Maybe the door is right here.
It’s so obvious that I bet it’s right.
“Meadow, what’s going on?” I hear Charlie come closer behind me. “Is that magic on your sleeve?”
“Hold on, what if this is the door?” I slide my shaking fingers inside of the fissure and pull, trying to find a weak point or a hinge.This has to be a door.That’s the only logical explanation for the flames inside of a freaking rock. I pray that I’m right. I don’t know how much longer I can hold on to my magic while trying to I-Spy a rock door. I take in a steadying breath and curl my fingers around the edge of the crack and pull. Nothinghappens, so I do it again, even wedging the mini bat into the fissure to see if I can find a leverage point.
I brace my foot on the side of the opening and push on the bat as hard as I can. I grunt when I pull and nearly fall when my foot slips.
“Ugh, Meadow…you okay?” I don’t have to look at my friend to know that he’s probably giving mea lookat how I’m trying to get this crack to open up and show me it’s actually a door.
“I’m fine. This has to be a door. We just have to figure out how to get it open.” I grunt as I change tactics and adjust the bat so I can pull as hard as I can. My hands are sweaty now and when I pull, I almost slip and fire off the energy I’m still holding onto. I’m playing a dangerous game, exerting myself on the rock door and trying to hold the energy. More magic leaks out, this time onto the ground.
“Your magic is coming out. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I-I think I took too much before. The energy has to go or I’m going to get rocked. No lame pun intended. I gotta dump this.” I take hold of the energy I’ve pulled in and focus on letting it go, thread by thread. The familiar warmth of my power heats my palms and fingertips as it starts to exit my body. I focus and think of letting it seep right back into the earth like rainwater. The arcane power I trapped before slides out of my fingers and onto the ground in a steady stream. It looks like silver paint, reflecting the moonlight as it shimmers and sinks into the dirt at my feet.
Charlie tilts his head and watches my magic start to drain away. “I never knew magic was like that,” he says.
“Like that?”
“So physical. It’s like water.”
I nod as I watch my magic. “Yeah, it is like water, isn’t it? Just more sparkly.” The ground my magic has been sinking into pulses with a light and slowly starts to shine. The more magic ittakes, the brighter the light gets. “The ground,” I say, dropping down into a crouch to look at the dirt, “it’s holding my magic but I think it can only take so much.”
“What? Like it’s getting full? Is that why it’s shining like that?” Charlie toes the ground and silver stains the side of his shoe and he makes a face. “Weird. I guess find somewhere else to put your magic before it starts making a mess?”
“Find somewhere else…” I look around the clearing. There’s nothing in it but the boulder. There’s enough clear ground that I could just go find another spot to magic dump but ....if the ground can hold my magic that means anything could hold my power, right?
Anything, even…even….oh my gods, eventhe rock.
I want to bang my head against the stone at how simple the solution for getting inside the boulder is. “I have an idea! I’m going to offload my power into the rock and blow this door wide open!”
“What door?”Charlie asks.
I smack my hand against the rock and press my palm against the stone. It’s warm to the touch. I tilt my head and look at the boulder again, why is it so warm? Is the fire heating it from the inside? If it is then the rock can’t be that thick.
“Meadow,what door?”
I give the boulder a pat. “This door. The one that isn’t open, and is standing in our way of a mission accomplished. Of getting answers to what the hells is going on in town and with…my dreams.”
Charlie’s eyes go wide. “You’ve dreamed of this rock? When?”
“Last night.”
“Of course, it was last night.” He groans and looks up at the sky. “I was thinking we could just book it back to Sweet Tooth but I guess we’re seeing this through.”
“We are totally seeing this through.” I hold out a hand to him and will my power to stay put while I start to figure out how I’m going to go about blowing a rock up. “Stay back. I have to concentrate or I could-”
There’s a rumble and a roar.“Open the door, little witch…”
Charlie lets out a small scream. Honestly, so do I but when I do it, it’s a big scream. A very big scream. More of my magic shoots out onto the ground. I feel like the squids we learned about in science class. I’d be embarrassed if I wasn’t well and truly scared.
“Witchling…”
The voice is everywhere and nowhere all at once. Fear twists and breaks the control I’ve kept over my power. I shriek and my hold on my magic snaps so fast that I don’t understand what’s happened until I’m flying back off my feet with the bang of my power echoing in my ears. Every bit of energy blasts straight into the stone in front of me and for one wild second I’m blinded by how bright the stone and magic shine when they come together.
I hit the ground so hard I bounce. The air is knocked out of me and the only thing I see are shining stars overhead but I can still hear the voice.
