Stalk the Moon

by Jessica Lynch

  I look at Hunter. He shrugs and gestures for me to go first so I do. He follows on my heels, ducking his head so that he doesn’t bang it on the doorway.

  Alex bursts out of his hiding place, moving quickly behind Hunter. He obviously thought he could sneak past Cassandra. Nope. Once Hunter is inside, she throws her arm across the open doorway.

  “The invitation wasn’t for you,” she snaps and, backing up into her home, she slams the door in Alex’s face.

  “Don’t be that way, princess,” Alex calls through the wood. I cringe at the laughter in his tone. “You know the other me loved you once.”

  “And cursed me. Don’t think I’ve forgotten that for one second. And don’t you dare call me ‘princess’. That was never me.”

  “Ah, Cassandra—”

  She stiffens.

  “Let me in, love. I want to help, too.”

  He wants to help? I want to go out there and strangle him! Didn’t he just tell us not to call her by that name? What is Alex doing?

  Did he change his mind about helping me get back to my real life? I thought Alex was the captain of the good ship Send Noelle Home if only because he seems to hate the idea of me and Hunter being a ‘me and Hunter’. I still haven’t forgotten that Alex shot an arrow at me because he wanted to hit Hunter. There’s definitely bad blood there. And no one will tell me why.

  I need to brush up on my Greek mythology and fast. I’m not getting answers from these guys and I’ve given up on trying. Instead, I stumble from one strange situation to another with only vague memories and a nagging sense of déjà vu. Now Alex is purposely antagonizing a witch—are there even witches in this lore?

  I don’t know, and I’m over not having any clue to what the hell is going on.

  So when she turns her back on the door and tells me and Hunter to follow her into the next room, I go. Alex can stay out there and rot.

  Cassandra’s cabin is a cozy maze, made up of a labyrinth of small nooks. Each room is about the size of my condo’s bathroom and they’re stuffed to the gills. Hunter has to keep ducking as she leads us further into her home and there are a few times he has to go sideways in order to fit.

  After we pass through five rooms and I start to wonder if Cassandra’s cabin is a distant relative to the TARDIS, she stops. “In here you’ll find the room where I do all of my work. Don’t touch anything unless I tell you to.” And then, without another word, she sweeps inside the last room.

  “You sure?” Hunter murmurs.

  I nod. Even if I wasn’t, I’d go in after Cassandra. Why? Because I’m pretty sure I’d get lost trying to escape this place.

  Hunter sets his jaw. With a curt nod, he gestures for me to go in ahead of him.

  I take three steps inside of the room and pause. There, in the center of the cramped space, stands a massive, black cauldron.

  Pot, I correct myself. Just because Alex called her a witch, I don’t have to buy into it. It’s not a cauldron. It’s a giant cooking pot.

  Though the bubbling green liquid lapping at the rim is a bit questionable. And the smoke rising up from the center is kind of worrisome.

  The room smells like a combination of lemon and licorice, probably because of the smoke. I hope it’s not toxic, or the reason Cassandra spaced out like that. She immediately goes to stand next to her huge pot and I follow behind her, growing more uneasy with each step.

  I glance around. This room, like all the others, is like a hoarder’s wet dream. There’s so much stuff all over the place, but I get the sense it’s an organized chaos. I bet, if I ask her where anything was, she’d find it in an instant.

  I’m still amazed by it all. I see countless shelves full of who-knows-what. Stacks of books everywhere. Candles dot every flat surface, some of them lit, and most of them already burned down to nubs. There’s one window in the room, cracked open so that, theoretically, some of the smoke can vent. A gauzy blue veil is tacked over it. Everything in this room is tinged with a periwinkle haze.

  I find Hunter through the cloudiness. Smart man. Slipping in behind me, he parks himself next to the window where he has a better vantage point and less chance of inhaling the fumes coming off of her potion. Mixture. Whatever.

  Over the mouth of her—okay, there really is no way around it, it isn’t a giant pot, it’s a friggin’ cauldron, she peers at me through the thick smoke. She doesn’t take her eyes off of me. Not to blink, not as she grabs a random assortment of herbs lying on a tray and throws it into her cauldron, not even when she bends down and seems to pull the largest wooden spoon I’ve ever seen out of thin air.

  “Tell me who you are,” she orders.

  Her stare is really creeping me out. I try not to let her see. “I’m Noelle.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  Too bad. That’s all she’s getting from me. She wants to stare at me? I stare back. What’s the worst she can do? Turn me into a frog? After the way I turned that poor guy into a stag, I probably deserve it.

  “I told you my name,” I say. “What’s yours?”

  Her dark eyes flash. “If you must call me anything, I suppose you could call me that name.”

  So Alex wasn’t making that up? “Cassandra? That’s really your name?”

  She eyes me coolly, deciding if I’m being serious or not. I am and I think she gets that. She thrusts her spoon into her cauldron. I jump back so that none of that stuff splashes on me.

  “No. But it’s as good as any, I guess. I can’t remember a time I wasn’t Cassandra. No point in changing it now.” She stirs her brew twice, spooning up some of the sickly green broth and taking a tentative sip. Satisfied, she stirs it again. “Let’s get down to it. You need my help. What do you expect from me?”

  I know better than to bring up Alex. “Someone told me that you had a way out of this place. I’ve gone searching for two portals already. Neither one is there.”

  “What did you expect? Your story hasn’t been told.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Cassandra simply stares at me. Right. The fact that I’m standing in her cottage is a pretty big clue that this place isn’t done with me yet.

  “Yes, but I was also told that didn’t matter. Not to you. Not here.”

  “Pass me that shaker.”

  What? “Which, um, shaker?”

  She clicks her tongue. “Behind you, girl. Third shaker from the left.”

  Turning around, I find a wooden rack stuffed with metal shakers. They aren’t marked and I decide not to look too closely. I don’t even want to guess what’s inside of them. I count three over from the left side, grab the shaker, and hand it to Cassandra.

  She gives it a shake and I watch as a sprinkling of fine white crystals falls into her concoction. I hang back in case it blows up or something.

  “Why so worried? Don’t they have salt where you come from?”

  “Salt?” That’s salt? “I know what salt is. I just don’t know what you’re using it for.”

  “Because my soup was under-seasoned. You interrupted my supper with your foolishness.”

  Not a potion. Soup. Sure.

  That’s still a cauldron, though.

  “Mmm. It smells delicious, too. What are we having?”

  You would think I’d be used to the way Alex always manages to pop up whenever I least expect it. I’m not. I jump and it’s only because Hunter has the foresight to lean over and steady me that I don’t land face first in Cassandra’s soup.

  “If I gave you some of my food, it’d only be so I could watch you choke on it.”

  “Cassandra, love. It’s so good to see you, too.”

  “Apollo,” she sneers. “And here I thought I locked that door.”

  Alex wags his hands at her, wiggling his fingers. “Nothing can keep me out when I want in. And it’s Alex now, actually.”

  “It’s Arrogant Bastard, for all I care. Get out of my home. You weren’t invited in.”

  “You knew I’d find a way in. The lock was
a joke—it’s practically an invitation on its own.” He sidles closer to the cauldron. Alex must have balls of steel or a sadistic streak a mile wide because, with a grin, he dips his pointer finger into the boiling liquid.

  Cassandra strikes out, fast as a rattlesnake. Thwap. I wince in sympathy. The wooden spoon hitting his knuckles must’ve hurt.

  “Put your filthy finger anywhere near my cooking again and you’ll lose it next time,” she warns.

  “Don’t be like that, Cass. I did what you asked of me. You said you’d whip up a portal if I would just leave.”

  “You know as well as I do that I only agreed to conjure a pathway if you were the one taking it.”

  “A deal’s a deal. I mentioned a girl was involved. I said she was stuck here, too. If you got the idea that the portal was for me, then you just weren’t paying attention. Should’ve been more clear when we made our arrangement.”

  Cassandra glares at Alex. “I absolutely loathe you.”

  “Tut, tut. Loathe. Love. It’s all the same to me. And you can’t blame the other me for choosing to leave when our story ended. I moved on, came back, started over. You really must do the same. Pining for me after all this time can’t be healthy.” Alex slips his finger into his mouth, then releases it with a soft pop. “And you’re right. Soup still needs more salt, princess.”

  Cassandra lunges for him, her fingers curved like talons as she slashes at his face.

  36

  I grab Alex by the arm. I know I only manage to drag him away from Cassandra because he lets me. Don’t care. She looks like she’s about to gouge his eyes out with her nails. Alex might be a pain in the ass, but he doesn’t deserve to go blind.

  Though, right now, I’m on Cassandra’s side when it comes to a little maiming. Is he antagonizing her on purpose?

  This is Alex. Of course, he is.

  When he’s out of striking distance, I turn on him. “What are you doing?” I hiss. “You were supposed to stay outside.”

  “I got bored and this promised to be exciting. Besides, I made a wager with myself to see if the huntsman would actually let you go through with leaving him.” Alex leans around me, nodding where Hunter stands, his back against the far wall, watching me with a closed expression on his shadowed face. His hood is up again. “Odds are against you, Huntsman. I’d tell you I was rooting for you but I think we all know that would be a lie.”

  A rumble of a growl erupts from Hunter. The sound is so animalistic that my pulse thuds. It’s like a bear is in the room with us instead of a man.

  “Enough!” Cassandra points her wooden spoon at Alex. “You, shut up.” She whirls on Hunter. “You, stop hovering. You’re making me nervous. And you,” she says to me, splashing my dress with some of her brew, “you’re gonna listen to me. You want my help? You’re gonna listen to me first.”

  Well, she told us, didn’t she? There’s a twinkle in Alex’s eyes as he presses his lips together. A quick glance Hunter’s way reveals that he’s scowling before he tugs his hood forward, hiding more of his face. Me, I just stand here like a moron, a sudden barrier between the two of them, as I wait for Cassandra to get on with it.

  Dipping her spoon back into her soup, she gives it a stir, staring into the swirling liquid as if its a crystal ball and she can divine truth from it. When she speaks again, her voice takes on a faraway quality. Whatever she’s looking at, Cassandra obviously sees the past.

  “I came here a long time ago. Not as long as some,” she says, and a quick flicker in Hunter’s direction tells me who she means, “but far too long for me. The bastard before him—”

  This nasty sneer is for Alex, naturally. He fakes a yawn and it’s all I can do not to slap myself in the forehead.

  “—He was already waiting for me. Oh, he made me feel special. He made me feel wanted. He made me feel loved. Ha!” She slaps her wooden spoon against the rim of the giant metal pot. “I was young. Naive. Stupid. Like you, I just wanted to go back home. I wouldn’t let myself get attached. I told him I could never love him.

  “I didn’t know the story then. I wouldn’t have changed my mind if I did. But that one… he’d been waiting for me. Pinning his hopes on me. When I dashed them, he made me pay. Because he knew how the magic worked here and used it to his advantage when he cursed me.”

  Curses again. This is what Alex and Hunter were talking about earlier.

  “What kind of—”

  “Hush. I told you to listen. I won’t warn you again.”

  I clamp my mouth shut. The questions are rocketing around my head, banging into my skull, but I keep my trap closed. This is my way home, I remind myself. Pissing Cassandra off is a bad idea.

  Mollified by my silence, she continues.

  “The path opened eventually, like it does for all of us. And maybe he did love me.” A harsh, bitter laugh in the back of her throat. “He begged me to leave the Other behind and return with him. I refused. I was angry. Spiteful. And I was terrified that the curse would follow me. I said, take away your curse and I’ll go, but I’ll never love you. And. He. Left. Me!”

  Air whooshes in, a fierce gale that nearly knocks me off my feet. Cassandra’s curls whip around her face. Her mouth is drawn into a thin line, her eyes—

  I do a double-take.

  Holy shit. Are they on fire?

  “I spent seasons and seasons trying to force a way mirrorside.” Her voice crackles as she spits the words out. I swear to God, flames are burning in the depths of her pupils. “And then, when I finally did, I realized I’d be returning to a place that didn’t hold a spot for me any longer. So I stayed. And here I am.”

  Cassandra blinks. As soon as it arrived, the eerie wind dies down. Her hair settles in place again. The fiery glow in her eyes dims until it’s gone and I can almost pretend that that didn’t happen.

  “The curse is my cross to bear. I’ve learned to live with it. I’ve made myself into a warning for poor, unfortunate souls like you. This is what happens when you can’t afford to pay the price. Think of the witch in the woods—oh, yes, I know what they call me—think of poor Cassandra when you decide whether you want to throw your life away. But just because I’ve accepted my fate, that doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you, Apollo.” With a dismissive wave of her hand and a sniff, she adds, “No matter which Apollo you are.”

  Alex shrugs. “C’est la vie. Can’t win them all.”

  Hatred burning in her dark eyes, Cassandra curls her upper lip. “One day you’ll start over, live a new tale. And the suffering that you shall know will be so much worse than the curse the last Apollo placed on my head.”

  “A prophecy, Cass?” asks Alex cheekily. “Or a curse of your own?”

  She glares at him. “It’s just a wish.”

  He rolls his eyes. Trading his smirk for a frown, his amusement begins to fade. “I’ve had enough of this. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea.”

  “You came to me. You begged for my help. Don’t forget it.”

  I raise my eyebrows at the vehemence in Cassandra’s tone and how much at odds it is with what she just snapped. I already knew that Alex arranged for me to meet with her, to help me get home. But beg? Somehow, I doubt that. He’s definitely not the begging type, just like Cassandra isn’t a forgive and forget kind of chick. She’s harboring some kind of grudge against Alex. I just hope she doesn’t take it out on me.

  Now, if only he would shut the hell up.

  “I told you I had someone trapped in the Other who wanted a portal back. You offered your witchy services,” Alex retorts. “I must’ve let the other me convince me that you could be reasoned with. I should know better by now.” Rising out of his slouching position, Alex stalks toward me. “We should go, sister. I—”

  “Sister?” Cassandra turns on me. “You’re his sister?”

  I don’t like the intense way she’s scrutinizing me all of a sudden. “That’s what they tell me.”

  “Then you’re…”

  I shrug. “I guess so.”

&n
bsp; Her reaction throws me. For the first time, she moves in on Hunter. She forgets all about me. Alex, too. Hunter’s her target now. And that pisses me off.

  Cassandra was content to ignore him before. He’s not trying to use her magic to leave like I am, and she obviously doesn’t have strong feelings for Hunter like she does Alex. Now, she’s watching him closely, her wide eyes narrowing shrewdly.

  I don’t like it.

  “Give me your hand,” she demands.

  That’s even worse.

  The jealousy is a knee-jerk reaction. I don’t want her near him, and I really, really hate the thought of them holding hands. “Hunter, don’t.” It comes out more like an order than a plea. I don’t care. If he touches her, I might snap.

  “It’s okay, darlin’,” he says softly. “Real quick. You can trust me.”

  I can, can’t I?

  Damn it.

  He offers Cassandra his hand. They lock eyes and the world stands still. It’s like they’re the only two people left as they stare at each other, a moment so intimate that my heart lodges in my throat. Hunter’s wearing his flat look, so I can’t tell what he’s thinking. The nastiness in Cassandra’s expression softens for a heartbeat and then she lowers her gaze so that she’s studying the lines in Hunter’s palm.

  Though she’s barely touching his skin, the tips of her fingers pressing lightly to his hand as she lifts it up to her face, I have to fight the urge to run over there and jump between them. I’ve never felt such insane jealousy claw at me from the inside and that’s the only reason I plant my feet and stay where I am. The strength of the emotion is terrifying. I don’t own Hunter. He can touch whoever he wants—

  Okay. No. Sorry.

  If I’m his, then he sure as hell is mine.

  I take a step in front of me. Just as I move, Cassandra drops Hunter’s hand. And I freeze, watching to see what will happen next. Because I might trust him. The witch, though? Nope.

  “This will end horribly.” Her voice is soft, the warning a quiet whisper that somehow echoes in my head. “You can’t change the ending, Huntsman. Your fate is sealed.”