“Really.” She lowered her voice for dramatic effect. “Peering into that glittering vertical wound large enough to drive my SUV through, I had a feeling. It was like standing at the precipice of a cliff, staring across a long, teetering bridge. And the most disconcerting part was realizing that someone could be standing on the other side, looking back, thinking the exact same thing.”
“Someone?”
She pulled the door open. “You’ve got a lot to learn, Mister Director. Get your lanyard first. Then we’ll talk.”
When a grimoire reaches a certain point it becomes aware. Not sentient—that’s too strong a word—but they’ve been known to expand. Once a grimoire is full, additional pages sometimes appear to accommodate more spells and journal entries.
Some say that before the Library of Alexandria burnt down, it housed a grimoire that had been adding pages to itself for seven hundred years. It apparently got so large that no single person could lift it. A grimoire is like a Scriveners journey: a story that’s never quite complete.
– Passage in The North Valley Grimoire
31. Fortune Favors
“LAST DAY,” Kaz sighed.
Calista slammed her locker for the final time. “I like to think of it as the first day of the rest of my life.” She’d already cleaned it out; her few belongings were zipped into her knapsack, flung over her shoulder.
“Why are you so chipper this morning?”
“I don’t know,” she said, rolling the question over in her mind. Her final day at Hawthorne was filling her with warm waves of relief—even the occasional pang of nostalgia.
She’d faced horrific enemies. She’d battled her demons. And she’d channeled Blood magick to save the lives of her friends. After all of that, surviving high school no longer felt like the obstacle it once had (although sitting through the graduation ceremony might be her tipping point; she joked that if Reagan Caldwell used the phrase ‘The future is in our hands’ during her valedictorian speech, she was going to torch the stage with a hellfire enchantment … Kaz didn’t laugh).
“Do you ever get the sense that things are going to work out?” Calista said.
Kaz grumbled. “Not really.”
“Oh, boo-freaking-hoo.” She listed off the ivy league schools on her outstretched fingers. “Yale, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth. Have you even picked one yet?”
“Wanna know what my parents said when they saw my acceptance letters?”
“What?”
“Where’s the one from Harvard?”
“Yeesh.” Calista winced. “That’s harsh.”
Kaz slammed his door and snapped the combination lock into place out of habit. It’s not like he’d be coming back. “They’re going to be even more upset when I tell them about my year off.”
“An off-year? Is that allowed?” Calista could only imagine Mr. and Mrs. Hayashi’s reaction. She suggested Kaz break the news via Email for his personal safety—possibly from a different state.
“Remember when we got caught in that self-reflection barrier,” Kaz said, “and it showed us our worst fears? Mine was talking to my parents. I was in my kitchen telling them what I wanted to do with my life, and it shook me to my core.”
Calista laughed. “I’ve met your mom. I don’t blame you.”
“Well, school will have to wait, because I’m giving competitive gaming a try. I’m kicking some serious ass at First Person Shooters, and I’m only practicing a couple hours a week. If I work at it full time I have a shot at winning a tournament.”
“You should do what makes you happy. And school will always be there next year.”
“Just not Harvard,” he said with a groan.
They made their way down the sparsely attended hall. It was their last class ever—might as well show up for posterity. And who knows? She might even get someone to sign her yearbook. Stranger things have happened in the hallowed halls of Hawthorne. Much stranger.
“While you’re fretting about getting the brush-off from Crimson,” Calista said, “I’ll be lucky to receive an acceptance letter from Burger King.”
“Don’t be like that.” Kaz shouldered up to her, giving her a gentle nudge.
“Hey, it’s all good,” Calista said. “I’m not complaining. I have my own projects to work on.”
“I’m sure you do. Now that school is out, where are you going to hide the ‘you-know-what’?”
He was referring to her grimoire, stashed in a vacant locker on the second floor next to the computer lab. She’d enchanted the combination lock; anyone attempting to clip it off would be electrocuted, and three wrong attempts at unlocking it would cause the offender’s hand to burn like they were touching a stovetop. She’d also done what Jackson had failed to do: add a failsafe. If someone besides herself or Kaz tried to open the cover, the book would turn to sand. It was an extreme measure, but losing the knowledge locked in the grimoire was a better alternative than letting the volume fall into the wrong hands.
Calista had expected Malek to confiscate the grimoire after the rooftop incident. She’d handed it over willingly, repentantly, and he handed it right back. He said she’d earned it, along with his trust. As it turned out, Malek had a sort of reverence for the fraternity between Scriveners, and adhered to the unwritten code that when one magickal adept bequeathed a grimoire to another, that was that: they were the rightful owner. Besides, if their double-agent gambit went ‘arse over tits’ as he so succinctly put it, he’d be the first one to have his house raided and his life put under a microscope. Despite her previous negligence, her hands were still the safest.
“Guess I’ll have to come up with a new hiding spot,” Calista said. “I’m creative. I’ll think of something.”
Kaz chuckled. “I have no doubt.”
A knot of students ambled outside of history class, chatting and texting, awaiting the bell. A familiar face emerged from the crowd. She’d tied her fiery locks into a braid, and—for some reason—was wearing a school uniform. Was it possible she’d been bitten by the nostalgia bug, too?
“Aphra,” Calista blurted out.
Kaz was occupied with his Email. “What about her,” he murmured, tapping a message with both thumbs.
“She’s here.”
She was an arm’s reach away when he finally raised his chin.
Aphra flashed a curl of her lips.
“I-I thought you were gone,” he stammered, his words spilling out so fast they nearly collided with each other. “After what happened on the rooftop, and with Mister Degray, and the blood—” He froze mid-sentence, realizing a few classmates were casting curious sidelong glances in his direction.
Aphra tapped a quick message on her tablet.
“Of course.” He stood fast, gawking for a few moments. Then he blinked twice and pointed his thumb towards an empty corner of the hall. “Should I give you two some privacy?” His eyes flicked between the girls before shuffling off, fumbling and nearly dropping his phone.
Aphra tapped away at her device.
Calista folded her arms across her chest. “Yeah, well, anyone would have done the same.”
“I assumed that. I was just being polite.”
The verbal jab didn’t faze Aphra. She continued typing.
She glanced up from her tablet and caught Aphra’s gaze, brows arched, eyes wide with concern. It was as if she actually cared.
Calista nodded. “Yup. Never better.”
Aphra admitted, looking a little bashful as she typed.
“I heard,” Calista said. “Malek said you’ve made great progress. And I know summonings can’t be …” she searched for a suitable word, but none came to mind. She settled on, “removed.”
She stole a quick glance over Aphra’s shoulder to ensure they didn’t have an audience. They were well out of earshot; the students began filing into class, followed by a tall husky gentleman clad in tweed, sporting a wispy blond comb-over. Must be a substitute.
“Good. The hex wasn’t meant to be fatal. I dispelled it with a wave of my hand and one word of Aramaic, right there in front of the doctors. You should’ve seen their faces when Frank jumped up like nothing had happened.”
The staff at Wilson Memorial Hospital were under the impression Frank had contracted some rare, yet-to-be-named disease, transmitted by South American mosquitoes—a story made all the more believable after an article appeared in the local newspaper, courtesy of the Agency’s Media Control Division.
She exhaled through her nostrils and sagged against the wall. “I wish I knew.”
Aphra tilted her head, lips pursed. Give me details.
“He went back to California shortly after the …” she stole another cursory glance around the hall. “After what happened on the roof.” The Agency had set it up as a mugging to explain the cracked ribs and black eye, and Beckett went along with the story—what was he going to do, tell his dad he’d been kidnapped as a sacrifice for a blood ritual and saw his teacher burst into flames? Calista went on. “Before he left, he blamed me for not telling him the truth about who I was. We haven’t spoken since. He wouldn’t return my texts, so I eventually gave up trying. I don’t know if he’ll ever forgive me. That’s the hardest part to live with.” Her heart had mended, but every once in a while a tightness clamped down on her chest at the sound of his name. This was one of those times.
She’d blamed her mother for keeping secrets and had resented Malek for doing the same. It was sobering to know that someone felt just as betrayed when her only intention was to keep them safe.
They exchanged glances for a tense moment until Aphra typed a final message.
Calista managed a tiny nod and forced an even tinier smile. “Yeah, we’re good here. Let’s quit while we’re ahead.”
Aphra stowed her tablet in her backpack. She reached into her collar and fished out a necklace with a glimmering green pendant. She unfastened the chain and extended it towards Calista, one clasp in each hand.
A gift? She expected a lot of things the next time she ran into Aphra: fisticuffs, a profanity-laced tirade, maybe an attempted murder. Of all the scenarios she envisioned, receiving jewelry was not on the short list. Calista could never forgive her, and they’d never be friends, but it was in her best interest to make nice.
She turned her back, scooping her hair aside. Delicate fingers brushed her neck, clasping the chain. The stone fell, cold against her skin.
The bell sounded. When she turned, Aphra was blending through the crowd that funneled into the room.
The students who had bothered to show up chatted and passed each other yearbooks while the substitute took attendance. He shushed the class between names, intent on maintaining a semblance of order.
As roll call continued, Calista rotated the stone in the sunlight. Emerald prisms reflected off her desk. The teacher hadn’t even reached ‘G’ on his list and the suspense was killing her. She twisted her fingers, bending them at strange angles, mimicking the notes she’d made in her grimoire.
She blinked. Her lids opened to reveal the vast sea of nothingness that stretched out to infinity, bright and overexposed.
Her mother stood a few paces away. She wore a floral sun dress and open-toed sandals—much more fashionable than her orange jumpsuit. Her hair was longer, pulled into a braid, and her sickly white pallor had been sun-kissed, giving her cheeks a healthy glow.
“Callie,” her mother beamed. “It’s you!”
“In the flesh,” Calista said. “Well, sort of.”
“I’ve missed you so much, but … what is this?” Julia groped for something solid, expecting to make contact with a transparent barrier—she looked like a mime trapped in an invisible box.
“It’s a charm. Like a mystical video chat.”
Her mother gazed out at the expanse, eyes wide. “I saw theoretical models, and I read about the convergence points, but I never imagined … is all magick like this?”
“Yeah, I’ve been there. It’s hard to wrap your head around. What do you remember?”
“My cell.” Julia looked up at where a sky should logically have been. “I remember drugs. Lots of drugs. And questions, three times a day, sometimes more. After a while, I wasn’t sure if I was awake or dreaming. Then one night I felt like I was tumbling underwater, pressure on my lungs, and then I saw you, on a rooftop, covered in blood. Mister Malek helped me, but I don’t remember boarding the plane that took me out of America. I landed half a day later, and a car picked me up from a landing strip. It drove through a tiny village with cobblestone streets, and then past farms, and then through a forest. Now I’m here.”
“How is Eastern Europe?”
“Beautiful.” She was smiling; a little wearily, but it was warm and genuine. “My cabin is gorgeous. I bike, I walk to the market, I read. I got a dog to keep me company. My Polish is still rusty, but I’m getting by.”
They were cut off from phones and Email for obvious reasons, and Calista wasn’t told which city her mother had been sent to. Malek thought it was safer that way; if she were ever questioned, she’d have plausible deniability.
Julia’s dazed fascination was temporary. It drained from her, replaced with a crushing sadness that etched deep into her features. “When Nolan and I crashed Morpheus, we thought we were helping. We didn’t realize the fallout would be … this.”
“You did the right thing, mom. You both did.” Crashing the servers in Gravenhurst came with a cost, but she couldn’t fathom the alternative. If a handful of people controlled a device that could read thoughts on a global scale, it wouldn’t have just been a violation of privacy, and freedom—it would’ve effectively been the end of it. “No one could’ve predicted the rift.”
“Callie, honey, I need to tell you something.” She reached out for her daughter’s hands, but they ghosted through. She let out a little gasp while the flesh-colored mist floated back into place.
Calista knew what her mother was going to say; might as well tear off the Band-Aid. “I know that Nolan Foxcroft is my father.”
Her mother’s face crumbled. “I planned to tell you when you were old enough to understand, but I held back. I made the wrong choice.”
Calista’s mind drifted to Hawthorne’s blood-drenched rooftop. She pictured Beckett, motionless, wide-eyed and ashen. “You wanted to protect me, and things went bad. It’s not your fault.”
“I wasn’t going to leave you,” Julia said breathlessly. She was trying to finish her thought quickly, as if she feared her daughter might evaporate as suddenly as she’d appeared. “Things were complicated between Nolan and I. He asked me to run with him—even made me a fake ID and a go-bag. He said you’d be safer here with Frank, away from all this madness. But I never would have left you alone to—”
“None of that matters,” Calista interrupted. “I just need you to hold on a little longer, because things will be better soon. I’m working with Malek.”
Julia’s eyes snapped wide. “Oh god, no.” She reached out to grab her daughter’s shoulders, and they passed through once again. She was still getting used to being incorporeal. “Those people are monsters, Callie. You don’t know what they’re capable of.”
“Maybe they don’t know what I’m capable of.” Calista twirled her fing
ers; phosphorescent lights blossomed from the tips, tracing ribbons of violet like glittering finger paint.
“You’re one of them,” Julia whispered.
“Thanks to Jackson, yeah. He transmogrified me with a sigil. Oh, by the way, I have a tattoo now.” Calista snuffed out her light show with a tightly clenched fist. “We’re tracking down Foxcroft, and he’s going to help us close the rift. He has everything: Emails, schematics, proof that The Agency covered up magick, and destroyed lives to keep it a secret. We can expose them.”
“And once they’re exposed,” Julia said thoughtfully, “they’ll be forced to drop the charges against me, and everyone else they’re detaining. This will all be over.”
A tiny smile crept across Calista’s face. “You can come home.”
“And we can be a normal family again.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “People keep using that word like it’s possible for anyone. ‘Normal’ is a unicorn. A pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I’ll settle for ‘happy.’ That’s good enough.”
“That’s more than enough,” Julia said, creasing her weary eyes with a broad smile.
“I feel like this is a hugging moment, but since we’re not actually here …”
“Right,” her mother said, looking down at her hands. “We’re ghosts.”
“Something like that. But keep the gem somewhere safe. We’ll talk again soon.”
As the Nether Realm receded and the world tumbled back into view, Julia’s shrinking voice said, “I’m proud of you, Callie.”
Calista often wondered if anything could make what she’d suffered through seem worthwhile. If a spell existed that could unburden her from the horrible things she’d seen and done.
Seeing the relief on her mother’s face came close.
And hearing those five words made her re-think the entire journey. Because she’d turn back the clock and battle through it a hundred more times to hear them again.
The ambient chatter of the classroom flooded her ears, along with the clacking of the teacher’s footsteps. A moment drifted by and she regained her bearings, glancing around the room. Several desks were empty—not surprising. Though one absence was more notable than the others.
The North Valley Grimoire Page 33