Chapter 7 #2
The ground feels like it’s not there, like it’s liquid and it falls away from my feet.
Light-headedness rushes towards me like a train and the puzzle pieces snap into place.
I’ve been here before, but never awake. The trees, the light, the way the full moon shines so bright overhead, turning everything sharp.
Déjà vu hits me and I grab onto Charlie’s arm because this is a place I know well.
When I ended up bathed in the red light, it was always here that I found myself.
I just couldn’t remember until now. No matter what I did, I couldn’t remember the place.
My breath stills. Does that mean I’ve seen the person speaking to me but just couldn’t remember?
I move and a twig snaps under my foot, the sound of it acts like a starter pistol and smashes reality and my dream world together until I understand.
“I dreamed this. For years.” I take in the clearing and it’s empty.
I turn again expecting to see glowing eyes from the dark, but it’s nothing but Charlie, me and the moonlight.
There’s no comforting voice speaking to me now.
No shadow that I’ve followed or silver eyes on me, at least not where I can see. I can feel someone staring, though.
“Someone else is here.” I hold out a shaking hand. “Give me the mini bat. Now.”
Charlie hands it over without a word. I hold the mini bat tight and take a shaking step towards the rock fissure. In my dream, that light was the thing that shifted everything. It made me feel safe but now that I’m here, I don’t feel that way. My knees shake but still I walk forward.
Now that I’m here, the pull is gone. Vanished just like magic. There’s movement in the rock, I see it, a shadow shifting on the other side of the jagged opening. The red light blinks in and out as it moves. Whatever it is, it's big enough to block out the light.
“Something is in there,” I whisper to Charlie who nods and shakes out his hands. He pulls out the knife as he comes to stand beside me.
“Mini demon?” he asks.
“Full-sized more than likely,” I tell him. “Maybe jumbo.”
“We can take a full-sized demon, right?”
The mini bat shakes because my hands are trembling. “Yeah. Totally.”
We can’t. I’m lying.
I’ve only sort of trained with Buffy and all those times she held back to not hurt me. I know how to throw a punch but I don’t think the demon is going to stand still for me and cheer me on like Buffy did.
“That’s it, Meadow! Don’t put your thumb in your fist, you want to rotate through the hips and follow through. Now swing!”
I glance over at Charlie and see that he looks like he believes me which is really his fault because I’m a terrible liar. The only thing I’ve been able to lie about is my smile and even then I’ve only pulled it off on account of the brainwashing.
I swallow hard and try to think positively about our odds against a demon but no matter how I slice it, it’s not looking good.
I can maybe float? But that was only one time and I was asleep when I did it… Awake, asleep, whatever, I don’t know that I’ll be able to pull it off if a full-sized demon is chasing me. I give myself a mental slap and take another step forward.
“You have to try, Meadow. No matter what, just try,” I coach myself.
We’ve already come so far in this plan, this crazy harebrained plan, that we can’t back down now without even trying. And I can’t leave, not without getting answers. Whatever is in that rock brought me here for a reason.
“I’m going to try something.” I take in a deep breath and start to pull on the magic inside of me.
I feel it come awake when I reach for it.
It brushes against my fingers and I grab it.
I weave it together until I feel the Earth and the trees humming around me.
The clearing around me sparks with energy.
It rushes forward, washing right over me.
I feel powerful.
“Okay, I-I have my magic, I think I can use it.”
“To do what?” Charlie asks.
“I don’t know! Whatever you conjured a witch up to do.
I can blast a demon, I guess.” I test my hold on the magic.
“It feels like I can throw it.” The energy buzzes under my skin, almost overflowing like a too full water cup ready to spill.
If I took too much, there’s no turning back now.
My hands shake from holding the energy in tight and I have to work to steady my grip on the mini bat.
When I’m ready I nod at Charlie. “I’ll go first. Stay back until I call for you.” I take a shaking step forward and then another, each one feels harder than the last, like I’m walking through molasses. When I’m close enough to the rock fissure I lean close and try to look inside.
I was wrong about it not being a fire. What the hells?
I can hear the steady roar of flames burning merrily away in the fissure.
A wave of warm air billows out and pushes my hair back.
Sweat beads on my brow and I clench my jaw from the effort of stilling my magic.
I focus on honing it into something I can use while I peer inside the rock.
A weapon. Something deadly like a flaming sword.
I look down at the mini bat in my hands.
Maybe a full-sized flaming bat? Yeah, that’s good.
I raise the bat and crane my neck to look inside as I creep closer but there’s nothing moving, just the crackle and popping of flames.
More warm air hits me and it’s a nice contrast to the cold night air.
I clear my throat and inch closer. “Hello?” I try because what else are you supposed to do when there’s fire burning inside of a boulder you’ve been dreaming about and now you’re pretty sure a demon lives in?
“I-is anyone there?” No answer comes. A second ticks by and then another. I count to sixty and then do it again.
“Is anyone there? Hello?” I call out once more. I lower my mini bat to touch the boulder. The rock is warm to the touch. Interesting. I trail my fingers over the surface, testing for hidden doors or any hidey-holes that might have a key to get us inside when Charlie hisses at me.
“Psstttt.”
I ignore him and start pressing my palms to the stone in front of me. I knock on the stone and it’s solid through and through. Damn. No hidden doors here then.
“Pssssstttttt.”
“What?” I whisper and start tapping the stone with my bat.
“What do you see?”
I smack the rock with the mini bat. It thunks against it and my palms ache from the vibration of the hit. Magic leaks out of me and goes splat against the rock in a silver shimmer. How embarrassing.
“Nothing. Just fire,” I tell Charlie while I try to frantically mop up the magic with my sleeve.
Charlie huffs. “That makes no sense. There can’t be fire in a rock.”
I nod and start pushing on the rock. “I know. There’s got to be a way in.
Maybe around back?” I move back to the fissure and run my fingers along the jagged crack in the rock.
It feels normal, but there could be a latch I just haven’t found yet.
I kick a rock at the boulder when I don’t find anything.
It skitters forward and bounces through the opening before disappearing inside and that’s when an idea hits me.
Maybe the door is right here.
It’s so obvious that I bet it’s right.
“Meadow, what’s going on?” I hear Charlie come closer behind me. “Is that magic on your sleeve?”
“Hold on, what if this is the door?” I slide my shaking fingers inside of the fissure and pull, trying to find a weak point or a hinge.
This has to be a door. That’s the only logical explanation for the flames inside of a freaking rock.
I pray that I’m right. I don’t know how much longer I can hold on to my magic while trying to I-Spy a rock door.
I take in a steadying breath and curl my fingers around the edge of the crack and pull.
Nothing happens, so I do it again, even wedging the mini bat into the fissure to see if I can find a leverage point.
I brace my foot on the side of the opening and push on the bat as hard as I can. I grunt when I pull and nearly fall when my foot slips.
“Ugh, Meadow…you okay?” I don’t have to look at my friend to know that he’s probably giving me a look at how I’m trying to get this crack to open up and show me it’s actually a door.
“I’m fine. This has to be a door. We just have to figure out how to get it open.
” I grunt as I change tactics and adjust the bat so I can pull as hard as I can.
My hands are sweaty now and when I pull, I almost slip and fire off the energy I’m still holding onto.
I’m playing a dangerous game, exerting myself on the rock door and trying to hold the energy.
More magic leaks out, this time onto the ground.
“Your magic is coming out. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I-I think I took too much before. The energy has to go or I’m going to get rocked.
No lame pun intended. I gotta dump this.
” I take hold of the energy I’ve pulled in and focus on letting it go, thread by thread.
The familiar warmth of my power heats my palms and fingertips as it starts to exit my body.
I focus and think of letting it seep right back into the earth like rainwater.
The arcane power I trapped before slides out of my fingers and onto the ground in a steady stream.
It looks like silver paint, reflecting the moonlight as it shimmers and sinks into the dirt at my feet.
Charlie tilts his head and watches my magic start to drain away. “I never knew magic was like that,” he says.
“Like that?”
“So physical. It’s like water.”
I nod as I watch my magic. “Yeah, it is like water, isn’t it?
Just more sparkly.” The ground my magic has been sinking into pulses with a light and slowly starts to shine.
The more magic it takes, the brighter the light gets.
“The ground,” I say, dropping down into a crouch to look at the dirt, “it’s holding my magic but I think it can only take so much. ”
“What? Like it’s getting full? Is that why it’s shining like that?” Charlie toes the ground and silver stains the side of his shoe and he makes a face. “Weird. I guess find somewhere else to put your magic before it starts making a mess?”
“Find somewhere else…” I look around the clearing. There’s nothing in it but the boulder. There’s enough clear ground that I could just go find another spot to magic dump but ....if the ground can hold my magic that means anything could hold my power, right?
Anything, even…even….oh my gods, even the rock.
I want to bang my head against the stone at how simple the solution for getting inside the boulder is. “I have an idea! I’m going to offload my power into the rock and blow this door wide open!”
“What door?” Charlie asks.
I smack my hand against the rock and press my palm against the stone. It’s warm to the touch. I tilt my head and look at the boulder again, why is it so warm? Is the fire heating it from the inside? If it is then the rock can’t be that thick.
“Meadow, what door?”
I give the boulder a pat. “This door. The one that isn’t open, and is standing in our way of a mission accomplished. Of getting answers to what the hells is going on in town and with…my dreams.”
Charlie’s eyes go wide. “You’ve dreamed of this rock? When?”
“Last night.”
“Of course, it was last night.” He groans and looks up at the sky. “I was thinking we could just book it back to Sweet Tooth but I guess we’re seeing this through.”
“We are totally seeing this through.” I hold out a hand to him and will my power to stay put while I start to figure out how I’m going to go about blowing a rock up. “Stay back. I have to concentrate or I could-”
There’s a rumble and a roar. “Open the door, little witch…”
Charlie lets out a small scream. Honestly, so do I but when I do it, it’s a big scream. A very big scream. More of my magic shoots out onto the ground. I feel like the squids we learned about in science class. I’d be embarrassed if I wasn’t well and truly scared.
“Witchling…”
The voice is everywhere and nowhere all at once.
Fear twists and breaks the control I’ve kept over my power.
I shriek and my hold on my magic snaps so fast that I don’t understand what’s happened until I’m flying back off my feet with the bang of my power echoing in my ears.
Every bit of energy blasts straight into the stone in front of me and for one wild second I’m blinded by how bright the stone and magic shine when they come together.
I hit the ground so hard I bounce. The air is knocked out of me and the only thing I see are shining stars overhead but I can still hear the voice.
“Let me out, witchling.”