4:3
Outside the pub weapons and supplies were assessed and determinations were made to the adequacy of such. None of them walked around without being at least seventy percent prepared to draw down. It was just that kind of world. And with the weirdness they’d been experiencing recently that number had bumped closer to the ninety percent marker.
A sleek new-model limousine pulled up to the curb and Ben’s heart gave a greedy lurch. What he wouldn’t give for a sweet ride like that. Of course it would die within days, victim of his Magick, but oh for those few days he would ride like a king.
When Jake’s chauffeur came around the front of the vehicle, hat tucked under his arm, Ben felt another twinge. Seriously what world did they live in that the guy’s chauffeur was wearing custom-tailored leathers that resembled a space-age flight suit with their stitched accents and padded Y-zone? Betting this guy also filled the role of bodyguard.
“Thank you, Frank.” Jake acknowledged the door the chauffeur held open but instead of climbing immediately into the well-appointed interior – seriously, was that a wet bar? Of course it was a wet bar! – he turned to the group and indicated they should climb in with a sweep of his hand.
Ivan took the lead on shooting down the guy. With a rueful head shake that he probably was feeling – full cream leather interior and walnut side panels? Damn! – he said, “If you want your vehicle to be running by the time you get home you probably don’t want a bunch of Magickers to get in.”
Chagrin flashed across Jake’s features, quickly smoothed beneath a lifetime’s urbanity. “I appreciate the warning. But, my manse is a little under two hours ride from here in the limousine. If you want to get there in a timely manner I would suggest getting in.”
“I don’t think you fully understood my friend,” Ben said. “If we get in the shiny limo it will go kablooey.”
“If we don’t get to my manse in a timely manner I fear for my wife’s continued safety. Are you suggesting a vehicle is worth more than my wife?”
Well… put that way. Ben’s grin could have eaten the world as he slid past the man and into the bucket seat that formed a bench with three others to fill the back of the limo. Another three buckets sat under the driver’s window across from the seat Ben occupied. At a rough assessment, if they sat in each others’ pockets they might fit seven of them in there – Prairie was pretty small and Ivan probably wouldn’t mind her sitting on his lap – or maybe eight if someone sat up front with Frank but no way was the limo going to fit all nine of them.
Ben poked his head back out, about to make this observation, when Jake looked at his watch. “The other car I sent for should be here any… now,” he finished as another work of mechanical beauty purred up to the curb behind them.
Ben’s estimation of Jake’s wealth went up, oh another several zeros. Guy was ready to sacrifice two insanely fantastic vehicles. That was love right there.
Frank – who Ben kept calling Francis in his head because what kind of name is Frank for a fancy chauffeur? – clicked the trunk of the limo shut. Clicked. Because even the trunk of this thing was too fancy to make the standard thump or slam noises. Dusting his hands he came to stand a respectful distance from Jake. “Sir, as I was informed of the Magicker status of our guests I took the liberty of installing a gas-powered generator in the boot. I have also arranged for a similar one to be in the boot of the other vehicle as well.”
Well. Damn. That was some thinking. It might not save the vehicles completely but it would likely insure they didn’t end up stranded on the side of the road between here and their destination.
“We should split our numbers. Perhaps half in one vehicle and the other half in the other?”
And so the team rode in luxury out of town, out of the county, and eventually into the next province.
Ben, Ivan, Dan, and Jake rode in the limo Francis piloted – you couldn’t call navigating a beauty like this driving – with Jake frowning at paperwork from the seat under the driver’s window he shared with Dan while Ben and Ivan made vast use of the many luxuries provided for the riders. Thirty minutes in and Ben was feeling no pain, between the seats which cushioned him like the thighs of a thick stripper and the excellent libations. Ivan sat back, swirling the ice in a glass of bourbon, alternately staring out the window and holding quiet conversations with Ben and Dan in which they considered the various angles to the situation they found themselves in. Not the limo – that was not a situation. The crazies that seemed to have decided to move in, double occupancy, with them.
The limo ate up the miles but the trip was still long enough that they could talk and think and discuss, in quiet voices that didn’t disturb their host’s focus, the details of what they’d discovered as well as speculation as to what they might discover still.
In the other limo Kim and Gwen grabbed the back-facing seats and fell asleep, lulled by the smooth movement of the vehicle and cradled in the comfort of the lush bucket seats. Meanwhile Patti pumped Prairie for every bit of information she could on Prairie’s encounter with Arfa and also her sense of the presence of a song, unheard playing under the things that had unfolded. Prairie was happy to oblige. It felt good to speak of her thoughts to someone who had a different perspective. Who had the luxury of a remove, not having been in the thick of the fights, and who also had a different lens to view the details through.
Within an hour Patti knew more about her Magick and how it worked than probably anyone besides Prairie herself.
“Why did I dump all that on you?”
Patti pointed at herself, uh, pointedly. “Bartender.”
“I should tip you.”
“Money is never rejected. But, seriously, I asked.”
Wedged between them, though really could you call it wedged when she could roll her shoulders and stretch her arms at her sides and not dig her elbows into anyone, Siobhan inserted information as needed but otherwise took the opportunity to let the faint hum of the engine and the wheels lull her into a beta state in which she could think in dimensions that she had trouble reaching in her daily life.
All the details of what they’d found played through her mind, like puzzle pieces in a one thousand piece jigsaw fresh from the box that likely fit to form a cohesive picture but right now were just one thousand pieces of things that she was going to have to rotate and test against each other with painstaking patience hoping that, by all that she held dear, she’d get maybe two pieces to fit together. Possibly even three but she wasn’t holding hope because to take the puzzle metaphor further, right now it felt like a one thousand piece puzzle where every piece was the same color and the only differences between them was their shape and the parts of them that would theoretically fit into other parts to form a whole.
It was almost a sorrow when the limo came slowly to a halt, its tires crunching on loose gravel, in front of a building so large that at first Siobhan thought they were stopping at a hotel to freshen up. She gathered up her bag, contemplating a hot shower and a likely thick towel if the facade of the building was any indication of the opulence that the interior would present.
She leaned back, way back, to take in the full details of the structure. The main impression was ‘windows’. High mullioned windows. Gleaming glass that had to take hours to keep sparkling. The windows formed the majority of the façade, set in tastefully weathered limestone that would survive the test of time. It was genuinely more glass than wall.
The place had to be cold. Either that or the heating bills were atrocious. But, Siobhan guessed, if you were going to have a four story building that looked like it spread the width of two city blocks you probably weren’t thinking “how do I heat this place”.
Kim rubbed the sleep from her eyes and stepped up next to Siobhan. “Wow. That is a gorgeous example of Renaissance-style architecture. See the square towers?” She pointed to the tower like structures that braced the center portion of the house with crenellation on their rooflines emphasizing the tower feel, then to the ones stacked behind it and the ones stacked behind that. Where Siobhan saw “looks like a castle” Kim saw “Renaissance-style”. “See there? Each of the three main floors is higher than the one below and I’m guessing the great hall is built on an axis through the center of the house. Neat.”
“So many windows,” Siobhan reflected her earlier observation.
“They would have been a sign of the owner’s wealth at the time this was built, probably around the 16th century, because glass was very expensive. Plus the heating.”
Ha! Exactly, Siobhan thought with an inner grin.
Gwen stepped out of the limo. Pressing her hands to her lower back she arched to stretch her spine. “Pretty sure that’s the best sleep I’ve had in weeks. If that chair gets ripped out and appears in my house it won’t have been me that did it. Wow. That’s a nice hotel!”
“It’s not a hotel.” Ben wandered over, hands in his jacket pockets, and stopped next to Gwen. “This is Jake’s house.”
Siobhan dropped back. Waaaah?
Patti and Prairie joined them.
“Nice hotel. Guy must have money,” Patti remarked.
“House. Nice house,” Siobhan said. “Guy must have a lot of money.”
While they were gawking at the house – HOUSE! – a curse came from the vicinity of the car they had just piled out of. The chauffeur stepped around the front and popped the hood, frowning as she poked and prodded at the mechanisms that made the car go vroom vroom.
Yes, that was Siobhan’s level of understanding of cars. Vroom vroom. She channeled the noises her kindergarteners made when pushing around matchboxes. The other thing she knew about cars was what every Magicker knew – don’t put them in one because you’ll end up with the hood up poking at things on a vehicle that won’t go vroom vroom.
Eh, they’d clearly defined the risks to Jake. He’d accepted them.
Jake strolled up to them across the insanely large, perfectly manicured lawn that bordered the u-shaped drive the limo was broken down in with Ivan and Dan trailing.
He completely ignored the limo and the chauffeur furiously trying to get the vehicle to start, indicating the house with a thrust of his chin and offering Prairie the crook of his arm. “Shall we?”
Prairie delicately lay her hand on his arm with a delighted smile. “Yes. Please. We shall.”
Ivan glowered and then followed as Jake led Prairie into his house. The remainder of the group trailed behind, with Siobhan stopping for a hot second to murmur an apology to the chauffeur who was hips deep in the engine. Hitching the strap of her bag, she hurried to catch up with the rest of the group.
What greeted them when they entered the large bronze double doors was enough to stop Siobhan’s feet for a moment. Jake had said he’d found the story in the rotunda. Guess this was a rotunda.
Siobhan craned her neck to track her gaze up, up, up, finally stopping on a fresco of a summer sky with puffy clouds, birds, and cherubs painted on the high ceiling. Wow. The room was round, hence the ‘rotunda’, with curving marble walls that were interspersed with pillars in the same material. The floor was also marble, pale grey and white tiles alternating in a checkered pattern. Their feet echoed on its surface, bouncing off the curved walls and creating a sense of infinite space in the cold room.
Kim was openly gawking. She had her hand pressed to her mouth, probably stopping back a sea of questions about the architecture and the history of the structure. Prairie, though, was all business as she released Jake’s arm after reaching the center of the room where a beautiful rosewood round table stood on gently bowed legs.
“Is this where you found the story?” Prairie trailed her fingers over the polished surface.
“Yes.”
“Okay.” Prairie smiled sweet and nodded. “I’m going to read the room now. Or,” a very small frown marred her forehead at the inaccuracy of her words, “really the Spiritis of the room. Do you know much about how my kind of Magick works?”
“No.” Jake shook his head. “Is it like a Medium thing?”
Prairie, delicate and sweet creature that she was, tightened her lips at this. How darned many times would she have to deny… No. He was new to this and couldn’t possibly understand something that she herself, a Magicker, had trouble fully explaining.
So instead of snapping she smiled. “No. Not a Medium thing. It’s going to look like I’m not doing much of anything.” She shrugged. “But hopefully this will help me figure out what happened to your wife.”
“You can see the past.”
“No,” she drew out the word and scrunched her nose. “Not exactly. It’s hard to explain.”
“I don’t need to know the how’s. If you find my wife I don’t care if you dance around with a monkey on your head.”
Giggling slightly Prairie motioned for him to step back. Then she took that single sidestep into Spiritis (that’s how she thought of it, stepping into the Spiritis). To those watching, as she’d said to Jake, it probably seemed like she wasn’t doing anything except a weird hokey-pokey but on her side… Wow. Layer upon layer upon layer upon layer – the Mandelbrot of Spiritis replicating infinitely and drawing her down, down, down into its depths. There was light here. Color. Beauty. There was also death, though for a house of such antiquity Prairie would have expected more human energy to pulse here. Instead the Spiritis was largely animal energy, the residue of lives left behind of mice, cats, dogs – so many dogs! Someone here had been a dog lover and it was clear from the warm embrace of the Spiritis that the dogs had loved them back – and even a bird or ten.
There! There in the carpet of Spiritis that rose around her feet – the best way Prairie could describe it was a field of flowers but painted by an impressionist painter who might have drank some turpentine or maybe absinthe – were clear voids similar to the ones she’d found at the pump house when searching for Nieve. They stood out like, well like ink on a watercolor, and they were *not* normal. It’s why they’d jump out at her at the pump house and they were doing so now.
She focused enough to point in the direction the footsteps lead – through a door in the side of the curved wall – and then started wandering that way with her mind about ninety-five percent drifting in the Spiritis. The others could follow or not, she wasn’t connected enough with reality to know or care though the five percent of her brain not wrapped in the cotton batting of Spiritis knew they would follow. They were good friends. She was lucky to have them.
Almost as lucky, she thought, as Jake was to have Diana whose love for him created a layer in the Spirits which was deep with a surface like a soap-bubble on which rosy-pink and lighter tones swirled and it smelled of dogwood. It was… really pretty. Until it wasn’t. Until the rosy-pink tones grew darker and redder and the soap-bubble swirl become a wash of blood. Prairie’s breath caught and her heart shuddered. There was something deeply disturbing going on and she followed its trail like a blue-tick hound on a scent.
Prairie was a country girl at heart. References like that came as naturally to her as a flea found a dog. Or a dog found a trail. Or… Oh, pretty… The wash of blood morphed, turning the sky blue of a technicolor movie musical backdrop. Nothing natural about it but Prairie often encountered things that nature didn’t dream up in the Spiritis.
Underneath it all there was a subtle fluctuation of Spirits, a pattern like a wave. Almost sound. Prairie traced her fingers through the Spiritis. She explained it to people as layers, like cellophane, but really it was more like water if water wasn’t wet or air if air had weight. It was into this depth that she sunk her fingers then gently dragged them, feeling for the vibration that was just beyond her Magick senses. It sounded… it felt… like a song.
Reaching out she engaged the five or ten percent of her still connected with The Real, hoping Patti heard the question she asked but far too removed to be able to read if she did. “Do you hear music?”
She’d check to see if Patti heard the question once she stepped free of the Spiritis. Maybe it would help. Maybe it wouldn’t. But it had been a possibility Patti and she had planned for while in the limo.
Diana’s layer of Spiritis settled into a flat blue, a blue so bright Prairie’s mind eye shied from it, a static blue where swirls should have been pulsing with the energy of Diana’s soul. Prairie’s eyes snapped open as her brain tried to process the incongruity.
“There’s something wrong here.” She said in the soft, dreamy tone she always seemed to use when she came out of the Spiritis, as if she carried a measure of its essence within her and it bled through her voice.
“I’ll say.” Dan exclaimed.
Alarmed by Dan’s tone, Prairie pushed the Spiritis down and away – it was hard to explain. She pushed some down into the core of her and the rest, which the part of her that was inside had melded with, away. And blinked. Blinked again, thinking maybe she was still seeing Spiritis.
Slowly, unsure if she wanted the answer to confirm what she was seeing or if there was a soft comfort in the opposite, that she was still seeing Spiritis Mirages and not the Mystery House. In the woods. In what looked like an area about a half mile from Jake’s house which loomed over the treetops like the Emerald City. Which was not possible because they were a two-hour drive, over a hundred miles, away.
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” she whispered to Dan who had stopped beside her.
“Yes. This is not good.”
“Why is everyone whispering?” Jake asked Ben who stood beside him, his voice carrying over the preternatural hush of the glade.
“Because that house shouldn’t be here.”
Jake frowned. “The hunting lodge?”
Ivan sidled up to them. “Jake? What are you seeing?”
“Our hunting lodge.”
“What does it look like to you?”
Now your average null, asked that kind of a question, was going to give you a look like they were wondering what you were smoking and Jake was no exception. But, he did humor Ivan.
“A building. Two stories.” His tone was tentative, drawn out like he was maybe talking to someone not quite right in the head. “Dark wood. Your standard hunting lodge.”
Because, of course, everyone knew what a hunting lodge was and what was standard about it. Your average immodestly wealthy, ‘let them eat cake’ kind of thing. Ivan doubted Jake meant to be condescending.
He probably really did think everyone had a hunting lodge or knew someone who did, that they spent leisurely weekends shooting at random wildlife during the day and drinking companionably at night. Ivan rubbed elbows with the type of people who did. He convinced them, through confidence and bravado, that he belonged with them. But at heart he was the Magicker kid that grew up running the streets with Ben, scraping to make enough money for a decent meal and sometimes ending up eating from dumpsters. Often eating from dumpsters. Often enough that he and Ben had favorite ones. He thought if someone asked him to describe a dumpster he might do so with the same indifference that Jake described a hunting lodge. Like, of course everyone knew what a dumpster looked like. And he figured if he did so to Jake he’d look at Ivan with the same lack of reference Ivan and Ben were looking at him.
Ivan turned and looked at the building which was *not* a hunting lodge. Was not dark wood and two stories. That was a cute little cottage that could have been pulled from a fairy tale with windows like eyes and a door that gaped like a mouth whispering enticements to enter.
“Is there a fence around it?” He asked Jake.
“A stone fence. We tether our horses to the rings embedded in it. See?” He pointed at the post of the picket fence. “Right there. And there.”
“Okay. So, Jake. My friends and I are going to enter here. Dan is an investigator and will take the lead. He’ll look for any signs of your wife. I need you to wait outside so you don’t obscure any tracks. Maybe you could go back to the house and grab some things your wife might need if we find her?”
“I want to be here to recover my wife.”
“And you will be, but this is Magicker business and…” he paused then calmly finished, hoping he wasn’t going to offend a very powerful man, “a null is going to be a liability if something goes wrong.”
And something always seems to go wrong, he added in his head as he assessed Jake’s response to what he’d said. When the other man stiffened Ivan started thinking of a politic way to handle any resistance but then Jake’s shoulders slumped as the reality of the situation set in.
“I’ll go back to the house and gather some servants. We’ll prepare for Diana’s return.”
“Thank you.” In Ivan’s words were his acknowledgement of how hard the decision had to be for Jake. If it was his wife… If it was… His gaze shifted to Prairie who was patting sheath with the daggers he’d given her.
He swallowed. He got it.
His heart swelled about three sizes when she looked up, caught his eye, and gave him a gentle smile. She is a competent woman, capable and strong, he counselled himself. If you pick her up and carry her away to a safe distance she might stab you. Rein that shit in.
It was just… when she was all that spooky-eyed, floaty-fairy-angel that didn’t touch the ground while chasing her Magick he got it. She was totally in her element and he didn’t have a right to step in, nor would he know what to do if he did. But when she entered a fight? His territory? Grr… Papa Bear came to the surface with roaring mouth and brandished claws.
She is not a baby bear, he ran the litany through his head as he stepped forward to stand by her side. She is a strong, capable woman who you have seen stab things a lot. She can handle herself. You have armed her as best you can so she can be that strong, capable woman. Let her be it.
Patti leaned towards Gwen. “What’s with everyone turning white and muttering things like ‘impossible’.”
“Have you ever been into the swamp to see the house there?”
“No. Too busy with work. Besides I outgrew haunted houses when I was in my teens.”
Gwen frowned and turned to look at Patti. “Why would you call it a haunted house?”
“Uh, is it some big secret? That’s what a lot of people in town call it.”
“It isn’t haunted. It’s something else. And this house right here,” she swept her hand forward to encompass the entirety of the structure and its white picket fence, “is either it or something that looks *exactly* like it.”
Siobhan sidled over. “There’s a fairly easy test. Look over the fence. What you should see growing there first is blue tansy. Its used for protection so it makes sense it grows along the fence line. Then rosemary, which is used for protection as well. Hyssop, which is used purification and also protection grows beyond that. Those three, growing in that order, should be enough to confirm that this is the same place.”
Patti wrinkled her nose. “Just because I’m a bartender doesn’t mean I know alchemy.”
“Here,” Siobhan walked up to the fence, careful not to lean too far over. They didn’t know what was going on yet and she didn’t feel like being sucked into anything until they were all ready to be sucked in. If we go we go together, she thought with a smile. “See these,” she pointed at plants with stiff green stems that branched at the top to support a multitude of small yellow poms poms. “That’s blue tansy.”
“They aren’t blue.”
“Noted.” Siobhan pointed with her pinky to the plants growing beyond the tansy. “And those plants that look a little like tiny pines? Those are rosemary.”
Patti cocked her head to look where Siobhan pointed. “I know rosemary. Tastes great on rabbit.”
Siobhan nodded. “One of the more commonly recognized herbs. It has a lot of Magickal as well as culinary uses. See the pretty purple flowers? Those are gathered as well as the leaves which most people are used to in cooking.”
“And that,” Siobhan indicated the plants beyond the rosemary, “is hyssop. The line is a little hard to tell because purple blends with purple but you’ll notice the long stalks with little tiny flowers clustered along them – they kind of look furry?”
Pausing she looked at Patti who nodded.
“Some people can mistake them for butterfly plants because they also have clusters of purple flowers that grow along stalks like that but butterfly plant flowers look like distinctive little blooms while the hyssop looks more like a fuzzy throat culture swab.”
“How do you remember all this stuff?”
“How do you remember the entire songbook of twenty composers? We all have our knowledge which isn’t really our Magick but maybe it’s a little bit of our Magick when we can retain vast encyclopedias of information that only relate to our affinity.”
“So,” Patti asked, stepping back from the fence as Siobhan did. “Same garden?”
Siobhan didn’t hesitate. “Same garden. Same house.”
Dan, who had walked the perimeter of the house, stopped beside them nodded in agreement of Siobhan’s assessment.
“What are the odds we can just enter?” Siobhan asked him.
“We won’t know until we try I guess.”
“So.” Patti poked her tongue into her cheek and lifted her brows. “We are going to enter the spooky haunted…” At Gwen’s look she changed to, “mystery house. Because its here?”
“Yes.” Dan’s nod was assured.
“Seems like a stupid reason.”
“How about we’re going to enter because a woman was kidnapped and Prairie’s Magick lead us here?”
“It’s a little better. So how does this work?”
“The first time we entered we hacked a lock that was made of candy.”
“The lock was made of candy?”
A nod.
“And you entered anyway?”
“Children were missing. It’s my job to find them. So, yes, we entered.”
“And the next time?”
Dan worked the toothpick he’d shoved into the corner of his mouth. “The candy lock was gone.”
“That seems suspect.”
Another pop of the toothpick. “There was an incident. The fact we knew the combination became known.” He slanted a glance at Ivan who slanted a glance at Ben who shrugged. What you gonna do? “When we returned the candy was gone and in its place was another kind of lock.”
Back and forth. Patti spit a question. Dan answered.
“What kind of lock?”
“A puzzle.”
“Seems like someone is playing with you.”
“Could be.”
“Did you figure it out?”
Dan’s jaw firmed. “We could have. Given time. But we didn’t have time. There were missing kids and also there are Spirits trapped in there that we met the first two times we entered. So we decided to go with another option.”
“What option?”
“Ben knew someone who said they knew something about the House but they wanted a payout for the information. We paid and got a story which apparently was Magick. Or… honestly I don’t know.” Dan shoved his hands into his hair.
“Sorry. No one read me in on the Mystery House.” Patti emphasized the first two letters like the others did.
“It’s a weird read.”
“I’m catching that.”
“It was Jack and the Beanstalk.”
“That I was read in on.”
“Then you are caught up with what we know. Except for how this house is here a long way from where we saw it last.”
“Magick?” she ventured.
He lifted his brows and cocked his head in an “eh” gesture. “That’s my guess.” He turned back to the group. “Ready to enter?”
“Ready to try.” Siobhan said even as she swung the gate open and stepped into the overgrown garden.
Enter The Woods 