by H. D. Gordon
She had not found it as funny as I had when she learned what I’d done with the purple gum-ball. The good old days. It was these types of memories that had formed such a bond between us.
“How could I forget the armpit gum-ball?” Roo was saying. “You could be a real buttwipe sometimes.”
I laughed, though the action felt a little forced after the long night we’d had. The sun was just beginning to rise over the horizon as we pulled onto Branson’s main strip. Lights flashed over the various restaurants, mini-golf courses, race cart tracks, and theaters. A giant Ferris wheel blinked red, green, gold, and blue as it made its lazy clockwise stroll.
Checking the GPS on my phone, I saw that we were only ten minutes from the park where our Aunt Meera hopefully still rented a trailer. Roo and I remained mostly silent as we passed out of the main part of town, which was really just that singular strip.
I gripped the wheel of Pa’s truck and leaned forward. “Bit sketchy, Roo,” I said
Roo snorted. “If anyone messes with us, you can just blast them with your glow balls.”
Though I knew she was trying to lighten the mood, I didn’t reply. I still wasn’t comfortable with the subject, let alone all the things I’d witnessed in our kitchen back in Peculiar.
A few moments later, we turned off onto a gravel road that created a valley between two large green hills. Cows grazed on one side, horses on the other. The lack of activity in contrast to the main strip was obvious, the place hosting a silence that felt preternatural.
Once we passed through the valley, we came upon the trailer park—which appeared exactly as one might expect. There was a dirt road leading off the gravel, and a wooden sign to the right that proclaimed the spot to be the Down Home Estates. Roo and I glanced at each other as we rolled through the trailer homes, trying not to gawk at the otherness of the place.
We rolled by a trailer of all pink, with flowers blooming from every place on the lot, and another with multiple tire-less cars standing about, where a man in a dirty wife beater and jean overalls stood scratching his bum.
Three more trailers down and a right turn, and we arrived at our destination. Or so the GPS claimed.
“This it?” Roo asked.
I shrugged. “I guess we’re about to find out.”
We unbuckled our seatbelts and climbed out of the truck. The heat of the summer rushed in around us, making me thankful that the old Ford had working air conditioning. Approaching the trailer, I took note of the countless wind chimes hanging from the awning, the overgrown vines crawling up the sides, the strange plants placed haphazardly about.
Roo took my hand as we knocked on the front door, breaths bated as we waited for a response.
None came.
We knocked again.
Just when I thought we ought to give up and come back after having breakfast in town, the door to the trailer swung open.
There stood Aunt Meera.
It took a moment to recognize her, because she appeared to have aged four decades since I’d last seen her, rather than just one. Her once long, brown hair was now short and gray, her body almost frail rather than just slim. She still wore the long, flowing skirts I’d never seen her without, wrists full of silver bangles and fingers with silver rings. Bright blue glasses perched on the end of her nose, and she squinted behind them as she took us in.
“Aunt Meera?” I asked, when it became clear she didn’t recognize us.
The woman standing before us blinked, then blinked once more. “Rey?” she said, reaching out to touch my face, fingers pausing just short of my cheek. Those still-sharp hazel eyes flicked to my sister. “Roo?”
I nodded, words lost to me.
Aunt Meera’s eyes widened as she leaned out the doorway, peering around almost frantically. “Get inside,” she whispered. “Quickly.”
Roo and I did as we were told, stepping into the living area of the trailer. It took effort not to wrinkle my nose at the strong scent of incense and various herbs. Aunt Meera shooed us toward an old floral couch pushed up against the wall, shutting the door and locking it behind us—securing the chain as well as the dead bolt and knob lock.
Roo still held my hand, and her fingers tightened a bit around mine now.
We sat in silence as Aunt Meera pulled the already drawn window shades closed tighter, peering out before doing so.
Apparently appeased, she took a seat in the chair across from us. “What are you doing here?” she asked, not unkindly. “Where is your father?”
She listened as Roo explained about how we’d found Pa in the kitchen, about the two men with the knives. She left out the parts about her bringing Pa back to life, about the beasts in the cemetery, and the glowing balls I’d shot from my hands.
Aunt Meera’s lips pursed, gaze flicking back and forth between the two of us. “Is that all?” she asked, as if the death of our father were not enough.
Roo, apparently, was more frazzled than I’d thought, because she snapped back. “All? He’s dead. You’re our last living family member.”
Aunt Meera shook her head. “I mean, is that all that happened? Nothing… Out of the ordinary took place?”
Roo squeezed my hand again. We’d come here for answers, so why did it seem so hard to spill the beans now? Why the apprehension?
“That’s not all,” Roo said at last. “I saw Pa after he passed. I saw his…spirit.”
Smart. Roo was smart to only dole out some information, I decided.
Aunt Meera nodded, as if this were the answer she’d been looking for. Her eyes seemed to take on a new sparkle, a certain shine that had not been there moments before.
“So it’s true then,” she said. “The genes did not entirely skip your generation.”
“What genes?” I asked, though I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know.
“The ones inherited from your mother, and from our mother before her,” Aunt Meera answered. “The ones that made her a witch.”
6
“A witch?” I sputtered.
Aunt Meera nodded. “Yes. We come from a long line of them.”
“That’s not funny,” I snapped.
“Who said I was joking?”
“You mean, like, pagans, or something? Like we come from a long line of pagans?”
Aunt Meera snorted. “Paganism is a religion. Witches are a race. You cannot just choose to be a witch. You have to be born with the magic in your blood.” Her gaze went to Roo and lingered there. “I always suspected it would be you… I thought maybe you both would inherit the magic, but certainly you, Roonie.”
“Why me?”
A hint of a smile pulled up one side of Aunt Meera’s mouth, reminding me of the woman I remembered from childhood, rather than the old crone sitting before me now. “Because even when you were very little, you exhibited the signs. I told Myra you would Manifest. And, now, here you are.”
“Manifest?” Roo asked.
“Manifesting is when a witch comes into her power. Most do so when they have their first period. Some Manifest later, others sooner. The earlier the Manifesting usually means the more powerful the witch, but not always. Some of the most powerful Manifest near adulthood.”
“But Roo has always had the ability to…talk to and see spirits,” I said. “Ever since she was really little.”
Aunt Meera smiled, showing both rows of straight white teeth. That sparkle returned to her eyes. “And you, Rey? Nothing out of the ordinary happening with you?”
For whatever reason, I hesitated. Then, I said, “Well, I might have shot, like, glowing balls from my fingers. Once. On accident.”
Aunt Meera’s brows rose, gaze studying me anew. “When was this?”
“Last night. We were chased by…” It was almost too absurd to get the words out. Then again, all of this was. “By what looked like werewolves.”
“Really? Where were you?”
“In the Peculiar cemetery.”
“What were you doing there?”
“
Hanging out with friends.”
“And two werewolves just attacked you? Are you sure they weren’t just large dogs?”
Roo snorted. “We saw them change. They started out as two brothers—the local losers. They became beasts right in front of us.”
“The moon was full last night,” Aunt Meera mumbled, more to herself than to us.”
“So we’re right?” I asked. “Those things were actually werewolves?”
“It sounds like it. But I am surprised. Lycans are rare—most of them were killed off in the Great War many centuries ago. As far as I know there are only a handful of packs left worldwide, and only a few thousand lycans composing those packs.”
This was a lot to absorb, but after the past twelve hours, I was trying to take things in stride. Roo looked as though she was discussing nothing more extraordinary than the weather.
“What else is there?” she asked, as though she’d known it all along.
Aunt Meera hinted at another smile. “Every creature you could imagine. And many that you can’t.”
“Why were we never told about this?” I asked. “Why not prepare us instead of letting it spring on us like this?”
Aunt Meera snorted. “Your father wouldn’t allow it.”
“He knew?”
Aunt Meera suppressed what I suspected might be a grimace. “Yes, he knew. He knew about your mother, and that the possibility of you two inheriting the gene was very likely.”
“I don’t understand why he didn’t tell us,” I said.
“I do,” Roo said quietly. “Even when I was little, he never wanted to hear about what was going on with me. He called the spirits I saw my ‘imaginary friends.’ Told me to stop talking about them, to stop making up lies.” She paused, drew a slow breath. “And all this time, he knew I wasn’t lying.”
Aunt Meera scooted to the edge of her seat and took Roo’s hand in her own. “There was no love lost between your father and me,” she said. “But he loved you girls. Some things are just too much for non-magics to accept. And after losing your mother, he was never really the same again. He didn’t want you to be a part of the magical world, because he was afraid of losing you, too.”
I swallowed. “Those men who came after us, they mentioned that they would be taking us to someone—to her, but they didn’t say who her was.”
Aunt Meera shifted now, glancing around the trailer in the same almost-paranoid manner with which she’d first greeted us. “If Evelyn is after you, it’s more dire than I thought. She must have felt your recent Manifestation, Rey, meaning she’s grown more powerful than we imagined.” She stood, faster than I would’ve thought her capable. “We need to leave. Now.”
Her urgency had Roo and me climbing to our feet, my heart kicking up in pace.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
All hell broke loose in answer.
The window behind me shattered, glass raining around us.
There was a flash of light so bright it blinded, making me squeeze my eyes shut as another crash sounded. When my vision cleared, I blinked in disbelief at the woman standing beside me.
Aunt Meera’s graying hair stood out on her head as though she’d been electrified. Violet colored sparks flew from her fingertips, flashed in the whites of her eyes. Her jaw was set, her stance somehow both defensive and defiant.
I was so busy gawking at her that had the literal side of the trailer not been ripped off, I might have done so for eternity.
But the literal side of the trailer did rip off—as though torn apart by the hands of God.
“She’s here,” Aunt Meera said through gritted teeth.
“Who?”
To be heard over the chaos, Aunt Meera shouted back, “You have to run, girls! Get in the truck and go!” She shoved something into Roo’s hand that I was too distracted to see. “This will lead the way! I can keep her occupied for a moment, but you need to hurry!”
Roo grabbed my hand and yanked me toward the truck, face set in determination. She pulled me out of the way just in time to avoid the swirling orb that crashed into the wall behind where I’d just been standing. The place it struck melted away as if scorched by the fires of dragons.
“Holy sh—”
“Move!” Aunt Meera shouted.
Roo and I took to our heels, sprinting toward our father’s truck, which waited twenty feet away.
We came to a skidding stop as a figure dropped down in front of us. My gaze started at her feet, which were covered by long red skirts. Then her trim torso, where snow-white hair cascaded over her shoulders. Finally, to her face—strikingly beautiful and somehow terrifying all at once.
“Aldainaires,” she sneered.
I found that I could not move, not to save my life. A second later I realized I couldn’t breathe, either, couldn’t make my lungs expand and fill with air, as if my entire being were trapped in an invisible vice grip. I tried to scream and could not, tried to cry out, only to hear it echo in my head.
The white-haired beauty grinned, rose-red lips pulling up to reveal perfect teeth. The wider her grin grew, the tighter the feeling of constriction seemed to grip me. Tighter and tighter, until I was sure that my eyeballs were close to bursting from my head, until panic seized me in the same vice hold.
I was going to die! The pain was excruciating! I tried to draw a breath and could not, tried to raise my hands and claw at the invisible, unbreakable hold on my throat, and could not.
The world began to blur around the edges. Fading and fading, the darkness beckoning me.
Just before it could grab hold and pull me under, a blinding spark of light struck the woman in the chest, making her stumble backward.
Whatever had held me immobile released me in an instant, the air rushing back into my lungs, burning as oxygen surged through my veins. I bent, gasping and retching simultaneously, sucking in the sweet air like a surfacing swimmer.
Roo yanked me away from the woman, dragging me toward the truck and shoving me into the driver’s seat.
It seemed I’d left my brain back over by the white-haired woman, because Roo had to shout at me before I returned to my senses.
“Drive!”
I fumbled in my pocket for the keys, trying to focus on getting out of there rather than the absolute absurdity taking place just beyond the windshield. Roo was silent beside me as I finally got them in the ignition, and the engine roared to life.
Shifting into reverse, I slammed my foot down on the pedal, eyes wide as saucers as I took in the scene. Aunt Meera and the white-haired woman stood off with one another, magic visible in the air around them. The sky darkened despite the fact that the morning had been cloudless only moments earlier, and my heart sank as I could sense which witch had the greater power.
Without knowing how I was sure of it, I knew that if we left, the white-haired woman would kill our aunt.
Our last living family member.
All of this flew through my head in a matter of seconds—when I should have been paying attention to where I was going.
The tailgate of the truck smacked into something solid, the sound of the thud cringe-worthy. My mind had not processed this before the truck lurched upward as the rear wheels ran over something, followed by the front wheels. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that we had hit something.
Something big.
And, I saw as I continued in reverse, something living.
As the creature climbed to its feet—or claws perhaps was a more apt word—I realized that I’d seen something similar before, at the cemetery just the previous evening.
“Lycan,” I heard Roo mumble. “You ran it over.”
“And it didn’t frigging die,” I gritted out.
I jerked the wheel to the side, making the truck spin until I was facing the opposite direction. A glance in my rearview was all it took for me to slam the pedal all the way to the floorboard.
For the first time since all this madness started, I heard real fear in Roo’s voice. “It’s
chasing us,” she said. “Aunt Meera…”
“What?” I said, but I got my answer as I looked into the rearview mirror again. The white-haired woman had Aunt Meera by the throat, and it looked like… like she was sucking the literal life out of her.
“Rey! Look out!”
I swerved, reflexes taking hold, and just barely managed to avoid smashing into another car that was coming in the opposite direction. Gravel sprayed up from the truck’s tires, striking various objects as we flew past.
“We should help her,” I said, feeling both foolish and helpless.
And afraid. Mostly afraid.
Roo slumped back in the seat beside me. “It’s too late,” she said, voice soft and dull.
I pushed the pedal down harder as we fled, leaving yet another body in our wake.
7
We drove for a while with no apparent direction, silent save for the sound of the engine and the wheels spinning over the road.
Roo pulled the object Aunt Meera had given her out of her pocket and studied it.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Looks like some kind of weird compass.”
I pulled my eyes away from the road for a moment and confirmed this assessment.
“She said it would lead us where we need to go,” Roo said.
She tapped a finger on the face of it. There were four arrows, each pointed in a separate direction and lined up in pairs around the circular face of it. Roo snorted.
“Let me see,” I said, holding out my hand.
Roo passed it over, and I stole glances at it while continuing on down the highway. “Hmm,” I said.
“What?”
“Every arrow is pointing somewhere different. How do we know which one to follow?”
Roo shrugged.
Just when I was about to toss the thing back to her, the arrows started to spin. Faster and faster, it was an effort not to be hypnotized by them, to keep my attention on the road. After a moment, they stopped, all pointing in a single direction. It happened to be the direction we were going in.
