Chasing Power

by Sarah Beth Durst

“The stone for the body holds the power to heal and to harm. Cause diseases. Pestilence. The third stone is for power over fire, water, and wind. When the spell is activated with only a single stone, those powers manifest in the children of the casters. But combined … all those powers flow into one person and are magnified, creating a person so full of magic that he or she is invincible to all but the passage of time.”

  “Yikes,” Kayla said. An understatement.

  “Evelyn shared her research with me, and it was extensive. She traced the history of the stones back as far as Gilgamesh, who refused to use them with his friend Enkidu. And then to the first Roman emperor, who did not refuse to use them. The stones became Rome’s secret treasure. According to Evelyn, the stones were nearly given by Julius Caesar to Cleopatra as tokens of love. Evelyn thought that’s why he was killed. But their primary use was strengthening the empire. She believed the emperors used the stones individually to deliberately give power to their children … until one less-than-happy descendant used his power to set Rome on fire. Stories remember him as the emperor who fiddled while Rome burned. The stones disappeared for a time after that and then resurfaced at the end of the Roman Empire. The son of the last emperor—a man who supposedly had father issues bad enough to rival your own—stole the stones and used his power to bring them to Central America, where they were used by the Maya warlord Fire Is Born.”

  “The Romans didn’t know the Americas existed,” Daniel objected. “Even a teleporter shouldn’t have been able to bring them here.”

  “Your mother’s theory was he was aiming for Egypt, to finish what Caesar had started. She thought he must have pictured a pyramid but wasn’t precise enough, and the magic brought him to the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacán, which is only a little smaller than that famous one in Giza. Clever woman, your mother. Too clever, perhaps. In time, Jack—Kayla’s father—learned of her research, and that’s where your tale begins.”

  Kayla remembered the Latin on the parchment. They’d guessed right: the stones had been in Rome before Tikal. But their history didn’t matter; what mattered was where they were right now. “My sister said they planned to use the three stones with three casters.”

  “Ahh, you met Amanda?”

  “You know her?”

  “Oh, yes.” Her voice was grim. “She was the one who made the mess of my shop. She didn’t like my claim that her power wasn’t right for the task. Or that I refused to help them.”

  “What task?” Daniel demanded.

  “Why, finding the stones, of course! I refused to help them and told them they would fail.” She said it slowly as if he were hard of hearing, then she continued in a normal tone. “Amanda didn’t like that answer very much. She has a temper, that one. And determination. Despite my words, she wasn’t going to give up. So when you appeared, I knew I had to help you find them first.”

  “You used us,” Daniel said flatly. “You wanted us to find the stones and bring them to you so you could use the stones yourself.”

  Queen Marguerite tapped her cane on the floor. “Don’t be dense, boy. I helped you. I hoped if I did, you’d deliver the stones to me, rather than to Kayla’s father and sister—”

  “So you could use them!” Daniel jumped in.

  “So I could hide them a damn sight better than they were hidden! Who hides an evil spell and then leaves a map?” Queen Marguerite scowled. “No one should be able to cast any part of this spell ever. Even incomplete, it’s dangerous! I made a mistake once, when I sold your mother that stone, and it changed her fate. I intend to make up for that.”

  “What about my mother?” Daniel demanded. “Did you intend to save her, or just the stones?”

  Her expression changed, but she didn’t answer. “Now that the stones are found and not by you, both Evelyn and Lorelei are in danger. All my plans and hopes have—”

  Kayla jumped off her stool. “Moonbeam’s in danger? Why didn’t you say so sooner? Where is she? We have to help her!”

  “Patience,” Queen Marguerite said. “You have to know the past before you can see the future. Your father, Jack, believed that invincibility spell would fix everything that was wrong with his life. He still believes this, though his goals may have changed.”

  “But where—” Kayla said.

  “He wants to complete the spell that was begun. This means two things.” She held up two fingers. “First, if he succeeds, the power will leave the children and flow into one of the three casters, granting him or her full—”

  “Our power?” Daniel demanded.

  Queen Marguerite nodded. “Yes. You will lose your magic, one of the three will gain it, and one of the three will die.”

  Kayla felt as if it was suddenly hard to breathe. “But—”

  “Second, in order to succeed, he needs to recreate the conditions of the original casting, which means he needs your mothers. I came here to protect Kayla’s mother, Lorelei, but I was too late.” Marguerite’s grip tightened on her cane. “Lorelei gave up so much to avoid this kind of fate. As soon as she realized how obsessed Jack was, she wanted out. She tried to take both her children with her. But something went wrong, and she was only able to escape with one. With you.”

  “So Amanda was telling the truth?” Kayla felt as if her world were spinning. She wished there were something she could grab on to, something steady, real, and true. She grabbed on to Daniel’s hand and held it tight. She wondered if Amanda knew about the result of the spell—that she would lose her powers if Dad succeeded.

  “I don’t know what that girl told you, but you can ask your mother yourself. Fixer girl … you need to find them.” Marguerite reached across the table and clasped Kayla’s hands. “Before they complete the spell.”

  “Where are they?” Kayla demanded. Daniel echoed her.

  Marguerite released her hands. “If I knew, would I be here? It’s as I told you: Your father wants to complete the spell. He needs to recreate everything about that pivotal moment, and that means place as well. He needs the same water, the same people, and the same tools.”

  “The knife,” Daniel breathed.

  “He’ll bring them to wherever they cast the original spell, somewhere that had special meaning to all three of them. Find that place, and you’ll find them.”

  Kayla shook her head, as if she could deny any and all of it. Her mother had lied to her. Worse, her mother had started all of this. Her mother had bought the stone and cast the spell. She’d caused Kayla’s power. And Daniel’s. And Amanda’s. And then she’d fled from what she’d done.

  “You know your mothers best—you must know where their hearts once were,” Queen Marguerite said. Her voice was raw. “Please. We have to find them, and we have to stop them, before one of them dies.”

  Chapter 25

  Out in the garden, Daniel paced in tight circles. “Louisiana? We know they must have been there because they found Queen Marguerite’s store and the stone. Maybe they lived near there.”

  “You don’t know where your mother is from?” Kayla asked.

  “All she ever said was she didn’t have a happy childhood. I didn’t know how unhappy. Just that she wanted to escape it. We aren’t a share-your-feelings kind of family. Don’t you know where yours is from?”

  “We never talked about the past. Ever. It was part of the rules to stay safe.” Kayla tried to untangle a wind chime and failed. “Before I was eight, we lived in a bunch of different places. Pennsylvania. North Carolina. Texas. Florida. Dad and Moonbeam liked to move a lot. But I don’t think any of those places were their home.” Tossing the wind chime down, Kayla glanced at the house. This was home, the only place that had truly felt like home. Queen Marguerite was puttering around the kitchen, examining the spices. Kayla wished she could kick her out. She’d admitted to using them to find the stones. That placed her squarely in the category of “enemy.” Or, at least, not to be trusted. “Do you have any other family to ask? Grandparents? Uncles? Aunts? Cousins?”

  “She never
talked to her parents. I think she needed to prove they had no hold over her. I never met them. I don’t think they even know I’m alive.”

  “Well, aren’t we nice and dysfunctional.” Kayla kicked a garden gnome, and it fell over. It lay unmoving and unjudging on the lawn. Looking down at the ground, she noticed that the protective stones were still strewn over the lawn. She wondered if things would have been different if she’d left them in place. Maybe Moonbeam would have been safe. “Everything in my life is built on a lie. And now I find out the lie was based on a lie.”

  Daniel brushed her hand with his and then let it fall, as if he wasn’t sure whether she wanted to be touched. She reached out and took his hand. His fingers closed around hers.

  “I thought I knew my mother,” Kayla said. “But maybe I never did. You know, I’d never even seen a photo of her younger until I saw your mother’s album.” A thought occurred to her, and she pulled out the picture in her pocket. A young Lorelei, Jack, and Evelyn smiled from a set of bleachers. “Where do you think this is?”

  “Their high school.”

  Her heart sank. “Not likely they did the spell there. It’s too public. Plus they needed water. To conduct the magic, or whatever Queen Marguerite said.”

  “Look, it says the name of the school in the background, on the building.” Daniel took the photo and held it up so the sun hit it. There weren’t enough letters visible to read the name. Just the words “high school.” “It could be anywhere.”

  “Maybe there are clues in other pictures?” Kayla ran into the house, and Daniel followed. Without a word to Queen Marguerite, she shot across the cottage to her futon. She’d tucked the album under her pillow. Grabbing it, she sat cross-legged on her bed. Daniel sat beside her.

  Kayla flipped through the pages. She saw her mother smiling out at her from photo after photo. Many were taken in public places—a school, a Dairy Queen, a gas station. Or nondescript places—a living room, a parking lot, a football field. Some were taken in places that must have changed in the intervening years, like on a lawn or in front of a grove of trees. But then she hit a set of photos all from the same location: a swimming hole.

  “There’s water,” Daniel said softly.

  Her mother, so skinny and carefree, in a bathing suit, and her father so young and handsome. And Evelyn, Daniel’s mother, lounging with them beside a tiny pond. The swimming hole was nestled against a rock wall. Water trickled down the face of the rocks. Trees, dripping with moss, surrounded the pool. There was a sign in one photo: WATCH FOR ROCKS. NO SWIMMING. Daniel’s mother was flicking water at the sign. In a second shot, Kayla’s father had covered up the words FOR and NO so it said WATCH ROCKS SWIMMING. Lorelei was laughing.

  “They’re trespassing,” Daniel noted.

  “That’s good,” Kayla said. “That means this is a private place.”

  Queen Marguerite drifted closer. “What did you find, lovies?”

  Kayla clutched the album to her chest.

  “Now, now.” She clucked her tongue. “I care about your mother’s fate too. I’m coming with you. You could use my help, my magic—”

  “Sorry. Still don’t trust you.”

  Kayla and Daniel grabbed each other, and the house flashed around them. Red, then green. She thought she heard the voodoo queen yell, but her shriek was cut off.

  Daniel yanked her down. She knelt with him. As her vision cleared, she saw they were behind a rock, hidden. For once, luck was on their side. No one had seen them, and they saw no one.

  Creeping forward, Kayla peeked out at the swimming hole. It was not the pristine oasis that it was in the old photos. Spray-painted graffiti filled the rock face. Old tires, cans, scrap metal, and other trash littered the water and the woods. The water itself was coated in a film of green algae. The bushes were thick knots of brambles around the pool. Humidity thickened the air, and insects buzzed loudly. “I don’t see—” Daniel began.

  Kayla clamped her hand over his mouth as a tire rose out of the swimming hole and then flew into the bushes. Another tire followed it, then a rusted barrel. Amanda’s here, Kayla thought. But she didn’t see her. Three people tromped out of the bushes toward the water: Moonbeam; a woman who had to be Daniel’s mother, Evelyn; and Kayla’s father.

  Each of them held a stone. Kayla’s father also held a gun.

  He gestured with it, and Moonbeam scooted over the trash and waded into the water. The algae spread in ripples away from her. The hem of her dress was immediately saturated and pulled the rest of the dress down with its weight. She continued to walk in until she was hip-deep, and her skirt billowed around her. Daniel’s mother joined her. Last, Kayla’s father laid the gun on a rock and walked hip-deep into the water.

  Daniel nudged Kayla and nodded at the gun. Kayla shook her head. Much too heavy. Besides, what was she going to do? Threaten to shoot her own father? She was here to stop anyone from dying, not cause anyone to die, even though she was sure her father was to blame. Reasonably sure. Sort of sure. She scanned the area for items that she could lift. Whatever she did needed to be subtle. Amanda was nearby, and Kayla had no desire to go up against someone who could toss tires with such ease.

  In the water, Kayla’s father drew a knife out of his shirt pocket. He was reciting words, melodious words that drifted and dissipated over the murky water.

  “That’s my knife,” Daniel whispered. His lips were only an inch from her ear, and his breath tickled her skin. “We have to stop them.”

  “How?” she whispered back.

  “Improvise.”

  He was right. Sitting here afraid to act simply because her sister was near wouldn’t help anyone. She mentally grabbed the fishing line from her pocket, and she sent it into the water like a snake. She wound it around her father’s ankles and knotted it. She then took one of the scraps of metal, a small sliver with a needle-sharp point, and slid it into the water too. “I’ll distract him,” Kayla whispered. “You jump to the mothers. Get them out of here.”

  “I can’t jump both at once.”

  “Then I’ll distract him a lot,” she said grimly. “Don’t jump them anywhere Queen Marguerite can find them. Or their stones.”

  Her father grabbed Moonbeam’s wrist, and Kayla froze. Twisting her hand up, her father cut Moonbeam’s palm. He squeezed her fingers closed into a fist and held them over the stone. Blood dripped onto the stone and into the water beneath, the red dissolving into the green. He then turned to Daniel’s mother and began reciting more words.

  The second he released Moonbeam and before he could cut Daniel’s mother, Kayla acted. She jabbed the sliver of scrap metal into her father’s leg. He flinched as it hit his skin, and the fishing line caught his ankles. He fell backward.

  Daniel appeared in the water. He put his hand on his mother’s arm—

  And then he was ripped away from her and lifted into the air.

  Amanda, Kayla thought. She threw her mind toward the trees, searching for her. She had to be near! Daniel was tossed out of the water and into the bushes.

  Dammit, Kayla couldn’t fight someone so powerful! She crept farther around the rock, trying to see what was happening, and she “felt” Amanda. She was only a few yards away, hidden in the woods. She wondered if Amanda sensed her too.

  A second later, Daniel jumped to his mother again. This time, a tire hit him in the back. Splashing into the water, he fell forward. As Daniel caught his balance, Kayla’s father twisted Evelyn around and held a knife to her throat. “Stop!” Dad roared.

  Daniel froze, kneeling in the muck.

  Instantly Daniel was lifted out of the water and tossed not-too-gently back onto land, only a few feet from where Kayla hid. And then Amanda stepped out of the woods with a smile. She held out her hand, and the gun flew into it. “Who do you think is faster? A disappearing boy or a speeding bullet?” In two strides she was next to him. Kneeling, she pressed the gun against his temple. “How about at point-blank range? Think you can disappear fast enough? Go ahead, tes
t it.”

  “Don’t!” Evelyn cried.

  Finishing the words, Kayla’s father took Evelyn’s wrist. He cut her palm. She didn’t flinch. She kept looking at Daniel. Blood dripped onto the stone.

  Amanda stalked around the edge of the pond. “Katydid, I know you’re here too! Come on out! You don’t need to be scared.” She hasn’t sensed me yet, Kayla thought.

  Hiding behind the rock, Kayla barely dared to breathe.

  “Kayla, run away!” Moonbeam shouted.

  Her mind was running in tight circles. There were other things she could grab, more cans, leaves, dirt, small sticks. She had her new razor blade. But with Amanda here … Kayla couldn’t outmagic her. Amanda outclassed her in power, and they’d lost the element of surprise. Blood dripped from Evelyn’s hand, but she seemed not to notice, her eyes still glued to her son. Moonbeam cradled her hand to her chest. Dad was reciting words again, preparing to cut his own palm.

  So Kayla did the only thing she could think of. She stood up, hugging the photo album, and walked toward the water. She halted at the edge. “Hi, Dad.”

  Her father broke off the spell.

  Moonbeam’s face paled so fast that it looked as if she’d been dunked in chalk dust. Every freckle and sun spot stood out stark on her white cheeks.

  “What are you doing?” Kayla asked, casual, her eyes fixed on her father.

  “Don’t interfere, Katie. You don’t understand. Amanda, subdue the boy.”

  Amanda lifted Daniel up and chucked him against a tree. He slumped down silently, unconscious. Evelyn shrieked but didn’t move, the knife back at her throat.

  “My name’s Kayla now.” She kept her voice even, calm, friendly. Her eyes darted to Daniel. He seemed to be breathing. She’d help him later. Immediate problem first. “And you’re right. I don’t understand.” Kayla opened the photo album. “Look at what I found in Daniel’s house. It’s you and Mom and Daniel’s mom.”

  “How nice,” Amanda said. “Let’s get on with this.”

  Kayla ignored her. “Look how happy you all are. See this one? It’s here.” She gestured at the swimming hole. Her voice was shaking, but she continued. “Your arm is around Mom. You’re happy.” She turned the page and pointed to another picture. This one had Kayla’s father with Daniel’s mother. They were sitting on a picnic blanket. “So carefree and happy.” She turned the page.