At that moment, I could appreciate that too.
This wasn’t the kind of place that kept secrets. This was the kind of place that took care of its own… in its own way.
If Darling was looking for something else, she’d made a big, fucking mistake.
I felt hope for the first time since that chill ran down my back.
“Yes, a boy, eight years old, blond, a little skinny,” I answered.
The woman sized me up then she sized Aidan up. Thank goddess she came up with the right conclusion.
“Through there,” and she pointed.
Thank Aidan… thank the goddess… thank this woman… Rory was here.
She pointed at some sliding double doors at the side of the hall. I thanked her, hurried over and started to push open the doors but before I could they slammed open against their rails.
Without taking a step, I was pulled in, almost like an enormous invisible cane had wrapped itself around my waist and yanked me through.
At the same time I heard Aidan’s surprised grunt as he was pushed back.
Then the doors slammed shut behind me without benefit of my touch or anyone else’s.
And in front of me sat Agatha Darling.
* * * * *
Too tired. Drained. Chest hurts regardless of post-orgasmic state. Must rest.
19 April
When I woke up just now, I sensed I wasn’t alone.
Not Ash, this time, (in fact, where is Ash?) but instead I looked across and Rory was lying there next to me fully dressed his hands folded over his chest like a dead person in their casket.
It was like he, too, sensed that I was awake because his eyes popped open, he turned his head and looked at me.
“You hungry?” he asked, apropos of nothing.
I wasn’t, I felt like shit, tired, cranky. I hadn’t seen Ash since the Orgasm (which will heretofore be referred to with a capital “O” for obvious reasons) and, just like yesterday, and the day before, there felt like there was a bleeding, painful hole where my chest used to be.
“As ever, I could eat a horse,” I lied.
He knew I was lying, I could tell by the look on his face.
“‘Kay, well, Mum is making American pancakes.”
I tried to sound thrilled. “Oh yummy!”
He jumped up and ran out of my room, I don’t know if he was scared of my lies or scared of me.
But at least his job was done. He knew I was going to live to see another day.
* * * * *
Later:
It still shits me just to think of it.
I feel like hell, Agatha Darling did a real job on me.
The stinking, hateful be-atch.
I still haven’t seen Ash.
Aidan has disappeared… again, and isn’t answering his mobile… again.
Although, considering the fact that I’m soon-to-be-married to Ash (ack!) and his fingers (hmm), perhaps I should have a little conversation with Aidan.
Everyone else is wandering around like zombies as if the before in all of this was a joke.
As if we hadn’t prior knowledge that Darling had turned.
Like this is all a surprise.
But, really, what in the fuck does she think she’s doing?
* * * * *
This is how it went down:
I was paralyzed.
Yes, The Chosen One was useless against the powers of Darling.
After the doors slammed shut behind me, she pinned my arms and legs with a swirl of forest and acid green magic. They were locked in position and I’d have fallen over like a log if she hadn’t kept me upright and hovering, my feet dangling a foot off the floor.
Yes, hovering.
It was humiliating.
Bitch.
My eyes could move though and I saw Rory. One of the men from that night with Aidan and the faeries in the wood was standing behind him holding him still using an arm across his throat.
Rory didn’t look very good. He looked scared; his face and eyes red, wet with tears, his lips trembling.
Man oh man.
The room was much smaller than the hall, institutional cream-slash-green painted cinder block walls, big windows with wire through them and curtains from the 70’s, clean but, against all that is the Law of Interior Design, still hanging. There were comfortable chairs and tables and it looked like a room where you’d have a knitting club. Not at all like the torture chamber it was about to become.
Darling was sitting in an armchair facing me five or six feet away. She looked refined yet spooky even in the light of a beautiful spring day.
Another man was behind her. Again I remembered him from that night with Aidan in the woods mainly because he was the one who I’d kicked in the balls.
He was smirking at me.
Ack!
There was another man, off to my left but I didn’t get to take much of him in as once I’d had a look at the lay of the land, she blasted me.
* * * * *
In the movies, they wait to give the hero time to get his bearings. Usually the baddies babble on and on which gives the hero time. Time to think of a plan and, even, an extra moment for him to put it into action.
Definitely time to get in a one-liner.
Harrison Ford doesn’t have thirteen guys jumping him all at once… no.
He gets in, the baddie jabbers away and Harrison has time to assess the situation, more time to pull out his firearm or unsheathe his knives or whatever then he’s good to go.
And, when the enemy fires on him, they miss.
And, if they don’t miss, they hit him where it just glances off. It hurts, of course, and he utters something like, “Yeesh…” and then he’s off again, shooting the bad guys like ducks in a barrel.
* * * * *
In real life, I’m sad to say, it doesn’t work that way.
* * * * *
I also find it somewhat distressing to report that Agatha Darling has two wands. And what comes out of Agatha Darling’s second wand is not charming, sweet-colored pixie dust. Nor is it not-so-charming acid and forest green swirls of magic.
Oh no.
With her second wand pointed straight at my chest, she blasted me with lightning.
Pure, scorching, white-bright lightning.
And it hurt like hell.
* * * * *
I didn’t say “Yeesh…” I exclaimed, “Arrrrgh, holy shit, fuck!”
I was Mel Gibson getting tortured by the little Asian dude in Lethal Weapon, except without the water.
And that was when I could talk at all.
* * * * *
She didn’t need to hold me paralyzed after the lightning died. I fell to my hands and knees, gagging and trying my damnedest not to spew my sun-dried-tomato-laden lunch on the ground.
Her power, from holding me to blasting me, was awesome.
Awesome.
I’d never seen anything of the like, not from Mavis or Gran or all of us put together.
I was in Trouble, with a capital T.
Shit and damn it all to hell.
“Now, Mathilda, we have to talk,” she said, her voice posh to the nth degree.
I feared r’s rolling.
I feared ee-ahs included in such words as “here”.
I feared that fuckity, fuck, fucking lightning.
I struggled to get up. I didn’t go for the wand tucked in my waistband because I couldn’t. I barely had the strength to pull myself up to rest on my knees. I was panting, my eyes were unfocused and the pain in my chest was excruciating.
I took the deepest breath I could once I got myself upright and asked, “About what?”
I looked at Rory who looked worse than before, probably not an easy thing to watch, someone getting struck by lightning.
He looked utterly terrified.
Darling continued, “I wanted a chance to explain to you about tradition. About the right way to do things and the wrong way to do things.”
Uh, what?
> As in, excuse me?
She’d lost me.
I couldn’t help myself anymore, I looked away from her to Rory and asked, “You okay?”
Blast!
Again, she hit me with the lightning.
Up in the air and back I went, slamming against the sliding doors, the bolt holding me suspended up there for what seemed like forever.
I heard Aidan on the other side, banging, shouting my name, the doors rattling but they didn’t move.
I slithered down when she was done, on all fours again, gagging and this time I was crying and slobbering too. It hurt like hell, the pain was so intense, I thought my arms that were holding me up were going to give way, I was trembling so badly.
“Do not interrupt when I’m speaking,” she warned.
I whimpered with pain, too lost in it to be humiliated by the fact that I hadn’t even raised a wand to her. I wished with everything I had that Aidan both could and couldn’t get those doors open. I needed help, oh goddess, I needed help. But she might be able to make mincemeat of him just as she was making mincemeat of me.
With effort, I pulled up my head and looked to see she was studying me with what seemed like little interest, as little as she showed me in the Swank Italian Place. As if this was some kind of unwelcome duty she had to perform, like the dishes.
This bitch was ice cold.
How on earth could she be a witch?
“I don’t think you understand,” she went on. “I don’t think you appreciate the history of witches, my dear.”
I heard a noise and looked over at Rory. He was crying like me, gagging against his guard’s arm which had tightened against his throat.
“Do let up, Robert, we don’t need the boy anymore,” Agatha said to her lackey.
The man let Rory go and he dropped to his knees too, his eyes wild.
“But!” Darling snapped, both wands swishing through the air like whips as she turned her attention to Rory. “I don’t want to hear a thing from you.”
Rory went totally still, staring at her in petrified silence as she turned again to me.
I hated her.
Goddess, I hated her like I’ve never hated anyone.
In fact, I’m not sure I’d ever felt the emotion before because it was nothing like I was feeling then.
“This ‘Witches Dozen’ business. It won’t do,” she informed me. “The Prophesies said you’d be… well, obviously… ” She gestured with her wand taking in all that was me. “And they weren’t wrong. But I never thought… never dreamed that Mavis would allow it. That you would herald the beginning of the end of Our World.”
She was quiet and I was up again, on my knees, staring at her. It took everything I could to get in that position and I was scared out of my wits but when she didn’t continue, I ventured a question.
“Your World?”
“Not my World, dear, Our World. The World of Witches. You are familiar with it, are you not?”
“Uh… ” Was this a trick question? “Yes.”
“Well, the way it is now, we know what we can do and they don’t.” She gestured to one of the men who didn’t seem bothered by her in the slightest (bewitched?). “What they don’t know will hurt them and that has always given us the upper hand.”
I was still lost and, even through all the tears and slobber, I must have looked it.
“Oh dear,” she sighed like I was the most simple creature she’d ever come across, “I see I’m going to have explain.”
Then, she looked at her watch.
What?
She had better things to do?
More people to torture?
More children to kidnap?
More weird lectures to give?
I wish I’d had the courage to say any of that but I just knelt in front of her.
The Chosen One.
Me.
On my knees.
She kept explaining. “If they don’t know what kind of powers we have, they fear them. If they fear them, we keep them… these…” She swished her wand about in a bored way again, indicating the men, “creatures, in check. You can’t go about being a witch, out in the open, and show them everything. You’ll give away our best defense.”
“Maybe if they knew, if they understood what we were about, they wouldn’t fear us so much.” I tried. “They wouldn’t –”
Blast!
Me and my mouth.
Another bolt of lightning.
More crying, more snot, more slobber.
Thankfully still no vomit.
But now, I was getting pissed.
I mean, is this all really about tradition?
Scaring the pants off Rory, panicking Josie, blasting me with fucking lightning?
Is it really just about her wanting things to stay the same?
I mean, that’s boring.
Where’s the plot in that?
Where was the foul, twisted reasoning behind the treachery? Something worthwhile, something you could sink your teeth into, something juicy.
A spurned love – that’s got passion.
She’s doing it for money – that smacks of greed.
Maybe even envy, I make a better brownie than her or something.
Something sinful, something meaty, something nasty.
This wasn’t worth lightning, for goddess’s sake!
She was going on and on, not ranting but just explaining, as if to a very small child.
Rory had gotten himself to his feet. The man behind him was sorta glazed over like he’d heard this all before. The guy behind Darling wasn’t looking too attentive either. I didn’t dare glance at the other one.
My chest hurt like nothing I’d ever known before.
I couldn’t hear Aidan behind the door anymore.
I was alone.
I knew I couldn’t go for my wand.
And I knew I didn’t have a whole lot left in me to do much without my wee twig.
But I also knew that I was The Chosen One.
And I was a Glamour Girl.
And Rory needed me and I’d vowed to keep him safe.
And even though Darling had just looked at me like I’d worn sequins to a funeral, I knew I had style.
So fuck… her.
I had to do something.
I’d screamed all girlie-pathetic in the car with Ash – no way was I going to let the side down now.
Not for something as stupid as tradition.
I mean, I could get into turkey and stuffing and pumpkin pie, all family get-together, thankful for blessings type of tradition, but this? Telling someone how to live their life because you don’t agree?
Fuck that.
So, even if here endeth my chapter in History of Great Wytch Families, I was going for it.
* * * * *
I’d seen enough movies to know how it was done.
I didn’t even bother with Darling.
Darling was another day.
In all the good movies, during the first run-in with the bad guy, the bad guy always got away.
And anyway, the bitch had lightning.
So I took whatever I had left, visualized it in my fist and ducked, rolled, came up and threw it with everything I had like a baseball straight at the dude behind Rory.
Unbelievably, it came out of my hand like the kickass sphere of magic that it was.
It wasn’t bright, white-hot lightning and it wasn’t hot pink either.
It was glowing, neon fuchsia pink-purple with gorgeous electric blue sparks flying hither and thither.
It hit him; he went back, his neck snapping his head forward, he slammed against the cinder block wall and then he went down… hard.
Ha!
“Run!” I shouted to Rory and then ducked, rolled and lobbed another one at the dude behind Darling.
At that point, the doors were kicked through and all hell broke loose.
Aidan was there, coming to my rescue!
But so was Ash!
Yee ha!
I
didn’t hesitate, my third ball ‘o vengeance was lacking some of the brilliance in the electric blue department but it didn’t matter, the third guy went down too.
Ha ha!
I ducked and rolled again and missed getting hit by lightning by a hairbreadth.
“Tedious,” Darling muttered as I stood up and she tried to hit me with lightning again, ignoring the men and furniture flying about the room.
This time, though, I prayed to my tree with every fiber of my being then waved my arm across my front, visualizing a shield going up. There it went, a pink-purple forcefield with blue sparks flashed out momentarily in front of me, deflecting the bolt which veered to my left without harming me.
Yee ha!
I saw Ash hesitate while lifting a squirming bad guy to take in what I’d just done before he sent the baddie smashing through the (wired glass!) window.
Aidan was slamming his fist into another guy’s nose.
Rory was crawling across the floor to the doors.
Thankfully, the kids in the other room were long gone.
Duck, roll, (whimper a little at the searing pain in chest) and then land a ball of magic, hitting Rory in the back, it exploded and rained hot and shell pink pixie dust with silver sparks up and over him.
I allowed myself a short sigh of relief. That last sphere was protection for Rory. (I hoped.)
The woman with the great boots appeared in the doorway. She took one look at the scene and without a word, grabbed Rory and disappeared.
Darling didn’t look bored anymore, she actually stood.
“My, my, Mavis has been busy –”
I didn’t let her finish, I didn’t give a flying fuck what she had to say.
I lifted my arm and, Spidey-style, flicked her with some of my brightly hued sparks.
She waved it away like I had with my forcefield and then we were off, me ducking and rolling and throwing orbs of magic while she slapped back with lightning.
Then, with a loud crack, what was left of the doors went flying off their hinges. Viv and Su came charging in, great waves of Viv’s glittery turquoise sparkles met with Su’s lustrous, grape-colored dust as I sent another sphere of neon across the room.
* * * * *
And that’s it.
Darling was driven back by Viv, Su and I, disappearing in a sparkling array that camouflaged her for long enough for her to get away.
Mathilda, SuperWitch Page 14
