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The apartment became crowded. Cona slept in Vanna’s bed, Vanna on the floor. Kirby and the pets took the living room couch, and Doyle stayed in Kirby’s room. For two weeks, he had been our accidental hostage. I tied his ankles to a heavy ball and chain and let him move freely around the apartment. It would’ve been better to keep him in his confinement, but Kirby’s room had no bathroom.
As Doyle slowly regained his health, worries crept into my friends’ hearts. "I don’t trust him. He’s the one who took me to the castle." Ebba often complained. "He can be eavesdropping,” said Vanna, but from what I saw, Doyle did nothing but read.
One afternoon, Cona and I sat in the living room to talk about my powers. I showed her a small board on which I had placed colored, sticky notes. "These are all the noble spells I used before, categorized by color," I cheered. "Green is Earth Magic. Yellow, blue, red are air, water, and fire, all of which I had used to attack Katarus. Vision is in orange. Occasionally, I’d get glimpses at the future or the past, so I might be a Seer too."
"So what’s the problem?" Cona stared at me as if I was an alien.
"The problem is that I shouldn’t be able to use any of this." I pouted. "A noble witch should have one specialty and a grimoire that doesn’t belong to the dark arts. All I want is to find my element."
"And did the sticky notes help?" she asked with apparent sarcasm.
"Not really." I lowered my head. "What’s wrong with me, Cona?"
"Does something have to be wrong with you, Echo?" She sounded like a mom. "So you can use different types of magic. I call this an advantage."
"I might be using different elements, but I’m not mastering any of them. My spells lose impact, sometimes within seconds. Plus, without a normal grimoire, I can’t devise new spells. How am I going to fight Jivar?"
"Hmm." Cona’s eyes drifted to the corner. "Let’s see what the spirits have to say about you. Burn some sage and bring me my Ouija board."
***
The incense burned. I turned off the lights and closed the curtains while Cona set her board on the table. "Oh spirit, come forth. Let us receive your guidance," she chanted.
The curtain fluttered when a whiff of air came through the window. Oscar, who was napping on the carpet, woke up and started to look around. Wondering if he could see the spirits, I sat down and held Cona’s hands over the board.
"Spirit, are you there?" Cona asked. "Help me find Echo’s element."
We waited, then waited a bit more. Before the silence became too uncomfortable, the planchette moved. It glided across the board without anyone touching it, and it started to spell a word for us: O, A, S...
"Oasis?" I asked in confusion. "That’s not an element."
"But it’s a hint." Cona shrugged, teasing me into a new adventure.
***
"The Northern Oasis?" Ebba was unrolling her sleeping bag in my room when I told her about the hint. "You mean the oasis in the North?"
"That’s the one." I got in my bed and covered myself up with a blanket. "We need to go there to find my magic element. So, rooaad triiip." I threw my hands up.
"Uh..." Ebba seemed to be nervous.
"What’s wrong?" I asked.
"N-nothing." She huddled under the covers.
"Come on, Ebba. Spill it." I drew a serious look on my face.
"I j-just, um,"she stuttered. "I get s-sick when driving for long hours."
"You get car sickness?" That sounded odd."You lived on a boat?"
She gave me a flustered look but didn’t try to explain.
"Don’t worry," I said. "Grandpa has a good anti-nauseant."
"P-please, you don’t have to." She waved. "I can s-s-stay here with your sister and the-the baby."
"Actually, I was thinking of inviting Tara. She’s been overwhelmed with the baby and the postpartum hormones. She could use a trip."
"Is this s-safe?" she asked.
"Why not?" I turned in bed and stared at the ceiling. "It’s not like we’re taking Doyle with us."
***
"Doyle is going with you," Kirby said. It was five in the morning when Ebba and I went to pick him up, but, to our surprise, he was still in his pajamas. "And I’m staying."
"Doyle can’t come," I said. "Tara is coming."
"Vanna said he has to go," Kirby argued. "There’s no one to watch him, and we’ll be busy in the store." He yawned. "Why is Tara going?"
"I invited her. She got all hyped up, and she’s waiting in the car as we speak."
"So now it’s you, Ebba, Tara, and Doyle?" He chuckled. "Best of luck."
"M-maybe I should s-stay," Ebba threw that in.
"Good grief, Ebba," I yelled. "You’re coming."
I marched into Kirby’s room. Doyle was by the closet, buttoning his shirt. My friends gave me a hard time buying him new clothes, but I couldn’t bear the smell of the old ones. It had been weeks and the stink of the potion didn’t go anywhere.
"I guess Kirby told you we are going out of town," I said. "Please, understand that my sister will be joining us, so you need to behave."
"Behave?" He shot me a hateful look. "I’m not a dog."
"That’s not what I meant," I said.
"Then what did you mean?"
"I meant." I paused to rethink my words. "You’ve been stuck in this apartment for a long time, and you deserve some fresh air. But if you want to come with us to the Oasis, you have to promise not to hurt anyone."
"Such a generous offer coming from the person who has me shackled." His dimples showed when he smirked. "But you have my word."
"Pleasure doing business with you." I extended my hand to shake his, but he let it hang, so I cleared my throat and pulled away awkwardly. "One more thing. My sister, Tara, doesn’t know I’m a witch. So can you keep the magic talks between us?"
"All right." He nodded.
"Also, full disclaimer, we’ll be in the middle of a desert. If you run away, I can’t technically stop you, but you might end up eaten by a bear or lion."
He chuckled. "Thank you for the warning."
"You’re welcome." I cheered. There were no bears or lions in Oracles Island, but how would he have known? He came from another world, didn’t he?
***
"This is my sister Tara."
From the backseat, Tara extended her hand to greet Doyle, who sat next to me. "Nice to meet you, Doyle."
He reciprocated politely. When he looked away, Tara mouthed the word, "Handsome." I smacked her hand, so she fell back in her seat, laughing.
"I’m so excited to see the oasis," Tara told Ebba, who sat next to her. "A few years ago, pharma companies used to buy their herbs and oils to make cosmetics. Their lotion gave me the softest skin."
"Was it the one in the pink bottle?" I asked as I started the car. "I used to borrow it from you all the time."
"Yeah, it’s the one," Tara replied. "I was devastated when they stopped making it."
"W-why did they stop?" Ebba asked.
"I read there was an earthquake that did something to the land." Tara sounded like she was telling a ghost story on Halloween. "Ever since it happened, plants refuse to grow in the oasis. They don’t have enough to sell."
"An earthquake?" An alarm went off in my head.
"Yeah, it was tragic. People died. The earth just opened up and swallowed them."
I glanced at Doyle, who listened to the conversation quietly. Was that earthquake a portal? Only he would know, after all, he worked for Jivar.
***
The oasis stretched to the size of a small town. Chains of palm trees adorned the golden desert; their fronds swayed to the breeze of the balmy winter day. Slanted sun rays fell on the spring water, giving it a mesmerizing sparkle. The air had a sweet, dusty scent that reminded me of playing in the park when I was a child. I could watch the beautiful view for hours, but I was on a mission. I had to find my magic element, though I wasn’t sure where to look.
As soon as we arrived, Tara dragged us to the oasis market, a house-sized, wooden stand where the farmers sold their produce. Herbs of all shapes and colors were kept in muslin bags and lined for display, but most of them were old and stale.
"What a disappointment." Tara sighed. "I was hoping to find something fresh or green."
"At this time of year?" a stranger broke in. He was a tall man with brown skin and a wide smile, and he wore a black windbreaker and khaki pants. "Only one farmer sells fresh herbs these days."
"Who’s that?" I asked.
"Me." He pointed at the stand behind him. The man was a seller, a charming one indeed. "Come, take a look."
Tara and I started to browse through his collection. I found some dried-up, root chips in the color of olive. Once I brought them close to my nose, I puckered my face at the foul odor. "Is this vandal root?"
"You really know your stuff, don’t you?" He sounded impressed. "These ones here were used for black magic back in the old days."
"I’ll take some then." I grinned.
"Didn’t you hear what the man said?" Tara asked. "This plant is evil. You shouldn’t be buying it."
"Relax, Tara, there’s no such thing as black magic." I lied with confidence before turning back to the seller. "Hey, this is our first time here, can you suggest places to visit? Maybe something spooky to scare my sister?"
"Have you heard of the old tomb?" he asked as he handed me a bag with my herbs. "There’s a woman who lives there. She has some—" He stopped.
Following his gaze, my eyes stopped at Ebba, who was standing at the back, minding her business. He stared at her, eyes turning into hearts like he fell under a spell. He didn’t even notice when I extended my hand with his payment.
"Don’t you want your money?" I waved at him with the cash in my hand.
"Oh." He took it from me while continuing to ogle my friend.
"About the woman in the tomb. What’s her name again?" I asked.
"Maradis."
"Can you tell me more about her?"
"Feel the room, Stiff Head," Tara whispered in my ear. "The guy is smitten."
"Excuse me, ladies." The seller said before he grabbed a dried flower in his hand and swaggered towards Ebba. Tara, the big romance enthusiast, waited in anticipation, unlike I, who felt protective over my friend. Doyle just watched unbothered. He neither cared about Ebba nor the guy.
"This is for you." Standing before Ebba, the man’s smirk turned into a nervous grin.
"Stay away from me," Ebba cried out, grabbing the attention of strangers in the market. Her body stiffened and her breath grew ragged in a full-blown panic attack, a reaction that seemed exaggerated to the point that even Doyle was stunned. Do they know each other? That was the only rational reason for Ebba’s freak out, but the man’s expression showed otherwise. He was as shocked as everyone.
***
On a picnic blanket, we unboxed the delicious lunch Tara had prepared. There were chicken sandwiches, cheese, pickles, and of course, cinnamon cookies with chocolate chips—my favorite. Trying not to invade Ebba’s privacy, we never mentioned what happened in the market, but I tried to cheer her up by starting a conversation she’d enjoy. "Let’s talk about our favorite fish plates."
The three gave me confused looks.
"I’ll start," I said with excitement. "My favorite fish is tuna. I love tuna salad with lots of veggies and olive oil. What about you, Doyle? How do you like your fish?"
"Cooked."
"Very helpful." I cleared my throat. "Tara?"
"Grilled salmon with lemon butter sauce." Tara pouted. She was still disappointed because she didn’t find any ‘special’ herbs in the market.
"Yum yum," I cheered. "What about you, Ebba?"
"I like all fish," Ebba said. She stood up and walked towards the nearest palm tree. Squatting down, she grabbed a flower, which she handed to Tara. "I-I think you c-can use it on your skin."
"Wow. It’s pretty." Tara viewed it up close. "Do you think it’ll help with Lillian’s diaper rash?"
"Y-you can t-try," Ebba said.
"Lemme see." I took the flower from Tara. It was white and had a shiny, golden stigma that seemed almost surreal. Only when I inhaled its sweet fragrance did I recognize it. I had seen it before in the garden outside Jivar’s castle. I turned to Doyle. He was also surprised to see it.
"So who’s going to visit the old tomb with me?" I asked.
"A tomb?" Tara said in an ‘are you kidding me?’ tone. "As in dead people and ghosts? Count me out."
"What about you, Ebba?"
"Eh, um. If Tara is s-staying, I’ll stay," she said.
"Then it’s just us," I told Doyle. That was my plan in the first place. A little after noon, he and I abandoned the group and headed on our way. With our hands dug in our pockets, and a big distance between us, we probably looked like two strangers strolling along the spring, but no one cared about how we looked. There was no sign of anyone around us—just the beautiful spring and the sandy path.
"It was a hili." Out of nowhere, Doyle spoke, but I caught on quickly.
"The flower?"
"Your friend is right," he said, "Hilis can heal wounds."
I pulled out my phone and googled the name he mentioned. Hilis grew in the oasis and had been used for skincare since ancient times, around the time Jivar was on Earth. "Do you think Jivar comes from here?"
"It’s possible." He didn’t take time to answer that.
"What about the earthquake? And the plants that stopped growing?"
"As you guessed, the earthquake was a portal," he said, pausing for a second before he added, "but it’s not Jivar who chooses where to open portals."
I sensed slight guilt in his voice. "You do..."
He didn’t reply. A part of me wanted to yell at him. He was the one to blame for everyone who died during that attack, for Ebba’s father and the helpless servants in the castle.
"Portals don’t kill plants," he said in a matter-of-fact tone. "They momentarily disrupt the natural energy flow of the land, but nature has its way of restoring balance."
"Hmm." I frowned and continued to walk forward.
"I don’t owe you anything, Echo." Doyle came to an abrupt halt. "I won’t explain to you why I do the things I do. I care less—"
"I didn’t ask for an explanation," I said, coming to a stop myself, though I didn’t turn around to face him. "We’re not friends bonding over a trip. We’re two enemies at a truce, so let’s keep it this way."
***
In the middle of the dunes stood the old tomb, a lonely stone building with fluted columns and an oval entrance. Wreaths of herbs hung on the walls to bless the souls of the dead. An ancient, sacred place. An airless place. I almost lost my breath when I walked in, and a cold chill ran up my spine.
"Can I ask you a question, Doyle? Since we are at a truce and all."
"What is it?"
"Are ghosts real?"
He gave off half a laugh. "Are you scared?"
"Huh? Noooo," I said with a fake high-pitch and a dismissive wave. "But hypothetically speaking, if there are ghosts, how do we fight them?"
"Why are you asking me? You’re the witch."
"I’m just—"
"You’re a witch?" a female voice startled me. Letting out a short scream, I grabbed on to Doyle’s arm like a child. A woman with long, gray hair showed herself. She wore a black dress and held a knife in her hand. "You’re a witch?" she repeated. The word ‘witch,’ didn’t seem to addle her.
Does she know about witches? Should I say yes? No? Thank God Tara stayed behind.
My panic grew when I noticed I was still holding onto Doyle’s arm. I yelped and moved away, regaining my composure. "M-my name is E-echo Black—."
"Witches should go to hell," the woman grumbled before walking away. Doyle and I shared a confused look. We followed her to a dim corner, where she climbed on a chair and carved the wall with her knife. The scraping sound made my skin crawl.
"Are you Maradis?" I asked.
She ignored me and continued to draw on the wall, swaying left and right to reach the far ends. The wooden chair creaked, weakening, weathering—its good days far gone.
The leg snapped.
"Take care." Doyle jumped in, catching the old lady as the chair collapsed.
"Are you all right?" he asked, gently helping her stand.
"Yes, yes." She gasped. Her hand quivered inside Doyle’s, though she looked at him with an innocent gleam. Like a loving mother admiring her son, she brought her hand to his face and stared into his eyes for a long moment. "Do you want to hear a story?"
He nodded.
Maradis moved away and produced a flashlight from her pocket. She waved it at the wall to show us her drawing.
Five people, holding hands. She drew them in the way a child would. "Long time ago, witches lived in the oasis. Five tribes of witches. Good witches. No one taught them how to share."
She moved to the next drawing. The five people held their swords and stood in a puddle of water. No. It was a puddle of blood. "In The Brothers War, they fought for the water of the spring. Many people died in the war."
Then there was unity. Entangled circles joined the five people together. "Marriage?" I asked.
Maradis explained the war ended with an agreement to bind the tribes by marriage. For the sake of peace, young witches were sent to marry men from their neighboring tribes. The conflict ended, but the bloodshed never stopped. "There was a young witch, who chased sin and forgot she was a wife and a mother," Maradis continued. "She fell in love with the evil one and helped him fight nature. She gave him eternity."
A flush of adrenaline rushed into my body when I realized Maradis’s story was mine. In the next drawing, the witch bowed to the evil eye—the symbol Maradis used to represent Jivar. That was my great-grandmother, Lú, who started everything, but Maradis’s version of the story was different. Lú rued the day she surrendered to her darkness. She begged her tribe for forgiveness, but they took her child away and left her to die in the desert.
"What happened next?" I asked.
"The young witch did a spell that locked the evil one away. It became angry. It opened the earth, killing our plants." Maradis broke into tears. "And taking my child from me."
Maradis sobbed. I scooted closer in a clumsy attempt to comfort her. On the wall, the story continued to show Katarus attacking our world, but Lú’s prophecy was nowhere to be found. Instead, the story ended with an ancient Sumerian word.
"Ezeru etlu?" Doyle read.
"The cursed warrior," I translated. "Maradis, what does this mean?"
She continued to weep, refusing to say anything more.
***
We left the tomb with another ‘hint,’ another piece of the puzzle I strove to solve. "Did you know?" I asked Doyle as we walked back to the spring. "About Jivar."
"I thought we were not ‘bonding,’" he said with his usual stern face.
"We’re not, but I still want to know... You’re immune to spells. This means Jivar can’t hurt you. He can’t force you to do anything you don’t want. So why do you work for him?"
He didn’t answer.
"You said you want to protect the Katarus, but aren’t you putting their lives at stake by letting them fight for Jivar? Or is there something else? Someone else?"
He didn’t answer.
"Viessa?" That was just a guess, but his changed expression told me that I was correct.
"This is none of your concern," he said, his stern face now showing defensiveness.
"I guess not." I scoffed. "Sorry for intruding."
***
Sitting on the car hood, Doyle and I watched the brilliant sunlight go from fiery to mellow. Pinks, oranges, and crimsons—the sky was painted in a hundred colors that mirrored on the surface of the spring. I had never seen such clarity before.
From a distance, I could see Tara and Ebba, goofing around and taking pictures. "These two are getting along well," I said. I took a sip from my coffee thermos. It tasted strong, though it had lost most of its aroma. "Want some?"
Doyle took a sip of my coffee then returned it to me. Despite the tension we had earlier, he seemed relaxed. I also felt strangely calm.
Can this place have soothing power? The thought brought me to the edge of the spring. Kneeling on the sand, I dipped my hand in the lukewarm water and sensed heaviness. Something blocked the flow of energy.
"What are you doing?" Doyle followed me.
"I figured it out. The witches who used to live here enriched this spring with a source of healing energy that nourished the plants. When the portal opened, it scattered the flow of that energy. Because it’s not natural, nature couldn’t restore it."
"Can you?" He sounded intrigued.
"I can try," I said. Keeping my hand in the water, I chanted an old healing spell, but it did nothing. "Basic spells don’t work. It needs something more powerful."
"What are you going to do then?"
"I’m not sure if I have that kind of power." I lied. With one word, I could summon my grimoire and invoke a new spell to fix the spring, but I wondered if a book meant for evil could be used for good. That grimoire was my disgrace.
I hesitated, but eventually, I called for it. It appeared to me and opened itself to a blank page. Its aura had grown colder and darker, forcing Doyle to shuffle to the back. "What is this?" he asked in an appalled tone.
"Let it all be healed," I chanted.
The words inscribed themselves onto the page. I closed my eyes when I felt a beam of gold light growing inside me, tingling. It grew big enough to surround the grimoire, weaving into the dark aura, filling it up the way water would fill an empty glass.
My heart opened, seized by an indescribable feeling. Love? Healing? Peace? Bliss? It was all yet none of them.
"Let it all be healed," I repeated.
The light continued to grow, enveloping the entire oasis. Everything became one. The spring, the sand, the plants, the seller at the market, Maradis, Doyle, Tara, and Ebba—they were all inside me. For an instant, I saw through their eyes. Tara scrolled through pictures of her daughter, wondering if she had done the right thing leaving the baby with Jackson for the day. Ebba battled through many unexplored emotions. Her heart was heavy, and she wished for a second chance. Doyle just watched me, and as he did, something inside him shifted.
My spell restored the balance to the spring, giving its magic back. I looked at my grimoire, whose cover now had a bright, golden color and a title reading: The Magic of Recreation.
I turned to Doyle, who gazed at me, awestruck. No one ever looked at me this way before. I smiled softly.
***
"Is there something going on between these two?" Tara watched from a distance. While the grimoire and the light were invisible to her, she could see how Doyle and Echo looked at each other.
"W-what? N-n-no," Ebba said. "Th-they are just f-friends."
"I think they’re more than friends." Tara gave a knowing smile. "There’s a connection there. Trust me. You’ll see."
