Holly from him. It took them away…over there, into the distance.
Behind their backs, Elise approached the witches. “Can you call her up now? Do you need anything?”
The three witches closed into a circle. “We don’t need anything. We can only try it. If we can weaken her, we might be able to prevent her from taking anyone else.”
The three witches joined hands, and the air between them started to pulse. Wyatt recognized the familiar sequence of events. The space inside their arms shimmered and emitted a strange light.
The light and the vibration quickened. He turned around to watch when a gasp spun him around fast. Holly stared in open-mouthed shock at a wavery image rising out of the depths.
A wispy woman with long blonde hair hovered a few feet above the water. She cast a benevolent smile toward the bank, but that face made Wyatt’s blood run cold. She started to glide toward the party, and a brutal stab of revulsion hit him in the chest. He didn’t want her anywhere near him.
The moment she appeared, the witches gave voice to a weird chorus of noises that Wyatt could only imagine must be some kind of magical singing. They harmonized in strained tones, but the result was anything but pleasant. The sound became part of their spell, winding up to some catastrophic explosion.
The Fair Dryad only smiled at them, sailing closer all the time. Whether the witches called her toward them or she came on her own didn’t seem to matter to her at all.
She stopped about ten feet from the bank. Her gown wafted in the breeze, but it looked more like it was swimming in water than air. Her hair drifted in liquid ripples.
The noise rose to a deafening boom. Wyatt’s hands flew to his ears, and he glanced at the witches to see if they were making any progress toward weakening the Dryad. When he did, he saw Edwina’s eyes open. Of the three, she alone faced the Dryad. She watched the apparition with unwavering concentration.
An ear-splitting shriek jolted Wyatt back in the other direction just in time to see a gigantic wave lift out of the river. It crested almost as high as the Bridge itself. Wyatt lunged for Holly, who stood right in its path.
Garret met him coming from her other side. They both seized Holly at the same moment and staggered out of the way as the wave broke. It smashed onto the bank with ground-shaking force.
Wyatt tackled Holly out of the way to avoid the brunt of the blow. The next instant, she pitched against Garret, and all three tumbled in a churning tidal wave of water battering them in all directions.
Wyatt lost awareness of where he was or what he was bumping into. He felt bodies struggling against the current. He broke the surface and inhaled a huge lungful of air before the torrent hauled him under again.
In that instant, when he got his head above the water, he gazed across the choppy surface all the way to the Bridge. The truck sat parked on the hill by the road, untouched. Other than that, he didn’t see a single person. Was he the only one left alive?
The murk closed over his head, and he went back to flailing against an overpowering current. It smashed him into solid objects. It sliced sharp edges into his skin.
The next moment, he surfaced again, and this time, he stayed afloat. He treaded water, staring in all directions, but the Dryad was gone. The water sank into its former serene pool unclosed by the gorge.
As he watched, Garret hauled onto the bank, helping Susanna crawl out. Water streamed from their clothes and hair. A few feet away, Holly and Elise dragged Audrey’s bedraggled remains onto the grass and then collapsed side by side in a breathless heap.
Wyatt gave one last look around, but there was nothing else to see. He kicked against the chilly water and swam the rest of the way to the shore. The air froze him the minute he got out.
No one said anything. Garret and Wyatt supported Susanna to the truck while Holly and Elise got under Audrey’s armpits. They deposited her in the back before climbing aboard themselves.
Wyatt scanned the River one last time. Nothing remained of the other two witches. Whether the Dryad took them down to her underwater lair or drowned them outright, they certainly weren’t here anymore. Hanging around wouldn’t bring them back.
Garret slammed the driver’s door. He drove