Chapter 23

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I couldn't go first but I could stay close by Tegan's side as he ventured over to the askew door. The blast from my blood had left it battered and broken and the hinges were the worse for wear. Tegan pressed his hand against the end closest to the hinges and creaked the door open to reveal the innocent-looking outdoors. My magic has blasted all the sand off the porch and left a wide path the same width as the doorway clear to the slope upward out of the depression.

Clara followed behind us and Tegan paused at the doorway to look over at her. "What preparations do you have left for the trial?"

She wrinkled her nose. "I need to be there to command the brooms."

I blinked at her. "Command the brooms?"

She glared at me. "Stop wasting time and start moving." She emphasized her point by pushing past us and marching onto the porch.

"Wait!" Tegan shouted.

Clara took one step on the sand and a strange vibration shook the ground. Tegan's feet pounded across the porch boards and he wrapped his arms around the woman. She screamed as he lifted her off the ground and swung her back onto the porch. At the same moment, the sand where her foot had been was pushed up into a cylindrical shape before it flattened.

I hurried over to the pair as they both gaped at the ground. "What the hell is that?!"

Tegan shook his head. "I don't know."

"Release me at once!" Clara demanded as she thrashed in his hold.

"Gladly." Tegan opened his arms and she scurried out of his grasp but not off the porch.

Tegan stepped up to the edge and knelt to study the sand. He looked about us and his eyes fell on some splintered wood near my foot courtesy of the wrecked door. "Hand me that bit of wood," he commanded me.

I picked it up and handed it off. Tegan returned his attention to the sand and poked the end of the short stick into the beach. The sand rose as before but this time something shot out and wrapped around the wood. Tegan immediately released the stick and the wood was slurped into the sand like spaghetti before the whole thing sunk back into the earth.

We stared in silent horror for a long moment.

I cleared my throat. "Is it some kind of sandworm?" The pair looked at me as if I'd gone mad, but I just shrugged. "Hey, it could be possible."

Clara leaned over the porch and wrinkled her nose. "It isn't magic, whatever it is, or I'd have smelled it."

"Then it must be a natural creature of sorts," Tegan mused as he looked at our ‘hostess.' "Do you have any more of those brooms around here?"

She shook her head. "They're all being used, even my precious one."

Tegan's attention dropped to me. "And you still can't whistle?"

I furrowed my brow before I puckered my lips. A few feeble and shaky notes emanated from my mouth before I gave up. "Nope. What about you flying us out of here?"

"I could take you both but I would crush the hut," he admitted.

Clara's eyebrows crashed down. "Don't you dare or I'll put a curse on your entire family!"

A smile touched the corners of his lips. "I don't think my transforming would be a good idea, anyway, because I would break the floorboards beneath me. Whatever is in the sands might grab me or either of you before we have a chance to lift off."

I leaned my arm against one of the posts and folded my arms over my chest. "So what now? We wait for help or do we starve to death?"

"It's more likely that any help that would come would themselves be taken," Tegan pointed out as he stood. "As things stand, I'm not sure how we'll get out of here."

Things looked dire and smelled even worse. The scents of the contents in all the broken jars and vials wafted out the door and over the sands. I clapped my hand over my mouth and gagged when my stained fingers exuded the same stench.

"What did you have in those jars?" I questioned Clara.

"Nothing a good witch can't go without," she retorted.

Tegan's eyes widened. "That's it!" He spun around and looked up at the herbs that hung from the rafters. "Could you make a concoction that could penetrate the soil?"

She lifted an eyebrow. "I might be able to, but why do something that stupid? We'll only be making the thing angry."

"Making it angry and reckless enough so we could see where it is," he pointed out.

My eyes lit up and I pushed off from the post. "And where it isn't!"

Clara furrowed her brow but she rolled up her sleeves. "Alright. You come with me."

My enthusiasm was sapped from me. "Come again?"

She grabbed my hand and tugged me into the house. "You broke all the jars so you can help me use what was in them."

Oh boy. The things I had to touch that day were unspeakably gross and smelled like a cocktail of charnel house and a rat's den with a sublet to a flatulent skunk. Clara tossed in I-don't-know-what into the pot while I stirred. She finished adding the ingredients and took the stirring spoon from me.

"Now you repeat after me and we'll see if we can't get this to work," she instructed me as she closed her eyes. When in Rome, so I closed mine, too. "Oh sacred gods whose names we dare not speak, cast these goods into the spell we seek."

I took a deep breath. "Oh sacred gods whose names we dare not speak, cast these, um, things-"

"Goods!" Clara snapped as she swatted my hand with the spoon. "Now get it right or you'll blow us all to our deaths!"

My eyes flew open and I found her glaring at me. The pot was also no longer a sludge but a glowing mess of gurgling green goo. "I'll do what? "

She swatted me again. "Don't interrupt with talking! Say them right and we may just survive this!"

My breathing was a little shakier as I gulped in a massive amount of air. "Oh sacred gods whose names we dare not speak, cast these-" Her evil glare charged my memory, "-goods into the spell we seek."

The goop in the pot bubbled so exuberantly that it popped clear out of the cauldron. Clara and I scuttled back to avoid the sizzling mess. The droplets landed on the floor and left scorch marks.

"Blast it all!" Clara growled as she snatched a ladle from the wall beside the chimney. She wagged it at me as she scooped up a gourd. "You need to learn to control those powers of you or you'll be the death of us all!"

I waved my hands at the bubbling mess. "How can I control that? "

"With more focus in your words and thought, if there is anything in that head of yours!" she scolded me as she scooped up some of the goop. The metal of the ladle sizzled but managed to carry the concoction to the mouth of the gourd. Clara poured it down the neck and tossed the melted ladle to the side before she popped a cork into the mouth. She held it up with a big grin. "Now we may have a chance against that fiend!"

I lifted an eyebrow and pointed at the dried vegetable. "With that?"

She shoved the gourd into my hands. "Never underestimate the power of a witch and never ever with two witches."

I noticed her toss some of the herbs and spices into a pouch at her side. "What's that for?"

Clara patted the pouch. "Just in case this doesn't go well. Now then, dragon boy-" She snatched the gourd from me and pushed it into his hands, "-it's time you helped out."

He lifted an eyebrow. "How?"

She grabbed our arms and yanked us toward the front door. "You're going to lob that at the creature when it pops out."

I blinked at her. "But how are we going to get it to pop out?"

"Like this," she instructed us as we scurried out onto the porch. She released Tegan and grabbed both my arms before she flung me forward.

I stumbled across the boards as Tegan gave a shout. His fingers brushed against my sleeve but weren't enough to stop me from tripping onto the sand. I immediately froze some five feet from the edge of the porch. My heart pounded so hard in my chest that I thought it was going to leap out.

Then I felt it. A faint quiver in the ground. The prelude to problems. Big problems.

And it was right behind me.

I spun around and watched in horror as the ground was forced upward. The sand fell away to reveal our terrifying foe that rose some thirty feet into the air. My eyes bulged out of my head as I beheld not an earthworm but a giant-

I whipped my head to the pair on the porch. " Is that a shrimp?! "