The cloud of phantoms all stood only inches away from the red paint of Jeep. Kevin's hands were locked on the steering wheel, his eyes darting frantically around. Andrea still huddled in the seat, next to him. Her mind frantically sifted through the bits and pieces of psychic lore she knew. She was bitterly aware that a lot of what she knew had likely been picked up out of TV shows and movies. She had hung out with friends of the Wiccan faith, but hadn't really joined the local coven. Andrea knew how to clear her mind and meditate. She had experimented with astral projection, and had some interesting results. But she knew if she left her body now, it would be a one way trip, with her likely joining the ghosts trapping them. Besides, what about Kevin? Little as she liked him, in this place, he was her responsibility. She also admired his dedication to Jane, far removed from his former Big Man on Campus mentality.
Kevin looked at Andrea uncertainly. Being held back at school, not being allowed to play football, and facing the contempt of the students he had always thought looked up to him, had shaken his former superiority complex to pieces. He had never been mean, just smug. But Jane, whom he had ignored, had become his friend. Jane was cool, and really smart. But even she respected Daria, and was risking her life for her. Andrea was a lot different then he had thought too. She was smart, and tough. Brittany had always been bossy, and sort of smart. Sort of like his own mother. In a rare flash of insight, Kevin suddenly knew that was why she hadn't liked him dating Brittany, because she had been reminded of her own marriage with his dad.
A weird idea came to Andrea. She had attended one ceremony, which had really impressed her. It was the only one she had helped with, and she did remember most of it. It was insanely desperate, but she felt the ghosts mere presence draining her body heat, and she had to do something. She whispered,
"Kevin?"
"What?"
"Give me your hand!"
The ghosts momentarily forgotten, he stared at her.
"Damn it, Kevin, take off your glove, and give me your hand! NOW!"
"Uh, Andrea? I know we're going to get killed, but do you really think we should be making out, now?"
The look of fury on Andrea's face at his remark shut him up, and he meekly removed his gloves. Andrea tore off her own, and grabbed Kevin's right hand, slashing the nail on her index finger across his palm. He yelped in pain, but said nothing as Andrea then slashed her left palm open. She grabbed Kevin's own bloody hand, the skin feeling clammy, the hot blood mixing, more sticky than wet. As they stared at each other, the icy plumes of their breath mingled, twisting together in the sub-freezing air. Fear left Kevin's face, and strangely, he smiled. Andrea stared back in disbelief, then, focusing more intently then she ever had before, began to chant in a cracked, hoarse, voice.
"Blood of man,
blood of woman,
blood feeds the fire,
the fire of the soul.
Souls twine together,
equal yet apart,
Blood feeds the fire,
the fire of the heart!"
As the last word left her lips, Andrea felt a rush of heat running into her from Kevin's hand, almost like liquid. Holding the palm of her right hand outward, she saw the specters recoil slightly, their hungry eyes widen in baffled anger. The Jeep suddenly became surrounded by a pale flickering flame, barely visible. Andrea felt the heat rushing out of their bodies. She gasped weakly.
"Kevin, get us out of here! No, jerk, don't let go of my hand!"
Clumsily, Kevin put the jeep into reverse, grinding the gears loudly. The ghosts behind them reluctantly moved aside. Andrea could feel her heart slowing, sharp aches shooting through her bones, and she knew Kevin was feeling the same thing. Their breathing became labored, painful, even as the jeep left the eye of the storm, being battered again by the strong winds. Kevin shifted gears, moving forward in a circle away from the Morgendorffer house. Andrea was shaken, staring blindly out at the snow as it flew past them. Her fear screamed inside her skull. She saw faces in every swirl, felt grasping hands in every gust of wind.
Kevin's teeth had bitten deeply into his lip. His eyes were wide, his driving almost mechanical. He felt so cold. His bones hurt, aching like an old mans. He didn't care about anything. He felt like something was draining out of him. His eyes dully went to his hand, where it clasped Andrea's. She slumped down, almost unconscious. He knew that if he didn't do something soon, they would both die, out here in the storm, and that wasn't right. Jane needed him. His parents needed him. Andrea had saved his life. He wasn't sure how, but she had. She had cast a spell or something, and chased away the ghosts. The ghosts!
Kevin's hand felt like it had been welded to Andrea's. She hadn't stopped what she had done, and it was draining them, killing them both. She had to turn it off!
"Andrea, we're safe! Stop it now!"
Andrea's eyes weakly flickered toward him. She mumbled something, but he didn't understand her.
"Andrea, you've got to turn it off!"
She pulled away from him with little strength, but their hands were still clasped tightly together. Her eyes widened, and she struggled harder, but still couldn't free herself. She grew frantic, seeing them both dead, victims of her misuse of Wiccan ritual magic. She felt like she and Kevin had been chained together, and were falling into a deep sea, with water all around them. Then the last stray bit of memory clicked into place.
"Flames once united,
will now stand apart,
hearts tied together,
beat loudly in the dark."
"Love now will save us,
love is the key,
the two are now joined,
together, forever, are we."
With the last gasped word, their hands separated with a sudden audible pop. Kevin stopped the jeep, and they both just sat there, gasping in pain. The cold seared through the canvas sides of the Jeep, and Kevin fumbled behind him. After a moment, his numb hand located the rounded surface of his thermos bottle, and he pulled it forward, clumsily unscrewing the plastic cap. It was a lot harder to unscrew the smaller top, and he spilled as much as he got into the cup, but he finally did it.
Looking over at Andrea, he saw blood running down her face, from where she had bitten into her lip in terror. It took both hands to tilt her head back, and pour some of his mom's coffee into her mouth. For a long minute, nothing happened, and he dully wondered if it was too late. Then, she made a grimace of distaste, but swallowed part of the vile brew. She felt a slight renewal of her strength, and looked at Kevin. He had slumped against the steering wheel facing her, his eyes closed.
Spotting the thermos, she carefully poured him a cup, wrinkling her nose att. the strong aroma. It took all the strength she had left, but she finally tilted him back, and poured some of the thickest, blackest coffee she had ever seen or smelled into his mouth. He gasped and choked, but swallowed it, a tinge of color coming back into his face. They both finished off the rest of the thermos, before Andrea said,
"Kevin? Do you have a First Aid kit, or something we can use to bandage our hands?"
Shaking his head, Kevin reached under Andrea's seat, pulling out the small plastic case. Popping it open, he tore open a package of wet wipes, and surprisingly careful, gently wiped first Andrea's, and then his own hand clean of blood, then smeared antiseptic cream on them. He finished by placing cotton pads on their palms, then wrapping gauze around them, finishing by using surgical tape from the small roll in the case. Stiffly, they helped each other put their gloves back on.
Andrea noticed as her strength came back that Kevin's eyes kept glancing at her face.
"Kevin? What's wrong? What are you looking at?"
"Um, ah, it's just that, um, I don't understand it. Andrea, your hair!"
Andrea tilted the rear view mirror toward her face. The silvery hair sprinkled through the formerly black strands told their own story. Kevin reached over, and looked at himself in the mirror. He had the same silver hairs. Very quietly, he asked,
"Andrea, what happened to us? Was it the magic?"
"Yes, Kevin. Nothing is ever free. I had to protect us, but that was the only thing I could do, and I had to use our lives to do it. I used you, Kevin, without your consent, I saved our lives, but I had to steal yours to do it."
"You used yours, too."
'That won't matter, Kevin. I had to break some really important rules to do it. It was for a good reason, but I still broke the rules. I'm not a witch, but by using their magic, I became bound by their laws. I did something else I'm going to have to pay for, too."
"The blood thing?"
"Yes, the blood thing, and the thing with the vows. I had to bind us togther to make the protection work, and there was only one way to do it that I could think of. I tied us together, Kevin, spiritually and psychically. That's how I was able to use your spiritual energy to make the shield work."
"Um, you mean . . . !"
"Yes, Kevin, I know I'm going to pay for doing this, but by the spiritual laws which govern all Wicca who follow the path of light, we are married. For eternity."
"Oh, MAN!"
"Yeah, that's how I feel about it, too."
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Stacy wiggled forward through the thick soil. Even using her steadily increasing strength, it was hard work, only centimeters at a time, scraping away the powdery dust after her icy breath stole the life in it. She had a harder time with gravel and rocks, unable to affect them, and she had to squirm around them. She grimly focused her mind on escape, trying not to think of the small lives she was forced to steal for her strength.
Her vision wavered, phantoms stealing through her mind, until sometimes she wasn't sure where she was, or what she was doing. A legacy of the Yuki-Onna? Was it an accident, or had her corruptor
tried to leave her a message? A message of what? Hope? Despair?
The mountain reared itself in her thought's again. Fuji-Yama. Goddess of Fire. The white capped volcano towered above the plain. The inhuman beauty of the Snow Woman filled Stacy's thoughts. Who was she? What had made her what she was? Tiffany had tried to tell her, but had only given her fragments of the story before becoming completely insane. The other one, her human husband, had tried to tell her, too, before he was abruptly silenced by the Wendigo. Fire and Ice. Stacy's lack of interest in her schoolwork frustrated her now. Who could she ask?
She screamed in her mounting anger, less a maggot crawling through the earth. The darkness seething around the rotting bones she burrowed toward tempted her with the remnants of the lives once there. Fragments of the lives lost by their deaths screamed and shouted at her. Men and women fought and lost, lived and loved, hated, stole and died.
Even with their horrifying deaths, pieces of life still clung to the bones. Life Stacy knew could give her strength, help her reach the surface, stop the monster Quinn had become. Stop the monster being born inside Sandi's mindless body, whatever it was. Stacy was siphoning all the energy around her, both life and death. The soil crumbled faster and faster. If anybody had been there to see it, Stacy's body was glowing darkly, almost like blacklight. Shifting patterns of energy slowly grew around her, clothing and cloaking her like robes. But they weren't of the fluctuating light which the Snow Woman wore, the life stolen from dying men and women. The blackened bones ahead of Stacy slowly crumbled before she even reached them. Stacy Rowe, age eighteen, was wreathed in patterns of darkest night.
And granite boulders now crumbled at her merest touch.
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Sandi's punishment had been swift. The soil around the tree of death had erupted, vast geysers of dirt and stones flying high into the air. Sandi's body had spun helplessly, her arms and legs motionless, her ruptured body inert. But she was far from unfeeling. She felt her dry skin crack and burn, her frozen guts swelling in the cold air. She accepted it all, as what she deserved. She was in Hell, wasn't she? Bad people, selfish people, who hurt their friends like she had, deserved to be punished like she was being punished.
The rope around her neck choked even her dead flesh. Her eyes frozen open, she sometimes saw the other people on the tree. They were all dressed like actors from a Thanksgiving play, pilgrims and Indians, animals and birds, all hanging by the neck. Men, women, and children. Children like Tricia Gupty. Sandi raged at the fact that she had let the little girl leave, even as she clung to the fact that she had warned her away, helped her to escape this horrible place.
No matter how she tried, Sandi couldn't escape from her mind into madness. Something outside of her kept her focused on the events that had led to this horrible place. Something seemed to beat at her mind, something from far off, far away, a mighty thing, a ... bird?
A crack of thunder came to her hearing, very faint, very dim. The wind blew fitfully, the dried bodies banging into it and each other, their dead eyes meeting hers, eyes that were filled with accusation and despair. Sandi wanted to scream, to moan, but even that release was denied her motionless form. Thunder pealed, much closer this time. A storm? Good! Maybe a lightning bolt would blast her, destroy her, scatter her to little tiny bits, where she could never hurt anybody ever again!
Thunder roared again, directly overhead, now. Lightning bolts slammed into the ground on either side of the tree. Sandi felt the raw energy sizzle the very air, causing more torment toward her dead flesh. Then, a screech louder than anything she had ever heard in either her life or death shook the world, crashing into her body. Something flew overhead, something massive. A glance from one huge eye tore into Sandi's numb spirit, sent it flying around the confines of her own skull. Anger boiled deep inside her, her passiveness shaken by the elemental fury she had just seen.
Flashes of the other girls, her friends, tore into her mind. Quinn, Stacy, Tiffany. Jane, struggling to save Daria. Her mother, crouching above a man with a shattered skull, eating his ... NO!
Sandi swung on the tree powerless, helpless. She raged in fury.
I gave you what you wanted, you cheated! You cheated me! Moms insane! She's a murderer! She'll never love me, she'll never love anybody again! Quinn, Stacy, Tiffany, my only friends are monsters! I'm hanging here while they suffer! Why, tell me why!
Sandi's eyes rolled in their sockets, staring straight at the dead sky. Visions tore into her mind. The other bodies hanging with her vanished, except for one. He was a massive man, with long white hair and a beard that flowed halfway down his chest, fluttering in the wind. The tree changed, too. It became living once again, green and strong, towering into the sky. Sandi saw worlds thrust deeply into the boughs and branches, into the deep roots, worlds of both beauty and horror.
Nine days I hung on the tree, a sacrifice, myself, to myself.
Sandi stared at the man hanging with her. He was as dead as she was, wasn't he? No, he wasn't real, he was from far in the past, a ghost even in this land of death and undeath. Wasn't he? Who was he, who had he been, long ago? Sacrifice? Why had he sacrificed to himself? Wasn't sacrificing something you did to earn something, to get something? What could you get from dying?
Knowledge.
Knowledge? Like, what kind of knowledge? Dumb old books? Were you crazy, old man? Why did you kill yourself? What did you think you were going to get from it?
Sandi's screamed answer rattled around in her own head.
You died on purpose, you old fool! Why? I deserved to die, but not the others! Quinn! Stacy! Maybe even Tiffany! People loved them! They were going to be something great! But not me! Never me! I just screwed everybody else up! Mean nasty Sandi! The ice bitch! The old witch!
The dead air trembled with the fury of Sandi's anger. Sandi heard Daria, whimpering like an animal, trapped in the Abyss, curled up, forever alone, with the screams of others echoing in her own ears. Quinn's sister, who should be celebrating Christmas right now, with Quinn and her parents.
Daria! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! We're all dead, all dying, and it's all my fault! Jane! Help her! Help her live!
Quinn was dead, like she was, inside that monster. Sandi's words about finding out things came back to her! Why was she here, unlike the Yuki-Onna's other victims? Why was she hanging on this tree? Had the Snow Woman put her here for a reason? What was so special about this tree, this stupid damned tree?
The vision of the living tree cradling the universe came to her again, even as the ghostly specter of the old man hanging next to her stirred, opening his eyes. His left eye blazed, burning deep into Sandi's soul. But the right socket gaped emptily at her, filled only with darkness.
But deep in the Abyss, the formless void where lost souls drifted forever, a small shape slowly stopped it's crying, and whispered, "Sandi? Jane!"