Severine pulled the puppies into her lap and kept her gaze ahead of them. The wind was fierce and it was good that their auto was so very heavy. She couldn’t help but wonder if they’d be thrown around if they were driving something lighter.
Severine hummed to the dogs as Lisette struggled to find the way through the increasing wind.
“I’m worried,” Lisette said, and then returned to the Lord’s prayer.
“As am I. We’ll do the best we can with what we’re facing.”
“What if I destroy your pretty car?” Lisette demanded.
“Better the car than us,” Severine countered. She felt her heart in her throat. “If we were at the convent and it were like this, Mother Superior would call us all to the library because it was the coziest of the rooms. She’d have Sister Sophie prepare her famous mulled wine, and someone would read poetry.”
“That sounds lovely. Did the lights go out?”
Severine laughed. “We didn’t have electricity, silly. A storm was big noises, falling trees, and flying branches.”
“Like that one?!” Lisette asked, swerving and nearly sending them into the ditch. She stopped the auto in the middle of the road and they both breathed deeply. Anubis had yelped in the back and one of the puppies whimpered.
“It’s all right, loves,” Severine soothed as she held the puppies tightly.
“Cher,” Lisette snapped, “I hope you’re right about that.” She considered their location in the middle of nowhere and then slowly started the auto down the road again. Severine leaned forward trying to help see through the driving rain.
After another full two hours of straining against the wind, the rain, and the attempt to see debris ahead of them, they found the turn-off to the house.
“We may have to walk,” Severine said when she saw the long downward slope of the driveway before it turned upward again.
“I should say so. Do you want me to go as far as possible or shall we leave it here?”
Severine nodded. “It’s a long walk.”
Lisette got them as close as the auto would go on the muddied lane. Severine told Lisette as she put the Rolls-Royce in park, “Prepare yourself to be drenched.”
Severine opened the auto door and looked down at her shoes. They were heeled black things with worked leather. They were lovely and perfect for a long drive in an auto and terrible for a wet walk up a mud road. They’d reached almost the bottom of the long slope down but there was another long slope upwards towards the house that they’d have to climb through.
Severine sighed and stepped resolutely into the mud. She reached into the back of the auto and put a heavy black cloak around her body, pulling up the hood and calling to Anubis. The woolen cloak was from her days in the nunnery, and she was grateful for it in the pelting rain.
Lisette snapped leads onto the puppies and took her own coat, which wasn’t nearly sufficient for the day. Lightning cracked, and Lisette gasped, restarting another round of the Lord’s prayer while Severine wound her fingers around Anubis’s collar.
The late start combined with the slow drive through the wind and rain had dusk falling over them. The driveway ahead was lined with ancient oak trees covered in moss, and Severine could imagine those same trees lining the path to hell.
“It’ll be dark before we make it,” Lisette said with the wide, worried gaze of a woman who felt the impending doom as well. She was nearly shouting to be heard over the wind and rain.
“It’s just a little wind and rain,” Severine countered. “We’ll be fine.”
“We’ll be chilled within an inch of our lives.”
“I’ll make the mulled wine myself,” Severine told her. “We’ll have hot baths, mulled wine, and something to eat. It’ll be fine.” She hoped she wasn’t wrong. Severine had a flash of a memory of an oversized bathtub and painted ceilings.
Severine took Lisette’s arm in one hand and Anubis’s collar in the other and sloshed through the mud towards the house, the puppies pressed so close to their feet that they might trip the women. The wind lifted and darkness seemed to be racing them with every step. Each pressing stride forward was another step into the dark until a dozen strides left them in an otherworldly abyss.
“Did we take a turn through one of the gates to Guinee?” Lisette clung to Severine’s hand and the puppies’ leads.
“What now?” Severine asked. It was so preternatural, it seemed as though they were accompanied by a fleet of their dead.
“The spirit world. My grammy would be looking for Papa Legba now.”
Severine squeezed Lisette’s hand. “We aren’t going to see Guinee, Hades, or any of the circles of hell. I promise mulled wine.”
Another crash of lightning and Lisette screamed again. Severine laughed and then pointed, “Look, Lisette, lights.”
“Those are the eyes of a hellhound,” she muttered, then said with a little more vehemence, “Deliver us from evil.”
“If so,” Severine said, echoing the prayer in her heart, “Anubis will scare them off.”
The next crash of thunder and flash of lightning were so close together, Kali howled in terror. Severine picked her up, tucking her under one arm and doing the same with Persephone under the other. She ordered Anubis to heel and asked, “Shall we run for it?”
Lisette nodded and took off and Severine followed after, cursing her shoes. They seemed to be chased by lightning that struck time after time as they rushed forward.
Suddenly, a stillness embraced them after the last crash of lightning. Severine paused, leaning down to catch her breath, when she heard another large crack of thunder, but it wasn’t chased by lightning. She and Lisette met each other's gaze in the darkness, and Lisette took one of the dogs, then they clasped hands and ran forward until the house was in sight.
Severine stopped again, in the shadow of a tree. Her mind was shouting at her to get out of the storm, and shelter was there before them. Gables
