by Lily Velez
Me: I’m alive! Sorry, it’s been an insane couple of days. I promise I’ll catch you up on everything soon. xo
I would’ve loved nothing more than to hear her voice right about now, but I didn’t know where I’d begin with explaining everything that had happened to me in the past week. Besides that, with the time difference, it was currently 4AM in Colorado.
I was surprised to find the next message was from Liam.
Liam: Hi, Scarlet. The school told us your father had been admitted to the hospital over the weekend. Is he all right? If there’s anything I can do to help (bring food to the hospital, drive you home, etc.), I’m only a call or text away. Let me know.
It touched me that even though we’d only been friends for a few days, Liam had cared enough to check in on me. I wasn’t sure how the school had found out about my dad, but I assumed in a town as small as Rosalyn Bay, it probably took little effort to find a missing professor. Though I was a newcomer myself, my dad had long established himself here. There were people, students included, who cared about him. I smiled softly as I typed out my reply.
Me: Liam, thank you for the offer. That’s really sweet of you. I’m okay for now, but I’ll let you know if I need anything. My dad’s stable at the moment. I’ll keep you updated.
“Coffee?” Jack approached me, holding out a red, paper cup.
“Thank you.” Even though the cup was nested inside a paperboard sleeve, the coffee’s heat still seeped into my palms. I welcomed the warmth and breathed in the drink’s French vanilla aromatics. After blowing on the coffee through the gap in the plastic lid, I took a slow sip. The liquid was velvety on my tongue, and I savored the rich flavor.
I waited a few moments before saying the words that had been on my mind since the transference spell. “Your mom is the Seer you went to see after your grandfather died, isn’t she?”
Beside me, Jack stilled. We were seated in a lounge with floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked one of the institute’s many man-made waterfalls. This waterfall was multi-tiered and flanked on either side by lush vegetation, its white ribbons of water crashing into a koi pond below.
Jack smoothed his thumb across the dimpled sleeve of his coffee cup. “Is that one of the memories you saw? Her conveying the message to me?”
“No,” I said. I told him about the aviary memory in his mother’s mind. “The Seer specifically mentioned a bird in her message. I realized it was your mom the moment I saw her affinity for them. And then when she later mentioned my playing a role in all this, my suspicions were confirmed. My only question is why the secrecy? Why not tell your brothers the truth to begin with?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Is it?”
A male nurse passed by, making light-hearted conversation with a patient pushing along an IV pole, the wheels of which gave off a high-pitched squeak. The nurse spotted us and offered a polite nod and smile before resuming with his conversation.
“I didn’t want the others to know that I could temporarily pull our mother out of her catatonia.”
“Why not?”
“If you saw that memory through to its end, you must know why.”
The Wraiths. Just thinking about them made the skin on my arms dimple. “You didn’t want them to see your mom’s demons overcome her.”
“It would break them to see her dissolve into madness like that. It’s why I proposed the transference spell to begin with. That, and my mother’s lucidity has always been so brief when I’ve tried to awaken her myself, lasting only seconds. I knew we’d hardly get anything out of her that way. She’d be overcome before I could even get the question out. Although I’m sure my brothers must’ve drawn the same conclusion as you at this point, about her being the Seer, in light of what she revealed about you.”
I slowly drank more coffee as I listened, relishing the way the liquid warmed my throat and chest with each swallow. Like every other medical facility, Serenity Falls was freezing inside. “Connor seemed bothered by your mom’s state when we first entered her room. Has it been a while since he last saw her?”
“Maurice feared our mother, in her grief, might harm herself, which is why she was checked into Serenity Falls to begin with. At first, all four of us would visit her, but as her condition worsened over the years, I think it became too hard for my brothers to see her like that, to see her deteriorate before their very eyes. So one by one, they started to drop out of our weekly visits. They assumed I’d stop going as well, but I couldn’t bear to leave her on her own like that. If I could bring her a little bit of peace, even if only briefly, then it was worth it.”
Alison had said in one of the memories that Jack never gave up on her. She couldn’t have been more right. “Your mom mentioned the Wraiths being the byproduct of dark magic.”
Jack nodded. “If her catatonia was in fact the result of a curse, the Wraiths must be connected to that. Maybe they were a way to keep her locked in her mind, to keep her from surfacing. It makes sense, considering she was blocked from revealing the identity of the Reaper as well.”
I started to ask why his mother of all people would be targeted, but I stopped myself, the answer coming to mind immediately. If Alison had once been the most powerful Seer of her generation as Connor had said, she would’ve seen the Reaper’s intentions well in advance, would’ve been able to warn the other clans before the sluagh had begun to attack. I assumed, of course, that she hadn’t doled out predictions since becoming lost in her grief years ago, but it seemed the Reaper hadn’t wanted to take any chances. I tapped a finger against my coffee cup’s plastic lid. “What did she mean when she said I was one of ‘Them,’ that I was the last of my kind?”
“I have an idea about that,” he said, turning slightly toward me and holding my eyes. “Scarlet, I think you might hail from The Lost Clan, the one no one’s heard from in ages. You could very well be the very last of them, in which case, it’s more important than ever that you nurture your magic. That particular bloodline was once made up of extremely powerful witches, and if you’re all that remains…”
Then I had an obligation to embrace my heritage, as it could very well mean the difference in the fight we now faced. My stomach curdled, though. Jack was right. I was all that remained because my dad was magically incapacitated, and there was no guarantee I’d be able to save him in time. “A bird of rare feather will arrive and lead the way,” I murmured. At this point, I couldn’t deny there was some kind of power in me. A power I didn’t yet understand or fully know how to wield but power nonetheless. Even so, it was difficult to grasp that I was the only remaining descendant of an entire race of witches.
“How do I nurture the magic on a fast enough timeline to make a difference, though? Lucas told me witches normally spend their entire childhood and adolescence mastering their abilities.”
“It’s true, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible for someone to come into their magic later on. I’ll help you, Scarlet. We’ll figure it out together.”
The novelty of my name in his mouth hadn’t yet worn off. I didn’t think it ever would. Together. My chest warmed like a furnace, and the warmth spread all over my skin, as if I were basking in the afternoon sunlight of a summer day.
“There was something else I saw in your mom’s memories.”
“Oh?”
Part of me didn’t want to bring it up. I worried it was uncharted territory. Jack felt guilty enough with everything else that was going on. But I knew it’d bother me if I didn’t ask. “Your parents were having a disagreement about Connor. Your dad asked your mom if she would’ve rather he died.”
Jack nodded slowly. He looked down at his coffee in the following silence. He hadn’t taken a single sip of it since sitting down. Maybe it was more so to give his hands something to do. “When we were children, Connor sustained a severe head injury during a game of rugby. It put him in a coma he wasn’t supposed to wake up from. Not even the Healers from our clans could do anything for him. The doctors had beg
un preparing us for the inevitable. But my father pulled me aside the day Connor’s body began to shut down and told me there was a way I could save Connor, but that I’d have to be very brave. I said I’d do anything no matter what it took. He explained the demon’s mark on my wrist had come with a sort of caveat. The demon would come for me either on the Old Moon during my eighteenth year or upon the fulfillment of my third and final entreaty.”
“What are you saying? That the demon’s mark allows you three wishes?”
“To be used as the mark’s bearer sees fit. Outside of wishing the mark away, along with the usual restrictions such as being unable to change the past, take a life, or raise the dead, nothing is off limits as long as it doesn’t interfere with another demon’s bidding. Long story short: I summoned a demon using the mark and asked that Connor be healed and revived. He awoke within seconds. The doctors were mystified, as were our clansmen. Connor showed no lingering side effects and was up and about as if the incident had never happened. He said he’d never felt better. Of course, my father and I never told him the truth behind his recovery. I never wanted him to feel as if his being well again brought me closer to fulfilling my debt.”
“I’m assuming you summoned the demon in private. How did your mom find out what you’d done then? Couldn’t it have just been a miracle?”
“She realized it because of the magic’s kickback. Using the mark meant using dark magic, and dark magic isn’t without a price. I became sick almost immediately as the powers began to work their way out of my system. About two or three days later, we were visiting members of another clan. Connor, being Connor, got into it with a lad a few years older than us named Declan. Naturally, I rushed to his defense and pulled Declan off him, shoving Declan away as hard as I could to break up the fight. When I did, magic rushed out of me beyond my control and I ended up…” He faltered.
“You ended up what?”
Jack blew out a long breath and dragged a hand across his face, as if he could rub away the memory from his mind. “I ended up setting Declan on fire.”
My mouth fell open like a drawbridge. Remembering myself, I quickly snapped it shut, my teeth smacking each other in a loud clack.
“Fortunately, onlookers were quick to run to us and put the fire out, but Declan still sustained serious injuries, and I never forgave myself for what I did to him. From that moment on, other witches never looked at me the same way again. Though they never spoke a word of it in front of me, it was written all over their faces that they knew I’d done something dark to bring Connor back. My father made me promise I would never use the other two wishes again, no matter what.”
I plucked at the edge of my coffee’s paperboard sleeve, letting that sink in. I imagined it had been a horrifying sight to see fire consume a fellow witch, to realize the fire had been your own doing. Alison had said a new path had opened for Jack the moment he’d been exposed to that bout of dark magic. Could that have contributed to the overwhelming guilt Redmond had felt, the guilt that had ultimately cost him his life mere years later?
“Scarlet, I know this has been a lot. I’m sorry for everything I’ve put you through—”
“You didn’t put me through anything,” I gently assured him, putting my hand on his arm. “I’m here because I want to be here. This is as much my fight as it is yours, and now we know what we’re up against. A Reaper. Tell me more about what that is exactly.”
Outside, the sun was back to warring with the clouds, painting the lounge in ever-shifting shadows. Jack’s face was half gold and half dark as he responded. “When a Reaper has killed another witch, they perform what’s called a Reaping. In the Reaping, they extract any Masteries from the soul and absorb them through dark magic. Afterward, the souls are discarded like scraps of unwanted food without receiving any sort of blessing into the afterlife, forcing them to become wandering spirits. It’s a heinous practice. Reapers have no right to call themselves witches.” His eyes darkened, the shadows on his face giving him a fierce look.
“That’s horrible.”
“It’s made worse by the fact that this particular Reaper isn’t casting aside the souls but using them for a sacrifice. In light of what my mother’s shared about awakening ancient evil, I think it’s safe to assume the sacrifice is intended for some kind of demon. As for the end result, though, it’s anyone’s guess. I can’t fathom what a Reaper might hope to achieve with such a ritual or what the demon has promised them.”
“Has something like this ever happened in recent history?”
“Not recently. But there’s a well-known story among our clans about a woman named Celeste, who lived in the early 1800s. By that point, The Burning Times had already entered a decline, but that didn’t mean persecution was entirely gone. Celeste’s entire village had been massacred during a witch hunt. Her mother and father, as well as her sisters, had been among the fallen. She’d been spared only because she hadn’t been in the village at the time. She’d gone into the woods that night to practice magic under the full moon.
“Celeste was consumed with vengeance and tried to enlist the help of other witches to exact her revenge. But understandably, they refused to become involved, knowing exposing themselves would only turn them into the hunters’ next targets. Celeste eventually sought sanctuary among the Elders of her time. She devoted herself to study, swearing she would never have to run from hunters again, that she would have her revenge no matter the costs.
“Years later, she returned to the villages of those who’d refused to help her, but she didn’t come as Celeste. She came as a Reaper. She’d grown in knowledge and was unimaginably powerful. People tried to stop her, but they were no match for her. It’s said she could turn a man or woman into ash merely by looking at them. She’s also the witch who stole the Hallowstones from the other clans, so her victims were defenseless against her. And her bloodthirst knew no bounds. She slew every witch in her path, trapping their souls inside an amulet she wore around her neck, performing a Reaping every few days to absorb her victims’ Masteries.”
A chill crept down my arms, and I quickly drank more coffee to chase the cold away.
“The reason Reapers crave so much power is because it takes great power to perform the high-level dark magic of which they’re devoted students. Celeste, in particular, wanted to perform resurrection magic.”
“You mean…?”
“Raising the dead, yes. With so many Masteries now contained within her bones, she had enough power to command one of the Forbidden Spells. However, the spell itself, which had never been used before, explained only how to bring someone back from the dead. Celeste hadn’t factored in how to return her loved ones to their former glory. So when she raised her mother and father along with her sisters, they were nothing more than rotting corpses. And devoid of any memory of who Celeste even was, they ripped her body to pieces in a craze.”
I shuddered.
“It’s because of Celeste that any witch who loses themselves to dark magic is immediately excommunicated from the clans, stripped of their power, and sent to The Citadel, a prison for wayward witches located Elsewhere. As added insurance, especially considering not all prisoners are necessarily divested of their magic if they’re serving lesser sentences, the prison’s spelled, making it impossible to escape and just as impossible to break into.”
“So The Book of Fates will be able to stop what the current Reaper’s doing?”
“It’s one of the Sacred Grimoires. They’re holy texts believed to be given to witches by The Triple Goddess, Brigid, herself and contain unimaginably powerful spellcraft. A normal binding spell would be ineffective. A binding spell written by a goddess on the other hand…”
“So where’s the grimoire located?”
“When conquerors invaded Celtic societies here in Ireland, they burned our grimoires and other sacred texts in an effort to wipe Ireland clean of any pagan influence. One of the clans, however, took it upon themselves to rescue these books and protect them from bein
g forever lost. They hid the books in secret, underground libraries where they’d never be found by hunters or the Sightless. We have a contact in that very clan who I’ve already called. They’ve agreed to meet with us tonight.”
Eerily, his phone rang a second later. Furrowing his brow, he retrieved the cell from his coat pocket and checked the caller ID. He blanched just slightly. “But first, it looks like I’m going to have to explain to Seamus why we aren’t at Crowmarsh anymore.”
27
“So we know the Reaping will take place on Samhain.”
It was almost dusk, and we were in Dublin, where Jack’s contact had said The Book of Fates was last seen. We’d taken up headquarters in the penthouse suite of a five-star hotel. The two-story space was massive, larger in square footage than my small, humble home back in Colorado. It was also dripping with luxury: balconies with stunning views of the busy city, bathrooms with Italian Carrara marble and waterfall shower heads, gorgeously tiled fireplaces, and the largest flat screen TV I’d ever seen in the common room.
After showering and changing into fresh clothes, I’d found the Connellys gathered around the dining table, a spread of room service before them that included pizza, hamburgers, cold sandwiches, and more.
“I wasn’t sure what you might want, Scarlet Ibis” Lucas had said, speaking around a mouthful of crisps, “so I ordered liberally.”