“Go ahead,” I said. “Try it.”
Test me, and you will learn precisely how fragile the human heart can be. But…you are already acquainted with this knowledge, are you not? Imagine how easy it will be to undo what healing has already passed.
Prue.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded. Fear and anger slammed into me. I gripped the sides of the mirror, shaking as hard as I could until the shelves around me were rattling with the force of it. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Nell yanked me back. “Cut it out! What did he say to you?”
I tore myself out of her grip and stormed over to the couch and its nest of blankets. I snatched up the darkest, sturdiest plaid and stalked back toward the mirror to cover it. Before I could, Toad’s yelping turned to a furious yowl. His tiny fangs flashed as he practically unhinged his jaw to snap them around Nell’s foot like a trap.
“Ouch! Toad! What’s the matter with you?”
His tail flicked toward the mirror, frantically pointing.
The stupid white fox was gone now, but the reflection of the attic still hadn’t returned to the mirror’s dusty surface. In fact, there seemed to be something else moving inside of it, something dark, growing closer and closer. The surface of the glass rippled like water, and even though my brain was screaming at me to stop, I reached up and brushed a finger with it. When I pulled it back, it was coated with what looked like silver paint.
But then the distant shadow wasn’t distant at all—and it wasn’t a shadow, not any longer. Its dark robes swirled as it spiraled up, as if climbing out of a dark well. I saw a flash of red mask. The thing bobbed, hovering just in front of me. Its head cocked to the side, curious.
“Hello?” I said.
“Prosper…” Nell began, her voice tight with fear. “Duck!”
“What are you—?” I started to say. But just as I began to turn the red mask flipped up, revealing five sets of teeth. And then, suddenly, the creature wasn’t inside the mirror.
It was crashing through it.
In art, there’s something called negative space. It’s the blank space around the subject of whatever is the focus of the work. Sometimes it creates its own image, one more interesting than the original subject.
This shadow wasn’t even negative space, and its image didn’t render the room around it into space either. It was a black hole in the form of a creature that looked like a pruned and shriveled human corpse. It floated silently in the middle of the attic, the shredded ends of its black cloak drawing patterns in the dust on the floor.
Being beside it was like that second just as you crest up onto a roller coaster, when you begin to fall. Everything was suspended, even my heartbeat. The mask remained up, and there was nothing else around me except the rows and rows of teeth. It inhaled sharply, a high, wheezing sound that had no beginning and no end. Every hair on my body stood as straight and sharp as pins.
Then I felt the tug. It started at my center as a spark, and erupted into fire beneath my skin. My vision blurred and I’m sure I was shouting something, because I felt the words leave my throat. I just couldn’t hear them. When I looked at my outstretched hand, it looked like it was dissolving.
Flee! Alastor roared. Go now, Maggot!
It was too late. My legs folded under me like paper. A thin black tongue slithered out, whipping against my forehead, smearing black, stinking goop down the bridge of my nose.
Thou dares—Alastor’s voice rang in my ears, crisp as morning air—thou dares to steal from me? From me?
The weight on my chest doubled as the creature leaned forward. Its gaping mouth hovered over my face, slobbering spit and ooze on my skin. The red mask split into two, then three, then four. I blinked, trying to focus. Black crept in at the corner of my vision. I went boneless. Weak, like it would take a year to lift a finger.
“Prosper? Pros—!” Was that Nell? Or Prue?
Foul, thieving miscreant! Alastor thundered. His voice rose with each word until I felt them forming on my own lips. If thou think I will forgive this, thou are gravely mistaken! I will come for thee, and I will take back every ounce of power thou stole! I will crush thee, smash thee until thou—
“Slip from the shadows into sight,” Nell yelled, “reveal yourself in the light!”
The light from the nearby lamps streamed out, swirling together until a white-hot orb floated above us like a full moon. The creature shrieked like metal scratching glass as it flung itself toward the ceiling. But Nell wasn’t finished. She gripped a bucket in two hands and launched its contents up. The spray of white exploded into the air with a loud whoosh, clinging to the shadow like frost. I squeezed my eyes shut as the remnants of the white stuff—salt—pattered down around me. I didn’t open them again until the shrieking returned.
The shadow flailed about the room, narrowly missing Toad on the back of the couch when the CatBat tried to claw at it. Before, its robes had moved as if the shadow were underwater, silently, gracefully. Now each part of it hardened, crackling and squeaking as its limbs and cloak turned to gleaming obsidian glass.
Nell dove over my legs for the bucket and swung it straight up with a grunt. The plastic bucket smashed through the creature’s center, exploding it into a thousand—a million—shards that hovered above us, spinning and dancing. The empty red mask crashed down on my knee, a second before the rest of the shadow came raining down.
But the glowing orb from her spell burned through the shards of glass, turning them into nothing more than black sand.
“Are you okay?” Nell asked, shaking the sand out of her hair casually, like she hadn’t just destroyed a creature of darkness.
“Fine,” I managed to groan, still unable to move my legs.
“I was talking to Toad. I can see you’re fine.” She swept down, grabbing the red mask and holding it up for Uncle Barnabas to see.
“Cripes,” he said. “A hag.”
“What?” My lips felt numb, but they were finally working. I inched my way up onto my elbows.
A leech, Alastor groused. Filthy, despicable creature. I had thought their numbers largely vanquished—a necessity, given their need to feed upon superior fiends. It would seem we did not stamp them out entirely. I will have to rectify this.
“Some call them psychic vampires,” Uncle Barnabas explained, hauling me forward so I was sitting upright. He tried in vain to brush the salt out of my hair. “They feed off the energy of fiends and…gifted humans. The malefactor must have opened a portal when he tricked you into looking into the mirror.”
“I don’t know,” I began, trying to shake feeling back into my hands. “Alastor sounded just as angry and freaked-out to see it as I was. I don’t think the hag was his invited guest.”
What is this…“freaked-out”? I will have an answer, Maggot!