Darkness had lurked close to him his whole life, and people he loved had done terrible things, but he had never seen the darkness so clearly, so raw. The black hole that was his brother was not just dark, it could be evil itself. Or, fear itself.
Nathan touched Patrick’s arm, and Patrick turned, ready to swing. But something in Nathan’s sad eyes stopped him.
“We have to go,” Nathan said. “Now.”
“You don’t understand.” He gestured toward the demonic figure. “That’s my little brother.”
“Yeah, and the fireball is mine. It doesn’t matter. Like I said. It’s all distractions. It’s all part of the spell. The magic wants us to stay…or you to stay. But their fight is not important. The only important thing is getting you out of here.”
“How could you say that? You’re okay with leaving our brothers to kill each other.”
Nathan didn’t answer. He grabbed Patrick’s face so he could look at him in the eyes. “You’re leaving this place. Now.”
Patrick felt a lurch in his abdomen, like the steep fall on a roller coaster. And then he ran, with Nathan on his heels. Running was so easy. Too easy. He wanted to think he ran because of Nathan’s magical command, but that felt more like a shove to get him started. He wanted to run. He wanted to get as far away from the emptiness that was Xavier. That shell of a boy who had disguised all of that darkness. That darkness that slept feet away from him. He wanted to go back to the place where he thought that dark wizards couldn’t be that bad. They were people after all. Humans. His family.
Before he knew it, Patrick had his hands on his knees on the side of the road. He coughed until his throat and lungs burned. The flames hadn’t moved too close yet, but the sky had turned from gray to black. A wildfire had erupted. In the drought conditions, the fire could decimate hundreds of acres in no time. And Xavier was in there. And somewhere, Evangeline was too.
Tears streamed down his face but he didn’t know if they came from the smoke or were just tears. Emmy came to this forest with Evangeline and came home without her. Now, Patrick would come home without Xavier, just as he had feared.
“I hate you,” Patrick wheezed toward Nathan. “You’ll regret this.”
Nathan kneeled near him, also wheezing. By the supplicant way he kneeled on the cracked earth, Patrick thought he already regretted it.
“There was nothing we could have done anyway.”
“Fuck you, you coward.”
He didn’t know if he spoke to Nathan or to himself.
“They probably won’t hurt each other, you know. They’re too oppositional. Their magic will cancel each other out. They’re all flash and smoke anyway. Sure, their magic is dangerous. But it’s nothing compared to what you can do.”
“What? I’m barely a wizard.”
“You don’t know what you are, do you?”
Patrick didn’t say anything. He had put together the pieces and come to a conclusion, but it seemed ridiculous. If he said it out loud, Nathan would laugh at him.
But Nathan said it for him. “You’re the equinox. A perfect equinox wizard, standing directly at the sunset on the autumnal equinox. Extremely rare. Extremely powerful. A master of both light and dark in equal measure.”
It seemed absurd, but it had to be true. In any case, an issue for a different time. The wildfire beat out all magical concerns. Humans burn. Wizards burn. Everything burns. Everything dies. Magic or not.
Patrick tried to run back in for Xavier, but his legs wouldn’t move.
“I don’t think so,” Nathan said.
Patrick didn’t understand how Nathan could call Patrick extremely powerful and then subdue him a minute later. He had never felt so useless. He couldn’t stop Jude from raping Samantha. He couldn’t stop Evangeline from being kidnapped. Now, he couldn’t save Xavier. If he was an equinox wizard, then that made it worse. He had no excuse. He had the power he needed, but too cowardly or too stupid to use it.
Nathan lunged toward Patrick and grabbed his face again and this time Patrick shut his eyes tight.
“That’s not going to do anything,” Nathan said. “You’re going to get in your car and drive home, right now.”
Patrick felt the pull again. He pulled his keys out his pocket.
Nathan released his grip and spoke to him in a more normal fashion. “As powerful as you are, I can tell you have no idea what you’re doing. But I do. I’ll go back. I’ll bring them both out.”
Patrick nodded. He wanted to trust him. He had to trust him, because this was the moment. He hoped he could resist Nathan’s command for long enough for it to wear off. He put one hand on his pocket and felt the bizarre warmth there. Julie’s bracelet. He couldn’t say why, but at the last minute, he had the overwhelming instinct to take it with him. And now, he would bring it to her.
ude saw her for the first time last May, the same weekend he would have graduated if he hadn’t dropped out. He would have already committed to a college football team. All of which now, seemed odd. He couldn’t remember why he had cared so much about football, and SATs, and Mundane girls. Ever since he had given himself to magic, the unmagical world had become gray, flat, and tasteless. And so much of the world lacked magic—just billions of Mundanes, living their pointless, disappointing lives. He hated all of it.
So when he caught a glimpse of her at the college party he had crashed for the free beer, he decided to follow her. She stood out, the colorful Oz against black and white Kansas. He found he could follow her without seeing her. Once he recognized her energy, he could just find her, whenever he wanted to see color. Everyone else just saw her as another pretty blonde college girl. They might as well have been blind. He had never sensed any energy like hers. Not from any wizard. And although wizards were rare, he did see them around town from time to time. They seemed more common in Austin than they had been in Houston.
But no, she was different. Beyond magical. Something greater. And more unique. He couldn’t classify her magic. Not hot or cold, or anything in between. Beyond classification. Beyond the seasons. The hottest heat and the coldest cold at once.
So he followed her. Maybe because he wanted to understand her unusual energy. Or maybe just because she was a pretty witch. Or, perhaps for something to do other than wade in an endless sea of gray. He had considered talking to her, but for some reason he held back. She was more than a pretty girl. She was something frightening and exotic he didn’t understand. He felt as if he hunted a mythical beast, not a girl. And so he knew to approach with caution.
When he walked around campus, he donned a simple disguise of a baseball cap, T-shirt, khaki shorts, flip-flops, and a laptop case…empty, of course. He felt like he wore a disguise, but as an eighteen-year-old white boy from Houston, he couldn’t stand out on the UT campus if he tried. The Mundanes didn’t give him a second thought, but he knew that the witch did. Even if he didn’t shine with an overwhelming and mysterious energy as she did, she could tell a dark wizard stalked her. And she didn’t seem frightened, nor did she seem to care at all. And that intrigued him more.
Before finals, she spent a lot of time in the library studying. And he tracked her to one of the larger libraries on campus. Once he got close, he could follow her easily. Her energy moved and breathed as if alive, beckoning him, whispering in his ear. He felt a pull upwards and took the stairs to the second floor.
The first floor of the library had no books at all, just computers. But books filled the second floor. The shelves made this floor feel less open than the first. She could be anywhere. The strength of her magic made her easy to track from a distance. But once he got close, her energy overwhelmed him and he couldn’t pinpoint the source. She was everywhere. The magic felt so strong, he could hear it hum. In the middle of the floor, he found a large section filled with desks and couches. Students occupied every open spot. Laptop cords strewn everywhere. He could smell the caffeine sweating from everyone’s pores.
“Are you looking for something?”
No one else looked up, as if only he had heard the voice. He shuddered, first thinking it had come from a disembodied speaker, but then he saw her, her face peeking out from behind her laptop screen. She smiled at him.
She gestured him over with a nod of her head. He didn’t know how he’d make his way through all the people to get to her, let alone sit next to her. As if she read his thoughts, he heard shuffling around him as all the other people in the section got up to leave. Except for the fact they all happened to leave at the same time, it looked normal. They packed up their backpacks and computer cases, and said goodbyes to each other.
It took a minute or two for them all to wrap up their cords and chargers, but it was still quick, and dramatic. And none of them looked the least bit concerned by the fact they suddenly had decided to leave. They did so cheerfully, as if a silent school bell had dismissed them.
Jude put his empty laptop case on the desk next to her and sat. “Wow,” he said.
“Thank you.”
She was prettier up close. And it wasn’t the long tanned legs and breast-hugging T-shirt. She sparkled. Her hair and skin and eyes and teeth had been sewn from a mixture of fire and flesh. However, he knew everyone else saw a boring, vapid sorority girl. But she had made this her own secret joke. On her T-shirt he had two Greek letters. Alpha and Omega. He had a feeling that wasn’t a real sorority.
“I was tired of waiting for you to talk to me,” she said.
“You weren’t bothered by the fact that a dark wizard was following you around?”
She laughed a sparkling laugh. “Well, I’m not frightened of you, if that’s what you mean. It’s a common mistake dark wizards make. The big bad wolf thinks nobody can be bigger or badder than himself. He ignores Little Red Riding Hood. It’s a dangerous habit.”
“Okay. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“And if big bad wolves didn’t occasionally try to eat me, life would be boring. It makes for a good study break.”
“Do you really go to school here?”
“What? Witches can’t get a college education?”
“I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes, I go to school here.”
“What do you study?”
“I’m in the Honors Program in Mathematics.”
“Math?”
“Yes, math. The language of Gods. Perhaps the most misunderstood form of magic.”
Jude stared at her.
She smiled. “I would say it’s a shame the cute ones always have to be so stupid…but that would be a lie. That’s how I like my men, cute and stupid.”
“I’m not stupid.”
“I didn’t mean offense. You’re probably not stupid, just stupid compared to me,” she said, as if that would weaken the insult.
Jude scrunched his nose at her.
“I’m sorry. Don’t leave,” she said. “I sometimes get out of the habit of talking to people. I don’t do it much.”
“Me neither.”
“Yeah, I gathered as much while I’ve been watching you,” she said.
“I thought I was the one watching you.”
“No. That’s why you think you ended up here, in that chair, across from me, at this moment, but it’s not.”
“Then why am I here?”
“You’re here because I want you to be.”
“Is that so?”
“You’re here because you’re a function in the big, beautiful equation. The one so many wizards play a part in, but so few understand.”
Jude scoffed. “And what function do I serve?”
“I’m not sure yet. I don’t always understand how my own spells work. But I’m glad you’re here. If anything, to keep me company. It takes a while for these things to unfold. Quite boring.”
Jude laughed.
“You don’t believe I called you here?”
“I don’t know.”
“How about this. If you were the one stalking me, and not the other way around, how come I know everything about you, and you know nothing about me?”
“What makes you think you know everything about me?”
“Well, maybe not everything. But a lot. Your name is Jude Michael Vandergraff. You were born on April 5, 1996 to David and Amanda Vandergraff. Your parents now live at 634 Tremont Street in Houston, with your siblings Patrick and Emmy, and your half-siblings, Xavier and Evangeline. Although of course, you’ll have to take my word for it on the last part because you haven’t spoken to anyone in your family since you left your uncle’s house on New Year’s Eve. Since then, you’ve been crashing on couches, but basically homeless, unemployed, usually drunk, and utterly pathetic in every way. Did I get that all right?”
Jude’s mouth parted in speechlessness, and she giggled. “Okay, then your turn, what do you know about me?”
“Nothing. You’re right. Just that you’re different. Special.”
She smiled and held out her hand. “I’m Caroline Prescott. And we have a lot in common. Well, except for the last part about being pathetic.”
Jude laughed. “All right, then. It’s nice to meet you Caroline.”
fter Nathan ran back toward the smoke, Patrick found himself alone. He wanted to follow, to find Xavier, and drag him out, kicking and screaming if need be. But he had to let himself trust the summer wizard to save Xavier, too. Patrick’s gut said Nathan would do his best, as he’d said he would. Patrick had to hope that as a wizard, and apparently a powerful one, his “gut” might know what it was talking about.
Both Julie and Evangeline had disappeared alone, the moment that their sibling looked away. His chance had arrived.
He couldn’t think about it. He just had to go, and hope the fire hadn’t destroyed the snare, or portal, or whatever would suck him up. But the fire hadn’t reached this part of the forest, and the girls had both disappeared right along the fringes. Patrick ran back into the trees, deep enough to make sure no one could see him from the road. Nothing happened. He didn’t fall through a portal. So, he race-walked parallel to the road, waiting for the invisible monster to grab him. He had simulated the situation perfectly. He had even arrived with a sibling, who had moved out sight. If this didn’t work, he had no idea what else to try.
But then, when he looked back towards the road, he couldn’t see it anymore. He had been less than twenty feet away, and now, it wasn’t there. He only saw more forest.
Holy fuck.
He wouldn’t fall into an obvious portal or rabbit hole. At some point in his frantic race-walking, he just went through it. As he looked around himself, he noticed strange things. The brown pine needles caught on the branches hung at odd directions. He reached for one that hung straight up, and at his touch it fell again as gravity would have it fall. Patrick’s heart raced. No one in his family had any real magical training, so he couldn’t say for sure, but he couldn’t imagine any of them doing anything this dramatic.
Although his heart raced with nerves, another sensation pushed its way through, as if it came from outside him. He felt a pleasant sensation that he couldn’t describe at first. Maybe pride—seeing yourself at your very best. Feeling on top of the world.
Then, he noticed something else wrong with his surroundings. It felt nice. Not blazing hot, but a fresh cool. The air smelled of smoke, but it had a different quality, more like a campfire. Everything about the scene reminded him of camping with his family. They had gone to Garner State Park every fall…except for the last one. Away from electronics and all the other distractions of the world, they were happy, relaxed. They would cook steaks and marshmallows over the open fire. He could hear the crackling fire. The sound of talking, and laughter. The cool air. The fall leaves in the trees, a blaze with red and orange.
Then it made sense. He felt Fall. Autumn. The best parts of it. He guessed that’s why it reminded him of the best parts of himself.
Since pine trees look the same in every season, he hadn’t noticed it right away. But the forest around him had changed. He had walked right out of summer into
fall. He could see the changing leaves on the oaks and maples scattered between the pines. He could feel the cool air. Water droplets hung from pine needles, from a fall rain that hadn’t happened.
So, whatever magic had brought him here had recognized him, as Nathan said. The Autumnal Equinox. And the magic had heralded his arrival with a tribute to Fall.
Patrick had to wonder if Evangeline had stepped into winter. If all the plants died in front of her, and the air became frigid. Perhaps ice hung from the pines. And Julie, well, since it was summer, maybe nothing changed. Maybe she just felt it. The best parts of summer. Watermelon, fireworks, and swimming pools.
The magic felt so welcoming, as if the forest honored him, worshiped him. But he stayed vigilant. Whether the forest honored him or not, he knew from his visions of Julie that whoever called him here had no intention to honor him at all.
As quickly as the glorious autumn feeling had hit him, it passed. He felt the heat encroaching, and the smell of burning…and not the campfire kind. The destructive kind. The overwhelming kind. He noticed a strange flutter of white that looked like snow, and then realized it was ash. Whatever illusion had made it fall had faded away, and he had returned to the real world, but this didn’t feel like the same world he had been in with Nathan at the road.
Something odd caught his eye through the trees. An armchair. Light blue, and ripped and stained. The chair faced away from him, and he could see the top of something sitting in the chair. Matted, dirty, brown hair. He approached the chair, and with his heart beating in his throat, he looked to see what sat there. A large Teddy bear. Like the chair, it was dirty, and damaged. One eye was missing. Garbage. That had to be all this was. A dumping ground for people who didn’t want to drive to the landfill. In the normal world, that’s what this would be. But now he’d passed through the portal, he couldn’t say for sure.
He heard a sound that made his hairs stand up on end. Music. A specific kind of music—the kind you hear from an ice cream truck. The happy, carnival-esque sound wafting across the breeze. But it didn’t make him feel happy. The music had a sinister note.
Watch Me Burn: The December People, Book Two Page 18