The poltergeist looked in his direction. Before I could lose his attention entirely, I broke in, “What about me? You tried to kill me too. Why don’t you think I’m good enough?”
His eyes snapped back to me.
“You’re a kid,” he scoffed.
“So? I’m not an idiot,” I told him, then I pointed to the basil again. “And I would never sell crap like that. I’m not looking to cheat anybody.”
To my shock, I realized that was true.
“Give me a shot,” I challenged him. “Let me open the place, get it running. If you don’t like the way I do business, you can ask me to leave. And I’ll go. But no more fire.”
Bradley crossed his arms and rocked back on his heels—odd, considering that he was floating above the floor. He did not respond.
“And no more breaking things, or flying around scaring customers,” I added, recalling his stunt with Autumn and Royce. “An out-of-control poltergeist is not good for business.”
The ghostly eyes narrowed.
“You can’t make me leave.”
I paused, wondering once again what had happened to cause the first Depot fire. I was becoming morbidly curious about it, but I didn’t dare ask him about it now. Not when I was finally starting to make progress. He had totally lost it the last time I brought the subject up. But why would Bradley want to stay in the place where he had died?
Filing that question away for later, I squared my shoulders and said, “I never told you to leave. You can stay, if it means that much to you.”
I heard Kellen draw in a surprised breath, just as Talya grabbed my hand. But I ignored him and shook her off.
“You can stay,” I repeated. “But you have to behave. No more fire.”
As Bradley pondered my offer, I thought about what I was getting into. I had no illusions about what would happen to me if I got on Bradley’s bad side. He was the type who would get what he wanted or burn the world down in a rage-filled snit if he didn’t. Without feeling guilty about a thing.
Luckily, I was quite well versed in dealing with that personality type.
“What’s your name?” Bradley asked me.
I looked sideways at Talya, thinking about Gayle’s thing about names and power. Talya shrugged.
“Macie,” I told him. “My name is Macie.”
“Okay, Macie,” Bradley said, drawing out the pronunciation of my name as though he enjoyed playing with it. “I agree to your terms. But only because I find you . . . interesting.”
He flashed me that seeing-right-through-to-your-bones stare again, and I had a sudden flash of panic. Could ghosts sense Voids?
“Macie—” Kellen started to say something, but I stopped him with an upraised hand.
“Deal,” I said to the poltergeist. “Um, I guess we can’t shake hands, huh?”
“Guess not,” he said, gesturing to the trap all around him. “But you could let me out.”
I turned to Talya.
“Let him out,” I said. When she raised her eyebrows at me, I added, “Please.”
Talya said a few words and walked around both circles counterclockwise to open them. The moment she was finished, the poltergeist started to become more transparent.
“I’ll be seeing you,” he said to me, ignoring Talya and Kellen completely.
And then he vanished, with one last wisp of cold wind.
I turned triumphantly to Talya.
“That was amazing!” I exclaimed. “How did you—”
But Talya was not looking at me. Her wide-eyed, glassy stare was fixed on Kellen. Through him, actually. Beyond him.
“What is it?” I asked, unable to keep the eagerness out of my voice. “What do you see?”
Talya didn’t answer right away.
Kellen looked back and forth between us, his eyes wide with confusion. I wondered if he knew about Talya’s strange affliction. He seemed to have a way of knowing things, even things that people preferred to keep private. But judging by his expression, he had no idea what was going on.
“What do you see?” I asked her again.
When Talya did speak, it was to Kellen, not me.
“Your mother,” she began, then clamped a hand over her mouth.
Kellen’s eyes widened, and I saw his chest rise and fall as he drew in a deep breath.
“Say it,” he said.
It was obvious that she wanted to. Needed to, maybe. Her face was pinched from the pain of keeping her mouth shut.
She removed her hand.
“Your mother,” she repeated. Then she paused for a moment and closed her eyes. Like she was seeing it all unfold behind her eyelids. “She killed herself. And you think it’s your fault.”
What?
“I know it’s my fault,” Kellen corrected her. “Go on.”
“There was a pond,” Talya said. “Water lilies. Moss. You found her there. You tried to pull her body out of the water, but you couldn’t.”
“I was eight,” Kellen said. “I was small for my age.”
No, no. This was not what I had meant her to see at all . . .
What would Kellen have looked like at eight? Big blue eyes, scruffy brown hair. An angelic little boy. I was stricken by the image.
I could see shades of that boy now, in the seventeen-year-old who stood next to me. Gone was the cocky, swaggering do-gooder whom I had marked early on as a fraud. The pain in his eyes was real, just like at the funeral. But this was fresh. It could have happened yesterday.
What have I done?
“Why did she do it?” I couldn’t help but ask.
He looked over at me.
“Remember I told you that I’d seen a Void, that I knew what they were like? I was talking about my mother. She burned herself out. She was never the same after that. She just couldn’t live with it.”
“Why was that your fault?” I asked.
Kellen didn’t answer. He looked at Talya, daring her with his eyes to say it.
But Talya looked away and settled herself back onto the floor. If she had seen the rest of Kellen’s mother’s story, she wasn’t telling. I knew better than to ask.
Kellen leaned against the empty bookshelf at his back.
“So now you know. My deep dark secret. Everyone has one, right?”
My mind was reeling. Had I been reading him wrong this entire time? I had known that his Golden Boy act was just that, an act, from the moment I met him. But I had assumed he was using the act to cover up something nefarious, something deceitful.
Like me.
Guilt gnawed at my insides like acid. Was I really so far gone? Had I prayed to Laverna one too many times, so that now she threw a veil over my thoughts as well as my misdeeds?
“Anyway.” Kellen interrupted my self-pummeling with an attempt at a light tone. “Wow, Talya. That’s some gift you have there.”
“I’d hardly call it that,” Talya said. “A curse, more like. I’m sorry. I can’t help what I see. And ritual work makes it impossible for me to control what I say.”
Kellen glanced at me then.
He knows. He’s never going to forgive me. He probably shouldn’t.
He looked back over at Talya.
“No worries,” he said, and smiled. At least, it was a half smile.
“It’s late,” Talya pointed out.
When we got back downstairs, Kellen headed straight for the door. He opened it, said goodbye to Talya, then addressed me in a voice that contained no hint of his usual playful tone.
“Second lesson. Tomorrow. Early. The Tor.”
“Okay.”
He left without looking at me.
Talya slung her duffel bag onto her shoulder.
“Thank—” I started.
“Did you get what you needed?” she hissed. “From him?”
“I—”
“Because the next time you’re going to use me like that, I’d appreciate a little heads-up.”
“I—”
“You could have asked, you know. I w
ould have said yes.”
“I—”
I cut myself off that time. I had no idea what to say.
“’Night, Macie,” she said icily, and slammed the door shut behind her.
Chapter Seventeen
I didn’t dream of Rafe that night, but that was probably because I didn’t sleep.
I lay there for a long time, in the dark, waiting for exhaustion to overtake me. But it never did. Finally I gave up, got up, and pulled out The Art of Raw Vegan Cooking.
I busied myself making a Lavender Cheez Cake. The result looked surprisingly edible, even though the recipe had called for ground-up cashews instead of cream cheese. Maybe I’d give it to Gayle. The only friend who wasn’t currently mad at me.
When the “cake” was done and setting in the fridge, I ground up a few sprigs of rosemary and steeped them into a tea. Then I sat, sipping and fidgeting, until the sun came up and it was time to head to the Tor.
I felt pretty lightheaded as I started walking. Probably because of all the tea. And the two sides of my brain that had been quietly warring all night continued their sparring, although I could have sworn that both of them were trying to cover yawns.
They’re marks, nothing more. Talya, Kellen, Gayle—all of them. They’re a means to an end. You’ll be leaving them behind soon anyway.
No. It’s different since Rafe. You know that.
The Tor was a modest mountain. More of a large hill, really, just north of downtown and west of the forest where Kellen had tried to kiss me. There was a winding path up the south side to the summit, which boasted a three-story stone bell tower and vast views in every direction.
Kellen was already there. He was sitting on the grass at the base of the tower, arms draped over his drawn-up knees, facing east. The sun was hitting him pretty much full in the face, but he didn’t seem to mind. He did not turn around as I approached.
I stopped a few paces behind him, nervous about what to expect. Kellen had not yelled at me the way Talya had, but he hadn’t been able to look me in the eye either. Maybe he was just waiting to chew me out in private. I deserved it, but that didn’t make me any more eager for the experience.
I looked warily at the back of his head. I had misjudged him, that was clear. But by how much?
“What do you know about ley lines?” he asked suddenly, still not turning around. How long had he known I was there?
“Ley lines?” I repeated. His voice had sounded normal, very Kellen-like, not angry at all. That gave me the courage to go over, drop down, and kneel beside him on the grass. “Not much.”
“Do you know what they are?” he persisted, still looking out to the east.
I followed his gaze. The day was clear and we could see for miles, to the arc of the wall that surrounded Witchtown and far beyond.
“Ley lines are invisible lines of power that crisscross the earth,” I answered. “People like to build things in places where the lines meet. Like, important spiritual places, monuments—”
“And towns,” Kellen interrupted. “Three ley lines converge right under this hill. That’s why Reginald Harris chose to build Witchtown here. It’s a very powerful place, spiritually speaking.”
“Oh,” I said.
He gestured to the tower behind us.
“Harris designed the tower, too. The bells are bewitched to ring of their own accord, if Witchtown is ever in danger.”
“Oh,” I said again. But privately, I was pretty sure that couldn’t be true.
After all, they hadn’t started ringing when I got to town.
Kellen turned his head and looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “I thought that since you have such trouble channeling power to yourself, I’d bring you to the power and see what happened. Lie down with me.”
“What?” I asked, skeptically.
Kellen straightened out his legs and lay on his back, resting his head on the grass.
“Lie down,” he repeated. “Flat on the ground. See if you feel anything.”
Trying not to think about bugs, I lay down and copied his pose, so that we were about an arm’s length apart on the hillside. I could have reached out and touched his left hand if I had wanted to. Part of me did want to, just to make him talk to me about something other than ley lines. But I settled my hand firmly on the grass beside my hip instead.
“Close your eyes,” he said, which I was already doing because the sun was shining almost directly into them. “Feel anything?”
“No,” I said honestly, squirming to get my shoulder blades into a more comfortable spot. “What am I supposed to feel?”
“Just wait,” Kellen said. “Give it time. Be still.”
I did as he said and stopped moving, trying to ignore a rock that was digging into my back. This whole exercise was pointless, but it hardly seemed like the time to complain. So I gritted my teeth and tried to enjoy the feeling of the sun on my face.
I’m not sure how long we lay there, side by side, before Kellen spoke again.
“Last night—” he began, then paused, and I held my breath, ready to defend myself. But all he said was, “The poltergeist. I thought we were there to banish him. But you let him stay. You were . . . kind to him.”
“That surprises you?” I asked. Why, because I wasn’t kind to you?
“I’m not sure he deserves it,” Kellen went on. “The things he’s done—”
“Everyone deserves a second chance,” I said. Then, thinking about it, I added, “Okay, maybe in his case it’s more like his third or fourth chance. But still. People can change.”
“You think so?”
“I hope so,” I muttered.
Kellen said nothing to that, and we lay in silence again for so long that I started drifting off. It’s hard to fight sleep when your eyes are already closed. I’m pretty sure I dozed. And I didn’t wake up until I heard Kellen’s voice again, closer this time.
“You knew Talya was going to see something about me, didn’t you?”
I opened my eyes. Kellen had rolled over onto his side and was looking at me.
I rolled over too so I was facing him. There was no need for me to respond. He already knew the answer.
“Why did you do it?” he asked.
The hurt that had been so evident in him at the Depot, the hurt that had eaten away at me while I tossed and turned and “baked” last night, was mostly gone now. He sounded more curious than anything else.
“Because I wanted to find out more about you,” I answered truthfully.
“You could have asked me,” he pointed out.
I looked away. Talya had said something similar. The truth was, the thought of asking either of them anything straight out had never occurred to me. I wasn’t used to people giving me what I wanted.
I was used to taking it.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “I had no idea. You can hate me if you want to. I’ll understand.”
“I don’t hate you,” he said slowly. “But maybe now you understand better why I think, why I know, you’re not a Void.”
I gritted my teeth again. It was wrong to be mad at him right now. Not when he had every reason in the world to be mad at me. But I couldn’t help it.
I sat up.
“Why are you so obsessed with proving that I’m not a Void? Why do you keep insisting that I am something more than I am?”
“Why do you keep insisting that you’re something less?”
He sat up as well, and he was very close. As close as he had been that night on the log. My nose was filled with the scent of juniper, and I had to stop myself from closing my eyes to breathe it in even deeper. I held his gaze, trying to give him my best steely-eyed glare.
“You don’t even know me. Why do you think you know so much about me?”
“Because I see you, Macie O’Sullivan.” He reached out a hand to cup my cheek. I was too lost between anger and guilt to do anything but freeze. “And I don’t think you see yourself at all. I know you don’t see what you really are.”
“Which is what, exactly?” Still unable to move, I dared him with my eyes.
He brought his other hand up to my face. His eyes were suddenly very soft in the bright sunlight.
“Beautiful,” he said simply. “Strong. A little bit too secretive, maybe. Way more suspicious than is healthy. But definitely the least empty person I’ve ever met.”
He kissed me, and his lips were surprisingly tentative, given his usual cockiness. But they were sincere, and as he pulled me into him, I felt myself letting go, letting my guard down. Forgetting my anger at him. Forgetting most of all that I was supposed to be here for one reason and one reason only, and that reason did not include forming yet another hopeless attachment.
Yet for all that, I was kissing him back. My lips parted against his and I felt my arms slip around his waist. For one moment, a blissful, heady moment, I believed the things he said about me. I was more than an empty, soulless vessel who would never be part of something bigger than herself. I was not a monster who used her friends and exposed their darkest secrets on a whim.
But then I saw a flash of Rafe, on his knees, clutching at his throat. His dark eyes were vacant. Scared but vacant. Frantically searching mine but finding nothing.
And then, suddenly, the eyes faded to a light blue. They became Kellen’s eyes, and the face around them became Kellen’s face. The empty, frightened look was even scarier on Kellen.
“No,” I moaned into his mouth.
I pushed him away.
I was empty. I was soulless.
“I can’t,” I gasped, and I vaguely recalled having said the same thing to him on initiation night. “I can’t—I can’t do this again!”
“Do what?” he exclaimed, breathless and confused. The faintest bit of hurt crossed his face and I ached with it.
“I can’t,” was all I could say. I lowered my head, tears clouding my eyes.
“It’s that guy, isn’t it? The one from before.”
I hung my head, not contradicting him, even though it wasn’t Rafe. Not really. Not in the same way it had been the first time. Shaken loose, my tears fell onto the ground between us. Like rain. Like the rain that had come down that night. So hard, so unrelenting . . .
I felt a hand lift my chin, and Kellen was staring down at me. Hurt. A little bit angry. Frustrated in the extreme.
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