“Put her down. Now.”
Angelina’s voice sounded strained, as if she was pushing against a great weight.
However, it was enough to get Dick to pause. Merilee still hung in his hands, over his head.
“Or what?” Dick had to smirk.
He thought he was the king of smirk. That he had the upper hand.
That was going to be his downfall.
“She isn’t just my sister, you know,” Angelina said. “She’s me.”
“You know, I’ve heard that sort of metaphysical crap all my life. What does that even mean?” Dick asked.
“Let me show you.”
Perspective changed abruptly. There was no gradual shift.
Merilee suddenly saw the picture she made from her sister’s eyes.
Her sister, who was all the way across the room.
Dick the Elf, that towering fool, stood with his mouth gaping. He still had his hands wrapped in a death grip around a tiny cat body.
Then that cat body began to shift and elongate. Turn back into human.
Not back into Merilee, no.
Into Angelina.
The barbed wire that held the human body collapsed in on itself as the being it held transformed into a much smaller cat.
Merilee neatly hopped out of the reach of the chandelier while Dick struggled to hold up the full-grown woman who’d just appeared in his hands.
Just for a moment.
The transformation was never complete. It didn’t have to be.
Merilee was abruptly sucked back up, whirled back into the place she was supposed to be, up above Dick’s head. The mouse was still in her mouth.
It didn’t take but a moment now to drop it, while he was so unsettled, unable to grasp what had just happened, unable to process how quickly the sisters had changed places, then gone back.
It had taken some time, and a lot of practice.
The main point had never been for them to switch places.
Instead, it was just one more distraction.
Merilee dropped the mouse down Dick’s gaping collar, so it landed somewhere on his chest.
“You bitch!” he screamed.
Unfortunately, that was when he flung her across the room. She twisted, trying to prepare, but it wouldn’t be enough, she knew.
All that extra time she’d borrowed had finally run out.
Merilee heard the crack her spine made as she hit the wall. She didn’t yowl until she hit the floor, unable to move much else.
The spells the mouse contained were already starting to unwind. Dick just helped it along by clutching the toy that had found its way inside his shirt.
Angelina hesitated.
“MRRROWW!” Merilee insisted. Finish him off.
They could see to her later.
She tried to weakly move one of her paws.
Or not.
The pain made her want to vomit, but Merilee couldn’t move. It was as bad as when she’d been trapped in that asshole’s flames, on the conference room table, wanting to pace, to escape, but being unable to.
Despite the tears in her eyes and the heaviness of her eyelids, Merilee still was able to watch Angelina pull out the spells they’d carefully woven into the mouse. Again, the toy had just been a distraction.
The bear started growing now, all of its stuffing spilling out on the floor as Dick fought against it.
He couldn’t escape its fuzzy embrace, the pink plush surrounding him as he started to shrink down.
For a moment, it was almost comical, the look of surprise on Dick’s face as the bear wrapped around him, consuming him. Particularly when it was mostly finished, and Dick appeared to be more pink, stuffed bear than human.
The last part was the most difficult. Transforming Dick had never been the problem.
No, the issue had been keeping him.
Even Merilee had to admit that turning Dick into another creature would have been evil in the end if his consciousness remained. He’d be trapped forever in a body that wouldn’t ever move and forever felt wrong.
If there was one thing that Merilee had come to realize, being in the right external form made all the difference in the world.
So they had to steal Dick’s consciousness away. Button it up so that he didn’t grow restless, bored, or insane. (All right, more insane.)
They really didn’t want to torture him for all eternity. Not if they wanted to remain good witches.
Instead, they had to drain away his awareness. Push it out into the pink fuzzy plush fur of the bear. That was why the toy had to be so big in the first place, so that it could absorb all of what made Dick, well, a dick.
Only after that initial transformation was in place could Angelina start the second set of spells, turning the bear back into a tiny cat toy.
Merilee might have delighted in that choice. Maybe far too much.
The first transformation would have slipped Dick’s consciousness far away, so that he could never come back awake. It wouldn’t kill him. No, that was also too far off the path of good.
It would just stop him, forever.
Merilee’s last sight was that of Dick forever entrapped in a small, lavender mouse body.
She wished she could have said a proper goodbye to her sister. But maybe it was better this way, to slip away while they accomplished what they’d started out to do.
Mrrow, Merilee said silently as her eyes closed and the darkness finally took away all the pain.
Merilee found that she was still in that conjuring room of Dick’s. Like the last time, she didn’t feel as though she was completely alone here, in this place between life and death. Her sister was nearby. She could almost smell her tears.
It had been a good life. Or lives. Merilee had helped Angelina in more ways than one. Her sister would go on to lead a good life. A better life.
For a moment, Merilee regretting not being the one to live. But honestly, after that first death, she’d never been sure she wasn’t living on anything other than borrowed time.
The room grew dim quickly. Merilee couldn’t wait any longer, couldn’t risk being trapped here.
While it might have been fun haunting this place while Dick had still been around, with him gone, it wouldn’t have nearly the same appeal.
Merilee reached out and touched the gray portal. It seemed different this time. More like the first portal she’d gone through.
With a shrug, Merilee pushed on, crossing the threshold.
Cold pierced her, passing through to her bones. It wasn’t as bad as previous times, though. Her soul felt buoyed up inside of her, floating with her as she went through the endless passage.
And really? It had to tug out more of her fur? Was she going to have any left by the time she reached the other side?
Peaceful light surrounded her as she stepped out of the other side, tugging her upward.
Merilee sighed. Maybe it was all for the best.
Except—the room where she’d been was still visible.
Wait.
Was that a light spot over there? A different light that she could walk toward and through?
Maybe make her way back to the land of the living?
Merilee twisted and arched her back, trying to get herself out of the grasp of the light.
It let go of her reluctantly.
Merilee landed lightly on her feet, surprised. Why wasn’t she being carried away? Why was there another path back? What exactly had happened?
She wasn’t sure. She just knew that she was going to have one more chance.
And she intended to take it.
With a bounding leap, Merilee passed out of this in-between place.
Smack dab into the land of the living.