Jilo (Witching Savannah #4)(32)
Specks of dust danced in the air, and it surprised her to see sun streaming in through the window. She hadn’t missed the sunrise more than a few times in her adult life, and perhaps only a few more times than that as a child.
She sure as hell was no longer a child now. Lifting her old carcass out of bed became a bit harder with each passing day. This morning everything hurt. She swung her legs out of bed and rubbed her aching knee, consciously willing relief to it. The Beekeeper had shown her how to channel healing energy from the earth itself into her aching joints, which eased the stiff pressure and allowed her to move as freely as she had twenty or more years ago. The only problem was that the magic’s cure was only temporary. She had to connect with the magic again and again, willing it to rise up from the earth into her muscles and bones, “like sap rising in a tree,” as the Beekeeper had put it. May worried it was like an opium smoker returning to his pipe, and the more she came to depend on magic, the more of herself she’d lose to it.
It was Maguire who’d done it to her. If magic was a trap, a snare into which Maguire had willingly fallen, he’d dragged May in with him. One trap, two souls. May understood her mama better now. Her mama had done her best to protect her from magic, and May would go to her grave doing the same for her girls. At first she doubted she’d ever be capable, but now she was determined to succeed where her mama had failed. She’d take Maguire down before she drew her last breath.
As her feet made contact with the bare wooden floor, she heard the click of a door and watched as her closet door eased open. A warm and bright amber light spilled into the room, but instead of marrying itself with the natural glow of the sun, it swirled around in it like the sheen of oil on water. The angle at which the door had opened blocked the source of the glow from her sight.
Laughter, rough but jovial, sounded from behind the door. Last year, she would have figured she was dreaming. Today, May knew better. She rose to her feet, hoping she could deal with whatever nonsense had slipped into her home before the girls awoke.
She crept up behind the door, using it to shield herself from sight, planning to peek through the crack to see what awaited her. Just before she reached it, she realized how foolish it was to think whoever or whatever stood on the other side of that door didn’t already know she was there, so she stepped into the door frame, clutching the knob as if it could somehow help her maintain one foot in a sane world.
The cramped dark closet she’d always known had given way to a room whose boundaries were larger than those of her entire house, larger, she reckoned, than Savannah itself. The light she’d witnessed shone from a golden chandelier, much grander than anything the Pinnacle had ever boasted. The walls of the grand chamber before her were lined floor to ceiling with mirrors, so the dazzling bulbs, each like a miniature sun, were augmented through reflection. Beneath the chandelier stood a table whose length seemed to run on nearly forever, its far edge disappearing into the horizon, melding into its own reflection.
At the table sat a man—or at least what at first blush appeared to be a man. May was no longer so quick to make assumptions. His back was to her, but he reached up over his head and waved his hand forward, beckoning her.
“Come in, little sister,” he called. In the next instant he was on the opposite side of the table, facing her.
The man, jet haired and as handsome as any matinee idol, was dressed in a worn smoking jacket. He sat in his chair reversed, with one arm draped across its back. On the table before him sat a battered top hat with a band dyed a shocking shade of red and a wicked-looking knife with a long curved blade. He lowered his head, gazing at her with a playful, mischievous look in his midnight-blue eyes. His long, elegant fingers held one of the cigars May had smelled. The other was tucked neatly between the lips of the Beekeeper, who hovered near the man, her feet not touching the ground.
“Ah, now the party can begin,” the Beekeeper said, chewing the words out from around the cheroot. Her hand held an empty decanter, which she raised as if to toast May’s arrival. Regarding it with disappointment, she pushed it away and reached into nothingness to retrieve another dust-covered bottle. “Do come join us, dearie.”
May cast her eyes toward where the floor should be, but there was nothing but an endless depth. Stars twinkled within the sea of blackness, so she cast her eyes upward, rationalizing that its surface was so well polished, it reflected the overhead sky. That supposition was quickly dashed when she saw that the stars above did not align with those below. She tested the surface’s solidity, tapping it with her toe before trusting it to support her weight. When it didn’t fall out from under her, she took another step inside, pulling the door almost closed behind her, unwilling to let go of the knob in case the floor changed its mind and decided to swallow her whole.
“It’s only familiarity that makes you so sure the floor beneath you will hold you up. This”—the Beekeeper wiggled her gloved fingers over the yawning chasm beneath her—“is energy.” She pointed over May’s shoulder to the world that lay beyond the now halfway-open door, “Just as all that is energy. Now stop trying my patience, child. Come.”
May did as she was told, releasing the faceted glass knob and taking another step out into a seeming nothingness. The surface beneath her feet felt more solid as her confidence in its solidity grew.
“Yes,” the Beekeeper said, reaching out her hand, which May gladly caught hold of. In that instant, the world beneath her gave way, and she, too, was floating. Her grasp tightened on the Beekeeper’s glove. “Do not worry, child,” the Beekeeper said with a laugh. “This world is just as solid and real as the dream you know beyond the door.” She pulled her hand from May’s hold, and May realized that while she didn’t feel a surface beneath her, she wasn’t tumbling through an eternal darkness. The world around her was sufficient to provide her with the support she needed.