“Morgan, no!” I heard Dorothy shout as I ripped my hand from my father’s grasp and sprinted flat out toward the mouth of a monstrous, welcoming cave.
“Do you have any better ideas?” I called over my shoulder, refusing to ease my pace. “We can at least hide from whatever that thing is!”
Dorothy and Calvin had no choice but to follow me. We struggled to run up the hillside, weaving in and out of the trees like drunkards. Behind us, the creature roared again, but its call was slightly muted. We had managed to put at least a little distance between us and it. The thought spurred me forward, and I crested the hill with the last bit of my energy. I skidded into the cave, slipping on the smooth surface of its stone floor. My father and Dorothy appeared over the hill only moments later, and I waved them into the depths of the cave.
As they joined me, I finally caught sight of our predator. It was massive, easily the size of a semi-truck, and covered in dark-green scales. It was too big to see its entirety through the maze of trees, but one glimpse of the foot-long fangs protruding from its mouth was enough to send me fleeing farther into the cave. Thankfully, it hadn’t seen us take cover, and as the three of us delved deeper into the mouth of the cave, the monster’s roars became harder and harder to hear.
“This was a mistake,” Dorothy said, panting.
“Our other option was to let that thing devour us,” I said, annoyed by Dorothy’s disparaging tone. “Aren’t you supposed to be the decision maker down here?”
“Morgan,” my father chided.
“It’s fine, Calvin,” said Dorothy.
The cave system was more complex than I had expected. Tunnels branched out in several directions, and I stopped short of the first fork in our path.
“Should we keep going?” I asked them, peering down each of the tunnels in turn. The cave itself glowed with a peculiar, greenish light, bright enough for us not to trip over the roughly hewn stone.
As if in answer to my question, the walls of the tunnel straight ahead of us blossomed with white flowers. They grew from the stone itself in quick succession, blooming in front of our eyes.
“Lilies,” Calvin muttered, reaching out to pluck one from the rock.
“The flower of death,” Dorothy added, her voice tinged with uncertainty.
“Sounds promising,” I said, but when I took a step down the tunnel of lilies, Dorothy reached out to stop me.
“Morgan, you have no idea what could be waiting at the end of that tunnel,” she said.
“Did you know that lilies are also symbolic of purity?” I asked her. I took her hand in mine, squeezing gently. “You said the otherworld shapes itself according to my thoughts. I’ve decided that this is the way we should go. Just trust me.”
No further arguments were made. Calvin and Dorothy allowed me to lead the way down the corridor of lilies. The green light of the cave seemed to refract off of their petals, illuminating our path. I walked lightly, keeping a cautious eye out, but the soothing sight of the flowers hid any sign of danger. Then we rounded a corner, and my confidence in my choice of tunnels died suddenly.
The scaled green monster sat before us, lounging upon a bed of lilies with its colossal front paws crossed over one another. I froze at the sight of it, but it merely gazed at us from tire-sized emerald eyes and yawned lazily, exposing its massive fangs.
“Do you wish to pass?” it asked in a surprisingly docile voice. I couldn’t figure out how it shaped words past its gargantuan teeth.
“Y—yes,” I stuttered, unable to look away from its immense girth.
“Then you must answer a question,” the beast said.
“And if we answer incorrectly?” my father asked, his voice stronger and more confident than my own.
The beast seemed to smile. “Not we,” it said. “She.”
I swallowed hard in response. The monster had dipped its head to indicate that I should be the one to respond to its question. “And if I answer incorrectly?”
“Then you remain with me until I see fit to ask you another question,” the beast replied, examining its claws with one giant eye.
“I suppose that’s better than getting eaten,” muttered Dorothy from behind me. I motioned for her to be quiet.
“Ask the question,” I said.
The beast shook itself out like a dog waking from a nap, its scales glimmering in the strange light of the cave, and stood. I tried not to back away as it approached me, its girth casting a shadow over Dorothy, Calvin, and myself.
“Morgan Summers,” it boomed. “To pass into the next realm, answer me this. What is your innermost desire, the one that eats away at your soul?”
My first thought nearly worked its way out of my mouth before I had the chance to think about it. I wanted to go back to Yew Hollow, of course. Alive. But the more I pondered the beast’s question, the more I realized that it didn’t want the easy answer from me. It wanted something more, a response that would not only hurt me to admit but would also hurt the others around me.
“My innermost desire,” I said, wishing that Calvin and Dorothy weren’t visible in my peripheral vision, “is to have never been a part of the Summers coven in the first place.”
Dorothy dropped her face into her hands, either so affected by my response or convinced I had answered the question poorly. My father simply looked dumbfounded.
The beast blinked, peering down at me. “You challenge your very existence?”
“I thought I only had to answer one question,” I replied wearily.
“Not so often does a mortal surprise me,” the beast admitted. It leaned down on its front paws, one of its emerald eyes now level with mine. “You may pass, Morgan Summers, and you may pass well.”
The beast’s jeweled eye grew in size, enlarging steadily until its pupil stretched and reached the stone ground. It dilated into a dark, round passageway that we were obviously meant to step through.
“Thank you,” I said to the creature, its massive face now oddly distorted by its transformation. Then I took Dorothy’s hand in mine, held my father’s arm with the other, and stepped into the deep blackness of the beast’s eyeball.
To my great relief, the passage from the beast’s realm into the next was pleasantly short and painless. The cave walls simply melted away like paint over a canvas, revealing the subsequent level of the otherworld.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said, letting go of my companions to gaze around. The three of us had arrived at the food court of the largest and most exquisite shopping mall I had ever had the pleasure of visiting. Like the bar, this level was busy. People milled around from one store to the next, lugging shopping bags along behind them. Glass elevators, unsupported by any kind of shaft, transported shoppers up and down the various levels of the mall, and a massive marble fountain sprayed jets of water into the air in time to a lively tune.
A kiosk nearby showcased a number of doodads, all with various magical purposes. As I reached out to inspect a silver pocket watch—Never lose track of time again! Plato’s Pocket Watch keeps track of your eternal life in real-world time!—my father smacked my hand away.
“Don’t touch anything,” he ordered. “This level responds to greed for material possessions. If you want something, you can never leave.”
“No wonder it’s so busy,” I mused. Mortals in particular couldn’t help but be influenced by materialism. They had to be entertained at all times, and the otherworld’s mall was certainly entertaining.
Dorothy peered through the windows of an electronics store, apparently amazed by its contents. Several flat-screen televisions sat on display, showing various game shows, sports events, and soap operas.
“You know,” said Dorothy, “I’m glad I was never alive to be wooed by the wonders of modern technology. It all seems so overwhelming to me.”
All at once, every television in the electronics store switched to the black and white grain of static, as though the otherworld’s cable had suddenly gone out.
“Se
e?” Dorothy said to me and Calvin. “Faulty, to say the least. Read a book. Sheesh.”
I ignored Dorothy’s comments, instead watching the televisions. The volume on each TV was loud enough to permeate the windows of the store, and the whooshing noise of the static steadily morphed into a recognizable voice. Then a face appeared on every screen, staring straight at me.
“Morgan?” the face asked, its familiar green eyes squinting at me through the various television sets. “Can you hear me?”
I took a step back in shock, short of breath. It couldn’t be.
“Gwenlyn?”
Chapter Four
In Which I Acquire a New Toy
Gwenlyn’s face broke into a huge grin, then she breathed a giant sigh, and then she burst into tears. Alarmed, I reached out to plant my hands against the glass window separating me from the televisions inside the store, wishing that I could hug Gwenlyn and tell her that everything was going to be all right.
“Gwen,” I said, my voice firm to recapture her attention. “Is that really you?”
She nodded, her eyes still streaming with tears, and my shoulders sagged at the utter happiness that came with knowing that Gwenlyn was alive and well. Furthermore, she had found her own way of contacting the otherworld, tearing down the wall between the living and the dead. I had no idea how she had done it, but I thanked whatever gods or goddesses that might exist for Gwenlyn’s dedication. It all made sense now. Ever since I had passed into the otherworld, Gwenlyn had been trying to reach me. It was why I kept hearing her voice, why I had had strange visions as she attempted to breach the barrier between worlds.
“I could smother you in a hug right now, kid,” I said, the words getting caught in the back of my throat.
Gwenlyn barked out a choked laugh, then glanced nervously behind her at something I couldn’t see. “I have to be quiet,” she whispered to me. “I’m the only one in the town who isn’t under Dominic’s trance.”
Dominic’s trance. Of course. Before I had passed into the otherworld, Dominic, in possession of the Summers coven’s original witchcraft, had managed to spell all of Yew Hollow’s inhabitants, including the witches, into submission. My own mother and sisters, along with the rest of our coven, had ignored me, turning away from the battle before them as if it were no more than a particularly dry game of golf. The fact that they were still similarly afflicted was no surprise. Dominic would not have rewarded them with free will. The witches were easier to control this way. The only reason Gwenlyn had managed to escape Dominic’s trance was because she, like Dominic and me, was also a medium. This coincidence somehow prevented Dominic’s ghostly army from controlling Gwenlyn. It was a blessing. Without a connection to the real world, there was no telling if I could’ve helped Yew Hollow at all.
“Where are you?” I asked Gwenlyn, immediately concerned for her safety. I glanced behind me, where the other shoppers were oblivious to my otherworldly conversation. Calvin stood observing them, his arms crossed over his chest. He looked more like a security guard than my father, but I appreciated his instinct to protect me at all times. Dorothy, on the other hand, gaped at Gwenlyn. Clearly, despite her knowledge of the otherworld, she had never actually seen anyone make contact with the real world. The thought caused a powerful surge of confidence to pulse through me. If I could speak with Gwenlyn, then maybe my return to earth wasn’t such an absurd concept after all.
“I’m at your loft,” Gwenlyn said, and wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “It’s the only place I could think of that Dominic wouldn’t check, since you’re gone anyway.”
“Does he know that you’re not under his trance?” I asked, leaning my forehead against the window as though I could push through it and fall through the TV into Gwenlyn’s world.
She shook her head. “No, thank goodness. I’ve been really careful to make it look like I’m just as oblivious as everyone else. He has no idea I’ve been trying to make contact with you.”
“How is everyone?” I said. “My mother. Malia, Karma, Laurel. Are they all right? What about the rest of the coven?”
“Slow your roll, Morgan,” Gwen said, once again throwing an anxious glance over her shoulder as if to check for one of Dominic’s minions. “Everyone’s fine. They all just go about their regular business, almost as if they’ve forgotten about everything that’s happened. The townspeople, too. They’re complete robots. But to be honest, I have worse news.”
A heaviness settled in my chest. What could be worse than Dominic’s hold over the entire town? Hadn’t he caused enough strife already? “What is it?” I asked, steeling myself for the news.
“Dominic’s practically gone insane,” Gwenlyn said, leaning closer into whatever source she was using to scry the otherworld. Her face filled up the entire television screen. “His mother and sister aren’t… human exactly.”
I hung my head. “I told him that it wouldn’t work.”
Gwen nodded grimly. “I don’t think he realized that bringing them back would require some kind of payment in return, you know? That’s why you got sucked into the otherworld to begin with.”
This much I had already figured out for myself. Witchcraft relied heavily on balance, and Dominic’s insane ritual to reawaken his mother and sister from the dead had taken its toll. Since I had been the only living soul around at the time, the otherworld had taken me in order to establish equality.
“They’re awful, Morgan,” Gwenlyn said. She tucked a strand of her dark hair behind her ear. “His mother and sister. They don’t even look like ghosts. They just look like vacant shells. Their eyes don’t focus on anything. They can’t speak. It’s utterly terrifying, and Dominic is in pieces over it.”
“I wasn’t enough,” I said, realizing at least one of the things that had gone wrong with Dominic’s ritual. “He brought back two souls and only sacrificed one in return. My death wasn’t enough to fuel both his mother’s and his sister’s return to life. That’s probably why they’re barely there.”
“Yeah, well, that hasn’t stopped Dominic from trying to figure out a different way to solidify their presence here,” said Gwenlyn. She rubbed absently at the back of her neck, as if to massage a knot out of the muscles there. “I thought his mother and sister were bad enough, but you wouldn’t believe what he’s done to try and fix them.”
“What could possibly be worse than sticking me down here in this eternal hell hole?” I asked, hoping that Gwenlyn was exaggerating.
“Zombies,” said Gwenlyn with a nonchalant shrug.
My jaw went slack. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”
“I don’t know if they’re zombies precisely,” she went on, “but after you got sucked into the yew tree and Dominic realized that his mom and sister were all kinds of screwed up, he started experimenting with other ways to bring back the dead.”
“Nooooo,” I moaned, banging my forehead against the window in frustration. Dominic was even more ignorant of witchcraft than I’d originally thought.
Gwenlyn smirked. “Be glad you’re not here, Morgan. I haven’t slept a wink since you’ve disappeared. Nightmares, you know. But the dreams are nothing compared to waking life.”
“What has he done?” I growled.
“You really want to know?”
No, I didn’t want to know. Unfortunately, it was my job to know. I nodded.
Gwenlyn swept her long hair away from her face and swirled it up into a knot at the top of her head. “He’s been messing with the bodies in the cemetery,” she said. “Possessing them or something. They dig themselves out of the ground, and let me tell you, it isn’t pretty.”
Yew Hollow really had become something out of a tacky horror film. Dominic had crossed the one line that, as a witch, you were never meant to cross. Necromancy, the art of raising the dead, was dark magic. When you played with it, it consumed your soul, and Dominic’s had surely blackened already.
“And the smell,” continued Gwenlyn. Her throat bobbed at the distasteful thought. “Y
ou can only imagine. Rotting flesh isn’t my preferred scent of air freshener—I’m quite partial to clean linens—but the whole damn town smells like death and decay.”
“That dumb bastard,” I muttered, wanting nothing more than to wring Dominic’s neck between my fingers.
“Yeah, he’s a real d-bag,” said Gwen. She looked around once more, and when she spoke again, it was in a nearly silent whisper. “Listen, Morgan. I have an idea to get you back, but it might be completely insane.”
I exchanged a glance with Dorothy, then looked over my shoulder to make sure Calvin was still out of earshot. “What kind of insane idea?” I asked.
“Okay, you know how you were sacrificed to get Dominic’s family back? I’ve found a ritual in Mary Summers’s diary, and all I need to reverse Dominic’s plan are two strands of hair. One from his mother, and one from his sister.”
I looked at Dorothy. “Is this the same plan you were thinking of?” I asked her, raising an eyebrow. “Why didn’t you tell me that Mary had written it in her diary?”
“I hadn’t the faintest idea that she had,” Dorothy said.
“Who are you talking to?” asked Gwenlyn, peering at me through the television screen.
I dragged Dorothy closer to me. “Dorothy, Gwen. Gwen, Dorothy,” I said by way of introduction. “Dorothy is one of the original witches of Yew Hollow, and also one of Mary’s daughters.”
Gwenlyn’s eyes widened as she took the pair of us in. “No way! The two of you look exactly alike. Except for the eyes. Wow!”
“Focus, Gwen,” I ordered, shoving Dorothy away so that Gwenlyn wouldn’t be distracted by our similarities. “Do you think you could get the strands of hair safely?”
“I’d have to sneak into Dominic’s place,” she admitted. “He’s living in the mayor’s house now, with his mother and his sister, but he’s hardly ever there. He spends most of the time in the graveyard with the ghosts and his creepy corpses, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find his mother and sister during the daytime.”
Witch Myth Omnibus: A Yew Hollow Cozy Mystery Page 14
