Monsters can only hurt us if we let them. If we choose to see the good, then that’s what we will see. Don’t notice the monsters. Choose not to see them, and concentrate on something beautiful instead. Like how much your mama loves you.
The bedtime monster never bothered Little Helen again, and a lesson from decades ago rang true at last. There was always—always—love to be found.
Even in the most hopeless places. Even in the butchered depths of her heart, in the wounds her mother and the foster families had inflicted, love could grow.
Forgive. All of it. “You’re cancelled,” Helen said.
Helen’s skull cracked open without pain. Light spilled out of the cavity, overtaking the fiend with its glittering bronzes and sparkling snows and luscious hues the color of baked, spiced apples. Sparkly vines, golden ribbons of love, engulfed every inch of the monster’s scarlet flesh.
The thing faded, magic encircling its red arms and legs. For a second she swore she caught an expression of peace on its hideous face.
The nasty swamp transformed to a resplendent tropical beach. As the force radiating from her crown chakra tapered to a trickle, a pod of pink dolphins broke the water’s surface and romped.
She and her sister Maya spied dolphins during a Disneyland side trip to the Pacific Ocean the summer before their world crumbled. They’d huddled together on the sand, squealing, each looking through one lens of their shared binoculars. The dolphins, she figured, represented an auspicious sign of closure with the past. All was right in the world now. A wound had healed.
Well, almost all was right in her world. Time to get home to Brian.
“Don’t forget about me.” The doppelganger spoke.
Helen turned around.
On the frothy, lapping shoreline sat the clone. Aquamarine and mint green waves sailed past her bare shoulders, and hardened plaques of seaweed served as a tube top. Silver and blue scales dusted her skin, beginning mid-waist and increasing, ending in a fishtail. Two rows of gills pulsed on her neck. The doppelganger slapped her shiny fin into wet sand, grinning at it.
The women’s eyes met.
“Dude. You turned me into a mermaid.”
“Looks like it.”
“We always wanted to be a mermaid.”
“Yeah.” Helen’s intuition spoke. She’d lifted the hex, and Brian was alive. “We did.”
Something beautiful came from the ugly and transmuted base energies into gold. Her shitty past afforded her magic and forgiveness grander than she’d ever dreamed. A phoenix rose from the ashes of Helen’s defeats. Alchemy for the win.
The mermaid said, “I’ll do my own thing here, you do yours back home. If we cross paths again, are we good?”
Now that the doppelganger was comfortable in her home environment, she wouldn’t get up to mischief. “Yeah. We’re good.”
“Alright, well, I’m off to go search for a shipwreck or something.” The mermaid turned around and floated into the ocean on her back.
“I better get going, too.” Understatement of the century.
“’Kay. Happy witching.”
“Happy mermaiding.”
The other woman darted off and swam deep into rolling water until her shimmery tail blended in with the waves. A bit of an awkward goodbye, but as far as paranormal encounters went, she’d take awkward over some of the other alternatives any day of the week.
Time to haul ass back to Earth, save Brian, and resume living her best witch life. She squeezed her crystal and leapt into an oncoming wave. “Sister Water, please grant me safe passage through the astral farther.”
Twenty-Three
Helen’s world spun as she struggled to find her footing. The soles of her feet were on the floor, and her stomach turned in roiling nausea. She blinked until dizziness ceased whirling and her surroundings came into clear focus.
The pungent, sour stench of the sacrificial entrails grounded her with an overpowering blast. A new clamp of sickness gripped her belly, but she defeated the urge to puke.
Brian still lay bound on the cot but had worked his hands underneath it, where they moved in subtle yet sustained back and forth motions. He caught her gaze and nodded, and she nodded back. A few feet away from him, the three masked men stood hunched over their book, grumbling the ancient language in a tense, rushed tone while flipping pages.
“Hey!” One of the masked occultists shouted and charged Helen. “Where is he? What did you do with Master?”
Think fast. Helen pulled the clear crystal out of her pocket. “He’s in here. Trapped forever.”
As if tendering an acknowledgement, the stone pulsed with three phosphorescent bursts that reflected off of the cultist’s golden mask in starburst shimmers. Cool. Silent, begrudging props to Master for the confirmation.
“Give that to me right now.” The man grabbed Helen’s wrist, his hold hard and mean.
A theory forming in her head, Helen ventured, “It won’t do you any good. I’m the only one who can free him. I’m your little mist demon’s master now.”
The stone illuminated with the phosphorescent glow. Boo-yah. Her genie-type theory had to be right.
“Let Master out, or you will regret it.” He wrenched her arm, causing a sharp pain to surge from elbow to fingertips, and pried at her fist. But Helen clenched the stone.
In her peripheral vision, something fell soft and slack to the floor. She slid a sidelong glance in the direction of the movement and swallowed a gasp. The top part of Brian’s ropes lay beside the leg of the bed. He sat up and worked on the cords binding his ankles.
The other two captors remained engrossed in their book and didn’t notice. Meaning Helen needed to keep distracting the third man until Brian broke free. She might even have a plan.
“Take off your mask.” Helen spoke into the mirrored shield, addressing the reflection of her own face twisted in pain. Though hurting, she held control over her powers.
“Why?”
“Because I fucking said so. You want to see your master again? Do it.”
He slid the mask to the top of his head. Hello, Elwell from the Denver research.
“Ah, shit,” one of the others barked with a mixture of anger and frustration.
