Double-Sided Witch (Covencraft Book 3) (21 page)

Since he’d helped get the cottage set up for Jade when she first arrived, he was familiar with the room and noticed it hadn’t changed at all since Jade had been living here. The room had a definite ‘unused’ feeling to it, along with a slight scent of dust and stale air. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it didn’t exactly welcome him in either.

It was of no consequence. He was only staying the night to put Jade’s mind at ease since her demon locks weren’t working. He made quick work of his evening ablutions, and then stripped down to his boxers, feeling strange about leaving his Henley on, but feeling even stranger about taking it off.

As Paris settled in the bed, he mulled over the list of problems Jade was having. Bruce was ill, Jade was having problems sleeping, a magical outburst at her apartment - different in feeling and scent from her normal magic - and now her demon locks taken apart. He readily admitted, he didn’t know how it all fit in together. He thought about Lily - a girl who seemed to look remarkably like Jade, except for the color of her eyes. Jade had indicated she had no sister. Could she have lied? But to what end? The thing that troubled him the most was when Jade had been discussing Lily in the kitchen and her strange mixture of pronouns - first person and third person - ‘I’ and ‘we.’ Paris didn’t like where that led his brain. What if Jade was significantly more ill than he’d realized, only her problems weren’t physical? Paris knew little about psychology and psychiatry, other than the generic, general things that people got from an entry-level class. It seemed absurd to think that she might have some kind of mental disorder. Or did it? Jade had an abusive childhood - that much he knew. But could she have a psychiatric disorder from it? Did people really have multiple personalities, or was that all cinema and fiction?

He would continue on as he had been and gather more information. He and Jade would go to the lake, they would check the magic in the area. Then, they would follow up with Dr. Gellar and Jade’s medical tests. Perhaps Paris could speak to Dr. Gellar about his concerns. No doubt she would chastise him for being so foolish and set him straight.

Paris resolved not to borrow trouble by imagining all sorts of outlandish and far-fetched scenarios. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and was determined to sleep - stowing away his thoughts for the evening. He told himself by the time the sun rose tomorrow, in the clear light of morning, he would likely feel quite embarrassed at himself for his outlandish thoughts.

#

Again
, Jade dreamt of the Preserve. Her limbs feeling heavy and thick as she walked and she could feel branches and twigs snapping under her feet. It was overcast, but bright - the kind of day that came about in the middle of February or March, where it seemed like it would be nice outside, but in reality, it was sharp and bitter. Out of the corner of her eye, Jade saw movement and she turned, finding herself facing a long, impossible wall of mirrors. The reflection of the Preserve surrounded her - bare trees, their empty branches crawling over one another. The grey sky punched through the empty spots, like spot lights. She studied her reflection, searching for anything amiss or out of place. Like one of those strange comedy shows, Jade raised her hand and her mirrored self did the same. Jade moved her hand back and forth and then tilted her head, keeping her eyes focused on the mirror. Her doppelgänger matched her motions. Jade stepped closer to the glass, reaching her fingers out, feeling oddly discomforted by the way it looked. It looked like she was reaching for herself.

Her fingers touched the glass finding it cold and firm. She breathed out a sigh. She wasn’t sure what she expected. Maybe for her fingers to slip through the barrier and into the mirror. What would be on the other side, she couldn’t say. More movement caught her eye and she turned from the glass to her left, seeing the winter trees of the Preserve stretching out before her again, stark and leafless. Jade squinted. She saw something in between the empty branches. Something, someone. A dart of movement, a flash of dark hair. She didn’t get the sense that it was Lily. She always knew when Lily was there. The figure in the woods wasn’t her.

Sparrow Lady. That’s what Lily had called her. Jade looked up to the sky and saw sparrows high above her head, swirling and swooping, soundless. None came close to her like they had before.

Jade let her hand slide down the glass as she turned. The moisture on her fingertips caused a high-pitched squeaking sound, reminding her of the chirp-chirp of birds. She started walking in the direction from which she’d seen the figure. Her salamander charm was heavy against the notch of her collarbones. Beside her, her mirrored self kept pace, a silent shadow. Jade knew where they were going before the break in the trees revealed it.

The lake.

That was where Sparrow Lady had gone. Where she wanted Jade to go. It occurred to Jade that in all her dreams of the Preserve and the lake, Lily never spoke. Lily only spoke when Jade was in the closet.

Jade walked up the planks of the dock. The mirrored wall followed along with her, undulating with the motion of the old wood. Jade’s ears were hypersensitive. She could hear the creak and groan of the wood as she moved. The surface of the lake was slightly frozen over and as the dock moved, the ice around it cracked and snapped. When Jade reached the end of the dock, she looked back to the mirror and this time, it wasn’t her own reflection she saw in the glass. It was Lily. She was in jeans and a black sweater - one of Jade’s favorites - the one that she liked to wear when it was cold outside and she didn’t have anywhere to be during the day. Jade could curl up in a chair with a book and a pot of coffee and just read, feeling grateful not to be out in the cold. Lily’s hand reached out, toward Jade, even as both of Jade’s stayed by her side. Lily’s eyes were bright green in the light of the day.

Jade reached out her hand, still surprised when she felt the unforgiving glass surface under her fingertips. Jade took another step closer to the mirror. As she did, Lily turned away from her and, as she had before, tipped forward, starting to fall into the lake. Jade jerked forward, feeling herself slide through the glass. Only she realized too late, it wasn’t glass, it was ice and she was the one falling toward the water, slipping underneath the surface. Her salamander charm burned against her skin even as the water closed around her, ice cold.

Looking up, Jade could see the forest and sky - wavering lines of color and distorted shapes through the surface of the water. She was cold and in the dark, but she could see the daylight just beyond her reach. Her arms stretched up to the surface, but she didn’t know how to swim. On the surface something blocked the light. Jade couldn’t make out what. It was the shape of a person, a woman. Her dark hair fell around her face, blocking her features. She was a misshapen blob, looming over Jade. Jade felt her heart clench and her lungs burn. It was her own face staring down at her from above. Or Lily’s face. Lily’s hands plunged into the water for Jade and Jade reached back.

Just as Lily’s hands gripped hers and started pulling her toward the surface, something grabbed Jade from below. Hard, unyielding pressure around her ankles, yanking down on her. The Sparrow Lady. Jade kicked and struggled. Lily’s face went grim, her lips moving, but Jade couldn’t hear her. She was slipping away, falling out of Lily’s grasp. Jade kicked again, looking down, her head moving slowly in the cold, thick water. Beneath her, in the murk, she could see blue eyes glowing - sharp and bright. Lily pulled harder, her fingernails digging into Jade’s skin, painful and harsh. The hands belonging to the blue-eyed woman pulled back - talons digging into Jade.  She was being dragged further down in the water, down toward the bottom, if there was a bottom to be found. The sky was going darker above her - only the shape of Lily remained and the green of her eyes. With a mighty tug from the Sparrow Lady, Jade slipped free of Lily’s hands, and was dragged lower and lower and lower still. The sky was so far away - a small patch out of reach and growing smaller. She still felt herself being pulled or maybe she was only sinking now, she wasn’t sure. She was moving away from the surface, away from her body and then just away from everything.

#

Paris
didn’t sleep well when he wasn’t in his own bed. He was a light sleeper - one ear always listening for the phone in case the Coven had an emergency. At first, he wasn’t sure what woke him and he was disoriented until he remembered that he wasn’t at home. He was at Jade’s cottage. The clock on the nightstand indicated it was just past two in the morning - he’d only been asleep for a few hours. He listened in the dark, trying to figure out what had woken him, when he heard footsteps on the stairs. Footsteps going down. Jade must be up. He wondered if something was bothering her. He flipped back the bed covers and grabbed his pants. He was still hitching them up as he opened the door to the guest room.

The door to Jade’s bedroom was open and as he peered inside, he could see the bedclothes mostly off the bed. His eyes immediately darted to the closet, where the corners of several blankets and what appeared to be Bruce’s tail were poking out. Whatever Jade was doing, her familiar was still asleep - curled up in the closet.

Quietly, swiftly, he started down the stairs. There were no lights on, but he didn’t pause to fumble around for the light-switch. There was enough ambient light from the moon and the street-lamps outside for him to make his way. As he did, a cold gust of air hit his feet and he slowed slightly at the sensation. He was halfway down the stairs when he realized what it was - air from outside. He padded the rest of the way down, pausing to check the front door. Closed and locked. He made his way through the living room, stopping at Bruce’s window. Finding it closed as well, he hovered a hand out in front of it in case the magic spell that Jade cast let air in. There was no breeze. Lastly, he headed for the kitchen.

It was cold when he got there and he could quickly see the reason why; the back door was open. Not just cracked open, not just open a sliver. It was wide open, as though someone had come in and forgotten to close it.

Or gone out.

He stepped up to the threshold and cast his eyes about in the backyard. He thought he saw something, movement, and he squinted.

It was Jade. She was out further than her backyard, walking slowly in the uninhabited area that settled in between the two rows of houses. He could just make out the white of her t-shirt in between the winter branches of the trees and bushes. 

“Jade,” he called her name, not quite a shout, but louder than a conversation. He was reluctant to start shouting in the middle of the night. He was sure he must have been loud enough for her to hear, but she didn’t stop moving - travelling further away from the house, away from him. Frustrated, he raced to the front door, grabbed his shoes and slid them on quickly before returning to the kitchen and rushing out the back door.

Paris barreled unceremoniously through the bushes and trees, feeling the lower branches poke and scratch at his ankles. It was cold outside, his breath coming out in puffs, and he wondered if he should have stopped to grab his coat, or Jade’s. He caught up with her easily. She was moving slowly - nothing like her usual hurried pace. He grabbed her arm, calling her name as he did.

She stopped where she was but didn’t turn around.

“What are you doing?” Paris asked, catching his breath.

She didn’t answer him. It seemed to him like she was looking at something ahead of her and she tugged on her arm almost lazily, like he was some kind of branch or hook she was caught on. A nuisance, nothing more.

“Jade,” he said quietly. “What are you doing?” he repeated.

As she tugged again to go forward, he came up in front of her, blocking her way. She stopped short at his presence, but didn’t alter her gaze, still staring somewhere in front of her. She was like a movie that had been paused. Set in stasis, her eyes focused past him. He moved closer, trying to get a better look at her face, or place himself in her viewpoint. She was passive, not moving away, but not doing anything else either. He laid his hands on her shoulders, feeling the chill on her through her t-shirt.

“Jade?” he asked, quietly, looking closely at her. He wondered if he could trust that her eyes were grey - in the half-light from the moon, partially blocked by the tree branches, he couldn’t be sure. He cupped the back of her skull and exerted a gentle pressure to tip her head back slightly. It was like posing a doll. Jade moved her head without any resistance, her eyes opening up as her head moved back. The irises seemed grey to Paris, but it was dark outside and he couldn’t be sure. He pushed his power out a bit, feeling for any sort of magic around her. Jade always had a lingering sort of magical presence, but right now it was dulled and almost dormant. He thought he might have sensed something else around her, but it was so faint he couldn’t be sure. Was that licorice he smelled? Jade had been trying to work demon magic earlier and what Paris smelled could just be the remnants of that - slightly thick and cloying with a low scent of anise or licorice.  He thought of Bruce, sleeping peacefully in the closet. As her familiar, he should have protected her from any kind of magical attack, or at the very least, would have some symptoms himself if Jade were under a magical influence. Or maybe the fact that he was still sleeping was how he was affected. Without Bruce, Jade would be down a level of protection.

“You’re freezing out here.” Jade was in a t-shirt and long flannel sleeping pants, her feet bare. Paris shivered with cold himself and he’d only been out for seconds. She’d been out longer than he had. He looked around in the lightly wooded area. It was dark and he couldn’t see anything or anyone, but his mind was still on the unraveling of Jade’s demon locks. Something or someone was likely out here.  However, with Jade in her bedclothes and himself hardly dressed for the outdoors, there wasn’t much he could do. Jades eyes were glassy and unfocused. He thought about her insomnia, about her emotional stress, and wondered if sleepwalking was just another symptom on the list.