Page 31 of Spellbound
“They didn’t have enough power either, my mother said. They even tried to do the spell together and it just brought up a lot of yellow, bad-smelling smoke.”
“But they thought you had enough power to do it?”
He nodded. “They knew I did. And I did too. ”
“Where did she come from? Was she a friend of your mother’s?”
“I think so. I really don’t know. She had the spell all written out for me and all I had to do was read it. I told her I couldn’t. I was scared to do that, because a demon could kill us! Dad said it would!”
“Calm down, Ash.” I sent him some soothing energy, and he took a deep breath and sighed.
“Your dad knew about this?”
“My mother had been asking him to do it for her. Dad wouldn’t do it, though. He told me she might try to get me to do it and what to say if she did. He made me go over and over the words with him.
“But that night, they set up the board and read the spell the other witch had brought. The air got thick and felt like when you go up in an airplane and your ears are full. Then it looked like all the shadows in the room started swarming together like-like bees do in a cartoon, and it suddenly appeared right in the middle of them. It was big and ugly and standing on its hindlegs, which weren’t human, but more like a goat’s legs. It had black fur and huge, gnarly hooves. The worst thing was its face. It was like something out of a horror movie. Rotten teeth and a wide, flat nose, and solid black eyes with no whites at all. And two curved, black horns, growing out of its forehead. My mother tried to talk to it, but it just started…tearingat her.” I began to choke a little as the bile filled my throat. I could see it all again plainly in my mind’s eye, as thatthingstartedripping her apart.“The other witch backed up against the wall and didn’t even try to help her. She left me to do it.”
“What did you do?” he asked softly.
I was sitting beside him, and he put his arm around me. I shuddered and wiped my face. “It was awful. That smell in the room, like rotten eggs.”
“That’s brimstone—Sulphur. Can you tell me what happened then?”
“I threw that thing off her.”
“Youdid?” His voice sounded incredulous, but that was what happened. I grabbed its arm, and its skin felt like sandpaper. I pulled as hard as I could to make it stop, to get it off her.
“The demon shouted and flung my mother away and she went flying back and hit the wall, but I shoved that fucking thing as hard as I could and it soared back to hell where it came from, using the words my dad told me to use. I screamed them in its ugly face as it got back up to come after me again, and it-it just disappeared. But as I said those words, the other witch flew at me like she wanted to stop me from getting rid of it, and I started hitting them too I flung them away like I did the demon. My mother managed to get to her feet, and she went after them herself, but the witch said some words and my mother just-just dropped.” He covered his face with his hands. “I ran over to her,but she wasn’t breathing. She was all limp and I tried to wake her up, but I knew she was gone. She was dead.”
“The witch killed her.”
I shrugged.
“Ash, why didn’t you tell your father what had happened? Why did you let them think you killed her and let them bind your powers?”
“I don’t remember much about all that.”
“You must have been in shock.”
“Maybe.”
“What happened with the other witch? Did they just leave?”
“I-I honestly don’t remember.”
****
Ben
He’d been though a lot, and I hated to keep asking questions, but I really did want this to be over for him. The old saying was that the truth would set you free. He deserved a little freedom from worrying about all this, and I wanted to give it to him. I had to keep pushing him for answers.
“Have you ever seen this other witch again?”
“I don’t know. Like I said, they had something over their face. It made them look blurry.”
An obfuscation spell? Did this witch think Asher might recognize them otherwise?
“Can we stop now? I’m tired.”
