Chapter 51 - Witch Work
Abigail White yanked and pulled at the air in front of her.
Above her, vvyst responded to each movement, tumbling ‘Miss Perfect’ ass over teakettle down the steps to the floor, where she lay wrapped in a cocoon of magical energy as if dead.
Abigail squeezed her fist tight, which made the cocoon clench down on Sage mercilessly.
Inside, Sage shifted repeatedly, suffering and struggling.
Still squeezing, Abigail fell back against a wall and grabbed at her bitten leg with her other hand.
It ached and blood flew freely, running down her leg and filling her shoe.
“Bitch bit me,” she muttered. “Bit me!”
She squeezed her fist and jerked it back and forth. The cocoon shook and jolted on the floor.
Ethedra, her co-conspirator from another world, appeared above well number four. “Uh, uh, uh,” she said. “Better not kill her. You’ll get smited by somebody.”
“Yeah, those fucking wolves, once they figure out who she is,” Abigail hissed, but she relaxed her hand, letting up on Sage.
Ethedra laughed. “You’re tempting that fate anyway.”
“Everybody’s gotta go sometime.”
Ethedra snorted, and that made Abigail laugh, short and staccato. When she did, vvyst sprang from all corners of the room and rushed to her, twirling around her leg, bandaging it, dampening the pain, until she was able to stand normally. Ethedra watched without comment.
Abigail held a hand up over Sage. “Molofi,” she commanded, and her hand lit as if engulfed in white flame. She thrust it into the cocoon, parting the magical energy effortlessly. She found her cask and pulled him out. “Kilwateschi,” she muttered, extinguishing the flame.
She held her cask up by the tail, examining him, fluffing up the fur. He looked unharmed. She probed his belly, counting the goods inside. Everything was there. She wound him over her shoulders and looked around.
Ethedra hovered over her well, arms held out, a small mud jar in her hands, magical fheargacha on the tips of index and middle fingers of her right hand, looking like black, pointy thimbles.
She held out the mud jar and beckoned several thick drops of Abigail’s congealing blood her way with the fheargacha.
They flew to her, directly into the opening of the mud jar.
“Thief,” Abigail muttered.
“Come on, this is too good to pass up.”
“That’s all you get.”
Abigail held up a hand, targeting a mud jar on a shelf. “Get your ass over here,” she said. The mud jar flew across the room and slapped into her palm. She bent and looked at the tracks of blood down her leg, her bloody shoe and the bloody floor all around.
“Blood power, blood strength, blood stitch, blood stave,” she chanted, pulling at the air with tented fingers. “Blood hour, blood feint, blood fetch, blood save.”
The blood lifted from her and from the floor a little at a time, leaving stains.
Floating drops joined each other, making one big drop.
Abigail put the jar on the floor, then pointed at the opening.
The big red drop stretched there like a liquid finger and flowed inside.
Abigail stoppered the jar and took it to her blood shelf.
“You, you, you, you, you,” she said, pointing to the table, shelves, and armoires that had rushed to block Sage’s escape. “Return.” The heavy pieces of furniture slid back to their original positions, one at a time.
She looked for her favorite lituus—a spiral wand her second husband made for her from an oak tree over two hundred years ago—and found it on the floor.
She picked it up and pointed it at the ceiling, mentally telling it what she wanted.
Vvyst sprang from it, flew to the ceiling, cut down some ferns, and brought them to her.
She wound them into a figure eight, tied them in the middle, then held them in front of her, circling them in the air, collecting and transforming the magical energy into a translucent cauldron that hung three feet above the ground.
“Myrrh, wormwood, angelica, hempseed, lemon balm, cowslip,” she said, calling botanicals to her. They came from all around the room to collect in the cauldron. When all were in place, she recited ‘clean ye’ll be,’ which was one of her most basic and most used spells.
“Clean ye'll be. Clean ye are. Clean, I command it. Clean, all who hear my voice, geeyup and clean up, and clean ye'll be. Clean ye are.”
The cauldron spun madly while she spoke, then stopped when the spell was over.
Abigail dipped her ferns inside, then spattered the solution every which way, reciting ‘clean ye’ll be’ again.
The drops sprinkled about, and as they hit, vvyst stirred itself up into a frenzy, creating smokey-looking brushes and towels, all tinged crimson.
First, they scrubbed the blood stains from the floor and from Abigail’s shoes and stockings, then they righted the area, fluffing the rugs, scrubbing the table, straightening and cleaning.
They picked up Sage’s clothes, folded them, and placed the neat pile at Abigail’s feet.
It was done quickly. When the brooms and towels dispersed and all was quiet again, Abigail kicked the cocoon on the floor, gratified when a small noise of distress came from it.
She pointed her lituus at it, speaking softly.
Vvyst leapt from the spiral wand, encircling the cocoon, winding soundproof layers around it.
She stared at the cocoon, thinking about her next move. Ethedra was above her well, watching silently. The mud jar was gone, either hidden in a pocket, or maybe dropped right into the well, where it would pop out into her hearth room. Likewise, her fheargacha were missing from her fingertips.
“You still here?” Abigail asked. Ethedra grinned and disappeared, but she didn’t actually leave; Abigail could still sense her.
Abigail set to work, going to a cabinet and pulling out a special bottle.
She took it to a well and dropped it in, listened for the splash, then she gave it a few moments to fill and commanded it back up.
She placed it on a special altar, then wound vvyst and spells around it.
It morphed slowly, until it looked exactly like a capless plastic water bottle with an AQUAFINA label.
She found a stopper and placed it on the altar next to the bottle and repeated the process until it looked just like a white plastic cap.
She examined it from all angles. It looked perfect, and no doubt the water inside would do its job, but she was missing something, and she couldn’t think what it was. She paced, and when she passed Ethedra’s well, she realized it.
Abigail picked up a pen and chucked it through the air above the well. It hit Ethedra in the leg and turned her solid again.
“’Little Miss’ can see magical energy now, so I need a concealment spell on this, if you please,” Abigail told her.
Ethedra nodded. She dipped her right hand into her pocket, then held it up and flicked her fingers out, which made her fheargacha appear. She clicked them together, making them glow, then she pointed them at the bottle and the cap.
“See it now—now you don't; a trick you see, but soon you won't,” she chanted.
The bottle and cap shimmered red, then rainbow, then settled and looked normal again.
“I thought ‘Little Miss’ was a ‘little dud’ with no power,” Ethedra said.
“Something happened today.”
“Tsk, tsk,” Ethedra said, then she raised her hand suddenly. An eyeball popped out of a taxidermied fox pup on a shelf and flew to her. At the last minute, Abigail made a snatching gesture with her own hand, and the eyeball flew to her, instead.
“Cheater,” Ethedra said, then popped out the other eyeball and flew it to her.
Abigail held the eyeball to her eye, cupping her palm around it.
She stared into the pupil until she saw what she was looking for.
A silent view of the place that showed earlier that day, Sage had found her way in.
First the hidden door was revealed, and then Sage entered, with emerald green vvyst all around her, hiding in her hair and her pockets, winding around her ankles, and surrounding her form.
Sage looked around, touched a few things, walked deep into the place, then turned and ran out.
“Damn,” Abigail said, holding the eyeball to her shoulder. Her cask lifted his head and ate the eyeball in one bite, then laid down dead again.
Ethedra burned her eyeball up in flame in her palm. “’Little miss dud’ revealed the hidden door and opened it. Not so dud anymore.”
“This is bad,” Abigail said, irritation eating at her.
She held her hand up and clenched it, magically plucking an eyeball out of a mounted fox on the wall while Ethedra grabbed the other eyeball. This gave a better view, and this time, it became clear that Sage was speaking to someone in the Templum.
Abigail looked up at the shiftsegen. She pointed. “That thing talked to her.”
Ethedra dropped the two eyeballs onto the plane between worlds, where they burnt up. “Maybe. Maybe not. Or maybe she thought it was a ghost. She ran out pretty quick.”
Near the door, a walkie-talkie squelched and Number Six spoke from it. “Missus.”
Ethedra raised her hand, and the walkie-talkie flew across the room to her. She grinned an evil grin, cleared her throat, and spoke into it, using Abigail’s voice.
“Yes, my lo—” she said sweetly, but Abigail was fast. She yanked the walkie-talkie to her with vvyst and flipped Ethedra off.
“What?!” she barked into the radio.
“Missus. Those two KSRT wolves’re causing trouble out here.”
“Your instructions still stand. Keep them away from the inn until Sunday night but don’t kill them.”
“That’s a hard ‘un, Missus. These two, they just keep coming.”
Abigail considered. These two wolves would ruin everything if they found the Inn, and these two were the most likely ones to manage it. It would ruin everything—all her careful plans. Unacceptable.
“Drop them in the hole,” she said. “Kiki’ll keep them busy.”
“Ayuh, Missus,” Six said, his voice excited. “I’ll be doin’ that with a smile on my face—you ain’t gonna kill me iffen they get eaten?”
“Doubtful,” Abigail said. “Those wolves are harder than fleas to get rid of.”
Abigail dropped the radio on the table, noticing Ethedra was gone for good this time, without so much as a ‘goodbye’.
Now to deal with Sage.