She's Not Dead

Chapter 3: The Truth

Pain was the first thing her brain registered. She tried moving her wrists and found they were bound. Next were her feet, and she soon realized they were also bound. Her entire body hurt.

And then she remembered, Elena, her sister, had done this to her. Had enjoyed it even.

When Wendy was young, she had acquired the knowledge of what was done to witches in the Underworld; but as people said, one thing was to know, another thing was to experience.

She groaned as her muscles stretched with the little movements she was attempting, and her marred skin being pulled by her bindings made her hiss.

I can't believe she's alive... Jo told me she was dead. Maybe she really is dead and got sent down here? But she is a guarding, only people who are alive get that charge. What is going on here? Couldn't death have been easier?

"I have to get out..."

She concentrated hard on her magic and muttered something in Latin. She lifted her head and her gaze fixated itself in the ropes that were keeping her contained. Wendy took a deep breath and concentrated harder on the rope of her right hand, "Ignis!"

The rope starter burning, a few barely-there wisps of smoke could be seen in the fiery pit she was in. She smiled at her success, and eventually, her right hand was freed. She repeated the process again, feeling more drained each time she succeeded, but not letting that deter her.

Wendy started walked in one direction, she had no way of knowing which direction was the right one, If there is a right one...

As she kept walking, she saw her eldest sister, Elena, just a few feet away from her. She felt anger, and to think of this woman as her sister made her stomach twist and turn uncomfortably. The older woman seemed to be talking to someone through a mirror portal, and Wendy's ears perked up at the sound of a familiar voice.

Joanna!

Wendy could not help but scream with rage at the thought of this monster hurting her real family, her sister, her nieces, Tommy...

Elena turned her head just a tiny bit and threw a glance at her. She closed the portal with a wave of her hand and looked directly at Wendy. The youngest of the two raised her hands in some kind of defense reflex and Elena was sure Wendy had a spell at the tip of her tongue, ready to be cast and thrown directly her was with vicious malice.

Elena raised both hands in surrender and started speaking in a rather calm and soft voice, "Sister, before you do anything, you must listen to me-"

"Why should I listen to you?"

And the reply she received in turn made her blood boil, "Because I am your eldest sister."

Wendy glared at her, her eyes darker than they have ever been before, danger glooming in large pools of greyish-blue, "What kind of sister tortures another one?!"

"You were told I had perished, were you not? Died in training with Father."

Wendy nodded, skeptical. She knew that she couldn't trust this woman, but she had a hard time looking directly into those eyes that looked so much like Joanna's, those eyes that were the creators of many good and joyous times in her childhood spent with her older sisters.

Elena took her silence as a sign to continue with her explanation, "That was not accurate at all. Father banished me here because I was against him blocking your powers from your usage."

Wendy's eyes widened, What the hell?, "What do you mean by 'blocking' my powers? I could use them just fine."

Elena sighed, knowing that it was now up to her explain all the treachery they had grown up with. She thought that at least, she would have some time to prepare what she was going to say, but that was not the case.

"Sister, you are one of the most powerful witches to have ever been born. You hold greater power that our father. When the King of our land discovered this, he wanted to make sure that you did not manage to surpass him by coming into your full potential. When you turned three, he tried taking a part of your magic, I was against it, even tried to take it from him, you did not deserve to live that kind of life. And because of my rebellion, I was banished here. To endure a life of death and suffering."

Wendy's arms hung limply at her sides, her eyes wide and no longer deadly, but rather broken, betrayed, and sad, "You said he tried taking my magic, or at least part of it. Did he do it?" She asked with determination.

Elena shook her head, "He could not take what did not belong to him. Magic that pure has no place with someone like Father. Instead, he found a way to trap them."

"Can I ever get that part of my magic unblocked?" She asked, her eyes wide, her hands knotted together at the base of her abdomen, wringing her fingers in a display of anxiety.

Elena's lips quirked upwards a small fraction, "You might have noticed your magic is slightly difficult to use at the moment. This is because you have, efficiently, died. You are not in the body the magic was blocked in. You have every bit of your magic at your disposal, you simply have to know how to call to it."

Wendy's eyebrows came together and downwards in a frown, "If I have all this magic, why is it so difficult to use?"

"Besides the trauma of having died and the subsequent... events, this form of yours needs to get reacquainted with magic."

The youngest witch nodded, wrapping her head around this enormous pile of information that was dumped onto her, but then her expression fell, "Is there any way to go back? To Joanna and the girls, to Tommy...", she asked in a low voice.

She had accepted her fate when she made the decision to save the EMT, but this, this changed everything. If she had a chance to return to her home, she would take. And she would make sure to do her damned best.

"Given your circumstances, you can return to Midgard with your sister, nieces and the... human."

"Why do I get the feelin' it's not gonna be simple?" Wendy's body sagged in exhaustion just by imagining what she would have to accomplish, but the idea of being reunited with her family fueled her.

Elena nodded, "You would be correct. To return to the land of the living, you must find the Master of the ream and defeat him in a duel. You well know He cannot be killed. Secondly, you are to consume a single drop of his blood."

The black-haired woman nodded slowly, "Okay, so how do I find Him in here?"

"I will get to that in a moment. But there is something you may like to know. The boy, Frederick, is here."

Wendy gasped, hair standing on edge and energy thrumming wildly around her. Elena did not delay the relay of information, so she continued before her younger sister could interrupt.

"-You can save him. When you return to Midgard, you must unleash your power to bring him back to the land of the living. I have faith that with your recovered abilities, you can revive him."

Wendy seemed to be contemplating something, so it took her a moment to open her mount, "And what about... what about you?", she asked.

"There is nothing that can be done for me."