Alexandra Sokoloff - Book of Shadows

He ran through the brush, dodging through tree trunks, straight in the direction the boy had gone. Once he thought he saw a flash of the brown tunic and bare feet, but he heard not a sound of running and was not entirely sure he was not imagining the whole thing, or dreaming.

He felt the ground sloping and instinctively slowed—some self-preservation instinct, obviously, because as soon as he stopped he realized he was four feet from the edge of a sheer drop. He caught a ragged breath… and then he saw it: the glimmer of moonlight on water below.

A clearing, with a natural pool in the center of a rock circle, and beside it, two slim feminine figures, like nymphs in the moonlight.

Garrett was as quiet as he could be, keeping low to the ground as he crept from one bush and fallen log to the next, working his way down the steep face of the hill. Below, Tanith had built a fire and was scouting for more wood, while Selena coaxed the flames with twigs. Garrett was no more than halfway down when Selena raised her face toward the hill and said, “Ah, Detective Garrett. Just in time.”

Garrett straightened from the leafy underbrush and stood looking down on them.

“Funny, I had the feeling I wasn’t invited.” He glanced at Tanith, who looked back with no expression and dropped more logs beside the fire. Sparks flew up around her.

“Not at all,” Selena assured him lightly. “No sacred space can be entered without effort. The journey is meditative, mental preparation.” She lifted her hands. “And here you are.”

Garrett was about to answer angrily, when again he saw the red-haired boy, hovering between the trees, with that sly smile. As soon as Garrett spotted him, he faded back into the dark greenery.

“I followed him,” Garrett said, without realizing he was going to say it. He strode down the remainder of the hill, pointing. “The red-haired kid from her garden.”

“Is that right?” Selena raised an eyebrow. “How interesting.”

“Is he real?” Garrett asked, in spite of himself.

Selena half smiled. “What is real?” Before Garrett could bristle, she relented and explained, “He is a fetch. A servitor. A fetch is a thought form created for a particular task. He was made of my intention, and your expectation. There are unformed energies in the other dimensions which are eager to interact with the world of humans, and those energies can take on a supplicant’s intention.” Her face shadowed. “Demons are much the same: dark energies that gain power with human intention.” She shook her head. “But the fetch—merely a playful energy. I must say I wasn’t expecting such a Shakespearean bent to you, Detective—it’s quite charming.”

She glanced toward the woods where the boy had disappeared, then back to Garrett, with an appraising look. “Odd, though. I didn’t summon him just then. Which means you must have.”

Before Garrett could begin to wrap his mind around that, Tanith spoke behind her. “We should start.” There was agitation in her voice.

“Yes,” Selena said, still looking at Garrett. “Let’s begin.”

They cast the circle together, Tanith on one side of the moonlit pool, Selena on the other. Garrett sat on a boulder by the side of the water, watching as the trees around them rippled in the soft wind, and beneath the moon they called on the four quarters, the Elements, the Watchtowers. Garrett had thought the ritual powerful when Tanith did it alone, but watching the two women together was a whole other dimension; the entire primeval life force of the forest seemed to be with them: wind, fire, water, earth.

Then Selena took a lit candle and walked around the pool three times, while Tanith stood still at the edge, her arms at her side, turned away from the water, face tipped to the moonlight, her body outlined against the fire. And when Selena completed the third circle, she stepped to Tanith and turned her toward the pool, then placed the candle in her hand. Tanith moved obediently, like a sleepwalker. Selena raised her hands to the moon.

“Hecate, Goddess, Mother Night, give thy daughter perfect sight. This water a window through which she can see… as I say, so mote it be.”

Tanith dropped to her knees beside the water with the candle clasped in her hands and stared into the dark shadow of her reflection.

Garrett suddenly recalled Tanith staring through the Plexiglas of the jail, at Jason’s silhouette, the two mirroring each other.

Beside the pool, Tanith reached one hand toward the water, toward her own pale reflection. And in his mind Garrett heard her words to Jason in the jail: “I need you to help me now. I need you to be there tonight. You must bring her there, Jason.”

The older woman stood as if bracing herself against the wind, and spoke. “Erin Carmody, are you there? Erin, hear my voice and come to me. Come to the light I hold. We are here for you.”

The candle in Tanith’s hand flickered, reflected in the water… and Tanith reached down toward the pool, the hand of her reflection reaching up toward her… And as her fingertips touched her reflection, she closed her fingers, holding tightly…

Garrett watched, unnerved. Her arm stretched forward, as if someone were pulling her hand. She bent over at the waist, until she was folded over herself on the bank of the pool, her outstretched hand submerged in the water.

Tanith suddenly dropped the candle, jerked her hand out of the water, and sat bolt upright, as if she had been struck by lightning.

“Help me!” she screamed, in a voice too light and high to be her own. Garrett recoiled with the shock of it. “Help me!”

“Erin Carmody, hear me,” Selena commanded in a voice that brooked no argument. “We are here for you. We are here to help you.”

Tanith scrambled on the bank, her fingers digging into the earth at her sides; she was panting like a dog, her chest heaving, her eyes dilated with terror. “Help me help me help me help me—”

“We will come for you. We will come. You must tell us where you are. Erin. Do you hear me?”

“Dark. So dark, so dark. Can’t move. Scared. Scared.” Tanith writhed and scrabbled on the ground as if she were bound and fighting to escape. “Where are my hands? Where are my hands? Oh God oh God oh God…”

The young voice was shrill with panic. Garrett moved involuntarily toward the pool, toward Tanith, and Selena threw out a startlingly strong arm to block him. Garrett halted in his tracks, but just barely.

“Erin, open your eyes,” Selena commanded, her voice resonating in the night. “Open them and look. You must tell us what you see, so we can come for you. Tell us.”

On the ground, Tanith was hyperventilating, her breath coming in short, panicky gasps.

Selena’s voice cut through the firelit darkness. “Erin. Erin . Calm yourself. Focus on what you see. Tell me what you see.”

“Dark dark dark dark…”

“Focus in the dark. You can see. Tell me what you see. Tell me what you smell.”

“Blood,” came the voice. “Smells like blood. And dust, and fire. It smells like—garden.”

“Like garden,” Selena said sharply. “Like garden how?”

“Like moss,” the young voice said. “Like soil… potting… clay…”

“That’s good, Erin. That’s very good.” Selena darted a glance toward Garrett. “Now look. What do you see?”

“Big, dark, space. Glass. Glass everywhere. Big gray glass. Broken. Barn? Dirt, on the floor. Dirt floor. And a triangle in white,” the young voice said. In his own mind, Garrett saw the triangle in the dirt floor of that dank cellar, the altars with the heads…

Tanith’s breath shuddered in a gasp, and Garrett snapped back to the present. “Dead,” Tanith whispered. “Everything’s dead.”