“Jonathan! Jonathan, wake up!”
Jonathan opened his eyes groggily. He was back in the hotel room, and Lucy’s face was hovering uncomfortably close over his body. Jonathan’s gaze shot to her neck immediately. His heart sank. Although she appeared to be unharmed, the marking was still on her skin.
“What happened?” he asked.
“That’s my line. You just faded into the air for five minutes before reappearing on the ceiling. It’s a good thing the bed was under you.”
“I… Hang on—” Jonathan tilted his head at the surprisingly mature-sounding woman. “Lucy? Are you back? How old are you this time?”
“Nine hundred and ninety-five,” Lucy answered, before flushing red promptly. “I… I’m sorry for all that I’ve put you through. I wasn’t myself, and… Ugh, this is so embarrassing…”
The man broke into a relieved smile, but confusion quickly covered it up again.
“How did you regain your memories?” he asked. “Did something trigger it?”
Lucy shook her head. “My memories weren’t lost; they were taken. And by a powerful magic user, no doubt. Whoever she is— and I have an inkling of who— she saw fit to return my memories for some reason.”
“Baba Yaga?”
“Yes, how did you know?”
“She’s our most likely suspect,” Jonathan replied simply, pulling out the summoning ritual from his coat. “Angus gave me this; it’s a foolproof method to contact her. I need your help deciphering some dark magic before we can summon her.”
Lucy stepped away from the book instead. Jonathan looked at her in confusion.
“Something’s wrong. Look, Jonathan. You have to tell me what’s going on. I won’t help you until you let me know.” Concern was spilling over her voice. “I only remember snippets of what happened when my memories were taken, but I can recognise the magic traces around that summoning ritual. It’s remarkably similar to that woman in the hospital.”
“That’s not Baba Yaga, is it?”
“Definitely not. But whoever she is, her magic is closely related to that witch.” Lucy held Jonathan’s shoulders tightly. “I don’t mean to impose on you, but all this seems really dangerous. You may be bulletproof, but you’re not impervious to everything, especially magic. How much longer do you intend to do this by yourself?”
Jonathan exhaled slowly. Lucy was right. And so was Anya. All his life, nothing had ever held his interest for long. He had always chalked it up to boredom or made excuses for himself that it was too difficult to continue. But buried beneath the field of rotten excuses lay the true reason behind his fickle-mindedness.
Loneliness.
It didn’t help that he was the type to run away from others at the slightest hint of judgement either, even if they genuinely were just trying to care for him. It also didn’t help that he naturally enjoyed the company of others, until life taught him that relationships shouldn’t be treasured if they weren’t meant to last.
“You’re right, Lucy.” Jonathan nodded at his friend.
“You deserve to know what happened.”
~ ~ ~
The one-eyed witch slumped against her chair, panting slightly in exhaustion. She waved her hands as though shuffling imaginary mahjong tiles and the crystal ball in front of her ceased its glowing.
“Did it work? Did you contact him?” Anya asked anxiously. “Is he okay?”
“His involvement with another woman almost cost him their lives,” Baba Yaga muttered. “But worry not, my magic was still strong enough to divert the spirit elsewhere just in time. I have shown him what I can. All he needs to do now is perform the summoning ritual to bring himself here.”
“Why not bring yourself to him?”
“That is a risk I cannot take,” the witch replied darkly. “I can only use magicked familiars to carry out my actions in your world, or I risk exposing myself to the Ghost Of Glasgow.”
“Why are you so afraid of her?” Anya asked. “You’re Baba Yaga, for goodness sake! You’re a legend, literally! What did she even do to you?”
The crystal ball on the desk flickered, and a faint figure formed in it.
“Allow me to tell you a story,” Baba Yaga began, setting her hands on the ball. “Once upon a time, there was once a couple deeply in love. There was a little snag, however. The woman was a witch, while the man was a normal human. But despite their taboo relationship, they sought to live a simple life like every other husband and wife.”
“Let me guess, their community found out?” Anya said.
“Indeed. They had lived for years in peace, but their secret was eventually still leaked to their village.” The witch nodded. “Terrified of the woman’s practices, harmless as they were, the villagers deemed her a demon and trapped her in her house. They burned it down to get rid of her.”
Anya watched as the gas in the crystal ball formed a feminine figure struggling and screaming in pain.
“Hold on, are you saying she died and became a vengeful ghost?” she asked.
“Not quite. Turns out, it was her husband who died in her place to give her a chance to escape. The villagers, satisfied with the single charred corpse in the house, assumed that the threat was eliminated. They never questioned the husband’s whereabouts, and simply thought he was already secretly killed by his wife.”
The crystal ball turned white.
“After recovering her magic, the heartbroken witch searched for years to find a way to bring her husband back. It eventually brought her to my doorstep, where I used fortune telling to determine the outcome of her endeavours. In fact, it was at this very table that we met,” Baba Yaga continued. “Unfortunately, nothing but bad news awaited us. Not only had that man long passed on, but the woman was also never fated to be with her true love in the first place.”
“I’m assuming she did not take the news well?”
Baba Yaga sighed softly as her fingers ran over the deep scratch marks on the table’s surface. “Scorned and bitter, she lashed out at me. She tore out my right eye and even caused irreversible damage to my face. It was only thanks to the help of my disciple, Natasha, that we were able to banish her from my house together. And that, which I quickly learned, only proved to be my biggest mistake.”
“How so? You couldn’t help her even if you tried. It’s not your fault.”
“No, it is my fault. Because it was my incompetence that drove her to relentlessly pursue her husband through his multiple reincarnations.” She closed her eye painfully. “It was because of me that she became the Ghost Of Glasgow.”
Anya’s soul rocked the jar slightly at the revelation. “So that explains why all the victims were female. That explains why there was no obvious thread linking them together. She’s just a jealous woman stalking her husband over his reincarnated lives.”
“Her obsession with her late husband drove her to hunt down every woman that he fell in love with. Paranormal or human, they stood no chance. She was not the most powerful witch, but she was obsessed. Deranged, even. Every hunt was meticulously planned, and carried out to perfection.”
There was a swollen moment of pause.
“Now you see why I must hide? The Ghost Of Glasgow will stop at nothing to fulfil her obsession,” Baba Yaga said. “I am fortunate that my house has been enchanted to be constantly moving in and out of dimensions. If I reveal my presence in your world for too long, nothing is stopping her from hunting me down and finishing the job. I may not have been romantically involved with her husband, but I am a huge reason behind her pain now.”
“So that’s it, then?” Anya protested. “You cower in fear for the rest of your life? Trapped in your own house forever?”
“There are others who have suffered much worse fates,” Baba Yaga replied grimly. “I have already meddled too much in the human world to atone for my sins. Be grateful, girl. I risked exposing myself to save you from that vengeful witch.”
“Wait, something’s not right,” Anya spoke slowly, deep in thought. “If the Ghost Of Glasgow really is only hunting down the women in her husband’s lives, what has it got to do with me? Why did you see fit to take my soul?”
Baba Yaga fidgeted uncomfortably. Realisation dawned on Anya as her soul flushed ice cold. It couldn’t be…
“Because the present incarnation of her husband is none other than the Immortal Stonekeeper, Jonathan Warner.”28Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTUARcyiB8x
