The Ravens

by Danielle Paige

  Halfway down the row, something in another case was glowing. Inside was a red cushion like those used to display jewelry in museums, but there was nothing on it—only the faint outline of a necklace.

  The outline was glowing.

  Vivi turned to look at the information card next to the case. “‘Decorative pendant. Origin uncertain. Also known as the Henosis talisman. Missing since 1997, presumed stolen.’ Oh my God,” Vivi whispered as her heart began to pound. The card included a photograph of a small blue glass oval with smaller ovals set into it. Like an evil eye, except the center wasn’t a black circle. Instead, it was a small, red seven-pointed star. Vivi pulled out her phone to take a photo and was just about to text Ariana when the sound of distant laughter made her start. “Ariana, is that you?”

  There was no answer save for another peal of laughter.

  Then the overhead lights began to flicker.

  On-off.

  On-off.

  On-off.

  “Ariana?” Vivi called again. The cold, numb feeling she’d felt looking at the doll returned, but this time, it didn’t seem to be emanating from a specific object—it felt like it was coming from the air itself, closing in on her, invading her every time she took a breath. She reached for the wall to find a light switch but instead of touching cool plaster like she’d expected, her fingers brushed against something hard, bumpy, and throbbing. The wall was moving. Vivi jerked her arm back with a gasp. “What the—”

  She aimed her cell phone flashlight at the wall and shrieked.

  The wall was swarming with enormous, dark brown cockroaches. They skittered over one another, spilling from the tops of cases. There were hundreds—no, thousands—of them, swelling in a wave toward Vivi, a dark mass dyeing the floor black.

  Vivi’s head swam with horror as she stepped back, her mind racing for an explanation. Another distant laugh echoed over the shuffling of the insects. We made her hallucinate spiders, Scarlett had said about Gwen. Maybe this was also magic.

  Vivi took off running toward the sound of laughter, her stomach roiling as her feet skidded over the insects. Not real. Not real. Not real, she told herself, praying it was true.

  She focused her energy on the overhead lights, repeating an incantation to turn them back on, and after a few tries, the lights blazed to life. She squinted into the glare and could just make out a dark-haired figure disappearing around a corner.

  A figure who looked exactly like Gwen.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Scarlett

  Scarlett could feel her classmates watching her as she hurried across the quad, though she wasn’t sure if their curiosity had been piqued by her unladylike haste or her decidedly uncharacteristic outfit. Scarlett hadn’t worn jeans on campus since she’d started at Westerly, and she hadn’t worn flats since Tory Burch ballet slippers went out of style, but for the first time in her life, she was too busy and exhausted to worry about what she looked like.

  Thirty-six hours had passed since Tiffany was taken, and the Ravens had found nothing. They’d scoured the archives, tried various summoning spells, called numerous alumnae from that time period—including Scarlett’s mother—but come up empty-handed. For her part, Scarlett had been secretly trying to track Gwen, but the girl hadn’t been back to her apartment in days. And when she’d tried scrying for her, Gwen hadn’t shown up anywhere, which was incredibly concerning. It meant she either was dead . . . or had somehow magically covered her tracks. Scarlett felt each second ticking past with the beat of her own heart. Each wasted minute was another one Tiffany was spending alone, consumed by terror and pain.

  Scarlett wasn’t used to feeling so powerless and she didn’t like it, but she was desperate enough to do something she liked even less—ask for help. That was why she was now walking across campus, taking long, purposeful strides. There were only a few minutes left before his class let out and she didn’t want to miss him.

  The moment the class doors swung open, she spotted him, squinting into the distance with the serious, intense gaze that always made him seem slightly out of place among the carefree Westerly students. “Come with me,” she instructed; she grabbed Jackson by the arm and led him onto a secluded path that looped behind the academic buildings.

  “Are you kidnapping me?” he asked with a mix of boredom and amusement, as if she were a puppy who refused to leave him alone.

  Scarlett winced at his choice of words, and Jackson’s face softened a tiny bit. “What’s going on?”

  The unexpected note of concern in his voice was almost enough to undo her, and to her dismay, she felt her eyes prickle. Get it together, she ordered herself. Crying in public wasn’t an option, let alone crying in front of Jackson. “Look, I know you don’t like me, and I don’t particularly like you either. But I think we could help each other now.”

  “Hey, I never said I didn’t like you.” Jackson stopped and raised his hands. “I just don’t trust Kappas. Any Kappa.”

  She didn’t ask him why. She didn’t need to. The guilt that had been her constant companion for two years fluttered once more in her chest, and her hastily erected defenses crumbled.

  “I am so sorry, Jackson. About what happened to Harper. I’m sorrier than I can ever tell you,” she said, forcing herself to meet his gaze despite the pain flashing across his face. “And you’re right . . . what happened was a horrible accident. If she hadn’t joined Kappa, she’d still be here.” That was as much as she could say.

  Jackson was quiet for a long moment, his jaw clenched. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded stiff, as if it was taking all his self-control not to shout. “It’s not just how she died, Scarlett. It’s everything that came before it. Harper and I were really tight. She was my family; we never kept secrets. Then she joined your sorority, and suddenly . . .” His gaze went distant, unfocused. “It’s like she became a different person. She had all this stuff she couldn’t tell me about. Secret traditions, late-night meetings nobody else was allowed to attend. The way she talked about the sisterhood, I’ll be honest, it sounded like she’d joined a cult or something.”

  The familiar knot of guilt expanded, pressing against her until it became uncomfortable to breathe. Immersing herself in the Ravens had made her own world so much larger and brighter; she’d never stopped to think about the people who’d been pushed into the shadows. “We can be a little tight-knit.”

  “It’s more than that, and you know it. The way you closed ranks after she died . . . even Gwen, who was supposed to be her best friend, would barely talk to me.” Jackson shook his head. “That’s why I came here, you know. This may come as a shock to you,” he said wryly, gesturing at his frayed jeans and Hendrix T-shirt, “but this preppy Southern campus wasn’t exactly my first choice. I was all set to go to Columbia when Harper died. But I knew I needed to come here if I was ever going to make peace with what happened.”

  His usual sardonic expression faded, and for a moment, Scarlett got a glimpse of the scared, confused boy who gave up his dreams to cling to his sister’s memory. To follow a ghost. But then a new stab of fear shot through her. “Did Gwen tell you anything?”

  Jackson shook his head. “We had this one conversation. But she just kept . . . I don’t know, choking up or something. I had never seen her like that. I know it’s traumatic for her, too. I mean, she was there. She almost died too. But I know her, and I know she wanted to tell me something. But she was so terrified and so scared . . . What would make her scared like that?” he said.

  Scarlett rifled through her brain for an excuse before she realized he wasn’t actually looking at her for an answer; he was just lost in his own memory.

  “After that she started avoiding me . . .”

  “So you started following her,” Scarlett said.

  Jackson crossed his arms, defensive. “You’re the one who broke into her apartment.”

  “Guilty.” Scarlett held her palms up. “It’s just that . . . well . . .” She hesitated, unsure if this was the right t
hing to do. Confiding in an outsider went against every tenet of Kappa. But he was the only person in the whole world who might know where Gwen would go, and finding Tiffany took precedent over every tradition and protocol. “Look, this is a secret—”

  “Shocker,” Jackson cut in.

  “I know, but this is really serious.” Scarlett inhaled and then in one long breath said, “One of my friends is in trouble. She went missing after Homecoming. We can’t go to the police—there was a note. It was really specific, and I think Gwen might have had something to do with it. I know you’ve been watching her too, and if there’s anything you’ve found out or anything weird you’ve seen, I need you to tell me.”

  “You think Gwen took your friend?” Jackson asked, his skepticism bordering on disdain. “Why would she do that? What did you do to her?”

  Scarlett forced herself to maintain her composure. For all Jackson knew, Gwen was a scared, fragile girl who’d suffered a major trauma. He had no idea what she was really capable of. “It’s . . . complicated. But I promise, I don’t want to hurt Gwen. I just want to help my friend.”

  “You’re going to have to give me a lot more than that. If she’s hiding from you, she probably has a damn good reason.”

  Her fingers itched, prickling with the anticipation of magic. Out of respect for Harper, she was going to give Jackson one chance to work with her, but she was prepared to use magic if she needed to. Altering someone’s free will was against the rules, but now was not the time to worry about coloring inside the lines. “She’s not safe on her own. I think there’s a chance she could hurt herself and anyone she has with her.”

  “Why would she do that?” Jackson’s voice was still hard, but the defiant look on his face was fading.

  “I’m not entirely sure, but I can’t risk losing another sister.”

  Jackson closed his eyes, and for a moment, Scarlett panicked, thinking she’d gone too far. As close as the Ravens were, her losses were nothing compared to Jackson’s. Finally, he sighed. “There’s a cabin out on Skidaway Island,” he said wearily. “I’ve followed her there before. She goes at least once every couple of weeks.”

  Scarlett dug inside her purse for her car keys. “Think you can find the place again?”

  * * *

  “It just occurred to me we are doing the absolute opposite of everything we learned from horror movies,” Jackson said after a few minutes of scanning through her radio presets and giving crisp directions.

  “This isn’t a horror movie. And there are two of us and only one of her,” Scarlett countered.

  “Easy for you to say. You’re the Final Girl and I’m that poor sap who called shotgun. If I remember right, it doesn’t turn out well for my character.”

  “Depends on the movie. There are a few where the boy survives too.”

  “Name one.”

  “Cary Elwes in Saw, Bruce Campbell in The Evil Dead, Corey Feldman in—”

  “Friday the Thirteenth: The Final Chapter.” He gave a low whistle. “Scarlett Winter knows her horror movies. Are we in the Upside Down now?”

  “You don’t know me, Jackson. You just think you do.”

  “So educate me.”

  She sighed, not really wanting to get into it. But he’d agreed to help her and she owed him, even more than he knew. “The woman who helped raise me loved horror flicks. She liked screaming at the screen, telling the characters to be smarter when inevitably they did something not so smart to keep the plot moving, like splitting up or making out when they knew a killer was on the loose.”

  Jackson laughed. “I always sort of wanted to write a horror movie. I thought I’d be the next Stephen King or something, but then my real life kind of took a plot twist.”

  “You’re a writer?” she asked. At first she was surprised, but when she thought about it, it made sense. He was smart—he was the only person in class whose answers were almost as elegantly constructed as her own, and he certainly was quick.

  He shrugged. “Not anymore.”

  “I’m sure Harper wouldn’t want you to stop doing what you loved.”

  Jackson’s expression hardened. “What Harper would have wanted was to still be alive. But given that she’s not, she would want me to track down whoever did this to her and make sure they were locked away for the rest of their lives. That’s what she would want.”

  “You’re right. I have no right to presume what Harper wanted,” Scarlett admitted. She’d bristled every time someone had told her how to grieve after Minnie died.

  “I always thought once I put this to rest, once I knew what really happened, I would get back to it. But what used to matter to me before matters a whole lot less now.”

  Scarlett took this in. Her plans. Mason. Being president of Kappa. That all did pale now in the shadow of what had happened to Tiffany. And what they’d done to Harper. “I’m so sorry, Jackson.”

  He shrugged again. “Not your fault. All you’re doing is fighting for your sister. I shouldn’t have taken the fact that I lost mine out on you.”

  Scarlett swallowed her guilt. Part of her—the good part of her, the part that came from Minnie—wished she could tell him the truth. At the same time, the worst part of her—the part that had let herself keep this horrible secret for two long years—was grateful that she couldn’t. Grateful that she was bound by the secrecy of magic. By her vow to her sisters. She knew she was taking the easy way out, but how could she ever tell him without explaining who—what—she really was?

  When she looked back at Jackson, he was staring out the window pensively. They didn’t talk again for the rest of the drive.

  * * *

  “Maybe we should knock.” Jackson’s voice sounded thin, unsteady.

  They stood deep in the forest of the island park near Savannah about five feet from the door of the most rundown, horror-movie-looking cabin she’d ever seen. This far into the woods, it looked like twilight already. The trees cast shadows over the gravel path and the sagging wooden porch up ahead.

  The looming dusk only made the cabin look more forbidding. A bundle of thorns was nailed over the door. The windows were marred with dark streaks. Paint peeled from the wood siding in long furls. There was a stain on the porch that looked almost like blood. Are you in there, Tiff? The words were more like a prayer than a question. Scarlett closed her eyes, trying to pick up on a trace of magic, but the air felt dry and thin—the opposite of how it felt when Tiffany was nearby.

  Scarlett realized just how far they were from help—or an escape route. They’d parked at a small turnoff about a ten-­minute hike from the cabin. They hadn’t passed a single house on the way here. The trees were scrubby and gnarled, the grass long and untended. The only signs of life were the shards of broken beer bottles and cigarette butts underfoot. There was one area where a perfect circle had been burned into the grass. It was blackened and charred and devoid of vegetation, almost like the earth itself had been cursed.

  The cabin appeared just as lifeless. There were no cars parked in the gravel driveway, no lights on inside.

  “And say what?” Scarlett said. “‘Hello there, seen a strange girl around, possibly dragging a kidnapping victim?’” Nothing was going to stop her from finding Tiffany. She had to get inside. Now.

  “Do you have a better plan?” Jackson asked. He cast another look at their surroundings. “Maybe we should just go. I have a bad feeling about this, Scarlett.”

  So did she, and she had a whole lot more magical senses at her disposal. “If you don’t want to come with me, just wait here,” Scarlett said, and then she took off, striding toward the front door before she could rethink this.

  Her scalp itched. Her feet pricked as though from a thousand pins and needles. She’d felt this before. It was a protection spell trying to make her turn around, flee. Shadows danced at the edges of her vision, like spiders skittering along the eaves, as she stood on the porch.

  It’s not real, she told herself. Just a spell to drive away unwanted visitors
. Nothing more. Nothing that could actually hurt her.

  The floorboards of the cabin’s porch creaked behind her, and Scarlett gasped, whipping around. But it was only Jackson, climbing the steps. “I can’t let you face a haunted house alone,” he said.

  “Trust me, I can take care of myself,” Scarlett replied as she scanned the front door. Simple key lock. Good.

  “That’s not in doubt,” Jackson said, leaning against the wall of the cabin with his arms crossed. She pulled a pin from her hair and knelt before the door, careful to obstruct his view of what she was doing. She concentrated hard as she pretended to pick the lock. The lock made a soft click; she glanced up at him to catch the look of appreciation on his face, then tested the handle. It turned in her grasp. She hoped he assumed this was due to her lock-picking skills—skills she did not have. It was pure magic. And a little acting. She took a deep breath and pushed the door inward.

  It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. All the windows had blackout curtains pulled tightly across them. The dim light filtering in through the door illuminated a rickety wood table with two chairs, the only furniture in the room. An unused, cobwebbed kitchen stood off to the side, a gap where presumably the stove used to be. She peeked into a tiny bedroom off the main room that had nothing in it but an overturned crate. There was a small den with a burnt-orange couch that looked like it’d lost some of its stuffing to mice.

  Shoved in the corner, between the couch and the wall, was a cardboard box. It looked newer than the rest of the objects, less dusty and decrepit. Scarlett crossed the room quickly and peeked inside. Her heart sped up when she saw the contents: a cheap-look­ing black polyester robe and witch’s hat, just like the ones the burning scarecrows had been wearing. Nestled below them was a garish set of tarot cards. Scarlett quickly flipped through it. The Queens of Swords, Wands, Pentacles, and Cups were missing. So, ominously, was the Death card.

  A whisper of triumph ran through her. She was right. It’d been Gwen all along. But her satisfaction drained away a moment later, replaced by the grim realization that she still didn’t know where Gwen was and that Tiffany was still in danger.