by Anita Oh
"So, nothing happened to you?" Nikolai asked. He waggled his eyebrows suggestively, and I rolled my eyes, but I was pleased he'd decided to ignore all the awkwardness.
"Nothing," I told him.
Althea clicked her tongue. "I was sure it would be the full moon," she said, pulling the book with the passage about the Becoming closer to her and going back over it. "I mean, maybe it’s the winter equinox, but I don’t see how much difference that would make. What else could it be?"
"No idea, but I'm fine with it not happening," I said. "Maybe things will be okay if they just stay like this."
I smiled at Sam, but he looked away. Okey dokey. That wasn't good.
"Nothing says that's possible," Althea said vaguely, running her finger over the page as if she could bring out a different meaning through touch.
"Maybe because she hasn't learned to control the power?" asked Nikolai.
"But I have," I said. "Kind of."
"It hasn't been tested," said Tennyson. "We just assumed that you have, but it's not as if you've been in a circumstance where you needed to control it."
"I can control it," I told him through gritted teeth before he came up with some bright idea like flying to Siberia to make sure everything was working fine. "Anyway, the book says I'd have died already if I hadn't mastered it, so obviously, I have."
"Flawed logic," he said, still looking down at his book.
He hadn't spoken in my head since we got back to the house.
"We need more information," said Althea, sounding frustrated.
"Maybe…" I said, an idea occurring to me that was so obvious that I was annoyed at myself for not thinking of it earlier. "We're looking in all these old books for an idea that's mostly new, right?" I turned to Sam. "Do you still have that book that our parents wrote? Do you have it here?"
He nodded but still didn't look at me. "I know what you're thinking, but I already read back through it to see if there was anything useful."
"Dammit," I said. It had seemed like the answer to everything for ten whole seconds.
"Still, there's a lot in there about genetics, isn't there?" asked Althea.
Sam shrugged. "You can read it if you like, but it's not exactly fun going. I'll go grab it."
I'd read the book before, and Sam was not wrong. A lot of it was pure science, and the theories were hard to grasp. Still, if anyone could get something useful from it, it would be Althea.
The atmosphere at the Golden House was so tense and uncomfortable that I didn't stick around for long. I took a few of the more promising books with me and made an excuse to leave.
I avoided being around the house for the next few days. Sam was obviously mad at me, or at Tennyson. Probably both. Althea seemed to think the fact that nothing had happened on the full moon was a personal failure of hers and was driving herself into the ground trying to find an explanation. No matter what anyone said or did, she barely ate or slept. Nikolai was Nikolai, and Tennyson hadn't reached out for me once.
Later that week, I had my first fencing club session. I had been looking forward to some physical exertion to take my mind off things, but for half an hour, the fencing instructor talked and talked and talked. The rules of fencing. The dangers of fencing. Tactics of fencing. With a slideshow that had way too much clipart. There were only three others in the club, two seniors and a freshman, all guys, and they were as bored as I was. I'd actually started to nod off when someone called out my name.
"Lucy! Wake up!"
I opened my eyes to see Nikolai right up in my face. I pulled back so fast that my chair almost overbalanced.
"While I do love to mock you and your inability to act like a human being, you need to come with me right now." He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out of the chair.
"Why?" I asked. "What's wrong? What happened?"
My first thought was that something had happened to Tennyson, and I felt almost paralyzed with fear. Would I even know, now that he was pushing the bond away? I reached out for him with my mind for the first time in days and almost sank to the ground in relief when I felt the familiar shade of him.
If something happened to him, would it happen to me too? If one of us died, would the other? Or would I just spiral out of control until I'd burned the whole world down? I could control the power now, but that was because I felt tethered to him. If that tether was cut loose, I wasn't so sure I'd be okay.
"Everyone is fine," Nikolai said, peeking into an empty classroom and dragging me in behind him. "My cousin's friend contacted me." He sat on the teacher's desk and gave me an expectant look, as if I was the one with the information to share.
"And?"
"Are you mind-melding with Tennyson right now? Can he hear everything you hear? Because I hate repeating myself."
I rolled my eyes. "It doesn't work like that."
Nikolai's heard back from his cousin, I told Tennyson, not expecting him to reply. He wants us to mind-meld so he can tell us both at once.
Tennyson didn't reply. Instead, I felt him like a freight train in my mind. All of my thoughts were tinged with that Tennyson Wilde shade, as if he were a demon possessing me.
"Woah," I said.
"You're mind-melding?" Nikolai asked, his eyes shining with evil glee. "Hi, Tennyson!" He waved in front of my face, as if my eyes were a webcam and Tennyson was on Skype.
"Technically, no," I said. "But we can both hear you. It's strange and unpleasant, so please do this quickly."
I couldn't tell if the words were mine or Tennyson's.
"So, my cousin's friend, Vucari —"
"Wait, his name is Vucari? Or he is vucari?"
That was Tennyson, because I had no idea what that even meant.
Nikolai shrugged. "I don't know. Both, probably. Does it matter? He told my cousin that the only person who can stop someone's Becoming is the one who started it."
"Hannah Morgan," I said, my heart sinking. "We'll never find her."
"Vucari said there's a ritual he can perform. He can't stop the Becoming, obviously, but he can give us more information. What event triggered the Becoming, what you'll Become, and if everything works well, even where the person is."
"What's the catch?" I asked.
"It's dangerous. The ritual is dangerous, and from what I can gather, Vucari is, too. You'll owe him a favor."
I nodded. "I'll do it."
Chapter 14
I thought it was the only logical choice. Do the ritual. Find Hannah. Rescue Hannah. End the Becoming. It was perfect — everything I wanted. But Tennyson did not agree, and I couldn't escape an argument with someone who could talk inside my head. I began to yearn for the past few days, when he hadn't been reaching out for me at all.
It isn't a feasible plan, he kept saying. We need to look at all the options and choose the best one, not jump at the first thing that's offered.
Over and over, he kept pushing his point. While I was in class, while I was in the shower, eating dinner, trying to sleep.
What other options? I asked him while I was lying in bed, sick of his yammering. I hoped that would shut him up, but no dice.
Your father, he said. He obviously knows something about the Becoming. It would be remiss of us not to explore all avenues of information.
Why do you talk like a fifty-year-old barrister? I asked him. Shut up now. I need to sleep.
But I couldn't push him away completely.
When we'd first met, when he'd been suspicious of me, he used to follow me around everywhere, watching me like a creepy weirdo. It hadn't been funny or cute then. It was even less so now.
He was waiting for me when I left the Red House to go to class. He skipped his own classes to sit in on mine. He walked down the halls beside me, and when I told him to quit bugging me, he walked half a pace behind. By lunchtime, I'd had enough.
"What is your problem?" I hissed across the table. "Are you trying to drive me crazy so I'll agree with you? Because I'd have to be crazy to want to discuss this with my
father."
"That's not it," he said, not looking at me.
Well, what?
He shook his head.
The other three watched us like a tennis match.
"To be honest, Lucy, I don't really like the idea of the ritual, either," said Althea. "If that kind of thing goes wrong, it can be disastrous."
Nikolai nodded. "It's pretty dicey stuff. Even my cousin was wary about putting me in touch with this guy, and my cousin is the sketchiest guy in the family."
If Sam had an opinion, he'd have to speak to me to give it, so I was saved that, at least.
“What changed your mind?” I asked Tennyson. “Not too long ago, you were with me on this. We can’t trust him.”
Tennyson shook his head. “You don’t know about the vucari. What they’re capable of. Even if we can’t trust your father, I don’t believe he’d do anything to actively harm you. Can you say the same about someone you’ve never met, who has powers you can’t imagine?”
"Fine," I said, convinced by the shadows under Althea's eyes more than anything else. "I'll contact my father. But if he doesn't tell us anything useful, I'm going ahead with the ritual."
I didn't want them hovering over me while I sent the message, so I pushed back from the table to go do it outside, but as soon as I stood up, so did Tennyson. I waited until we were out of everyone's earshot before turning on him.
"So, what is it?" I asked him. "This creepy stalking is not okay, so you need to at least give me an explanation."
He sighed and looked away. "When I was in your mind, when we were talking to Nikolai…"
I nodded, worried about what he might've found while he was poking around in there.
"I felt it. That power. I've felt it before, of course, but not so directly, not as if it were in my own body."
"It frightened you," I said, suddenly understanding.
"No!" he said. "Of course not!"
I raised my eyebrows.
"I'm worried. That power — I've never felt a force like it. If it wants to take you, I don't see how we can resist it."
I laughed and hooked my arm through his, forcing him to sit down beside me at the edge of the fountain. "Tennyson Wilde, you fluffy marshmallow."
He scoffed and tried to pull his arm away, but not very hard.
"We beat it down before, and we can do it again," I told him. "Whatever it is, it's part of me, so by definition it must be kind of awesome, right?"
"That makes no sense," he told me. "Now, hurry up and message your father."
His voice was gruff, but I could see a smile curling at the edge of his mouth. I’d never seen him smile before, and it changed him entirely. All his harsh edges melted away, all his shadows. If he wanted to, he could shine brighter than the sun, I realized. Even that small spark was blinding. It took me a minute to look away from him and send the message.
"MEET ME IN ONE HOUR," my dad texted back almost immediately.
"Where is he that he can get here so fast?" I asked wonderingly. It would take me nearly that long to get to the lighthouse myself.
"I'm coming with you," Tennyson said.
I had no argument. I was nervous about meeting my father as it was. I still remembered how he'd treated Hannah when he was interrogating her, and it wasn't such a leap to see myself in her place.
"He's your father," Tennyson said as we walked through the forest. "He won't hurt you."
But he'd already hurt me as badly as he could when he left us. It might not be exactly the same thing, but he'd known what he was doing, how we'd all feel. He'd known Mom was sick and I'd be left to nurse her. He’d known we’d have no money, no one to rely on.
I don't trust him, I told Tennyson.
He squeezed my hand.
My father was waiting already when we got there.
"Do you, like, live in a houseboat just off the shore or…?"
"This is not a joke, Lucy."
Mostly, when I looked at my dad, I thought he looked old, tired and used up. Not today. Today, he was filled with something dreadful, and it made him strong.
He glanced at Tennyson Wilde, his face filled with disdain, then he looked down at our linked hands. His face turned white.
"So?" I asked him, not wanting to get any closer to him. "I asked what you know about the Becoming. Do you have information or not?"
"I do."
I motioned for him to go on, but he shook his head.
"What are you doing with him?" he asked. "You can't trust him."
I choked out a laugh. Tennyson squeezed my hand.
"Look, I'm not here to argue Tennyson Wilde's alleged merits," I said. "I want to know about the Becoming. I want to know how to stop it."
My father let out a long breath. "So, it's true?" He rubbed a hand across his forehead. "From when the two of you swapped?"
I nodded, and my father's eyes grew wide.
"Oh!" he said, narrowing his eyes at us. "You have a bond. Yes, a strong one. I can almost see it."
I took a step backwards. I didn't want him looking at our bond. It was something private, just between the two of us.
"He knows nothing," I told Tennyson. "I'm doing the ritual."
I turned to walk away, but my father was suddenly right beside me. He grabbed my arm.
"What ritual?"
I shrugged. "This guy, he knows a ritual to get information about the Becoming. What I'll turn into and how to find the person who can stop it."
"Vucari," Tennyson said, meeting my father's eyes over the top of my head.
My father's grip tightened on my arm. "These are the sort of people you associate with." He shook his head. "You can't do this ritual. It will ruin you."
I snorted. "You're not giving me any other option. What do you expect me to do?"
"Come with me," he said, pulling on my arm, trying to pull me away from Tennyson. "You can’t trust the Wilde pack. They only want you for your power. It wouldn't surprise me if they forced this bond because they knew what you would Become."
I moved away from him and closer to Tennyson.
"And, do you know?" I asked him.
He shook his head. "I can protect you. From the Wilde pack. From the Others. Come with me, and I'll sever this bond and you can be free."
The thought filled me with panic, and almost immediately, the power began to bubble inside of me. Even Tennyson's hand gripping mine did nothing to stop it. It bubbled and boiled until I thought it would rise up like a snake and strike out at my father.
But before it could, my father placed a hand on the top of my head. Tennyson gave a yell and surged forward, and everything went white.
Chapter 15
I woke up in a dark room. I knew nothing except that I couldn't move and that Tennyson was far, far away.
I lay there for the longest time, reaching out, trying to feel him, the shades of him, but there was nothing. Then I remembered what my father had said about severing the bond, and I began to scream.
I screamed until my voice gave out. The power was still bubbling inside of me, but I didn't care. I wanted it, wanted to let it take me. I could implode, and what would it matter? Tennyson was gone. The power writhed inside of me, and I could feel it all through my body. I wanted it to take me over. I could Become. I would Become something terrible and have my vengeance on everyone who had taken Tennyson from me. I didn't know if he was alive or dead, but it felt as if the whole world was devoid of him, like he had been wiped from all history and memory. I felt the absence of him like an abyss inside of me.
And that abyss was where the power was drawn to, as if it had belonged there the whole time. The power boiled and churned throughout me, but the overflow flooded into that spot behind my breastbone, that hollow place where Tennyson had been. It didn't soothe me, for the power to fill that place, but it felt satisfying in a righteous kind of way.
When the door opened and the light came on, I was ready.
I couldn't see at first, after being in the dark for so long, but
once my eyes had gotten used to the light, I could see my father standing in the doorway. I opened my mouth to say something scathing, but my voice wouldn't work because of the screaming. My arms and legs were chained to a crappy old bed that looked as if people had been dying on it for years but nobody had ever bothered to clean it. The room was dank, with rising damp around the walls. The door was solid iron, but rusty. For a moment, my father just stood there silently, and the only sound was dripping water.
"This is for your own good," he said eventually. "It might not seem like it right now. You probably hate me, and I understand that. I just want what's best for you."
"You're crazy," I forced out, my throat feeling like fire.
He smiled down at me. "I can see why you'd think that." He sat down at the edge of the bed and took my hand, pulling my wrist at an awkward angle. "I'm going to help you, Lucy. You wanted my help, didn't you?"
I shook my head. "Get away from me," I whispered.
I closed my eyes, reaching for the power inside of me. I didn't know what it would do, whether I would be able to harness it in any productive way, but if I could use it to just push him away from me, that would be something, at least.
"My baby girl," he said, then pulled a syringe from his shirt pocket and uncapped it with his teeth.
I writhed around on the bed, trying uselessly to get away from him. The power churned inside of me, but I had no way of getting it out. I didn't know how to use it. I did the only thing I could think of. I called for help.
Tennyson! I screamed inside my mind. Help me!
But, as my father injected the syringe into my arm, I remembered that Tennyson wasn't there.
I drifted in and out of consciousness for what might have been days, or might have been years. There were times when I knew where I was but couldn't move, couldn't do anything. Those were the worst times, like a nightmare or a horror movie.
Other times, I saw things. They seemed real. I wanted them to be real. Althea riding through the forest on a rainbow unicorn. Nikolai was the moon, and his face was made from cheese. Sam had a curly moustache and danced the cha-cha around the world. The world was papier mache. When it rained, the world fell to pieces, but somebody always made it anew. Katie Canterbury and Hannah Morgan merged together to make a Roomie-zilla, and they trampled all the mean girls at school.