“This is not going according to plan!”

I swing to the left, as Marrak lunges for the right.

“Plan? Use that binding spell again! Like on the beast’s child!”

I don’t look behind. I’m just running. I can see the shadow engulfing mine as I run, the thing, the bog creature, roaring behind me, towering above us. The creature tears it’s way through the trees around it, undeterred by nature.

“It works on rocks, Marrak. We’d need some really big rocks! But hey, thanks for reminding mama why it wants us dead!”

I really hope this thing doesn’t understand language. I reach deep inside myself, after months of not being able to float so much as a pencil.

“Excudo!” The thin beam comes from my hands, and it takes me by surprise. It’s been so long. The beam slices through the air and hits the creature, smack between one of its sets of eyes.

“Good armour,” I hear Marrak say. I’m not paying much attention. In my haste to facilitate the escape, I’ve forgotten about Mr. Caterpillar, who is now directly in front of the creature’s mouth. “I forgot about caterpillar guy!” I yell, but Marrak ignores what I say.

“It’s distracted!,” he yells. “Run!” He doesn’t have to tell me twice, but I look back at the caterpillar, attempt to shout a warning, before the thing gets too close to him. I see the teeth come down and fear the worst, until I hear the caterpillar’s voice.

Looking behind me, I’m amazed. He’s conjured energy from his hands, green energy, the colour of life. As all four of his arms stretch outward to cast the spell, I hear him talking to me,

“Thanks for your concern, given that you brought this threat into my home. But here, I cannot be assailed. My cocoon stops any threat.” He’s not bragging, but I wouldn’t blame him if he did. He looks majestic. However, he clearly has no interest in helping us.

“Bet you wish you had a cocoon” he remarks, smartass butterfly wannabe.

I look back at Marrak who’s next to me, looking worried. I look down and see why: his foot is caught in one of those gnarly roots. And the creature still comes for us, it’s teeth bearing down. As Marrak begs me to cut him loose, I try to tell him that there’s no time, try to reassure him through my tone, but it doesn’t work. He’s still yelling as I’m trying to concentrate.

“You can’t penetrate the armour!” he yells.

Watch me.

“Elesa hom ekta bliare.”

The spell works. Marrak looks at me, obviously wondering what I’ve done. I watch as the creature comes so close to us I can taste it’s fetid breath.

And then it clamps it’s teeth down, Marrak in his mouth, his cloak stuck in the creature’s teeth like he’s eating lettuce at a salad bar. The caterpillar just stands there, same funky tude. “I hope that was a quick-kill spell to spare him.”

Shove it up your chrysalis.

I count down from five aloud. “Four, three, two…” My hands are clasped together, like I’m praying, but the golden glow is all me.

Then SPLAT! The creature, poor thing, look surprised, like it’s swallowed something it knows it shouldn’t have. Then, with a sickening pop and a generous downpour of bloody body organs, and it’s dead, imploded from inside. Marrak stands in the centre of it’s remains, blood and goop dripping down him.

Ooops.

“Gross,” I yell as the sludge hits me. “Well, this is officially my worst make-over yet.”

Marrak is standing there, a dumbfounded and kinda angry look on his face. “You know what’s really nasty? Being your bait bomb inside the bastard!”

I don’t mean to grin, but he looks kinda funny, standing there. He’s still angry, but a lot less intimidating when he has dead entrails hanging from one of his horns.

“The great thing about the prey-inversion spell is it totally protected you when nuking said predator. Historically, no one likes to resort to it though.” I sound blasé, but I suddenly feel awful for a moment. Sympathy for my attacker. Sucks to be human.

“Can’t imagine why,” is Marrak’s response to my history lesson.

The caterpillar, still with that sarcastic drawl that I’ve just about had enough of, comes sauntering over, as if he’s on a pleasure beach somewhere. “Thank you so much for fouling my special pool with the gore of the Hyberrax. I’m sure that won’t affect the properties of the memory water at all!”

I make a resolution there and then. No more people are losing anything. No more suffering. No more pain. “I’m sorry,” I tell the caterpillar, with an idea forming. “I know something that should help.”

I concentrate and look inward. I ignore everything around me, closing my eyes so tightly all I see is black. But slowly, as I reach inward, the inside of my eyelids stop showing me shadows – it’s a bright white light. I can feel it, behind my eyes, pulsing. My heartbeat starts to race, like when someone you like touches your skin for the first time. It builds to the point where I know I can control it and I feel the light wash over me.

Then I begin the words. They come out like poetry, effortless and sublime. The way they sound, the way they taste on my lips…

“Nyekta zon. Kiren aron. Mastel wens… Dara zon! Dara zon!”

The light then comes from within me, covering my chest, my arms, right to the edge of my toes and I realise now that I’m hovering in mid-air. One final Dara Zon and the energy leaves me, encircling me like a ripple and soaring through the immediate area like a shockwave.

“That’s a Visigoth pyre spell, isn’t it? For purifying!” Marrak sounds surprised. Wonder why that is?

“Yep,” I nod, now safely back on terra firma. “And look. It segues neatly into an apparel enchantment so I can have some fresh clothes.”

Hey, it’s one way to save on laundry. I ask Marrak if he’d like a wardrobe change, but then he does something strange – he recoils from me.

Not even just recoils. Like, totally freaks, pulling away from me as I move towards him, ensuring some distance between us. I’m about to ask what’s wrong when he simply tells me that I’ve cast enough magic at him for one day.

The caterpillar doesn’t change his tone, despite the fact that everything’s clean and sparkly again. Or as clean and sparkly as a dark, dank, probably haunted, wood can be. Just after he tells us to leave whenever we want, the hint being now-ish, he also tells us to take a gift.

He warns us that the further we go on our journey, the more we may become a particular kind of thirsty. Not quite sure what he means, but I take some water anyway. Better to be safer than sorrier later.

But before we go, I try again. Ask him if there’s anything, anywhere that he knows, that could possibly be a source of magic. Instead of giving me a straight answer, he answers cryptically.

“You’re looking for a deeper well of magic, perhaps? At the risk of sounding like someone from your world of science and yawns, energy is released by opposing forces. The light casts thick shadows, and the oath of righteousness employs very dark gatekeepers.” He emphasises the word ‘dark’ as he skittles away along the ground, into the distance far quickly than should have been possible.

I don’t understand what he’s referring to in his stupid riddle. Marrak doesn’t think it was helpful either, but I cheer him up slightly: my divination spell is still working, the trail leading around a bend through the trees.

We start moving again.

An hour later, he still hasn’t said anything to me. He’s not as chatty since I did the purification spell. My brain is still working that one out, but I try to keep our conversation going. If only to alleviate the boredom.

The path in front of us is clear now: no jagged trees and bog creatures. We can see for miles around. In it’s own way it’s kind of pretty. Beautiful, almost.

“Can I cast them or what, Marrak?”

“You are strong here. But you need someone who knows the area.” He doesn’t turn to look back at me, so instead I get ahead of him.

“I don’t think we’re exactly the dream team, Marrak.” I remind him that he was quite willing to let Mr. Caterpillar get used as a chew toy. “Just so we could escape. I don’t roll that way.”

Marrak stops walking, yelling at my back as I keep moving. “He didn’t get to be a thousand years old by being helpless!” I tell him that’s not the point.

I turn to him, making sure he knows I’m serious. I don’t mix my words. “So far I’m busting out big magic without going black eyed and terrifying. I start acting like you, and that’s where I’ll end up.”

“So? That may be the only way to succeed.”

“Maybe. For you.”

I’m about to say something else, something about not being blood-thirsty or violent, but I stop when I see the flock in the sky. They look like blackbirds!

“Are those blackbirds coming this way?” I voice my question aloud, but Marrak, once he hears my question, turns to the birds hovering and grabs me, rather harshly, by my arm.

“Careful, Willow,” he yells out as the birds swoop down. Very Hitchcockian.

“Don’t let them touch you,” I hear him say as one of the birds scratches at my head, pulling at my hair. I yell at Marrak, but can feel myself spinning. Something in my blood stream? Some sort of toxin? Infection? Bad breakfast? Whatever it is, I’m close to throwing up as I black out. I don’t feel myself hit the ground.

When my eyes open, I’m not where I was. Gone are the barren plains of that dimension. Now, I look around in shock: I’m in San Francisco! “I’m home? Was that a portal?”

And that’s when I see them racing across the street. I know them straight away. Xander and Dawnie, running straight into… battle?

But they run straight past me, ignoring me. Then I notice there’s something very wrong.

They don’t have faces.

Everything else is there: the stance, the smell, the hair, the bad fashion… And then Buffy herself follows them, also faceless, with no identity. No smile. No eyes. No nothing. Like a mannequin in a shop window. She even has a stake in one hand, her Scythe, in the other.

As they race into the middle of the street, the sidewalk beneath them suddenly ceases to exist. It’s now a disc of solid golden light which grows bigger and bigger, surrounding Buffy and Xander and Dawn – as well as other faceless people – and dragging them all in, like they’re all sinking in quick sand.

And then they’re gone.

“Wait. This is wrong. All wrong. This must be an hallucination. I need a lucidity spell.”

I close my eyes, speak out onto the wind, let my voice carry on the breeze, find the same vibration as the air molecules whistling past… “Awaken. Awaken.”

I open my eyes again and I see one of the blackbirds getting flambéed! The flames nearly hit me as they pierce through the air, fired from Marrak’s mouth – another secret hidden from me by my companion. But I haven’t time to question it right now.

I yell at Marrak that I’m back, in case he hasn’t seen me in the confusion. I hear him tell me that I didn’t go anywhere, which is impossible because I know I did and damnit. Now is not the time for commentary…

“Burn!” Marrak is losing it now, the flames brighter, I recognise the way the flame dances around the birds, if that’s what they are. It’s Purge flame.

How does he know that?

Rather than ask him now, I note it for later in my nerdy brain and, instead, I ask him what the heck the bird things were.

“Dreams. Nightmares, mostly. Recurring dreams in our world start to become solid, alive. If they’re pushed out or come loose from their dreamers, they come here to try to fit themselves to new ones.”

More curious than I thought, I step forward, watch the birds fly around in the sky. They seem less evil and scary now. Marrak continues his tale behind me as I watch them fly in formation.

Remarkable.

“I’d seen some flapping around before, but always alone. Then a few months ago a lot more started showing up. It was when the doorways to our world closed. Eventually they started flocking together. Hard to avoid when they come at you in waves.”

I think for a moment, and then one of those feelings hits my stomach like a weight has been dropped on me. It’s guilt. Why didn’t we realise that the loss of magic in one world would possibly cause ripples in another?

Now I just feel stupid. “Dreams could always cut across the void – they don’t just transport the dreamer – they travel on their own. But they must not be able to find their way back. I don’t know who was dreaming about all their faceless friends plunging into Hell, but they’re probably happy to be rid of that image. What nightmare got you?” I ask out of curiosity mostly, but also I want to see if he lets something new slip again, like he did with the flame breath.

He avoids my gaze though, tells me he had a dream about nurses. He shrugs and carries on following the line of flame, still leading us somewhere. I sigh and I admit, I kick the ground in frustration when Marrak isn’t looking.

Why couldn’t I have gotten the nurses’ dream?

A few hours later and the light is fading now. Or the fog is becoming heavier. Either way, I can barely see Marrak in front of me. And he’s not hard to miss. I can just about make his silhouette out in front of me, metres away. The ground is lower now – like we’ve entered a valley or a ditch. It’s then he asks me his question and I realise he knows where I hope we’re going.

“You think there’ll be a Deeper Well, don’t you?”

Yes, I tell him, but I’m largely going on my intuition. Which I openly admit to him: “My intuition is awesome most of the time.” I tell him of our world, about the Deeper Well that Giles told me about, the one in the Cotswalds, and I’m hoping that there’s an equivalent here. That’s where I’m betting my trickle flame is leading us.

“You think there’s a focal point of magic there?”

“Well, it must be massive in a place this magical, right? We find that, I break out this Scythe and fix things, somehow.”

He looks around, shifty for a moment. As if he can sense something. I quickly glance around in every direction, but nothing moves for miles.

“At a strong enough focal point of magic, I should be able to access everywhere. I’ll cut open the path back to our world, let the magic flow through again. I guess, that’s my plan.” I hope I’m more confident than I sound. I’m not even sure it makes sense. “It sounds good when I say it aloud, at least.”

Marrak nods, understanding, then adds his two cents. “Possible. More than a portal to travel through, we need a conduit for magic, or I’d be powerless when I return.”

“And believe me that is no fun,” I agree with him. I ask him if he thinks the plan will work? A second opinion never hurts after all.

“You’d be creating a Hellmouth, more or less,” he tells me, as if it’s as easy as counting to three. “Probably would want to enslave some demons to guard it.”

I think I hear something, which in this place means there’s danger. I ask Marrak, but he didn’t hear anything. I hear it again, and start to panic slightly. My heart beat starts going faster, pounding, threatening to come out of my chest.

“Bind him!”

An unfamiliar voice shouts out and my heart pounds a little faster as Marrak is grabbed through the fog, disappearing into the murk with no time to scream. I instantly raise my arms, shaking now, readying a spell, but then another voice comes at me through the fog.

“Stay your defences, Willow, supreme witch of terra firma.” I know that voice instantly. I turn.

And then my heart stops.

She’s there in front of me. Saga Vasuki. The Saga Vasuki. Aluwyn the Trickster. My Trickster. She pulls herself up straight, her coiled tail beneath her. She’s beautiful, more so than before I think. Her white hair flows around her blue skin like silk. Marrak yells at me from somewhere in the fog, begging me to strike.

“I thought you would never leave your world again…”

As I walk towards Aluwyn, I notice Marrak out of the corner of my eye. He’s alive and yelling, but otherwise unhurt.

I don’t say anything to Aluwyn. I’ve nothing to say. So instead, with no hesitation, I press my lips to hers.

I hear Marrak react in shock. He didn’t see this one coming.

When she stops kissing me, I feel both of us resist the parting. She pulls me into a tight embrace, tears rolling down her blue cheeks. “It’s really you,” she cries. I allow myself a smile, pull her close and close my eyes. “It is,” I tell her gently.

As we part, she beckons over at Marrak, who’s getting off the ground. “This brute with you? Or should my friends deal with him?” Aluwyn gestures again and, through the fog, come three other mystics.

“That’s Marrak. He’s okay. You can let him go. Really.” As Marrak walks to my side, and actually gets behind me, to my surprise, I introduce him to Aluwyn. “This lying, deceitful, sexy snake is Aluwyn. The Saga Vasuki. My teacher in the high-witching arts.”

Aluwyn slithers over to us, closer, but doesn’t extend her hand to him. “Greetings, Marrak the Okay.” The last bit makes him bristle and me grin. Then her next sentence makes me smile from ear to ear as I hear Marrak grumble to himself.

“Please do not block my view of the greatest witch of the human world.”

The three mystics come forward suddenly. One’s a Centaur, with golden armour. Another resembles a blue-skinned angel. The other, a plant woman, looks like a comic book villain.

“This is her? Willow the Red?”

“Rosenberg the Enchantress!

“The Slayer’s Hex Mistress!”

“Um. Hi ladies. Gosh.” My head suddenly feels more than head-size. They bombard me with questions, eager to know everything. How did I crossover to this dimension? Isn’t your world cut off from magic? How could that happen with you there? It’s dizzying and I’m thankful when Aluwyn shushes them down.

“You can tell us after you’ve rested. If you’ve come from that direction, you’ve not had an easy stroll.”

“Rest sounds great,” I reply, smiling again. The Centaur appears beside me, makes me jump in surprise. “Can I at least offer a ride? Please mount me, great one.”

“To ride, Willow,” Aluwyn tells me. Awkward.

“There’s just no way out of the double entendre with this one,” I quip as I get on the Centaur’s back. I can see why Xander rode Dawn so much. And now my brain feels like it needs a scrub.

“Thank you,” I reply instead. I hear Marrak mention that he’s tired too, but I don’t think anyone else hears him. I ask Aluwyn how she knew I was here.

She surprises me when she said she didn’t – she was just following whatever cast the divination spell. She hadn’t expected me. But then I realise it didn’t lead her to me. It was leading me to her.

“Indeed,” she confirms, nodding. She closes her eyes a moment, as if calling upon something and the very air shimmers in front of me. When it stops moving I see beyond the haze, like the clouds parting.

It’s like something out of a fairy tale.

“Behold,” Aluwyn tells us. “Some refer to it as the Witches’ Paradise. After I lost you, I searched for power… A confluence of realms, and found what legends call the Wellspring.”

It’s beautiful. There’s a cliff above us, with a cascading waterfall of crystal clear water. It flows down, into a valley, creating a river that feeds the land around it, green growth everywhere. Little buildings are nestled inside the foliage, looking like little temples almost. There’s a bridge crossing the river and the sky is a lovely shade of bluey-green.

Aluwyn tells me, as I stare ahead of me, that she still wasn’t able to reach me, so she called out to other women of sorcery. They formed a super coven. Which is awesome, and everything, but I’m too busy looking out at the Wellspring.

A Deeper Well.

I look up at Marrak, big grin on my face. I try to engage him in banter, but he doesn’t bite. Won’t even high five me. He still doubts my kind-of plan will work, and I don’t think he’s comfortable around strong women. Just a guess, but he’s definitely nervous about something.

Aluwyn asks me what my goal is and I tell her, quite excitedly I might add, that I plan to cut a gateway through to Earth so that the magic can flow through to it again. Which means, thankfully, that I won’t be locked out of magic anymore.

“Of course, I’d feel a little more prepped if the Scythe were in one piece, but…”

The angel-like mystic from earlier flutters down, gentle as a feather. “Now that is a job for Vulcana.” As we start to move closer inland, a group of women from the coven stare at us excitedly. When Aluwyn tells them that I am the legend in the flesh, I blush, They actually cheer my presence. Aluwyn turns to me, a grin on her face. “Rest up, my dear,” she says, a glint in her eye. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”

A few hours later (a lady never tells…) and a crowd is gathered in the main courtyard of the Witches’ Paradise. Vulcana, a purple skinned priestess of flame, stands on a raised platform, her hands on the Scythe. I stand opposite her, doing the same. She begins to speak, and there is a hush amongst everyone. You can hear the air whistling.

“A weapon blessed as the counterpart of Excalibur! A blade that holds its power, even in a magicless world. A weapon so made can never be broken. A perfect design is eternal! Step forward, Mighty Willow the Red.”

She addresses the crowd then and they all react at the same time. I’ve never seen such a confluence of power. I feel tiny.

“Coven! Channel your whole! Focus on us! Use your healing power! CAST!”

As she says that last word, Vulcana disappears from my view. I can’t see anything for a moment, the light is so intense. It’s coming from the Scythe. I can just about make Marrak out in the distance, which strikes me as odd when I can’t see the others.

By the time the glow is gone, the Scythe is in my hands again. It’s whole, complete and repaired. It’s not got that nifty silver finish anymore, but still, it’s whole. And it’s perfect.

I start to express my thanks, but it feels inadequate, like its not enough. I’m excited though. I’m eager to check in with the others, open a rift as soon as I can. Aluwyn tells me to wait a while, but I’ve been saying this spell in my head for weeks, just waiting to get it out.

“N’Yar, vresh, terra evelar!”

I swipe the Scythe through the air and energy starts to swirl. I try not to get excited but I can’t help it. I turn to Aluwyn, smiling. “Get ready. The magical flume is going to come pouring your way!” Aluwyn calls my name, but I see the blue energy crackle in front of me.

For a minute, it’s just blue fog. A cloud of blue gas just hovering there. But in minutes, the centre of the fog dissipates and I see Xander and Buffy, on Earth. I can even hear them! I call out, unsure if they can hear me.

“Hey guys! Guess who just saved the world!” But Buffy and Xander don’t acknowledge me. They can’t hear me. I listen in to their conversation.

“I’ve got to run. Dowling found a nest.”

“Nest? Vampire or love?”

“Vampire. Dowling and I are not…”

“Give her a break, Xander. Buffy’s clearly not interested in a guy like Dowling.” Dawn has joined them now.

I try again to call them. “Get ready for everything to start working…” but I get distracted by something. The view of Earth starts to close, and I try to peer closer, desperately calling out to them.

“Thank you. Wait, why wouldn’t I be interested in a guy like Dowling?”

“He’s not your type.” I look on at Xander and Buffy and then Dawn turns to me. As if she knows I’m watching. It creeps me out at first and then I freak out even more.

Just like earlier, Dawn doesn’t have a face. But just Dawn. Why?

“Alive.” I hear her say it. She’s answering Buffy’s question, but there’s an answer for me in there somewhere. What is happening to Dawnie?

Aluwyn comes behind me as the portal closes. “I should have told you.”

She puts her arm around me, consoling me, though I’m not sure what she means yet. I’m too busy thinking about Dawn’s missing face.

“I’ve tried this very thing with every spell I know,” she tells me, whispering quietly. “With every witch I know helping me. For magic to open a direct pathway there, there has to be magic on the other end. What you call a ‘catch-22’? I thought you might make a difference. But if even you can’t do it…”

The viewer to Earth closes, and Marrak is suddenly in front of me. He has the decency to not say I told you so.

“If even you can’t do it, than magic can’t return to your world.”