Sean had left the badgering about going to visit Cleopatra, aka Cleo, ala immortal witch, aka apparently slightly psychotic, until the next morning thankfully. Lilly woke up early in order to avoid Sean and his nagging about going. Amazingly enough he was already awake and ready to pester.
He had begged her to bring someone to help her, like him, someone who knew how to talk to Cleo, like him, someone who could use his skills with powers, like him, to buy her some time if the conversation were to go south.
Unfortunately for Sean, he did not yet know how stubborn Lilly could really be. She explained to him several times before leaving that she would be find, Hailey drew her a map, and that if this Cleo character had a problem with her she would swear into the Coven and help them get back the journal.
This answer did not satisfy Sean, he argued more, then began begging but Lilly couldn’t let this opportunity pass. She had to talk to Cleo, she had to find out what it was she saw and how she saw real life in her dreams.
The road to get to the forest was easy to find, passing the gas station when leaving town and driving for another six miles to a fork in the road where one was to take a right. From there it was all landmarks, rocks and trees with drawings on them. Lilly had asked what the drawings were but Hailey had said they were tribal drawings from the first Coven to mark the roads.
The first symbol she saw looked like a sun, it was etched into a black rock by the side of the road. Looking quickly at Hailey’s jotted notes in six miles she was to make a left onto a gravel hiking path. In capital letters Hailey had written: LOOK OUT FOR HIKERS!
Tracking the miles, she took the left and kept her eyes out for the next symbol, a moon etched into a dead oak tree. From there she had to make another left going between two birch that’s branches formed what looked like an archway.
Thankfully she only spotted one couple hiking while she was driving, they shook their fists at her while yelling and swearing as she carefully drove by. Soon she came to the tree with the carved moon, farther down the trail was the birch trees Hailey mentioned. She drove through them, her side mirrors nearly nicking the trunk the fit was so narrow.
The rest of the way was apparently simple, drive straight for six miles until she found a quarry, go right around the quarry and drive up the path. At the top continue going straight until there is a cliff. As Lilly read these instructions she stopped at the head of the cliff like Hailey mentioned and looked for her next direction: This part sucks, get out of the car and walk down the path on the cliff, she doesn’t like vehicles near her house. Walk for about ten minutes, keep looking up.
Keep looking up? Why could this witch not live on a road with other people? There were some lovely houses back in Willow Creek, why could she not set her cauldron up there? Huffing and groaning, Lilly stepped out of the car into the heat of the summer. The air was still in the forest, the trees so close and so tall it was like she had shrunk down to a miniscule size.
Thank god she hadn’t worn flip flops like she always did in the summer, today she put on a pair of Norah’s converse sneakers. As she trudged down the rocks she could see slip marks from where others had fallen, she assumed members of the Coven as the fall was not far nor was it particularly dangerous, but who else would come out this way?
Jumping the last several feet to the bottom of the cliff Lilly was covered in sweat, wiping her forehead forgetting her hands were now covered in dirt. She continued walked, the forest filled with sounds of nature. She could hear a waterfall in the distance, birds chirping all around her. She had asked Sean about bears, he had told her there were some in the forest but if she saw one to try and act as big as she could.
His information on how to avoid bears really sucked, she thought as she continued walking straight. Keeping her head up she could see the dark rain clouds beginning to form overtop of her. They were unnaturally dark, almost as black as night.
Then she saw why Hailey told her to keep her head up. Lilly stopped as gasped at the site in front of her. In the trees there was a two story home, a porch wrapping around both floors, many windows letting in the sun. Flowers on the windowsills and winding stairs built around the trees climbing to the porch.
The whole house was situated next to another quarry, this one with a waterfall.
This woman had to have some sort of supernatural power because no human could ever build a home like this. It had to be the most beautiful thing Lilly had ever seen. From the outside the house looked as though it should be in a Home magazine, it was perfect made completely out of a light brown wood.
Taking the railing of the winding stairs she began to climb, wondering how old they were and how much weight they could support. Slowly she made her way up, not sure whether she should make noise or start calling for Cleo before knocking on her front door.
Reached the porch she stepped slowly onto the polished wood, looking around for a glimpse of the woman. One step at a time she came to the front door, made out of glass. Lilly closed her eyes and knocked four times on the wood panelling surrounding it. No way would she knock on the delicate glass, she didn’t want to smudge it.
She waited for several minutes, nothing happened, no one came. She looked around as though something would be waiting there to tell her what to do. She rummaged through her satchel for her phone, finding it under her bottle of aloe and checked for a signal. Nothing, not surprising.
She knocked again, this time louder and longer. Still she waited and nothing. Frustrated now, she knocked again and did not stop.
“I heard you the first time.” The voice wafted down from above. Lilly took a step back and looked up to the porch surrounding the upstairs floor. A woman was leaning over the railing. “If I didn’t know any better I would think you’re Norah Essex.” She tilted her oversized sunglasses down and looked over the top, “But in your case I do know better, welcome, Lilly Neace, what do you want?”
So this was Cleopatra and she already knew who Lilly was, though it made sense she knew her mother and Lilly’s dad had always told her they looked very similar.
“I really don’t have all day.” The word was dragged out like a taunt, “The sun is about to go away honey bunny and I need to catch some of those rays.”
“To make a hex bag?” Was that really the first question to come out of her mouth? Lilly thought she truly had gone crazy if she thought catching rays literally meant trying to catch rays of sunlight to put into a hex bag.
“What? No are you dumb? I am tanning, summer time is tanning- you know what, just come inside meet me out the back, okay?” Cleo huffed and Lilly swore she heard the woman call her an idiot.
Slowly she took the handle of the door and pushed. The inside of the house was just as lovely as the outside. The same light brown wood was on the floor and walls, natural sunlight pouring in. The furniture was modern, as were the electronics, a huge plasma was mounted on the wall. The two couches around it were a bright red, the coffee table covered in magazines.
In the corner was a kitchen with stainless steel appliances, the fridge had a clear glass door. All around the room plants hung and indoor sculptures with water were placed around the room. Looking up Lilly could see the second floor was more of a loft, another set of winding staircases leading to it.
She stood there breathless as she looked around the modern tree house. She had never seen anything like it, hell she had never even imagined a place like this could exist. Slowly she made her way through the room and to the back where another set of glass doors opened to another porch, she found Cleopatra leaning against the railing. “Good god honey, I said meet me out here while the sun was still out. You totally failed.”
“Um...I’m sorry?” This woman, this immortal woman whose age was unknown spoke like a high school student out of a television show. Lilly thought she would speak like the characters in Shakespeare’s plays.
She also didn’t look like how Lilly had pictures her. The first thought that came to her mind was the witch in Snow White. White hair, crooked nose and a hunched back. Cleo had ash brown hair with blonde streaks that fell to her shoulders, breasts the size of planets and huge green eyes that were staring at her. It also looked like she had been in the sun for quite some time, her skin was perfectly tanned making her white swim suit stand out on her.
“It’s curious why they sent you, you don’t say much but I assume it’s because I am not what you were expecting.” The woman said as she walked over to a cooler and pulled out a beer, “Want one?”
“I’m not twenty-one.”
She shrugged and placed it back in the cooler, “Not like I care how old you are, but whatever. Anyway Lilly Neace, you lost the Book of Souls. Not cool.”
So she knew already, the members of the Coven said it was as though she could see right through you. “Um...do you know who may have it?”
Cleo shrugged and took a drink from her beer, “A Moosehead lager, a Canadian beer but between you and me the beer form the Great White North is so much better. Germany and Australia make better beer too. Though Samuel Adams is pretty dope.”
And apparently she had the attention span of a fly.
“I could know who has the book, I could ask the birds and the trees whom they have seen, alas this is really not my problem. It’s yours.”
Say what now? It was not her problem, Lilly was going to leave in a week and when she was gone she was never coming back. She just wanted to find out why she saw what happened in the book store and call it a day.
“They said-“
Cleo interrupted, “The Coven said...”
“The Coven said you would be furious the book was missing, and that I was the one that lost it.” Her eyes narrowed on the woman, “But you don’t care...do you?”
Cleo laughed, her laugh sounded sinster yet filled with honest and sincere humour. “Of course I care where the Book of Souls went, oh my god to you know how many darks spells are in that thing? Wow, imagine I didn’t care, but I do I am just saying why should I help you?”
“Because there are dark spells in there and someone has it?” Forget mean, this woman was confusing and contradicting.
“Someone had it before.”
“You like Norah Essex.”
Cleo laughed, actually she cackled like a true witch. Lilly watched as the woman doubled over holding her sides she was laughing so hard. Her laugh was like nothing she had ever heard, sinister yet pure humour behind it. “Oh goodness don’t make me laugh so hard, I don’t want to wrinkle!” She laughed once more before straightening with a smile on her face, “I did not like Norah, but I don’t like anyone. Though I should have taken the book from her, look at what she did with it.”
Lilly’s heart stopped, she had done something with the book, “What did she do?”
“Used it, moron. She didn’t have a heart attack and die! God no it takes years, centuries to learn how to use the Book of Souls and mumsie tried to master it in less than twenty. She tried to use a spell and died. Simple as that, simple and stupid.”
Lilly had known a heart attack at thirty seven was too strange to be true even though her father had insisted that it happened. So Norah was trying to use a spell and died in the process? Lilly wondered what spell she could have been trying to cast, and why if the spells took centuries to learn did she try after so few years.
“She was trying to use a summoning spell.” Cleo said grabbing Lilly out of her thoughts, “The first spell she tried from the book, I could feel it.”
“How do you-“
“How do I know that is what you were thinking? And how I know you want to ask me about your dreams and the thing you saw in the bookstore? Simple honey bunny, I am awesome.”
Oh thank god that cleared everything up! The woman was simply awesome and everything happened and she could just simply see it! Lilly let her thoughts run wild with accusation and annoyance, stopping when Cleo cocked and eyebrow. “Sorry.” Lilly mumbled quickly before the woman could say anything...hex her, “What was with my dream?”
Cleo shrugged, “Your mother was a powerful witch and you were in her home.”
“That doesn’t answer anything.”
“It does. And as for your next question I don’t know the answer.”
Uh the all seeing woman who knows everything about everything did not know the answer? That was a piss off! Lilly felt her hands fist as she glared at the smiling Cleo, who was apparently enjoying her anger. How could something like a dream be unknown to a witch? Did they not have crystal balls and tea leaves to analyze dreams? Could they not brew a potion or make a hex bag to recall the dream or talk to something inside of it?
“No we can’t do any of those things. I didn’t go to a wizarding school and I don’t have a crystal ball. Though I do have a book on dreams I can lend you.”
“Like a magic book of dreams?”
Another round of witchy cackles. This time Cleo had been taking a drink at the time she started spitting out the liquid as she began to laugh, “Oh, oh no, no, nononono dear girl no!” She wiped a tear from her eye, “I like you, I really do wow we need to hang out more. No the book of dreams I had I bought at the book store, it looked like a hoot!”
A hoot. She just said a hoot. Clearly this woman was mental, then again Lilly was talking to her on behalf of a Coven of teenagers that said they were witches, she was a witch and someone had stolen a book of evil spells and hexes.
“So you’re telling me that because Norah is my biological mom I have dreams, but you can’t tell me what those dreams mean?” Lilly wanted to clear up the even more question she had bouncing around her head, but something told her that Cleo was not going to answer them.
“Again yes and no.”
“Again that doesn’t help.”
“Again I am not here to do all the work for you. I am here simply observe and enjoy.”
Lilly could have cried out on frustration, “Seriously Cleo! What did I see? What was that thing that broke into Sean’s store?”
Cleo’s face dropped, no humour remaining in her huge green eyes. “Look here, Lilly Neace, I may act like fun, look like fun and be fun but do not mistake that for friendship. You will not speak to me like that. Again. Understood little witch?”
Slowly Lilly nodded, she noticed the wind had picked up and the temperature drop with Cleo’s anger at her. “I’m, I’m sorry.” So the Coven was right, the woman was frightening when she was angry. Lilly made a mental note to never piss her off again.
Cleo nodded at the apology and her smiled returned, “You’re new, I will respect that for our first visit. Now unless you want someone outside of this coupling to know more about your dreams I suggest you shut your trap. Someone’s been listening.”
Lilly’s hear froze. Who had been listening and how long had they been following her? She had driven deep into the forest and spent some of the time walking. Could it have been the thing from the store, or had someone like Sean, Hailey or Jake followed her into the woods. Did they come to hurt her? Did they come to stop her?
Cleo turned so her back was to Lilly now. She scanned along the bushes until her neck stopped moving. She help up her hand and bunched her fingers into a fist as though she were grabbing something. A male grunt escaped from the trespasser. So Sean had followed her, Lilly thought.
Cleo walked to the ledge of the porch and dove into the quarry below with barely a splash. Lilly watched as she emerged from the water, amazed she was not shivering the temperature had dropped so low and the winds so strong.
The bi-polar woman went into the trees, when she emerged she had a second figure with her. His hands were pinned to his side as though they were glued. Lilly gasped, it was not Sean who had followed her into the woods.
It was Mason.