“Oh, Ava,” Mom said as I reached her.
This time, we were on the same plane and this time, I knew if I touched her, I could make her solid. I flew into her arms with a cry of relief to finally be in my mother’s embrace after all these years.
“How are you here?” I asked with my face buried in her hair. “Why are you in this place?”
“I’m trapped here, but I’m not sure why.” Mom looked around as if looking for something or someone.
Trapped? In the in-between? “I don’t understand.” Then I knew. Or I had a guess. It had something to do with the curse that killed her. Bevan Magnus had hated my mother enough to add a little something extra in her curse. Like a restless afterlife.
“Darling, I’m being stalked here. I can’t stay in one place for too long.” She looked around worriedly. “You’ve got to get out of here. You’re lucky it hasn’t found you yet.”
Pulling back, I grabbed her shoulders and looked into her green eyes. “What is it? What’s stalking you? I might be able to stop it. I’m actually here, physically. I can do magic, I think.” I’d been practicing defensive and offensive magic with Owen and the coven. Not as much as I would’ve liked, but hopefully I was strong enough to make up for what I didn’t know.
But Mom shook her head. “No, it’s too strong. You can’t defeat it, Ava. Not yet anyway.” She stiffened. “No. Run, Ava! It’s here!”
Mom looked out toward the ocean, and gliding over the water was a huge, sickly black blob. Squinting, I tried to make it out as it came closer, but I couldn’t figure it out. Every time my mind focused on it, it shifted, like an unnatural liquid that flew over the water.
“What the hell?” Drew whispered from behind me. I jumped, startled. I hadn’t realized he was there.
“What is it?” Wallie said. He was a few feet behind, looking around wildly. “I can see Grandma, but what are you guys looking at?”
I pointed to the ocean, where the enormous black… thing… was coming closer. “You can’t see that?”
Wallie shook his head. “No. And hi, Grandma. It’s nice to meet you.”
My mother smiled softly at Wallie. “And you, my boy. I’m so proud of you, Wallie. So glad to have you as a grandson.”
Turning her attention back to the approaching threat, Mom blanched. “Honey, get out of here. It can’t hurt you in your world. But it can hurt you here. You must go.”
“What is it?” I cried. “I don’t know how to get out, so I’ve got to fight it.”
We backed up as it neared, and still, my eyes didn’t want to focus on it. Mom moved in front of me, but I yanked her backward and prepared my magic. “Wallie?” I called. “Can you still not see it?”
It had arrived. It loomed over us, enormous, liquidy, and ever-changing, ever-moving.
“No, Mom, I got nothing.”
A black tendril reached out toward me, like the tentacle of an octopus, searching for something to snatch toward its mouth.
“Owen, Wallie, blast right above us!” I backed up from the tentacle and raised my arm. “Everyone else, touch me so I can draw on your power!”
I felt hands on my back, so I raised my arms and gathered my magic, both my earth power and that rich darkness that gave me power over the dead. I waited until the big black thing was very close, gathering power and drawing from Drew and even Sam and Olivia. They were human, but they still had power, they just couldn’t tap into it.
When the ball of energy was as big as I could get it, and the black tendril was nearly at me, I released the magic, hurling it at the center of the mass as hard as I could, screaming my frustration with it.
The magic hit the blob but instead of going into it, hurting it, it smacked against it and barreled back toward us. I had just enough time to gasp out two words before it hit us. “Mom! Run!”
Everything went dark. I knew I was unconscious, oddly. But I couldn’t bring myself back to the awareness, return to consciousness.
What felt like hours later, I managed to swim to the surface of my mind. Forcing my eyes open, I squinted against the bright sunshine.
“Mom, wake up!” Wallie yelled. “Please wake up.”
“Oof,” I grunted. He was leaning on my chest. “Get off.”
“Oh, thank goodness.” The weight on my boobs lifted as I cracked my eyes open.
“What happened,” I whispered.
“You came flying out of that ghost world like you’d been hit with your magic,” Owen said as I squinted at him.
“I’m in the real world?”
“Yes, and I have questions.” This was Luci. When had he gotten here? I jerked my head around to find him peering down at me with an interested look on his face. “Now that you’re home. How did you get to the in-between, really? And how did you get out?”
I shot him a glare and turned to find my friends. Were they okay? I felt like I’d been run over by a semi-truck.
All three of them laid behind me. Olivia was pretty much on top of Sam, both of them face-up. Drew was face-down a few feet away. I hurried over and put one hand on each of Sam and Olivia, pushing magic into them until they began to blink and moan. If they were injured, I could help more, but for now, I crawled over to Drew and pushed my healing magic into him, as well.
Once he began to wake, I sat back and rested a minute, giving the three of them time to get their bearings. “Anybody need healing?” I asked once they looked at me owlishly, looking as confused as I felt.
“Ava,” Luci said insistently. “How did you do it?”
“Do what?” I asked, irritated at his questioning. I looked up at Owen, ignoring the devil. “Did you see where my mom went?” I asked. “Did it get her?”
Owen shook his head. “You yelled for her to run and she disappeared, but I never saw what you were fighting. What did it look like?”
I mouthed at him silently. “I don’t even know how to explain it.”
“It was enormous,” Olivia said.
“Like a gigantic blob of liquid ink,” Drew added.
Sam shuddered. “Unnatural. Evil.”
Luci’s eyes flashed. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. Tell me how you got there and how you got back, and I’ll help you.”
I thought about what had happened at the precise moment we crossed over from the real train to the ghost train. Then I glared at Luci. “It was some sort of big magical surge,” I said. “It had to be. That’s how we got back out. I gathered all that magic, surely you saw that part?”
He nodded. “Yes, but how did you get in?”
Straightening my spine, I sniffed and climbed to my feet. “That’s none of your business,” I said stiffly. “Now, leave us. I want to try to find my mother.”
Everyone else stood with me and we stretched and tried to get our bearings. My magic had literally bounced off of the inky blob, so it was still in the ghost world with my mom, tracking her. Why? I wasn’t sure. Deep down, I knew it had something to do with how she died, but I had no idea how to stop it. But I would. And I would help my mom find peace.
“Let’s go call a coven meeting,” I said. “Owen, maybe you can reach out to any necromancers you know?”