Awakening (Birth of Magic #1) Page 20

“You don’t, but what choice do you have? Are you really going to let her die? Your own sister?” Celia grinned at me again. “But you already let your daughter die, didn’t you?”

  She didn’t so much as flinch as I slapped her across the face. The guards raised their weapons, but one motion from Celia and they put the guns down. “Don’t you ever mention my daughter again or I will kill you,” I hissed.

  “You’re not in any position to make threats right now.” To emphasize her point she pressed the knife to the loose skin of Alexis’s neck, enough to draw a trickle of blood. Alexis continued to snooze throughout this.

  She was right about that. I knew Celia wouldn’t hesitate to kill Alexis if she didn’t think she would get what she wanted. And from seeing her in action, I knew Celia’s reflexes were such that I wouldn’t be able to stop her in time. She had me over the proverbial barrel and she knew it.

  Ethan knew it too. “Let me go with them,” he said.

  “Ethan, no—”

  “We have to. Your sister is going to die otherwise.”

  I remembered what Naoko had told me back in Nepal: it might be necessary to sacrifice Alexis in order to save the coven, and the world. I also remembered what I’d told her, that I would never sacrifice my sister, but would I hold to that even if it meant sacrificing Ethan? For the first time in a while I was completely paralyzed with indecision.

  Ethan took me by the shoulders. He whispered into my ear, “You can rescue me after you make sure your sister is safe.”

  “Ethan—”

  “I believe in you.”

  “Still?”

  “Yes.” Maybe it was because of the time we’d spent together or maybe it was to spite Celia, but he leaned forward then to kiss me on the mouth. As much as I knew I shouldn’t, I kissed him back, even holding on to him so he couldn’t get away. “I love you,” he whispered.

  I didn’t know what else to say, so I mumbled, “You too.”

  Then Ethan took a step away from me. “Give her the potion. When we’re sure it works, then I’ll go with you.”

  “Do you think I’m stupid? If I give her the cure, then she’ll vanish the three of you out of here,” Celia said.

  He nodded and then stepped forward until he was just inches in front of Celia. He took the vial from her hand. The way she looked at him was the same I probably had been during our kiss. She didn’t react as he tossed the vial to me. “Now we can do it. Give her the cure and if it doesn’t work, you can kill both of us.”

  “She won’t,” Celia said, sounding more like herself again. “She loves you too much for that.”

  “We’ll see,” I said, summoning every ounce of strength I could. I took the cap off the vial and then shook Alexis. “Wake up, Alexis. It’s time for your medicine.”

  “No medicine,” she whispered. “I’m not sick.”

  “Alexis, please. Do it for me. Your sister.”

  “No,” she said and went back to snoozing.

  One of the blond girls leaned down and put a hand on Alexis’s shoulder. “Grandmamma, you must take your medicine. We don’t want to lose you,” the girl said. Her voice was soft and sweet and when I squinted, I could swear she looked like Alexis’s granddaughter Bernice. Except Bernice had died nearly a hundred years ago in a carriage accident.

  Even if it wasn’t Bernice, what she said did the trick. Alexis stirred again, this time opening her mouth. “If you insist, dear,” she said. One liver-spotted hand touched the girl’s hair. “I’ll do it for you.”

  She drank the contents of the vial in one long pull. Then the vial slipped from her hand to the ground. I thought again she might be dead, but her scream a moment later ended those doubts. The blond girl and I both stepped back, giving Alexis some room as the potion did its work.

  Just like the Inner Child potion, Alexis started to become younger. The skin on her face tightened and her hair darkened a bit to gray. She tumbled out of the chair and the blond girl and I both leaned forward at the same time to help Alexis onto the ground. There her body bucked around like a live electrical wire as she became younger.

  In just two minutes she was back to the young, beautiful woman I’d left behind in Rampart City days earlier. I was going to help her sit up, but then she bucked again. The potion wasn’t done yet. I could only watch in horror as Alexis descended back through puberty, her skin turning greasy for a few moments and pimples springing to life before fading away. She kept getting smaller, until she was a little girl and finally a toddler. I waited for the potion to continue taking her backwards in time, until she was an infant, but nothing more happened. She let out a sigh and went to sleep.

  “You tricked us!” I shouted at Celia.

  “I did nothing of the sort,” she said. “Your sister isn’t going to die now.”

  “But she’s two years old!”

  “That’s not our problem,” Celia said. She took Ethan’s arm, pulling him close. The blond girl who had sounded like Bernice stroked Alexis’s hair and then stood up. She rejoined the other two and put the hood back up so I couldn’t see her face. “Now, we’ve kept our part of the bargain. I trust you’ll keep up yours too.”

  “This isn’t over,” I growled at her, but for the moment I could do nothing more than watch as the Nazis hauled Ethan away.

  Chapter 21

  A part of me should have been happy about Alexis having to endure what I’d endured thanks to her. Too young for magic, she would have to grow up again, this time as my baby sister. I should have enjoyed the poetic justice of this, but I didn’t. I was too busy blaming myself for getting her and Ethan into this mess.

  I had foolishly thought I would find a way out when we got here, that some opportunity would present itself like magic. I should have known Celia and her Chairwoman wouldn’t give me that opportunity. They had been too careful, too professional, covering every detail to give me no choice but to turn Ethan over to them.

  After Celia and the Nazis had left with Ethan, I folded up Alexis’s now much too large dress so that I could find her tiny body in it. I had never seen Alexis this young before, nearly as young as I was in our family portrait. Even as a toddler she was beautiful, with the kind of plump red cheeks you wanted to pinch until she cried out and a mop of golden curls that would make Shirley Temple jealous. Maybe I could teach Alexis to tap dance and she could become a movie star too.

  I scooped her up in my arms, the hem of her dress dangling to my knees. She stirred a little, her eyes opening slightly. “Sywvia?” she whispered.

  “I’m here, Alexis.”

  “I don’t feew good.”

  “I know, sweetheart. We’re going to find some medicine to make you all better.”

  “Aw wight.” With that she fell asleep again in my arms, jamming one of her chubby thumbs into her mouth.

  “Goddamnit,” I muttered. I couldn’t leave her like this. I had to find a way to help her; there was only one place to go.

  ***

  In Ireland there are a number of ancient burial mounds. No one really knew who built them or how they managed to do it before the wheel was invented. Gretel might have some idea, but she didn’t try to enlighten any of the archaeologists.

  The coven had made some alterations to one burial mound. Beneath the round stone chamber where the ancient people had carried out rituals for their dead, the coven had placed all of its lore and important documents. Damp, dingy caves had never seemed like a good place for storing scrolls made of parchment, but it was one place where no one would think to look.

  At least I hoped the Chairwoman wouldn’t have a reception waiting for Alexis and I as I vanished us into the cavern. I shifted Alexis’s weight to one arm so that I could reach into my pocket for my nightcrystal lenses. From what I could see, there was just the usual rocks, bats, and puddles. No Nazis and no assassins in black robes.

  “Clare!” I shouted, loud enough for Alexis to stir again. “Clare, where are you?”

  The nightcrystal glasses not only allowed m
e to see in the dark; they allowed me to see spirits as well. I saw the bluish head of a young woman peek through the wall. She smiled faintly, at least until she must have seen what I was carrying.

  “Is that Alexis?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Did she have an Inner Child potion go bad?”

  “Not exactly.” Alexis whimpered and sucked harder on her thumb. I stroked her hair until she settled down. “Is there somewhere I can put her so we can talk?”

  “Use my old quarters. The bed is still there.”

  Clare Deveaux hadn’t needed her quarters in about three hundred fifty years, not since she died from old age. Instead of going on to the afterlife as presumably all mortals—and witches—did, her spirit remained behind as a ghost. Caroline had theorized that it was Clare’s extensive contact with magic that allowed this to happen, though I thought Clare was just too dedicated to her job as the coven’s archivist.

  The quarters weren’t much to look at, especially not after so much time. It was just a cave about the size of the quarters Ethan and I had shared on the Gardenia, with a shelf carved into the rock and a goose feather mattress placed on top of it. The bed was more than big enough for Alexis in her current state, though I worried she might roll off the bed and break her tender little head open.

  Her eyes fluttered open again, this time focusing a little more. “Sywvia?”

  “I’m still here, sweetheart,” I said, unable to resist the endearments.

  “I’m cowd.”

  I rearranged the fold’s of the dress to help insulate her and then topped it off with Clare’s old blanket, which somehow had survived all these years. “How’s that?” I asked, barely resisting the urge to kiss her forehead.

  “Better. Tank you.”

  She rolled over onto her side and before long resumed sucking on her thumb. I patted her curly hair and then stepped away from the bed. It wasn’t a surprise to find Clare hovering over my shoulder. “She’s so cute like that,” Clare said.

  “I know.” I motioned towards the door. “Let’s talk about it somewhere else.”

  Clare still had an office in another cave, complete with a wooden desk and three chairs. She hovered over her old chair while I took one across from her. “What happened to her? What happened to you for that matter?”

  “Hasn’t Gretel or one of the others been here to talk about it?”

  “No. I’m usually the last to know anything.”

  I started at the beginning, with my killing a bogeyman in Ethan’s room and him growing up to try and build a magic wand. She listened patiently as I told her about Alexis feeling something strange going on at Cuthbert College and then both of us taking Inner Child potions so we could look younger. “That wasn’t how this happened.”

  I explained about everything that had happened on the campus and my fight with the Nazis in Ethan’s lab. Then about the train to Boston and revealing Celia’s true identity as a spy working for someone calling herself the Chairwoman. “You know anything about a Chairwoman?” I asked.

  “No. I can search the records for a reference if you want.”

  “Not right now.” I resumed my story, about how I’d told Alexis to stay with Naoko in Nepal until I could find out what was happening. “But they got to her. They had a charm for her and Naoko. They took Alexis and they were going to kill Naoko if I hadn’t got there in time.” I had to double back to mention the trip on the tramp steamer, nearly being killed by a U-Boat, and then winding up in Casablanca, where Celia had convinced Ethan I was the real threat. “I got him off the plane and took him to Nepal, where we found out Naoko was gone. They left a note saying they’d trade him for Alexis in Florence.”

  I concluded by telling Clare about the exchange in Florence. “They used something on her, like what happened to Mama. She was probably ninety when we got there and pushing a hundred before I traded them Ethan for the antidote. Except the antidote didn’t make her twenty-something again. It made her a baby instead.”

  “That’s awful,” Clare said. “It’s hard to believe anyone would try to hurt Alexis. She’s always been so sweet.”

  “I know. They only did it to get to me.” I shook my head. “It’s my fault. That’s why I’m here. I need your help to find a way to change her back. There has to be a spell or potion or something that can make her older—but not too old.”

  “I’m not aware of anything, but I can check for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  Clare drifted away into the wall. Before she left, she turned back to peek through the wall at me. “It’s not your fault, Stephanie. You did everything you could.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  But I didn’t believe that for a second. I had nothing to do but wallow in self-recrimination while Clare went down to search the rows of old scrolls for a spell or potion that might work. I could have followed her down there, but Clare didn’t like witches going down there. In the presence of magic the spells became like wild animals trying to break out of their cages; they desperately wanted someone to use them. That had led to quite a few accidents down in the vault, which was why Gretel had a mortal working down there and now a ghost.

  There was no way to tell time in the cave, but after I figured about ten minutes had passed I went back to check on Alexis. She had rolled over again, so that she was facing me this time. She kept working on her thumb, whimpering every so often. I didn’t want to think of how awful it would be for her to have to grow up all over again, remembering how difficult it had been for me both times.

  It had been difficult for Alexis the first time too. I still remembered the day I was braiding her hair on the sofa and then found myself floating in the air as she began the change. Mama had kept Alexis quarantined in her room for months, until she could learn to control her magic. Then came the tests; studying had never been Alexis’s forte. She had barely passed the tests right here in the archives to become a novice. From there came the hardest part in many ways: taking on the responsibility of a witch.

  She was going to have to go through all of that again, thanks to me. I should have kept her somewhere safer. I should have looked after her myself to make sure no one could hurt her. She was my sister; that’s what we were supposed to do for each other.

  Her face turned red and she pulled her thumb out of her mouth to begin bawling. I raced over to the bed and put a hand on her shoulder. “Alexis, what’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I went pee-pee,” she whispered.

  I could smell it as I pulled back the covers and saw the dark splotch on her dress. I patted her head and said, “It’s all right, Alexis. We’ll clean it up.”

  “I’m sowwy.”

  “It’s fine. Here we go,” I said as I lifted her out of the bed. Clare didn’t have any diapers or anything to fit a toddler, but she did have some old clothes she wouldn’t need anymore. With some water from one of the puddles, I cleaned her up as best I could. There hadn’t been a stranger experience in my life than that.

  I had just finished getting Alexis into a nightgown about fifteen sizes too big for her when Clare reappeared. I put a finger to my lips to indicate she shouldn’t say anything in front of Alexis. “There you go, sweetheart. All better now, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Tank you.”

  I carried Alexis back to the bed and checked to make sure the blanket wasn’t wet before I put it back over her. I brushed curls from Alexis’s forehead and this time kissed her there. “Go back to sleep, dear. When you wake up, we’ll have some medicine to make you better.”

  “Aw wight,” she said, her voice already sounding sleepy.

  I waited until I was sure she was asleep before I went back to Clare’s office. The ghost waited for me, a scroll of paper on the desk. Clare had worked on developing the ability to manipulate light objects like the scrolls and a special knob in the vault to slip them through.

  I picked up the scroll and began reading it. It was a potion called, “Accelerated Growth.” I looked up at Clare. “Is
this what it sounds like?”

  “It should make her an adult again. If you do it right. It’s very tricky.”

  I looked over the instructions for the potion. I had only to read a couple of lines of the parchment before I recognized the handwriting. “Alexis wrote this one, didn’t she?”

  “Yes. Now that I think of it, I remember her coming down here about a hundred thirty years ago. She spent days down here working on it. You should be glad you didn’t have to see what happened to some of the test subjects.”

  “Test subjects?”

  “Chickens. A couple of them turned to dust. Another actually reverted back to an egg. But she finally got it to work—at least on chickens.”

  I thought about it for a moment. A hundred thirty years ago—about the time when she had asked me to become twelve again for her. Tears came to my eyes. “She wrote it for me,” I said, my voice catching in my throat. “So that I could grow up again after the wedding. But I was too stupid to come back for it.”

  “I’m sorry, Stephanie. If I’d known—”

  “I know. It’s all right. I deserved what I got for running away.” I tried in vain to wipe at my eyes. “I was so jealous of her. So jealous that she found her true love and mine was, you know.”

  “I know. And I know how much you loved my brother. He loved you just as much.”

  “And I got him killed.”

  “Of course you didn’t. Henry was a big boy. He made his own choices.”

  “He would have made different ones if I hadn’t driven him away. We could have been happy together, like Alexis and Marco.”

  “There’s no way to know that. You might have both died from a fever in two weeks.”

  “At least it would have been together.”

  “You don’t really think that, do you?” When I didn’t say anything, Clare shook her translucent head. “The Stephanie Joliet I know wouldn’t be sitting here feeling sorry for herself. She would be getting the ingredients for that potion together to help her sister and then she would go rescue her friend from these Nazis.”

  I nodded at this. I had been doing a lot of feeling sorry for myself lately. There wasn’t any more time for that. Alexis and Ethan needed my help. I read the rest of the parchment, feeling a punch to the gut as I reached the end. The final ingredient were elfstones. These were almost impossible to find anymore. We had kept a few in the vault back in Rampart City, but the Nazis had taken care of that.