The Lost Witch (7 page)

"Everybody be riled by the Conundrum, though if truth be told, Carole, I don't
remember a time that be other than like this."

"Me neither, though sometimes I think I dream about what it used to be like. What my
home was like."

"Dreams be powerful magic stuff," Mariat nodded.

"Mariat, a wolf was after me last night when I got stuck between this and the Monobrain
Realm."

"Be ye alone at the time?"

"No, I had a couple of brainy pigs with me."

"Be that the smell on ye?"

"Probably."

"Wolves like pork very much. Maybe they's able to smell it clear through to the other
dimension during the overlay."

"If that's true, than it's a sure bet they can smell it on me now."

"We best tell Herling. She'll know what to do. Herling be a very old witch, very
wise."

Mariat skipped over to where the head witch was still talking with the two other crones.
A minute later Herling followed Mariat back to Carole, who stood up and set her empty plate on
the bench.

"Be that true what Mariat say, Sylphwood? A wolf be searching ye out from the other
dimension?"

"Philamount thinks so. He said I only made a partial jump to this realm and that's why
the werewolf couldn't find me, but the creature was prowling all around us."

Herling remained silent for a moment, deep in thought. "Philamount be very wise fer an
old fraud. More to this than just pig smell. Probable some spirits thinking ye be a monobrain and
be wanting to teach ye a lesson. Probable they who led the wolf to ye. If such be the case, then
we have wolf fer certain this night."

Herling spun around and clapped her hands together, instantly getting the attention of
witches and cats alike. "Coven, prepare fer wolfish attack. It be near certain that one comes this
night, and likely to be peskish sort of attack, also. Make food safe behind pantry door. Lock the
latch. Cats, be strengthening yer diversionary pee. Prepare brooms fer time of need." She clapped
her hands again and witches and cats jumped into action.

Mariat clasped Carole's hand. "Come. Tis my job to prepare brooms fer flight."

"In case you need to escape?"

"If wolf gets into hall and we can't spell such, 'tis easier to fly off fer a time, 'til the
creature gets bored and runs off into night. That way none gets bit nor bothered."

"But I don't have a broom."

"Ye ride with me and my cat, Cleopatra. She be a beauty and not mind the company. It'll
also make Brutus extreme jealous that multitasker snubs him for Cleo." Mariat snickered.

She led Carole up a flight of stairs to a large room where dozens of brooms lay propped
against three of the four walls. Mariat picked up a few that had fallen over, and made sure the
rest were spaced evenly apart.

The fourth wall was actually a large set of double doors held shut by a heavy cross bar.
Mariat checked that one end of a rope was securely attached to the crossbar. The rest of the rope
fed up and through two ceiling mounted pulleys and down to a huge weight, balanced
precariously on the edge of a shelf. Mariat tested the rope knot at this end and gently pushed
against the weight. It wobbled uncertainly.

"This be the way to open doors in a hurry," Mariat smiled. "Drop the rock and doors fly
open. If need be, all witches can leave in one big hustle, like bats from a cave." She selected a
broom and brought it over for Carole to inspect. "This be mine," she said with love in her voice.
"Tis made special by me and works only fer me. What thinks ye, Carole Sylphwood?"

Carole lifted the broom from Mariat's hand, surprised at how light it felt. "Wow! It
tingles, like it's full of energy."

"Tis exactly so. My broom be fastest of the coven, cause I added special magic gifted to
me from my grandwitch. It be magic only granny and me knows. Every good witch keeps a few
spells just to herself and family. But I show ye someonce, when we gets more time to play."

"I'd like to. Except for the brainy pigs, I don't really have any friends to play with."

"We be friends," Mariat stated. She placed her hands on Carole's shoulders and stared
straight into her eyes. "We be good friends. And when ye fix Conundrum, and pesky wolves no
longer be so bothersome, ye visit with Mariat all the time and learn the ways of we
Westhillers."

"You've got yourself a deal." Carole put the broom back against the wall and followed
Mariat out of the room.

Downstairs, preparations for the wolf's arrival seemed complete. The cats had obviously
taken their job seriously, because the entranceway reeked even more than before, if that were
possible. All the food had been removed from the main hall to a side room, though the witches
were still coming and going, talking, laughing and eating as if nothing were out of the ordinary.
Carole suddenly realized that if events had been occurring this way for the past nine years, such
preparations would now seem very routine indeed. She tried to follow the witches' lead, and to
relax and enjoy herself as much as possible, though the stronger smell of cat pee in the air
effectively squashed any remaining appetite.

Brutus sounded the alarm with a low throaty growl. It was picked up and amplified by
the other cats.

"That be warning plenty enough," Herling told them. "We be quiet now, so as not to rile
the beast excessively. Come, Sylphwood, ye get to the middle of we witches. Mariat ye stand
next to Sylphwood."

The rest of the witches and cats moved to form two large circles around the girls, cats on
the outside and witches on the inside.

"Westhill Witches," Head witch Herling spoke softly, "Sylphwood multitasker be our
great hope for ending Conundrum, and saving our realm from such as the last years has brung us.
Shield her with yer magic and, if needs be, with yer blood."

She turned to the girls. "Mariat, be there need, take Sylphwood to flight by yer broom.
No lollygagging about neither."

Mariat's reply was cut off by a bloodcurdling howl that sent shivers screaming up
Carole's spine.

"'Tis close," Mariat whispered. "Not much by way of warning with this beast, neither.
Tis unusual, that."

Moments later the howl came again, this time directly outside the door. It was followed
within a heartbeat by a second howl from the back of the building. The witches shifted about
uneasily.

"That be real strange," Mariat said in a near whisper. "Northern wolf always travels
alone."

"Be ye ready, girl!" Herling warned in a raspy whisper. Cats and witches began chanting
softly.

Carole could feel the prickly power rising in the hall. This time it felt as though the
energy was being directed around her instead of at her. She held her breath.

The werewolf gave no more warning. It smashed through a window and came crashing
down in a howling flurry of twisting fur and gnashing teeth. But before it touched the floor, it
exploded in a puff of black smoke.

Carole got a much better view of the second werewolf, which dropped through the
window on the heels of the first, before the coven could charge up a second spell. It landed
behind the witches.

With an enraged roar, it leapt directly for her throat.

"Run!" Mariat screamed, trying to step between Carole and the wolf.

Carole wasn't about to lose her new found friend. She dove hard at Mariat's waist,
tackling the girl heavily to the floor. The wolf flew over them, its jaws, snapping on thin air,
narrowly missing Carole's neck. It crashed headfirst into a table, momentarily stunning
itself.

"Now we run." Carole yelled as she ran up the stairs as fast as she could.

Behind her, pandemonium reigned as witches screamed, cats screeched and the beast
roared back to life. She stole a quick look behind to make sure Mariat was still with her. What
she saw chilled her blood. Instead of the witchling, the werewolf was bounding after her.

She dashed into the broom room, flinging the door shut just as the wolf slammed against
it with a howl of frustration. Knowing the door wouldn't hold, she triggered the pulley rope. As
the rock toppled, a dark shape came at her from the shadows.

She screamed and grabbed up the nearest broom. Before she could swing the makeshift
weapon, clawlike fingers gripped her arms, stopping her cold.

"Miss Sylphwood, I do not believe that now is the most opportune time to learn the
proper mechanics of broom flight."

"Philamount! There's a werewolf--"

The door exploded in slivers and snarls.

"Quickly," Philamount ordered, dragging Carole to the now open escape route.
"Out!"

"But we'll fall!"

"Focus on home. Concentrate on a familiar image and jump."

Carole screwed her eyes shut, but instead of hitting the ground she was jerked
backwards with a neck-snapping velocity. Twisting, she saw Melodious Philamount wrapped in
a shimmering rainbow vortex, struggling to hang onto her shoulders, but he lost his grip and spun
off into a black, starless void. An instant later her rucksack flashed through her mind. She
latched onto it, and found herself sprawled, chilled and shivering, beside the pack on a carpet of
warm grass.

Squinting into the bright light, she discovered herself back atop the hill overlooking
Piedmont Elementary. Philamount wasn't with her, but then again, neither was the
werewolf.

Five minutes later, when she had stopped shivering, he appeared amidst a splash of
color.

"Oh, here you are," he said with annoyance. "When I said to pick an image of home,
obviously I meant The Hub, not this place."

Carole bristled. "Kind of hard to do when I don't even know what The Hub looks like.
Besides, its not like you gave me much warning."

"Miss Sylphwood, it is your response to a warning--any warning--that matters."
Philamount sniffed, dismissing her irritation with a wave of his hand. "What is also significant is
that your unexpected adventure has provided us with some extremely valuable information."

"What sort of information?"

"For one, we discovered that it was quite easy for me to trigger your latent
transdimensional jumping abilities."

"You chucked me off the second floor of witch hall."

"True, but given we had little choice, it seemed the proper thing to do."

"I suppose it did work," she admitted. "Did we learn anything else?"

"We learned that I could not maintain my hold on you once we crossed into the void.
Thus, I am now certain that you cannot return to The Hub with me through my own tunnel."

"Was that the rainbow colored tube you were inside?"

"Rainbow colored? You actually saw the tunnel?"

"It looked like a long, skinny tornado."

"How extraordinary! But of course, it all fits..."

"Wait a minute, what about the witches?"

"The witches?"

"They might still need our help!"

"Whatever for?"

"The werewolf!"

"Oh, they're perfectly fine."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Miss Sylphwood, exactly where do you think I've been these past few minutes? When I
saw that you hadn't accompanied me to The Hub, naturally I returned to the Nightshade Realm,
just in case."

"In case? In case what?"

"There was always the slightest possibility, though I was reasonably certain your natural
abilities would activate, that you, um...might have splatted." Philamount quickly added, "My
dear Miss Sylphwood, as I've said before, these are confusing and dangerous times, but under the
circumstances you performed brilliantly."

"So what did happen after we left?" Carole said.

"Apparently as you and I leapt from the building, a couple dozen cats, led by a rather
lionish looking feline, leapt onto the werewolf. I'm afraid that after the cats were finished with it,
there wasn't much left of the poor creature."

"Eewww! And Mariat?"

"Mariat?"

"My witchling friend. She tried to protect me from the wolf."

"Ah, that would be the child wearing a sack of ice on her head. It seems that in all the
commotion she somehow collided with the floor. Knocked senseless for a time."

"Was she badly hurt?"

"Not at all. A tough breed those witches. Takes a lot more than a knocked noggin to
keep one of them down for long. In fact she wanted you to have this." Melodious removed a
small package from his pocket and handed it to Carole.

"What is it?"

"Judging by the smell, I'd hypothesize a bar of wolfbane soap."

Carole was about to question the professor further, when he held up his hand, "We really
must return to more pressing matters, Miss Sylphwood. Your little field trip has indeed been
profitable, but it has also cost us a great deal of time. Time which is all too quickly slipping
away."

He sat on the grass beside her, tugged a loose thread from a rip in his pant leg, and held
it up to his eyes for inspection. "It is unlikely that you remember events as such, but at the time
of The Great Conundrum a two-and-a-half year old multitasker by the name of Carole
Sylphwood vanished, along with the Monobrain Dimensional Connector. And the Monobrain
Universe itself, I might add."

He balled-up the thread and flicked it away. "I didn't believe it to be mere coincidence
that nine years later I should happen upon a twelvish looking Carole Wood multitasking about
the Monobrain Realm, tantalizingly close to a dimensional connector. It was obvious to me that
Carole Wood, the monobrain, and Carole Sylphwood, the multitasker, were one and the same.
And I imagine that you yourself no longer have doubts?"

"I suppose not, but what exactly are you... Am I?"

"At last to the heart of the matter. As you now know, we multitaskers reside at The Hub.
It is a simple name but definitely not a simple place. It is the meeting place of this and every
other universe currently in existence."

"Every other universe?"

"The Ghostly Spirit and Monobrain Realms are but two of thousands of
universes. These different dimensions are neatly and precisely linked to The Hub, like the spokes
of a bicycle wheel, and we multitaskers travel to them. We've even managed to visit monobrains
on occasion, which is how this whole nasty mess began."