We Remember || ONC2022

Chapter Eleven

Bright white pain enveloped me. Where I ended and the fire began, I didn't know. The fire was inside of me, it was hot tongues licking over my skin, it was a world surrounding me. A whiteout. Alder, I said. Or tried to say.

Someone touched my hand, gingerly at first, but then they were gripping my fingers. "It doesn't hurt me. The flames are cold!" That sounded like Lemon, but why would she be holding my hand? I should get up and find Alder.

"What is this stuff you threw at them? I can't get it off!" She released my hand. I heard feet slapping against the pavement, words I couldn't make out. I slipped away, deep inside my body, or possibly far above it. Where the pain was less, but so was I. I guessed that I was dying, but then she was back.

Lemon took up my hand again. Everything hurt, but that didn't hurt worse. "Iron filings. Iron, iron, iron... Ori, we've got to get them to the bay! The chlorine in the saltwater might counteract the iron."

"Will that work?" said the softest voice I'd ever heard, soft as a lamb's ear.

"I don't know! It's magickal fire, but we've got to do something. Celeste's going to try to find Pim, but she doesn't know where she is right now." Yes, Pim, I wanted Pim. Is this what you were worried about, Auntie? Your child burning?

"I can carry Wyn," said the gentle voice. "Do you think you and Jonquil can handle Alder?"

"Yeah, let's go." Yes, I wanted to go to Alder. Where was he? Were they taking me to him? Was that him screaming? Alder, I said. Alder! Answer me, please...

And then I was moving, a floating funeral pyre. Burning white, to be set adrift. Fire and water, a burial at sea. "You're going to be okay, Wyn," said the soft voice. It was a soothing voice, but it was wrong.

And then I heard another voice, a voice raspy as dry sand falling through an hourglass and running out of time, but known to me and dear to me. This voice spoke inside my head. "Wyn, I love you," he said, right before the cold water took me.

Feet first, I plunged into the sea. Down, down I went. I would keep going until I reached the dark part of the ocean, where my Goddess waited. My arms rose up even as my body sank, and I realized that I was not on fire anymore. I wasn't ready to die, but maybe it was already too late.

I kicked my legs, thrashed my arms, trying to get to the surface. My body jerked and I sat up, coughing, still in the shallows and Orin crouching next to me. Holding my hand. An anchor for my body as my mind was lost at sea.

"Alder," I said, my voice burnt, thirsty, barely there, but not soft and calm as lake water like Orin's. A body slammed into me, arms surrounded me. Alder.

"I'm sorry, Wyn, so sorry. I couldn't do anything." And then he was sobbing, face pressed into my neck.

"Silly," I said. I couldn't either. I let him cry, my shaky arms trying to offer some comfort. And then, they were pulling us apart.

~~~

They locked us in a private family mausoleum in the cemetery, a little, rustic structure I'd always thought to be beautiful. Built into the side of a hill and made with round Saltash beach cobbles for a family whose remaining descendants had long since departed Crone's Bend.

An ornamental iron gate with finials shaped like scallop shells and locked with a key that screeched from disuse, barred the way out. Another layer of iron surrounded us in the form of the fence around the cemetery. I didn't mention that this iron had no effect on me or Alder.

The lock was an issue, though not insurmountable for a witch, but there was no magick in this wrought metal. I didn't know what had been done to the filings Layla had thrown over us, but I suspected that it was her hate and bad intentions that had imbued the iron with its power.