Which Way is W.i.t.c.h.?
By: AJ
Disclaimer: I do not own W.i.t.c.h. or Amber. I'm merely a Fan of both expressing my appreciation through this original piece of fiction, with no monetary gain sought.
Chapter 8
Scenes from a Funeral, part 2
"Come on, Corny, we're gonna be late!" Irma hissed through the bathroom stall door. They were in the rest stop halfway between Fadden Hills and Heatherfield, they still had over an hour's drive ahead of them, and it was already after five. "The service is at six," Irma continued her harangue.
"Thank you, captain obvious," Cornelia sighed from inside the stall. "And I'd come out if I could, but I kind of can't, yet … oh thank Zamballa," she uttered, as Taranee burst into the ladies' restroom. "I wasn't sure if you heard me or not!"
"It almost didn't matter," the braid-adorned girl yelped, edging past Irma and leaning to pass her purse under the stall door to Cornelia. "And … I think we scarred Joel for life."
"Yeah, well, better his grey matter than my new grey upholstery," Cornelia snorted, to the background sound of ripping packaging. "I'm just lucky you had anything with you."
"You're also lucky we were just leaving the lot, and not out of range, or I wouldn't have 'heard' you at all." They were interrupted by the door to the outside opening.
"What's taking so long?" their Airy friend asked. "Did Cornelia fall in?"
"Hey!" roared from behind the stall door. Irma chortled.
"No fair, Hay-hay; you stole my line," she said, chuckling.
"No, she just had the usual Guardian run of luck, Hay." Taranee took her purse back from the Earth girl as Cornelia finally came out.
"Don't forget to wash your hands, Corny," Irma smirked.
"Bite me, Irmy," Cornelia snapped, as she was headed towards the sinks anyway. "Rassin' frassin' stupid …of all the times to be reminded of being a woman …" Water running interrupted her rant for a moment. "You know what's really bad? I'm not even due 'til the end of the week!"
"Ew. T M I," Irma jibed.
"Hmm," Taranee countered.
"What?" Hay asked.
"Oh, Goddess, spit it out, Braidiac," Cornelia sighed.
"Just, well … how do we know that the time flow is constant between dimensions? I mean … who's to say that an hour on Earth isn't like … oh, a week on Learza, or vice-versa?"
"So … you're saying I'm on time anyway, and I'm early, just 'cause we don't spend all our time here?" Cornelia whined. "Goddess, I hate our job …" Hay giggled as she watched Cornelia's normally amber aura take on some of Taranee's banked-fire ochre tint.
"It could be worse, Corny," Irma quipped. "You could be late …"
"That's it, T, get Nige … She can ride with the rest of the reprobates," Cornelia snarled, glaring over her shoulder at Irma as she stalked back out to her new 'sweet sixteen'-mobile. Starting the hybrid up with a scowl, she revved the engine for emphasis.
"As long as I still get to sit next to Eric," Hay sang, bounding out to climb into the back seat of Cornelia's leaf-green Prius next to her boyfriend.
"My work here is done," Irma said with another smirk, and walked out to Joel's van with a swagger to her hips. Taranee just rolled her eyes and followed Hay Lin.
W.i.t.c.h.
Nigel sighed as they pulled into the Cambourne Mortuary lot. "Finally," he uttered under his breath, thankful Hay Lin was in the other vehicle. Not that he didn't love the hyper girl to death as much as the rest of them; quite the contrary. He was just glad she hadn't been privy to the last forty-five minutes of near-constant swearing he'd been sub-vocalizing underneath Irma's near-constant string of inane chatter in between challenging the boys to rounds of travel tunes. If he ever heard another verse of 'Bottles on the Wall', he'd be tempted to commit homicide. 'If it's from Irma, I'd prob'ly make it slowwww,' he added to himself.
As he climbed out of Joel's van, Taranee came marching up to him. Before he could so much as say 'Hi,' or 'What?' when he saw her super serious expression, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. Deeply, Desperately. Remorha-and-shark-level, attached-at-the-lips-level kissing. Just when he was happily resigning himself to a life of learning to have to eat by osmosis, she released him with a 'pop'!
"Never let me ride with them without you again," she sighed against his chin, giggling at the wolf-whistles her antics were inspiring. She turned to glare at Hay and Eric good-naturedly. "You two are lucky you're both too good. If an officer of the law had stopped us, you'd be dragged off for lewd and lascivious behavior by my testimony." They both just stared at her in shock at the unexpected reprimand.
"You got off light in the love-mobile," Nigel muttered just to her. "It had to be mountain loads better than riding in the 'Camp Sing-A-Long Bus'. He sent his own glare at the completely oblivious (and therefore totally unrepentant) Irma.
"Fine, next time we have to go somewhere, we steal my brother's Honda," Taranee said with a smile.
"You kidding?" he replied. "I say we let him drive and we spend some quality time in the back seat." He set a teasing kiss on the tip of her nose, and she giggled again.
"Hey, come on, lovebirds," Matt said as he climbed out from all the way in the back of the van. "We're already running late."
"Fashionably so," Cornelia countered as she walked past with her other passenger, Caleb. Taranee and Nigel sighed, and joined the ranks of fresh attendees to Tony Vandom's service. Most of them were dressed in somber black save Hay, in traditional Chinese mourning white, and Caleb, who was in his cleanest brown dress clothes. He still hadn't been persuaded out of his old leather duster, however much Irma had started to tease him about the long coat becoming his security blanket.
The Guardians and band members (Caleb moonlighted as their roadie,) entered the Amber Room as the family's hired minister was finishing his eulogy. A polite smattering of "Amens," went round, and the teens all hurried to the back row of seats while everyone's attention was on the next person stepping to the podium.
Martin Vandom came forward, his hair still showing the delineations of his old Mohawk 'do. "I … I'm really no good at this kind of thing. I didn't really get along too well with my brother. It's a trait I've heard is hereditary, sadly." He said, giving his father and Corwin a wry smile. Corwin's answer was to pretend to get Random in a headlock, earning the pair a few chuckles.
"Tony was more than just my younger brother. He was the financial whiz of the family. There's no arguing we started with more than a bit of money. Grandfather … Byron was an old hand at robber-barony, and he gave us all a decent head start. Everyone here knows what Tony managed to do with his, and he did his best to help out friends and family as well … When we'd listen to him …" That got him another laugh.
"I think he's just fine at this," Vialle told Random softly. He pulled her hand up to kiss, and nodded in agreement with it against his cheek. She smiled.
"I'll be the first to admit I didn't kow my brother as well as I could have; as well as he deserved. Apparently, he was a a helluva guy, and we'll all miss him." Martin walked away quickly, suddenly self-conscious.
Will watched him stalk off, noticing all her friends from Heatherfield arrayed in the back row as she did. She nudged her mother and nodded their way wit a grin. Susan smiled at the rest of the W.I.T.C.H., then looked at Matt and gave a wave towards her and Will. He raised his eyebrows, and she nodded, repeating her summons.
"Whattiya think, Nige? Good or bad?" he asked the bass player.
"Dude, we're at your girl's dad's funeral. It can only be good." Matt nodded, and slid out of their row of seats to join Will and Susan in the front row. "Hey, Angel ... How ya holding up?" he asked her telepathically when she latched onto his hand.
"Better now that you're here," she sent back. She was about to lean her head on his shoulder when her mother stood up. "Mom?"
"I'm next, honey," She glanced in Matt's direction, and he grinned and nodded back, realizing why she'd called him forward: to sit with Will. Susan stepped to the podium. "Hello, everyone. On behalf of Serena, Will, and myself, thank you all for coming today. I know Tony would have appreciated it."
"I'm sure you all know our marriage wasn't perfect – few enough are, now – but I'd like to think we both learned from it, and that's why he found new happiness with Serena. I'm sure she could regale us with some super-sweet anecdotes of their recent nuptials; so for your sakes, I'll just thank her for us."
"Marital incompatibility aside, I did love Tony, and I'm glad I stuck with him long enough to bear his daughter." She looked fondly down at Will, who smiled back, blushing and trying not to cry anymore during the service. "I'm also glad to count Serena amongst our family. We're all going to have to be there for each other now without him."
"He's got another wife?" Vialle asked Random quietly.
"Yeah, guess he took after my old man … and me ... in more ways than one."
"You mean ..?" He just nodded.
Vaille sat in thought for a few seconds, letting her 'people-sense' (as he liked to call it) get a feel for the room at large. "They don't know, do they?" she said finally. It wasn't a question.
"We'll deal with that after this," he told her, shaking his head sadly.
"How did you find out?" she couldn't help asking.
"The doctor who worked on them both at the hospital."
A light tingle at the edge of his awareness got Random's attention. Recognizing Flora's mental touch, he shot a quick glare over his shoulder at her two rows back on his right. He sighed.
"What, Flora?"
"You're missing your daughter-in-law's beautiful eulogy, little brother," she chided gently, then cut the Trump contact. He sighed again, but faced forward attentively. He was the King after all; he could be magnanimous.
Taranee whipped her head back and forth in the back row, overhearing the telepathic exchange with her Guardian gift. Clearing her mental throat, she addressed Will privately. "How much do you have to tell us about your family, mizz leader?"
Will started against Matt's side. "There's too much I've still gotta find out first, T. All I know so far is that my uncle and grandfather're magicians, or something."
"Hmm, so's your beautiful blonde aunt Flora," Taranee told her. "They're talking telepathically."
"You heard them?" Will asked, glancing at her grandfather out of the corner of her eyes.
"What's up, Angel?" Matt chimed into the conversation through their clasped hands.
"Something strange about my dad's family," Will told them both. She filled them in on what Al Brown had found out online for her.
"I'd wondered why Caleb was so quiet in the car," Taranee mulled. "Okay, so … S O P then?" Matt and Will both rolled their eyes.
"Wait til something blows up in our faces, and kick some mystical keister," Matt recited with a mental chuckle.
"Sounds about right," Will sighed. "I'll keep you updated as things progress, either way, guys." She huffed her bangs out of her eyes where they'd escaped from the paperclips. A different thought occurred to her. "Hey,T? If you can hear them, what's to say they can't hear us?"
Taranee looked slowly at each of Will's gathered paternal relatives. None of them had so much as shifted uncomfortably during the trio's exchange. "This sounds weird, but ... I don't think they can … their convo sounded … kinda like radio over the telephone, if that makes sense."
"So, different kind of signal or something?" Matt asked.
"Sounds about right," Will repeated, thinking of the magical card she'd talked to Granpa Random through last night. If they had to use tools like those as mystic walkie-talkies, as opposed to the heart-powered direct-connect the girls and their allies shared, it made sense they operated differently.
The teens were brought out of their speculations by Susan Reynolds, as Will's mom stepped from the podium, tears streaming once more down her cheeks. Will did her best to bury the guilt that welled up when she was so blatantly ignoring her own father's funeral. It uncomfortably reminded her again of the conversation with Alborn, and her thought then that their lives didn't leave time to mourn. A pained sigh rattled from her as Susan sat back down on her other side.
"I take it from that that you aren't ready to go up there?" Sue asked Will.
"Not willing," her daughter replied hesitantly.
"Fair enough," Susan sighed. "You should do your best to pull yourself together for the internment, though. I think it would do you good to say something."
"… sure, mom …" Will managed to say after a tense moment.
"I'll be right there with you, Angel," Matt said, kissing her hand. Sue realized he'd held it throughout her lengthy eulogy.
"Thank you, Matthew," Susan told him, smiling gently, as Will gave him a bump with her shoulder.
"We're headed over to Saint John's after this, right Mom?" Will asked.
"To see if Serene's awake yet," Sue nodded. She glanced over at her ex-in-laws. Randall and his wife were talking quietly with the bearded man Vialle had entered the mortuary with. The tall woman next to him said something softly to the trio, then got up, her jeweled headband and eye patch glinting under the over-bright lights of the Amber room.
As Coral walked out, she paused, glancing at the four Guardians in the back row quizzically. Irma and Hay grinned back manically, and Coral just left the room. She could settle the mystery of the magical girls at the funeral when she got back; she had a more urgent task to see to. Once out of the room, she concentrated for a moment on the Pattern within.
The children's magic had distracted her momentarily, but listening to them had shown only their own concern over the unknown mysticism in their midst. 'Ah.There it is … Deiga, where Caine fell to Rinaldo's bullet.' Coral stepped into the ladies' room, and then into a stall, where she used the Pattern called to mind to transport herself to Deiga.
Hay had followed the tall woman quietly and invisibly, as best she could, only to walk into the restroom just as Coral disappeared. Hay waited for the brilliant tracery that had limned the older woman's aura to dissipate, then ran soundlessly back to the Amber room. The other W.I.T.C. weren't going to believe this!