Episode 20 of The Witch’s Key: “And So It Begins”
TWO EPISODES LEFT! Tomorrow is our final episode and the season finale of The Witch’s Key, season one!
So excited for you to read/listen today to Episode 20.
Sadly, I didn’t get the cupcake recipes in time for this post or the live stream, but we can still make them next week! For now, I’d love for you to make some cupcakes of your choice (or go buy a few, haha) and join us for the finale tomorrow at 4PM Eastern.
We will have giveaways and a fun discussion around the book as we get together to listen to the final episode.
I’d love for you to share pics of anything you choose to do in prep for the finale. Here are some examples and hashtags to follow on Instagram and Facebook:
- Make any flavor of cupcake of your choice and use the hashtag #moondustcupcakes
- Post a before and after pic of your best “Bellus” hair spell. Use the hashtag #belluschallenge
- Dress in your best “Witchy” clothing and use the hashtag #TWKFinale
- Also, come to the finale with your favorite “Sir Bean” beverage!! #TWKFinale or #SirBean
Inside the coven, on IG, and on FB, you should be able to search those hashtags to find pictures of other members of our community dressing up and making cupcakes. So fun!! Thank you for being a part of this with me!!
If you’re brand new to this story or need to catch up, you can find The Witch’s Key to read yourself or listen to my reading here:
Listen to Episode 20
Episode 20: “And So It Begins”
I ran straight toward the cabin, my heart pumping hard as I thought about what those girls must be going through.
But before I made it even ten steps forward, something grabbed hold of my foot, and I face-planted in the grass with a thud and a groan.
At first, I didn’t quite understand what happened. My mind was locked on what was going on inside the cabin, and I couldn’t bring it back to this moment, here in the grass.
I lifted my head and gasped as I saw the glowing outline of a ward literally three inches in front of my face. In my panic, I’d almost forgotten about the wards and traps Algrath had set around this cabin. If I’d set those off all at once, we probably all would have died.
Tears sprang to my eyes.
What was wrong with me?
Gowan knelt at my side. “You’ve got to get yourself under control, Lenny. Do you understand how dangerous it can be if you let your emotions get the best of you?” he asked. “We’re working with a powerful trickster demon here. He’s going to do whatever he can to play on your emotions, make you see things that aren’t there, and prey on any of your weaknesses.”
He offered me a hand, and I grabbed it, letting him pull me to a standing position.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just heard her scream and freaked out.”
“If you’re going to let all the training we just did fly right out the window because of a single scream, you might as well get in the car and drive home right now, do you understand?”
His words stung, but he was right.
I’d nearly killed us all at the very first sign of trouble. That entire test with the bunny suddenly made crystal clear sense to me. Tonight wasn’t just about winning some battle against a demon.
It was also about mastering my own heart.
Slayers needed to be strong. I’d always known that, but I guess I just never realized how many different ways they had to be strong.
“I understand,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
We walked back to the group, and even though I expected Martin to be disappointed in my actions, he put his arm around me, instead.
“I have a feeling you will learn many difficult lessons tonight,” Martin said. “Let’s hope the first lesson is that your impulsiveness can put the entire group in danger. That spirit of yours can be your greatest weakness, or your strongest gift. Only you can decide.”
I wiped a tear from my cheek. I needed to grow up fast, or I was going to get everyone killed.
But how could my impulsiveness be a gift? I didn’t understand what he meant, but before I got the chance to ask him, another scream sounded from inside the cabin.
This time, it sounded like a different girl.
I resisted the urge to run and help, but I didn’t want to just stand here and listen to that, either.
“What’s he doing to them?” I asked. “Or is that just for our sake? Do you think he knows we’re here?”
“He most definitely knows we’re here,” Gowan said. “This whole place has been set up as a trap for us, and he led us right in. I can promise you, we’re all exactly where he wants us.”
I swallowed back fear.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “If we’re right where he wants us, aren’t we doing something wrong? Aren’t we just playing right into his trap?”
“Sometimes, that’s the only way to face a demon like this,” Gianna said. “You have to let them believe you’re falling for all their little tricks, and then, when they let their guard down, you surprise them.”
I frowned. That sounded extremely risky to me.
After all our planning, I’d been feeling pretty confident, but now that the actual moment of confrontation was here, I didn’t know what to do.
“What if they can’t be surprised? Or they anticipate our moves, too?” I asked.
“Then we improvise as we go,” Gowan said. He put a hand on my arm. “Don’t look so scared. We’re going to get through this together.”
I couldn’t help but be scared. Something about this whole cabin felt off to me. Couldn’t they feel that, too?
But maybe they could.
We were intentionally playing the game Algrath set up for us. I guess I could understand why, but it still scared me. I just hoped they all knew what they were doing.
Another scream sounded from inside the cabin, and the lights inside flickered. It was a different girl, again.
“He’s preparing them for the ritual, or something,” I said. “Hurting them one at a time in some way.”
“Perhaps,” Gianna said. “Or he’s intentionally setting us on edge, hoping we’ll make our move before we’re ready.”
“And when is that going to be?” I asked. “Us being ready, I mean.”
She smiled and touched my cheek. “Your mother was always so impulsive when she was a girl, too,” she said. “Right now, under the light of the full moon, you look just like her at this age. It’s going to be okay, Lenny. You have to trust us.”
I grasped my mother’s locket in my hand. My mother was impulsive?
That’s not how I had known her at all. Yes, she was full of fire and spirit, but she was also very calculated, going through all the possibilities as if she could see all possible futures laid out before her.
It was hard to imagine her as a rush-right-in kind of person like me.
Maybe there was hope for me, yet.
A fourth scream from the next girl came from inside the cabin, and the lights flickered again, staying off longer this time.
What was he doing in there? It seemed like some kind of ramping up for the ritual, I guessed.
“How close are we on the tracking spell?” Asher asked.
Martin glanced at his watch. “Still twenty-two minutes.”
I wanted to beat my head against a tree. Twenty-two more minutes? It just didn’t feel like we had that kind of time. Besides, who else did we think was inside that cabin hurting the girls? Santa Claus?
“I’m going to make a trip around behind the wards to check the ritual circle,” Asher said.
He sprinkled something over his head that looked like glitter and ashes.
“Abscondo.”
Asher disappeared completely, and I got chills all over my arms. I hadn’t seen that invisibility spell before.
“Why not just use something like obscuro?” I asked.
“Demons at this level can see through those types of lower-level invisibility spells. The one Asher just used is a much higher level and not available to a witch like you just yet,” Gianna said. “So please don’t go getting ideas into your head about sneaking around this cabin to find the girls. Besides, the wards and traps will still trigger, even if you’re invisible.”
A few minutes later, Asher reappeared beside Martin, nearly scaring me to death. I actually started to pull my dagger on him, and then I laughed nervously. Talk about being on edge. I was losing it. Couldn’t we just please raid this place, already?
“It’s already been activated,” he whispered, but he wasn’t speaking softly enough for us not to hear. “I think he’s going to start earlier than we expected.”
I kept my mouth shut. I wanted to trust the experts here. They’d done this before, and I basically had no idea what I was doing.
But still, I was ready to go. Anything but stand here and wait while my friend might be dying.
An hour seemed to pass before Martin turned to Gowan.
“I defer to you in this,” he said. “Do we wait?”
Gowan ran a hand across his white beard.
“I think we wait until we have confirmation of one of the girls being brought out to that circle,” he said. “Right now, we don’t know for sure that any of them are inside. It could all be a trick of our ears. If we trigger any one of those wards or traps he set up, we might be too overrun to change locations if we’re wrong.”
Martin nodded, but I wanted to scream.
Kai, who had barely even looked at me since our conversation earlier about his parents, seemed to sense my frustration. He touched my arm and motioned for me to join him a few steps away from the group.
“Sit down,” he said. “Face me.”
“Why?” I asked, snapping harsher than I’d intended. I immediately wanted to take it back. “I’m sorry. I’m struggling.”
He sat down first, cross-legged with his hands on his knees. I joined him reluctantly. I was ready to go inside. Get this thing done. Not sit out here and sing campfire songs.
“You’re going to be fine,” he said. “You just need to find your center. Your heart. It’s where your intuition and your deep knowing come from. This is what you need to find and trust right now, more so than your eyes and ears. Close your eyes and take a deep breath.”
“I don’t think I can,” I said.
I was sitting just like him, but I couldn’t seem to get my toes to stop tapping or my hands to relax.
“Just try,” he said. His voice was so calm and cool. How was he doing that? “For me?”
I sighed.
“Okay, I’ll try it. If nothing else, it will help pass the time, right?”
I closed my eyes, and Kai directed our breaths, telling me when to breathe in or out.
Soon, I was able to focus only on the sound of his voice and the feel of the air filling my lungs. For the first time, I noticed it was a breezy night. I had my long hair pulled back, but some little wisps must have pulled free, because they were tickling my cheeks and the back of my neck with each gust of wind.
“When your heart is calm, you can listen to the voice inside you, instead of listening to fear,” he said.
I smiled. “You sound like my parents. They were always telling me to listen to my heart.”
“Feel better?” he asked.
I opened my eyes. “I do. Thank you for that.”
“If things get difficult tonight or scary, just come back to this,” he said. “Before you act, come back to yourself. To your heart. Forget your fear.”
“Sounds easy,” I said, sarcasm coating my tone.
“It will be good practice for you.”
“You say that like you’ve had a lot of experience with battles yourself, even though I know you don’t.”
He shrugged. “Not battles, but I’ve had other demons to fight,” he said. “This is one of the only things that helps when I’m feeling scared.”
It was hard to think of an angel feeling scared, but maybe it was his humanity that allowed him to feel so much. Realizing that about him also made me see that he was beautiful, even without his wings.
Kai started to reach for my hand, but before either of us could express how we were feeling, the fifth girl screamed and all the lights in the cabin went out, as though someone had blown out a candle.
Kai and I stood, staring at the house, waiting for the lights to flicker back on.
Only, this time, they stayed off.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
No one answered. We all just stared at the cabin, waiting. The breeze I’d noticed a moment ago ramped up, increasing steadily until the trees around us bent over from the force of it.
Lightning and thunder cracked together, lighting up the sky with a loud boom that shook the ground beneath our feet. At the same moment, the sky darkened as clouds moved to cover up the light of the full moon.
Cool rain poured down on us, and because of the wind, the drops stung my cheeks.
Darius reached into his satchel and crushed a vial of something in his hands as he shouted, “Protectio.”
The rain stopped instantly, and I wiped my eyes, shocked. But then I realized the rain hadn’t stopped at all. Rather, a protective shelter had appeared over our heads. It looked like glass above us as the rain hit it and slid down each side.
“And so it begins,” Martin said. He stood holding his map and staring at a new droplet of blood. “Algrath is near. Keep your wits about you, and we will prevail. Asher, bring the first ward down and trigger the first trap.”
“We still have fifteen minutes before that spell is accurate,” Asher said. “We’re jumping the gun here.”
“We no longer have the luxury of waiting,” Gowan said, nodding toward the cabin.
An eerie bluish purple glow emanated from inside, and the front door suddenly flew open. A dark smoke billowed out of the house. At the same time, the windows exploded, oozing the same dark purple smoke.
I wanted to run straight inside and grab the girls, but I held myself back. There were still wards and traps up everywhere. We wouldn’t save anyone if we were killed or overrun. I had to find a way to trust the experts around me.
“What do we do?” I asked.
“Wait for Asher. Whatever comes at us, we fight,” Gianna said. “Then, we trigger the next trap until we’ve made our way up to the house. This is it. Everyone ready.”
Beside me, Martin placed a hand on Kai’s shoulder.
“Young man, no matter what else happens, you do not let Lenora leave your sight. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, sir. I promise.”
Okay, so I did have a guardian angel. In the past, I might have been upset that no one trusted me to get things done on my own, but if I’d learned anything over the past week, it was that pride was not doing me any favors. I needed help, and there was no shame in having someone there to look out for me.
I would be looking out for him, too.
Sparks flew as Asher cast a spell off to our left, but I couldn’t quite see what he was doing through the downpour.
It soon became apparent what was happening, though, because a dark mass of hellhounds surrounded our small shelter, their teeth bared and dripping with poison. They scratched at the glass-like spell, and after just a moment, something inside it cracked, letting a single paw through.
“It won’t hold much longer. Prepare yourselves,” Darius said as he leaned down and grabbed a handful of mud. He slathered it across his arms, and it turned to what looked like leather armor.
Seeing him threw me into action, too. I repeated his motions, using the spell Gianna had given me.
“Saxum,” I said, and the mud on my arm turned to stone. It was a bit tight and uncomfortable against my skin, but if it worked, I was okay with being uncomfortable.
I had prepared my dagger’s blade ahead of time, coating it with salt and poison. I pulled it from its leather sheath now, my hands trembling.
Darius’s shelter shattered under the weight of the hellhounds, and they rushed toward us in a pack.
I knew from my reading that hellhounds were extremely dangerous. They weren’t so hard to kill, but if they broke skin with their teeth, you were done for. A hellhound rushed toward me and immediately tried to sink its teeth into my calf.
It didn’t get far, though, because Gianna had put a protective spell on my jeans that made them the much lighter equivalent of chainmail armor. Sending up a prayer of thanks to her, I buried my blade into the hound’s skull.
It exploded into a pile of smoke and ash, and I turned to the next one and the next, slashing and sinking my blade into each one in turn.
As a group, we made quick work of the hellhounds, but that didn’t mean we had any time to rest.
Somewhere in the darkness, more screams rang out through the trees.
“Help me,” someone screamed.
My stomach turned, and for a second, I thought I was going to be sick. It sounded like Peyton. I told myself it was just a trick, though. Algrath was trying to mix us up. Cause us to make a mistake. We just had to hold steady and stick together.
Asher appeared in front of us, rain sliding down his face. His light blue eyes practically glowed in the dark, and it made me wonder if he’d cast some kind of spell to help him see out here.
“Someone is leading the girls to the back,” he shouted. “I don’t know what he’s playing at, but this isn’t what we expected. We can’t let him start this ritual. If we get locked out of the circle, we’ll end up just watching it all happen and not being able to do a dang thing about it.”
Now, I really was going to be sick.
This was already a mess, and my heart was pounding so fast, it was messing with my vision.
“Keep the traps coming,” Gowan said, needing to shout over the sound of the storm growing around us. “As soon as one is half-down, we trigger the next one. No matter what, though, we stick together.”
As they spoke, I removed a packet of reagents from my bag. Even though my hands were shaking, and my body shivered from the cold rain, I managed to keep my wits about me as I dressed the sword with more salt, poison ivy, and thorns.
I clasped my locket as I finished off the spell, praying that it would last.
I had five more packets like this in my bag, too, so that I could quickly reapply the spell once its power had faded.
The more experienced Slayers with much higher-level keys still had swords, daggers, and other weapons that glowed with the light of their initial spells, but as a relatively new witch, I didn’t have access to their power.
Any uncertainty I’d had about joining up with the Slayers when I turned eighteen faded to nothing. I wanted this. I wanted the kind of power they had. I wanted to be able to save people and banish evil.
I let that determination and will flow through me as the next trap was triggered.
As lightning illuminated the sky, I screamed in horror at the shadowy figures that rose from the ground. Wraiths of some kind. They weren’t made of flesh and bone, like the hellhounds.
Instead, these types of creatures were made of air and shadow.
My dagger would be no use against these things.
I sheathed it, so as not to let the spell fade away, and instead, reached into my bag to grab a vial of trapped sunlight.
To any normal eye, it just looked like an empty vial, but I had captured this bit of sunlight myself on the beach a few years ago with my parents in France. To me, that made it stronger than normal sunlight, since it was captured at the height of my joy and infused with laughter.
Mom had told me to save it for a special occasion when I needed to lift myself from a dark place, and I couldn’t think of a better time for it than right now.
I carefully uncorked the vial and tipped it over, letting a single drop of sunshine fall toward my palm.
“Conlumino,” I said, squinting as a bright ball of sunshine appeared in my hand.
Even some of the more experienced Slayers looked over, respect shining in their eyes.
I was just relieved I’d remembered the right word for the incantation. After our quick training, they were all starting to run together a bit.
I took a deep breath and grasped my locket, allowing the power of it to flow through me and amplify the sunlight in my hand.
I could have sworn I heard my mother’s laughter trickle from the sunlight as it grew stronger, lighting up the entire forest and the clearing ahead.
The wraiths that remained screeched and tried to fall back to the shadows.
My heart raced as I tried to remember the right word to scatter the sunlight. There was no time for doubt. I had to think fast and be strong.
“Dispergat,” I said.
The ball of sunshine in my hand seemed to explode outward, sparkling as it shot out in a radius around me, its light slicing through the shadowy wraiths until there were no more.
Gowan winked at me, even as he drew his sword and pushed it through the heart of a demon about twice his height. The next wave was here, already.
As we fought, there was no time for second-guessing or doubt. We couldn’t worry about the rain pouring down on us or the lighting that seemed to flash closer and closer to the cabin. I couldn’t even let the sound of screams break my focus.
The only way through to them was to kill everything in our path. That was what mattered, and I was surprised how quickly I focused on the creatures that surrounded us, wave after wave in the darkness of the night.
Through it all, Kai was right there at my side.
“We did it,” he said, out of breath as we joined the other Slayers near the steps to the cabin.
“Is that all of them?” I asked, scared to hope.
Asher nodded. “That’s all the traps I was able to detect,” he said. “And I just checked out back. No activity, anymore. It seems they’ve all gone back inside.”
“That means, we’re all on our guard the second we walk into this place. Consider everything a trap from this point forward,” Gowan said.
“Where’s Darius?” I asked, panic filling my heart as I counted and saw that one of us was missing.
“He’s getting the car,” Gianna said, placing a hand on my arm. “As soon as we have the girls, you and Kai will get into Gowan’s SUV and head back to Martin’s.”
I nodded, relief filling me as Darius pulled up in the black SUV.
This was the plan we’d discussed, and even though things had not gone exactly like we originally thought, we seemed to be back on track.
“The car is cloaked?” Kai asked.
“With everything we’ve got,” Gowan said. “There’s not a soul in the world that can find this car now without physically laying eyes on it. You’ll be safe all the way home, and we’ll deal with Algrath here.”
Nervous energy flowed through me as my heart pounded.
We just had to get to the girls, and everything was going to be okay. Asher and Gianna ran around to the back to guard that door and the ritual circle, while the rest of us waited to go inside.
Darius handed me the keys to the SUV. “You’ve got this.”
“Thanks,” I said, putting them in my pocket.
“Let’s go,” Gowan said, leading the charge up the steps.
With a flash of something from his hand, he blew the door off its hinges to keep it from closing us in later. The dark smoke that had billowed from the place earlier smelled of sulfur, and a black goo covered the floor of the main room.
There was no sign of the girls there.
“Kai and Lenny, you both stay here,” Gowan said. “Everyone else, find those girls.”
The cabin was small, but I was still nervous when they left us in the room alone. Kai guarded the main doorway, while Gianna stood guarding the back door just through the other side of the main room.
Gowan and Martin split to the left side of the cabin, while Britta and Darius took the right side of the cabin.
I didn’t know what else to do, so I reapplied the poison spell to my blade and looked around the smoke-filled room for any kind of clue. Footsteps, weapons, anything.
That’s when I noticed the door Bates must have been talking about before. A plain brown door in the back of the room with a large lock on it.
He was right, there was magic holding that lock closed. Something so powerful it put a strange taste in my mouth.
“Nothing back there,” Darius said, coming back into the room.
“Here,” I said. “The door Bates was talking about.”
“Stand back,” he said.
He pulled something sticky and red from his bag and placed it on the lock. “Abstergo,” he said.
A black goo oozed from the lock, and everyone in the room instantly covered our mouths and noses.
“What the heck is that?” Gianna asked. “That’s vile.”
“And deadly,” Darius said. “It’s demon’s blood mixed with nightshade grown in the underworld. Don’t let it touch your skin.”
He took a glass tube covered in black paint out of his satchel and carefully scooped the black liquid up from its puddle on the floor. Quickly, he corked it and sealed it with a strong spell that would prevent it from opening back up.
“Stand back and expect another trap,” he said.
Darius also took several steps backward before holding one palm flat toward the door and closing his eyes. “Solvo,” he said.
The air wavered as the intention of his spell flowed from his palm to the lock on the door, which instantly popped open.
My heart pounded against my ribs as he stepped forward and opened the door.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but I certainly wasn’t expecting the end of the battle. I thought that behind that door, we’d find another trap or the demon himself.
Instead, lying on the floor, wrapped in a dark netting that pulsed with dark light and shadows, was Julie Peterson.
I gasped and nearly fell to my knees. She was here. We were right. Algrath had been Julie Peterson all along.
Darius quickly dispelled the netting around her and lifted her into his arms. “She’s unconscious, but she’s alive.”
He set her down on the couch in the center of the room as a commotion broke out in the back bedrooms on the other side of the house.
Everyone in the room turned to fight, but Martin held up his hand as he emerged from the bedroom.
“It’s alright,” he said. “We’ve got them. It’s going to be alright.”
I gasped as the five kidnapped girls stepped out of the bedroom, one at a time. I recognized the first girl, LaTasha, from her photograph. She was the first taken, but she was here now, alive.
Her body was shaking, and she kept rubbing her arm where it looked like some kind of strange symbol had been burned into her skin, but she was alive.
“What’s happening?” she asked as she led the group into the main part of the cabin.
“I know it doesn’t all make sense yet,” Gianna said, placing a blanket around the girl’s shoulders. “But you’re okay now. You’re safe.”
One by one, each of the girls came out of the room. Each one had been marked for the ritual, but it seemed we had gotten to them in time.
When Peyton stepped forward, her eyes widened at the sight of me, and she ran forward, crying.
“Oh, my God, Lenny. What are you doing here?” she asked as I threw my arms around her. “I thought we were going to die. Who are all these people?”
“They’re my friends,” I said, hardly controlling my own tears. I couldn’t believe we’d actually found her. “Are you hurt?”
I held her at arm’s length for a moment, checking for any other injuries, but the mark on her arm seemed to be the only one. She was still wearing pajamas that looked like they’d seen better days, and she obviously hadn’t showered for a while, but she seemed to be okay.
When her eyes landed on Julie Peterson, though, she screamed and backed away.
“She’s the one who did this,” she said. “Don’t trust her. She’s got something wrong with her. I know it’s going to sound crazy, but you have to believe me. She’s dangerous.”
“Peyton, it’s okay,” I said. “She can’t hurt you now.”
I turned to Martin.
“Where is he?” I asked. “We need to get them out of here.”
“He wants us to think he’s just left them here and run away,” Gowan said. “But he’s still got a trick or two up his sleeve, I think.”
“Take the girls and go,” Martin said. “The car is cloaked, but don’t let your guard down.”
“I’m going with them,” Gianna said. “This doesn’t feel right.”
Martin nodded. “Yes. Keep them safe and wait for us at the house.”
There were a lot of questions as we led the girls to the SUV outside. I didn’t even know for sure what to tell them. I wanted to say this whole thing was over, but until we knew for sure where Algrath had gone, no one was safe.
I felt better with Gianna in the car as Kai took the wheel and drove us away from the cabin.
I sent up a prayer that Martin and the others would be okay when they faced Algrath. His ritual may have been disrupted, but I didn’t believe he would just give up without a fight. Not if he truly wanted to set his brother free.
Which meant we needed to get home as quickly as possible.
Kai was doing better than I would have, taking it easy in the storm. I wanted to tell him to step on it, but we couldn’t afford to get into an accident. Not until we were through those wards.
It was only half a mile until we hit the wards that Algrath couldn’t pass through, but as we approached the barrier, the car’s engine switched off and the brake engaged.
Panic filled me as the car stopped just fifty yards shy of the barrier.
“No, no, no, no,” I muttered. “The barrier is right there. What’s happening?”
Kai tried to restart the engine, but it was completely dead.
“Get out,” Gianna said, her tone urgent. “Get everyone across the barrier. Now.”
She threw open the door and started pulling the girls out, urging them to run.
At the same time, my phone buzzed in my pocket.
I answered as we ran.
“Martin, something’s wrong with the car,” I shouted. “We’re running for the barrier, but I don’t know—”
“Lenny, this is Gowan, listen to me,” he said. “We’ve just found another girl hidden underneath the house. She had to have been the first girl taken. Not the last.”
“Another girl?” I said, a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach as a dark purple shadow suddenly spread across the pavement in front of me.
“Who?” I asked, my entire body trembling. This couldn’t be real.
Everyone up ahead fell to the ground. All except one person.
She turned on me, then, her eyes sparkling as her form shifted.
“Lenny, Algrath is with you,” he said. “The girl under the house is Peyton.”
That was the last thing I heard before the phone slipped from my hand and everything went dark.