At last her mother appeared, unable to hide a momentary wince as she saw Renee. “I’m here, sweetheart,” Mom said. She knelt in front of the bed and held out her arms so Renee could crawl over to her. As Mom hugged her, Renee could hear Mom’s hand swipe along the surface of the mattress. “I guess we’d better get you cleaned up.”
The archivist’s quarters of course had a full bathroom, with a tub carved right out of the limestone. Mom began to run water into the tub and then undressed Renee with such ease that it was like she’d done this Renee’s entire life. Once the tub was filled, Mom set her gently into the water and then began to wash her.
As she sat in the water with her mother bathing her, Renee began to cry. This was how it would be for years to come as she grew up all over again. She would have to learn to use the potty, to dress herself, and to read all over again. The latter brought up a wealth of bad memories as she remembered her difficulties in school the last time. Then there would be her first period again and her magic—would that come back too? “I don’t want to do it again,” she wailed. “I want to be big again!”
Mom paused to tousle Renee’s hair. “I know, sweetheart. We’re going to find a way to change you back. I’ve been searching the archives and I’ve found some spells and potions—”
“It won’t work. Not against her.”
“Who?”
“Isis.”
Mom didn’t say anything, but again a wince crossed her face. She knew it was hopeless too; no mere witch’s magic could stand up to Isis. Still, Mom forced a smile to her face to comfort her little girl. “We’ll find a way, sweetie.”
“OK.” Renee didn’t say anything for the rest of the bath. Mom gently hoisted her out of the tub and wrapped a towel around her to dry her off. Just hours ago the towel that would have barely covered her chest was like a blanket around her. She sniffled at this thought but willed herself not to cry.
That she resisted until Mom laid her down on the counter and began to powder her bottom. She didn’t know where Mom had found the diaper from; maybe she still had some of Renee’s baby things here in the archives. Renee began to kick and thrash around as when Isis had held her. “I don’t want dipey!” she cried out.
Mom tried unsuccessfully to get the diaper on her until Renee managed to kick the undergarment out of Mom’s hand. Renee tried to sit up, but Mom held her down easily with one hand. Mom looked down at her sadly; her face loomed large before Renee. “I’m sorry, honey, but I have to. It’s only until you’re a big girl again.”
“I’m a big girl now!”
“You’re not acting like one, are you?” The way Mom looked at her with icy resolve reminded her of how Louise had always described her mother’s glare.
“No,” Renee finally said. Her chubby limbs went limp on the table. She wanted to stop crying, but couldn’t. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right, sweetie.” Mom pinned the diaper and then scooped Renee up again to give her a light pat on the back.
Mom nearly dropped her when they found Glenda in the living room. The head of the coven shook her head sadly. “So, I guess it’s true,” she said. “Isis is back.”
“Yes,” Mom said.
As Glenda walked towards them, Renee buried her head against Mom’s shoulder and suppressed a squeal of terror. She felt Glenda’s hand pat her hair and then the back of her dress. This only prompted Renee to bury her face deeper into Mom’s warm, comforting body. “Is there anything of her mind left?” Glenda asked. “I want to know what happened to Agnes.”
“Renee’s just feeling a little shy right now.”
Renee could feel Mom carry her across the room and then sit down. Mom tried to pull her away, but Renee held on. She didn’t want to see Glenda’s ugly old face or to smell her awful breath. She wanted to stay close to Mommy, where it was safe.
Mom began to rock her gently and hum a lullaby. “It’s all right, sweetheart,” Mom said. “Nothing bad is going to happen to you anymore. Mommy’s here.”
Renee pulled her face away from her mother’s body enough to see Mom smiling down at her; her eyes beamed with kindness. “Mommy, I’m scared,” Renee whimpered.
“I know, sweetie. But can you be a big girl and tell the nice lady what happened to Daddy?”
Renee looked over her shoulder to see Glenda, waiting expectantly. The old witch flashed her a crooked yellow smiled that made Renee cry out and bury her face again. “She’s gone,” Glenda said. “Nothing but a child’s mind left.”
“Renee, sweetheart, Mommy needs you to tell her what happened to Agga. Can you do that for me?”
Renee considered this for a moment and then looked back up at her mother; she saw only kindness and concern there. “She made Agga a baby too.”
“Do you know how you got here? How you came back to Mommy?”
“Agga sent me.”
“Oh my,” Glenda said.
“Is Agga going to die?”
“No, sweetheart. We’re going to find a way to help you and your father.”
Looking over her shoulder, Renee saw the stoniness of Glenda’s expression. Renee pointed at her with a pudgy finger. “You not gonna help her. Or me. You gonna keep me like this forever, you old poopyhead!”
“Renee Sylvia Chiostro, that is not how you talk to adults.” Mom fixed her with another icy stare. “Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I think we’d better put you down for a nap. Maybe then you’ll be ready to act like a big girl.”
Mom carried her back to the bedroom and spread a towel across the bed where Renee had wet it earlier. “I’m sorry, Mommy.”
“I know, sweetie. You get some rest.”
Part of Renee wanted to protest she wasn’t sleepy, but the rest of her was still mature enough to know she would only get scolded again. Instead she lay on her stomach and resisted the urge to stick her thumb in her mouth. The archivist’s quarters weren’t very big and being underground, the sound echoed enough for her to hear Mom and Glenda’s conversation.
“Can’t you do anything for her? Or Agnes?”
“Not against Isis. Her magic is too strong for ours. There’s no way we can override it.”
“We have to at least try. I’ve found some potions—”
“There’s no telling what those will do to her if we mix them with Isis’s magic. It could very well kill the girl.” There was a pause, during which Renee heard her mother sob. “I know it’s hard, Akako, but you have to accept she’s gone. If Isis hasn’t killed her yet, then her mind has probably already backslid just like Renee’s is doing. Even if we could get her back, she’d be a baby, not the woman you married.”
“No! That can’t be. Agnes can fight it—”
“I’m sorry, Akako. I wish there was something we could do.” There was another pause as Mom’s sobs became louder. “At least Agnes managed to save Renee from her. You still have your daughter. It won’t be so bad for her to grow up again. Trust me on this. I’ve been through it before.”
“But not that young. She’s a baby!”
Renee sat up and her tiny fists clenched. She wasn’t a baby. Not yet. She remembered what Aggie had done for her, how she’d managed to summon her power even though she was a baby.
The climb from off the bed felt like repelling down a mountain. Renee kept a tight grasp of the covers to use them on her way down to the floor. She dropped the last few inches and felt an urge to cry out with pain. She suppressed this and forced herself to straighten up and toddle out of the room, glad Mom hadn’t closed the door.
“Renee, what are you doing out of bed?” Mom asked, her face still red and her eyes wet.
“I’m gonna save her,” Renee said.
“Sweetheart—”
Renee paid no attention. Now that she was in the living room, less than a foot from Glenda, she could feel the magic that emanated from the old witch. Renee concentrated on channeling that power. At first nothing happened. I have to do this, she told herself.
For Agga. And Mommy.
The power began to flow, to sweep over her like a wave. The euphoria she felt from this was enough to make her laugh joyously. At first that laugh was a childish giggle but soon it deepened into an adult laugh. Then the wave subsided and she opened her eyes.
The first thing she noticed was that she was at eye level with her mother. The second that just a foot away from her was a little girl in a blue dress with long black hair. The girl’s pudgy cheeks turned red as she stared at her tiny hands. “No fair!” Glenda cried out. “You made me baby!”
Renee knelt down to Glenda’s level but resisted the urge to touch the little girl; she didn’t want to accidentally channel any magic back into herself. “It’s just going to be for a little while,” she told the girl. “Until I can help Aggie.”
“No fair!” Glenda shouted again. “You the baby!”
Renee ignored this and looked up at her mother, who stared at her in shock. “Put her to bed. Then we have to summon the others.”
“Renee—”
“Just do it, Mom.”
Mom nodded and then scooped Glenda off the floor. The little girl kicked and screamed even after she was put in bed. Renee shook her head and wondered if Glenda’s mind could survive long enough for Renee to find a way to defeat Isis. If she could find a way to defeat Isis.
She felt a stab of pain run through her back as she stood up. In the mirror, she saw the deep lines and saggy jowls of an old woman. She patted her bun of iron gray hair that reminded her of Louise’s mother. Age is a state of mind, she reminded herself and then set to work.
***
The witches gathered in the burial mound itself, where there was enough room for everyone. Some of the witches conjured up chairs or stools to sit on to form a rough circle in the main chamber of the mound. Renee stood in the center of this circle and tried to keep her knees steady.
Of course to the witches she wasn’t Renee Chiostro. Mom had given her a masquerade spell so she could look like Glenda to their eyes. Renee knew the coven wouldn’t listen to her, the outcast—the abomination. But they would listen to the head of the coven, or so she hoped.
“What’s the big emergency?” Ms. Milton asked from the armchair she’d summoned to sit on as if this were her parlor.
“A grave threat has returned,” Renee said. She paused as she heard Glenda’s voice echo around the chamber. The real Glenda was in Renee’s room, sucking on her thumb as she slept, clutching Renee’s old teddy bear. “I’m sure you’ve felt it.”
“I haven’t felt anything,” another witch said. Renee didn’t know her name, or most of their names for that matter; she hoped she wouldn’t be called upon to need them.
“I’ve felt it,” Ms. Chiu said. “The dark one is afoot again.”
“The dark one?”
“Isis,” Renee said. “She’s come back to finish what she started last time. I think you all know what happened then. She killed one of our sisters and injured another.”
“But she died. The girl with Merlin’s armor killed her.”
“No,” Renee said. “She lived on inside a little girl named Eileen. She survived and relearned her powers. Now she’s back to full strength again.”
There was a collective gasp in the chamber. Ms. Milton finally grumbled, “I knew keeping that child alive was a bad idea.”
“We had to keep her alive. We don’t kill children,” Ms. Chiu said. There was some mumbled assent to this. “And if we had killed her, she only would have found another form.” There was even more assent to this statement.
“So now what do we do?” someone asked.
“We must fight back,” Renee said. She looked around the chamber only to find no one willing to look her in the eye except for Ms. Chiu. “My sisters, she’s already taken one of our number hostage.”
“Who?”
“Agnes Chiostro. Isis is using her as a toy for her amusement. Eventually, once she tires of that, she’ll kill Agnes. Before that happens—”
“I say let it happen. The Jouberts were nothing but troublemakers, every last one of them,” Milton said. “They’ve been flouting our rules for centuries now. Just look at that abomination she bred with the archivist. Disgusting creature.”
Renee tried not to show any reaction to this, or to the murmurs of assent that echoed through the chamber. She had always known the coven didn’t like her or trust her, but she’d underestimated just how much. She’d also underestimated how much Aggie had alienated them when she fathered Renee. “She is not the issue here. The issue is that one of our sisters is being tormented by Isis. Are we going to sit here and take that? Or are we going to fight back?”
“We can’t fight back,” Milton said. “Not against Isis.”
“We don’t know that,” Renee said. “We’ve never tried. If we work together, combine our power against her, maybe we can defeat her.”
“Or maybe we’ll all end up dead like Tabitha.” There were more murmurs of assent.
Renee saw the fear in their eyes. They hadn’t been there to fight Isis last time, but the stories had floated around Milton when Renee went there. And they probably also knew Aggie was one of the most powerful of the coven; if Isis could defeat her, what chance did the rest of them have?
“We have to try,” Renee said. “Otherwise she’ll take over the world and do you think she’ll stop there? We can either fight her now or fight her later, but we will have to take a stand.”
“Let Merlin deal with her,” Milton said. “Him and his Scarlet Knight. That’s who she really wants to destroy, not us. The coven has done nothing to her. As long as we don’t antagonize her, she won’t bother us.”
“She’s already bothered us. She killed Tabitha. She nearly crippled Sylvia. And now she has Agnes. You don’t think you could be next?”
“Tabby and the Jouberts attacked her first. I was against that from the start.” Milton stood up from her chair to stroll to the center of the room with Renee. As she looked around imperiously, Milton said, “I think it’s perhaps time for the coven to take a new direction. Let Isis have the mortal world. We will continue to survive as we always have.”
“By cowering underground like worms?” Renee shot back. “Is that what you want?”
There was silence for a moment and then someone in the back said, “I don’t want to end up like Tabby.”
“Isis will leave us alone if we leave her alone,” someone else said.
“We’ve done nothing to her.”
Milton turned to Renee with a smug grin on her face. “Sisters, I think it’s time for a vote. All in favor of naming a new leader, one who will maintain the peace?”
Renee looked around helplessly to see all of the witches raise their hands, except for Ms. Chiu. She merely stared back at Renee, as if she knew Renee wasn’t the real Glenda.
“The ayes have it,” Milton said. “I would like to nominate myself to take Glenda’s place as head of the coven. And for my first official act, I will send an envoy to Isis, someone she can’t harm with magic: our beloved archivist, Akako.”
“No!” Renee shouted. The masquerade spell dissipated and the other witches gasped to see her and not Glenda.
“You! I should have known,” Milton said. “Where’s the real Glenda? Did you kill her?” When Renee said nothing, Milton took her by the shoulders. “Answer me, you vile creature, you abomination—”
“Get your hands off me!” Renee shouted. She pushed Milton down to the ground. Those witches who were seated rose to their feet. Renee suddenly felt six years old again, back on the playground with Katie Fields. Weird Renee. That’s what they called her then and that’s all she was to the coven now. Even Ms. Chiu stared at her with a pained look.
They wouldn’t help her. They would let Isis keep Aggie until Isis got bored and killed her. As if that weren’t bad enough, Milton would send Mom to Rampart City as an envoy. Mom might resist at first but in the end she would do it because she would want to try to negotiate for Aggie’s relea
se—and for her daughter’s safety. Isis couldn’t harm Mom with magic, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be tortured and killed by conventional means.
Renee stood in the center of the chamber with her fists clenched. She couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t let them sacrifice her parents like that. As she had downstairs, she closed her eyes and felt adrift in a sea of magic. So much power gathered in this one room. “If you aren’t going to use it, then I will!” she shouted and then raised her arms towards the ceiling.
She let the magic flood into her body. The tidal wave from the assembled coven was so powerful that Renee sank to one knee. She felt her throat tighten, as if she were drowning in the sea of magic. Never had she tried to channel this much before. But she had to do it. She had to for Aggie and Mom. For Dr. Dreyfus and Becky Beech, whom Isis had killed and for Dr. Earl, whom Isis had crippled. And for Louise, who was certainly next on the list. With their faces in her mind’s eye, she managed to get back to her feet, to buoy herself against the tide.
With a scream, the last of the magic flowed into her body. When she opened her eyes, she saw her entire body glowed white hot, like a star. She also saw at her feet was no longer the headmistress of her school but a little girl with brown braids who wouldn’t be eligible to attend Milton for another ten years.
They were all like that. The old women of the coven were now tiny children, just like Glenda downstairs—and Aggie. This wasn’t something Renee had consciously wished to happen, but she supposed it had been her unconscious wish that they share Aggie’s fate. At the moment they all slept peacefully, some with thumbs in their mouths.
The silence in the chamber was interrupted by Mom’s startled gasp. “Renee, what have you done?”
***
With the combined power of forty-five witches flowing through her, Renee found it took only a flick of the wrist to summon forty-five beds from the dorms at Milton. She didn’t need even to flick her wrist to vanish the children into the beds, all tucked neatly beneath the covers.
“Renee, how could you?”
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis Page 92
