Page 16 of The Witch & the Dragon

Chapter Six – Tiran

Ever since Chloe got the pendant, she never let it out of her sight. She preferred to wear it tucked under her clothes, insisting that she didn’t want to waste the opportunity to have a stronger vision if one came.

She… seemed okay, but there was a change after visiting the dryad, enough to make Tiran wonder whether Chloe was actually being completely forthright about the situation. Whatever the suspicion, he kept quiet about it because he didn’t want to tarnish the growing friendship between them. The… something else, less easy to phrase, that also hovered in the background. Flickers of possibility. Tiny projections in his mind, not unlike envisioning the future her magic might grant, of more conversations, of going to different places, of introducing her to his parents and wondering how they might have received her if they were still alive. Suppose he could get a necromancer or something to do that anyway since magic allowed a lot of access to things like that.

They’d like her. At least, he hoped so. And when Chloe mentioned she had a medium friend called Holly, Tiran ended up paying the student a little visit, wondering if his request might seem completely absurd and she’d just stare at him like he was crazy or if she would allow him to ask, and maybe even attempt the impossible.

Holly agreed to meet him, partially at the urging of Chloe.

“It’s honestly not a bad idea. But… if you’re sure. It’s… I mean, it’s not easy,” Chloe had said. However, she seemed more unsure and ill at ease than he felt.

“I may as well try at this point. I’ve… had the time. I’ve processed some of it. It still doesn’t really feel real at times; let me be honest with you. But… it’s something I’ve been thinking about ever since we talked about necromancers and mediums. I realized, well… but I don’t know how… good it is. Spirits – ghosts – they’re not really the same as being alive, are they? They’re like memories or warped versions of the person they used to be. I don’t know. I’m no ghost connoisseur.”

“Me either. But let’s try it. Holly’s a good one. Powerful, too, from what I understand. She dealt with some weird cemetery crap recently. She also has a necromancer boyfriend. That’s another chance there, too!”

Necromancers and mediums. Not exactly Tiran’s first and instinctual thoughts to deal with the whole situation with his parents – but one he might be able to utilize. When he’d mentioned it to Professor Umber, the professor had both looked mildly horrified and mildly intrigued. The possibility had never occurred to him before, despite working in such a magical environment with all manner of bizarre and warped magic turning up every year.

Yet some barriers of thinking were harder to cross than others. Approaching Holly felt nerve-wracking at first.

“You’re up for using your powers, right?” Chloe had asked. Holly, chomping through some apple slices as they sat around the edge of one of the long tables, nodded and held up one hand with the thumb facing up.

“As long as they’re not requiring me to go into highly questionable locations with volatile spirits, it’s something I can do. We don’t have work for our powers every day, Arlo and I, but they’ll whisk us away sometimes if a local autopsy or investigation is happening.”

Huh. He’d never really considered how they might be training necromancers or mediums in the school before. “Do you need to be at the, uh, physical location of the bodies?”

“No! I just need an object that has some sentimental significance or is connected with it in some way. I can pick up some echoes, then. Do you have anything like that in your possession?”

“Uh… I have my parents’ wedding rings. My uncle was able to get them, and he gave them to me.” A lump formed in his throat. He had the tiny box in his bedroom in a small plastic container that had some other small, sentimental things: a teddy bear, an old shirt of his father’s, some gold cuff links from a suit that was too small for Tiran, a few photos, a tiny collection of something that used to be Tiran’s whole world.

As if sensing the drifting mood, Chloe reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to do this, and if you do, you don’t have to do this straight away. There’s time.”

“It’s fine, really.” He appreciated the words coming from her all the same. Fetching the rings felt… odd. They gathered at Holly’s dorm room, with Arlo close by since he could assist if anything odd happened during the process. One of the hall monitor students gave them a curious glance but said nothing about the gathering in Holly’s room. With Chloe close by, Tiran handed the rings over, and Holly nodded, lips pursing.

“Good,” she said. “This is what we need. So… give me silence and a little space, and I’ll do my best.”

They all backed away as much as they could in the room, and Holly leaned against the window, now handling both rings. She closed her eyes, palming the rings, and her eyebrows scrunched up in concentration. At first, nothing happened. The air remained still; no supernatural glow presented itself. Then there was a faint, strange tingling in the air, as if something unseen were there, taking up space beyond what their eyes might normally see.

Now, a faint, cold light wisped around Holly, and a chill went down Tiran’s spine at the sight. A part of this felt terribly wrong somehow, reaching beyond to contact the dead. The glow situated strongest in Holly’s palms, where light escaped from the rings.

Holly’s eyes snapped open, and they also had that lingering blue glow. “I feel… worry from these rings. Much love here, yes, and many years spent together, but also a pervading worry that something might go wrong.” She then gasped and fell silent a moment before continuing, “On that day… they were looking forward to the journey. A long highway was in front of them. Then pain, an explosion of pain.”

“The crash,” Tiran whispered, shivering. Chloe drifted closer and took his hand in hers, trying to reassure him. Her grip was warm and soft in contrast with his own cold and clammy skin. Everything about this ghostly ritual made the hairs stand up all over his body and activated a primal instinct to flee or attack. He did neither and watched as the medium connected with the essence of his dead parents.

“No, not a crash. Something behind.” Holly grimaced again. “Something from behind. She – she didn’t see it before she died and slumped over the wheel. He – he caught something in the mirror. Black eyes, a smile – something not human. Then… nothing. And then the crash.”

She finished and placed the rings down.

“It… wasn’t the crash that killed his mother and father?” Chloe asked, her eyes wide, surprised.

“No.” Holly folded her arms, and Arlo rested both his hands on her shoulders, massaging them in a soothing, oddly intimate way. “Something killed them, and the subsequent loss of control over the car caused the crash a few seconds later. That was about as much as I could get.”

It was more than Tiran ever expected, and a sick sensation swept over him. “They were murdered,” he growled. “My uncle… those scum-sucking bastards. They must have planned this; they must have wanted this…”

“I can’t tell you more than that. I don’t really have any power left now. We could, if you want, try to contact their spirits if they’re still around. Arlo can do this if there is a body, and I… well, I’m the body.” Holly sighed.

“No,” Tiran said. “I don’t want to put you at any more risk. You’ve already done so much.”

“But don’t you want to know?” Chloe insisted. “You suspected your uncle. These two – they’re willing to help!”

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