“You have your mother’s chin,” Dr. Hallow said.
“Shut your mouth,” I replied. “So what does this mean?”
I gestured to the house. I mean…I was glad to see Chrysie, but I also really wanted to sleep somewhere safe.
Dr. Hallow seemed confused. “Don’t you know?”
“I can stay here now?”
Dr. Hallow nodded quizzically and said, “It is your house. You accepted it and it you.”
“Perfect,” I replied. “I’ll need you to go. I’m going to be setting up some wards. So you need to leave.”
Dr. Hallow raised his brows. I might have hurt his feelings. But I didn’t care. Then he asked, “Would you like help?”
“Honestly, Dr. Hallow, I don’t trust you. Someone is killing the Hallow kids. Someone has a reason for doing it, and I’d like very much to survive until Elizabeth finds that person. Elizabeth, I trust, because Hazel sent her. Chrysie, I trust, because she got killed, so that rules her out. Felix, I trust, because though morally challenged, he had plenty of chances to kill me and didn’t. Plus, it’s not like he can benefit. But you…I don’t know where you fit on the family tree, and I can’t see the killer being anyone other than someone, somehow connected to the Hallow family.”
Elizabeth laughed in Dr. Hallow’s face and then told him, “Well, Martin, get out. Any child of Autumn’s is going to be suspicious, and Veruca doesn’t know you.”
“My name is Rue,” I told Elizabeth.
She nodded and then glanced around curiously. The house was lovely and twenty years untouched but somehow felt as if the maids had just been in. Even as I noticed the lack of electricity’s buzz, it started.
“Thank you for helping me,” I told Dr. Hallow. “If you aren’t trying to kill me, I apologize for being rude.”
“Oh no,” he said. “You just got significantly more interesting.”
“Perfect,” I said and gestured to the open door. I wanted him gone. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to be interesting to him. What I wanted, I suddenly thought was to be the lonely freshman, missing her family and worrying over my first classes. I was those things. Now, however, I was also worried about dying. It was all a bunch of bull crap.
Jessie shifted and I jerked my thumb towards the entry for her, “You too, no offense. I want to live. Etcetera.”
When Dr. Hallow and Jessie left, I looked at the others. We should explore. But really, there was no reason for anyone to believe we were here. I turned to Elizabeth Darlington and said, “Hazel sent you?”
“She did. Hazel is an old friend.” Elizabeth led the way to the parlor and said, “It has been quite some time since I’ve been here. But…”
She was heading towards the curtains, I assume to open them, but they opened themselves, letting light into the room. There should have been pounds upon pounds of dust. But everything gleamed. I shook my head. It was just so unbelievable. Even for me.
She must have read my face because she said, “This house is an old witch house. It has layers upon layers of spells on it, I believe you’ll enjoy the ones that keep it clean.”
“Yes, I will.” I sat in a chair by the fire, realized that it was supposed to be my chair. And my fireplace. My hearth and home. It was too much to take in, and I said seriously, “But first I have to live.”
“Yes,” Elizabeth agreed. She said it so simply. Yes. Yes someone is trying to kill you. Yes someone is killing Hallows for some reason. She didn’t add what I was thinking. Having opened this house I had given myself somewhere safe to stay.
And painted a big fat target on my back. Everyone else wasn’t so sensitive.
“We should set a trap,” Felix said, “Use Rue as bait.”
“That sounds like an excellent way for her to be a vampire too,” Chrysie said adding almost absently, “I’m hungry. This place can’t have food. I need to eat.”
“We’ll call for takeout,” Elizabeth said, pulling her phone out. “There’s a pizza place that delivers.”
“You just said you ate a ton of food. How can you be hungry?” Felix was edging away from Chrysie and behind me.
I knew this one, so I answered, “You have to feed your hunger for years before it fades.”
“Quit being a pans,” I told him. “A pansy, pansy panserson. Chrysie isn’t going to eat you. Probably not for a while. Her fangs haven’t even come in all the way.”
“What does that even mean?”
“You’re safe for a while. Probably a few years. And in the mean time, she’ll get control so that if she eats you, you’ll either want it or you’ll deserve it.”
“I think,” Elizabeth said, “Before we jump to baiting traps with Rue, you could allow me to do some investigating. I am here to protect you and find the real killer. By asking for a Presidium Protector you were saying, you don’t have faith in the team that has been sent.”
I rolled my eyes. Not in sarcasm. It was true. So very true. Male and female shark had zero interest in keeping me safe or doing anything beyond tying a bow around a vague semblance of an investigation.
“I hate to be a super nerd when I say this,” I said, “But school starts soon, and I’m going.”
“Is your life worth classes?” Felix demanded.
“Yes,” I said. “My life is worth living, and I’m not running away for them to catch me alone, and I’m not cowering in my new, fancy cave. I’m going to class. Otherwise, I might as well go home.”
When I said it, I realized again that this was my home. This house. It was as if someone had soothed me. I needed to sleep. Just to experience the best nap of my life, in this place that cocooned me. I’d find a good bed near a window with sunlight coming into warm me and turn my eyelids red as I drift off, and I’d wake all chilled because the sun would have moved, but desperate for a blanket because who would want to get up after a nap such as the one I was going to have here.
“Hold please,” Elizabeth said, calling the pizza in. She had an eye on Chrysie that said that my lack of concern might be ill-thought out.
I didn’t care.
I turned to Chrysie and said, “I’m sorry you’re dead,” I told her. I knew a little about vampires, I had read some books about them when I was like ten, and it sounded like a good deal. But the truth was—being made into a vampire. That was crazy. They are super rare. And the vampires who can change someone into a vampire are even rarer. To find one that can change you without even hardly trying…that was beyond crazy.
The spell is hard to do for most vampires, and it burns away the magic of the changed. If they’re a human, it doesn’t take long, and then they survive off of blood. If they’re witches, the magic takes longer to use up.
“Someone get this girl some meat,” Felix said, glancing around and then quickly adding, “That isn’t human.”
“Gross,” Chrysie said. “But I could go for some bacon.”
“I assume you don’t remember anything about being murdered?” I said, digging my nails into Felix’s wrist and yanking him down until he sat in the other armchair by the fire.
“The Presidium people say you killed me,” Chrysie said and her eyes flared red.
“Rue didn’t kill you,” Felix said, before adding. “I can’t believe I said that. That is the weirdest thing I have ever said.”
“I know she didn’t. I wouldn’t be here all happy to see you if I thought she had, but what were you whispering about when I came into the room before I got killed, if you weren’t conspiring to kill me?”
“Not murder.” Felix looked so upset he might run. His eyes were fixated on Chrysie’s mouth. It was true that her teeth were pointier which was, I had to admit, creepy. But this was the girl who was practically in a panic attack a couple of days ago about low level witch and math classes. It was hard to not see that version of Chrysie in this one. She was just paler. She looked liked winter had already happened and she’d lost her tan. It wasn’t that disturbing. But then you noticed how she radiated predator.
“We
’re going to sell potions to other students for cash,” I said frankly. “We’re poor.”
Chrysie looked between them and then sniffled. “I don’t want to be dead. I was never good at witchcraft but it was who I was. How am I going to tell my mom?”
“I don't think you’re dead,” I told her. “You’re different.”
“Yeah, tell my mom that one. Man…I am soooo hungry.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I am without empathy for other people’s troubles with their mothers.”
Chrysie bent over until her face was pressed into her lap as if she had to hold her stomach to keep off the hunger pangs. She spoke into her lap, “My mom told me about Autumn. She’s in the family pictures. Mom always says that your mom is troubled.”
“Autumn is a ripe super-devil. She is all of the bad things rolled into one while still being my mother. She never told me that her parents were dead or that we were necromancers or that it was rare to be a necromancer. Or that I was a Hallow. None of it.”
“When are you going to call your Mom,” Felix asked Chrysie.
Chrysie shook her head and then said, “Can’t you just imagine it? My mom is expecting me to call her and tell her that I didn’t do that great on the placement tests. Instead…surprise! I died. Now I’m a vampire.”
“Well, now that doesn’t matter,” I replied. I wasn’t heavy on empathy. Chrysie was alive. The last time I’d seen her, she’d been disembodied. This was a huge improvement. “I assume it was the magic tests your mother was concerned with. You aren’t going to be able to do magic for like hundreds of years if then. But your mom still has a kid. It’s a win.”
Felix coughed and another tear rolled down Chrysie’s cheek.
“Your tear is blood,” I told her. “Suck it up. It’s weirding me and Felix out. You were dead. The only reason they paid for your … reincarnation…is because two students died. They didn’t do it for the other Hallow kid?”
“They couldn’t. My spirit was still around. Hers was long gone.”
I pressed my hands over my face, pushing the palms of my hands into my eyes. “What is even happening?”
“Well…” Felix said. He coughed and then flipped his dreads over his shoulder, smacking Chrysie.
“You are foul,” Chrysie said when one dread smacked her face and then held her hands over her mouth. Her eyes were wide and fixed on Felix’s face in regret.
“You’re allowed to be mean,” I told Chrysie. “You just died. He is foul.”
I turned to Felix, adding, “Also, she just died and had her entire existence transformed, tell her it’s okay. So…Chrysie gets the mean-girl-pass. But, honestly, Felix…cut those off.”
“Well…” Felix continued if we hadn’t said anything. “It seems to me that people are killing Hallow kids. And you’re both Hallow kids. So you probably should be worried.”
“What we should be,” I said, “Is proactive. Those Presidium people are focused on my mother and me. And though, I agree she would totally kill someone. She…well she might have killed you Chrysie. And she might have pinned it on me. If she was sure that she could get away with it. But she wouldn’t do it out of boredom.”
“That’s an interesting assessment of your maternal parent,” Felix said. Both he and Chrysie were staring at me.
“I told you that she was a super-villain. We need to figure something out to stay safe.”
Chrysie heard the we and then another red tear rolled down her cheek. “I’ve never been a ‘we’ before.”
“Do you think I killed you?”
She shook her head.
“Then…we’re a we.”
I looked around and thought that I had expected the Hallow House to be some sort of Victorian shack. I had not expected a stone mansion with cupolas, a widow’s walk, or a wrought iron and stone fence. I hadn’t expected a witch garden that made me want to dig my fingers in or a line of cypress trees with oaks here and there. I hadn’t expected the stained glass, the aura of wealth and money, and the utter luxury.
“You should move in here with me,” I said to Chrysie. “We don’t know why they killed you or what they want. You aren’t safe either.”
“I hate DM’ing,” Felix said, instantly. Eyes fixed on the luxury around them.
“I’m sure there are servant’s quarters,” I turned feeling a sly grin spread across my face. I had a place that wasn’t my mother’s. This place was mine, I could almost feel it digging its fingers into my soul.
Elizabeth came back and said, “Now that Chrysie is with you and food is coming, I’d like for you to stay put while I get a sense of things. Is there anything you need to tell me?”
I debated but then I told her about the flame spell. Hazel had sent her. I was going to tell Elizabeth the things that I would have told Hazel.
“I don’t know what that means. I haven’t practiced witchcraft in quite some time.” Elizabeth said. “I agree that it is ominous. I agree that you should not have gone running the second night. And, I will find out what I can. I need to visit the body of the other victim, read Jefferson Maxwell and April Hill’s case notes, and get a general sense of things.”
It took me a moment to realize she was referring to the sharks. I thought about it and then I realized that I wanted Elizabeth on my side. Like I wanted my mother. But I didn’t trust either of them completely. Not with my dreams and my future. So I smiled and nodded and said I’d need to get situated. And when she was gone I turned to the others.
Neither of them had known me very long. That didn’t mean, however, that they thought I was going to hide in this massive prison. No, thank you. It was time to girl up.
Even still, in the time that we’d caught Elizabeth up on what was happening and she’d left—less than an hour had passed since we’d entered the Hallow House. It felt like years. It felt like…I’d always lived here. It felt like this fear, and it was fear, had been in the base of my stomach for too long. This wasn’t how things were supposed to be. Freedom from my mother—and was I even free when I’d called her for help? But either way, freedom from my mother was supposed to feel like…well to be inane…freedom. And I felt trapped. Trapped in this house. Trapped at this school. Trapped with all the choices that other people were making.
I was…done. So very done.
* * *
Chapter 12
“Why would anyone kill so many Hallows,” I asked Chrysie. I sure didn’t know. I mean…I could understand why someone would kill my mother. But, she wasn’t the one with black-flamed spells coming after her in the darkness.
Chrysie shook her head. She was too nice. I needed someone devious. With an unethical bent.
I turned to Felix and demanded an answer with a glance.
“Money. Revenge. Hatred. Boredom. All of those things.”
“How many Hallows are there? Not that many right? Surely someone else should have been able to open up this house?”
“Well…that’s the problem. There are lots of Hallows. But people who are of the direct Hallow bloodline? Not that many. I mean, a lot when you’re talking who could have been doing this. But also not that many when you think about like everyone on campus right now. I mean…it doesn’t have to be a Hallows does it? I’d like very much to have been murdered by someone who didn’t come to my third birthday party.”
“First things first,” I said, realizing she’d had a life that could have been mine, but also that…I wasn’t jealous. It didn’t matter what had come before. What mattered is what comes next. “We lay the wards.”
“You probably have to activate them,” Felix said glancing around. “This is an old witch house.”
“Okay,” I said. But though I trusted Felix and Chrysie as much as I trusted anyone outside of my Dad and Branka—that wasn’t very much. I’d be doing a second and maybe third layer of wards. The ones that Hazel had helped me with. Family recipes weren’t going to work for this. And then there was the potions.
The truth was, I was addicted to my en
ergy potion. Was I going to die without it? No. Was I going to start being super edgy, mean, and possibly full-on snappish? Yes. Yes, I was. And I only had two friends here. I couldn’t afford to lose them. I was already ticking off things I needed to take care of in my head. Wards, potion begun, shower. Very long shower. Maybe followed by a bath. Eat some of Chrysie’s food. And then…find a murderer. Take care of it. Start classes. Deal with this whole massive house, inheritance, witch fami…
There was a knock on the front door. Our gazes met and wondered in one scared triangle of anxiety. Just who was there? I hadn’t activated the wards. I wasn’t sure how safe we would be to open the door.
“House,” I began and then thought better of it. “Hallow House.”
Saying it made me feel weird. Like I was acknowledging that I was part of something that I hadn’t expected. I felt as if some cord had snapped around me as I said that. But then again, there was another knock. So I wrapped up my thought, “If you could do us a big favor and snap whatever wards exist in place, that would be great.”
I had hoped. Not expected. But all three of our gazes met again as wind whipped through the house around each of us, and then something snapped into place. Something that felt sort of like the warm sun. But solid. And aware.
I opened the door with more confidence than I would have otherwise. On the other side, I found Jessie, breathing deeply like she’d been running. I looked past her and there was no one else. Her hands were full with a large purple plastic bin out of which scrolls books, and the scent of witchcraft and power filled the air.
“Oh,” I said. “I think…”
“Yes, yes,” Jessie said. “Can I come in? I think you should see these.” She thrust the box before her. I looked at Felix and Chrysie. Both of them shrugged. I stared at Jessie. She stared back, insistently.
“Really,” she said. “I don’t want to hurt you. I swear it to the moon.”
I glanced at Felix who shook his head and Chrysie who nodded. I closed my eyes and then stepped back. Surely Felix and I could take Jessie? Plus that was a pretty good promise. It was hard for witches to break that type of vow.
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