“This is what you’ve always wanted,” Carrie reminded herself as she approached the book once again. Her breathing was labored and her hand was shaking as it got closer to the page. Carrie pulled her hand back and sat down on the loose, rotting planks that covered the cottage floor.

The book looked innocent enough on the outside. It was loose leaf bound in brown leather. The pages were cut uneven, but other than that it appeared to be a very average book. Just like everything else in the cottage, including the kitschy, needle point sign that read, “The cottage is where the heart is.” At first glance it was all ordinary.

The only thing that was in any way unusual was the heat. Even with all of the windows open, the cottage was always 90 degrees Fahrenheit. The outside temperature was only getting up as high as 50 at midday, and yet the cottage never cooled off. Carrie assumed it was one of Greta’s spells. “The old woman must’ve liked the heat,” Carrie moaned as she wiped more sweat off her forehead.

Carrie looked at the book again and stretched her hand out to it. A spark shot out to her finger before she even touched the leather. “Ahhh!” Carrie yelled as she pulled her hand back. The book flipped open, and Carrie recoiled; she knew what was about to happen.

It started with her finger. The skin became a beige smoke that slowly enveloped her body, and then the smoke flowed into the open pages of the book. The world around her disappeared and the next thing she saw was the black room, and Greta standing in the middle. “Welcome,” Greta smiled. The eyes weren’t focused on Carrie, they just looked straight ahead.

“You will now have the power to use the book,” Greta’s words seemed to float right past Carrie. She had been waiting so long to hear them. The lessons left for her by Greta had helped the young witch a lot, but Carrie had yet to see any of the spells. Carrie smiled as she realized what the avatar meant by her words. She felt ready.

“You are not ready, but we have run out of time.”

“I am ready!” Carrie protested, but the image in the middle of the room was not really Greta. The powerful sorceress had died over a hundred years earlier. It had made the lessons very frustrating. “How can you say that?”

“Solomon is approaching the cottage,” Greta’s image stated the fact bluntly. “You need to get away, and this is the spell that will take you back to your coven.”

The words hit Carrie hard, making her feel a bit sick to her stomach. She hadn’t seen the members of her coven in weeks, months maybe. Carrie wasn’t sure how long she had been in the cottage for. Her phone had died a long time ago.

“What language is this?” Carrie groaned as she looked at the spell that had appeared in red letters on the large black wall behind Greta. It wasn’t even a language she recognized. “Is this Greek?” Carrie pulled out her wand. She knew a translation spell, but it wasn’t always accurate.

Carrie was nervous as she put the wand out in front of her. She preferred spells that were written out in English. Speaking a language that you didn’t understand, especially where magic is concerned, created all sorts of unnecessary problems. Carrie had turned herself into an alley cat a few years back with the help of a yeast spell that was written in Yiddish.

“You have to leave the cottage now,” Greta’s voice delivered the message with the same cold detachment that had been haunting Carrie since the first time she touched the book. “This is not a test, or a trick. You are now charged with protecting this book, and the secrets contained within. It must never fall into the wrong hands. Thank you for taking the time to listen to my teachings, and I wish you a long and healthy life.”

“It doesn’t feel like you mean that,” Carrie mumbled as she started the translation spell. She was surprised and pleased that the book provided a phonetic spelling of the words so she could say the spell without changing the meanings of the words she didn’t understand. The pronunciations were appearing under the words in green. It was taking almost 30 seconds per word, and there were seven words in the spell.

“Anybody home?” It was Solomon. Carrie could see him, but he was on the other side of the back wall. It was like he was towering over the room she was in. He smiled right at Carrie and she knew he saw her. “There you are.” She saw him come closer and lean over the top of her. She watched him lift up the room she was in and remembered she was still inside the book. He’d picked it up off the floor. Now he was holding it. But did he see her? Or only the book?

Her heart beat rapidly as she focused on the translation spell. She needed to get away as soon as possible.

His eyes were scanning the page in front of them. I guess this is what it feels like to be a word, Carrie thought as she watched the eyes moving all around the page if a word could feel. From her vantage point, it looked like Solomon couldn’t make anything out. He seemed confused and upset. She wished he would put the book down. If he saw her, there would be a lot of trouble. She looked down again, trying to figure out the words as quickly as she could.

“Blank pages, eh?” Solomon chuckled to himself. Carrie was somewhat relieved to hear him say that until he made his next move. “I guess this isn’t the book.”

He closed the book. Carrie felt the floor rise up, and she ducked down and then laid flat on her back as her face planted into the ceiling.

“Oh my God!” Carrie groaned. She maneuvered her hand so she could rub her forehead. The ceiling had a lot of give to it. It still felt like paper against her forehead, but it was the speed he used to close the book that had hurt. Carrie moved her hand down and realized that she did have a bit of room to move.

There was no light in the room now and she was fighting to read the spell. Her eyes could make out a bit of the red, but the green was too light to see in the closed book. Carrie waved her wand with a flick at the end and the tip glowed white. “Arrttey Fuggney semper fi tiggey bel fourt!”

The white of the wand was absorbed into the white that swallowed the darkness of the closed book. Carrie was wet before she could make out where she was. The room was gone. She was still holding the book in her left hand and her wand in the right but she appeared to be floating in water. And yet she could still breathe.

Where am I?

Carrie tried to swim for the surface, but her ankle felt like it was caught on something . She looked down to see a hand grasping her leg. Solomon was below her. Fear split through her for only a moment before she flicked her wand at the thousand-year-old vampire. The bolt of power sent the blood sucker back a bit, tumbling over just enough for something in the deep, something dark and rising up from the bottom to encircle him and take him away from her.

Carrie spun in the water, struggling to swim as fast as she could to the surface. She hadn’t seen what it was, but the tentacle that touched Solomon was bigger than an anaconda, bigger than a giant squid. At least that’s what she assumed, since she’d never seen one other than in the movies. Carrie didn’t want to see the rest of the animal. She needed to get to the surface and figure out what the spell was supposed to say. That was her only priority at this point. This was not the escape that Greta had planned for her. She just knew it.

She had more problems than figuring out the spell but didn’t want to overload her brain thinking about it. There was the vampire, the sea monster, the fact that the surface was nowhere in sight… Carrie could feel her air supply running out. She didn’t have gills. She didn’t know how she’d lasted this long. She knew it could only be about another minute or so before her lungs would fill with water and she would drown. She couldn’t even see the surface, there was no way she was going to make it.

She could feel the book heating up in her hands. She opened the book and a spell appeared on the blank page in front of her. She tried to say the words, but she was underwater. Carrie had no idea if it would work until she could breathe once again. She was breathing in the water as if it was air. Carrie took a big breath and then exhaled.

Carrie screamed when a tentacle rose up and grabbed her leg. She had been so focused on breathing that the sea monster had completely slipped her mind. Solomon had likely been too fast for it to catch. Vampires were capable of great speeds in the water too. Before the tentacle could take her to the murky depths below, she managed to pull air all the way into her lungs. She could hold on for almost five minutes. She’d trained herself to do that since she didn’t know the spell for underwater breathing. The tentacle was pulling her down into the cold water. She calmed her heart and opened the book.

The spell from the wall faced her again, red and green, only now the last word was different. Carrie said the words again, and as they bubbled out of her throat the water started to get colder and colder.

Suddenly she was trapped inside an ice swan. The body of the swan was cold against her bare arms. Carrie was in jeans and a t-shirt. It was an inappropriate outfit for deep sea diving, but the cold water was a relieving change of pace from the heat of Greta’s cottage. The cold water was fine, but the ice against her bare arms was extremely uncomfortable.

Gone from the watery depths, the first crack broke through the silence of her surroundings and she suddenly saw the room outside the sculpture. She was finally in a place she recognized. It was the last place she had stayed before heading off to the cottage. Carrie was about to burst out into the throne room of Peles Castle, and it looked like Ali and Anatolie were having a party.

The second crack sent the neck of the swan falling to the ground. It was amazing to see from the inside. The swan was huge, and Carrie really appreciated the craftsmanship. She couldn’t tell exactly what it looked like, but there was a lot of detail on this swan.

Carrie could hear something else as the cracks started to come faster, and sharper. The kraken was coming through, as well. In fact the kraken was starting to push her through the ice. The swan body shattered and Carrie rolled free onto the ornate floor of the castle’s largest room. The guests were already scattering as they saw her tumble from what seemed to be a watery, icy depth.

The members of Carrie’s coven were standing at the back of the room, and they rushed forward to help her. Together they managed to fight the kraken back long enough to close the portal, much to Carrie’s relief. The last thing Carrie wanted was for any more unexpected visitors to arrive. “That was a kraken,” Carrie muttered as she heard the others debating the details of the attack. “We must be very careful about using portals to get in here. I wouldn’t have done what I did, if I had not been in such dire straits. Solomon was after me. That beast went after him first but I guess he got away because it came after me.”

They all needed some time to let the attack settle in, and Carrie needed to find a room to get some rest.

“I really need to get some rest. I’m going to find a spare room.”

She was sure that they would have a lot of questions for her but they really didn’t seem very upset. They were more waiting for the next thing to happen, it seemed.

Ali was more worried about her ball getting ruined. “The people need to believe that they can come here and have a good time,” Ali whined. “It’ll be a generation before they trust this castle for another ball.”

Carrie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She told the others about what she had learned. They were less than impressed. “You have an old book, and it wants you to save it?” Raven was trying to understand why she should help.

“It’s Greta. She is the one who wants it to be saved,” Carried explained. “That’s why she put a spell on the book. A spell that told me when Solomon was approaching and a spell that gave me what I needed to escape.”

“A spell that tried to feed you to a kraken,” Ali sneered.

“That is my grandmother’s spell book,” Anatolie reminded his fiancé in a deep, scolding voice. “If she wants us to protect the book then we must.” Ali rolled her eyes. She was in a foul mood and no one could escape her wrath.

Carrie tried to keep her voice even as she spoke to Ali. “It sent me there so the kraken could scare off Solomon, and it worked.” She tried to make it as clear as she could so they could understand the severity of the situation. But they stared at her with blank, uncaring expressions. They had no interest in hearing about the ordeal that Carrie had been through over the last few months.

“Six months,” Ali sighed as she repeated the number to a bewildered Carrie. “It’s been six months since you bothered to let us know what was going on. We’d about given up.” She reached up to violently take her hair out of the tight bun that she normally kept it in. It felt like her brain needed more space to handle all of this information. “You haven’t sent us any messages, or even let us know that you were okay…”

“How could I?” Carrie shook her head. “I wasn’t exactly next to a post box, was I?” She looked at Anatolie for support. He shook his head in return but said nothing. To her, that meant she needn’t bother fussing with Ali. It would do her no good. When Ali was in a foul mood, she stayed that way.

Carrie was glad that she had found the book. She had learned a lot. She could tell that her friends had felt a little abandoned. But it was necessary for her to continue her quest and learn as much as she could in order to protect the book.

“I was alone up there. I know. I chose to do that. I had to. But I do know…” She lowered her eyes. “I realized I need you guys. I need your support, your strength and your help.”

“You had to travel into the mountains for six months to realize that?” Raven shook her head.

Carrie looked around the room at her friends. She really had missed them. And yes, she needed them, too. She knew they would help her. That was all that mattered. Carrie sighed to herself and tried to push her weary body up to standing. Suddenly, she could no longer keep her eyes open. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a decent sleep. Knowing she was home with her friends gave her the sleepiness she needed to be out like a rock in no time. “I need to sleep. Can we please talk about this in the morning?”

The others continued to argue amongst themselves, especially Anatolie and Ali. He was on Carrie’s side and Ali didn’t like that he was defending her.

Carrie left the room. She headed to a quiet space in the castle. The chamber was cold, in contrast to Greta’s warm room. She closed her eyes, holding the book to her chest. They would help her get the book safely stored away. She was sure of it.

The castle was filled with empty rooms. The last time that Carrie was in the castle there hadn’t been much in the way of creature comforts, but with Ali and Anatolie living there now, Carrie had no trouble finding a place to lay down.

Carrie set the book down on a table beside the single bed. There was a blanket and a pillow in the room. Neither was very comfortable, but they would do. Carrie had been sleeping on the floor of the cottage for a long time, and any bed was a welcome change.

Carrie took one last look at the book in front of her, and then closed her eyes. Her eyes opened again quickly; she had to check to make sure that the book hadn’t moved. “How am I going to fall asleep with this thing around?” Carrie asked as her eyes shut again. She was so worried that someone would take the book, she took it from the bedside table and wrapped one arm around it. Sleep took hold of her.