by Norah Wilson
Maryanne dropped down as low as she could without sinking into the earth…much. Then she dropped down a little bit more.
“Whoa, Maryanne!” Alex said. “Don’t go too far. If there’s iron in the ground or an iron-lined coffin—”
“Oh!” Maryanne shot right back up. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I just…”
“You just were feeling close to Vesta?” Brooke offered.
Maryanne nodded.
Iron-lined or not, Vesta’s coffin would be a good six feet under. Not even with her mind drifting would Maryanne have gone down that far. But what if there was iron just below the surface? What if someone had laid iron pipes or spikes or horseshoes or anything else just under the sod? That had been one of the stories Brooke had heard over the school year when Heller rumors were flying, that some people planted iron in the ground over graves, so the Hellers wouldn’t come and steal their loved one’s bones, or their souls.
That would be something Ira Walker would do.
Asshat.
The night suddenly seemed a little more quiet, and certainly a little more serious, as the girls turned their attention to the church.
“Through a window?” Alex asked. “Betts said they were mostly broken.”
“Not the one on this side,” Brooke said.
“Let’s check the others out.” Maryanne was already moving to circle the building.
“Wait!” Alex called after her, and Maryanne stopped. “Wasn’t the point of coming around from the back—besides playing in the graveyard—to stay out of sight in case a Heller hunter might be lurking?”
“Yeah, but sailing through a nice empty window frame would be a lot easier than taking our chances going through the wall,” Maryanne said. “I hate those nails.” The latter was said with feeling.
“It’s only easier if you don’t get blasted full of iron pellets,” Alex shot back.
They were silent for a moment. “Then I’ll use the penny glove to pick up a rock and bash the rest of the glass out of that window,” Maryanne said, pointing to the one window on the narrow back of the church
Brooke eyed the window, which still had more than half a pane of glass in it. The window itself was barely big enough for them to glide through, but if the glass was gone, a tight fit wouldn’t be an issue. If part of their casts had to pass through the wooden sills, no problem. However, bashing the glass could be a problem. Before Maryanne could zoom off to execute her plan, Brooke spoke up.
“That’d be a little noisy, wouldn’t it? I mean, if we’re truly concerned that hunters might be lurking out front, don’t you think they’d hear the smashing glass?”
Maryanne made a sound of frustration.
“Looks like the wall, then,” Alex said.
“Let me go in first,” Brooke said. “If it is a trap then I should be the one who—”
“No way!” Maryanne said. “You and Alex have taken almost all the risks all along, and always for me.”
“That’s bull,” Alex said.
Maryanne huffed. “Oh yeah? Alex, what about that time months ago when you went through the second pane of glass in caster form? I still don’t believe you really got the shortest straw. Brooke, you saved me from C.W.—you could have run right back out of the house but you didn’t. Thank God! This time it has to be me.”
“Wait a minute.” Alex said. “I knew Connie better than any of you. I was closest to her. If there was something important to her here…if she left anything behind, then I’d be the one—”
Maryanne interrupted, “But we don’t even really know—”
Brooke raised her hands in a silencing gesture, one that actually worked. “We’ll go together.”
“That might not be the smartest move,” Alex said.
“Maybe it’s the smartest move we can make,” Brooke countered, “especially if we run into trouble.”
“Alex, she’s right,” Maryanne said.
“All right,” Alex conceded, after only a slight pause. “We go together.”
Brooke’s heart skipped a beat back in the cave as she and her pitch-black sisters moved through the Mansbridge night to the back wall of the church.
Brooke couldn’t help but notice Maryanne’s second shimmering shudder of the night. She may have been elated earlier to scare the ghosts away, but whatever she was feeling now as she gazed back at that reforming mist scared her.
“Ready?” Alex asked. And though no one else would notice, Brooke felt the quake in her voice.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.” Maryanne turned full around. “On the count of three.”
Brooke simply nodded, uttered a ‘one’ and then, before anyone could protest, shot through the wall.
Chapter 20
Flight of the Rats
Alex
Alex looked at Maryanne with incredulity. “That brat! If there’s any amount of iron in these walls—”
Before Alex could rant further, Brooke popped back out, or rather popped just her head back out through the weather-ravaged side of the church. “All clear,” she said, “Come in the same way I did, you’ll be fine. Stay nice and low to the ground.” She disappeared back inside the old building before either Alex or Maryanne could utter a word in protest.
“She’s so damn reckless,” Alex ranted. “She always has been. Remember how she flew into Seth’s room when Melissa was there? She pulled his hair. His freakin’ hair! And didn’t we just have this whole discussion about doing this together? But noooo, she has to—”
“She just wants to make it up to us for getting us into this,” Maryanne cut in. “You know that.”
Alex bit down on her frustration. Calm down, Robbins. She focused on her original, just drifting off to sleep and falling into pleasant dreams. Of course they were pleasant dreams, she wouldn’t have it any other way now.
Maryanne slid the penny-lined glove off her hand and let it fall to the ground.
“Good thinking,” Alex said.
She couldn’t go through the wall with that on. Well, part of her could, but she’d be left dangling there once the copper hit the surface. What they wore when they cast out wasn’t an issue; it just became part of their cast. What they picked up didn’t. Mentally Alex marked the spot where the glove landed on the ground. By the way Maryanne turned to look around behind her, Alex knew that she was doing the same.
It dropped by the wall facing the graveyard, left-hand side, right across from the tall white tombstone with large, sad angel on top.
Done.
The glove was too valuable a resource to lose. Ever. But especially now. They would have to start setting down the stones on the pond soon. The picture on the ice was almost fully formed. Maryanne was getting closer to unlocking more of the grimoire’s secrets, but time was not on their side. The warming temperatures were thinning the ice by the day. By the freakin’ hour.
As Alex looked past the silent stone angel one more time, her gaze tracked left. Had something shifted within the wisps? She looked again, looked closer, then shook her head. It was nothing, just drifting tendrils of thicker mist in the ground-hugging fog. She was just being paranoid. Overprotective. And yes, she did know that Brooke and Maryanne called her the ‘den mother’.
Brooke popped her head out again. “Are you coming or not?” she said, and disappeared back inside, not waiting for an answer.
Without another word, Maryanne went down low as Brooke had instructed, then she moved through the wall.
A split second later, so did Alex, joining the others inside the old church.
“Ahhhhh!” Alex yelled. It felt like her arm was about to rip off. “Iron! Brooke, why didn’t you tell us?”
“Don’t be a baby. It’s not enough to do any harm.”
“But it hurt like hell!” Alex protested.
“Yeah, but you still had to get in here. Wasn’t it better not knowing?”
That made stupid sense, in a rip-off-the-bandage-quickly way.
“That’s why you told us to come in rig
ht there,” Maryanne said, pointing to where they’d entered. Apparently, she’d gotten a dose of iron too. “Because you knew there wasn’t enough iron to trap us.”
Brooke shrugged. “Who knows how much there is elsewhere in this old building. I may have just lucked out entering where I did.”
“They spiked the walls,” Alex said, stating the obvious. So it wasn’t just sheds and houses the townspeople had fortified.
Maryanne shivered. “Someone tried to Heller-proof the place.”
“That could be the reason,” Brooke said.
Alex looked at her. “The reason for what?”
“For Connie not telling us about this place. She might have been trying to protect us.”
Alex looked around the dark gloom, her eyes adjusting rapidly. High, grime-covered windows—most of them completely or partially smashed out—let in just enough silvered moonlight for Alex to see into the less shadowed areas. The deeper shadows, however, were impenetrable, even to her caster eyes.
And though Alex didn’t ‘feel’ places like Maryanne did, it occurred to her—somehow—that this dark gloom was looking back. Waiting. Listening.
We have disturbed this ancient stillness from its peaceful prayer, and are asked to pay right here and now, with our tales of woe.
Wise and strong—we do exist—we who claim the night!
The world around Alex became very still and she reached down for the words.
There is a price for magic, for we who claim the night. That price is the fear they sold us. We must cast that fear away.
Okay, that was good!
Alex couldn’t help it. She was a writer after all. So she repeated the phrase mentally a half dozen times and cursed her caster fingers for not being able to hold pen and paper. She’d use that passage…in something.
Her thoughts were derailed by a high-pitched squeal. It started with one, but then there was a whole chorus of terrified cries.
“Oh no!” Maryanne cringed. “Rats! I hate rats!”
Patricia Betts hadn’t been exaggerating. The place was full of them. And one screech had started them all.
The casters were inside the church’s sanctuary, and the terrified rats were no longer scared stiff and still and silent by their presence, but were running, scrambling over each other as they raced for cover. Raced for escape from the casters. A huge rat as large as a freakin’ house cat tumbled off a broken pew as it looked back at them. It was too dark to make out its eyes, but Alex imagined they were beady and red and held pure terror.
Even though the vermin wouldn’t come near them, Maryanne hovered a few feet higher off the floor, as did Alex.
“Yeah,” Brooke said. She was trying to sound calm, but her voice was definitely shaky. Or maybe excited. “Seems they don’t think much of us, either.”
“Want to swoop them?” Maryanne said. That quickly, she’d changed her tone. From mouse to…rat warrior. Okay, Alex had to admit, not all her thoughts were writer-golden.
But did she want to swoop the rats?
You bet she did!
The animals were silent now, perhaps thinking they were safer beneath the cover of broken boards. Little did they know the casters could fly through those piles of discarded pews and scraps of heavy curtains. They could chase these creatures from their pathetic cover, scare the living daylights right—
Back in the cave, Alex stirred away from her dream. Her heart skipped one adrenaline-filled beat. Both with the exciting thought of swooping the rats, and with the fear of it. Fear of getting distracted from the plan. They had work to do. They were here for a reason. Before she could voice her caution, Brooke beat her to it.
“Nah, we’d better not,” she said. “The longer we’re out here, the more dangerous it is.”
Alex agreed. “Yeah, the longer our bodies are unguarded.”
“And so close to the fire,” Maryanne said. She turned to Alex then Brooke. “Sorry, I…I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”
Oh crap! Alex hadn’t thought of that, the candles burning around them! How uneasy that had to be for Maryanne to lie so close to the flickering flames. They’d placed them far enough away—Alex hoped—but if one of those pillars somehow fell over, and rolled enough in a certain direction…
Yeah, they’d better get to work.
“Okay, if the Connie sightings here were true,” Alex said. “Why would she come here?”
“Maybe she just came because it’s amazing here,” Maryanne said. “Beautiful.” She flew low around the sanctuary, over the pews, broken and all. She turned as if rolling up in the feeling as she went, row by row.
Brooke was close behind her. “You’re not kidding, are you?”
“Nope.”
Alex joined in the hovering. Again, the girls found themselves floating in a clockwise motion over the pews, through the darkness, and within the shine of silver from the moon. There was a comfort in the circle they made of themselves.
“Maybe it’s the energy thing you talked about?” Alex said. “Like with the stones? The give and take. The belief and believed.”
“That too.” Maryanne said. “This place definitely has a presence.” Her voice drifted off wistfully. “A powerful one.”
“Do you think Connie felt it?” Brooke asked.
Though she didn’t direct her question to Alex, they all knew it would be she who’d answer. “If she came here at all, it probably wasn’t until after she was locked out of her body when they killed her. Otherwise, I think she’d have mentioned it in her diary. And she never mentioned this place to me. I mean to us,” Alex corrected.
“I still say she wanted to protect us,” Brooke offered. “I mean, what if this place is dangerous? More spikes than we know about? Iron hidden elsewhere? What if there was something here she didn’t want you—or us—to see? What if this place scared Connie Harvell?”
Alex was silent for several long seconds as she chewed on this thought. Casting made them all that much more fearless. If there was something here that scared Connie—the one who’d bravely faced so much—it had to be huge.
“What do you think, Maryanne?” Alex asked. “Despite how amazing it feels, does it feel scary at all?”
There was no answer.
Alex stopped. She looked around. Brooke did too.
“Maryanne, where are you?” Brooke called out.
“Over here.”
They followed the sound of her voice.
Unnoticed, Maryanne had slipped from their hovering circle. Now she was near the front of the church, by what had to have once been the pulpit. It lay splintered on the floor, and Maryanne ‘lay’ next to it, sinking down.
Alex was ready to grab her arm to haul her back up. Then Maryanne shook her head.
“Are you doing that on purpose?” Alex asked. “Going into the floor?”
“Yes. I am. I…I think I am.”
“What do you mean?” Alex asked.
“There’s something here. Something’s calling. Reaching…”
And with that, she disappeared completely.
“Ahhh! I wish you guys would quit doing that!”
“What? You mean this?” Brooke sank below the floorboards too.
What the hell!
Alex waited. And waited a few minutes more. Should she go after them? What if they were both trapped in iron down there? If that were the case, and she got trapped too, they were royally screwed
What if they were lost? Oh man, what if some mutant rats weren’t afraid of casters and—
Maryanne partially resurfaced. “Alex, you’ve got to see this. There’s a room below.”
“Like a basement?”
“No. Like a—”
She slipped back down mid-sentence, and this time, Alex went after her.
“Vault,” Maryanne finished her sentence, not missing a beat.
A lone light glowed overhead and Alex did a double take. One of the other girls must have snapped it on with the yellowed string pull cord. A pull cord to which a ho
nking big copper ring had been attached! The bulb itself was like something Alex had never seen before. It was obviously very old. Alex looked around the small, black-walled space. Yes, it was a vault.
“One very creepy, disturbing vault,” she said.
“Yeah, and look what it’s holding,” Brooke breathed.
Alex didn’t need her to point out the lone object in the room—a stand. Maybe the right word was easel. And it held a very large, flat object, draped in plush black fabric. It looked like a painting in a gallery ready to be unveiled.
“Did you look at it?” Alex asked.
“No,” Brooke answered. “We waited for you.”
“A lost Picasso? Van Gogh?” Maryanne asked. “Antiques Roadshow here we come.” She was trying to keep her tone light, but Alex could hear the anxiousness in her voice.
Brooke reached for the draping fabric.
“Your hand will—”
Alex had been about to say that Brooke’s hand would go right through it, except it didn’t. Her hand grabbed right onto the black fabric.
“Didn’t you see?” she said. “The reddish tinge to the material?”
Alex saw it then. “Copper dust,” she said. “Vesta’s been here.”
“No!” Maryanne shouted. She shot back, as if she’d startled herself.
“How do you know?” Brooke asked.
“I…I don’t know how I know. But I do. I would have felt Vesta here. Guys, I’m sure of it. Vesta Walker has never been in this vault.”
Alex didn’t doubt it.
Brooke nodded. “Okay then. Ready?”
Alex and Maryanne nodded but said nothing. All three held perfectly still as Brooke pulled the thick drape free. It fell to the floor at her feet.
Inside, Alex screamed and screamed and screamed. Fear might be set aside when they cast out, but it shot back through every dark fiber of her being at what she saw before her.
Or maybe it was just that there was suddenly so much more to fear.
Chapter 21
And Speaking of Circles…
Brooke
Brooke took a gasping step backward, then whirled to stare at Maryanne and Alex.
