A Wild Conversion

by Katherine Gilbert

  The fact that she started to truly love him in that moment terrified her only a little.

  He could clearly see the look in her eyes, glanced away, and she wondered what terrible thing her feelings had done to the dance of light in her irises. The whole process of conversion would show there too clearly to anyone who knew how to read it.

  She nearly thought she saw him blushing and suddenly decided that was the most adorable thing she had ever seen, wasn’t certain now whether she were holding his hand to support him or to convince him to stay.

  Thankfully, he didn’t pull away, continuing his story.

  “I couldn’t do anything to actually help. We were being thrown all around by the derailment. The most I could do was fall on top of the two of them and let the lights hit me, instead.” Shivering a little, the horror was clear in his voice. “I really thought the child would die, if I didn’t.”

  Despite the suddenness of her emotions, she truly wished she could claim him as her partner—but now wasn’t the time. “What did the lights look like?” Maybe with more detail she could determine their enemies’ real motives.

  “They were a . . . disturbing color. Kind of a sickish yellow-green.” Eyes narrowing, he appeared to be trying to see the past. “Though, when they struck, they were more yellowish.”

  When he gazed back to her, looking for more instructions, she smiled slightly. “Their shapes?”

  “They were almost like fingers. They hissed.”

  Looking over at Nat, she could almost hear her thinking, Hissing fingers?

  As she didn’t have an answer, she refocused on him. “And when they reached for you?”

  “They didn’t. They reached for the child.” His gaze wandered. “I only got in their way.”

  This didn’t answer a lot yet. “What did they feel like when they hit you?” The fact that they had left behind the lume-noirs could mean many things.

  “It felt as though I were being stabbed.” He sat up straighter, as though the pain were still with him, and she caressed his hand to try to soothe him.

  “Was that because you got in the way, or was that what it was trying to do to the child?”

  She didn’t know whether he would have an answer to this but decided to see how far his instincts went.

  He looked only half-certain, as he tended to when dealing with things he had no logical basis for, but his words were more definite. “It didn’t expect me to be there. It thought it was aiming at the child.”

  When she glanced at him curiously, he continued.

  “It reared back when it hit me, as though I had given it a shock.” His head shook. “I don’t believe it was aiming for me at all.”

  All of this made Emma sit back with a huff. It left about a million questions to be answered—all of them highly disturbing. “Was the baby why the train was derailed?”

  Nat nodded, and she agreed.

  “Those first lights you described were definitely a seeking spell.” She glanced at Natalie worriedly. “But why kill the child?”

  Natalie looked as though she knew but hated to say it. “There seem to be a lot of new babies in the village lately—Olivia, the child on the train. If Brandon is right . . .?”

  Frederick looked curious. “Who is Brandon?”

  Emma sighed, suddenly terrified that there might not be time for this. Whatever the Everlys had planned, it seemed to be progressing at a horrible pace.

  Still, she patted his hand reassuringly. “He’s the friend I went to talk to earlier. He’s very useful when you need information.” If you had some to give in return, that was.

  There was a vague frisson of delight when her visitor looked just slightly jealous. “Only a friend?”

  She could have kissed him—which might well have settled a few of those jealous twinges in them both—but it wasn’t really the time. Instead, she put his mind to rest.

  “He’s a centaur, and he’s been pair-bonded for around 70 years. I suspect he only comes to this realm out of morbid fascination with us. He’s not . . . well, there’s definitely nothing intimate there.”

  When she felt herself blushing, she sighed. That was rather unbecoming at her age.

  Seeing Natalie bite her lip and looking at the floor determinedly, Emma knew she was trying to hold down her guffaws. Sadly, she couldn’t blame her.

  She was distracted by Frederick sitting back in astonishment, his hand disheveling his long hair. That alone was derailing enough to her thoughts—as she had a desperate temptation to run her fingers through it, too.

  Finally, he whispered, “Centaurs?” Had he not been forced to deal with the copious evidence that she wasn’t mad already, she knew very well what he would have thought.

  As there wasn’t time to discuss all the details of his highly-altered reality, however, she tried to angle back to the truths which worried her. “Frederick, your family . . .”

  That was as far as she made it. How did one really go about saying, Are all your family devious asses out to do Hecate-only-knows-what?

  She tried again. “Do you have any idea what they’re up to?”

  It wasn’t a fair question—especially not to a man who had only just discovered so many terrible truths of his world. Still, he had come to understand on his own that his aunt in the mundane world was running a magical school, which she certainly suspected he hadn’t known earlier today. Maybe there were some insights he hadn’t admitted to himself just yet.

  It took him a moment to answer, his head against the back of the couch, staring up at the ceiling. “It seems to have something to do with children, but beyond that . . .” He shrugged.

  “How about Jenny’s partner? Do you remember him?”

  His head shook. “I know his name is William, and I think they were introduced by . . .” His expression changed, head rising. “. . . Aunt Hester.”

  Looking at them now, his horror was obvious. Emma let him go on.

  “It was after my grandfather’s . . . well, after what he pretended was his funeral, at least. Jenny had gone to stay with my aunts and uncles in Salem. My Salem,” he clarified. “At least as far as I know. When she came back, she had met someone.”

  He took back his hand, his own knotting angrily in his lap.

  “She said Hester had claimed that he would make a good husband.”

  There were a few moments of silence, as his astonishment at his own actions grew, his hand to his head. “How could I not have questioned it more? He was much, much older than her, and they married after they had only known each other for a month. Hester had said . . .” His head lowered into his hands. “Dear God . . .”

  Well, that, horribly, explained quite a lot. With Frederick unaware of even the existence of magic, he couldn’t have in any way suspected the compulsion to accept her choice which Hester had undoubtedly aimed at him.

  Emma asked what she could. “Were you happy with the marriage?”

  Shaking his head, he wouldn’t look up, and she started to rub over his back, worried for him. How awful it would be not even to understand the most basic protections.

  “I didn’t want to lose her. Father and grandfather were gone. Aunt Pen was a few hours away. I had no one else.” He looked up, the sadness so evident. “But then I thought that I was being selfish, that I shouldn’t stand in the way of . . .”

  It took him moment, but he gazed at her, a mixture of horror and rage in his eyes. “Hester said that. I remember it now. She came to me when I was trying to persuade Jenny to wait, to be certain this was what she wanted.”

  His hands knotting in fury, he trailed off, and her own hand caressed his shoulder, wishing she could have been there to protect him—both of them.

  Too easily, she filled in the rest. “Her eyes were glowing. The lume-noirs were in the room.”

  He nodded, mouth tight, and she sighed. He was a strong man, but Hester was a fully, long-converted sorcerer. It would take no effort at all to sway him to the path she wanted him to take. The only question n
ow was how they could undo all the damage she had done.

  However, this wasn’t the only question, as Nat pointed out. “Who was William, then? Where has he gone?” They both gazed back at her. “And is that even his name?”

  Oh, sweet Hecate. Emma looked back to her guest. “Did you ever see him?”

  Nodding, Frederick’s anger was still evident—although she guessed much of it was, foolishly, directed at himself. “Yes, but I can’t remember him.”

  Sitting back, Emma sighed. “Then, she didn’t use one of your uncles for her dirty work.”

  Frederick was really glowering now, his back rigidly straight. “You think even with some magic aimed at me I would let my sister marry one of her own uncles?”

  She held up a hand in surrender and apology, even if she had thought exactly that. After all, the 19th century would marry off first cousins to each other without blinking. It was a little difficult to detect where their ideas of incest began. “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to figure this out.”

  He seemed to relent a bit, and she sighed, feeling tired. She knew the Magical Council now believed that sorcerers should have a solace—a person they were deeply bound to, who helped them to appropriately channel their magic and kept them from going mad or burning out. She suddenly wholeheartedly wished that Salem had come to agree with the idea. She could definitely use such a comfort now.

  Natalie spoke some of her fears. “If Olivia were already here, who was that baby on the train? And why would someone want to damage it?”

  Feeling tired just trying to think this through, Emma’s head was back, her gaze on the ceiling. “Yesterday, I thought Salem was just a bit hateful and backwards. Today, I’m afraid that Frederick’s family—at least—is trying some kind of magical breeding program.”

  She only started to hope again when he touched her, taking her hand softly, as she refocused on them.

  “But to what end?”

  This was the real question and the real fear—but Frederick added another. “And where has the infant from the train gone?” His look grew grim. “And is it even still alive?”

  With little clue of how to begin investigating, they sat there. All Emma knew was that she somehow had to cope with the rest of her conversion while also trying to keep not only those in her house safe but potentially the rest of Salem—if not simply the rest of the world.

  Whoever was doing this wasn’t merely interested in good bloodlines. There was too much calculation and subterfuge for that. Whatever their plans, she had to stop them—and then try to salvage the life of every innocent they seemed so determined to destroy.

  Chapter 8

  Frederick

  Sometimes, life just wouldn’t allow a moment to reclaim your composure.

  Frederick felt a bit like he had been shot out of a cannon, rather than merely stumbled out of a magical train wreck, since this morning, as he watched Emma peering into a small bowl of water to look around the backrooms of someone’s house. Typically now, he only understood the basics of what she was up to. She had simply told him that she needed to be certain that no one saw them and that her urgency to get back so quickly into town might otherwise give away what they knew.

  Watching the water rippling around the image of a mostly perfectly-normal sitting room, although it did have strange features which he assumed were beyond his time and large spots left bare, he wondered where any of this could be leading.

  Looking up to Emma, who seemed to be growing even more beautiful by the second, he sighed. Her eyes now had flashes of a variety of bright colors sparking in them like lightning. They traced through her lovely green irises and fizzled into a trail and then to a halt before starting up again somewhere else. A sight which might well have secretly terrified him had he seen it just hours ago was now the most enchanting vision he could imagine.

  Her look of fierce determination, as he followed her orders and took her and Natalie’s hands, made him desperate to kiss her—in a way that would very well make her remember being kissed—not that he wanted there to be any ending to it.

  However, there were other matters to attend to now.

  Emma had explained disapparating, or had tried to. It was what Hester had done earlier that day when she had magically appeared to threaten them. She had said it was like traveling in an instant.

  She was wrong.

  For Frederick, the journey was soul-changing, even after all the other wonders of this side of Salem.

  For hours, he was wreathed in a pastel rainbow of clouds, floating and free, all on his own. Below him lay vast stretches of the most beautiful lands.

  He had thought Emma’s Salem was lovely, unmarred as it was by soot and muck, but they were nothing to this. The landscape seemed endless, the whole knowledge of existence washing warmly around him. It came in through every pore, bonded to his soul.

  He could never have described these worlds in any way which could do them justice. Some were paradises of green hills and trees with blue skies and many identifiable yet glorious living creatures going about their lives. Others had nature whose colors he had no words for, held creatures which couldn’t be defined by the mere words of humanity. Yet others seemed to leak evil, to pour it forth, until it was a miracle those perfect worlds weren’t harmed.

  Breathing in the clouds, experiencing it all, the beautiful and the bad, he felt a contentment unlike any he had ever known and a freedom from the shackles of all the petty thoughts of the world he had only this morning thought to be the only reality. He could have happily stayed there forever, examining it with a smile.

  But then Emma’s hand tugged at him, and he landed with a thump.

  The thump, at least, left him on his feet, but he was swaying awkwardly. Even graceful Emma had to brace herself, staggering just slightly, and he wasn’t surprised. Being pulled down from such glorious and overpowering knowledge back even to this lovely and magical realm was slightly devastating. It made it all seem a dream—all those lands, all that life which existed just a hair’s breadth away—and yet, here, they were pinned down to one world alone.

  He wasn’t aware of the tear on his cheek until he felt Emma’s hands on his face.

  “Frederick?” she whispered, her worry evident. The little flashes of lightning through her irises were fully rainbow-colored now, and he wondered whether they had been affected by the clouds.

  She stroked along his cheek, soothing away his tear, anchoring him to this place—and he suddenly felt both grateful and worried. Why would she stay here with him, when there was that whole universe beyond yet to know?

  It was with this thought that he truly came back to her, and his one consolation was that she was here. Taking her hands softly, he wondered, “How long did it take us to get here?” If it had been anything like the eternity it had seemed, they could already have lost whatever battle they were fighting.

  Staring into him, she seemed so worried—but he could tell it wasn’t for the same reasons he was. “It was just an instant, Frederick.” Her hands tightened on his. “It only ever takes a second.”

  The next shift in his reality started with the sound of horse’s hooves. Then, what was part a man stood before him, his features noble, eyes piercing with insight and possibly a tinge of something else. He might even have been impressed.

  Towering well above Frederick, as a full-grown stallion might, he answered Emma’s question, but it was Frederick he was speaking to. “Not to one who sees through the veils. To those who see beyond, there is no such thing as an instant.”

  Astonished away from even his intense sadness at losing those beautiful places, Frederick’s mouth hung open, a second before his scientific curiosity prodded him all too mundanely. What did such a creature eat? How did it sleep? Did it share the inherent fear of the unknown most horses did?

  The man’s eyes only cut deeper, and he saw at least the last answer clearly.

  No. This man might fear for others but part of him already knew what would be—all that would be
. What Frederick had seen might have given him a glimpse of other worlds, but what he knew of them, compared to this man, was as a single cell in a mighty ocean.

  Pulling himself together, he was ashamed of his bald-faced astonishment. No intelligent creature should be gawped at as a mere curiosity.

  Stepping away from Emma, Frederick bowed slightly. That the centaur wore no crown was the only true oddity here. He deserved reverence beyond all else.

  To his surprise, the centaur returned his bow, although Emma somewhat broke the moment, her own amazement—and worry—obvious. “Brandon, what’s going on?”

  The centaur had not met her eyes, and Frederick watched her take in a deep breath, calming herself—changing her approach.

  “I’m sorry.” She, too, seemed to realize the centaur’s higher status. “What can you tell me?”

  Brandon—as this apparently was—was smiling. From Emma’s look, it seemed that didn’t often happen.

  Finally, Brandon focused on her. “He is my brother, little one, though he barely understands that yet.”

  Frederick knew, as he was sure so did she, that he wasn’t referring to heredity.

  “He has much work to be done here.”

  Emma looked from one to the other, the rainbow lightning in her eyes sparking.

  Calmly, Brandon pressed her on. “You did not come here to discuss him, Child of Hecate. You came to protect this world.” He pointed toward the door. “Find your answers.”

  Frederick understood Emma’s confusion, as he had no real answers for the truths the centaur hinted at, either. He might feel them, like innumerable, invigorating lights waking up beneath his flesh—a truth which had always been present but never before recognized—but he had no actual way of comprehending anything they might mean.

  Still, when Emma nodded, taking his hand, he only paused near Brandon for a moment. “Do you know where the other passengers were taken?”

  Surprised, Emma looked back at him.