Electric Blue (33 page)

"So what does that have to do with me?" Karma asked. She didn't know what her grandmother had in store, but she knew it was bad.

"You are going to be my way into the house," Mistress said.

"There is no way I'm letting you in there."

Mistress smiled. "Don't be so sure. You see, I've been going about everything all wrong. I have been draining the otherworld to gain more power, thinking the House would let me back in. It did not. I had LaWanda try to gain entrance, but she was prevented; she did cause some damage though. So I have been thinking, how am I to get inside the four walls of that house? Once I'm inside, all its power is at my command. Once the power is mine, I will have the Shifter."

"Poppy?" Karma asked. "This is all because of Poppy?"

"Yes. I realized that the power in the walls of the house is little compared to what rests inside Poppy. Once I harness her power, I will be the most powerful woman alive. It's a simple plan really; if I had been able to grab her before she entered the house on her quest, you wouldn't even be here. You'd still be sleeping in the cold ground."

"You're crazy," Karma said.

"Maybe so, but crazy people get results."

Karma spat in her face.

"Enough of this." Mistress lunged forward and grabbed Karma by the throat. "I have always wanted to choke the life out of you; it feels so good to finally be able to do it."

"I thought. . .you said. . .I was dead," Karma said.

Mistress spat in her face. "Enough of this." She tightened her hold on Karma's throat. "You are going to be my ticket into the Coven House, granddaughter. You should be proud of the destruction you will cause." Karma could not reply as she no longer had air to breathe. Mistress looked into Karma's frightened eyes and let herself be lost in Karma's deep brown pools. She uttered a few words in an ancient dialect and the world slowed to a stop around them. Slowly, Mistress began to disappear from the feet up, becoming a swirling mass of glowing particles. Karma watched in horror as Mistress faded before her and the particles began to flow into Karma's head through her nostrils, her ears, filling in through the eyes, the pores of skin of her face.

When there were more glowing particles, Karma slumped to the floor. LaWanda, who had been watching spellbound from the shadows, ran forward and pulled Karma's limp form to her. She cradled the body and waited for it to wake. Karma's eyes flipped open. Mistress' dark ones looked out at her. A change had come over Karma's body; gone was the dishevelled body of a corpse. Karma had been restored to her former self, her hair glowing, and her skin soft and pink.

"Mistress, it worked Mistress," LaWanda said. "How do you feel?"

Mistress looked around the room and stretched. "I feel. . .wonderful," she said. "Yes. I feel wonderful!" She started laughing then. A cold, high pitched laugh that made even LaWanda shiver to the bone.

* * * * *

"Alright," Grant said. "Let's begin. Questions are dancing behind your eyes."

"Okay," she said. She withdrew the picture from her pocket and handed it back to him. "I forgot that I still had this last night," she said. "You said that this picture was of me, but the girl looks just like the House Spirit that greeted us before I began my quest." She looked up at him, into his pale eyes. "Who is she?"

Grant smiled. "She is my daughter," he said.

Poppy looked at him. "Did you have more than me?"

"No," he said. "You are my only daughter."

Confused, Poppy was about to speak, when Grant put a finger to her lips.

"Let me explain," he said. "It's not a long story. These are things you should know."

"Does it have to do with who is hunting me?"

"Some. It begins with me, I suppose."

"I guess you should begin at the beginning," Poppy said with a smile.

Grant laughed. "A very good place to start." He poured them both more tea and brought over a plate filled with crackers and cheese. "Eat," he said. "You look hungry."

"You sound like Mom."

"Good," he said. "Maybe there is a parent in me after all." He munched on a cracker and looked as if he were far away for a moment. Then he cleared his throat and began. "After your mother left with you, I was heartbroken. After I changed back when she caught me, she would never speak of it, I could never bring it up to her. It frightened her. I wandered around our old apartment for months; I kept hoping that you would return. Your mother's postcards at odd intervals kept my hope alive that you would one day come back to me; but after a year, I had to tell myself the truth: that you, and your mother, were lost to me." Grant took another sip of tea and continued. "I left the apartment. I put on some sensible clothes and took all the money I had out of my bank. I packed a bag full of food and clothes and left. I have never been back. That was twenty years ago, but it seems like much longer."

"Where did you go?" Poppy asked.

"Where didn't I go?" he smiled. "The world was my oyster and I was looking for something, anything, to fill the grief-filled pit that had taken up residence inside me. I hitchhiked and travelled, walked across plains and mountains. I saw the mountains in
British Columbia
. . .have you ever been there?" Poppy shook her head. "I must take you sometime. At night, when I could, I would change form and fly through the night, hunting. It hurt a lot, you know, the changing. It felt as if I was being ripped open from the inside each and every time, but the freedom of flying was unbelievable. It came to a point where I HAD to change, where my body would force me to change against my will if I stayed in my human form too long. Don't make the same mistake I did, Poppy. Change at least once a week; otherwise, the changes may kill you if they are forced."

"Does it still hurt when you change?" Poppy asked. "It hurts for me. Will it always hurt?"

"Yes," Grant said. "Think about it, we are changing our bodies, our bones, into another shape much smaller than we normally are. If it didn't hurt, that would be fantasy." He smiled. "Speaking of fantasy. . .you may not believe this next part I'm about to tell you. . . ."

"Please," Poppy said. "I'm on a quest inside a house talking to my father who can change into an owl, preparing for battle with something capable of sucking power from an otherworld." She smiled."Bring it on; I can handle it."

"It was some time before I came here. When I first arrived here, the Coven House was already standing. It had been built for the foundation of the
Fallen
City
, but no one knew of its real purpose, why the House was built on top of the City. But it was. I lived in a shelter near to the Coven House, but I would pass by it every day and be in awe of its splendour, its towers and gables, its brown-tiled roof, its dark ivy covered windows. It spoke to me. . .or rather, something inside it spoke to me."

"So the Coven House has always been there?"

"For hundreds of years, yes. No one is sure of its original purpose, but the Coven made it its home eventually, placed its prophecies in amongst the City underneath. The Coven lives there still, what members remain."

"So do I," Poppy said.

"This I know. My other daughter has been keeping me up to date on your progress." He held up his hand as Poppy began to ask something else. "The House stood empty when I first found it."

"But I thought you said the Coven made their home there."

"They did. I started the Coven, Poppy. It is time you know the whole truth and not just the half truths I am choosing to tell you."

Poppy looked at her father then, as if for the first time. "How old are you?" she asked. "Mom isn't that old, she's only forty something. . .how can you have been around all that time ago to start the Coven?"

He smiled. "I am older than I look," he said. "When I met your mother, eons after creating the Coven, I was. . .about three hundred years old I think, possibly older. I was a professor at the time, when I met your mother, working at
Carleton
University
teaching mythology. When she left, I walked away from that life. When I met her, I lived that life so I could be with her, though to be in four walls like that all the time. . ." He shuddered. "I do not like it." He smiled again, "Now, back to the story, shall we?" Poppy nodded. "So I am older than I look. I am the one who built the Coven House, Poppy. I am the one who filled it with Witches and others like me, so that they would not know my loneliness, not know my pain and rejection. Your mother refusing to love me because of what I was put such pain in my heart, Poppy; I didn't want anyone else like me to feel that way again. Knowing about mythology as I do, I know that people like me exist, that Witches exist. I built the house."

"But how do you explain the energy, the House Spirit, the magic in the house? The spirits that died there, my friend Monica that was kept in a room. . ."

"I cannot explain any of those things. I built the house and started the Coven and left soon after. I stepped through a door in the basement, never to be seen again. It had been boarded up after I disappeared. I am merely a prophecy and my own myth now. I built the house so that others would not feel the rejection I felt, have a place to practice their magic, their craft away from the prying eyes of others."

"How could you just walk away?"

"Because, I have done that all my life, I suppose. The House soon fell to the Witches, there not being enough Shape Shifters, none actually. All the other Fey and those with odd abilities wanted to stay where they were, so I was happy to leave the house to them. The House belongs to the Coven, but I'm sure if you look at the original deed, my name will be on it. I can't explain the spirits, the energy, because it was always there in the
Fallen
City
. When I built the house above it, it seeped into the house’s walls, its windows. I was happy to fade away into the darkness and become a mystery."

There was silence after that. Poppy looked up and watched her father drink his tea. She took a sip of hers and felt its sweetness on her tongue. "I don't know what to say," she said.

"You are the first who knows the whole truth. There are other details, but we don't have time for that. I wanted you to know your roots. You came from me; we are the only Shape Shifters left in the world, Poppy. The woman who is taking the power from the otherworld knows about you too. She wishes to have you for her own, to use your power."

"How do you know this?" she asked.

"I know many things," he said. "We must stop her before Ashling ceases to exist."

"But who is the girl who greeted us? That's me, isn't it?"

"Yes, or a picture of you, a part of you. She's in your image. I created her."

"You created her?"

"I missed you so much, Poppy. I wanted a companion in the House when I first created it. So I created a being out of magic and shaped her into you, what you looked like when you were taken from me. Before I left and the Coven was set up, I told her what her job would be. To be a guide to those who came into her, to be an ally. To help, to assist. I created her so I would never forget the most important person in my life. You have grown into a beautiful young woman," he said.

Poppy shed a tear but smiled. "Thanks Dad."

"You and I were destined to meet, according to the prophecies. So I was not worried. I am sorry you had to wait your whole life to hear the truth and to meet me. I will not make that mistake again, prophecies be damned."

"Prophecies?" Poppy asked. "You keep mentioning those."

"The Coven houses the most extensive collection of prophecies. These have been made by oracles throughout time, or by wise men and woman. Predictions, if you would. The Coven has its very own Prophecy Keeper, a delightful woman named Lilly. You shall meet her; you two will get along very well."

"How did you get to become a wise man for a tribe of Fairies?"

He smiled at her again. "That is a story for another time."

There was a loud pop and they both turned around to see the House Spirit standing before them. "How did she do that?" Poppy asked.

"She is the embodiment of the House," he said. "She can go anywhere. Do not forget, we are still technically in the Coven House’s basement."

"Why didn't she show me where to go in the first place?" Poppy asked.

"Because you must walk your path on your own. That is the way it has always been. We all walk on our own pathways. Sometimes they merge with others so that others may come into our lives to enrich it. But we all walk our paths alone."

"Father, I have named myself," The House Spirit said when she approached them. "I named myself House."

Grant laughed. "That is a very good name. What is it that you wish to see me about, why have you come here? Is there danger?"

"I feel something. . .like the last time." Briefly House filled them in on what had happened during the attack on the house. "I am sorry I could not stop them," she said.

"It is not your fault, child."

"But I feel them again. . .they are close to the house."

"Then there is no time, we must go now." He turned to Poppy. "Get Alicia quickly. There is no time to waste. We must go before it's too late. I fear we're all in danger," he said.