Maeve
Cole and Misty have a beautiful suburban home in Shadowcrest. It’s always the same–always smells like freshly baked cookies and the flowers she keeps in vases all over the house. Tonight, as my toes brush the ground, and my powers funnel back into my body, it smells like… popcorn.
“You pig! You’re not going to eat all of that.” Josie’s voice, so similar to her mother’s, drifts down the hallway. I landed in the foyer, which is dark, soft moonlight drifting in through the windows and casting the stairs and framed photos of the family in silver shadows.
“If you wanted more, you should have added it to the order,” Adrian argues then yelps after a smacking sound reverberates toward me in the gloom.
“Give me one of your tacos–”
“Or what?”
“I’ll tell Mom.”
“She’s in Eastonia, dumbass. Hey!” A scuffle ensures. I have two seconds to jump into the shadow of Misty’s study just off the foyer when Cole walks down the stairs, still wearing his hospital scrubs. The sound of a shower running upstairs follows him as he lumbers into sight, looking exhausted.
He doesn’t see me lurking in the shadows as he passes within feet of my body, walking down the hallway where Adrian and Josie are apparently fighting over dinner in the kitchen.
“What’s up with you guys? You’ve been at each other’s throats all afternoon. Knock it off, okay? I miss mom just like you guys.”
“Adrian ordered me the wrong thing,” Josie snaps.
“Josie,” Cole says breathlessly, “Just order another delivery. I really don’t care. Just don’t start the movie without me, okay?”
I hold my breath as he stalks back down the hallway. I wait until he’s upstairs and his bedroom door closes before I creep into the foyer again, listening to Josie and Adrian whisper-fighting down the hall.
“I can’t wait for you to go back to Wellington,” she hisses, but then her voice changes to something bright and amicable as she places another food order.
The microwave beeps, and Adrian howls, hissing under his breath as what I assume is steaming hot popcorn is dumped into a bowl, but I’m not here to eat and watch a movie.
I look back into the study, my heart hammering. Where would she keep the book? Not out in the open, for sure. It’s the only copy left of the grimoire, The Book of Whispers, the recipes within capable of undoing the fabric of time.
My necklace glows and warms against my skin, it’s light faint as it bleeds through the fabric of my sweatshirt. “Show me where it is,” I command my powers.
I close my eyes as I move into the study, stretching out my hand. Faint whispers drift toward me in a language long lost to time. Ageless, genderless voices that mingle, hissing and chanting as my fingers brush over the spines of books, over Misty’s stationary computer, her notebooks.
I open my eyes and look up at the ceiling where the voices seem to gather, calling out to me in hushed tones.
“Fuck,” I hiss through gritted teeth and look toward the stairs.
I back into the shadows and wait what feels like an eternity for Cole to return, dressed in sweatpants and a faded T-shirt, his hair damp and swept away from his face while he presses his phone to his ear.
“They miss you, is all. They wanted to go with you to see Brie,” he says, to Misty, I presume. He turns the corner and falls out of sight.
“Please have it out in plain sight,” I whisper to myself before darting across the foyer and racing up the stairs as quietly as I can. The house has a simple layout, which works in my favor as I run into Cole and Misty’s room. Steam billows out of the ensuite bathroom, and their walk-in closet is open, offering the only light to be had in the room.
Panting, I send my powers drifting through the room, and the voices return.
I turn to the closet. “Bingo,” I smirk, tip-toeing into the snug space full of Misty’s fine, designer clothes and Cole’s less flashy shirts, white coats, and scrubs.
I dig through the drawers in their built-in dresser, clawing through rolled up socks. I leave the drawers open as I move on, snatching folded sweaters off shelves and tossing them on the floor in my haste as the voices grow louder and louder.
“Where are you?” I hiss, crouching to sift through the bottom shelves and drawers. I pull the lowest drawer of the dresser out of sheer frustration, reaching against the wall and feel… something hard.
A lockbox is fixed to the wall–built within it.
The room blurs. I forget where I am as I send my powers into the lockbox. Metal sizzles until the frame comes loose from the wall, and the little metal door falls into my hand. I toss it behind me and reach inside, praying, my fingertips grazing cash and jewelry before finding… the book.
“Yes,” I hiss, smiling deliriously as I pull the book from its hiding place, clutching the small, black leather cover and rocking back on my heels. I flip through the pages, confirming it’s the copy, the only book of its kind in existence.
This book has none of the power of its predecessor… but that’s fine. Because I do.
“What are you doing here?”
I whirl toward Cole’s voice. He’s standing a few feet away from the entrance of the closet, which is now in total disarray. He picks up his wallet off the bed, narrowing his eyes as he scans my face, then his gaze drops down to what I’m clutching in my hand. “Maeve!”
“Don’t be mad!” I shout, then disappear in a burst of crimson mist, my powers ripping all of their clothes off their hangers and sending socks and sweaters into the air. The world twists painfully, falling apart and pixelating, then rushes into view again within seconds.
My feet slam to the floor in the mirror room, where Brie and Logan are waiting right where I left them.
“I got it,” I breathe, showing them the little black book. “But Cole caught me. We have to go now.”
Brie nods but looks at Logan with a weary expression. He looks nervous, too, but not for the journey. Brie doesn’t spirit easily–it’s terribly hard on her body, her senses. Even with the herbs, this is risky, and they both know it.
“How is this going to work?” Logan asks.
I glance at the door to the room, which is closed, still locked tight and blocked from within like I left it. I lick my lips, sighing deeply to try to calm my nerves before I open the book. “I just–I just need to say the spell. That’s all I have to do.” My voice cracks as I glance at Brie and Logan, trying to swallow past the knot in my throat. I can do this. It’s just a few words–a few words that nearly brought our world to its knees twenty years ago. Words that… words that a madman said to try to flood our lands with evil.
The original book was full of magic–ancient magic. Dark and endless. It stole parts of his soul every time he said words he didn’t understand.
But I understand these words as I crack the pages–printed in neat ink on simple printer paper, not weathered, yellowing papyrus. Misty’s scribbles leave indents in pen under the printed symbols–a translation done to the best of her abilities. I have to trust her. She’s the brightest mind of the family, but if she got one single translation wrong… and I say it?
I look at the couple in front of me again, taking in the way Logan places his hand on Brie’s back. I look at her face, taking in her features like I’m memorizing them. What if I fail and we die? What if I fail, and we get separated between the realms?
We don’t have to do this. Logan could leave as planned. He’d return, months, maybe a year from now, and meet the child they still don’t know about.
But I’d watch my sister get her heart torn from her chest. I’d witness the agony of her finding out she’s pregnant with no way to tell him. I’d hold her hand while she brought her son, my nephew, into the world without her mate by her side.
I offered them this lifeline.
I cannot mess up.
I close my eyes as the warmth of my powers begins to bleed out from the moonstone around my neck. It’s a simple necklace, something I’ve worn since I was a little girl to keep most of my powers locked away. But now, I’m calling on them–calling on the ancient bloodlines, my ancestors, witches and wolves alike.
Hear me. Obey me.
The pages of the book flutter as I begin to speak in tongues–the tongue of the people who lived in an age of magic even the modern people of Eastonia can’t comprehend. An age of gods and goddesses that walked among us. An age of monsters and untapped power.
My powers surge, and my skin is suddenly chilled as I push, and push, my Firestone gifts to the limit.
My grandmother was able to pull a city from the lake.
I can do more, and my powers aren’t even mature yet. I can feel it.
“Maeve?” Brie asks, her voice trembling. “What’s happening?”
A splintering, crackling echo bounces from wall to wall. I open my eyes as wind begins to whip my hair into a frenzy. The mirror–the ancient, Shadowsynger mirror, shatters, creating a void of… nothing. Nothing and everything. The beginning and the end.
“Maeve!” Logan shouts over the chaos as my power booms and thrums. Debris skitters from the ceiling, crashing to the ground as bricks of stone begin to crack, bouncing and rolling down at our feet.
I keep saying the spell. I imagine the route in my mind. The shore of Tarsian. Further, into the sea. Into the waves and storms, but past it. Take us past it. Take this king home.
Pressure on my forearm almost snaps me out of the powerful haze. I’m so cold. I taste ice on my tongue as my powers drain, but I keep repeating the spell. I keep saying the words as my vision blurs with tears, my body choked with pain as Logan tightens his grip on my forearm, tugging Brie close, his arm locked around her waist.
My eyes are open to slits when he nods at me. “You got this. You’re doing it.”
Brie can’t catch her breath. She starts to slump over his arm, already overwhelmed by my power, and we haven’t even jumped yet. The herbs… they’ll work. I did the calculations on the dosage myself. She’ll survive.
If we survive the jump.
I strain and cry out in pain, my screech cutting the spell. I’m so close. I can feel the void forming in the mirror–the portal, but it’s taking everything I am–everything inside of me–to open it.
“MAEVE!” Logan screams over the thunderous, throbbing whirl that bursts my eardrums. “DO IT NOW!”
Blood trickles from my ears as I restart the section of the spell my scream of pain interrupted.
Hear me. Obey me.
The book flies out of my hand as the room shatters. We’re sucked into a vacuum of sound. It’s like being trapped in a boom of thunder–so loud I can’t hear my own scream when the room fades into darkness. The sound stops. The movement stops. I feel nothing–like I’m suspended in a void. I open my eyes and see… stars. Yes, stars gliding past me in streaks of gold, purple, and blue. The pressure on my body is insane. I can’t move. I can’t breathe.
It’s too much. This pain… this doesn’t feel right.
Logan and Brie… they’re not here, wherever we are.
I’m alone.
I’m alone–and I’m trapped.
The stars fade into darkness again.
The quiet kind.