Witching You Wouldn't Go

by Constance Barker

  “I’m not,” Finn said. “She doesn’t have to know we called in the hunters.”

  “I don’t know, Finn,” Seamus said cautiously, trying to think this all through. “Those women are like Bailey’s family. You know her mom just died a little while ago, and if Ryan’s in the hospital—”

  “Then you’ll be the one good thing in her life,” Finn cut in. “Seamus—buddy—trust me on this. There are too many good reasons to go up that road and talk to these folks, and not enough reasons to turn around.”

  “It’s just too—”

  “Look,” Finn groaned, “how about this? Let’s just go talk to them. We don’t have to tell them where we’re from. We’ll just say we... heard about them, and what they do, and wanted to, you know, educate ourselves.”

  That did seem more reasonable. If he was careful not to say where he was from... maybe there was some kind of witch hunter’s manual or... some means of protecting people from magic. If Seamus had something like that under his belt, it seemed like it might be the best of all worlds. If nothing went south in Coven Grove, he wouldn’t need it. If it did, he’d have it.

  “Okay,” he said finally, and eased the truck into the narrow entrance to the road.

  The climb was steep, and he took most of it in second gear, but his truck managed alright, and after what seemed like twenty or thirty minutes, he finally saw lights just ahead. It was a cabin—a couple of them, it turned out. He parked a little way back so they wouldn’t see his license plates, thinking that it was a detail he’d look for, and then paused before he got out. “Uh... what do you think we should say to them?”

  “I don’t know,” Finn said. “You want me to do the talking?”

  “You sure?” Seamus asked.

  “If you want, I will,” Finn said. He got an eager sort of look in his eyes, and licked his lips. “I think we got it all worked out, right? We want to know what they know; that’s all. Right?”

  “Right,” Seamus said. His head hurt just a little, and he rubbed his brow.

  “Tell me to take over, buddy,” Finn said, “and I will. Easy peasy.”

  “If you wanna do the talking,” Seamus said, “be my guest. This place makes me nervous anyway.”

  “Sure,” Finn said. “Just so we’re clear, can you say it?”

  “Say what?” Seamus asked. There was a ringing in his ears.

  “Say, ‘You can take over from here, Finn’,” Finn said.

  Seamus gave Finn a confused look. “I already said you could, man.”

  “It’ll make me feel better,” Finn explained. “It’s just a weird thing I need.”

  Seamus sighed with irritation and rolled his eyes. It hurt when he did. “Fine,” he grunted. “You can take over from here, Finn.”

  Finn grinned. “Sure thing, partner. Come on, let’s go meet these folks.”

  Seamus gave his partner a nod and the headache faded along with the ringing. If he was honest, he had to admit that knowing Finn would handle all this stuff made him feel a little more at ease, like a weight had left his shoulders. Some pressure he hadn’t known was there. As he strode toward the house he felt light; almost like he was out of his body in some surreal way. Witch hunters. Real, live witch hunters. What kind of world did he live in now?

  He knocked on the door to the cabin, and waited for several minutes it seemed like before someone answered.

  The chain was still on the door, and a grizzled looking woman with an eye patch sized him up with her good eye. “Who the hell are you?”

  The words came on their own, but Seamus didn’t mind when they did. They felt right; more real, more confident than anything else he might have said.

  “My name is Finn MacMurrin,” he said, smiling. “And I have a problem I’d like to talk with you about.”

  Chapter 24

  “Can I see my friends before I go in?” Bailey asked, looking at the stone archway in front of her. It was pure, unscathed marble and looked out of place among the ruins.

  Suraj had led her here, trailed by the rest of the gathered Centurions, and now stood beside her, his arms folded, his face hidden under his hood as he had been when she first saw him. It was unnerving, being surrounded by the shadowy wizards; none of them had spoken except Suraj, and it gave the impression of soldiers waiting for the order. “They are inside,” he said. “You will see them before you begin the final trial.”

  Bailey swallowed. “Have you... ever been in there?”

  “No,” Suraj said.

  “Is that the extent of my pep talk?” She asked.

  Suraj’s hooded face turned toward her when she looked up at him expectantly. “I don’t think I know this word.”

  “That’s... pretty obvious,” she sighed. “What do I do?”

  He pointed. “Go through.”

  “To where?”

  “I do not know,” he admitted.

  Bailey sighed, and licked her lips. Before she stepped forward, she looked back up at Suraj again. “The ones who went in before me... they failed?”

  “Presumably,” Suraj said.

  “Did you ever... I mean, is there anything... left?”

  “A body?” Suraj asked.

  The word made her shiver. “Yeah.”

  He shook his head.

  It was clear that Suraj had no intention—or possibly no ability—to give her any information that would be useful other than to make her more nervous. “Okay,” she said, her voice shaky. “Well... wish me luck, then, I guess.”

  “Do not rely on luck,” Suraj told her.

  With a sigh, Bailey took unsteady steps toward the matte black surface that filled the inner part of the arch. It reflected no light, and looked as though it were solid. She stopped just shy of the threshold, and reached tentatively toward the blackness. To her surprise, she felt... nothing. As if it weren’t there. Maybe it was some sort of illusion or—

  There was a twisting, rushing sensation. It reminded her of coming back from astral projection, and the end was similar as well—she felt a kind of pressure all around her, sudden and violent but brief as she was slammed quietly into another world. She inhaled, and realized that her lungs burned for air, relaxing as they filled. For a few heartbeats she had to crouch down to keep from falling over. The dizziness passed quickly, though, and as her eyes adjusted to the dim light of the place she found herself in, she realized that she wasn’t alone.

  Around here were three cages, ancient things of wood and stone and metal. In each of them, one of her companions stood watching her. When she realized it, she ran to Aiden’s cage.

  His fingers slipped through the bars to tangle with hers, and she kissed him through the space as best she could. “I was so worried,” she said.

  Aiden’s lips moved, but no sound came out. He seemed to be explaining something—there was a look he got when he did that—and didn’t seem to realize Bailey couldn’t hear him.

  “Aiden,” she said, and he paused—so, he could hear her then—and raised an eyebrow. “I can’t hear you.”

  He pressed his lips tight together and looked up and around at the cage he was in, and then nodded. He pointed, rather than trying to speak again, at the fine texture covering the bars. When Bailey looked closely, she could see that it wasn’t just weathering from the elements—there was an intricate, fine pattern of writing all over the bars that resolved itself into ideas as she looked at them. Linear A—so, the cages were old Minoan. The spells were commands directed at the natural world itself. Air be still, carry no utterance; hear the voice of the judged—there were hundreds of them, too many to make any sense of an overall purpose.

  What was clear from the few she picked out, however, was that these cages were meant to contain and suppress magic. Aiden couldn’t have cast a spell inside the confines of it.

  Bailey tugged at the bars and found them predictably solid. Was her challenge to get them out? “I have to pass some kind of final trial,” she said, louder than she needed to—Aiden could hear her just fi
ne, apparently, but it felt like he shouldn’t be able to.

  He narrowed his eyes, and looked toward one of the other cages and pointed.

  He’d pointed to Gideon’s cage, and as she looked, Gideon waved her frantically over.

  As much as she wanted to stay by Aiden, and check on Avery, she knew that of the three Gideon might actually have something worthwhile to tell her to help them out. She touched Aiden’s fingers again, and took the long route around, stopping at Avery’s cage just long enough to promise that she’d get him out—she’d get all of them out. Avery nodded quickly, and smiled reassuringly at her.

  When she got to Gideon’s cage, he didn’t bother trying to speak. Instead, he held up a page of the journal.

  There were three words there, and two of them were checked off.

  Courage. Check.

  Wisdom. Check.

  Sacrifice.

  Bailey stared at the word, and then looked back at Gideon’s grave face. He swallowed, and nodded once before he closed the journal, and then pointed toward the middle of the room.

  The room itself was barely lit by three braziers that didn’t appear to have any fuel in them, so it was hard to tell the shape of the room—but it did have an apparent center, and in that center was a waist high pillar with a silver bowl on it.

  Beside the bowl... was a knife.

  Bailey stared at the blade, and then looked back at Gideon. He looked at her for a long moment before his eyes dropped.

  She took several slow steps toward the bowl, glancing at Aiden and Avery as she did. What did it mean? Sacrifice... surely she wasn’t expected to give up one of her companions. Her last few steps were almost painful as she peered into the bowl from the side opposite the knife, intent on keeping it far away from her.

  “Choose,” A voice said.

  Bailey flinched, and twisted reflexively to face the voice. She recognized the woman from before.

  “Medea,” Bailey breathed. “What do you mean? Choose? Choose what?”

  Medea’s shade spoke again, but gave no more detail than she had before. “Choose.”

  “No,” Bailey said. She shook her head. “You can’t want this from me. If that’s what it takes, then I don’t want the Throne.”

  “Choose,” Medea repeated. She took a step forward, toward Bailey, her eyes pained but firm.

  Bailey wanted to laugh. Her stomach wanted to empty itself of nothing; she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. “This is insane. I... I don’t want it. I won’t choose, Medea. Not if I have to choose one of them.”

  Medea came closer, implacable. “Choose.”

  “No.” Bailey stood her ground, her breathing harsh and ragged as she fought tears.

  The last step brought Medea close enough to touch. Her shade reached for the ancient knife. She took Bailey’s hand and pressed the handle into it. “Choose.”

  Thoughts came into Bailey’s mind. They were distant, like echoes of memories. What was one life compared to the whole of the world? If the wall came down, if Faerie was released into the world, it would be chaos all over again, and this time maybe no one would be able to put the wall back in place. Her father? He was a thief and a liar, wasn’t he? Or Aiden; she barely knew him, and could she even trust him?

  Avery—he would gladly choose himself if he could, to spare her the pain of either of the other choices. She knew it in her heart, and it ached at the knowledge.

  She saw futures, or the remnants of them. Wars that spread across the globe, driven by people with faeries whispering in their ears. Magic wreaking havoc on unsuspecting communities. She saw Aiden, looking at her with flat, cold eyes, judging her for her choice. She saw Avery, unable to even meet her eyes. She saw her father, sad but stoic, leading her into the Caves.

  The Coven ladies knelt before her—even Rita and Anita Hope. Piper did the same, all of them with their eyes turned to the ground, trembling. Where she walked, the earth cracked and shook. People came in droves to appease her. She waved a hand and the ocean split. She stomped her foot and cities crumbled to dust.

  She touched a pale child on the forehead, and life flowed into his pallid skin as he woke from death.

  Power. If she chose, she could remake the world however she saw fit. She didn’t have to be a vengeful goddess. She could be a light, a fountain of life and peace. Whole nations would bend to her will. A world without war, or poverty, or violence. Her reach would have no bounds; she could hear every thought, peer into every future. No—she could will any future into existence. Time itself would answer to her.

  All of this poured through her mind, Medea’s voice punctuating every vision. “Choose.”

  “Choose.”

  “Choose.”

  Bailey howled at Medea’s shade. “No!”

  It hurt, but not as badly as she thought it would. Like a pinprick, really, at least at first. The pain spread, though; an ache in her ribs, like a cramp that seized around her chest and then spread deeper. She couldn’t breathe through it. The ache turned hot, burning her from the inside, and she couldn’t even cry out.

  Before Bailey’s hand fell from the handle, and before her knees hit the floor, her vision blurred, and then darkened—and in the darkness there was a light that grew brighter and brighter until it seemed like it was all around her. And there was no pain. Only an encroaching peace that reached out and folded her into its arms, urging her to rest.

  So, that’s what she did.

  Chapter 25

  “Wake, daughter,” a woman said. Not in English; but Bailey understood the words anyway.

  She opened her eyes. The world around her was familiar in quality—it was the shifting, half-created place just beyond the world of solid things, the astral plane. Somewhere far from the physical world—the landscape was almost like a painting that was still wet. All the color was still suspended in a surreal process of coming into being, so that the sky was blue in some places, black in others, like holes that showed the other side of creation.

  The thought of standing up translated instantly, so that Bailey was in the next moment standing atop a high hill, her feet sunk into soft grass that didn’t yet exist, and was springy with the vitality it would one day have. There was someone nearby, with her. A dark skinned woman with hundreds of fine braids gathered atop her head. She wore something that Bailey thought was like a toga, but it was more complicated, and it didn’t stay still. One moment it was a shawl, then a robe, then a cloak. When she looked at the woman’s face, it seemed to settle down into something like a long sun dress and then faded from her attention entirely.

  “You know me,” the woman said, her voice rich with compassion and knowing.

  “Itaja,” Bailey said. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did.

  Itaja bobbed her head. A slender, but calloused hand reached up to touch Bailey’s cheek. It was an electric touch, sending a gentle current of buzzing power through Bailey’s skin. “You have come far.”

  “I failed,” Bailey said, memories rushing back to her in jagged chunks. “I... I’m sorry. I couldn’t do it.”

  “But you did,” Itaja said. “You chose.”

  “Sure,” Bailey sighed, or would have if she’d been breathing. “I chose not to choose. Did they at least get out? My friends?”

  Itaja’s laugh was cosmic in nature. The sky trembled quietly with it, and the grass shivered beneath Bailey’s feet. The sound echoed around them, as if the air itself shared her mirth. “You would ask no other question of me, daughter?”

  “It’s the only one that matters anymore,” Bailey said. “Now that I’m...”

  “Dead,” Itaja provided gently.

  Once, that word held meaning. Now, it seemed hollow, like the shell of a word with nothing in it; it may as well have been foreign. Still, Bailey nodded.

  Itaja smiled, making the sun shine brighter and warmer. She spread her arms to indicate the expanse before them. “This is my place,” she said. “I found it empty, an uncreated world, ages ago... mo
ments ago. I came here, at the end of my days.”

  “It’s... beautiful,” Bailey admitted as she looked out over a world that seemed to come into focus when she looked at its details. “It doesn’t look finished?”

  “It is, from another angle,” Itaja said. “And from yet another, I have not yet arrived. From still another, it fades from existence in my absence...” She seemed sad, as if it were already happening, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

  “You haven’t answered me,” Bailey said, as respectfully as she could.

  “How often have you had to say that?” Itaja asked, her eyes twinkling. “Answers are so often difficult to obtain. And yet, we all seek them. Even I.”

  “I’ll be honest,” Bailey sighed, “I imagined my afterlife as... less cryptic.”

  “You chose yourself rather than your loved ones,” Itaja said, “though choosing one of them would have given you limitless power in your mortal world. The futures you saw were not lies. You could have wielded all of the magic of your world, and if you so chose, other worlds as well; undying, if you wished to be. Why did you flee from such a power?”

  Bailey looked away from the woman. She wanted to be angry, but the emotion simply wasn’t there. Instead, there was only a drifting sort of peace; all her emotions were merely shades of it. “I couldn’t live with myself for a day if I traded one of them for something like that,” she said quietly. “Much less forever. It wouldn’t have been just one of them. It would have been everyone in my life; everyone close to me. I wouldn’t be close to anyone after that. I would be alone, and I would have deserved it.”

  “You might have done great good,” Itaja said.

  “I saw that, too,” Bailey agreed. “But... lonely people are sad. Sad people eventually get angry. Whatever good I did at first... I don’t know where one future ended and another begin. I think they might have all been part of the same future, really.”