Persie Merlin and the Door to Nowhere by Bella Forrest Page 0,136

through a creaky iron gate, we set to work. I started at the top and Charlotte at the bottom, while the pixies flew around wherever they liked, all of us scanning the old headstones for the name Fergus McLeod. I scraped away layers of grime and moss, trying to spend as little time as possible at each grave. My mind wandered as I read the eroded inscriptions, thinking about who these people might’ve been, and what they’d done with their lives. Had they been happy? Had they died with regrets? Nobody spoke ill of the dead, especially not on gravestones, so I guessed no one would ever know what these people had been like when they were alive. After all, this cemetery was so old that I doubted anyone remembered these people.

Halfway down, the weeping willow caught my eye again. It stood out against the bare landscape as though it were trying to prove a point beyond mere guardianship. Intrigued by the whispering fronds, I headed toward it and parted the leafy curtains. Boudicca and her male counterpart fluttered in after me, shining their light on the darkened space within. A private world, almost, secret from the rest of the cemetery.

Is that…? I peered into the gloom and gasped as my eyes fell upon a solitary headstone. Boudicca hovered over it, shining her light on the words I’d been looking for: Fergus McLeod. The rest of the inscription had worn away over time; his name was barely legible, but I saw enough letters to know that this was the one. We’d found it.

“Charlotte!” I shouted. “It’s here, under the willow!”

She erupted through the fronds a few seconds later, brandishing a spade and a pleased smirk. “I stole this from outside the church, but I think they’ll forgive me. It’s all for a good cause, right?” Her smile faded suddenly, as she turned away. “You’d better start digging. We’ve got Wisps incoming, and I don’t think they’re here for a group hug.”

“Hold them off while I get the bones.” I reached out for the spade, which she duly tossed at me before ducking back outside the shadowed confines of the willow. The pixies followed, leaving me alone in the darkness with no one but a dead guy for company.

My heartrate skyrocketed as I plunged the tip of the spade into the soft earth and plowed for my life, throwing heaps of soil and wriggling earthworms off to the side. Behind me, I heard the clash of pixies, Chaos, and Wisps. Shrieks and chants, blasts and explosions, and flashes of light permeated the cemetery. I tried to ignore it as I continued to excavate, using my foot to shove the spade deep into the ground. As it turned out, trying to dig through six feet of heavy, sodden soil was anything but easy, and the battle going on outside didn’t help.

A lifetime of sweating and panting later, the spade finally clocked something solid. Frantic, and aware that I was now standing in a hole of earth on top of a rotting coffin that could give way at any moment, I cleared away the last of the dirt. Placing my legs to either side of the casket lid, I reached down and wrenched the wood away. It splintered and crumbled in my hands, but I didn’t care.

Huh… I glanced down, expecting to see a skeleton. Instead, I found a threadbare sack. Swallowing the nausea in my throat, I tossed the bag up onto the side of the grave and pulled myself out. The groundskeepers would probably have something to say about a freshly dug grave in the morning, but there was nothing I could do about that. Heaving the bag over my shoulder, I ran through the willow fronds and into the Wisp battle.

“I’ve got them!” I yelled to Charlotte, who had a Wisp in her Telekinetic grasp.

“What about the other bones?”

Boudicca flew to me and squeaked desperately, gesturing away from the cemetery.

“Lorelei’s bones aren’t here?” I asked, feinting out of the way of an incoming Wisp.

She shook her head.

“Do you know where they are?”

She hopped up and down, nodding eagerly.

I gripped the sack of bones tighter. “I don’t think they’re here, Charlotte. The pixies can take us to them.”

Charlotte groaned and squeezed the captured Wisp until it exploded into a shower of pink sparks. “Give me one second, and don’t tell a soul about this. I promise you, neither of us will live it down. Oh, and try not to pull my