by Marta Szemik
Xela sat cross-legged across from William. She took his hands in hers and squeezed them. “You didn’t recognize me.”
What is she doing?
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, the same way he had for the past four years.
“I know, but I need you to stop being sorry and be the William I met in my dreams.”
How does she know about my dreams?
“I’m trying, but seeing you with Xander makes things awkward.”
“I’m sorry. That part is my fault, and I mean it.”
Is she talking about herself, or me? Was Xela trying to fix my life?
William rubbed his thumb on the fake ruby Xela wore. The doubt in his expression concerned me. He looked from the ring to her face, then back to the ring again, but he didn’t say anything.
“I know I’ve asked you before, but you must trust what I’m doing. I can handle Xander.”
“I’m afraid I can’t. You’re different around him. The way you look at him . . . I wish you’d stop going to the cave.”
“All right. I’ll stop.” She paused. “I can’t promise you things aren’t going to be difficult for a few more days, but I can promise I’ll do everything I can to make things right.”
“You know something I don’t.” He narrowed his brows.
“I do.”
“And you can’t tell me.”
“Not yet. You have to trust what’s here.” She pressed her palm to William’s chest, atop his heart.
“If I trust what’s in here,” he placed his hand on top of hers, then took it away and pressed his palm on her heart, “then it tells me you’re different.”
I gasped.
“Then listen to your heart,” Xela whispered. “I’m going to visit Mrs. G now. The children need you—”
“They need you, too.”
Xela shook her head. “No, I’ve done everything in my power to prepare them, sacrificing things I shouldn’t have.” Her gaze flew my way. “They need the William I fell in love with to help them. You will face a great challenge soon. Show the children your fearlessness. It’s the only way they’ll succeed. They look up to you.” She closed her eyes. “And you need to do it by tomorrow.”
“You speak in riddles, as if you were a—”
“Sh, trust it.” She tapped her chest, kissed him on the cheek, and left.
I remained in the tree house, hovering where she’d sat. The sky was clear, but the branches hadn’t been trimmed in two weeks, making the sun difficult to see.
William lay down on the floor, head cradled in the arms crossed under his head. He took a deep breath, then exhaled. “If things are all okay, then why do I feel your presence more when you’re gone?” he asked.
I smiled. Trust your feelings. Trust your heart.
I drifted away, thinking about a witch whom I no longer thought of as a black witch.
* * *
I followed Xela through the woods, the way she’d travel to Mrs. G’s. With my eyes closed, I let my spirit be carried through time and space again. I caught up to her a few miles short of the hill. How in the world did she get here so fast? It’d take me two days, unless I used a vortex with Eric.
Xela leaned against a spruce while staring at the Grand Teton Mountains between the branches.
“These woods are important to you, aren’t they?” I showed my ghost to the witch.
Startled, she jumped away from the tree. Then familiarity covered her face. “I met him here.” Xela closed her eyes, smiling. “He sat on the ledge, up there.” She pointed to the mountains in an exhale. “And I wanted him to come down to be with me. I wanted him unlike anything. I used magic to sway him, though he said I didn’t need to.” She twirled her hand in a circle, the way I’d seen Mrs. G do when she summoned powers, but nothing happened. Xela examined her hand.
“You miss your magic.” I hovered closer to the witch.
“The last time I used it was to send Xander away from me. I still regret that day.” Xela put pressure against a branch and let it go. Pine needles sprinkled down to the forest floor.
“Xander never mentioned it.” I drifted in front of her.
She crouched picking up the stray needles, and then let them fall. “Why would he? He thought I betrayed him.”
“But you didn’t. Don’t you want to tell him?”
She sighed. “Yes, when the time is right.”
“Thank you for what you did up there.” I wanted to touch her arm but remembered I couldn’t.
“My magic has been used against you. It’s the least I could do.”
“You’re not a black witch. Your heart is pure.” I followed her cautious steps. It seemed like Xela was enjoying a life she’d been denied.
“I don’t have a choice of who I am, and I can assure you, my heart is not pure,” she said.
Xela could argue, but I knew the truth: a good witch had been marked with the sphere as a curse. It wasn’t right and didn’t feel right. I wished I could do something to help. Was there a way to bend the evil away from a black witch?
“Xander fell in love with you here.”
“Yes.” She smiled. The innocence of our conversation was similar to one teenage best friends would have. “The moment I saw him . . . I’d give up my magic for him—if I could.” Xela’s words flowed from her, simmering with love as fresh as if she’d experienced the euphoria of meeting Xander yesterday. Her fingertips stroked the spruce boughs and sent a few more needles to the forest floor. “And I should have given it up. I should have given him everything.”
“You didn’t have a choice, though, did you?”
“No. I thought our marks would keep us apart . . .”
“You sacrificed your life for him.”
Xela whipped her body around to face me. “How do you know?”
“I can see it in you. I know my face.” I pointed to her. “I understand what you’re feeling.”
“He didn’t know,” she snapped. “I told him, and he didn’t remember. He chose to forget I’d never hurt him. Not by choice.”
“Men are like that sometimes. You think they know you, and they don’t.” I held Xela’s gaze.
“I guess you do understand. It must have been difficult, what she did to you. More so when no one believed you.”
She found a boulder to sit on as I hovered closer her side.
“The same way no one believed you,” I said.
“We have more in common than I thought.” She scanned my ghost’s silhouette with her gaze, and for a moment, I thought she was lost in her memories of the past again.
“We do.” I laughed. “We love men who don’t recognize who we are.”
Xela joined in with a chuckle.
In a different lifetime, I could have been friends with Xela, very good friends. I was sure if Mira met her, knew her the way I did, she’d like her too. To think we were once enemies . . . or I’d thought we were.
“So, you think we can fix this?” I looked through my transparent hands. “Because there’s a problem. Miranda told me her body’s been burned. She and Aseret captured my mother’s spirit yesterday. I haven’t had a chance to speak with Eric yet.”
“I assume she didn’t touch you?”
“No, my mother threw herself in front of me to save me. Why?”
“She’ll be looking for you.” She picked an over-blooming dandelion and blew a strong breath, then watched the little seed parachutes fly away until they disappeared. “Or she’ll use your mother as bait.”
“What will she do to her?”
“Use her essence for energy until it disappears.”
“I need to leave,” I said urgently.
“Not yet. The right time will come quickly.” She caught a stray parachute in mid-air, then opened her palm and let it float away. “You’ll see your mother very soon.” Her actions reminded me of Mrs. G’s: mysterious and nature-bound.
“Miranda doesn’t know you’re in my body. She thinks I’m dead.”
“That helps, but
Miranda’s smart. She’ll suspect I’m helping.”
“So, we can still fix this?” I pointed to my spirit chest.
“I don’t know. I need Hannah’s help, and I’m not sure she’ll help me.” Xela bit her lip.
“Why? She loved me.”
“Yes, when you were you. She’ll detect magic on me. I’ve been in this realm long enough, and she’s a strong witch.” She bit the top of my thumb.
Some things never change.
The crunching of the forest’s undergorwth drew my attention. “Sh, can you hear that?” My ghost vibrated.
Xela’s vampire ears, my ears, perked up. She sniffed the air, then her eyes widened. “Hide,” she whispered.
As soon as I took my invisible form, Xander appeared from behind a spruce. I hovered and watched him approach Xela as if he’d been stalking prey. “What are you doing here?” he asked her, keeping his distance.
Lie!
“I . . . I was just hunting.”
“Here? In this exact spot?”
“Is it forbidden?” She rolled her eyes the way I would have.
Perfect. She’s good! I felt like a proud mother.
“It’s not. Couldn’t you find a spot closer to home?” He approached with caution, careful of where he placed his feet, warily examining Xela from head to toe. I thought he’d taken a few extra whiffs to smell her, too.
“I was on my way to the hill,” she said.
“Why?”
“I have questions for your ma.”
Mrs. G! I yelled, but I knew she couldn’t hear me.
Xander froze. Still thirty or so feet away, Xela took a step toward him. “Stay there!” He pointed at her.
“How did you get here so fast?” she asked.
“I had help . . . from a gem, you could say.” He smirked.
“Xander, what’s the matter with you?” Her tone was accusing, the way I would have sounded, but I sensed a vibration in her voice.
My friend placed his hand in his pocket and pulled it out, fisted. When he opened it, a white gem the size of a golf ball rested on his palm. The sun shone through it, reflecting a prism of colors.
Gasping, Xela covered her mouth.
“You recognize this, don’t you?” Xander stood with his feet apart. His fingers twitched in the palm where the gem rested. I’d never seen him as focused as now, and for a moment, I thought his gaze would burn a hole in Xela. Whatever he had planned, there was no way Xander would leave without executing it.
What is it? I asked, unaware of a transfer between them.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
“Why?”
“Don’t,” she repeated, taking a step back.
Is it a weapon? The wind blew, making my spirit waver as the gust passed through me. The elements made it difficult to concentrate on the real world.
Xander took his time wrapping his fingers around the gem. I thought I saw Xela’s chest rise as she tried to control the beating of her heart, my heart. As his palm closed, a smile flickered over his face; hope and apprehension roamed his cheeks. He squeezed the diamond and vanished—then reappeared in front of Xela.
“I knew it,” he whispered, straining to contain the longing in his eyes. His muscles struggled to control their twitching.
“Xander—”
The hope changed to fury. He grabbed the back of her head and gripped her hair. “Where. Is. Sarah,” he said through clenched teeth. The Xander I knew from Pinedale, my watcher, my protector, had taken over.
Xela did not fight. “She’s fine.”
“Liar!”
“Xander, stop. It’s me,” she pleaded through a tight throat.
Come on, Xander, trust her! I urged. At least one of us ought to be happy.
“You betrayed me.”
“No.” She shook her head in his grip. Tears streaked Xela’s face, my face. “It wasn’t me, Xander.”
Xander’s hatred faded. He pulled her head forward, pressing his lips against hers. She couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe. His eyes were shut. His tense cheeks softened; the grip on Xela’s head, my head, loosened. Their bodies melted together.
“Oh my God, it is you! My black witch.” Xander held her head in his hands, staring at her face, my face, for a moment before picking her up and spinning in a circle, his head pressed to her chest. “How?”
“It’s complicated.” She laughed.
“The stone worked.” Astonished, he observed the gem in his hand.
“I told you it would always bring you to me.”
“And it has.” He pressed his lips to hers again, then set Xela back down on the forest floor. “Wait, where is Sarah then?”
“She’s here. With us. Don’t freak out, Xander,” she cautioned.
“Sarah?” His gaze skimmed the forest.
I floated behind him and became visible. “Boo!”
“Shit!” He jumped and whirled, then took a step back, looking from me . . . to me. His mouth hung open. “How?”
Xela dismissed his question with, “Why did you come here?”
“Let’s just say I had a hunch.” He smirked. “The minute I tasted that goulash, I knew it had to be you.”
“So it was my food that stole your heart.” Xela’s body swooshed closer to Xander.
“I remember it differently.” He grinned, eyeing her like he wanted to rip the clothes off her body.
“Too much information, guys,” I interjected. “I can’t plug my ears.”
Xander looked back to me. “Are you really a ghost?” He pushed his hand through me.
“Are you blind?” I tried to wiggle out of his reach.
“Part of me wants to strangle you for being so stupid.” He moved to the rock and sat down. “The other part wants to thank you, because I don’t think I’d have her here without your meddling. You two have some explaining to do.” He wiggled his finger between Xela and me.
Now my best friends and my evil bender knew my secret and William still didn’t. I thought back to my previous conversation with Xela and my promise to keep our secret, but it didn’t wash away the betrayal I felt inside.
“You can’t tell William.” she said to Xander.
His gaze flew to his witch.
“You just need to trust me on this one, Xander.” Although I’d heard my own voice, when Xela spoke to him, it sounded like it came from a different individual instead of me.
“Is it weird seeing double?” I asked him.
“Hell, yeah! If you’re here,” he pointed to Xela, then to me, “and you’re here, then who’s in the cave?”
“Miranda.” Xela replied.
A stronger gust of wind swept the forest floor. Needles lifted, pinning into Xela’s hair.
“Miranda?” He shrugged, pulling Xela onto his lap. “Doesn’t tell me much.”
“She’s the one who took my soul, the morning you were marked,” Xela said. “I need to get to your mom to borrow her book.”
Xander bellowed with laughter. “Good luck convincing her to work with you.”
“She would with me, right?” I asked, hovering closer to the reunited couple.
“The problem, Sarah, is that she’ll see right through me,” Xela explained.
“You mean through me,” I corrected.
“No, I mean she’ll know I’m in your body the minute she sees me. You can’t fool a witch twice.”
“So what do we do?” I asked.
“Don’t worry, I know how to handle Ma.” Xander smirked, lifting Xela off his lap and gently setting her down. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 9
I hovered with Xander and Xela, who stood in front of the grassy mound dotted with shrubs that effectively concealed the siblings’ home in the middle of the forest. Neither one dared to open the door, which looked like a deceivingly natural part of the hillside. The hill’s interior was much larger than it appeared on the outside as well, thanks to Mrs. G’s supernatural powers. Even when smoke rose from the top of the hill as Mrs. G, Xand
er and Mira’s mom, brewed in her cauldron, no one would see it.
“Stand behind me.” Xander stepped in front of Xela. “You, hide,” he said to me before taking a deep breath.
“Mrs. G won’t hurt me.” I stepped closer.
“Yes, but we don’t want her to have a heart attack. Disappear,” he ordered.
“Fine, but I don’t think you know your mother well,” I grumbled as I assumed my invisible form.
Before Xander pressed his hand against the trunk to open the secret door, the outline of a doorframe materialized in the hill, pushing grass and earth forward, then aside. The ground shook.
Mrs. G stepped out through the oval doorway, her left hand on her hip. The water mark on her wrist shone through several dangling bracelets. I’d never seen it this bright. She’d braided her hair across the top of her forehead, the twines dark against her pale skin. Her right hand clutched a dagger with a red gem embedded in the pommel, and silver thread wrapped up the grip. Miranda owned a similar blade when she stole my body; she’d used it to cut her chest to free her soul.
“Blood, witch.” Mrs. G eyed Xela from toes to head through her glasses. “You will not come in, otherwise.”
“You know?” Xander asked.
“Shouldn’t I? Fool me once, shame on me; fool me twice—not possible,” she said calmly, her sweet voice at odds with her unyielding stance.
I wanted to stand in front of Xander to tell him, “I told you so,” but he wouldn’t hear me so I remained hovering behind them. Mrs. G’s gaze skidded over Xander’s shoulder for a moment, and I thought she saw me.
Xela held out her hand. Mrs. G slit her palm, leaving a red line behind the point of the blade. Then she cut her own palm open. They pressed their hands together, mingling their blood.
“The promise of peace is sealed,” Xela said in answer to Xander’s questioning eyes. She pulled her hand away from Mrs. G’s and watched the slit heal into the thin white line of a scar. “That’s the coolest thing I’ve seen,” she hushed toward Xander.
“But the blood is not yours,” he whispered to Xela, narrowing his brow.
