He pulled out a small strainer, something that looked like you’d run orange juice through if you didn’t like pulp. It had a small jar that was stuck on the other side of it. He walked over, holding the strainer up in front of me.
“Take a deep breath, hold it for as long as you can, and then blow into here.” He tapped a long black nail on the jar.
As little as I understood, magic seemed to be what they were after. If I did have magic, and this thing proved it, what would happen to me then?
“I told you, I don’t have magic,” I said, trying to back away but stopped by the ever-present hand on my arm.
Braid lifted my arm, bringing me to my toes. “If you don’t have any magic, we don’t need you, and we aren’t going to waste our time taking you back. If you do have magic, you live, so I’d think hard on that.”
“You sure you don’t want to blow into the tester?” Spike asked.
“I’d do it if I were you,” came a small, squeaky voice. I searched the room and saw three see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil monkey statues on Einstein’s bookcase.
The monkey covering his mouth dropped his hand and said, “If you don’t have magic, you’re not here. If you’re not here, you’re not anywhere.”
The hear no evil monkey nodded as the see no evil monkey stared at me, eyes wide open.
“I’d listen to them. They never lie,” Spike said.
All three monkeys nodded this time.
If I’d needed a sure sign I wasn’t in Salem, besides a puddle sucking me up and spitting me out, and the view of a medieval city out the window, these monkeys had hammered the last nail in the coffin.
If this tester thing said I didn’t have magic, I was as dead as Spike’s eyes were. I didn’t know how many deaths they had on their hands, but I could almost see the blood dripping from their fingertips. My fate if I had magic was iffy at best, but my fate without magic had been spelled out all too clearly. I took a deep breath and blew into the strainer, while everyone watched on, including the monkeys.
It did nothing until I was nearly out of air, but then finally something happened. The last of my breath went through the strainer and the glass jar filled with a purple dust that shimmered and moved about like a strange sort of snow globe.
The monkeys on the desk snickered. “Just another Whimsy witch,” Speak No Evil said.
“See? Magic. Now pay up,” Braid demanded.
Einstein held the glass up, shaking it. “There’s plenty of Whimsy work to be done in the factory, so I guess I’ll take her.”
“That’ll be ten coins.”
Braid finally released my arm in order to hold out his palm toward Einstein, who flipped him a shiny gold coin.
Spike tipped his head. “Pleasure doing business with you,” he said.
The duo left through the door. I didn’t follow. It was clear I’d been bought and paid for.
I turned to Einstein. “Can you tell—”
“Mertie!” Einstein yelled over me. “Have a new one!”
Mertie appeared in the door less than a second later, slender with long black hair, bright red skin, and two horns on her head. “I heard you, boss. You don’t need to scream.”
My jaw dropped as I backed away. “I’m already dead, aren’t I? I’m in hell.”
Mertie rolled eyes that were nearly all black before turning to Einstein. “They all do the same shit. It’s getting old. When is this going to stop?”
“It’s not my fault you look like a demon,” Einstein said, settling back down in his chair.
“Then you’re not a demon?”
She groaned loudly. “Of course I’m a demon. Look at me! But I take offense at being called one. Now, come on, I don’t have all day.” She turned, waving at me to follow her. I went because at least she’d spoken directly to me.
She clomped down the hallway, her black leather miniskirt showing off kickass red legs and unfortunate hoofed feet that didn’t require shoes.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you,” I said, catching up to her. This was not the time to acquire enemies. I needed friends, even demon ones.
“It’s fine. I’m used to it.” She let out a little huff, the smell of smoke following it.
We walked down the long, narrow hallway, also built of stone. Then a circular staircase, also made of stone. There seemed to be nothing that wasn’t made of stone in this place.
After giving her a minute or two to calm down after my apparent insult, I asked, “Where am I, exactly?”
“You’re in Xest.”
“Xest?”
“No. Not Zest. Xest. I can hear the X when you pronounce it.” I nodded, even though we were both pronouncing it the same way. I had much bigger problems than her hearing a hidden X in my pronunciation.
She stopped and snapped her fingers at me when I’d lagged behind for a second. “Hurry up.”
“Where is Xest? I’ve never heard of it.” If I could get my bearings, I could get back home. Right now I didn’t know what direction to take if I did run.
“Xest is Xest. It’s north of North and west of West.”
“Do you know where Massachusetts is?”
She groaned. “Of course I do. It used to be part of my territory before I changed—I know where it is. It’s in Rest, like everything that isn’t in Xest.”
“Where is Xest in regards to Salem?”
“It’s Xest of Salem. It’s Xest of everywhere, that’s why it’s Xest. North, South, East, and West is the Rest. See, this is the thing that’s so annoying about humans, or even fake ones like yourself. They can only go north, south, east, and west. For some reason that is beyond me, they can’t travel to Xest, where all the important things happen.”
I wanted to have that light-bulb aha moment, but as she talked, the lights faded more and more on my understanding. Where the hell was I?
“Is there anyone else I can talk to about leaving? I don’t belong here. I’m not a witch or Whimsy or a whatever it is that lives here. I should be where nothing important happens.”
“The magic mist, although unimpressive from what I saw sitting on the table, would say otherwise.”
She pushed open a wooden door on the bottom landing, and a blast of frigid air shot through my thin clothes. I got a clear view of this place, and it only made things worse. I’d wondered if I’d imagined what I saw upstairs. Now my bare feet were standing on a cobblestone street and I could see the gas lights up close. The few people that passed could’ve been human if it was Halloween and everyone had a costume on. This place looked like someone had taken medieval England, wrapped it up in a steampunk novel, and then sprinkled it with some fairy dust to see what would happen.
“Come on,” Mertie said, walking across the street to a row house. “This is where the Whimsy witches stay. The Whimsy warlocks are a door down, but don’t let me find you in there. We don’t have time for babies. Too much work to be done.”
Mertie opened the door to a large room that hadn’t seen a coat of paint since before I’d been born. Two mismatched couches with stuffing poking out of the arms took up one half of the large room. A long table that would’ve been at home in a military school cafeteria took up the other. There was fire burning in a small stone fireplace that shed a little light into the room and even less heat. From the girls scattered about, some in orange-striped clothing, it had the distinct feeling of a dormitory of sorts.