I had to look up to meet her eyes; she was wearing the damn heels again.
“Angelica?” she asked, quietly, so that only Kellen and I could hear. She giggled mockingly. “Nice try. You didn’t think something so trivial was really going to get in my way, did you?”
“It was worth a shot,” I said, trying not to flinch as she glared at me. “What are you doing, anyway?” I demanded, gesturing toward Kellen’s dad. “What happened to trying to open the vault?”
“I warned you about what would happen if you interfered,” she reminded me, ignoring my question. “You really think you can hack it on your own?”
“I’m not afraid to try,” I told her, struggling to keep a lid on my temper.
I felt Kellen take my hand and squeeze it. I could practically hear him imploring me to keep my mouth shut. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. As much as I wanted to rip off the moonstone and scream right up into her face, as loud as I possibly could, that I knew, I couldn’t do it. Not without risking everything.
Because Talya was still buried in the Archives, looking for a way to break the spell. And until she found something, we were all at my mother’s mercy.
My mother mistook my momentary silence for uncertainty. And she moved in for the kill.
“You know,” she said, reaching out a hand to touch the side of my face. “If it wasn’t for the fact that I gave birth to you, I would never believe you were my daughter. You don’t have any sense at all. You haven’t even figured out the truth about your boyfriend, have you?”
“What?” I asked, wary of this unexpected line of attack.
She turned taunting eyes onto Kellen.
“Ask him who his father is.”
I looked at Kellen. His hand was still in mine. He was glaring a warning at my mother, who was smiling sweetly back at him.
I rolled my eyes.
“I’ve met his father,” I informed my mother. “I know him. And you made it pretty clear tonight that you know him even better. What of it?”
But Aubra wasn’t looking at me; she was still smiling at Kellen, as though this conversation were entirely between the two of them.
“Your uncle has such interesting pillow talk, Kellen. Not that he remembers telling me anything, of course.”
“Uncle?” I repeated, sucking in a deep breath. “Kellen, what is she talking about?”
“Tell her,” my mother commanded him, her fake smile fading. “Tell her who you are and why you’re here. Tell her who your real father is.”
I looked over at Kellen and waited for him to contradict her, to tell her she was mistaken.
But he didn’t. His expression was impossible to read: the only other time I had seen his face this devoid of humor was when he had told me about his mother.
If any of that was even true.
He turned to me.
“I’m not going to lie to you, Macie,” he said.
He was still holding my hand; I ripped it away from him.
“Who is your father?” I asked. My voice sounded toneless, dead.
With the barest of glares over at my mother, Kellen squared his shoulders and stood up tall. There was not even a hint of an apology on his face or in his voice when he turned to me and said, “My father is the minister who leads the group camped outside of the wall. I moved here two years ago, with my uncle, so we could tell him what was going on in Witchtown. I am the spy.”
I turned away. I didn’t really have a destination in mind, just anywhere but here. My thoughts were churning and I was never going to be able to make sense of things with both of them just staring at me like that.
It was hours until the official Solstice Eve celebration was supposed to start. But a four-piece string band had already set up on the outskirts of the square. Talya’s uncle Odin was front and center, plucking a huge cello and singing. Royce was right beside him, on guitar. And even though everyone was supposed to be setting up, the dancing had already started. I skirted around the makeshift dance floor, intending to give the music a wide berth.
Just behind the band I caught sight of Percy, sitting glumly in the shadows. He was holding a bottle of something and staring, slightly cross-eyed, at the ground.
I turned away, unable to deal with yet more evidence of my mother’s wake of destruction. But before I could take another step, I felt a tug on my wrist. I was pulled into strong arms and hauled onto the dance floor.
Kellen.
“Just listen,” he said quickly, holding me trapped in dance position. One arm was wrapped like an iron band around my waist, the other was holding my arm out to the side, my hand in his. He wasn’t hurting me, but his grip made it clear that I had little hope of escaping him. Not without making a scene.
“I’ll scream,” I threatened.
“If you tell them what you know,” he said quietly, cocking his head at the whirling couples all around us, “I’ll tell them what I know. And who do you think they’ll believe? You or me?”
He had me there. No one in Witchtown would believe their charming Kellen was a secret Zealot spy. He wasn’t the kind of person it was easy to believe bad things about. Just look how long it had taken me to find out the truth about him. Even Gayle loved him.
“I’m not trying to scare you,” he said, pulling me closer and talking directly into my ear. “I just want to explain myself.”
“Fine,” I said through gritted teeth, trying to ignore the familiar scent of juniper and how warm I felt in his arms. “Go ahead and explain. But I won’t believe any of it. You lied to me.”
He laughed at that, a laugh that was full of genuine amusement. He seemed to have recovered, somewhat, from my mother’s assault.
“You’ve been lying to me since the day we met!” he pointed out. “You’re only mad at me now because you found out I’m better at it than you are.”
“You are not better at it.”
“Yes, I am,” he said, saying it as though it was an obvious fact. And I was bothered, to the point of fury, by the truth of it. He had really had me going. Luring me in with his ridiculous Prince Charming−Eagle Scout routine. Making me feel guilty for suspecting him. Playing me. The entire time, playing me. He was a Laverna-blessed God of Liars, complete with an irresistible grin and nice arms.
And yet, part of me was glad that the dancing was giving me an excuse to be close to him.
Get a grip, Macie.
I wasn’t sure if that was my mother’s voice in my head or my own, but either way it seemed like good advice. Until he pulled me even closer, so that I was pressed up against him in a way that made it impossible to think clearly.
“Actually, I only lied to you once,” he said in my ear. “When I told you I didn’t like you. But you knew that wasn’t true. And as for the rest of it, I didn’t lie, exactly. I just didn’t tell you all of it.”
“What about the bullshit story about your mom?” I demanded.
I felt him wince, and I immediately regretted my words.
“That was true,” he said. He was still talking into my ear, so I couldn’t see his face. But I could imagine his expression, the sad, lost one I had seen after Talya’s ritual. In spite of everything, it tugged at my heart. “I found her dead and I ran away. I was only eight, so I didn’t get far. My uncle took me in. I’ve lived with him on and off over the years, whenever it became impossible for me to be under the same roof as my father.”
“Why didn’t Talya see that?”
“I don’t know,” he said thoughtfully. “Maybe she doesn’t see every secret at once. Or maybe she only sees your biggest ones?”
Or maybe she saw and didn’t tell me.
That was something to think about later.
I thought back to the night when the Zealots had invaded Witchtown, to the priest on the roof who had been reading the Bible. Kellen’s father—how could that possibly be Kellen’s father?
“You said what happened with your mother was your fault,” I reminded Kellen. “How did she burn herself o
ut?”
He drew a deep breath.
“My mother was a Natural. But she never told my father. She knew he wouldn’t—couldn’t—understand. She taught me, starting when I was very young. It was our secret.”
He paused. I could feel his breath on my cheek. Warm, just like that time in the woods when he had tried to kiss me. And the time on top of the Tor, when he had actually kissed me. I tensed, steeling myself not to believe him.
He lied to you. He’s a liar.
But had he? Was he? He said he hadn’t lied. And so far, he hadn’t contradicted himself.
I couldn’t blame him for keeping secrets. Not without being incredibly hypocritical.
“I wasn’t supposed to do magic by myself,” Kellen continued, his voice even softer than before. “But one day, my father caught me practicing in my room. He must have always suspected what was going on, because he knew what I was doing immediately. Later I heard them fighting, heard him say he was leaving her and taking me with him. So she Voided herself. On purpose. I don’t know how she did it, exactly, but she must have reached for some power she knew she couldn’t control. Because after that she was never the same. She was gone. Empty.”
“And you think that’s your fault?” I asked. My heart was breaking with the pain in his voice. In spite of the fact that he was basically holding me captive on the dance floor.
“I know it is,” he muttered. “If it wasn’t for me, she’d still be alive. How much clearer can it get?”
You were eight! I wanted to scream. Even if you had gone to your father and told him everything—which you didn’t—You. Were. Eight. You didn’t know any better.
But instead of saying that out loud, I blurted out another thought.
“If all that’s true, then how can you spy for him? How can you be a witch and help him?”
“How can you ask me that?” he snapped. “You of all people? Do I really need to explain to you the twisted psychology of trying to prove yourself to a parent who’s impossible to please?”
Damn him, he had me again. But I wasn’t about to let it show.
“Is that what you’re doing here? Spying to please Daddy?”
“Partly. It was an opportunity. To live in Witchtown, to be a part of the world my mother belonged to. What’s wrong with that? And as long as I’m here, I can ensure that he and my uncle don’t do any major damage.”
“Oh, is that what you’ve been doing? Protecting us all?”
“Yes. And I’ve been doing a damn fine job of it. Better than you, anyway.”
“Sabotaging the grapes? Poisoning the water with rowan? Calling up a locust swarm? You call that protecting people?”
“No, none of that was me. And it wasn’t my uncle or my father either. The worst we’ve ever done is sneak my father and some of his cronies into town so they can interrupt rituals, like on the night of your initiation. All of those other things, they weren’t us. And I will swear to that by any God or Goddess you want.”
“Then who’s doing all these things?” I asked.
“I don’t know. We don’t know. I’ll swear to that, too.”
I bit my lip and stared hard at his shoulder. The locusts, in particular, had seemed pretty biblical, pretty Christian, to me.
But I believed him. In spite of everything, I believed him.
He stopped dancing and pulled away a little bit. I looked up at him. I had no idea what to say, but I felt like one of us should say something. Instead, we just stared at each other. A long minute went by, until he finally released my right hand and reached up to touch my cheek. His left arm was still around my waist, keeping me close to him.
“This town is a haven for me too,” he said quietly. “And you may like to pretend you’re this unfeeling, hardened criminal, but no matter what you say, I know you feel the same. You don’t want to let your mother burn it down, and neither do I. Can we at least agree on that? Enough to try and stop her?”
“You’re a Zealot,” I said accusingly. “How can I trust you?”
He scoffed. He was still touching my cheek.
“I’m not a Zealot, I’m a Christian. There’s a difference. And I’m a witch, too. Call it whatever you want, Macie, it’s just religion. They’re all the same. That’s one thing I learned from being in both worlds. Witchcraft, Christianity, they’re all about believing in something greater than yourself. The rest is just details.”
I rolled my eyes. This was so not the moment to discuss religious philosophy.
“It doesn’t matter if I can trust you or not,” I informed him. “Don’t you get it? No matter what I do, she’s always one step ahead of me. She always has been. She knows me better than I know myself. We’re not going to be able to stop her!”
“Look, I get that you’re mad. But for right now, this moment, we’re on the same side. We can’t just let her win. This isn’t like all those other towns, Macie. Your eyes are open now. You can’t pretend you don’t know the things that you know.”
I bit my lip and said nothing. His words made something click into place in my head even though he was wrong. People conveniently blinded themselves almost constantly. Like the mayor, ignoring Percy’s obvious affair with my mother. Like Talya, willfully blinding herself to Royce’s devotion to Autumn. And Bradley, who was clearly hiding from whatever had happened in the first Depot fire. It’s easier that way. People pretend not to know inconvenient truths all the time.
I could do it too, if I wanted to. Only I wouldn’t have to pretend.
She would believe me if I told her I wanted to forget.
I found my mother on the edge of the ritual area. She was standing there calmly, a smug expression on her face. As though she had been waiting for me.
“Well?” she said impatiently.
“You were right,” I said quietly. “Things are different now. I’ve changed.”
She drew in an annoyed breath.
“But I don’t like it,” I added, before she could say anything else. Looking down at my feet, I bit my lip and added, “I want things to be the way they were.”
When I looked up at her again, she had crossed her arms and was waiting for me to continue. I took a deep breath.
“I’ve been thinking about this a lot. And I want you to erase him.”
“Erase who?”
“Rafe,” I said, and his name stuck somewhere in my throat. “I should’ve listened to you when we got here. I should have put him out of my head. I shouldn’t have let myself be paralyzed by thoughts of someone who wasn’t even thinking about me.”
She said nothing, just continued to eye me as though she was trying to figure out the catch.
“Rafe was where it started,” I went on. “Where I changed. I want you to take him out of my head. Every single, solitary memory of him. And then, everything will be like it was before. I know it will.”
She still didn’t say anything. So I went on.
“Then I’ll help you. Whatever you want to do in Witchtown, I’ll help you. But when we’re done, I want you to take away my memories of that, too. All of it. Kellen, Talya, Gayle, Aimee—all of them. All of Witchtown. Like none of it ever happened.”
She drew in a breath, buying time to think my offer through. She narrowed her eyes and looked at me, as though she was trying to read my thoughts. I knew that she couldn’t, but it still felt like someone was stirring the contents of my brain with a sharp stick.
Finally she said, “I’ll need somewhere private for the ritual. Our apartment isn’t big enough.”
I let out a relieved sigh.
“We can use the Depot.”
She shook her head immediately, shuddering a little. Before she could refuse out loud, I added hastily, “I took care of the poltergeist.”
She looked doubtful.
“You did?”
“I did,” I assured her. “Ask Gayle if you don’t believe me.”
She considered this.
“Well . . . all right, then. I have a few preparations
to make. They shouldn’t take long. I’ll meet you at the Depot at six o’clock.”
“Okay,” I said, giving her a very small smile.
She turned to go, then turned back around suddenly. I stiffened, fearing the worst.
“Six o’clock,” she repeated. “If you’re not there, Macie, so help me—”
“I’ll be there,” I promised. “I swear I’ll be there.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
A couple of minutes after six o’clock, there was a knock on the door of the Depot.
“Macie?” my mother’s voice called out.
“Come in!” I called.
She opened the door and popped her head inside.
“Why’s it dark in there?” she asked apprehensively.
“I’m just coming down from upstairs,” I assured her. “Come on in.”
She took a few tentative steps inside, then stopped.
“What’s going on?”
I shivered as the temperature in the room plummeted and an icy wind rushed past my head.
Bradley materialized just above my mother’s head. She didn’t appear to notice him. Not until he leaned down and spoke directly into her ear, using the same fierce whisper he had used on me the first time I had dared to enter Stan’s place.
“Pleased to meet you, Ms. O’Sullivan.”
My mother screamed; a shrill, ear-piercing scream that made me jump. All my life she had told me how terrified she was of ghosts, but I had never before seen her encounter one. And this was an Aubra I never could have imagined; she was pale, small, and shaky. And quite pathetic, what with all the shrieking.
She bolted for the door but Bradley blocked her. She spun around, searching for another exit, but Bradley was there too, hovering just above the floor with his arms crossed, shaking his head slightly at her antics.
“Macie!” my mother cried, finally seeming to remember I was there. “Help me! Please!”
“The light switch,” I said from the corner, where I was safely out of the way. “The light will send it away. Hit the switch!”
I had left a candle burning beside the closest light switch. My mother spotted it and bolted straight for it, then pounced on it like her life depended on it.
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