn, when she lived in the realm of Kalmovar during the banishment. This journal was about life in Ethermoor and was passed down through her mother’s family from generation to generation so that they wouldn’t forget about their fairy ancestry.

  The other book was a journal written by her great-great-grandmother Esther Carlsen after she accidentally stumbled through an inter-dimensional portal from the realm of Kalmovar to Ethermoor. Esther had always carried her ancestor’s journal with her in her purse, and that was how Raven’s journal returned to Ethermoor.