Metal and Magic: A Fantasy Journey

by Steve Windsor

  Baxxster is more serious than I’ve ever seen him. “It’s a terrible burden, but one that the Great Cauldron of Conjuring has called upon you to carry. We will. . . We’ve assisted you to the most of our magic. But in the end, you’ll have to. . . It’s my fault you aren’t better prepared. I intended to remedy that this week, but the entire damned affair has turned to dark.” He shakes his head.

  Alexxis nudges him a little and he perks back up. “There’s a prophecy,” she says, “about a white witch who will bring the light and the dark together, to help magic and mystic and morphers live peacefully with mortals. No more burning, no more murdering. . .”

  “Just tell her, already,” Oven says.

  Alexxis’ eyes glow green. “Two will die so she may fly.”

  “From forbidden match,” says Pot, “the Blue Moon’s hatch.”

  “A tear she cry,” continues Oven, “kills purple eye.”

  They all stop and look at Baxxster. He looks at me. “From sinfire’s pitch. . .”

  I look right into Baxxster’s fluorescent green eyes, and I know what he’s going to say. “No,” I say, and then I look at Alexxis and she nods. “I . . . I can’t be.”

  The kitchen door slowly creaks open. And I wish it were Broom’s voice. “Springs the last white witch.”

  BURN BOIL

  — 15 —

  MAXXINE LEVINE STANDS in the kitchen doorway, daring anyone to try and escape. “Ya’ll should read your potion pecks a little better,” she says. “You see, us really black witches”—she licks her lips a little, smacks them, and then looks right at me with her glowing purple eyes—“take about double the called-for conja as one a you wicked little white-wand fairies do. Something your mansion cat”—she looks over at Baxxster and Alexxis—“and his. . . What does that make you, Magnolia? About two or three lives short of a full nine spell, I suspect.” She shakes her head. “Burning through them like a broom burns firewood. Oh, and speaking of which. . . Knoxx dear, come on in here, won’t ya? I seem to have found your feline friends. You know, the ones who potioned you to a pixie last night.”

  Maxxine steps to the side and Broom clops into the kitchen and stands beside her. He doesn’t look pleasant, and now they’re both blocking the only way out of this kitchen.

  Maxxine glances at him and then back at Baxxster. “As always,” she says, “fire burnin’ at your feet and you’re still rushing to catch up to the flames, aren’t you? Of course the council fixed him up. No one wants to waste a good sweeper. Outside a imps, they’re the best spies, you know. How do you think I knew she was going into the Frasch?”

  Baxxster and Alexxis move in front of me and nudge me back toward Oven. “You can’t use your wand on her in here,” Baxxster says. “And if you ever shoot a lighting spell at her like that ag—”

  Maxxine laughs out loud. “You honestly think I missed?” she says. “Oh, sugah, I wasn’t aiming at her. There’s no fun in killing unarmed children. You don’t just wand a white witch outright. That’d be too easy.” She gets real serious and I can feel her looking into my mind. “No, you gotta watch them suffer a little first. Pay for all of their past sins and those of their . . . predecessors, let’s say.”

  Mangy moans a menacing groan at her.

  Maxxine looks up at the ceiling. “Oh, don’t you worry,” she says, “I know I can’t get to her in here.” She looks back at me and frowns. “Her little protection spell took care of that. What a wicked little white witch you’ve turned out to be . . . just like your mother. Though”—she rubs her chin with her long finger and thumb, looking into the air like she’s staring at a bright pink pixie—“I wonder if there are better ways to wand with a great white witch’s . . . fragile emotions.” Then she looks at Alexxis. “Say by . . . killing her best friend, maybe—letting her think she’s really dead when she’s. . .”

  I almost missed it before, but Maxxine called Alexxis—and I look at her. “Magnolia?” I say. “But how is that. . .?”

  “My, my,” Maxxine says, “she’s waking up, Baxxster. No thanks to your terrible tutelage.” She smiles a fake smile at me. “Now that that cat’s outta the spell sack, I’ll leave you to your ‘buts’ and ‘hows’ and ‘liars.’ ” She lifts her umbrella and I can feel the entire kitchen brace for a fight.

  Baxxster’s tail is up and glowing white, so is Alexx—Magnolia’s? And Oven clanks and Pot bubbles a bit and the entire kitchen freezes still. The only things moving are the bubbles in my cauldron and the slow rolling flames beneath it.

  Maxxine grabs Broom and points her umbrella at his handle. “Eeeasy,” she says, “we don’t want him to have to sweep up his own splinters, do we?”

  Baxxster and Alexxis growl a little under their breath. They move slowly apart, to each side of Maxxine.

  Maxxine drags Broom closer to my cauldron, and then she leans over and sniffs. “Huh”—she looks at Baxxster—“at least you taught her how to cook. Sadly, I have no time for any more of your tea-and-biscuits business. There’s a howling little hound in the forest that needs to be put out of his misery. You see, there’s more than one way to wand a great white witch.”

  Baxxster and Alexxis flick their tails, but before they can cast her, Maxxine swings her umbrella straight up in the air. It opens up and—whoosh—she’s gone in a funnel of purple mist . . . and Broom’s gone with her.

  I run out the front doors and down the steps. I can barely hear Baxxster’s voice behind me. “You can’t.”

  “This is what she wants you to do,” Alexxis shouts.

  Alexxis is Magnolia? But I don’t care right now. That black witch—she’s going to go kill Bane! Wicked. . . I don’t have time to figure it out.

  I’m up and over the embankment to Prien Lake before “Alexxis” or Baxxster get another word out. I have no idea what’s inside me that says I can’t let her kill him, but my feet are flying faster than they ever have, and I couldn’t turn back if I wanted to.

  The sky’s getting dim and I fly along the path next to the lake and the sounds of the big croaking bullfrogs. “She’s not dead, she’s no ghost,” they ribbit, “burning crocdog on a post.”

  “Shut up!” I yell. I race faster, trying to escape their voices. “I can never figure out what you’re trying to tell me and I don’t have time to figure—”

  They ignore my shouts. “It’s not fair, it’s not nice. Two dead cats, both dead twice.”

  As soon as I enter the Frasch, I can smell the smoke of cypress stumps. “Owooooooo!” And I know that’s Bane. I put my nose up in the air and sniff. I can . . . I can smell him . . . and them.

  By the time I get there, it’s dark everywhere . . . except for the blazing orange glow coming from the inferno at the center of the clearing.

  Father Felixx is in front of them all—Mae-mae, Queen Jean, those two mean boys who sit up front, everyone. And they’re all watching Bane in his human form, doing his best not to morph back into a howling crocdog.

  “Aaaaaaaaaah!” Bane screams and a spike of lightning shoots through my skull, like I’ve been wanded by a black witch.

  He screams again and again and I fall to the ground. My head’s going to explode. I can’t. . . I roll onto my back with my hands cupped over my ears, but the sound blasts right through and the pain is—it’s. . . I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to shove it out. I can’t focus—everything’s blurry and gone to screaming shadows of pain and misery.

  And then I . . . I can see them. . .

  Black and white shadows flit and fly around above me, howling and screaming at me like a pack of wounded crocdogs. And they’re all over me, jerking and pulling at me and yelling, “Witch, witch, witch!”

  The shapes drag me closer and closer to the glowing orange flames. And Bane’s voice gets louder. “Nooooo. . .” Bane growls and grunts and screams out for too long, it feels like. Longer than I—he’s turning. “Ow-ow-owoooo! Let . . . her . . . gooooo!” He struggles, but he’s going nowhere.

  “Owooo. . .” These voices are far
ther away. “Yip-yip-yip. Owooo-ow-owoooo. . .” Crocdogs race into the clearing from every direction.

  I roll onto my side. The pain’s pushed back a little. I squint. Bane’s pack is coming to his rescue. And this is going to get crazy. Thank the Great White Witch, they’re saving—

  La Bete and Chianne run up next to Father Felixx and stop. The rest of the pack stops and sits around the edges of the clearing . . . but none of them . . . do anything. There’s no crossbolts, no ripped-out throats, no burning hide and spilled blood. Nothing. In fact, the two crocdogs sit down next to the Father and lower their heads like . . . like he’s their . . . master?

  “Get her to the post,” shouts a voice. That’s Maxxine. “Before it comes up.”

  I have no idea how. . . Why?

  Several hands grab me and yank me to my feet.

  I yell, “In the name of the great white—”

  But a burlap sack goes over my head. All I can see is orange glow now. I struggle to scream, “I cast y—” But the sack constricts around my head and neck and no more words will come out. Then they drag me, and I can feel the heat get angrier as we get closer to the glow.

  I hear Bane scratch at the post he’s tied to. He growls, “I’ll rip out each and every one of your—”

  T’chi! I know that sound and Bane howls out in agony.

  They shot him! I want to call to him, but I’m barely breathing.

  “Quiet, you howling horse-eater,” a voice shouts, “or I’ll put one in your other legs.”

  Bane growls and yelps.

  “Stop wanding around with that mutt,” Maxxine’s voice shouts. “Get her tied to that post . . . now!”

  My back slams against the tree trunk, and ropes pull around my body and then cinch tight around my waist and shoulders and legs. I can’t move, can’t spell and the awful smell of Bane’s burning fur and cypress smoke fills my nose. In my worst visions, it never felt this real . . . this hot, this horrible . . . this helpless. . .

  “In the name of the Saints,” that’s Father Felixx’s voice, “and the spellers, and the spillers of blood. . .”

  I see an orange ball of glow move up next to my face and the heat of hate follows it. “Gonna burn you now,” that’s Mae-mae’s voice. “White witch be damned.”

  “. . .and sinners and sorcerers,” Father Felixx shouts, “mortal or mystical or magical creatures from the Black Lake, or morphing mutts from the darkness of the depths of the Frasch Forest, we bind you both to the fire of the forbidden flame, and cast you to the dark depths of. . .”

  His voice trails off in my head and everything gets muffled, and a bright, baby blue light shines into my eyes. I squint, but it keeps getting brighter and brighter, until it explodes all around me into a million floating specks of blue sparkle.

  The burlap bag bursts off my head and a wave of wind rushes away from me like a tornado. My hair flies up all around me like cypress moss in the breeze, and my ropes break and fall to the ground . . . and I’m free!

  I look up. The Blue Moon’s climbing into the night sky.

  I can feel the warm glow in my eyes, and when I look in front of me, everything’s lit up to bright green light. Mae-mae’s rolling on the ground, clutching at her broken arm, squealing like a hog in the grass again.

  Bane howls, but I’m calmer now, less afraid. I look over at him. He’s a few logs away, fire still lapping at him. I only have to think it and his ropes break and he falls into the flames beneath him. I blow toward him and the flames push back to the edge of the pile of logs. He looks up at me, his hide still smoking. He grimaces and then bites at the bolt in his leg.

  I raise my hand at the bolt. “Shhhh,” I tell him. Then I grip my fingers in mid air, pull at nothing, and the bolt rips out of his leg and he howls. Then I swing my hand toward the boy from the front row, the one holding the crossbow. The bolt flies at him and spears through his shoulder, and he screeches and goes down. The entire clearing of spoiled snobwood brats screams right along with him.

  I look up above me and the moon’s a deep blue that I’ve never seen before. It’s barely cresting above the trees and to me, it feels like . . . summer.

  “Quiet,” Father Felixx says. “Brothers and sisters, you will remain calm. This dazzling devil can only harm you if you don’t believe. And she’ll be doing no more of that”—he looks right at me—“will you, Dixxon.”

  I can feel only power and peacefulness now, but also . . . something else. I look back at Bane. “You have to leave. You’ll be safer if you go now.”

  He growls under his breath a little, but then squints and nips at his leg. “I’m not leaving y—”

  “You won’t,” I say, “but you can’t stay here. They’ll kill you if you stay. I might not be able to stop them. So go’on”—I smile at him and wink for some reason—“git your mangy self gone. I’ll be okay.”

  Bane reluctantly limps off into the darkness, howling, I suppose at the moon.

  I turn back toward Father Felixx, preparing to end this insanity once and for all the Saints of voodoo and the sinners on Bile Island, all threatening to kill or burn me for something I still don’t understand. And my hand’s up in the air and a bright white light forms around my fist and I—

  “I wouldn’t be so hasty with that, darling Dixxon,” Maxxine says. She’s holding . . . a burlap sack in one hand, pointing her umbrella at it with the other. The bag’s squirming and squiggling around. “Outta the bag, in the bag, alive, dead—it’s just infuriatin’ trying to keep up with these two little love kittens.”

  She’s got Baxxster and . . . and Magnolia. By now, I know that’s who Alexxis the white cat is—Magnolia. I won’t say I understand it, but I can feel that’s the truth. Another truth is that Maxxine’s fully prepared to kill her and Baxxster. And I don’t have to sense that—I can see it in her glowing purple eyes.

  The flames around the two burning posts flicker down, and Maxxine walks toward me at the center of the clearing, carrying the sack. Her umbrella doesn’t waver—one word and she’ll black cast them both. “Oh, darling Dixxon, you white witches are just so predictable. There’s almost no fun in feeding you to a fire anymore.” She rolls her eyes back a little and moves her head from side to side. “Oh, my boyfriend’s in danger. I simply must go and save him. It’s like danglin’ a pint of blood in front of a soul sucker.” She looks up at the moon. “More fun than pokin’ at pixies.” She frowns and shakes her head slowly at me. “I mean, I barely left the mansion and you shot out the front door like a hellhound after a horse. Easy enough to go right back in and stuff these two into a spell sack. I simply must have a conversation with my sister. There has to be smarter creatures she can send me to spell. This is . . . boring.” She stops several feet away from me and looks at the squirming sack. “On the other hand. . . Oh, how mansion cats do scream and screech in a fire.”

  I look up at the moon, full and huge against the darkness of the night sky. It’s outshining the stars and giving me a splitting headache. I grimace and squint, trying to push the pain to the back of my mind.

  “I know,” Maxxine says, “nothing hurts your head like a Blue Moon on Sunday, does it? Especially on your sixteenth birthday. Feels like it’s gonna burn and boil right through you. Mmm. Few more minutes and that pain’s gonna explode again”—she looks around the clearing at all the silent and shivering faces in the crowd of Maplewood schoolchildren turned murderers—“and kill everyone in this clearing, I suspect.” She cackles out loud.

  Father Felixx makes his way through the crowd of students and walks up behind her. “Maxxine,” he says, “we agreed there was to be no mortal blood shed. You have her now. There’s no need for the brothers and sisters to suffer any longer.”

  Maxxine scoffs at him. “You and your precious mortals,” she says. “Fifteen, sixteen years of it, Felixx. Aren’t you bored a this charade? You used to be so . . . fun, too. Now you’re all ‘Saints and serpents and sinners.’ ” She looks around the entire clearing. “Your own little floc
k of sheep to shepherd around and sheer on Sunday? Is that what this is all about? Why that’s like”—she looks back at the sack and then at me—“herding mansion cats. Just when you think you have ’em stuffed in a sack, they smother themselves and poof—they’re right back to wicked white witches again.” She taps the burlap sack with her wand. “Only so many times they can pull that little magic trick though.”

  The bag squirms harder and then stops.

  Maxxine frowns at the sack. “Careful in there, Baxxster,” she says. “We know how that ends up. And you don’t have many lives left to bargain with the black.”

  I’m tired of this. More importantly, I know why the sack has stopped moving—Baxxster . . . and Magnolia are suffocating. “Stop,” I say to Maxxine.

  “What?” she says. Then she looks at the sack. “You know I’m not doing that. He’s trying to kill himself again.” She wiggles her umbrella at the sack.

  I lunge at her. “No!”

  Maxxine shoves me and pulls the bag back behind her. “Oh, please,” she says. “I’m not letting him free that easily this time.” The bag loosens its grip and starts wriggling and squirming again. “There, ya see. All better.”

  “What do you want?” I say. “Because if you kill him—them, so help the Great White Witch, I’ll wand everyone in this forest to the black.” I’m only partly bluffing, but they all deserve it for burning Mangy down.

  “That’s the spirit, darling,” Maxxine says. She turns around toward Father Felixx, “Now see there, that’s what I been telling you about. Little kitty has found her claws.” She turns back to me. “What I want . . . is you. And I don’t want to kill you, sugah, despite what everyone’s been tellin’ you. I want to help you live. So let’s make this simple—you give me what I want, I let them go.”

  The bag squirms harder. I know Baxxster would talk if he could. “Why should I trust you?”

  Maxxine shakes the sack. “Because I’m the only one who hasn’t been lying to you your entire life. Sprung forth from the Cauldron,” she scoffs. “I never heard a such hoodoo. You want to know what happened to your parents? I got that answer to that“—she slowly swings the bag back and forth—“right here in this bag.”