Dark Corner

Chapter 34

Pixel’s Missing

“Pixel,” I screamed as I roamed the halls of the Tangledwood Estate. He had been acting so strange, but it was not like him to miss a meal or two or three. But now it had been nearly two days since I had seen him. I entered the library. Mr. Tangledwood sat by the fire, puffing on his pipe. He had passed several years before Mrs. Tangledwood. Unlike Albert Twiggs, he lingered not for the love of his wife but for the love of his possessions. He stood guard over them like a night watchman at the Louvre. His cars, his books, all called to him. Mrs. Tangledwood had only spoken of him once, and it was not fondly. He was a selfish man in life and continued to be selfish in death. “Mr. Tangledwood where is my friend? Where is the orange cat?”

He ignored me and stared onto the lawn, puffing away. He took out a pipe cleaner and scraped the bowl. I extended one claw and stuck it deep into the leather of his chair, ripping it open. He gasped and stared at me. Then he smiled and packed his bowl with tobacco. I leaped onto a table and knocked over a Ming vase. This time he ignored me. I saw him staring out at the open garage door. I ran out and leaped onto the hood of the 1961 Mercedes. He floated in the corner of the garage, watching. I extended my claw and scratched the hood. He flew down, eyes wide open, screaming at me, but nothing came out. I went into the front seat and tore it apart.

“Stop,” he yelled. “Stop.”

“You can speak, can’t you?”

“Stop, you filthy creature.”

“Where’s my friend? Did the lieutenant take him?”

“No,” he shouted.

I raised my claw about to scratch the dash.

“Stop. I don’t know where your friend is.”

And then I realized Mr. Tangledwood was a spy. “Tell me about the lieutenant,” I commanded as I gently rubbed my claw along the dashboard.

“The lieutenant is gathering an army. He’s going to destroy you and all the other filthy witches.”

“You have been spying for him, haven’t you?”

“He promised me I could stay on my estate and live here forever. I want no part of the war that’s coming. I want to be left alone.”

I could see he was a worthless creature. He had no fight in this battle. He took no side other than his own. I ran onto the front lawn. It would be dark soon, another night with no Pixel. The end of another day without Pixel. I could feel he was still alive. I could smell his aura. It seemed close. I lay on my back, staring up at the clouds, imitating Pixel rolling back and forth, thinking of the simplicity of his happiness. The little things that gave him joy. Anger rose inside me. The thought of any harm coming to him made me want to do harm. I closed my eyes and called out to him. Then I felt something land on my belly. I opened my eyes to see the purple-and-white butterfly that had followed Pixel around. Pixel’s friend, Flutter, as he named her. She flew and circled me. I followed her back to the estate, back inside the grand hall with its marble floor and high ceiling. She floated into the library, landing on a book. It was Emma’s favorite book, the first edition of a collection of writings by Frederick Law Olmsted. I reached up to look at it. As I pulled it down, a wall of books opened up, revealing a secret room. An orange blur leaped out on top of me.

“Hungry. Me so hungry,” he said, biting my neck.

“Pixel?”

“Terra me eat first.”

The french doors leading into the library slammed shut. Charlotte stared down at us.

“You know, don’t you? You can tell the others.” She grabbed the fireplace poker, lifting it over her head. I was in shock, unable to move. Before it crushed my skull, Pixel leaped, pushing me out of the way. The poker landed its blow across his back. I regained my senses and leaped onto her, clawing at her neck and face. She screamed. The doors burst open.

Mrs. Twiggs screamed, “Terra, what are you doing?” She saw Pixel broken and bloody on the floor and looked at Charlotte, poker still in her hand. Mrs. Twiggs raised her palms and cast a spell. The poker fell from Charlotte’s hand, and she stood frozen in time. Mrs. Twiggs knelt next to Pixel, listening for his heartbeat. “It’s very faint, Terra.”

Abigail ran into the room, not understanding what she was seeing. She knelt down beside Pixel, sobs coming. Mrs. Twiggs lifted his limp body. As we drove to the animal hospital, Abigail incited every healing spell she had learned. Nothing was working. Pixel remained still, unmoving. He was too far gone. Abigail had once saved Tracker from near death, but this was different. This was sudden and fatal. My tears merged with Abigail’s. Pixel’s aura was a shadow. He was leaving this world. I could see him struggling to open his eyes. My heart wrenched from my body. I screamed out. He had given his life for mine. We reached the animal hospital where the technicians rushed him to surgery. Already the other ladies were arriving. They stood vigil in the waiting room, each one praying to their ancestors and to the true and only one Goddess. They held hands in their circle, but the powerful magic was not there. I realized then it wasn’t Charlotte that completed the circuitry of the coven, it was Pixel. She had been holding Pixel. He was the conduit. Something or someone had gifted the magic to Pixel. I prayed that magic would see him through now. I noticed a bloodhound in the waiting room with no master, collar, or leash.

“Mrs. Lund,” I whispered.

She nodded her head with long droopy ears flopping to and fro.

We walked outside. “Terra, they are gathering. All the dark souls are rallying around the lieutenant with the promise that he will lead them into the portal. All the lost souls that haunt the Poinsett Bridge are waiting to join him.”

“I can’t leave Pixel. I can’t.”

“The only way to save him is for you to enter the portal.”

We waited out the night. In the morning the doctor joined us in the waiting room.

“My name is Dr. Courtney,” he said to Mrs. Twiggs. “Your cat is very…”

“Pixel, his name is Pixel.” Mrs. Twiggs interrupted.

“Yes, of course, Pixel, he has a broken spine. I did what I could. The next twenty-four hours are critical. If he does recover, he’ll never walk again.”

Mrs. Twiggs cried into her handkerchief. Abigail put her arm around her.

“I’m so sorry. We have to wait and see,” Dr. Courtney said before heading back the way he had come.

Mrs. Lund stared at me.

“Mrs. Twiggs, Abigail, we have to get back to the estate,” I said. The ladies promised to remain with Pixel as the three of us headed back to the Tangledwood Estate.

The sun crashed through the stained-glass window of the library, engulfing Charlotte in its cranberry-red glow. She stood frozen as we had left her. The secret passageway door was ajar. The sliver of the light from the windows illuminated the missing painting. We entered gazing at the treasures there, Emma Tangledwood’s stolen treasures. Mrs. Twiggs walked up to Charlotte and waved her hands. She collapsed, shaking her head.

“Who are you?” Mrs. Twiggs asked.

Before Charlotte could spew her lies, Mrs. Twiggs slid her finger across her lips. She screamed as they burned bright red. “My name is Morgan Andrews.”

“Why did you pretend to be Charlotte Tangledwood?”

“I…” She began to stutter; her lips burned bright red.

“You can’t lie.”

“Stop, please. Miss Hartwell came to me at the Swannanoa Correctional Center for women. She was a nurse there before she came to work for Mrs. Tangledwood. She showed me a picture of a young girl, Charlotte. She said I looked like her. That I could make a lot of money pretending I was her.”

“Why did you kill her?”

She tried keeping her lips shut, but they flew open. “She said I would inherit this mansion and all Mrs. Tangledwood’s money. When we found out that all of it was going to the Biltmore Foundation except for that stupid painting, I told her I wanted a share of everything she had stolen. She had been taking things from the old woman for years, hiding it away. When she refused, I said I would tell the police. That night we got in an argument. She had a knife. She said she would kill me if I said anything. I grabbed the poker. I-I… It was self-defense. I didn’t mean to kill her.”

“And you hid the painting so you could blame Mr. White?”

“He was obsessed with the painting. He kept calling and texting me,” she said.

“You made it look like he broke in?”

She struggled to open her lips and then said, “Yes, I panicked. I was afraid. I didn’t want to go back to the prison. I saw Miss Hartwell sneaking stuff into that room. I saw her pull on that book. After I killed her, I hid the painting in there. Pixel saw me and followed me in.”

Mrs. Twiggs touched Morgan on the shoulder, and she collapsed. Detective Willows was the first to arrive. Mrs. Twiggs sat across from him, sipping tea, filling him in on the whole story.

Abigail and I examined the painting. I couldn’t believe it took me that long to realize what I was looking at. “Abigail, this is the same map Agatha Hollows used to get to Poinsett Bridge.”

“It doesn’t look like a map,” Abigail said.

“No, but it is the same path to the bridge,” I said. “It’s enchanted. We have to decipher the secret to reveal it. Mrs. Tangledwood knew the spell. She wanted to leave the answer to her great-niece—the real Charlotte. This is Mrs. Tangledwood’s greatest treasure. All her other possessions were earthly and will turn to dust in time. This is the true gift she left for her bloodline. Mrs. Twiggs,” I said. “The book, the book that opens the secret room.”

Mrs. Twiggs looked at me and ran to the shelf. She examined the spine and read out loud, “Humphrey Repton. The Theory and Practice of Landscaping. 1795. First edition.” Mrs. Twiggs turned to us. “This is the book that inspired Olmsted to become a landscape architect. He used this book to teach his pupils. He said, ‘You are to read this seriously as a law student would read Blackstone.’ Emma knew that the Ladies of the Biltmore Society would know this reference. She wants us to read Olmsted’s personal journal and to read it seriously.” Mrs. Twiggs checked the shelves but couldn’t find it. She went into the secret room, checking the drawers in the writing desk. They were locked. “Open,” she said, and the drawers flung open. She found Frederick Law Olmsted’s personal journal—the one that George Vanderbilt gifted to the Tangledwoods. She brought it to us. “Emma told me about the journal but she never let me read it.”

Abigail took the book, flipping through it, running a finger along the lines. “Terra, there’s a passage here about his trip to Ireland to bring saplings to the Biltmore Forest. He mentions oak, ash, and thorn. He brought a clipping of an ancient oak tree. He’s talking about my spirit oak tree, isn’t he?”

I nodded.

Abigail continued reading. “He mentioned traveling into the hedges of Lullymore in the County Kildare. The locals told him of a single hawthorn tree that was said to be the home of the last woodland fairy. Intrigued by the fairy tale, Olmsted brought the hawthorn tree to Biltmore Forest.” Abigail closed the journal. “That’s all that’s in there, Terra.”

“We are to read that journal as the letter of the law. I believe that Olmsted brought with him the last fairy on earth. She kept the secret of the portal at Poinsett Bridge. Agatha Hollows knew how to open it and showed me the labyrinth to follow to reach the river, to gather the magic to cross over, but she did not show me how to continue. That way I could never be held hostage to black magic and deliver them into the portal. This painting is a map, painted by the last fairy of Lullymore, the last fairy on earth. She only gave Olmsted half the puzzle. Agatha gave me the other half.”

“We have to go,” Abigail said.

“But, Abigail, no one has ever come back. I didn’t tell you this, but I saw Elizabeth in the portal. She couldn’t leave it. She couldn’t cross back into this world.”

“I don’t care, Terra, we have to save Pixel. We have to defend ourselves against the lieutenant. How do we decipher the map?”

“Like the Wiccans, the fairies’ bloodlines faded as the magic of this world faded and the humans took over, encroaching on their land. Their magic dwindled as the human science became the new magic. In 1820 when the Poinsett Bridge was built to connect the Carolinas, the fairies used the last of their magic and the magic of these ancient mountains to open the portal to the fairy world from where they first came. They hoped that one day they could return to our world which they loved. The Lullymore fairy was the last to cross over. The rest had already evolved.”

“Evolved into what?” Abigail asked.

“Butterflies,” I said.

We turned when we heard a thud against the window. Flutter landed on the windowsill. I paused and stared. “There wasn’t enough magic left for them to save their race. Elizabeth told me this story a long time ago. I thought it was literally a fairy tale. She told me so many fairy tales when I was a little girl. She said only the fairy queen could enter the portal and return the fairies to the woods.”