Dancing on the Dark Side

7 Bribing the Ferryman

The somber strains of orchestral music filter through the air, the smell of baking goods has my stomach groaning as the dreamscape solidifies around me. I'm sitting in my favorite chair at the island beside my abuela, a tray of perfectly cooked lumps bring a smile to my face, despite everything that happened today. I reach out and grab one of the light brown disks, taking a bite out of the still-warm cookie before Abuela can stop me. An explosion of oaty-goodness burst along my tastebuds, cinnamon and molasses coaxing the tension from my body as a moan escapes me.

"Hello to you, too," Abuela grumbles at me dryly. My eyes flash to her face as a pang of annoyance douses my enjoyment of the cookie.

"The Trix witch was a pendejo." I growl when Abuela looks up from the tray of fresh-baked oatmeal cookies. She quirks an eyebrow at me, her violet-grey eyes flaring just a little at my use of a swear word she used to make me wash my mouth out for speaking as a child.

"Yes, well." Abuela doesn't chastise me for my crude words, leading me to believe she already knew how my meeting with him went. "You did raise fifty in his family cemetery." She tells me, confirming my assumption. I narrow my eyes at her in annoyance. "I'm not siding with him," Abuela says before I can accuse her, raising a hand to stop me from speaking as she continues. "But perhaps you can see where he was coming from."

"Still, a pendejo." I repeat, savoring the swear word before taking another bite of cookie. As far as consolation prizes go, this is pretty good.

"Do you recall the Greek myth about the Ferryman?" Abuela asks me once I've polished off the cookie and am reaching for another. I pause in my selection, narrowing my eyes at her once again. Abuela used to read to me when I was little, I remember her favorite lessons came from myths, including Greek, Roman, and Nordic myths.

"Uh-huh." I huff, plucking a cookie up and bringing it to my mouth as I consider her reminder of Charon, the Ferryman of souls across the river Styx.

"Even the Ferryman needed payment for his services." She reminds me and I feel my eyes narrow even more as I recall the cautionary part of the myth. Where Charon would leave the souls who couldn't pay him on the banks of Styx to wander for eternity.

"You want me to bribe the Ferryman." I sum up in annoyance, seeing the correlation of the myth to my current situation.

"Muñeca, no one in the supernatural community does anything for free. If they do, you should run the other way." Abuela warns me. I chew on my cookie, the stuff becoming less palatable as I consider her words.

"I don't even know the man," I mumble around the chewed bits of cookie in my mouth. "How do you bribe a witch anyway? Can't the good ones just conjure up whatever they need?" I wave the cookie around.

"That's not how it works," Abuela sighs, giving me a disapproving smirk. "But I can see how that is where your mind goes because of the things I've taught you." She plucks a towel from the air as if to show me while she explains. "Conjuring only goes as far as pulling something you already have access to with the help of your magic. But I couldn't just call up, say, a cat or toaster." She rattles off two things she's never had in the house. Abuela never much liked animals, unlike me, and she tried to keep the amount of electrical appliances to a minimum. No toaster, no hair dryer, nothing overly modern except the stove and the lights around the house. It made for some rather creative games to keep myself entertained when I was a kid.

"Hm." I hum, thinking about how annoying that kind of restriction is, but it makes sense. If any witch was able to get whatever they wanted by just flicking their hands, then what would stop them from seizing more power? You'd think the world would be in utter chaos by now if that were the case. Since it's not, I assume there are more rules than just that, that govern Magic. "What would a Death Magician even want?" I wonder aloud, frowning at the rest of the cookies on the tray.

"That's something you need to discover yourself, muñeca." Abuela tells me in a bright tone that makes me turn my narrowed eyes on her.

"And you can't just tell me?" I ask, getting the feeling that she knows exactly what the Trix witch wants - if he even wants anything at all.

"You know there are only-"

"Certain things you can tell me," I rattle off her excuse as my annoyance rises. "That excuse is getting old, Abuela." I warn her.

"Don't sass me, Fi." Abuela narrows her eyes back at me, but they're dancing with the usual violet-grey of amusement, so I know she's not mad about my harsh words.

"I still don't see why you can't just teach me." I mutter sullenly, pouting and glaring at the cookies accusingly.

"We've tried that. You do not learn well from me." She reminds me. I purse my lips and continue to glare at the lumpy morsels...even if I inwardly agree with her. Something about Abuela's teaching methods don't work with me. Like she runs on AM frequencies and I on FM. I don't understand what it is she's trying to teach me half the time she's tried. And since she said something was coming, it means I have a time constraint to work under.

"But why him?" I growl, turning the whiny words into more annoyed-sounding than toddler-like.

"You two are very much alike." Abuela's words startle me into looking up at her wide-eyed.

"Did you know him?" The question is out before I can pacify my innate curiosity.

"Briefly." Abuela admits, her violet-grey eyes becoming a little sad as they briefly go distant. "He was helping me before the Surge. Him and his family." This news makes me go still, afraid any sudden moves will make her realize how much information she's spilling.

"The dead," I begin slowly, the gears in my head slowly turning. "The ones that called to me in the mausoleum-"

"More than likely, that was his recently-dead family calling to your magic." Abuela sighs, but she doesn't look at me directly. "It happens sometimes, the dead wanting to be resurrected. That or traumatic deaths can cause...shall we say confusion in the dead."

"Traumatic deaths?" I frown, blinking a few times as I try to figure out what she's trying to say. "What, like a car crash or something?"

"No, Fi, the magical backlash killed them." Abuela explains, finally looking me in the eyes. I stare at her, the realization hitting me in the chest like an anvil.

"Why didn't he just bind them?" I ask with a frown. The term 'bind' is something Abuela explained to me before, when we'd first had our talk about my options as a witch. Binding refers to a magical restraint being placed on a witch so they can't access their magic. In most cases, that kind of thing is used as a punishment for our kind. A last-resort to control a witch who's power hungry or just overcome with the power they already have.

"By the time we were strong enough to carry out that option, it was too late." Abuela sighs. "Only a powerful witch who has control over their own Magic can bind another's. You also need the full name of the witch to bind them," She explains. "There were six of his family there with us. There was no way he could have bound each one so quickly." Abuela gets a haunted look in her eyes, the violet-red hue going almost glassy as she reflects on the past. "As it was, we barely managed to correct the situation and complete the casting."

"And still there was a surge." I conclude before she can mention it. The event that changed our lives forever. All of our lives, I realize with a sinking feeling in my gut. I only lost Abuela - and even then - I can talk to her like this... How must it be for Obbie? What's it like to loose your entire family to one event?