A strange feeling came over me, like the kind of seasick I’d wished I’d experienced all my life—if only to know what being on the ocean was like.
And I stared at my arms as they at once ceased to exist…or ceased to be seen.
“Infierno…” She murmured under her breath, horrified.
“No. No…no. Please, no more.” That voice. I could never forget that voice.
I flinched when the quiet gave way to a bloodcurdling scream; and all I could do was listen as it continued, leaning against Iliana in an effort to keep myself from making any noise. It stopped for a moment—only a moment—and started again, more desperate than the first. It shook my insides, twisted my stomach into an unrecognizable mess of knots. I wanted to cover my ears for as long as I could—shut my eyes until it ended. But the screams wouldn’t stop, and my eyes filled with tears when I realized that I couldn’t do anything.
Only wait. Like I had no power at all.
I lifted my head up from Iliana’s shoulder when a sickening silence fell over the room, and the same creak that had frightened so many sent relief flooding into the darkness. I crawled to the other side of the box, to the voice that I had heard; and I peered through the slits and into the next crate. There, trembling on the hay-covered floor, was the pale skin and wispy red hair that I had missed so much.
“Heather?” I called her name, but she didn’t move. “Heather.” I said it again. Slowly, she raised her head; and her green eyes lit up at the sight of me.
“Melissa?” She gazed at me, at first confused.
“Yeah.” I nodded, and she burst into tears when she understood.
“You didn’t stop?” I shook my head in response and fit my fingers through the opening; and she did the same, our hands grasping at each other until I found her and squeezed her tightly.
“I’m going to get you out.” I promised. I scrambled out of the wooden crate as quickly as I could and raced to the neighboring box to rip the planks of wood away from the door with my own strength and adrenaline, not even bothering to call up a burst of moonlight to blast it open. And as if she always had been, Heather was in my arms. She was wearing what I had last seen her in: the gray plaid short-sleeved shirt and dark blue jeans, her powder blue winter coat tied around her waist. Her jagged scars had been torn open; and blood ran down her elbows in crimson lines as she embraced me, sobbing. “We have to get out of here,” I looked to Charlotte and Iliana, “before he comes back.”
“No, Melissa, you—you don’t understand.” Heather stuttered as she tried to explain, and I turned my head to face her again.
“What don’t I understand?” I asked her; and she stared at me, unblinking.
“There are two of them.” And then I knew.
Adrienne had only seen one face.
Chapter Eighteen
Born of Blood
I flew into a frenzy, holding my hand up to the locks to disintegrate them and throwing the doors open. Much frailer versions of Rebecca, Willow, Valerie, and Jasmine emerged from the darkness that had held them, looking more like ghosts than the girls that I had remembered; and they helped each other stand before rushing to the aid of two girls with faces I couldn’t recognize. But the hair—April Lawson had that same red hair, only twisted in a braid that fell past her shoulders. She stood terrified in a polka dot swimsuit alongside a raven-haired girl that I could only guess was Chelsea Banneker. I watched as Heather held out a bloodstained hand at the mouth of an open crate, and Stephanie slowly crawled out of the shadows. The both of them rose to their feet, but Heather’s eyes suddenly widened as if she sensed something in the air. At first, I thought it was the moonlight that I held in my hand; but when I lifted my palm to my narrowing eyes, I knew that it couldn’t be.
It was already happening.
She had begun to flicker in and out of sight like a broken light. She looked up from her trembling fingers when she caught a glimpse of my reaction.
“It’s okay. It’ll go away. It always does.” She reassured me, not sounding very sure herself. I glanced at Charlotte, and she gazed at me with the same solemnity that she had before.
“Do you think you can get us through that wall?” I asked her. Without a word, she nodded; and I pointed the others in the direction of the moldering brick wall.
“How are we going to get past that?” Eva wondered aloud, incredulous.
“This world changes you—if you’re here long enough.” Charlotte answered her, already only a foot from the wall, and placed her hand on the stones; and she closed her eyes as her shoulders rose with a labored breath. But her eyelids flew open immediately, and she looked down at her hand as she pushed it against the wall.
Nothing. Nothing at all.
“I don’t understand. I don’t—it worked before…”
“Charlotte?” I called her name, but she didn’t answer. She remained at the wall, quiet as she leaned her head against it.
“No…no…no!” Her murmured words grew into a scream of frustration, and she struck the bricks with a clenched fist. And she turned to me, her amber eyes filling with tears. “I can’t do it…” Her hand fell to her side, and blood trickled from her knuckles and onto the floor.
“We’re all going to die here, aren’t we?” Stephanie whispered.
As much as I hated it, I couldn’t help but think the same thing.
“No.” I shook my head and rushed past her, past the wooden crates and towards the mysterious door looming on the other side of the room. “We’re not.”
“Melissa, no!” Heather shouted just before I reached out my hand to set it on the handle. “We’d be going straight to them.”
“I came here to take you home, and that’s what I’m going to do.” I replied, gazing out at all of them as I spoke. She still stared at me in terror, but I placed my fingers on the handle once again. And I pulled the door open. The darkness that I had expected was absent on the other side, a warm yellow light spilling into the room instead. It accosted my eyes and riddled my sight with spots; and I realized, for a moment, that I had forgotten how the sunshine felt on my skin.
But it felt so much like it—whatever it was.
I looked over my shoulder and at the others and beckoned for them to follow me. But they didn’t.
“Come on.” I lowered my voice when the thought of being heard by someone else occurred to me. “What are you waiting for?”
“What if it’s worse?” Jennifer said, with a fear that I knew I couldn’t comprehend. And still, I gestured to the open doorway.
“A few of us can go and search for a way out, then I’ll send someone back to lead the way.” The air suddenly shifted at my words as Heather stepped forward.
“I’ll go.” She volunteered as Charlotte and Iliana joined her side; and the three of them left the other eleven in the darkness to stand with me at the door. I moved aside to let them through the doorway before me and paused to look back at them one last time.
“We’ll be back.” I promised. And the door closed behind me.
“Wow.” Iliana was the first to speak in the newly found quietness, and I turned around to see her staring up at the ceiling.
And immediately, I was standing in front of Adrienne’s door on that first December night.
Golden branches twisted in and out of themselves over panes of frosted glass, lights that I could only guess were the constellations dancing beyond them. The immense skylight ended where two oak walls began, and the dark wood glowed amber in the nearly blinding light from above.
“Where are we?”
“Rynmoor.” I whispered to myself.
There was still so much I hadn’t seen—a world I hadn’t yet come to know.
“Rin-more?” Charlotte repeated, crinkling her forehead.
“This is where I was born.” I answered her as I started down the hall; and Heather hurried after me, keeping close to the eastern wall.
“What are you talking about?” She caught up with me. “You’ve lived in Cedar Cr
est your whole life.” She told me, so confident in what she knew; but I shook my head.
Not my whole life.
“It’s a long story…” I murmured.
I couldn’t imagine her believing me—not at first.
Charlotte appeared on my other side, speaking quietly.
“When I saw you, I assumed…” Her voice trailed away. “You are Cherokee?”
“My parents are.” I answered, hoping that she wouldn’t need an explanation. She peered at me in curiosity but continued.
“Then your mother and father told you the story of the Hunter and the Corn Woman?” She wanted to know, inquiring earnestly; but I shook my head, and she sighed in disappointment. “In the beginning, Kana’ti the Hunter and his wife Selu the Corn Woman had one child, a boy that they loved dearly. But one day, while the boy was playing by the river, another boy sprang up from the blood of the animals that Kana’ti had killed; and Kana’ti and Selu took him home as their own and tamed him...But he was born from blood.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, terrified of what her answer would be. She leaned forward, the horror clear on her face.
“Nothing born from blood can be good.” She said. “No child of death can be tamed. The two sons grew to be called the Twin Thunder Boys, but the wild brother never abandoned his parentage. His influence on the other became much greater than Kana’ti could handle. When the two of them witnessed Selu using magic to make corn, they murdered her and mounted her head on the roof. And at her final request, they dragged her body around the house to ensure that corn would grow wherever her blood touched the ground.”
“No.” I shook my head. “That can’t be it.” I tried to convince myself; but the more I thought of it, the more I knew it to be true. “If the Twin Thunder Boys are his sons…” I stopped.
One face.
“It wasn’t him…” I whispered; and suddenly, I found Iliana beside me.
“So what you did back there—what’s happening to us is different?” She frowned when I nodded.
“It’s like…you’re turning into ghosts.” I tried to explain it. “You’ve all been here so long.” But how it was affecting them: the invisibility, the flickering—I couldn’t begin to understand it myself. Heather looked down at the floor for a moment as she walked a few steps behind me.
“I go somewhere when I disappear.” She confessed, and I paused to listen. “At first, I thought it was a dream; but after a while, I realized that it wasn’t.” She continued, gazing up at me. “I saw Matthew there, once. Did he come here looking for me, too?” I stared at her as my throat began to hurt, swallowing hard in an attempt to make it go away. But it wouldn’t. And my eyes burned when I opened my mouth, seeing him again that night as he trembled in the crimson snow.
“Wait…” Iliana interjected; and in the blink of an eye, she was gone. My blood ran cold when I finally heard it, and I yearned for the silence that had seemed so terrifying before.
Footsteps. They grew louder, my heart quickening in my chest as a shadow passed just around the corner; and as I glanced behind and beyond me, I realized that there was no escape. I stood there in the middle of the hallway as I bit my lip—so hard, I tore the skin and tasted blood. And I waited for whatever was coming. My knuckles whitened when I shakily curled my hands into fists; and I quickly looked down as two spheres of light formed inside them, something growing inside me that I hadn’t quite discovered yet.
“Stay back!” I warned, holding out my hands in a threat for the stranger to keep its distance. I held my breath as the shadow moved across the floor, but it was only connected to one pair of feet.
Deerskin trousers—and a quiver strapped against his bare back and between his broad shoulders…The Hunter.
I blinked as he advanced towards me slowly, his hands over his head. He looked so different—like something I’d never seen before. His face was the same; but the light clung to his skin like it was a part of him, erasing the scars and leaving perfection in their place.
“Caleb…” I caught myself. Caleb didn’t exist. “Kana’ti…”
“Elynea…” It sounded so foreign in his voice—I’d always been Moongirl; but it felt just as familiar—like I’d been waiting for him to say it my whole life.
No.
I chased the thought away. The curse—that’s all it was.
I retreated when he took another step forward. “I’m not going to hurt you,” his eyes darted to Heather and Charlotte, “any of you.” The air thickened behind me as Iliana slowly revealed herself, and he nodded in her direction. “That’s new.”
“I believe you.”
“Huh,” he chuckled a little, “‘remind you of somethin’?” He smiled—oh, that smile. However much had changed, he sent me back to the stables; and my heart hurt for how innocent I had been then. How oblivious. But I came to my senses, lowering my hands and extinguishing the light that burned within them.
“How did you find me?” I wanted an answer.
“This is my home. You came to me.” He replied, as perplexed as I was. “I—I don’t understand.” He shook his head. “Why did you come here?” For a moment, I simply stared at him, searching for the truth.
“You don’t know…” I looked to Charlotte for an explanation, but she shook her head sadly. How couldn’t he?
“Know what?” He asked, and I saw something in his eyes—the child that I never knew existed.
“Your sons—they took my friends.” His eyes widened at my words.
“No.” He wouldn’t believe it. “They—they wouldn’t.” Charlotte took a step forward.
“I’ve been here for two hundred years.” She told him. “They kept telling me that I wasn’t good enough—that I had to try.” His eyes fell to the floor when she pulled back her sleeves to show him the scars.
“I think they thought that if they found me, then I could replace her.” I gazed down at my fingers as I spoke, moving towards him. “Kana’ti,” he lifted his head when I called his name, his brown eyes wide, “what do you remember from that night?”
“Um,” he scratched his head as he fought to recall it, “I’d just come back from hunting, and Selu—Selu had insisted that we take a walk in the woods. But when I returned home, I couldn’t find her. And then, I saw the blood.” His eyes glossed over with tears, and he stared at the floor once again. “It led to a field of corn—it was so thick. I didn’t know how it got there. At first, I didn’t see the body. But when I found her, her head—her head wasn’t with it.” He stuttered; and he took a deep breath to calm himself, shaking. “My sons—they’d been sitting just outside the field, and I told them to go inside. That’s when,” he cleared his throat, “that’s when I saw that her head was…on the roof. She needed to be whole—the way I remembered her. So I brought her down and held her in my arms.” He wept, brushing the tears off of his face. “Why are you asking me this?”
“They killed her.” I breathed.
“What?” He looked up at me in confusion.
“They saw what she could do, and they killed her for it.” I explained, and he placed his hand on his forehead.
“N—no. They’re children. They couldn’t…” His voice trailed away as I continued.
“Before she died, she told them to drag her body around the house so corn would still grow even after she was gone.” My words gave him pause, causing him to meet my eyes with a gaze of disbelief.
“How could you know that?”
“Melissa…” Heather set her hand on my shoulder in an attempt to hold me back, but I glanced back at her from over my shoulder as I drew closer anyway.
“It’s okay.” I whispered and turned to face him. “The world where you found me—they tell stories about you. But they don’t all know that you’re real. They don’t know that any of this is real. I know that you’ve been searching for me; but your sons have been, too, and not in the way that you would have wanted.” I grasped his hands, squeezing them tightly. “My friends don’t belong here. Ka
na’ti,” I called his name to claim his attention, “you have to help us.” He clasped his fingers around mine in return, speaking loud enough for the others to hear.
“There’s a path through the foyer that will bring you to the terrace.” He began and looked to Charlotte, Heather, and Iliana earnestly. “I’ll lead you to it.”
“Are we close?” I asked as I trailed him through the palace halls, meandering around corners and past walls that captured out shadows and threw them against the wooden panels.
“Almost.” He stopped abruptly as we came upon a spacious room and gestured to the towering double doors on the opposite side. “That’s the terrace.” I turned to Iliana.
“I’ll get the others.” She said and disappeared before my eyes.
“Okay.” I sighed, finally able to breathe. I let myself take in my surroundings for a moment, my eyes darting from the grand staircase behind us to the two armchairs encumbered with chocolate brown furs. The first was fairly worn, but the other—it looked like it hadn’t been touched for a very long time. I couldn’t help but stare at it and imagine what she must have been like—and how he lived without seeing her still sitting in that chair, smiling and laughing like she always had before. I felt his hand on my shoulder and jumped, and I bit my lip when I realized how terrified I still was.
“How did you know?” I blinked, not entirely sure what he was asking. “Who I was?” He added.
“Orion and Moongirl…” I smiled a little. “You were telling me since the night I met you.” He flashed me a grin of his own. “That and your acting. It’s Cedar Crest—not Hick Town, USA.” I added.
“Of course.” He chuckled and glanced at the empty old chair, suddenly sullen; and I knew what he was seeing. “You know—” He began, but Heather’s voice prevented him from finishing.
“What about them?” She turned to me. “They’re still out there.”
“I’ll take care of it—once you’re all home.” He promised her, and her eyes fell on my face before settling once again on his.
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