“I already know you don’t have any control. Why would I waste my time trying to get you to learn it?” she laughed despite the nervousness roiling in the pit of her stomach. “Not that I care about your lack of control. I think most dogs don’t have it, so that’s okay. You’re normal. Matter of fact, I think it’s quite entertaining—”
You think I’m normal? How dare you?
“No, not normal in a bad way. Normal in a dog way, which, to humans, is pretty damn abnormal.” Maria shook her head and brought the crystal up to her mouth again, feeling that power and madness more distinctly than before. “Okay, let’s drop it. You’re weird. I love you. Never change.”
Sherlock smiled his awkward, baring-of-the-teeth smile, and Maria cringed away from him. Mainly because there was purplish gunk coating his front teeth from the toothpaste donut, or whatever the hell it was.
Maria took a deep breath, trying to steady the hand that held the crystal. She whispered into it. “Gramps?” she called softly. “Gramps, it’s me, Maria. I don’t mean to bother you, but it’s been longer than I expected you to be.”
She chuckled at herself. All those years her grandfather had spent worrying about her, and now the tables had turned.
A couple moments passed, and she hadn’t gotten an answer.
She looked at Sherlock crookedly. This isn’t right. He said he’d be there to answer my call whenever I needed him, but so far…nothing.
You’re being crazy, Maria, she told herself. He’s fine. He’s strong, he’s powerful, and he knows what he’s doing. You’re letting the fear get to you, and you can’t. If you do, then the fear wins, and what does Gramps always say? ‘Never let fear win.’
She spoke into the crystal again, this time slower and more deliberately, sounding out each syllable.
“Ig-na-ti-us Ap-ple, where are you?”
Sherlock nodded up at her. The light, he noted, the light is out.
“What does that mean?” Maria asked, but she already knew what it meant.
It meant that the connection had been severed between Gramps’s crystal and her own.
Whether that connection was severed by him taking the necklace off, or by him going through a tunnel and getting spotty reception like you do with cell phones sometimes, or worse—by death—Maria didn’t know, and she wasn’t exactly sure that she wanted to know. If it were by death, though, her fear would mix with anguish and nausea, and so many other bad emotions that Maria probably wouldn’t be able to move again for a long while.
Sherlock spelled it out for her anyway. The light is out, and that means the connection is severed. He spoke in a nonchalant voice as if he was asking Maria if she’d had the chance to try the garbage donuts yet. When he noticed the scowl and look of worry on her face, he tried to make it better. Doesn’t mean he’s hurt. Maybe he met another dark witch and he’s getting it on—
“Stop!” Maria shouted. “Can’t think of my grandpa doing that. No, no, no, no, NO!”
Sorry. Just trying to be an optimist.
“I don’t think you understand what optimism is, Sherlock.”
Yeah, I do. Optimism is when you think you’re going to find the perfect dead squirrel or trash burger only half-eaten. Or when you have to fight a hobo for said trash burger, and know you’ll win easily enough. That’s optimism.
Maria took a deep breath, wondering why she put up with the Bloodhound.
Because I love the damn dog, that’s why. He’s family. He’s blood. It was true; she’d put up with a million more dead squirrels and ripped trash bags if it meant she got to share her life with Sherlock a little longer.
But Gramps was family, too, and right now she was worried about him.
Contact Salem, Sherlock suggested. He’ll respond, I just know it.
Maria looked down at the crystal. How the fuck do I send out a message to just Salem? How the fuck did my last message reach Gramps, if it reached Gramps at all?
You gotta believe, Maria, Sherlock urged. Believe in the magic.
Maria scowled at him. “You don’t actually believe that, do you?”
Hey, it’s worth a shot.
She figured she had done odder things in the past few days. How weird could willfully believing in magic be? She closed her eyes and let the power thrum through her, the power from the crystal, from the nearby kemana, from the very fiber of her being.
“Salem? Salem? Salem?” she said. “Salem, are you there? Answer me?”
The crystal glowed brighter in her hand, and its heat baked into her skin so hot she almost let it go. Then there was silence. A long silence that weighed heavier than all the responsibilities resting on Maria’s shoulders—or so it seemed.
Try it again. Could just be a bad signal, Sherlock said. He chomped down on the rest of his jelly donut (or toothpaste).
“I feel like you have no idea what the heck you’re talking about,” she sighed. Regardless, she spoke into the crystal again. “Salem? Salem?” She took another deep breath. A headache was coming on like a massive thunderstorm. “Should I say ‘over’? Is this really like a walkie talkie? Oh, who cares. I can’t get ahold of Gramps. I repeat, I can’t get ahold of Gramps. Is everything all right?”
A garble of static came from the other end. It really was like a walkie talkie. Then a voice followed, one very distant and very tinny: “Taken…they took him. Send Agnes.”
Maria’s heart imploded. “Taken? Who? Salem, answer me!”
“Arach…”
But that was where the conversation ended.
“ ‘Arach’,” Maria repeated after a few moments of shaking the crystal to try and get it to work.
Deep down, she knew it wasn’t the crystal’s fault. There was no malfunction, or anything like that. Salem would have sounded weak no matter if he was another world away, or right next to her.
Something had happened.
She hated herself for not being there, for not protecting her family. The Arachnids had ambushed them. She should’ve known the Widow would
