Page 34 of Shadow Witch

“Joy!” she tried, earning another jolt of lightning that she narrowly escaped.

“Okay, fine! I get it. I’m wrong. I’ll stop guessing.” She studied the landscape around her in search of another clue. Dewey said she’d relive memories acted out by phantoms. Where were they?

A massive, neon glowing sign appeared with an arrow pointing to a spot lit by some unknown source on the ground. “Oh, maybe I go there.”

Paige rolled up the scroll and stuck it in the pocket of her leather jacket. As she crossed to the lit spot, she glanced sideways at the other set of floating islands next to her.

She wrinkled her nose as she spotted Ivy racing around the second one already.

“How the heck did she get through the first one? Come on.”

Paige rolled her eyes and shook her head as she stepped on the spot. “Stupid Ivy and her stupid–OMG!”

Her words cut off, replaced with a scream of dismay as her stomach somersaulted. She pushed her feet onto the floor and clutched at the leather couch she found herself sitting on as the plane she rode dipped, rolled, and plummeted toward the earth.

“What is happening?” she screamed.

“We’re crashing, Paige, duh,” Dewey’s voice said, though the little dragon was nowhere to be found. Instead, a jet-black shadowy figure in the shape of Dewey floated around near her. “Of course, I’ll be fine, because I can fly.”

Paige’s lips tugged into a deep grimace as she struggled to stay seated when the plane pitched at a dangerous angle. “Good for you. I’m going to die.”

“Yes, likely. We’re all going to die,” a phantom pilot said.

“This is awful. Why am I in this stupid memory? Wait,” she said, her mind searching for a solution. “This is just a memory. I can’t die. This is so stupid. This is all just a distraction from solving the riddle. Okay, think, Paige.”

Before she could vet any other ideas, the plane slammed into the ground. The impact pushed the air from her lungs. Everything hurt. She lay in the crumpled heap of the plane gasping for breath as her eye twitched.

With a tremendous amount of pain, she let out her last shaky breath before the world turned black. A second later, she found herself plummeting through the air again.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. So, I can die and then resurrect to die again. This is horrible.”

“I’ll live because I can fly,” Dewey said.

“Shut up, Dewey,” she said as she raced to find a spot where she may survive the plane crash.

The plane slammed into the ground again. This time she suffered a broken arm, leg, and pelvis. She lay there for several minutes before she finally succumbed to all the pain and died only to wake up on the plane again.

“I’ll live because I can–“

“Shut up!” she screamed. “Think, Paige.”

She died three more times before her brain finally snapped into working mode. “Wait, Devon should be here. Where is Devon?”

A black cloud emerged when she mentioned his name. “I’m here, Paige.”

“Devon. Oh, thank heavens. You can fly, too. I’ll live. Come on, let’s jump out of the plane.”

She reached for his shadowy hand and tugged him toward the door, flinging it open. His arms wrapped around her before they dove from the plane. She sailed over the jungle as the plane smashed into the ground and exploded in a fireball.

“Ahhh, thank goodness. This time I lived.” As she finished the statement, the arms around her disappeared. She fell through the air and smashed into the ground, breaking her neck and dying again.

When she woke up on the plummeting plane, she grimaced. “How did I die again? I…ohhh, I never solved the stupid riddle.”

As the plane continued its dive toward the ground, she dug into her pocket and retrieved the scroll with her riddle. She read it aloud again. “I am a memory that echoes in the silence of your hearts, where secrets are kept and whispers are shared. What am I?”

Paige crinkled her brow. “I don’t know. Uh…”

Before she could answer, the plane smashed into the ground, and she died again.

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