Spirits and Spells

  The creature raised another, undamaged, tentacle and shook it at him admonishingly. “Look, I don’t want to hurt you. But it’s my job to guard this sword.” Its voice was deep and oddly solemn, with a slight bubbling quality, as if it were coming through a layer of oil.

  Derek pushed himself to his feet and went to stand protectively in front of Jenny. She put a hand on his shoulder. “What’s going on?” she asked, her voice quivering.

  “I don’t have the slightest idea what’s going on!” shouted the creature, as if Jenny had addressed it and not Derek. “I was sleeping peacefully in my cave when suddenly I woke up and saw him heading for my sword. So I grabbed him. That’s what I’m supposed to do, you know.”

  Jenny tightened her grip on Derek’s shoulder. “What …” She stopped, swallowed, and tried again. “What world are you from?”

  “Quarmix. Why?”

  Derek blinked in surprise. Quarmix was the world of the game—the supposedly imaginary world where they were playing this all out!

  Jenny tightened her grip on Derek’s shoulder. “I’m scared,” she whispered.

  Derek put his hand over hers. “Me, too. But we have to stay calm. I don’t know—”

  The creature slapped a tentacle down beside them with a suddenness that made them both jump. “Where am I?”

  Derek was astounded to hear a note of fear in its voice.

  “You’re on Earth,” stammered Jenny. Then she added in a whisper, “I hope.”

  The creature made a bubbling noise deep in its throat. “The coven! Is the coven trying to come back?”

  “What coven?” asked Derek. “What are you talking about?

  “Nothing!” said the creature desperately. “Nothing!”

  Derek glanced back at Jenny. She was white-faced and shaking with fear. He stepped back to comfort her, but before he could put his arm around her, the creature lashed out with another tentacle. Moving like a whip, it struck the floor just to their right with a thwack, splattering slime in all directions. Now a thick tentacle lay undulating on either side of them.

  “Don’t move,” said the creature.

  Derek considered trying to grab the broomstick and smash one of the tentacles. He decided against it, fearing he might only succeed in angering the creature. He looked at Jenny. Her lower lip was trembling. He hoped she wasn’t going to cry.

  A period of tense silence followed while the creature looked them over. Derek had the uneasy feeling they were being judged. Suddenly he found the silence unbearable. To break it, he asked, “Who does the sword belong to?”

  “Mormekull,” the creature replied. “Sort of.”

  “The enemy!” gasped Jenny.

  Derek wondered how the creature would react to that bit of information.

  But all it said was, “Well, he’s no friend of mine, either. I just work for him.” It paused, then asked, “What do you want with the sword? And why is Mormekull your enemy?”

  “We were playing a game,” said Derek. He stopped. It sounded so silly. How could he explain to this … thing what was going on? Especially since he really had no idea himself.

  “We need it to break a spell,” he said at last.

  “What kind of spell?”

  “One of banishment. We want to return home.”

  “Uh-oh,” said the creature. “I don’t like the sound of this.”

  Jenny shivered. Derek was talking to the tentacled beast as if the game was real. Her heart began to pound harder as she realized there was no “as if” about it. The game was real. Why else would they be standing here talking to a monster?

  Suddenly the creature turned in her direction, a movement accomplished by twisting the lower part of its squat body, which seemed very flexible. “Are you part of the coven?” it asked.

  Its voice was so serious Jenny knew she had to answer correctly. She glanced at Derek, hoping for a clue, but he shook his head helplessly. “I don’t know,” she said finally.

  The creature snorted. “That’s stupid!”

  “No, it’s not,” said Derek. “Listen. Let me tell you what happened.”

  Quickly he outlined what had brought them to the cellar. The creature listened, its lopsided eyes blinking every now and then, its tentacles rippling uneasily.

  “Take me to the others,” it said when he was done.

  Derek looked at Jenny. “The others?”

  “That’s what I said!” snapped the creature. Its voice had a hint of ancient anger and lurking sorrow. “Don’t act so surprised. I have some old scores to settle, and you may be able to help.”

  When neither one of them answered, it wrapped a tentacle around Jenny’s waist and lifted her from the floor.

  “Take me to the others,” it repeated.

  Jenny, pale and trembling, looked at Derek with pleading eyes.

  “All right,” he said firmly. “Let go of her. Then follow me.”

  9

  THE POWERS THAT BE

  Denise stood at the top of the stairs, unable to see any way to help Matt, who seemed to have lost his mind. He was backing down the stairway, a look of desperation on his face as he swung some sort of stick ferociously back and forth in front of him.

  Niana!

  She spun around, but could not see who had spoken.

  “Denise!” cried Matt desperately. He was at the foot of the stairs now, still backing up. Suddenly he shouted in pain. Denise gasped as she saw a broad rip appear in the right shoulder of his shirt. Beneath the rip his flesh was torn, too. Blood began pouring down his arm.

  Finally understanding that he really was being attacked by something she could not see, Denise hurtled down the stairway, heedless of whatever it was that stood between herself and Matt.

  “Be careful!” cried Matt. “They’ll get you, too!”

  Denise stopped, uncertain what to do.

  Tansy leaned over the stair railing. “The stave!” she cried. “Matt, they want the stave!”

  “Can you see what’s going on?” yelled Denise.

  “No, but I can hear them. There are two of them, and they want Matt to give them the stave.”

  “They can’t have it!” shouted Matt.

  “Tansy, we’ve got to do something!” cried Denise frantically.

  Tansy started down the stairs.

  “Be careful, miss!” cried Charity. “Those two with the swords are a rough-looking pair.”

  “Can you see them?” asked Tansy in surprise.

  “Of course. Can’t you?”

  “Who are you talking to?” called Denise, her voice shrill with fear.

  Tansy did not answer. Something was bothering her, a thought at the back of her mind struggling to take form. What had triggered it? Charity had been talking …

  That was it! Denise couldn’t hear Charity, but she, Tansy, could! She recalled Travis’s first statement of her powers: “You are an enchantress who can communicate with spirits.”

  Could it be that her game powers were real?

  If so, then maybe Matt’s powers would be, too.

  “Matt!” she cried. “Your spells. Use your spells!”

  Matt looked up. A light of understanding crossed his face. He swung the stave ferociously, then cast it behind him. With grim concentration he raised his hands.

  “Charity,” said Tansy. “What are the men doing? Tell me quickly!”

  “They’re backing off, as if they’re expecting something to happen. Why did the boy throw away his stick?”

  “Watch,” said Tansy.

  Suddenly Matt’s hands erupted in flame, fire shooting from his fingertips, from his palms—a blaze of blue and yellow heat that engulfed his arms to the elbows.

  Denise began to scream.

  Tansy grabbed her shoulder. “It’s all right,” she said. “It’s all right. That’s his power!”

  “Oh, that’s done it, miss!” cried Charity triumphantly. “That’s done it for sure.”

  A line of blue fire stretched across the hallway. Matt stood on
one side of it, sweat running down his brow. The tip of his tongue protruded from his lips and his face was lined with fierce concentration.

  “Look out!” cried Charity. “They’re running from him, but they’re coming this way. Stand aside!”

  Tansy grabbed Denise and pulled her against the banister. The girls shuddered as a cold wind whipped past them.

  “Well,” said Charity, sounding surprised but satisfied. “They just disappeared. I guess that’s that!”

  “Matt!” cried Denise. Pulling away from Tansy, she raced down the steps. The line of fire was flickering out now, and Matt had a dazed expression on his face. He lifted his hands, looked at them as if he had never seen them before, then crumpled and fell to the floor.

  Denise was at his side instantly. Kneeling, she shook his shoulder. “Matt! Matt!”

  “The fire, miss,” said Charity nervously.

  Tansy turned her attention from her friends and saw that though the magical flames had gone out, several spots in the hallway had caught fire for real and were beginning to blaze away.

  She looked at Matt. He could cast spells of fire and illusion. She had a spell for fire, too. A spell for fire, and a spell for freezing.

  She walked slowly down the steps. How had Matt done it?

  Raising her hands, Tansy pointed them at the closest patch of flames. She began to concentrate, imagining a blast of cold so intense it could kill the fire.

  Ice. Ice and snow. Freezing.

  Suddenly she felt as if she had been plunged into a vat of ice water. A ring of cold around her heart threatened to stop it from beating. Then a burst of frost surged out of her fingertips, struck the nearest patch of fire, and extinguished it instantly.

  There remained three spots where the fire was a serious problem. Setting her feet slightly apart to brace herself, Tansy directed a blast of frost at each of them.

  At once the flames were gone.

  “Oh, that was wonderful, miss!” cried Charity.

  “It hurts,” gasped Tansy. Groaning with pain at the intense cold, she wondered if Matt had experienced heat in the same extreme. If so, it was little wonder he had collapsed. She put her hand to her forehead. She didn’t feel very well.

  “Oh, miss!” cried Charity as Tansy crumpled and fell to the floor.

  Travis sat at the table, waiting for the others to return. He flipped through the game manual impatiently. Sending them all through the house had been a good idea, except for one thing: It left him sitting here along, doing nothing.

  He put the book down and smiled. At least it would be fun when they came back. He couldn’t wait to hear what they would have to say. That plastic octopus of his little sister’s that he had put in the cellar should have been just enough to give Jenny a bit of a scare without getting her too upset. And the tape recorder in the attic had probably given Tansy a good jump, too. But she wouldn’t mind, not really. She’d be a little angry at first, but she could take it. That was one of the things he liked about her.

  He heard a noise in the hall and looked up. Some of the searchers were on their way back. He started to stand, then thought better of it. Let them think he had been waiting casually while they finished their assignments.

  He turned back to the game book. He needed to brush up on the next stage of the game anyway. But the sound of the rain slashing at the windows behind him was distracting, and the flickering candlelight made reading difficult. Most of all, his eagerness for the others to return made concentration almost impossible.

  He put his finger on the page, as if he could force his attention to stay with the material by touching the printed words.

  “Once the objects of power have been regathered, the Master Mage must take a more active hand. There is apt to be conflict among the players about how to use the items. Master Mage Karno must negotiate …”

  Travis looked up again. The noise in the hall was louder this time.

  He frowned. Had the others decided to get back at him for his little tricks? He pulled back his chair, stood, and listened carefully. He could hear Tansy’s voice.

  Why was she yelling?

  He started for the door, then stopped in his tracks.

  Someone was in the room with him.

  He turned around to see if one of the others had snuck in somehow.

  The room was empty.

  But it wasn’t! There was someone else. He knew it as surely as he knew his own name. He could feel it—feel the presence of another being.

  Travis.

  The voice was rich and deep.

  Travis began to tremble. Outside there was a horrible crash of thunder. He turned to face the table, then cried out in fear.

  Slowly, one by one, the candles were going out.

  When Denise saw Tansy fall, she scrambled to her feet. She looked at Tansy, then at Matt.

  She had to get them to the library. It wasn’t that far—she could just go for help. But considering everything that had happened already, she didn’t want to leave them alone for even a moment. Who knew what might happen while she went to get Travis?

  She took a deep breath. The one thing she understood about the bizarre scene that had just occurred was that Tansy and Matt had been using their game powers. Was it possible hers worked, too?

  Furrowing her brow in concentration, Denise passed her hands over Matt’s body.

  Even though it was what she was trying to do, she gasped when his body slowly lifted from the floor and rose until it was floating about three feet in the air.

  Once she had Tansy floating, too, she turned and headed for the library.

  10

  MAGIC TAKES OVER

  “No!” cried Travis.

  The room grew darker.

  Travis, said the voice. You can be the Master Mage. We can give you power—the kind of power you’ve always dreamed of. No one will ever laugh at you again. Nothing will be impossible for you. All you need to do is let me in.

  Travis clapped his hands to the sides of his head. The voice was already inside. He remembered Lydia’s screams the night they had first tried to play the game, and what she had said to Tansy later about “fingers” in her mind. Now he knew what those strange words meant. Someone was trying to get inside his brain. The attack came as a strange probing feeling that made him squirm with disgust.

  “Stop it!” he cried.

  Just then the library door swung open. Travis staggered back against the table as he saw first Matt and then Tansy float through the doorway. They were lying on their backs, about three feet above the floor. The stave lay on Matt’s chest.

  Denise appeared in the doorway, hands held out before her, face dripping with perspiration. With a sigh she lowered her hands. Matt and Tansy settled to the floor, dropping as lightly as balloons that were slowly losing their helium.

  Once they were safely down, Denise sagged against the doorsill with a little moan of exhaustion.

  Travis looked from Matt and Tansy to Denise and back again. Suddenly he realized that the fingers in his mind were gone.

  Tansy moaned and turned on her side.

  Travis licked his lips. His throat was dry. When he tried to speak, nothing came out. He swallowed, tried again. “Denise, what’s going on?”

  “That’s what I wanted to ask you,” she replied, and Travis found the haunted look in her eyes as frightening as anything that had happened in the last few minutes. He had never seen the unshakable Denise look this way. A pang of helpless terror shot through him.

  “What … what happened to Matt and Tansy?” he stammered.

  “They wore themselves out. Using their spells.”

  Travis looked at her incredulously. “What …”

  Tansy moaned again, and then opened her eyes. “Travis?”

  He rushed to her, knelt at her side. “Tansy! Are you all right?”

  She put her hand to her forehead. “I … I think so. Matt! Matt, are you …” Her voice trailed off as she realized that Matt could not answer her.

&nb
sp; Denise had crossed to join them. Kneeling, she lifted Matt’s head into her lap. “Matt,” she whispered. “Matty, it’s me, Denise. Matt, wake up!”

  As she stroked his forehead, his eyes flickered open.

  Travis shivered. “Your name is Niana,” he whispered. “You are a healer.”

  Denise glared at him. “Don’t call me that!”

  Travis stepped back, startled by the intensity of her anger.

  “They want me,” said Denise. Her eyes were large, her voice desperate. “They want me to be Niana. Don’t help them!”

  Matt moaned and sat up. “Denise? What happened? The warriors …”

  “Oh, he’s awake, miss. I’m glad. I was so worried.”

  “Charity?” asked Tansy. “Where are you?”

  “Right here, miss. Standing beside you.”

  Travis and Denise glanced at each other, then stared nervously at Tansy, wondering who she was talking to—or if she had simply lost her mind. But Matt leaped to his feet and cried out in terror, “Tansy! Tansy, there’s someone beside you!”

  “You can see her?” asked Tansy in surprise. “Oh, of course you can. That’s your power! It’s all right, Matt. She’s a friend.”

  “What the hell are you two talking about?” asked Travis.

  Matt was holding on to the back of a chair for support. “There’s someone standing beside Tansy,” he said. “A girl. A ghost! Can’t you see her? Denise? Travis?”

  Denise shook her head. Travis rubbed his eyes and stared at Tansy.

  “Of course they can’t see her,” said Tansy. “They don’t have the power. Remember the game, Matt. You’re the only one who was given the power to see spirits.”

  “Do you want me to go, miss?” asked Charity, a note of sadness in her voice. “I don’t want to cause trouble.”

  “No,” said Tansy. “We’ll get things straightened out in a minute. Travis, why don’t you light the rest of the candles? It’s dark in here.”

  His long fingers trembling, Travis took out a pack of matches and fumbled with the candles, glad to have something to do.

  “Let’s sit,” said Tansy. “I think we need to calm down and talk this whole thing over. Matt, this is Charity. She’s on our side.”