I knelt next to her grave and slid my hands under the wilted leaves of the last wreath Tram had left for me. The last one he would ever leave for me.
A white card lay underneath, and I held it up to the meager light.
I couldn’t tell anyone about us for protection.
I touched the spot on her headstone where I thought her picture would be. I already know that, Mom. Everything you’ve done, you’ve done for me and Darby.
Instead of telling me things I knew, I wished she would tell me where my Sorceress power token was. I guessed she really just wanted to make sure I knew she couldn’t tell anyone.
With a sigh, I pocketed Tram’s wreath and then dug a hole underneath the entrance of the graveyard to Callum’s car. I couldn’t very well leave it there so I drove it home with the promise to myself that I would travel by roots from now on. Practice makes perfect and all that.
Bird feathers rustled from inside the cover of the whispering leaves of the tree in the front yard of my house. I pushed my lips together, just in case, so nothing with wings would rocket down my throat, and rushed toward my window. My fingers fumbled for the side groove, but finally the window slid open and I clambered inside. I would need a certain tool from the garage before I went Ica hunting.
Just as I straddled the windowsill, my bedroom light snapped on. I recoiled from the sudden yellow glow. Dad stood in the doorway, his hand still on the light switch, while his sleepiness drained away with each drop of his jaw. The disappointment in his eyes soon flared an icy blue that froze me to the spot.
He crossed my bedroom in a flash and dragged me inside. “What the hell are you doing, Leigh? You were supposed to be home hours ago.”
“I know.” I stared at the scuffed parts on the toes of my boots while his presence towered over me. His rage trembled the air between us. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Sorry isn’t good enough. You were supposed to come home right when the Monroes decided the party was over. You’re grounded, remember? That means you can’t go off whenever you want doing lord knows what.” His voice rose in volume until it knifed through my heart. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d yelled at me.
“I can explain everything.” Right. I didn’t even know where to start. And would he believe me if Mom didn’t even tell him what she was? She hadn’t told him for his protection, too, but look what had happened by not saying anything. She’d died while trying to protect us. As much as I hated to admit my dark-Sorceress-catching mom made mistakes, she should have at least asked for more help. Why didn’t she ask Tram to go with her to Whaty-Whats? She might be alive today if she had.
“There’s... Mom was...” I took a deep breath and tried again. “I have gifts, Dad. Magical gifts. So does Darby, but she doesn’t know about all of it. We’re Trammeler Sorceressi, and other Sorceressi...aren’t thrilled about that. If I don’t stop these other Sorceressi, the world as we know it could end.”
Silence stretched into what must’ve been a full day. I squeezed my eyes closed, waiting. If that was how well I could explain things, I should’ve started banging my head against the wall to show him just how crazy I was. Even though all of it was true, I still had trouble believing it myself.
I glanced up at Dad and wished I hadn’t. The disappointment had come back, deep and penetrating, hammering down on my soul so hard, I bit back tears.
“Sorceressi? Saving the world? Is that the best you can come up with? Just how stupid do you think I am?”
“Dad, you must believe in that stuff at least a little because you were reading about how to raise the dead. Darby did raise the dead.” I didn’t mean to spill that, but once the truth started flowing, I couldn’t stop it.
“You’re talking about make-believe things, Leigh. I want reality.”
“Then how do you explain Sarah Henderson?”
“It was a miracle,” he yelled and threw up his hands at the ceiling as if looking for confirmation from God. “Why else would I be reading a book about raising your mom? Because I was looking for a miracle.”
“Sarah isn’t a miracle. Have you even seen her?”
“Well, her yard came back to life. Our yard came back to life. How else would you explain that? It’s a miracle, plain and simple.”
“You’re wrong,” I said, crossing my arms and shaking my head. “Magic exists. Dark magic exists, and that’s what brought Sarah back. Dark magic will win unless I can do something about it. I’m the last Trammeler, so—”
Dad shook me by the shoulders, his expression fierce. “What kind of drugs are you on?”
“Dad, please.” My voice broke off when the tears started.
I should’ve told him I’d been at the graveyard talking to Mom. I should’ve told him anything but what I’d just said. To him, I was just some lost, confused girl on a bad trip. But maybe it was safer for him to think that. Easier for him, too. Maybe Mom’s way of trying to do everything herself really was the best way. Besides, a daughter who’d surrendered to drugs didn’t sound as bad as a wicked Sorceress hell-bent on killing me. Did it? I had no idea, but I wasn’t about to admit to being some crack bag ho, either. So, I didn’t say another word. I would let him think what he wanted since he would rather believe that than me, anyway. And that hurt worse than anything.
“You’re grounded for the entire summer.” He dropped his voice from a shout to a low warning that held a furious shake. “But you’re going to graduation tomorrow with me, like it or not. You go where I go, unless you have school, to which you will ride the bus. No bike. For the summer, you’ll stay home, and I’ll call every hour on the hour and...and you better answer within four rings.” He shoved a finger up under my nose. “Got it?”
I stared at my guitar leaning against the corner and shrugged, pretending indifference. A discarded black and white striped sock was wrapped around the neck like Dad’s black and white world squeezing my own.
Ica would have to get in line for her turn to squeeze, because somewhere out my still-open window, she waited. I could feel her hatred in the prickle of my scalp and the rise of hair along my arms.
As soon as Dad stormed out of my room, purposefully leaving the door wide open, I slammed the window closed to seal myself inside my own prison.
Chapter 17
If this was any indication of how my high school graduation would go in two years, I would skip it. Between the stifling press of bodies all around me and the stink of sweaty socks that had been left in the nearby locker rooms to marinate for the last two hundred years, I wouldn’t have any teeth left with all the gnashing I was doing. And if that person behind me kicked me one more time, I wouldn’t be able to control my actions.
The graduates and their families who sat behind them in the middle of the basketball court must have been just as uncomfortable as me. Everyone kept squirming in their chairs, clearing their throats over the drone of the old guy who was speaking, or darting their gazes everywhere but at the stage in front. Even those who weren’t capped and gowned fidgeted. No doubt everyone had heard the gossip coursing through the blab food chain about Lily.
Everyone thought she’d been kidnapped by some stalker guy wearing a mask. I had no idea where that scenario came from, but I kept my mouth shut and head down so no one could see the shame burning the tips of my ears. Telling someone what really happened wasn’t an option since no one would believe me anyway, as proven by Dad the night before. But my gaze kept straying to her empty chair in the first row, two down from Sarah’s commemorative empty seat, hoping that when I looked again, she would be there. And Tram would still be alive and out hunting Ica.
He wasn’t, though, and that fact cut deep enough to leave me breathless every time I reminded myself of it. I refused to think about how the Counselor was making him bleed or it would curl me up into a tight ball. I had to stay sharp and focused like he’d said, something that would be much easier to do if Ms. Hansen and Mrs. Rios would answer their phones. Where were they? I didn’t see either of t
hem up on the stage with the rest of the teachers.
With a barely stifled sigh, I tried to listen to the guy yak on and on about how people had to make their own path, how people needed to think for themselves and not follow the pack, how people should embrace their individualism. No one seemed to see the irony in his words while he spewed them to a group of kids all decked out in matching red and black caps and gowns.
It reaffirmed my idea that high school was like a factory assembly line, cranking out clones of each other and dumping them into the brutal real world as some kind of evil social experiment. Not that I knew anything about the real world. I only knew about the world that existed under my feet. That, and the bubble world Dad had forced me into and attached to his hip. Darby sat on his other side wearing her I’d Rather Be Reading t-shirt, and judging from her bored expression, her shirt rang true.
I looked for a flash of veggie-red hair in the sea of families below the bleachers and burned a hole into the side of Jo’s face with my stare to get her to look at me. She sat with her head tilted, but I could tell she was faking attention to the old guy from the glazed look in her eyes and the endless twitch of her feet on the half-court line. Without looking at her, Mrs. Monroe rested a hand on Jo’s knee so she would stop wiggling. She held still for about two seconds then turned her head toward me, feet bouncing once more. I gave an exaggerated frown and swept my gaze over the crowd before returning it to hers again, ESPing her to see if she saw the two teachers anywhere. I’d already texted her all my worries since Dad hadn’t taken my phone away, but she only gave a slight shake of her head.
Polite applause erupted through the gym when the old guy finally concluded his speech and sat down on the stage. Some of the graduates in the front row whistled and hooted, which earned them a stern look from the principal, Mr. Mallory, who took his place at the podium.
“Thank you, Mr. Oz, for that inspiring speech,” he said, patting down his comb over. The microphone squealed feedback through the speakers, and the audience winced. “On this day of celebration, we should all have smiles on our faces as we send these young people out into the world. But our hearts are heavy at the same time. This year has been a tough one with the loss of Sarah Henderson. Though a miracle brought her back to us, her life will never be the same.”
The whole gym seemed to stiffen at Mr. Mallory’s major understatement.
“Just last night, another of our students who should be seated here, Lily Hybard, went missing after a party. Sarah and Lily’s families are in our thoughts and prayers,” Mr. Mallory said, gripping the edges of the podium. “And not five minutes before graduation, I learned that two of our staff members were brutally attacked last night.”
A frozen fist hit me in the core. I curled my fingers around the bottom of the bleacher seat to keep myself vertical, to keep myself breathing, to keep myself from screaming. What did he just say?
“Mrs. Rios, our beloved Spanish teacher, is in the hospital in serious condition,” Mr. Mallory said.
A stifled groan tumbled out of my mouth. No. It couldn’t be.
“Leigh?” Dad whispered. His gaze tracked the drop of my jaw, and he wrapped an arm around my shoulders. But no amount of comfort from him could melt the ice freezing through my veins.
“And Ms. Hansen, our dutiful librarian, is in fair condition,” Mr. Mallory continued. “Details on the attack are sketchy at this time. Please keep these two dedicated staff members in your thoughts and prayers, as well, since they couldn’t be here to join in our celebration, though I have no doubt they would have wanted to more than anything.”
Jo caught my eye, her body rigid, face washed of all traces of color. A chair tipped over near the front row and clattered to the floor with a loud echo. Callum stood over it, the only one standing in an ocean of red and black, searching the bleachers until his eyes, made darker by the brim of his graduation cap, settled on mine. They both looked to me for direction, but I didn’t have any to offer.
If they were both attacked, where was Herman? Was he okay? Who was guarding One and Two? And most importantly, where was Ica?
Mr. Mallory leaned over the podium to glare down Callum, but the microphone still picked up everything he said. “Mr. Monroe, if you’ll please be seated, I’d like to give you and the rest of your class your diplomas.”
After several bobs of his Adam’s apple and the ambush of unasked questions in his eyes, Callum glanced around to see the whole gymnasium staring at him. He quickly righted his chair and sat to a sprinkle of nervous snickers.
“The first row may proceed to the stage to receive your diplomas, but make sure you stay in your alphabetical order please,” Mr. Mallory said. “If the audience could save their applause until the end, it would be appreciated. This is a graduation not a circus.”
The school band seated on the other side of the basketball court in the bleachers began that typical graduation song soft enough for Mr. Mallory to announce the graduates. One after the other crossed the stage, rolling their eyes at how badly Mr. Mallory butchered their names. Most of the audience ignored his warning and clapped and hollered and honked little horns anyway. Every shout, every sudden move, made me flinch.
I had to do something. Ica might’ve already been buried in a Trinity grave and resurrected. She might’ve already set free One and Two. The final hinge on the door to the Core could spring open right this second, and thousands of dark prisoners could be flooding out and destroying everything. Not to mention the Counselor. And here I sat, the only person left who could do anything about it, glued to Dad’s side and stuck at a stupid graduation. I let out a breath through clenched teeth and eyed the two sets of double doors opposite the stage.
“Dad,” I said, twisting my fingers into the fabric at his knee. “I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Now? Can’t you wait?”
A little girl with black curls in the back row on the gym floor swiveled in her seat to look at the doors, too. She tugged on the sleeve of the dark-haired woman sitting next to her until she turned. The woman seemed to freeze for several seconds. Then, whatever they saw made them scrape their chairs closer to the row in front of them. The little girl stared up at the woman, and I could practically hear her whimper.
A knot of fear constricted my insides. What were they seeing that I couldn’t?
“Yes.” I unwound my fingers from Dad’s pants and glanced at Darby. She stared at the stage with her cheeks puffed up like a blowfish, oblivious. “Now.”
Before he could argue, I stood and stepped on feet in the aisle of those who were too slow to move. Finally free of the tangle of people, I jumped the last few steps to the floor and landed with a thud.
The entire back row on the court rose in a panic, their gazes aimed at the back wall as they shuffled away. Several people shouted, but loud applause and horns drowned them out.
Sweat dripped down my sides as I neared the back row. And then I saw it.
Black shadows thick as smoke curled over the wall and wound and twisted upward and across its length. Dark spirals caught the award banners hanging over the basketball rim and turned them to ash. Paint peeled from the wall in blackened crisps. All of it fluttered to the ground like some post-apocalyptic snow storm.
My lungs emptied on a moan I couldn’t hear over the rising commotion.
Ica was here. Spewing her black smoke from the holes in her face. In the first place she’d ever laid eyes on me, the place where recognition had sparked in her eyes when she realized who I was. Right out in that hallway.
“Mr. Mallory!” someone near the back screamed, and that time everyone heard.
The band trailed off into a scatter of sour notes. The entire gym quieted and turned to the sound of the yell. My heavy boots stomped to the door. A loud panicked gasp rippled through the crowd.
“Sweet Jesus,” Mr. Mallory whispered into the microphone. “Where is the fire alarm? Arnie, go—”
The fire alarm rang, clattering around inside my skull so loud, I tho
ught my head would burst. People hurried away from me and the back wall. The closer I got to it, the more I realized it wasn’t just its charred appearance that stirred the fear; it was the smell, too. Rotten death seeped through the cracks in the doors to build its own wall, one that stopped me in my tracks like I’d run into it.
Was Ica already dead and resurrected, and therefore even more powerful with the Trinity of gifts? Or maybe she’d brought a couple dead Sorceressi with her.
My stomach turned at both the sickening stink and my plummeting odds at walking out of here alive. Now I knew what Tram must’ve felt like every single day. The only Trammeler left who had to keep moving forward even though the itch to run almost overwhelmed me, to catch the uncatchable, to face down fears that were so much more powerful than me.
I reached for the handle on the darkened door, expecting it to crumble between my fingers. A glance backward showed Mr. Mallory and the janitor on either side of the stage waving their arms to direct the panicked streams through the locker rooms and outside. I didn’t see Dad or Darby, or Jo or Callum in the shifting bodies. They had to get out of here, all four of them, and since I didn’t see any of their faces coming toward me, hopefully that meant they were already headed out and wouldn’t turn back. But half of me wanted to see them once more. Just in case.
I shivered that half loose as I gripped the handle tighter. With the alarm echoing the scream of my heart, I pulled open the door.
Chapter 18
The smell alone made me want to turn back, so I breathed into the crook of my elbow until I was almost positive I wouldn’t puke.
Ica had painted the entire hallway black with her smoke. It clung to the walls and ceiling in concentrated shadows. Not even the sunlight outside the doors at the end of the hall could penetrate it. It took a few seconds—precious seconds where I thought every coiled tendril of smoke was Ica coming toward me—for my eyes to adjust to the dark. With the alarm still crashing between my ears, I wouldn’t even be able to hear her approach.
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