Oh, no. He’d realized that was what I’d been using. He was going to destroy every reflective surface. If that happened, I was doomed.
As fast as I could, I tried to focus on the next mirror and think of something else to animate. But Catron was faster. I almost cried out as the second shot fired, the huge sheet of glass bursting apart. Next came the third mirror, and the one after that. They disintegrated on contact, or crashed to the floor, the sickening sound echoing throughout the hall. I tried to get ahead of Catron by several mirrors, but it was no use. As soon as I got enough focus, he simply fired again without even slowing down. I could see Catron’s reflection in the mirrors’ remnants, ten thousand slivers of homicidal maniac.
Finally, every mirror was gone. I could hear the tinkling of glass as the final shards fell. Darting from column to column, I didn’t stop until I was behind one at the top of the stairs. I was forced to leave the Book behind; I couldn’t run fast enough with it in my hands. Perspiration trickled down the sides of my face as I heard Catron reloading the rifle.
He was actually chuckling. Even though I heard the gun jam a few times, he must have managed to get the next round of bullets in, because I heard the same chit-chit noise as before. From the sound of his voice, I estimated he was standing three-quarters of the way across the room, a few yards behind the chandelier.
“What do you think you’re doing, Se-lu-na?” Again, he said my name in that obnoxious way that made me want to clobber him. “Even if you manage to kill me—which is looking unlikely—you’ll never stop the others. They’re coming for you.”
Others? I thought. What others? Maybe Catron’s bluffing. But it didn’t sound like he was bluffing.
I took the quickest of peeks around the column, to see if there was another object in the hall I could use against Catron. Maybe I could get my hands on a piece of broken glass and—
BAM! A shot rang out, and I heard a bullet whiz past my head to lodge in the wall in front of me, right beneath the stained glass window. Gods, that was close! How was I supposed to kill Catron when I couldn’t even turn to look at him?
Just then, a sheet of plaster fell from the ceiling next to the chandelier. I supposed it was the vibration from all the gunfire that did it. It didn’t take much for this place to go to pieces. The chandelier made clinking sounds as the plaster hit the glass.
Wait—that’s it! The chandelier was made of glass, which reflected. All I had to do was use moonlight from the window on it. With any luck, I could make the whole thing fall directly on top of Catron.
I inched my way forward, towards the wall. BAM BAM BAM! Catron fired three more quick shots. I heard the crunch of glass underneath his feet as he circled for a better vantage point. I hated to make myself a moving target, but I had to turn around in order to focus on the chandelier. Every time I saw Catron getting a good view of me, I moved to the other side of the column to block him. Probably, the only reason he didn’t shoot the column was that it would make the building collapse.
Finally, I could see the chandelier clearly in the moonlight. Catron was nearly underneath it now. Narrowing my eyes, I tried to focus on making it sway so that when it fell, it would hit him.
But when it came to bringing down the chandelier, Catron beat me to it. He looked at me, looked above him, then shot the chain holding the chandelier to the ceiling.
The noise from the crash was deafening, even more so than the shattering mirrors had been. It rang in my ears for several long moments, and every candle on the chandelier was instantly snuffed out. A piece of the glass flew up and sliced open my palm. The pain was so unexpected, I cried out.
Dammit! Why did Catron have to be such a good shot? That didn’t bode well for me. And the only light now came from the moon shining through the stained glass window.
“You stupid girl,” I heard him jeer. “A valiant effort, I’ll give you that. But try to kill me now, when you can’t even see me.”
You’re the stupid one, I thought. Catron might have known about some of my powers, but not all of them. For example, he had no idea how well I could see him. How was he going to defeat me, since he could barely see now? Clearly, Catron was not a man who thought things through.
Then I raised my head. Damn it all! I was just beneath the window. The moonlight was shining right on me. Catron had a perfect view.
I tried to think rationally, but my heart was already skipping beats. Can I really be killed by a rifle blast? It was true I had magical abilities, and that in spirit, I was a goddess. But this body was mortal. It could succumb to hunger, fatigue, and pain, as I’d seen during my stay at Silver Hill. I’d just had my hand sliced open by a relatively small piece of glass. I had no doubt that a bullet could kill me.
That meant I had to draw down the moon now.
I never got the chance to review the spell like I wanted. The Book was at least thirty yards away, and it wasn’t as if Catron was going to let me have a quick read. I’d have to remember it as best I could. It had only been a few weeks since Rose, Laura, and I talked about the spell in the cafeteria, anyway. Was it really such a short time ago? That meant that this moon was the full moon, the most potent. If there was ever a moon for defeating enemies, surely this was the one.
Chakras, chakras . . . the spell said something about opening chakras. I vaguely remembered that chakras were power centers scattered throughout the body. I prayed mine were already open. I didn’t have a wand, but maybe if I was a goddess, it wouldn’t be necessary.
But I still needed a circle. Oh, hell. A circle of what? I didn’t know if it was supposed to be something specific, like the chalk or ash so often used in witch spells. Regardless, my options were limited. I couldn’t even get down to where Catron was to make a circle. Unless . . . my eyes fell on the bodies of the dead girls.
I can’t make a circle unless I have some help.
“Okay, ladies,” I whispered. “I’m sorry to do this, but I really, really need you right now.” I could see Catron on the ground floor. He was squinting and repositioning the gun, no doubt trying to use the moonlight to see well enough to shoot. But I was the one who used the moonlight first.
I came out from behind the column, praying I had enough time before Catron pulled the trigger. I held both hands above my head, and the same gray-blue light pulsed down, this time from the window. I lowered my hands and spread my fingers out towards the girls.
One by one, they rose to their feet and surrounded Catron, eyes open but unseeing. The moonlight only served to highlight the dull, ashen color of their skin. They moved around and around him, holding hands in a macabre dance. It was grotesque, but it had the desired effect. Catron’s jaw dropped as he saw the corpses of his victims closing in on him.
“You . . . you can’t be. It’s impossible . . .” His voice trailed off. His complexion was whiter than the moon itself as he looked from girl to girl, frantically trying to get away. But they were too close together for him to get out of the circle. He jerked the rifle back, pointing it at one, then another as the circle drew tighter. Catron quickly realized he couldn’t kill his intended victims.
“You’re dead. You’re all dead!” Repulsed and terrified, he was unable to shove them aside even with his weapon. He looked up and pointed the rifle at me again, this time with shaking hands. “You mad demoness! I’ll see you finished yet!”
Gods, I had no idea how hard this would be. Until now, the largest thing I’d reanimated was a dead rat. I’d never done a human before, and certainly not so many at once. My arms ached, and perspiration was pouring down the sides of my head now. There was nothing to reflect the moonlight off of. I didn’t have the mirrors. I didn’t have the chandelier. The only conduit for the energy this time was me.
Maybe I don’t need a reflective surface, I thought. Maybe, if I focus hard enough, I can kill Catron myself. I just need to harness my powers, to concentrate. But there was still the incantation. And I had no idea what it was.
Then, the strangest feeling c
ame over me. I felt the words rise up from my heart into my throat and out my mouth. But as I was saying them, I knew they were more than ordinary speech. I was remembering. My voice didn’t sound like my own. It was deeper, stronger, reverberating throughout the hall:
* * *
“I am called by many names.
I am called on many times.
But thrice be damned
be he, the man,
who seeks to take what’s mine.
* * *
My light shines on those in need
and keeps them safe from harm.
But if you are one
to cause such pain,
evil spirit, then, begone!”
* * *
Catron seemed to realize something important was happening. The girls continued moving around him, faster and faster. He took several panicked shots at me, and at the stained glass window. But each one missed, as I somehow knew it would. Chunks of stone spewed out of the walls behind me where the bullets struck them. I felt as if I were floating, as if a misty, invisible barrier were between me and everything happening in the room.
“I’ll see you dead somehow, you ruinous harpy!” he cried in great, heaving gasps, eyes wild. With his once pristine suit and flawless hair disheveled, he truly did look like a madman. “When I get through with you, you’ll sleep for a thousand years!”
Sleep. It made me want to laugh. What did Catron know of such things? I wonder, when we sleep, do we enter a world as bizarre and unreal as a fairy tale? Or do we dream of home at night? The veil between the daylight world and the one we dream of, the one we know exists, is so thin we could reach out and brush it aside. One motion, one little swipe of the curtain, and our dreams are made real. That is our true home, our true reality.
It was the message I’d been receiving all along as I slept. I had it upside down, backwards, twisted. Like sunlight that reflects off the moon or a mirror. My dreams weren’t a confused, nonsensical jumble. They weren’t showing me what was wrong. They were showing me who I was. And I’d be damned if I let Catron take that away from me.
My arm no longer ached, but felt weightless. The front hall of Silver Hill, so intimidating when I had first arrived, now made me feel powerful. The moon shone down brighter than I’d ever seen. It created a line of light from me to Catron. I lowered one hand and used the other to point—not to the girls, but straight to my adversary. Of course! Pointing is the way to channel and direct my energy. Why didn’t I see it before?
The rifle slid from Catron’s hands, but did not go off when it hit the floor. He froze where he stood, wide-eyed, mouth gaping at me. The moonlight was aimed right at him, but still he was not destroyed.
I narrowed my eyes. I wasn’t going to let a silly protection spell get in my way. It wasn’t going to work, not when I was in my element. I could feel the spell around Catron, an annoying black ball.
The hell with you, I thought. You don’t deserve protection. You are heinous and hurtful, upsetting the balance of this world. I focused on the energy coming out of my hand, pushing, pushing, till it popped through the protection bubble and burst it.
Now, the moonlight flowed through me more easily than ever, radiating a sense of peace and stillness. Still pointing at Catron DeKay, I saw a beam literally shoot from my fingertips into center of his chest. Then light exploded all around him, and I shielded my eyes with my free hand. Somewhere in the far distance, Catron was screaming. But I was unafraid and unharmed. I knew this light, this radiance, was mine and mine alone.
I am the power, the moon, the goddess herself.
I lost all sense of time, so I couldn’t really tell when the spell subsided. It could have been hours, or it could have been only minutes. The beam of moonlight faded away, and I lowered my arm to get a better look at the scene before me.
Catron was definitely dead. There was an enormous, charred hole in the middle of the floor where he’d been standing. I could see the outline of his shadow on the stone. Some people might think moonlight was insubstantial. But I gave a little smile as I looked at the remains of my conquered foe.
It certainly isn’t insubstantial when I wield it.
That was why Catron hadn’t been able to find the source of my power: it was the moon. Unless he planned on pulling it down from the sky, his schemes had been all for naught.
I stopped smiling when I saw what was happening to my dead friends. They were leaving the large circle in which they’d trapped Catron, and were walking in aimless, smaller circles. One by one, they dropped to the floor. The last one I knew instantly: Francine.
“Wait!” I cried out as her knees began to buckle. I didn’t know if she could hear or understand me, but I couldn’t stop the words from coming. “Don’t fall down! Maybe I can help you, bring you back to life permanently.” I wracked my brain for a way to do just that. I might not have known Francine well, but at least she’d believed in me. And nothing could have shocked me more than the sound of her reply.
“No, it is over. I am over. All of us are.” Her voice had a far-off, monotone quality as she turned to me. Her dead, unseeing eyes stared into the distance. I could see the lobotomy wounds clearly above her brow. They were still open, with small rivers of dried blood running down the sides of her face. She wasn’t even stitched up. She must have died during the operation.
“My life here is finished; it’s time for me to leave. ‘To everything there is a season,’ and mine on this earth is done. Now, I am going home.” She knelt on the floor and sank to her side.
“Wait—please—don’t!” I begged.
“Good-bye, Seluna. And good luck with your mission,” Francine said. Then the dead girl closed her eyes, never to open them again. She even put her hands together and placed them under her head, as if settling down for a nap. Try as I might, I could not reanimate her—or any of the other girls—a second time. They had indeed fulfilled their mission, their purpose in life.
It remained to be seen whether I would do the same.
Chapter 16
The next day, there was quite a lot of cleaning up to do.
I swept copious amounts of broken glass and other rubble from the main entrance, glad for the changes in my wardrobe. I’d cut away the front part of my skirt and donned a pair of tight black trousers that were in a box marked “Confiscated.” I suppose Catron couldn’t have girls do anything as rebellious as wear trousers. But it was so much easier to move around this way. And there was a lot of work ahead that would be ill-performed in a skirt. For one thing, I’d moved Geraldine, Thomasina, Francine, and all the rest into a corner and covered them with a tarp for now.
Although exhausted from the previous night’s events (and of course, tired in general during the day), defeating Catron had given me renewed vigor. Still, nothing could have prepared me for the sight that had greeted me earlier that morning.
I’d gone out to the garden, Queen Sophia’s Book in my hand. I didn’t really know why I’d brought the Book; it just felt good to have it with me. The sky was so blue it almost hurt my eyes to look at it. Huge white clouds passed lazily overhead, and the air was balmy, inviting. The pavement stones that were previously a dull shade of gray were almost silver.
And the garden I stepped into was not the one I remembered. It was alive! The trees were proper shades of brown and green, no longer doubled over, but standing proudly at their full height. A few birds were even singing in them, building nests. The vines were no longer black, hateful things. When I brushed against them, they weren’t hard and sharp anymore, but soft and smooth. They moved back and forth in the breeze, and I know it sounds silly, but it almost felt like they were waving to me.
And even though it was now early spring, the garden was in fuller bloom than the land around it. I had no idea how that could be. Also, the pond wasn’t frozen. I supposed the warmer weather had something to do with that, though I didn’t know of any ponds whose ice melted overnight. And the water was a stunning shade: so bright it was almost turquo
ise. When I spotted Dym in there, my heart soared. I could almost feel it, rising in my chest. He looked even better in daylight than moonlight.
“You’re awake!” I cried as I ran to the edge of the pond. I wanted to be angry with him for failing to help me. But that desire was no match for my overwhelming relief.
Dym smiled and yawned, rubbing his eyelids. “Hey,” he said drowsily, “I like the new look.” He nodded at my half-skirt, half-trouser ensemble.
“This? Oh, thank you,” I replied. “It’s just a little something I threw together.”
Dym chuckled, waking up more fully now. “Or tore apart, by the looks of it. But it’s nice. I don’t think I’ve seen a girl wear anything like it before. And of course I’m awake,” he said. “Rather hard to swim in one’s sleep, don’t you think? Though I did dream I held the moon in my arms. It was almost a pity to open my eyes.”
“But how are you . . . I mean, because I . . .”
Dym raised his eyebrows. “Because you what?”
I sighed. “C’mon, Dym. You must know it was me who made you sleep. After all, it was your idea in the first place.”
“It wasn’t my idea to make me go to sleep. It was supposed to be Catron. And I did wake up with an appalling crick in my neck.” He rubbed his back, just above his shoulders. Then he stretched out his long, lithe arms, twisting them over and over. I couldn’t help but stare. Sometimes I wonder if he’s just showing off.
“I know, but what could I do? You wouldn’t leave! I only wanted to keep you safe. It turns out the spell didn’t work because Catron already had one on him—for protection.”
“He did?” Dym’s jaw fell, and he stopped stretching. “I’m sorry, Seluna. I never would’ve guessed that—or suggested a spell I thought wouldn’t work.”
“It’s all right. I know you wouldn’t. Anyway, you’re probably wondering what happened in there.” I jutted my chin towards Silver Hill. “Why I’m still here. The truth is, Catron tried to kill me. And I don’t mean with his sadistic experiments. I mean really tried to kill me. With a rifle.” I went over last night’s events, including using the spell for Drawing Down the Moon. I left out the goddess part.
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