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The lock melted easily under her hand. She stepped neatly backwards to avoid the melton metal, then pushed the door inward and stepped into the museum. Zelda’s heels clicked on the marble floor as she strode into the atrium, lit by a pool of shimmering moonlight.
There was one guard at the desk and another collapsed at the top of the stairs, both sound asleep thanks to the sleeping potion she’d slipped into the coffee machine.
Passing through the atrium and into the museum proper Zelda felt something odd settle over her, like fishing line tied to her wrists, accompanied by a ringing in her ears.
It took her a moment to place the sensation of the magical wards of the museum settling over her. They felt different at night then they had during the day. Best to move quickly, they’d accepted her for now but that could change. Purposefully she stepped into the center of the room and raised her arms. Threads of a spell slipped from her hands and flowed outwards, questing outwards to find the statue.
It was the entire reason she was here, at the Carter Necator museum, in the middle of the night, having driven a full two hours from Greendale, with another two hour drive back. That wretched, beautiful statue.
A few weeks earlier, she and Marie had stopped by the Museum on the way back from a visit to New York city.
Placed right off the turn that led to Greendale, the Museum had been an entertaining part of the few trips the Spellmans took from New York city to Greendale, and had caught Marie’s eye on the drive back.
The Carter Necator, as it had long been known, was an unusual place. An old, New England manor home converted into a museum, filled with a mix of (mostly stolen) mortal and witching artifacts from around the world, kept and guarded by the ghosts of the Necator family.
They had changed the collection somewhat since Zelda had last been and it was a passable way to spend an afternoon. There had been some strange old paintings and wands, a few more powerful magical artifacts, but nothing spectacular. Nothing that is, until Marie saw the statue.
Zelda had already walked past the room and was halfway into a display of magical weaponry before she’d realised Marie wasn’t behind her. She’d turned and started checking rooms until she found Marie standing in a room lined with masks, standing in front of a statue.
Zelda stepped forward so she was standing side by side with Marie and took in the sight. It was a small wooden statue of a veiled woman with gold detail, two golden scars marked her cheek, three gold rings on her hand, and a gold heart was emblazoned on her dress. The statue was worn and seemed very old, but had been carved with obvious care. In the small room it glowed, the wooden form full of emotion and of love, despite its state and age.
Marie was transfixed. Zelda had left eventually to look at a few of the other exhibits before they closed, and Marie joined her towards the end, but all Marie had talked about on the drive home, and for the next few days, had been the statue.
That had been nearly a month ago, but the joyous, adoring expression on Marie’s face when she looked upon the statue had stayed with Zelda. It was hard to put her finger on precisely, but she was certain it had something to do with the fact that she wanted Marie to look at her the same way.
Never one to let an opportunity pass her by, Zelda had made it her mission to present the statue as a present to Marie after the midsummer festival. Honestly, she’d felt as if she was setting a bit of a low bar for herself in terms of gift giving. One statue from a nearby museum? She wouldn’t even need to cast any spells or summon any demons.
Naturally, as with everything else in her life, it wasn’t that easy. First there had been the trouble of actually contacting the museum. A simple phone call should have sufficed, they were a place of business for Hecate’s sake, but no, no, the staff of Carter Necater were staunch traditionalists. They only took messages via witches’ board. Fine.
She’d called them via witches board, and made what she felt was a more than reasonable offer for the statue. Her offer was refused out of hand. She’d doubled her off. They hadn’t budged. After a not inconsiderate amount of threatening she had tripled her offer, insinuating that she would buy the Carter Necator Museum herself if she had to. This final offer had been met with a self satisfied smirk front the older man she had been communicating with.
He was the stuffy type, exactly the same as the butlers every English family had had in the 19th century, with the exact same condescending smirk. To go along with the smirk they all had a polite yet scathingly judgemental voice they used when they thought young women were getting out of hand, and it was that voice he had used on Zelda when he retired with the Museum’s answer, that ‘While certain artifacts were available to women such as herself, neither the statue nor the museum at large were available at any price she would be able to offer’. And then he’d smiled.
It had taken all of Zelda’s considerable self-restraint not to curse the look off of his face, but if he worked for the museum he was probably a ghost anyway. Instead, she’d bared her teeth in what passed for a polite smile, and had thanked him for his time. Then she’d started planning her heist.
In the end it had been easy. A sleeping potion pilfered from Hilda’s stash. A transporting case crafted by Ambrose. A plan of Carter Necator, complete with protective spells and side exits, procured from the internet somehow by Sabrina. It was a simple, fool-proof plan, in and out.
One of the threads of her spell twitched in her hands, catching her attention. With a smile she opened her eyes. It was the statue.
This particular thread was pulling her upstairs, to the small room on the third floor where the statue had been when she had, to quote Ambrose, 'cased the place’.
Her heels clicked on the way up the stairs, thumped like a heart on the carpeted floor, and rapped on the wood floor as she approached the statue.
It was sitting where she’d seen it last, in the center of the room full of masks and at night it was lit by a single light from the ceiling, veritably glowing in the dark room.
This is perfect. Absolutely perfect. Zelda reached behind her, stretching her hand backwards in the dark, and pulled out the magic box Ambrose had prepared.
She pulled a length of red silk from the box and carefully lifted the statue from the pedestal. For a second she held her breath, but, thank Hecate, Sabrina’s research had also been correct about the counter spells.
Moving quickly, she set the box open on the floor and wrapped the statue in silk, placed it in the box, and snapped the charmed locks on the box shut.
Not even thirty minutes in and she was almost done. She should do this for gifts more often, stealing was much more fun than simply purchasing the statue would have been. Box in arm Zelda left the room, and was immediately struck, in an almost physical blow, by the caterwauling of the museum alarms.
Every light in the museum snapped on, shining out through the windows, as bright as the sun. Zelda threw up an arm on instinct to shield her eyes. Before she could remember any spell to turn off the alarms, they stopped abruptly, and the lights turned off with an audible click.
Zelda blended into the sudden darkness, only her hair illuminated in the faint light from outside. The ominous silence surrounded her for a moment, before she heard a sound. Faint at first, but growing louder, the thudding sound of running feet and far off calls.
Of course. If the mortal alarms had turned off, it was because the magical wards had engaged. If the ghost she’d met earlier was any indication, they wouldn’t be pleasant to deal with.
Zelda took a deep breath and cleared her mind. Her best chance now was to teleport home, within the Spellman mortuary wards, in case anything tried to follow her.
Picturing the kitchen firmly in her mind she spoke the charm “Ianuae Magicae”.
But rather than the shuddering feeling of teleportation, the wards of Carter Necater Museum tightened around her like iron chains, binding her to the building.
Fuck. Well at least the hearse was here. If she could get it before the guardians of Carter Necater did. She turned and ran down the carpeted stairs, one gloved hand on the banister, the other holding the box. Her footfalls were the loudest thing in the building at the top of the stairs, but by the time she reached the bottom landing a growing roar was following her, shaking the foundations of the building. Whatever the guardians were, they were powerful.
The atrium was dark, the moonlight that had filled it earlier now choked with shadows as the guardians manifested. The door was in sight, just across the atrium, but as Zelda grew closer it was more and more shrouded in shadows. Reaching for the handle, she was suddenly struck bodily by someone running in the door at the same time.
Summoning all her self control Zelda managed to not fall over, but the other woman wasn’t as lucky.
“Mon Dieu!” Marie fell backwards against the door that had slammed shut behind her, cracking her head. Startled, Zelda drew back.
“Marie?” She exclaimed. Of all of the people to show up. Zelda shifted the box to her left hand and reached down to pull Marie up to her feet.
“Oui Zelda” Marie said, rubbing her head.
“What in Hecate’s name are you doing here?” Zelda hissed.
“Me?” Marie said incredulously. “I was driving by and I saw the museum nearly explode with your hearse outside!” Pausing she looked Zelda up and down, focusing on the large box. “What exactly are you doing here?”
“No time for that now” Zelda said in her most imperious tone. “We should leave.” She grabbed Marie’s hand and tried to pull her through the door.
As soon as Zelda set foot on the threshold she was flung back, this time landing painfully on the floor.
“Merde” She breathed, sitting up carefully. Trying to leave had activated the wards, and they burned red gold in a circle around Zelda and Marie, throwing the gathering shadows into sharper relief. From the ground Zelda inspected them with a wary eye. They were much more complicated than she’d expected, there was little chance she’d be able to break them without considerable time. Time that she, and Marie, did not have.
“Oh Zelda,” Marie sighed, taking Zelda’s free hand and pulling her to her feet. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine” Zelda said offhandedly, looking around.
The guardians hadn’t fully manifested yet, but if Zelda couldn’t break the wards she would have to find, and break, the ward stone creating them. With a sigh she turned back to Marie, who was looking worriedly at the darkening shadows.
“You should leave, I’ll be handle this and- well I’ll be back to the mortuary in a short while”
“I think not,” Marie scoffed. “You are bound to the building, yes? Because of whatever is in that box?”
She nodded to the box, which Zelda shifted slightly, hoping to shift Marie’s attention away from it. “So we must break whatever is binding you here before the protectuer of this place arrives.”
A trickle of relief wound through Zelda. Certainly she could have handled this by herself, but it was nice to have Marie here.
“Yes, that’s the long and short of it.” Zelda replied. “I believe that the guardian may be-” a piercing howl cut her off, followed by the thunder of paws on the upper floors.
“Hellhounds” Marie finished.
“Yes” Zelda looked around the atrium and a small staircase caught her eye. With any luck it led to the basement, and the most likely place for a ward stone would be the foundation of the building.
“This way!” She grabbed Marie’s hand and pulled her down the staircase. Her heart fell at the sight of the hallway, long, narrow, and filled with doors, any one of which could hold the ward stone.
Marie squeezed her hand and without a word they split up, each throwing open doors on each side. The first two Zelda found were packed with file boxes, the third lined with library shelves, and with increasing panic she threw open the fourth door, only to find an empty room.
Her panic was interrupted by the crackle of a spell behind her. Marie raised her hand to an old, solid-looking door and brought it down sharply, breaking it open to reveal what appeared to be a crowded crypt.
“Praise Hecate” Zelda exclaimed and pulled Marie into the room, slamming the door behind them.
Back pressed to the door Zelda scanned the room for anything that could be the seal. Her eye caught on the most ornate of the tombs. It was covered in magical runes and read in latin “Carter Necater hoc requisat Carter Necater.” ‘Here lies Carter Necater’
“Oh Marie I think that’s him!”
“What?” Marie gasped, pushing hard against the door.
“That statue I-here, one moment-” Zelda darted away from the door, still holding the box, to inspect the seal across the heart of the sculpted old man. It was the largest on the sarcophagus, and it did appear to be the seal binding her to the building.
“Zelda!” Marie shouted “Un peu d'aide s'il vous plait!”
Zelda spun away from the sarcophagus to see shadows seeping out from the door Marie was holding closed, which could only mean that the hounds were very close.
“Step back” Zelda commanded, dropping the box onto the coffin. Marie caught her eye and nodded, then burst forward to join Zelda in front of the sarcophagus.
Zelda chanted a quick spell and the door shuddered on its hinges, almost imploding but then the metal of the hinges started to flow, spreading out across the smoking door and stealing it shut. It would keep the guardians out, certainly, but she and Marie were firmly trapped. Well. One problem at a time.
Zelda flicked her hair back and out of her face before turning to face Marie. Even in the darkness of the crypt she could see that Marie was giving her an exasperated look that Zelda didn’t quite think she’d earned.
“Do you have a plan now Cherie?” Marie asked pointedly.
“Of course I do!” Zelda said, and was about to detail it when the door began to shake and groan horribly, as if - almost as if the hounds of hell were on the other side- and she broke off.
“I believe if we break this stone -this one here- I should be able to at least leave the building”
“And the Hellhounds?” Marie asked, placing her hands with Zelda’s so that they overlapped on the wardstone. “If they do not leave when the wardstone breaks?”
“Well we’ll burn that bridge when we come to it” Zelda replied, focusing her energy on the stone.
Marie chuckled softly and did the same, chanting with Zelda.
Zelda felt the cool stone grow hot, and begin to burn under their hands, the sigils twisting like snakes, until, finally, the stone burst open in a spray of granite shards.
On instinct Zelda pulled Marie back, snatching up the box as she went, she would be blessed if she lost it now.
Behind the door, the horrible growling continued, but it was quickly overpowered by another, louder sound, one shaking the foundations of the building.
“Time to go now, yes?” Marie said, wrapping an arm around Zelda so they were face to face.
Zelda nodded and closed her eyes. The world shuddered around her and she and Marie struck ground in the small parking lot outside, the box with the statue clutched her arms.
Marie turned to Zelda to say something, eyes mirthful, but an extraordinary cacophony interrupted her. Stunned, Zelda turned from Marie to face the Carter Necater Museum. They were backlit by a magical light pouring out of the museum, as before their stunned eyes the Museum collapsed to little more than a pile of wooden beams and crushed marble.
Speechless, Marie looked at Zelda, who could only shrug. With a smile she pulled Marie in for a quick kiss.
Marie burst into laughter and gently pushed Zelda away. “Cherie, are you trying to distract me from the fact that you just blew up a building?”
“I did no such thing!” Zelda replied, scandalized. “I’m sure the hellhounds brought it down.”
“Perhaps.” Marie allowed, giving Zelda look both suspicious and amused. “Or perhaps it was whatever is in that box?”
“What box?” Zelda transferred the box to one hand and reached behind them into the dark, allowing the box to fall from her fingers. With any of the luck -though luck had notably been absent so far this evening- it would appear in the mortuary.
“Hmm” Marie’s expression was inscrutable, but the corner of her mouth twitched slightly, as if she were holding back a smile.
“Shall we return home?” Zelda asked, wrapping an arm around Marie’s and steering her to where the hearse waited. The small car behind it was one of the more sensible of the ones Ambrose liked to work on, and Marie must have borrowed it for the night.
Passing by the car Zelda caught a glimpse of a small box, not unlike the one she had recently disappeared, sitting in the back seat.
“Marie,” She said suddenly, pulling Marie to a stop “where were you driving from? I thought you and Hilda were going to Thousand Isles to collect wandering lake weed or some such nonsense.”
Marie’s face froze into a careful expression. “Oh, oui. We did go to Thousand Isles to collect the lake weed lilies for the potions, but there was something I needed to pick up in New York City, so I left Hilda at the mortuary and went down.”
She finished with such a nonchalant shrug and smile that Zelda almost believed her. However, centuries of living with Edward Spellman however, the greatest deceiver since the Dark Lord, and his trouble making daughter and nephew, had left Zelda with a keen nose for a lie.
She narrowed her eyes at Marie, who simply smiled again and climbed into her car. Clearly Zelda wasn’t the only one with secrets.
Zelda successfully restrained herself from inspecting Marie’s things to try and find the box, though she had interrogated Hilda about the picking lake weed story. Hilda had confirmed Marie’s story, though she seemed inappropriately amused by Zelda’s questions, and had only laughed every time Zelda asked where Marie was going in New York.
The day of the summer solstice dawned uncharacteristically bright and hot for Greendale, and the celebrations, including the bonfire and magical fireworks, went off without a hitch. In a new, Heactean tradition Zelda was attempting to set, the coven stayed up all night, watching the constellations whirl across the sky on the shortest night of the year.
The soft dawn light broke across the Mortuary porch. Hilda, Ambrose, and Sabrina had all turned in, exhausted after the night of celebration, but Zelda wasn’t at all tired. Instead she sat reading a novel on the porch, enjoying the rare break from her various duties.
“Zelda? Est-ce vous Cherie?” Marie said softly, stepping out of the door.
“Oui, c’est moi” Zelda closed her book and turned in the chair to favor Marie with a smile. Marie had been supervising the students casting the fireworks, and Zelda had lost track of her in the ensuing revelry. She had assumed that Marie would return to the desecrated church to sleep the day away. Unlike Zelda, who was still in the silk dress she’d worn to the celebration, Marie had changed from her elaborate festival dress to a simple black shift, her hair pulled back in a dark red scarf.
“Good morning” Marie kissed Zelda on both cheeks and sat down in the chair next to her. “I have something for you.” she continued, pulling an elaborately wrapped package out of thin air.
She handed it to Zelda, who struggled to contain the wide smiling spreading across her face. Zelda had never been one for surprises, but she loved gifts, particularly good ones, which was the sort Marie gave.
With an elegant gesture she pulled the ribbons off, revealing a beautiful black shirt. The material was exquisite, the buttons were stylish and simple, the cut clearly flattering, but the most stunning part was the gold brocade embroidery. A pattern of constellations and alchemical symbols that covered it, small enough that they seemed to just be an elaborate pattern until you looked more closely.
“Oh Marie” Zelda breathed, holding the shirt up so the embroidery caught the morning sun. It was one of a kind, slightly strange, and beautiful. “This is splendid.”
“There are a number of protective spells within the fabric itself as well.” Marie said, a proud smile clear in her voice. “And it should not wear out for a very long time.”
“Thank you.” Zelda said, setting the shift on her lap and taking Marie’s hand. “I love it.”
“I am very glad.” Marie replied, squeezing Zelda’s hand tight.
“As it happens I have something for you too,” Zelda allowed a satisfied smile to spread across her own face. She reached her free hand down into thin air beneath her chair, and pulled out the box containing the statue.
Marie clearly recognised the box and gave Zelda a look that was half amused, half exasperated at the memory of the near escape from the hell hounds.
“Oh just open it” Zelda laughed, excited to finally be giving the gift.
Marie released the clasps, then reached into the box to remove the length of red silk, revealing the statue. Her expression changed immediately to awestruck, then just as quickly to amusement.
“Did you know” Marie lifted the statue out of the box and carefully balanced it on the porch railing in front of them, so it glowed in the dawn sun. “that when I stopped at that museum, to help you steal this statue, I was on my way back from New York from picking up that shirt?”
Looking at Marie, looking at the statue, Marie’s face lit and glowing in the morning light, Zelda was reminded of a mortal short story Hilda had once told her, the gift of the magi. The part that had stuck with Zelda at the time was the absolute trust the mortals had had in their knowledge of their lover, that they could so easily choose the perfect gift for the other. At the time it had been a completely foreign concept to her.
Rather than saying something assuredly foolish or sentimental, Zelda reached over and took Marie’s hand again, matching smiles on their faces.
“We make quite a pair, Zelda Spellman.” Marie said after a moment, shaking her head in amusement.
“Indeed” Zelda replied.