Author's Note: This brief chapter is meant to serve as a summary of certain key events and background details from the Wyrd Girls stories. If you are a new reader, or it's been a while since you read Wyrd Girls, this is intended to bring you up to speed. - Leo
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"Ok, so who are these Guardians?" Demarco asked, as she drove the van.
Etta, lost in her own thoughts as they walked back to the lot, had climbed into the back of the van. Jake, with a shrug, had taken the front seat. He glanced back, giving Etta a chance to answer before he spoke.
"I can tell you what I know," he said at last, adding to Etta, "but you'll have to fill in anything I miss or get wrong. So, I guess the first thing is that witches are from another realm, another world - The Realm of Magic.
"Oh, turn left at the old church ruins," he added.
"What, like another planet?" Demarco said.
"I guess it's more like another dimension," Jake replied, glancing back at Etta for confirmation. "A parallel reality, something like that. A long time ago, they came to this realm and settled in a place called Glimmerbrook, where our realm touches theirs. There's this Gateway... a door between the realms... and there are the Guardians - a coven of witches who protect the Gateway."
"Protect it?" Demarco asked.
"There was a war between the witches and the vampires," Jake said.
"The ancient witches created the vampires, as servants," Etta put in. "When the vampires rebelled, the witches created your people - the werewolves - to fight them."
"Something like that," Jake shrugged. "History is more Beth's thing. Anyway, that war is still kinda going on. A few years ago, a group of vampires, along with our 'friend' Faust, attacked the Gateway, trying to get through and invade the Magic Realm. We managed to stop them."
"We?" Demarco glanced back at Etta. "That's what you meant about Jake helping beat your father?"
"Yes," Etta replied. "That was the first time. The second..."
"Another left, around that big old oak," Jake put in. "You should tell her this part," he added to Etta.
"I've told you most of it," Etta said. "Almost a year after the battle with the Guardians, Father sent me to Glimmerbook. I was supposed to get close to the youngest Guardian - Miranda. She was about my age and being sent off to school. I used my magic to seduce her..."
"That's a nice way of putting it," Jake grumbled.
Etta sighed, "And I lured her outside of the protection of Glimmerbrook. With the help of some mortal agents, we kidnapped her... but I didn't know what Father really intended. At the time, I didn't even think to ask."
There was a long silence before Demarco said, "You said before he was going to hand her over to the vampires, to be killed."
"Yes," Etta said softly. "I... Miranda was supposed to be the enemy... that's what Father had taught me... but I... I liked her. She was nice to me. Even after I betrayed her, she was nice to me. Like she genuinely cared about me, even after what I'd done."
"Yeah, she's like that," Jake nodded.
"So, I helped her escape," Etta said. "I defied Father and we ran... but it wouldn't have been enough if Jake and Beth and Miranda's parents - the other Guardians - hadn't arrived."
"You tried," Demarco said gently. "You went against everything you'd been taught to do the right thing."
"Yeah, you did," Jake agreed. "That's worth something."
"I hope they think so," Etta sighed.
"She won't be there, you know," Jake said. "Miranda, I mean. She's at University."
"Oh," Etta breathed. "That's... that's good, I guess."
"Left around the hill," she added to Demarco.
"There's no left turn... oh, there it is," Demarco said, turning down the road that she hadn't seen a moment before.
"Thrice widdershins, and through the mists," Etta said softly as they drove through a sudden, dense patch of fog that had sprung up out of nowhere, "to the Place Between."
"Lux Demarco," Jake said, "welcome to Glimmerbrook."
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