Episode 13 of The Witch’s Key: “Close Your Eyes”
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Episode 13: Close Your Eyes
“What happened here?” I asked as we walked across the flat dirt. “This was a forest with a building and a few roads just a few hours ago. How could someone level it like this so fast?”
Martin shook his head and turned in a circle, his eyes seeking out something I definitely couldn’t see. It just looked like dirt to me.
The entire forest hadn’t been levelled, of course, but the path from where Kai had parked to where Bates’s building had stood was now just a large patch of nothing surrounded by trees.
“Could Algrath have done this alone while injured?” Kai asked. “It seems like this would take power and concentration.”
Martin knelt down and placed a hand on top of the dirt and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he seemed to follow something with his eyes.
Kai glanced at me, and I shrugged. I had no idea what was going on here, but I knew we shouldn’t interrupt him. I had spent time with Slayers, but most of that was pretty straight forward. Keepers, on the other hand, were a big mystery to me in a lot of ways.
It was the less glamorous job of the witch world, because Slayers were the ones who got all the glory for defeating demons and restoring balance. They were flashy and loud and strong.
Keepers were the silent, behind-the-scenes types most of the time.
But watching Martin now told me that Keepers were capable of some interesting magic. I wondered how much of it—if any—he’d be able to teach me.
While he did whatever it was he was doing, I made my way over to where I was sure Bates’s building had stood last night. There was nothing left behind that I could see. Not even a speck of trash or a single nail. How did someone clear all of this out so completely in just a few hours?
Even if they’d started right after we left last night, they’d have had less than 9 hours to make it happen. There was no way a normal group of humans could have done that so fast in the middle of the night. This was definitely magic work.
But demon magic? I didn’t know they were capable of something like this.
I knelt low to the ground and repeated the movements I’d seen Martin do, but when I placed my palm on the ground and closed my eyes, I saw nothing.
It either wasn’t one of my gifts, or I just hadn’t learned the right type of magic yet. I was so anxious to learn, and Martin had said he’d help train us, but how much could he really teach us in a single day?
I shuddered.
Not enough to destroy a demon considered one of the most powerful ones alive and roaming the earth. This whole thing had gotten out of control.
“Lenny? Over here,” Kai shouted.
I ran toward where he and Martin stood at the edge of the clearing.
“Did you find a clue?”
Martin held out a clear plastic bag with a small piece of black cloth inside.
“What’s that?” I asked. Whatever it was, there was so little of it, I couldn’t even imagine how it was valuable.
“I was able to see some of what happened last night using a special Keeper ability called Reenactment,” Martin said. “The demon stripped off its human clothes right around here before changing form and attacking you both. I’m pretty sure it snagged a piece of its clothing on this limb. We’re very lucky he missed this piece.”
“And what can you do with that if it does belong to the demon?” Kai asked.
“I might be able to use it to help us locate him, or at least give us an idea of whether the demon is housed inside a woman or a man’s body, based on the sweat and DNA on this fabric,’ he said. “Come on, that’s all we’re going to find out here for now. This place has been scraped clean, otherwise.”
He drove us back to the house, and I fought back disappointment and confusion. I had hoped we’d find more at the site of the attack, but it had been leveled almost completely. We all seemed to agree that meant this demon had help. Powerful help.
We were fighting ghosts at this point. We had no idea who our enemies were or how many of them we would have to fight to save the girls and put a stop to this summoning ritual.
I wanted to hold out hope, but we were running out of time.
“I need to take this in and run a few tests on it,” Martin said when we pulled into the garage at home. “I think the two of you know what you need to do next.”
I nodded.
“We can take care of it,” I said. “And yes, we’ll be careful.”
“If you need me or you get into any trouble, message me immediately,” Martin said. “And whatever happens, don’t engage. Run, if you can.”
My stomach tightened into knots. I still wasn’t feeling great after last night, which meant I was definitely not ready for another encounter with this demon.
“We’ll just observe from afar,” Kai said. “If something goes wrong, I promise I’ll get her out of there as fast as I can.”
Martin and Kai exchanged a look that appeared to have a deeper meaning than I could comprehend. What, exactly, had they talked about last night while I was unconscious?
“I’ll expect you both back here at the house by lunch,” Martin said. “Do you have to work today, Kai?”
“Not until three-thrity,” he said. “”But I can call in sick if I need to.”
Martin shook his head. “No, it might be useful to have you at Sir Bean this afternoon. We can discuss it when you get back.”
I thought about asking Martin if we could take his Mercedes, but Kai had already started walking toward his VW bug. We climbed in and headed toward the Peterson house.
“How do you know where Olive lives?” I asked.
“I’ve done a little bit of reconnaissance on all of the girls who have disappeared,” Kai said. “One of the missing girls lived in the same subdivision as Olive. They were apparently really good friends when they were younger. Inseparable, some said.”
“What was her name?” I asked, realizing we were talking about the poor girl as if she were dead. But she wasn’t. She was going to be okay. I had to believe that.
“Latasha Owings.”
He leaned toward me and popped open the glove compartment. His arm brushed against my knee, and my stomach erupted in butterflies.
Aw, man, was I falling for this guy? I really wanted to hold back judgment until I knew more about him, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. I liked him, and I felt like no matter what, he was always looking out for me.
I wanted to ask him more about why when he took a file folder out of the glove compartment and dropped it into my lap.
“These are the notes I’ve kept about the missing girls,” he said. “Latasha was the second girl to go missing. She lived two houses down from Olive and her mom.”
I searched for her photo and the information he’d gathered on her. She was sweet and quiet, according to her school records. And she was very smart. Nearly perfect grades. President of the debate team and a few other clubs.
Her parents had gone out to dinner to celebrate their anniversary, taking Latasha’s new baby brother with them. Latasha had stayed home to study. According to her parents, she’d planned to go to bed early, because she had a chemistry test the next day and wanted to be well rested for it.
They had never seen her again.
“This is so sad. Her parents must really miss her,” I said, imagining what it must have been like for them to come home after a fun evening out to find their daughter gone. “We’ve got to bring her home.”
Kai reached over and put his hand on mine.
“We will,” he said.
Our eyes met for a long moment, and I realized for the first time that falling for someone didn’t always have to do with how much you knew about them or even how long you’d known them. It was in the way you felt when someone looked at you or touched your hand.
I cleared my throat and closed the file.
“So, what exactly are we looking for at Julie Peterson’s house, anyway?” I asked.
“Anything suspicious, I guess,” he said. “Making the cupcakes is her only source of income, as far as I’ve seen. I’ve spoken to her a few times when she’s dropped them off at Sir Bean. She’s mentioned being divorced a few times, saying that she’s had to support Olive by herself since she was a baby. I also know she almost never lets Olive near the cupcakes. That Olive has a tendency to mix flavors wrong or burn them.”
I rolled my eyes. “A likely story,” I said. “She probably never lets Olive help, because she’s been putting Moondust in them. I imagine she wouldn’t want to have to explain that to her teenage daughter.”
“You could be right about that,” Kai said. He nodded toward a grey sign as he turned left. “The Oaks. This is where the Peterson’s live. I’ll just park on a side street and we can walk the rest of the way.”
I studied the neighborhood as Kai looked for a parking spot.
From the looks of it, The Oaks was an average upper-middle-class kind of neighborhood where the houses were big but they all kind of looked the same.
Nothing looked out of the ordinary or suspicious, and I wondered again what we were really hoping to find by coming out here. Olive was likely at school, so Julie Peterson was doing what? Baking? Maybe.
We got out a couple of streets down from where she lived and walked on the sidewalk until we got to the right street. Then, instead of just walking out in the open, Kai led me back behind the houses.
We made our way behind fences. I probably should have brought some kind of invisibility potion with me, but it seemed we were mostly hidden by the tall fences here. On the back side of the fences, there was a stretch of trees through which you could just barely see the backs of the next row of houses.
“What’s our plan here?” I asked. “After what happened last night, I feel like winging it has not exactly served us well so far.”
Kai smiled. “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “I’ve been looking into all of this for so long on my own that I keep forgetting I have someone else to look after now.”
“Maybe I’m the one looking after you,” I said. “I mean, you were the one trapped in a net last night. If it hadn’t been for me—”
“I never did get a chance to properly thank you for that,” he said, stopping and taking my hands in his.
Okay, if his absent touch in the car sent my heart racing, this moment with him standing so close and taking my hands was about to give me a heart attack.
“It’s really no big deal,” I said, pulling away. “I was just teasing you.”
I left him behind, making my way into the stretch of trees behind the house. He’d said it was the fifth one down, so I made my way behind that white house and pretended to be studying the windows, looking for movement, while he walked toward me.
What was wrong with me? Why was I so afraid of getting close to him?
I didn’t really want to think about it. All I knew was that I was happy being his friend for now. I had no idea if he was interested in me for more than just that, but I so did not have the capacity to handle anything else.
And still, my heart raced at the sight of him. Especially with that smirk on his face, like I’d just done exactly what he expected me to do.
I closed my eyes and groaned.
Focus, Lenny. You’re being ridiculous.
I took a deep breath and looked at the house. Except that this time, I really looked at it instead of just pretending.
“Oh my God,” I whispered. “Look.”
Kai turned, following my eyes toward the blue van that pulled into Julie Peterson’s driveway. A man got out and walked around to the back of the van.
“That’s Bates,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “What’s he doing here?”
“Good question,” I said. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to see enough from out here. It’s too bad neither one of us can just spontaneously make ourselves invisible.”
I said it with a laugh, but Kai shrugged.
My eyes widened.
“Wait. You can make yourself invisible?
“Yeah, but I don’t do it a lot,” he said. “It takes a lot of my energy. And it kind of tickles.”
My jaw fell open slightly.
“You could sneak up there and see what’s going on between Bates and Ms. Julie. You could listen to their conversation,” I said. “We need to figure out what their connection is to the missing girls, because I have a feeling after last night that it’s about more than just cupcakes here. Plus, it would be nice to see if Julie Peterson has any injuries. Uncle Martin stabbed Algrath last night. I would imagine that would show up somehow in his human form, too.”
“Good point,” Kai said. “But Martin told us not to engage. To watch from a distance.”
“Oh, so now we’re going to start following the rules?” I challenged.
Kai laughed.
Meanwhile, Bates threw open the van’s back doors and grabbed a large leather duffle bag.
“Moondust, maybe,” I whispered.
“I’ll go check it out,” Kai said. “But if there seems to be any trouble, I want you to promise not to come chasing after me. Whatever happens, you run. Here.”
He handed me the keys to his car, but I shook my head.
“The only way we’re leaving is together,” I said, pushing the keys back toward him.
“I promised your uncle I’d look after you,” he said, closing my fingers around the set of keys. “If anything happens or it seems like I’m in any kind of trouble, just run Lenny. I won’t let anything happen to you. Promise me.”
I held my breath. Why did he care about me at all? Had something happened between us all those years ago when we first met?
I wanted so badly to ask him about it, but we were going to miss our window to get Kai into the house.
“Okay, I promise,” I said. “But just don’t let anything happen.”
He smiled, sending a wave of electricity through my body.
“I’ll be back in a few. Sit tight,” he said. He made a face. “Oh, and uh, close your eyes and turn around for a second.”
“Why?”
“Just do it. Please. I’ll explain later.”
I didn’t want to waste any more time, so I did as he asked.
I only counted to three, though, before I opened my eyes.
“Can I turn around now?” I whispered.
But Kai didn’t answer.
I spun around, expecting to see him still standing there giving me a look, but instead, he was gone.
I swallowed, shivers running down my spine as I stared at the space between me and the front of the Peterson’s house. Kai was there, somewhere, but there wasn’t a single trace of him.
I shook my head and sat down just behind one of the larger pine trees behind the house. I had some time to kill, so I pulled out my phone to make sure Martin hadn’t called or texted with results from that piece of cloth.
There was nothing, though, so I put my phone back in my pocket and started thinking about everything that had happened so far. I still had so many questions and no real answers, unless we’d been right about Julie Peterson. That would be something, at least.
Still, how had Algrath known where to find us last night?
Had he followed us? Or tracked us in some way?
Was he tracking us right now?
What was going on inside that house? Why was he taking so long?
I needed something to keep my hands and mind occupied, or I was likely to just follow Kai inside that house.
I absently picked at the plant near my foot, tearing apart the leaves as I thought through all the questions and possibilities. There had to be some connection between Bates and the demon, and here was Bates at the Peterson house, which meant there was some tie between Ms. Julie and the demon, too.
Could it really be her? Or were we missing something important?
And if it was her, where was she keeping the others? Surely, she wasn’t keeping all five girls in her house, or Olive would know about it.
I needed to talk to Olive. See if she suspected anything about her mother, or even if she was somehow working with her mother.
The thought of that made my stomach hurt. No, I couldn’t believe Olive would do something like that to her friends.
But we were getting close. We had to be, or else that demon wouldn’t have attacked us last night. He wanted to get us out of the way so no one would interrupt him the night of the ritual.
I pulled apart another piece of the plant before I looked down and realized just what I was doing.
I gasped and jumped to my feet, wiping my hands on my leggings. Thank God I wasn’t allergic, but this was just another sign that we were moving in the right direction.
Sure, you could find this in a lot of the woods around town, but the fact that there was some right here, so conveniently located behind Julie Peterson’s house, brought us one step closer to proving it.
This whole time, waiting for Kai, I’d been sitting in a huge patch of poison ivy.