Shadow Demons

by Sarra Cannon

  “Yes,” I said. “I know. But I was wondering how well you knew her outside of the cheerleading team.”

  I waited as Mrs. Ashworth searched my face. She looked confused and caught off guard. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said. “I was friends with your mother just like everyone else. Was there something more specific you wanted to ask me?”

  I looked to Jackson for reassurance and he nodded.

  I took in a deep breath.

  “I found a journal of hers,” I said. “In the attic at Shadowford.”

  Mrs. Ashworth’s face grew tight. “Really?” she said. “I didn’t know your mother kept a journal.”

  I could tell from her tone that the idea of a journal made her uncomfortable.

  “In the journal, she mentioned having a best friend,” I said. “Someone she talked to about everything. Including being pregnant with me.”

  Mrs. Ashworth let out a breath, as if she were relieved.

  “Was it you?” I asked, my knees trembling.

  She stood up straight. “I wish it was me,” she said, her tone apologetic. “But I didn’t know anything about her having a baby until she died. Your mother and I were really close for years, but senior year she kind of withdrew from all of us. It got to a point where I felt like I didn’t even know her at all anymore. I’m so sorry I couldn’t help. Maybe you could check with the other girls on the squad? Or maybe it was someone else in the town.”

  I knew she was hiding something. I could feel it in my bones. But how was I going to prove it? “So you don’t remember who my mother’s best friend was?” I asked. “Someone she hung out with a lot and would have trusted with her deepest secrets? Someone else with a first name that started with an L?”

  Mrs. Ashworth cleared her throat. “No, I’m sorry,” she said. “Your mother was very secretive about her private life in that last year or two before she died. I hope you find the person you’re looking for.”

  She started to walk away, but I reached out without even planning to. I couldn’t let her go.

  She stared at my hand with obvious distaste. “Was there something else?” she asked, pulling her arm away.

  “Just something she wrote in the margins toward the back of the journal,” I said, following some strange instinct deep inside. “I was wondering if you could tell me what it means.”

  Mrs. Ashworth glanced toward the ballroom and sighed. “If you want to bring the journal by the house sometime, I’d be glad to take a look,” she said. “I really should be getting back to the guests. Have a nice evening.”

  My heart raced. She knew something. I felt sure of it. There was something about the way she was trying to get out of there so fast that just felt all wrong to me. She was lying to me.

  Before she disappeared around the corner, I shouted out the words from my mother’s journal. “Deahlosi Tyanuk.”

  The words buzzed in my mouth. So full of power, it made me dizzy.

  Mrs. Ashworth stopped, her feet frozen to the spot. She lifted her hands to her ears and screamed. Her voice echoed through the grand entrance. I backed up, shocked.

  Slowly, she turned toward me. When her eyes met mine, there was such hatred and fire in them, it sent a chill straight to my core.

  She drew in a sharp breath, and for a moment, she was so still she seemed to have turned to stone.

  I tried to look away, but my eyes were glued to hers. A searing heat spread through my chest. What was happening to me? I opened my mouth and sucked in a breath, but no air would come. Panic shot through me. I used every ounce of my will to try and tear my gaze away from Mrs. Ashworth’s, but I couldn’t move.

  Tears gathered in the corners of Mrs. Ashworth eyes, then rolled down her cheeks. She slowly lifted her hand to her mouth, and I could see that she was shaking.

  Everything around us went dark and suddenly it was just the three of us. Mrs. Ashworth stood in front of me and Jackson stood by a window. Only we weren’t in the foyer at the party anymore. We were in a strange place I didn’t recognize. An abandoned house? In the misty darkness, it was hard to concentrate on anything solid except for a younger Lydia Ashworth. Visions flashed before my eyes. One second she was smiling and greeting me with a hug. The next, she was on her knees in front of me, her hands bound behind her back with rope. The wooden floor of the house was littered with orange and brown leaves that crackled under her knees.

  “How could you?” The words came out of my mouth, but it wasn’t my voice that spoke them. This voice was similar, but slightly deeper than mine with more of a southern accent.

  “You never wanted to be Prima,” she said. “You don’t deserve it. You treat the whole thing like a joke. But I wouldn’t do that. I would treat it like an honor. I would never take it for granted or try to change the traditions.”

  “Traditions?” I said in my strange voice. “For that you would kill me and my child? I thought you were my best friend.”

  “Claire,” Jackson said, walking up to me. “There’s no use trying to talk to her. She’s made her decision. Let’s just get this over with.”

  Claire? That was my mother’s name. What was going on? Where were we?

  “Do what you want to me,” the younger Lydia Ashworth said. “You can’t stop what’s coming for you.”

  “I can stop you,” my mother’s voice said.

  Lydia Ashworth laughed. Her voice was high and shrill and evil. “It’s too late for you, Claire. The crows are coming for you both.”

  “The crows?” my mother said. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’ll see,” Lydia said. “Your baby will die before she’s even born.”

  I raised my hand to slap her, but Jackson stepped in between us.

  “That won’t help anything,” he said.

  I made a fist instead and turned to punch the wall. I caught my reflection in the broken pane of the window and gasped. I was my mother. Young. And beautiful. And alive.

  I didn’t want to look away, but it wasn’t me who was in control now. Somehow, the memory was in control.

  I turned to Lydia Ashworth and smiled. “My baby has already been born,” my mother said. I could feel tears forming in the corners of her eyes. “And she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. She’s going to grow up far away from here where you can never find her.”

  Lydia Ashworth’s face went pale. “What do you mean? That’s not possible. The baby wasn’t due for another few weeks,” she said.

  “She came early,” I said in my mother’s voice. “But you won’t remember that. You won’t remember anything about being my best friend or wanting to kill me. And you won’t remember that I ever had a child.”

  Lydia Ashworth began to cry. “You’re going to wipe my memory?”

  “Not everything. We’re just going to take certain memories away forever,” I said, placing my hand on her forehead. “Deahlosi Tyanuk.”

  A bright light flashed, blinding me for a moment. I stumbled backward, banging my hip against a table. When I opened my eyes again, we were back in the grand entrance.

  I Could Taste Her Bitterness

  Rage bolted through me. I looked to Mrs. Ashworth and for the first time, saw her for who she really was.

  “You wanted to kill us both,” I said. “How could you do that? She trusted you. You were her best friend.”

  Above us, the chandelier swayed back and forth.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mrs. Ashworth said. “You’ve gone mad.”

  My mind raced to put all the pieces together. Somehow the words in my mother’s journal had opened up memories that had been locked inside. Memories that had been blocked to protect me all those years ago.

  One thing I understood very clearly was that Lydia Ashworth had tried to kill my mother. She wanted my mother out of the way so she could take over the line as Prima. She’d mentioned the crows. Was Mrs. Ashworth working with them all along? Was she the one who had pledged a blood oath to them?

  �
��You never thought my mother was good enough to be the Prima,” I said. Anger bubbled up inside my heart like a boiling pot. I couldn’t hold it in. Outside, lightning flashed.

  “Harper, we have to get out of here,” Jackson said.

  He reached toward me, but my body soared up into the air, flames forming on my fingertips. The swinging chandelier finally gave way, crashing down into the middle of the entryway with a great crash. The only light left was from the candlelight in the ballroom and the fire in my hands.

  Fury consumed me. I wanted her dead. She had to pay for what she’d done.

  A thick fireball formed in my hands and I let it fly toward Mrs. Ashworth. People screamed as they ran from the ballroom to see what was happening. I could hear Jackson yelling my name, telling me we needed to leave, but I couldn’t think logically. All I could think was revenge.

  The fireball disintegrated into nothing but orange sparks before it even got close to Mrs. Ashworth. Zara stepped forward from the shadows, her white hair flowing behind her and her eyes wild.

  “What are you doing?” she shouted.

  “She’s gone insane,” Mrs. Ashworth said, hovering behind Zara like a scared child. “She just started attacking me out of the blue. You’ve got to bind her.”

  “Harper?” Zara looked up to me, fear and concern in her eyes. “You’re the Prima Futura. Why are you acting like this?”

  “I will never be Prima,” I said, flames flaring up again from my fingers as I hovered several feet above the ground. “Not if this is the type of person you want as a leader. I never wanted this in the first place. I would rather die than be a part of the Order of Shadows in this town.”

  “She attacked me,” Mrs. Ashworth said. “She needs to be punished. If you won’t shackle her, I will.”

  She pushed her hands out in front of her body. Black chains flew toward me, and in an instant, I threw up a shield to block her magic. The chains melted against the shield, turning into a black oily ooze.

  Darkness came over me like a cloud as my shield absorbed some of Mrs. Ashworth’s energy. I could taste her bitterness on my tongue. Distracted, I didn’t even noticed the second chain heading toward me until it was too late. The shackle wrapped around my left wrist and Mrs. Ashworth began to pull me toward her.

  In terror, I looked at Jackson. What had I done? In a blink, he shifted into smoke and soared up to meet me. His shadow slammed into me and the world around me turned to black.

  Away From This Town

  We were outside. I had no idea how we’d gotten here. Everything was a blur of black smoke and twisting and turning. My head was spinning. Jackson led me a spot in the back yard where we would be completely hidden from anyone entering or leaving the Ashworth house.

  “Sit down,” he said. He spread his black jacket across the grass and held my hand as I collapsed.

  “What the hell just happened?” My voice sounded screechy and full of panic. I lifted my knees and held them close to my chest. I didn’t feel like myself. Some dark energy was swirling around in my head, and I couldn’t get it to stop. I held my hands out. Some of the black oily residue of Mrs. Ashworth’s spell was still stuck to my palms. I rubbed them against the grass with a violent need.

  Jackson sat down and took my hands in his. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “I couldn’t take us far, but we should be safe here for a few minutes.”

  “What was that?” I asked. “The memory? Was it real?”

  My voice deteriorated into tears.

  “Shhh,” he said, running his hand down the length of one of my blonde curls.

  “Did you see it too?” I asked, clawing at the shackle still hooked to my wrist. “We were in some kind of old abandoned house. There were leaves on the floor in the house and it was dark. Did I imagine it?”

  “I was there, too,” he said. “Harper, I remember everything now. Your mother, she came to me when she was pregnant with you. She needed help, just like you said. A truth potion.”

  I laid my head forward against my knees, trying to catch my breath. “Mrs. Ashworth - Lydia - that was her best friend,” I said. “But she was trying to kill her wasn’t she?”

  “That was the truth your mother found out,” he said. He kept looking around to make sure no one was coming for us. “That’s why she sent you away. To keep you safe.”

  “How come you didn’t tell me all this before?”

  “Harper, I didn’t remember this until just now,” he said. “That language you spoke just before the vision started? That was my language. Shadow demon language. It’s a spell that blocks certain memories. I taught your mother that spell, Harper, so she could wipe our memories of you after she gave birth. She did it to protect you.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “Why would she wipe your memories too?”

  “Because once you were safe, she needed to make it so that no one remembered you ever existed. Not me. And definitely not Lydia Ashworth. As long as no one knew you were alive, they couldn’t hurt you. But she never planned for it to be permanent. Once she was sure the threat was gone, she was going to come for you.”

  The pieces of the truth all started to come together in my mind. She’d been murdered by the crows before she ever had the chance to come for me.

  “I had no idea I’d ever really even talked to your mother,” he said. “That’s why when you asked me about the potion earlier, I didn’t remember giving it to her. Not until you unlocked the memory.”

  “Harper?” Someone near the tent called my name.

  My body tensed and my eyes grew wide. I looked to Jackson and he lifted a finger to his lips. I held my breath and listened.

  “Harper, are you out here?”

  I recognized the voice. It was Zara.

  I started to stand up. The High Council needed to know what Mrs. Ashworth had done to my mother. But Jackson put a hand on my shoulder. I drew my eyebrows together, questioning. He just shook his head.

  We waited together as Zara continued to call for me. Eventually, she disappeared back into the Ashworth’s house.

  “We can’t trust anyone,” Jackson whispered. “Not even people you thought were your friends.”

  “We’re in a lot of trouble aren’t we?” I asked.

  “They know about my powers now,” he said. “And they know you don’t have any intention of becoming their Prima. Plus, they all saw you attack Mrs. Ashworth. I’d say we’re in some serious shit right now. She’s going to tell them whatever she has to in order to make you look bad. We’ve got to get away from this town for a little while.”

  “How long is a little while?” I asked. How many times had I dreamed of running away with him? Somehow, now that the time had come, it didn’t seem so romantic. We weren’t leaving because we chose to run away together. We were leaving because we had no choice if we both wanted to stay alive.

  “As long as we need to until we figure some of this out,” he said. His features darkened. “Harper, remember that night you came to my room and I wouldn’t show you what I’d been drawing?”

  My stomach twisted. I nodded.

  “One of the pictures was of you in that dress,” he said. “But when I was drawing it, I kept seeing your mother’s face. I didn’t understand it until now. That was the dress she was wearing the night she blocked all our memories that you existed.”

  I turned away and stared into the darkness of the woods behind the house. How had everything gotten so complicated? I felt so messed up inside.

  “Where will we go?” I asked.

  “I know a place,” he said. “You’ll be safe there.”

  “Okay,” I said, too drained to argue.

  “Harper…” Jackson placed his hand on my face.

  “Yes,” I said, my breath catching in my throat.

  “I know this isn’t the right time, but I saw that shackle hit your wrist and for a split second, I was so scared I was going to lose you,” he said. “I don’t want another minute to go by without telling you how I feel
.”

  His eyes met mine.

  “Harper, I love you.”

  Free Fall

  My pulse raced as Jackson leaned closer to me, his lips so soft and warm against mine. I lost myself in his kiss. The rest of the world faded to nothingness. I put my arms around his neck and melted into him.

  I never wanted this moment to end. My body felt electric, alive. I pulled away, breathless.

  I rested my forehead against his. “I love yo-“

  Jackson put his hand over my mouth, his body rigid. I listened, my heartbeat pounding in my ears.

  “I know you’re out here,” Brooke said. She was close. Maybe fifteen feet away, near the house. “You’ll save us all a lot of trouble if you just come out and face this. You can’t ignore what just happened in there. Jackson has a lot to answer to, and so do you.”

  I swallowed and leaned against Jackson’s chest.

  “We have to get out of here,” he whispered.

  I nodded. “Okay,” I said.

  Jackson pulled me close, his arms tight around my body. “Close your eyes,” he said.

  I pressed my face against his shirt and suddenly, we were falling. Flying. Twisting. I clung tight to him. My body was light and floating. Air rushed through my hair and my stomach felt weak, like we were in free-fall.

  When the world finally settled and my feet touched solid ground, I opened my eyes. We were in a dark alley. A street lamp flickered, casting uneven light on the area around us. Motorcycles roared in the nearby street. Jackson took my hand as the group of riders stopped just at the entrance to the alley.

  “So maybe you do need me after all.” The girl in leather smiled, her eyes locked on Jackson’s face. She had an English accent.

  I squeezed his hand tighter. “What is she doing here?” I asked, my voice cracking.

  “Harper, this is Lea,” he said. He swept his hand from her to me. “Lea, Harper.”

  The girl narrowed her eyes into angry slits. “We’ll have time for introductions later,” she said. “But seeing how you’ve got the whole bloody Order after you at this point, I think you better come with us. Cristo, grab the girl. Jackson, you’re with me.”