by Teri Harman
She inhaled sharply and pulled back, holding his eyes. “What do you mean?”
Simon couldn’t meet the intensity in her blue eyes. He looked away and said, “Cal is right. I’m messing up the Covenant bond, and I think the magic of the Covenant is messing with my powers. It’s all so wrong and screwed up.”
Willa sat silent for a moment. She moved off him and sat next to him on the bed. “You weren’t going to come back. You were going to leave us. Leave me.” Her body trembled.
Simon faced her. He reached for her hand, but she pulled it away. Emotions knotted in his chest. “Willa, I almost killed you.”
She slid off the bed and went to the window, her back to him. Koda had followed them upstairs and trotted over to sit as sentinel at her side. Her silence cut Simon’s heart in two. “Willa?” he said slowly.
“I didn’t know it was possible to hate and love someone at the same time.” Her voice was ice.
Simon’s whole body tensed. “I don’t want to take you away from everything you know and love. That would be selfish. I can’t stay. Don’t you see that? I don’t work in the Covenant, for so many reasons. I tried, Willa, but we can’t keep pretending it’s okay. I thought it would be best if I just disappeared. No one wants me here. I scare them, confuse them. I only came back to . . . well, I thought I could apologize before leaving. I thought . . .” He sighed and ran a hand back through his hair. “And I was scared of what I did, how I did it, and how it felt. Coming back was . . .”
“Then I’ll go with you.” Willa said, her voice firm. Her words surprised him.
Simon winced. “Willa, you can stay. I don’t want to—”
“No!” she snapped with surprising bite, spinning around to face him. “Don’t you dare! Nothing breaks us apart. Nothing! I will not let you pull away from me.” Her tears returned and each one broke Simon’s already-mangled heart. “If you go, I go. You are more important.” Her tears clouded her speech again. Simon reached out for her. She reached back, and he pulled her into his lap. Gripping her hips, he dropped his forehead to hers and deeply inhaled her lavender scent.
“Nothing.” He whispered and then kissed her passionately, pouring all his love and all his hurt into his lips. She returned his fevered kiss, and he prayed that she felt his love, felt his devotion to her. He didn’t want her to ever doubt that. “Willa, I came back for you. I thought it would be better to leave, to remove myself from your life, but I couldn’t do it. I can’t do it, even if it might be the safest, smartest thing to do. And I don’t know if that makes me even more selfish, or sad, or happy, or . . . a lunatic. The last thing I want is to ruin your life. More than I already have.”
When she drew back, her eyes were clear. She sniffed and inhaled. “I don’t forgive you for last night. Not yet anyway—or anytime soon. But I understand your fear, your logic of thinking you had to leave. But it was wrong,” she held his eyes, “a mistake. And if you ever treat me that way again it will be me walking away. Clear?”
“Absolutely,” Simon said meekly. “I’m so sorry.”
Willa nodded, took a deep breath, and then rubbed at the dust cemented in the creases around his eyes. “No one ever said you ruined my life. I don’t have a life without you, you jerk,” she whispered.
Simon gave a sad laugh. “When I started to go, to actually walk away, having made the decision, the pain was unbearable.” He caught her eyes and touched her face. “I could walk away from anything in this world, but not you.”
Willa half smiled and nodded. “Maybe this isn’t our path after all. Maybe we aren’t supposed to be a part of the Covenant. We’ve kind of been forcing it all along; I guess. We could go now, if you want. We don’t have to go to Oregon.”
He sighed and shook his head. “I feel like I have to go. It’s the only thing I can do to apologize for the awful thing I did to them all at the challenge. I can’t ever make up for it, so I’ve got to at least help them find Archard.” He looked away from her, over to the window and the clear blue sky beyond. A fresh surge of bile burned his throat. How could I do that to them? “But, after that, I have to leave the Covenant.” He swallowed his sadness. “It’s just too dangerous. I can’t risk being in the fight with Archard. Who knows what could happen?”
“Okay, I understand,” she whispered sadly. Tugging on one of his curls, she pulled his attention back to her. “We better get ready to go. The flight leaves in an hour.”
Simon nodded. “Okay.”
They fell into silence as they listened to the group moving around downstairs and then hearing the front door shutting as their coven-mates left the house. The cars rumbled to life and pulled away. The sudden quiet hummed with tension, and the air grew humid with the hot, sticky words that were not being said about what happened during the challenge, and about what would happen next. Willa bit her bottom lip, obviously wanting to say something more. Simon desperately hoped she wouldn’t; he didn’t know what else to say to her. She leaned over and kissed his cheek.
“You take a shower,” she said.
Simon exhaled, opened his mouth as if to say something, but then quickly shut it tight. Finally, he said, “I really am sorry it took me so long to come back. I promise I won’t ever hurt you like that again.”
Willa exhaled, nodded and then moved aside. Simon wanted to pull her back to him and kiss her again, but instead he left to the bathroom, guilt and cowardice following him.
The grand forests of Colorado were reserved and economical. Every bit of growth eked out in a careful, steady manner, and toughness was paramount to survive the harsh mountain winters. But the forests of Oregon were wild, uninhibited. With an endless supply of moisture and nutrients, the trees, foliage, and moss grew out of control, tripping over each other to reach for the sky. Every inch of ground and tree burst with vicious beauty.
Simon stood on the dirt trail inside the towering Douglas Firs and breathed in the unconstrained energy of the place. The thick air smelled of wet dirt, salt water, and life, as sweet as ice water on a hot day. He’d never felt anything so intoxicating. He wondered, if he laid down on the side of the trail, if the lush foliage would immediately grow over him.
Gingerly, he reached out and fingered the dripping feathers of moss hanging from the trees, as soft as Willa’s hair. His fingertips warmed at the touch, magic bleeding from the surface of every plant. Any space left between the trees filled with incandescent mist, somehow glowing bright despite the dying sunset light. Willa stood next to him, her head lifted to the sky, eyes big with wonder, searching for the distant tops of the giant trees.
It wasn’t just the forest. Simon could also feel the extra energy of the black moon sizzling on the air. The rare event of a second new moon in one month boosted the magic of everything around and inside him; it sharpened every edge and whispered of possibilities.
And thirdly, something about him made everything feel different. Once the emotion of what he’d done during the challenge wore off, he felt the energy of it. Similar to how he felt after the cave, the power still hummed just under his skin. But this time it was different, more intense. The pleasure of it had kept him away from Willa all night. It scared him; it thrilled him. It begged him to accept it, to open up to the possibilities of it. Like a small voice in his head, it tempted him to ignore the wrongness of what he’d done, and instead marvel in the brilliance of it.
Something had changed when he pulled the water from his coven-mates’ bodies; and it wasn’t just their opinions of him.
Willa reached out, took his hand; and sparks of energy moved between their palms. All her thoughts poured into his head. He gasped at how vivid they were, how dangerously intimate, even for him.
Willa lowered her chin and looked at him. “What is it?” she whispered.
Simon stiffly shook his head, his throat dry, as her memories of his challenge played in his head. When he saw the drops of water leaving her body, and felt the desert-dry panic she’d felt, he dropped her hand and stumbled away.
“Simon!”
she hissed, reaching for him.
He held up a hand. “I just . . . There’s something about this place and the moon. Can you feel that?” Gripping the sides of his head, he inhaled the enchanting air, trying to clear away her memories. “I’m so sorry, Willa.”
She stepped closer but didn’t touch him. “For what?”
He looked up, eyes pained. “For what I did in the challenge. When you touched my hand I felt . . . I saw . . .” He wanted to be disgusted with himself; he tried to be, but fascination dominated his feelings.
She cut him off. “I know, Simon, but we can’t do this now. We have to catch up to everyone else.”
Something in her tone stopped any further apology. Nothing he could say would be adequate anyway. “Yeah, okay. Let’s go.”
Willa took off at a jog, hurrying down the winding path. Simon followed, dreading what was to come. He wanted to help, but things with the Covenant were an awkward mess. He and Willa had sat alone near the back of Darby and Cal’s private jet. Not even Charlotte and Elliot had spoken to them. And no one had looked him in the eye. His big mistake had excised them from the group, a swift cut. Now he had to stand in a circle with them and perform the spell, knowing that none of them were sure he should be there, and that all of them feared him. His attempt to apologize was turning out to be torture—for everyone.
After seeing and feeling Willa’s memories of what happened, he couldn’t blame them.
Dangerous freak.
They followed the trail downward, crossed a wooden bridge, and then the trees thinned. The sound of the ocean pulsing into the shore filled the air. Simon could feel the pull of the ocean in his stomach. The call of the water. He grimaced.
Sun and moon, what a mess! I’ve made such a mess of our lives.
Willa hurried down a set of stairs built with railroad ties, Simon behind her, and then they were standing on the beach. The cove curved away, a crescent of dust-colored sand, tucked in between the tree-covered cliffs. At the far north end, a waterfall cascaded down the rocks, out of the trees and into the ocean, water meeting water.
Simon thought that he had never seen a more mystical place. He stopped to gaze out at the gray ocean, ever moving and singing its constant song. As he stared at the white, foaming curl of a wave hurrying forward to kiss the sand, a thought hit him, one his frazzled mind hadn’t thought of yet.
Where will we go?
Simon blinked in shock. He had decided to leave; but, beyond that, he hadn’t considered.
What will we do? Leave town, enroll in another school? Train on his own, alone in the mountains? Go back to not using the magic?
“Simon,” Willa called. He turned his head; she stood in front of him, the frigid sea breeze tossing her long hair. She held out a hand. “Come on.”
He swallowed and took her hand.
The Covenant gathered around a large pile of driftwood at the edge of the surf. Wynter held an old grimoire tight against her chest, and she smiled weakly at Simon and Willa. Rowan nodded solemnly. No one else acknowledged them, deliberately keeping their eyes on the sand or out at the ocean. Simon wouldn’t admit it out loud, but he was shocked at how cold they all were to him, despite what he had done. His sense of self-preservation hoped for better. An opposing thought answered his disappointment. You don’t need them. You have always been better off alone.
Rowan cleared his throat. “Let’s go over how the spell works.” He turned to Wynter.
Wynter opened the book. “This spell draws heavily on ocean and mirror magic. We will light the fire, and then one of us will need to levitate this mirror,” she gestured to a large flat mirror resting in the sand.
“I can do that,” Elliot offered.
“Thank you, Elliot. It needs to hang above the flames, facing down so that we can see the reflection.” Elliot nodded. Wynter went on, “We then call to the Water and Powers with the spell written here. Using the pen Rowan found as a guide, the magic will locate Archard. If it’s successful, we will see him and his location reflected in the mirror.” Wynter lowered the book and looked around the circle.
Rowan said, “It’s powerful magic, and it will take all our focused efforts to make it work. Yes, we have the added power of the black moon, which will greatly aid us, but our focus object is so impersonal. Normally, we’d use a hair or piece of clothing, but all we have is this.” He pulled the pen from his pocket and frowned at it. “We need to set aside our problems and be one. Can we do that?”
Simon lowered his head. No one spoke. Willa tightened her grip on his hand.
Rowan repeated, louder. “Can we do that?”
There were grumbles of consent around the circle. Simon’s stomach twisted.
“I’m very disappointed in all of you,” Wynter said quietly, bringing all eyes immediately to her. “This betrays our sacred bond. To turn our backs on one of our own is to turn our backs on the Powers.”
Awkward, thoughtful silence filled the cove; even the ocean seemed to quiet and listen. Yet no one said a word.
Rowan shared a look with Wynter and then said, sadly, “Let’s begin. Pray this works. But know that we will revisit this problem later tonight at Chloe’s house. No one will sleep until we hash through this. Understood?”
Quiet nods.
Willa’s head suddenly jerked up. “What name did you say, Rowan?”
Rowan blinked in confusion. “Chloe. Wynter’s mother. Her name is Chloe. Why?”
Willa frowned. “Umm, nothing I guess. I thought you said something else.”
“Are you okay?” Rowan asked.
Willa nodded. Simon caught her eye, and she shrugged.
“Then light the fire, Darby,” Rowan said.
Willa watched the flames crackle to life, rising higher and higher into the air. The heat of it washed over her, pushing aside the cold ocean breeze. She clung to Simon’s clammy hand. Simon’s hands were never clammy. Stealing a glance, she could see the tension in his jaw, the fatigue around his eyes. Simon never looked tired.
What’s happening to you?
She pulled her mind back to Wynter’s mother. Why did her name sound so familiar? Why did it stir something in her heart? She didn’t know anyone named Chloe. Should she? Her instincts itched, and she couldn’t scratch deep enough to soothe them. Willa hoped the spell wouldn’t take long—she needed to meet this woman.
Now that the flames were as tall as a man, Rowan asked everyone to remove their shoes and circle around it. With Simon close, Willa moved forward, bare feet sinking in the cold, grainy sand, and the heat of the fire stinging her eyes. The fire smelled different than fires at home, salty, airy, and somehow . . . blue, despite the orange-yellow flames.
Wynter and Rowan moved around the circle to stand on either side of Willa and Simon, clearly demonstrating their place. It helped to close the sudden separation she and Simon faced. But only a little. The rest of the witches fell into place around the fire. Wynter signaled to Elliot. He lifted his hand out toward the square mirror, as big as a sheet of plywood. It lifted easily into the air. He guided it up and over the fire. It hovered there, mirror-side facing down, throwing the flames back at them.
Willa looked up to see her own orange face reflected in the mirror, with Simon next to her, eyes staring blankly out at the ocean. His reflection only amplified the change in him, the strangeness. If killing three strangers had damaged him, the fall-out of nearly killing everyone he loved might actually destroy him. She looked away.
Wynter opened the grimoire again, its dark blue cover deepened in the firelight. Rowan threw the pen into the mouth of the flames. Wynter began the spell. “Glorious ocean, the life of the world, guide us, direct us, Darkness unfurled. Show us the witch that threatens the Earth. And we will fight to prove our worth.”
Heat separate from the fire stirred in the air. Together the twelve witches lifted their hands toward the ocean to call to the power of Water, summoning the strength of the ocean to give energy to their words.
The surf rose
instantly, rushing forward to gather around their ankles. Willa hissed at its icy touch and marveled that the fire did not go out. In fact, with the water around it, the flames grew higher, stronger and soon took on a blue tint.
The Covenant repeated the spell together. “Glorious ocean, the life of the world, guide us, direct us, Darkness unfurled. Show us the witch that threatens the Earth. And we will fight to prove our worth.”
A strong wind rolled in off the ocean, blew past them and into the forest beyond. In answer, the cove filled with the rustling, creaking sound of trees. Willa thought she heard whispers mixed in with the sounds. She shivered at the memory of what the trees had said when she and Rowan had gone to the cave.
What are they saying now?
The wind circled back to swirl around them, the whispers growing, but so muddled that it was impossible to tell what they said. The water around their feet grew higher, and soon Willa’s jeans were soaked up to the thighs. Freezing, she wished she’d brought more than a sweatshirt.
The wind died, and all eyes turned up to the mirror. Willa held her breath. The flames disappeared from the glassy surface; instead she saw black smoked curling in on itself. She stared hard, her heart racing and breath catching in her lungs. Slowly, an image appeared. Trees—aspens. And then a clearing with mangled dirt. Willa gasped. The cave!
The mirror zoomed in on a man lying on the dirt, the earth all around him dug up and disturbed. His body writhed in pain, and his mouth hung open in a silent scream. Willa didn’t even hear the flames eating the wood or hear the ocean’s waves anymore.
The man in the mirror sat up, another scream on his lips. His body was covered in the rippled, folded scars of burns, dripping with blood; but in a blink they were gone, and Archard stared down on them. Moans of fear split the silence. Willa closed her eyes, ripples of cold moving down her body. She groped to her side until her hand met Simon’s.
She’d been right, her dream true. She hated that she was right.
Archard—alive.
Willa opened her eyes. Clear now of the dismal images, the mirror reflected only the flames and their terrified faces. She caught sight of Simon’s reflection. He looked at her in the mirror, reflection to reflection, but it wasn’t his face. A sharp icicle of pain hit her head. She collapsed to the wet sand, the water quickly retreating back to its proper place, rolling over her, splattering into her face. She heard Simon drop next to her.