by Morgan Rice
Her feelings for Sage were so overwhelming, she could hardly think of anything else. She felt it like a shield, hovering around her, protecting her. It felt like now, nothing could get to her. With Sage by her side, she felt invincible.
And soon enough, tonight, the two of them would take off, get away from here, away from her parents, her friends and all their petty drama, to a world of their own. To a place where they could be together, without anyone trying to get between them. All she had to do was get through this day, make it to tonight, to the dance, where Sage would meet her, and they would leave together. Her heart was pounding with anticipation; she already couldn’t wait for the day to end.
The bell rang, and she glanced at her phone as she headed towards her English class. She saw all the missed calls and texts from her dad, and cringed. She hardly knew how to respond, and couldn’t deal with it right now. She also noticed that Maria hadn’t texted or called. As she headed to their joint class, she braced herself for her reaction.
Scarlet entered the classroom just in time. It was already filled and she noticed immediately that her customary seat, next to Maria, was taken. She couldn’t believe it: Maria always made sure that seat was reserved for her. Now, some other kid was sitting in it. Maria, sitting in her usual seat, didn’t even look over at her. It felt like a betrayal, and it was a clear message: Maria didn’t want Scarlet sitting next to her. This did not bode well.
Scarlet hurried down the row, and as she did, Maria glanced at her, then pointedly looked away.
Scarlet walked past her, feeling hurt. On the one hand, she understood. From Maria’s perspective, Scarlet had stolen Sage away. But that wasn’t true, and it wasn’t fair. Sage had never liked Maria; Scarlet had even tried to set them up, and he just didn’t like her.
Scarlet felt that Maria should realize that, and that the way she was acting just wasn’t fair. She was living in a fantasy. Sage would’ve ended up with someone else, whether it was Scarlet or not.
But Maria could be so possessive and territorial and jealous that if anyone ever even talked to anyone she remotely liked, she took it as a personal insult. For Maria, this was like a nuclear bomb. Scarlet hoped that she would be big enough to get over it, because Scarlet wasn’t going to let Sage go. But clearly, Maria was not budging. This time, it was bad. In all the years she had known her, she had never seen Maria like this, so furious at her. Scarlet had a sinking feeling that this would be the end of their relationship.
The thought saddened Scarlet as she took her seat in the back row, set down her books, and turned and looked out the window. If that was how Maria wanted it, then that was how it would be. After all, after tonight, Scarlet wouldn’t be here anymore anyway. Soon, none of this would matter anymore. Soon, she would be with Sage, far away from here.
“Okay class, please open to Act Five, Scene Three of Romeo and Juliet,” Mr. Sparrow said. “The famous tomb scene. Show of hands: how many of you read this last night?”
A few hesitant hands rose.
“Very good. So then you will know what I’m talking about.”
Scarlet zoned out, as her thoughts turned back to Sage. She thought again of last night, of all that he told her, of who he was, who his family was. She remembered that orb he had created, in her palm, remembered watching it float away. She believed him. It was obvious, he was not like anybody else. And she felt in her heart that the two of them were meant to be together. Two immortals. Two different types of creatures. Unlike anyone else on earth. They were destined for each other.
Most of all, he understood her. He didn’t make fun of her when she said she was a vampire; he understood. He wasn’t even surprised. And he wasn’t afraid. For the first time, it made Scarlet feel comfortable in her own skin, in who she was becoming. It also made her feel greatly relieved that she could be around Sage without wanting to feed on him.
But Scarlet then thought of Sage’s limited life span, of his few weeks left to live, and she felt overwhelmed with sadness. It wasn’t fair. To find the love of her life, and only have a few weeks to be with him—it just wasn’t fair.
“And that is what makes this play different,” the teacher announced. “Romeo and Juliet each decide to die for each other. Without their love, they feel that life is not worth living. They are just from two very different families. Families that want to tear them apart. When all they want is to love each other.”
Scarlet looked up, paying attention to Mr. Sparrow’s words for the first time. She looked up at the lines he’d written on the board:
O happy dagger! This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die.
“Juliet’s last words, as she kills herself with Romeo’s dagger. That is what makes it a love story. Their sacrifice. How many of us are willing to sacrifice like this for love? Will any of us ever encounter a love this great?”
Scarlet thought about that. Romeo had given up his life for Juliet’s; Juliet had given up her life for Romeo. Shouldn’t she give Sage her necklace? Why was her life worth more than his?
The class sat there, in silence, when suddenly the bell rang.
As everyone headed for the door, Scarlet noticed Maria hurry out faster than the others, clearly wanting to avoid her. Scarlet sadly gathered her things, still thinking of Mr. Sparrow’s words, and headed for the door—when she heard a voice behind her.
“Scarlet?”
She turned, and saw Mr. Sparrow sitting on the edge of his desk.
“Are you okay? Usually, you’re the first one to answer. Today you seemed a bit…out of it.”
She was touched by his concern. He was the only teacher that ever even noticed, or cared.
“I’m fine. It’s just that…” She stopped, wondering what to say. “I guess it’s just that there’s a lot going on for me right now. But I love the play. And I love everything you said.”
He smiled back.
“I know high school can be overwhelming,” he said. “So much stress at once. Especially in this year. My advice to you is to just try to focus on the work before you. Allow yourself to get lost in the text. Shakespeare’s writing is four hundred years old, but if you really get lost in his stories, in his characters, you’ll be surprised to see that everything he wrote about is still relevant today. We learn that others have suffered from the same things as we, for hundreds of years. We are no different. That connection to history, to others—it can help you make it through.”
She thought to herself: he has no idea how right he was.
“Thank you, Mr. Sparrow. For everything,” she said meaningfully, knowing this would be the last time she ever saw him again. “I just want you to know, I really enjoyed this year.”
“The year is not over yet!” he said, with a smile.
“I know. I just want to say, if for some reason I don’t see you again, thanks for everything.”
He gave her a puzzled look, but before he could ask what she meant, she hurried from the room.
Scarlet walked into the hall and spotted Maria, closing her locker. Maria began to turn, and Scarlet hurried over to her. She figured it was now or never: she wanted to clear the air, and at least voice her side of the story.
“Maria,” she said.
Slowly, reluctantly, Maria stopped and turned. She was scowling back.
“What do you want?” she snapped.
Scarlet was taken aback by her anger.
“Look, I’m really sorry about whatever it is you think happened, but I didn’t steal Sage. You have to know that.”
“Oh no? So what did you do exactly? He just walked away by himself?”
“It’s not like that. I tried to set you two up. I really did. But he just wasn’t into you.”
Maria scowled, embarrassed.
“Is that what he said? Or is that what you are saying?”
“That’s what he told me,” Scarlet said.
But Maria just got angrier.
“Well, how could he be into me with you stealing him away? You didn’t give him a chan
ce.”
“It wasn’t like that. I swear,” Scarlet said. “He came up to me.”
“Oh, really? Like you had nothing to do with it at all?”
Scarlet felt like this was going nowhere.
“Look, I would never steal anyone out from under you,” she said. “But it’s not like you two were dating. You didn’t even know each other. And he liked me. He approached me. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth.”
“You could phrase it any way you want to,” Maria said. “But the bottom line is, you betrayed me. That is something I will never forgive. You were supposed to be my best friend. You were supposed to look out for me.” Maria leaned forward. “We’re done. I don’t know you anymore.”
Maria slammed her locker, and turned and marched away.
Waiting for Maria down the hall were Jasmin and Becca. They each gave Scarlet a snotty look, then turned and marched off with Maria.
Scarlet could not believe it. Maria had managed to turn her two other best friends against her. She felt like she’d been excommunicated from her group of friends. She’d never felt so alone.
As she walked, the halls felt a lot bigger, and a lot less friendly.
Scarlet spotted someone heading towards her out of the corner of her eye, and she couldn’t believe it: Blake.
Oh no, Scarlet thought.
She braced herself. She could only imagine what her dad might’ve said to him the night before. She was already cringing with embarrassment. She was beginning to think that coming to school today had been a bad idea. Could this day get any worse?
“Hey,” Blake said.
“Hey.”
“So I like ran into your dad last night,” he said, sounding nervous. “He like cornered me in at the party. He was pretty pissed.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I really am.”
He shrugged.
“Whatever. He thought I was like a druggy or something. He’s so got the wrong idea. Is he always like that?”
Scarlet shrugged.
“He’s pretty protective, I guess.”
Blake looked down and toed the floor.
“Well, like, anyway,” he said, “I’m sorry that, like, you left when you did. I didn’t really, like, get a chance to finish talking to you.”
Scarlet looked at him.
“Actually I think you had your chance. But you let Vivian get in the way.”
It was time for Scarlet to air the truth. She’d had enough of half-truths. He could either take it or leave it. She really didn’t care anymore. Now, all she thought about was Sage. Blake had had his chance; he was too late.
The weird thing was, it was like Blake sensed it. He was acting differently towards her. It was like he sensed that she no longer cared—and that made him want her even more. In fact, she had never seen him seem so into her before.
“Well like listen, anyway,” he continued, stumbling, “the dance tonight. I really want to take you. Will you be my date?” he asked, finally looking up and asking her directly.
Scarlet was shocked.
Now? Of all times? Why did he have to ask her now?
She thought of the irony: if he’d asked her only 48 hours before, she would have been thrilled—she would have given anything. But now, she had genuinely lost interest. Now, she had Sage. And with Sage in her life, nothing else mattered. This dance, her friends, the cliques, the fights—all of it seemed so petty to her now. It felt like a world that was already far away from her.
“I’m sorry Blake,” she said. “But I can’t go with you.”
Blake looked at her, eyes open wide in astonishment. Clearly that was not the answer he had expected.
Scarlet didn’t wait for a response. She turned and headed off, walking down the hall, thinking of Sage—and wishing the minutes would tick faster until she could see him again.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Caitlin lost all track of time and place. She had no idea how many hours she’d been in this secret back room of this rare bookstore, combing frantically through stacks and stacks of books. There were mountains of them. Worse, they were all thrown in haphazardly, in so many different positions and directions, it was almost as if someone had deliberately tried to keep them disorganized. Perhaps that was the point: perhaps whoever did this wanted to hide that book.
Caitlin had seen chaos throughout her career in bookstores and libraries—but she’d never encountered anything like this. Not only were there so many books, but they were also each so rare, so valuable. She was astonished. She’d never seen such an abundance of riches under one roof. Some of the books that she’d already passed through her hands, she knew, would be worth millions of dollars on the open market. Why had anyone treated them this way?
Clearly, Aiden knew what he was talking about when he sent her here. And now she understood why the old woman was so reluctant to open her door. She was sitting on a gold mine. Each and every one of these volumes belonged in a museum, or university library, and a part of Caitlin wanted to stop and spend time with each one as she picked it up.
But there was no time. She felt a greater urgency than ever as she rifled through one book after the next, opening the binding as quickly yet carefully as she could, glancing at the title page, skimming through it to make sure it was not a printer’s error, and moving on.
Hours had passed, and she’d already managed to go through hundreds of titles. She was sneezing at a more rapid rate, the dust piling up, and was beyond exhausted, especially after not sleeping on the plane. A sense of hopelessness was starting to creep in. What if the book was not here after all? What if the page was missing? What if its ceremony didn’t work? What if she didn’t find it in time?
It could easily take weeks, she knew, to find the book in this room—if it even existed. She would have to get supremely lucky.
Caitlin scanned the room: there were thousands of titles yet to go, some stacked all the way to the ceiling. She swallowed, having no idea how she would even access those.
But she was not one to give up easily. She jumped back into the stacks on the floor, dealing with what she could in front of her. She rolled up her sleeves, reached over and hoisted yet another heavy volume. She went through books faster now, one, two, three at a time. Now, she just scanned the title pages and moved on. In some cases, she just scanned the spines, when visible.
After another hour or so, Caitlin, her back killing her, on her hands and knees, reached the far wall. At the very bottom of one of the tallest stacks, she yanked out one particularly large and heavy book—and as she did, the entire stack came crashing down around her; she quickly covered her head as the mountain collapsed, and got out of the way just before being completely crushed.
The books finally settled in a huge cloud of dust, and she looked up, dazed and confused. She felt like she wanted to cry.
But as she looked up, through the dust, suddenly, she spotted something that made her heart stop: the crumbled stack revealed another, smaller stack behind it, one she had not seen before. And there, right in the middle, was a book with a rich, red spine. She recognized it immediately. Suddenly, she felt an electric thrill. This was it. The matching volume.
Caitlin nearly lunged across the room, grabbing the book and holding it up to the candlelight with shaking hands.
Please God, let this be it, she thought. She pulled back the cover and nervously flipped to the title page:
De Fascino Libri Tres.
Her heart flooded with relief. She could hardly believe it. She had actually found it.
Caitlin quickly thumbed through the pages, going as fast as she could to the missing page.
Please, please be there. Please be the matching page.
She started to worry about what she would do if the matching page weren’t there. Or if this was all a hoax. She was shaking with anticipation as she got closer. 530, 532….
She turned the page, and her breath stopped. There it was. 537.
And there, before her eyes, was the other half of the pa
ge.
She was speechless.
She reached into her bag and extracted the other half. She held them together. The ripped edges fit together exactly. It was a perfect match.
Hand shaking, she read the complete text for the first time. It was all in Latin, and the words lined up perfectly. She read the ritual again and again. As she did, she felt in every pore of her body that this was genuine. For the first time, her heart filled with hope. Here it was, right before her eyes. A way to save her daughter.
With a twinge of guilt, Caitlin delicately tore the half page out of the book, placing it in her folder with the other half of the page. She set the book down, picked up her bag, and hurried across the room to the stone wall, banging on it.
In seconds, it opened.
Caitlin squinted at the bright sunlight that flooded in. It was hard to believe it, but it was daytime. A bright, sunny day. Caitlin wondered how many hours she’d been in there.
The old woman stood there, staring back at her.
“You found it, didn’t you?” she asked.
She stared at Caitlin meaningfully, and Caitlin suddenly realized that the old woman knew what she was after all along. How had she known? Had she been trying to hide it?
“You knew?” Caitlin asked.
The old woman stared back, expressionless.
“Why didn’t you tell me where it was?” Caitlin asked.
“It’s not for me to tell,” the old woman said. “It’s only for the worthy to find it. You, clearly, are worthy.”
Caitlin’s mind spun with all the implications. Had this woman been guarding a secret here? For how long? Her whole life? Who had asked her to guard it? Was she a member of some secret society? What had Caitlin stumbled into?
