‘O, no! No,’ the hair lady nearly shivers. She looks both ways and motions for Domina to walk with her down the walk toward her own cottage in big scoops full of air with her hands, checking both sides of Domina and walking backwards, as if in a hurry. Domina looks side to side to see what the lady is looking fot, then follows her.
‘Well, alright, ‘ she says her cottage right behind. There are white, cotton, lace valances and white, cotton tea towels. There are freshly dusted, china knick knacks with gold rims and porcelain. Domina sits on a floral, puffy couch with several quaint, lace pillows and holds her hands together as if in prayer.
Down the lane, between the hair lady’s cottage and the Witch’s hut, two hill rises over, up a terribly gnarled knoll - along toward the underworld castle - at this very moment, the Witch begins stomping along the lane, toward home! Becoming more witch and less Domina with every step her foiled spell and witch boots take. So full of fury, she holds her hands in fists as she stomps, a but hunched over, chin out; all the while holding Domina’s dress she wears up in one clenched fist, revealing her witch stockins and shoes - the very undoing of her plan - from beneath as she goes. The sky is turning from dark to daylight while she stomps, since it is nearly always dark around the underworld castle. The Witch looks side to side, both fists held out ahead, dragging the dress behind her as she shrinks back to her normal size. Quite a sight, really, and one to make ol’ Tyrannomous shudder with fright - that is, if he knew she was coming home, at all.
Meanwhile, in the quaint little cottage of neatly pressed doillies and rosebud patterned furniture, the hair lady hands Domina a cup of tea.
‘Like I said, I do apologize for my standoffishness, at first. You can’t be too sure around here, you know…’ she trails off from explaining her nervous behavior and refusal to enter the Witch’s home.
‘Now, dear,’ she says, ‘I’m sorry to hear of your troubles. But, yes, I can help you. I’ve gotten one of you - someone like you - out before. It isn’t easy.’
‘O, of course,’ Domina says.
‘But, I can usually help you with that part of it. How’s your tea?’
‘Very good. How soon -’
‘How soon can you get started?… Let me see. I’ll check my time tables. No, just kidding. But I will consult a map - along with you - if that’s okay?’
Before Domina can answer she interrupts and says, ‘Not good with maps I see, well, I’ll be more descriptive with you then.’ A timer rings.
‘That’ll be the rolls,’ she says, ‘Cinnamon. Would you like some?’ Domina sighs, taking in the smell.
‘That would be wonderful,’ she says, ‘I haven’t eaten a decent morsel since, well, since my dinner with… you know.’
‘Yes, I know. Do you? He was right about to suck your blood. Drink you dry. Drain your very lifeblood to the bottom of your soul and into the next one. Did you know? Let’s not talk of that. He’s one I can get you past, but you’ll have to listen. And good.’ Domina nods her head and leans in to listen, intently, suddenly realizing - even more than before - the gravity of her situation.
Later, after tea and rolls and a good talking to by the hair lady about being more careful, Domina stands near her found friend beside the lane where the cottage and the Witch’s hut face off in oppositing, taking in her last (hopefully) sights of the lady’s cottage under its canopy of shady branches and the odd, but rightly way in which its shape matches the hair atop the lady’s prim yet smiling face, peaking out from underneath. She quickly rolls up a piece of brown paper - the map - and tucks it into the basket she has just handed to Domina.
She looks both ways and says, ‘Godspeed to you Domina,’ She gets a chill and pulls her cover up around her neck. Just then a wind picks up across the street, inside the Witch’s fence line, rattling the shutters and blowing open the Witch’s bramble-branch, garden gate.
‘You don’t want to take too long getting to that bridge, now, dear,’ she says, ‘I feel we’re in for something…’ she looks down the lane to the East, which just so happens to be from where the Witch is stomping.
‘I’m not sure what it is;’ she tells Domina, ‘but it definitely isn’t good.’ The hair lady makes a ‘shove off’ motion to Domina with her arms as though she were pushing out her boat.
‘Good-bye, my girl,’ she says. Domina starts out walking, quickly. She turns and waves good-bye.
Not far away, the Witch takes her first stomp onto the very lane that divides her hut from the lady’s cottage.
She raises up her chin, aiming her voice to the carrying East wind and yells, “Tyrannomous!!! I’m comin’ home!!!’ Domina, walks past, once and for all, the disgraced and dusty Witch’s hut; she also just happens to pass by Tyrannomous, returning home from his errand. He looks at Domina and feels a sudden shudder of cold run down his spine. This causes him to look to the North with one sharp, keen eye - the other pressed tightly closed. The same direction from where, it just so happens, the Witch and a cold Northeasterly are arriving, causing him to drop the grocery bag he carries, spilling grocery items out onto the road. He stoops to his knees, scrappling for his items at the roadside as Domina nearly snickers, holding her fingers to her lips to hide the impolite and so unlike her giggling. Domina holds her basket in one hand and at this lightening of her spirits begins to swing and sway it, gently, back and forth as she confidently walks past her previous captor. She quietly whistles something about ‘the Witch is dead’, then smiles full of wit, energy, and a new found confidence. Tyrannomous hurries the items into back into the brown bag with a bitter scowl as Domina passes by him. He is not looking Domina’s way. He is looking past Domina. Walking on, she ignores his insolence; behind her, the Witch to the far North of the lane stops STILL. The Witch’s fists clench even tighter, recognizing the figure ahead of her, and as she mutters outloud, ‘the foul sense of insecurity and the stench of the mutton to the side of the road’ named Tyrannomous, she sniffs the air twice, bends her knees and lets out a silent scream the likes that picks up the Northeasterly wind and causing it to knock the little garden gate clear off its hinges.
Both the Witch and the wind seem to shout, ‘TY-RON-NO-MOUS!!!!’ as the wind whips through the Witch’s property. This stirring arouses a reaction even from determined Domina and she quickens her pace to hurry away. In her thoughts, the kind lady’s voice and cautious looks from side to side repeat themselves, subconsciously serving as a warning.
‘Godspeed to you… You don’t want to take too long getting to that bridge, now. I feel we’re in for something…not sure what; but it isn’t good.’ And Domina picks up her pace, as well, heading down the lane as quickly as she can.
Now, back on the front porch of the Clown House the Legend Teller takes a short pause. Several others have crowded around to listen to the story that he has told so far.
Jessica rubs her sleepy eyes, tired but still gripped by the tale of the legend, she tries to jump - as many listeners do - past the suspenseful portion to get to the happy, or misfortunate, conclusion by asking, “Does she get away?”
The Legend Teller looks at Theopolis and asks, “And she is one of your own kind?” he teases, “No! She doesn’t get away. This is a vampire legend!”
Jessica smiles, “Don’t tell, but I want her to get away to safety.”
The girl who had been rude to Jessica earlier says, “I don’t. I want the vampire to catch her.” Then, by some misaligned (maybe even ancient) instinct - probably along the same lines as a moth to a flame - she looks over at Theopolis and sends him a rather sweet glance. Jessica yawns and leans her head against the wicker porch settee that she is bundled into and pulls the sweatshirt she’s been given up closer around her neck.
“How much longer?” she asks, not sure if she can stand the suspense, “I’m getting sleepy.”
“O, eons!” the Legend Teller laughs. Several look at Jessica and laugh with him. Theopolis allows her to rest her head on his shoulder as she listens. The Legend Teller starts up,
again.
“If old witchy britches hadn’t stopped to let out her angst on old Tyrannomous, concerning why this and why that, vis-à-vis, those haughty haunches of Domina’s arrogantly bouncing left to right down the road ahead of her, not to mention the infuriating sight of the Witch’s right-hand man on his knees, scrappling in the dust beneath her, well, she might not’ve had such a challenge catching up to Domina - before she reached the bridge. But, as well know,” the Legend Teller looks around, “a witch’s broom won’t rise to the sound of singing. No, she had to stop and nag!”
In fact, once Tyrannomous scrambles up those groceries and gets them into the Witch’s kitchen, things begin flying around the room as she raises her hands - and her wand - up and down with Tyrannomous ducking accordingly to avoid collision with her fury. Traipsing around the room, still in Domina’s dress, steadily growing much too tight for her, the spell to look like Domina completely wears off. She lifts her jar marked Common Toad and begins to melt down. After several long whines, she utters a sigh, takes out a plate, and sets a toad upon it. She retwists the lid, closing the jar, and looks at Tyrannomous.
“I’m just dog-tired, you know? Really… I just,” she takes a bite of the toad, “Eeww. Undercooked.” The toad’s eye move. She plops it back down on the plate. She reaches for another jar, open this time, and picks out a deep-fried toad. She begins to talk and eat at the same time, crumbs flying out of her mouth as she chomps, “Really, just wiped out.”
Tyrannomous comments, “Well, she’s gone!”
“I know, I know!! And now I’ve got to go catch her. And look at me!” she rants, “Do I have the energy for this? No, I don’t…” and then she tries the power of positive thinking saying, “Yes, I do. I do. Yes, I do.” She crunches down another toad. Tyrannomous hands her a tall, black bottle.
She takes a swig of its cool water, “Ahh.” The Witch looks kindly toward him and says, “Thanks. Time to get changed now, ‘nother thing to go to. Vampires!”
“May I remind you, she’s not a vampire,” Tyrannomous butts in.
“I know! You old toad, I should put you in a pot.”
“Leave her be,” he says, “she’s of no use to us.”
“Leaver be?!” the Witch yells, “Ahhh! Have you gone soft?” She raises her hands up and down and things begin to fly about the room, again. Tyrannomous runs out and slams the door. The Witch stomps into the back room and slams the door behind her, too.
Completely back to what she looked like before -even wearing her Witch’s frock - she stomps out of her garden gate, slamming it’s twiggly branches shut behind her. The lady across the road drops the basket she is carrying and runs into the house. She is seen peeking out of the window as the Witch stomps away. Up the road a ways, Domina makes a fatal mistake. Full of vim and confidence and a few bright hopes for the future, she stops for lunch.
“Hmm, hmm, hm-hm,” she opens the basket and takes out a sandwich. After the first, dainty bite, she devours the sandwich as if she hasn’t eaten a decent meal in weeks.
“O just delicious!” she says and takes out the rolled up, brown paper map gazing at the neatly drawn-out directions as she eats.
With each bite, an omnipotent viewer (with an eagle’s eye) might want to yell, “Run, run!” as the Witch gains momentum behind her, the stress-bingeing on toads having had time to power her power-stomp, much like a carb load of athletes. But Domina, unaware and certain that her whole world is just a hop and a skip away - right where and as she left it - does not rush one single bit of just an excellent meal which the lady with the hair to marvel at was so sweet to provide. Each bite, to that same eagle-eye viewer might nearly be painful to watch, but it isn’t. I’ve teased you. She does manage to roll back up the map, wipe her mouth with a clean, linen napkin, even brush off her frock, before she continues on her way to the bridge - the Witch now only half a city block’s distance behind her. She follows her map to exact detail.
The Stygian Downs cantilever, just up ahead is, at last, in full view. Winded from her miles of walking, Domina saunters wearily up to its great expanse, patting her forehead with the napkin she still holds in her hand. Yes, Domina just stops, a moment, to gaze at the ancient (even then) old bridge - with its massive expanse and spidery structure. The Witch, however, is now also in full view of (the back of) Domina and of the bridge. She darts from tree to tree, keeping out of sight until she is nearly directly behind Domina.
Domina extends her pause to say, “At last! My dearest mother, I will not be late.” O please! The Witch nearly lays a boney hand upon Domina - and would have - if not for a ‘burst of energy’ - at the thought of her mother. Domina gathers up her dress skirt and just runs toward the bridge with a gleeful yell, escaping the Witch’s grasp by the width of a single hair. This narrow escape throw the Witch off with a scowl, she darts side to side and runs behind a tree, of which there are very few in the In Between, that expanse of area between Stygian Downs Bridge (last ticket off those lands known as the World Above) and the Underworld Castle.
Nevermind it being a sight for sore eyes to anyone trying to get out of the underworld, this bridge looms dark, as should The Stygian Downs Bridge, since stygian is a synonym for dark; and it looms ominous, as should a bridge from where vampires jump to enter the underworld, but this bridge does not loom wool, as it shouldn’t, since this author would never want you, dear readers, to jump off a bridge - lest for one, and for that one, I have already written in a little plot to the side of the bridge with a bronze plaque that once did read:
Elizabeth won’t read the rest, she’s done gone and fell, she read a bit, then legs went limp - old bat flew down the well!
Notice - to all blood suckers - the past tense ‘did read’, as it doesn’t now… but there she lies.
Now for Domina, running up to such a darkness as if it is the best day of her life; poorest of the poor Domina has yet learned to climb the bridge as she is not one to read that far ahead on the directions, but she does at this point, pull out her map and read aloud.
“Up the bridge, is where you’ll climb
To get ye to the other side
But when it looks like up is in
Then down is out and spin again
Once East, once West, between is three
And down you’ll go through portal B.
…Hmmm.”
She walks to the East, reads and spins around slowly, “Once East.” She walks to the West.
She spins and reads, “Once West.” She walks to the middle and - a little faster - spins, “One, two…”
When the Witch hears her speak the number two, knowing that by the time she speaks the number three, the vampire’s enchantment to bring Domina to the underworld will be broken and she’ll be out of the In Between - once again to the Upper World - without a moment’s notice. Before she is on top of the Stygian Downs Bridge, then back where she came from, or near it at least, the Witch yells, “Wait!!” (its all she could think of to say, that quickly.) She runs up and tries to grab Domina, again, in her wittily mitts, but as Domina launches into the third spin, her body begins spinning so fast that she disappears.
The Witch kicks the dust and rocks of the In Between’s ground with her witch boot, makes a fist and curses at the sky, grumbling, “Vile wench. Distasteful fleshly unskilled whore!” But the Witch doesn’t just stand there grumbling unkind words, she steps into Domina’s footprints at the exact center of the East to West ratio of the proportion necessary to access portal B, there, in the dust of the In Between, and exercises the Witch’s right to a ‘shortcut’ - the learned result of years spent in the In Between - and with only three words uttered, spins into disappearance.
“Volta, dois, tres…” Both Domina and the Witch appear on the edge of the Stygian Downs Bridge at nearly the same exact time. You see the Witch’s magic is a little stronger than the Hair Lady’s remembrance of an old way up; and, with a vengence the Witch did rise, which always makes for a little added momentum in the transport. S
o, here they are. The Witch, just a little behind Domina means, sorry to say, that she is staring at Domina’s backside with Domina obviously closer to the edge of that dark, spidery, cantilever’s disastrous edge of which the people of the Sanguinistic Valley, especially Heavonshire, were once so proud.
“Off you go!!” The Witch yells with a swift kick, again, from that old, pointed, black boot. Domina is kicked off the edge, at the very moment she turns toward the sound of that yell, catching but a glimpse of that Old Norse’s mug as she goes. She tumbles.
All the way yelling, “Noooooooo!!!!!!!!” Domina tumbles. The Witch cackles.
Somewhere in the underworld, L’Ornormichaelis Nostramadeus - the card carryingest of card carrying vampires pricks up his ears and says, out loud, “Huh?”
“Noooooooo!!!!!!!!” Domina yells; and then, finally, “Help!!! Me!!!”
The notorious vampire looks to the waitress he’s been chatting up as to begin, he hopes, one of his better enchantments - to help clear his head of that witch’s fiasco - and says to her, “Excuse me.” He exit’s the coffee shop immediately, out in to the dim gray of the underworld city street, and looks up, into the sky. Hurtling toward him is a figure furiously wiggling its arms and legs.
“Domina!!” he calls out.
“Aaahhhhhh!!!” is all she has time to say.
“Here I come!” he says and swoops up, his arms held out, wide.
“I’ve got…” he starts to tell her; but, he misses, “you…” He looks down where she’s headed, hurtling toward a dusty street of the underworld.
“No!!” He swoops down just after: ‘Thud!!!’ Domina hit’s the ground. A chalk outline shaped figure leaves a hole 3 feet underground in the underworld ground.
L’Onormichaelis Nostramadeus a vampire who has experienced a little more than his fair share of dissppointment, as of late, yet otherwise quite renowned, stands to the side of the hole, looking down.
Legend of Stygian Downs (Vampire DeAngeliuson Book 2) Page 5
