The Enigma on Eden Road

by Jessica Lancaster

  This time, there was nothing I could use. I would literally be stepping into the unknown, a place undocumented in any book or diary. I couldn’t be sure if I’d ever get alive, or where I’d be getting out at.

  “Dinner!” Cassandra called from the kitchen.

  “QUIET!” Ivory blasted through the walls—her squawk could travel to the centre of my eardrums, popping them.

  I glanced at my wristwatch. Time had got the best of me again. It was just after 6 P.M. and my stomach hadn’t grumbled once while I was fussing over old memories. Closing my book of shadows, it disappeared.

  “Tomato soup,” Cassandra said as I entered the kitchen. “It’s a little spicy. Got a kick to it. It’s a recipe I learnt from one of those TV chefs.”

  “Oh, okay.” I liked the sound of a spicy soup, perhaps it would perk me up and stop me from the internal festering of not knowing what to do. “It had best be au naturel.”

  “It’s definitely all natural,” she chuckled, grabbing a silver plate from the side with the two-ceramic bowls on. “I made it all from hand. No witchcraft, just good cooking.”

  “Fantastic,” I said, swallowing hard on the saliva in my throat.

  Clink.

  A spoon fell.

  Clang.

  Cassandra turned slightly, her face dropping.

  Smash.

  TWELVE

  Cassandra laid on the ground, surrounded by the deep orange soup, the viscous liquid across her body. Jinx rushed into the kitchen as I stood over her, her glazed over eyes gazed up at me.

  “Cassandra?” I asked, kneeling in the soup to take her hand. “Cassandra, are you okay?”

  Jinx licked at her face, not saying a single word.

  “Cassandra,” I said again. “Can you hear me?”

  Her lips trembled slightly. “He’s dead.”

  “Who?” I asked, squeezing her hand to get a physical response. “Who’s dead?”

  “The man,” she said. “The man with the crystal. He’s gone.”

  I stood and snapped my fingers, cleaning away all the soup from the ground, leaving the broken dishes. “I’ll need you to tell me what kind of spell you did,” I said. I’d never done anything quite like it before, and spells could go wrong anywhere.

  “I tied the crystal to his life,” she said. “I concealed it in him as part of him. And I—I—”

  I’d been there for all of it, and yet I was too preoccupied with making sure we weren’t caught out by other people to notice what spell she’d said or what exactly she’d done to the dryad tied to the tree. “It’s okay,” I said. “What happened to you?”

  She raised a hand and combed it through her hair. “It hurt in my head.”

  That feeling I knew. When the crystals were tripped in the woods, it screamed through me. It was painful, but it was a dull pain. The crystal she’d used had much more power, much more energy than the ones I’d been using.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s get you into this chair.”

  A cold shiver came across the kitchen. “Need a hand,” Phil said, taking Cassandra’s hand and pulling her from the ground. “Well, a hand, I can give. I’m not sure how else I can be of use.”

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  Cassandra hobbled into the chair at the dining table, a single tear trickling down her cheek. “I can’t believe I ruined dinner.”

  Not quite. “It’s salvageable.”

  “What is it?” Phil asked, rubbing at his stomach. “I could use a bite, actually.”

  “Soup,” she said under the grumble of pain. “What are you doing here?”

  I coughed into a hand. “My thoughts as well.”

  Rolling his shoulders into a shrug. “Just helping out.”

  Cleaning away the broken bowls and the silver plate with a finger snap, I approached Phil, looking deep into his eyes. There had to be something in there that he wasn’t telling us. Something deep in the abyss he called a soul. “Going about the Council?” I asked.

  “Listen,” he said. “I made a promise to you when we met, that I wouldn’t let you down. I already let you down once when I was caught stealing and I think I served enough time for it. Now, I want to make up that promise to you by helping you out, and if that doesn’t kill me—” he sighed, stroking the hairs on the back of his neck.

  “The Witches Council will,” I added.

  He tssked the air between his teeth. “I was thinking more along the lines about the people you’re here to find, they will.”

  Now my stomach sank—but perhaps it was hunger. “You won’t earn yourself any favours with the Council by disobeying them.”

  “That’s fine,” he said. “My goal was to see my brother. I think I’ve achieved everything now, and as much as I’d like to see a world run by supernatural beings, I don’t think the world is ready for it yet.”

  “The world will never be ready,” Cassandra said with a hand pounding against the table. “At least not the one you imagine.” She cradled the side of her head again. Jinx sat beneath her chair, nuzzling her head at the back of Cassandra’s feet.

  “What can you even help us with?” I asked. “The Council basically castrated you of your abilities. You can’t feel their presence, you don’t even know where the beacon is.”

  “But we do!” Cassandra said. “We saw the door.”

  “The entrance?” Phil chuckled. “Are you being serious?”

  I tapped the side of my glasses. “We spelled these, so now I can navigate the way the creatures have to find the power beacon.”

  “And you went inside?”

  “No,” Cassandra snapped. “We don’t have a death wish.”

  I glanced to her with the side of my eye. “Cass placed a tracking crystal on a low-level dryad, and he died. She felt the pain, I think. So, she’s a little worse for wear.”

  “Ouch.”

  “So now, we’re back to the drawing board, I guess.”

  Cassandra shook her head. “I have an idea.”

  “Great, what is it?” I asked, taking the seat opposite her.

  “I know I just said we don’t have a death wish, but—”

  “But, you possibly do,” I laughed.

  She shook her head again, this time a little more vigorously. “We need to go in ourselves.”

  “In disguise?”

  “Yes!”

  “Ladies, ladies,” Phil spoke softly. “You’re talking about going inside to the actual power beacon. This is the place where there’s bound to be hundreds of supernatural creatures all lining up. If they spot a witch, you’re—”

  “Well, we’d be disguised,” Cassandra said. “We’d be disguised as one of them. We’d go in, get what we need, and leave.”

  “We’d need to be heavily armoured as well,” I added, thinking of all the crystals and amulets we’d need to pull for a stunt like that, but if we did, then the case would be blown wide open and hopefully some normalcy would return. “I’ve disguised myself as a vampire before.”

  “I remember,” Phil said, grinding his teeth. “You were incredibly cunning.”

  “And convincing,” I reminded him.

  A chuckle came from the hallway. “Well, well, well.”

  THIRTEEN

  Ford Damaris, I thought he’d left us as well. I thought they’d both left, but instead, they decided to congregate inside my kitchen while Cassandra was going through a tough time. It wasn’t an ideal situation to have them in the same room again.

  “Good idea,” Ford said, his chuckle petering off. “Go through with your plan and you’ll both end up dead.”

  “What?” I asked. “If we have everything set up correctly, then we’ll be ready.”

  “But going inside the hive of the beast?” he grumbled.

  “You’re no help,” Phil said, a smirk on his face. “Not like you can be any help.”

  Phil and Ford walked in circles around each other. Small circles, given the size of my kitchen and dining area, and the broken dishes.
They were in a stare-off, waiting for one of them to make a move. Perhaps this was the brotherly playtime they hadn’t had when they were younger.

  I took Cassandra’s hands into mine from across the table. “I think it might be our only way in,” I said, even though I was already having disagreements. There had to be another way but pushing myself into it was something I always did, and that wasn’t going to stop in my retirement.

  “I think so too,” she mumbled back, pulling a hand away to caress her head. “We need to get inside that place and find out what they’re doing.”

  “Destroy it from the inside,” I said.

  Ford stopped in front of the table. “I’m trying to help you both,” he said. “I can’t change the course of the future, because that’s always changing anyway.”

  “Then how will you help us?” Phil asked.

  “Yes, how?” I chimed in.

  Cassandra glared at him, her question was implied.

  “Fine,” he said. “I can’t tell you what to do, but I can tell you one thing, and that’s—”

  Whoomph.

  He was gone.

  “Great,” Phil said, clapping his hands. “Just great. Next time, don’t bother showing up.”

  On the ground, where Ford had been was a small spot of blood. “Is he dead?”

  Silence.

  Nobody wanted to think about it. Nobody wanted to know. Ford was gone.

  Phil broke the silence with a sigh. “Well, he’s a reaper. Not like he can be any more dead,” he laughed. “Anyway, ladies, let’s brainstorm ideas. Going in undercover, destroying the place from the inside.” He snapped his fingers and winked. “I like it.”

  “All I know is that we need to know where that door leads to,” Cassandra said. “And I think the best way to do that is to go inside.” She stood and nodded to Phil. “We can’t have him going inside. He’s basically chipped, they’ll know he’s property of the council.”

  “Unless we take the monitor off him,” I said.

  “Whoa, ladies.” He backed himself up against the glass of the back door. “I don’t really want to die at the hand of my ankle monitor.”

  “Is that what they told you?” I asked.

  Nodding his head viscously, he continued to press his back against the door. “More or less.”

  My eyes rolled—the Witches Council were all about the scare tactics, that was a great motivator. They were the types of motivators that really get the work done, as investigators, our biggest motivator was the reward of a case closed.

  “We’re witches,” I reminded him. “We can help get it off without any death or whatever else they told you would happen.”

  “I have crystals!” Cassandra perked up, rushing out of the kitchen with Jinx on her heels. “I’ll be right back!”

  Left alone with Phil, I wasn’t sure I could be trusted not to give him a thump to the head like he’d done with his brother. The temptation was there, and I couldn’t believe he wasted the golden opportunity of staying at the Council and avoiding whatever was happening outside.

  “So, why are you really here?” I asked.

  “I told you, because I made a promise, and that meant I’d be here to help.”

  A promise he’d made to me many years ago, a promise which I thought would have been void when he was sent to the Council prisons. “But why are you here now, when all the witches are hiding away, you’re standing in my kitchen like you’ve got all these powers.”

  He looked me in the eyes, raising a hand to stroke beneath my chin. He did still have some powers, I guess—like the power to get my heart racing. “Well, they didn’t take away my—”

  “I’ve got it!” Cassandra called out. “Come into the living room.”

  I hurried off, not waiting on him to finish his thought, walking quietly so I didn’t disturb Ivory, even though I knew she was holding her tongue during all of the sound. “What is it?” I asked, closing the door behind Phil as he entered.

  “This is black tourmaline,” she said, holding broken black rock in her hands.

  Black tourmaline resembled a mixture between tree bark and coal. It looked as though it would flake away at a moment’s notice, but that wasn’t the case. It was strong and sturdy, a powerful asset to have in the fight against violent energy.

  “Good thinking,” I said.

  Phil’s eyes widened at the size of it. “You gonna bash me to death with it?”

  “Not quite.”

  “Not physically,” Cass added. “But we will do something similar.” She smiled. “I’m kidding, it won’t kill you.”

  Phil took a seat and placed his foot on the coffee table, pulling the pant of his leg up slightly, I took the seat beside him and turned the television on—my favourite channel was airing, as it had been for quite some time.

  “Does she ever take a break?” I asked, looking at Martha. “It’s like she’s living on an IV to bring us the news.”

  “Got to keep the people informed,” Phil said. “Now, come on, get on with it.” He glanced at me.

  “This is all Cassandra,” I said.

  Rapping her fingers against the crystal like a maniacal genius, she smiled at Phil. “This will be fun.”

  Not quite the words I was expecting to hear.

  Cass attempted the remove the monitor several times, each one more unsuccessful than the last. She placed the crystal beside the monitor, sparking beads of electricity to pull it off—it didn’t work.

  Zap. Zap.

  It followed a pattern. Each attempt made the zapping on Phil’s ankle more intense. He spasmed, twitching his calf muscles.

  I was removed from my amusement at the red flash from the television screen, followed by a shot of the Prime Minister, stepping out of 10 Downing Street with a briefcase in hand.

  “News just in, Prime Minister, Anne Preston, has delivered a blow to the nation as she places forward a petition to remove Kent as part of England, Britain, and the United Kingdom. This comes hours after news that aide will not be sent into the affected areas.”

  Phil sat upright and Cassandra turned to the television.

  “What on earth is going on?” I asked, pressed forward with my head resting in my hands and my arms weighing heavy on my knees.

  “Is this a terrorist attack?” Martha asked, leading with a shrug. “More after the break.”

  I chewed at a fingernail. “They’re just going to abandon this place,” I said. “They’re getting ready to call it quits.”

  “Someone else must be happening out there,” Cassandra said. “What if they’ve infiltrated the politicians? What if they’re already in there?”

  “These people do like positions of power,” I grumbled. “I don’t think it’s possible they could be this far ahead.”

  Phil stood, rolling his trouser leg down. “Then we need to find out,” he said. “Tell me what you need to make this disguise plan happen.” He was quite clearly done with the painful shock tactics Cassandra was enforcing on him.

  FOURTEEN

  The only disguise I’d done in the past was that of a vampire. It had worked, for what little time it took to pull it all together. This time it would need to be something better; better than dressed in their clothes and adorned in their items.

  This time we needed to use some high-level magic.

  I rummaged through my old box of items, things I’d gathered as souvenirs, items which the Council hadn’t taken, so I’d kept them as tokens of a job well done. I’d dealt with vampires, werewolves, ghosts, banshees, all number of sprites, most keepsakes had a shelf life; growing mould or decay, but somethings stuck around forever.

  “What are you looking for?” Cassandra asked, walking into my room as I spread items on my bed.

  “Something we can use for a spell,” I said. “I don’t want us to go in as vampires or werewolves. They’re too common.”

  “Perhaps a dryad, like the men.”

  I didn’t have anything around like that. “I have a tooth here,” I said,
picking it from the pile. Memories flooded back about the banshee I’d taken it from, she was a vicious woman, screams I couldn’t unhear to this day. “A banshee. They don’t only scream when they foresee death, a banshee can quite literally scream you to death.”

  “Ha!” She grabbed the tooth and examined it herself. “This is what we should be then. Can’t imagine many people wanting us to show off our skills, do you?”

  “True,” I said. “Nobody will want us to wail.”

  “I’m sure if I did, I could shatter someone’s eardrums.”

  I didn’t want to experience that, nor think about it. “Perhaps we could crush it slightly with my pestle and mortar, then create a little cloaking potion with it.”

  “Fantastic,” she said, handing me the tooth. “Will it be enough for the both of us?”

  “And then some,” I said. “I’ve never really done it before, but I do have something in my book about it. Twenty-four hours, and you get a twelve-hour wear of it.”

  Creasing her forehead and brows together. “So, we’re setting ourselves even further back?”

  “I know, and by the way things are going, the world could end tomorrow, but this is our only shot,” I said. “And besides that, Phil isn’t much use getting inside. He’ll be killed on the spot, I’m sure.”

  “Well, Phil and Ivory can stay watch outside,” Cassandra said. She turned to leave, but closed the bedroom door instead. She turned and sighed.

  “Everything okay?”

  “I have something I’d like to talk to you about, and it’s kind of private.”

  “By all means,” I said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I’m all ears.”

  She took a seat beside me. “This means everything to me. This job has become my life now, and I don’t want to go back to my old life, or even whatever my life will be if they find out where I am.”

  “Well, once you’re in the Council and you’ve signed those papers, it’s like a golden ticket,” I told her. “Whatever it is you’re running from, you’ll only need to do it for a little while longer. After this mess, it should be time for graduation.”