Chapter 21
Griselda
Despite knowing that the sticky note-free section of the wall existed, I was still unable to pinpoint it when I first stepped into the basement. The second Marcus pointed it out to me again, the irrational fear hit me like a brick in the face. I wanted to get away from it as fast as I could. I felt physically ill, but knowing that I was perfectly fine just a moment ago when I was just as close to it as I was now gave me more courage.
It also pissed me off. How dare it try to control me!
I’d come prepared this time with the chalk marker we used to put up the menu at the Witch’s Brew. I uncapped the marker, took a deep breath, and drew a large circle, making sure to extend the circle out past the look-away spell’s area of effect as well as into it. I went around and around again making the circle unmissable.
Then I drew a big X on the spot with no notes. As I did, the fear intensified again. How the spell behaved now would give me an idea of how strong it was.
“Okay,” I said, “I’m going to step upstairs and then come back down and see if I can see it now.”
Marcus raised his brows like he thought it would be crazy if I couldn’t see it, but humored me anyway.
When I stepped back into the basement, I immediately saw the circle and the X, which was a relief because I didn’t know what I would do if it hadn’t worked.
“Ready to see what’s inside?” Marcus asked, lifting the heavy weight he planned on using to demolish the wall.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Step back,” he said as he readied his swing.
It took several swings before he loosened things enough to go in with a pry bar. After that, it was smooth sailing. The second we got the wall broken down, the fear completely disappeared. The spell had been placed on the wall itself and not on whatever was behind it. Interesting. That meant whoever had built the wall had known about it.
According to Evyenia’s story, the son had the place built after the witch died. Did he do it?
The older couple hadn’t mentioned anything about him being a magic user, but if he was the witch’s son, it made sense, though the ability sometimes skipped generations.
“It’s a whole room.” Marcus shone the light from his phone into the hole. “This is the ceiling here. I don’t think I can get through this hole.”
Now that the wall was gone, whatever was inside practically invited me in. It felt warm and friendly. But I was wary. Things weren’t always what they seemed. I turned my phone’s flashlight on and peered inside…right into another witch’s home!
There were stacks of spell books on the table, candles and trinkets on the counter, and a pot still hung over the hearth. A large silver mirror hung on the wall, dusty with disuse. In fact, everything was covered in dust and dirt. A part of me wanted to clean it up and restore everything to its former glory.
This wasn’t the cellar; this was part of the home itself! They’d sealed it over and left everything as it had been. What a shame all this had been hidden away down here and forgotten.
I shoved my phone into my bra so that the flashlight poked out to illuminate my way and prepared to climb inside.
“Wait! Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Look at it all! I can’t believe all this was down here the whole time.”
Marcus didn’t look so convinced. “Can’t you, like, tie a rope to yourself before you go down at least?”
“You sound like you think the room might eat me.”
“It might,” he deadpanned.
I didn’t think it would, but I decided to concede so he wouldn’t worry. “Better safe than sorry, I guess. Let’s go find a rope.”
We never did find rope, and instead ended up using cables from his gym. We also found a flashlight and extra batteries, just in case. Tied up like I was ready to go caving, I descended into the hidden room.
I didn’t know where to start, so I found some rags in a corner and started wiping the dust off everything so I could see what was underneath. Unlike me, the witch who’d lived here hadn’t been a big collector, and from the titles of the books on the table—one of them still opened to a recipe—she specialized in potions. She must’ve been a hearth witch then, like my grandmother.
Evyenia had said she passed out hot chocolate to the kids skating at the rink. I’d reckon that was something a hearth witch would do.
As I explored, Marcus continued working on the opening, slowly making it larger and smoothing out the edges so he could fit. And when I was still alive after a while and the walls failed to swallow me whole, Marcus relaxed and squeezed himself into the room.
“Cozy,” he said, shining the flashlight around the place. “Dark, though.”
“Yeah, I wish I had more light.” I spotted an old lamp in the corner. “I wonder if they hooked this place up to the electricity?” I walked over, dusted off the lamp, found the cord, and followed it visually to where it was still plugged into the wall. But when I tried to turn it on, nothing happened.
“We can drag an extension cord down here. I think I saw one on the shelf in the basement.”
In a few minutes, we got the old lamp plugged in. To our surprise, the bulb didn’t blow. It wasn’t very bright either, but it was good enough.
“Look at that.” Marcus pointed at a window near the ceiling that had been cemented over. “That was above ground.”
“I think this was her living space.”
“We are raised a bit higher than the building across the street; they must’ve just filled it in and built on top to cut costs like Evyenia said.”
“Or there’s something in here her son didn’t want us to find,” I said.
“Great, now I’m creeped out again. Bad guys I can fight. Magic? I can’t fight that.”
“I don’t think it’s malicious,” I said. “Since that wall came down, I haven’t felt anything but warmth and welcome from this place.” I continued cleaning, wiping down the end table the lamp was sitting on to show the original wood grain. It was beautiful. “It’s kind of sad that this place has been hidden away for so long. Forgotten. Things have feelings. It’s not the same way we feel, but they do. I have a connection with them, and the things in this place? They were well-loved once. I want to make sure they are loved again.”
As I said those last words, it almost felt like the light got brighter, and everything in the room lit up.
“Then let’s clean this place up,” Marcus said. “We still have to find what it is those pesky wizards want.”
The thought of Arcane getting their hands on any of this made me angry. “Whatever it is, they ain’t getting it.”
Because from that moment on, all of this was mine. I closed my eyes, letting my magic filter out through my body to touch the wooden end table. From there it spread, diffusing through everything as it had done with the rest of my home. Energy from the room came back to me too, and all of it felt warm and perfect. Happy.
Marcus found some paper towels and rags in the basement and brought them down along with a bucket of warm, soapy water and a mop. Together we cleaned the long-forgotten room until Triscuit’s loudly proclaimed “Triscuit wanna biscuit!” rang out repeatedly from my phone.
“That’s the alert for me to feed him. If it’s going off, it means his dinner is already late.” I usually turned it off before it rang while I made his food.
“I’ll do it,” Marcus said. “Will you be okay here alone? I don’t feel anything dangerous.”
“I don’t either now that the wall is gone. I’ll be fine.” I held a gorgeous hand-carved bowl I’d just wiped clean to my chest. “So many treasures. Evyenia’s eyes would bug out.”
I should probably give her a call and let her know what we found. Despite all the looking and cleaning, we still hadn’t found whatever we were supposed to be looking for. Something here had caught the wizards’ attention. What could it be? Was it the space itself? It did feel magical, but not any more than other witches’ homes.
“I’ll heat up some food for us too,” Marcus said.
“Are you sure? I’m eating all your food.”
“I made enough for both of us.” The light from the lamp highlighted the bovine slope of his nose, but it was his genuine smile that had the butterflies starting in my belly. “And I like feeding you. I’ll have my phone on me, so just call or text if you need me to bring down anything.”
He left, leaving the basement open to the stairwell.
I was wiping the shelf clean so I could put down the bowl when a feminine voice behind me said, “Finally! I thought he’d never leave.”
I gasped and whipped around, but there was no one there.
“Over here.”
I let myself be called to the vanity, and my eyes landed on a small compact. It was one of those old, ornate ones that women used to get refilled with pressed powder before makeup became a disposable industry. I reached for it instantly, picked it up, and opened it. The powder in the pan looked cracked and smelled stale. I wiped the mirror off with my thumb.
“Hello?” I didn’t know what prompted me to talk to my reflection.
“Hello,” it parroted back, its mouth moving even though I hadn’t spoken. “I’m so glad someone finally found me. It’s been dreadfully lonely down here. I can’t go very far, and I’ve read every single book I could reach.”
Was I talking to a ghost? Through a mirror? I was a little creeped out. But what good would freaking out do? I forced myself to remain calm and talk to my reflection.
“I’m Griselda. Gigi for short. What’s your name?” I asked.
There was a pause. “I don’t remember.”
“What did the witch before call you?”
“ Child. She called me child.”
That didn’t help. “I’m too young to call anyone child,” I said.
“You’re older than me. Physically anyway. I was only fourteen when Mama transformed me.”
“Transformed you?”
“Into the compact.”
I shook my head. This was a lot to take in. “Why did she do that?”
“She was hiding me from papa and his friend. I was supposed to get married, but I didn’t want to.” My reflection made a face of disgust. “He was old and mean.”
“So your mom turned you into a compact so your dad couldn’t marry you off?”
“Yes. He never found me. Mama was supposed to turn me back, but she died and I was stuck in here until Father remarried and the new woman sold all of my mother’s things.”
I ran my thumb across the detailed metalwork of the compact. That was some strong magic. She was actually transformed. This was a real compact, made of brass and glass. Not a flesh-and-bone girl made to look like a compact through illusion or some other trickery. This was testing the bounds of physics, and as a witch, I knew that magic always had to work within its bounds, even if it sometimes seemed like it didn’t.
Like portals. We could make portals connecting two points, but we couldn’t teleport ourselves, lest we end up put back together with all our cells in the wrong order. Or perhaps we’d be physically sound but missing our consciousness. That was scary stuff. Scarier than talking to a ghost through my reflection in a mirror.
“And you’ve been stuck since.”
“Yes. It’s not too bad. I’ve gotten used to it, but it got boring being alone. I’m glad you found me.”
The face in the mirror changed for the briefest of moments, showing a plain-looking girl with mousy brown hair and dark brown eyes. But it was her genuine smile that had my heart lifting. I smiled right back.
This wasn’t some vengeful spirit. This was a lonely girl, wronged in life, who just wanted some company. My heart broke for her.
“You won’t be alone anymore,” I promised.