Page 6 of The Water Witch (Fairwick Chronicles 2)

“How do we get them to stop?” I asked, the spinning circles making me dizzy.

“The way you get all teenage girls’ attention,” Diana said, pulling a swath of gaily colored material out of her rucksack. “By distracting them with something bright and shiny.”

•••

The objects in each rucksack were kites—fancy, elaborate kites purchased at the Enchanted Forest Toy Store in town. Diana had bought different shapes for each of them, but none for me.

“We’ll use the kites to lure them to the far side of the pool,” Liz explained to me as she took her kite out of its packing. “You wait on the far side and concentrate on opening the passage.”

I wasn’t sure how that would work, but I went obediently to the far side of the pool, sat on a rock overhanging the water, and watched the women launch their kites. Liz sent hers into the air with an impressive cast that landed the kite well in the middle of the pool. It lay on the water for a moment, then sank. Liz gave the line a gentle tug and the cloth swelled beneath the clear water and took the shape of a curvaceous mermaid with long red hair and a seashell brassiere, clearly modeled on Disney’s Little Mermaid. At another tug from Liz, the mermaid wiggled her hips and shimmied through the water. Within seconds several of the undines were following the mermaid through the water, their mossy green eyes as wide with wonder as any nine-year-old at Disney World.

“They’re really quite simple at this age,” Soheila said as she deftly cast her owl kite into the water. Instead of merely sinking, the kite performed an elaborate parabola above the pool and then dove in the water as if it had spied a tasty fish.

“Show-off,” Diana said with a laugh. “Just because you’re a wind spirit doesn’t mean you have to make the rest of us feel inadequate.”

There was nothing inadequate, though, in the way Diana’s deer kite bounced merrily over the surface of the pool and then somersaulted into the water with a flick of its white tail.My companions might not be giddy teenagers, but they hadn’t lost the will for friendly rivalry.

Peering down through the water I saw swarms of undines circling the colorful kites. They had formed three separate circles.

“I’m afraid all we’ve done is make the current even more confusing for them,” Liz said. “The underwater passage to Faerie is right below you. Can you see it?”

I leaned farther to look into the water. At first it was difficult to make out anything among the whirling water, colorful kites, and semi-transparent undines, but at last I saw something flash among the rocks at the bottom of the pool. It looked like a bright gold coin, so bright it was hard to look at. But as I stared, it grew larger and shot out rays of gold light into the roiling water.

“See!” Diana crowed triumphantly. “Callie just needed to look at the passage to make it grow bigger. I told you she was a powerful doorkeeper.”

Clearly there’d been some dispute about the matter, which might have bothered me if I didn’t have my own doubts about my power. I squinted up at the three women who stood between me and the midday sun.

“You’ve opened the door before,” Liz said. “I know you can do it again.”

“The first two times I was letting creatures into this world. I have a feeling that’s easier.”

“Yes,” Soheila agreed. “If the creatures want to come through, it would be.”

“And the third time was on the solstice, which is when it’s supposed to open,” I said, recalling the brief glimpse of Faerie I’d had that time: sloping green meadows and distant blue mountains. It looked lush and beautiful and I had felt a sudden yearning to go there…but then, recalling my dream lastnight, I felt a chill. As Liz had pointed out, my power was unstable. I might find myself in the Borderlands if I tried the passage to Faerie.

“But the last time you opened the door to throw Mara through it,” Soheila said. “And she certainly didn’t want to go.”

Mara was a liderc—a life-sucking bird monster—who had masqueraded as my student. She had attacked me and chased me into the woods and nearly succeeded in killing me. “No, she didn’t want to go, but she was going to kill me if I didn’t get rid of her, so I was pretty motivated. Also, I used an opening spell from my spell book…”

“Really?” Liz said. “You combined witchcraft with your fey power? That’s…unusual. Do you recall the spell?”

I did, but I didn’t tell them that. I also didn’t tell them that I’d had help ejecting Mara into the Borderlands. I’d opened the door, but I hadn’t been strong enough to get her through it. At the last moment before Mara would have eaten me whole, Liam had appeared in shadow-form, torn Mara off me, and thrown her through the door. Liam hadn’t been able to follow because the iron manacles on his wrists kept him from entering Faerie. He was forever trapped in the Borderlands.

I was the one who’d clamped the manacles on him.

I hadn’t told the three women about Liam coming to help me. I knew they felt bad about convincing me to banish Liam when it was really Mara who had been feeding on the students. They didn’t need to know that Liam had saved me even after I’d condemned him to eternal pain.

Or maybe I just didn’t like to admit that the man I’d banished—the man I hadn’t been able to make human with my love—had saved me.

I blinked and a tear fell into the swirling water. I bent closerto the pool, pretending to study the situation more closely but really trying to hide my tears from the other women.

“Well, then,” Liz said briskly, “you should have no problem being motivated now. These undines will die if we don’t herd them through that passage.”

I nodded my head, still too close to tears to trust my voice, and lowered my face nearly to the surface of the water. The undines had formed into one circle now, moving so fast that it was hard to make out individuals. I wondered if the undines would melt into water if they kept up this frantic pace—or beach themselves on the bank and die tangled in the thickets. I laid my hand just above the surface of the water and felt a thrumming vibration, a nervous energy that traveled through my hand, up my arm, and lodged in my chest. Like heartburn.

I suddenly knew that the undines’ hearts were burning up. If I didn’t open the door for them, they’d die. I focused on the chink of light at the bottom of the pool and called out the opening spell.

“Ianuam sprengja!”

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