Last Witch Standing (Mountain Witch Saga) (8 page)

The emerald glistened, as Rachel used the Gift to direct
light from outdoors onto first one plane then another of the gem.

Next, she felt for the stones that made up their fireplace
and levitated each one, in turn, a few centimeters from the hearth.

“Moving the hearthstones, Rachel? Would you like some
help?” Katie asked.

Rachel turned; the sorceress stood behind her.

“Katie. I was just practicing my channeling. How are you?”
Rachel shuffled her feet.

“It is a good morning.” The sorceress walked up to Rachel
and took a seat beside her, pulling up the bottom edges of her little yellow
sundress, as she sat, to keep them off the ground. “Remember, Rachel, I too had
a human life before becoming a sorceress. Though I died very young on Earth,
and have little recollection of it, I understand what you are going through.
Even though you were older than I was at the time of your human death, you are
still transitioning to this new, second life, as a witch.”

Rachel didn’t comment. The sorceress expected her to, or at
least acknowledge her remarks, but Rachel just glanced at Katie.

“I died a little girl, and I have kept that size and shape,
even down to the very dress I wore on my last day on Earth, but it is not
necessary. We can form ourselves into any shape we desire, and I wasn’t joking
when I said you might like to try the Joan Collins look. Or perhaps a famous
actress of your own day, not mine? I died in the early 1970’s so I am not
familiar with current celebrities on Earth, but you really could be anyone you
want. It might be fun to try.” Katie looked up at Rachel, then patted her knee.

Rachel remained silent.

“I’ll tell you what, Rachel. I’ll make an Earth run and
bring back some picture magazines. You can try the current look.”

“I want to go for a walk and get some air,” Rachel said.

“Enjoy. The air is clean and beautiful, as it always is on
my Pangea. This is a paradise, Rachel. Many would give all they have to live in
a place like this.”

Rachel went outside to the ledge facing the cliffs and
valleys. For security, Katie had built the trail down from their cave home in
such a way that it passed in front for hundreds of meters before circling
behind. She had blocked all other ways up, particularly from behind, by
dropping large boulders and leveling out any footholds on the cliff around
them. Any intruder to their home would be visible from a great distance.

Rachel walked down the path. Pumpkin-orange lichen and
earth-green moss grew along the ledge and rocks that lined the trail. When she
hit the first plateau, trees, similar to the pines of Rachel’s home, Earth,
greeted her.

At least Katie chose a planet similar to Earth to hold me
captive on.

At the far edge of the ledge stood the corral where Katie
kept her llamas. The animals moved toward the fence to greet her.

“Hello, sweeties.” Rachel walked up to the fence and
stroked the neck of the first one. Several more huddled around, waiting their
turn for affection.

Six months earlier, Rachel had helped Katie to enlarge the
corral and build a stable for the animals. As she stroked the llamas’ necks,
she surveyed the handiwork that went into building the structure. Her time with
the Mountain Witches had taught her much about craftsmanship and what makes a
good building. Katie had helped cut rocks and fell trees for the stable, but
the design was Rachel’s. It was built into the side of the cliff, protected
from wind and rain. A roof of pine, even and tightly caulked, sloped down,
supported by porphyry columns, quarried from the slope of an inactive volcano miles
away. Gray, granite blocks, fitted to a tolerance measured in millimeters, made
up the sides.  Rachel wished her Mountain Witch friends, Gertrude and Eustice
could see it.

She opened the gate and entered the corral. The llamas
crowded her, hungry for further affection. One lowered its head and nuzzled her
shoulder. Katie had already fed them, but Rachel went into the stable, anyway,
eager to further admire her architectural craftsmanship.

All was well inside. Katie used the Power to keep the stone
floor pristine. Each individual stall had fresh grass bedding. Water trickled
into a trough Katie had cut from the wall and linked to an underground well.
The smell of llama, fresh cut grass, and rock wetted by fresh spring water
pleased Rachel.

Should she channel here? Katie would have a much more
difficult time sneaking up on her than in the cave, and Rachel did need the
practice. Her skill with the Power was many, many times greater than it had
been when Katie took her from the Mountain Witch village, but it was not enough
to make a bolt for freedom. Plus, she didn’t know where she was within the
universe or how to get home.

Home? Where was home? Not on Earth with her adoptive
parents. The closest thing to home was the Mountain Witch village, and that
would be the first place Katie would search for Rachel if she fled.

Rachel returned the latch to the corral gate to exit. A
hike would do her good. Further down the path away from their cave home, fields
of tall grassland were punctuated by an occasional pine.

Rachel noticed movement out of the corner of her eye as she
walked. To the right, deep in the grassland, a small figure moved. Katie? Was
the little sorceress following her? Surely, Katie could be more circumspect
than that.

Rachel moved towards the area where she had seen the
movement. When she reached the first tree, a head peered out from the stalks of
grass. The creature was a tiny woman with closely cropped hair and a simple,
burlap-colored dress tied with a cord.

Trudy. An Upper Mountain Witch! The one who had accompanied
Queen Annalisse on their expedition into the Upper Mountain Witch Kingdom and
later attended Rachel’s “Witch Got Better” party, on Rachel’s last day in the
village before Katie kidnapped her. How did she get here?

The grass fluttered and a large cat came into view. Sophie.
Queen Annalisse’s mountain lion friend.

Rachel smiled. They had found her.

The Present Day

Pangea

Rachel checked herself before entering the cave. Katie was
adept at picking up on feelings and Rachel couldn’t telegraph the new optimism
Trudy and Sophie’s arrival filled her with.

“They are here.” Katie, at her place by the hearth, looked
up from her book. “I sense them. We will have to go. They think they are
clever, but they are not. I was already planning on leaving here, anyway.”

“Maybe they just want to talk.” Rachel didn’t want to leave
Pangea, not unless it was to return to her sisters among the Mountain Witches.

“Where will we go?”

“Earth.”

“Earth? How can we do that? Why?”

“I go there now and again for books. It is time for me to
return. Find out what the scientists on Earth are up to. Pack your bags, we’ll
leave tonight.”

“What about the llamas?”

“I created a machine that will feed them automatically.
I’ve left them for long periods before. You know that.

They will be fine.”

Rachel went to her sleeping bag and gathered her
belongings. She put the books Katie had given her into a suitcase, then folded
her bedding over them and shut the case. Not much to pack. Perhaps once on
Earth she could make a bolt for freedom. 

“What do I do once we’re there, Katie? I’m dead on that
world.”

“You will have to shield your appearance, at least when
around those who could recognize you from your earthly life. You know how.”

Rachel wanted to continue raising objections, but with
Katie it would be no use. Once the sorceress decided upon something, she would
not be deterred. Maybe this move wouldn’t be so bad – it would stir things up a
bit and her chance for escape might come. Perhaps the Citadel would rescue her?
Pangea was Katie’s home turf. Things might be different on Earth.

Katie packed her own satchel and came up to Rachel as she
sat on a boulder in the front of the cave, looking down at the valley below.
The sunset was a brilliant crimson and orange, with streaks of purple and
purple-blue.

“Don’t worry, I will not let them run me off my Pangea. We
will return,” Katie said.

From their position on the cliff, they could see a line of
torches headed their way up the mountain path. Across the valley, on the cliff
opposite Katie and Rachel, Annalisse, Karen and Jakob appeared.

Katie slung her satchel over her shoulder and grabbed
Rachel’s arm. The bond between the two snapped into place, sending sparks up
around them. Katie rose into the air, Rachel with her. Then fell back down.

.Annalisse’s gazed at Katie from across the distance.

“The little thing is blocking my flying! No matter. We will
take the back route. Her tricks will not work once we are further away.”

Crash!

A flame of fire emerged from Annalisse’s musket. Next to
where Katie stood, the large rock, the one she liked to rest upon and read in
the evenings, evaporated in a ball of dust and fire.

Katie ran inside and to the back of their cave, balls of
blue plasma in her palms.

Rachel couldn’t be certain, but it seemed that Annalisse
had missed purposefully! She had not been able to control her own channeling,
and the heightened awareness the Power always brought allowed Rachel to notice
the last-second jerking up of the barrel before Annalisse fired.

Katie led Rachel through the brush behind their cave. The
sorceress held her hand tightly, the bond as strong as ever. But it didn’t
matter to Rachel – she wasn’t risking a battle by dashing for freedom now.

Brambles tore at their clothing as they ran down the path.
At a turn, when the valley came into view, Katie halted. The cave wall was
between them and Annalisse’s witches; below them Citadel Witches. Rachel did
not see them, but she felt their presence. If they went forward they would
encounter them; if they went back, they would encounter Queen Annalisse and her
forces.

Katie grasped Rachel’s hand tighter and the pair rose in
the air.
Here we go again.

They went quickly, without interference from Queen
Annalisse, who now had a mountain barrier between her and them. Katie exited
and entered multiple universes, leapfrogging past empty space. Bonded to
Rachel, taking energy from her store, Katie didn’t need to stay near star
clusters and could move with great speed.

When they reached a nebula with its jellyfish mosaic of
gold, greens, blues, earth colors and luminescent center, Rachel recognized it
as the the one Katie had taken her through the year before. This nebula marked
a gateway between Earth’s universe and the universe of the Kingdom of the Mountain
Witches and the Citadel.

She wondered where on the planet Earth Katie would set them
down. There wasn’t much time to ponder as a forest valley appeared below them.
It was the forest where Rachel had set her tent in the months before her earthly
death.

Katie slowed when they reached the boulder that Rachel had
backed her tent up to the year before. The two were suspended over it, like a
hovercraft as Katie gently brought them into port.

The instant Katie released the bond, Rachel hopped onto the
forest floor. She was no longer alive in this world and could not be easily
hurt.

The ground where her tent had stood was cleared, as well as
a path in front of it. Much of the foliage was gone and the sticks she had set
outside her tent to provide alarm of intruders were gone. The area looked bare
and sterile without Rachel’s camp.

The sorceress had made her way down silently.
I wonder
how many times this creature watched me when I was unaware. How long did she
stalk me prior to taking me away?

“Okay, we’re home, Katie. What’s next?”

“We hit up university libraries.” Katie smiled so broadly,
Rachel expected a frog’s tongue to shoot out and capture a fly.

“Where do we stay?” Rachel asked.

“Why here, of course.”

“Here? This is the first place anyone will look for us.”

“Perhaps it is.” Katie grinned again.

“We’ll need a tent.”

“No, we won’t. I hollowed out this boulder.” Katie tapped
the rock near where Rachel’s tent had been.

“When did you do that?”

“While you were out getting water from the stream for your
camp.”

Rachel didn’t answer.
So, the sorceress was right next
to me as I slept. As I slept and worried about her.

“First, let’s go to the bookstore. I want to get the newest
issue of
Scientific American
.” Katie started walking up the path that
led out of Rachel’s valley. The year before, there had been no trail at the
spot they took. Police and rescue personnel must have carved one out. Rachel’s
much more narrow path was overgrown and barely visible.