Oh my, what a sadness with Vicki and Prue. Let's hope for the best that they still can save Andy, and all others!
Considering where I made everything start and where they were, it made sense to have this happen this way and that's why there's time listed, to help people keep track, if they choose to, of time left for him (or others, there is a narrower gap later).
Chapter Seventeen – Sight for the Blind
9:05 AM (12:05 PM in Duxbury)
Arielle pulled the car to a stop just outside the forest her sister had visited earlier. Addison was in no shape to go anywhere, but she’d found something and Arielle meant to find out what.
Even if the police hadn’t confiscated the rental in order to find any evidence left behind, Arielle wouldn’t have been allowed to drive it. And she wouldn’t have wanted to.
She convinced the hotel manager to lend her his car and she drove. She gave the police a wide berth as they investigated the scene. Unfortunately in order to conduct her own investigation she needed to be in the same basic area. The men Addison had found had been attacked for a reason. If Addison thought it was related to the so-called witch’s fever, then someone needed to find out what was out there.
She was deep in the woods when she came across a rundown cabin. She stopped and looked at it for several seconds. She might have continued on, but that was when she noticed a little girl looking out the broken window facing her. “Odd,” she mumbled to herself as she made her way toward the building.
She had no way of predicting what would happen next. One moment she was heading toward the small cabin, the next she was flying backward into a tree. As she lost consciousness she heard someone ask, “What just happened?”
The smell of a small stream caught and tugged at David Warren’s nostrils. A small smile tugged at his lips even as reality crashed back in on him. This time was longer, much longer than the last two times. It seemed only a matter of a couple of weeks since the attack on Sam and him and yet . . . One moment he had been fighting for his life and the next he had felt his feet wobble beneath him as if the ground had suddenly grown uneven. Sam has been on the ground a few feet away and declared that nothing looked like it had a moment before. They had spent the next day exploring the land around them. When Sam had spotted the cabin Dave had thought it would be a place to rest. Even when Sam had described it as run down, he thought so. Anything to get out of the cold.
Of course nothing had gone as they had planned. When did it ever anymore? They had headed toward the cabin and been knocked away quite soundly. Sam had been knocked unconscious, but Dave had only been knocked senseless for a moment. He’d smelled her before anything else and recognized her. She’d explained that she had decided that for them death was not good enough. She didn’t like rejection. Dave had not understood. Sam had though. When he’d woken up Elisa had explained in great detail how much rejecting her had cost Sam. Anne and Charlotte were long dead. Dave hadn’t wanted to believe her, but Sam said he would have if he had seen the look in her eyes.
She’d taken her knife to Sam and started popping the buttons on his shirt. Dave could hear them and by his brother’s complete lack of struggling he knew his brother was debating the benefits of sitting up and forcing Elisa’s knife into his chest. To Dave’s mind there were no such benefits, but he knew his brother. Sam was devastated by the loss of Charlotte. He would not react well.
It was odd. Even though he was distraught over the loss of his own wife, Dave could not contemplate death as an option to that grief.
Elisa had started scratching something into Sam’s chest and Dave had turned frantic. He could hear his brother’s screams and he could hear Elisa’s taunts. She tended to ignore him, but she seemed obsessed with his brother.
Having grown up with no magical powers Dave had learned the one thing he could do magically. He had learned spells. And so he had tried his best to ignore the sound of his brother’s screams and he had composed a spell. When he had begun casting it, he could hear the silence almost as loud as the screams had been.
Elisa had underestimated him. She would never do that, again.
That had been the first time. It had last two days and then once more the wobbling and the knowledge that far too much time had passed. They learned from Elisa’s taunts that the year was now 1897, two hundred and twenty-seven years later than it had been only three days before. Neither of them knew what Elisa had done to them, but they did a better job of avoiding her over the next three days. On the second occasion that she had caught them it had been to taunt them with what they couldn’t do. She had informed them that she would win every time and that even the powerful witches Sam’s daughter predicted would not be enough to stop this, if they ever even managed to exist. Both brothers had been intrigued by these words, but as soon as she realized it she had changed the subject. Dave hadn’t told his brother, but Elisa’s words made him think of an old story their mom had told him and Caroline before she had been murdered.
And then time had passed again. Elisa was no longer there, but they both knew she would show soon. Finding a new place to hide had been an interesting trick and Sam wondered aloud why they bothered. Elisa would find them and she would taunt them, torture them, and then time would jump, again, and they would find themselves once more in situation where they were hiding. Hundreds of years had passed. They weren’t even sure how many. Clearly whatever was going on, it hadn’t been stopped.
And then three things had changed. Given more time, they had explored more and learned that they couldn’t even leave the forest. This had lead them back in and they had once more found that cabin. They didn’t dare try going near it, again, but another man had. He’d set off the alarms Elisa had set, whatever those alarms were, and Elisa had killed him. She wanted to keep Dave and Sam alive, but this man was unimportant to her. The third thing was Sam had seen a little girl in the window of the cabin. As Sam described her to Dave a woman had joined the girl at the window and Sam had exclaimed in utter shock. Their grandfather had commission a painting done of their parents for their wedding and since Sam had no memories of either of them Sam had been obsessed with that painting for years. According to him, the woman was their mother.
Dave wasn’t sure how that could be and he wished he had his eyesight back. And then it was there. For a moment, he could see everything around him. Despite not having seen anything since he was a small boy he knew this was different. The colors were skewed and he was pretty sure he could see heat, but for that moment he could see and he looked straight into the cabin window and saw the faces of his mother and little sister staring back at him.
Then, it was gone and Dave had no idea why it had happened or how to make it happen, again.
He still wasn’t even sure what year it was.
That had been hours earlier. Now, Sam had found a young girl who had triggered the alarms. She was unconscious and there wasn’t time to revive her. Elisa had killed one man for just being there. A second set of screams an hour or so before had convinced the brothers that someone else had been attacked, but they never found a body, so they could only hope the second person had survived.
Dave carried the young girl while Sam led the way.
“Ye aren’t fooling anyone,” Sam said in a low voice.
“What?”
“I can hear you,” Sam informed him.
Dave furrowed his brow as he frowned. “I hadn’t said anything.”
“I heard you,” Sam protested, coming to a stop.
Dave almost bumped into him. If he hadn’t noticed the lack of crunching leaves and branches, he probably would have.
“Ye said you thought Elisa’s other victim might be alive,” Sam insisted. “I heard you.”
“I said nothing of the sort,” Dave informed him.
I thought it.“Ye did not,” Sam protested. “I heard you. Ye said it.”
Dave’s eyes widened. He might not be seeing anything right now, but he was stunned. “I thought it, Sam. I
thought it.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Sam protested. “I couldn’t have heard you if ye had thought it.”
And yet I did think it, Dave protested mentally, testing his theory,
just like I am right now.
Sam didn’t respond and Dave sighed. He knew he was right, so why didn’t . . .
“Ye didn’t move your lips,” Sam informed him stunned. “Are you saying I actually did read your mind?”
“That or I sent them to you,” Dave commented.
“But you don’t think so,” Sam decided. “I think we are far enough away to be safe,” Sam decided.
Dave’s eyes widened as he once more saw his brother with the off color images. He looked down at the girl, she was probably a few years younger than Sam’s wife, Charlotte, had been the last time Sam had seen her. Her clothing was decidedly odd, for she wore britches, but they were unlike any britches he had ever seen.
And considering there were little flowers and butterflies around the bottoms of the legs of her britches he could not imagine a man ever wearing them. He looked up and found his brother looking at him.
Sam’s eyes grew very wide as he seemed to realize what he was seeing. “Dave, can you see me?” It was something Sam had never once thought of. For all his thirty-three years he had never known Dave to be able to see anything and now his older brother was looking at him with sight in his eyes. It wasn’t normal sight, but it was sight all the same and Sam could tell that his brother’s eyes were focused on him.
They heard a moan and both brothers looked down at the girl they’d found.
Sam sighed. “Later, I suppose.” He walked away and started looking around.
Dave nodded. He noticed some blood seeping out of a wound on her forehead. He ripped a piece of cloth off his shirt sleeve and started wiping away the blood. Her eyes blinked open and once more Dave saw nothing. If only he could stay focused.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He jerked his hand away, startled despite having seen her eyes open just before his went blank, again. “Sam, she’s awake,” he called out in a loud whisper.
“Shh,” was Sam’s only response.
Dave grimaced. Sam must have heard something. And then he heard something, too.
“Samuel Warren, did you set off the alarm?” Elisa asked. When Sam didn’t reply, she tried something else. “I see you, Samuel. What I don’t see is your brother.”
And she couldn’t be allowed to see him. Dave wasn’t sure what she would do with him, but it was clear what she would do with the girl he was protecting. He shivered and shrank back against the bushes protecting him from view.
“I know he’s around here somewhere,” Elisa added.
Dave heard the sound of leaves moving in the direction Sam had been when he’d last seen him. He also heard the sound of footsteps as Elisa headed toward Sam.
“Do you have an active power?” he asked the girl in a desperate whisper. If she did maybe she could help his brother. Fighting against Elisa and her blade was tricky with perfect vision. Without vision was not in the least smart. When he didn’t heat a response he whispered, again. “Well?”
There was no audible response, but he thought he heard the sound of her head moving. There was a slight gasp followed by, “You’re . . .”
“. . . Blind,” he finished in a very soft whisper. “Do you?”
“No,” she whispered. “At least I don’t think so.”
He sighed. So much for that option. At least she proved he was right and she did know about magic and from the sound of her response, she probably was a witch, like he had suspected.
“David, you never leave your brother’s side,” she taunted as they heard the sound of her yanking Sam out of the hiding space. “Where are you hiding? And why? I won’t hurt you . . . much.”
“Dave, don’t listen to her,” Sam yelled as loud as he could.
Dave had the idea his brother was trying to throw Elisa off, to make her think Dave was farther away than he was. In effect, his little brother was telling him to stay hidden in stronger language than his words ever did.
“She means to . . .” Sam started and then he screamed.
Dave winced. He knew what that sound meant.
“David, come out, come out where ever you are,” Elisa’s taunting voice sounded like it was walking away from them.
“She doesn’t know you’re here,” he whispered. “She’ll keep looking for me. You have to go.”
“I can’t leave you here,” she whispered back. “We’ll get your brother and we’ll go.”
“Sam and I can’t leave the forest,” he informed her sadly. “We can never leave this forest.” When they had tried several days earlier, they had been shocked. Before that point it had been all they could do to just avoid Elisa. They hadn’t tried to leave, or at least they hadn’t gotten to the edges of the forest. And now trying to leave had proven pointless. They couldn’t do it.
“Do you know what’s going on out there?” the girl asked him in an annoyed whisper. “Do you know how many thousands are dead, how many millions are less than a week from death? And it’s centered here, in Duxbury.”
Dave stifled a moan as he heard more screams coming from his little brother. He had to get away from here. He had to get Sam away from here. He couldn’t let her keep doing this.
“I know you’re near, David,” Elisa announced with a chuckle, “so until you decide to show your face, I’m going to carve my name on your brother’s chest and he’s going to bleed and he’s going to be in pain and there’s nothing you can do to stop me unless you come out.”
Dave gulped.
Sam, if you can hear me, I’m going to attack her. I can’t let her keep at this. He had no doubt his brother wanted to object, but even if his brother could, Sam would know better than to answer.
Dave tried to focus on seeing, hoping to get the same results, but nothing happened. Something had to be allowing him to see. It wasn’t just his imagination.
Sam’s screams came less frequently, as if Sam was trying harder to keep Dave from hearing them. Dave hoped there wasn’t some other explanation, such as his brother was losing consciousness. He had to help his brother.
And then he could see, again. It was the same odd vision as before, but it was enough. “Stay quiet, but move if you can,” he whispered to the girl before he moved out of the bushes and into Elisa’s view. “Elisa?” he asked. He could see her for the moment, but he didn’t want to let on. “I’m here now. Let my brother go.” He tried not to grimace at the sight of blood on his brother and he tried not to show relief that his brother was still breathing and that as far as he could see all the wounds were shallow.
Elisa looked up at him with boredom. “Took you long enough. For a minute there, I thought you were going to let your little brother boss you around.”
Dave gulped. “I do what I think is best.”
She smiled wickedly, sure her smile was lost on him, but not caring. “Listening to me is always best.”
“I’m here for my brother, and only for my brother,” Dave informed him.
Elisa glared at him for a second, but when he didn’t instantly back away she scowled and declared in a huff, “Sometimes I wish you hadn’t gone blind.”
“Sometimes I’m glad I did,” he replied. “I’m here. Are you going to leave now?”
“What if I don’t want to?” she asked seductively.
“Ye hurt my brother,” was his simple reply. “Ye framed my pa. Ye murdered my ma. Not a chance, ever.”
“Your loss,” she huffed and stomped away.
“Not likely,” he mumbled as he dropped to his knees and covered the distance between him and his brother until he reached his brother’s side. “Sam?”
“I’m here,” Sam replied in a pained voice. “She wasn’t aiming to kill. I’ll be fine. Tisn’t that bad.”
“Ye art covered in blood,” Dave protested.
“Shallow,” Sam argued, his voice strained. “Ye can see me.”
“Ye can heareth my thoughts,” Dave returned. “I don’t knoweth what is going on, but let us get away from here. I’d rather not be where Elisa can easily find us.”
“Who is she?” the girl asked as she came out from where she had been hiding.
“Someone very evil,” Dave informed her.
She got down on her knees and found herself thankful that she didn’t feel squeamish around blood like her sister did. She started looking at Sam’s wounds.
He pulled his shirt down and pushed himself up. “I shall be fine. Elisa wished only to see us squirm and hear us scream. She doesn’t want us dead. T’would ruin her fun.” He ignored his brother’s offered hand and stood. “Let us find somewhere else to talk.”
The girl followed them in silence giving Dave a chance to consider her and what little he’d learned of her. He knew she was a witch who hadn’t come into her powers. Or at least she hadn’t found his question about powers an odd question. “What’s your name?”
She stopped and looked at him. “My name is Arielle Rooks. What is your name?”
“I’m Dave Warren,” he informed her. “This is my younger brother, Sam.”
“Warren?” she looked at them in surprise. “Are you related to Melinda Warren?”
Both brother’s froze. Sam’s eyes were wide as he stared at her. Elisa had once taunted them about Anne and Charlotte and how their beloved wives were long dead and how Anne had even remarried. Elisa had thrilled in telling them that, but what had thrilled her the most was telling Sam about the baby girl Charlotte had given birth to, the daughter who had been born, lived, and died without him ever having met her.
Arielle looked at them confused. “Was it something I said?”
“I think it would be best to get away from here before Elisa returns,” Sam suggested, wanting to get off the topic of the daughter he’d never known.
It was affective. “Why is she like that?”
Dave sighed. “I don’t know. She’s been like that as long as I’ve known her.”
Glancing at his brother, Sam added, “Dave used to telleth me that he thought Elisa was behind our ma’s death and . . .”
“And our sister’s body was found with ma’s,” Dave finished when Sam couldn’t. Despite the fact that Caroline had been dead before Sam was born, Dave found it easier to talk about what happened to her body then Sam did. “Caroline was buried at sea, but she was found with Ma. And Elizabeth said she didn’t look long dead either.”
“Elizabeth?” Arielle asked curiously.
Dave nodded. “My sister-in-law,” he explained. “She found their bodies,” he paused as a pained expression crossed his face. “I think she was twelve at the time.”
“How old were you?” Arielle asked, suddenly needing to know. The way he talked he made twelve sound old.
“Seven.”
“Seven!” Arielle gasped. “You poor thing!”
“Life’s hard,” Dave reminded her. He’d learned to take the life he’d been given. It had been harder since getting stuck here, but to him that had only been a little under two weeks. “Perhaps if we’d stayed over in England it would have gone easier, but I can’t regret it.”
Arielle looked at him surprised. “Can you not?”
Dave shook his head. “No, I’d never be who I am and I’d never have met Anne if we hadn’t. Being blind, losing my parents and my little sister, I’ve survived that. It made me who I am.” Even as he said that, it struck him that he still was able to see in the strange colors.
“Dave makes it sound easy,” Sam commented, “but verily he’s right. I don’t regret it either. My parents might feel differently.”
“When this is over, perhaps we can summon them,” Arielle suggested, “let them tell you if they have regrets.”
“Ma’s in the cabin,” Sam informed her, glancing in the direction they had come from. “Her ghost haunts it and we can’t reach her or little Caroline.” He saw nothing unusual about calling his older sister little, especially since she had died before he was even born. He sat down on the ground and stifled a moan as the pain from the cuts on his body made themselves known. “Why did thou mentionist my daughter earlier?”
“Your daughter?” Arielle asked in surprised.
Sam nodded. “When we told you our names you asked about my daughter, Melinda.”
Arielle’s eyes widened. “Melinda Warren was your daughter?!” she asked incredulously.
“I believe so,” he agreed. “The last time I saw my wife, she was expecting our firstborn.”
“You never met your child?”
Sam shook his head. “No.”
“Then, how can you be sure Melinda Warren was your daughter?” Arielle wanted to know.
“I can’t,” Sam conceded. “You can assure me though. Elisa told me Charlotte gave birth to a girl named Melinda.”
“I do not know a lot,” Arielle admitted. “My father only told me about her as much as was needed to explain who the Charmed Ones are.”
“The Charmed Ones?” Dave questioned.
Arielle smiled. She liked this story. “In 1693, shortly before her death, Melinda Warren predicted that each generation of witches in her family would grow in strength culminating in three sisters who would be known as the Charmed Ones.”
Dave chuckled and winked at his brother. “It’s always about you, isn’t it, little brother?”
“It sounds like our family, too,” Sam added. “Three sisters, of course. It started with three sisters and it ends with three sisters. My daughter’s descendants.”
“Ends?” Arielle frowned at them. “You are mistaken. Their line continues on. Their daughters and sons carry on their magical heritage.”
The two brothers turned to each other and chuckled. “Yes, perhaps,” Dave smiled at her. “It’s old family lore. There is no time for it now. Tell us more about these Charmed Ones. Perhaps they have enough power to take on Elisa and her family. Despite their numbers, the Richmonds are still only a normal family of warlocks. Sam and I appear to have suddenly come into powers, so clearly at least one prediction from our family has come true. And if I remember the stories correctly, there is a lot of power in our family right now.”
“I do not understand,” Arielle commented, looking at them confused.
“Tis all right,” he assured her. “Twas so long ago, I don’t think there are any records still around, but a very long time ago, one of our ancestors cast a rather unusual spell in order to make sure a demon was defeated eventually. Apparently that time has come.”
Sam chuckled softly. “It’s only been about four thousand years. Tis not as if this happened at the beginning of time.”
“We need to find a way to get these Charmed Ones here,” Dave told Arielle. “Do you know anyone who can blink?”
Arielle’s eyes widened. “That is a warlock power! Of course I do not.”
Dave frowned. “What are you talking about? It was Ma’s sister, Hannah’s, power. I have not seen Aunt Hannah since I was six, but I’m very certain she wasn’t a warlock.”
“I have never heard of such a thing,” Arielle admitted, surprised, “a witch who could blink. Who would have thought?”
“It’s a rare power, I admit,” Dave commented, “but I’ve never heard of a warlock who had it, so something must have changed if you say the opposite.”
“Perhaps that is true,” she admitted. “Either way I do not know anyone who can blink, but I do have a cell phone.”
The two brothers frowned, first at each other and then at her. It was Sam who asked, “What’s a cell phone?”
“Oh!” Arielle exclaimed. “You . . . of course you do not. It is a special device that allows two people to talk to each other from great distances. My sister works for one of the Charmed Ones, so hopefully I can use that to get someone to give me a phone number for them.” She cast them each a smile. “We are going to figure this out yet.”
“It sounds magical,” Sam commented.
Arielle smiled. “No, it is not magical, but if it helps to think of it that way, then you go right ahead.
This was amusing to write. At least the last parts where.
and Elisa's Victim
with Elisa's Victim
with a sick man and his two nieces
