A Witch and her Familiars

Chapter Nineteen - The Rescue of Laurel Elder

"They... they took your magic?" Daphne gasped. She shuddered, imagining what it would feel like to have one of her favorite parts of herself ripped out of her. Looking in the blank, downturned eyes of the witches in the cell, she had a pretty good idea of what it was like.

Sabine stepped up to the bars. "Don't worry, Mrs. Elder, we're going to get you out of there."

Rhode nodded. "You saved us once. Now it's our turn."

She smiled weakly. "You girls shouldn't have come back. It's too dangerous..."

"Don't be silly, mama," Daphne whispered. "Of course we came back. We're going home." She looked the bars up and down. They looked like old, grungy metal, but there seemed to be some sort of a glimmer about them. Even though this cell seemed to have been designed to hold weak, disoriented, de-magicked witches, it was still enchanted..

A gentle hand caught her arm. Her mother pulled Daphne close to the cell and kissed her hand. "Honey, it's okay. Just get out while you can."

"I'm not going to leave you. Not again." Tears were beginning to fall. She barely noticed.

Her mother stroked her face and smiled; Daphne could feel her fingertips trembling. Her mother never trembled. "It was so brave of you to come here. Oh, my baby, when did you get so brave?"

"Mom, stop," Daphne said, pushing away from the bars. "What are they going to do to you?" she whispered.

"Don't worry about that," she whispered back. "No matter what they do to me, I'll always love you."

"I love you, mama," she said.

"If you love me, then you'll leave now." Laurel smiled, even though tears were beginning to well in her rich brown eyes. "Daphne, all a mother wants is to keep her baby safe from harm. I'm not going to be able to protect you anymore... but I hope I taught you enough so you can protect yourself. Be brave for me, honey. And go."

"No! I'm not leaving you again!" She clutched the bars and leaned her head against them.

Her mother kissed her forehead. "It's okay, honey. It's time to go. You need to--"

"Stand back, Mrs. Elder!"

Daphne whirled around just in time to see Rhode kick the bars as hard as she could. The bars rang like a bell but didn't budge. She took a step back, then kicked them again.

"Rhode, what are you doing?" she asked.

"Solving problems!" she grunted, punctuating her words with another kick. "Taking out frustrations!" Kick. "Saving your mom!" Kick.

Daphne sighed. "Rhode, the Coven enchanted these bars. I'm sure they're protected against kicks."

"Yeah, well, the Coven is a bunch of idiots. And these bars aren't protected against me. This is for the mortals!" She kicked the bars again. The dust raining from the ceiling caught on the tear tracks running down Daphne's face.

She blinked, and put a hand to her cheek. Dust. She looked up. The rock around the top of the bars was crumbling.

Sabine's face broke into a smile. "Rhode is right. They may protected against magic, but not against mortals. Come on!" She ran to the bars. Daphne followed. "The rest of you, too, come help us!"

But the prisoners just stared silently back.

"We need your help," Daphne said. "We can free you!"

"What's out there for us?" asked a man. "We're mortal. We don't have our powers. We've never lived in a world where we're not witches." The others in the group nodded.