dead”, Sarah explained. “The wraith can never win… it can only stall it, unless we get you to use those cards well”.

Muzin couldn’t believe his ears and it wasn’t hard to tell by the manner in which he stared at his deceptive wife. “You never tell the complete truth, do you? It is one half-truth after another for you and you just will never stop”.

Sarah waved his words away and helped herself to a seat on the dusty chair and around the table Nora had used earlier.

“Shall we begin?” se extended her hand towards her daughter.

Naomi looked to Nora, bearing a disapproving look on her face. “Don’t trust her”.

Nora knew this to be ideal and she wasn’t ever going to trust her mother, but they were at a junction where things needed to get sorted real soon or they will all die.

“What do we do?” Nora asked, preparing herself.

Naomi cursed and fussed, jamming her fist into the air angrily, while she kicked at nothing.

“We need to channel something powerful”, Sarah replied. “It is the only way you’ll be powerful enough to handle whatever comes through that door”.

“Channel something powerful?” Nora asked in bewildered tone. “I thought all we needed were the cards?”

Her mother nodded her head and lowered it. “The cards will direct us on how to go, but we still need something powerful to help channel our path”.

She stretched out her hand to meet with her daughter’s, while the latter reluctantly handed it to her.

Naomi fumed red in her face and mumbled incoherently before stepping towards Sarah. “If you hurt her in any way, I promise you nothing but a very painful death”.

Sarah cackled derisively and nudged the girl’s hand off of her shoulder, before turning her head to look at Nora.

“Spread the cards on the table before you, close your eyes, and follow my lead”, she informed her daughter.

Muzin readied his gun and pointed it at his wife. “I will be here watching for any funny business too”.

An eerie cry from the living room caused them all to cover their ears as the wraith continued to cry for half a minute.

“You can do as you please darling”, Sarah blew her husband a kiss before turning her attention back to their daughter.

Doing as her mother had instructed, Nora slipped her hands into her mother’s and closed her eyes.

“You cannot break your hands from mine, and you shouldn’t open your eyes until this is done”, Sarah warned.

Nora nodded her head in compliance.

“What about us?” Naomi asked. “What are we to do?”

Sarah smiled at the girl and simply replied, “Keep whatever manages to come through that door away from us”.

It sounded rather cheesy in the manner with which she had said it, but Naomi agreed, while thumping sounds continued to air in frightening manner from the living room.

“Repeat after me”, Sarah said to her daughter.

Nora agreed, and within seconds, her consciousness drifted away from the room.

***

A loud gasp ensued and with it came her breath and life again coursing through her body. Nora looked around her to see walls on her left and right, illuminated by a thin ray of light from up ahead, bearing ancient runes and markings, as well as symbols no different from the ones she had seen on the tarot card she had.

“Mother?” she looked around and called out.

Darkness stretched around her and extended far ahead with nothing in sight. She pinned her ears to listen for the slightest sound but none came, and her hands continued to strike rocks and air the more she waved them to try and catch her mother’s frame nearby.

“Mother!” Nora yelled atop her voice, wondering if the woman had not dealt her a bad hand again.

Slowly and carefully, she dragged herself to her feet and began to trail the wall with her hand. Until she heard footsteps begin to approach her from the south.

“Who is there?” Nora turned around waving her hand and hoping to catch something.

The footsteps stopped, and within seconds, the walls began to light up with flames extending along them and straight ahead.

“She shouldn’t have brought you here”, a tender and feminine voice spoke from behind Nora.

Turing back promptly, she caught sight of nothing but a distinct path leading towards a doorway. Worried sick and in need of somewhere safe to be, she headed towards the door and stopped halfway through it as her eyes widened and her jaw dropped at the sight of a crypt with ragged looking ladies in grey hair all seated in what looked like a courtroom of some kind.

The room ran along in rims and circles, with grey haired women with crooked noses staring right down at her the moment she stepped through the door. Silence aired wildly within the crypt, and their staunch gazes tore through Nora’s soul as though they were condemning her for actions she still wasn’t aware of.

“Nora!” she heard her mother’s voice call to her.

Nora looked east from where she stood towards a large altar with her mother gagged and bound into it.

“Mother?” Nora called out in surprised tone but halted her step as she saw the women get to their feet the moment she took another step forward. “What is going on?”

Sarah gulped down hard and smiled. “I wasn’t expecting them to be this pissed or even gathered all in bid to thwart my homecoming”.

“SILENCE!!!” a resounding voice yelled from the center of the room, prompting Nora to step backwards in fear.

Slender framed, and without the ability to move fast or even walk properly, a hunched looking woman donning rather lengthy robe slowly made her way down the rows until she was right in the middle of the room. She launched her damning gaze towards Nora and Nora blinked fearfully, only to part her lids open and see the woman standing right before her.

“We have better hopes for you dear child”, the woman spoke softly. “None of us could have envisaged seeing you with your treacherous mother who not only stained our bloodline, but who also has

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