Ravenswood (Ravenswood Series Book 1)

by Christine Zolendz

  Heat prickled across my chest and scalp. I was saving them. I was healing them.

  I was giving them life back.

  I felt like I could fly.

  My attention shifted to the sores, closing and healing, the gray skin around them becoming pink and blushed. I held their hands tighter, terrified ever to let go.

  Two pairs of eyes stared at me in disbelief.

  I nodded my head at them. “It’s okay. See? You’re going to be okay.”

  In the next few moments, both girls were strong enough to sit up and squeeze my hands tighter.

  “Just don’t let go of my hands, okay?”

  They nodded in unison.

  The girl on my right, whose hair now began to grow in the bald patches of her scalp, took a deep breath and spoke. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Rainey. I’m trapped here just like you. But I promise I’ll get you back home okay?” My eyes scanned around the room quickly. “Are there any more people here I could help?”

  “I don’t…I don’t think so,” the girl on my left said.

  “Okay, that’s okay,” I said, trying to make my voice sound like it was okay. “What are your names?” I asked, trying to quickly change the subject.

  “Allison,” the one to my right answered. “And that’s Michelle.” They were moving more then, slowly climbing up to their feet.

  Anticipation raced through my body, bouncing me on the balls of my feet. We needed to get out of the prison fast, but where did we need to go after that? I still had no clue how to get back to the real world.

  “I…I think I’m fine now,” Michelle said, quickly pulling her hand from mine and rushing across the room toward the door. “Come on, Allison. Let’s get out of here,” she said, yanking on Allison as she sped past and yanking her hand out of my grasp.

  They slammed open the rusted door, making the walls vibrate with noise. Running into the hallway without thought or care, so happy to escape, they didn’t even look behind to see if I was following.

  But I looked behind. I looked in the corners, into the darkness I knew Mathias was made from, and stood quietly for a moment, waiting, searching. “Don’t follow me, Mathias. Don’t ever come looking for me. I never want to see your shadow or hear your name again.” I walked out and slammed the door to the room behind me.

  I wasn’t sure if I believed anything Mathias had told me, but one thing I knew in my gut was that my story hadn’t happened yet. I was twenty-two years old; I wanted the chance to be whoever I could be. Even if I wanted to stay here and see if he was telling me the truth, that we were predestined or whatever, I would never be more than the king’s prisoner.

  And I knew the king slaughtered my grandmother. I’ve witnessed his own people tremble and bow down before him. His power was incomprehensible, and I wanted nothing to do with his anger or violence.

  I just wanted to go home.

  Somewhere ahead of me were the girls I just saved; they had to know a way. I called out to them, but their small forms looked back over their shoulders at me and turned into a far off corner. They were running away from me.

  They were leaving me?

  “Hey! Wait!” I yelled as I began to run in the direction I thought they went. But my body felt sluggish and weighted down like one of those dreams where you’re running for your life but only moving in slow motion.

  “Wait! Please!”

  At the hallway where I thought they’d turned, I had to stop and lean my back against the wall while I tried to catch my breath. Before me, the hallways were lifeless. Empty.

  Those bitches.

  They left me here.

  I scoured the hallways and searched every stairwell. I discovered a lone crooked tower, covered in dead vines and sharp thorns, but no girls. I rummaged through every room, listening for anything that could lead me to where the girls might be.

  I found a small balcony on one of the top floors with a railing made of blackened bones, curtains of gossamer tendrils hung from the top of its doorway. I stepped out cautiously, and there in the far, far distance I saw the two girls running through the darkened wood away from me.

  I surprised myself by screaming. Howling like some sort of a wounded animal. Neither Allison nor Michelle heard; they just continued to run until they disappeared into the dark fog of Ravenswood.

  Tears hit my eyes. I tried to control the overwhelming anguish that shook through my limbs. With no idea of what to do, I charged down to the lowest levels of the castle and tore open the door to the twinkling jar room.

  For a moment, I wondered what I planned to do. The lights, hundreds of them, warmed my skin and glimmered like a thousand suns.

  My hands shook as I wrapped them around a jar and felt the intense vibration and heat from within. Was this really someone’s soul, trapped here forever?

  I took a deep breath.

  The little ball of light inside the jar pulsated harder, like the beating of a thousand hearts. A universe squeezed into a ball. It was making music, singing—singing my name.

  I let my fingers go slack. Limp. Until the jar slipped through each one and dropped to the floor, shattering.

  Shards of simmering glass and light seeped into the black slabs of stone on the floor, making intricate webbed designs like unfurling scrollwork into the shape of the little girl’s face, the one who asked me to make another flower.

  I think…I think I just set her free.

  I grabbed another, then another, throwing them down, barely registering the images as the balls of lights sped up and bounced around the room. Their voices were heavenly choirs, beautiful beyond any music I'd ever heard—the singing of souls.

  Light and sound zipped around me as I swiped my arm across a row of jars, spilling and destroying each one. My feet crunched over the glass, and I felt like I spent forever in the room and yet no time at all, toppling over all the jars I could reach.

  Then Mathias appeared, his mouth pulled down in a frown, his eyes dark. “What have you done?”

  I staggered back but quickly pulled myself up, not wanting to show him any weakness. I’d broken so many jars, the floor looked like it was made out of nothing but clear, ice-cold crystal.

  “My father will find you and kill you.”

  I held up my chin, ready for a fight. “What do you want to do, then? Bring me to him?”

  He was instantly against me, the space between us just evaporated, slamming our bodies together. There was no time to think or speak. Need hit into me like a punch to the throat. His hands slid up my arms and ran over my shoulders and neck. His movement was slow and strong, deliberate.

  I closed my eyes, not knowing what else to do.

  “What I want to do,” he whispered, burying his face in the curve of my neck, “and what I will do are two very different things.” His lips grazed along my skin, his words seeping in, tattooing me. My skin felt too tight, like something inside me was on the verge of exploding.

  His body was hard cold stone, but the brilliant balls of light that hovered around us warmed me. I leaned away, opening my eyes to meet his. There was anguish in his expression as he leaned down to bring his mouth to mine but stopping just an inch away. I felt electricity sizzle and heat in the air between our lips, and I wanted nothing more in my life than for him to kiss me.

  But he didn’t.

  He stumbled back, grabbing for one of the jars.

  I stood for a moment, crossing my arms over my chest, where my skin felt achy and heavy.

  With a quick twist of his wrist, he opened the jar and a flickering light sped out, blinding me.

  The ground shook beneath me, and the veil of infinity lifted. All the hate in the world vanished, and my soul floated gently in the hands of a savage world. The moment was rich with peace and full of everything. An earthquake rumbled in my heart—the shifting of planets, and I saw each and every piece of stardust I was made from.

  It was too deep to comprehend, too huge to know.

  I could feel myself throu
gh the warmth. My skin. And the quick, hard beats of my heart. My body existed wherever the light touched me. The rest of me was made of cosmic dust. Every atom I was, spread out in front of me. I was love and moments and little specks of thoughts and hopes floating in sunbeams. Part of everything and everyone. I felt it in my bones, deep within the marrow. Silvery rain fell over my skin, seeping into my body, burrowing into my veins and surging through my bloodstream. My chest cavity exploded into feeling and light and pure, unadulterated love. And there in front of me stood the other half of my soul, a part of me I never knew I was missing until just that very second.

  He walked toward me slowly, pulling my hair to one side, the ghost of a kiss brushing past my lips. “What I’m going to do,” he whispered, voice cracking with emotion, “is set you free.” The hand holding the jar dropped down, slamming the glass across the floor, and I was instantly back in my New York apartment above the bookstore, sweat soaked in bed, all alone.

  Alone, except for a small, low voice that rose from the shadows, There will be days when your life will be too much to bear—some days nowhere near enough, but always remember you are enough, the exact right amount of perfect, always, especially to me.

  Chapter 24

  The harsh crackling outburst of laughter startled me when it came—a sound of eerie childhood nightmares and echoes of listening to the world behind my bedroom door. My grandmother was somewhere in the apartment.

  The room was arctic, the floor a sheet of ice. I found my old cotton robe, still hanging on the hook in the closet, just as I left it. I thrust my arms into the sleeves and quickly fastened the tiny buttons, shivering and sweating at the same time.

  Another round of furious noises erupted, and I whirled around out of my closet, jamming my elbow hard against the wooden end of my dresser. The pain was explosive, shooting down my arm and panging through my fingers. I cursed six ways to Sunday under my breath and moved through the dark room holding my bruised skin, feeling the warmth of wet blood on my fingertips.

  The room wasn’t entirely dark. A soft glow of yellowish light streamed in through the windows from the streetlights just outside. I brought my fingers up for a closer inspection. They were spotted dark with blood.

  I rushed to the light switched and flicked it on, trying to rid the room of all its shadows and the monsters that hid inside them. My eyes stung from the sudden brightness, but I could see the cut on my elbow was small and the blood wasn’t as much as I feared.

  Quieting my breathing, I pressed against the door, trying to hear into the other rooms of the apartment. The sounds were definitely coming from below me, in the bookstore.

  Slipping through the door, I tiptoed through the small kitchenette and past the couch crowded up against its opposite wall we pretended was a plausible living room. Outside, a branch of the giant oak tree scraped against the glass of the window, sounding eerily like nails down a chalkboard, rattling me to the core.

  I unbolted the lock on the apartment door and stepped into the narrow hallway of the building, immediately scanning my surroundings. There were other rooms up there, but they were packed with books and old treasured artifacts packed in glass cases and wrapped tightly in cloth.

  I padded my way to the top of the long staircase that led to the store below and hesitated before descending down its slim steps. Just on the bottom, the door to the store stood slightly ajar and a warm, pink radiance spilled through, setting the walls ablaze with a kaleidoscope of colors and lights. Someone had left the lights on. To add to the creepiness of it all, the wind howled against the side of the building, sounding a lot like screams.

  I stepped lightly onto the first stair, still disoriented from just waking up, still unsure if I was awake or dreaming. At my back, I felt a patch of coldness, like an open hand guiding me down.

  I swiped it away with my arms, flailing them wildly, and felt stupid after. This was the real world.

  I had nothing to fear here, right? This world has its own monsters to fear.

  The words rushed past me with a bitter wind, blowing my hair off my shoulders and whipping it up around my face.

  My foot slid off a step, and I tumbled three or four steps until I righted myself and hugged the railing like a life preserver.

  What was I doing? I’d been through Hell and back, literally—Ravenswood was some sort of hell, wasn’t it? There was no way I should be afraid of walking into my own bookstore.

  Before I could talk myself out of it, I stomped down the rest of the staircase and shoved open the door.

  The scent of books engulfed me, giving me strength, purpose.

  Familiar ceiling to floor bookshelves lined the room, rows and rows of them cramped in, overflowing with words and magic. The bar’s tables and chairs were all in the upright position, the cushioned chairs looked freshly cleaned, and not a single book was out of its rightful place. The small baby grand piano stood in the far back, shiny, as if newly polished. Even the wooden shelves gleamed and the glassware on the bar sparkled like new.

  “Look who finally found her way back,” my grandmother’s voice croaked wetly from the farthest aisle of books.

  I rushed forward, expecting to find her there, alive and well.

  But her apparition was nothing more than a dim shadow. And it was nothing to fear.

  “I told you to run, Rainey. He’ll not stop until all souls lose the ones they love. He’ll keep them in cages, just like she kept him in his.”

  “Hemlock or Mathias? Who are you talking about!?” I screamed in anger.

  “The king wants you for your power.”

  “And Mathias?”

  “You always read too many romance novels. Here I tell you about what the king will do, and you're asking about his lovestruck son!”

  Lovestruck? “Answer my question!”

  “Your kind always aches for the ones you can never have. All of us with unbeating hearts, no blood rushing through our veins, just the echoes and memories of little flickers of life. Nothing more than husks, waiting to be dust.”

  “Am I safe here, then? From the king?”

  “You’ll never be safe again now that he knows you’re alive. He’ll get you and keep you and cage you to stop you from hearing them. He’ll use you to keep feeling alive.”

  “What should I do?” I asked frantically.

  “There’s nothing to do now but wait to be destroyed.”

  “That’s hopeful. Positively wonderful advice, thank you. I see you haven’t changed a bit.” I folded my arms across my chest.

  “I told you to run, but you never did. Will you run now if I tell you?”

  “Where is my mother? Was all that Mathias said true?”

  “Most of it.”

  “What parts weren’t?”

  “Your mother loved the king, she was obsessed with him, such as humans become. She thought she could fill the empty part of his soul.”

  “And?” I asked, watching her image flicker and fade. I wanted to grab her by her dead shoulders and shake the answers out of her. Instead, I watched as she raised her phantom hand to my throat and touched the locket that was once hers that hung around my neck.

  “No matter how much she tries, she never can.” Her apparition vanished, blinking out like a light. “And I’ll take my soul back now,” her voice whispered as her locket snapped off my neck and nothing but her words lingered softly in the air.

  “Addy! Wait! What do you mean by that? Addy, you used present tense! And what does he want me to stop hearing? Addy! Please!” But there was nothing left of her to answer me. She was gone, and so was her little charm.

  Small flakes of snow blew past the storefront windows, horizontally. How long had I been gone that it was snowing? The last time I was here was late October.

  “It’s too early for snow in New York,” I said out loud as I rushed toward the window.

  Yet there it was, coming down and spiraling wildly with the wind, giving the illusion of a solid wall of frozen crystals, shutting me in
and imprisoning me.

  I ran to the back of the store and drew open the curtains to the balcony doors and opened them to the deck out back. The world was silent and white, and the waters of the shore churned in violent waves along the sand.

  What time was it?

  What day was it?

  My fingers fumbled for the small digital calendar we kept near the register, turning it toward me. The small clock on the top read 3:30 am, and the date that stared back at me was January fourth.

  I had been gone nearly three months.

  I bent forward, folding in the middle, and tried not to vomit. My hair fell loosely over my shoulders, longer than I remembered. Longer than I ever kept it.

  An icy chill worked its way deep into my shoulders, biting sharply down my spine and settling like icicles between my vertebrae.

  My knees buckled, and I staggered out onto the deck, needing air. Needing to see the outside world and night sky.

  I missed my audition.

  A plane flew overhead through the snow, its engines loud and rumbly, wheels lowering to land at the airport right across Jamaica Bay. Somewhere down the street a dog barked, and farther down another one answered his call. A horn honked, and the waters along the shoreline below the deck lapped noisily.

  I sat down at the edge of the deck, slipping my legs beneath the railing, and dangled my feet over the water. My fingers wrapped around the bars, the cold metal stinging my palms. The deck was slick with fresh fallen snow, and my bottom became heavy and wet, but I didn’t get up. I closed my eyes and breathed the brisk air into my lungs for the first time in what felt like years. The snow smelled clean, and the water heavy with salt.

  I missed the audition, but I was home.

  I would deal with whatever I needed to deal with. I was safe and in the place I was supposed to be.

  I awoke the next day at noon. The sun, brilliant and bright, reflected off the white snow and streamed pearly rays of warmth over my comforter. I wiped away the sleepiness that plagued my eyes and made my way to the bathroom and took the longest, warmest shower of my life.