by Anna Argent
It was like music, like a clear, crisp note that resonated inside her skull and lit up her brain. That single note was so beautiful, so perfect, all the suck and pain of betrayal and grief fell right out of her head. Everything else faded except that sound.
What was it?
She wiped her eyes on her sleeves and pushed up from the ground where she’d collapsed. The weeds were damp and cool under her fingers. Tiny drops of dew coated every strand of grass, making them sparkle.
The sun had just crested the horizon to sting her tear-fevered eyes.
The perfect, clear note still rang inside her mind, taunting her. She needed to hear it again. It was the only thing that had the power to shove away all the bad shit that had rained down on her.
She lifted her chin and tried to sing out the note.
Her voice was thick and weak with tears. Her throat ached from Stygian’s stranglehold. The pitch of her voice was all wrong.
Echo cleared her throat and tried again.
The attempt was better this time, but still not right. Still not perfect.
Frustration closed in around her fast. She was too wrung out to deal with failure right now. It was barely dawn and she’d already had her entire world rocked sideways.
She opened her mouth and let out a growl of frustration to get it out of her system.
The echo of it came back, and that perfect, clear, beautiful sound was there again, right inside her own reflected voice.
Before the note could fade, she clamped onto it and lifted her voice in song like she had as a child, singing into an empty trash can with her furry best friend.
The memory of Solo’s joy in such a simple act surrounded her. It buoyed her up and reminded her that there was still goodness in the world, still happiness.
This time, her voice rang out like a bell, matching that magical note.
As soon as it did, she felt something inside of her shift and break open. There was a rush of power, like a torrent of cool water racing through her veins. Her arms lifted against the force of it, her fingertips stretched out toward the horizon.
Something cold and metallic brushed her fingers. Something magical.
Echo stared into the empty air, confused. She’d felt something, but there was nothing there to feel. Just air.
Her voice trailed off and so did the feeling. The power dissipated, her fingers felt nothing.
She had no idea what was going on, but her instincts told her to try again. Sing again.
She did, and this time, the note came easily.
That strange energy rushed back, that strange feeling of cold metal formed at the tips of her fingers.
The locket. A voice brushed gently against her thoughts, sounding just like her dead mother.
“Mom?” she asked.
No one answered. Her fallen note left the world flat and empty once again. All her emotions, her feelings of betrayal, her grief, began to hunt her.
They were going to find her again if she didn’t act fast.
One more time Echo lifted her voice in a song that contained only one note.
This time there was no question what she was feeling. There, in the distance, slightly to her left, she could feel something in the air. Something hidden in the ground.
Echo kept singing as she grabbed the shovel from the trunk and rushed toward the treasure. Her song stopped only when she had to draw breath.
She stumbled over the dips and rocks hidden in the tall weeds. Her hand was out, following the cold, metallic feeling brought to her in her song’s echo.
Twice, she stumbled, once she fell, skinning the palm of her hand as she caught herself. She wove through small trees at the edge of the lawn, toward taller, older trees in the distance. When she was about a quarter of a mile from the house, the cold metal feeling moved.
She waved her hand in the air until she found where it had gone.
Down. Beneath her feet. She was standing on top of the locket.
She started digging and stopped singing to save her breath for her work. The dirt was hard and rocky. The roots of the weeds were dense, creating an armor her shovel had trouble defeating. She put her foot on the edge of the blade and shoved down with all her weight.
Finally, the tip of the spade bit deep and she was able to make some progress.
Every few minutes, she sang to the earth to make sure she hadn’t already flung the locket out of the hole. Each time she did, she felt the metallic presence grow stronger as she got closer to it.
She had been digging for hours when the hole was deep enough to force her to step down into it. Her breath came in ragged pants, unused to this kind of labor. The only workout she ever got wasn’t at the gym, but running for her life. And while that happened too often for her peace of mind, it didn’t happen enough for her to be in the best shape.
Still, she didn’t stop. Her hands blistered, her back ached, her lungs burned, but she kept going.
When she was too exhausted to keep going, when she could barely pull in a breath before the last one shoved its way out of her lungs, she stood, slumped against the shovel.
Keep going, sweetheart. It was her mother’s voice, soft and musical.
Echo latched onto it, holding it tight in her thoughts so she wouldn’t forget the sound again. It was too precious to waste.
Her back ached. Her arms burned. Her lungs bellowed in a futile struggle to get enough oxygen to fuel her.
You need to hurry, her mom said.
Was some small piece of Mom still with her, among all those other strangers hitching a ride? Had something of her survived her death to live on inside Echo? Or was it just some kind of hallucination brought on by exhaustion.
She wasn’t designed for this kind of work. She didn’t have the muscle or the mass to dig the shovel deep, the way Stygian did. If he were here, this hole would probably be twice as deep as it was now.
But he wasn’t here. He couldn’t be here. He wasn’t safe. Echo was on her own.
You’re not alone. We’re here with you, a different voice whispered. This time it sounded like her sister Melody.
Tears rippled behind Echo’s lashes. She no longer cared if the voices were in her head. She needed to believe they were real. She needed to believe she wasn’t alone.
Stygian had broken her heart, but he hadn’t broken her. She was still strong. She could still keep fighting.
She could still evict the bitch in her head.
Echo straightened her exhausted body and started to dig again. Renewed strength surged through her. She felt the weight of her family at her back, helping push the shovel deeper than she ever could have alone.
She kept digging for hours more. Her body was shaking with fatigue. The hole she dug was deep enough that she was starting to worry how she’d get out. Her arms were too weak to pull herself up a single step, much less several feet up.
The angle of the sun kept shifting in a silent reminder that she was running out of time.
She checked again to make sure she hadn’t accidentally missed her target and thrown it out of the hole in a shovelful of dirt.
In a breathless huff, she managed to sing out that clear, pure note. The answering echo came back like a gong inside her skull, so loud, so close, she covered her ears with her dirty hands to block it out.
Excitement trembled along her limbs as she began to dig again. Each scoop of dirt was small and pitiful, but she was getting closer to the treasure with each one.
The smell of damp earth filled her nose. The scraping crunch of grit on metal reverberated inside the tight confines of the hole. A few hours ago, sunlight had streamed down on her head, making her sweat, but now shadows had reclaimed the space as their own. She could barely see where she was digging.
Stop! Her mother’s voice again, raised in warning.
Echo stopped. She was too winded to ask why. She was barely able to stand.
She fell to her knees and dug her stiff fingers into the damp earth, feeling for something hard.
Her fingers brushed something rough and cold. She clawed it from the dirt only to find it was a rock. She went back again, and again, she found another rock. A dozen more rocks came out before her fingernails scraped against something different. Something that made a hollow sound.
She went still and scratched again, then tapped with her fingernail.
Definitely hollow.
She let out one breathless note and a feeling of power roared back on its echo.
She’d found the locket.
Echo used the shovel to scrape away the dirt around a small metal box. Its surface was pitted with rust. Flecks of blue paint came away with the dark soil.
Once the box was excavated, she pried it out from its hole and settled it in her lap.
It was an old toolbox—the kind her grandfather might have used. The hinges and handle were still solid. Time had managed to wear away only a couple of rust holes through the sides.
It was unlocked, as if what lay inside was unimportant. She opened the lid to find a wooden box closed inside a clear zip top bag. Her hands shook as she opened the bag, pulled out the box and laid it in her dirty palm.
Engraved in the top were clumsy letters that looked like they’d been chiseled there with a pocket knife.
Lift your voice in song.
Echo had gone to church a few times over her life and remembered hearing that phrase there. She didn’t know if it was scripture or something the pastor told his congregation. But she could tell that whoever had written these words had done so in a hurry.
Mom? Had she left that message the way she’d left all the others? Or had the box belonged to one of her grandparents who’d owned this house before Mom?
She ran her finger over the deep grooves, leaving behind smears of dirt. The marks felt like a connection to something she had lost, to her family, her happy childhood. They were as precious to her as they were confusing.
Lift your voice in song.
That one perfect note had helped her find this box. Was that what the message meant? And if so, then how was it helpful to see the instructions on how to locate the box after it was in her hands?
Maybe she had to sing to make the locket work. Maybe that perfect note was the key to trapping Hazel and getting back Echo’s life.
She opened the lid. Cushioned inside a velvet lining was a tarnished, dented locket about the size of a quarter. It wasn’t very pretty. There were a few scrolling lines etched in the surface, but no other adornment. She thought it might be silver, but didn’t dare touch it to find out. There was no way to know if this thing held some kind of evil magic, or that if she touched it, she’d ruin their chances of trapping Hazel.
It was enough that she’d found it. The rest was now up to Harold and the spell he’d located.
Echo snapped closed the box, shoved it deep into her pocket, pulled her weary body out of the hole, grabbed the shovel and headed back toward the house to clean up.
No way was she taking the time or energy to refill the hole. She simply didn’t have it in her, not to mention the sun was dipping in the sky.
They were running out of time.
…moonrise tomorrow. That’s two minutes before sunset.
Would Stygian be gone when she got back? Or would he be waiting at the house to remind her of what a fool she’d been to trust him, to love him.
Trust him, a voice whispered again, and she almost hit herself in the head with the shovel to punish whoever had spoken for being such a liar.
Trust him? She’d tried that, and it hadn’t exactly worked out very well.
He’d tried to kill her this morning. He had killed her mother. He might have even killed her sisters, though he hadn’t admitted to those crimes.
Trusting Stygian was off the table.
Once she got back to the house, she was going to figure out how to work that spell, then get the job of trapping Hazel over and done with so that she could hit the road and never again have to look at the face of the man who’d betrayed her.
***
Stygian watched the front door of the farmhouse all day, willing Echo to walk back through it. He didn’t like her out there alone and unprotected. The rat man had found her before. It was only a matter of time before he found her again.
He looked at his cuffed wrist and wondered if he’d made the right choice in locking himself up.
What if she needed him?
Hazel laughed in his mind, the sound rotten and filthy. She will never need you again. You had your chance.
“This is your fault,” he said through clenched teeth. “How the hell did you make me hurt her?”
You have always seen me like your hand or foot—something you can control. But I am far more than that. I am your heart, your lungs, always working, even when you do not think about me, even when you are asleep.
Had there been other things he’d done against his will? Had she managed to make him forget?
Rather than answer, Hazel simply laughed, the sound mocking.
An hour went by with no sign of Echo. His bones were restless inside his skin, needing to move, to pace and prowl and burn off some of the anxious energy riding him.
He checked his phone for a distraction and saw Marvel’s email. Attached was a photo and a detailed set of instructions on how to cast the spell that would trap Hazel’s shards inside the locket.
The list of things they would need wasn’t very long. If he hadn’t been chained up, he would have gone about finding them all. The part that worried him was the photo of the intricate drawing they had to replicate inside a three-foot circle. There were curling runes scrawled all around the outer perimeter as well as several sharp, angular shapes in precise alignment in the center. They looked almost like letters, but more complex than any alphabet he knew.
The instructions were specific about how once drawn, the lines could not be broken. The circumference of the circle could not be crossed once the locket was placed in the center.
He drew the image with his finger on his knee, practicing the shapes. When he got bored with that, he began silently reciting the arcane words that had to be spoken to invoke the spell. He didn’t dare say them aloud for fear that something bad would happen—that he’d summon some dark power or somehow break the spell so it would never work as intended.
By the time he had the words memorized, it was after noon and he had nothing left he was capable of doing from his self-imposed cage.
He watched a patch of sun march slowly across the hardwood floors, then up the wall.
It was getting late. Echo still hadn’t returned.
What if she was hurt? What if she was dead?
He steeled himself against those dark thoughts. She had his gun. If the rat man had found her, she would have fought back. He would have heard gunfire.
Unless she hadn’t had time. Unless she’d been caught off guard.
He couldn’t do this to himself. He couldn’t stay here, chained to this railing. He had to go find her. Protect her.
Stygian’s phone rang, cutting off the plan forming in his mind.
He reached awkwardly into his pocket to find Marvel’s smiling face on his screen. One of her green buns was sagging slightly, as if too tired to stay perched atop her head.
He answered the call, his voice sharp and curt in the face of his worry. “Yeah?”
“Did it work?” Marvel asked.
“Did what work?”
“The spell Harold found? The one that’s supposed to trap one of the originals and possibly alter life as we know it? We’re all dying to know if the thing works and you haven’t bothered to share.”
He glanced at the metal chain connecting his wrist to the railing. “I’ve been a little tied up.”
There were voices on the other end of the line, muffled and indistinct.
Marvel said, “Harold wants to know if you’ve found the locket.”
“Not yet. Echo is out looking.”
Marvel’s tone turned to one of irritation. “
Don’t touch my tech. You have your own phone if you want to talk to him.” A pause filled with the low, raspy rumble of the librarian’s voice. “It’s not my problem you’re afraid of electronics.” Another pause. “For the love of Thor! Computers are not out to get the books! There are no book viruses. Your precious library is safe.” More low mumbling, then Marvel’s longsuffering sigh. “It’s called putting a call on speakerphone, not making a phone speak. Hang on.”
The sound quality of the call changed. Marvel’s voice went distant and tinny. Then she said, “Can you hear me, Stygian?”
“Yes.”
“Harold wanted to join in on the conversation. He’s worried about the spell.”
The librarian shouted as if trying to be heard across a crowded football stadium. “The spell is fine. I’m worried about you casting it.”
“You don’t have to yell,” Marvel said, clearly exasperated.
“I need him to hear me.”
“I hear you,” Stygian said. “What are you worried about?”
Harold’s voice dropped a few decibels, but was still abnormally loud. “It’s going to take time to cast.”
“I know. I read through the incantation.”
“You have to repeat it three times before the new moon rises.”
“I will.” Assuming Echo came back with the locket and assuming that there weren’t other random bits of Hazel out in the world, floating around.
Do not worry, Hazel said. I am coming. Soon.
Was that a good thing or a bad thing?
He looked at his bound wrist. Maybe chaining himself up had been a bad idea after all.
Hazel laughed.
Stygian had never wanted to kick an old woman in the ass as much as he did right now.
“I don’t suppose there are any bored hunters hanging around Asgard, are there?” he asked. “I could use some backup.”
“Sorry,” Marvel said. “Garrick and Holt are still gone. The only hunter here is Argo.”
Argo, who wouldn’t leave Eden unless it was an emergency. And him chaining himself to a stair railing would not count as that—not when compared to Eden’s safety.
“I could come,” she said.
“No. You can’t. We need you there,” Stygian said.
