Worlds Of Ash Rewritten

(Chapters 7-11)

*Chapter Seven*

It was a Friday when she ran into Emily Baker. Emily was as she often was, stunning, cool, a bright goddess who’d already conquered middle school and who appeared, daily, to be well prepared for the change into high school where she would pretty much do the same. Emily was just her regular, spectacular, self that would always…well, except for the fact that the more Ash stared, the more she knew something was off.

Ash racked her brains. Emily stood right in front of her with a low-eyed glare and some weird expression playing heavy across her face. Ash had no clue what was going on.

Could it…but no…that day in the gym—underneath the bleachers with all that dust—it was the only thing that came to mind. Ash had almost forgotten that day. She was so tired of how she kept doing that—completely deleting things she needed to remember while not being able to forget any random memory that had to do with magic—yet, now, here she was doing that all over again.

It was way too late, but everything instantly flooded back. How Emily had missed a free throw and how Ash had taken a moment’s insanity to join everyone in laughing at such a sight. Emily was good at all parts of life, except for one minor flaw when it came to basketball. Why couldn’t there be laughter about that—it was so funny—yet Ash’s crazed moment had been noted and had ended with Emily launching a ball her way.

It was why Ash had had to scurry past all that iron—she was the closest when everything had landed, who else could go beneath the bleachers? But, had Coach Littleton punished Emily after telling Ash to get up and find the ball? It did seem likely, yet Ash still wasn’t sure.

She remembered more, Emily sweaty and out of breath when she’d been outside watching Poppa Henry and his yells—was sweat a punishment? It was a question Ash tried to think about—Coach Littleton did love making people run laps whenever he got angry at them, and laps did cause sweat—but, suddenly, a shift back into magic, and Penthya, occurred and she quickly couldn’t think about anything else.

Ash tried to shake it off—all those people in their green cloaks, they buzzed in her head like maddening pests she couldn’t swat away—until she finally sighed and gave up. Laps, not running laps, who cared about that when even the mere thought of that day—her gym, those bleachers—only caused those dumb cloaks, and those dumb people, to invade her mind.

“I’ve let you have your space,” Emily now had her hands on her hips, that low-eyed glare gaining a dark intensity. Were her eyes even open?

It was the last real day of school. One other was left—an optional Monday that was being used to make up for a long and dreary winter that had kept everything shut down for longer than the school board had liked. But that optional didn’t count. Ash had only been consumed with the thought of high school being so close—a safe thought, nothing else came to mind when she indulged that. Until Emily spoke, Ash hadn’t even been paying attention to where she’d been walking.

“What,” Ash asked.

Her voice squeaked in nervous dread. Why was she feeling cornered?

Maybe it was because Phyllis and Freddy King were with Emily, the hungry intent in Freddy’s eyes—they weren’t at low-level glare, they were wide with menace—quickly allowing Ash to understand one important detail. She wasn’t just cornered, she was trapped—most of the school already let out and gone, the hallways quite empty.

“What,” Ash asked again.

She tugged the straps of her black book bag down tight onto her shoulders. They bit through the orange tee shirt she was wearing and made the flesh beneath protest loudly, but Ash liked that.

Emily and her cronies stood in front of four large glass doors which spilled out onto a horseshoe drive where parents already were pulling up to look for their kids. That main avenue of escape was blocked, but maybe this trap wasn’t as perfect as it had first appeared.

There were two doors behind Ash, one she couldn’t use because of how it was alarmed, yet there was another—a small metal thing not unlike the emergency exit in the gym. Ash could make it there if she turned and ran, but such risk would take speed and fleetness of feet, and that meant her belongings needed to be as secure as possible. Ash didn’t want to take off only to feel her book bag—and some precious novels inside—slip away.

“Seriously, what do you want,” Ash asked.

She tested her white sneakers. Gone was the low-eyed glare, Emily was now looking at her with the same hungry intent Freddy had. Ash rolled her feet to see if she’d laced her shoes as well as she hoped. Was there some give she was feeling? She wasn’t sure.

“He made me run laps,” Emily finally said. “I blame you.”

There it was. The sweat, the out of breath, Coach Littleton really had punished Emily for the ball throw and, of course, Emily had shifted all blame off her shoulders.

Ash sighed again, and studied Emily more. She was already dressed in her usual red shorts and gray shirt after school attire. She was always so serious when first she put that outfit on. As far as Ash knew, Emily never even talked to anyone after that. Instead, she just prepared for whatever Coach Littleton was about to throw her way.

But Ash had to admit that whenever she’d seen Emily dressed like she was, it had always been from a distance. In her after-school clothes, did Emily Baker always look angry? Ash didn’t think so. In fact, Ash was terrified that this, absolutely, was something new.

“But your grandfather died,” Emily continued. It was as if those words somehow explained everything. “I heard it from a teacher. I suppose he was the old fellow I saw yelling, and so I thought to myself, Emily, Emily dear, you’re not a monster, so give Ash some time before you make her pay for getting you into trouble. And that’s what I’ve done, I’ve given you time—almost two weeks—now, your payment is due.”

“Seriously,” Ash said.

Something clicked. Ash was already annoyed at how such new revelations were finding such new ways to make her world so much more difficult, but there it was. Another understanding that gave her the same feelings—a rising dread, a weary resignation—that she’d had back when she’d seen how her parents could yell without yelling.

Ash blinked away surprise. Usually, Emily taunted, or tripped, but as she saw Emily’s bunched up fists—and again took in her anger—she knew that teasing, or being pushed, was the least of her worries. She was about to get hit.

“You want to fight?”

“No,” Emily laughed. “I want Phyllis to hold you while Freddy keeps a look out. I don’t want you to make me too sweaty when I punch you in the face.”

“You…why…”

“I couldn’t make any free throws,” Emily said. She darted forward in a flash—with such speed Ash never had a chance. Emily easily grabbed onto the straps Ash had just tightened down. “I didn’t make any that day, or the next, and varsity…I tried for varsity at the high school yesterday but I…it…I failed, and now…and…my mom says I’ve done it…I’ve buried every memory of my dad complete!”

It was pointless to struggle, but Ash did it anyway. Emily was strong for such a beauty; Ash beyond impressed by the strength she was displaying. She had just expected Emily to be the spoiled princess who liked to attack with her tongue rather than with her fists, but as Phyllis came up from behind and grabbed her arms so Emily could let her go, Ash knew she’d been foolish. She’d been so wrong to think anything in her life could ever be getting better.

“It was basketball,” Ash complained. She could figure this out, find the right words to slip free. “I’m sorry! It was just basketball, and…I only laughed like everyone else! I’m sorry!”

Emily reached back over. She let Phyllis keep hold of Ash, but she straightened a few wrinkles on Ash’s shirt as she smiled. “I don’t believe you.”

“What,” Ash asked.

“Sorry,” Emily explained. “It’s what you just said—sorry, sorry, sorry—but I don’t think you even know why you’re supposed to be that way. You should be sorry for what you’ve done, but it isn’t just basketball, it’s my father, my life! I’m supposed to be like him so his memory never dies, and you…I can’t even change my name! You can, you can keep your stupid Ash all you want, but I had to let Em go the day after I asked to be called that and now, I didn’t make varsity like he did because I couldn’t keep practicing my free throws and it’s all your fault! Are you sorry for that?”

Emily took a step back. She patted Ash once on the shoulder before getting ready, her stance squared as she made a tight fist. But, suddenly, Ash wasn’t all that concerned over how she would be hit. She was confused, yet also so very certain that if she could look around, she would probably see Phyllis, maybe even Freddy, appearing as confused as she. That had been a long bit of ramble from Emily.

“It’s just basketball,” Ash said again. For some reason, at that moment, she was even reminded of her father and his oddly confessional yelling done right after they’d spread Poppa Henry’s ashes. But she let that go. That was too weird a thing to keep thinking about now. “You threw a ball at me, and Coach Littleton punished you because of that! I don’t know about your dad, but I’m sorry for that, for everything!”

“Not good enough,” Emily said. Her fists were balled even tighter.

“There she is.” It was Peter; his voice a much better salvation than running for any door. He caused Phyllis to push Ash away.

Ash skittered across the hall, bumping right into Emily who pushed her almost all the way back to Phyllis. But Ash regained her feet before returning to that mountain of a girl. She straightened up and brushed a few errant strands of brown and red off her temple, flattened her now back to being rumpled and disheveled tee shirt too, before she looked over at her brother.

Peter was trying to make himself be as tall as he could be as he stood a few feet from the clueless Freddy King who hadn’t been doing a very good job as look out. Not only was Peter nearby, but Coach Littleton was there as well.

Coach Littleton looked disappointed, his head hanging low, his slightly gray hair shaking back and forth as he brought up a hand and pinched at his nose. For a second, Ash had the funniest insight. Her coach was obviously trying hard to keep his image of Emily as what he needed it to be—the popular goddess, the great beauty. He may have, every once and a while, interfered by doling out a few punishments, but on the whole, Ash knew that Coach Littleton only wanted to treat Emily as if she was her normal perfect.

Ash could imagine the war in his mind. How he pinched at himself to keep the thought of Emily the great from ever becoming Emily the bully. It was a war she wished he would lose—let him see, let the whole world see—but it was a war in which Ash knew Coach Littleton would try anything to escape from. The first out he saw, he would take it.

“Picking on Amanda,” he said, “guess my running…pity it had no effect. Perhaps I should go talk to some of your other teachers. Maybe I should find out if you’re not such a nice—”

This wasn’t interfering. Coach Littleton was dancing around serious. Emily’s eyes went wide as Ash had a second to wonder. Could it be, by some stroke of outrageous fortune, that this might be the day when something—from her coach of all people, and against Emily—really would make things better?

But, again, Emily was quick. “Coach, Coach,” she smiled at Coach Littleton, yet she also made sure to turn her head slightly towards Ash. “I…not picking. I wasn’t doing anything except talking about this coming Monday. You see, we have school, but most of us don’t have to be here and I—”

It was his out. Coach Littleton may have been a good man, but Ash wasn’t surprised. The town was too small, and anything said here would travel onward. He could dole out those few punishments, but if Coach Littleton wanted Emily to remain a middle school queen—who had a throne already in wait at the high school—he couldn’t go any further.

“I know when we have school,” he said, “but why was Phyllis holding Amanda’s arms like that? Did she have her pinned?”

He was still having the slightest struggle. But for a final time, Emily was so fast.

“Pinned,” she began to laugh. “That wasn’t…Phyllis was hugging Ash because we’re all so happy Ash has agreed not to skip on Monday. Instead, she’s meeting us after school for one last game we’re going to play. Isn’t that right, Ash, you are going to meet us on Monday, aren’t you? Because I’d hate to think you wouldn’t, and then I’d have to delay our game till when I see you later. After I’ve had all summer to wait.”

Emily was only staring at her as she leveled a veiled threat that wasn’t veiled enough for Ash’s liking. She’d been so close to something better, but now the fall of Emily Baker could still arrive, yet Coach Littleton would only deny her lie if Ash spoke up to counter it.

Ash couldn’t say a thing.

“Amanda,” Coach Littleton asked. “Is that true?”

Ash tasted something metallic. It burned along her throat and dug a trench of acid towards her feet. She wasn’t sure what she should do. Tell on Emily and absolutely be the one that would be blamed for what came next, or lie as well and think of something else later-on?

The immediate option seemed best, to simply yell out that Emily had tried to beat her up, but she almost always never chose that route. It was still too dangerous, needing a level of bravery she didn’t yet have, and, besides, that second option did have its own appeal. Delaying meant she could start forgetting all about this, and Ash really was getting so good at forgetting everything that didn’t have to do with Penthya and magic.

“Yeah,” she finally said, “we were talking about some game.”

*Chapter Eight*

“Why didn’t you tell on her,” Peter asked.

He slipped into her room. Dinner was long over, and another fight was happening downstairs—this one rather epic, something that had gone as far passed heated whispers as one could ever get. When her father got to the point where he swore he wouldn’t be moving anywhere, he’d said it so loud Ash hadn’t been able to hear what was on the TV. She just had to head to her bedroom for at least a little quiet.

“I don’t,” Ash began. She looked up from a novel she hadn’t been able to absorb. She’d almost achieved success—forgetting about Emily had been within reach—yet now her brother was going to ruin everything. “I’m not talking to you.”

“Why not,” Peter asked.

Ash sat at a desk set up across from her bed, her freestanding mirror somewhere off to her right. Ever since the day when she’d mistakenly imagined that her Poppa Henry had been in it, the mirror had ceased to be trustworthy. Nowadays, she hardly looked its way.

Stationed as she was, sitting on a nice black leather chair and turned ever so slightly to peek back at her brother, she didn’t want to move. Her bed was completely free and Peter headed for it, sitting down and facing her as he tried not to wrinkle her sheets.

“Talk about Emily,” he said, “why didn’t you tell on her?”

Ash closed her book. Her comfort was over, and she swiveled in her chair. There was a lie making its way through her head, a good one where she could tell Peter she hadn’t said a thing out of kindness, or a sense of moral authority—not returning one bad for another. Peter might even believe her, or at least act as if he did, but as soon as it came, Ash cast the lie aside. Such a thing made her sad.

“I don’t know why,” she sighed. “Coach Littleton was there, but I couldn’t. I thought if I was the one to bring her down, Emily would hurt me.”

“But” Peter said, “she wouldn’t have.” He leaned forward until he could prop his chin in his hands. “I knew it the minute I saw her in front of you.”

“You saw her?”

“Yeah, it’s why I rushed to get the coach.”

“For me…”

“Of course, but I also went because I know Emily Baker, I know how she works.”

Ash laughed. Such insight was something she would have killed for.

“Really,” she said, “you know her?”

“Sure,” Peter smiled.

He also tried to sit up tall and proud, make himself look as big as Ash knew his words were about to become. Had he been reading The Great Gatsby again—or perhaps War and Peace? Ash wasn’t sure, but what she was sure of was that for a conversation she didn’t want to have, it was about to get even worse. There was no way she could handle a nine-year-old lecturing her.

“Not happening,” she said, “not from you, not tonight.”

Peter paused. He wasn’t surprised, just frustrated. His small brown eyes rolled slightly from behind his black glasses. It was as if he’d thought she might fight him but was annoyed because he’d hoped she wouldn’t.

They both heard a quick “you’re going to destroy this family,” before he could gather himself, Ash not sure what else could go wrong. She either had to endure her parents or the extreme oddity that was her little brother. Maybe she should go outside. She could sleep in the yard.

“Come on,” Peter said, “talk about Emily…let me talk about Emily.”

Ash’s shoulders, her whole body, sagged in defeat. “Fine,” at least he might drown out their parents, “go ahead. But don’t you get all smart; use nine-year-old words!”

Peter smiled again. It still looked so great. “Okay,” he said. “Emily, I’ve watched her and heard her. You’ve heard her too—better than I have.”

Ash shook her head. That couldn’t be right. “When,” she began, “I’ve never…”

“When Phyllis had hold of you,” Peter said, “Emily was talking about her dad, right? I caught a bit, but you were much closer. Wasn’t she talking about him, about how she had to be like him?”

“Oh, yeah, there was that.”

“Yeah,” Peter said, “there’s that, and when you add it to how I’ve been paying attention to her, you start to see. She’s the kind of girl who knows she has an image she must protect. Maybe it’s from her mother…probably it’s from her mother…but there’s this planned identity for her and, right now, she understands that at any moment any adult can take that away. She can act out a little around someone older or be a lot worse when she’s alone with kids her own age, but if a teacher or a coach, or even her mother, is there she can’t do much. She has no control with them.

“So, if you’d told—said she was a bully—she would have been angry, but with Coach Littleton there, she would have also been so devastated she wouldn’t have known how to respond. Her image would have been damaged. She would have been too concerned with that to deal with you.”

Peter paused. He leaned back forward too, far past where his chin could find safety in a palm-cushioned perch. He even tilted his head slightly to the side and studied Ash.

Though she had warned him, he’d so casually used words like devastated—things way beyond his age. But Ash let that slide. It was just Peter being strange and crazy Peter, and, anyway, she wasn’t quite sure he was correct. Adults could not be the only thing that frightened Emily Baker.

“You have to see I’m right,” Peter said. He caught her doubts before she could speak. “It’s obvious.”

“It isn’t,” Ash said. “With others, like Coach Littleton, they’re easy to get down pat—he’s good, a good man, but Emily, she’s…it’s complicated. You can’t have figured her out.”

Peter sat up straight again. Ash doing the same as her defeat began to fade.

Peter sighed. “She’s not complicated. You probably don’t understand her because you’re scared.”

“Am not.”

“Yes, you are. And it’s okay. I’m scared too. I’m scared of a lot of things.”

“Like what?”

“Like all of life changing way too fast,” Peter said. Suddenly, he was the one to sag—his shoulders the first things to sink as he could no longer meet her eyes. He looked anywhere else, at the mirror she still ignored, or at a pink canopy over his head. “I fear growing up. It’s why I constantly beg mom and dad to let me do school at my own pace. I like knowing that, right now, I’m in a place where everything is familiar.”

“Then why go to high school with me,” Ash asked.

It flew out of her, the question she’d been thinking yet hadn’t voiced because she’d been worried it would only cause another argument, hers and Peter’s this time instead of their parents. But Peter surprised her. After she spoke, he stared right into her eyes.

“I knew you’d be upset.”

“Something else you’ve figured out,” Ash said. She was tempted to turn back around. Dig once more into her book.

This was it—the last great oddity of her little brother she couldn’t stand. He could get all big, so calmly use words no kid should ever know, but when he also acted as if her every thought had been planned out and edited in his mind, it made her fill with such rage. He never smiled when it seemed as if he’d been spending his days memorizing the many twists and turns of their upcoming conversations. He only talked dry, speaking slowly too, as if he had a long script he would never deviate from.

Ash could ignore him—dig right back into something she already knew she wouldn’t be able to read—but that probably wouldn’t be a surprise to how Peter had seen this unfolding. Besides, that would also allow her to rehear her parents with a clarity that had been missing since he’d been talking.

“You saw I have a problem with you, how?”

Peter sighed again. “The closer I’ve gotten to the grade you’re in, the more anxious you’ve become. You don’t hide it well.”

“I don’t.”

“Nope, I…you’re my sister. I see it because…well, I watch you more than anyone. I see how scared of change you are.”

Ash wasn’t sure if she should be touched or bothered. “You watch me…a lot?”

“Every day,” Peter said. “And I know you’re worried that if I’m in a class with you, it will be a change too great, something that will make us both too unique and you won’t have a chance to gather your courage slowly, and out of sight, until you’re ready to be brave.”

There it was, spelled perfect—an exact summation of what she’d been thinking ever since she’d learned that Peter would be in ninth grade with her. He hadn’t taken the test yet, but he would, and he would succeed—that was a given. All her worries were as he’d described. It was like he was reading her every thought.

“I don’t care if you’re there,” Ash said. She hoped to at least look more convincing than she sounded.

“Don’t lie.”

“All right, I care, but I’ll get over it. Does that make you happy?”

“A bit, but you need to ask me again why I’m doing this. I know you want to, so go ahead. Ask why I’m taking yet another test and skipping yet another grade.”

It was true; she did need to ask that again. It was such a part of her worries that saying it once would never be enough.

“So, why?”

“Because I know I can succeed,” Peter said. “I’ve gone way past what ninth graders learn. In my readings in the library, and at home, I think I might even be past what they learn in all of high school—this test will be a breeze.”

“Then why don’t you go on until you’re either finished with everything or you reach a point where you can’t go any further?”

“Because I’m scared,” Peter said. His voice was such a thin and wavy whisper. “I’m scared if I go too far, I’ll get lost. I’m like you…I don’t want too much and…I can go somewhere a bit new, but I don’t want to ever find myself in some strange place where I don’t know a thing and I don’t have you and mom and dad to back me up.”

“You’re not afraid,” Ash had to make him stop. He may have been her little brother, and she may have enjoyed any kind of protection he thought she could bring—just hearing him say he expected her to back him up gave her a warm thrill—but that didn’t mean she liked to see him so bare. “You’re never afraid.”

“Yes, I am. I fear the same things as you, don’t you see?”

This was the first part of Peter’s discussion she absolutely couldn’t follow. Ash had always been so sure he could never have the same fears as her.

“I don’t understand?”

“But you have to understand,” Peter said. His frustration and annoyance etched deep into his voice. “Everything else…Emily…that…if you don’t understand her, that’s okay, but we’re both scared, and I don’t want us to be scared anymore.”

“Peter,” Ash said. Though she had truly thought it would make her way too sad, she’d already lied that night. It hadn’t even hurt—just a few quick dips into a few untruths—but this was going to be the worst. Her voice would be low, her face unmoving, this lie would be so strong it might shatter her. “I’m not scared.”

“But you are,” Peter said. He was caught off guard. Ash couldn’t believe she’d been able to deviate from that script of his. “You couldn’t speak. You thought Emily would hurt you even with Coach Littleton nearby. But she wouldn’t have been able to retaliate because the truth would have embarrassed her so much she would have never bothered you again. I know you’re scared.”

“You don’t know a thing,” Ash said. She finally whipped back around—opened her book and found the page she’d been on. “You don’t know what I am, and you can just take my word for it. I’m fine. I’m not scared of anything.”

“Then let’s talk about the people who were at the lake.”

Ash flinched. Through sheer will alone, she’d finally gotten to a point where all those green cloaks weren’t flooding back into her head with every other thought. Sure, it had been an accomplishment achieved only over the last hour or so but, still, it had been there until Peter ruined everything.

Ash whirled again. It was kind of fun, her chair catching the wind and making her room blur. Maybe she could just do this, swing one way then, instantly, swing another. It felt so much better than talking.

But Ash knew she had some choice words she needed to speak. If she didn’t, they might attack her instead of reaching out to do that to Peter.

Ash slammed her book in righteous fury as her chair came to a stop. “I have Emily, my one fear,” she snarled. “You got me! I was scared she would hurt me no matter who was around! You’ve observed me! You know me better than I know myself! I fear Emily Baker, happy!”

Peter didn’t reply. Ash glared so heavy at him he could do nothing except return her gaze. Let him look, she didn’t care, yet his lack of a response allowed them both to realize their house was quiet. Just when had their parents’ argument ended?

“You think they’re okay,” Ash finally asked.

“Emily,” Peter said. He jumped off her bed and headed towards the door to her room.

“I said do you think mom and dad are—”

“I heard you,” Peter said, “but I’m going to say this again. Emily fears adults—you could have told on her. With Coach Littleton nearby, you could have done anything, and she would’ve never laid a finger on you.”

“Well, great,” Ash said, “wish I’d known that.”

Peter shook his head. “I think you did know. I think you like to watch too. We both study people, and you—if you say you have Coach Littleton down pat, then you know why Emily acts as she does. But you’re afraid, and that’s—”

“I’m not afraid.”

Peter moved out of her doorway and up against a near wall. He slid back into her room, as if he was trying to get out of someone’s way.

“Yes,” he said, “you are. In fact, I think you’re so afraid you won’t go to school on Monday. You’ll find a reason to stay home so you won’t have to face Emily.”

Ash began to offer a retort, a fast and heated denial that would place a few more attacking words back out into the room. But before she could say a thing, her mother appeared. Red faced, her eyes puffy and swollen, as if she’d been crying, her mother sauntered right on in and paused in front of Ash before she looked back at Peter.

“I’m going to take the job.” She tried to sound happy, but the way her voice cracked and the way she stopped to gather herself, it caused her bravado to falter. “Your father has left for the night, he decided he needed to go on a drive to clear his thoughts, but the issue has been settled. I’m going, I have to, and if either one of you would like to help me pack, I would appreciate it. It will be an all-weekend-long thing; starting tomorrow and maybe bleeding over into Monday, so you would have to stay at home rather than go to school. But you both don’t have any work to make up so it should be okay. Do I have any takers?”

Her mother was going to go. Her father was going to stay. The division between her parents was getting greater and greater, and Ash could only feel such sadness as it coiled around her heart and sunk fangs into her mind. Her world had been set free; a random hunk of rock spinning into the unknown of a way-too-bleak universe. She didn’t know how to react.

Her mother kept her eyes on Peter to judge his reaction first. He seemed only slightly bothered—offering nothing more than a shake of his head as he adjusted to something he may have once read in that script of his, yet something he most likely had hoped would never come about. However, his moment of pause did give Ash all the time she needed. She put on a fake smile. As Peter shook his head one last time, Ash accepted every fang that was making her feel so sad.

“Sorry, Mom,” Peter said, “my test is Monday, I’ll help over the weekend, but I have to go.”

Nodding a reluctant yet understanding okay, her mother whirled. It was impressive. So much better than anything Ash could do in her chair.

She caught Ash’s phony bit of happy. Peter, too, stared her way as Ash saw her chance to prove him wrong; to prove it to herself as well. One day, she would be brave. She wouldn’t always be a girl ruled by worries and doubt.

“I’ll help during the weekend,” Ash said. In the end, it was what she wanted. “And I’m more than happy to stay on Monday too.”

*Chapter Nine*

However, on Monday, there wasn’t anything left to do. Ash spent Saturday and Sunday labeling box after box with a black magic marker, putting down onto the sides of some cardboard such phrases as “Mom’s Clothes” or “Mom’s Dishes” until her hands cramped and she was nauseated by the fumes.

It depressed her to no end how her parents kept escalating their disagreement. That was the way Ash liked to think of it—a disagreement or maybe a tiny misunderstanding. She and Peter could hate each other. They could get angry and fight and fight and hold on to that anger for days, but not her folks. Surely her mother and father would soon hug and forgive; say this whole thing had been a silly mistake.

But stuff just kept getting worse. First, her mother was only going to bring a few things, a couple clothes, a random comb or two, maybe three or four dishes from that glass and wood cabinet in the dining room. Ash probably would have been done in a day. And with Peter also helping, her mother’s assertion that this was going to take all weekend bordered on the ridiculous. They would wrap things up in an hour.

Yet then her father ruined everything. He saw the few items Ash was packing and said her mother should just take it all. He put his foot down; started yelling that since he was never going to move why not. He began to throw so many extra things into so many extra boxes that soon it wasn’t only a few more items her mother was taking, half the house was going with her.

It was kind of shocking, how so much Ash had once thought of as shared was separate. Once her mother agreed with her father’s demands—once they both began to look over every square inch to divide his from hers—it became all too clear. The China dishes from that glass and wood cabinet in the dining room were her mother’s alone, and many books from the shelves in the den were not for all to enjoy but were instead meant to stay and couldn’t be touched.

The mere act of packing soon became an arduous journey Ash wished she’d never volunteered for. But nothing compared to watching her father as he slowly began to react to the sight. He may have started it, but when everything became all too real, he froze in shock. Standing outside of rooms—or shuffling about in hallways—he looked in on each of them yet refused to talk.

And anytime anyone attempted to broach the subject—if, maybe, they asked if he would change his mind about sealing everything up tight—he merely turned and left. It was heartbreaking, at least for Ash it was, and she couldn’t help but to work faster and faster until her hands didn’t cramp anymore. Instead, they only screamed for her to stop.

Ash worked so hard that all the extra stuff she’d been given soon disappeared as fast as the original stuff had. She took a few breaks—was the one who went to her father to ask if maybe he wanted to empty some of those boxes he’d made—but nothing helped. Her work still went by in a hurry, and only once—when Peter came over to tell her to stop—did she ever slow down again.

Peter whispered that talking to their father was a lost cause, that it was obvious no item was ever coming out of any box, and she shouldn’t waste her time. But that was it. The final thing she couldn’t ignore.

He wasn’t a doctor yet—some grand therapist who had perfect insight into them all. Peter was her little brother, and even if he was a genius that didn’t mean he couldn’t be wrong.

“Shut up! Shut your stupid mouth!”

“What,” Peter said. Once more, she’d surprised him. She was starting to enjoy doing that. “When you talk to…I don’t want you to get your hopes—”

“You’re an idiot!”

Forget not wanting to argue with him, arguing with Peter was something she understood. She should have been doing it constantly, with no regrets.

A rising anger began to burn away any leftover sadness and all its fangs that may have remained along the corners of her heart. Ash felt so upset—yet giddy—she almost wanted to thank Peter for how he was making her feel. But, instead, she just kept yelling until her mother told her to be quiet and brought Peter to her side.

Ash was alone, but she didn’t care. Being alone meant she didn’t have to be bothered by her father or listen to her brother or even watch her mother who had become a robot, working almost as fast as she was. Ash could pack and pack until, by Monday, it wasn’t at all necessary—she and her mother had gotten every box ready long ago—but she decided to stay at home anyway. Ash stood by her dining room window and waved goodbye as her mother took Peter off to school. She even tried not to be too angry when Peter looked up, saw her wave, and refused to respond.

“You’re still stupid!” It felt beyond good to keep yelling. After so much time off, her father had at last gone back to work—Ash remained alone. For as long as she wanted, she could say whatever in perfect privacy. “Idiot!”

“Thought I told you to love and not hate,” a voice said from her kitchen.

A scream died in Ash’s throat. She knew that voice. But it couldn’t be who she thought it was.

“Poppa Henry,” she asked.

She looked over every inch of her dining room. She even walked around the table behind her, and peeked beneath it too, before twisting a little towards the living room. She wanted to go anywhere else to delay a visit to where she knew she had to go.

“I’m in here, you know I’m here,” the voice said. Again, it came from the kitchen though Ash caught a vague movement—a kind of blurry reflection—in the doors of the now mostly empty glass and wood cabinet in her dining room. “I can see where you’re standing, but if you’ll come in here, you’ll be able to see me better.”

Ash made sure to say her next few words very carefully. “Poppa Henry, you can’t be talking to me.” She hoped that by uttering that aloud, everything might make a bit more sense. “You’re dead.”

“Don’t I know it,” Poppa Henry, or just his voice, said. The movement in the glass and wood cabinet came back. “Yet here I am.”

He was. Ash walked towards the cabinet doors until her nose almost touched them. After a few minutes, the movement there did begin to take on a more defined shape. It was the outline of a man, a reflection—still kind of blurry—of her grandfather as he’d looked the last time he’d been seen.

Except that wasn’t correct. Like what she’d spotted a few days ago in the mirror in her room, this reflection was better than when her Poppa Henry had been alive. His clothes were the same, but from what she could make out, he wasn’t pale and weak. He looked as healthy as she had always thought him to be.

“I’m here, I really am,” Poppa Henry said. His voice no longer sounded as if it came from the small desk in her kitchen, the one that held that tiny blue plastic mirror and the dark red cell. His voice was now in the glass and wood cabinet. It was coming from the reflection. “I may be dead, but I’m also here.”

*Chapter Ten*

This time the scream inside her throat didn’t die. It echoed about the empty house, and when she had no more breath to give it strength, Ash ran. She took off for her room.

“Well,” Poppa Henry said as soon as she’d closed her door and had leapt for her bed, “that wasn’t nice.”

It was an old childhood trick: diving for her soft mattress and her silk pink covers in an attempt to keep out whatever lay nearby. Ash had done that a lot when she’d been five and had been convinced that the inky black beyond her room had been full of monsters—large ones with wide eyes just like the Errun that inhabited the more wicked aspects of Penthya.

Back then, if she had to go to the bathroom, she would gather her courage—somehow, being so young had helped, now such feats almost always failed her. She would make a mad dash—flee with eyes half shut in terror—and would turn on the security of strong white lights before she would have to brave a return.

Ash would escape the bathroom only to run and leap back for her bed, all five-years-old with a tiny heart beating hard with the certainty that a hand or a claw would come out from beneath something, or from behind a corner, to drag her into the unknown. She would wring her covers around her the instant she made it to her room and, once, long ago, she’d even been able to get under pink silk rather quickly. But at thirteen, such talents were gone. She’d barely touched her sheets when she heard her Poppa Henry’s voice.

Ash turned and saw him, a reflection of him, in her freestanding mirror. “You can’t be here,” she said. She stayed still. She tried not to even breathe.

“I know, I know,” Poppa Henry said. “I shouldn’t be here, and I shouldn’t have been in that cabinet down in the dining room or in that small mirror in the kitchen. I even know I shouldn’t have run across the surface of that lake to chase away those annoying Light Benders, yet I did, I did all that, and now I’m here. In fact, I can be more here than you realize.”

Ash moved. She needed to look at her grandfather more closely.

Everything he was talking about was stuff she kept wanting to forget, yet he was there—somehow alive right in her mirror—and maybe that was why she couldn’t help but to remember. The skittering image on the water, the blur of color, that day, there had been a wonder; the outline of the trees, the subtle hue of the sky, those she had made out with ease yet the sudden streak had eluded her. Yet her Poppa Henry’s explanation, while fantastic, did make a bit of sense. Maybe what was happening to her wasn’t so weird after all.

But all of that wasn’t the main reason why Ash moved. The main reason was what her grandfather was up to. He’d put a hand up onto her mirror. The image of him on the other side was even beginning to push as the glass started to bulge and ripple. Ash watched on with such interest—what was happening—yet every now and again she had to also casually sneak a peek outside.

She was at the end of her bed and could easily turn her head to the hall beyond. It was such a quick way to confirm that no one was there—no grandfather lookalike who was creating this reflection—yet the image of her Poppa Henry still filled her mirror as his hand kept pushing and pushing until it broke free.

Most of Poppa Henry’s’ arm dangled in the air. His fingers wiggled and waved in a broad circle as Ash stopped trying to search for anyone, or anything, that could have been making the image of her dead grandfather appear.

Inside the glass, he still looked like his old self. His hair was back to its usual full iron gray, and Ash saw that she’d been right. Though his reflection had been blurry in the cabinet, it was clear now. He truly was wearing the same blue jeans, green sweater, and brown trench coat she’d seen on him the last day he’d been alive. In the streak-free mirror, she could even take in how the dark brown of his jacket covered almost every bit of his arms.

But what was now shoving its way into her room looked nothing like his reflection. That arm was all glass, a shiny and clear thing with wiggling fingers and a wrist that reflected bits of her face and eyes when it should have been encircled by something made of leather.

Ash kept watching. She stayed at the end of her bed as everything else, all sounds from the house, faded. She could see other parts of her room reflected in the arm her Poppa Henry was shoving her way. Her floor was in his fingertips, her ceiling danced near the upper parts of his elbow, and at his palm, she caught a good portion of the desk that sat across from her. Somehow, Poppa Henry had made her mirror come alive. No, that wasn’t it. He’d made himself alive in her mirror.

Poppa Henry smiled. “See, I can be there, right next to you, if you want.”

Ash hugged the wall behind her. “You’re going to come get me?”

Poppa Henry immediately yanked his arm back onto his side of the mirror, his smile also disappearing. “My Little Ash,” he said. “I’m not…oh, honey…I’m not going to hurt you. It’s the Seal. My illness weakened the Seal, and my death must have broken it complete. They’re coming. They weren’t sure before. I think when I was sick, they traveled to check out what was happening. They were content to watch, but my chasing them at the lake probably confirmed it.

“If I remember correctly, Light Bender protocol has to have sent them back into Penthya. They will tell the Common Court—maybe even the Council of Elves—I’m truly gone, but after they give the news, they’ll grab another beam and make a return. I need to talk to your father. Where is he? Where is Steven?”

It was the familiarity of his “Little Ash” that calmed her. The mentioning of Penthya helped. Ash couldn’t deny that whenever she heard that word, a thrill built up inside that abolished all fear, but, really, it was “Little Ash” that made her believe.

It was him. Her Poppa Henry had returned through a looking glass, and Ash slowly peeled herself off her wall so she could approach him. She didn’t go all the way, just close enough to get an even better look at the reflection on the other side.

“You came back, how?”

“Magic, woeful magic I never should have tried,” Poppa Henry said. “I really thought I had to split myself so I could return, but, instead, I only let them in. I was so stupid.”

“What are you talking about?”

There was a noise. Ash heard a vague popping, like the crack of a whip yet subtler, as if it had come from miles away even though—for a second—it had also seemed quite close. She wanted to catch everything her Poppa Henry was saying, but she had to turn.

Ash cocked her head slightly. There was more noise; a moving about downstairs. Was someone there?

“What’s wrong?” Poppa Henry asked.

“Thought I heard something,” Ash said. The noise below was gone. It had been nothing. “Didn’t you hear?”

“I can hear you,” Poppa Henry said, “but only because you’re nearby. Down the hallway and on the floor below, on my side of the glass, anything said from way over there would never reach me unless it was loud. And if that happened, things would be bad, very bad.”

“How bad?”

“Pretty much Pride Syndon bad,” Poppa Henry began to say, but then he paused. “What’s wrong?”

Ash had again turned her head, but this time, instead of vague sounds, it was something heavy and close and moving up the stairs. “I hear,” Ash said. Her heart raced as she looked back at her mirror. “Poppa Henry, someone’s here!”

Her grandfather shook his head. “Quick…they’re too quick!”

The footsteps were almost at the top of the stairs as Ash forgot the last bits of fear she’d had over her Poppa Henry being back. She edged closer to his reflection. There were voices now, vague ones, becoming more distinct as the footsteps reached the second floor. In a minute—maybe less—whoever was in her house would be there, just a few feet away with only a corner, a slight one, which they would have to turn if they wanted to get to her.

“Who is it,” Ash asked in a low whisper.

“I tell you, Casten,” something growled—or barked, it did sound like that more than anything else—as a good group of footsteps, what had to be quite a few other people, rushed to join whoever was at the top of the stairs. “She’s here.”

“And while I don’t doubt you,” another voice, this one from someone who had to be that Casten person, said, “I need to know where.”

It was a thick voice, pleasant too, something more human in tone than the one who’d spoken before. But it had something, some melody or tune, which made it unique in a way Ash could not describe. Casten was a guy, Ash would swear to that. She had no clue who the other person could be, but Casten was certainly a male, a strange one who sounded more real, more substantial, and there, than any male she’d ever been around.

“Arathus, I don’t need her to panic,” that Casten continued. “We should have materialized right next to her, but the light we chose led us to nothing. She could have heard us. She could be running out of this house or going to get a weapon. We want her in Penthya alive and well, not harmed or dead, so tell me where she is so I can get her.”

Ash closed her eyes to calm the world. How could this Casten person know about Penthya? From her mirror, Poppa Henry had already talked about that special land, but whenever he said anything about Penthya it was no big deal. He did that all the time. Even him being back from the dead didn’t compare with such a revelation.

Ash opened her eyes and stared at her grandfather. The hallway and the people on the stairs were forgotten as she faced him with a thousand questions burning through her mind. But Poppa Henry had a finger at his lips and a look of dread upon him. All her questions drifted away.

“We don’t have the time,” Poppa Henry said, “but I promise I will explain.” He dropped his finger to his side. “What I need for you now is to be brave, my Little Ash. Can you do that for me?”

“Poppa,” Ash began to say. The two voices were still talking, their conversation much louder than hers, yet she was sure they had to be hearing everything.

“Not now,” Poppa Henry said, “just give me a yes or no. This will only work if you can be brave and fast, faster than you have ever been before, can you do that?”

“I…yes, I think I…I mean—”

“That will do,” Poppa Henry said. He cut her off with a wink. “Now, what I need for you to do is to hide behind your bedroom door. Get next to the wall, and when those Light Benders turn the corner and look this way, they will see me and not you. Can you do that?”

“Light Benders, but they can’t be real, can they?”

“Just make sure you do what I say. Can you?”

“I,” Ash said. She had so many decisions to make—be brave, listen to her grandfather—and she didn’t know what to do. But she thought, at the very least, she could run. “I can be fast.”

“Good, because when they see me, and they will see me, I want you to let them attack me, and then you run into the kitchen and you go get that small mirror your mom always has on that desk there, the one I gave to her at her wedding. Get it and wait for me in the dining room.”

“But shouldn’t I get the red cell phone instead?”

“No,” Poppa Henry said. It was a stern rebuke. It made Ash wish she hadn’t asked a thing. “The mirror is what’s important! Just get it and wait in the dining room!”

Ash nodded. Her grandfather’s plan was the only direction she could take. “I’ll do it.”

Poppa Henry shooed her to the backside of her bedroom door. “Good, and Little Ash—”

“What,” Ash said. She was already at the wall—pressed up tight against it.

“In the dining room,” Poppa Henry said. The voices were wrapping up. Ash could hear them getting more and more quiet as she motioned for her grandfather to hurry. “Wherever you see me, you need to run to me okay.”

“What?”

“Just run to me,” Poppa Henry said. He was coming closer and closer to his side of her mirror, pushing his whole body right on through it as all the glass he was behind began to pulse and ripple just like it had rippled before. “You just run. I’ll catch you.”

*Chapter Eleven*

“I smell her,” the growl—what had to be that Arathus person—said. Long sniffs filled the air too, and more footsteps walked up the last of the stairs. “She’s here.”

“And I need to know where,” Casten said as Ash pressed herself harder and harder against the wall behind her open door. “Tell me precisely.”

Instead of an answer, one last growl echoed about her house. It was quickly added with a snarl more hate filled than any Ash had ever heard. Some animal was about to enter her room and it was really, really, mad.

“Traitor,” that snarl suddenly roared as a large white wolf flew passed her bedroom door before heading straight for her mirror.

Suddenly, everything made sense. The sound of many feet, and the growling, had been a dog. The same furry white one Ash had seen outside of the emergency exit back at her school. Arathus was a talking dog.

Ash swallowed hard and tried her best to absorb that fact. A dog was in her house, and it could talk, and all she could do was put that bit of truth into a folder she decided to create in her mind. One labeled only as: “This is way too much to bother with now.”

Someone else flew past her bedroom door. It was the same man she’d also seen from that emergency exit.

He was still tall and thin. He even still had on a green cloak, but now there was no cowl over his head. Without it, Ash could see his long blond hair and the radiant gleam of his sharp and angular face—a gleam that was as if some inner light flowed out of his pores to cover him with an unearthly glow.

She caught the pointed tips of his ears too before realizing that this man, the one that had to be Casten, also had a silver sword held high above his head. He was going to attack her grandfather and…yet…wait…the more Ash stared, the more she was sure he wasn’t a man at all. It just hit her. She’d heard too many stories from her grandfather. Too many tales about too many magical creatures for her not to make this leap as all worry about an attack got pushed to the side for the briefest of seconds. This was an Elf, not a man. He had to be.

Ash quickly added that revelation to her new, “Way too much to bother with now,” folder as she just kept on watching. The Elf, that Casten, sped his way towards her grandfather with the dog, that Arathus, already a lunge or two ahead. They both were after the glass that her Poppa Henry was inside of. He was trying to escape from her mirror after all, yet even with only his lower half being all that was already free—both of his now glass feet already a step into her room—that seemed to be more than enough for him to be able to defend himself.

Arathus bit down on a glass ankle, yet immediately howled a second later and let go—two sharp teeth dropping to the ground—just as Poppa Henry responded. Being back from the dead, making the mirror in her room ripple—this day had already been filled with moments where he’d proven how amazing he was, but now her grandfather must have decided to reveal the best. He wasn’t just able to defend himself, he was able to do that really, really, well.

His feet hit Arathus and flicked that dog into the air. Aiming perfect, he precisely directed that beast up and back, the top portion of what he hadn’t yet escaped from taking the full force of Arathus’ assault. What better way to get free of all that glass and wood then to cause an enormous crash, some eruption of sound and pain as everything broke into splinters and her Poppa Henry—though gaining a few cracks as well—was instantly upright and mobile in her bedroom.

At least, that was what Ash thought. There was no way her Poppa Henry had done all that by mistake as now he was…well, Ash couldn’t define it. He was just there, in her room. Her grandfather was suddenly this moving thing, a breathing object that reflected everything around as it dared anything else to fight it.

“Such magic,” Casten said. His voice was without any anger though there was a moment of fury in his eyes. He lowered his sword. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Sooner or later, someone as evil as you always returns to the dark.”

“Had to make it,” the form that was Poppa Henry said. Vague glass eyes stared right at Casten as Arathus got back up. “I thought I could come back if I did.”

Casten slowly shook his head. “But making a Reflection takes a life.”

“He’s used to that,” Arathus growled before sniffing the air. “Who have you slaughtered?”

“Is the Seal broken,” Poppa Henry asked. “Is that how you got in?”

Casten shook his head again. Was that his default setting for confusion?

“As if you don’t know,” he said, “the Seal is weakened. It hasn’t been rendered fully useless yet, but enough has fallen to allow us entrance.”

Poppa Henry nodded. “And you saw my ashes, right?”

“We followed their scent.” Arathus took in a few more sniffs. It was as if that dog was finally remembering that, just a few minutes ago, something else had been around. “I got the confirmation we needed which told us we had your son and his children. After four centuries, maybe they will be enough for Trial. Maybe they can set the Silver Throne back to proper condition.”

“Four hundred,” Poppa Henry said. “But that means every doorway has been shut—all the connections severed—how?”

He’d been eyeing the Elf with the sword and the dog edging ever closer. Yet with his glass hands he’d also been trying to subtly motion for Ash to hurry up and leave since she’d been too scared to move all that fast. So far, she’d only slid an inch or two out from behind her open door. She was almost there, her right hand feeling the edge she needed, the salvation beyond, but she had to have a few seconds more.

“Tell me how the Silver Throne got damaged,” Poppa Henry continued. “Some access to Cathedral was weakened, I know that, but if the Silver Throne—that means the Way of Unkindness is out of Penthyan control. How was the throne damaged?”

“You have to know,” Casten said. And there went his head—a timed sway of disbelief. “One of Bad Blood, a murderer, can’t sit on the Silver Throne while the Good Blood of a former king still pumps in someone else’s veins. Such a thing means the traitor would never be able to wield enough of the Black to control the chair. You killed King Denthro and slaughtered his son and your own wife before surviving the Silver Throne’s assault on your wickedness and fleeing with your children. We’ve thanked the Father it wasn’t in you to murder Steven or Sara, but such mercy has only allowed us to find you. Dead or alive, we have found you, and if it is your Reflection I drag back to Penthya, so be it. You and your Blood Kin must atone.”

Arathus snarled, but then—so suddenly—turned. “I still smell you,” was barked at Ash as fur leapt into the air.

But staring at an angry dog—and watching as it talked only to her—did what nothing else seemed able to do. It got Ash to move.

She whipped around her open bedroom door and flew for the stairs, glad—for the first time in her life—that she had never found it in herself to stand up to her mother. Her brown and red streaked hair was as her mother liked it—short and off her neck—and though her speed did cause some errant locks to twist and dance about, nothing could be grabbed as Arathus snapped at empty air.

Ash ran on, and looked just once over her shoulder to see why a huge white wolf hadn’t countered that defeat. It was her Poppa Henry. Somehow, he’d gotten to Arathus. Ash, again, was impressed by his abilities—how he held that dog by one arm while with his other he fended off blows from Casten’s sword.

That blade looked beyond strong—it was oddly marked with streaks of darkest black along its length, yet tiny slivers of glass were already littering her bedroom floor to prove its might. Ash had no clue how he was doing it, but her grandfather was surviving. He caused that odd blade to skim across his reflection rather than strike head on, and that was even more proof. Flicking Arathus up and back, using only his feet, truly had been her grandfather just showing off his perfect skill.

Yet Ash couldn’t spend much time thinking about that. She launched herself down the stairs, sometimes skipping two or three to reach the bottom even quicker.

But then she hit the first floor and slipped, her body protected due only to how she had prepared that morning. Mostly she’d put on good clothes, thick blue jeans for the possibility of some last bits of work that she and her mother may have forgotten, and a long-sleeved red shirt with a white undershirt beneath, in case a final trip into the dusty attic was called for as well. But her shoes, a pair of old sneakers worn for drudgery and dirty labor, weren’t up to snuff. They barely had any tread left, and when she reached the oak at the end of the stairs, the one main spot her mother loved to keep swept clean, she fell.

“Get the girl,” Casten said from somewhere above. Ash got to her feet, her ribs and side protesting loudly. Nothing was broken, but she knew a good bruise, something dark and purple, would be there the next morning—if she made it to next morning. “I have Henry.”

“Good, just don’t let that traitor get to any window,” Arathus said. It was a sharp and fierce growl that quickly rose above a heavy clatter of paws.

Ash should have known. No matter how awesome her grandfather was proving to be, two on one would never lead to victory.

She avoided the easy route, the straight shot into the kitchen through the living room and dining room. Ash went for a hallway just around a corner to her right. There were too many rooms on the first floor of her house with no doors to them. Arathus was already at the top of the stairwell. Ash knew she would never reach that blue mirror if she chose any other way.

“I won’t let him…no!” Casten yelled. It was the first hint that he might have some hidden energy kept tucked within. He sounded angry and scared, but Ash didn’t care why he would be upset. She bolted, the stairs receding behind her as the kitchen, and the desk it held that was right beside that doorless doorway into the dining room, loomed so very close.

Scattered glass, a sick rainfall of pieces of a window, maybe even her Poppa Henry, fell somewhere along the floor above. Ash didn’t know what she was hearing, she didn’t know if it meant that Poppa Henry was gone—or if something worse had occurred—but she couldn’t stop and listen. She took hold of the blue-rimmed mirror as Arathus whipped around that corner behind her.

The dog wasn’t as quick as Ash had expected—or maybe the clean and dust free bottom of the stairs had struck again—but it was quick enough. Ash jumped inside the dining room; the blue mirror clutched to her chest. She knew there was no time to do as her Poppa Henry had asked. She couldn’t stand and wait, her feet understanding the logic of that immediately. They refused to stop moving.

Ash ran to the other side of her family’s one huge dining room table as she tried to find her grandfather. But only a nearby window—and the mostly empty glass and wood cabinet behind her—was around to say hello.

“Traitor,” Arathus said. Fur and teeth flew onto the table as Ash turned towards an open maw of blood and sharpness.

There was something. It was another reflection, another bit of blurred color in the mostly empty glass and wood cabinet. Poppa Henry was on the other side of Arathus. Ash saw him out of the corner of her eye whenever she wasn’t also staring in utter terror at a dog sliding her way. She half expected her grandfather to come and stage a rescue like he’d done in her bedroom.

Everything went slow as Ash was able to see both her grandfather and that white wolf in exquisite detail. Arathus was all menace and terrible fangs, while the reflection of her Poppa Henry was one in which he had his arms splayed wide in a posture Ash truly thought meant he was about to rush over and help.

“I’m not coming to you, you need to come to me,” the small blue mirror she held said, or at least Ash thought she heard it speak, as Arathus closed the last few feet.

Ash ducked, and Arathus flew off the table. For a second time that day, that dog caused another explosion of glass and wood as it crashed into that nearby window. It fell hard out onto the yard beyond.

“Jump into the cabinet, I’ll catch you,” the blue mirror said again. Ash looked down and saw the shape of her grandfather’s face in the small pane she held. “Arathus is a Light Bender, one of the few Talking Animals able to do such magic. She has strength which will get her back inside in a few seconds. Go to the cabinet and…and this will be hard, but you must do it, my Little Ash, you must jump right for it!”

“But—” Ash said. Arathus was a she? Did that make her more terrifying or less? “I can’t!”

“Yes, you can. Do it, my Little Ash, do it now!”

Instead of her name or seeing a dog talk, it was a snarl and the appearance of Casten at the other end of the living room which got Ash to move. But it wasn’t towards her grandfather or any glass and wood cabinet. Ash only moved straight into more terror as she suddenly knew Casten wouldn’t go for the route she and Arathus had taken. He would head for a much easier path and block her chance for an escape through the front door while Arathus—who was already back on her feet—made trying for anything else virtually impossible.

This was horrible, something so beyond normal that Ash’s, “Way too much,” folder fell apart and caused her to further hesitate. For a heartbeat, she gained one last ounce of terror, and such a powerful doubt—what should I do—yet a sudden snapping at her back (what sounded like way too close, and way too sharp, teeth) finally made her run.

She fled straight for the cabinet, and her grandfather who’d promised he would catch her.