Charmed: Heritage – 117 – Something In the Water

[StoryGirl83]

Jul 28, 2017 14:05:09 GMT -5 Chrisaholic said:

Ah okay, well, at least the Charmed Ones get some information and they can decide how to go if need be. To do nothing is also not helping.

Little bit by little bit they are making progress. The question is, is it enough and will they be able to save the ones the love (because clearly saving everyone is not an option).

Speaking of saving those they love, let's go back to Prue.

---

Chapter Nineteen – To the Death

9:50 AM (12:50 PM in Boston)

The sound of a tearful cry caught Prue’s attention as a nearby door slammed open and a woman ran out screaming for a doctor. Certain of what must have happened, Prue quickened her steps and her return to Andy. Much as she hated it, she was slowly accepting that she was going to lose him, again, that many in stage five didn’t even make it this long. Another four hours and it would be twelve hours since Andy went into a coma and entered stage five. No one had made it past twelve hours in stage five.

Prue saw a tall blond man exit a room in front of her with a smile on his face. He flicked something off his face that looked like blood and pursed his lips as if he was whistling. Prue frowned, wondering why no one else noticed him. He was so out of place with the happy-go-lucky look on his face surely someone would. She watched him enter a new room and closed the door behind him.

Confusion and concern pulled her to open the door to the room he’d just left and look inside, trying to learn why he was so happy. What she found horrified her.

Two beds graced the room and on each was a body. Pillows used to suffocate the two patients were still covering their faces. Thoughts raced through Prue’s mind as she slapped the nurse’s button on the wall and ran down the hall. She pushed open the door she’d seen the blond man enter and took in the scene in front of her. One patient already had a pillow covering her face.

The blond man looked up at the sound of the door opening. “Well, hello,” he greeted her pleasantly, letting go of the second pillow covering the second patent’s face. “A lovely day out there isn’t it,” he commented.

Prue ignored him and tried to send the pillow flying with a flick of her eyes. When nothing happened, she was forced to remember the strange switch of powers that had occurred and exhaled in frustration. She closed the door behind her.

“It’s rude to ignore a greeting,” he commented, still with a pleasant tone in his voice.

“You just killed three people and you’re worried about being polite?” Prue asked in disbelief.

His eyes widened. “Leave now,” he ordered, a strain in his still pleasant tone.

Prue’s eyes narrowed. “No,” she replied firmly as she took steps toward him. “You step away from the girl.”

His nostrils flare and he started fighting. “Leave. You must leave.” When she only stepped closer he began to looks panicked. “Why are you ignoring me? No one ignored me.”

“I don’t like what you’re saying,” Prue informed him. “Now, step away from her.”

The only warning Prue got of what happened next was the scrape of the door as the door knob turned. Before she could react a clipboard slammed into the back of her head. The forced of it was enough to send Prue careening into the guard.

Prue slammed her head into one of the hospital beds on the way down and fought to keep conscious.

“What’s taking so long?” the new corner, a blonde professional looking woman. “I’m getting bored with this place.”

“Not all of us are as fast as you are, Jessica,” the blond man drawled. “I ran into that woman,” he pointed down at Prue who was fighting to stay awake. “She doesn’t even seem to notice my powers.”

Jessica Michaels-Darcy looked down at Prue with disdain. “She must be a witch, Oliver.”

Prue felt the hatred rolling off of Jessica. How did Phoebe manage to avoid the massive headaches her powers must come with?

Oliver Michaels, stepped over to where Prue lay, ignoring his intended victim, the pillow falling to the ground as he bumped into it. He leaned down and spat on her. “Stupid witch. Don’t you know we always win?”

Without the use of her normal powers, Prue glanced around through squinted eyes for a weapon. Finding nothing she shot out her arms and shoved Oliver as hard as she could. She hoped he ran into something sharp.

He didn’t, but she shoved him hard enough that he rammed into Jessica. They both fell down into a heap on the floor, toppling over two chairs.

Prue scrambled to her feet and glancing around she didn’t see anything sharp anywhere. Sure, they were warlocks. Sharp objects wouldn’t kill them. Hard blunt objects wouldn’t kill them.

They would, however, slow them down and she needed that time to think. Seeing a pair of empty chairs, she heaved one up and slammed it into Jessica as the woman was trying to push Oliver off of her. The semi-heavy chair had the desire result of knocking Jessica hard enough to knock her out.

Oliver shot his leg out and hooked her around the ankle. He pulled back on his foot causing Prue to lose balance.

As Prue fell she dropped the chair and it landed first on her foot causing pain to shoot up her leg and them it contained its fall, landing on Oliver. Prue focused on her foot as Oliver shoved the chair off of him. Amazement that no one was investigating flashed through Prue’s mind as she took notice of yelling in the room next to them. She didn’t have much time to think about it when Oliver rolled over and onto his feet.

That lasted only a very short time as his knee appeared to buckle. Apparently some part of him had noticed the chair landing on him.

Still he was a warlock and warlocks tended to be very good at shaking off pain. She remembered the very first warlock she had fought with her sisters. Jeremy had been a shock to them. He’d been dating Piper since Grams had died and none of them had suspected that he was evil.

And then there was Nicholas. Jeremy had required the power of three to stop. Or at least they had used it after other things had failed. Nicholas had been harder. He’d coerced their mom into blessing a ring to protect him from their powers and his own powers had been very dangerous, almost deadly. Without a trip to the past and a spell from Grams and Mom they might not have made it.

The three of them had cast the spell together and he’d been vanquished. And when a demon had brought Jeremy back, they had conference called to get rid of him. Nicholas had been easier the second time around. He’d gotten his pound of flesh by sending her to the hospital, but she’d managed to cast the spell to vanquish him first and she’d come out the victor.

Over the decades there had been other warlocks, though not many, some requiring the power of three such as the warlock Dusty Milligan, and others who had been dealt with more easily. Usually, she’d had her sisters to help her, but here and now, she had nothing. Oh, her sisters were out there, but she couldn’t contact them from here and even if she could, she couldn’t use the power of three. If that didn’t make things tough enough, she had Phoebe’s powers rather than her own.

She didn’t know how to use Phoebe’s powers.

There was a crash followed by a crackle in the direction of the window. Prue glanced in that direction and barely had time to duck down as glass shards came at her like razor sharp knives.

---

“She can do what?!” Prue stared at her sisters in disbelief.

Piper and Paige looked at each other. Paige shrugged. “I’m not sure how else to say it. Sometimes Phoebe can use her empathy to use the powers of someone around her.

“That,” Prue informed her, recalling her own experience with empathy. “Is not. Empathy. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not empathy.”

---

And yet what she knew as empathy, the sometimes crushing feeling of others’ emotions, was definitely there. She was not meant to be an empath, that much was imminently clear to her, but in the almost two weeks since her powers had somehow been switched for Phoebe’s, she had learned to not only function, but to block all but the strongest emotions if she concentrated hard enough. And she could fade out most if they were in another room or sufficiently far away. She’d had to learn. It had been a matter of survival with everything going on during the last week.

Prue had little control over whatever part of Phoebe’s power allowed her sister to use the powers of others, but before this had started Paige had come over a few times to try and help her figure it out. The only one of Paige’s powers that she had managed to use was her ability to call objects to her, probably because it was similar to her own. A grin tugged at her lips. It looked like Oliver had a powers similar to hers as well.

Prue looked at the glass shards on the ground. As she focused on them, they lifted off the floor. She waved her arm and nothing happened. The annoyance took her focus off of them and they crashed to the ground.

Oliver looked at her surprised and then he started chuckling. Prue frowned as Oliver just started laughing harder. “You’re a freaking empath?”

Prue ignored him and focused on the glass shards. A moment later she had them floating, again. This time instead of waving her arm she tried a different tactic. She looked at the broken window while keeping focus on the shards hovering over the floor. Then, with quick flicks of her eyes she sent the glass left in the window and the shards on the ground barreling toward Oliver. “Not exactly,” she informed him as the glass hit him from two sides. “I’m the witch who’s ending you murdering spree.”

Pain poured into Oliver as glass cut through his skin on all sides. Pain alone was not enough to kill a warlock. His skin may have been cut. There may have been glass shards sticking out of his body, but warlocks didn’t bleed, so it was a rather tidy set of wounds.

Pain was enough to distract and Prue used that to her advantage. In a low voice she began to chant a spell that her sister had come up with years before. “Once a flesh and blood mortal man, undo the magic done, immortality ban. Let this warlock’s blood run free and fast. End his life and let him die at long last.”

At first nothing happened. Oliver ignored her throughout the spell as he pulled glass shards out of his body. Apparently his ability to move objects did not include objects imbedded in his body. Then he stopped as red liquid began to pour out of his body. The stunned look on his face was quickly followed by pain as, for the first time in almost four hundred years, blood flowed through his body and onto the ground.

Relief washed through Prue as she realized Paige’s spell worked. She hadn’t known if it would since the spell only worked on warlocks who were not born warlocks.

Oliver crumpled to the ground in front of her. Realizing that he was going to die, he attempted to shove her.

Prue grabbed a hold of the nearest bed to keep from falling. She steadied herself and looked down. With him dying, she needed to focus on the other warlock. Hopefully her spell had worked on her as well.

Before she could focus on her goal she was whipped across the room into the wall. The force with which she hit the wall was enough to knock her unconscious. The last thing she saw before she lost consciousness was Oliver’s bloody body.

---

Prue has Phoebe's powers right now, remember? And this is how her "empathy" worked, so I just went with it.

[Chrisaholic]

Not good for Prue and all this danger also at hospitals. I bet the warlocks know of this disease. How else would they know how to find their victims?

[StoryGirl83]

Jul 29, 2017 7:15:23 GMT -5 Chrisaholic said:

Not good for Prue and all this danger also at hospitals. I bet the warlocks know of this disease. How else would they know how to find their victims?

They created it. This is the result of the spell in the prologue. Well, one of the results anyway. So yes, the most certainly do know about it.

---

Chapter Twenty – Elisa

9:58 AM (12:58 PM in Duxbury)

"Is she coming?" Sam wanted to know as he stared at Arielle's cell phone, still a bit suspicious.

"I think so," Arielle informed them. "She said she would."

"Be patient, little brother," Dave cautioned him. "Thou are giving me a pain in my head."

"I think that would be thou's eyes, not me."

"What is wrong with his eyes?" Arielle asked, looking at the two brothers surprised.

"Did thou not hearest us earlier?" Sam asked. "Dave is blind. He lost his vision in an accident when he was a child."

"When he was a child? What about you?"

"I think I was born." Sam looked at his brother. "Was I?"

"Thou weret born on the boat before we arrived," Dave reminded him. "My accident was on land, so yes, thou weret born when I lost my sight."

A few feet from them blue-white orbs began to form into a person and pink and white hearts did the same.

The Warren brothers stared at Cilly with dropped jaws.

"Is she . . ?" Sam stared.

"She's a cupid," Dave said in disbelief.

Arielle nibbled on her lip and tried to keep from giggling.

"Cupid's are real?" Sam looked at his brother, dumbfounded.

"My dad's a cupid," Cilly told them with a smile.

"Thou art jesting with us," Dave shook his head, trying to make sense of it.

"Not at all," she assured them as she focused her attention on them. She started to smile, again, but as she looked at them, her mouth formed an "o". "I'm so sorry."

"What is the matter?" Arielle asked concerned.

Cilly shook her head. "It's nothing." She looked at the two brothers. "I'm an empath and when I looked at you, I was just washed with sadness. You must have been through a lot."

Dave gulped.

"I can't say that there 'tis much of it I recall," Sam admitted. "I was a babe when we lost our parents and not yet born when out sister died."

"Cilly, I know you want to make them feel better, but there's not a lot of time," Paige pointed out.

Cilly nodded. "Sorry. You're right."

"We're here," Paige stated, looking at Arielle. "You thought you could help."

"Our mother 'tis whom you need to talk to," Dave indicated the cabin with his chin. "I don't know how you get to her though. The talismans are magic proof."

Paige and Cilly looked beyond him to the cabin he was indicated somewhere on the other side of a bunch of trees. All they could see was the roof.

"Their mother is Rebecca Warren . . ."

Paige's head jerked as if shot to look at Arielle. "Warren?"

"Warren," Arielle nodded. "Sam is Melinda Warren's father. I believe you know who she is."

Paige stared at the two brothers stunned. "Which of you is Sam?"

Sam offered her a tentative smile. "That 'tis me."

"Oh, my word," Paige stared at him. "You're Melinda's father?"

"So I have been told," Sam sighed. "When Elisa trapped Dave and me here, my Charlotte and I had no children, but both Elisa and young Arielle here have told me that after I was gone my Charlotte gave birth to our daughter."

"My word," Paige repeated. "And Dave? That would be you?"

"It would," Dave agreed. "David Patrick Warren, son of Patrick Warren of the Westmorland Warrens and Rebecca Price of the Yorkshire Price witches." There was pride in his voice as he mentioned the parents he had lost so long ago.

"I believe I could talk to her," Sam said softly.

"How?" Paige asked with interest.

"It seems . . . This time around I seem to have come into my powers finally," Sam looked at them with a smile. "I never thought that would happen."

Paige frowned. "Well, how does that help? What's your power?"

"I read minds," Sam told her with a giddy look. "Or at least I read Dave's. Surely I could read my mother's."

Paige glanced at Cilly.

Cilly nodded.

Paige sighed. She was so tired of leads that lead nowhere. She only hoped this wasn't another such lead. "Lead the way."

They walked through the trees and stopped in front of the cabin.

Rebecca smiled through the window at them as they reached the cabin. She lifted Caroline up so that the little girl could wave at them.

Dave gulped.

“You sure you’re going to be okay?” Paige asked seeing the reaction.

“Not at all,” he admitted. “’Tis my brother with the difficult job though.”

“Isn’t there some way around this?” Cilly asked. “Sam’s no more up to this than his brother is.”

“Hey!” Sam protested. “Stay out of my head.”

“Stay out of mine,” she teased. “I’m not the only one with an intrusive power here. Can you hear anything?”

“Not in the way you mean.”

“In what way?” she asked curiously.

“There’s wind blowing, rain coming down,” he whispered. “It’s not a lot of rain, ‘tis just enough to bother. A woman’s crying . . . over a grave.” He turned abruptly to look at his brother. “This forest. That’s where our father was buried and yet where is his grave? I’ve never seen his grave.”

“Sam, we don’t have time for this,” Dave told him with a tense voice.

“’Tis important,” Sam informed him. “Ma thinks so,” he added looking through the dirty, broken window at the mother he’d never known.

Paige followed his eyes and looked at the cabin and the woman and little girl looking back at them through the broken window. "Can she hear you as well?"

"I don't think so," Sam admitted with a sigh. Looking at his brother he asked, "Doest thou know what 'tis Ma's power?"

"She could control the earth," Dave whispered, his mind going back in time to one time he had seen her use that power. "Soil, rocks, all of it. It bended, buckled, and moved to her will."

As if in response, the earth began to shake, sending all five of them to the ground.

"I think she hast decided to make her will known," Sam informed his brother with a little laugh.

The trees where the talisman hung parted and parted some more until the talisman fell to the ground, their spell broken.

"Elisa will notice this," Sam commented.

"Undoubtedly," Dave retorted.

"Who's Elisa?" Paige asked, curiously.

"The crazy woman who banished us here." Sam winced in pain at just the thought of what she had done to him.

"She is obsessed with my little brother," Dave added. "And I believe with our father before that."

"Could she be behind this?" Paige wanted to know.

Dave shook his head. "No, this is beyond her power, but it could be her idea. I wouldn't put it past her."

“That is certainly was,” Rebecca informed them as she walked out of the cabin, leading Caroline by the hand. She stopped in front of her sons with sadness in her eyes. “My darling boys. You are all grown up,” she whispered, reaching up a hand to touch Dave’s face, dropping it before she got even half way up.

As her mother focused on her oldest child Caroline dropped her hand and walked over to Sam. In a whispered voice, she said, “Thou art a big baby.”

Sam looked at her surprised.

“Mama said thou art my baby brother,” Caroline explained. “Thou art big for that.”

Sam chuckled.

Rebecca paid no mind to what her younger two were doing as she spoke to her oldest. In a choked voice she said, “I’m so very sorry. I should have been there for you.”

“How touching, Rebecca, darling,” Elisa’s hard voice said from about fifty feet away. “If you wanted to be with your boys so much, I could have arranged for that to happen.”

Paige’s eyes widened as she looked at Elisa. There was blood splattered on Elisa’s clothes. What at first looked like freckles appeared to be blood left to dry on her face. Paige shuddered.

“So you’ve heard of me,” Elisa smiled. “How sweet.”

“You aren’t wanted here,” Paige informed her.

“Doesn’t matter what you want,” Elisa shrugged. “This is all about what I want. I can practically see Patrick’s genes in you. What are you, his fifteenth great-granddaughter?”

“I’m not here to discuss my genetics with you,” Paige’s stare grew cold. “I’m here to find out how to end this.”

“It ends when I say it does,” Elisa informed her. “And I say it doesn’t end until every nonmagical being on earth is dead.”

Paige sucked in a breath.

“Nothing to say about that, I see.” She shrugged. “No matter. Like I said, this was never about you. And it never will be, but since you so kindly offered yourself as toys, I accept.”

“What?!” Paige took a step back and glared at Elisa.

“Absolutely,” Elisa grinned at her. “You didn’t think I was going to refuse did you?”

“There was nothing to refuse,” Paige informed her standing up straighter, trying to look intimidating.

“Elisa, leave them out of this,” Rebecca ordered. “They aren’t involved.”

“She’s your blood, Rebecca,” Elisa cast an annoyed look at Rebecca. “That makes her involved.” She reached into her pocket and took something out. She put her hand to her lips and blew in Rebecca’s direction. The dust chased Rebecca down and stuck to her, bundling her in a cocoon of dust.

She looked at the others. Seeing the looks of horror on their faces, she rolled her eyes. “She’s a ghost. Worrying about her is so pathetic.” She let out an exasperated sigh. “Besides, that’s just to keep her from meddling. I want to have the little b**** to watch as I kill her son.”

Dave gulped and looked at his brother. And then all eyes turned to look at the cocooned Rebecca as the dust began to peel away from her and form a circle on the ground at her feet. A wave of energy swept up from the ground crowning above her head.

She reached a tentative hand out and jerked it back as her hand hit the force field. Anger filled her gaze as she slid narrowed eyes toward Elisa.

“Let’s make this a fair playing field,” Elisa suggested, ignoring Rebecca. “No one leaves until I get what I want.”

“No deal,” Paige informed her.

“No choice,” Elisa returned as she reached into her pocket and pulled something out. She brought it to her lips and blew. Dust flew everywhere, tacking itself onto each of them. “No orbing, whitelighter. No . . . I don’t even know what you are.” She glared at Cilly. “Something is seriously off with you.”

“Says the woman who carves people up for fun,” Arielle shuddered.

Elisa looked at her confused. “And who are you?”

“No one,” Arielle backed up.

“Good,” Elisa’s expression was hard as she glared at Arielle. “Then, you can go.” She clapped her hands together and pulled something out of them, throwing it at Arielle.

It hit Arielle before anyone could react and a bubble appeared around Arielle and she started flowing up into the air.

Elisa chuckled. “She should be fine, though I really don’t care. I just want you to concentrate on entertaining me.”

“We aren’t here to entertain you,” Paige glared at her.

“Everything in this forest is here to entertain me,” Elisa corrected her. “It has been this way for over four hundred years. ‘Twill not stop today.”

“This forest was never here to amuse you, Elisa Richmond,” Rebecca informed her killer. “No event that occurred here should have ever amused anyone. This is a place of death and you have made it so.”

“Poor, poor, ugly Rebecca,” Elisa rolled her eyes at her. “I do not see what Patrick could possibly have seen in you.”

Dave’s nostrils flared. A scowl rested on Caroline’s brow. Sam closed his eyes at the sight of his older siblings’ reactions as a wave a pain hit him over the fact that for however short a time, both had known their parents. He’d been far too young to remember anything.

Rebecca shook her head as Dave’s hands made fists at his sides. Believing her son could not see her, she said, “Do not let her bait you, David.”

He heaved in a deep breath. “She insulted you.”

Rebecca shook her head. “She tries. ‘Tis unworthy of us to respond.”

Elisa snorted. “Always the little Miss Priss.” In a mocking voice she said, “’Tis unworthy of us to respond.” She opened her mouth and pointed a finger down her throat. “Gag me.”

They brought four blank stares from the four Warrens. Cilly smothered a giggle with her hand. Paige just shook her head in disbelief.

Elisa glared at them. “You think that’s funny, do you, freak? Well, maybe you think this is funny!” She reached behind her back and threw a potion bottle at Cilly.

Cilly jumped out of the way and then squealed in horror as the potion bottle exploded just behind where she had been and the ground started eroding. She gulped.

Elisa giggled. “That was fun. I hadn’t tried that one before.”

Dave glanced at his brother. We have to do something. Any ideas?

Sam shrugged. “Spell?” he mouthed.

“A spell?” Dave mumbled to himself. What kind of spell could he cast to aid this day? When nothing came to mind he began a familiar and oft said spell, “Thou aren’t oft to care of favor won.”

Sam’s eyes jerked to his and he covered his mouth to keep from laughing.

Cilly frowned at them. She couldn’t hear, but she saw the looks on their faces.

“A kind smile winst the day is done,” Dave continued. “But to this day there ist something there.”

That’s when Elisa noticed them. She spun around and glared at him. She threw a knife from behind her back at him.

Cilly’s eyes widened as she saw that the knife just appeared in Elisa’s hand.

Dave didn’t see the knife coming and Sam rammed into him, getting them both out of the way of Elisa’s knife.

“I hate that spell!” Elisa screamed. When Cilly didn’t manage to hide a giggle, she sent another knife at her, hitting her mark as the knife embedded itself in Cilly’s thigh, forcing her down.

“Well, I love it,” Sam informed her with a glare. He couldn’t afford to spare a glance at Cilly as she blacked out from the pain. “Something for which thou greatly cares. In their honor …”

“Stop that!” Elisa threw a second potion at him, but he managed to avoid it. She was getting sloppy.

“. . . Showest favor,” Dave finished his brother’s sentence. “Bestow this . . .”

Elisa spun out of the way and jabbed Dave as hard as she could with her elbow.

He went down hard, doubled over in pain.

Elisa ignored him and continued on. Her eyes searched the field for her prey. Finding Sam, she reached behind her back with both hands and sent two knives at him in rapid fire, followed only seconds later by two more.

“Knives!” Paige yelled, calling the knives to her.

Elisa scowled as the knives vanished and fell to the ground in front of Paige, but stayed silent as she plotted how to take down her next obstacle. She made a motion with her hand and the knives disappeared in a poof.

Caroline walked over to her mom and held out one tiny hand. The dust holding her mom there flew away as a gust of wind blew all around them.

Rebecca smiled at her daughter and held up a single finger to her lips.

Caroline’s toothy little grin was her only response.

Elisa turned a summersault to avoid a tree branch Paige had called toward her from behind Elisa. Then, without so much as a blink, she grabbed two knives from behind her back and stabbed them into Paige’s sides.

Cilly opened her eyes just in time to see her aunt go down. Not for the first time she wished she had paid more attention when her mom had been trying to teach her about witch magic. Never before had she so felt that she earned her name, blacking out like she did. She’d never been all that interested in being a witch, much to her mom’s disappointment, but right now she wished she had. She’d spent a lot of time with her dad, learning about being a cupid. She looked down at the ring on her finger and sighed. Now was not the time to lament the choices she had made.

Careful of her leg, she pulled herself across the field toward her aunt. She didn’t dare take the knife out not knowing what would happen if she did.

Elisa spared a glance for Cilly, before grabbing a knife from behind her back and flinging it at the ground in Cilly's path. "Stay put, or that will be closer next time," she ordered Cilly even as she made a motion with her hand and the knife vanished as the others had. "If you really want to die, I'll put you next in line."

Cilly gulped. It was no use to protest that she had to stop her aunt from bleeding to death. This woman had stabbed her. She didn't care.

Satisfied that Cilly was going to do as she said, Elisa continued her perusal. Dave was still curled up in a ball, trying to fend off the pain. Apparently she'd hurt him worse than she'd thought. A satisfied smile lit her lips until her eyes met little Caroline.

There was something about the tiny girl that did something nothing else did, it bothered her. Caroline was dead. She was no threat to Elisa. So why did Elisa get the idea she was a threat.

"Thou should be ashamed," Caroline whispered.

Her voice was so low, Elisa almost missed it.

"I know thy mama didn't teach thou better, but what of thy papa?" Caroline added. Her voice dropped even lower as she added, "My papa taught me to love people.”

There was death in Elisa's eyes as she snarled at Caroline. "You leave my Papa out of this! If you weren't already dead, I'd kill you for that."

Cilly looked up startled. What was going on?

Dave grimaced as he moved his head enough to look at Elisa and his sister. Mr. Richmond? What could Caroline possibly be talking about?

"Thy papa wasn't like this," Caroline commented. "Thou knows that, don't thou? 'Tis a sad thing."

"You go too far!" Elisa screamed. She ran at the little girl, going through her ghostly form.

Dave forced himself up, grabbing up a knife Elisa had dropped as he forced himself to ignore the pain. He ran at Elisa and stabbed down at her.

Elisa saw him just in time and instead of rolling out of the way, she made a motion with her hand and the knife was gone. His closed fist hit her in the chest, but she ignored it and pulled some dust out of her pouch. She shoved the dust in his face and he started floating up into the air.

Holding some dust still in her hand, she moved her hand round and round in a circle.

Cilly felt her mind screaming at her as Dave's terror and Elisa's rage clashed in her head. She could feel the eerie calm of little Caroline despite the girl's status of dead. Or maybe that was why Caroline was so calm. She was already dead. She didn't fear what Elisa could do to her.

Dave spun around the air in time with Elisa's fist.

Cilly felt her head screaming as the emotions rolled off of him. She was going to have to fight this and she was going to have to learn how to control this, first chance she got. There was no more shirking her training.

If only her mom was still around the train her.

Cilly wasn't the only one whose head was screaming. Dave's thoughts were going rapid fire at his brother, so much so that Sam was petrified. As if that wasn't hard enough, he had everyone else's thoughts going through his head, too. Clearly the connection was not just with his brother.

"Hey!" Caroline yelled. "Put my brother down!"

Elisa turned to glare at her, but spun her hand faster as she did. "I don't listen to you."

"You listened to your dad, though," Cilly said from behind her. "Didn't you? I felt you when she mentioned him. You loved him. What happened?"

"None of your business," Elisa screamed, stopping her spinning. Dave was still up in the air, but at least he wasn't moving.

“I get it,” Cilly added. “My dad’s not dead, at least I hope he’s not, but he’s gone. I’ve lost him and I have no idea if I can get him back.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Elisa smirked. “I suppose he’s been cursed with the rest of the mortals.”

Cilly laughed, she actually managed to laugh at that. “Well, actually, my dad’s not mortal, so I’d have to say no.”

“Not mortal?” Elisa looked at her funny. “Right, you’re the freak. What exactly is wrong with you?”

Cilly cocked her head to the side. “Nothing’s wrong with me. You?”

Elisa frowned at her. “Excuse me?”

“Nothing’s wrong with me,” Cilly repeated. “What’s wrong with you?”

Instead of answering, Elisa began spinning her fisted hand around in quick circles, Dave spinning in time with her fist, and then she flung her hand at Cilly, sending Dave slamming into Cilly. A look of satisfaction lit Elisa’s lips as she turned to face Sam.

Behind her, Cilly forced herself up once more. Wincing as she pulled the knife out of her leg, she made a run for Elisa, knife drawn.

Elisa caught the movement out of the corner of her eye and spun around, her hand going to a pouch at her side. “How many times must I tell you to stay down before you do?” she demanded to know even as she blew powder in Cilly’s face and Cilly fell to the ground. “Anyone else planning to make a move?” she asked as she scanned the area.

She knew Paige wasn’t getting up, so she flicked only the barest of glances at her. Sam was still up, but that was how she wanted it. Prey that died too quickly was no fun and she’s been playing with this prey for far too long to make the kill a quick thing.

Her eyes fell on Dave, curled up in a ball and the corners of her lips curled. She’d never been a fan of his dark locks, but he’d grown up to be a reasonable good looking man. Perhaps now that she was going to kill his brother she’d turn her attention to him. Blind or not, it mattered little in this game. The hunt wasn’t the part she’d come to enjoy most. It was the carving, the making Sam hers in a way that no one else ever would. His pain was a delight to her eyes and his screams were music to her ears.

She didn’t even bother looking at Rebecca and Caroline. Rebecca had always been beneath her notice and Caroline was worth even less than that.

The sound of a branch snapping was the only warning she got before something sharp stabbed into her side and something else, a hand maybe, wrapped around her ankle and pulled her down.

Elisa snarled as she pulled the arrowhead out of her side and rolled over in the dirt and kicked back at her attacker. She was so focused on the attack from behind, she almost didn’t see the one from in front as Sam slammed a large piece of deadwood at her head. Rolling out of the way just in time, she grimaced as the wound in her side ground into the dirt.

The Warren brothers were going to pay for this.

Elisa grabbed some powder out of one of pouches and through it behind her at Dave. With a look of pure malice on her face as she looked at Sam, she raised her hand into the air and spun Dave around, again, before slamming her closed fist as hard and fast as she could in the direction of a tree.

There was a very satisfying crunch as Dave hit the tree and this time he wasn’t getting up.

“This is getting old, Samuel,” she commented as she watched his reaction to his brother’s more obvious injuries. She was rather pleased with the results. “I don’t really want to kill your brother yet, but the next time any of them interfere I will kill whoever it is.”

“What makes you think you can?” Sam snarled at her.

“Look around you.” She ordered him. “What makes you think I can’t?”

Sam shrugged. “I’m still standing, aren’t I?”

“Easily fixed,” she growled, throwing more dust at him.

Sam tried to side step it, but dust is harder to avoid than a knife and the dust hit him, just not as directly as she had hoped. “My legs,” Sam whispered horrified as he realized he couldn’t feel his feet.

Elisa scowled. “You’re still awake.” As soon as she said the words, a smile lit her face. “You’re still awake. That means you’ll feel it when I plunge my knife into you.” A look of pure delight crossed her face. “This is going to be so much fun.”

As she advanced on him, Sam tried to backup, but his legs wouldn’t work and he fell down. Using his hands he tried to scramble away, but it was an easy thing for her to catch him.

There was a wild look of excitement as Elisa pulled out yet another knife from behind her back and advanced on him. She hesitated only slightly when the wind started to pick up, her focus fully on Sam.

And then something hit her neck at such speeds Sam couldn’t see what it was and it took her head with it. He gaped as her body fell to the ground by his feet. What had just happened? He looked around bewildered, his eyes first falling on his brother laying unconscious at the bottom of a tree. Or at least he hoped Dave was unconscious. His brother didn’t appear to have moved.

Next his eyes fell on the all too still bodies of Paige and Cilly. Even from where he was he could tell that blood continued to flow from Paige’s wounds. There were no visible wounds on Cilly other than the obviously injured leg, but whatever Elisa had done to her had left her out cold.

Still unable to feel his legs he turned to look in the direction the attack had come. Standing there was his mother and his sister. Caroline still had her little hand held out. Rebecca held her hand up above her head as if she held something between her fingers. She let her fingers relax and her arm drop.

A thud sounded behind him. He gulped as his eyes met his mother’s. “Mama?”

Rebecca reached down and pulled Caroline in her arms before looking at her youngest child. “She should have known better than to turn her back on me. A mother will give her life before she lets someone harm her child. I’m so sorry I didn’t stop her sooner.”

A grin tugged at his lips. He knew that she had saved him the day she had died, maybe even at the cost of her own life. And now she had saved him, again. Walking over to her, he reached out a hand to touch her face. When his hand went through her he sighed. “Ghost. Right.”

“It’s all right, son,” she assured him. “I love you and I don’t regret my decisions.”

“’Lisa said you had a very ‘portant daughter,” Caroline commented. “My baby brother.”

That made him chuckle. “Yes, she said the same to me. You don’t look much like a big sister.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Well, I am.”

A scream pulled Sam’s attention away from his mom and sister.

---

After this back to Prue and the aftermath of her fight with Oliver.

[Chrisaholic]

This is not good but many of all Halliwells get wounded during a fight with Elisa who really seems to be obsessed. She can't let go and now hurts half of the world, or more than this.

[StoryGirl83]

Jul 30, 2017 6:51:57 GMT -5 Chrisaholic said:

This is not good but many of all Halliwells get wounded during a fight with Elisa who really seems to be obsessed. She can't let go and now hurts half of the world, or more than this.

She's definitely a creep. We'll see the results of that battle after this chapter is done.

---

Chapter Twenty-One - Worth It

10:07 AM (11:07 PM in Boston)

The room was silent. That was the first thing Seth noticed when he appeared in the room. The sound of sobbing broke the silence and Seth turned toward the sound.

A dark haired girl knelt on the side of a bed, tears streaming down her face. A second dark haired girl was at her side, hugging her from behind.

“There’s still time,” the second girl’s whispered voice reached Seth. “He’s not dead yet. Mom said . . .”

“Mom’s not doing anything,” the other girl protested with a sob. “I get it. I do. It took me hours to get through the door and even then Faith had to practically shove me through it, but nothing can get done if no one does anything.”

“Things are getting done,” Seth informed them revealed his presence. When the sisters looked at him startled he added, “Pat and Vicki Trudeau, I presume.”

Pat leveled a look at him as she stood. “Do I know you?”

He shook his head. “No, we’ve not met. I know most of your family though. Aunt Paige sent me to update your mom on the situation. Do you know where I can find her?”

“Aunt Paige?” Vicki asked with a sniff. “When’d she send you?”

“About fifteen minutes ago,” he decided after a moment’s hesitation. “I filled Aunt Piper and Uncle Leo in first.”

“Then how’d you get here so fast?” Vicki asked at the same time Pat asked, “Aunt? Uncle? Are you related to us?”

Seth shook his head with a slight smile. “It’s honorary. You aunts helped my dad reunite with me after my manticore mother was . . . gone, which also answers how I got here so fast. I shimmered.”

“You’re a demon?” Pat asked startled, pulling Vicki to her feet and behind her.

“Raised by my human dad with my human brother and my dad’s human girlfriend,” Seth informed them, his eyes narrowing to slits. “Your cousin, Wyatt, is my best friend. Enough of this. My name is Seth Silberman and I need to talk to your mom.”

Pat relaxed all of a sudden and she let go of her sister’s arm. “You’re Seth,” she said with a little bit of wonder. “Melinda mentioned you.”

“In less than glowing terms I’m sure,” he scoffed.

Pat’s lips twitched. “Well, yes, but she did say you were good.”

“Will you help me find your mom then?”

Vicki walked out from behind her sister and grabbed up Prue’s purse from the night stand. She started rummaging through it."

“I would, but I’m not sure where she is,” Pat admitted. “She should have been back by now."

Behind her Vicki pulled out a scrying crystal and a brochure. Ignoring them, she started unfolding the brochure.

“She hasn’t been leaving this room unless she has to,” Pat added.

“My dad’s the same way,” Seth agreed. “My brother’s only stage three, but when stage three means you have about two days to live . . .”

“Yeah, I know,” she agreed quickly with a gulp. “I want out of Boston when this is over. Too many are dead.”

“Found her!” Vicki announced.

The other two looked at her startled.

Seth was the first to find his tongue. “How?” While he’d heard of scrying, it wasn’t something he’d seen a lot of and she’d already returned the crystal to her mom’s purse.

“Where?” was Pat’s question.

Vicki ignored Seth’s question and pointed to a room on the map in the brochure. “Here.”

“I’m on it,” Seth informed them heading toward the door.

“We’re coming, too,” Pat insisted, grabbing his arms.

Seth turned and looked at them. “Can you fight?”

“Why would we need to?” Pat countered.

“I don’t think your mom would let doctor’s hold her up for very long,” Seth announced. “There are two warlocks on the loose and maybe she met up with them. Or maybe they’ll come here, in which case someone needs to stay here. Can you fight?”

Pat stared at him for several seconds. “Vicki, stay here.”

“But . . . but,” Vicki protested.

“Stay here,” Pat repeated. “Your powers may not be much help here, but you can cast spells which is more than I can do. Mom doesn’t know him. If she’s in some sort of trouble, she’ll shoot first and ask questions later. He doesn’t need that.”

Vicki heaved in a huge breath. “Stay here? Alone? I could barely get in the door and you want me to stay here alone? What if dad dies? What if you aren’t here and Mom’s not here and dad dies?”

“I’m sorry,” Pat told her sister as she gave her a hug. “We just have to hope that doesn’t happen. Be brave.”

Vicki gulped and heaved in another breath. “I’ll try.”

“If you’re coming, then come,” Seth called from the doorway. “I understand why you are hesitant to leave her, but we don’t know what’s happening with your mom, so we need to go.”

As soon as they got into the hall they noticed how empty it seemed. They headed down the hall in the direction Vicki had indicated. There was a single nurse at the nurse’s station. When they started past her she held up her palm.

Seth frowned.

“Sorry, no one but staff down that way,” she told him.

Seth’s frowned deepened. He looked down the hallway in the direction they had been headed. Seeing a dozen or more people coming in and out of a room close to the one Vicki had pointed out her sighed and turned a smile at the nurse. “Of course. Thank you for your time. My . . . cousin and I will be on our way then.”

Pat frowned at him startled. “What . . ?”

Seth grabbed her arm and pulled her along the corridor. Once they had rounded a corner he let go. “We can’t rouse suspicion. There’s another way.”

“My mom’s down there,” Pat reminded him. “What are you thinking?”

“Did you see how many people where down there? We weren’t getting into the room your sister pointed out even if it wasn’t the one they were focused on which it may well be.”

“Then, how?”

Seth sighed. “It depends on if they are in the room your mom’s in or not. Can you find out?”

“What?” Pat looked at him startled.

“Your sister pointed out a room, 421. I couldn’t see the room number from where we were standing, but maybe you could. I bet you could come up with some reason for standing there at the nurse’s station for long enough to trying and get a good angle to read the number on the doors.”

“Or we could count,” Pat suggested.

He snorted. “Or we could do that. I didn’t do that when we were in that hall.”

“Well, we know it happened after mom left the room, because if it didn’t then she wouldn’t be down that hall.” She groaned. “Do you think it’s mom?”

“I honestly don’t know,” he admitted.

“Right,” Pat said, deciding something unsaid. “I’ll see what I can do.” She walked back around the corner and up to the nurse’s station. She stopped in front of the nurse and leaned up against the counter. When the nurse looked up she flashed her an unhappy smile. “I was wondering, can you give me some information about a patient?” She wasn’t sure what name to say, but she’d think of something.

“Are you a relative?”

Pat shook her head and glanced down the hall. She saw a familiar woman walk out of the busy room sobbing and gulped. “Classmate. Her name is Casey Rigby. I’m new to the area and she’s been really nice to me since I arrived. She was diagnosed just before they shut down the schools.”

The nurse shook her head. “Sorry, only relatives. That’s the rule.”

“Can’t you tell me anything?” Pat pleaded. “I understand that it’s against the rules, but my dad got sick a few hours before she did and he’s stage five, so I’m worried about her.”

The nurse glared at her. “I said no information,” she reminded Pat even as she typed in the info into the computer. Her eyes widened, her lips formed an “O”, and then her eyes softened. “I’m terribly sorry.” She glanced back toward the crowd and Pat knew she was right.

“What’s the matter?” Pat pressed, having to hear it both to know and to see if she could get the room number. “What happened to Casey?” She hated that this was at Casey’s expense, but there was nothing she could do to help Casey now.

"I'm sorry about your friend," the nurse hedged as she looked at Pat with sad eyes.

Pat frowned. Casey hadn’t actually been her friend, but she’d liked the older girl.

“She was in room 425 down the hall, but you won’t be able to go down that way.” The nurse shook her head. “I’m sorry. This is really hard. This job is never easy, but until this last week or so there was the joy of seeing someone recover.”

“I don’t understand how she could be dead,” Pat heaved in a deep breath. “She started showing symptoms after me dad and he’s bad, but he’s not dead.”

The nurse bit her lip, but she didn’t say anything else.

Pat sighed and walked back to Seth.

He was leaning against a wall with his eyes closed. His eyes snapped open as she approached.

“Tired?”

“No time to be tired,” he replied paraphrasing what his best friend had told him earlier. “Did you learn anything?”

“More than I wanted to know,” Pat admitted. “The room everyone’s hovering around belonged to a girl I know. Room 425. She’s dead.” Tears shimmered in her eyes as she said the last.

Seth was at a loss for words. Finally, he spoke, saying only, “I’m sorry.”

Pat blinked away tears. “I barely knew her, but she was nice to me and there haven’t been a whole lot of people willing to let the new girl in.”

Still not sure how to respond, Seth stayed quiet.

Pat heaved in a few breaths. “We’d better get going. We know they aren’t in the room Mom’s in and she might need us.”

He nodded. “Come here then,” he directed her, pulling her into a hug. As soon as he had her safely tucked into his arms he glanced around and shimmered out of there.

Pat’s eyes slid shut, intensifying the unfamiliar feeling in spades. When she opened them everything was dark. “Were are we?” she whispered as she tried to adjust to the dark.

“Shh,” Seth warned back from an uncertain location to her right. After a moment he added, “Stay here,” and pushed open a door revealing them to be in a hospital room bathroom.

“You don’t seem like much,” a voice informed Prue through the haze of pain. Bitterness laced her voice as she added, “so how did you take down my brother like that?”

Prue tried not to give away that she was awake as she looked up through her lashes.

“A lone witch,” the voice spat out. “You’d think a four-hundred-year-old warlock could manage a single stupid witch and yet clearly there is more to you than meets the eyes.” There was a pause and then, “So what do I do with you. You’re abilities are rather useless to me, since they are rather ordinary abilities.”

Cold fingers touched Prue’s neck and yanked her into a premonition.

A young girl was dressed in a plain black gown with a white apron. She clung to the skirt of a woman who bore a resemblance to Jessica. The girl looked up at the woman and at the paper the woman was examining. In thin black letters were the words, “Blood of the offspring flows as a flood. Death begins anew, cloaked within a hood. Water drinkable only by the magical few. Death’s cold lips kiss the untrue. Time flows on and the poison spread. Until the whole mortal world lies dead. This offering I give as my appeal. With a witch’s death seal this deal.”

Prue gasped as she came out of the premonition.

Jessica let out a little thrill. “Premonitions. Now, that’s more like it.”

Knowing the game was up, Prue opened her eyes. She was just fast enough to see Jessica lift up an atheme and then that atheme disappear with a blur.

“What in the underworld was that?” Jessica swirled about.

Prue kicked out her legs and Jessica fell hard onto the floor. Prue looked across the room at where a young man with lightish brown hair looked down at the atheme in his hands.

He looked up, as if he sensed Prue’s eyes on him. “Looks like your mom didn’t really need our help,” he commented in the direction of the hospital room bathroom.

“Are you sure she’s out?” Pat’s voice asked from inside the bathroom. “I’d rather not get in the way.”

Prue frowned. “For the moment. Pat, who is this?”

Pat peaked her head out of the bathroom. “That’s Seth. Melinda mentioned him, remember. He’s Wyatt’s friend.”

“Aunt Paige sent me,” Seth offered. “She wanted me to catch you up on what’s going on.”

Prue stared down at Jessica and groaned. she couldn't do it, not when Jessica was out cold. She'd made Jessica mortal, the blood flowing out of the wound in Jessica's head was proof of that, but now she felt her conscience prick at the thought of killing her while she was unconscious.

"Mom, are you okay?"

Prue turned startled to look at her older daughter and the young man with her, the unfamiliar young man who has stopped Jessica from landing a killing blow before Prue could regain her feet. "Who are you?"

"Mom?" Pat stepped back startled.

"Not you, Pat," Prue assured her daughter. "Him."

"Seth Silberman," he replied easily. "I'm a good friend of your nephew, Wyatt."

"A fast friend of his," Prue commented with raised eyebrow.

Seth shrugged. "We shared a playpen when we first met and on frequent visits after that. As we grew older we played together a lot and he orbed us places. I'm here because Aunt Paige asked me to fill you and Piper in on what's going on."

"Aunt Paige?" Prue frowned at him. "Are you related to Henry?"

Seth waved it off. "Honorary title."

Prue nodded. Though she hadn't met him before, she'd heard enough from her sisters about him to not be too worried once she knew his name.

"What's the message?"

"First, there is a way to counter this that has been used before," he informed her pacing the room. "We should really get out of here."

Prue stared down at Oliver and Jessica, one dead, one likely to tell the story with her own slant when she woke. Jessica needed to be dealt with, but Prue couldn't kill her, not like this. She turned to look at Seth. "I know you didn't come through the door, so how'd you come in?"

Seth blinked in surprise. “I . . . uh . . . I shimmered.”

"Good. I can use that."

Seth's eyes widened. "You can?"

She nodded. "I don't know if she can blink or not. It's rare, but it happens and she did run in here, so I'm not sure. I don't have time or the ingredients to make a stripping potion, so I need a string. I'll bind her powers and then have you drop her off somewhere she can't get out of. It's only temporary, but it should buy me enough time to get this," she grimaced at the bed with the dead girl, "dealt with."

"I know a place I can lock her up where she can't blink out of." He gave her a wry look. "I'm just not sure if I can get out."

"How do you normally get out?" Prue wanted to know, her curiosity roused.

"It's left locked and I think Chris has the key," Seth shrugged as he examined the two bodies and tried to figure out what to do with Jessica.

Prue frowned. "Just where is this place?"

"The back-room at P3."

"P3?" Prue gaped at him. "Why does it have an anti-teleportation spell on it?"

Seth shrugged. "I've never asked, but I know Aunt Piper lets Chris keep the key so I'll have to get the key from him."

Prue nodded. "Get Pat and me back to Andy's room before you take her. And be careful. I don't know if she can blink, but she threw me across the room without touching me."

Seth glanced over at where Jessica lay. "Can do."

"And be fast," Prue urged him. "I don't know why they aren't here yet, but they're going to hear this." Before Seth could respond, she squinted her eyes and flung Oliver's dead body out the broken hospital window.

Startled, Seth didn't react as the crinkling of the glass brought shouts from the hall.

"Get us out of her," Prue demanded in a whisper.

Seth started and grabbed Pat. "Hide in the bathroom," he whispered back as he pulled Pat down next to Jessica's prone body. "I'll be back he assured her as he shimmered out with Pat and Jessica.

Not having time to argue as the voices came closer to the door Prue started moving. None of what they were saying registered as Prue slipped into the bathroom. She started to reach for the door when the outer door opened. Pulling her arm back in, Prue slipped into the darkness.

A faint sound was the only warning Prue got before she was grabbed from behind. The air around her distorted. The darkness of the bathroom turned to the light of Andy's hospital room and slowly the distorted image cleared.

Seth let go of her and stepped away.

Prue looked around. Pat was up against the wall looking at Jessica wearily. Vicki was huddled up in the chair next to Andy's bed with her knees hugged in her arms. "Seth, deal with her first, then return and deliver Paige's message."

He nodded and squatted down next to Jessica. In a shimmer of distorted air he was gone.

[Chrisaholic]

My, oh my. Always getting to know more new guys and so on. All realities are not good for anyone at the moment. I'm certainly lost here, again. lol

[StoryGirl83]

Aug 8, 2017 12:50:38 GMT -5 Chrisaholic said:

My, oh my. Always getting to know more new guys and so on. All realities are not good for anyone at the moment. I'm certainly lost here, again. lol

I'm trying to give you little bits at a time, but maybe that's not the best way to handle it. Oh, well. For now back to Paige, et al and the aftermath of the fight with Elisa.

---

Chapter Twenty-Two – Headless Bodies and Healing Hands

10:11 AM (1:11 PM in Duxbury)

Arielle stood at the edge of the clearing, twigs in her hair and tears in her clothes. Her gaze was firmly on Elisa’s headless body. “She has no head.” Arielle stated, horrified.

Sam relaxed. That was all she was reacting to. He looked down at Elisa as he picked himself up, but his eyes didn’t stop on her. He looked horrified as well as his eyes stopped on the bleeding body of his brother as the events of the last few minutes set in.

How could he be so focused on his long dead mother and sister that he didn’t pay any attention to his hopefully still living older brother? As soon as he reached his brother’s side, he started checking for signs of life.

“What happened here?” Arielle asked as she walked into the clearing and looked around.

“She liked knives,” Caroline announced.

Arielle gulped.

“This,” Rebecca informed Arielle as she made her way to her sons, “was her not trying to kill anyone other than my younger son.”

“This is trying not to kill?” Arielle asked in disbelief.

“No, this is not trying to kill,” Rebecca corrected. “There is a difference.”

“Who cares what the difference is,” Arielle argued. “The point is they are dead.”

“No,” Sam told her, looking up from his brother. “Dave’s alive. And the girl ‘tis only asleep. Or at least I think she is. Thou should attempt to wake her while I try to bandage my brother’s wounds.”

“Why not just call a whitelighter?” Arielle asked bewildered as she walked hesitantly to where Paige and Cilly lay. “I would, but my whitelighter has not been heading my calls.”

“Mama, what is she talking about?” Sam asked as he looked across the field at his mother.

Arielle groaned. “I suppose that explains that. If only Paige was awake, she could help.” She almost tripped as a thought formed in her head. “She is not, but . . .” She didn’t finish the thought as she began digging in her pocket. She pulled out a cell phone and punched some buttons.

A sound caught her attention and she groaned as she realized Paige had her phone in her pocket. She sighed and sped walked over to Paige. Once there she stooped down and dug into her pocket, pulling out Paige’s phone. She opened it and unlocked it. Thank goodness there wasn’t a password. “Call . . .” She froze. Call who? “Hank!” she exclaimed. Paige’s son, Hank, was in her grade. They didn’t go to the same school, but she had met him a few times at school functions. “Call Hank,” she repeated and waited for the phone to ring.

---

Alanna let go of Hank as soon as they were fully materialized and she spun around to glare at him. “How on earth do you get lost orbing across town?! How on earth do you get lost orbing period?”

Before Hank could answer his phone rang and he held up a finger as he used the other hand to dig into his pocket and pull out his phone. Seeing the number on the other end he smiled. “Everything all right, Mom?”

“This is not your mom,” Arielle informed him. “Please do not freak out on me. I need you to listen. Your mother needs help and she is not the only one.”

“What do you mean?” Hank asked, glancing at his sister who was still glaring at him.

“She is need of a whitelighter and fast,” Arielle told him. “Do you know how to contact one? I know that your mother can heal. Can you or either of your sisters or any of your cousins?”

Hank gulped. “I’m coming.” He didn’t wait for instructions as he shut the phone and turned his attention to his sister. “Stay here. I'll be back as soon as I can.”

Alanna did not seem pleased by this. “I can talk to Dad myself. I don't need your help.”

“Stay here,” Hank repeated, his voice growing steely.

“But I can . . .”

“Alanna Samantha Mitchell, just stay here,” Hank ordered her. “Wait until I get back.”

Alanna glared at him, her eyes narrowing as she said, “Henry Wallace Mitchell, Jr., you are not my boss. I am your older sister and you will –”

“Mom’s hurt,” Hank told her reluctantly. “Stay here.”

Alanna stared at him shocked. “What?!”

Hank didn’t answer. He didn’t have an answer. Instead he just orbed out of there. There would be time for answers when he got back.

---

Arielle closed her phone. “He is coming.”

“Who’s coming?” Sam wanted to know. “How can he help?”

“’He is her son,” she told him pointing at Paige.

Sam raised a surprised eyebrow. “And how exactly . . .” He stopped mid question as blue-white orbs swirled around and formed into Hank. “Oh.”

“You are here,” Arielle said, trying to get Hank’s attention.

Not even the sound of her voice registered with Hank as his eyes zoned in on his mom and he ran to her side. He dropped to his knees next to her and held his hands over her, begging his powers to work. He’d rarely had need for this power, but now it was imperative that it work.

He sighed in relief as a gold glow covered his hands and her wounds began to heal.

Sam was momentarily frozen as he watched Paige’s wounds seem to heal from nothing more than glowing hands. A moan of pain from his brother caught his attention and both relieved some of his fear and reminded him that whatever this boy was doing to Paige, he needed him to do to Dave. “My brother,” he pleaded. “Help Dave, please.”

Hank was so focused, he didn’t notice.

Arielle put a hand on his shoulder. “You can get back to your mother. She is not the only one in need of help.”

It was enough to get his attention. He looked around and the first thing he saw was Cilly.

Arielle held tight on his shoulder when he made a move toward her. “She will be fine for a bit more. A little sleeping powder and the one wound in her leg is all that is wrong with her.” She used her hands to direct his attention toward Dave. “We are not sure how badly he is hurt. He was thrown into the tree. He was bleeding and unconscious before he hit the ground. I am worried about him.”

Hank heaved in a deep breath, but he did as she directed and headed over to where Dave lay. Getting down on his knees, again, he held his hands over the most obvious of Dave’s wounds, his head and jumped back as if burned. “What on earth?!”

Everyone snapped to attention.

“What’s wrong with my brother?” Sam asked full of concern.

“Nothing, nothing,” Hank looked at Dave with determination. “Don’t worry about it,” he said before he held his hands over Dave waited for the gold glow. He ignored the relief he felt as the glow appeared and he ignored the feeling of electricity coursing through his body as Dave’s wounds slowly healed. Frustration was getting to him almost as much as the electricity. The wound was taking too long to heal.

That’s when the grass caught fire.

Wind appeared out of nowhere and just like that the fire was smothered by a tiny funnel of wind. Forcing himself to ignore it, he focused on Dave. It was so difficult to keep his hands there, but he did until Dave’s eyes fluttered open. Finally, he could breathe a sigh of relief. He stood and brushed himself off as he looked around. He smiled as he saw his mother standing there watching.

“What are you doing here?”

“What does it look like?” he grinned. “I’m playing doctor since you couldn’t. Cilly?”

“Cilly’s got a headache,” his cousin announced, “but otherwise I’m fine. Your mom took care of my leg.”

“You woke her?”

“Elisa talks too much when she brags,” an unfamiliar woman’s voice told him.

He didn’t look for the voice as he took in the rip in Cilly’s jeans. What had happened here?

“She dost love to brag,” Sam commented.

Looking around, Hank found that other than the familiar looking wild child in ripped designer jeans, everyone seemed to be all right. At least it was until he looked down. Just a few feet from where he knelt on the ground was a headless body. He felt a chill fun through his body as he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off it. “Mom? Since when do we behead people?”

He couldn’t see his mom’s face as she frowned and followed his eyes, but he could almost hear her reaction in her voice as she spotted the headless body. “Oh.”

“Mom?” This time he did look at her.

She gave him a little half smile. “I don’t know how she got like that, but she is the reason for my injuries and Dave’s and everything else you see here.”

An uneasy feeling flooded his body. “One person did all this damage?”

“More or less,” his cousin mumbled. “I think we managed at least a little of it.”

“I don’t mean the broken tree branches,” he informed her. “I mean the damage to all of you.”

“’Tis common enough for her,” the unfamiliar woman informed him.

Looking across the field this time, he spotted someone he hadn’t before. A young woman in her mid to late twenties, wearing what appeared to be Puritan garb stood there with a small girl of maybe three or four at her side.

“She was trained from a young age and she has had a very long time to train.”

With a frown he continued to look at her. “Who are you anyway? You’re not from around here.”

“Actually, I am from exactly around here,” she told him with a smile. “My home was perhaps one hundred fathoms from here, perhaps a little further.”

Fathoms? Hank shook his head hard. I’ll look it up later. “Fine, fine. You’re from around here. Who are you?”

A smile lit her lips for some reason and she replied, “I am Rebecca Warren. I am the mother of those two strapping young men standing by you and the beautiful girl here with me.”

His gaze switching between mother and sons, Hank’s confusion only grew. “How old are you?”

“Hank!” his mom sounded horrified. “You never ask a lady her age.”

Cilly laughed, not giving him a chance to reply. “Hank, remember that entry in the Book that you found about Patrick Warren?”

If she wanted instant attention she sure had found a way to get it. The four Warrens looked at her with different levels of surprise and interest.

Cilly ignored. “This is his family.”

“Them?” He looked around. “But the entry said they were dead.”

“Mama is,” Dave offered. “And so ist Caroline.”

“He’s not a ghost?”

Sam sighed. “It seems thou should take them at their word even if thou wilt not take us at ours.”

“Calm down, Son,” Rebecca lifted Caroline up into her arms and headed toward her sons. “Thou must admit, it is a rather incredible thing we ask him to believe.”

Dave smiled at that. “If thou wishes for something incredible, I can provide something most incredible for you.” He walked over to his mother and sister and got to where he was face to face with his little sister, he touched a finger to the air right in front of her face, and in a whispered voice that was still loud enough for Hank and everyone else to hear, he said, “I see you.”

Rebecca gasped. There was a catch in her voice as she exclaimed, “Oh, my lord!”

Looking at his mother confused, he asked, “What’s with her?”

Paige shook her head, just as confused.

“He is blind,” Arielle told them. When the only response she got was blank stares and frowns, she added, “He cannot see. Do you not get it? He cannot see, but he can see her. He can see his sister.”

That got reactions. It was Cilly’s reaction that got the most attention though. She laughed.

It was a laugh of delight and discovery, but it was a laugh all the same and garnered a pretty annoyed look from Sam. “’Tis not funny.”

She smiled. “I know. It’s wonderful. How did you get your vision back?”

Dave shrugged. “I don’t know. It sometimes comes and goes, but it always seems to come back. Of course, it has only been today that it started.” He looked at his mom and with the most childish glee on his face he said, “I think I might have come into my powers, Mama.”

“Hey!”

“Sam, too,” Dave grinned at his little brother.

Rebecca covered her mouth with her free hand as another gasp escaped her lips. “Then . . ?”

Dave shrugged. “Probably, but I’m not going to worry about that.”

For some reason Rebecca’s eyes went to Hank. “Do you think . . ?”

“I have no idea,” Dave replied before repeating, “but I’m not going to worry about that. Sam seemed to think you wanted to find Papa’s grave. Why?”

A smile curved Rebecca’s lips, before it was replaced with a frown. “Patrick told me ‘twas Elisa who he suspected was behind his being framed and I believe he would have tried to watch her. If he was watching her, he’d know what happened that night all those years ago when I died.”

“So why don’t we just summon him?”

Hank found himself nodding to his mom’s question.

Rebecca did not nod. She shook her head sadly. “I tired that, but something prevented him from coming. Sometimes if you go to their grave there is a stronger link.”

Paige frowned. “Why have I never heard that before?”

Rebecca shrugged. “The old magic is sometimes lost as time goes on. Thou would do well to learn it, if thou hast not already.”

He had to keep himself from chuckling at the scowl on his mother’s face. His cousin was not so successful at hiding her mirth which meant his mother’s glare was not aimed at him.

“’Twas not meant as an insult,” Rebecca tried to assure her. “It is a common thing. My mother once told my sister and myself about one of our ancestors and I felt humiliated, for the magic my mother described was beyond what I could even imagine, let alone reenact. It was enough to convince both myself and my sister, Hannah, to practice our craft even more.” Her head dropped down and her chest heaved as she added, “I wonder what happened to her after we left for Plymouth colony.”

“Plymouth colony,” Paige mouthed in surprise. Then, she shook her head and said, “I forgot that you were from the colonial days. Though I certainly shouldn’t have.”

“Colonial days?” Rebecca queried at her. “No, do not tell me. Elisa told me far more than I ever desired to know. Her tauntings the last time were of a war in which a country became and of another war in which that country nearly broke itself in two. And in both wars she said that the blood of my blood was spilled and in the first on both sides as she said my brother’s descendants fought on one side and my own descendents on the other.”

Her two sons looked at each other, distress in their eyes.

Dave heaved in a deep breath and looked at his mother. “Mama, obviously Sam and I art gone from our time and it could not be either of us fighting in this war you speak of and I have no offspring, so this cannot be an offspring of mine you speak of, but Sam’s only child ist a daughter. When is this war?”

Rebecca sighed. “I know not. I imagine they know, but perhaps it is best not to ask.”

Arielle exhaled and kicked at the dirt at her feet. “Yes, we do know.”

Cilly gave her a look. “And, yes, she’s right. We shouldn’t be talking about it.”

“What could it hurt?”

“I don’t know, but can you prove it won’t?”

Arielle frowned. After several seconds she sighed. “Fine. I will not say anything.”

Hank rolled his eyes at them. “The country, in case any of you are wondering is called the United States of America. The first war was against England in a successful attempt to gain our independence, which I would imagine is why your brother’s descendants fought in it, if they are still in England.”

“Hank!”

He shook his head. “This is ridiculous. They don’t know what year this is. They don’t what years those wars were fought. They’ve never heard of the people involved in them seeing as those people weren’t anywhere close to born when they lived. Regardless of what Cilly or the other girl thinks, knowing that is not going to hurt anything.”

His mother just shook her head at him. “It still is probably not a good idea.”

"Are we going to argue this? Or are we going to find out if my Patrick can help us?"

"Lead on."

Hank grinned at Cilly.

She grinned back and shook in silent laughter.

“Mom?”

Paige and Rebecca both looked at Hank, Rebecca smiling and looking back to her own children when she realized that it was not one of her sons speaking.

“I really need to get back to ‘Lanna. She’ll be worried about you and we still need to talk to Dad and see what’s going on with his boss.”

Paige pulled him to her and pressed a kiss on his forehead. “Be careful.”

He swiped his hand across his forehead and nodded. “I will. I love you, Mom.” Without waiting for an answer he disappeared in blue-white orbs.

---

The next couple of chapters do stick with this batch for a bit. They have some things to do and someone to talk to.

[Chrisaholic]

Confusion everywhere with all relations hanging around and with time travel (or not)! Still, no wonder when there's headache alert.

[StoryGirl83]

Aug 8, 2017 13:15:37 GMT -5 Chrisaholic said:

Confusion everywhere with all relations hanging around and with time travel (or not)! Still, no wonder when there's headache alert.

There are a lot of relatives in this one. As of the last chapter of this story I have written, there is no time travel involved in this story (other than people who were removed from time when the curse wasn't in effect).

---

Chapter Twenty-Three – Paint Brushes and Candles

10:27 AM (1:27 PM in Duxbury)

Dragging his eyes away from the strange mode of transportation, Sam turned to look at his mother. "Where is it, though?" He’d grown up knowing that this woman, his mother, had most likely given her life protecting him, and he’d grown up knowing only what little Dave could remember about their father, because Kirkland had known almost nothing. Now, he had the chance, no matter how small, to get to know both of them a little. He wanted to see his father soon, and that meant finding his tombstone, something he’d never been able to do before.

Rebecca stopped her steps and looked at her youngest child. "Don't you know?"

He shook his head. "No, Mama. I've never seen Papa's grave." He’s tried on more than one occasion to find it, but he’d never been successful.

Rebecca sighed and, without stopping to explain, she began to chant, "Take that which is hidden, bring it near. As we have bidden, visions clear."

All around them things changed. Trees withered and died. Healthy green grass turned first to brown and then to dirt. A small stone path lead out in front of them, stopping at a rickety wooden fence. There was a gate, but it was open. And inside . . . inside stones appeared and wooden crosses, markers.

"This has been here all along?" Dave asked in wonder.

"Why was it hidden?" Sam wanted desperately to know.

A sad look crossed her face as she faced her sons. "It started because Elisa tried ruin one of the graves. ‘Twas a boy she used to play with and apparently she blamed him for dying and thought ruining his grave would make him want to ‘wake up’ or so she claimed.”

“Excuse me,” Paige interrupted. When everyone looked at her, she said, “I hate to do this, but we really have to keep going. Every minute is more dead.”

Arielle gulped and nodded. “More chances that Mother could become infected,” she whispered.

“You’re mother is mortal?” Cilly asked.

Arielle nodded. “Dad is the witch of the two.”

“Cilly?”

Cilly heaved in a deep breath. “Later, we’ll talk.”

Arielle shook her head. “I do not think that will be happening. My sister wishes anonymity and if I can, I intend to give it to her.”

Deciding to ignore them, Paige looked over at Rebecca.

In response Rebecca looked down at the grave at her feet and got down on her knees. “Sorry. On my way back to town I came across the Richmonds preparing for their sacrifice. Me it seems.” She looked up at them and asked, “We’re going to need some supplies if we are going to make this work. A broom and candles, thirteen of them. Art thou able to get these?”

“Candles,” Paige mumbled, sounding amused. “Of course candles.” She disappeared in the same manner that her son had.

Shaking his head, Sam looked over at his mom.

Arielle was standing next to her, digging into her pocket. To his surprise, she pulled a small paintbrush out of her pocket. “Will a paintbrush do in place of a broom?”

Rebecca looked at the paintbrush and smiled. “Yes, I do believe that will do. ‘Twill be a bit more time consuming, but it should still work.”

“I could go home and see if we have a broom somewhere in out house,” Cilly offered. “I’m not sure we do, but it’s possible.”

“Why wouldn’t you have a broom at your home?” Rebecca asked.

Cilly wrinkled her nose. “We have more efficient ways to clean.”

“There are more important uses for brooms,” Rebecca assured her. “The broom is used to sweep evil from your path.”

“I can do that,” Arielle announced as she got on her knees next to Rebecca. “Where do I start? Dad says that there is a way of magic and we must do it properly or not at all.”

“And is he right,” Rebecca told her with a smile. “There are times when doing anything even doing it wrong is better then doing nothing, but it is very likely that it not only won’t work, but it will cause problems or its own. Do you know which way is east?”

“Huh?” Arielle looked around at the forest surrounding them. “I am not sure.”

Sam looked up through the trees at the sky. The sun was pretty high up in the sky which definitely didn’t help much. “’Tis midday, isn’t it?”

Arielle considered the sky, but didn’t say anything at first. “The hotel was that way,” she told them as she pointed away from them. “And if I remember right, the forest is east of town, so that means east is that way.”

“Very well,” Rebecca said. “I will need you to start sweeping on that side of the grave and sweep toward the west. Never sweep back, just east to west. Pick up your broom and start, again.”

“I can do that,” Arielle repeated as she began to do what Rebecca had directed her to do.

A sound behind him, had Sam looking around to see Paige reappearing with a brown bag made out of something that looked like paper in her arms.

“I’ve got candles,” Paige announced as she put the bag down. “Where do you want them?”

“Eeee!”

They looked back at Arielle who was staring at the brush in her hand. “It is sparking.”

“’Tis what is supposed to happen,” Rebecca told her with a smile. “It is sweeping away the evil. That means that your paint brush works in place of a broom.”

“Oh, good.” Arielle tentatively swept at the ground, again. “I was a little concerned that the sparking meant I messed it all up.”

“You did just fine,” Rebecca assured her. “Now, Paige, if you would put those in a circle around the grave, we can begin.”

Paige got to work putting the candles into a circle. Cilly and Arielle helped her and quickly the candles were set up. That’s when Paige pulled out what looked like a strange, red gun and started shooting fire out of it at the candles, lighting their wicks. Sam found himself watching, fascinated.

Once all the candles where lit Rebecca stood and walked over to stand in front of her husband’s tombstone, outside the circle of candles. “Everyone stand in a circle, including you Arielle.”

Arielle looked at her in surprised. “Why specify me?”

“You are the only one here who is not related to my Patrick,” Rebecca reminded her. “Which is why I want you to cast the spell.”

“Mother?” Dave asked, sounding confused as he stopped walking to his place near the grave and looked at her. “Won’t that weaken the magic?”

Rebecca smiled. “Not in this case. I believe that the spell that prevents me from reaching him is sealed with my blood, mine and Caroline’s, so having someone who is not of our blood is likely to work better instead of worse.”

“Come on Davie, let’s find Papa,” Caroline grabbed his hand and looked up at him with a smile.

Davie grinned down at his little sister. “I think I like that plan.”

With her older two children occupied Rebecca turned her attention to Arielle and asked. “Do you know the spell to summon a spirit?”

Arielle nodded. “Shall we begin?” she asked as everyone found their place in the circle. When no one responded she began to chant. “Hear these words, hear my cry, spirit from the other side. Come to us, we summon Thee, cross now the Great Divide. Beloved spirit, Patrick, we seek your guidance, we ask that you commune with us and move among us.”

Wind rushed around them, pulling their attention to and fro. It blew around in a circle, putting out the candles one by one until all thirteen had been extinguished.

“Hello, my love.”

[Chrisaholic]

Very interesting. More relatives but hopefully with some information for them. Would be nice to have some success soon.

[StoryGirl83]

Aug 9, 2017 11:31:49 GMT -5 Chrisaholic said:

Very interesting. More relatives but hopefully with some information for them. Would be nice to have some success soon.

Forgot that the story follows Hank when he leaves in the last scene, but they do find someone in this chapter who knows a lot, certainly not everything, but a lot. The question is, will this person be helpful or harmful.

---

Chapter Twenty-Four - Simon Says

10:29 AM

Hank pushed open the doors into the office where his dad and the other parole officers worked. The first thing he noticed was that despite the rest of the building being nearly empty, this room was nearly full. He'd known that. His dad had told him that very few people had gotten sick, but knowing and seeing were two different things.

Behind him, Alanna's eyes widened as she too took in the room.

"Did you need something?" a wary eyed officer asked them.

Hank gulped. It sounded like they had been busy despite the fact that a lot of people where in the hospitals or at least staying home.

"We're just looking for our dad," Alanna told them. "Henry Mitchell. Is he around?"

The officer's eyes brightened at that. "Yeah, Henry's in the boss' office, but I'm sure he can be with you in a bit. They've been in there for a while, so I'm sure they will be out soon."

"Dad'll want to see us," Alanna insisted. "Think we can go over there and knock on the glass, see if he can come out or if we can come in?"

The officer frowned. Finally, he shrugged. "Nothing's normal these days. I guess no one's going to really protest that one."

"Thanks!" she grinned at him and hurried toward the office.

Hank shrugged and offered the officer an apologetic look. "That's my big sister for you," he grinned. "Thanks." He followed his sister across the office to where the glass walled office of their dad's boss stood. Her stopped next to Alanna who had already caught the attention of the lone occupant of the room they didn't know. He recognized him only vaguely as his dad's new boss. The man had been with the department for all of three years, but considering the tenure of some of the other officers there, they was short enough to be considered new.

---

"Are these yours, Henry?" Henry's boss, Deputy Chief Simon Richmond, asked him as the two teens filed into the room.

"My older daughter, Alanna," Henry told him, "and my son, Hank." He indicated each in turn. “This is my boss, Deputy Chief Richmond.”

“Simon, please,” he told them as he stood to shake their hands. “I make your dad and the men under me call me by my title, but their families are off the hook for that.”

"Hello, Sir," the teens said in unison. Alanna smothered a giggle.

"Such polite children," Simon commented.

Henry gave them speculative looks. "I'm not sure when that happened. Although Alanna gives me hope that my kids are in their somewhere."

"If you're not careful, kids will grow up while you're not looking." There was a look of regret in his eyes as he said that.

"Yes," Henry agreed with little feeling, "but since yesterday? It hardly seems likely."

"True," his boss chuckled. "So what brings you children here? Everything okay at home?"

"Hardly," Alanna retorted, sparing a thought for her mother who was barely keeping everyone busy and probably trying not to think about what would happen if they failed. She thought about her cousins, who one way or another were all in danger of losing one or both parents. She thought of all the people she knew who were sick and everyone who had already died. No, nothing was okay.

"Nothing new though," Hank was quick to assure his dad as a a look of worry flooded Henry's face.

"Andy's still hanging on?" Henry asked. He'd only met Andy a few times over the last three months, but it had been nice to have some one else in law enforcement to talk to when visiting with Paige's new sister. And he knew how important this man was to all three of Paige's sisters.

"Last we heard," was all Hank could offer.

"Mom would let us know if Aunt Prue called," Alanna announced confidently.

"Who's Andy?" Simon asked him, more than curiosity glinting in his eyes. Something else shimmered there. Something rather like hope.

It was Alanna who answered and she didn't notice anything up. "Our uncle. He's stage five."

Simon gulped. "I'm sorry to hear that." He looked a little green.

"Everyone's sorry," Alanna retorted, feeling annoyed at the oft repeated words. Sorry helped no one. "Everyone's sorry, but no one does anything. No one knows how to fix it." Sarcasm dripped in her voice as she asked, "Do you?"

"I might," was the soft reply.

"Huh?" Hank stared at him dumbfounded.

"You might?" Alanna repeated dumbly before catching herself and asked, "Then, why haven't you told anyone?"

"I did," he informed her, his face relaxing visibly. Decades seemed to ease off his face with those two works, making Alanna wonder how old he was. "I did," he repeated, "but she couldn't fix it, only delay it."

A thousand questions ran through her head. When had this been delayed? She couldn't help but think of James Bowen's insistence that the last time this had happened had been in 1897 or Josias' assurance that this had happened first in 1637. Delayed when? Could he possibly mean 1897 or even farther back. It mattered little enough compared to another question. "So why not tell someone else?"

There was silence for several seconds before he finally answered. "My cousin made it rather difficult for me."

"You're afraid of your cousin?" she asked in disbelief. This was no time to be afraid.

"A little," he admitted, "but that's not why."

"Why don't you just explain?" she demanded, frustrated.

"Because you're not asking the right questions," he shot back, just as frustrated.

"If you know the answers, why does it matter?" she asked confused and more than a little annoyed.

His face distorted into something like disgust. "Because on this topic, I can only answer the questions you ask."

Realization flooded Hank and in a calm voice he cut into the conversation. "Your cousin's a witch?"

"Not in the least," came the reply, but there was relief in the voice. "She's a warlock."

Hank raised his eyebrows in surprise, thought he didn't know why it surprised him. It made sense. "She cast some sort of spell on you?" He suspected he even knew what kind of spell that was, too.

Henry's boss nodded. "And on my sister, yes."

"Your sister?" Alanna felt as if the conversation had just veered into some unknown direction.

He nodded. "My sister and I are twins. Our mother was expecting us when this all started. She found out about our father's involvement and she ran."

"Your father was involved?" Hank's eyes widened. He glanced over at his own father, mystified. He couldn't imagine being at odds with his dad to the degree he suspected this man was with his father.

"William Richmond was to my mother's estimation the best of Willamina Richmond's children," he told them. "He had his faults, but nothing that bothered my mother so much that is gave her pause about marrying him. Well, nothing beyond the fact that he was Elisa Richmond's older brother. That would give almost anyone pause."

Hank dug into his pocket and pulled out a small notepad and a pen. He then proceeded to ignored them all.

"Elisa?" Alanna looked at him confused. "Why is that?"

Simon gave her a rather sad look. "Aunt Elisa is the kind of person who would kick an injured puppy to amuse herself when the puppy squealed. She was never a particularly kind person even in pretend. Mother once told me that she believe Elisa set up a man to die because he rejected her advanced."

Alanna shuttered. "Why do you . . ?"

"Wait," Hank interrupted. He pushed the notepad in front of Simon. "Does this look familiar?"

Simon took the notepad and read what was written on it. "Familiar, but not quite right."

"How do I correct it?" Hank asked. Hours spent leaning spells he could no longer cast with his Aunt Phoebe had taught him that every word counted.

Simon frowned and thought back two hundred and sixty years to when the spell had first been cast on him.

---

"You call yourself a Richmond," Hannah Talmont spat out as she glared at Simon. "You are a disgrace to the family name."

"I think not," Simon told her. "Our grandfather is highly disappointed in the lot of you and it's his line where the name Richmond comes from."

Hannah rolled her eyes at him. "Fine. You're not a disgrace to the weak name of Richmond. You're a disgrace to the proud Black line of warlocks."

"No such think," Simon informed her. "There's nairy a Black that turned warlock until our grandmother and she's not a Black anymore."

"You are impossible," Hannah scowled at him.

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"Well, it's not," she snapped back. "I'm not letting you ruin this."

---

That's when she had cast the spell that had changed his life forever. Looking back at the spell Hank had written on the page, Simon grabbed the offered pen and started crossing some things off and adding other things. Less than a minute later he handed the spell back to Hank. "I don't know how this helps, but this is it."

Hank took back the notepad and pen and asked, "And what is the name of the person who cast this?"

"Hannah," he said at once. "It was Talmont at the time, but I think she's married, again. Thirteen witches cast a spell to turn fifteen witches into warlocks and kill off the nonmagical world. There are a great deal more of us now."

Hank gulped, but said nothing as he went back to his writing.

"How is it you can tell me that?" Alanna asked. "Without being directly asked, I mean?"

"I guess it doesn't help fix this to know who cast the original spell or why?" His look was grim as he added, "I wasn't there and neither was my mother, so I know little enough of what happened there. My mother was quite certain that Rebecca Warren was the one killed for the sacrifice because she was Patrick Warren's wife."

Hank looked at his sister surprise. "Patrick Warren. Remember he was in the entry in the Book I read."

Simon's eyes widened in surprise. "Your Book of Shadows has something about this in it?"

Hank shook his head. "Just something about Patrick Warren."

"What on earth for?" Simon asked confused. "Patrick Warren has little enough significance even in this . . ."

"Except perhaps to his granddaughter," Hank suggested.

"Granddaughter?" Simon laughed a little. "I hardly think you are Patrick's granddaughter."

"No," Hank agreed, "but Melinda Warren was and she's the one who started our Book of Shadows." He handed the notepad to Alanna. "Cast this, would you?"

Alanna looked down at it. "Are you sure?"

He nodded. "It should work."

Alanna looked at Simon. "Is that okay with you?"

Simon shrugged. "It can't make things worse, but why doesn't he cast it, himself?"

"I can't," Hank admitted with a little difficulty. "I lost the ability to cast spells almost three months ago."

Simon winced. "Do you know how?"

"I have my suspicions," Hank admitted, "but I'd prefer not to discuss them."

"Fair enough," Simon agreed. "Cast away, Miss Mitchell."

Alanna inhaled and slowly read the spell on the paper in her hands. "Words stolen by Hannah's spell, allow them flow easy and well. Gifted the chance to confess what thou will without querying pass."

"Anything?" Hank looked at him questioningly.

"Two years before Hannah cast the spell on me, which was in 1767 if you are interested, I learned from a witch living in Duxbury who was on her deathbed that her ancestor had cast a spell one-hundred-and-twenty-eight years prior to stop the spread of the curse."

"One-hundred-and-twenty-eight years prior," Hank repeated. "That would be when this started, right?"

Simon nodded. "About six months prior to my birth and that of my sister."

"So that makes you three-hundred-and-eighty-nine-years-old," Alanna looked at him in awe.

"And six months," Simon agreed. "Suzannah Williams told me the spell her ancestor had written to stop the curse and of the terrible consequences of using it."

Alanna looked at him apprehensively. "What happened?"

"Any one affected by it whether they showed symptoms or not, died instantly," Simon told them with a shiver. "There was one family where all three children survived. And do you know why those three children survived when their parents did not and when most families either all survived or all perished?"

The two Mitchell kids shook their heads.

"Their parents had been watching David Warren, so when Samuel appeared alone in the middle of town and then Elizabeth found Rebecca and Caroline's bodies, their parents sent the children away from town to someplace they believed safe. I know not where. Where ever it was they returned a week later with the two Warren boys alive, but orphaned. As best they could tell those who survived had not needed to draw water or in one case an illness in the family had kept everyone in the house."

“We know that it comes from the water,” Hank told him. “Or at least we had a pretty good idea of it. What was done to the water?”

Simon sighed. “I’m not sure. As I said, I wasn’t there.”

“And no one that was will talk to us,” Alanna scowled.

“Not entirely true,” Hank commented. “I just got to meet Rebecca Warren and her three children. She’s talking to our mom right now.”

“Where is your mom?” Henry asked, concerned.

“In Duxbury. The young woman who was behind the twitter account warning people off of the water had apparently asked her to come so they could talk.” He grimaced. “It didn’t go so well. They got into a fight with a woman. I believe Rebecca mentioned the name Elisa. You mentioned her, too, didn’t you?”

Simon nodded, looking at him concerned. “Elisa attacked them? Then, they are lucky to be alive. My aunt is not held back by any scruples.”

“Well, she has no head now, but she did a lot of damage,” Hank told him. “How close were you?”

Simon shook his head. “Oh, I didn’t know her. We never even met. I just have heard about her. My cousin, Charles, contacted me a few decades ago and she came up in conversation and my sister, Rachel, has attempted to form some sort of relationship a time or two. She hates Elisa, something about Elisa killing Rachel’s soul mate . . . twice.”

“They don’t get along then?”

“My family?” He let out a small laugh. “No, they hate each other. There is no room for love where evil abounds. Rumor has it that my grandmother murdered her husband in cold blood and Charles told me that his mother killed his father. It’s the reason he doesn’t have any contact with her, hasn’t since he was a young man. Hannah and Deb work well together, but don’t confuse that for affection let alone love. And their father’s insane, almost as much as Elisa. He’s very dangerous. Aunt Marie is obsessed with her son, Oliver, but I think she forgets she has two daughters as well. Of course Miriam and Jessica are no less obsessed with him. Jessica hero worships him and Miriam sees it as her job protect him no matter what. I’ve never met most of them and I’m not interested in changing that.”

“And your father?”

He shrugged. “I really wouldn’t know. I’ve never met him.”

That had both teens looking at him with wide eyes.

“You’ve never met your dad?”

“My father never saw the point in coming to see me,” Simon informed him. “Even Rachel came to see me a few times over the last four centuries, but never him. Sarah and I are better off without him anyway.”

“Sarah?”

“My twin sister.” He smiled with genuine affection at that. “Ma raised the two of us on her own. We didn’t even know anything about our father for decades. Well, almost nothing. She did tells us that his name was William Richmond and that he wasn’t a good person, but we didn’t know about magic or why Ma thought he was a bad person. Although, I’m not really sure Ma knew much about magic in the first place, so that may have been why she didn’t tell us.” He touched his finger to his desk it started trembling, not much. “Finding that was a bit of a shock. It works a whole lot better if I touch the ground directly.”

“You can cause earthquakes?” Alanna gaped at him. “That’s pretty impressive.”

“Not really,” he corrected her. “It’s not my power. I guess when that cast that spell and killed your ancestor, it was supposed to part her with her powers as well, but something funny happened. She kept them and the redistribution of her powers and those of her daughter that was supposed to go to one of my less than likable relatives went to Sarah and myself. Sarah controls the wind, something we have learned Caroline Warren could do.”

“She could control the wind?”

Simon was still for a moment. “Sometimes. Since these aren’t our powers and they were gotten by rather strange means and they are literally still held by the real owners, it’s an iffy thing. If they ever moved on, I think we’d have full control of them, but it’s just as likely that we would simply lose them all together.”

“What do you mean, if they moved on?”

“Well, they haven’t,” Hank informed his older sister. “I met both of them when I was helping mom.”

“But how does this help us?” Alanna asked, ignoring her brother. “How can we end this, actually end it, not postpone it?”

“All I know for sure is that certain numbers have more power in them and thirteen’s pretty hard to beat.” He held up a finger and shook his head. “No, actually, I might have something else.” He slowly began to wave his hand in a clockwise circle over his desk. “Protect these words. Keep them true. Protect these lives. Keep them safe.”

Hank looked over at his sister, clearly confused.

Simon smiled. “Trust me, it’s a real spell.” He opened the top drawer of his desk and started looking through the papers. After a minute, he came up with what he wanted and pulled it out. Upon confirming that it actually still had the words he expected to see on it, he held it out to Alanna. “Take this. I believe it will be of more use to then I am.”

Alanna took the paper from him and looked at it. As she read it, her eyes began to widen. “But this . . . I thought there was nothing written left.”

Simon grinned. “I may not know them very personally, but I know my family very well. After nearly four hundred years, I’d better. I started casting spells on everything I wrote after the first time I met Uncle George. He doesn’t believe in reading.”

“Doesn’t believe in it?”

He shook his head. “No. I mean that in the sense that he believes it should be banned and not in the sense that he doesn’t believe it is possible or that he doesn’t on a rare occasion read. I’m afraid I never had very much written about this, but I wrote that after my conversation with Suzannah and it is possible that something there may be of use. She told me a lot. I don’t know if she knew how to stop this, but she believed she did. She couldn’t do it, but you’re Rebecca Warren’s descendants. Her blood flows through you. I think you and your family are the best chance at fixing this. It began when my family killed yours. It will end between our families as well. I don’t know the details, but Rachel once told me that the day before this started our father had a premonition of just how this will end. He knows. I doubt he’ll share it with you, but he does know how this will end. Maybe between what Suzannah told me and that you can find out, too.”

He could see the wheels working in the siblings eyes and he smiled. For the first time in a long time, he didn’t feel panic gripping him at the thought of what his father and the rest of his family did all those years ago. This time he felt hope.

---

The next chapter goes back to Paige and every seeking Patrick Warren.

[Chrisaholic]

So, that explains why Henry's boss seemed to know about the upcoming danger with this disease. He was involved and hopefully could now help the family. Would be nice to see some hope.

[StoryGirl83]

Aug 10, 2017 8:20:53 GMT -5 Chrisaholic said:

So, that explains why Henry's boss seemed to know about the upcoming danger with this disease. He was involved and hopefully could now help the family. Would be nice to see some hope.

Yep. It does indeed.

---

Chapter Twenty-Five - The Weak Link


Flashback


With Young Rachel, Young Miriam, Young Elizabeth, Mr. Kensington, Kirkland

10:33 AM (1:33 PM in Duxbury)

The deep voice caused everyone to start and spin around or look up passed the circle, everyone except Rebecca. A smile curved her lips as she turned around to greet her husband. “Patrick.”

“I cannot stay long,” he warned her, his ghostly eyes appearing not to see anyone except his wife, not even his three children. “Although you have weakened it, the spell around this place and around you will not allow me to remain more than a few minutes.”

“Papa?”

Sam’s query caught his father’s attention. “Samuel?”

Arielle felt like laughing at the pleased look on Sam’s face.

“I hate to do this,” Paige interrupted, “but more people are getting affected every minute and more people are dying all the time. We’ll figure out how to get you two back together after we stop this. Do you know what’s going on?”

Patrick’s expression turned solemn as he looked at her and nodded.

“Can you tell us anything useful? How to stop this? How this started?”

He was silent for several moments and then nodded. “Perhaps. After my death, I could not contact my wife in anyway and although I could move on, I feared what Elisa would do next, so I followed her.”

“That sounds creepy,” Cilly commented. “She didn’t strike me as very sane.”

Patrick shook his head. “No, I would not say that she was. I had to keep a distance since her spell only prevented my family from seeing me. It did not prevent other witches from seeing me and they most definitely were witches.”

---

"No! Absolutely not!"

Patrick saw Elisa frown as she approached the clearing. Apparently even she was affected by the fury and vehemence in her older brother's voice. He wondered what had angered William Richmond.

"I will not participate in this, Mother," William snarled.

Since he knew where Elisa was going and didn't need to watch her very closely at the moment, Patrick moved on ahead of Elisa. There was something nice about being able to move through matter, but he would have gladly given it up to be alive, again, to be with his wife and sons.

The first thing he saw when he entered the clearing was a rickety old house, one he hadn't seen before despite having been around much of the forest. Perhaps, he simply hadn't been around enough, but surely no one had lived here in Duxbury long enough to have abandoned a house that long.

The second thing he saw was William, furiously glaring at his mother "Goodwoman" Richmond. How could he miss William, when it was William he sought?

But his eyes didn't stay on William for more than a moment, for the third thing he saw, the thing he realized was causing William's anger, was a body, a tiny body dressed in a dress made of familiar cloth. Knowing they could see him, he couldn't get too close, but a horrible thought flooded him as he stared at the dress. It wasn’t possible. It simply wasn’t possible.

“That child is barely older than Rachel. She can’t be older than Deborah or Jessica at the very most.” William looked across clearing at his younger brother, George. “George, doest thou really wish to involve your daughters in this?” His eyes caught those of his older sister, Goody Michaels. “Doest thou really mean to use your children for this?”

“I want immortality, William,” Goody Michaels snapped at him. “This will give us that. And it will give our children that as well. Thou should think on that, brother.”

William shook his head. “No. No, this crosses the line, Marie. I will not participating in this. I will not involve myself in a ceremony that sacrifices the blood of babies and that forces babies to involve themselves.”

Patrick was a little stunned when William turned around and headed toward town, toward Patrick.

“Stop!” Goody Richmond yelled. “Come back here.”

Stopping, William turned around and looked at his mother. “I said no.” Only half of his face was visible to Patrick with the way he was standing, but it was pretty clear that he was furious. “I’m out of this. If this is what you want, then forget it, Mother. I don’t care how much you think you need her, Rachel is just a baby. You are not using my daughter in this.”

“We need her,” his mother informed him, a cold steel threading through her voice. She softened her tone as she added, “She needs only repeat a few words, but we won’t have enough people to cast this spell without her.”

“Says Marie.” William glared at his sister.

“Says me,” Goody Richmond snarled, drawing his attention back to her. “There is more power in spells cast in certain numbers. Without her there are only twelve of us. Without you it drops down to eleven. We need thirteen to make this work.”

“I don’t think you get it,” William snapped. “I. Saw. Us. Die. Cast a smaller spell. My daughter won’t be involved in this.”

Patrick wondered what had actually happened in this vision of Williams. Death was not something to be courted, but it didn’t usually create this reaction. And if immortality was what they sought, then how was the seeking of it going to get them killed?

“’Tis such a shame,” his mother scoffed. “Thou thinks this a game.”

“I know ‘tis not a game, mother,” William reminded her, “but I don’t want my daughter involved. I won’t let her be the victim of what I saw.”

“Do please be still,” his mother growled at him. “Just heed my will.”

Patrick blinked in surprise. If he wasn’t mistaken, she was casting a spell on her son and he didn’t even notice it.

“Mother?” William asked confused. He may not have noticed it, but her words made no sense to him.

“Allow me to be heard,” Goody Richmond continued, “and lend us Rachel’s word.”

“Of course, Mother,” William agreed, his voice suddenly calm and relaxed. “I will need to get her.”

“No need,” his mother assured him as she looked toward the opening to the woods. “Louisa has brought her.”

Patrick looked toward where Goody Richmond was looking and say Goody Chambers entering the clearing with her young son, Charles.

Holding on to Charles’ hand was little Rachel Richmond. She was sucking on her thumb and looking up at her cousin.

As they entered the clearing Charles looked at his mother confused. “Ma, why is there a girl lying on that table?”

Goody Chambers smiled down at her son. “Never you mind that, Charles. We have a very special spell to cast and I want you to do something for me.”

“Rachel,” William called to his daughter. “Come here.”

The little girl dropped Charles’ hand and ran to her father. “Papa, Mama sick.” She slapped her hands to her chest and made a gagging face followed by a couple of very fake coughs.

A giggle from Goody Michaels’ oldest, Miriam, caught a glare from Rachel who wrapped her arms around William and waited to be picked up.

“Sick,” Rachel repeated once she was up in William’s arms.

“Enough of that,” Goody Richmond called as she approached Miriam. “Miriam, be a dear and hold these for your mother.”

“Yes, Grandmama,” Miriam looked down at the basket Goody Richmond held out to her. “Flowers, Grandmama?”

“For the ceremony. You’re mother explained it to you?”

The girl nodded quickly. “Oliver, Jessica, and I want to help.”

“Very good.”

As Goody Richmond busied herself and her offspring with various tasks, Patrick carefully made his way around the edge of the clearing, trying get a better view of the girl on the alter. There was little doubt in his mind what he would find if he could get close enough, but that little doubt was enough to keep him moving.

He didn’t know how long he tried, but nothing seemed to work. When everything in the clearing seemed to still and tension suddenly rose to the point where he noticed it, he began to fill with his own apprehension.

“’Tis time to begin,” Goody Richmond announced to her children. “She has arrived on her own.”

The breath Patrick no longer had tugged at his chest as he realized exactly what she meant. He didn’t have to look to know she was there, but look he did and his heart plummeted. Not only was his Rebecca there, but in her arms was their defenseless baby son.

Rebecca clearly understood there was danger, for she started to move away. She didn’t get far before she fell to the ground causing him to desperately wish to aid her, but he had no idea how. He was a ghost. She couldn’t see him and he couldn’t even . . .

“I wouldn’t if I were you.”

Patrick groaned and turned around. Goody Richmond’s oldest daughter, Goody Michaels stood there licking her lips.

“My sister’s going to slice your wife up and there’s nothing you can or will do about it.”

“And my daughter? Why is her body here?”

“Oh, you like that?” She looked disgustingly pleased about that.

Until that moment there had been some doubt, but her words erased it. Why would anyone get a body from under the sea just to do this?

“Do you have any idea how many bodies there are buried at sea, both on purpose and because of shipwrecks. I was unsure if I was going to find the right body. Really, this is better. She’ll get a proper burial this way. Burials at sea are so uncivilized.”

“Marie, now is not the time,” Goody Richmond called to her daughter.

“Stay out of sight,” Goody Michaels ordered him. “I can’t vanquish you. Only a ghost can vanquish a ghost, so this will have to do.” She heaved in a breath and chanted, “Lock this ghost up tight. Keep him from aiding her plight. ‘Til our victim’s found. Keep him tightly bound.”

Instantly he felt magical binds close in around him. He was helpless as a few minutes later Goody Michaels’ four younger siblings returned with his wife. And if he thought he saw Elisa enjoying this a little more than was even normal for someone like her or if he thought he saw William cringe every so often, there was naught he could do. He could no more save William from the fate his mother had chosen for him, from the life of evil he was clearly destined for, then he could save his darling Rebecca from any of them.

The night passed in silence, seeming as if it was never going to end. Morning came and went and then someone screamed.

He would have done anything to have saved the girl from finding their bodies. The Kensington’s older daughter, Elizabeth, didn’t stop screaming until she was safely in the arms of her father, but it wasn’t Elizabeth who caught his attention. It wasn’t her father either. It was the other man who entered the clearing with Goodman Kensington that caught his attention.

Kirkland Owens sent the Kensingtons back and said he’d guard the bodies. The moment they were out of sight he walked straight over to Patrick, his eyes narrow. “’Tis not a normal death thou’s wife suffered here. What happened, Patrick Warren? Who are thou and thou’s family and what hast thou brought on us?”

“Thou has it all wrong,” Patrick glared at him. “This was not my doing. In case you were absent, I’m dead. The town hung me for a crime I did not commit, but thou refuses to listen.”

“I am not a simpleton, Goodman Warren,” Goodman Owens assured him. “I know thou didn’t hurt thou’s wife, but this is no simple murder. ‘Tis a witch’s alter. What happened here? Who are thou?”

“I am a simple man,” Patrick began to protest, before stopping. “This doesn’t matter. I am as normal a man as I thought thou to be, but clearly thou art more than a normal man. I suppose like my wife and those who did this to her, thou art a witch.”

He did not let Goodman Owens answer as the words of the night before registered. “They did something to the water! You have to warn people. They did something. They used my wife and daughter’s lifeblood to do something to the water, to curse it.”

Annoyance and suspicion turned to fear. “Who did something? Who did this? And why?”

“I don’t know why, but they poisoned the water for mortals to drink. You have to warn them.”

“Who? Who did this?”

“The Richmonds. Didn’t I already say that?”

“You didn’t,” Goodman Owens denied as horror covered his face. He swore before breathing the one name Patrick dreaded above all others. “Elisa Richmond. She was handing out water to those searching for your wife to drink. We should have known something was up when the little creature was being kind to us. She is never kind.”

Patrick felt his heart drop. That meant … but he couldn’t even contemplate the results that might invoke. Before he could say anything else Goodman Owens ran off leaving him to wonder what would happen next.

He returned some time later with his head drooping. “What do I do about this? How can I stop this?”

There was no response that seemed to work.

“What doest thou remember of what they did? Perhaps something they did can help?”

---

Had it helped? Patrick didn’t know. He only knew that half of the village had died.

“William didn’t want his daughter involved. I’m not sure he wanted any of the children involved, but definitely not his daughter. She was only two at the time and he was pretty furious when his mother suggested it.”

“William did not seem to have a problem involving himself,” Rebecca protested. “He helped trap me. And his daughter was there. If he was so furious that his mother wished her there, then why did he allow that?”

“He didn’t,” Patrick looked down at his little daughter. “He even tried to leave entirely, but his mother cast a spell on him. She wanted her thirteen witches and she wasn’t letting her son’s conscious steal that from her. He’s your weak link. I don’t know if that information is of any use to you especially since all the time that has passed has likely changed him entirely, but he’s definitely your weak link. Chip at it if you get the chance.”

---

Pay attention to what both Simon and Patrick say about William. This is important. I won't say what part of it is important, but it is definitely important.

[Chrisaholic]

Mmh, in that case I'd need to read them again, quiet and slowly. Sometimes, the chapters are kind of long but that's okay. Mine are as well that long. We'll see if I can figure it out.

[StoryGirl83]

Aug 11, 2017 11:51:16 GMT -5 Chrisaholic said:

Mmh, in that case I'd need to read them again, quiet and slowly. Sometimes, the chapters are kind of long but that's okay. Mine are as well that long. We'll see if I can figure it out.

Let me know if you thhink you figure it out.

This next chapter does introduce another chatacter. Sorry if that creates more confusion. I did have fun going into Ladybug's name. I changed what Jani went by, but when I tried to change Alanna and Ladybug's handles, they refused. Ladybug at least gives an opinion on the matter.

Be warned, if you read this chapter too carefully, it gives me a bit of a headache, too, but it's supposed to be like that, because the character is like that, very confused. There are contradictions in what she says and they come very close to other things. I tried to have Ladybug notice these things, but I'm sure I missed some and she's not likely to have noticed all of them anyway.

There are clues about other things hidden in here, because in order to get Franki to talk, Ladybug has to talk about some things she normally wouldn't.

---

Chapter Twenty-Six - Brothers and Other Emotions

10:37 AM (12:37 PM in Cortland)

Ladybug opened her eyes and moaned. Her entire body ached. She tried to stretch and found she couldn't move.

"You're awake," a lyrical voice pronounced before demanding, "All right, who are you and why are you here?"

Ladybug shook her head and scrapped her teeth across her bottom lip. "Untie me first."

"Uh uh," the voice returned. Ladybug had yet to see anyone. "My house, my rules. Now, who are you?"

"It's not my fault I'm in your house," Ladybug huffed. "I was going to knock. As I recall, I didn't get off the sidewalk. So how'd I get her . . . and why?"

She heard a deep breath followed by what sounded like the snort of an angry bull's nose.

Ladybug sighed. "My cousin found a blog you wrote about what's going on. I was chosen to see if you could help us."

"I can't," the voice returned quickly, too quickly. "I'm sorry about your father, mother, brother, sister, whomever, but I can't help you."

"Uncles," Ladybug replied, "two of them. But it's more then just them. Pretty soon the whole world's going to be effected by this. If it's not stopped, everyone will die."

"There's nothing I can do about that," the voice informed her.

"My aunt is determined to end this tonight," Ladybug told her, "even if it kills my uncles."

"Well, she can't end it," the voice said right in front of Ladybug's face. "No one can."

Still unable to see anyone, Ladybug's frown grew. "It's been stopped before. It can be, again."

"It's never been stopped," snarled the voice, still managing to sound like music. "It's only been pushed forward again and again. That's not stopping anything.

"If you know how to stop this, please, help me," Ladybug pleaded.

"The books are gone," the voice told her as a person appeared in front of her. "And I wouldn't tell you that spell even if I knew it."

"I don't mean to sound harsh, but whoever they are, they are going to die anyway, and maybe the spell you say you don't know holds the key to the spell to stop this."

The young woman started pacing in front of Ladybug. "This spell was cast by a minimum of thirteen evil witches."

"A minimum?"

"The wife of one of the witches was pregnant," the woman replied. "My ancestors said she later had twins, and if she was there, that makes fifteen. Thirteen's more likely, but it's something you'll need to know."

"Unborn babies can't say spells," Ladybug protested.

"Nonmagical mothers and those who cannot themselves be part of a specific spell can help cast those spells if the child within them is qualified to cast the spell," the young woman informed Ladybug with a musical snap.

Ladybug didn't answer. She glared up at the woman. "Would you untie me already. I'm not going to harm you."

The young woman glared at her and left the room.

Not sure if that was a good thing or not, Ladybug looked around the room. There was nothing that really caught her attention. It was a little dark other than a light by the piano on the other side of the room, but that didn’t mean much, so she started trying to escape her bonds.

“I’ll get that for you,” the young woman told her as she reentered the room. In her hands was a jagged edged knife. “Unfortunately, I’m a little too good at knots. I never can untie them. Kirk calls it my fatal flaw.”

“Kirk?”

“My brother,” she admitted as she got behind Ladybug and started sawing away at the knot. “Do you have any?”

“Brothers?” She shook her head. “Not really.”

“How do you ‘not really’ have any brothers?”

“Well, my mom miscarried during her first marriage and that was my brother.”

“You sound heartbroken,” the woman retorted.

Ladybug pulled her hands around in front of her and rubbed her wrists. “I wasn’t born. If he was alive, he’d be around my cousin, Wyatt’s, age. He’s six years older than me. Sure I would have liked a brother, but I don’t have one.”

“It still seems pretty cold.”

Letting her breath hiss between her teeth, she turned around to look at her former captor. “I don’t have a brother. I refuse to accept that I am the sister to the Source of All Evil, so excuse me if I’m not sad about the death of someone I never met.”

“The what?” the woman flickered her fingers and a light switched on. “You cannot be serious.”

“My mom made some mistakes,” Ladybug told her. “I’m not really sure how much is her fault and how much is someone else’s fault, but her first husband was the Source. He wasn’t born that way and I gather he didn’t stay that way, because at some point or another my big brother became the Source.”

“That seems impossible,” the woman told her, purple eyes glaring at Ladybug. “You said your brother wasn’t even born.”

“Didn’t stop any of it, now did it.” Ladybug sighed. “Look, I don’t want to talk about it. I’m a little touchy on the subject, because . . .”

“A little?”

“Okay, a lot,” she conceded. “My little sister has been talking about him a lot lately and I don’t know how to handle it. She’s talking about him as if he was perfectly normal and even if he wasn’t the Source, there’s no chance of that.”

“Still seems a bit extreme.”

“When was the last time your brother tried to kill your aunt?”

The other woman scrunched her nose in though. “Two years ago, I think.”

“Beg your pardon.”

“You haven’t met my aunt,” she informed Ladybug. “And keep in mind, no magic, none. He wasn’t serious or I don’t think he was, but I do know some people who would actually try to kill her given the chance.”

“Not the same.”

“No, I imagine it’s not, but he didn’t actually kill her did he?”

“No, she’s alive.”

“There you have it. Perhaps we should do as you suggested and move on.”

Grasping at the suggestion, Ladybug held out her hand with a smile. "I'm Ladybug."

The woman stared at her. "You cannot be serious," she repeated her earlier words.

Ladybug frowned and dropped her hand. "I thought I was."

"Not that," the woman assured her, glancing at Ladybug's hand. "Ladybug? Seriously? That's a baby name."

"At school they call me Prudence or Rudy," Ladybug told her with a shrug. "My family and friends though, they call me Ladybug."

"Well, I am neither," the woman said with a musical humph, "and I seriously doubt I can manage to hold a conversation with you without laughing if I must call you Ladybug, so Prudence or Rudy? Which do you prefer?"

Ladybug was silent. She'd never really liked the name Rudy, mostly due to whose idea it was to call her that. And Prudence was special. That was what Grandpa called her. Sure practically everyone at school did, too, but something told her she didn't want this girl to call her that.

"Fine then," the woman scowled at her. "I am Winifred. Franki for short . . . don't ask."

"Call me Ladybug," Ladybug insisted, seizing her chance, "and I'll call you Franki. Odd as people think it . . . I prefer it."

Franki's scowl deepened. "Fine."

"So . . . the spell."

"I truly don't know it," Franki insisted. "I was supposed to learn it, but I never saw the point. It was written right there after all."

"We need the spell, Franki. We've tried everything we could think of."

Franki slumped down in a chair and sighed. "Maybe one of my ancestors. They cast the spell, surely they know it."

"It's worth a shot," Ladybug tried to encourage her. "We summoned one of my ancestors, but he could only confirm that it had happened before."

"Right," Franki snorted. "That's not useful."

"It was news to us."

"Fine."

"So who is it?"

Franki gave her a strange look. "Who?"

"The person you don't want to lose to this?"

Franki signed.

"We need something to talk about while we prepare for a séance."

"Not really."

"Well, I think you need to talk."

"You think wrong," Franki assured her.

"A parent maybe," Ladybug pushed. "Only one needs magic to produce a magical child."

Franki said nothing.

"Not a sibling, I think," Ladybug continued. "Those are usually magical, too."

"Hmph."

"Maybe a close friend," Ladybug suggested. "I have a friend who's ill, only stage one, but that doesn't matter if the spell kills everyone I guess."

Still there was no response from Franki.

"Not that either then," Ladybug deduced. "It has to be someone. Not a child, surely. They'd be magical, too."

Franki squirmed.

"A husband," Ladybug looked at her, wondering if she was getting close. "No? A boyfriend then?"

"Look," Franki glared at her annoyed. "None of this is your business, but my parents have been dead for years. I'm an only child, single, no children . . . did I mentioned single? I'm a loner . . . no friends, no close friends anyway. And I wish you'd just quit being nosy and work."

Ladybug shrugged. "You don't socialize much do you?" She frowned. Hadn’t Franki said she had a brother and an aunt? Looking at Franki, she decided not to push it. Franki was making it pretty clear she didn’t want to talk.

"No," Franki agreed. "No point."

"Yes, there is," Ladybug mumbled under her breath. "Then you don't have conversations like this."

"I can hear you, you know."

Ladybug had the grace to grimace in embarrassment.

They walked in silence for several minutes, but by the time they reached Franki's inner sanctum, Ladybug could hold her tongue no longer. "So tell me about your ex."

"My ex is dead."

"From this?" Ladybug looked at her concerned.

"No."

"Not your ex, huh?" Ladybug shook her head. "Then, who on earth is it."

"You are way too nosy."

"You can ask questioned about me," Ladybug offered. "I'll answer."

Franki was silent as she considered this. Finally, "What about your ex?"

"One in Cambridge," Ladybug told her. "The other's in the ground."

"You seem unemotional about that, too," Franki frowned.

"We 'dated' when we where six," Ladybug informed her. "I hadn't seen him since his family moved when we were eight. He died at twelve, car accident."

"You still seem rather unemotional," Franki observed.

"I'm not," Ladybug assured her. "I just can't think about my feelings right now or I'll break.” Not to mention she’d already had enough emotional bursts spent on a brother she would probably prefer didn’t exist in the first place. “My parents have been missing for months. My sisters need me to be strong. My uncles are dying. My cousins and aunts need me to be strong. Thousands are dead, more by the minute. I'm not the only one that can save them, but I have to do what I can. I have to do my part. And to do that, I need your help."

"I said I'd help," Franki reminded her as she began putting crystals in a circle. There was silence for several seconds and then she asked, "What happened to you parents?"

"Don't know yet," Ladybug admitted. "They went on a second honeymoon and they didn't come back."

"When was that?"

"February."

"At least you can measure it in months not years," Franki told her. "Before I was born, my parents lost a child, a son, never met him, no clue if he's alive or dead. It bites."

And the brother she’d mentioned earlier? Even though she’d already mentioned it, she said, "My mom lost a son before I was born, too. Only she knows he died."

"Bites," Franki repeated.

"Yeah."

"You ready to do this séance?"

"Let's get it over with," Ladybug agreed. "Time is far too short."

Franki put down the last crystal and began lighting the candles.

"I sure hope this works."

[Chrisaholic]

Mmh, two interesting young women - with many emotional baggage. But it's also good to speak about it, and also with that dead son of Phoebe as the Source. Clearly a headache thing. Let's see then if it works.

[StoryGirl83]

Aug 12, 2017 8:56:26 GMT -5 Chrisaholic said:

Mmh, two interesting young women - with many emotional baggage. But it's also good to speak about it, and also with that dead son of Phoebe as the Source. Clearly a headache thing. Let's see then if it works.

I did say Wyatt would wake up relatively soon. I didn't say it was a good thing.

---

Chapter Twenty-Seven - Say Good-Bye, Wyatt

10:42 AM (1:42 PM in Assateague)

The sound of a machine flat lining filled the air as a doctor rushed into the room. She glanced at the screen as a nurse entered the room after her. "I need a crash cart, stat," she ordered him.

"But she was stage five," the confused nurse reminded her.

"That doesn't mean we don't try," the doctor snapped. "I want that crash cart, now." As soon as he ran out of the room, she picked up the patient’s chart and looked at it. Despite her words a moment earlier, in a whispered voice she said, "I'm sorry, Olivia Tunnels, that we couldn't save you."

Wyatt's eyes snapped open in panic. "Olivia," he mumbled in a pained voice as he looked around trying to orient himself. Realizing he was in his own room at his apartment, he flung off the covers and swung his legs off the bed. He grabbed a pair of sandals off the ground and as soon as he could shove his feet into them, he orbed out toward the source of his distress.

A moment later he found himself in an empty hospital room. He looked toward the bed and say that there did appear to be a body on it, but a sheet was pulled all the way over it. He took a step towards the bed.

"Wyatt?"

He spun around and looked with stunned eyes into the equally stunned eyes of his co-worker. "Olivia."

"You just appeared," Olivia stated. "All those lights flickering around you," she waved her arm in his general direction. "How?"

"I . . . " Wyatt glanced toward the bed. "Who . . ?"

"Oh, that's me," she admitted. "They wanted me to go toward some light, but I didn't want to. It scared me."

"It's perfectly safe," Wyatt informed her.

"Oh?" she looked at him skeptically. "And how many times have you died?"

"None, that anyone's mentioned," he replied looking at her in confusion. "You're a ghost?"

"I guess," she admitted, "but you're the first one to see me. Why's that?"

"I . . ." he stared at her. "I'm a witch." It didn't really matter now. She couldn't really tell anyone.

She raised an eyebrow and shook her head. "Uh, uh. Wrong gender."

He shook his head. "No."

"Are you sure?"

"Olivia, remember at the museum you wanted to know what I was hidden that one day when we tried to kill each other?"

Olivia shrugged.

"This," he waved his arm around," is what my family deals with on a regular basis, although usually not on this large of a scale. Still want to know what happened that day?"

She shook her head. "No really. Doesn't seem to matter anymore."

"Yeah," he agreed. "No kidding."

"What's on the other side of the light?" she wanted to know.

"People who've died," he told her. "You'll be able to find people you know. It's safe I promise."

She sighed.

"I'm sorry," he offered.

"What could you have done?" she asked surprised.

"Found a cure sooner."

"Found one yet?" she asked skeptically.

"Not that I know of," he admitted.

"When you find one," she began hesitantly. "Help my brother."

"Your brother?" Wyatt looked at her surprised. He didn't know she'd had one. He wondered how much he'd really known about Olivia, how much he really knew about any of his co-workers.

She nodded. "He started getting sick only a few hours after I did, so I don't even know if he's still alive, but if he is . . ."

"If he is, I'll help him," Wyatt promised.

"Some vacation, huh?" she mumbled. "I can't even say good-bye."

"Well, I can pass messages to Andrew and Nathan," he offered.

"They know?" she asked surprised. "Never mind. Of course they know. That day at the museum. I'm probably the only one who doesn't know what happened, aren't I?"

He shook his head. "Only Nathan found out that day. Andrew already knew and no one else there knows."

"Oh," she looked down at her feet. "So the light's really not bad?"

"It's safe," he assured her. "What's your brother's name, Olivia?"

"Colin Tunnels," she told him quickly. "Room 411B last I knew, but that was the third room they had him in, so he could have moved."

"I'll find out," he assured her. "I'll do what I can, Olivia."

"Thank you," she whispered, but her eyes were glazed and she was starting to actually look like a ghost. And then she was gone.

Wyatt exhaled slowly and looked at the body on the bed. "I'm sorry, Olivia."

---

With Wyatt's promise to Olivia, we now have another much sooner deadline looming.

Funny trivia: I choose the location for this chapter based off a book series by Marguerite Henry that I read as a girl.

[Chrisaholic]

Oh my, poor Wyatt, lost a friend now and still have to save Olivia's brother. If there were a cure, I'm sure he does anything he can. Hehe, Olivia's reaction was cool as she finally knew that he is a witch. lol

[StoryGirl83]

Aug 13, 2017 6:58:28 GMT -5 Chrisaholic said:

Oh my, poor Wyatt, lost a friend now and still have to save Olivia's brother. If there were a cure, I'm sure he does anything he can. Hehe, Olivia's reaction was cool as she finally knew that he is a witch. lol

Yep, he's got renewed purpose and a really short deadline.

---

Chapter Twenty-Eight - Cold, Dark Nothing

10:49 AM (12:49 PM in Cortland)

Ladybug starred at the empty circle of candles where moments before Franki's many greats grandfather had stood. "I'm not sure what to do with that info."

Franki sighed. "I'm not either," her lyrical voice declared.

"If we were looking for a way to push it off for another hundred and thirty years this would be useful," Ladybug added looking at the paper with the spell they had copied from Kirkland Owens' memory along with the various items he had used to aid in casting it.

"Might the description of the altar used be helpful?"

Ladybug nodded. "It might. The items used in a spell are as important as the words themselves. I just don't know how to use them. My mom was the spell caster in her family and I never could concentrate long enough to really learn anything.

Franki scowled. "Too bad you can't convince one of those warlocks to help you."

Ladybug snorted. “As if that's going to happen. They went to the bottom of the ocean to retrieve the dead body of a toddler and placed that body on an altar where they then laid her mother's living body and killed her mother. What kind of person does that and feels remorse later . . . almost four hundred years later, I might add.”

Franki sighed. “It does sound far fetched. But strange things do happen.”

“Not that strange,” Ladybug scoffed. “That’s insane.”

---

10:50 AM (6:50 PM in Cambridge)

“What do you mean Tom’s stage four?” Heart Gardner asked stunned. “I talked to you guys yesterday and no one said anything about Tom being stage anything, let alone stage four.”

“Honey, I’m sorry,” Heart’s mom told him. “We didn’t want to worry you.”

“Not worry me?” Heart felt like he’d been punched in the gut. “My brother, my twin brother, has maybe a day to live and you didn’t tell me because you didn’t want to worry me?” How did that make sense to them?

“I’m sorry, son,” she repeated. “It seemed like the right decision to make.”

“The right . . .” he trailed off in disbelief. “You know what, I’m coming home.”

“You can’t!” his mom protested. “You could be infected, too. Your father and I . . .”

“No,” Heart protested. “Please, tell me I misunderstood what you were trying to say just now. You and Dad can’t have this, too.”

There was a sigh on the other end.

Heart groaned. “No, I won’t accept it. I’m coming home, Mom, and you’re all going to be all right. You can’t have this.”

“You are not coming home, Edward Kenneth,” his mom informed him making him gulp. “I will not have you getting this, too.”

“Mom, people are getting sick here, too,” Heart informed her. “And people seem pretty confident that this is getting passed through the water, so if I don’t drink the water, I should be fine. I’m coming home.”

“We love you, Edward, but you need to stay out of the way of this,” his mom told him.

“There is no out of the way of this,” he protested. “Mom, please, if this is going to end badly, then I need to see you, again, all of you.”

“Edward, you can’t get here,” she told him, sadly. “There is no way. Planes aren’t flying and even if you could, it would be too late by the time you got here.”

“No, no, no!” he screamed at the phone, slamming his fist at the nearby wall and then squealing in pain as he pulled his fist away. He got very little satisfaction from the small dent he made in the wall. “No, that’s not possible. There’s got to be a way.” He heaved in several sobs, trying to keep himself in control. “I’ll call Ladybug.” He gulped. “She has . . . Contacts. There’s got to be a way. I love you, Mom.”

As soon as he hung up the phone, he pressed the first number on his speed-dial, something he hadn’t done in a long time.

“Twins are special, aren’t they?” a voice behind Heart commented.

Startled, he turned around to look. The voice belonged to a blonde, petite and pretty, maybe a year or two older than his twenty-two years. Maybe. Deciding to ignore her, he put the phone to his ear and listened to it ring.

“I have a brother and sister who are twins,” she told him, with a little half smile. “They shut me out.”

Heart didn’t know how to respond. As boys, he and Tom had done everything together, but they had other friends, too. With no other siblings, the scenario she described hadn’t been an issue for them.

“It’s not really about them being twins, of course,” she admitted with a little laugh. “Our mother raised them differently than our father raised me.”

Ouch. Heart couldn’t imagine being raised away from Tom. He couldn’t imagine life with no Tom at all as he was likely going to be facing tomorrow. The phone reached Ladybug’s voice mail and he sighed.

“Feel free to jump into this conversation any time,” she told him. “Monologues are boring.”

Seeing no reason he should give her the satisfaction of alleviating her boredom, he hung up and called, again. It might be crazy, but he needed to talk to Ladybug. He couldn’t risk that she would forget to check her voice mail for a day or two.

“Oh, come on,” she pouted. “Say something. You’re making me feel like the evil villain in a really bad B-list horror flick.”

“Are you evil?” he asked, finally acknowledging her. He took the phone away from his ear, but didn’t bother turning it off. He didn’t like the idea of facing someone claiming to be evil alone even if the only person that could help him wasn’t answering her phone and thus of no use.

“Of course I am,” she snorted. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be about to kill you.”

Startled, he squeaked. “Kill me?”

“Of course,” she repeated. “What kind of evil villain would I be if I let you live. Besides, it’s a mercy killing really. This way you won’t have to live without your brother, Don.”

“Tom,” he protested automatically.

She waved a hand in dismissal. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. You reek of Warren blood.” She shuddered in distaste.

“What?”

She considered him and shrugged. “A girlfriend, maybe, because you are clearly not a Warren.” She clucked her tongue at him. “Naughty, naughty boy.” She pushed him up against the wall and stabbed her finger at his chest. “I don’t like Warrens.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he protested.

“He speaks,” she chuckled. “I was beginning to wonder.”

He glared at her.

“And back to silence.” She tapped the tips of fingers together. “So how do you want to die?”

“No thanks,” he spat out, trying to duck out her reach.

She put her arms on either side of him and he found that she was definitely not weak. “You aren’t going anywhere.”

“I think I am,” he shoved her away from him and started running. The sound of his phone dropping to the ground barely registered as his only thoughts were toward getting away from her.

A sound behind him was the only warning he got before a wall of ice built up in front of him. He sucked on a deep breath and kept running. Hitting the wall accomplished nothing except to leave his shoulder hurting and him on the ground.

“Turn around and face me,” she ordered. “It’s thick enough you can’t get passed it.”

“Why ice the exit?” he asked as he pulled himself to his feet and looked behind him. A second wall of ice was a few feet behind her. “Why . . ?”

“Why not kill you with the first blow?” she asked. “It’s pretty messy and noisy. This way, you aren’t getting out and I don’t have to deal with someone interrupting us. Besides, I want to see someone’s eyes when I kill them. I’m no coward.” Now that she had him trapped, she didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry. She walked over to his dropped phone and picked it up. Putting it next to her ear she said, “I’m going to kill him,” she announced into the phone without bothering to find out if anyone was on the other end. “Deal with it.”

Holding the phone in one hand she sent a spray of ice, covering it with ice and then dropping it to the ground and watching it shatter. “Now, we’re all alone. It’s much easier that way.”

Glancing behind him he tried to gage how think the ice was. On the other end of it, he could see that it went partway into the next doorway and that distance was maybe a third of the total distance, even accounting for the distortion of looking at it through ice. Gulping he turned back to look at her.

There was the most peculiar look on her face. “There’s something almost familiar about you, but it will have to be you, because I am not doing this, again.” Holding both hands out in front of her, she sent a steady stream of ice at him.

Diving out of the way, he smashed into the wall with his already injured shoulder. Cringing and doing his best to hold back a scream of pain, he looked around the small area, attempting to locate something he could use as a weapon, though what he could do against someone who shot ice out of her hands, he didn’t know.

“Hold still,” she ordered. “When your brother dies, you won’t want to be alive anyway, and he’s going to die. This time around no one is stopping this.”

He didn’t waste his breath arguing. The was something on the opposite wall in a frame, but he didn’t see how that would be do any good unless he could shove her into it. Unfortunately, that was the best option at his disposal at the moment.

“Why are you so quiet?” she complained, glaring at him. “You almost act like none of this matters. Or is it that? Maybe you realize that I’m right and when your brother is dead, it’s all useless.” She nodded slowly and a smile started to form on her lips. “All the better. If I’m doing you a favor. . .”

“You’re not,” he snarled, making a jump at her and running her into the wall. “Don’t delude yourself into thinking that killing me is in anyway doing me any favors. I want you to feel every ounce of guilt you are owed, because I don’t intend to let you kill me. And I don’t plan for my brother to die, either.”

“There’s nothing you can do,” she snapped at him, wincing in pain as she shoved him away from her into the opposite wall and sending ice at the ground. “No one’s ever survived this. No one. Once they have it, that’s it. Your brother will not live. Even if you somehow manage to escape me, which I doubt, don’t delude yourself into thinking he will live. That’s not on me.”

“I don’t believe you,” he heaved out, looking at the ground. Except for where she stood, blood dripping onto her shoulder from a wound she had apparently gotten when he’d slammed her into the wall, the entire floor from ice wall to ice wall was caked in ice. He’d probably trip standing still, but if he could get her away from that spot, maybe she would, too.

“Believe it,” she ordered, sending more ice his way. When he ducked down and went sliding at one of the ice walls she growled. “I usually can hit my targets. Why can’t I hit a stupid mortal?”

He rubbed his head where it had hit into the ice and looked at her confused. Mortal?

With another growl of frustration, she aimed both palms at him and shot ice at him. “Die, already. I need you to die so that I’m done with this whole mess.”

The ice hit him in the legs and as the cold started to encase him, he heard, “What in the world?!” just before he blanked out completely and oblivion took him.

---

10:52 AM (12:52 PM in Cortland)

Ladybug exhaled slowly. "I probably should be getting back. The sooner we figure this out the more people we can save, but I should warn you, my aunt doesn't intend to let this last past the end of the day."

"And with what Kirkland told you, it won't," Franki breathed out. "You have the means to push this back once more, but if you don't stop this now, who will? And when?"

Ladybug sighed. "I really don't know."

[Chrisaholic]

Interesting, very interesting. Hope all will be good.