Two Halves Series (55 page)

“Who’s tending to this?” I asked, pointing to the hearth.

“No one needs to keep a fire going in the underworld.” Eric explained.

“Right.” I hovered over to the mantle with its collection of Xela’s jars and pointed to a blob of green mush bobbing in what looked like water. “This one looks like snot.”

“It probably is.” Mira grimaced.

“Can you two be serious for a moment?” Eric motioned for us to come closer.

“How is this place safe?” I asked. “We’re in the underworld.”

“Miranda wouldn’t think to look here.”

“But Xela escaped. This is the first place she’ll look.” I tried to lean on the wooden table but fell through.

Mira contained a laugh. “Yup, you’re definitely reborn.”

“It’s a habit.”

“Leave it to me to confuse Miranda,” Eric said. “I’ll keep you invisible in this lair. When you need to see your mother, come here. She’s expecting you to come to the lair and will be checking when you need her.”

Eric held out his hand and out popped a blue sphere. The sparks sizzled, then calmed as he stared at the ball of blue fire, bending its shape with his mind. The sphere composed its sparks until it almost purred, then transformed into a holographic display of the underworld.

“What else have you got up those sleeves?” Mira asked.

“More than you know, sugar. More than you know.” He pointed to the sphere. “The orange dots you see belong to dead bodies waiting to reunite with their spirits.”

“Waiting? I thought that’s what you did—reunite them,” I said.

“For the past year, we’ve pretended they cannot reunite. Aseret thinks we’ve lost our touch.” He turned the sphere, revealing more orange dots.

“Why?”

“We have a few hundred locations left, and that can be cleared up in a day or so. With the children’s help, it should take a few hours.” He leaned against the table with both arms.

“You can’t expect them to do this!” My ghost vibrated.

“Do you trust me?” Eric asked.

My best friend was no longer smiling. Mira’s expression became serious.

“I do,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I am. I shouldn’t have spoken that way.” He wiped the sweat off his forehead. Mira must have shifted her internal temperature as no beads appeared on her face.

“You have every right to.” I shook my head.

“They’re your children. I understand your concerns, but believe me, they can handle this.” Eric paused. “The problem is Miranda’s body.”

A few loose pebbles fell from the earthen ceiling.

“Why?”

“Spirits come to me at free will to be reunited with their bodies. Someone like Miranda obviously wants her identity secret. I am the last person Miranda wanted to know about her.” Again he paused. “Because I was the one to bind her, and I would do it again.”

“My bender.” Mira hung on his arm, beaming with pride.

“How do I help?” I asked.

“In the next twenty-four hours, find her body. Your mother will help you.”

“And if I can’t?”

“Let Miranda find you and then trick her into showing you where it is.” Eric took Mira’s hand. “We need to go. I’ll leave the plans with you.” He placed the blue holograph on the table. The light hovered inches above the surface. “The orange body markers will disappear as I finish. Our family is the only one who can see it.”

Eric and Mira began to fade, their outlines blending into the background before disappearing through the vortex.

It felt like seconds passed, but perhaps it’s been hours. Either way I’d feel the same.

“Sarah?” I heard my mom’s voice before her ghost appeared.

“Mom.” I hugged her like I never had before. Holding my mom as if she were real still seemed like a dream—one I’d had for decades, and now, I had her. I didn’t know for how long, but she was with me.

“You know, Sarah, if everything goes well, I will no longer see you.” She’d read my mind.

I nodded. “I know.” Part of me wished I could remain a ghost, just to have her at my side. Now that I had children of my own, I knew how difficult it must have been for her not to see me grow up.

“But I will be watching over you.” She found my gaze, holding onto my shoulders.

“Does Father know?”

“No.” My mom shook her head.

“You need to show him,” I said.

“It’s not a priority right now, and I’m afraid I may not have time.” Turning, my mom floated away, staring into the fire.

“But all these years, you could have shown yourself to him.” I followed to stand right behind her.

“And hurt him?” Her ghost turned, and she took my face into her palms. “Sarah, I let him dream of me. That should be enough. Reminding him of what happened would torture your father.”

“What about reuniting you with your body?” I asked.

“Eric already has it,” she said. “I’m allowed to stay here for a while longer.”

“So, how do we find Miranda’s body?” I asked.

“One place I haven’t searched is Aseret’s dungeons. The mazes here shift.” She pointed to a point near the center of the sphere, then looked up at me. “I’ve been told you know where the dungeons are.”

“If you take me to the grand hall, I’ll remember the way.” Aseret had imprisoned me and my family in one of his magically protected cells. He’d allowed our escape so we would trust Xela—or at the time, Miranda—who posed as a witch named Alex, using Xela’s body.

“Miranda’s ghost has been spotted here.” She touched the map as a maze shifted again. “I have a feeling that’s where she’s hiding.”

“Let’s go, then.” I pulled on my mother’s ghostly hand.

She halted before we flew through the wall. “Make yourself invisible, Sarah.”

“Right.” I shut my eyes. It was the only way I knew to become invisible.

Stifling a chuckle, my mother pulled me through the rock. We flew into the soil and earthen walls, then through empty corridors toward the center of the underworld, the grand hall.

At first, we passed a seeker or two in the passages; some were training, others frozen like statues with glowing orange eyes, waiting for their next order from Aseret. As we neared the hall, their numbers multiplied. I thought I’d seen many seekers, but their population here had grown. The closer we came to the hall, the more numerous and rowdy they became. Fights broke out, the zombie-like creatures screeching and yelping in their high-pitched tones while pouncing on one another, reaching with their twig-like fingers to slit the skin of an opponent with their nails. One swing, and a seeker died.

And if the nails weren’t enough, they heated their palms, frying each other—an ability gifted from Aseret. They’d burn flesh on touch, scorching the skin or boiling the flesh beneath the blisters, then the sick smell of burning meat . . . The seeker’s iron hold on my shoulders in the Amazon four years ago had similar result. My ghost shivered.

I often wondered why warlocks chose to turn to Aseret to become lifeless. Mira had explained that many had lost their incomes as medicine developed, and humanity no longer needed therapeutic help through herbs and chants. They dwelt for decades, lost in the underworld. Aseret promised immortality if they were to recruit others, and they did; without a return ticket from the underworld, they all became Aseret’s subjects.

We floated into the turgid air of the grand hall. Heat waves rose to some point lost in the height of the granite ceiling. From it, a chandelier, its hundreds of candles all lit, was suspended over a roaring fire pit. Along one wall, a river of molten lava flowed before turning to cross the floor beside the fire. The crater I’d almost fallen into with William still gaped. The seekers should have felt lucky they didn’t need to tend to the fire, as it would have been impossible to reach it. I imagined the stench of rotten eggs and dirty socks that emanated and wanted to vomit. The acid taste imprinted on the inside of my mouth, or perhaps I imagined it.

The hall, although identical to what I remembered, seemed grander. New bridges ran over the crater and connected one end of the hall to the other. The crisscross of wooden planks smoldered at some spots from the bubbling lava beneath.

“I don’t like this,” I told my mother.

“Sh, I don’t want him to sense us.” She pointed to the throne at the top of a staircase covered with velvet carpeting that matched the drapes hanging over the entrance points.

Aseret slumped in his seat, the hood of the demon cloak covering his bald head. In his translucent palm, he balanced a sphere similar to the one Eric had left, except this one spat red and orange sparks instead of blue. His gaze wandered toward us, following our movement across the hall. The warlock narrowed his brows, and the sphere rolled to one side, almost falling from its position hovering above his palm. He focused on the sphere again, keeping one eye on the seekers’ training.

I led the way toward the end of the hall, where we passed through the drapes concealing a circular staircase. We hovered down the steps, my shoulder stuck into the wall as we squeezed through. The unsavory sensation of the dungeon’s dim and dank atmosphere was just as I remembered.

“That’s odd.”

“What?” my mother asked.

“Where are the prisoners?” The corridor of countless openings held no prisoners. I recalled the cell openings covered with magical spells floating like fog, preventing escape. My gaze focused on the third cell, where I’d been imprisoned. The side walls had been destroyed by our escape. Aseret’s minions hadn’t fixed them yet.

“I’ve never been here before.” My mother’s gaze warily scanned every corner of every cell. “You know how you get a gut feeling as a human?”

“Yeah?” I checked the square compartments from left to right as we drifted along the corridor.

“Well, I’d always had that feeling to not come here. I think we should leave.”

“No one’s here, Mom. We’ll leave as soon as we check for Miranda’s body.”

I pulled her along with the breeze that seemed to be guiding me. We checked each cell, just in case, but found them all empty. Not even a trace of a prisoner. No bones. No ashes. No dust.

“Your gut means to tell you this is the place to be.” I smirked. A wave of excitement flew through me. The anticipation of danger would have pumped my blood faster if I had a body; instead, only waves and vibrations floated along my ghost’s silhouette.

“Stop that,” my mother cautioned. “You’re showing your ghostly form.”

I looked at my translucent arms, then focused.

We reached the end of the tunnel. A stone wall, identical to all the walls in the caverns, marked a dead end.

“Now can we leave?” my mother asked, looking anxiously behind us.

“Can you feel the breeze?”

She nodded. “I thought I had some help floating.”

“We’ve been drifting toward the end. Care to see what’s on the other side of the wall?” I grinned like a little kid, hoping my mom wouldn’t argue.

My mother’s apprehensive expression turned into a smirk of anticipation. We were more alike now than ever before, and she looked as if she was getting her spark back—one she’d forgotten.

I took her hand and forced my spirit through the wall. Part of me hoped we’d end up embedded in the rock, but I knew we wouldn’t. Whatever lay beyond the stone wall had to be a big secret, and it wouldn’t be soil.

The moment we decided to go ahead, the breeze pulled us in like a vacuum. My body whooshed through the stone barrier into a barren room. The air was filled with the stale scent of black roses, a scent that conjured a faint memory from the past.

“I can’t see anything.” I tightened my grip on my mother’s hand.

“Hold on a minute.” She let go, and I waited, suddenly feeling alone, until the sound of a match being lit preceded a flare of oval light on the other side of the room.

“I found it in the cupboard.” She shook the box of matches.

“How did you do that?” I asked. “You’re a ghost.”

She smiled. “Years of practice.” Her translucent features shimmered in the glow as it faded, then flickered out.

My mother hit another match against the box. She held its flame as she carried it across the room, shielding it with the other hand. Shadows of objects she passed—a jar, a chair, a broom, a table—danced on the walls until she reached a candle. The match went out before she touched the wick. She lit a third match and held it close to the wick until the flame transferred. Soon the squared room was illuminated by the light of over twenty candles of different sizes.

None of the four walls had a door or any entrance. The jarred ingredients, hanging herbs, and bundled feathers bore an eerie resemblance to those in Xela’s cave, but it was colder here.

“How does she get in here?” my mother asked.

“She’s a ghost, Mom.”

“She wasn’t always a ghost.”

The room breathed gloom and despair, hatred and pain. I walked over to the centered table to examine a leather-bound book with the symbol of the sphere embossed on its front.
Spells.

A familiar blade rested beside the book. Miranda, when I’d thought she was the good witch Alex, had used a dagger to carve stones in one of the cells to open the wall for our escape. “There must be a hidden entrance through the rock,” I said.

“I won’t ask how you know this, but there are no bodies here. We should leave.”

I looked at her ghost. “Mom, you’re shaking.”

“We need to leave. Now!”

But it was too late. A loud cackle vibrated the walls as Miranda entered her lair. Dust fell of the earthen ceiling. She walked instead of hovering and stalked around the perimeter of the room, eyes on us. Miranda was poised to pounce, as if we were her prey. Walking was unnatural for a spirit and took more energy, but Miranda didn’t look like she lacked any strength. Tangled hair, saliva hanging on her lower lip, crusty nails, sunken, shadowed eyes burning with hate, this witch was identical to the witch I’d seen in Xander’s cave and thought was Xela. Except this time, I knew where Xela was.

Remembering Miranda’s host body when she’d switched our souls and the rage that burst through me when I’d awakened in the woods, my ghostly form shook.

Miranda threw her head back and cackled, and I realized, both my mother and I were now visible.