Zoe’s night like most of late, had been short lived with so much to cogitate. Liz hadn’t replied any of her 20 texts and the numerous calls either. Other than that, what that day entailed was a constant buzz to her conscious and apprehension.
She stood up from the dining table fluttering around nervously. Her palms were already reacting to her nerves with a threatening speed. Her movements weren’t helping her get anywhere. She sat back on the table, only to get startled by a message.
Chris…it’s about time, should I come get you?
Zoe stared at the message; she knew exactly what to answer but her fingers were in temporal shock. She had gone blank, stupefied and subjectively ignorant. She became reasonably stubborn because the attitude came with her obligation. It was not something she could jump with joy just by being involved. Rather register into accepting responsibility for whatever will become of her decision.
She snatched her phone from the table and wrote back to Chris. Yes, come pick me.
Storing her cereal bowl in the refrigerator, Zoe dragged her feet to her bedroom. She made an attempt to freshen up and ready herself for the grand event. Forty five restless minutes later, she heard a bike on their driveway and dashed to the window for verification.
It was Chris. Zoe closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. She took her handbag, locked the front door and walked to his bike. Commanding her conscious to adjust and accept she held her head high not really ready but willing to face her wildest fear.
“Hi” he said politely.
“Hey”
“Are we ready?”
“Not in a million years.”
Smirking with his head inclined, he handed her the helmet as Zoe jumped behind.
Arriving at DAW thirty minutes later Zoe braced her vitality, conscious and spirit. This is it, the thought bellowed in her mind. Frantic shivers ran all over her spine, the dreadful day had finally come to life. Chris appeared rather comfortable walking along beside her. The building pressure made it difficult for her to enjoy or even notice the magical grass yard.
She met a number of faces as they strolled towards the foyer on her way up to the meeting room. A quick count of the lot gave out a probable sum less of than fifteen witches. She stopped to greet the faces she recognized first. After all it was no secret that the small parade of witches had been waiting for her arrival.
Melody was her first encounter while addressing the unrestrained bunch. She had on a colorful top with a cotton skirt.
“Hello dear, you made the right decision.” Melody said smiling broadly. Zoe smiled politely as she held out her hand to her.
Clarissa was not alone this time. She brought along two other white girls. Meeting her zealous persona, she was already stretching her arms for a hug.
“Hey girlfriend, we are so proud of you, and we so love you. These are my friends Erica and Joyce. Looking at them closely she could guess they were not more than 19years. We are wishing you the best of luck.” said Erica. Zoe smiled at the girls who seemed equally excited.
Two guys also followed in line, one was a Latino the other was a redhead. Beside them were four other witches. They had on white shinny aprons which described them as either cooks or household attendants. The unusual part about their outfit was their kitchen hat. Theirs was a white pointed hat, they were witches after all.
“Zoe.” Chris beckoned, pointing upstairs where Maydith waved to her with an impatientness she had to respond to. She inclined her head nobly to the witches as she ascended the spiral staircase.
Rallied inside the meeting room, she found the entire high coven panel with exception of one. This time the table was smaller, just enough to accommodate that particular clique.
Formal greetings were tossed around and she took her seat beside Chris. When they were all seated she realized one seat was left vacant. Definitely Gigi’s seat, it was not very weird to realize she missed having her around in that particular moment. On the other hand it was weird to see Maydith seated. Longwood looked at ease, in casual wear and rather reserved demeanor. For the first time she saw the resemblance between Fred and Moosemond, they did look alike. Although Moosemond was shorter than Fred, and Fred was slimmer than Moose they had an unmistakably similarity. They both had deep set dark blue eyes with short strawberry blonde hair.
“Where is Gigi?” Zoe wondered.
“She is at the hospital, she cannot make it.” Maydith supplied.
“My apologies to you Ms Brown” Longwood said calmly “for the rushed events we have let you endure. I have the impression that you’ve learnt a lot in these few abusive days. Yet again I am certain you know why we are doing what we are making you do.” Zoe nodded vigorously “It may be yourself made choice but we are with you in the consequences that follow. Do you think you are ready for the exercise to take effect immediately?”
“Yes” Zoe replied with a single node.
“Good.” He sighed. “There are a number of rules that govern the procedure. Mr. Moosemond here will guide you through them with you until you feel ready to commence.
Zoe nodded again, relenting. After all, she had signed in for whatever.
But still, why should there be rules to opening a door!
Zoe was seating opposite Maydith who sat opposite Moosemond.
“Zoe, that house has one major rule.” Moosemond stated with a tenor voice “Do not get caught up with anything else but your main goal, which is finding the doors. You will have to go through four different rooms to eventually come across the real door. Are we together?”
“Yep. What are in these other rooms?” Zoe figured there must be surreal stuff going on in those rooms, how is it possible that she had to pass through four doors to get to the real one without going through hell on earth.
Moosemond shock his head, a thin line was formed on his lips “I cannot tell you that, nobody has been there before. These rules were fashioned to protect the house against black magic witches vandalism. Each door has a normal handle except the very last one. This is the one handle that is designed to fit your pendant. Got that?”
“Unhuh, so these rooms really exist?” Zoe nodded faintly.
“Not really, their existence is a magical trick.”
She nodded faintly, slowly digesting how to go about that.
“Brilliant, another important detail is that you are limited to half an hour of action inside the house. That is to say, you have exactly thirty minutes to complete the entire task.
The first fifteen minutes your inside, your body will be fully visible, but the last fifteen minutes you will start seeing changes. You will experience invisibility from your legs going up.”
“What happens when the hour is over?” she asked thoughtfully.
“You will be completely invisible and you will return to us without the humeleons.”
“Can it be redone again?” her eyes were enlarged.
“Yes but the rooms will double up.”
Zoe got up from the table, the five pair of eyes rose with her.
“So let’s do this. I am ready.” she announced, her voice sharp and direct.
They got down to the lawn. To most of her audience Zoe appeared strong and fearless. She had on a black pair of jeans a dark blue shirt. Withholding her graceful demonstration was a solid base. She had come to terms with her destiny. A waste of time meditating, anticipating or feeling sorry for herself hadn’t helped one bit. Acknowledging her responsibility on the other side of her coin would help some lives. Sissy-hood was been permanently terminated.
The blue sky and fresh atmosphere had an invisible substitute that moment. Everyone’s emotions were on the edge, masked with worry, questions and heightened apprehensions. She didn’t allow her thought to go running that road. It was a dangerous one. She was almost certain if she did, making another step toward the house would be like fitting her fist in a key hole.
Chris was beside her, she turned to look at him, he appeared just as worried.
“I’ll be fine. I won
’t get manipulated.”
“Be careful.” He urged “Just please remember to concentrated on finding the doors.”
“Okay.” she smiled bravely, going into his arms for a hug.
Seth Krukton was working on what she came to find out was her magical ride to the other side. He drew a star features exactly like the one on her pendant. He used his hands and glittering gold marks appeared on the grassy lawn. It looked incisively how it had on the Channeler’s oracle. Zoe was beckoned to stand where the cauldron had been the last time.
The rest of the coven member, Chris taking Gigi’s place stood around her holding hands while reciting and incantation code. A furious gush of wind came slashing at them. She felt her hair getting blown by the wind.
Zoe briefly closed her eyes, when she lifted her brow it was as dark as a moonless night.
Instead of moving forward she dragged a step backward. She couldn’t see a thing, her eyes strained to stay open in such sheer darkness. There was no way she could help the grave chill she was getting. She turned and fumbled around to a dead end. She felt a hard substance. It didn’t feel like a wall it was something like a wooden door.
Her hand trailed to a handle which she automatically tried opening but found it locked. She kept groping to her left and caught what felt like a light stick. She magically lit it and the luminous flames gave the creepy room some light. Immediately after the lights were on she heard a sniff, like someone was crying. The grieving sound was coming from the right corner of the room. The room had irrelevant number of pillars every turn her eyes took.
Her own heart began throbbing heavily as she took courageous steps toward the cry. It was a woman’s tone, she was wearing a white faded dress. She was incapable of seeing her face but she kept hearing her sniffing.
Zoe hesitated.
It had to be a mind trick; she turned away from the miserable woman she flicked back after a cold hand griped her own. The lady was up and staring at her. How did she do it in a blink? She had very white pale skin, and red swollen eyes.
“Help me” she hushed.
Zoe yanked out her hand from her grip. “Leave me alone.”
“They locked me up in here for fifty years, please set me free.” she begged in a tired voice. Zoe forced her pity to stay shut inside her. Averting from the lady’s tortuous swollen eyes, she forced her feet to match forward. As she moved she heard the lady shriek her name. It almost made her turn but she saw the second door.
Invading her second challenge with the pentagram pendant safe on her chest and a light stick on her hand, Zoe stood breathless. Two meters ahead stood a group of faceless men performing a deadly ritual on carol. They men were wearing gleaming blood red robes while her mother lay on an operating table with blood coming out of her nose and ears.
“Mooom” she cried with anguish.
Carol turned to face her, she looked beaten “Honey, take me home…I can’t stay here” she pleaded with such agonizing difficulty. Zoe forgot the rules and ran to her pushing away the men surrounding her.
“What did they do to you?” she muttered glancing at the faceless men.
Their faces were masked with a black loose cloth. Even without seeing their eyes she felt an irritating ire about them.
“I don’t know, they came for me at school. I want to go home please take me home Zoe.”
Carol insisted with a small voice.
“I won’t leave you.” she soothed, again manipulated by the illusions.
“That’s a beautiful necklace darling.” Carol suddenly smiled and bore out teeth that could suit a ninety year old. Zoe jerked away from her and eyed around searching for another door. The men disappeared and when she turned to look at where her mother was, it was empty. She held on to her light and luckily found her third conquest.
Then her light stick went off impulsively. She immediately willed her powers to light it back and when it illuminated the room, her eyes could not believe what they saw.
In a shirt and pants he was oddly smart but frail. Her father, Zackary Brown beaming down at her. She was overwhelmed.
“Dad” she gasped, throwing her arms to him. He was cold.
Zoe pulled away abruptly.
“This isn’t real, Get away from me.” She sputtered.
Zackary looked down at her “What if am not?”
“Yes you are a ghost” she shot at him accusingly.
“Zoe this is me your dad, I’ve missed you so much honey – I wanna talk to you.”
“Don’t. Don’t talk to me. Just go away.” she muttered.
“So you’d rather leave me alone?” he asked, his voice crispy “you want me to suffer for eternity in this darkness.”
In the attempt to escape her father’s piercing eyes, Zoe absently looked at her feet but she couldn’t see anything. Her eyes widened with fright. The invisibility spell had begun without her knowledge. She glanced at her watch and saw that she had less than ten minutes before her body was sent back. This time when she turned to look at her father she saw him getting pulled by a force on the wall. His abdomen was left hanging as he pleaded with Zoe.
“Zoe, don’t leave me alone, they are taking me away” he howled.
Zoe felt her heart palpitate, she could hear herself breath in puffs. Forcing herself not to listen, she wavered to the next door. She had had enough of the ghost. Why were they so believable?
Her hand graced the fourth door. She opened then abruptly shut it behind her. There was nothing this time, no ghosts to test her conscious. Her time read five minutes. She hastened her step toward the door but an arrow slewed from nowhere and landed on her arm. She dropped to the floor and so did her light stick.
“Aaah” she groaned. Although the arrow had dug into her flesh, she didn’t feel any kind of pain. Nothing is real, she recalled. All of it was distraction to keep her from opening the door. She pulled it out with all her might and started fumbling for her light stick. Time was ticking and she couldn’t see the door without the light. She thought of channeling her power but remembered if she aimlessly she would end up light the whole place on fire.
“Oh my god where is it?” she groped some more. Her arm flew around without direction trying to find the stick. Her hands were getting dump and she was already trembling.
Her hand stumbled upon something but it was not the stick. It felt like a hinge bone. She threw it away with a shudder.
“Yes” she rejoiced after feeling the actual stick, Zoe lit it up and her eyes fell to her watch, It read twenty second to go. She searched for the last door. She quickly took of her chain and held it on her hand. Five second.
There it was. The last door finally! Her legs ran to the door and 3…2…1.
There was the same light that shimmers whenever she uses the necks powers. It glittered for few second.
The door opened. She made it.
The door flew open and behind her everything disappeared. The four magical rooms were gone. She peered inside and her eyes got the taste of another century.
The first room she stumbled upon looked like a study. It had incredibly impressive painting and drawing on the walls. There were old books in different corners and many more in the shelves. A good number of liquor bottles lay empty on the floor. The room was bright but rather claustrophobic. Here nostril caught up with the strong dusty odor. She noticed from the pulled out drapes that the windows were down. Her fingers lightly touched the furniture which pulled out pretty dusty. An old newspaper caught her eye, she snatched it from a couch and read the year. Her brows pushed up, it wasn’t that long! Just three years back!
She walked through a narrow corridor and peered into the first room on the right. The room was empty with a messy bed and some more liquor bottles and books. Not seeing it coming, she felt sorry for their confined life that second. They must have had it rough she thought, not seeing another human being for years was an extreme torture.
Entertaining her curiosity to search another room which was also on the same side,
she made a strong stop by the door after noticing people asleep on a bed.
She sprinted to the bed, and there she found three bodies. She stood on the edge of the bed scrutinizing their features. Despite their circumstances, they appeared peaceful and comfortable. On the left was a Caucasian male, he had rich chestnut hair, a very hefty frame and an attractive face, he was not drop dead handsome, but there was something distinctive about him, something very appealing .
The body on the middle was of a Korean girl, plausibly her height. She had straight black hair and even when asleep she was quiet the beauty. And last was a black guy, very muscular and offensively good-looking. She couldn’t help but wonder if it was a criterion in their selection matrix to only pick, good-looking individuals.
Zoe placed the back of her palm on their forehead and noticed that they were incredibly warm. She tried shaking them out of what looked like sleep but none of them woke up. The three humeleons were stagnant. They didn’t even display a reluctant snuggle or a shift of posture. They looked dead but alive.
“Oh no” she cried, running back to where she came from. She wondered if the heat was from an infection or something else more serious.
Zoe opened the door to the mass of excited witches waiting on her impatiently. Their faces were masked with eagerness and curiosity.
“I found them, they don’t look too good” she announced.
There was a lot of chattering, whispering and veering in the crowed as the coven leaders answered to her call with fast paced steps.
They followed Zoe into the room and Chris took hold of Zoe’s hand, she turned to meet his concerned eyes.
“You okay” he muttered.
She nodded, and smiled briefly.
Longwood went to check them out himself. After he made his observation, he searched around and saw a small bottle. “Can you pass that please.” he said looking at Chris.
He handed the chairman the small plastic bottle and when her sniffed its content he nodded.
“They drank a sleeping portion. Go get Turtlehead.” he told Chris.
Watching Chris’s back, the atmosphere was back to a cooling point.
Goodbye Normal Page 20
