37

LEARNING TO FLY

Mardi and Trent burst into Ingrid’s house to find Ingrid, Freya, and Jean-Baptiste in a cluster around the coffee table. For once, there was no food or drink in sight. All three looked tired and defeated. The kids’ toys lay scattered on the floor, but the kids themselves were nowhere to be seen. Midnight meowed aimlessly through a picture window onto the empty front yard, a living barometer of the family stress.

Briefly, Mardi wondered where Killer was and how Killer and Midnight were getting along. But this was no time to ask about cats.

Barely registering the presence of Trent, Ingrid looked up at Mardi. She didn’t even say hello. “Your father called about an hour ago. It seems there’s fresh evidence against you. Apparently there are several witnesses willing to testify to the fact that you and Molly threatened that young couple who died. You told them you were going to mess with their minds. You actually came out and bragged to them that you were witches!”

“No, we didn’t! Even if we did, we weren’t ourselves. Listen, we know what happened now. But we need your help to make it right.”

Jean-Baptiste let out a tired sigh. “I’m afraid it’s too late, Mardi. We did our best. But evil has been unleashed and you are blamed. Now your fate—our fate—is at the mercy of the mortal realm.”

“Yeah,” said Freya bitterly. “And we know how well that turned out for us last time.” She drew a deadly finger across her throat.

“Well, I don’t know about you guys,” Mardi persisted, “but I’m not giving up.”

“And I’m right behind her,” said Trent.

“Trystan!” Ingrid said. “What a surprise. Mardi, what’s going on?”

“Look, there’s no time to go into details right now. You were right about Trystan—I mean Trent. But um, we need your brooms. Immediately.”

Ingrid went crimson. “If you think, young lady, that after all the trouble you’ve caused, I’m going to open up my broom closet just because you’ve asked—”

“Ingrid, please!” Jean-Baptiste interjected as Freya took Ingrid’s arm.

Ingrid shook Freya off. “You and your sister have put our whole community at risk! Everything we’ve worked for! We are refugees here! We should be sticking together, taking care of each other. And you’ve broken that covenant!”

“I know.” Mardi wasn’t backing down, but she was crying tears of regret—and tears of determination. “And I’m going to do something about it. If you really care, Ingrid, then listen.”

“You should hear her out,” said Jean-Baptiste.

“Come on, Ingrid,” Freya pleaded. “Give them a chance.”

Ingrid raised an eyebrow. “Fine. I’m listening.”

Mardi stumbled over herself to get her story out, with Trent interjecting here and there to clarify where he could.

They explained that the ring that Molly and Mardi had been wearing on their right hands was a legendary ring. A cursed object of intense desire that possessed such power that, in the wrong hands, it could unleash terrible violence and cause great suffering.

Everyone wanted it.

And no one should have it.

They told them about Alberich transforming himself. In his New York incarnation as Bret Farley, he had murdered Parker Fales and Samantha Hill to test the power of the ring he had borrowed from the unsuspecting twins and to frame them so that they would literally be sent to Hell. He had used his newfound strength to cloud their memories, but had not been able to resist the temptation of torturing them by leaving them with certain vivid mental scraps from his triumphant night. That was why they had retained such striking images and impressions of the bronze spider, the black pool, the blaring Wagner.

He wanted to lord his power over the beautiful twins who were the talk of all New York. To take his revenge on the daughters of the Rhinemaidens who had taunted him centuries ago, and on all their kind, mortal and immortal.

Here in North Hampton, Alberich had taken on two alternating shapes. He was Tris Gardiner, and he was Marshall Brighton. The seducer and the sweetheart. He had managed to steal the ring from Molly yet again, which explained the series of accidents and near accidents plaguing the town. Alberich was playing puppeteer. And women were his primary victims. He hated women. Ever since his rejection by the Rhinemaidens, he had dreamed of growing powerful enough to subjugate and humiliate them for all time. That was why, now that he had the ring again, so many women were being threatened and hurt.

The ring had the power to unleash vast evil. For years Molly and Mardi had unconsciously kept this evil at bay. But in Alberich’s hands, its gold was beginning to burn with a bright malice. While he was experimenting with it and learning to control it, Alberich had kept the ring buried in the greenhouse at Fair Haven, where Trent, who knew the ancient legend, had found it.

That morning, Trent had given Mardi the ring, but Mardi, desperate to earn her sister’s trust, had passed the ring back to Molly. And Molly had immediately run off with it. By now, she could be anywhere on the East End. She was with Marshall, but she had no idea he was really Alberich. If Marshall got ahold of the ring again, there was no telling what he would do to Molly this time. They had to save Molly. And they had to get the ring away from Alberich before he not only ruined the twins’ lives but found all sorts of hideous outlets for his raging misogyny. If he realized his dream, powerful women were going to burn as witches again.

“And the only way to find them fast enough,” said Mardi breathlessly, “is on your and Freya’s brooms. We know you have them, Ingrid. Hiding in the attic. Jo showed them to us the other day.”

Ingrid couldn’t suppress a slight smile.

“Freya, Ingrid,” Jean-Baptiste began with gentle authority, “I think you should give these two a chance. They’ve shown great ingenuity and a true desire to plumb their memories for the truth. If we don’t empower them now, we give in to the forces that are out to destroy our way of life.”

Freya didn’t hesitate. “You’re welcome to my broom!”

Mardi flew to embrace her and was consumed for a moment in Freya’s sweet musky scent. “Thank you, Freya.”

“All right.” Ingrid was starting to give. “But we have to cast a very powerful concealment spell. The last thing we need is for the White Council to get wind of UFO sightings on the East End that look suspiciously like witches on broomsticks. We won’t be able to give you full visibility, you know. It’s going to be tricky.” She was suddenly struck by a fresh doubt. “You have flown before?”

Neither Mardi nor Trent answered.

“Mardi?” Ingrid wasn’t going to let this slide.

Mardi looked pleadingly at Jean-Baptiste.

He nodded with encouragement.

“Only a few times in the Caribbean with Dad,” she admitted. “He taught Molly and me during our spring breaks, in empty skies. Kind of like driving in a parking lot, I guess. He told us that if he ever caught us flying in a populated area, we’d be grounded until the end of time . . . But I do know how to steer and stuff. And I’m super coordinated.” Mardi realized she wasn’t painting the ultimate picture of responsibility, all raccoon-eyed in yesterday’s rumpled clothes. But she’d come too far to give up now.

“What about you, Trystan?” Ingrid asked.

Trent squirmed. “Ingrid, please call me Trent.”

“Maybe I should call you by your real name, Tyr, the god of war? I can’t help but think you are a little bit to blame for what has happened to these girls this summer.”

He nodded. “But this time I’m on your side, Ingrid. It’s why I came back to North Hampton. To help stop the spread of violence that Alberich and his ring have started. I’ve been practicing my tolerance for adversity and uncertainty. This is my calling. At the same time”—here he looked straight at Mardi—“I’m falling in love for the first time.”

Mardi could only blush deeply to the roots of her dark hair.

“All right, I’ll get the brooms,” Ingrid said. “On one condition. Freya flies with Mardi. There’s no way I’m calling Troy to tell him one daughter has been kidnapped and the other has wiped out against a telephone pole. Let’s go, Freya.”

Freya and Ingrid ran upstairs, with Midnight at their heels, to get their brooms from the hidden closet behind Freya’s amazing array of clothes and shoes.

Jean-Baptiste closed his eyes and began to murmur a series of ancient protective spells. Mardi reached over to take Trent’s hands.

“Hey, Tyr,” she whispered.

“Hey, Magdi.”

God of war. Goddess of rage. They belonged together.

When Jean-Baptiste opened an enquiring eye on them, they both giggled. “It always stuns me,” he said, straightening the silver gray pocket square in his plaid jacket, “how quickly you young people can lose your gravitas even in the most dire situations.”

“Sorry!” they said sheepishly.

“Oh, my goodness, don’t be sorry. It’s a gift you have, a wonderful gift. If we all felt the weight of the world in every single moment, we would be in a very sorry state. Please, keep laughing.”

Ingrid and Freya, still shadowed by Midnight, appeared at the bottom of the stairs, broomsticks in hand. Mardi was struck by how ordinary looking the broomsticks were. Simple wood and straw. And yet they were the means by which she was about to save her sister, and hopefully save her family, such as it was, while at the same time squelching a force of evil that threatened the women of both the human and the witching worlds. These brooms looked like such a low-tech solution to a massive problem that for a moment she doubted everything.

• • •

Soon she was outside, high in the afternoon sky, the land and water rolling out below in a glorious patchwork. For a few moments, she could still make out Ingrid’s watchful figure, the little black cat perched on her shoulder, taking it all in.

The Earth was beautiful from above. She was sitting behind Freya. Beside her, Trent looped and circled. She had never felt closer to people she loved. Except one of them was missing and in grave danger. Molly Moll, where are you?

As the magical rescue team broke through the misty barrier enshrouding North Haven, a protective layer created centuries ago by Joanna Beauchamp and maintained now by her dutiful daughters, the East End opened up before them, a narrow strip of bright greenery and golden sand jutting out into the bright sea.

Mardi felt something move in the suede bag she wore over her shoulder. She reached to adjust it and touched the top of a soft, familiar head poking playfully out from under the flap. But it wasn’t her cat. She looked down to meet Fury’s sorrowful gaze. Molly’s familiar wanted his mistress back. “I know how you feel. We’ll get her back, buddy—don’t worry. I’m glad you came along for the ride.”