“Yes, ma’am,” the butler replied. “I didn’t get their names as I didn’t think it was very important.”
“Very good, Chevrold. Away with you now.” The woman flicked her wrist and the butler spun on his heels and disappeared down the hallway. “Now, who may you be?”
“I’m Anna,” I said, then pointed to Samantha, “and this is Samantha.”
“And who is your other friend?” she asked. “The ghost who is so rudely going through the books in my library.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The dowager Vermilda smiled, showing her glistening teeth. I gasped in spite of myself and felt Samantha stiffen next to me. They were pointed, like a shark, instead of round. “My dear, please do not lie to me. I am more powerful than you could imagine.”
The woman snapped her fingers, and Katie appeared before us, confused and frightened. “Where am I?”
“In my sunroom, my love,” the woman said. “It’s very rude to sneak around a person’s house, don’t you know that? Or did you lose your manners when you died?”
“I…I…I did, clearly.”
“Well, at least you are honest. Dumb, but honest. Who are you?”
“I’m Katie.”
“You’re not the familiar of either of these people, that much I know for sure. Your stink is not all over them, nor theirs over you, so what do you want, ghost?”
“She wants the book, just like us,” I replied.
“Let her answer,” Vermilda growled.
Katie spoke up. “I want to save the world.”
“Well, that is interesting.” The woman walked back to her seat. “I’ve haven’t heard that one in some time. Come, sit. Let us chat. Perhaps we can help each other.”
Chapter 46
“I don’t very much like magicians,” the dowager Vermilda said, sitting on the lounge chair on her deck. She had Chevrold bring us lemonade and we were sitting around her patio table where we could look out on the whole valley below us.
“I don’t very much like them, either,” I said. “None of us do.”
“Interesting.” She looked me up and down. “Since you have come from the magician’s library.”
“Not because we wanted to. We’re trying to close a portal to the underworld, and we need that book to do it.”
“Ah yes, the book. But to close a portal like the one you described, you need more than just the book. You need goblin bones, troll mucus, and dragon fire, too. Of course, those ingredients can damn the world as quickly as save it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Those three ingredients are the most powerful in all magicdom. Yes, they can close the portal, but they can do so much more. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“We don’t,” Samantha said. “We’re just guessing here.”
Vermilda smiled again, revealing her spiked teeth. “You are brutally honest. I’ll give you that. Stupid, but honest.”
“We have the goblin bones and troll mucus,” Samantha said, taking a sip of her lemonade. “We’re just missing the dragon fire, and the enchantment.”
“Well, those at the two hardest parts to come by, so you don’t have very much of anything now, do you?”
“We don’t, and since we’re not witches, it’s been very hard.”
“It’s very hard for anybody, even a master magician. There hasn’t been a dragon sighting in a thousand years. Though, even when they were around, most thought they were more trouble than they were worth.”
“We don’t know anything about that,” Katie said. “We just want to close the portal.”
“But why, my dear? If you do that, you’ll have to go back, won’t you? The life of a ghost wandering Earth is a fate worse than death but returning to the Dark Place means that you will forget everything you learned here, and everyone you loved.”
“At least I’ll be able to save everyone I love who’s still on Earth, and that means everything.”
The woman smiled at Katie, revealing her sharp teeth once again. “And what do you think of that? Since you love her so. Do you want her to return home?”
I shook my head. “I don’t, but she won’t stay, and I won’t make her.”
“We talked about this,” Katie said. “I can’t stay.”
“Yes, you could,” I replied. “She just said you could.”
“She said wandering Earth is a fate worse than death.”
“But at least we would be together,” I said, tears forming in my eyes. “Doesn’t that mean anything?”
“It means everything to me, but you can’t love me forever. Okay?”
“Sure I can, and I will.”
“No!” Katie said. “I won’t let you live in the past. I’m a ghost. You need to love the living, not the dead, okay? It would break my heart every day if you couldn’t move on from me, and if I stayed here, I know you wouldn’t.”
“Isn’t that my choice?”
She shook her head. “No, it’s both of our choices.”
The woman leaned forward. “I think I have a solution to your problem, Anna. You clearly love her, don’t you? So much that it hurts?”
“Yes,” I said, tears streaming down my face.
“And you could never imagine being without her.”
“Never.”
“What if I could make that all go away?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“First love is one of the most powerful forces on Earth. So much can be done with it. So much can be accomplished with that kind of power. If you would give it to me, I would give you the book.”
“Give you…my love for Katie?” I said.
“Absolutely. Then, you can move on, and say goodbye, when the time comes.”
I looked over at her. “I couldn’t—”
“It’s for the best,” Katie said. “It gets us what we need, and you get to move on. It’s win-win.”
“Is that what you want?” I asked her. “Do you want me to just forget the feeling I have for you, like it never existed?”
“When I return to the Dark Place, I’m going to forget about you. And if you stop loving me, you can move on.”
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” I said, shaking my head.
“Then it’s even better that you give your love to her, so that I can never break your heart again.”
“I need to
