I couldn’t get out of that dorm fast enough. I scrambled down the steps, a tiny bit drunk from the wine, gripping the railing just in time to ensure I didn’t pitch head-first into the darkness. As usual, the boys were hot on my heels, and fully caught up to me by the time I reached the arboretum. When I turned back to look at them, I was surprised to find Celeste there along with us. Her face was determined, and her strides were even longer than the boys’. It was clear: whatever had happened, she wanted to help me fix it.
I’d forgotten to put on shoes, and the grass rushed past my ankles. My hair flung out behind me as I ran. All the while, the screams from the docks grew louder and louder. I was petrified.
Again, it seemed like reality had crept up to find me again, just when I’d least expected it.
When we reached the docks, I staggered to a halt.
What we saw in front of us was mass carnage, basically. It seemed as though the docks had collapsed beneath dancing and partying students. Several of the metal poles along the docks had actually impaled some of the students completely—so that giant poles stuck out of their guts and held them aloft, their legs dangling. Only some of these people remained alive. They looked down at the horror that their body had become and blinked, their fingers staggering around the hole.
It was the worst thing I’d ever seen.
Several of the students were trapped beneath the wreckage. Several were still alive. The boys, Celeste, and I thrust through the water, splashing wildly. I watched as Raphael and Quintin assisted several people from beneath the dock, lifting it up with their powerful arms. Slowly, sending little rivers of blood through the rest of the Gulf, those who could move came out from the darkness and into the moonlight.
I swam to the other side of the dock and tried my best to free several girls who were a year younger than me. The poles were stuck in their clothes, and one of the girls had a massive gash down her cheek. She couldn’t stop crying. After I freed them, I staggered back to land, totally exhausted, and surveyed the scene. Since our arrival, it seemed that several people we hadn’t been able to reach had died. I felt this knowledge like a stab through the heart.
How could this have happened.
How can we save the others?
Quintin, Raphael, and Ezra continued their tireless work, ripping up boards and metal poles and finding new people beneath—sometimes alive, sometimes dead. I could feel the horror and sadness in each of the boys. I could also feel how they ignored it, for the benefit of potentially finding someone else. Someone else alive.
Suddenly, I felt two hands across my upper back. The hands shoved me as hard as they could back toward the water. I staggered, just barely catching myself, before I spun around to find Margot. Like the other girl, she had a big gash across her face, and it sent a long trickle of bright red down her cheek and throat.
“What the fuck did you do!?” Margot demanded. Her bloody hands formed fists next to her waist. “I should have known there was something fucking fishy about you not being at the party tonight. You knew they were going to come after you! You sacrificed us!”
“No!” I cried. Enraged, I shoved her back. She staggered a bit, then hit me again. I realized, during our little fight, that she was dressed as a slutty mermaid. Her little bra hardly remained on her chest. She looked ghoulish and sad and frightened.
God. And who was I to say that this wasn’t my fault?
Suddenly, Professor Binion, Professor Springer, and several others surged out from the line of trees.
“My god!” Professor Binion cried. He staggered to a halt and placed his hand over his mouth.
“What happened?” Professor Springer demanded to Margot, who’d suddenly burst into tears.
“I don’t know,” Margot sputtered.
Obviously, her fear rivaled her hatred of me. She fell onto the sand and cupped her face in her hands. Professor Springer knelt, and I listened as Margot continued to explain.
“We were just dancing. Talking. Out on the dock. And suddenly, the entire dock collapsed,” Margot said.
“Everyone, please! Walk back to your dorms!” Professor Binion called. He directed the streams of onlookers, those who were injured yet still alive, and those who had made it without scratch. They walked together, their arms strewn across one another. Several of them, however, remained behind, crying out that they’d lost someone. “I’m looking for Michael!” one girl kept crying. “Where is Michael?”
Of course, there were many, many more bodies out on the Gulf. I worried that the tide had taken some of them into the depths.
Professor Binion approached me and asked me if I was all right. I told him I hadn’t been at the party; I’d only heard the screams.
“It doesn’t make sense for the docks to collapse,” he murmured. “There are protective spells everywhere on the grounds. And you. You weren’t even here.” He shook his head sadly and marveled. “Quintin. Raphael. Ezra. Thank you for working so tirelessly,” he called to them.
I watched as Quintin loaded two bodies onto his back and marched back toward the beach. My body felt hollowed out. I could no longer think clearly.
It was the anniversary of the worst day of my life.
Somehow, it had blown past that previous horror and become something so much more.
Suddenly, I felt a punch to my stomach.
“Where’s Celeste?” I whispered. My eyes scanned the dark water, hunting for her.
“Was she at the party?” Professor Binion demanded.
“No. She was with me. It’s... it’s my birthday and she....” I crashed into the water, suddenly terrified. She was nowhere to be seen at all.
“Ivy, please stay on land,” Professor Binion called. “It’s much easier for us to care for you if you only....”
But of course, I didn’t care at all about myself. Not then. I burst through the dark water, hunting for her. Quintin hustled into the water again, after having laid out the bodies on the shore.
“Did she leave?” I demanded. “Maybe she thought it was too horrible and she just...”
“Like she would ever leave you like that,” Quintin blared, casting me a dark look.
I knew he was right. I shot through the water, hunting, trying my best not to focus on what it was I sometimes touched in the water. Occasionally, I felt a spare hand or foot under the water, assuredly from one of my dead classmates.
God, the death count seemed in the teens, at least.
Suddenly, Raphael called out, “I got her! She’s over here!”
I lurched to the side to see Raphael lifted what looked to be a dead Celeste up from the water and splay her over his shoulder. My knees almost gave out beneath me. I think I screamed, although I could hardly hear it. I could only tell, because of the face Quintin made. I’d hurt his ears.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Slowly, Raphael splayed Celeste’s body across the sand. Her gorgeous dark hair sprawled in all directions, and her lips opened. I staggered toward her, sobbing, and fell to my knees beside her. Nobody spoke. I started to place two fingers against the side of her neck, but then cut my hand away. I was afraid to touch her. I was way too emotional, and knew that I might spot what had happened to her. I was also terrified that, once I touched her, I would understand how much longer she had left.
I didn’t want another Margorie situation. I didn’t want to sit there and wait and watch as my best friend left the world forever.
Raphael fell down beside her, as well, and performed the task for me. He nodded and whispered, “She has the faintest pulse. Barely a flicker.”
She was still alive. She was still here.
A long, long time ago, in some first-aid class, I’d learned about chest compressions. Now, I tried to conjure as much about this experience as I could. I brought my hands together and pressed them against her chest, which was still clothed and therefore better for me to touch in my emotional state. I brought up a steady rhythm and stared toward her eyes, praying that they would open. In seconds,
my praying turned over to something like yelling.
“Wake up, Celeste! Celeste, we’re all waiting for you. Celeste, come back to us! Please!”
I knew I sounded like a crazy person, but I no longer cared.
The boys gathered around me. I willed them to give me some kind of strength, something bigger than myself, but I knew it was all on me. As I shot through the fifteenth, then the sixteenth compression, I heard Zoey cry out as she raced down the little beach path. At the sight of her daughter stretched out like this, Zoey fell to her knees. She couldn’t go forward. She could hardly rise.
Suddenly, I wanted to know. I just needed to touch her. I wanted to know the future, even if it was the darkest thing I could have ever imagined.
I placed my fingers against her cheek and waited.
Nothing.
I saw absolutely nothing.
This was more terrifying than ever. I staggered back, as Professor Binion reached me and squatted to place his hands beneath her legs and her neck.
“Follow me, Ivy. We have to get her inside,” he said.
Together, Zoey, the boys, and I trailed after Professor Binion, walking toward the hospital ward. Zoey mentioned that her husband was asleep; that he’d needed more rest than usual, since his injury, and that she hadn’t wanted to wake him. Now, she pondered if it was necessary.
After all, his only daughter very well could end up dead that night.
I couldn’t answer her. I could hardly think myself. Raphael placed a hand across my upper back and tried to draw me against him, but I kept myself slightly away. I couldn’t burrow myself into the chests of these beautiful men; I couldn’t rely on them for every little thing.
We trailed Professor Binion all the way to the hospital wing. When we reached a pair of double-wide doors, Professor Binion was able to lay Celeste gently across a stretcher. A nurse erupted through the doors, her cheeks white with panic. Behind the doors, you could see that they were filled-up already with students who’d been injured in the incident. Blood seemed to flash everywhere.
“Ivy. Zoey. You two come with me,” Professor Binion barked. “Boys, stay here. There’s too much going on back there. I don’t want to clutter the hospital.”
Zoey tried to grip my hand, but I again shook it off. I couldn’t control my powers; I didn’t want to feel the depths of her devastation. I knew it would be far too much to bear.
We followed behind Professor Binion, who followed the nurse and the stretcher all the way to the end of the hallway. As we rushed, we passed by several of the bleeding students, all of whom seemed to stare at me with these huge, ghoulish eyes. Although it was horribly selfish of me, I kept my own eyes toward Celeste.
The nurse closed the door behind us and hurriedly placed her hands over Celeste’s cheeks, then her arms. She bit down on her lower lip and studied Celeste’s face. Then, she turned her eyes back toward Professor Binion and said, “I thought you said she’d drowned?”
“That’s what I thought,” Professor Binion affirmed.
“No. This girl has inhaled almost no water at all,” the nurse affirmed.
Zoey and I exchanged panicked glances.
“What do you mean? We found her floating in the water,” I blurted.
The nurse cast me an eerie glare. It suddenly occurred to me that students were probably not the only ones who wanted to put all the blame for this one me. Teachers, faculty—they would put it on me, too.
Kids had died. It was my fault.
“No. This is some sort of powerful magic,” the nurse returned. “I cannot articulate precisely what it is. Not at this time. All I can say fully, without pause, is that she is very lucky to be alive at this moment, and it’s unclear how long this magic will grip her.”
Zoey stuttered. “That’s impossible.”
The nurse gave her an eagle-eyed look. “And why is that?”
“Because she’s a witch. She must have had some way to fight it. Some way to...”
“Not this sort of magic,” the nurse affirmed. “This completely gripped her. All we can do is make sure she’s comfortable. She will have to wait this out. It’s a bit like a coma for the magical world, you understand?”
“But it’s never clear when anyone will wake up from a coma,” I said.
The nurse arched her brow. “The same could be said for this, I suppose. If you’ll excuse me.”
The nurse barreled through the door once more. It was clear that they were understaffed, that she was required elsewhere. Professor Binion’s eyes remained on Celeste, as Zoey knelt into the chair beside her and gripped Celeste’s hand. I bounded to the other side of Celeste’s frame and, at first, reached for her hand, then remembered that strange, cold deadness I’d felt when I’d touched her before.
I never wanted to feel that again.
As Zoey said some sort of spell over her daughter, something she thought might awaken her, it occurred to me that Celeste’s injury had something to do with the factions.
Like the other tests before them, this could have been something to force me to elevate my powers.
Of course, I didn’t want to assume. My eyes flickered up toward Professor Binion, who returned my gaze. In that moment, I knew he thought the same thing.
Whatever this was, and whoever was behind it—they were cruel enough to leave Celeste’s life hanging in the balance.
Celeste was only a pawn to them.
And whoever was behind it wanted to see what I would do next. Would I fix Celeste? Would I find a way?
I didn’t know if I had it in me. But god, I had to try.
Chapter Twenty-Three
There was no time like the present to give it a go.
Zoey continued to mutter over her daughter, her eyes clenched tightly. I reached up and gripped first one of Celeste’s hands, then the other, which Zoey had only just given up. With her hands in mine, I felt that same nothingness, that darkness from before. I stared at her eyelids, willing them to open, but my emotional deadness felt entirely too quiet to awaken anyone.
Suddenly, Raphael, Quintin, and Ezra burst into the hospital room. They looked strangely manic. They lifted their wrists to show that their bracelets glowed, just as my locket did. I’d hardly noticed, I guess because it was all dangerous, at this point. We were in a constant state of it.
“What is she doing?” Quintin demanded of Professor Binion.
“She needs to get somewhere safe. Clearly, this isn’t it,” Raphael blared.
But Professor Binion’s eyes remained on me. “She has to try. She has it in her to do this, if she can only tap into it.” His voice changed to a whisper as he added, “Ivy. Listen to me very carefully. Search through your friend. Search for what needs to be fixed and healed, just as you did in the forest. Treat her entire form just as you did the sky and the weather.”
I balked at this. After all, Celeste’s intricate body was entirely different than the forest, than the fire, than the snow.
“Remember when times were good,” Professor Binion murmured, delivering the last bit of advice I needed. “Search your mind and remember.”
Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with memories.
I saw a much earlier version of Celeste: four years old, holding my hand as we wandered near a creek. In the memory, she told me where to put my feet so that I didn’t get too much mud on them. When we reached the creek, we spotted a frog, its little neck bobbing up and down. We were both mesmerized with it.
Then, I saw us, age ten. Someone on the playground had shoved me down, and Celeste stepped between us and pointed her little finger and told the bully to leave me alone.
There were more after that: more memories that streamed through me, then seemed to surge through Celeste’s frame. I saw us in all walks of life, constantly laughing, constantly trying new things, always finding new ways to feel excitement for the world around us.
We’d always been so carefree.
We’d always had so much.
And now, what? What did we have?
Here she was, splayed out on a hospital bed, in a kind of coma—as far away from the world as if she’d been taken to outer space.
I tried to dig into Celeste, to find the damage. But still, she seemed to permeate in impossible darkness. I could hardly feel a heartbeat, despite the fact that I clung to her hands. I could hardly feel a spirit. Our memories were entirely one-sided. There was nothing.
Suddenly, I gasped, exhausted. I let go of Celeste’s hands, realizing that I’d gotten nowhere. I nearly toppled to the side, only to fall immediately into Quintin’s outstretched arms. I turned my head into his bicep and let out a horrible sob. Hurriedly, Ezra filled a little plastic cup with water, and Raphael began to rub my shoulders. Their eyes were as big as eggs. They were terrified.
“You were gone for so long,” Raphael finally whispered. “We were worried that you’d gotten lost in there.” He bowed toward Celeste’s head, as though I’d dug myself in and joined her.
Suddenly, Zoey erupted back up from her chair, with a new resolution to say as many spells as she could. This time, however, Professor Binion grabbed her elbow and said, “That’s really enough, Zoey. I have to advise you not to do it.”
Zoey turned her head, her eyes glittering almost evilly. She sneered at him and ripped her elbow away. I’d never seen her like that, not in my entire life of knowing her. She looked like a completely different person.
I remembered all those old stories of mothers being able to lift cars off of their babies, despite not being strong enough.
The same power that lurked in those mothers also lurked in Zoey.
“We were supposed to be safe here,” Zoey said to Professor Binion, her voice husky. “You told us not to go back to Hillside Falls. You told us that the spells around this place would be enough. And now, my daughter is unconscious. Her best friend—a girl her own age, who only came into her powers a year ago, mind you—is the only one here allowed to try to revive her? Am I the only one who thinks that’s actually nuts?
“And where is she, anyway?” Zoey continued. “Is her consciousness in her body? Is it somewhere else? Can anyone give me just a hint about what’s going on in my daughter’s mind right now?”
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