by Casey Lane
She closed her eyes, biting her tongue hard enough to taste blood, to keep herself from rubbing her cheek against his. He was so close, and he smelled so good and his voice, Lord help her, she wanted to wrap it around her like a blanket. Where had he even come from? She didn’t need this kind of distraction in her life.
Then he was pulling back, gesturing for Neoma. The little girl’s shoulders sagged in disappointment. Wren took Neoma’s hand before walking towards the door. “See you tomorrow.”
Neoma waved at Isa and Isa gave a stilted wave back. “See you then.”
Isa sucked in a startled breath as Gen whacked her butt with a wet dishtowel. “Oh, girl. You are so screwed.”
Isa took a deep breath, clearing him from her senses. She didn’t even bother to hide it. “I know. God help me, I know.”
Chapter Six
Neoma
Neoma's eyes opened with a start, heart racing as she squinted at the eerie green-tinged sky overhead. She’d fallen asleep in their new hotel, Wren barely two feet away from her in a bed of his own. Was this real? Rocks and twigs poked at her back and legs through her thin, pink cotton nightgown. Overhead, ominous clouds hung low, churning just as her stomach did.
She was in a corn maze or the remnants of one. She knew this place. The last time she'd been there, she'd been with the girls. She and Tegan and Ezri had lost themselves in the maze at least a dozen times that day, the tall green stalks towering over their heads, obscuring their view from all but the path directly before them and the cloudless, bright, blue, sky overhead. Efa and Bronwyn had stalked them through the maze for hours until Neoma, and the girls had broken free, heading for the abandoned house just west of the field.
The maze was gone.The field had been razed, the stalks charred, rising broken and jagged around her, everything tinted the same color as the eerie green sky overhead. The corn was dead. The earth was dead. There was no life. No energy. Everything about the space felt wrong. There was nothing around her for miles, just the mountains and a sagging house with hollow windows. Something about the house seemed familiar just as the field had. Had they played there too? Why couldn’t she remember?
She stumbled towards the structure, biting her lip, determined not to cry as she stepped on broken stalks, the sharp objects biting into the tender soles of her bare feet. She tried to watch where she was going, but it was almost impossible. The winds were picking up, blowing her hair into her face and plastering her nightgown against her body.
When she looked up, her breath caught. In the distance, three funnels formed. She had to be dreaming. They didn’t get tornadoes this close to the mountains. That didn’t dampen the terror that gripped her throat. She had to keep moving. She needed shelter. She pushed forward, even as the wind fought back. It was like trying to fight her way through rushing water.
She needed to get to the house. It wouldn’t provide much more shelter than the outdoors, but something told her to push forward to just keep going. She tried not to look; she tried not to think about the three tornadoes growing closer faster than any true tornado moved. She just kept going, fighting her way forward until she stood just outside the fence of the sagging run down house, so old and rotting it listed to the side as if it hurt it to support its weight.
Goosebumps erupted along her skin. Something about the house made her want to turn and run, to take her chances on the field, but the weather wouldn’t hold. She briefly considered stopping, just letting the funnels have her. They could pick her up and sweep her away. Maybe she’d land in Oz with Dorothy.
She shook the thought away, taking in the droopy fence surrounding the property, its wood rotted and bleached with age. The aluminum gate that once protected the property now sat gaping open, the metal warped and broken like some giant had twisted the metal in a fit of rage, leaving the bars sharp and jagged, like monster teeth. Maybe it wasn’t the gate that waited for her, but the property itself, something about it made her stomach feel sick and squishy like she wanted to throw up. Maybe it was just waiting for Neoma to cross the threshold so it could swallow her whole.
She turned to run, to find another way but there was nowhere to go, the three tornadoes were already at the far end of the massive maze, weaving a path of destruction as they raced towards her, chewing up and spitting out anything in its path. She ran. She ran past the ugly gate with its monster teeth, pumping her arms and legs until her muscles burned. She almost tripped on the porch steps, catching the broken board with her foot and crying out as it tore open the skin at the top of her foot. The house had tasted her blood; now it would want more.
She shoved through the door, slamming it closed behind her, certain she’d just locked herself in her own grave. She was going to die in there. This house would never hold against the tornadoes barreling towards her.
“They’re not real, you know.”
Neoma’s head snapped towards the voice. “Ezri!”
Ezri sat on a soiled mattress in the corner of the room. She looked just as Neoma remembered, her caramel colored hair pulled back into a ponytail, her brown eyes sparkling and bright. Neoma launched herself into her arms. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“I’ve missed you too,” Ezri said, prying Neoma’s arms from her neck. “But we don’t have much time. They’ve already caught on to what I’m doing. I’m not supposed to be here. I’m not supposed to be with you.”
Who were they? The people who used to live there? Neoma looked around. She couldn’t imagine that anybody had once chosen to live in a place like this. Most of the windows were boarded up; some were broken, others were covered in layers of dirt so thick it looked like paint. Layers of dirt had blown in over time, covering the wood floors until they were no longer visible. There were holes in the walls, and the kitchen cabinets drooped as if they’d given up trying to hold themselves in place. Appliances sat rusting and hollow, and the only other furniture was a moldy chair that was more springs and stuffing than anything resembling a chair.
Neoma bit her lip. “Is any of this real? Are you real?”
Before Ezri could answer, a gust of wind hit the house, causing Neoma to scream as the wall behind her bowed and swayed. Ezri shook her head, shouting just to be heard over the wind, racing through the cracks and spaces. “Please, Neoma. There’s not much time. I’m not supposed to be here. Do you understand?”
She didn’t understand any of this. How could she? Neoma buried herself against Ezri’s side. “Can we go someplace else? Please? I don’t like it here.”
Ezri shook her head. “No, this is where it started, and this is where it was supposed to end.”
“Where what started?” Neoma asked, tone as bewildered as she felt. She didn’t know what was happening.
Ezri’s hand covered hers. “Everything that happened to you. This is where it started. You have to remember.”
The wall behind her began to shake violently. Neoma wiped sweaty palms on her nightgown, shaking her head. “I don’t want to remember,” she said before asking, “Why don’t I want to remember?”
Ezri squeezed her hand. “Because I took your memories. To protect you. To protect me too, I suppose.” The girl smiled sadly. “I guess that didn’t work out so well.”
Neoma blinked away tears. “I would have told them. I would have told them everything but I couldn’t. I couldn’t remember.”
“It’s not your fault. I could have told them too. But the secrets you know…the secrets I told you, they aren’t just our secrets, yours and mine. They involve my family. Things my mother had told me before she died, things about your real family. I thought I could protect us by hiding them in your mind, but I was wrong. But now I can’t reverse the spell because I’m on this side of the veil and you’re on the other.”
Neoma’s tears tracked hot down her cheeks. “You’re still dead?”
Ezri’s smile was watery as she nodded. “Yes, but you have all the answers still. I just hid them from you. I thought it would be safer, but I was wrong. The dan
ger still exists. They’re still coming for you. She’s still coming for you. She’s already here, somewhere…watching. The spell is going to break now that I’m dead, but I don’t think it’s going to happen fast enough. You have to remember.”
There was a sound like a train barreling towards them. Neoma screamed against as the roof began to disintegrate, planks and shingles disappearing, revealing the monstrous sky overhead. “Who’s coming for me? Why?” she shouted over the roaring winds.
“You can’t trust the voices anymore, Neoma. She’s connected to you now. She’s in your head. You have all the answers. You just need somebody to help you unbury them.”
The winds picked Ezri up, but Neoma clung to her hand. “Don’t go. Stay with me. What do I do? I can’t do this without you.”
Ezri’s mouth went flat, her tears flying away as fast as they appeared. “Of course, you can, you’re so much stronger than you know. Find the witch who laughs with her eyes and talks with her hands. Do you hear me? You need to remember. Find the witch who laughs with her eyes and talks with her hands.” Then she was gone, ripped from Neoma’s grasp.
Neoma’s eyes flew open. “Ezri!”
Wren’s head jerked up from his new phone. “Neoma? What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
Neoma wasn’t sure. She stared at the water stain on the ceiling of their new hotel room for a full minute, trying to piece together what she could remember. After a moment, she slipped from her bed and climbed into his bed, tucking herself up against him. “I think I talked to Ezri.”
Wren looked startled. “What?”
Now that she was awake, she felt calm again. “Ezri. She said to find the witch that laughs with her eyes and talks with her hands.”
“What does that mean, sweetheart?”
“I think there’s something bad waiting for us in Belle Haven.”
“The witch said we needed to come to Belle Haven.”
“Maybe the witch is in Belle Haven, but Ezri said something bad was there too. She said this witch could fix me.” She tapped her head.
“Fix you?”
Neoma nodded. “Fix what Ezri did to my head.” Wren wanted to ask more questions, she could tell. He stared down at her, his eyes glowing blue, wrinkles forming on his forehead as he tried to figure out what to say. She didn’t give him a chance, yawning wide. “I’m sleepy. Can I sleep here?”
“Of course.”
He untucked the covers, helping her underneath them. She rolled away from him, more at ease just knowing he was within reach. He was the only person who’d ever made her feel completely safe. “Wren?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re not going to leave me again, are you?”
There was a long pause and when he spoke his voice sounded thick. “No. Never again. I promise. It’s you and me. No matter what happens.”
She nodded, not looking at him. “Good.”
Chapter Seven
Isa
Isa slapped at the mosquito on her neck, the third bug to land on her in as many minutes, taking solace that it wouldn’t live on to terrorize another. The air was hot and sticky and the smell of the night blooming jasmine in the town square was cloying in the sweltering heat. Sweat trickled along her lower back, into her jeans, making her v-neck t-shirt cling to her uncomfortably.
She longed for a night when the most pressing thing on her to-do list was to take a long bath, but Veronique Jenkins had called the witches’ council claiming she’d seen a menacing looking...deer...in her backyard. She’d claimed its eyes glowed red and it was as large as a moose. It wasn’t the first time one of the Jenkin’s had sent Isa and the others out on a wild goose chase, but this was the first time that goose was a deer. But Claude and Veronique were the oldest living witches in town, and therefore all their claims were investigated by the council—and by extension Isa and the others—no matter how ludicrous.
“Should we call this one?” Gen asked, wiping at her brow with the sleeve of her olive green henley. They’d searched every inch of the town but saw no sign of the deer in question. She looked at Alex who was still shining his flashlight into the store windows in the last few shops on Main Street. He, like Gen, had opted to wear jeans and boots as well as a flannel and a long sleeve t-shirt. She wasn’t sure what Alex was looking for in the store fronts. She doubted the deer had opened a door and stumbled into a shop, but she admired his thoroughness.
Isa gave one last cursory glance around the square before she dropped onto the black wrought iron bench, grateful for the slight coolness of the metal. “Yes, let’s call it. It’s getting late. I think we’ve given this claim our due diligence.”
“You don’t think the Jenkin’s are coming down with this same crazy flu as some of the others, do you?”
Four people in town had grown ill over the last week. Two witches, a selkie, and a human named Laurence Krug, husband to the high school’s German-born French teacher and omega wolf Madam Helga Krug. It had the council flustered. It was nothing for a human to get sick but supernatural creatures didn’t have to worry about fevers or coughs. It smacked of a hex, but they could find no sign of the enchantment. The last time this happened, the witch involved had died a gruesome death, wasting away to nothing over the course of months, nobody wanted to see that happen again. “I don’t know, but I do know there’s no deer in the Jenkin’s backyard or anywhere else in town. We should get home.”
Isa hoped that the kids weren’t giving Hadley a hard time about going to bed. She didn’t know why they were all suddenly so argumentative, but they needed to get over it. She just didn’t have time for a tween rebellion. She didn’t have time for anything, certainly not a boyfriend, much less a husband. It’s one of the many reasons she’d turned Alex down a million times.
He was making his way over to the bench, giving Isa ample time to look him over. It wasn’t like he was unattractive. Women threw themselves at him every day. In witch circles, he was the fairy tale Prince Charming, tall and broad with thick russet hair, deep green eyes and a beard he managed to pull off unironically. He had runic symbols inked onto his knuckles and crawling up his arms. Chloe Dent swore his tattoos didn’t stop at his arms but covered his back and chest too. A fact she admitted rather smugly as if she wanted to make Isa jealous.
Alex was a good guy. He was educated and ambitious, came from one of the best supernatural bloodlines in the country and was already the head of the Red Oak Coven even though he was only thirty-five. Sure, the coven consisted mostly of middle schoolers, but there was nobody else better qualified to teach those hellions how to rein in their powers. The biggest problem—the one that kept Alex from ever being a real contender for Isa’s heart—was that he was a witch. While relationships between witches and wolves weren’t banned, they were frowned upon and with frowning witches came the Grove. She wasn’t sure any man would be worth dealing with the Grove. Besides, there was just no…spark.
Gen flopped down onto the bench next to her, turning towards her and propping her elbow on the back of the bench. “So, what are you going to wear?” Gen prompted.
Alex joined them, lying on his back on the sidewalk in front of the bench, pointing the flashlight at Isa’s face. “Wear to what?” he asked, as though he was conducting an interrogation.
Isa snapped her head to Gen, her eyes widening in warning before making a dismissive gesture. “It’s nothing.”
Gen rolled her eyes. “Isa has a date. With her betrothed.”
“Oh?” His tone sounded casual, but Isa could hear the edge in his tone. If he was anybody else, she could read his emotions or listen to his heartbeat, but he’d cast a spell to prevent her from reading him. He said it was an invasion of privacy. It should have hurt, but, honestly, she was grateful. “I didn’t think packs still honored arranged marriages. I didn’t know that was a thing.” He shined the flashlight upwards into the sky, his gaze following its light, as if he wanted to look anywhere but at Isa.
Isa closed her eyes for a moment and let hersel
f picture ripping Genevieve’s tongue out. “It’s not a thing, and it’s not a date. We are merely having dinner together tomorrow night to discuss my help with a problem he’s having.”
“Who is he?” the witch asked, sounding like he really didn’t want to know.
Isa didn’t answer, but Gen did. “His name is Wren Davies, and he’s the blood heir to the Black Thorne pack.”
Alex visibly flinched. “He’s the heir now. Did you ask your new boyfriend how he got that title?”
Gen and Isa looked at each other before Gen leaned forward looming over Alex with narrowed eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He sat up, resting his weight on his forearms, ignoring Gen to look at Isa. “Listen, I think it's very sweet that you want to hear him out about whatever problem he’s having but you should stay far away from that pack.”
Isa felt a trickle of unease, hating herself for asking, “Why? What do you know?”
He looked conflicted. “Come on, Isa. You know I can’t say.”
Gen laughed humorlessly. “Uh, yeah, sorry, you don’t get to just drop some doom and gloom vague statement about Isa’s new man and then just stare at us with your stupid, blank face. Speak.”
Isa pushed Gen hard enough that the girl had to catch herself. “He’s not my new man, but Gen’s right, what do you know? Spill it.”
“I know that your betrothed’s father, Cain, is crazy and corrupt. The Davies name in Tennessee might as well be the Corleone family.” When they both stared at him, he huffed. “Seriously? The Godfather? Have neither of you ever watched a movie that didn’t involve mean girls or pretentious cheerleaders?”