“So she never leaves the house?”
“I don’t think she’s in the house.”
“And the oldest daughter, Caroline?”
“Similar story. Like I said, apparently she wasn’t challenged enough in public school, because she’s the only one of the children who went to private school. I found records of her enrollment at the Sabine Christian Academy outside of Dallas and then later at the University of Texas, but I can’t find anything else. She has nothing on her credit report. I haven’t found a photo of her more recent than four years ago. And even though the family is in crisis, neither Caroline nor Leona has shown up at the house. Seems odd to me.”
“So, you’re saying that both of their other daughters are also missing…but they’ve been keeping it quiet?”
“Could be.”
“Why didn’t you lead with that?”
“I did all that other research. I wanted credit for it. Besides, you wanted a comprehensive report.”
David scoffed. “Alright, that was…useful. Thank you.”
he night after Emmy found the bracelet, she woke up before the sunrise. Well, she didn’t wake up…really, she gave up on trying to sleep. She had carried the bracelet with her for 24 hours, and the shock had worn off. She wanted answers. And she wanted them now.
She pulled out her phone and read news stories about Julie. She had gone missing on July 22. She searched her memory for what had happened that day, frustrated she couldn’t remember the details of such a recent date. But that was summer—every day the same, blending into each other with no meaning.
She looked at her texts and e-mails from that day. Damn. No wonder she didn’t remember what anyone had done that day. According to her texts, she had spent all of day at Lexi’s house. She remembered now—they had lain out by the pool and made daiquiris with stolen rum while her parents were at work. Emmy had spent the night and didn’t come home until the next morning. Just great. She had no idea what anyone else did on that day or who drove the truck.
She knew she should throw the bracelet into the Houston Ship Channel. No cops had come by, so no one suspected them of anything. No good could come from figuring out how the bracelet got in the truck, but not knowing would torture her. She doubted she’d sleep until she found an answer.
So, she cast a mild silencing spell on the house, crept out of bed, and grabbed the truck keys.
Emmy underestimated how long the drive would take. She was so screwed. When she arrived at her destination, the sky had already turned the light purple of pre-dawn. When Mom and Dad woke up and saw she had left…they would be beyond mad. They would also worry. She didn’t like making them worry, but she didn’t have a choice.
She pulled into the Gas N’ Go where Julie Prescott had disappeared. Although she knew the police had searched it, they must not have found anything useful, because the gas station was still operating as usual. People went in and out for their morning coffee and cigarettes and such, and cars lined the gas pumps.
People had searched the thick piney woods around the Gas N’ Go with a fine-toothed comb. Not only the police, but legions of volunteers. Helicopters. Dogs. And probably other CSI-style gizmos like heat-seeking goggles. Did she think she would find something the others didn’t?
Yeah, sure, why not? Most of the people searching had been Mundanes, so what did they know about anything? Certainly some wizards had searched, at least Julie’s family. But what did summer wizards know about dark things?
Emmy could feel Julie’s noxious presence nagging at her all the way across the length of three gyms at volleyball camp. She knew she could recognize that feeling again. Emmy believed she might see, or at least sense something no one else had. At least she hoped so, or she would be grounded forever, and all for nothing.
The gas station itself held no answers. She didn’t want to draw suspicion to herself or her family, so she kept a low profile. She pumped gas, and went inside to buy a Diet Coke and gum, and use the restroom. She worried someone would notice that a fourteen year old was driving a car, but no one paid attention to her. She thought she could pass for sixteen. She wanted to do as many things as possible at the gas station to give her time to look around. She even pretended to air up her tires so she could stare into the forest.
As soon as she looked into the forest, she knew she could stop looking in the gas station. The gas station was nothing more than a gas station. But when she peered into the trees, a hard, cold feeling in her chest made it hard to breathe. It felt like fear. She didn’t fear the forest, or the dark, or even the monsters lurking in it. The fear was different. It didn’t come from her. The fear radiated from the pine needles themselves. The fear breathed in the dark between the trees.
Something magical lurked in the forest, and something very evil. And that meant a lot coming from a dark witch.
She wanted to explore the forest, but a truck left alone at the station might look suspicious. She needed to find a secluded place to park with no security cameras.
She got in the truck and slowed when she saw muddy tire tracks about a quarter a mile away from the gas station. Someone else had also found a hidden parking spot. She turned in the direction of the tire tracks and found herself parked behind another truck—a Ford F-150 exactly like the one she drove now, except dark blue instead of black. The truck even had a football decal in the exact same spot where Jude had put his. Okay, so two guys in Texas drove the same popular model of truck and played the same popular sport. No big deal. But still…creepy.
The football decal was for the Sugar Land Bulldogs. And she saw a small silver decal hanging from the rearview window—the same sun symbol that appeared on the bracelet. The truck had to belong to one of Julie’s brothers.
She got out and scanned the forest. The sun peeked over the horizon, and warm morning light illuminated the road, but the forest stayed dark. However, this darkness didn’t feel cool. In the Texas summer, cool didn’t exist. This darkness felt hot and sticky, like tar.
If a summer wizard lurked nearby, Emmy expected she’d find them easily. She knew which way to walk—toward the jarring, burning sensation. She found him faster than she expected. The hot yucky feeling felt less intense than Julie’s, so Emmy thought it came from a distance. But here he was. Not far away at all. As soon as she saw him, she retreated into the thickest thicket she could find, covering her legs with pink scratches. A boy about Jude’s age walked in odd patterns around the edge of the forest. He must be Julie’s oldest brother, Nathan.
He glanced in her direction when she dove into the thicket, but looked away quickly. Emmy guessed the ambient evil in the forest disguised her own dark energy—like a black cat on a moonless night. Nathan, on the other hand, might as well have worn Christmas lights and jingle bells the way he stuck out.
His magic felt different than his sister’s —at least, weaker than his sister’s. He had more of a flickering quality, like a candle trying to stay lit on a windy day. The darkness of the forest must be sapping his energy somehow. That would at least explain his bizarre behavior. He skimmed the forest, stepping in and stepping out, walking in erratic circles.
Emmy lurked within the cover of the forest, watching him. She found she could travel through the trees without any problem. And in their shade, he didn’t seem to notice her. She could stand there and observe him from ten feet away. He would squint in her direction occasionally, and she thought he might see her. But he seemed to see things everywhere. He darted his gaze in all sorts of directions, looking for invisible monsters.
She watched him for at least half an hour. He looked similar to his sister, but instead of her blonde hair, his was a sun-streaked auburn. He was tall with broad shoulders, on the grown-up side of eighteen. She had never seen anyone so frustrated and determined. He reminded her of a bug crawling out of a puddle even though she kept pushing it back in.
Too late, she realized she was the bug—a moth circling a light, getting closer and closer.
Nathan stoo
ped down slowly and picked up a piece of pointed branch. Emmy didn’t think much of this, until he suddenly jumped up, and ran directly toward where she hid. Emmy tried to scramble away, but her hiding spot was too good—brush surrounded her and she couldn’t move quickly. Twigs snapped conspicuously as she pushed her way through the brush. When she was nearly free, she tripped on a thorny vine, and Nathan found her on the ground clutching her thorn-scraped shin. He yelled out as if he had never seen anything so horrifying. Rude.
Emmy jumped to her feet and faced him, preparing to defend herself, even though she didn’t know how.
But, his yell stopped abruptly, and he squinted at her as if she was still hard to see. “Wait…you’re…small,” he said.
“I’m not that small. I’m average-sized.”
“I mean…you’re not what I expected.”
“What were you expecting? A big scary monster?”
“Yes, actually.”
“What makes you think I’m not a big scary monster?”
“I didn’t say you weren’t.”
Nathan hadn’t dropped the stick, even though they stood at least eight feet apart. Emmy didn’t know how he saw her, but she thought he looked a little big and scary himself. At least, now that she looked at him directly, her head pounded. But the sensation of unbearable brightness did fade, as if her eyes had adjusted to blinding sunlight after leaving a dark theater.
“You’ve been following me for a while, haven’t you?” Nathan asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It’s complicated.”
He looked confused at this. Perhaps in his life, nothing was ever complicated.
“You’re looking for your sister,” Emmy said.
“How did you know that?”
“She’s all over the news,” Emmy said. “I’ve been watching you. You know she’s here somewhere, but you can’t go into the forest. The forest is too dark, and you’re too light. You can’t see anything very well. And you can’t penetrate the darkness much past these trees.”
He stared at her. He let the stick go slack in his hand.
“I can go if you want,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“I can go inside the forest. The darkness doesn’t bother me.”
He squinted at her again, as if she had gone fuzzy. “No. You can’t go in there. I don’t know who you are or what you want. But it’s not safe. You need to go home.”
“You may not know what I want, but you do know who I am, or at least what I am. You know I can go in.”
“Yes, I know what you are. And, I don’t know why you’d want to help me.”
Emmy shrugged. “I know Julie…sort of. We went to volleyball camp at the same time last year. I can help.”
“Maybe you can, but that doesn’t mean you should. You might be dark, and you might be a powerful witch, but you’re also just a girl. There are plenty of horrible things that can happen to a little girl that have nothing to do with magic.”
Emmy shrugged again. “I know.”
Nathan jerked around, startled by something Emmy couldn’t see or hear. He looked so afraid. Emmy understood fear. Ever since Jude—her talisman—had betrayed her and left, she felt afraid all the time. But the only thing that made her feel less afraid was pretending she felt brave. If she pretended hard enough, the courage became real.
“Please go home,” Nathan said. “I’m not going to let you go in there. It’s not safe.”
“I get it. You’re noble. You want to protect me. It’s very boring, you know.”
He stopped looking around for invisible demons and smiled. “Boring?”
“Oh, yes. I mean…do people like you have to act all noble all the time? Or can you ever do anything different? It’s so predictable.”
“Yeah, that’s what they say about fire. It’s so…predictable.”
Emmy gasped. She burned. Her fingers and toes hurt the most, as if she had been frozen and now melted—all her blood rushed in and her nerves flared up. The air in her lungs felt hot, and she coughed, thinking she might breathe fire. She could no longer see Nathan. He’d turned into a bright glowing mass.
The sensation passed and she realized she had fallen. When the brightness passed, she noticed Nathan had gotten much closer.
“Just a warning,” he said, standing over her. His brightness had left a—hopefully temporary—mark on her corneas, and an orange smear in the shape of his silhouette hovered by the real Nathan like a shadow.
He reached out a hand to help her up. Emmy didn’t say anything, but she chuckled to herself. He couldn’t help himself. He was chivalrous even when he threatened her. She hesitated to touch his hand. The burning sensation had passed, but she didn’t want to feel it again. They could hardly stand within eight feet of each other, what would happen when they touched? Out of curiosity, she reached up to let him help her.
His hand did feel too hot, but it didn’t hurt this time. It felt like beach sand that had soaked up sun all day. She assumed she felt frigid to him, and that bothered her.
“Thank you, for helping me up, I guess. You did knock me down, too.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you, but I’ll do it to protect you if I have to.”
“You know what is different about me and you?” Emmy asked.
“I would assume, almost everything.”
“I don’t have to be good all the time. I can lie. I can tell you I’ll leave now and never come back, but you don’t know if I’m telling the truth. I could come back tonight. Or tomorrow, or a week from now. You can’t know for sure.”
“Please, just tell me one thing. What is your date?”
That took Emmy off guard. “My date?”
“Yes, what day of the year does your magic fall on?”
Mom had told her about this. Every wizard’s magic falls on a day. The summer wizards had rejected Samantha because she was March 3rd. Too cold. But Mom had said only a wizard with special training could determine your date. Emmy had never been “tested.”
“I don’t know.”
“I hope you’re lying, but if you’re not, it’s even more important you stay away.”
Emmy had no idea what he was talking about, and she didn’t like that. She wanted to be back in control of this conversation.
“Why do you want to help me, anyway?” he asked.
“Why not?”
“You’re going to return to a safe place now,” he said.
“You can’t tell me what to do.”
“Yes, I can.”
Apparently he could. She didn’t know how he did it, but she turned and left without a second thought. Before she knew it, she arrived home and gave her parents a sincere, tearful apology for making them worry and begged them to ground her. As the words tumbled out of her mouth, her parents looked as baffled as she felt. When she finally crawled into bed, she called Nathan several curse words into her pillow.
Of all the nasty spells he could have cast, breaking her free will infuriated her more than almost anything else. She vowed never to let him do it again.
mmy held her finger over the call button, feeling nervous. How stupid was that? She used to call Samantha every single day. She had been her best friend. Ever since elementary school, talking to her had felt as natural as breathing. They told each other everything. Well, Emmy told Samantha everything. Samantha had kept a big secret from Emmy. The entire time they had been friends, Samantha knew they were both witches, but never mentioned it. When a family decided not to practice, it was uncool to blab to their kids about magic, but still.
When Samantha’s parents died, a Mundane social worker sent Samantha to New Orleans to live with her aunt. Emmy had talked to her a few times in the beginning, but then they stopped calling each other. Emmy didn’t know if she had stopped calling Samantha, or the other way around. Either way, they hadn’t spoken in two months.
Emmy missed her every day, but an image burned into her brain caught fire ever
y time she thought of Samantha—the image of Jude raping her. Emmy knew she shouldn’t avoid Samantha for that reason. But Emmy would do anything to take that image away. That image proved that everything she feared about herself, and everything that people believed about dark witches was true—Emmy was evil. She chose not to act. She chose not to save Samantha, and proved her own wickedness.
Emmy told herself that avoiding Samantha because she felt guilty might be cowardly, but it was for the best. Surely, Samantha had discovered other witches and wizards in New Orleans who she liked better. Spring wizards probably. They had fun all the time and nothing bad ever happened to them. Stupid little pixies frolicking in gardens, away from dangerous dark witches like Emmy.
Samantha picked up on the second ring. “Hey!” she said, and the enthusiasm sounded real, which made Emmy smile on reflex.
“Hey,” she echoed back. “Sorry I haven’t called in a while.”
“It’s okay.”
“How is everything going in NOLA?”
“It’s all right, I guess.”
“Do you like living with your aunt?”
“She’s nice…”
“But?”
“I think she thinks I’m a cat.”
Emmy laughed. “What?”
“She treats me like her cats. When she wakes up in the morning and feeds her cats, she also puts out cereal for me. Like I’m a cat with a special diet.”
“Does she put it on a table at least? Or does she make you eat on the floor?”
“The table.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t make fun.”
“It’s okay. She takes good care of her cats. Never forgets to feed us.”
Watch Me Burn: The December People, Book Two Page 5