Chapter 3

A few minutes later, Tansy stood on one side of Laci’s hospital bed, while Wanda and Jayden stood on the other, Wanda stroking the honey-skinned girl as if petting a cat. Laci’s mother remained in the waiting room, knowing nothing of what the witches said next would make any sense to her, and she needed time to just catch her breath.

“How are you feeling?” Tansy asked first. “They say you’re doing well, but then again, they aren’t the ones dealing with the pain.” She tried her best to give the girl a reassuring smile.

Laci smiled back although her eyes seemed more hollow than normal, and her skin had lost some of its color. “It hurts, but otherwise, I’m not doing bad. I’ve suffered worse believe it or not.”

Tansy reached out and squeezed Laci’s forearm. “I believe it with everything you’ve been through in the past eight years.” She then took a deep breath. “Jayden says you saw Rose. What do you mean you saw her? Like in a dream? A vision?”

Laci took a deep breath, her hands still shaking slightly as she rested them on her stomach. “Not like either of those,” she said. “I saw Rose. Don’t ask me how or even where, but I saw her. I saw Renny as well. Both were in this grassy field with cords of magical power wrapped around them, hurting them. It was almost like the cords I saw come out of the ground during the Recapturing Ceremony, only slightly different. Renny’s was black, and Rose’s was red, but they seemed to hold them in place, connecting them to something, whatever that was. I went to help Rose, but some… creature… appeared, monstrous and ugly, from behind Rose. He said he was coming for us. He called us vessels or something like that and blamed us for locking them in the Nether.”

Tansy glanced at Wanda, the older woman’s face wearing a worried expression. “It seems I didn’t imagine it, after all,” Tansy said with a troubled sigh. “Although I have no idea what it means or how it’s even possible.”

“How what’s possible?” Jayden asked, her gaze moving from one to the other of the two older witches. “What didn’t you imagine? You knew this would happen?”

Tansy shook her head. “I don’t know how it’s possible, and no, I didn’t know it was happening. To be honest, I don’t even know what this is, but you’re not the only one who has seen Rose.” Laci started to ask what the other witch meant, but Tansy held up her hand, stalling the question. “We’ll discuss it later when you’re out of here. For now, you need to regain your strength, and I need to do some more research.” She reached out and squeezed Laci’s arm. “We’ll figure it out. Don’t worry.”

“Of course, we will,” Wanda said, her smile evident in her voice as well as her eyes. “It’s not like we haven’t seen stranger things lately. I mean, a dog who looks like a wolf but is the size of a bear and moves like a lion? An elf who finds everything amazing? Those are pretty out there.”

Laci laughed, her face twisting into a grimace of pain from the shaking of her stomach. “I wouldn’t let Kree hear you call him a dog. He finds it extremely rude.”

“Oh, dear, I don’t mean to be rude,” Wanda said, her face drooping now with concern.

Laci reached out and squeezed her hand. “You’re fine. Really.” She then turned to Tansy. “Any chance these were just dreams from exhaustion and medication and I just think I was there with Rose and Renny? I mean, we’ve all had dreams that seemed pretty realistic.”

Tansy shrugged. “It’s possible, I suppose, but I won’t know until I dig into it a little more. Let me worry about it. You just worry about getting better.” She shot a smile toward Jayden. “As I hear it, we’ll be helping you move soon, and I know you’ll want your strength for that.” She had been glad to see the Valentine family reconcile wholly, taking the step to move under one roof and act as a real family. Tansy believed that was the only way true healing would occur.

“Yeah, otherwise, I get to decorate your room,” Jayden said, a smile reaching her eyes.

Tansy’s eyebrows went up in mock worry, her smile a contradiction to the shock on her face. She reached back out and gripped Laci’s arm. “You just focus on taking care of you right now. Wanda and I will go back to the Murky Cauldron and dig into the books. We’ll figure out what’s going on with Rose and then figure out what to do next.”

“I want to help,” Laci said. “I couldn’t do anything but get the shit beat out of me in that place, and I want to make up for that. Don’t leave me out of this.”

“Laci, you were just stabbed,” Jayden said. “I think you’ve earned some vacation time from the supernatural for a while.”

“No,” Laci said, never taking her eyes off Tansy, ignoring her sister. “I’m a part of this. I need to be a part of this.”

Tansy nodded, squeezing the young girl’s arm again. “And you will be. I promise. However, first, you need to get your strength back. You won’t be any use to us if you’re weak.”

Laci nodded, even though her face showed she doubted what Tansy said. The older witch didn’t take it personally. She knew Laci had a hard time trusting people after having spent the past eight years on the streets, dealing with crooked cops, malicious pimps, and others who only wanted what they could steal from her.

After another round of goodbyes, Tansy and the others left Laci to get some rest. As soon as they were out of earshot, Tansy sighed. “The Warrior seemed to have been right when he said we were in the sights of the Unseelie. We need to see if Alex and Kayla put those extra protections around their homes, and we need to make sure to do the same for ours as well as the Murky Cauldron.”

“Aren’t they supposed to be sacred ground?” Wanda asked. “From what Famallumi told me once, the Unseelie aren’t able to touch people on sacred ground. Something about them bursting into flames or something if they touch it.”

Tansy shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. However, we’ve been hurt enough. I don’t want to take any chances and see harm come to anyone else.” They continued walking to where Maria Valentine waited for them, each lost in their own thoughts and questions.

Jayden’s couldn’t wait, however. “Can someone, or rather something, attack a soul in the Summerlands?” she asked, stopping in the doorway of the waiting room. The others stopped with her, no one ready to go inside just yet and worry the Valentine mother. “I thought that was a peaceful place, where souls go to rest once they die to await the rebirth.”

Tansy nodded, crossing her arms over her chest. “It is, which is why I’m not sure what we saw. Laci said she saw Renny Saunders there as well, which makes even less sense to me. It might be a good idea to reach out to her and see if she was, indeed, there, and what she remembers. She might have answers we need.”

“Do we bring the Warrior of the Way into this?” Wanda asked. “This is more his realm than ours, isn’t it?”

Tansy shook her head. “He seemed stressed enough the last time I saw him. I say we do this ourselves until we find out we can’t. Rose is part of our coven after all and, therefore, our responsibility, as is Laci. Jayden, you need to stay here and protect her. I’m not sure if the Unseelie will come back for her or not, if they’re the ones who attacked her, but we don’t want to leave her vulnerable. Put some wards around her room and make sure you do the same around your house.”

Jayden nodded. “No worries. Nothing is getting to my family again.”

Tansy reached out, giving Jayden a hug, and then felt Wanda’s arms around them as well. “We’ll get through this,” Tansy said.

“Of course we will,” Wanda added. “No one messes with our family.” She squeezed them both, and Jayden returned the hug.

As they left, Tansy waited until they were in the elevator before saying anything else. Once the doors were closed, she took a deep breath and fell back on the wall, her hands behind her back. “Wanda, do we know anyone who can talk to a ghost?”