Adriana is in the living room when I return, her face buried in an old leather-bound book, her phone beside her as she studies crowded lines of handwritten text. Glancing up at me, her eyes shine. “Auggie, check it out—Abuela let me look at one of her grimoires!”
I hazard a guess. “That’s like a spell book, right?”
“Exactly!” Adriana turns a page, sketches of herbs and phases of the moon surrounding another column of text. “This volume is pretty basic, because I’m still technically a beginner, but there’s some really cool stuff in here. This spell is for inviting restful sleep, and if you master it, the next level up is summoning clairvoyant dreams!”
“Sounds practical.” The nightmares I had last week flash through my mind.
“It’s all about clarity of mind, purity of will, and directed energy,” Adriana continues, photographing the page with her phone. “Look at the herbs! Chamomile? Lavender? And the spells are basically just affirmations … people practice witchcraft every day without even realizing it.” Under her breath, she adds, “But meanwhile, I’m the freak.”
Sooner or later, living in a vampire town means encountering some extreme special effects—shape-shifting, invisibility, lightning bolts blasting out of fingertips into amazing guacamole—and lots of people think that’s what “real” magic looks like. And, I mean, it does … but in the same way that the Grand Canyon is what a hole looks like.
Wicca is a faith, and its practitioners—like Ximena—work spells that draw on the power of the natural world for stuff like healing, good luck, and preventing others from doing harm. And honestly? Even when the results are mixed, they’re no less effective or meaningful than prayer. But in a town used to the kind of bright, sparkling sorcery that has nothing to do with Wicca and everything to do with the Nexus, a girl who carries around a bag of herbs and charms to ward off negativity still gets treated like a weirdo.
It doesn’t help that she has zero support at home. Ximena has been a witch forever, and Adriana’s mom, Salome, had access to all of it growing up, but she rejected the faith when she met Adriana’s father, Martín—a devout Catholic. Now, Martín and Salome Verdugo want their daughter confirmed in the Church, and my best friend has other ideas.
“I’m sorta surprised your grandmother’s letting you use that book,” I comment lightly. “Aren’t your parents, like, dead set against you becoming a witch?”
“Adults.” Adriana snorts derisively. “I’m already a witch; my parents just don’t want to know about it. Maybe they can forbid me from joining Abuela when she meets with her coven, but I know what I believe. They think the Church is the answer because vampires are scared of the crucifix, but witches have, like, half a dozen charms that repel the undead!” Her expression hardens. “I’m pretty sure they think the Church is going to un-lesbian me, too, but let’s not even get started on that.”
Leaning over, I give my best friend a hug, because it’s the only thing I can do. I wasn’t raised with religion—Christian, Pagan, or otherwise. Coming out was hard, but only because it felt an awful lot like saying “Please look at me and consider all the sexual activities that society has trained you to think about when you hear the word gay.” Straight kids never have to experience that; they never have to sit down across from their parents and make a peremptory declaration about what gives them a boner.
“Look at this.” Adriana points now to some notes scrawled in the margins, made by different hands. “There are adjustments to each original spell, added by generations of witches in our family line! I mean, this is field testing in action. ‘In cases of acute stress, double amount of holy basil and use lemon balm grown close to subject’s place of dwelling.’” She gives me a look of abject wonder. “I can’t wait to show this to Hope!”
“Will your grandma really let you take the grimoire home?” Shifting uncomfortably, I have another missed-the-bus moment, fear and jealousy corroding my self-confidence. I hate this. I hate this feeling, and I hate myself for feeling it—this resentment because my best friend has found someone and I haven’t. Out of everyone in this hellhole town, she deserves happiness, and I want it for her. So what’s my problem?
“Ha! Not a chance. And anyway, my parents would freak.” Picking up her phone again, Adriana captures another snapshot of the book. “That’s why I’m doing this. I don’t know if Abuela keeps forgetting I can take pictures with this thing, or if she knows and that’s the point, but I’m gonna have every spell in this book memorized by graduation.”
* * *
When dinner time rolls around, the subject matter hasn’t changed. The table all but sags beneath a spread of my favorite dishes, but my plate is still dominated by an absolute mountain of guacamole, and I have no regrets. As I stuff my face, Ximena observes, “Sounds like Hope has made quite an impression on you, mijita.”
“I guess.” Adriana examines her food, cheeks turning scarlet. “It’s cool knowing another witch my age. She only started at FHH this year, so we’re still getting to know each other, but her element is water—like Abuelo’s was. You’d really like her!”
“I’m sure I will.” Ximena smiles. “Her uncle is a friend of mine. He’s a good man.”
“He is?” Adriana and I say it at the same time, only my mouth is full, so it sounds more like, “HrrrzZZ?”
“Sure! Most of the witches in Fulton Heights know each other, at least in passing.” Adriana’s grandmother shrugs. “He’s mentioned his niece before. I hope she’s holding up okay after last night—I hope all three of you are holding up. It must have been terrifying.”
“It was,” Adriana mumbles, and my stomach shrinks around the guacamole.
“I can’t even remember the last time a vampire attacked a human out in public like that.” Ximena splashes hot sauce over her food. “Must be a decade ago, at least. It’s no wonder they weren’t prepared.”
Her tone is casually reproachful, an old complaint rising to the surface. For some paranormal reason no one has ever been able to fully explain, the undead can’t enter homes without an invitation, but any space open to the public—including stores and cafés—is vulnerable. And crosses and garlic, despite being decent deterrents, aren’t exactly bulletproof.
“It happened so fast there wasn’t even time to react.” Adriana’s face has lost its color. “When he went for Auggie … I mean, I don’t even want to think about it.”
“You had quite a scare, mijito,” Ximena says to me lightly, tilting her head a little. “Is everything all right? Your energy fields seem off tonight. Disturbed, maybe.”
“Abuela!” Adriana sounds vaguely scandalized.
“They do?” I swallow my food, checking the space around me. “What do you mean? How can you tell?”
“I can see your aura,” she answers reasonably. “Everybody vibrates at their own frequency, and some people are sensitive to the emanations. For me, they’re visible on the color spectrum.”
Energy fields. Before I can think twice, I blurt, “I … felt something. Like, this prickly sensation, when the vampire first came into the café? Before he even attacked. Could that be an energy field thing?”
Adriana stares at me, surprised, but her grandmother merely shrugs. “Possibly, sure. Describe it for me.”
I won’t say it doesn’t scare me to open up about all this, but once I get started, I find I can’t stop. Beginning with Sugar Mama’s, I’m soon telling her about my experience on her front porch, and in my own front yard a week ago; then I’m babbling about my dreams, and the sketches I did; and finally, I’m telling someone else about Jude and his mysterious warning for the first time.
When the last of it is out there, Ximena’s expression hasn’t changed, but Adriana is aghast. “Auggie. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It was…” But I don’t know how to finish the statement. I didn’t say anything because I was in denial, and then I was scared—and I’m afraid to admit it.
“He said he found you to warn you, because you could stop the w
orld from ending?” Ximena summarizes carefully, with a trace of encouraging skepticism.
“He also asked if I’d had, like … weird dreams and lost time?” My tongue is thick as a jellyfish, I’m terrified that this admission will turn Ximena’s attitude around, but the woman just frowns and reaches for her water glass.
“You don’t actually think he was telling the truth.” Adriana has stopped eating. “He’s a vampire! Abuela, tell him he’s being conned!”
“The truth is, Auggie,” Ximena begins flatly, the glass steady in her grip, “you’re probably being conned.”
“Thank you!” Adriana tosses her hands out.
“But … he knew about the dreams—” I begin, and Ximena cuts me off.
“We live under a nexus, kid.” She gestures around us. “We’re at an unbelievably powerful crossroads of spiritual energy, and it’s impossible to overstate the effects of a paranormal flashpoint like this one.” Giving my knee a gentle squeeze, Ximena says, “I wouldn’t worry. Vampires never tell the whole truth, and I think you’d be shocked to know how many people in this town have strange dreams and experiences. He could have guessed anything and had a fifty-percent chance of hitting the bull’s-eye.”
“But why me?” My voice is embarrassingly small. “He was waiting for me. He knew my name.”
She surprises me by countering, “Why not you? I guess you don’t know this, but your aura is unusually strong, mijito. Anyone with some magic in their blood can probably sense it, at least a little. And who knows? Vampires think with their fangs first and their private parts second; maybe he took an interest in you because he thinks you’re cute.”
I happen to like flirting with cute boys. Jude’s words come back to me, and my face goes hot to the tips of my ears. Adjusting my glasses, I mumble, “Okay, maybe, I don’t know. But then why am I having weird dreams? Why did I sense those … energy fields?”
“Maybe you’re a Sensitive, like me.” She gestures again, taking in the art on the walls—landscapes and botanical sketches—reflecting her own element: earth. “With an aura like yours, it wouldn’t surprise me. Vampires can feel you, and now you’re starting to feel them.”
“Wouldn’t he know that already?” Adriana puts in, eyeing me like I’m a shaky-looking building that might come down any second. “If Auggie’s a Sensitive, how come he’s never experienced anything like this before? Why is it suddenly happening now?”
“He’s at about the right age. As I’m sure you know, Wicca and sorcery aren’t the same thing, and anyone can manifest a magical gift. Not all witches are adept at advanced magic, and not all adepts are familiar with basic witchcraft.” Ximena makes it all sound mundane, but when she says “sorcery,” she’s talking about stuff like conjuring, psychokinesis, and transmogrification. “But if you have the gift, it usually makes itself known around puberty.”
“I already went through puberty,” I state, mortified. Okay, yes, I was kind of a late bloomer, but I’ve definitely matured in all the necessary places—and, thanks to daily testing, I am confident when I say that my parts function the way they’re supposed to.
“The brain isn’t fully developed until you’re about twenty-five,” Ximena returns smartly. A science teacher for the nearby Skokie school district, she is impossible to argue with. “As for dreams and trances … overlapping ley lines are volatile, and there’s no way to predict how their friction will affect those of us in their shared path. They’ve stirred up psychic energy, and just your luck, you’re an antenna tuned in to the signal.”
The nervous heat in my body breaks, a relieved sweat cooling my forehead. “You really think that’s all it is?”
“Of course!” Ximena raps the table. “Listen, I’ll talk to my circle, and if your parents are okay with it, maybe you can join us sometime. Let some experienced witches help get you sorted out.”
“Are you sure?” I ask uncomfortably, glancing at Adriana. Joining her grandmother’s coven is her biggest dream, and her parents have forbidden it until she turns eighteen. Watching me get offered exactly what she wants has to hurt.
But Adriana forces a supportive smile just the same. “You should do it, Auggie. It could make a huge difference for you.”
Somehow, my best friend and I each ended up with what the other wants most. Nervously, I say to Ximena, “I’ll talk to my parents.”
“Great! We’ll set something up.” Reaching over, the woman ruffles my hair. “In the meantime, just keep being careful.”
Then, without warning, she rips a couple strands of my hair out by the roots, and I shriek a little. “Ow!”
“Abuela!” Adriana barks, but her grandmother shrugs it off.
“What? I need it for a protection spell for Auggie.”
“You said I had nothing to be worried about!” I glare at her, rubbing my head.
“I said your new abilities are nothing to worry about,” Ximena clarifies as she produces a small plastic envelope from one of her pockets, tucking my hair safely inside. “But you’ve got a vampire taking a special interest in you, and it’s better to be safe than sorry. Now eat! I spent way too much time on this food for you to let it get cold.”
With that, she turns back to her plate, steering the conversation to lighter topics; but even though I make a good performance of smiling and eating my delicious cheese-stuffed peppers, a sense of cold uneasiness gradually washes over me. I liked everything Ximena said, of course—it was exactly what I wanted to hear. She didn’t even blink when she dismissed my fears … and maybe the reason I’m beginning to question her assurances is simply because they seem too good to be true.
Or maybe it’s because she had that plastic envelope in her pocket when we first sat down to dinner—long before she knew anything about Jude and his “special interest” in me. Like she’d been planning to take some of my hair all along.
I never thought the day would come that I didn’t trust an explanation from Ximena Rosales, but as I watch her from the corner of my eye, I sink deeper under the waves of doubt. There’s something she’s not telling me, I’m sure of it, and unfortunately I can think of only one way to find out what that is. It’s a terrible idea … and yet it’s the best one I’ve got.
This whole thing started with Jude, and I need him to tell me how the world ends.
7
When my alarm goes off the next morning, I want to fling both the clock and my body out my bedroom window. I might have slept for three hours—a hundred and eighty minutes of sweaty, harrowing night terrors that clung to me like spiderwebs each time I jolted awake.
My dreams were even more gruesome than last week’s, a montage of horrific elements: ropes binding me to a pillar of rough wood, flames blistering my skin, smoke burning my lungs and strangling my cries. When I woke up, terrified and gasping, I sobbed with relief when I realized none of it was real. But then I drifted back off, and the dreams resumed, just as graphic: an angry mob, a blade cleaving my neck, and then a weightless fall—my brain still conscious for several precious seconds, racked by unimaginable pain.
My hands are shaking when I fumble out the burner phone that Jude tossed me after school last Wednesday, the list of contacts showing a single number. Before I can second-guess myself, I send him a text: I’m ready for answers.
The phone’s battery is down to a single bar, and he didn’t give me a charger for it. When he said I’d run out of explanations, he knew it would happen soon. I haven’t even moved yet when his reply comes through: Meet me in the food court at Colgate Center after sundown. —J
* * *
It may have once been a thriving hub of local commerce, but the Colgate Center Mall has been dying for almost as long as I’ve been alive. At least a third of the shops are permanently closed, and, these days, an equal amount of the center’s fluorescent lights have been deactivated to save money. The fountain at the heart of the complex was shut off after the financial collapse and converted into a “garden” of dusty plastic bushes packed into a bed of fake
dirt just beside the food court.
Unable to face the possibility of reliving another hideous death, I skip my independent art study, reaching Colgate Center well before sundown and chaining my bike to one of the racks in the parking lot. I don’t like the idea of pedaling home after dark, but I need answers, and I see no other way. I’ll come up with some explanation for my parents—obviously not the truth. Not until I know what I’m dealing with.
If I can believe anything Jude told me, it’s that if he wanted to hurt me, he’d have done it already. Choosing a public place for this meeting is a gesture meant to put me at ease … but it’s all theater, and we both know it. I’ve finally experienced mesmerism firsthand, and with one shimmer of his gorgeous brown eyes, I’d let him waltz me straight into an abattoir.
I get a mocha at the mall’s coffee shop, jumpy and unsure what to do with my hands. The barista looks nothing like Gunnar, and he screws up my order, but I have no stomach for it anyway. I’m here to meet a vampire. Before I even started day care, my parents gave me all the usual warnings about stranger danger, explaining the tricks that might be used to lure me into peril. I wasn’t to accept candy or get into a car with someone I didn’t know—and above all else, I was never, ever to go anywhere alone with someone who had fangs, even if they weren’t always visible.
So what the hell am I doing? No matter what the explanation is—whether I’ve been chosen by mystical forces to save mankind, or I’m developing psychic powers thanks to the Nexus—I’m not sure I care to hear it. What I really want is for all of this to go away.
My crappy mocha and I take a seat across from the plastic garden, bad music filling the air. I want to text Adriana, but if she asks what I’m doing, I’ll have to lie—and I’m not sure I have the nerve. So I pull out my homework and waste time failing at biology instead. The world as you know it, as we all know it, could be coming to an end. If I’m the planet’s last hope for survival, then everyone is well and truly fucked, because I can’t even remember what a Golgi body is supposed to do.
The Fell of Dark Page 6