by Lee Roland
A massive steel perversion of a building squatted in the field to the right, backed up against the shear rock face of Ogre Mountain. A black malignant mole, ready to spread its disease through the body of Elder. The structure possessed the earth and covered acres.
Maeve’s stomach tightened, and tears began. She gave them a savage wipe with her uninjured hand.
Someone came up behind her.
“May I help you?”
Maeve turned. The voice belonged to a man in a black uniform. No gun, but the red claw patch was sewn on his pocket.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Captain Harlan, ma’am.”
“Captain. An army here, in Elder.”
He nodded, but he had an indefinable emotion flicker in his eyes. Warm brown, intelligent eyes—quite a contrast to Erik’s cool, killer looks.
She fought all emotion down. “Captain, your troops look a little rough. You must have your recruiting office in Mountain City.” Surprise, she remembered the closest state prison’s location.
He shrugged. He probably knew his troops as well as anyone.
“You have blood on your shirt.” He leaned forward and frowned. “Are you injured?”
Concern? She hadn’t expected that, not real concern anyway. She held up her smashed finger. “I broke the bridge. They’ll tell you about it later.”
“They tell me very little.” He smiled at her. Of course, he thought she was kidding. One of the troops swaggered up to him. The smile faded as if he didn’t like them any more than she did. The captain faced the man. The man quickly stepped back. Captain Harlan commanded respect. After a whispered conversation, he came back to her. “It seems you are important people.”
“How so?”
“The Commander called to say you could go in.”
“The Commander gave permission—what is this, an occupied country?” Maeve pointed to the town. Her home! “That’s Elder, Tennessee, zip code…I forget… and the mail—”
“Is now picked up in Jessupville and delivered by a SETH truck.”
Maeve stared at him until he broke eye contact. He looked like a man who answered a soldier of fortune want ad and found himself in the middle of a nasty little war. He stood his ground, though, and would probably be one of the survivors.
“Who is Aubrey Sethos?” she asked.
“A multi-billionaire philanthropist, owner of SETH, the world’s leading manufacturer of biological products, including medicine.” He recited it like an advertisement, and he wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“And this is…?” Maeve pointed to the black steel building.
“His newest factory.”
“Which manufactures…?”
“I don’t know. You shouldn’t ask.” He met her eyes this time, his expression far more serious. Warning her? “You better go on now. Claire…”
With fifteen years on the road, reading body language and voice inflection to survive, Maeve heard the single word’s weight. Claire. So soft, so intimate. Dear Mommy wasn’t stupid. Intelligent, handsome, this man was worth a thousand of the white slug she’d unbelievably married.
“Okay, Captain, I guess that’s all I can do—for now.” Maeve walked back to the truck.
Multi-billionaire. That explained the power to manipulate the police and stop interstate traffic for three fugitives. Only it didn’t tell her how they kept finding her. For all that money, all that power, she’d managed to stay ahead of them. Oh, she’d had help, but she’d guided her flock of wayward Iameth home. Time to move on.
Raymond waited for her by the door. “See,” she said to him, “I didn’t overreact, did I?”
He shook his head and smiled. Two objects, one light and the other dark, fell from the sky. Harriet flew in the open truck door and crash-landed on Flor. Orcus made a less spectacular touchdown on the seat. Why didn’t they fly over the fence? Maeve’s haphazard witch-sight dropped in again. A warding curtain hung over the gate. Nothing could fly in or out of Elder. Then how did Harriet and Raymond get to her? Tana must have found a way.
The automatic gate trundled to the side to let the truck through, and then closed behind them. Captain Harlan watched as they passed, and Maeve wondered where he fit in to the scheme. And Claire? Too much mystery there. Claire had always avoided Maeve in her rare visits to Elder. Not that she was nice when she did arrive. Spitting on her the first time they met paled in comparison to other nasty tricks she tried. Claire always deflected Maeve’s assaults like slapping mosquitoes.
Now Claire consorted with people who meant her and all of Elder harm. People so dangerous an Elemental had taken direct action to aid Maeve, although, she wasn’t sure how helpful it had been to tear down the bridge. Now, magic wards and the river trapped them—good and evil alike. It felt like they were hurtling toward an immense catastrophe.
As they passed Sethos’ factory, Maeve could see big trucks sitting at a loading dock. Too bad—they’d be there for a while. With the obscenity of the factory and trailer park behind them, they rolled down the gentle slope into town. No one had contaminated the roadside meadows here—yet.
“Not much traffic,” Flor said.
“No,” Maeve told her. “Almost everyone walks. The whole place is barely a quarter of a mile long.”
The truck rolled along the deserted street of a silent, hollow town.
“Where is everyone? It shouldn’t look like this.” Maeve pointed out the now closed shops she’d frequented all her life: The drugstore where the McCollum family had dispensed medicine for three generations, the movie theater that went out of business with the VCR’s invention and the introduction of cable.
As they passed the gas station, a scruffy looking man Maeve had never seen before glared at them from the doorway. Had old Mr. Kerri died? He’d pumped gas for Elder’s few cars since 1945. She couldn’t see the stranger’s eyes, but his posture, feet planted wide and arms crossed, spoke of unsubtle hostility. Until now, she had known every person in town, and they knew her, by name and reputation. At times a familiar face would appear in a window, then like a ghost fade away.
“There’s the school,” Maeve said. “All grades in one place. I was in the second graduating class. There were four of us, two boys and two girls.”
The two-story building, a square brick box with tall narrow windows, appeared deserted like the rest of the town. Brazen weeds now dared to show their heads in the once immaculate schoolyard.
Flor slowed the truck. “The marker over the door says it was built in 1932. You graduated in 1934?”
“Yeah… Well, 1935. Old Miss Bellingham held me back one year because I refused to learn my multiplication tables. Never saw any use for them, so I didn’t do it.”
The demanding schoolteacher proved she could match her pupil in intractable pig-headedness. After a year of missing recess and cleaning blackboards, Maeve yielded when she realized the woman would never give up—die at her desk in front of the blackboard, but never give up.
Maeve started to apologize to Flor for dumping so much on her. She changed her mind. “Flor, you sleep with a dragon, cast perfect spells, and carry your High Witch around in a wooden box. This is Elder. It’s a different place. Time’s a little different for us, too. And we live longer than most people. Are you surprised? How old was Immal? How old are you?”
“I’m twenty-four,” Flor said. “Immal? I have no idea.” She stared straight ahead, and Maeve couldn’t see her eyes, but the words had an evasive hint to them. The only sure thing regarding Flor was Raymond’s love for her. That was enough. Let the little witch keep her secrets.
She laid her uninjured hand on Flor’s arm. “Sorry. I know which side you’re on.”
Flor laughed. “Do you know how lonely and bored I was until I met all of you?”
Maeve understood boredom—and loneliness. “I understand. According to Tana, only three witches have been born in the last two hundred years. The other two were much older than me, so Raymond and Harriet were my only frien
ds. I went to school with the ordinary kids.”
“You sound sad. Why?”
“I had a girlfriend when I was eleven. We giggled, had crushes on the only two boys our age in town, all the things eleven-year old girls do. She was actually new in town. Came to live with her grandmother. It lasted six months or so, until Marion started to see everything she shouldn’t see. “Maybe it wasn’t exactly seeing—at first. She tried not to let on, but I could tell. Once Harriet flew in the school window and landed on my shoulder. Marion kept staring at me.
The next day she came home with me, and Raymond landed in front of us. She wasn’t supposed to see him, but she began screaming about monsters. They couldn’t calm her down, so Tana finally went to her house and made her forget everything. They sent her to live with her other grandmother. That’s why I can’t stay with anyone outside for long. Magic has a tendency to follow me, even when I ignore it. It will harass other people if I stay with any too long. Ryder’s a great guy, but…”
“Ryder loves you, and you care for him. Why don’t you try to explain? He wouldn’t mind a few ghosts or creatures—after he got used to them.”
She laughed softly. “It’s against the rules. I swore the oath like everyone else. No one outside Elder is to know—no exceptions. He’d have to come here and stay.”
“He’d come.”
Maeve knew he would.
“You broke the rules for me,” Flor said softly.
“That’s different. Raymond staked his claim and that made you ours.”
The truck approached the town square, and Flor slowed. Her eyes widened. The tree stood at least fifty feet high, and its branches stretched laterally twice that distance. It covered the square like an enormous, green cloud.
“That’s the patriarch,” Maeve told her. “Tana said the seed came from Ataro. As far as we know, it’s the only one left.”
She started to explain how each branch bore a single flower on the first full moon in autumn. How each bud opened and flared like a beacon in the moonlight, then faded in that single night. She could tell her of the witches searching the ground the next morning, praying for a single seed they never found. No, better to wait and let Flor see that magic for herself.
At Maeve’s direction, they headed out of town. The pavement eventually transformed to smooth red clay. “Tana’s house is the last one before you go into the valley.”
“Does the valley have a name?” Flor asked.
“No. I guess it’s Elder too.”
With the town behind them, the green valley dropped lower and stretched on to dark forested mountains. A river braided across the open meadows, and the afternoon sun cut diamonds on the rippling water. High over the distant hills, tiny specks circled in the sky.
“Except for the ogres on their blasted mountain, the Iameth all live here,” Maeve said. “The witch clans have farms or small gatherings throughout the valley. The others stay deeper in the coves between the mountains. Tana’s the only witch who stays on this side of the river.”
“Is that the same river we crossed coming in?” Flor asked.
“No. This one comes from the mountains. See the wooden bridge down there? That marks the beginning of… I don’t know what to call it. A magic line. No mechanical engines allowed beyond that line. Except for the town, Elder is mostly farms, woods, and big open meadows. I asked Tana why she stayed on this side of the river and all she said was, ‘It’s home.’ ”
Maeve leaned forward. An excitement she hadn’t known in years wiggled around her heart. “Can you see that roof, way down by the river, peeking through the trees? That’s the Witches Council House. It’s the oldest building in the valley, built in 1310. The building materials came from Europe. The dragons brought them. You can see it when I formally present you to the Council.”
“Present me?”
“Have to. You’re my guest. Polite manners matter. I’m a lousy witch with a wicked reputation, but I’m still family. They have to let me in.”
The vibrant scent of meadow grass drifted in the open windows, and as they rode, the truck, seemed an unwelcome intrusion into paradise.
Tana’s house dominated a small hill. A two-story farmhouse surrounded by porches and dwarfed by smooth-skinned sycamore trees towering above the roof. Honeysuckle hedges ran like white garland across the yard, and a haphazard array of flowers popped up from the lawn in purple and gold spikes.
“Raymond,” Maeve said, “you and Harriet are kind of quiet. Something wrong besides the obvious?”
They didn’t answer. Raymond’s skin color had improved, and his eyes sparkled. It was as if breathing the air of home revived him and leached the remaining poison from his body. Flor parked the truck, and Raymond let Maeve out.
She drew a deep breath and walked toward the front porch. As she reached the steps and went on the porch, Tana came out the door.
Her grandmother’s beauty had increased with age. Her eyes were quiet, dark pools, and her silver hair rivaled Raymond’s in his human form. Of all the cultural customs Maeve observed outside Elder, the perception that beauty was the exclusive possession of youth was most offensive. Confidence and elegant grace told of the power that came to Aingeal Nyx Pallas with maturity.
Maeve fought back tears. “Hi,” she said. “I’m here.”
“Why so you are, Love.” Tana smiled, although a tiny frown line appeared between her brows. “And I’m happy to see you. But what brought you home now? It’s not a good time.”
“You didn’t…? Raymond and Harriet, said you sent them to bring me home.”
Tana shook her head. “Maeve, much as I love you, you’re a walking disaster. With all the problems we have, you are the last person I would send for.”
Maeve whirled to see Harriet and Raymond racing away to make their escape. As he reached the bottom of the hill, Raymond changed and went airborne. Harriet winged her way to a copse of trees with Orcus in pursuit.
She burst into tears, and Tana gathered her in her arms.
Chapter Fifteen
Tana held Maeve for a while, and then asked, “Will you introduce me to our guests?”
Flor had come to the bottom of the steps carrying Immal’s box in her arms.
“This is Flor. She’s Raymond’s girlfriend.” Maeve sniffed and wiped her tears on her shirtsleeve. “And that’s Immal in the box. She’s lost a little weight, but she’s been extremely helpful.”
Flor stepped onto the porch. Tana watched her, the powerful witch, probably saw much more than Maeve ever would.
“Welcome Flor.” Tana smiled warmly. She then bowed, her eyes on Immal’s box. “Welcome, Ancient Mother.”
Maeve had never seen Tana lower her head to anyone or anything, and now she greeted Immal as if she were standing there in the flesh, not a pile of powder.
Tana and Immal. What visions did these powerful witches have that Maeve did not?
“Thank you,” Flor murmured. She seemed suddenly shy.
Tana’s eyebrows arched. “Has Maeve been telling you tall tales?”
Maeve moved, bumped her hand, and gasped in pain.
“How did you do that?” Tana grasped her wrist.
“It’s a long story.”
“It always is with you, love. Tell me.”
She held the hand tight against her chest. “At the Troll Bridge. When I saw what they did…I got angry and said a prayer, just to kill Claire’s spell on the new bridge so Old Troll and the sprites could do something. I needed an offering, and I didn’t have a knife, so I smashed my finger with the gun, then she came and…” She shuddered, her whole body shaking as she remembered the power hovering over her.
Tana’s eyes grew wide.
“Sorry Tana, but that bridge really upset me.” As usual, her excuse sounded wretched.
“Who came?” her grandmother asked softly.
“Inaras.” She matched Tana’s tone, as if saying the name louder would bring another visitation.
“An Elemental? No one has ever�
� I never… Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Surprised me too. She answered my prayer in Garden City—sort of—but she didn’t show up in person.”
Tana closed her eyes and shook her head. “Now I know the world’s coming to an end.” She hugged Maeve again. “In the meantime, let’s go in and take care of that finger.” She opened the screen door. “Come in Flor. I’ll prepare a room for you.”
“Sutash!” Maeve rushed in the door. “Sutash, where are you? I’m home.” She heard Tana explaining to Flor that Sutash was the house-spirit. He guarded doors, acted as butler and cleaning maid, and along with Harriet and Raymond, a general all round companion to a young Maeve when Tana grounded her for major infractions.
A whirlwind gushed down the stairs and circled Maeve in dancing air. She laughed as Sutash ruffled her short curls, making them stand out like a punk rocker’s spikes.
The house spirit directed its attention to Flor—or maybe to Immal. His spectral presence lifted the room curtains gently as he circled her. Flor cocked her head as if listening to a voice only she could hear. She burst out laughing. “Maeve, you didn’t?”
“I probably did. Whatever it is.” She stifled a surge of jealousy. Sutash rarely communicated with her in that manner.
Directed by Tana, Flor placed Immal’s box on an ornate table in the Victorian style parlor. She opened it, and her fingers pinched out a bit of dust. Maeve shifted uncomfortably. “Flor, remember what happened last time?”
“It’s a gift for the house, and I’m offering this time.” She placed the dust on her palm and blew.
The room blurred and seemed to shift a fraction of an inch. The house whispered its wordless sigh of welcome to Flor. After all the years sheltering those who lived and breathed magic, why shouldn’t a house take on a life of its own?
Maeve laid a hand on the wall, and her heart ached. Home. I am home.
Tana led them to the kitchen. Maeve sat at the familiar table, where she’d eaten her first solid meal. Aged oak, blackened with centuries of use, an artisan’s fine hand had carved ornate patterns around the massive legs. As a child, she would lay her head on it and nap at times. She’d wake from the strangest dreams and run to tell Tana before she forgot.
