Metal and Magic: A Fantasy Journey

by Steve Windsor

  My witch stick is so much more elegant. Almost comforting to use. But it’s safely at home. If they ever caught me with it. . .

  I aim at the target—a hand-drawn outline of a big wolf. I know I have to. If I don’t. . .

  It’s not that I’m afraid of silver crossbolts, or fire for that matter, but it all just seems so pointless. My kind isn’t coming out of the Frasch or the Black Lake anymore, and the only time the townspeople go in, or so Father Felixx says, is when there’s somebody to be burned. Anyway, despite my visions, I don’t think there’s ever been a burning in my entire life. Still, we practice every day . . . just in case.

  Cat says the best way to know what your enemy is up to is to pretend to be one of them. So I go to school every day and report back to him every afternoon. Tough talk, terrible training and taunting town girls is all I ever have to tell him.

  “Well”—I didn’t even feel him walk up next to me—“sister Dixxon,” Father Felixx says, “have we gotten any better at bolting this month?”

  He’s not looking for an answer. I put my cheek down on the stock, close my eyes and raise the crossbow up a little—enough so I know I won’t hit anything. Even though it’s just a paper target, it seems even more wrong today. A quick vision of the dead crocdogs in my clearing hits me, but I shove it out as fast as I can.

  “Steady,” Father Felixx says, “and squeeeeeeze the trigger. . .”

  I squinch my eyes shut, jerk the trigger and—t'chi-t'chi-t'chi—the butt of the crossbow bucks into my shoulder, and I send three bolts—wild I hope—sailing to who knows where. I open my eyes and bite my lower lip, pretending I’m embarrassed, trying not to smile.

  We watch the silver bolts fly, just barely over the top of the target, sizzling into the head-high hog grass in the field at the edge of the schoolyard.

  “Ugh, sister,” Father Felixx says. “How can you be getting worse?”

  The wild pigs that roam the fields of Brimstone Hill—until they root up a garden and get bolted and roasted for a banquet—cut trails through the tall grass. We use them for shortcuts to get arou—

  “Aiiiiieeeeeeee!” the screeching and squealing freezes the entire schoolyard. “Aaaaaaaah!” Not that we haven’t all heard the sounds of a bolted boar before . . . but that’s not a wild pig.

  No idea why, but I drop the crossbow and run toward the field. I can feel Magnolia on my heels. Bane races past the both of us like we’re stuck in swamp mud. And we’re all almost to the edge of the school grounds when one of the burb girls who sits next to Bane lopes by and disappears into the grass after him.

  Magnolia and I barely get into the hog grass—“Aiiiiieeeeeeee!” The screeching’s louder, and we follow the sound right to what’s making it.

  I stop cold and Magnolia runs right into the back of me and I fall down to the ground. And Bane’s knelt down on the other side of what’s been making all the noise, and that burb girl’s standing behind him and she’s pacing back and forth. Then she kneels down and growls into his ear, “Leave her,” she says. “Nothing you can do.”

  There’s blood coming out of the girl’s throat and soaking into her white shirt, and she’s bending her leg up and down and there’s another bolt sticking out of her black skirt. Blood’s seeping out onto the beaten-down path she was on. And I don’t even have to see the bright bow in her hair to know who—

  “I was just. . .” Mae-mae says. Then she squints back the pain. The blood’s coming out fast. “Momma made me change my bow to a prettier one . . . and there were pigs on the path—” She coughs up some blood. “Don’t let me be late, Dixxon.” Then her head slumps over, her leg stops bending and flops to the side, and the blood keeps coming out for a few seconds. . . Then it stops.

  The four of us can hear the shouts from the schoolyard. We stare down at what they’ll find when they get into the grass. And it won’t matter if it was an accident or not. There are no accidents. Anything bad is always done by an evil magic, possessing someone else. And there’s only one remedy for that.

  “Come on,” the burb girl says to Bane, “we can’t get caught up in this.” She looks at me. “It’s her cross to burn under now. Nothing you can—” She puts her hand on his shoulder.

  Bane brushes it off and whips his hair at her. Then he leans down and sniffs in hard. “There’s still time.”

  “Time for what?” the burb girl asks. “She’s dead. You can’t fix that. Why would you?”

  Then Bane looks at me and then at Magnolia. He must be asking Magnolia, because I have no idea what he’s talking about. “I can’t,” he says to her, “but she can”—then he looks right at me—“can’t she.” But it’s not a question.

  Magnolia doesn’t even hesitate. She grabs my face in both hands. “Bile Island,” she says, “I didn’t want it to be this way. So little time to help you figure this all—”

  “What way?” I ask her. Then I put both of my hands over hers, because she’s trembling and her eyes are glowing green.

  “Dixxon,” she says, “do exactly what I say. You’re going to fix this.”

  I pull Magnolia’s hands off my face and look down at Mae-mae. Her eyes have gone from bouncing bright blue to a ghastly gray stare. No life left. “I can’t do any—”

  “There’s no time for doubt,” Magnolia says. She shakes me. “Do you want her to be alive?”

  I keep staring at Mae-mae. “Yes.” As much as I hated her bullying, I surely don’t want her to be dead.

  “Then you have to want her to live,” says Magnolia. “Use the power you know you have and ‘want’ her back. Do it now.”

  I look up at the burb girl behind Bane. She’s frowning down at me, and now her eyes are glowing red just like Bane’s were. I look at Bane. “You’re . . . Crocdogs?”

  “Yes,” he says. Then he looks up at the burb girl behind him.

  She closes her eyes, purses her lips, and shakes her head. “Oh, Varg in Valhalla,” she growls. She looks down at me. “Some conjurer you are. Yes, and if you don’t witch this back the way it was, we’ll all be wishing we joined him.”

  “But they’ll burn—”

  “They’re gonna burn you anyway,” the burb girl says, “and she’ll still be dead. So will the rest of us. At least this way, only you get burn—”

  “Chianne,” Bane says to his burb girl . . . friend, I guess, “that’s not helping.”

  “Helping what?” says Chianne. “Getting us all burned?” She points a long fingernail at me. “Little miss witchy took care of that. He’ll go hound-hating mad after this.”

  She’s right. Anything like this the Father will use as an excuse to interrogate everyone. He has a particular dislike for their kind. It’ll be all he needs, and by the way he was looking into my eyes earlier, he’s searching for any reason to accuse someone.

  I look at Magnolia. “But what about you?” I say “They’ll—”

  Magnolia is always calm in the storms. “I’ll be fine,” she says. “Now, close your eyes, Dixxon, and pretend you’re the great white witch and—”

  The feeling waves over me and my eyes are closed before she can finish. I have no idea how I know what to say, but I raise both my hands at the sky. The words come out on their own, “In the name of the light, and all that’s white”—the green glow coming from my hands makes me open my eyes back up—“in mystic’s mire and magic’s might”—and my eyes get as wide as theirs when I finish—“take this wrong . . . and make it right!”

  CRACK! The bolt of white light throws all of us backward. I’m dazed and dazzled at the same time, tingling numb. What in Bile Island was. . .? I’m the first to sit back up. I don’t believe it!

  Mae-mae is sitting up too, and she looks around, confused.

  I should be more afraid than I am, but I smile at her.

  “What are you staring at, ya smelly swamp sister?” Mae-mae says. “Wipe that smile off your filthy fa—”

  She sees them at the same time I do. Bane and Chianne are barely morphing back to h
uman. And even with everything I’ve seen, and him carrying me—I mean, I know I knew, but seeing them turn, up close and as personal as this. . .

  “Crocdogs!” Mae-mae yells.

  Magnolia jumps up and jerks at my arm. “Get up!” When I do, she pushes me past Bane.

  His eyes are just turning back to blue from glowing red. And I look for the other one, but Chianne’s already gone.

  “What about Bane?”

  “Of all days to give it to you,” Magnolia says, “and a mangy Frasch Forest crocdog, no less.” She waves her arm at Bane. “Go’on now, like I told you. You’d do well not to come back. This is the end of the pretending for you. Time to potion up with your pack. They’ll be coming into the forest after you.”

  The shouting from the schoolyard’s almost to the hog grass and now Mae-mae’s hysterical. “Come get me, Father!” she shouts. “They’s crocdogs gonna eat me in here!”

  Magnolia stops shouting at Bane and slaps Mae-mae across the face. “There’s nothing of the sort, you Maplewood moron! Now, count your lucky Lucies we’re not how you think and scat with you too.”

  Mae-mae jumps up and runs back toward the shouts, like she wasn’t just dead from a crossbolt to the neck and leg.

  My mouth’s the one open now. For a brief second, Magnolia and I stare after her. “I always wanted to smack that little Christ cretin,” Magnolia says. “I must say, it felt better than I imagined.”

  “What—how did I. . .?” I try to find the words, but I’m too scared. I grab Magnolia’s arm. “She’ll tell them everything. They’ll burn us, Maggie.”

  “You let me worry about that,” Magnolia says. “Right now”—her eyes glow green and her pupils are straight up and down—“you have to run!”

  EASY ESCAPE

  — 4 —

  I RUN AS fast as I can, following the path that Mae-mae probably took to “luck” into my crossbolt. Dumb, dumb, dumb, Dixxon! What were you thinking?

  I wave my hand in front of me and the grass splits wide as I pass by. Cat’s warned me never to use magic outside the mansion, but it feels like everything’s on automagic—I’m doing things I’ve never done or knew I could.

  How did I. . .? I brought her back from the black. That realization scares me more than Father Felixx. Bringing someone back from the black is strictly forbidden, and even if I knew how to do it. . . Cat’s made that clear. And whether it’s the terrible townspeople or a black witch from Bile Island, the punishment’s the same—burning.

  I’m out the far side of the tall hog grass and racing along Prien Lake. I stop for an instant and look back. Magnolia?

  Something—I hear it in my head, I’ll be fine. Run back and tell Cat what happened. He’ll take care of you. Hurry. See you soon.

  See me soon? I fear I’ll never see her again.

  Several croakers ribbit at me, “Back from the black with a boom and crack,” they croak, “they’ll burn you and his whole pack.”

  I look across the lake at the edge of the forest. “Bane. . .” His name should feel sweeter, but now all it conjures up in me is the acidy taste of fear.

  The croakers don’t bother with rhyme this time. “Burn, burn, burn, burn. . .”

  I take off running to get away from their taunts, but all along the path more and more of the little Prien meanies join in. “Burn, burn, burn, burn. . .”

  “Enough!” I yell at them, but they just keep croaking. Cat, I think, what on Bile Island have I done?

  — 5 —

  SECRECY AND DARKNESS had always been at the center of the Black Lake’s lore, but Bile Island had its own brand of black. It was said that on Bile Island the believers got black and the blasphemers got burned. And though the truce between white and black magic had existed since the Purge, it was a tenuous treaty, to be sure. Such was the new world of magic makers and mystical morphing creatures—friends out of necessity only.

  The purple flames licked at the darkness that surrounded Bile Island and snapped the black of the old clearing to a penetrating glow. It’d been nearly sixteen years since the six of them convened around the Great Cauldron of Conjuring during the last Blue Moon. Five of them were none too excited to be back in the boil with Roxxanne Levine. They knew all too well why they were.

  A thirteenth term with the wicked witch, boiling and burning anyone who opposed her, seemed inevitable, but at least her sister wasn’t—

  “Sister,” Roxxanne said, “I know you prefer the shadows, but get out here in the glow with you . . . so the rest of us mere mystics can get a good look at a real witch.”

  Maxxine Levine, sister to the darkest witch that ever burned another, floated into the glow, directly across the boiling cauldron from her terrible twin, Roxxanne. She pulled the hood of her long purple cloak back and opened the front, whipping the tails of it back behind her, like some ancient gunslinger clearing the pistol in his holster.

  Maxine’s clothes were as purple and poisonous-looking as she was, and her long skirt stopped just short enough that you could get a good look at her tight-laced black boots. She waved open her witch stick to a purple umbrella above her head. And with her frilly deep-violet top pushed up tight around her neck, and her slicing round-rimmed black top hat, she looked like a murderous Mary Poppins from the wicked wives tales of the old world.

  Maxxine turned her attention to the two next to her. “Look at you all,” she said, “hovering in the light like a pack of dirt-dwellers. It’s a wonder any a you can still call a conja.” Then she spoke to the others. “And ya’ll. You’d need a surrogate to smash a stick or sink a sliver of fang into anything not quivering under a quilt. Bon rien”—she smiled across the flames at her sister—“I see now why my sweet sister called me here. This is a mess of mysticism gone to the gumbo.”

  Roxxanne laughed and cackled out loud. “I’ll grant you the entrance, sister,” she said, “but we have more pressing issues to discuss this evening. The Blue Moon is upon us and this very council must decide.”

  Varg growled across the cauldron at Maxxine. He could smell it on her. “I’m told a black witch wanded nearly half of La Bete’s pack. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  Maxxine tilted her “umbrella” down a little and rubbed her left wrist. “Really?” she said. Then she shrugged slightly and raised her eyebrows a little too much. “Your little crocdoggies scratching where they shouldn’t again, Varg? They ought be more careful ’bout that. Digging for bones in the bayou is tricky business. Never know when one of ’em might reach up and grab you by the throat.”

  Varg snarled and raised his upper lip. It was enough of a warning, but he knew that around the cauldron wasn’t the place. “Burying them is even riskier,” he said, “because where there’s bones . . . bound to be dogs.”

  Gog, the giant king as he liked to call himself, wasn’t the sharpest club in his clan of cave monsters. Then again, for creatures whom the old-world humans used to refer to as “bigfeet”. . . Well, they weren’t known for the size of their brains.

  It didn’t take much to outwit another giant, be they troll or titan, yet Gog stumbled his way to the council in spite of himself.

  Witches took particular advantage of the weak-witted giants, and the entire race became sort of unwitting lapdogs for their more crafty counterparts. Though, occasionally, in the midst of the moment, they could club their way to the truth, whether they realized it or not.

  Gog sat on his huge stump, scratching in front of him with his favorite mutton-mashing club. He swayed his head slowly from side to side. He spoke down at the dirt . . . and his club. “Black witch buryin’ bones again . . . Blue Moon bigger every night . . . boggies bayin’ louder. Brimstone burnin’ comin’.”

  Suzette Wiltz was an unfortunate name for a flowery pink pixie princess of the water lily mix, but despite or in spite of it, she was the brightest light on Bile Island that night. Barely the size of the average cauldron cup, most pixies could fly faster than any beguiling broom. And Suzette was faster than
most fairies.

  Wearing her customary powder pink ruffled dress, better suited to water dancing than anything else, and her hair spun up in a braid straight above her head, she looked frail and feeble—out of place amongst the rest of them. Yet it was practically impossible to kill or even injure a pixie, should anyone that evil ever want to. But given the fact that they could outrun most spells. . .

  Roxxanne had given up trying to silence the annoying little ball of benevolence. She rolled her better eye when Suzette spoke. “Burning?” the little pixie said. “Why is it whenever we convene the council it’s only to witness or will a burning? There must be more meaningful matters we can attend.” She flitted up from her position around the cauldron and shined brighter.

  The rest of the council squinted at the bright pink light in the middle of the clearing.

  Then Suzette tapped the air, waving her tiny wand at Maxxine several times. “And you,” she said. “Every time I eek my way through the crocs and the creatures to get to this miserable monstrosity of a meeting place, I pray to the pixie queen that it’s you we’re burning.”

  Maxxine tilted her umbrella. It closed tight and shot a purple lightning bolt—Crack!—right at Suzette.

  Suzette jerked sideways and the bolt blew right past her, but the force of the wind rushing by spun her around, right back to facing Maxxine. “How dare you!” And she shot six pink spikes of light at Maxxine—pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop!

  Maxxine opened her umbrella and deflected every one of them. When the last little spike ricocheted off into the darkness, she closed it. “Still as impotent as you are insignificant, I see,” she said. “You should be more careful with that little sliver.” She was still working out a way to smash the little dasher, but the solution to her annoying accusations had yet to conjure itself clear. “Might backfire on you one day.”

  The undead weren’t the most outspoken of mystical creatures, but they loved a good laugh. And flashing and dazzling lights mesmerized them quite easily.