by Norah Wilson
She must have made a noise, because the others looked up then.
“Oh, no!” Alex said, leaping to her feet. “No, Brooke! It’s not what you think.”
Something clunked to the floor when Maryanne also rose from the edge of the bed and Brooke’s eyes followed it. Oh, Jesus! Connie’s copper doll. One more thing they’d been holding back from her.
“It’s exactly what I think,” Brooke spat. “And you know what? I don’t care. I don’t care about that stupid diary or that stupid doll.”
“Listen to Alex,” Maryanne pleaded. “We weren’t reading it. We were—”
“Screw you, Maryanne. You too, Alex. Screw the both of you!”
With that, she turned and ran. But she didn’t run downstairs and out the door. She ran upstairs to the attic. There really wasn’t any other decision she could make. The outsider wanted out. Right freaking now!
She didn’t bother to dig out pillows to cushion her fall, but she did locate a candle and light it. She carried the candle to the window, its flame dancing in her trembling hand. Tears streamed down her face as she gazed up at the Madonna. Through the haze of tears, those kindly eyes blazed bluer than ever when she held the candle’s flame up. She looked at the bleeding feet—which had always seemed to draw Alex’s attention. And at the little one in the Madonna’s arms, where Maryanne’s stare had always seemed to go. Brooke looked higher and dashed the tears away, but the Madonna’s eyes still shone. Maybe brighter than she’d ever noticed before. Could that gentle mother know how badly this forlorn daughter needed to escape her pain? Brooke blinked. Studied those eyes. Then studied them closer still.
She heard Alex and Maryanne then, racing up the steps after her. Well, they could keep that crap. Keep their secrets.
“I want out!”
And just like that, she was. The night’s embrace was immediate and exquisite, but it wasn’t enough to dull the pain her original felt when she slumped to the floor and banged her funny bone. Nor did it dampen the pain of betrayal and the rage.
A rage that suddenly burned hotter, wilder.
Part of her knew this was a mistake, casting out while her emotions were so high. Out here, she just didn’t have the same constraints, the same inhibitions. It was hard enough to keep the reins on when she cast out completely calm and cool-headed. In her current state…
The rest of her shrieked that this was the only place to be right now. There was nothing for her back there. Nothing but backstabbing and betrayal. A fresh surge of righteous fury rocked her.
How could they? How could they lead her to believe she was truly one of them? And to think she’d showed them her tattoo! How they must have laughed together afterward. On that bitter thought, Brooke made her decision.
She soared to the old oak tree, its limbs budded out now with tender new leaves. Snatching her copper bracelet, she zoomed back toward Harvell House. But instead of approaching the window, she glided up to the west wall. Keeping most of herself hidden, she peered around the corner. Inside the house, her original’s heart pounded like it was trying to take flight as she watched Alex and Maryanne prepare to cast out.
Seconds later, Alex’s cast blasted out into the night, followed quickly by Maryanne’s.
“Oh, no!” Maryanne whirled around, searching the sky. “She’s gone already. I told you we shouldn’t have bothered with the cushions.”
“Hey, you saw how hard Brooke went down,” Alex protested. “I’m not signing up to crack my skull all over again just because Brooke had a hissy fit. We’ll catch up to her and explain.”
Explain? Rage stirred in Brooke’s chest. Lie, was more like it. Well, she’d had enough lies and empty assurances and false promises to last her a lifetime. She didn’t need any more of them.
They hurt her…she’d hurt them back.
“Come on, then. Let’s go scout for her.” Maryanne started off toward the tree with Alex right behind her.
That’s when Brooke made her move. With the copper bracelet gripped in her hand like makeshift brass knuckles, she moved back around the corner and approached the window. When she was in position, she called out to the others. “Looking for me?”
When the two of them turned to face her, she lashed out and struck the stained glass with her copper edged knuckles.
“No!” Maryanne and Alex screamed, near simultaneously. But it was no use. The glass shattered, the bottom part falling inward, showering soundlessly onto their originals, while the top part—the Madonna’s face and shoulders—fell outward, hitting the ground with a muffled little explosion of glass.
“Brooke! What have you done?” Alex cried, soaring back. “What in God’s name have you done?”
Maryanne just made a thin wailing sound, one Brooke wanted to emulate as the significance of what she’d done truly struck her. She forced the sound back. Instead she planted her hands on her hips. “I’m just giving you a taste of what it’s like to be on the outside all the time, that’s all. To be forever the—”
“Jesus, Brooke!” Alex said. “You’ve locked us out. Our originals are in there and we’re shut out!”
“Yeah, how’s that feel, Alex?” She tried to stay focused on her wrath, but slowly—oh God, terrifyingly—her actions were hitting her.
“Brooke, you stupid bitch!” Not only had Maryanne found her voice, but she’d found the B-word. That got Brooke’s attention. “Alex wasn’t keeping anything from you that she wasn’t keeping from me too. I came into the bedroom minutes before you and found her with the diary. We were waiting for you.”
Back in the attic, Brooke’s stomach plummeted at Maryanne’s words. Could it be true? Then she steeled herself again. Lies were easy. Hadn’t she just finished vowing not to let her guard down again? “Didn’t look like that to me,” she said.
“Stop it, both of you!” Alex said. “We have to figure out what to do, and fast! Before we’re missed and someone finds all three of us catatonic in the attic.”
“Bryce,” Maryanne cried. “Bryce will help us.”
“But he’s…he’s a Walker,” Alex said.
“God, Alex, what does he have to do to prove he’s on our side?” Maryanne demanded. “Besides, we don’t have much choice but to trust him now, do we? We need his help. It’s not like we can turn to anyone else.”
“Fine,” Alex muttered. “Let’s go, then.”
The two of them flew to the tree to retrieve their bracelets, but Brooke hung back.
It was starting to sink in even more now. What had she done to herself? Holy shit, what had she done to her sisters? They could be locked out here forever, like Connie. Condemned to a life without the true rest of being in their corporeal bodies. Yet they’d be conscious always of the living hell their originals were suffering. If someone found the three of them there in the attic, all suffering from the same bizarre paralytic affliction, they’d become overnight medical mysteries. Probably shipped off to some big teaching hospital where they’d be poked and prodded and scanned and subjected to who knew what kind of experimental treatments. At the thought, Brooke felt a shudder of terror go through her original.
And oh, shit, their casts would be condemned to a life of being hunted. The town was well and truly stirred up, and they weren’t going to let up any time soon. They’d be hounded mercilessly out here.
Oh, Brooke, you idiot. You screwed everybody, including yourself. As usual.
“Brooke, come on. We gotta go,” Maryanne called.
Brooke looked to where Maryanne and Alex hovered near the oak tree, waiting for her.
With a sob, she turned and soared off in the other direction.
She was better off alone. And they’d be better off without her.
Everyone was better off without her.
Chapter 46
In Fear of Forever the Night
Alex
Alex’s cast hovered above the moving truck with Maryanne. They stuck close together, though that was little comfort. Alex scanned the sky, but Brooke’s cast w
as gone now. She’d raced away from them in the night, after what she’d done. But she’d be back. She’d have to come back.
Alex hoped.
She looked down.
Their originals were in the back of Bryce Walker’s half-ton truck, moving purposefully along Route 560.
Bryce had broken speed limits to get to Harvell House. Maryanne and Alex had guided him silently through the hallways to the attic. Though he understood how they cast—what it entailed—his eyes had bugged wide at his first glimpse of them sprawled there on the floor. But he didn’t waste time. They’d had to move quickly before anyone else got home.
One by one he’d moved them, starting with Maryanne. He’d used the dumbwaiter to get her paralyzed form down to the kitchen, then carried her out to his truck. Then he’d done it twice more, with Alex, then Brooke. He’d lain their three bodies side by side in the bed of his truck. Panic had set in with Alex when he covered them with a musty old tarp. Jesus, the claustrophobia! It was like being buried alive! Like how it had felt when C.W. had thrown that musty old coat over her face. Her cast self had risked a dip down from the sky to motion frantically at her still body, and Bryce moved the tarp down as low as he dared to expose her nose and mouth. It began raining. The rattle of raindrops on the cab over the truck bed sounded like drilling nails.
“I…I know where you’ll be safe,” he had said, but hadn’t elaborated. There hadn’t been time for that. And they had no choice but to trust him anyway.
Connie’s doll and her diary lay beside Alex in the truck bed. Bryce had understood when she’d led him up the stairs to retrieve them. He’d held the sacred objects. Though he didn’t open the diary nor stroke the doll, there’d been a flash in those brown eyes as he’d held them. More than curiosity.
Alex could feel the doll beside her body now as the truck rolled down the gravelly road. A tear fell down the side of her face. It wasn’t just a tear of sadness that they might forever be stranded in the night. Nor a tear of terror anything like the other girls had to be feeling. No, Alex’s terror was deeper. For she alone knew the words etched on the back of Connie’s doll.
She cowers before me, yet she keeps coming back, claiming she wants to help me. I am tempted, but I dare not trust this Vesta, wife of my enemy. I carve this so I am reminded when I hold my Lily Michelle—NEVER TRUST A WALKER. They’re hunters, every one.
And now as the truck rounded a corner, and slowed to a stop, the words would not stop playing through Alex’s mind as she lay between her helpless friends.
NEVER TRUST A WALKER. They’re hunters, every one.
Embrace the Night
Book 3 in the Casters Series
by
Norah Wilson and Heather Doherty
Embrace the Night
Copyright © 2013 Norah Wilson and Heather Doherty
Cover by Phat Puppy Art
Book Design by Ironhorse Formatting
Editor: Nancy Cassidy, The Red Pen Coach
Proofreading: The Passionate Proofreader
Chapter 1
Hell’s Haven
Brooke
Brooke Saunders hovered outside the nearly pitch black cave. With her preternatural caster vision, she had no trouble making out the boy who carried her limp body. But Bryce Walker couldn’t see nearly as well, judging from the tentative way he moved through the darkness. Not to mention the number of times he’d managed to bump either her head or her feet against something.
At least she hoped the bangs and bumps were accidents.
Bryce had set a heavy flashlight down inside the cave when they’d first arrived, but it must have been running on old batteries, because it had dimmed to almost nothing. Of course, it had been burning quite a while. He’d had to make three trips up the steep slope, one for each of their paralyzed bodies—Maryanne, Alex, and Brooke.
They were at the very top of Hants High Mountain, well outside the Mansbridge, New Brunswick town limits. Though the Ford F250 had climbed a good part of the way up the mountain’s narrow road, the last leg had to be made on foot to reach the plateau with its numerous caves. Not that it mattered to the casters, who could simply soar through the air, but the climbing had been rough for Bryce as he carried the last of their originals—Brooke’s—into the concealment of the cave.
They’d tried to help with the carrying. Flesh, human or animal, was one of the few things that had solidity for them in their caster forms. With very few exceptions, they tended to move right through anything they touched. But their bodies—their originals—were dead weight and their limbs flopped everywhere like rag dolls. After several awkward attempts, Bryce snapped that it was easier for him to scoop them up in his arms one at a time than for two of them to try to do it.
Of course, the difficulty in accessing the site was why Bryce had chosen it. There were other caves on Hants High Mountain, but this one, the hardest to reach, seemed the safest choice. Only the occasional intrepid hiker ever made their way to the top of the mountain, and fewer still made it to this particular cave, or so Bryce had said. Brooke hoped he was right. Hoped the remoteness and the physical challenge would prevent anyone from searching for them here. Specifically, Heller hunters.
Alex and Maryanne watched Bryce too. A good ten feet separated Brooke from their hovering black forms, but she pulled away a little bit more. If either of them noticed her retreat, neither of them commented on it.
Why would they? This was all Brooke’s fault.
The wound was fresh in all of them.
Mere hours ago, Brooke had shattered the attic’s stained glass window back at Harvell House. But that window with its beautiful Madonna and child hadn’t been just a cool architectural feature of the old Victorian house-turned-dormitory. It was the portal through which the three of them had learned to cast a dark piece of themselves out into the night, to fly free while their bodies lay mute and paralyzed on the floor. And God help her, she’d broken it! She’d broken the portal and locked them out of their bodies.
She’d done it to hurt Maryanne and Alex. Pay them back for betraying her. For keeping secrets from her. They’d kept Connie’s diary from her. The doll too, but the diary hurt her the most. If it weren’t for the words in that decades-old journal, they never would have discovered that they too could cast out through the portal that Connie Harvell had created all those years ago in her desperate confinement. That intoxicating secret—the joy of casting—was the glue that bound the three of them in friendship. Or so Brooke had thought.
It had cut her right down to the bone to see Maryanne and Alex sitting on Alex’s bed, hunched over the book. Alex had repeatedly vowed that she’d destroyed the diary after the incident with C.W. Stanley. For their protection, she’d said. Clearly she’d lied. Seeing them together like that, keeping the diary’s continued existence secret from her, had just about slain Brooke. They’d locked her out, just as her mother had locked her out of her new life with her new husband. Just as Seth had rejected her and locked her out.
An outcast, all over again. Still.
Except Alex and Maryanne hadn’t been keeping the diary secret from her. Well, Alex had, but not only from her. Alex had been about to reveal its existence to Brooke and Maryanne both. She realized that now. Maryanne had arrived only minutes before her in the room and was as surprised by the diary as she had been.
Timing. Screwed up timing. She’d take it back if she could, but it was too late.
God, she should have known better! Casting out was never a smart thing to do when you were struggling with emotion. At the best of times, inhibition fell away when cast separated from original. Doing it in a full-on fit of rage and pain? Epically, colossally stupid. She’d done it anyway, driven by the need to escape, racing away before Alex could explain. Once she’d cast out, her anger had only grown. When Maryanne and Alex cast out after her, she’d shattered the window in a furious impulse, locking them all out. All she could think was, There! Let them see how it feels to be the perpetual outsider!
&
nbsp; Alex had shrieked in rage and horror, and Maryanne—who wouldn’t say shit if she had a mouthful of it—had cursed at her. The words still echoed in Brooke’s mind. You stupid bitch! Alex wasn’t keeping anything from you that she wasn’t keeping from me too…we were waiting for you.
Brooke had raced away then, screaming into the wind over what she had done, and it seemed like the wind had screamed back. She’d wanted to run and never come back. Never have to face her friends again.
Of course, she’d had to return to them as Bryce carted their bodies here in the back of his father’s pick-up.
It hadn’t exactly been an arms-open-wide greeting, but Maryanne had met her with encouraging words: We’re in this together; we’ll figure this out. The reunion with Alex had been cold. Alex hadn’t pushed her away, but she hadn’t exactly embraced her either. She was pissed.
Rightly.
“Umph!”
Brooke startled as she saw Bryce nearly trip, but he caught himself in time to avoid tumbling headfirst into the back wall of the deep cave. Thankfully, he’d already snugged Brooke’s body between Alex’s and Maryanne’s or he probably would have fallen.
Bryce Walker. The only one they could turn to for help.
She’d put them all at his mercy—the mercy of a Walker. Grandson of Ira Walker, the original Heller hunter. She still didn’t completely trust him. Not after what he’d done to Maryanne. Not after what his brother, Seth, had done to her.
And what she’d done to Seth.
And because of it all, Brooke was shaking in a very un-Brooke-like fashion. Yet, in a very Brooke-like fashion, she was keeping that tremble deep down inside. At least her cast was keeping it inside. Her original—so inelegantly laid out on the cold, hard cave floor between Alex and Maryanne—trembled.
Brooke stared at her helpless body lying there with her long hair fanned out around her, blending with Maryanne’s and Alex’s. Simultaneously, she was equally aware of the coldness beneath her body, the hardness of unyielding rock against the back of her head. To some extent, they’d gotten acclimatized to that duality of consciousness and sensation, but when she watched herself like this, it freaked her out all over again.
