The Time Witch - Part 21

Recap: Danna revealed she’s a member of the Coven but stood against them, giving Evangeline a spell hidden in the limerick book. It promises to break the binding bracelet so she can travel back to Samuel in 1910.

LINKS: The Beginning, Last Part (#20), Time Witch page

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I owe you, Danna!

Evangeline sent out the silent message, hoping her friend felt it. They still needed to talk about the spying, but Danna stood up for her. Breaking with the Coven and giving her a spell to return to Samuel… was next level.

Trying to quell her hope, just in case it all backfired, Evangeline rushed to the closet. As the main link to the past, it couldn’t deny her this time, but an unseen force pushed her away from entering.

Down.

The ghostly request echoed in her mind.

“Downstairs?” Evangeline asked, wondering why the ghost would send her so far away from the closet.

Before she could question it, a crash rattled the library’s front door. Evangeline gasped, pivoting to see sizzling sparks slip around the door’s edges, under the threshold, and through the lock. A scream and a curse came from outside, followed by a swoosh that showered rocks against all the windows.

“Help her!” Evangeline shouted, running for the basement stairs. 

Another assault on the library’s front door had her skidding to a stop, fearing what was happening outside. “Danna?” She turned back, but a soft touch brushed her cheek.

Go.

The flickering image of Samuel appeared. The ghost shimmered as he raced for the library’s entrance, vanishing through the solid wood like it was butter. Screams echoed from outside.

“Whoa! He actually helped.” Evangeline turned her back on the chaos, finally taking the basement steps two at a time. She reached the bottom in a rush. An odd calm cloaked the depths. It seemed miles away from whatever was happening outside. She could relax a bit, especially since Samuel had Danna’s back.

“Thank you,” Evangeline whispered to the basement.

The lower level acted as temporary storage space, mostly for furniture and boxes full of books. Evangeline retreated to the renovated bathroom and locked the door. “Like that will keep the Coven out,” she grimaced, not appreciating her joke. 

Looking upward, she couldn’t hear any noise outside the library anymore.  The faucet dripped, and a hollowness gripped the stillness, leaving her uneasy. She desperately wanted to know what was happening outside and if Danna was okay.

“They won’t hurt her. They’re sisters,” Evangeline said, assuring herself. She imaged how sisters settled an argument but couldn’t quite picture Danna and the ghost in a pillow fight with the Coven. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

The small bathroom had been first on the Reno List. Having a working toilet was imperative for living in the library during renovations. Evangeline had kept it simple: white-washed walls with pops of bronze. The accent color and the library’s history matched the fixtures and hardware. When the library’s Bed & Breakfast was finally up and running, she’d update the linen with crisp white towels; until then, she had a mismatched collection of beach towels.

The bathroom was a private space just for the ladies to use. (The workmen had a port-o-potty in the back parking lot.) Evangeline sat on a high stool, useful for styling hair in front of the pedestal sink. It was tucked away into the space next to the door, with easy access when shut. Instead of moving it to the mirror, she kept it in the corner, sitting and using the wall for back support.

Evangeline opened the limerick book to the marked page. “Here goes everything,” she said to the book. Nixie’s accusation echoed in her mind. If she had somehow been doing magic without knowing it, that was one thing. Attempting magic—still a ridiculous thought—took everything to a new level. Failure was possible.

It’s Danna’s spell, Evangeline reminded herself. It will work.

Quickly scanning the short limerick. The poem’s dedication stood out: For the Library Lady. Evangeline ran a finger over the words. “Nice touch, Danna, but it sounds like it could be for anyone who worked at the library.”

The book vibrated in her hands as if in answer, and the dedication changed! Evangeline blinked, beyond shocked, as she reread the dedication. It said: For Evangeline, the Library Lady.

“Whoa!” Evangeline almost dropped the book, amazed at Danna’s magic. “Okay, sometimes you just gotta let magic happen.”

Evangeline silently read through the poem. All along, she’d been hoping that someone would just tell her what to do. No one seemed ready to go that far, as if they’d be breaking a rule. Mabel had definitely been careful of what she said, and Danna had kept her magic secret. It all spoke of a caution that shouldn’t be ignored.

“I won’t take my magic lightly,” Evangeline promised the book.

The sound of a ticking clock echoed in her mind, creating an urgency that gripped her heart.

Okay, okay! Evangeline laid her hand on the page. She closed her eyes and thought of Samuel’s face. He smiled at her, kind and hopeful. She opened her eyes and read the limerick out loud, keeping her voice low.

“Once upon a different time, tendrils twist beyond their prime. The tempest clung… will be undone, releasing all with this rhyme.”

Evangeline let out her breath, listening. Something creaked, and a soft hum itched at the edge of her senses, but nothing unusual—not even the battle outside. A heaviness hung in the air… waiting. She sighed, thinking how naive she’d been to believe that reading a poem would create magic. Suddenly, it all seemed like a prank.

Until… the walls of the bathroom shuddered, emitting a blue-green sparkle. The vibration caused a white subway tile to pop off next to the toilet. It hit the floor and shattered. 

“Oh!” Evangeline gasped, looking down at the pieces.

She slid off the stool to pick them up, but the floor warped under her foot. An insistent buzzing assaulted her ears. Grabbing them, she dropped the book. It fell to the floor, hitting a spot that warped downward and sprung back. The bend in the floor also pulled at her shoes as blue-green tendrils lifted her feet a few inches and then placed them back on solid ground. Well… mostly solid.

Evangeline couldn’t tell what she was seeing. She peered closer. More coils of radiant blue-green light spread across the floor and burrowed downward, creating a jagged gap in the foundation. A massive wave of energy twisted out of the fissure. It hit every wall simultaneously, shattering more tiles and making the walls crumble to the ground.

Evangeline fell to her knees, instinctively protecting her head. A mountain of rubble threatened to bury her as the destruction obliterated the room. Miraculously, none of the damage touched her. The blue-green threads created a protective canopy.

As the buzzing lessened, Evangeline fought a claustrophobic feeling. The white tile morphed into muddy browns. The ceiling pushed down on her, and the artificial fluorescent light dimmed. She could just make out the outer walls of the library basement. Well, “walls” was an overstatement. So was “basement.” The finished Carnegie library warped into its origins, making Evangeline crouch even lower in the earthen dugout that first served as the library’s basement. Rough beams shored up the space—keeping the dirt back—with a wooden plank floor crushing downward, shrinking the space even more. Only one small cutout allowed in any sunlight, no more than a slit where the ground level met the crawl space. 

The blue-green sparkles receded, and the buzzing stopped.

“I’m never going to get used to that,” Evangeline sighed. She crawled toward the light. 

A searing sensation stopped her halfway. The Coven bracelet burned her wrist. She rubbed it in the dirt, trying to get it off or at least coat it to counter the sensation. It pulsed a sickly yellow, turning into a nasty lime green. Hoping its power had weakened, she banged it on the ground.

“Off!” she shouted. 

The impact created a satisfying crack that intensified on a seismic scale. “Uh-oh,” Evangeline whispered as the very bedrock under the library shook. If she hadn’t already been on her knees, the force would have knocked her down. 

Threatening creaks groaned overhead. The beams shifted, sounding unstable. The sound pierced the whole structure, warning of a bigger disaster. Throwing herself completely flat, Evangeline silently prayed for calm. As if answering, the ground emitted a base rumble, and the shaking subsided. 

“Lass!” Samuel called, desperate to find her.

“Here!” she coughed as dust particles sifted through the floorboards, twinkling downward in the tight space. 

A trap door opened to her right, and Samuel jumped down, spotting her. Stunned, he hunched over to navigate the low ceiling. Evangeline sat up and reached a hand toward him, legs a little too shaky to crawl. She wasn’t sure what had happened. Had it been the spell that caused an earthquake or her shouting? None of her transitions from present to past had been so violent.

“Samuel,” she sighed, relieved to see him. 

He grasped the outstretched hand. It was the one with the Coven bracelet. The instant he touched her, the bracelet crumbled, turning into dust and harmlessly falling from her wrist.

“Quite an entrance,” Samuel beamed.

Evangeline shook her head, feeling she should explain but unable to think of anything beyond getting to Samuel. She got to her knees. “It’s taken forever.”

Apparently, Samuel felt the same way because he pulled her into an embrace. “I’ll ne’er let you leave my side again,” he whispered into the ear.

Evangeline wanted to murmur in agreement, but his lips found hers, and she forgot how to talk.