by Pat Esden
Jessica slammed the door shut and a minute later they drove off, speeding down the street.
She was certain there were only two people up front. Jessica was on the left, in the driver seat. The other person was riding shotgun.
“We should make her take off her clothes,” the second person said. Her voice was unmistakable: Brooklyn. At the party she’d come across as nice. Now she sounded sarcastic as she went on about forcing Chloe to go skyclad—witch’s slang for naked—and snakes, bugs, and how it’s too bad it wasn’t colder.
Chloe ground her teeth. Her hands clenched into fists. She’d misjudged Brooklyn for sure. Once this was over, she would watch her back around the two of them.
The car filled with the smell of a lit joint—weed and a sharper scent Chloe didn’t recognize. Whatever it was they were smoking, it wasn’t making them mellower. But it was making it harder for her to fight off the dizziness.
“Remember when you shaved that bitch?” Brooklyn said.
Jessica chuckled. “That was nothing compared to the look on the doctor’s face when we dropped her off at the emergency room. It wasn’t even her blood.”
Chloe lifted her chin and shifted more upright. No way was she going to let them think their bullshit was getting to her. And that’s what this was, complete bullshit.
Her head whirred and she slouched back down, nausea as well as another huge round of dizziness surging inside her.
Minutes ticked by. More time passed. Chloe swallowed hard, struggling to not throw up. She couldn’t help but wonder why they hadn’t picked up Midas or Em. Plus, the car was moving faster now, like they were on the interstate heading out of town.
The fitz of bottles opening and the smelled of beer filled the car. “To loyalty, and power,” Jessica said.
“And stupid bitches.” Brooklyn laughed.
As their voices lowered and they switched to talking about banal stuff going on at the coven’s winery and Matt’s job with Burlington’s Recreation Department, Chloe tuned them out. She needed to think. She’d assumed they were driving to where the initiation would take place. But what if the drugging and the ride itself were part of the test? What if Jessica’s comment about throwing her out wasn’t as much a threat as their actual plan? Dizziness or not, she had to keep track of where they were. Fortunately, she didn’t need her eyesight to do that. She just had to stay calm.
She drew in a deep breath through her nose and closed her eyes. Actually, shutting them alleviated the burning sensation, and it wasn’t like she could see anyway. She took another breath and focused on the vibration of the tires against the pavement. She released that breath and let the murmur of Jessica and Brooklyn’s voices fade into the background. She didn’t need to listen to them. They weren’t going to say anything important while she was within earshot. Forget them. Forget…As Chloe’s mind drifted into a peaceful place, she sent out a plea. Hecate, show me the path, show me where we are. Be my eyes, be my guiding light in the darkness. Show me.
Threads of orange and gray broke the darkness behind her eyelids: A distant sunset over Lake Champlain with the more distant mountains of New York State. Below her, a black ribbon of interstate stretched, headlights and taillights, bright gems flickering in the twilight. Stars appeared. Straight ahead the Little Dipper twinkled. The North Star. Her favorite star.
They traveled eastward, then turned in the opposite direction. An interstate off-ramp. City lights glimmered off to the south, nothing more than specks of brightness becoming a blur as they crossed a causeway or a river, water on both sides. More turns. A narrow road with trees close on either side. No headlights or taillights. No stars anymore.
Thump!
A bump in the road snapped Chloe’s head back against the seat, jolting her out of her trance. She blinked and a foggy-gray outline of Jessica’s head came into focus. That was good. She couldn’t see well, but hazy vision was better than nothing.
She rolled her head, testing to see how dizzy she felt. Like her eyesight, that was a little better. This was great, except she could barely remember what she’d seen in the trance. In truth, it was so disjointed she might have imagined it. She more than likely had even passed out for a while, like for quite a while. Wherever they were, the drive had lasted long enough for the mushroom spores and magic to begin to wear off. Unfortunately, it also meant she was totally lost.
Cold sweat slithered down her back, leaving her shivering. Shush, she told herself. Stay calm. This is just an initiation. Devlin knows about it. Athena helped plan it. Nothing bad is going to happen.
The car slowed and stopped. A door up front opened, then closed. Footsteps crunched on loose gravel, stopping to her left.
A second later, cold air whooshed in and Jessica snarled, “Get out.”
Chloe swallowed hard. This was it.
She held onto the doorframe, feeling her way as if she couldn’t see at all. No sense in letting them know she was regaining some of her senses.
Jessica grabbed her wrists and yanked the duct tape from around them. A sharp sting of pain ripped across Chloe’s wrists. She rubbed the burn from her skin. “Fuck, that hurt.”
“It wasn’t that bad.” Jessica snickered.
Chloe bit her tongue to keep from calling her a bitch. But fear whispered in the back of her mind. What if this wasn’t the initiation? Neither Jessica nor Brooklyn had said it was. No. It had to be. They were just doing a damn good job of scaring her.
“Let’s get going.” Brooklyn’s voice came from a few yards away.
Jessica shoved Chloe ahead of her, away from the car and onto uneven ground. A band of foggy brightness fanned the air ahead of her, breaking up the landscape of gray shadows and indistinct shapes. Chloe wasn’t sure, but she suspected Brooklyn was walking behind Jessica and her and the brightness came from a flashlight she was carrying. She caught a strong whiff of rotting apples. An orchard, that had to be what they were walking through.
As they went down a short incline, the smell of apples faded under a cedar-scented breeze. The air cooled. The gray foggy outlines vanished, replaced by blackness and the fan of the flashlight’s brilliance. A forest trail.
“Tell me there aren’t bats out here,” Brooklyn said.
“Shut up,” Jessica huffed. She nudged Chloe in the shoulder. “Hurry up.”
Chloe quickened her step, blindly fast-walking forward. Her toe hit something. She stumbled and went down onto all fours. Something hard sliced into her palms. But instead of focusing on the pain, she let her fingertips interpret the ground her eyes could barely see. Hard-packed sand, crisscrossed with roots and long, sharp stones. A lakeshore trail. Now that she thought about it, the chill in the air held the same scent from earlier, when she was at the waterside park with Keshari. Lake Champlain.
Jessica wrenched Chloe to her feet. “Keep going. We don’t have all night.”
They marched forward for a couple more paces. Abruptly, a breeze whisked the hair back from Chloe’s face. Foggy grayness instead of sheer black now stretched ahead of them, as if they’d left the shelter of the cedar trees and stepped out into the open—a large opening that smelled like water.
“Stop,” Jessica commanded, her voice echoing.
Chloe did as she asked. She was certain they were close to the lake, very close. But she couldn’t hear waves and the ground under her feet wasn’t beach sand or pebbles. It was solid, smooth, and grass free. A flat rock ledge—
The breath seized in Chloe’s throat as all at once she understood what was about to happen: the tarot card. The Fool. The man with the rod and bag about to head off into a new phase of his life, about to step off a cliff.
A freaking cliff! They expected her to jump off a cliff, skyclad and blind, into Lake Champlain. Were they nuts? There could be rocks below.
Chloe’s pulse slammed in her ears, telling her to run. Get out. Go. Hide. This must ha
ve been what the orb’s warning was about. Betrayal. Betrayal.
She clenched her teeth and willed her body to stop shaking. Jessica and Brooklyn were trying to make her chicken out. There was no way they would really risk her death—and she really wanted to be a part of the Northern Circle. Magic and medicine. Devlin liked her. He wouldn’t risk her life either.
Jessica’s fingernails dug into Chloe’s arm. She leaned close. “Listen carefully. This is a test of your magical abilities, and your trust and connection to the coven.”
She nodded. Hecate protect me, she prayed.
Jessica’s voice hardened. “You came to our home. You ate at our table. You enjoyed our magic. You say you want to join us. Then trust us.”
Chloe clasped her hands in front of her, waiting for the command to remove her sweater and jeans. It would be colder, but it would make swimming easier.
“This is called the Devil’s Leap. No one has died here.”
“That we know of,” Brooklyn said, her voice trembling.
Jessica kept going. “Step forward into the darkness, into the void, without fear. Then reach out with your magic. Find our circle on the shore, connect with us, come to us—leave your past behind and become one with us.”
Leave your past behind, the words repeated in Chloe’s head. This wasn’t some random initiation choice. Athena knew her past. They all did, including Devlin. They’d chosen water and this dangerous leap to remind her of the horror of that night. But they didn’t know what she knew. Jumping into the water wasn’t the hard part. Drowning wasn’t something to fear. It was worse to be on the shore and see the shape of a body floating on the water. Worse to bring someone back to life, only to discover death might have been kinder.
“Go on. Step forward.” Jessica paused. She cleared her throat. “Um—actually, I suggest you get a running start, then leap as far as you can.”
Chloe swiped her arm across her face, wiping her eyes in an attempt to further clear her vision. To hell with them, it wasn’t like they were going to penalize her for trying to improve her chances at this point. She blinked and her vision cleared a bit more, the shape of the ledge, its edge, and the expanse of fathomless darkness beyond them coming into focus.
Blowing out a long breath, she took a dozen steps back, then shot forward like a runner taking off from a starting block.
“Jump!” Jessica shouted. “Like the Fool. Jump into your future.”
And Chloe did.
The world shifted into slow motion. Feet first, her inner high diving instructor whispered. Arch your back. Prepare for shallow water. But maybe she was wrong about this whole thing. Maybe it wasn’t water below. Maybe they’d created a net of magic. Maybe death waited. It would be the perfect justice.
She never saw the boy slip into the pool, only his body floating in the water. She raced down the stairs, the red sequined dress twisting around her legs as she dove off the edge of the pool…
She hit. Water. Cold. Her body plummeted deep. It kept going. And going. She kicked her legs and pulled with her arms, propelling herself upwards. The weight of her clothes twisted around her body, fighting against her. She kicked harder and finally broke the surface.
Air hit her lungs. She gasped for breath and wriggled out of her sweater, kicked her way free of her jeans and sneakers.
Less restricted, she began treading water. Her eyes didn’t sting any more. Her vision was almost normal. Fantastic, except she was surrounded by absolute darkness and needed to find the shore. It couldn’t be far. She’d just jumped in.
She stopped moving, bobbing upright in the water for a moment. If she held still, the waves would pull her toward the shore. But the water was as smooth as graveyard marble, no current whatsoever. She spun in a circle, determined to find an answer. The water was deep and colder than she’d expected. The high cliff she’d jumped off was steep enough that the coven was certain she wouldn’t hit anything on her way down. The top of the cliff had been as flat as—
A sick feeling came over her. Oh, fuck. This wasn’t Lake Champlain.
“Hello!” Chloe shouted to test the theory forming in her head.
“Hello. Hello…” Her voice echoed back from all directions, the way Jessica’s voice had echoed from up on the clifftop. It was as if she were inside a box—or a flooded quarry.
Chloe had seen a TV show about Vermont’s quarries, abandoned and filled with water from natural springs, hidden swimming holes with sheer rock walls. When Chloe had first moved into her apartment, Juliet had mentioned going to one.
Chloe started treading water again, the cold water numbing her skin. She needed to find a way out before hypothermia set in. But how? ‘Reach out with your magic. Find our circle on the shore, connect with us, come to us,’ Jessica had said.
Rolling onto her back, she stared up into the darkness and took a deep breath. She shivered, the quake running from her ears to her chest. She shouldn’t have taken off her clothes. But she couldn’t change that now. She just had to get going.
Chloe drew up her magic, releasing it with her breath, and reached out for the sensation of the coven’s magic, that intoxicating vibe…
She felt nothing. Total numb-cold, nothing.
Panic stole her breath. She gritted her chattering teeth and tried again, this time concentrating on the memory of Jessica’s nastiness. Again, nothing.
She searched for Brooklyn’s stormy energy, like she’d sensed at the gathering. Nothing, other than a sense of creeping dread working its way into her bones. Shit. She was a good swimmer, but not immortal.
To hell with magic.
“Hello!” Chloe shouted again, listening more carefully to the echoes this time. She had to be close to the cliff. Once she found it, she’d swim in one direction until she discovered a way out.
“Hello, hello. Hello,” the echoes came back to her. One much quicker than the others.
In practiced strokes, she swam toward it, until the sheer wall she’d jumped from loomed a yard in front of her. She switched to the side stroke, keeping her eyes on the rock as she paralleled it.
But what if she was swimming in the wrong direction?
Chloe flipped onto her back, floating as she reached out again with her magic, searching this time for the thrum of Devlin’s energy. She couldn’t be sure he was here, but Jessica had mentioned the circle, which meant most likely there were more than just her and Brooklyn on the shore. As Chloe sucked in another breath through her nose, she didn’t sense him. But she smelled something very distinctive. The aroma of weed and something sharper, coming from the opposite side of the quarry.
Pushing fear aside, she turned away from the cliff, and switched to the breaststroke, swimming in the opposite direction, sniffing the air each time she rose, then going under again in hard, fast strokes.
The moon broke free from the horizon behind her, glazing the quarry in faint light. In the distance more sheer cliffs rose, topped with the outline of evergreen trees. What if the burning weed smell had come from up there? She could swim toward it, but that didn’t mean there was a place for her to climb out.
Blocking that thought from her mind, she pushed on, sniffing the air every few strokes. A prickle of intuition now urged her on. A sensation that reminded her of the night when Devlin had slid the invitation under her door. He was here, and he was thinking about her.
Her pulse picked up, her body warming. Her connection with him was faint, but it was growing stronger even as the smell of the weed faded. The vibration of other magic reached her too, Brooklyn’s and maybe Jessica’s.
Ahead, a deep V-shape cleft in the cliff’s outline appeared. Maybe it was an outlet formed by water or a rockslide, a place where the sheer cliffs had given way. Whatever it was, there were no specks of brightness on the shore, like from flashlights. No welcoming bonfire to dry off beside.
Chloe dove under the water and
came up. Cramps pinched her jaw muscles and made her hands claw-like. Still, she was giddy-happy. This wasn’t so hard.
Somewhere in her brain it registered. The giddiness. The claw-like hands. They weren’t good signs. The cold was getting to her. She had to hurry.
A shiver rattled her teeth, then another—
Something hard and bony jabbed her foot.
Chloe yelped and instinctively lowered her legs, whirling in a circle to see what she’d hit. Her feet kicked something else. Hard. Angular. A rock. A wonderful, glorious rock!
She dog-paddled forward, into shallower and shallower water, over blocks of abandoned marble, closer and closer to the V-shaped cleft. When the water became too shallow to swim, she belly-crawled, using her hands to pull herself over the slick rocks, forward toward what she now could see was a dense wall of pine trees—and in front of them, an exit from the quarry.
Slippery rocks were under her hands now. She rose from the knee-deep water, trembling in the cool night air, colder in truth than the water.
A whisper came from the evergreens. A spark of light flashed, followed by the glow of an ember and the smell of burning weed. A giggle.
“Shush,” someone grumbled.
Chloe stopped, ankle-deep in the water. She took a deep breath, then let her intuition and the smell lead her in a straight line. She reached the shore and stumbled into the trees.
Shivering, she folded her arms across her chest and stared into the darkness. They were here. Very close.
“Booyah!” Devlin shouted.
A circle of candles flamed to life, illuminating a tiny clearing in the pines. In the center of the ring, four people waited. Devlin, Jessica, then Brooklyn and Matt.
As Chloe staggered toward them across the prickly forest floor, Devlin passed a joint to Brooklyn. Jessica scowled at him. “You lit one when she was in the water, didn’t you? You used the smell to help her cheat.”