Authors: Nicole Lee
Rose stared at Grady to ensure that he was seeing the same thing she was, and by the look on his face, one not showing fear as much as evanescent disorientation, clarifying for her that this was happening.
The expressive features of a woman who looked like she could have arrived from the bottom of the ocean appeared in the portable mirror.
Mary Worth’s hair was brittle and unwashed for what could have been ages. There was a sharp and incisive glint of teal in her eyes, and the coloring was so distinctively noticeable that it almost took away from how there was blood caked across her face. There were clumps of sea tangle and kelp strewn through the dim, gristly locks grown past her shoulders.
“
It feels good to see new faces,” Mary said.
Rose had the feeling that Worth wanted to smile, and yet she could not do anything except reveal the same disconsolate presentation that her features consisted of.
Grady’s eyes were large. Rose was as equally shocked, but knew she had to work through whatever sarcastic quip was announced, because she had an inkling of a hint that many nasty provocations would probably be heard before the eight minutes were up.
“
It’s great to see you too,” Rose said. “Really, it’s an honor. I know all about your past. You were a martyr, killed by men who felt what we practice was somehow taboo or amoral. Really, you were just an innocent woman who had been through a lot of trouble and who is a wonderful representative of-”
Worth interrupted her with a scream: “Do not flatter me! I can see past your lies faster than you can say them. Did you not read the tales describing how I rip out the eyes of stupid school girls who try to play that intrepid game named after me?”
Grady nudged her. “Rose, I’m pretty sure the whole eye-ripping thing was something you left out. Not to get nit-picky, but after all you told me about her? Yeah, that little eye ripping detail must have been something I missed.”
“
Quiet!” Mary screamed. “I have also trapped souls in here with me, the ones who felt brave enough to not leave the room they had risen me in. So, dare tell, why have you been so bold as to beckon me?”
“
Gerdur recommended you,” Rose said, knowing that truth was the only option.
“
A lovely woman,” Worth said.
Rose and Grady looked at each other, both feeling the same confounded astonishment.
“
Sure,” Rose said finally. “My mother is Hemera, a very powerful leader in the black arts. She has nothing but anger for me and everyone living in this town. I need to defeat her, but there’s a few problems.”
“
You love her too much to kill her?” Mary’s gaze shone like dragon’s fire.
“
Not really. It has more to do with how I know she’s trained to vanquish anyone who gets in her way. I’m a fledgling compared to her. Plus, her army is far more powerful than me.”
A mist began forming in the background of where Mary was supposedly standing, and the lamentations of voices soft as whispers cascaded from some unknown area, its audibility shooting through the mirror.
“
We need your help,” Grady said. “This woman is a genuinely bad person, not a true good hearted witch like you-”
“
Tell your sinful devotee to leave, or I shall make him do it myself.”
Rose leaned over and whispered in his ear, “Mary knows when we’re not telling the truth, remember?”
Grady shrugged. He looked back at the reflection, before deciding to move out of sight, but not so far away that he could not see and hear what was going on.
“
Your mother was an indelibly gifted witch,” Worth said. “She was able to create a deadly pestilence with the mere flick of a hand. Men saw her as a blessing before she became their affliction. Many people of a higher calling gave her chances to redeem herself if she agreed to use her efficacy for good. Being the great witch that she was, she turned them down. Through use of her own divination, she is not of small stature.”
“
Right,” Rose said. “So how can I send her away from my town and make sure she doesn‘t come back?”
A deep laugh, one that sounded as if it were irrigated, erupted from Mary. “You think she will ever be out of your life? Silly. The only way that would ever eventuate is if you eliminated her from top to bottom, which may be easy if she were flesh and blood, as assuredly she is not.”
Rose paused. “There’s no way I can rid myself of her?”
“
You can, but not beyond recall. See, there is no saving you. Our physical forms all turn to dust, yet yours will be forced to at an earlier age.”
Rose, for the first time in her life, contemplated her mortality in a saddening way. She looked up and saw Grady, who wore a tragic expression that probably outdid her own, and something told her that his miserable thoughts rivaled hers.
“
Can I at least save a few lives around me?” Rose asked, trying to keep her own fate out of her mind. “Is there any way the ones out there can be spared?”
“
You must show love in resistance to your mother. Love as a form of armament. The kind of love that she never gave you.”
With that, as Rose pondered this advice, the strong and frosty gusts that had been ripping through them since they arrived here died out, leaving everything from the branches to the grass blades tranquil once again. The apricot and magenta colored stipules on the trees surrounding the graveyard no longer shook. The ossuary was now still, and the rebounding intonations drifting from the kids searching door to door for candy near the black street corners could, once again, be hearkened.
The reflection of Mary disappeared, and with it the backdrop of vapors and odd noises. The glass shattered in Rose’s hands, imploding from within before its fragmental shards crumbled into a substance as fine as dust.
“
Breaking a mirror is also thought to be bad luck,” Grady said. He approached her at a slow pace, before seeing something that even Rose had not yet noticed, still shaken by the encounter.
Her hands and wrists were bleeding.
20
Rose woke up the next morning after having only gotten a few hours of sleep.
It took a number of seconds to see that she had sleep walked again. The wind brushed against her face in a much more aggressive way than it had at any other place she had been rudely stirred, and there was a fresh scent of water and grass. Leaning upright, she rubbed her eyes and took in the scenery around her.
At first she was scared, because it only took a few seconds to see that she was thousands of feet above the lake.
Rose was now on a cliff side, overlooking the massive body of water before her. At the end of the precipice, there was a tree whose sap had been drained, and standing next to the oversized plant was a familiar figure wearing brown suspenders and an old t-shirt.
She stood up, happy to have worn shoes to bed, not to mention clothing in general. She approached the old man, who was staring directly at her with a smile. Rose wanted to judge him as creepy, yet his grin gave off more of a warmth than anything else.
The crag hanging over the body of blue below formed more into an L shape with each step, the path becoming slimmer the further she traveled down it. Rose was careful to retain her balance, knowing that, even if the breeze were to become stronger than what it already was, she was likely to fall to her imminent doom below. Peering to her right, she saw that the wall was a series of jagged rock faces covered in mist.
The sun was rising over the mountains, casting a vaporous haze of orange to fall over the great waters in the center of the town. There were droves of people hiking up paths in the detachment, each of them dressed individually in climbing gear. She thought about calling out to them, to see if any would actually hear her.
She stared at the older gentleman a bit more closely, trying to take in his looks, since they gave her a severe case of déjà vu.
“
You’re familiar,” Rose said.
“
That’s because we’re family.”
Much to her dismay, she had to hold back the tears which wanted to lunge from the depths of her eyes. “Grandpa?”
“
Yes,” he said, his smirk widening.
“
Okay,” she said, raising her hands and then folding her arms, shaking her head back and forth a number of times. “I’m still asleep. This is all a lie. I’ll wake up, you’ll be gone, and I’ll be in my bedroom.”
“
Don’t be so sure of that,” he said.
“
You’re…real?”
“
Not in a way you would know, but yes.”
“
You died of a blood clot years ago. This can’t be happening.”
“
Anyone else wouldn’t believe it,” he said in that soft, sophisticated and placid voice she could remember from her childhood. “Yet you, my dear, have had an unusual life. You’re not like the others. Sometimes that works against you, other times it’s a blessing and makes you feel like an individual, which you are; but the point is, I am here, and so are you. Fate brought us together this morning.”
She wanted to say, duh, running into the poltergeist of my dead grandfather is hardly something I could call a coincidence, even as a witch, but stopped herself from being boorish.
Gazing at him with much more focus now, she almost wanted to break down. Rather than looking the way he did when he was eighty nine, he looked closer to a healthy forty. His teeth were still perfectly white. His hair was cut short. He looked like he had just given himself a clean shave minutes before she woke up.
“
It’s great to see you again,” Rose said, wishing she could come up with words that had a deeper meaning, something that expressed her real joy. “But, did you bring me here? Is this Heaven?”
He laughed, a deep chuckle emerging from his stomach. “No, Rose. This is still Lake Pines. It was well known you would wake up here today.”
“
I couldn’t have sleep walked here. I’m not a hiker, to say the least.”
“
You rode the ferry. The boy working the office thought you were drunk. He had no idea you weren’t even conscious.”
“
Ah. I actually walked up to him and asked to use the ferry? I could have fallen off or something. I could be dead right now.”
“
You’re too important for that,” her Grandfather said, a mischievous look in his eyes suddenly becoming perceptible. “We have bigger plans for you.”
“
Who’s we?”
“
It’s not meant for you to know at this point in your life. Trust me on this. Our encounter here was planned.”
She clutched her head. “What am I needed for?”
“
Come here again,” he said. “I have matters to attend to.”
With that, he turned around, and when Rose saw what he was about to do, she wanted to scream out at him to stop, to yell anything, but she choked up and could not utter a word.
He had jumped over the peak‘s edge.
She rode the ferry down from the crest. Taking in the panorama of the large number of rolling green hills, misshaped rock faces, and sweeping views of water, she could not help but reflect on the words of her Grandfather.
When it reached the bottom, she undid the belt connected to the safety bar, and felt relieved to have both of her feet on ground again. Heights had always filled her with fear, and the fact that her problem with sleep walking was so severe it could lead to something like sending a person with a phobia of flying up a mountain, without even knowing it no less, terrified her even further.
Walking by the ticket booth, passing the guy who had evidently allowed a near cataleptic girl easily a year younger than him ride a lethal appliance, she walked to the nearest bus stop. This time, she had no money in her pockets. Gazing to her left, she saw a group of girls dressed much more warmly than her.
Rose loathed to ask anyone for money, especially seeing as how she was still in her night gown. People were gazing in her direction as if she were someone from a distant, uncivilized country. Deciding that now was no time to be timid, she approached a group of girls wearing white fur coats and colorful beanies.
“
Can I have four dollars?” Rose asked.
“
Why?”
“
I’ll give you my cell-phone and home number,” she said. “You can call me and I’ll pay you back.”
“
Here‘s a trip back to your cardboard house,” one of the girls with an almost ruby head of scarlet hair said, handing her a five dollar bill. “Just leave us alone.”
Of course, she felt a considerable anger against this random stranger that she had politely asked a favor from. She swore that she would dress for bed as an airline passenger does a flight from now on.
Fifteen minutes of time passed, and she was soon on the means of public transportation, traveling down the main highway. The main plaza near the hotels were filled with tourists from every corner of the earth.
Rose pulled the wire hanging above her head when she saw it was on the same street as the Realm of the Out of Print book store. She strolled off the steps of the bus and frantically walked into the cluttered, dusty shop.
Alexis was selling a book about Napoleon Bonaparte to a man in a tweedy English coat.
“
I need to talk,” Rose said over the person‘s shoulder to Ms. Harvey. “Right now. In private. Preferably for a long time, because I’ve had the kind of day that’s really unusual.” She paused and then added: “Even for the two of us.”