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His power.
The EKG machine stopped. Her heart dropped out of her stomach. The sudden silence cut into her like a knife, a thousand times worse than the frantic shouting.
“Time of death, 20:35,” the doctor announced in a gravelly tone.
“No, no, it can’t be.” Olivia rushed to Betsy’s side and gripped her sister’s ice-cold hand, clutching to it like a drowning man to a lifeline. “Betsy, come back. Come back to me.”
She imagined her sister’s laugh, always so bright and full of life. The way Betsy would say her name, with a slight tilt at the end, as she begged for something she wanted. Olivia clung to the annoyed yet indulgent feeling she had whenever she failed to say no to Betsy.
No, not again. She can’t be gone.The image before her blurred, taking her to another time, to another hospital room, when the same frantic sounds had resonated around her when Papa breathed his last.
I won’t let you die.There had to be something she could do instead of crying. Determination ignited.Her bracelet warmed, magic tingling along her skin.
“Olivia.” Marek’s warning seemed to come from far away.
She closed her eyes and drew on the well of magic inside her. The magic leaped and greeted her like an old friend. In the darkness, human shapes, outlined in light, appeared one by one. The doctor, the nurses, each glowed gently like a light bulb in a dim room. She recognized Marek instantly, for he radiated so much brilliance that she had to turn away.
Her own was somewhere in the middle, not blindingly bright yet noticeably brighter when compared to the nurses’. She had to be staring at everyone’s life force. Betsy’s was a wispy outline like morning mist.
Not if I can help it.
All she had to do was give some of hers to Betsy. Easier said than done, considering the two pages of ingredients plus two pages of instructions for the life-transferring spell.
But she had run out of time. If she didn’t do something right now, she would lose Betsy forever.
The warmth starting from her bracelet now surrounded her. She sensed the magic waiting expectantly for her to give it purpose.I wonder…
Olivia tugged on her life force the same way she would command the magic. The light around her shimmered in response. Andrea had said magic comes from one’s life force, so they were one and the same. She recalled how she had used magic against Marek, against Bryan. She’d had a need and magic had responded.
Go to Betsy. Please save her,she begged the aura around her.
The tendrils of light moved from her to Betsy, slowly, drudgingly, as if it didn’t quite want to.
Yes. It’s working!
Olivia pushed harder. When a tugging sensation started in her center, she pushed it aside and urged the light to keep moving. The glow moved faster, shifting, agitating, and crawled over Betsy’s form inch by inch.
Ollie?
Olivia froze.Betsy?
Ollie, it is you!
The world around Olivia shifted, an opaque mist smothering the darkness, swirling in circles until it stopped and pulled back like a curtain. Olivia’s insides clenched as she found herself in a familiar kitchen. Gray counters lined one wall with a sink and a cooking range while light streamed through the double windows on the opposite wall. A large island counter sat in the middle with three stools on one side.
She was back home. In the kitchen of her childhood home. No, this was a dream. An illusion. A memory. Wispy, semi-transparent fog framed the scene, as if she watched everything through a TV screen.
“Ollie, there you are!” Betsy suddenly appeared and hugged her.
Shocked, Olivia twined her arms around Betsy and returned the hug.This isn’t real,she told herself, but she couldn’t help inhaling her sister’s perfume, the same Dior one Betsy had used since college.
“It is really you?” Olivia pulled back and examined Betsy, who looked very much alive and healthy and happy.
“I should be asking you. You’re not part of my imagination?” Betsy sat down on a stool. A steaming mug of coffee appeared out of nowhere.
“I’m not.” Olivia traced her hand over the counter. Everything felt so real. She could even smell the scent of bacon and pancakes, their regular Saturday morning breakfast, drawing out a deep ache within her, a longing for the happy days of her childhood.
“Where are we?” she asked.
