“If I agree to this,” I said, “you have to swear to watch over Yew Hollow for the rest of your eternal life. I’m going to need a whole hell of a lot of help to manage the coven.”
Dorothy held up a pinky finger. “I promise.”
I closed my eyes, composing myself. This pact wasn’t one that I could make lightly. Everything would change from here on out. I wrapped my pinky finger around Dorothy’s, a childish gesture that still seemed to hold some kind of steadfast validity.
“Deal,” I said.
Dorothy nodded, a look of triumph in her gray eyes. “Let’s get you across the river,” she said, using our linked fingers to guide me toward the dark water. “We can’t accomplish anything from this worthless stretch of no man’s land.”
“Wait,” I said, planting my feet. “Why don’t you want my father to know about this?”
Calvin still waited near the river, tossing pebbles into its murky depth. He was the picture of blissful ignorance, a man who had left his life behind too soon but still managed to make the most of all that remained.
“Your father, with all of his mortal shortcomings, will have a hard time accepting your return to earth,” Dorothy explained, watching as Calvin cast another handful of stones into the river. “He may agree to help us find the weapon, but I imagine he believes your soul will be compromised should you find your way back to Yew Hollow.”
“Will it?” I asked.
“That, my dear, is entirely up to you.”
I had already decided to take my chances. My family was at risk, and if the deterioration of my soul was the price I had to pay for saving the coven, so be it. I nodded to Dorothy, and together, we joined my father at the river’s edge.
“So?” Calvin prompted, taking my hand in his.
Dorothy held my other hand. The thought of my father and Dorothy flanking me as I passed into the next level of the otherworld was mildly comforting. At least I didn’t have to go it alone.
“We’re in agreement,” Dorothy said. “My help locating the weapon for the purity of the original coven’s magic.”
Calvin looked down at me. “Morgan?”
I glanced up at my father, squaring my shoulders off. He was asking for more than just my consent to Dorothy’s plan. He was ensuring that Dorothy, for whatever reason, wasn’t taking advantage of me.
“We’re in agreement,” I echoed.
“All right, then,” my father said, accepting my decision without argument or clarification.
The declaration of our unified goal had a slight lifting effect on the weighty feeling in my chest. I gazed out across the river, wondering how I could possibly cross its eternal breadth. And if I did, would I ever be able to return? I took a deep breath. How many souls had remained on this side of the river, never able to face death or return to life? The thought stuck in my throat. I swallowed hard. There was only one way forward, and it was through the dark water before me. If I had any shot at helping the coven, it lay ahead of me. Not behind me.
“You’ll be waiting for me on the other side, right?” I asked Calvin and Dorothy, squeezing their hands even tighter.
“Absolutely,” said Dorothy, reaching across to hold onto my arm with her free hand.
My father’s warm, calloused fingers seemed to lend their heat to my own pale, frigid ones. “You know it, Ace,” he said with a reassuring smile.
“Okay,” I said, taking a deep breath in. “Here we go, then.”
Together, the three of us stepped forward, wading into the shallows of death.
Chapter Three
In Which My Sanity Wavers
As soon as my shoes disappeared beneath the river, the water seeping in between my toes like icy tentacles, the air clouded with a misty fog. It closed around us slowly, thick and menacing, squashing any ability to see what might lay in front of us. When I glanced to either side, my father and Dorothy were all but invisible, their faces obscured by the unrelenting fog. At first, I still felt the pull of their hands in mine, so I calmed my mind and focused on sloshing through the river. The water rose to my shins, then to my knees, and before I knew it, I was submerged up to my hips. The current had strengthened too, and I leaned forward to push against it. It was only when my feet lifted from the pebbled river floor and I began to swim that I realized Dorothy and Calvin had disappeared.
Panic pulsed through me, and I spun myself around, splashing water in every direction in an attempt to locate Dorothy and Calvin. The fog was no help. I could barely see past the length of my own arm. Then my vision blacked out entirely.
I stopped moving, floating in the water, and gave in to the current. It seemed to be washing me in one direction, so I simply allowed myself to flow along with it. I closed my eyes, embracing the darkness and trusting the otherworld to guide me across the river to the next level.
“Morgan?”
My eyes flew open at the familiar sound of that voice, because it wasn’t Calvin’s or Dorothy’s as I had expected. It was Gwenlyn’s.
All was dark around me. The pitch blackness seemed to press at the space between my eyes. I shook my head, hoping to dispel the pressure building there, but to no avail.
“Gwenlyn?” I called out, hoping against hope that Gwenlyn hadn’t somehow ended up in the endless river of the otherworld.
Gwenlyn’s voice sounded again, but this time it was disjointed and hoarse. “Morgan, come back,” she sobbed. “Please come back.”
The sound of Gwenlyn’s crying tugged at the corners of my soul. As the river rushed me further into the otherworld, Gwenlyn’s voice seemed to follow me, echoing from all directions. I plugged my ears with my fingers, but it was to no avail. Her voice was clearer than ever. All I could do was listen to Gwenlyn’s disembodied pleas and drift aimlessly along, praying that I’d come out at the other end of the river physically unscathed. Emotionally, I was already screwed.
But Gwenlyn’s voice intensified in volume, making it impossible to ignore. She sang laments and eulogies directly into my mind, and I shouted out into the darkness, desperate to hear anything other than Gwenlyn’s doleful cries. I yelled and yelled, until finally, the river swept right over my head. I swallowed a lungful of black water, choking and sputtering. It wasn’t fair. I had already died once. I really didn’t need to repeat the experience.
And yet, somehow, I found myself, completely dry, at the front door of a large building. To either side of me stood Calvin and Dorothy, as if they had been with me for my entire trip down the river. I ran a hand through my hair, which had been soaked through with the river water only moments before.
“Are you okay?” my father asked. He reached out a hand, as if to pull me into a hug, then seemed to think better of it. I was oddly relieved that he had reined himself in. For some reason, I didn’t think I would be able to take the compassion. I didn’t answer the question, though, still reeling from the entire experience.
“It can be tough the first time,” said Calvin in a soft voice.
“The first time?” I asked, the words cracking in the back of my throat.
Dorothy cleared her throat. “When you spend a lot of time in the otherworld, you learn to travel between some of the levels. I can’t even count how many times I’ve taken a trip down that river.”
“Do you… hear things?” I asked in a small voice.
“What kinds of things?” my father asked, puzzled.
“Voices,” I said. “Of people you knew. Before.”
Dorothy and Calvin looked at one another. Clearly, neither one of them had experienced anything of the sort.
“It’s fine,” I said, shaking it off. “It’s probably just me freaking out. Don’t worry about it. Where are we?”
I gestured to the door in front of me. It belonged to a long, low building made of old red brick. Like the river, the building seemed to extend perpetually in either direction. As I glanced down its length, I noticed other doors and other people emerging from the river behind us. Without hesitation, these folks reach
ed for the handle of whatever door was closest and disappeared inside the building.
“Don’t worry,” said Calvin, clapping a hand on my back. “This part of the otherworld actually isn’t so bad.”
He pushed open the door in front of us and held it open. I followed Dorothy inside, glanced around, and immediately relaxed.
We were in a bar.
In fact, the place looked strangely similar to one of my old college haunts in New York City. The light was low, the air was smoky, and music pulsed from unseen speakers. The bar’s patrons looked human enough, bobbing their heads along to the beat and sipping beer. Some of them peered up at television screens that showcased a football game. Others played billiards or loitered by an old juke box. A number of bartenders, dressed in all black, mixed cocktails and refilled beer at the taps. All in all, the whole place just seemed… normal.
“This is more like it,” I said, stepping toward an empty section of the bar.
“Well, you did ask for it,” my father said as the three of us claimed adjacent bar stools. “The otherworld often manifests to match your perception of it. Dorothy and I have been here before, so it’s mostly your subconscious that’s influencing what you see right now.”
“I’m totally okay with that.” I leaned past Dorothy to flag down the bartender.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” warned Dorothy. “Many souls get caught in this level. It’s comforting, I know, but you must resist its pull.”
Before I could even order, the bartender poured my favorite beer, a light ale, from the tap and set it down in front of me. I took a deep swig, letting its familiar flavor wash across my tongue. Somehow, the beer tasted colder and more refreshing than it had in the real world. I sighed contently, sinking down to rest my elbows on the counter. I nodded along to the music playing in the background. For the first time since I’d returned to Yew Hollow, I felt like I could sit back and unwind. My eyes found the nearest television, and I settled in to watch the game.
“Morgan!” My father snapped his fingers in front of my face. I had already zoned out, though, and the sharp click of his gesture only disturbed my blissful peace of mind.
“Hm?”
Dorothy confiscated my glass of beer before I could raise it to my mouth for another drink. She slid it to the other end of the bar, where another patron caught it and nodded his thanks.
“Hey!” I protested and attempted to get the bartender’s attention for a replacement.
“Look around you, Morgan,” my father hissed. “You aren’t meant to stay here.”
“Remember your purpose,” added Dorothy. “Find the weapon. Contact Gwenlyn. Save Yew Hollow.”
It was all sounding a bit too complicated now. If I was being honest with myself, all I wanted to do was enjoy the atmosphere around me. It had been far too long since I’d been carefree in a college bar. Thoughts of Yew Hollow drifted from my mind, carried away by the lazy smoke of a nearby cigar. I breathed in deeply, savoring the earthy, oaky scent of the smoke, and allowed my eyes to close.
For a moment, I only saw the dark inside of my eyelids. Then, out of nowhere, Gwenlyn’s face appeared, her eyebrows furrowed together and her lips pursed in an expression of extreme determination. She sat cross-legged with a familiar, leather-bound journal in her lap. It was Mary Summers’s diary, a firsthand account of all that had occurred during Yew Hollow’s conception. Gwenlyn flicked impatiently through its pages, as though she had already read its contents several times but still hadn’t found the information she sought. The clarity of the vision made me feel as though I was standing above Gwenlyn, looking down on her as she haphazardly searched through the diary. I could even see Gwenlyn’s tears of frustration leaking from her eyes. They dropped onto the pages of the journal, smudging the age-old cursive. Suddenly, Gwenlyn looked up as though something had caught her attention. She stared directly at me, her green eyes flashing with recognition, and mouthed my name.
In the otherworld’s bar, I nearly fell off my stool. My father steadied me, his strong hand at the small of my back.
“Whoa,” I breathed, planting my palms on the bar top in order to feel balanced again. I glanced around the room, noticing new, bizarre things. The bartenders, it turned out, were all the same person, cloned over and over to serve his many customers. The football players cast on the television screens had no defined faces, just blank, blurry features where their expressions should have been. Even more unsettling, though, was the fact that the majority of the bar patrons were not as lively as I had originally thought. Many of them stared off into space or into the depths of their glasses with vacant expressions, apparently unaware that eternity stretched out before them.
“Done playing pretend?” Dorothy asked wryly.
My eyes snapped back to her face, and I remembered why the hell we were here in the first place. I stood, kicking my bar stool back with such force that it toppled over and fell into the path of a passing soul, and said, “Yup, I’m finished with this place. Where to next? Which level is the weapon on?”
“A few down,” said Dorothy. She nodded at Calvin, who waved at the bartender. “I’m afraid you’ll have to solidify your willpower, Morgan. It only gets harder from here, and the temptations of this bar are the least of your worries.”
“Three shots of your best,” Calvin said to the bartender, who nodded, turned his back to us, and busied himself with some kind of liquor bottle.
“I get it now,” I insisted, still shaking off the strange paralysis that the bar seemed to inflict on its customers. “I’ll be more aware of that kind of thing.”
The bartender dropped three shot glasses off in front of us, all filled with some kind of ominous, black substance.
“What the hell is that?” I asked, wrinkling my nose.
“Our passage to the next level,” said Calvin, handing one of the shots to Dorothy and one to me.
I held the glass up to my eye, examining its swirling contents. “I’m supposed to drink this?”
“It tastes atrocious as well,” Dorothy said, her lips pursed in distaste. “I did warn you things would get harder.”
“I didn’t realize you meant in a Fear Factor kind of way,” I retorted. I took a whiff of the drink, nearly retching as the smell of tar reached my nose.
Calvin clinked his shot glass against mine and Dorothy’s.
“No point in putting it off,” he said. “Bottoms up.”
I steeled myself, plugged my nose, and threw back the shot. Before I could even register the acrid flavor of the alcohol, my brain seemed to flood with its immediate effect. My vision blurred, my head swam, and the bar disappeared around us, morphing into another setting entirely.
I fell to my knees in the middle of a damp, grassy clearing. My head felt heavy, weighed down by whatever foreign liquor had just flushed out my system. I gagged but nothing came up, and once again, I realized that the otherworld did not ease its new occupants into its aberrant existence.
Calvin kneeled next to me, brushing my hair away from my face. “How you doing there, champ?” he asked, chuckling. “Stings a bit, doesn’t it?”
“Worst hangover ever,” I choked out. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping to stop the world from swirling around me. When the worst of the nausea had passed, I gathered the courage to look around.
The three of us had materialized in a dark forest. The trees stretched perpetually upward, obscuring any sign of the stars, and a ceaseless, wintry rain beat down from the invisible sky. It soaked through my clothes quickly, chilling me to the bone.
“This ought to be fun,” I grumbled, pushing myself to my feet.
Dorothy’s eyes perused the perimeter of the clearing. There were no hints of other creatures, no crackling of branches or footprints in the wet grass, but I had the feeling that Dorothy wasn’t exactly on the lookout for bunnies or raccoons.
“We should move quickly through this level,” she said, ushering my father and me to the edge of the clearing and into the inky darkness of the
trees. “I’ve seen too many souls fall to the feelers of this forest.”
I moved away from the closest tree. Dorothy’s words did not instill any sort of confidence within me, and the thought of those branches reaching out to close around my wrists gave me the willies.
“How do we get out of here?” I asked, hoping that Dorothy and Calvin knew enough about this level of the otherworld in order for us to pass through it posthaste.
“That’s the thing,” Dorothy said as she led us deeper into the forest. “This level is fickle. The exit is hard to find. People wander through these trees forever, unable to locate the portal to the next level.”
“Great,” I muttered. The rain seemed to be coming down harder now, and I was more than eager to find a respite from it. On the upside, if the only terrible thing on this level of the otherworld was the crappy weather, I couldn’t complain too much.
As if to prove me wrong, a great roar echoed through the forest around us, shaking the leaves from the trees. There was no mistaking the deafening sound for thunder. It surely came from the throat of some unknown beast. One look at my father’s widening eyes told me that my guess was pretty accurate.
“Run,” Dorothy whispered, and then she sprinted away into the night.
My father took hold of my elbow, tugging me along as we took off after Dorothy. We crashed through the forest, trampling underbrush and hurdling moss-covered logs. Whatever demon chased after us was unrelenting. The steady rhythm of four giant limbs tearing through the woods beat along behind our trio, as though an oversized lion was hunting us down. I blinked rainwater out of my eyes, desperate to see the ground in front of me. Ahead, at the top of a small hill, a dark shape loomed and, as it came into focus, I veered toward it.
Witch Myth Omnibus: A Yew Hollow Cozy Mystery Page 13
