by David Estes
“Have you ever heard of a curse sent on a sliver of light?” I ask. “Like a curse of eternally being lost in the woods of West Virginia?”
He shakes his head. “First off, I think we’re in Maryland now. And second, technically, if it was a curse, you should be able to fight it off. You’re a Resistor.”
I nod vehemently. “Exactly what I was thinking. So it must be something else.”
“I guess.” He doesn’t sound very confident, nor does he offer any suggestions as to what it might be.
As Hex whines again, I take over as lead scratcher, more as an apology and a thank you than anything else. “I guess we should just camp here tonight,” I say.
Bil plucks a tiny white flower from the dirt, holds it up to his eye. “Is that you saying that or the white light?” He spins the flower rapidly by the stem.
I think hard about standing up. I even try to stand up, using my arms to help lift my legs. No go—they won’t budge. “The light,” I admit.
“Fine,” Bil says. “But I can’t follow you and your new friend forever. President Washington will think I’ve gone rogue, especially after whatever lies Graves tells her. I need to check in soon or the next witch hunter she sends out might be on a mission to kill the both of us.”
I take a deep breath, suddenly feeling alone. “I understand,” I say. “Tomorrow at first light we’ll part ways.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Laney
My feet should be tired and full of blisters by this point. My legs should be aching and screaming for a break.
But they’re not. They feel as energized as they did when I rose from the Necro camp, after seeing the light. Weird, I think.
Weirder still, is the fact that they seem to know exactly where they want to go, both my feet and my legs, and I seem to have little control over it. Scratch that. No control over it.
It’s a little bit freaky—okay, a lot freaky—and yet I don’t feel scared by it. Not after hearing Trish’s voice in my head. Her voice and the light have to be connected. And even if she’s being brainwashed by the Claires or the Changelings, I’d rather find her and talk to her than wander around with the Necros hoping we run into them so there can be a big ol’ witch throw down—my broomstick’s bigger than yours, and all that.
And I’m hoping the strange light and its control of my legs will help me find her, and not trot me right off a cliff.
Daylight arrives and I wonder what Xave is thinking now that he knows I left them. Does he care? Will they try to look for me or continue with their plan to hunt down the Changelings? I push those questions aside because I have no control over the events potentially set in motion by my departure. I can only prepare myself for whatever is coming, whether that’s a showdown with Trish and the Claires or an untimely death.
More hours pass but I’m not thirsty or hungry. It’s like the light inside me is feeding me. A few times I try to stop or change my path, but nothing I do seems to work, even when I’m able to grab a passing branch and hang on. My feet keep moving, stretching my arm awkwardly behind me. A few steps later, something’s got to give, either my arm or the branch, and the branch seems sturdy enough to hang on, so I’m forced to let go to avoid dislocating my shoulder.
An hour later, when the sun is high in the sky and scattering brief patches of sunlight through the woodsy canopy, I try again. This time I refuse to let go of the branch, even when I feel my arm stretching, my muscles burning, my shoulder being wrenched from its—
There’s a pop and a sharp craaaacking sound and then an excruciating flash of pain in my shoulder. I stumble, my feet dancing beneath me to try to keep their balance, but the jerky motion of the branch snapping from the tree trunk trips me up. I go down hard, still clutching the branch, my shoulder screaming, my arm dangling awkwardly at my side. It’s clearly dislocated.
What have I done?
I’m alone in the woods, lost, and very very obviously human—none of which you want to be during the witch apocalypse.
I blink and the most impossible thing happens. The pain withdraws and my injured arm reaches for the treetops, seemingly without being told. There’s another pop! and when my arm drops it’s no longer dangling, but hanging normally, firm and strong. The branch drops from my fingers as I let out an enormous, gasping breath.
My entire arm is glowing.
The light fades an instant later and my body works together to pull me to my feet. I start walking again, as if the entire incident never happened. My heart is beating so fast I think it might explode, but if it does I get the feeling the white light will find a way to make it whole again.
One thing is clear: No matter what, I’m getting to wherever the light wants me to go.
~~~
One cool thing about not having to tell your feet what to do or where to go is that you can sleep while walking. Well, not sleep exactly, as I’m not tired in the least; rather, I’m able to close my eyes and think. At first I keep opening them every few seconds to make sure I’m not headed for a tree, but eventually I get so comfortable trusting the light inside me that I keep my eyes closed for whole minutes, and then hours, the sound of my own feet crunching through the forest fading into the background.
My thoughts are scattered like raindrops. I think about Trish, about all we’ve been through together, about how much she’s changed, about whether I’ll ever see her again. And I think about Rhett and how lucky I feel to have met him. He could’ve picked a hundred other buildings to hide in that day, but he picked mine. I only hope his time in my life wasn’t as fleeting as it felt, and that I’ll see him again someday, when he’s done with his quest for revenge.
To my surprise, however, the majority of my thoughts are focused on the Necros. I keep rewinding my conversations with Xave, trying to find the lies that must be there, the holes in his story. The thought that, regardless of the methods the Necros use, their motives might be pure, is something that would’ve seemed impossible a week ago. But now, it’s like I want to believe Xave. I want to believe that at least one of the witch gangs is trying to restore peace. Maybe it’s for Trish’s sake, or maybe it’s because I’m so tired of hating the magic-born that I’ll take anything that proves they’re not all bad.
Somewhere along the way I realize that it’s dark behind my eyelids. I have the urge to open my eyes, but I know it’ll be too dark to see anyway. Plus, what’s the point? My legs have things under control. I have a funny thought: What if this turns into a Forrest Gump thing where I can’t stop moving forward? I could walk from coast to coast and then back without getting tired. Or maybe the light inside me will decide to go for a dip. We could swim across the Atlantic Ocean, all the way to Europe. Maybe the witches left Europe alone. Maybe they’re still eating pizza in Italy and tapas in Spain, while we suffer in America. Maybe they’re laughing at us for our own stupidity. We burned witches and now they’re burning us. An eye for an eye.
I chuckle under my breath. I think all the thinking time is making me a little loopy.
Finally, I open my eyes, surprised to find I can see reasonably well under the light of a full moon hanging directly overhead. Overhead where there’s a hole in the forest.
I realize my feet have stopped and I’m standing in place, staring at the sky.
When I tilt my gaze down, taking in the area around me, I see three dark rocks protruding from the ground in front of me. The light inside me begins to glow, seeming to push against my skin.
Then the weirdest thing happens:
One of the rocks begins to glow, too.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rhett
A bright light wakes me. I squint against it, trying to discern its source, feeling Hex brush up against my side. He barks once and takes off toward the edge of the woods.
“Hex!” I shout.
“Urgh,” Bil groans. “Can you and your dog turn it down a notch? Trying to slee—” He must open his eyes and see the light because his words cut off sharply. “What the…?
Rhett, are you…glowing?”
Hex lets out another gleeful bark and I hear another voice say, “Good, boy.”
I’m on my feet in an instant, cupping a hand over my brow to try to shield my vision from the light, but still it invades my eyes, seeming to press in from every angle. Then I see the truth:
The light is coming from me.
No time to think about that. Not when the voice I heard is so familiar, even though it seemed to speak from what feels like years ago, but which is really only a couple days.
I rush forward, ignoring the flashes of light at my sides as I pump my arms.
Halfway across the clearing, I stop.
Because there she is, crouched down, scratching Hex—who’s wagging his tail furiously—behind the ear. Like mine, her entire body is glowing.
“Laney?” I say, and she looks up. My breath catches in my lungs at the expression on her face, which is a mixture of happy and scared and something else. It’s as naked and unguarded as I’ve ever seen her look.
“Rhett, you’re glowing,” she says, raising an eyebrow, her face sheened with light that seems to shoot from her pores.
“So are you,” I point out.
She stands and takes a step forward, toward me. I let out a breath and do the same, repeating the motion until we’re right in front of each other, not more than a foot away.
Her hand reaches out and I feel an involuntary shudder roll through me. It’s not from the cold, not on this warm night.
She hesitates, just for a moment, and then touches my arm, squeezing my bicep. “I know we haven’t been apart for long, but have you been working out?”
It’s classic Laney and I can’t wait a single moment longer. I stride forward and wrap her up in a hug, our glowing skin melting together, the warmth of her body joining with mine.
“Sorry I left without saying goodbye,” she says, looking up at me.
“Sorry I made you feel like you had to leave,” I say.
“Is this…okay?” she asks.
I think she means the fact that we’re still wrapped up in a tight hug, her lips mere inches from mine. “It’s better than you hitting me,” I say.
She laughs and the sound of it makes me shiver with happiness. She found me. Somehow, someway, she found me.
And as I tuck a hand behind her head and push her face to my chest, the light slowly slips down her face, her neck, her body, until it trickles from her feet into the ground, like a gutter draining after a spring rain. But it’s not just her light—mine, too. The light that had been coursing through our bodies is in a puddle on the clearing floor, shining at us like our own personal sun.
It begins to swirl, throwing off lasers of white light, until it rises up, still swirling and then explodes in a blinding flash.
I shut my eyes, feeling the heat of the light on my skin, waiting to open them until there’s only darkness behind my eyelids. When I do open my eyes, there are three letters hanging in front of me, glowing a dull red, as if made from hot coals.
SEE
“Trish,” Laney murmurs.
A sudden realization hits me. “Where’s your sister?” I say.
“Gone,” she says, and that one word seems to chase away the red letters, which fade into the darkness of night.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Trish
Tonight the light returns to her in the form of glowing children.
The boys have long bangs that hang over their eyes and the girls have pigtails that bounce along behind them. They hold hands and skip through the forest, seemingly filled with glee. When they reach Trish, they smile and bow and then step into her, rejoining the rest of the light inside her.
She feels whole again. She’s made something wrong right.
Her sister is safe again.
She tries to smile—wants to smile—but her lips are still too stiff, as if held straight by wire.
A presence approaches from the side, but she doesn’t turn to look. Leave me, she says in the red Changeling’s head. She’s not in the mood to speak to the witch just now.
“We have much to decide,” the red-haired witch says to her back.
She wants to tell the witch to talk to the willowy blue-eyed Claire about it, but then she remembers. She’s their Mother. They’re all looking to her now.
I have much to decide, Trish says. Even as she ponders why she says it, she knows it’s true.
“If this alliance is to succeed, we have to trust each other. I am the Changeling leader, and you the Mother of the Claires. We must decide this together or all will be for nothing.”
Kill the president? she says.
“She is an evil woman. With her in power, there will never be peace.”
Peace? The word sounds strange to her, faded and dusty and tattered around the edges, like an old book borne through generations, read by thousands. And yet never true. There has never been peace. And although she has seen so few years in this lifetime, less than a decade, the souls of billions seem to cry from the trees, from the soil, from the plants around her, confirming her words.
“Maybe not,” the Changeling says. “But we’re further from it than we’ve ever been. There are two who stand in our way. The president and the Reaper. End them and we’ll end Salem’s Revenge forever.”
Forever is a very long time, Trish says, memories assaulting her once more. The tumultuous pain of childbirth. The love that one can only feel for a child. The pain of watching lives cut far too short. The memories of her own deaths, numbering in the dozens—or perhaps more. Lifetimes of memories.
She senses the witch’s mouth opening to speak, but she cuts her off. Go, for I am weary and I must rest. All will not be decided in a night.
“Nothing has been decided,” the witch says, through teeth that surely must be clamped tightly together.
We move on New Washington, Trish says. She doesn’t know what she will do when they arrive, but that’s where her sister will be and so that’s where she must be.
“Good,” the Changeling leader says. Her soft footfalls fade away and Trish finally, at the knowledge that she’s in control of her own destiny…
Smiles.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Laney
“Let me guess, he just showed up and asked to tag along?” I say when I see my arch nemesis sitting cross-legged on a bedroll.
“Nice to see you, too,” Bil Nez says.
“He saved my life,” Rhett says.
“Oh?” I say. “Bil Nez, always showing up at just the right time. How does he do it?”
“I’m just that good,” Bil says.
“And he put a tracking device in my shoe,” Rhett says.
“He did what?” I say, taking a step forward. My right fist knots at my side, but Rhett puts an arm out to stop me. “Laney…please. There’s something you need to know.”
I’m curious, but I have just as much to tell. Maybe more. “Me first,” I say.
~~~
Gravity gets ahold of Rhett’s jaw about halfway through my story, when I come face to face with the red Siren. He tries to speak but I hold up a hand and continue, determined to finish.
His jaw drops even further when I tell him that Xave and the Reaper are alive. He keeps shaking his head until I complete the story.
“Bastards,” he says.
“They’re not that bad,” I say, shocking even myself.
Rhett looks at me incredulously. “Not that bad?” he says. “You were there. You saw what they did to Beth.”
“Xave has a lot of regrets, but I think his heart was in the right place,” I say.
“He raised her from the dead. He sewed her eyes shut.”
“Because they weren’t perfect yet.”
“She died again. As if once weren’t enough.”
“He watched her die the first time. He held her. He buried her, once,” I say. I can’t believe I’m defending a warlock—and a Necro at that. And yet I feel like someone has to.
“That’
s where he should’ve left her,” Rhett says. “But it’s good to see you’re besties with Xave and his father.”
“I’m not,” I say. “I just understand them better than before.” Do I really? They’ve lied before, they could be lying now. Then I tell him about the Necro’s second army of the dead.
Rhett looks away, the line of his jaw firm and tight. He’s angry. So much for our happy reunion. But then he looks back and his face relaxes. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Touchy subject. I didn’t listen to you before, but I am now. If you say there’s more to the Necros than just a bunch of sadistic corpse-raisers, then I believe you.” Although it sounds like there should be sarcasm in his tone, I don’t hear any. He’s being genuine. Then I see the twinkle in his eye.
“But if I’m going to be open-minded, then you have to be, too.”
He glances at Bil Nez, who grins at me with a wide, white smile.
I groan.
~~~
“Nez is lying,” I say, when Rhett finishes the story. “Nez didn’t try to help us back in Pittsburgh. He abandoned us.” I draw my gun.
Bil starts to scramble to his feet, but I’m quicker, my Glock already aimed at his head. He puts his hands up, while Hex runs between the two of us, barking.
“Wait,” Bil yelps. “I was just going to show you something.”
“Right,” I say. “Like the business end of your crossbow.”
“Laney,” Rhett warns. “You promised to be open-minded. You don’t see me running off to find Xave and his dad so I can stab my sword through their hearts, do you?”
“Yeah, but I bet you want to,” I retort.
He bites his bottom lip, but doesn’t respond. I was joking, but maybe I hit the dead center of the target. “And they’re not going to be sleeping next to you tonight,” I add.
“If I wanted to kill the great Rhett Carter, I already would have,” Bil says, which almost makes me pull the trigger.
