Caitlyn stood by the doorway and thought through the last hour or so of her life. Being called to visit her eccentric grandmother had been a bit of a surprise. Catlyn and her brother Terrance had been to the mansion just a week before. Grandmother was not known for liking family visits.
Before the hour was out their grandmother had gone from being eccentric to being a witch of some sort, and they were there to help her save her son -- their father.
Catlyn looked at her brother who stood by the magical globe, a long-bladed knife in hand. He gave an expressive shrug that seemed to say what she felt: I don't really want to believe, but we best go through with it.
Grandmother sat on her throne-like chair, her hands moving in arcane patterns and her eyes mostly closed. Catlyn held the vase of roses in her hand.
"You have to be ready for something outside your normal world, Catlyn," Grandmother had said to her. "You must let it get halfway up the stairs before you throw the vase and flowers. The water must splatter the beast. It's infused with magic, you see. I always keep some on hand."
Catlyn looked down in the vase and thought, perhaps, that it did sparkle just a bit. However, standing in the shadows at the top of the stairs gave her time to consider the insanity of this situation. Nothing would come up the steps --
Where had the dead flowers gone that they'd seen when she and her brother arrived? She had watched Grandmother turn the globe back and felt an odd bit of dizziness, but --
"Be ready," Grandmother whispered from inside the room.
Her hands began to perspire. She looked back at Terrance again, but he had stepped into the shadows as well.
A sound at the bottom of the stairs. Catlyn turned back, a slow moment, hoping not to draw the attention of --
The ghoul stood at the bottom of the steps. It had not come through the door. In fact, it didn't seem to be fully there for a moment. Gray-skinned, skeletal, gleaming eyes: this was not something from her world. She froze. She couldn't breathe.
The creature made a slight laughing sound, inhuman.
If she did not do something, her father would die.
The trick, grandmother had said, was to make the ghoul think that grandmother was only just coming out of the room and crossing to the steps to throw the vase. In those moments when she had left the room, and before she reached the stairs, the other intruder would appear by the globe and set the dangerous storm in motion against her father.
If Grandmother had to come all the way to the stairs, the battle was lost. She could not turn back time again.
Father would die.
The ghoul's gray-on-gray eyes watched where grandmother appeared. It never saw her until she stepped forward and threw the flowers -- and magical water -- straight into its face.
The thing howled with a sound that made her cringe, but in the next heartbeat it was only a scattering of dust, and she could hardly believe it had been real --
Something flashed, far too brightly, behind her. Catlyn turned and rushed back to the room, remembering that this was only half of the battle.
The room was filled with bright light, shouting voices, an odd echo as though everything was not quite here. Grandmother stood with both her hands reaching outward, and tame lightning flickered from her fingers toward the creature that loomed up over the back half of the room, stoop-shouldered and snarling. This was not a ghoul, but the size and shape of the thing made her cringe backward again. Not of her world! This couldn't be real!
Terrance was on the floor, and at first, she thought he was writhing in pain -- but then she saw that he had hold of some man.
"Help your brother," Grandmother ordered, her words strong and her eyes never leaving the other enemy.
Catlyn passed behind her and around the side of the room as quickly as she dared. The huge creature kept glancing her way, though, anger in its bright red eyes. She had almost reached Terrance when the more massive beast growled and turned on her, taking a step closer --
She still had the vase in her hands. She threw it as hard as she could. The glass shattered and the last of the water spattered across him. The creature drew back in shock, made a sound of surprise and pain, and seemed to disappear into the shadows.
"Well done, Catlyn!" Grandmother said as she rushed past to Terrance. She reached down and yanked a scrawny, hook-nosed man to his feet. "And you did well, too, Terrance. Quick thinking -- I had gotten distracted by the giant. If you hadn't noticed there were two visitors, we still would have lost."
Terrance grinned. He had a scratch on his face, and his lower lip looked swollen, but that was nothing compared to the man grandmother held by one arm.
"Vincent," she said, shaking the man like a rag doll. "I should have known it was you."
The man tried to snarl, but Catlyn could see the worry in his eyes. "What do we do now?" he asked, and his voice squeaked.
Grandmother smiled. "You are going on a long, long, trip, Vincent."
"No --"
But he was gone in the next heartbeat. "Well, we won't see him for a while. Come along, children. Let' see what we can find in the kitchen. I can call the servants back now, too."
By the time their father returned from his trip, Catlyn and Terrance had moved into the mansion and begun a serious study of magic. He wasn't even surprised.
They hadn't told their mother yet, though.
"Some dangers are just best avoided," Grandmother said.
None of them argued.
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