“So you’re saying that my mom or my dad could be sorcerers?”
“A parent, yes, perhaps. But the Power can lay dormant for generations and suddenly awaken. Zere would be little way of knowing besides tracing back your family roots.”
“Remind me to hit the books when I get topside,” I said to Frank.
Frank nodded.
“So I guess that’s why your magick is on the fritz then, huh Frank?” I asked.
“It isn’t so much on the fritz as it’s… stunted. But there’s an element I could tap into if I wanted to sully myself with it.”
“What element is that?” I asked.
“Shadow,” Collette said.
“Shadow? That’s not an element I’ve ever heard of. Fire, water, earth, wind, and spirit, sure. But not Shadow.”
“Like the Goddess, Spirit has three faces,” Collette offered, “A light, a neutral, and a dark. We call the dark Shadow.”
“And the light?”
“Lunar.”
“Why am I only learning about this now? This isn’t in any of the books I’ve read.”
“There are some books you just can’t find on amazon, sweetheart,” Frank said. “Think about it. Wiccans call it calling the quarters—not the fifths. Humans don’t know the real truth.”
I had to think about that for a moment. When Damien first told me about True Witches he had mentioned that the religions of the day all took something from the truth about magick. Resurrections, Gods, miracles; everything came from one single truth about the world and the universe as we know it. Magick exists.
And if Magick exists, anything and everything is possible.
But it also meant that no single religion held all the cards. Wicca seemed to be the closest to the truth, at least to me, but how did that account for the miracles performed by Catholics? Or the truths the Abrahamian religions knew about the invisible dark forces that haunt humanity? Forces that I had come into contact with personally.
“I need to know more about this,” I said, “If I’m a sorceress I need to trace my line. I need to know who I am and what it means.”
“It means zat you’re rare, zat you’re powerful, and zat you must take special care to protect yourself,” Collette said. “I said before that zere are people who would take your power and exploit it. I meant it.”
“It also means that you’re like a sponge for magick, and that your power is as easy to mold as play doh,” Frank said.
“But… why? I mean, if we believe in fate, then why me?”
Frank shook his head. “Beats the hell out of me. All I know is that Damien and I are about as useful down here as fucking car ornaments. We’re counting on you to make sure we don’t get killed so that we can figure this out with you—isn’t that right, Damien?”
Damien barely managed to look back. He nodded, but I could tell he was still miles away. Madame Aishe sat next to him, but she wasn’t saying much either. She was staring into the water as we cut along its surface at a slow pace. The ferryman was masterful with his oar, swinging right along his left side and left along his right in a fluid motion to keep the ship sailing quietly forward. It was almost mesmerizing to watch his hands move with such precision. Though, strangely enough, the rest of him didn’t move at all.
I shuffled closer to Damien and Madame Aishe in my seat, ran my hands through my hair to tighten the pony tail on my head—my hair was sticking out all over the place, I was a mess—and rested my hands on my lap before directing my gaze at Madame Aishe. She turned, as if she knew I was looking, and faced me.
“Why do they call this the river of bone?” I asked.
Madame Aishe glanced at the surface of the water once more, then back at me.
“Bones are a symbol for memory, here,” she said, “Like bones, memories don’t ever truly decay. They may be buried, lost to time, and forgotten. But they can be excavated, cleaned, and picked up again. This river washes old memories and brings them to the fore, so that the dead cannot forget the living.”
And so that the living don’t forget the dead, I thought. I hadn’t said anything but my mind had drifted to the memory of my grandfather, Jacob, and my grandmother Violet. I was equally close to both of them, but I lost them one after the other—my grandfather to a heart attack, and my grandmother to a broken heart. I wasn’t sure why they had come to mind until now.
“There are many rivers in the Underworld,” Madame Aishe said, “Great rivers with strong currents and strange properties. Their main purpose is to carry lost souls from one place to the next, but they also connect large towns and serve as landmarks.”
They carry lost souls, I thought, and I blinked away the tears. Now I knew what Damien was looking for.
“Damien,” I said. He turned his head and glanced at me. “She’s not in there.”
Damien didn’t say a word, but he didn’t have to.
“We helped her move on. Lily moved on.”
He nodded, and I was sure that part of him trusted me enough to accept what I was saying as truth. But I could see the want in his eyes even in the faint glow from the lantern resting at the center of the boat. He wanted to see Lily in the water. Maybe to talk to her one last time, to say one or two last comforting words to her. To tell her that he loved her, maybe, or that he missed her.
“I’m sorry,” he said, from out of nowhere.
“Sorry for what?” I asked.
“For what I did to someone as good-natured as you. I’m sorry, Amber.”
I was rooted. Struck silent. What could I say? What should I say? “It’s okay,” I said.
“It isn’t. I did you wrong, and I need you to know that I’m sorry, and that I’ll never lie to you again.”
“We’ve all got our issues, Damien. I don’t need you beating yourself up about this any more.”
Damien nodded, but his look was solemn. “I won’t. I just needed you to know.”
“And I do. For what it’s worth, I had a great time with you. Natalie is a lucky girl.”
Bonk.
No one saw land approaching from the black. Damien may have seen the stiff, rocky shore if he weren’t looking at me, but we all lurched in unison, surprised. All save for the Ferryman, who simply stopped moving mid-stroke and waited for us to depart.
Madame Aishe was the first to stand and disembark, followed by Frank and Collette—who dropped two lead coins on the deck before stepping ashore. I was the last to leave, Frank and Damien both waiting to help me off as they had helped Madame Aishe and Collette.
When I looked back the Ferryman was pushing off, drifting silently into the black. The lantern on the prow glowed for a moment as the boat whispered away along the quiet river, and then the light was snuffed out as if by fingers made of darkness.
“We must hurry,” Collette said, “We are running out of time.”
And she wasn’t kidding, either. No sooner did the words leave her lips that she doubled over, clutching her stomach, and dropped to her knees with a loud thud. I rushed to her side, as did Frank and Damien, to stop her head from hitting the rock but we weren’t fast enough. Blood trickled from the wound on her left temple and, suddenly, the Necromancer didn’t seem as fresh as she had been a moment ago. It was as if all of the energy in her had been sapped from her body in one giant breath.
The underworld giveth and the underworld taketh away, right?
Chapter Twenty
“Collette,” I said, cradling her head, “Can you hear me?”
She nodded, weakly.
“Are you alright?”
“I think so. I… just… felt weak.”
“Do you know why?”
“I… I think… it knows. It knows we are here, zat we have made it zis far.”
I glanced at Frank and scanned his concerned eyes. Here we were; four witches and a ghost, barely aware of our surroundings, where we were going, or how we were going to get out of this mess when it was all finished. Because, yeah, that was something we would have to do. I shuddered
at the thought of having to cut myself again to bleed for the ferryman.
“Do you know where it is?” I asked Collette.
“I think so. But I need a moment to concentrate.”
We helped her to her feet and gave her a moment to think. The gypsy seemed uneasy, which was a strange sight to behold given that she was dead. Although here, with us, she didn’t look all that dead. I wanted to ask her, many times, how she had died - ask her to explain her story to me - but I didn’t think it was appropriate. Would she take offence to the personal nature of the question? I mean, you can’t get much more personal than asking someone how they died. Can you?
“Madame Aishe,” I said. I would ask her, but I would do it carefully.
She turned to me. “Yes?”
“I’ve been wondering—”
“How I died?”
“If you don’t mind telling me, of course. I just… it isn’t very often I get to talk to a ghost.”
“I understand,” she said, “It is a question often asked in the Underworld. Everyone wants to know how you died.”
“So, how did you? And… when did you?”
“My death happened yesterday,” she said, “Although since in the Underworld time has no meaning, yesterday could be a month, a year, or a hundred years ago.”
“You don’t know?”
She shook her head. “It would be impossible for me to know.”
“And do you remember how it happened?”
“An illness,” she said, “When I was alive, medicine was not easy to come by. A strong fever could take one’s life just as easily as one can snap their fingers.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago, child. I don’t need sympathy. Death, in any case, is not the end. Only change. Many people forget that.”
I knew this was true, since I had found plenty of life down in the Underworld so far. Their existence here was the same as the one I had in the world of the living, only—I guess—this life had more magick in it.
“Why didn’t you stay?” I asked. “Did you have any unfinished business?”
“I did stay for a time,” she said, “My brother… he was with me when I died. And as I crossed the threshold I held on to the idea of watching over him, of protecting him, and accompanying him through his life journey.”
“And your will alone was strong enough to keep you here?”
She nodded. “The dying will is a powerful thing. I remained here, lingering in the world of the living. I watched him mourn, find his happiness, find a wife, and have children. But when the fever came for him, I was powerless to stop it from claiming his life.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I nodded.
“I watched him float away from his body and disappear into the woods, lost and disoriented. I couldn’t call him fast enough. With his life severed, my business was done. The floor opened beneath my feet and I was dragged down into this place.”
“Do you know where he is now? I know many years have passed, but—”
“No,” she said, “I do not know where he is.”
Madame Aishe fell deathly silent. Watching her now, she almost looked like a statue, standing perfectly still and staring into the darkness above us. I craned my neck up to see what she was looking at but the endlessly high ceiling of the cavern swallowed all light and for a moment I wasn’t sure whether I was looking up, or down into a bottomless pit. I supposed it didn’t really matter which. In that moment I felt like I could fall upwards, or that something could descend to get us all – like those spiders from the town we had passed through.
I hadn’t noticed that we had started walking again until I smacked my knee on a protruding rock and almost went over. A bright flower of pain opened up and I bit my lip to stifle the moan.
“God dammit,” I said, groaning anyway.
“Are you okay?” Damien asked.
“Yeah, fine, it’s just so damn dark in here.”
“We should have grabbed some of those torches back at the town.”
“Yeah, we should have. Although I’m not sure where we could have found some.”
“I can see where we’re going,” the gypsy offered, “Follow me and we will be fine.”
The gypsy was at the front of the line, only a pace in front of Collette. The tunnel we were shuffling through was barely shoulder width in length and we could only go in one at a time. Frank was in front of me and Damien was at my back; though maybe I should have taken up the rear, given that I had magick I could throw around should it come to it.
Had I been so lost in thought I had forgotten to even protest when Damien urged me to walk in front of him into the tunnel?
“Collette,” I asked.
“Yes?” Her voice was weak. Soft.
“If it knows we are here, can it… manipulate us? Our thoughts?”
“I do not know. But it is not impossible. This is its natural domain.”
Fuck.
It knows. There would be no element of surprise for us. Worse, it would have time to prepare, to plan out a defense. To carefully arrange its resources so that we would walk right into whatever trap it wanted us to. Now, walking through the tunnel, surrounded on all sides by impassable rock, I felt the weight of fate descending on my shoulders once more.
The night I cast a hex on my old boyfriend was the night I set the wheels of fate in motion, and since then my decisions had not been my own. Everything that had happened to me and that would happen to me in the hours, nights, and months to come was decided long ago—and I’ve just been going with the flow ever since. Rolling with the punches.
Sure, I had learned a few things along the way and made some friends I wouldn’t otherwise have made. But, maybe I would have made them anyway. Maybe they, too, were destined to be here in this tunnel with me right now. What if they, too, had done something to get on Fate’s shitlist just as I had?
I felt it now like a solid truth as impossible to deny as the heat of the sun, and as heavy as all of its incredible mass. The tunnel was a metaphor. I could not side-step Fate, only go forward along the path until… until the path opened. And it had to open somewhere. I had to be given a choice sometime.
Everybody has a choice.
Then, suddenly, the path opened. I felt it first in the widening of the tunnel. My shoulders were no longer caressing the rough rock walls to my side and the air wafting into my nose and mouth tasted a little less like old sofa. Then, as I stretched my arms on either side of my body, I noticed my vision starting to come.
The world was black at first, but then it slid from black into dark blue, and the black now had shape and form. And through the darkness I noted spots of… gold? Spots of gold light surrounded by halos of pale yellow were starting to show at the far end of the cavern. Windows. They were windows!
The pale squares of light – they looked like squares now – though dim gave the building they were nestled in a shape I could identify. Tall and grandiose, a monolithic building stood out of the darkness like a beacon and I wanted to run to it. I was like a person who had been lost in the woods for days only to stumble onto a house with light, people, power, and food inside.
But Damien grabbed my arm before I could move. Frank, too, shot me a guarded look that said careful without saying a word.
“Collette?” I asked.
She stared, wide eyed, at the structure and almost went back a pace or two. I had to grab her hand and pull her steady to stop her from tipping over. Part shock, part weakness. I worried for her. She really didn’t have much time left and if we were going to do this we had to do it now, and we were only going to get one shot at doing it too.
“What is it?” I asked.
“The house,” she said. “The house, I know zis place.”
“You do?”
She nodded.
“Zis is ze boarding school I spent most of my teen years in. My parents sent me to Switzerland when I was a girl to study privately. But I… while I ‘ave not seen zis building in r
eal life for many years, I see it in my nightmares.”
“What’s an old Swiss school doing in the middle of the Continental United States?” Frank asked.
“Ze underworld does not conform to our understanding of geography. It is what it needs to be, where it needs to be.”
Collette let out a cough so hard it sucked the breath out of her lungs.
“Damien,” I said, “Take her.”
Damien took Collette’s hand and sat her down on the ground. He sat with her, enjoying the opportunity to rest up for a moment—even if it was only for a moment. I watched him offer her a bottle of water and she downed the whole thing. It was as if she hadn’t taken a sip in days.
“Collette, do you know why this Shadow of yours is showing us this building?” I asked.
She shook her head, but her eyes… I knew she didn’t want to tell. This wasn’t exactly the time to start keeping secrets, but it also wasn’t the time to go asking for explanations. Shit.
“Frank?” I asked.
“I say we go in,” he said. “If it knows we’re here it would have tried to kill us already—if it could.”
I didn’t need to hear anymore.
I turned to Damien, knelt next to him and Collette, and looked at them both. “I need you to stay here,” I said.
Damien’s eyes widened in alarm. “What? You can’t go in there by yourself.”
“I’m not,” I said, “I’m taking Frank with me. But Collette can’t move. I don’t want to risk hurting her and we don’t have a lot of time. If we’re going to find this thing I need to get in there and get back out fast. You need to be the one to protect Collette until we’re done.”
Collette gave me her solemn, weak eyes. She knew I was right. “You have done so much for me,” she said, “I have put you through so much already.”
I nodded. “And I need you alive so that you can help me like you promised, so you need to stay here.”
“I will go with you,” the gypsy woman said.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
She nodded. “You need a guide still, and I have nothing here.”
I stood up. “Alright,” I said, “Damien, if you see any sign of trouble, run back to the river. We’ll meet you there. Otherwise… we’ll be right back.”
The Amber Lee Boxed Set Page 61
