"You can't keep doing this, it's crazy!" Zoe urged. She'd watched over Cordelia as she performed descensum nearly a dozen times, and Queenie had done the same, but hell was person-specific and she'd never managed to breech into Misty's.
"I have to. I have to find her. She's trapped in hell-her hell."
"How are you going to get there if it's hers? You don't even know where she could be."
"I have to try. We're her only hope."
Classes, for the most part, had been dismissed. Queenie was finishing a lesson on the history of voodoo downstairs while Zoe and Cordelia worked upstairs. Misty's things, once packed in a box at the back of Delia's closet were now spread across her bed. That earthy smell of fresh soil lingered in each of Misty's gauzy shawls, mixed with the smell of leaves after rainfall. Ambrosial, she thought, but not the point.
"What are you going to do? Conjure her up? This isn't an episode of Charmed."
"I need quiet," Delia snapped, concentrating as her hands hovered over the objects. She reached out for a shawl, feeling its fibers between her fingers, the concentration pure. Somewhere she could hear Misty screaming faintly, the sound of her crying, begging someone. She closed her eyes and brought the shawl to her nose. "Where are you?"
Delia placed the shawl aside, grazing over other items with care. And finally something seemed to click.
She was walking down a long hallway lined with lockers, the word "school" registering in her mind, although the only schools she had ever seen had been on television. It was dark and she felt sick to her stomach as she continued on. She wasn't sorry in the least that this had never been her experience. Somewhere up ahead she could hear a scream, followed by sobs. Delia ran down the corridor. "One more time. Come on. Where are you?"
She didn't have to wait long. Up ahead to her right was a class room, she peered in through the window and watched with horror.
"If you won't dissect a dead frog, then you'll dissect a live one!" The teacher forced Misty's hand down. She dropped something and with shaking hands revived the creature again. She looked pale and sickly. Broken.
Cordelia pounded on the door but it didn't make a difference.
She snapped back to reality where Zoe was shaking her. "What did you see? Did you find her?"
"Yes I found her," Delia replied, her voice trembling. "There's no more time to waste. I have to go to her. Tonight. Send Queenie up immediately, I'm going to need her help."
"I'm not so sure this is a good idea," Zoe whispered.
"You didn't see her in there," Delia whispered, thinking about how Zoe had come back during the Seven Wonders, her personal hell so childlike and so...immature, to some extent. Zoe was blinded by good intentions, despite her unyielding power. She could envision the girl carrying on her torch one day, but she had yet a long way to go. "I have to go to her and I'm not waiting anymore."