Swift

by Heather London

  “Here, let me get that. Why don’t you just put your shoes on,” he said as he motioned toward the corner behind me.

  Shoes? I didn’t even remember taking them off. I watched him for a minute as he carefully folded the blanket and placed it in the backpack before fastening it up. When I turned around to put my shoes on, I got a glimpse out the window and nearly fell over. I grabbed onto the bar that was directly below it and pulled myself up on my tiptoes to peer out. Wherever we were, we were really, really high up. I stood there gazing out the window, looking to my right and left and seeing nothing but deep blue water as far as I could see. I wondered where we could be. But then I saw the beach where Aunt Rose and Jack had just married, and it hit me: we were in the lighthouse near the beach.

  “How did we get up here? I don’t remember climbing up,” I said, still peering out the window. Blake chuckled shallowly behind me, and I turned around to see him wiping a grin off his face.

  “I carried you,” he responded.

  “Oh,” I whispered. And then I faintly remembered being carried. I remembered leaving Isaac’s grasp, walking to Blake, and feeling the wind on my face and a whirling motion. How did we get all the way back here so quickly? It had been no longer than a few minutes. That is what it seemed like, anyway. I had so many unanswered questions.

  “Are you ready?” he asked, glancing toward me.

  I nodded and began to walk toward the white door on the other side of the room.

  The climb down the stairs of the lighthouse was terrifying but bearable, much easier than the silent walk home. Neither of us spoke a word. I mean, what were supposed to say to one another? The only thing I wanted was answers, and the more I thought about answers, the faster I walked. We arrived back at my house, and he offered to wait in the living room while I showered and dressed.

  I had never thought I would be so happy that Aunt Rose and Jack were gone, on their honeymoon. But there was no way I would have been able to explain to them what had happened to me.

  Chapter Fifteen

  After taking an extra-long shower, I dressed quickly, eager to begin the question-and-answer session I was planning to start with Blake downstairs. I believed that he held the key to all the strange things that had been happening to me over the last few weeks. Come to think of it, all the strange things had begun right after the Harpers arrived in town.

  After one last look in my full-length mirror, I turned toward the stairs. Just as my right foot hit the first step, I began to feel that familiar, awful pain in the back of my head. The headache that had not shown its ugly head for days had returned with a vengeance. Before I knew it, the pain was more than I could bear, and I found myself screaming in agony. Blake’s footsteps were urgent as he flew up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

  His arms enveloped me and then the whirling motion came again. This time I appreciated the cool air on my face; it helped to dull the pain. I kept my eyes shut, trying to drown out the pain that pounded in the back of my head. After what seemed like just a few seconds, we came to a sudden halt, and it felt as though we were running—up one, two, three, four steps.

  “Hang on, Meredith. Please hang on. The pain will stop soon, I promise,” he whispered in my ear. “We are here, just a few more seconds.”

  The pain was crushing, and I was too afraid to open my eyes, fearing that the pain would escalate to a new level. I heard a door swing open with such force that it hit the wall behind it. Then I was set down on something soft, and I realized that I was no longer being held in Blake’s arms. The loss of him sent me into a panic.

  Regardless of the pain, I opened my eyes, and even though my vision was blurred, I recognized the somewhat familiar room. The steel-blue painted walls surrounded me, and I realized that I was lying on the bright white Victorian couch in the Harpers’ living room.

  I tried to prop myself up using my elbows, but the task proved to be too difficult. The searing pain in my head sent me straight back down. Refusing to give up, wanting so badly to find Blake, I opened my eyes again, focusing even harder. Then out of nowhere, two figures began to walk toward me, and it was not until they came within a few inches of my face that I recognized who they were.

  Blake came to sit at my feet and Abby knelt down beside me, placing her hand on my forehead. She began to mumble something under her breath. I couldn’t understand the exact words, but it sounded as if it was the same few words over and over again. Slowly the pain began to retreat, almost as if someone had stuck a syringe into my head and was slowly drawing out the painful poison.

  “Just rest now,” Abby said as she brushed the hair out of my face. “All the pain should be gone in just a few minutes.”

  I did as I was told and lay back down, trying not to think about anything but the pain disappearing. And just like she said, within a few minutes, the pain was gone. My vision came back, and I glanced around the room, seeing Blake, Abby, Annette, and Samuel all huddled near the fireplace across the room. They all wore the same serious expression, as if they were preparing for battle. Even though I was feeling much better, I decided to keep my mouth shut, not knowing what to say. I was more interested in what was being said between them. I had to struggle to hear them as they all spoke in nothing more than whispers.

  “Blake, you had your chance. We agreed, you had a certain amount of time, then we would do things my way,” Abby’s voice was soft but firm.

  I could see Blake, breaking apart from the huddle and beginning to pace in front of the large stone fireplace. “Abby, now is not the time,” he gritted through his teeth, clenching his fists. “Can’t you see she has been through enough already?” He glanced in my direction, his bright blue eyes meeting mine.

  I quickly averted his gaze, looking toward Abby and then the ground. The look on Blake’s face had been too painful to look at, torn between anger and acceptance, as though he knew that he was fighting a losing battle.

  “Meredith,” Abby said as she walked across the room in my direction. “I really wanted to go about this all a different way, but I think we are running out of time.” She sat beside me on the white couch, taking my hand.

  My heart began to pound against my chest again, and I could only fear what Abby was about to say. The way Blake and Abby were speaking to each other made me nervous. Maybe I didn’t want to know. Fear consumed me. My stomach began to turn, and I could feel the bile beginning to rise in my throat. I swallowed hard. My eyes floated back toward Blake, and he tried his hardest to comfort me with one look.

  But before I could stop it or fight it back, bile crept its way up again, only leaving me seconds before the certain eruption. I lurched forward and ran as fast as I could to the only bathroom I knew in the house. Sprinting down the hall, I held my hand over my mouth, trying to prevent anything from coming out. I found the open door on the right, rushed in, slammed the door behind me, and dove toward the toilet. Just in time.

  After I finished getting sick, I rinsed my mouth and leaned back on the wall, sinking down and resting my head in my hands. Deep breath in, deep breath out. In and out, I kept telling myself.

  “Dammit, Abby!” I could hear Blake shouting. “Look what you’ve done to her! You just couldn’t keep your mouth shut, could you?”

  I closed my eyes and tried to drown out the yelling. But it was no use; their voices were too loud.

  “Blake, she has to know. She is ready. She was born for this,” Abby countered, her voice calm and sincere. “Blake, I know you care for her, and I do, too. But this is all for her own good, for her own safety.”

  “No! No! She has been through too much already. She is vulnerable; she is not strong enough yet,” Blake shouted.

  “Quiet, the both of you,” Annette said firmly. “We owe her the right to choose. She deserves the right to know who and what she is, but it will be solely up to her what she wants to do with the information.”

  “Hmph,” Abby said triumphantly.

  Samuel spoke up next. “Blake, we knew this day
would come. That’s why we are here. Now all we can do is try our best to protect her, guide her, and teach her the ways—if that’s what she chooses,” he added.

  Then there was silence until footsteps sounded on the wooden floor, heading in my direction. A faint knock made me flinch, even though I knew it had been coming.

  “Meredith, are you all right?” Abby asked, sounding concerned.

  “Fine. Be out in just a minute,” I answered, trying to keep my voice as even as possible. There was no real explanation as to why I was trying so hard to act tough, like none of this was really getting to me. Who was I fooling? Definitely not myself—I was totally losing it.

  “Is there anything you need?”

  I couldn’t get the taste of puke out of my mouth. I walked over to the door and whispered to her, “I could kill for some mouthwash. Do you have any?”

  “Of course.”

  I leaned up against the door and tried to clear my mind.

  Just a few seconds later, Abby’s soft voice spoke to me from the other side of the door. “I’m back.”

  I opened the door just a crack, and she passed the bottle of mouthwash through. “Thank you,” I said.

  After splashing some water on my face and rinsing my mouth a few times, I opened the door and walked back toward the living room. The second I entered the large room, Blake was at my side, helping me to the couch, not that I really needed it. Though a large part of me felt safe when he was around, but the other part that knew he was hiding something from me—that he and his family were all hiding some dark secret.

  Glancing around the room, I saw four sets of eyes staring at me, all with the same pitying look on their faces. I couldn’t stand it any longer. I decided to answer their question before any of them asked it. “I’m fine … Just confused as to what all is going on.”

  “I’m so sorry, Meredith. I did not mean to upset you,” Abby said, rushing to my side and sitting down beside me.

  “I know you all have information for me, about why all these bizarre things have been happening. So please, just tell me,” I pleaded, somehow finding the strength that I had not realized I had inside me.

  Abby stared at Blake for a long moment.

  He nodded his head and then turned his focus on me. The defeated look in his eyes was clearly painful for him—and for me. It was crazy to think that I could be hurting just because he was hurting. He was the one keeping secrets. He was the one who possessed some supernatural power to get from one place to another at the speed of light. But I knew that he had saved me from Isaac and that he wanted to keep me safe. So for now, that was enough for me.

  “Meredith, you know that I would not do anything to put you in harm’s way, right?” Blake asked me.

  “I think that’s pretty obvious.” I swallowed hard, anticipating what he was about to tell me. Everything was about to be explained and make sense … I hoped.

  “There are things about us that you don’t know,” he said glancing up to his family and then back to me. “Who we really are, or why we are really here. We are …” He trailed off and then took in a deep breath. “We are here for you. We are here to protect you.”

  “And teach you,” Abby added quickly.

  Blake glared at her, and she mouthed the word sorry in his direction.

  “I … don’t … understand,” I said, drawing out each word as I tried to process what Blake had just said. They were here for me? Here to protect me? Why? From who? Where did they come from?

  But before I could get any of those questions out of my mouth, Blake continued his explanation. “The man that tried to hurt you last night—he is part of what we are trying to protect you from. Our main priority is to keep you safe.”

  Shock and terror ran through me. “How did you know he was after me? How did you know how to find me?”

  “We know a lot more than you think we do,” Blake answered.

  I tensed up, suddenly feeling violated. Realizing that I couldn’t stop there, I had to know more. “Why are they—Isaac and Alex—after me? Why is all this happening?” I paused, waiting for the answer. I could feel the fear registering on my face. Until now, all of this had been just in my head. But now it was real, and the Harpers knew about it, and by the sound of it, they knew more than I did.

  “They are after you because of what you are, the power you possess.”

  “Power?” I repeated. A part of me wanted to laugh, and a sudden feeling of calm ran through me. This, all of it, was a mistake. I didn’t possess any power. “You all have the wrong person. I don’t have any power.”

  “Not any power that you know of,” Blake corrected me. “But you do possess it, there is no mistake about that.”

  “What kind of power are you talking about, exactly?” I asked, confused.

  “Magical power,” Blake said.

  I didn’t understand any of this, it all sounded made up. How could it be real? That stuff only existed in the movies. It didn’t exist in real people, especially not in some small-town girl who lives in Marblehead … and definitely not in me. “Not possible,” I muttered to myself. “Where did you all come from?” I clenched my fists together, prepared to hear that they were aliens from some other planet. From what he had just told me, that would not have been too far past crazy.

  Blake and Abby looked at each other again with the same tangled expression. Then Blake looked back to me and answered, “We come from a very similar place. Actually, not much different from the world you live in today. We have lived our entire lives in Marblehead—but we live in the year 1905.”

  I swallowed hard, not knowing how to compute what I had just heard. How could that be possible? I sat there in a daze, taking in what he just had said but not sure if it was registering. “Do you hear yourself?” I asked. “This is absurd. You are talking about me possessing powers and you all traveling from the past to come here and protect me and teach me. It’s crazy talk. You are all crazy.” I stood up, prepared to storm out of there and never look back.

  “Please, let us explain,” Samuel pleaded. “The name Emma Watson should be familiar to you ...”

  I gasped. My heart ached at the sound of her name. “My mother?”

  “Yes, she was known as a very powerful witch. She came from the most powerful lineage in witch history,” Samuel said, speaking about her like she was part of some epic tale.

  I fell back toward the couch. “My mother was a-a witch?” I choked, barely getting out each word. “But how do you even know about her …?” I trailed off, deep in thought, not able to continue. I couldn’t make sense of it all in my head, so talking about it out loud sounded even more weird.

  “Your mother was one of the most powerful witches to have existed, that is until you. And now she’s part of the Witch’s Council,” Blake said. “They called on us for help and it was your mother who told us what to do. She told us that you needed help.”

  “Part of the Witch’s Council? What? My mother is …” I stopped, not feeling emotionally strong enough to finish the sentence.

  “When I saw you in the cemetery that first day, you looked so much like your mother,” Abby explained. “That’s why I reacted the way I did.”

  “Is this too much for you? Would you like to take a break?” Blake asked.

  I ignored his question, feeling my eyes widening with what I was thinking. “So what does that make me?” I gasped, all the puzzle pieces finally coming together. “Does that mean that I’m a-a witch, too?” I swallowed hard and turned to Blake for answers.

  But the answer was clear on his face. “You hold the greatest power inside you, Meredith,” Blake said as he touched my arm.

  “What? But how? That can’t be. I-I don’t have any powers,” I stuttered.

  “Your mother would have passed the powers to you when you were ready, but she died when you were still much too young,” Abby spoke softly. “I did not acquire my powers until I was twelve.”

  “My mom was a witch,” I found myself repeating. Strang
ely, those words became easier and easier each time I spoke them. All these years of not knowing why I felt so different, why I never felt like I fit in, could that be the reason? It was strange, but a feeling of peace washed over me at the thought. Maybe that was the explanation I had been searching for my entire life.

  “See, I told you she would be happy about it.” Abby chuckled. “What person would not want to be a witch? It is ….”

  Her voice trailed off, and I looked up just in time to see Blake quieting her with his scowl.

  “How are you handling all of this, Meredith?” Samuel asked, and I glanced up to look into his anxious eyes.

  “I … I … I’m not sure” was all I could mumble.

  “See, I told you. She was not ready for this,” Blake said, gritting his teeth together.

  “Blake, I know you are only trying to protect her, but your sister is right. This is why we are here. It is better for her that she knows,” Annette said.

  Then they began arguing again.

  I sat quietly, alone with my thoughts, trying to process everything I had just been told. I started to look back into my childhood to see if there was a clue, something I had missed. How could I not have known that my own mother was a witch? The questions began to pour out, and my mind could not keep up.

  “Wait,” I interrupted, and everyone stopped talking. I looked up to see four faces staring at me, awaiting my next word. “You … said … my mother came to you and told you about me. But that doesn’t make sense. I mean, my mother did not even exist in 1905. She was not even close to existing in that time,” I mumbled as I tried to wrap my head around it all. It didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense.

  “The Witch’s Council does not operate in a specific time period,” Samuel explained. “There are witches from as early as the 1800s on the council. When your mother died, she took her place on the Council.”

  Abby spoke next. “Meredith, you should know that that when we came here, we were expecting to find an experienced witch. Your mother never informed us that you were not in tune with your powers. So when we arrived, we were just as confused as you are now.” She smiled nervously. “Well, maybe not that confused.”