by Norah Wilson
Maryanne picked up an almost clear crystal from a box containing many of them. Some sort of quartz? Immediately, Maryanne could feel it. It was almost overwhelming. So overwhelming, in fact, she felt a small, strange, gnawing headache as she rolled it in her hand. She set it back in its place.
These had to be Grandmother Walker’s crystals that Bryce had told her about—the ones this ‘spiritual’ woman had collected from all over the world for so many years.
Maryanne inhaled when she spotted some hematite. There were a few single, good-sized stones as well as some smaller ones set in jewelry. On closer inspection, it looked as if more than a few of the smaller stones were set in silver, hanging from chains or wrapped into bracelets. There were also many that looked simply like large pebbles. Maryanne’s hand went to her chest; she wasn’t wearing the necklace Bryce had given her. The one he’d said was for strength. The one that—though she’d not admitted this to Alex or Brooke—felt like it really was helping her.
She began pulling out the wooden boxes. Excitedly, and quickly, yet trying as she went to remember just how they were packed so she could arrange them that carefully again. All the while knowing she shouldn’t do this, but convincing herself that she should. After all, Bryce had promised to show them to her, hadn’t he?
She glanced across the expanse of room at the open door behind her, then turned back around to the stones. Adrenaline pumped through her body.
So many caught her eye as she laid the small boxes on the polished hardwood floor. She was careful not to tip any of them over. She didn’t want to be disrespectful to Bryce’s late grandmother. Or, crazy as it seemed, to the stones themselves.
Soon the floor around her knees was covered with the small, lidless boxes. Her head was pounding with the excitement of it all. She moved aside the flimsy covering of one of the boxes and picked up another stone. Though not all the stones were in their polished form, this one was. She recognized it—a huge chunk of amethyst. Maryanne’s mother had an antique silver and amethyst necklace back home in Burlington. When she was younger, Maryanne had played dress up with it time and time again. Her mother had never minded; never valued her things more than she valued her children. Maryanne turned Grandmother Walker’s amethyst in her hand a few times before she set it back down in its box. She started to reach for another then froze when she heard a floorboard creak behind her.
She whipped around to see Bryce standing in the doorway.
“What are you doing here?” Bryce’s voice was gruff. Angry. Almost unrecognizable.
“Bryce.” She turned around fully. “I was just…looking for you.”
She felt the heat rising in her cheeks. And the fear rising in her chest as she took in him standing there, looking more and more like Ira Walker with every passing second.
“Funny,” he said, his eyes icy hard. “I was looking for you, too.”
Closing the door behind him, he stumbled into the room.
Chapter 29
Fair Share
Alex
Alex startled awake from the strangest dream.
At least it wasn’t a nightmare. Since the rape, she’d had her fair share of those. Some nights she still woke up with the sheets soaked and her heart pounding. Fighting for breath.
This had only been a dream. It was just…strange.
She scrambled to catch the already-fading wisps of it, pushing herself more and more awake with every second she did.
She’d been walking along some railway tracks, and she was pretty sure it was a stretch of tracks here in Mansbridge. In the dream, it had just felt like Mansbridge. She was wearing her new Toms—the ones her mother had sent her just the other day. They struck her as being very out of place, as she looked down at her moving feet. Up ahead, she saw two women: one wrapped in a blue shawl, and the other in black. The first—the one in blue—was turned away from her, talking to the woman in black. The one in black seemed to be studying Alex carefully as she approached them along the tracks. Alex had cocked her head to try to hear the words the two were saying. She couldn’t make out a single one at first. But from the glances of the one in black and the nods from the one in blue, Alex had known, sure as anything, that they were talking about her. That they were talking about her and the other casters.
The ground had rumbled beneath her feet as though a train approached. That’s when she’d woken up. And she’d caught just a couple of sentences exchanged between the two as her mind had tumbled from the dream into wakefulness, as the one in black clearly whispered, “Just look at those beautiful eyes!”
And the other one answered back, “Oh, Vesta, do you suppose…?”
Crap. The dream had escaped and now she was fully awake. And why was she dreaming about Vesta? The only Vesta she knew of was Vesta Walker, the long-dead wife of the equally dead Ira Walker.
Of course, if she could control her dreams, she’d be chilling with Anthony Green of Circa Survive or having dinner with a 20-year-old version of Johnny Depp.
Alex checked the clock. Its illuminated display read 1:53, and she let out a soft groan. Argh! Veteran of nightmares that she’d become, she knew this was absolutely the worst time for her to try to get back to sleep. She punched her pillow. Dammit, she shouldn’t have tried to roll back the dream. She could very well be up the rest of the night. And she had an English test tomorrow morning!
English. She was leaning more and more toward that discipline. She’d always liked it, but this year, the texts were coming alive. So were her own compositions.
Brooke was snoring softly, and Maryanne’s side of the room was quiet. So as always, she was the only one awake at this ungodly hour.
Alex waggled her left lip ring with her tongue. Well, as long as she was awake…
Easing the covers back, she slid off the bed, down onto her butt on the floor. She waited. Still no movement from the room. No stirring at all. Quietly and with practiced ease, she pried the loosened floorboard up.
Though the light from outside couldn’t reach into the cavity, Alex knew Connie’s doll lay inside. Still, she relaxed only when she pulled back the soft towel she’d wrapped it in and felt the cool copper under her fingers.
“Hello, Lily Michelle,” Alex whispered, then immediately felt a little foolish. If anyone from her old gang could see her now, they’d be laughing their asses off.
She wrapped her hands around the other object she’d hidden beneath the floorboard. Connie’s diary. Alex replaced the floorboard, then crawled back into bed with both items. When she lay down again, she positioned herself so her head was down at the end of the bed, close to the window. She tipped the curtains back just a couple of inches to let in the light from the streetlight outside. Quietly, she removed the back of the copper doll to access Connie’s painstakingly inscribed message. It would have taken her a very long time to do it, so she’d clearly needed and valued the permanent message. Alex ran her finger over the scratched letters. Even with the streetlight, it was too dark to actually read the words but it didn’t matter. Alex had memorized them.
Brooke mumbled in her sleep. That sound startled Alex enough so that she clicked the back of the doll into place. Instead of putting it and the diary back in the floorboard, she tucked them both beneath her pillow.
She would hide them again in the morning when Brooke was downstairs getting her caffeine and croissant fix and Maryanne the overmodest was dressing in the bathroom. But she’d be thinking all night about the message Connie had hidden so well. So carefully.
Brooke startled awake. Or at least Alex thought she did. Maybe she’d been faking those soft snores all along. Either way, a gasp, followed by an “Oh shit!”, caught Alex’s attention. Brooke rolled onto her side and snapped on the lights.
In the dazzling brightness, Brooke’s eyes were wide as saucers. Alex soon felt her own expanding as she looked over at Maryanne’s bed.
Maryanne’s empty bed.
Chapter 30
Revelation
Maryanne
Maryanne looked into Bryce’s glassy eyes as he leaned against the closed door, and knew it wasn’t Howard Walker who’d gotten into the vodka tonight. A warning chill rose up her spine.
She stood. “Where…where are your folks?” Her words sounded rapid and edged with panic, even to her.
“Hospital,” Bryce answered. “Dad had chest pains.” He raised a hand, stopping Maryanne, before she could ask how he was. “He’s fine. Not a heart attack, just an ‘episode’.”
“Oh, good.”
“Yeah, lucky for you. Gave you time to come back here. Snoop around some more.”
“I told you, Bryce,” Maryanne insisted. “I was looking for you.”
His laugh was bitter. “And you thought you’d find me in my grandmother’s old chest? That’s just another lie, Maryanne. Another one I’ve caught you in. Dammit, you’ve played me for such a fool.”
She opened her mouth to protest, yet anything she might have said froze in her throat. His eyes! She’d never seen such anger in them before. It was more than just anger. There was hard, cold spite. This wasn’t the Bryce she knew. Not the one that was so tender. Not the one she knew from before. Tonight, after the vodka and everything that had happened here in the last couple of days, that Bryce was gone. Maybe forever. Maryanne stood before the hunter.
And she was the prey.
Finally, she said, “You…you said I could see these crystals.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“Like I told you, I came here looking for—”
“Aren’t you always in the night, though? One way or another?”
One way or another? Oh, this wasn’t good. She licked her lips. “I…I heard you were hurt.”
“Oh, come on, Maryanne!” He practically spat the words at her. “You heard more than that. Everyone’s heard more than that by now in this town! And you…you know more than you’re letting on.” He sneered, “Way more than you’re pretending. But haven’t you always just pretended? Even with me. Especially with me.”
He knew. There was no mistaking it. He damn well knew.
“I’ve got to go.” Her voice was shaky. She took two steps past him heading to the door, but only two steps. He grabbed her wrist.
Maryanne whirled around. There was a smile on his face now. Not a nice one. His eyes remained hard as stone as he moved his hands to her shoulders. “What? No kiss goodbye?”
“No,” she said. “Not like this. Not when you’re so—”
He pulled her in for a kiss as hard and angry and bitter as his words had been. He tasted of alcohol and her heart pounded, but with fear this time. Pure, unadulterated fear. She twisted her face away, but still he held her fiercely, his hands moving over her in a humiliating, hurtful mockery of the way he used to touch her with passion.
“You said you’d never hurt me,” she gasped. “You promised.”
She hated the weakness in her voice. Loathed it, in fact, as her memory flashed back to last fall when Mr. McKenzie, her math teacher, had kept her after school one day and come on to her. She’d gotten away from him and raced down the sidewalk, feeling like a fool. A wimp and a victim. As she’d raced from McKenzie that day, Maryanne the mouse had known Alex would have eviscerated him verbally. Brooke would have kicked his creepy ass, and Connie would have shrieked him insane!
And what would mousy Maryanne do? The same question tormented her now as it had then. Her answer came in the tensing of her thigh as she readied to give Bryce a good stiff knee to the—
“What about me? You think you haven’t hurt me?” The frightening edge seemed to have gone from his voice now. Still gripping her shoulders, he drew back from her. “You played me, Maryanne.”
“Bryce, you’ve got this all wrong. I—”
“Have I?” Without warning, he pushed her sweatshirt aside, baring her right shoulder. Not punishingly and not at all sexually. But with the fleece swept aside, her bruised and battered flesh was laid bare to his gaze. To her shock, his eyes filled with tears and his hands tightened on her shoulders once more.
On the floor behind Bryce, the gems began to tremble. Just a bit, and Bryce didn’t seem to notice. Then the picture shook and fell from the bed, face down on to the floor. The curtains jumped on the rod. Jason! Just like back in the attic when Alex had slid through the other windowpane in cast form and disappeared into nothingness. Once again, at her darkest, most dangerous hour, her brother had come to add weight to the fear! To compound it!
“You’re a Heller!” Bryce hissed vehemently, releasing her so suddenly she stumbled forward. He backed away. “One of them.”
She couldn’t deny it. Couldn’t say a word. She could only stand there as the world shook around her.
“Get out of here!” Bryce yelled. “Get the hell out of here! Now!”
Me-anne! Me-anne! Me-anne!
She ran. From all of it. From Bryce’s anger and Jason’s revenge and her own pounding heartbeat over all of it. Maryanne practically flew down the steps and out the door. She raced to Brooke’s car. After fumbling to get the keys into the unfamiliar ignition, she started the car and shot out the driveway, almost landing in the ditch when she braked at the road. It was snowing now, making visibility poor. And even poorer with the tears that were falling. She should slow down; she knew it. But she didn’t. She had to get back to Harvell House and tell Brooke and Alex everything.
Yes, she was one of them. If it was the last thing she’d ever do—the very last damn thing—she’d protect her casting friends, her sisters.
Chapter 31
Humped
Brooke
“Maryanne!” Brooke sprang out of bed so fast, she saw stars. “She’s gone.”
“God, Brooke, chill already.” Alex said. “She could be down the hall in the bathroom for all we know.”
She wasn’t. Brooke knew she wasn’t.
Why hadn’t she woken them and delivered the news straight away instead of letting them sleep? Now Maryanne was out there, vulnerable, not knowing about Bryce…
“We have to go after her. Now!” Brooke grabbed Alex’s arm. “Come on.”
Alex’s eyes narrowed as she took in Brooke’s eyes. Her telltale eyes. “What? It’s okay for you to cast out by yourself, but not Maryanne?”
“Maryanne has no freakin’ idea how dangerous it is out there!”
“Bullshit. She knows it’s dangerous. That’s why we all agreed we wouldn’t do it alone, remember? But it’s…” Alex turned and squinted at the clock. “…almost 2:00 a.m. Stupid as it is to go out alone, this is about as safe as it gets, the deepest, darkest part of the night.”
“It’s not safe! Not at any time!”
“Keep your voice down!” Alex hissed. “And yeah, you’re probably right. It’s more dangerous for Maryanne than for us. I mean, with her hearing Jason’s voice—the haunting. She’s coming undone.”
“It’s not just that.” Brooke released Alex’s arm to rub her temple, which pounded with a fierce headache. “Nowhere is safe anymore,” she said, in quieter tones. “Not for us.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He knows!”
“Who knows?”
“Just come! We have to go after her now. Trust me.”
Alex sighed. “Okay. Just let me get dressed.”
“We don’t have time for that.”
“But—”
“Screw it,” Brooke snapped. “Get dressed, then. Take a shower while you’re at it. Do you hair. I’m going after Maryanne before Bryce kills her.”
That did it.
By the time Brooke reached the door to the attic, Alex was right behind her. “What do you mean, before Bryce kills her?”
“We cast out first,” Brooke said. “I’ll tell you all about it en route.”
“Let me guess. To the Walker farm?”
They’d reached the top of the stairs and had entered the attic room when they heard someone moving downstairs. Both girls froze. They couldn’t afford to knock some
thing over or make a floorboard creak crossing the floor. It was probably just one of the other girls going to the bathroom. If they gave it a minute, she’d make her way back to bed and they could cast the hell out of there.
Except instead of hearing footsteps retreating down the hall, they heard the door at the foot of the stairs open and someone step into the dark stairwell.
What now? How were they going to explain being up here in the middle of the night? And—oh, crap!—how to explain a paralyzed Maryanne lying on the floor at the foot of the stained glass window?
As the intruder climbed the steps, Brooke grabbed Alex’s arm and tried to pull her toward the wardrobe, but she resisted.
“No! We’ll bump something,” Alex whispered.
“I can see.” Having cast out so recently, Brooke’s pupils were still somewhat dilated and her night vision was much better than Alex’s would be.
Alex must have understood, for she allowed herself to be led. They barely had time to duck behind the wardrobe before the intruder entered the attic. Brooke watched in horrified disbelief as the girl moved into the room and headed straight for the window. Shit! She’d be stepping on Maryanne in a minute. She couldn’t let her do that.
Brooke stood up and stepped out from behind the wardrobe. “Hey, dumbass, you lost? Or didn’t you know this space is off limits?”
The other girl whirled. “Brooke?”
Oh, thank God! Maryanne! She hadn’t cast out after all!
With a stifled exclamation, Alex rushed past Brooke to reach Maryanne. “Where were you? We woke up and you were gone and Brooke has been totally freaking out. We were going to cast out and go looking for you. Well, that was the plan—”
“Bryce knows!” she said, her voice cracking. “He knows I’m a caster. A Heller.”
“I know,” Brooke said. “I cast out earlier tonight to spy on him, and I heard him raging at himself in the barn. Half a bottle of Stoli in him from the look of it, and going on about Hellers. About you.” Brooke ignored the hiss of indrawn breath from Alex. “But how did you know he knew? Did he come here? Text you? Lure you outside?”