The old wound on his heart had scabbed over with time, but it tore open at the sight of the smooth land in front of him. Ignatius didn’t notice as he began walking forward again. The marker he had left above Zimmy’s grave—three sticks tied together, one bent to look like a half-moon—had blown over in time and was covered with long grass and lichen. The wood, which had been rich and brown on that terrible day, was now the pale color of a Blood Tree.
Tears coursed down Ignatius’s cheeks, getting trapped and absorbed by his beard. Salem still kept a hand on his oldest friend’s shoulder. It had been quite awhile since he’d asked Ignatius if he was all right.
“I’m all right,” the old wizard finally answered. “I suppose we’d best get to work.”
“If you need to take a little more time—” Salem began.
Bringing a hand up to silence the wizard, Ignatius said, “No. There’s a village of people counting on my granddaughter, and I have to help get them out. If you’d had the night terrors I had, you would know we do not have much time. The darkness will not wait much longer before it begins to devour my old friends.”
In his mind he thought of those he saw in the dream—those that were left. Kira, Michein, Parmella, Sage, Franklin. The ghostly faces of those that had already gone to someplace else. Matimus, Magi, Lola, and others he did not want to think of.
Salem nodded solemnly. He put on his best smile—which wasn’t much good at all, for this was not a situation that called for smiling—and pulled out his wand. “Let’s get to work then.”
“Put that away,” Ignatius snapped.
Shocked, Salem lowered the arm that held the wand.
“Why, Ig, if we don’t—”
He saw the stony expression on the old wizard’s face and knew there was not much of a choice. When Ignatius got like this, you listened.
Just as Salem was about to point out that they didn’t have any shovels, Ignatius turned his back on him and walked into the nearby tree line. The shadows of the forest swallowed his robes up, removing him from Salem’s sight.
A few minutes passed without word from the wizard. Salem was starting to get worried. They may have only been on the outskirts, but this was the Dark Forest. Though most of the dangers kept to the heart of the forest, Salem believed they were too close for comfort. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted for Ignatius. Even he noticed how his voice cracked with fear. He would’ve given anything for Agnes to be there with him right at that moment; she would know what to do.
He started to call out again, and the leaves in the trees rustled as something moved. Salem brought his wand out for the second time, resolving to keep it out. He sensed danger in the air; Arachnids, dark witches, mutant Raffins, you name it.
The spell of protection was on the tip of his tongue. He would have to fight, then—it was that simple. Fight his way through the Dark Forest to get his best friend back, and that was—
A creature burst through the trees.
Salem’s heart froze in his chest. He stood there with his wand held out and his face a mask of anguish.
“Are you all right, old friend?” Ignatius asked.
It took a moment for Salem to regain his composure, but when he did, he laughed. “I’m just an old fool who’s spooked by shadows. That’s all.”
He lowered his wand and put it back in the inside pocket of his robes. The sun was already starting to go down. High in the sky, faded but present, were Oriceran’s two moons.
Noticing that Ignatius carried something in his arms, cradled like a man might cradle firewood, Salem squinted his eyes. His friend was holding shovels.
Their spades were caked with mud, and their handles were as worn as the old wizard’s face, but there was not a spot of rust on them. Wherever they had been in that dark place, they were protected from the elements—probably by some form of magic. It was as if Ignatius knew he’d one day have to come back and dig up his deceased daughter. How he had known that, Salem had not the slightest inclination.
Ignatius handed a shovel to Salem. “We dig,” he said. “It’ll go quicker with the two of us. I did not bury her very deep.”
It would go quicker if we could just use a spell to do the hard work for us, Salem didn’t let this thought show on his face; he just smiled and nodded because deep down, he understood.
Zimmy was Ignatius's only daughter. He needed this moment to honor her, to pay his respects.
Ignatius was the first to break ground. Though the old wizards were strong and their magic hadn’t been more powerful in all of their long lives, their physical prowess had waned with age. Each time they stabbed into the hard ground, their muscles and joints ached like the old men they were. Sweat dappled their brows. Salem had even taken his robe off. The work was much easier to do in the T-shirt he wore beneath. They did not talk during the digging. They did not laugh. In silence they worked, their eyes and minds concentrating on the task at hand. It seemed like hours before they even got a few feet deep. Slowly but surely.
The whole time the two wizards were digging, Harry and three Arachnid soldiers watched from a distance. One of the soldiers was the Widow’s right-hand man, Jinxton, and he kept touching his
