The Water Witch

by Juliet Dark

  … and brought me up into the air, gasping, clutching the rim of my tub, in my bathroom.

  “What the hell?” I cried out in the echoing, tiled room. But I was alone. The floor was soaked with water, and the porcelain inside of the tub, when I ran my hand along it, was coated with gold glitter.

  The worst thing, I decided after rubbing my skin raw with towels and drinking three cups of hot tea to get warm, was that it had been Duncan’s face in my drowning-by-sex dream. Because clearly there were only two possible reasons: either I was sexually attracted to him or he was trying to hurt me. I wasn’t sure which suspicion was more disturbing. I knew I should have been more disturbed by the thought that I’d imagined my tutor trying to drown me, but it actually bothered me more to think that I was attracted to him. Sure, he was handsome, but I’d just made love to Liam three days ago. How could I be attracted to someone else so soon? Even if I didn’t love Liam, he’d saved my life twice in Faerie. It seemed fickle—if not downright slutty—to be having dreams about Duncan after knowing him for less than twenty-four hours. Besides, I wasn’t sure I was attracted to him. I’d flinched when he’d touched me last night.

  By the time Duncan knocked at my door, I was hopped up on caffeine and my skin was pink from the two extra showers I’d taken (I wouldn’t be taking any baths for a while). I was wearing jeans, a black turtleneck and a sweater, and I still felt cold. When I opened the door, though, and saw him—dressed in a body hugging black T-shirt and black jeans, the last evening light glancing off his high cheekbones and turning his blue eyes to aquamarine—I felt a surge of electrical sizzle inside. It must be attraction, I realized with dismay. Seeing someone who had tried to drown me wouldn’t make me go all warm and fuzzy.

  My face mustn’t have looked so good to him.

  “What happened?” he asked, his eyes locked on mine (the way his mouth had locked on mine …). He grasped my arm and pulled me closer. His touch, even through my sweater and turtleneck, stirred that fizzy current inside me. “You look …”

  “Awful?” I asked weakly.

  “No, actually you look amazing, like you’re lit up from inside. But you’re dressed for subarctic temperatures in June and you’re still shivering.”

  “I am?” I held out my hand and saw that it was indeed trembling. But I didn’t feel cold anymore. I felt warm and tingly. I peeled off the sweater and stepped back to let him in. “This old house,” I said. “The temperature’s always fluctuating. You wouldn’t believe my heating bills last winter. Do you want some tea? Or a glass of wine? Or Scotch? I think there’s still some scotch from when Liam lived here …”

  I kept up a steady babble as I led him into the library to the cabinet where Liam had kept his scotch. There was an open bottle on the shelf. Duncan touched my hand as I reached for it and I flinched so hard I knocked over the bottle. He caught it before a drop could spill.

  “Sit down,” he barked.

  Startled by the force of his command, I sank down on the couch.

  “Before you hurt yourself,” he added more gently. He brought the bottle and two glasses to the couch, placed them on the coffee table, and sat next to me. He poured an inch of the amber liquid into each glass. I watched, mesmerized by the way the liquid caught the light. No wonder Liam had always drunk scotch—it looked like liquid Aelvesgold.

  “What’s wrong with me?” I asked as Duncan handed me the glass. My hand was shaking so badly I could hardly hold it. He wrapped his hand around mine and guided it to my mouth. I took a long sip. When I lowered the glass, my hand was steadier.

  “Sometimes Aelvesgold has this effect on new witches. Tell me what happened.”

  I told him about the dream, looking down into my glass the whole time, nervously swirling the scotch around the bottom. I told him I couldn’t see the man’s face.

  “But you thought this man was your incubus … Liam?” he asked when I was done.

  I gave the scotch a clockwise swirl. “Um, yes, at first … but then when I saw his face, it wasn’t him.” I took a sip in mid-swirl and got a mouthful.

  “Did you recognize who it was?”

  I swooshed the scotch counterclockwise and looked up. Into the same aquamarine eyes I’d seen in my dream. I felt myself gravitating toward those eyes. “It was you,” I said.

  “Oh,” he said. “Oh. That’s …”

  “Embarrassing?” I suggested, shaking my glass at him. “Mortifying?”

  “I was going to say flattering, but I guess that’s from my perspective. You do know why you saw my face, don’t you?”

  I raised my glass for another gulp of scotch, but he touched my hand and made me lower the glass. He covered my hand with his, steadying it. A warm tingling current flowed through my hand, up my arm, and into my chest. I tried to remember if this was how I’d felt when Liam had touched me for the first time.

  “It’s because I’m your guide. Aelvesgold can grant visions, but often those visions are confusing. That’s why it’s important to have a mentor. Your subconscious superimposed my face on your dream lover to remind you that you weren’t alone in this. You have someone to guide you.” He squeezed my hand and the warmth in my chest expanded throughout my body.

  “But what was the vision trying to show me?” I asked. “I mean, it seemed to be trying to drown me.”

  “You mean I was trying to drown you, don’t you?”

  I nodded, my throat thickening at the memory.

  “That’s because I am taking you to places with the Aelvesgold that you’re afraid to go. Part of you senses that you’ll have to face who you really are, witch or fey. You’ve got both in you, but which is stronger? Which side will you pledge allegiance to?”

  “Do I have to choose?” I asked. “I thought Fairwick was the place where witch and fey lived together in peace.”

  He laughed. “More like an uneasy alliance. And that alliance will be cracked in two if the Grove closes the door. I think your dream was partly a result of that anxiety.”

  “I guess I can see that,” I admitted. “I have been feeling edgy lately, torn between my promises to my grandmother and the Grove and my loyalties to my friends at Fairwick. But why would the vision try to drown me?”

  “Oh, that’s because you’ve got a water witch in your house.”

  “A …?”

  “Look down.”

  I looked down into my glass. Although I’d stopped swirling the scotch a minute ago and Duncan was holding my hand steady, the liquid was still moving in circles.

  “Something’s controlling the water in your home. And I’m pretty sure we know who that is.”

  “Lorelei.”

  “Yes. Now drink up. Once she’s strong enough, she’ll come for you. You’d better have all your strength by then.”

  “Are you telling me that Lorelei sent me that dream?” I asked Duncan a half hour later as we walked into the woods. “Because … ew!”

  “Not the content of the dream,” he assured me, flashing me a grin. In his dark clothes, all I could see of him were his teeth and eyes, which caught the reflection of the moon. “That was the Aelvesgold, I’m fairly sure. But I believe the drowning part was the water witch. The water took on the shape of your dream and tried to drown you.”

  “I thought a water witch was a forked stick dowsers used to find water.”

  “Wheelock lists three definitions of ‘water witch’ in his glossary. One is indeed what you describe, but there’s an older kind of water witch, a creature who can control the flow of water, who can summon rain from the sky, make rivers flow backward, or turn the ocean tides.” His pale hands moved like moths in the darkness as he waved them in the air between us. “A water witch can move any kind of water—from a glassful to an ocean. Lorelei can’t get into your house because it’s warded …”

  “I haven’t placed any wards on it!”

  “Someone has—probably your handyman Brock. Unfortunately, with him unconscious, the wards aren’t as strong. Lorelei is looking for ways in,
and the most direct route for her is water. She’s reaching into your home—and into your mind—through her most familiar element.”

  “No wonder everything’s been leaking,” I said angrily, batting a branch out of the way. “The bitch. When I think of the plumbing bill … We have to find her. Liz and Soheila thought she might be hiding out at Lura’s house.” While I explained that Lura was Lorelei’s daughter, Duncan listened, but his voice sounded impatient when he replied.

  “Even if Lorelei’s hiding there during the day, she won’t be there tonight. She’ll be hunting. We have to find her before she finds her prey.”

  I was surprised by the anger in his voice. “And if we do find her,” I asked, “what will we do with her?”

  Duncan stopped and turned to me. We’d come to a clearing where the moonlight wasn’t blocked by the trees.

  He tilted his head and stared at me. I was distracted by the way the moonlight sculpted Duncan’s cheekbones. He was a handsome man. It would be natural for me to feel attracted to him, but I still wasn’t sure that’s what I felt. Right now I felt chilled.

  “I think you know what we must do,” he said.

  “We can’t kill her!” I hissed. “She’s—well, she’s a nasty piece of work, but she’s only doing what comes naturally to her.”

  Duncan nodded. “Your compassion is admirable, but misplaced. What do you plan to do—ask her politely to please return to Faerie?” he asked, but then lifted a peremptory hand to silence me. “Listen,” he said.

  At first I heard only the breeze rustling the leaves in the trees, but then I made out a low throaty trill riding the night air.

  Ooooh lu lu lu

  Ooooh lu lu oooh

  Looking west toward the sound, I saw nothing.

  “Turn around,” Duncan whispered. “He’s thrown his voice to fool you.”

  I turned and looked east, where a half moon hung in the branches of a white pine. At first I only saw the feathery branches outlined against the moon, but then one of those branches moved and acquired tufted horns and yellow eyes.

  “A great horned owl,” Duncan said with pride, as if he’d conjured it himself. “I was hoping for one. It’s the strongest and smartest of the owls. Look at his eyes. Do you feel the Aelvesgold in your blood pulled by them?”

  “Yes.” What I didn’t say was that they reminded me of Duncan’s eyes and the pull they’d had on me in my dream. As I stared at the owl, he bowed to us, hooting a long-drawn-out cry as if releasing the sound through the movement of his body.

  Duncan bowed back, sweeping both arms out in a graceful swoop. In the moonlight, his shadow swirled around him like a cape. I imitated the motion. When I swept my arms out I felt the air moving over my skin, raising goosebumps on my flesh. When I lifted my head and met the owl’s eyes again, my skin bristled—from the nape of my neck down my spine to my tailbone. The owl called again. Whoooo are youuuu? It seemed to ask.

  “Kay-lex,” I answered, my name becoming a series of clicks in the back of my throat. I bowed again, feeling my arms rise weightlessly on the breeze and my tailbone lengthen. My whole body was weightless. When I lifted my head this time, I saw that the owl’s eyes were not the only things glowing in the forest. Each branch and pine needle was tipped with moonlit white gold—another shade of Aelvesgold. Duncan had said the Aelvesgold inside me drew more Aelvesgold to it like a magnet. I was in control. I would find Lorelei and compel her to return to Faerie. How could she resist this much magic flowing through me?

  I opened my mouth and let out a long, strange call. I heard an answering call beside me. I swiveled my head—how wonderfully flexible my neck had become! I would never need a chiropractor again!—and met Duncan’s azure eyes. Now they were set in the face of a great horned owl. He stretched out his wings and lifted off the ground. I raised my arms—now wings so long and strong I felt I could touch the moon—then swooped them down and felt myself rise on the night air into the trees. I would have gone higher, but Duncan’s voice in my head called for me to land beside him on a branch. I settled beside him, tucking my wings in and swiveling my head around to check that we were alone. We were. The other owl had flown away.

  Listen, Duncan said, do you hear the water?

  I twisted, bobbed, and dipped my head, twitching my ears toward a faint sound threading through the branches. One of my ears was higher than the other and, by positioning my head just right, I could not only hear the faintest sounds, but could tell exactly how far away they were. Yes, I heard running water. Thirty feet southeast of us.

  That’s the Undine. We’ll follow it south through the woods. I’ll take the east side, you take the west. If you see anything, call out.

  I hooted a reply. Words seemed superfluous in this sound-rich, moonlit world. Not only could I hear every branch-creak and leaf-sway, I could see through the darkness as though it were day. Duncan hooted back and launched himself off the branch. I couldn’t hear him moving as he glided in between the trees. His enormous wings silently rode the wind. Then I couldn’t see him either. He had vanished into the thickly intertwined branches.

  I had a pang of human fear. I was about to dive into the dark woods. Jen Davies had told me that the fey were flocking to Fairwick to be ready to return to Faerie if the door was closing. From deep inside me, I sensed that there were many otherworldly creatures in the woods, lurking in its shadows. That place inside me seemed to call to them—as if it knew them. Lorelei was not the only monster in these woods.

  A breeze ruffled my feathers and I heard the sough of wind through the branches. My feathers itched to take flight. I stretched out my wings and plunged headlong into the woods.

  SEVENTEEN

  I followed the silver thread of the Undine south through the woods, the same path I’d followed with Liz, Soheila, and Diana only three days ago. I remembered slogging through the underbrush, pushing thorny vines out of the way, and swatting insects. Now I soared smoothly through the sky, effortlessly threading through low-hanging limbs. Not only could I clearly see where the limbs were, I felt them blocking the flow of air. All I had to do was follow the wind. I remembered that Soheila had told me once that the first incarnation she had taken as a wind spirit had been an owl. I understood why now. I was a master of the wind! I was faster than the deer that ran beneath me. Faster even than the beautiful doe and the great stag I’d seen last night, who looked up at me with fear when I swooped low over their heads. I was master of the forest, too!

  I dipped up and down on my great silent wings, my eyes taking in every detail of the forest floor. I saw every twig and leaf, every field mouse in the underbrush and tadpole in the stream. I felt as if my eyes were truly open for the first time in my life. Was this my power unblocked? I felt stronger than I ever had before and … unfettered. Not just by the bounds of gravity, but also by the qualms of conscience I’d felt moments ago over Lorelei’s fate. She had threatened me and hurt me. She was my prey. When I found her, I’d swoop down on my silent wings and dig my talons into her slimy flesh. We’d see who ate whom.

  But first I’d have to find her. It made sense that she’d be near the water, but as I sailed through the woods I realized that the Undine wasn’t the only water in the forest. My new eyes, which seemed to turn night into day, spotted flashes of water everywhere. Springs bubbled up from beneath rocks, still pools were scattered like silver coins under the trees, swampy marshland stood in the low places. As much water as I saw, though, I could hear even more. It was percolating deep below the earth in hollow caverns and running in underground streams. The whole forest was a honeycomb channeling water through a thousand secret passageways.

  And the streams were full of plump trout, their gills iridescent with Aelvesgold. My mouth watered at the sight of them. It took all my willpower not to dive down and spear one with my sharp talons and tear into its raw flesh.

  It would have been easy. Where springs bubbled up into pools, the trout hovered in the currents, transfixed. Easy prey. At one of these pools
I found a fisherman standing knee-deep in the water, casting his line. I landed silently in an oak tree above him and observed. He wore rubber waders and a flannel shirt (big surprise!). His hair was cut short, exposing the meaty nape of his neck. When he drew back his arm to cast, I caught a glimpse of his face. His full lips were pursed with concentration, soft blond down grew over his plump cheeks … I recognized him. He was the young man from the diner who’d been chowing down on an Angler’s Special with his father and grandfather. The Stewarts, the waitress had called them. Apparently the stories his grandfather had told him about fishing the Undine hadn’t deterred him from trying it. I soon saw why.

  Within seconds of my landing on the branch, young Stewart was reeling in a huge trout. I clenched the branch with my talons to keep from stealing it out of his hand. He had plenty! His creel was full. I inhaled the smell of fresh fish … and something less fresh. A smell like spoiled sardines that was oddly familiar …

  A splash in the water drew my attention away. I swiveled my head and cocked one ear toward the sound. It had come from the far bank of the pool. I trained my eyes on the bank and saw nothing … but then I noticed strange ripples in the water: a V-shaped pattern trailing streamers, heading straight toward young Stewart.

  Stewart was too intent on his catch to notice the disturbance in the water. He took the hook out of the fish’s mouth, then slid it into his creel, trying to find room for it among the other fish, swearing when his new catch slipped from his fingers and landed in the water. He bent over to retrieve it … and a slim white hand broke the water’s surface and grabbed hold of his wrist. A puzzled look overtook his bland, plump face, and then the hand yanked and he toppled headfirst into the river.

  I let out a screech and dove, talons out. I grabbed the collar of the young man’s shirt and pulled back, my wings beating the air. It was enough to bring his head and arms out of the water. He thrashed and sputtered, windmilling his arms, very nearly clocking me. I let go to get out of his way. A head rose out of the water beside Stewart, a head with long streaming hair, fish-belly-white skin, and malevolent green-black eyes: Lorelei. When Stewart saw her, he screamed and tried to backpedal away, but he tripped and fell backward into the water. Lorelei no longer seemed to care about the fisherman. Her eyes were fastened on me.