Together We Caught Fire

by Eva V. Gibson

  The syllables burst open and scattered, souring the air. Family: its own brand of f-word. Worse from his lips than any four-letter version on earth. His eyes were bright and desperate, begging me to agree.

  It broke me in two, that desperation; split me down the middle of compassion and resentment. That promise of him and me, stuck in the wrong sort of forever.

  “Yes, Greyson. Together. Always.”

  Those words—our parents’ wedding vows, drifting out in a half whisper. He stared at me, helpless, then finally turned his face away, pulled his hands through the mess of his hair. Forced a neutral smile and reached for the remote, choosing safety over reality. Choosing the me he wanted over the me he knew—the me who’d carved my shape into every corner of his world.

  Grey and I were good at lies, if nothing else. We lied to each other with those separate couch cushions and unsaid words. We lied with the deliberate distance between our bodies. We didn’t speak. He texted Sadie, fingers brisk and efficient on the screen, while I stared out the window, barely breathing.

  We lied and we lied and we lied.

  14

  OCTOBER ENDED IN A DRIZZLE, frostless and soggy and beautifully bleak. The sky outside my bedroom window was a silvery thing, streaked and striated, shifting to night. Less gloomy than Sadie’s expression by far.

  “I just don’t know about all this, Lane. Tell me again, exactly, what’s involved?”

  I fumbled with my earrings, met her eyes in the vanity mirror. She sat on my bed with her back against the wall, brow scrunched, pout in place. Screams and chain saws drifted through the door, followed by laughter: Connor and Grey, immersed in their second viewing of Army of Darkness as they waited for us.

  We’d spent the afternoon carving jack-o’-lanterns, each doing our worst to a huge, fleshy pumpkin, each yielding decidedly different results. Connor’s was beautiful insanity, a twisted human face rendered free-form in intricate, shrieking detail; Grey’s was just as meticulous, but he’d used a template, never missed a line, traced and scooped and carved until it looked exactly how he wanted. Sadie went for simple, classic whimsy: bold triangles for eyes and nose, a smiling mouth with three stubby teeth. I’d gone in with no plan beyond a vague idea of creepy, and ended up with a ridiculous, half-realized mess. I’d placed it on the porch anyway, slightly behind the others, wondering why I’d even tried. At least no one had gotten cut.

  “It’s nothing shady,” I reassured Sadie, working a tangle from my hair. “Just a Samhain gathering.”

  “Sow-win,” she repeated, her twang butchering the hell out of the poor word. “And it’s, like, a Halloween party for dead people? Not demons?”

  “What? No. It’s a cross-quarter day on the pagan calendar—the midpoint between the equinox and the solstice.”

  “Lord, honey, I don’t know what any of that means.”

  “It’s not a catch-all—what the rituals ‘mean’ to someone, specifically, depends on the practitioner. In the very simplest terms, Samhain is a celebration of the harvest and the summer’s end, and an honoring of those gone before.” I eyed her in the mirror, dropped my voice to a teasing, spooky whisper. “Some say it’s when the spirits are at their most active in the living world. What better time to summon a soul from the very grave?”

  “Wait—like a séance? We’re summoning ghosts? Grey never said—”

  “Jesus. No, Sadie, we’re not summoning ghosts. People do believe, though—in their connection to the earth, and the elements, and everything beyond. Paying tribute to the ancestors and celebrating the dark season is part of all that. Think of it like praying, from a different perspective.”

  “It is not the same as praying, Lane.”

  “Isn’t it?” I shifted my gaze back to my own reflection, ignoring her huff. “Look, this is Greyson’s religion, not mine—all questions should be directed at him, his mom, or my dad.”

  “You don’t practice? I thought y’all were, like, all in it as a family.” She sighed as I shook my head. “You and my brother are just alike. He won’t believe in anything anymore.”

  “I’m not an atheist—before my mom died, my parents agreed to let me choose my own path, but I’ve never felt pulled to any one particular way over another. If I’m going to pray, I need it to feel real. It needs to be the perfect fit.”

  “That makes sense. Grey says prayer, to him, is a language not of the tongue, but of the heart. Sounds like you feel the same.”

  “How do you not know all of this by now?” I said, turning to face her. Grey was far from the most fervent practitioner I’d ever met, but his paganism was hardly breaking news. “His rituals, his holidays—has he really kept you out of it all this time?”

  “Oh, honey, I never asked. He’s tried to explain some of his basic beliefs, and invited me to gatherings in the past, but this is the first time I’ve agreed to go.” She pulled her hair forward over her shoulder, working her fingers absently through the colors. “He and I don’t really talk about that stuff as much as we should—just between us, I’d rather not hear about it at all. But I guess I need to learn what I can if he plans to bring it into our marriage.”

  “Right.” It was a bitter fight, keeping the anguish out of that one syllable. I pretended to retie my bootlace, ducked my head in time to hide the twist of my mouth.

  It was hard sometimes—really, really hard—not to resent that girl. Not to burn with the shame of that resentment, down to the very last drop of my blood.

  “I don’t get why you guys are in such a hurry for all that,” I continued, voice barely skirting the edge of bitterness. “There’s so much you both could do.”

  “What’s the point in waiting? A life with him is all I want. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

  I almost believed her. Surely she’d said those words often enough since she learned to speak—over and over, until they tasted sweet as her smile. Surely she’d never tried to want more than what she thought was her only option. It was there, though: a spark of doubt, tiny as the twitch of her lips. Bright as the twists of turquoise peeking through her thick, blond curls.

  “Anyway. We’ll see, I guess.” She shooed away the thought, then jumped up and delved into her tote bag with a grin. “But tonight I’m being nice, and nonjudgmental, and going to this witchy gathering thing, even though it’ll probably get me in trouble with God. And since I’m doing this to make you and your darling stepbrother happy, you are going to let me do this. I’m telling you, it’ll change your life.”

  “Get that thing away from my face.” I tried to dodge around her. She blocked the door and advanced on me, eyes brimming with glee. “Sadie, I’m serious. No.”

  “Please, Lane. Pleeeeeease. You’re so pretty—all you need is a little color. The eyes and cheeks, and maybe a nice red lip. Come on.”

  Twenty minutes. Twenty solid minutes of my life was the price I paid to indulge her as she lined and shaded and blended and enhanced. And when she finally pronounced me done, I was tense and skeptical, yet strangely buoyed. Maybe she was right. My mood had been all over the place since Grey moved in—maybe I did need a little boost.

  “I knew it. You’re perfect. You’re an absolute vision.” She steered me toward my vanity. “Behold.”

  My eyes were ashes and soot, my cheekbones a gold-dust gleam. My crooked upper lip was foreign, filled in and darkened and weird. I was Sadie’s version of an ideal Lane—striking and elegant and utterly gorgeous. Absolutely nothing like me.

  I pulled away without a word and headed straight for the bathroom, ignoring her squeaks of concern. Locked the door behind me, before I came undone.

  “You okay, honey?” Sadie asked when I emerged ten minutes later, scrubbed back to the basics of skin and stoicism. “Aw, you didn’t like it? I thought it looked amazing.”

  “It’s not really my thing, I guess. And it itched.” I smoothed down the front of my cardigan, adjusted my mother’s silver pentacle charm against my throat, some small, sad part of me wishing for that conn
ection—the spiritual certainty that bound my parents, linking them even in death. Wishing I could believe she was just past my fingertips, poised to slip through that thinning veil and find me. “Let’s go get those boys.”

  * * *

  “This place seems very far from any other place.”

  Sadie’s nerves were showing. She was trying, I’ll give her that, but as the familiar city streets became lightless country roads, her enthusiasm gave way to apprehension. She sat bunched in the passenger seat, unusually quiet.

  “Settle down, sis,” Connor said from my right. “I’m pretty sure your witch boy won’t actually let the coven sacrifice you when it comes down to it. I mean, they’ll have to rush around to find another virgin at the last minute, but we do need a fourth for the demon summoning, so there’s that.”

  “That is not funny, Connor. Grey, do you promise me there are no demons?”

  “Of course there aren’t demons, babe.” Grey rested a hand on her knee, adjusting his grip on the wheel. “If you’re really uncomfortable with this, I’ll take you home. It’s not a problem.”

  “No. I’m okay.” She took a deep breath and beamed at him with all her might. “I want to be there with you.”

  Connor’s skeptical eyebrows were visible even in the shadows, but he didn’t contradict her. Instead, he sat back and turned to me, gesturing at my pentacle.

  “Is this your thing too?”

  “My parents’. This charm was my mother’s. Dad still practices, but I was raised secular. He doesn’t believe in the indoctrination of children.”

  “I like him already.”

  “Don’t you get above your raising, Connor Hall.” Sadie glared at him over the seat and reached back to swat his leg. “You were born in the church and saved in the church, washed clean by the Blood of Christ, and just because you strayed doesn’t mean He’s abandoned you. I really think—”

  “I defected from the church, Sadie Hall. I escaped what passed as my raising, especially that ‘washed in the blood’ shit. And I—hold on a second.” He leaned toward me, thumb extended, took a swipe at my face. “What the fuck, Lane? Are you wearing glitter?”

  “Oh. I might be. Not by choice, though.”

  “Goddamn it, Sadie, you really had to, didn’t you? You’re like a little kid with a box of crayons and a big white wall.”

  “It was the new Urban Decay palette, excuse you very much, and she was lovely. Absolutely glam.”

  “I’m sure she was,” Grey said, badly stifling a laugh. “Must have really set off her knitting needles.”

  That one was a backhand to the soul. He and Sadie laughed, both lighthearted and teasing, neither meaning to wound. Neither aware of the hole in my gut, filling slowly with shame and ice and a hot rush of blood. Connor blinked at them, then sat back and shook his head.

  “Wow. Fuck you, too, dude.”

  “Oh hush, Connor,” Sadie giggled. “He didn’t mean it like that. Anyway, you should have seen her. I’ll admit the glitter was a bit much, but the smoky eye looked amazing.”

  She turned in her seat and tried to catch my eye. I stared at the back of Grey’s head.

  “Honey, we’re just teasing you. You’re totally pretty without it, I promise. I only wear so much because I don’t like a plain, boring face, you know? I like lots of color. But you—” She shut up abruptly, jogged to silence by Connor’s knee thumping the back of her seat.

  “Elaine.” I met Grey’s worried eyes in the mirror, drawn, despite myself, to his voice. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Forget it, Greyson. Just drive.”

  I shifted my eyes away from his, swiped my sleeve over my cheekbone. It came back clean.

  We managed to reach our destination without further shrieking, park in a sea of cars, and follow a torch-marked trail through the woods to a tree-ringed clearing, lit orange by several small, scattered bonfires. Costumed children sailed in circles around the flames, some tailed by nervous guardians; most, free-range. Quite a few adults had dressed up as well—the number of people garbed in full fae was ridiculous, even for a pagan gathering. There were, however, plenty of neon glow sticks and commercial Halloween disguises mixed in with the street clothes and the antlers and the DIY wings.

  It took me a moment to spot my dad, whose formal ceremonial robes blended right on in with the crowd. He and Skye stood apart from the other, larger clusters of people, hands joined, heads swiveling. Looking for us with that earnest, heartbreakingly parental air, which forever disregarded legality and self-sufficiency.

  Skye spotted us and flitted over, gathered Grey and me together in a simultaneous hug. She was earth and flame all over, robed in moss-green silk and burgundy velvet, hair twined into a single, hip-length braid. Her eyes, when she drew back, glimmered brighter than the moonstone setting in her circlet.

  “We have a few moments before the main event,” she breathed. “I’d like to cast our own circle first, if you two agree.”

  My answering nod left a smile on her face that spread to Dad’s as he joined us, squeezing my arm in quiet thanks.

  The four of us linked hands and Skye called the corners, led our family in the prayer she and Dad practiced together, then fell silent while he honored my mother. We closed our tiny circle in time to join the large one forming in the center of the glade—dozens of people, hand in hand, linked around the biggest bonfire. Grey’s hand was warm in mine, his grip sure and solid and confusing. He only tightened his hold when my own fingers slackened, answering my questioning glance with a small, private smile that pried its way under my skin.

  Sadie and Connor hung back at the edge of the woods, apart from the circle but clearly visible from where we stood. For all his earlier demonic banter, Connor was on his best behavior—he stayed quiet, clasped his hands behind his back, kept his head respectfully bowed as the ceremony commenced. Meanwhile, the wild card that was Sadie stayed glued to her brother, as if afraid she’d be suddenly set upon, strapped to a broomstick, and launched into the sky. She managed to keep it together during the opening prayer and community rites, didn’t actually shit her pants at the chanting or songs, but afterward, when a small group of nearby women formed their own circle, called the corners, and began their own specific invocation, she dropped Connor’s arm and retreated, walking backward until she slipped on the soggy grass and landed on her butt with a little yelp. Connor was immediately at her side, whispering in her ear, tussling back and forth with her before giving up on reasoning and flat out dragging her to her feet, yanking her along behind him as he stalked away.

  Grey and I shared a panicked glance and followed them, abandoning the circle and the clearing and our parents as the drizzle turned to steady rain. The Hall siblings had already disappeared onto the trail; we had to run to catch up. As soon as she heard our footsteps, Sadie stopped in her tracks, breaking Connor’s grip and turning on Grey, every ounce of her fury a blast in his face.

  “You listen to me, Grey McIntyre, and listen good. If you want a life with me, you will rethink your entire approach to salvation. I’ve tolerated our differences up till now, but this is the line that can’t be crossed. I will not have this witchcraft business in our marital home.”

  She turned on her heel and headed for the car, face damp with a film of mist and rage tears. Grey matched her, step for step.

  “Hold the fuck up. Did you just tell me I’m not allowed to practice my religion under my own roof? Is that really what you said?”

  “That’s exactly what I said. This is blasphemy. It’s nothing but a path to the Devil himself, and you need to—”

  “I ‘need to’ not a single goddamn thing, Sadie. This is how I grew up. This defines my family, as much as your fundamentalist shit defines yours.”

  “Don’t you call it ‘shit.’ You don’t have the first clue—”

  I slowed my steps as their pace increased. Their snarls reached backward, rising and falling, growing louder when we reached the parking area. No chance of losing track of those t
wo in the deep, dark forest, that was for sure.

  “Is there any way we can pretend we’re not with them?” I muttered. Connor’s sigh spooled from the shadows to my left.

  “If only.” He winced at Sadie’s twang, rising on cue as we piled into the car. “Come back with me, hang out at the warehouse. You don’t want to be the third wheel when they escalate.”

  “You don’t mind? I don’t want to be in your way, but …”

  “Fuck that, Lane, it’s absolutely fine. I won’t even make you cut me this time.”

  “Fuck you. That was horrible.”

  “It was a shared moment. Just get out with me when the car stops.”

  And that’s what happened. They bickered all the way back to Asheville, barely pausing for breath. I practically dove out of the back seat as soon as Grey hit the brake; only the sound of both doors closing alerted him to the fact that I’d left the car at all.

  “What are you doing, Elaine?”

  “Going with Connor. I think you guys could use some time alone.”

  “She’ll be fine, Grey,” Sadie snapped, focused his scowl back her way. “I am nowhere near done with this conversation, in case you were unaware.”

  “And here I was, thinking I’d actually get a moment’s peace at some point in my entire life.” He caught my eyes in the side mirror. “Text me if you need a ride.”

  They careened out of the lot, Sadie’s reply trailing out the window in a cloud of bitchy mist. Connor shook his head and looked at me, and then we doubled over laughing, leaning against each other like a couple of drunks.

  “Can you picture them still doing this shit in twenty years?” he wheezed. “I nearly strangled them both.”

  “If you ever need an alibi, let me know.” I glanced at the warehouse, all rough edges and silent angles, blackout curtains drawn and dark. “Is everyone out?”