Chapter 3

Why was I not running through the door and screaming for the closest police officer? Any sane person would be trying to get away from these people as soon as they could, but for some unknown reason I was rooted to the spot waiting for proof of the impossible. As I watched Tilda and Margot arguing over the best way to prove to me that magic existed in the world, and whether genies were truly evil, that became my biggest question. I was pretty sure that most other kidnap victims wouldn't have a problem bringing the full force of the law down on what had become a truly absurd situation. I glanced over at Maude and found her watching me carefully. While Tilda and Margot were doing the worst job in the world of trying to convince me that the paranormal community did exist and that I had just landed waist deep in the middle of it, Maude was studying my every move. As I was contemplating the ludicrousness of my situation, she started to stare at her own hand. A small light sphere started to form in her palm. From where I was sitting it looked like a dark blue ball with flashes of lightning spinning at a fast rate, like a miniature electrical storm.

"How are you doing that?" I asked hoarsely.

Tilda and Margot stopped their discussion on the benefits and faults of genies.

Tilda rolled her eyes. "Well sure, that's one way of showing her, but she wanted a chicken salad sandwich."

"How is she doing that?" I repeated. The mind splintering terror that I had left behind in the trunk, when I first started to realize that my kidnappers may not be the vicious thugs I had originally feared, came rushing back.

"Grandma is an elemental witch," Tilda said in a matter-of-fact manner. "Elemental witches are able to affect things like weather and, at a much smaller level, are able to create balls of lightning.

"Of course they can," I muttered as I stared at the spinning sphere that all reason told me shouldn't exist.

Maude closed her hand with a snap and the ball winked out of existence. "I think you should call the doctor now."

"Sure, I'll get right on that," Tilda said as she watched me warily. She pushed Margot towards me. "Catch her if she starts to faint."

"I try that and she's liable to squash me," Margot muttered. "She's not exactly the delicate type."

I stayed standing with my back against the wall, still trying to make sense of what was happening. As far as I could tell I wasn't in any immediate danger. I just needed to start getting control of my situation and finding the fastest and safest way out of it.

"Where am I?" I blurted out.

Maude smiled as if she knew what I was trying to accomplish. Considering what I had already seen her do I wasn't far off believing that she could read my mind. Of course, they could have drugged me and that was why I was seeing things.

"You're in Walker Bay. We're a smallish town on the coast of Maine. Like Tilda said, just a couple of hours from Augusta."

"Are you going to hurt me?"

The look in Maude's eyes softened. "We would never hurt you. All we're asking is for you to listen to what we have to say with an open mind. I know this has to be terrifying for you, and I understand that we probably went about this in the worst way possible. Once the doctor has fixed up your hand we will sit down with you and explain everything."

"What will happen to me after that?"

Maude heaved a sigh and for the first time she looked like an elderly woman who was carrying a burden that was becoming too much for her to bear. "After that you are free to do what you want. If you want to walk away, you can."

"But you're hoping I'll stay," I said softly.

Maude looked me in the eyes. "I am hoping, praying, and wishing that you will stay and help us, because if you don't, I may lose my best friend, and I have no idea how I am going to face that."

Great. As long as there was no pressure.

I jumped at the sound of knocking at the front door.

Tilda had re-entered the kitchen and she was wringing her hands. "The doctor's here," she announced.

"Are you planning on letting him in?" asked Margot.

"I don't know whether we should." The plaintive expression on Tilda's face showed how uncertain she was about the situation.

"What's the problem?" I asked.

"I don't know if we've managed to convince you about us being witches, and there being other beings that don't conform to your view of what constitutes normal in the world," Maude said. "We don't really have time for you to catch up and be comfortable with what we're telling you. When we open that door, you're going to get more proof than you know what to do with. We need you to not react to what you see. No matter how fantastical the next half hour is to you, we need you to keep calm and not question anything. If you show in any way that you are in a paranormal town and you don't know the first thing about this world, there will be consequences." She paused for a second. "For all of us. We made a choice because we were desperate, and I understand fully if you want us punished for what we did, but just know that there will be consequences for you as well."

The three women watched me keenly as if each of them was trying to see how I would react.

"Can you do this?" Tilda asked earnestly. "We need to know now, before this goes any further."

I nodded my head, unwilling to speak. I could do this. If it got me closer to finding out what these people wanted from me, and possibly getting out of here safely, I could do anything.

"Okay," Tilda mumbled to herself. "Let's get this over and done with."

I waited as she went to the front door. I heard murmuring as she greeted the visitors and then I heard clattering on the wooden floors. I chewed on my lower lip, playing in my mind everything that I had been told so far. There was still a part of me that was having some issues believing what I had already seen and been told. I was having trouble understanding why a part of me wanted to trust these women. Maybe I'd hit my head a little harder than I thought.

Margot and Maude kept throwing worried looks in my direction, so I knew that whoever was coming through that door was going to test everything I believed. I just had to be calm and deal with it. I could do this.

Despite mentally trying to prepare myself, I almost passed out when I saw who had followed Tilda into the kitchen. I felt the blood drain from my face, and I could tell by the way that Margot moved closer to me that she had resigned herself to getting squashed as she tried to soften my descent into oblivion. The doctor towered over Tilda. It was fortunate the house had high ceilings or he would have been uncomfortably close to hitting his head. He had dark hair that was shot through with silver, gentle eyes, wore a white lab coat and carried a battered leather doctor's bag. All of this was something that I would normally expect, although the fact this town had a doctor that still did house calls would usually strike me as odd. Today it didn't because I was a little overwhelmed by the fact that the doctor had the body of a horse. My mind started casting around, trying to remember the name for the half human, half horse creature that I remembered from the book of myths my mother had read to me as a child. Centaur. That was it. I'd always wondered how they would go about their lives split between the human world and the animal world. Apparently, they became doctors. I bit harder on my lip, suppressing an overwhelming urge to giggle.

"This is our friend, Sadie," Tilda said, as she did a terrible job of hiding her nervousness. "She came to visit and she's managed to cut herself."

"And hit her head," Margot added.

"Twice," I murmured, impressed that I had regained control of my voice.

The centaur smiled, his white teeth gleaming like a dentist's commercial. I wondered if he ate human food or grass. I bit my lip again to prevent me from asking stupid questions. I was going to need an icepack after the doctor left. He stood in front of me and leaned down as I tried to regulate my breathing and not hyperventilate.

"My name is Dr Collias, and this is my assistant Marigold." He gestured towards the young woman who had followed him into the house. With the shock of seeing a centaur, I hadn't noticed her entrance. She smiled in a way that was gentle and calming. I smiled back at her, grateful for a moment of normal. Dr Collias put his bag on the table, reached in and pulled out a pair of glasses. "Now let's have a look at that cut."

I tentatively held my hand out as he perched the glasses on the end of his nose. The moment was so surreal I had to stifle the hysteria that was bubbling inside me. His hands were surprisingly soft as he examined my wound.

"That looks like you've cut it deep. How did you do it?"

"A piece of metal," I said vaguely.

"You're going to need stitches for this one." He turned around and started pulling things out of his bag.

I noticed Marigold also had a doctor's bag, although it looked much newer. She had placed it on the table and was pulling out small glass jars with various powders in them that I'd never seen before. She pulled out a clay bowl which had markings on the outside that I couldn't interpret. What she didn't pull out of her bag was anything that resembled a medical instrument. I glanced at Tilda with what I was sure was a panicked look on my face. She stepped towards me, grabbed my other hand and squeezed. Dr Collias glanced at us with a quizzical expression on his face.

"Sadie hates needles," Tilda explained.

I had no problem with needles. I never did. My problem was with the mythical creature that was wielding the needle. I winced slightly as the first needle with the local anesthetic entered my hand and watched as the doctor deftly stitched up the jagged cut. When he lifted up his head I marveled at the small neat stitches.

"The stitches will need to come out in a week. When was your last tetanus shot?"

I stopped and tried to remember. I was the kind of kid who spent her childhood with her nose in a book. I didn't do anything adventurous enough to warrant a tetanus shot, and I hadn't changed as I grew older. "I don't remember."

"Better have one, just in case there was something nasty on that piece of metal. Can you roll up your sleeve, please?"

I let go of Tilda's hand and rolled up my sleeve. This time I didn't wince when the needle went in. Hopefully that meant I was dealing better with this whole situation.

"Now Marigold is going to bandage your hand with a poultice. That will help with the healing process. Treat it as you would any other poultice and we'll leave extra salve so you can reapply and bandage again later tonight."

I had no idea what that meant, or what I had to do, but I'd keep my mouth shut and let Tilda translate when the doctor and his assistant left.

As the doctor moved away, his assistant stepped forward to take his place. I had to stop myself from snatching away my hand as she slathered the strange smelling concoction that she had prepared in the clay bowl onto the stitched-up wound. This did not seem like a normal thing to do.

"So where are these bumps on your head?" the doctor asked.

I pointed to the top of my forehead where I had hit the lid of the trunk.

He felt the top of my head. "Bit of a bump there but it doesn't seem too bad. How about the other one?"

That stumped me. My other head injury had happened while I was unconscious during my kidnapping.

"That was more to the back of her skull," Margot added helpfully while pointing to her own head.

"Thank you," Dr Collias said with a quizzical smile on his face. "How exactly did you do this?"

"I'm a bit clumsy," I mumbled, perfectly aware that I had stepped over into Stockholm Syndrome territory. There was no other reason for me to be protecting my kidnappers, but the appearance of the centaur had turned my world view upside down. I was going to cling to the slightly familiar, even if they appeared to be insane.

"Really?" Dr Collias asked.

Even I could hear the skepticism in his voice.

"She's had a rough day," Tilda said quietly, with what I considered was the understatement of the year.

"All done," announced Marigold as she finished wrapping my hand. Despite my concerns about the poultice I had to admit that it felt soothing against my skin.

I could feel Dr Collias watching me intently and I looked up at him. "Is there anything else that I should be aware of?"

His deep brown eyes were hypnotic and, for a moment, I badly wanted to tell him everything, but I remembered Maude's warning about consequences. Somehow, I didn't think those consequences would be something I was comfortable with. I shook my head. It looked like I was going with the devil I knew.

"Very well then. If you have any issues, please feel free to call me."

As Tilda walked the medical professionals out, I sat still in the chair.

"You can start breathing now," Maude said as we heard the front door close.

"What the hell have you done to me?" I sniffed the gooey mess on my hand. "What is this?"

"That is a healing poultice," Margot said haughtily. "Marigold is the most talented healing witch in the coven. The salve she makes will take days off the healing time for that cut."

I needed to get this straight. "So, the centaur is a proper doctor and the woman assisting him is a witch."

"Yes."

Such a simple answer for a really complicated situation. "I have a head injury, don't I?"

"Why do you say that?" asked Tilda as she returned to the room. "The doctor said your head looked okay."

"Because that is the only explanation for the fact that I think my doctor has the body of a horse."

"Dr Collias is a centaur and a highly respected member of this community," Tilda said primly. "Just because you are not used to seeing his species does not mean that he doesn't exist."

I looked up at the ceiling. "I can't believe how weird this day has been."

Maude cleared her throat. "Unfortunately, it isn't going to get any better."

"Why?" I asked suspiciously. I was pretty sure that if I was hallucinating from a head injury enough that I believed my doctor was a centaur, things couldn't get much worse."

The three women looked at each other, as if worried about my reaction. That was unfair. I was pretty sure that I'd been the most cooperative kidnapping victim they were likely to come across.

Maude put on a smile that I knew was supposed to put me at ease. It didn't. "The reason we kidnapped you, in fact the reason we found you at all is because you're probably a witch too."

Of course, I was.