Wildwood

14. The Witch and the Devil-1

The Witch and the DevilWe wind our way back to the main road. Vanessa checks on me from her peripheral every minute or so. I have no idea what to say or where to start. My mother’s note swells in my mind, taking up all the space, but I can’t bring myself to recite it. What does it say about her, about me, about us? Even after she said it should’ve been me instead of Dad, I held tight to a tiny piece of hope that there was a way back to who we used to be. But those words on that paper, her decision to rid the house of any trace of me… they can never be undone.

“Do you want to tell me what happened back there?” Vanessa finally asks after we pull onto the highway.

“No.”

“Okay. What about in your hospital room?” She changes lanes without signaling; my father’s pet peeve. I have to look away to keep from commenting. I let out a hard breath, staring through my window, and refocus on the man who turned into a shadow. My mind paints his picture in the dark of night.

“A nurse came in both nights,” I start. “Last night seemed completely normal. He gave me some medicine, he checked my chart on the computer, and he left. But tonight, he seemed agitated. After I took the medicine, he asked if I remembered anything. He called me a name… Spera, I think.” Beside me, Vanessa stiffens, and inhales sharply through her nose.

“That’s a very unusual name. Are you sure that’s what he said?”

“Positive. He said he was tired of waiting, and something about how I don’t belong in a mortal body.” I wrinkle my nose, recognizing how funny this must all sound. But when I glance at Vanessa, her face is stone still, her eyes wide.

“You said he gave you medicine?” she asks in a rush.

“Yes.”

“How did he give it to you? What did it look like?”

“It was red. I had to drink it. It tasted awful last night, but he said he found a new flavor tonight, and it wasn’t as bad.”

“Why did you think he was from the other side?” she presses.

“He… dissolved,” I say, blinking in disbelief at the memory. “His edges looked like they were smoking. He turned completely black, like a living shadow, and then he disappeared. That’s when I ran.”

“Did he tell you his name?” Vanessa’s voice is strangled.

“Asher. His name was Asher.”

“This is much, much worse than I thought,” Vanessa mutters, and floors the gas. The car leaps forward, pinning me to the back of my seat.

“Vanessa, you’re scaring me,” I say.

“You should be scared. I’m terrified.” She points the car at the exit ramp, taking the curve without slowing down, and then re-enters the highway going the opposite direction. “The one Unseen creature I know can work magic. She can create something out of nothing using Tenix. She can use blood to see the future. She can see the past. She can dissolve into pure water. She’s as old as time itself. And she’s afraid of one thing. One.” She steals a glimpse of me. “She’s scared to death of someone named Asher.”

“Where are we going?” I ask, bracing myself on the door, my mind racing as fast as the car. I glance at the speedometer. We’re traveling a hundred miles per hour.

“We’re going to see her.”

“It’s four in the morning,” I say, checking the clock on the dashboard.

“I’m sure she knows we’re on our way,” Vanessa mutters.

“If she knew this was coming, why didn’t she stop it? Or warn you?”

“You should ask her when we get there,” she says with a growl.

We travel south for a solid hour. Questions about Asher, the Unseen we’re going to see, and the world they belong to pile up in my head. Vanessa is a statue in her seat. Even though she’s silent, her nervousness fills the little car, and I can tell her mind is spinning behind her fixed eyes.

“I have a confession to make,” she says without looking at me. “I saw what happened to you the night of your accident.”

“You were there?” I ask, swiveling in her direction.

“No. I didn’t see it like that.” She shakes her head. “I dreamed it. In my dream, you chased a white horse out of the barn. There was lightning all around you. Two monsters followed you. You didn’t see them. The horse saw them first. You jumped on and the horse took off through the woods. Then everything got really fast and choppy.”

“Did you see what happened to my horse?” I ask, emotion swelling at the base of my throat.

“No.” Vanessa blinks away the shine in her eyes. “I saw you flip over the fence. She was trying to stand up. Those beasts were coming toward you. And then there was a bright purple flash and a deafening boom, and I woke up.”

“Her name is Harbor,” I whisper, reliving the sounds of her struggling to her feet. “Why didn’t you tell me before now?”

“I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t think we’d meet so soon. My husband said he had a patient who matched my research qualifications. I walked into your hospital room and there you were. I didn’t think you were ready, and I didn’t think you’d believe me,” she says quietly. “I didn’t want to lose you at the very start.”

I shake off the nudge of resentment. I know how she must have felt.

“When did you dream about me?” I ask.

“A couple weeks ago. It’s how I find people I’m supposed to work with. I don’t treat every person struck by lightning or electrocuted. It happens more often than you’d think,” she says, managing a wry smile. “I didn’t know your name or where you were, but I knew, I knew we would cross paths. I knew we would find each other somehow.”

“How is this even possible?” I murmur.

“I believe, when you are targeted by the Unseen side, as we have been, it’s either because of a gift we’ve always possessed, or a gift they intend to bestow. My prophetic dreams began shortly after I was struck. Everyone I have encountered who can see these marks,” she pauses, flashing her palm at me, “also develops an extraordinary gift or talent. Maris, the Unseen I’m taking you to see, has, in her own way, confirmed this.”

“In her own way?” I ask quietly.

“Maris speaks mostly in riddles. It’s not always obvious what she’s telling you, but usually, if I stop trying to overthink what she’s telling me and just listen, the message is loud and clear.”

“What is she like?”

“She’s a voodoo priestess, like a marsh or swamp witch. At least that’s what other people call her. Sometimes people will ask her to read their palms or tarot cards, but she just messes with them, and then charges two hundred dollars a pop to do it,” she says with a laugh. I think back to the day I found the two glasses in the kitchen, the half-empty bottle of bourbon. Could Maris help my mother? I have a feeling she’d be more receptive to voodoo than a shrink.

“So she doesn’t see the future?” I ask.

“No, not like that. But she… she reads people. She knows how to set things in motion. She understands how to predict what someone will do. It’s hard to explain. She… she isn’t an oracle of the future, she’s an oracle of the past.”

“How does that work?”

“Maris believes in reincarnation, especially for humans connected to the Unseen side. The Unseen world is eternal, unchanging. She calls it the land of sea and stone, and says that change of any kind is nearly impossible there. So when a human is marked by the Unseen side, it’s thought that there’s something in their soul that will offer change to their world,” she explains. “Sometimes, Maris can literally help a person see their past lives. She wasn’t able to do that for me.” Her shoulders droop.

“How did you find her?” I ask curiously.

“Let’s just say I’m two hundred dollars poorer because of Maris,” she says, smiling ruefully. “I had just begun work with the second girl I ever had in my program. I had a dream that she was being chased by something very similar to what chased you and your horse. In my dream, a woman rose out of a pond and drowned the beast, saving the girl. The next day I was in an art gallery in town. I saw a painting of her, exactly how I’d seen her and I contacted the artist. He told me she was a fortune teller and how to find her. She’s taught me everything I know, and she sells me Tenix. She’s who taught me how to use Tenix to heal injuries. How’s your leg, by the way?”

“A little stiff,” I say, stretching. “But great, otherwise. So did you save her?” I ask, rubbing the scar through the scrubs.

“Who?”

“The girl.”

“No. I didn’t. She disappeared.” She glares at the windshield. “That’s when I learned of Asher.”

“What do you know about him? Why is Maris afraid?”

“Do you know how I said change is nearly impossible in the Unseen world?” she asks. I nod. “It’s not just new life that is impossible. Death is also nearly impossible. There are only two ways an Unseen creature can die. First, they can die here on our side of the veil, so a stronger Unseen can force a weaker Unseen through the veil and kill them here. Second, Asher can end an Unseen’s life on either side of the veil. He doesn’t have to force them here first.”

“Why?” I ask, smothering a gasp.

“Because over there, he’s king.”

“The man in my hospital room, the living shadow… that’s a king?” I ask, disbelieving.

“Unseen creatures don’t look like me and you; not in their true forms. When they cross through the veil, they have to take shapes humans recognize, and with it, all the mortal risks that come with a mortal body. A human stands a chance of killing an Unseen when they take a mortal form. Although Maris swears Asher would never cross the veil. Our world is the only place where he’s vulnerable. So he usually sends his guards to do his dirty work.”

“What does he want over here?”

“Two things. Tenix, which is only available in its raw form here, and…” she pauses, “if Maris is right, he’s searching for Spera.”

“But he called me Spera.” My head swims with confusion. “I’m not Spera. Asher’s wrong. Can’t we just prove I’m not who he’s looking for?”

Vanessa presses her lips together and stares straight ahead. “What if he’s not wrong?”

“Vanessa, I’m not Spera,” I say, nearly laughing. “What am I missing, here?”

“You’re not Spera now.” She steals a glimpse of me. “But what if you used to be?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Maris once talked about Spera. She’s a legend in the Unseen world. I don’t know much about her, only that she was a human who had captured Asher’s heart hundreds of years ago. She became royalty. But she betrayed Asher. There were rumors she was in love with someone else. Whatever it was, she disappeared soon after. If Asher thinks you’re Spera, he’s not going to stop. This is way beyond proving an Unseen world exists and my stupid research program. This is the king of the Unseen world standing on your front door step with a torch in his hands. I am scared to death.”

“If he fell in love with Spera, why is he a danger to me?” I ask

“Maris is convinced he killed Spera for loving another,” Vanessa whispers.

“What would he do to me now?” I ask, every inch of me on edge.

“I don’t know!” She slams the steering wheel. “But Maris will.”

“Are you sure Maris doesn’t work for Asher?”

“She hates Asher,” Vanessa replies. “She even tried to arrange his death here once, but he didn’t fall for it.”

I hug my knees to my chest, the fear in Vanessa’s voice trying to burrow its way inside of me.

“It’s a harsh world on the other side of the veil. Lawless, ruthless. From what Maris has told me, the Unseen way of life is to take what you want, by any means necessary.”

“And Asher thinks he wants me. But why? I murmur. I can’t see the world beyond the clear, but I’m beginning to feel it, ice cold and razor sharp.

We exit the highway half way between Richmond and Charlottesville onto a dilapidated two lane road, which quickly changes from cracked asphalt to gravel. Vanessa points to a dirt road with no street sign. I slow down and then make the turn. The road carves a path through an overgrown field, and then down a long, slow hill. The ground levels out as the fields end and a dense line of trees begins.

Vanessa pulls a U-turn, and then backs the little car into a gap between trees. She kills the engine we are plunged into utter darkness. Then she digs a flashlight out of her glove box and hands it to me.

“Shouldn’t you hold it? I don’t know where we’re going,” I say.

“I see pretty well in the dark. I’m more worried about you than me,” she says. I take the flashlight and we climb out of the car. Even though my heart is pounding in my chest, I can’t help but notice how the stars shine brilliantly overhead with no light pollution to dim their visibility.