The Unleashed

by Danielle Vega

  A moment later, Portia pulled the curtain aside. “Hi,” she said tentatively.

  “Hey,” Hendricks said, swallowing. “I just wanted to drop off my World History notes.” She dug her notebook out of her backpack and handed the notes over.

  “Oh, thanks.” Portia flipped Hendricks’s notebook open and scanned them. After a moment, she frowned slightly. “You just use one color pen for all your notes?”

  Hendricks didn’t even know how to begin to answer that question. “Why would anyone need more than one color of pen?”

  “Well, typically, I use three. One color for important dates, another for important people, and a third for—”

  “Never mind,” Hendricks said, rubbing her eyes. “The notes aren’t the only reason I’m here. I actually have some news—”

  “Stop.” Portia pinched the bridge her nose, cringing. “Hendricks, I love you. Your friendship means a lot to me, and I really don’t want to fight, but I can’t keep having this same argument over and over again—”

  “This isn’t about that,” Hendricks rushed to say. “Look, I’m done trying to convince you that the ghost isn’t Eddie, I swear. Right now, my only concern is getting rid of him.”

  Portia looked up at her, blinking. “Really?”

  “Really. I saw Ileana yesterday, and she thinks she knows how to send him back where he came from,” Hendricks continued. “We just need to gather the original seven and do another séance and . . . and close the portal at Steele House.”

  “Close the portal,” Portia repeated. She ran a hand over her chin, and Hendricks thought Portia understood how much this was hurting her, how hard it had been for her to come to this decision. “You’re sure that’s what you want?”

  “Yeah, well . . . I think it’s the only way to fix things,” Hendricks said, her voice cracking. She cleared her throat, telling herself to be strong. “We’d have to do it tonight, at midnight. I know you’re not leaving your bedroom, but I was hoping, if it meant ending this thing, you might make an exception?”

  But Portia was already nodding. “Midnight. I’ll be there.”

  CHAPTER

  22

  Mist crawled over the ground and drifted up through the air. It was like looking outside through clouded glass, everything hazy and blurred. Standing at the edge of the Steele House lot, Hendricks drew her jacket more tightly around her shoulders. She felt the cold through her coat, sinking into her. Her bones themselves seemed to shiver.

  Beside her, Portia blew air out through her lips, teeth chattering. “Damn,” she murmured, crossing her arms over her chest. “What’s with the cold? Isn’t it supposed to be spring?”

  “I think it’s just this place,” Hendricks said. If she squinted, she could just make out the crack in the foundation through all the mist. It was like a sharp black gash, a gaping wound. Even though Hendricks had stood at the edge of the crack and peered down at the ground below, she couldn’t shake the feeling that it led to some bottomless pit, that it was a cut through space and time. She cringed and looked away.

  “You think the House is making it cold?” Portia asked. “Like, is it a . . . mystical cold?”

  Hendricks glanced at her, frowning, and saw that Portia was biting back a smile. She groaned and rolled her eyes.

  “Ha-ha,” she said, deadpan. “Tell all the jokes you want now. In a few minutes they won’t be so funny.”

  The smile dropped from Portia’s face. “I know,” she said quietly.

  All three boys, Ileana, and Vi had already gathered around the crack, and now they seemed to be waiting for Portia and Hendricks to make their way up the hill. Hendricks felt her heart lift when she saw them standing up there. Everyone had come. No one was joking around or drinking beer or playing hacky sack this time. The mood was solemn, frightened. But they’d come.

  Ileana cleared her throat as Hendricks and Portia silently joined the circle. “Very good, we’ve all made it back. Let’s begin.”

  Hendricks caught a sudden movement from the corner of her eye and turned. There was a bag on the ground at Ileana’s feet. It had gone still by the time Hendricks looked down at it, but she found that she couldn’t pull her eyes away. There was something inside.

  She stared for a beat longer, until . . .

  There.

  The thing moved.

  Hendricks felt panic rise in her. “Ileana—” she started, but Ileana caught her eye and gave a sharp shake of her head.

  To the rest of the circle, Ileana said, “The ritual to lay a spirit to rest is different from the one to call him forth. I’m going to need you all to kneel and place your right hand flat on the earth.”

  All six did as they were told. Hendricks shivered as her knees sunk into the cool, hard dirt. The mist seemed to cling tighter to her skin, to grow thicker around her. Somewhere above them, an owl hooted and then went abruptly silent. Hendricks didn’t like the sound of that silence. It was as though something had gotten to the owl. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck lift straight up. Maybe whatever had gotten the owl was still there, lurking in the trees behind them.

  “Good,” said Ileana, when she was the only one left standing. “We don’t use any candles or bread for this ritual. We don’t want to remind the spirit of the comforts of the human world. We want to call him and bind him.”

  She hesitated, her eyes moving over the faces of everyone gathered. “It’s a more . . . intense séance than the one we performed last time. It’s important that everyone here is prepared for what’s to come.”

  There was a beat of silence, and then, one by one, they all nodded. Ileana released a slow, heavy breath. Her eyes closed for a beat, like she was praying.

  “Okay,” she said, opening her eyes again. A tired look had fallen over her face, and Hendricks was suddenly very aware of the deep wrinkles around her eyes and mouth.

  Ileana crouched on the ground and reached inside of the twitching bag, removing a rabbit.

  “Oh God,” Portia said, and Hendricks drew in a sharp breath. She felt her voice rise and get caught at the back of her mouth. The rabbit was very small, with matted brown fur and frightened black eyes that twitched anxiously around the circle. It wriggled in Ileana’s hands, desperate to get away, but Ileana held it tight. She ran her long, thin fingers over the rabbit’s back and leaned down to coo in its ear, comforting it.

  The rabbit seemed to calm slightly. It stopped fighting, its ears flicked—

  And then Ileana pulled a tiny knife from the inside of her sleeve and drew it across the rabbit’s throat.

  A shudder twisted its way up Hendricks’s back. She wanted to scream, but all she could manage was a small whimpering sound.

  Blood covered Ileana’s pale hands. The rabbit twitched between her fingers, its muscles beginning to fail. Hendricks wanted it to die so that it wouldn’t be in pain any longer. But the rabbit wouldn’t go still. It wasn’t dead but in the process of dying. Its glassy animal eyes were still moving, looking at them all, as though begging for help.

  “No,” Portia’s voice was a choked sob. Across the circle, Finn said, “Holy shit,” and Blake was slowly shaking his head, his eyes glazed over.

  Hendricks couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. She felt weak.

  Ileana didn’t meet any of their eyes but crawled forward and placed the dying animal at the center of the circle. Her hands, still red with blood, shook as she drew them away.

  “In order to connect with the spirit world, we need a conduit,” she said, in a soft voice. “Someone halfway between the living and the dead to act as a bridge. Without a human conduit, we must attempt to make the journey using an animal. It’s less stable, but . . .” She shrugged, as though to say what else can we do, and her eyes flicked to Hendricks’s. “We’ll have to go fast, though. It won’t be long before he bleeds out.”

  Hendricks somehow managed to fi
nd her voice. “What do we do now?”

  “Keep your right hand pressed to the earth,” Ileana said. “This will ground you. Now, take your left hand and grasp your neighbor’s wrist, like so.”

  She demonstrated, pressing her right hand into the earth and reaching over with her left to grab Hendricks’s right wrist. Her fingers were sticky with blood. The sensation made Hendricks’s skin crawl, but she forced herself to stay still.

  Ileana said, “This will complete the circle.”

  She waited as everyone followed her movements. Blake was the last. Once he grasped Vi’s wrist, closing the circle, Hendricks felt something move through her, a sudden shock. She swallowed, that bad taste still clinging to her tongue and throat. It was like dissolving aspirin, bitter.

  In the middle of the circle, the dying rabbit continued to twitch.

  “Very good,” Ileana took a deep breath, her eyes rolling up toward the sky. “I call upon light and earth to the north, air to the east, fire to the south, and water to the west. Draw a circle around those gathered here and keep us safe.”

  A scream ripped through the night close by. Hendricks would’ve sworn that it was human, but then the sound changed, becoming a sound like a bird diving after its prey.

  A ripple of fear moved through the circle, all of them flinching at once. Seconds later the scream had died, and Hendricks couldn’t have said what it was, or where it had come from.

  “Don’t break the circle,” Ileana warned, her voice calm and easy. And then, in a louder, more authoritative voice, “Hail to the elementals at the four quarters. I stand between the worlds with love and power all around. Hear me.”

  Connor shifted beneath Hendricks’s tight grip. She could feel his pulse beating steadily beneath her fingers, and she was suddenly grateful for him being there. It felt like he was keeping her in place, holding her steady.

  “We are harboring a restless spirit,” Ileana said. “He passed over to this side without permission, and now, we send him back.”

  Beneath them, the ground began to shake. At first it was just a slight tremble, like a train going past. Dirt and twigs rolled off to either side of the hill. Hendricks’s hips knocked to either side.

  A shape began to take form beneath the earth, a sort of mound, like there was something below them trying to crawl its way to the surface. It seemed to buck and jerk.

  Hendricks tried as hard as she could to keep her hand pressed to the ground, the other tight around Connor’s wrist. She was suddenly grateful she was kneeling. The strength had seemed to go out from her legs. She couldn’t feel anything below her waist.

  Ileana’s strong, steady voice said, “He does not belong here. Take him back.”

  Across the circle, Hendricks heard Blake swearing. Finn wasn’t saying anything, but his skin had very gone pale, and Hendricks could see a sheen of sweat on his forehead, shiny in the darkness. Both were staring hard at the trembling earth and trying, like her, to stay upright, to keep their hands pressed to the ground.

  “Take . . . him . . . back . . .” A groan passed Ileana’s lips. She swayed on her knees and then keeled forward. She kept her right hand pressed to the earth, and her left wrapped around Hendricks’s wrist, so there was nothing to stop her from slamming face-first into the ground.

  “Ileana!” Hendricks loosened her grip on Connor’s wrist, intending to reach for her—

  “Don’t break the circle!” Ileana’s voice sounded weaker than it had a moment ago. “If you . . . break the circle . . . I can’t protect you.”

  She lifted herself off the ground, but it clearly took all of the energy she had left.

  “Take . . . him . . . back!” Ileana forced the words through clenched teeth. Still shaking, she doubled over and started to choke. Tremors shuddered through her body, but for a while, nothing came out. She coughed and heaved . . .

  Blood oozed from between her teeth. It was thick and black, almost the consistency of tar, and it poured over her lips and chin, soaking the front of her shirt. Hendricks recoiled. It didn’t smell like blood was supposed to smell. This was putrid, like sewer water and feces and something else, something black and rotting. Ileana spat up another mouthful of blood, and then another, and then she collapsed again, her eyelids flickering. Her pupils had rolled back into her eye sockets so her eyes were mostly whites and bloodshot.

  Hendricks’s hand was weak around Ileana’s wrist, but she didn’t let go.

  The mist began to churn. It circled the crack like water in a drain and then disappeared into the foundation. The screaming that could have been a human or a bird started up again, mingling with the howling wind. This time, it sounded much, much closer. It was just behind Hendricks’s head, whispering into her ear.

  And then it had moved past her, coming from below her feet, from the crack itself.

  Hendricks’s stomach turned over.

  “Ileana,” she said. The ground was still shaking. She could barely keep herself upright. She pressed her right hand more firmly into the ground and kept the other wrapped tight around Connor’s wrist. “Ileana, what do we do?”

  Ileana groaned but didn’t lift her head from the dirt. Dried blood clung to her lips.

  “We need to get the fuck out of here,” Blake said. His eyes were wide and black with fear. He started to let go of Vi’s wrist—

  “Don’t you dare break the circle!” Portia snapped back at him. “Didn’t you hear her?”

  “This shit is not funny anymore,” Finn said. He was watching Ileana, and for the first time that Hendricks could remember, he didn’t look remotely amused. He licked his lips. “Somebody needs to help her.”

  “Don’t be a wuss,” Connor yelled back at his brother. But his voice shook, and Hendricks knew it was only a matter of time before he was with them, wanting to leave, not sure how to handle the horror of what they were seeing.

  “Take him back.” Hendricks was practically whispering. She cleared her throat and said again, louder, “Take him back.”

  Portia glanced at her. “Take him back,” she said, too. “Take him back.”

  Vi joined, and then Connor. Eventually, Blake and even Finn added their voices to the chant, until they were all reciting the words as one.

  “Take him back . . . Take him back . . . Take him back . . .”

  The screaming rose to a fever pitch, echoing through Hendricks’s ears. The otherworldly sound consumed her. Hendricks closed her eyes. She had a sudden flash of the future, how she would never be able to forget this moment, this anguish.

  And then, all at once, it stopped. The night had been filled with noise. And now, suddenly, it was silent.

  Hendricks opened her eyes. Her heart was thudding in her chest. She looked to all of the people gathered in the circle around her and saw the fear that she felt reflected in their faces.

  “Is that . . . it?” Vi asked, in a very small voice.

  Hendricks glanced at Ileana. She looked exhausted: her forehead was covered in sweat, and her hands were bloodied, but her eyes were open.

  She let go of Hendricks’s wrist, and, groaning, pushed herself back up to her hands and knees.

  “Are you okay?” Finn asked, from the other side of the circle.

  Ileana didn’t answer him right away. Then, as though it pained her, she said, “It . . . it’s done. We did it.”

  The gathered seven looked around at one another, their faces slowly breaking out into nervous smiles. Blake turned to Vi and gave her a high five. Finn hurried across the circle to kneel at Ileana’s side. He helped her loop one arm around his shoulder so that she could stand again.

  Hendricks, though, was looking past all of them, her eyes finding the spot on the concrete where, just a few minutes ago, there’d been a deep, jagged crack.

  It was gone now. The crack was closed.

  She let go of Connor’s hand and approached,
then knelt. She could see the place where the opening had once been. It was like a line through the concrete, like a long-healed scar. She ran a finger along the line, feeling a strange mixture of emotions as she examined it.

  Relief, surely. Their ritual had worked. But just below that relief, there was something else, something just as strong. Regret. Sorrow. Pain.

  If the portal to the other side was closed, then Eddie was gone forever.

  She blinked, hard, chasing that thought away. The corners of her eyes were wet, but she tried hard to ignore the press of tears. The others wouldn’t understand. This was a happy time, after all.

  A hand dropped onto her shoulder, and then Connor was crouching beside her. “Hey,” he said. “Are you okay?”

  Hendricks swallowed. “Yeah, totally,” she said in the most cheerful voice she could manage. Even she could hear how fake it sounded. She stood. “I’m going to walk home, I think. I—I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She ducked her head and headed into the woods, even as Connor called after her, “Hendricks, wait!”

  The trees shed darkness over her as soon as she stepped beneath them, and the temperature dropped by several degrees. But Hendricks didn’t shiver. Something in her chest released, and it felt good. It felt like solace.

  As soon as she was far enough away from the others, she dropped to her knees and let the tears come.

  CHAPTER

  23

  A week had passed. Hendricks sat on the floor of her bedroom, staring down at the cardboard box. The words old clothes were still legible across the top flap. She stared at the books on the occult, blessed salts, crystals, the Ouija board, black candlesticks, and half-burned sage.

  Sighing, she folded the top of the box closed and heaved it onto the top shelf of her closet, pushing it all the way to the back, where she wouldn’t be tempted to look at it again.

  It was time for a fresh start. She pushed her closet door closed.