by Scott Tracey
Her voice continued, a low and steady drum. “Stretch your mind, as far as you can. There, in the distance, can you feel it? You belong together. You will never be alone.”
You will never be alone. The words snapped across the width of my mind like a shrill scream of thunder, and I bolted to my feet. There were too many walls, all of them huge and looming around me. The others hadn’t noticed yet. They were focused. Under her spell. They couldn’t see that there wasn’t enough room. The air was almost gone. Everything was too close, pressing down and too real.
You will never be alone.
The calm I’d found cracked and shattered at my feet. I opened my mouth, saw and immediately dismissed Kelly’s O-face of surprise, and couldn’t catch a breath. My lungs failed to inflate, there was nothing there. The walls pressed in, reaching for me, collapsing inward faster and faster and there was nothing. Nothing but bodies pressed against each other like sardines, too many of us to fit in one space.
My feet did the work for me, running for the door without any of my things. Running and fleeing and escape now superseded everything. I ran before any of them could stop me, because they would try. Before the walls could press in any further, or the world could shrink down any smaller.
I didn’t catch a breath until I made it to the parking lot. As soon as I inhaled, filling my lungs to the brink, I took off. Ran across the parking lot, hopped the gate that closed off the football field, and cut across to the empty lot on the other side. The faster I ran, the faster the walls behind me grew, gaining on me like a storm on the horizon. Inescapable.
I didn’t look where I was going, just that once I found sidewalk I kept running until I was forced to turn down another street. The burn in my calves was a welcomed friend, the surge of blood carrying away … whatever that had been. Terror. Panic.
I was miles from school before the grip on my heart eased.
eight
Cyrus Denton had it, y’know? The kind of presence that made people feel. He could make an angel weep. Everyone adored him. I heard he died young. What a loss. I always thought he would do great things.
Nathan Hartley
Classmate
I ended somewhere on the far side of Carrow Mill, where the divide between cities was hazy and swept up between rows of warehouses. I collapsed down on a stoop, my shirt clinging to my chest and back, chill with moisture even as my skin felt so hot it should be steaming.
There were no street signs nearby, not that I was in any shape to go looking for them. My phone was somewhere back at the school. My options were limited—if I could find a pay phone, I could call someone to come pick me up, but I’d need to find their number first. I barely even knew what my own cell number was.
Who would I call, anyway? There weren’t a lot of options on that list at the moment.
It didn’t take long to come to a decision, for me to turn back the way I’d come. Only this time, I walked. It took almost an hour of walking before I started to see things that looked familiar. I was heading in the right direction at least.
I wasn’t sure how many classes I missed, walking through town. At the moment, my only thought was for the spare outfit I kept in the gym bag in the back of my car. I could get to school, change in one of the bathrooms, and then at least I wouldn’t look like I’d spent the last two hours in a sauna.
The school parking lots were still full by the time I made the trek back across town. School might not be over yet, but it couldn’t be going on for much longer. I had no idea how long I’d been gone, but it had to be almost time for class to let out for the day.
I grabbed my gym bag and headed for the closest entrance. I could have gone by the gym and changed in an actual locker room, but I’d take my chances with one of the normal bathrooms. I just wanted out of these clothes and into something that didn’t smell like panic and fading deodorant.
The halls were empty when I came in, which I took for a good sign. The last thing I needed was to get stopped by someone looking for a hall pass I didn’t have. I stripped in the bathroom, wiped myself down with paper towels as best I could, and changed into my gym clothes. Thankfully, I switched those out on a regular basis, so they were still freshly laundered.
There wasn’t much I could do with my hair, which was still damp and prone to falling down into my eyes, but I scrubbed some towels through it anyway.
It took a minute for me to do the math and figure out where I was supposed to be. Last period would have started about ten minutes ago. Which meant that the rest of my family was in our new Magic for Morons class. It still got under my skin how much they couldn’t see. Buying in to the magic classes was just the Congress’s way of shutting us up. They were still manipulating us, they probably always would be.
There were a couple of people in the halls, not unusual for the end of the day. Study halls around this time were always lax with letting students roam around the halls. If someone skipped their last period of the day, would it really make a difference? No one seemed to think so.
I could go sit in the car and wait for the others to get out of school, but I decided against it. Someone was certainly going to start complaining that I skipped magic class, so I decided not to. I just wouldn’t go to the one they expected me to.
The class that Kevin and Maddy had was separate from the rest of us. A month ago, Justin had been segregated in with them, along with Luca. But now Luca was gone, and the rest of us had been pooled together, like we were somehow easier to manage that way. I think Kelly would have disagreed on that one.
I headed down the side hall to Kevin’s class, still in the same room it had been all year. When I pulled open the door, three sets of eyes peered up at me, but only the teacher was unfamiliar. He was young, Witcher-aged, probably one of the new recruits brought along with Illana.
“Room for one more?” I asked, but I closed the door behind me and headed for a seat before permission could be given.
“What are you doing here?” Kevin asked, shifting around in his seat.
I shrugged.
“Just get out of the shower?” Maddy’s pinched face eased a bit, though her eyes were speculative on mine. Whatever falling out had happened between her and Justin, at least she wasn’t taking it out on me.
“This isn’t really appropriate,” the teacher began. Like Kelly, he didn’t seem like he’d been out of college for very long. But there was none of the shrewd awareness or perception in his eyes I’d come to expect from the Witchers. “But I don’t see what it could hurt.”
I took a closer look at him. Dark haired, just a little too long, and a strong jaw line didn’t match with the thin, reedy voice. Nor did the blasé attitude about letting a Moonset kid sit in on his lesson.
“We’re doing a history lesson,” Maddy said, almost like she could read my mind. “No trade secrets.”
I actually don’t mind history. I mean, I don’t enjoy learning about the secret truths behind modern mysteries, but history is full of lessons where power and magic have caused some sort of crisis. Learning more about covens in the old days armed me with more information. And my arguments against using magic became stronger.
But the class itself wasn’t dealing with something helpful: like times in history when trusting the authorities had led to chaos. No, instead the teacher lectured on old threats. Monsters and creatures who lurked in the shadows of history. Creatures that many people believed magic was created expressly to fight.
I’d had a run in with one of those creatures already. The Abyssal Princes, creatures that had been bound into Hell for maybe the whole of recorded history. Some of them had tried to escape—and use Moonset’s offspring as their hosts for a grave new world.
This wasn’t my class, so there were no expectations. I liked that; it made the class almost enjoyable. Or at least as enjoyable as it was to discuss what happened when a wraith caught your soul between its fing
er bones, or how the old Aos Si could hide themselves inside newborn children, only to burst forth from their skulls once the children were full grown, like a monstrous Athena escaping Zeus’s head. Only the humans never survived, of course.
“No, Justin, I’m done with him.” One of the windows was cracked, and during a lull in the lesson, Jenna’s piercing tones carried from the parking lot below.
“Jenna!” A frustrated Justin chimed in just as expected. “Jenna!” A little more frantic now.
I got to my feet, saw Maddy and Kevin doing the same, and approached the window. Jenna was still talking, but now that her voice had dropped down, it didn’t carry enough for me to hear it. But from the finger jabbed into Justin’s chest and the sour twist of her mouth, I knew exactly what she was going on about. The same thing she was always pissed off about.
“If I was a nicer person, I wouldn’t say I told you so.” At least Maddy didn’t smirk at me when she said it. Though it was implied.
“What’s she doing?” Kevin asked, forehead scrunching up. He leaned forward to get a better look, and I turned back to the view of my siblings to see Jenna … I don’t know what she was doing. Her eyes were concentrated on the blacktop in front of her, and a small breeze rifled through her hair as her hands were dropped parallel to the ground.
“She’s using magic,” Maddy said, stating the obvious.
“I can’t hear what she’s saying, can you?” Kevin asked, but I shook my head.
The problem with magic was how hard it was to contain sometimes. Normal people saw things, and you couldn’t always rely on them to rationalize away what they’d seen. My first concern was that Jenna was going to do something to get us in trouble. Something big and obvious and destructive.
But as she finished her spell, there was a tug in my chest, like an invisible string attached to my spine was tugged forward, and my eyes snapped to hers. The moment we connected there was a rush of heat along my core, a wave of energy that washed away in a moment.
“What is that?” The teacher had joined us at the window, and he leaned forward.
There was a cloud of … well, a cloud forming around Jenna, and distorting her appearance like a mirage on the horizon. Heated air, like the same that had just rushed through me, collected around her and then shot forward, straight towards me.
It struck the window and I braced myself, but that was it. The window fogged over with the sudden appearance of moisture, and a trail of warm air ghosted around all of us.
“That … was unexpected,” I said, testing out my limbs. I felt fine. But without knowing what Jenna did, I couldn’t say for certain that it was a dud.
That happened sometimes. Jenna liked to experiment with magic, since no one would teach her anything. She could cobble together a few tiny spells and create the most random result. But with all that experimentation came the duds. Spells that didn’t go anywhere, didn’t accomplish anything.
“Illana’s not going to be too happy about this,” the teacher muttered.
“Not going to be happy you stood around and didn’t get involved either,” Kevin pointed out, not too kindly.
Jenna and Justin split apart, with Jenna striding away in a fury. No, I couldn’t imagine anyone was going to be happy about this. Especially not Jenna, and her fizzled spell. It was going to be a long ride home.
nine
Seven seniors were hospitalized before the
Invisible Congress ruled to investigate the
claims of the Moonset coven. No one is sure what transpired during those three weeks in April—the town of Carrow Mill was whited out from the rest of the world. When it returned, a monster was dead, and Robert Cooper was a hero.
Moonset: A Dark Legacy
Jenna muttered obscenities on the way home, so whatever it was she’d been after hadn’t played out. Maybe there was something to that whole “God is magic” thing. Maybe He was finally looking out for me.
Then I arrived at school the next morning. And realized that God didn’t have my back after all. Unless he was just sizing it up for that knife.
“Hey, Mal.” A girl I’d never seen before sauntered past my car, pointedly looking me over as she slinked past my open door.
“Oh my god, that’s him,” another girl whispered to her friend, not but seconds later. The two of them looked my way and giggled, and then grabbed one another for support.
I eyed them for a moment before turning away. “What the hell?” If Jenna started another rumor, or worse, talked Cole into resurrecting those pictures of me …
I caught up with Kevin and Maddy outside the front of the school.
Maddy scowled and Kevin was flush and neither one of them would look at me when I approached. I slowed, gripping the strap of my bag and looking around. Yup, people were still staring. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Kevin was just talking about you.” Maddy huffed out a breath and rolled her eyes.
“No I wasn’t,” he said quickly. Too quickly.
“Okay,” I said, slower and with more emphasis. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing!” Kevin still wouldn’t meet my eyes. He shoved his hands into his pockets, the flush crawling down from his cheeks to the back of his neck. Everything about his behavior was off. The reason Kevin and I got along was because he was so chill. Literally nothing seemed to bother him.
This awkward, shy, blushing Kevin was someone else.
“Did you do something to him?” I asked, turning to Maddy.
“Did you?” she challenged, but just as quickly she deflated and shrugged. “Everyone’s off this morning. I don’t get it.”
“Excuse me,” another girl said as she barged past Maddy and knocked the purse from her shoulder. The girl stepped in front of the others, getting stalker-close to me. “Hi,” she said, just as forward as could be. “You’re Malcolm, right?”
“Nope,” I shook my head. “Hate that guy. He thinks it’s cool when people are rude.”
She blinked rapidly, at least a dozen times in only a couple of seconds. My words curled right past her, leaving her amber eyes blank and blissful in their ignorance. “Whatever. Anyway, my friend didn’t believe I’d actually come over here and talk to you—”
“—why are you?” I interrupted. Not that it mattered. She didn’t stop talking.
“—because I mean, you’re just a guy, right?”
“Right,” I said faintly. Now I was starting to get more worried.
“And she never believes me that all you have to do is go up and talk to guys like they’re normal people. I mean, I totally made out with the drummer from this band that we both like, and—” She was still talking when Maddy stormed past her, elbowed her out of the way, and then grabbed me and headed for the door.
“Idiots,” Maddy huffed, her tone mocking as she repeated, “Talk to guys like they’re normal people.” Her head bobbed and everything.
Kevin trailed behind the two of us as Maddy led us into the auditorium. This early in the day, it was empty, but the curtains on the stage had been cleared, and chairs had been set up in a semicircle at the stage’s edge.
Maddy glared over my shoulder at Kevin before turning back to me. His head was still ducked down so low his chin was nearly pressed up against his Adam’s apple. “So since this has Jenna’s fingerprints all over it, why don’t you tell me what you did?”
Of course. That thing in the classroom yesterday. Her spell had worked after all. That was why everyone was acting like a freak. “She cursed me,” I muttered. I knew Jenna had a habit of getting in her own way, but really? Cursing me was something we were doing now?
“Are you sure that she did something?” Kevin asked, voice soft with nervous pause. “Maybe it’s more serious than that.”
“It’s not,” Maddy said firmly. “This is a prank. Jenna’s good at them; she’s always bragging.”
> With good reason. Jenna was the mastermind of our inevitable upheaval. Every time she got bored and wished for a change of scenery, she created a reason for our schools to cut ties with us. Permanently and irrevocably. I think she’d been building up to blackmailing the principal in our last town, before the riot and, consequently, the wraith ripped control away from her.
If this was any indication, my guess was that Jenna was ready for a change of scenery.
So I just had one question.
“What the hell took her so long?” I growled.
It didn’t get better. It got worse.
Jenna was nowhere to be found during the day. It was like she’d vanished after getting out of the car that morning. There were no adults to fix the problem—I tried calling Nick, but his phone went straight to voice mail. Same with Quinn. Aside from Kelly, who appeared to only show up to try to teach us about our “inner coven light,” I didn’t know any other adult witches in the school.
It only took first period before Justin and the others realized what was going on. I was almost surprised that Jenna wasn’t bragging right out in the halls. Cole showed up at my locker after my pre-calculus class let out, though his attention was more on everyone else in the halls but me.
“Can you move out of my way?” I grunted, pushing at his shoulder where it blocked the lock on my locker. Cole shrugged and inched to the left, barely enough room for me to input my combination without him creeping into my space. I reached out, grabbed his shoulder, and pushed until he was a full locker away. He turned to give me a sour look and then lifted his head. “Hey, who thinks my brother’s a hottie?” he shouted.
Oh my god, I was going to kill him.
There were catcalls and howls, guys who thought it was cool to jump on the “no homo” bandwagon, and girls. Lots of girls. Maybe all of the girls. Except no, Maddy was down the hall scowling. Bailey came down the stairs, looking like she had no idea what was going on. Which she probably didn’t.
“I can’t hear you!” he yelled, gesturing for the crowd to turn the volume up. Which they did. Enthusiastically.