The Blue Woods

by Nicole Maggi

  If it was one of the neighbors, then I was a Malandante Dragon. I bit the inside of my cheek. We were stupid to come here, in the bright light of day . . .

  Another round of knocking echoed through the house, making my insides shake.

  Lidia squared her shoulders and marched to the stairs.

  “Mom, no!”

  “I’m allowed to be in my own house,” she said, her jaw set. “Stay down here.”

  “Mom!”

  But she ignored me and disappeared up the stairs, shutting the basement door with a snap.

  My breath shallow, I moved to the next set of bricks, my ears fine-tuned to the floor above me as my fingers worked. The front door creaked open and I heard Lidia say, “Buon giorno. May I help you?” in her best imperious Italian accent.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Jacobs.”

  At the sound of Pratt Webster’s voice, my blood turned to ice in my veins. And at the same time, my fingers hit a snag, a place in the wall where the mortar had been scraped clean.

  “My name is Pratt Web—”

  “Yes, I remember you, Mr. Webster. What is it you want?”

  I bent my head, my hair dangling around my face, and slid my fingers into the space where the mortar should have been. With a little tug, first one brick came out and then another. Dust clouded the air, and I pinched my mouth shut to keep from coughing.

  “I’m surprised to see you here. I heard the house was being treated for black mold.”

  “Well, Mr. Webster, I’m surprised to see you here. I thought I made it perfectly clear the last time you set foot in my house that you are not welcome.”

  “You can understand my concern when I saw you enter a house that is supposed to be toxic.”

  “I don’t really see how that’s any of your concern.”

  My hands grappled inside the wall. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t make air come through my mouth into my lungs. Bile rose in the back of my throat. God, she was up there with the man who’d killed my father. But I hadn’t told her. I’d been so preoccupied with how she’d betrayed me that I hadn’t told her about Dad . . . and she had no idea how dangerous Pratt Webster truly was.

  Mortar crumbled away, and my fingers hit something smooth and solid. I got a good grip on it and pulled hard. With a shower of powdered brick, a leather-bound book came tumbling out of the wall with such force that I fell back on my bottom. The book fell against my knee with a painful smack. It was a kind of old-fashioned journal, large and square with thick leather binding.

  “Perhaps it’s my concern because there really isn’t black mold in this house.”

  “Just what are you suggesting?”

  I grabbed the book and bolted up the stairs. “Mom, I found it. I was such an idiot to leave it behind.” I slid to a stop in the living room, looking at Pratt like he was the last person I expected to see. “Um, hi.” I walked to the coat rack, holding the book behind my back. “We really shouldn’t be in here for too long. They told us the treatment is super toxic.” I held Lidia’s coat out to her, hoping Pratt couldn’t see how my arm shook.

  “Then why were you here?”

  “I left one of my textbooks in the basement.” I pulled my own coat off the rack, keeping my face turned away from him. Just breathe, I told myself. Don’t think about stabbing his eyes out.

  “Really.” I felt Pratt’s gaze on me.

  Don’t look at him, don’t look at him . . .

  “Don’t you dare talk to my daughter like that, Mr. Webster. In fact, don’t you dare talk to my daughter at all.” Lidia stormed to the door and flung it open. “Please leave.”

  An angry breath of wind gusted through the door. “So sorry to have bothered you,” Pratt said, his voice so honeyed that it made my stomach turn. He took a step toward the door. “Though I do find it interesting that your daughter’s textbook is glowing blue.”

  I gasped and brought the book around to my front. It was enveloped in a halo of the telltale Benandanti blue. But it hadn’t been glowing in the basement. I backed away, the book held in front of me, my hands bathed in its celestial aura. My traitorous hands . . . the book must have unlocked only for a Benandante, the light only have shone when a Benandante held it.

  “Get out!” Lidia screeched, and I didn’t know if she was screaming at me or at Pratt. I stumbled backward into the kitchen, heading for the back door, but Pratt crossed the length of the house in a microsecond. The instant I reached for the knob, he slammed his palm flat on the door above my head, trapping me in.

  “So it’s you,” he breathed, his words hot on my face, in my hair, down my neck. “I thought it was your mother, but it’s you. Jonah’s sweet little girl is a Benandante. No wonder he won’t kill you.”

  I raised my gaze and finally looked into Pratt Webster’s eyes. As I searched their soulless depths, tendrils of rage uncurled in every corner of my body and spiraled outward. “Yes, it’s me,” I spat, thrilled to see a healthy drop of my saliva land on his nose. “I’m the Falcon. The one who broke your wings.” Breath came hard and fast, making my insides burn. “I’m also the one whose barn you burned down. And the one whose father you had killed. But you already knew that.”

  He reared back, his free hand ready to strike . . . I went low and drove the book hard into his gut. He sputtered and hunched over. I thrust the book right into his throat and his Adam’s apple smashed with a sickening shudder. He fell back against the door, but as I went in for one more strike, he kicked his foot out. My legs flew out from under me, and I hit the floor with a bone-crunching thud that made me cry out. I scrambled backward on my butt as he came at me, his hands grabbing. The book . . . he wanted the book . . . I shoved it behind me, half sitting on it. He’d have to kill me to get to it. And when I looked up into his face, I realized that was exactly what he planned to do.

  His hands closed over my neck. He dragged me up, his grip so strong that my feet left the floor. I clawed at his fingers, kicked at his shins, but he held me fast. I fought for air, trying to get in one tiny sip. Lines crisscrossed before my eyes, my vision blurring at the edges. I scratched his face, but he barely flinched. The edges were closing in . . . getting darker and darker.

  “Get your hands off my daughter.”

  He let me go.

  I fell in a boneless heap on the floor, gasping, filling my lungs again and again. I never knew how much I loved breathing. It took me a minute to realize Pratt had backed up all the way to the wall, his hands held above him. My hand on my throat, I turned around.

  Lidia stood in the doorway to the kitchen with my father’s shotgun clutched in her white-knuckled hands. I grabbed the book and clambered to my feet. The butt of the gun was jammed into her shoulder, the barrel was pointed straight at Pratt’s head, and the safety was off. I’d been taught to fear and respect guns since I was a child, and I knew the safety didn’t come off unless you meant business. I got behind Lidia and put my hand on the small of her back.

  “Is what she says true? Did you kill my husband?”

  Pratt didn’t answer. In the dim light that filtered in from the window, I saw him swallow, his throat bruised where I’d hit him with the book. Good. I could only imagine what my own neck looked like.

  “It’s true,” I said, my voice coarse and dry. “I heard him tell Jonah.”

  Lidia stalked toward him, her steps measured, like she was hunting prey she had absolutely no doubt she’d capture. Pratt looked around, his eyes wild, but he was against the wall with nowhere to go. When Lidia stopped, the shotgun was less than an inch from the bridge of his nose.

  “Open the door,” she said.

  He fumbled with the knob behind him. Cold air rushed in, along with the faint acrid smell from the burnt-out barn. “Walk,” Lidia ordered.

  I followed her out, closing the door behind me. Pratt half-walked, half-jogged around the side of the house, glancing over his shoulder at the barrel of the gun. If I hadn’t been filled with such blinding-white rage, I would’ve laughed at how swiftly
his arrogance had abandoned him.

  We came to the front of the house. Pratt’s sleek silver Mercedes was parked in our driveway. Lidia nudged him with the gun until he was backed up against the driver’s side door. “Get in,” she said. “Drive away. If you set foot on this property again, you will be shot. If you come within one hundred feet of my daughter anywhere in this town, this state, this world, you will be shot.”

  Pratt’s gaze shifted from Lidia to me. His face darkened as he looked at the book, his lips snarling. “You cannot win,” he said.

  “You Malandanti keep saying that,” I said, “and yet there are four sites under our control and three under yours.” Our eyes met and there was almost an understanding there, like we knew we’d just keep on trying to kill each other until one of us succeeded.

  “Get off my farm,” Lidia said.

  Pratt ducked into his car, gunned the engine, and fired out of the driveway like a rocket. Only when the last curl of smoke had disappeared from the road did my mother lower the gun. And begin to shake.

  I grabbed her arm. “Don’t, Mom. Keep it together. We have to go.”

  She nodded once, and we bolted up the driveway, down Main Street, and onto Willowbrook Lane. I burst into Jenny’s house, ran to the den, and flung open the door. Nerina, Heath, and Bree sat clustered around the desk, an ancient book made out of what looked like bark open on the surface in front of them. I skidded to a stop and dropped the blue-haloed book on top of it. “He knows,” I panted. “Pratt Webster knows I’m the Falcon.”

  Heath leapt to his feet and grabbed my arms. “How? How did he find out?”

  “He came to the house. He saw me with that book . . .” The words tumbled over themselves, loose and confused in my mouth.

  “What the hell is this book?” Bree asked, touching her finger to it.

  “Something my father hid.”

  “Your father?” Heath said. “Why would he—?”

  “I don’t know, but now Pratt knows about me and he wants the book.”

  “We have to hide you,” Heath said.

  “We can hide her in the cabin with Jonah,” Bree said, and for a crazy tortured moment my heart leapt at that thought.

  “No.” Nerina rose to her feet and we all fell silent. She laid her palm flat on the book. The blue light wove around her fingers like shimmering thread. “I have just been telling Heath and Bree our next orders. The Concilio believes we should’ve gone after the Olive Grove instead of the Waterfall—”

  “Duh,” Bree muttered.

  Nerina ignored her. “So Bree and I are flying to Italy to assist them.” She reached out with her other hand and touched my cheek. “And to remove you from danger here at home, you must come with us.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Nerina’s Big-Ass Secret

  Bree

  We flew another private jet to Cividale, the seat of Friuli and the home of the Concilio. I could tell Alessia was super impressed but trying to play it cool, like she took trips on a private jet every weekend. “When was the last time you were on a plane?” I asked her as we taxied down the runway.

  “Um, we went to Florida when I was seven.”

  I smirked. “Should we get you a barf bag just in case?”

  Alessia rolled her eyes. “I think I’ll be just fine, thank you.” She pulled a trashy-looking novel out of her bag and sat back to read. I’d never seen Alessia read anything other than school assignments, and this book was definitely not on any extra-credit reading lists. So she’d decided to take my advice and take a day off. Good for her. Not that I blamed her after what had happened at the farmhouse.

  “Tell me again how Lidia pointed a gun at Pratt’s face.”

  Alessia lowered the book a few inches. “You’ve already heard it like three times.”

  “I don’t think I’m ever going to get tired of it.”

  One corner of her mouth turned up. “It was pretty awesome.” The half-smile disappeared. “If it hadn’t been so terrifying.” She touched her fingers to her neck, where the shadow of Pratt’s handprint still lingered.

  I leaned forward. “We’re going to get him, Alessia. Him and every other goddamn Malandanti out there.”

  Alessia didn’t answer. Instead she lay her book on the arm of her seat. “Change of subject,” she said and gave me a wicked grin. “What’s up with you and Cal?”

  I gritted my teeth together. “Um, nothing.”

  “Really.”

  I puffed out a loud sigh. “We kissed. Once. No big deal.”

  A super-smug, super-annoying look spread across her face. “Uh-huh. No big deal. Right.” Her eyes had turned so gleeful that I wanted to smack her. “For what it’s worth, I approve.”

  “Um, your approval of my love life is worth zero.” I glared at her, which made her smile wider. “Oh, just shut up.”

  She did shut up, but that infuriating grin didn’t leave her face as she picked up her book again. I leaned back in my cushy leather seat and stared out the window. The plane sped up and lifted off the ground, and the comfortable whoosh-whir sound of airplanes filled the cabin. Nerina sat across from us, turning the pages of the Vogue Italia she’d picked up at the airport. It was actually kind of impressive that the newsstand in the Bangor airport even carried Vogue Italia.

  I looked from her to Alessia, their noses buried in their respective reading choices. “Seriously?”

  They both looked up.

  “We have like a million things to talk about and you guys are just going to read?”

  “Actually, we should all be sleeping,” Nerina said, her face calm as she flipped another page in her magazine. “We probably won’t get much rest while we’re in Cividale.”

  “Oh, my God.” I flopped my arms out wide and slumped down, tapping my foot against the bottom of my seat, rat-a-tat-tat like a really annoying tune you can’t get out of your head. “We should’ve put you below with your Louis Vuitton suitcase.”

  “That’s uncalled for, Bree,” Nerina said.

  Alessia tossed her trashy novel aside and folded her arms. “I think Bree has a point. I think there are a lot of things we should be talking about. Things we’ve been dancing around for far too long.”

  Nerina raised an eyebrow. “Such as?”

  “Like why the hell you won’t talk about the spell to change a Malandante into a Benandante.”

  I almost whistled, but I stopped myself. Apparently it took a near-death experience for Alessia to finally stop trying to be nice to everyone. “Yeah, that seems like a good place to start,” I said.

  Nerina snapped her Vogue shut and tossed it onto the seat next to her. “You two have no right to question me on that. You have been members of the Benandanti for less than half a year. I have been a Benandante for four centuries.”

  “Oh, come off it, Nerina.” I crossed my arms. “We’ve proven ourselves over and over.”

  “I am so tired of everyone else deciding what I should and shouldn’t know,” Alessia said. “First my mother and then you. I am not a child. I can handle the truth.”

  “It’s not about handling the truth,” Nerina said. “It’s about the fact that a Benandante has to die in order to do the spell. Is that what you want?”

  “Of course we don’t want that,” I said. “But we should at least talk about it, because if—God forbid—that happens, we should be prepared.”

  “I would rather not test the Fates by preparing for such things.” Nerina reached for her Vogue again, the tone in her voice final.

  Oh, no. Girlfriend was not getting off that easy. “Don’t even think about picking up that goddamn magazine. You can’t write us off this time. We’re trapped in a metal tube ten thousand feet in the air, and we’re going to get some answers before we land.”

  “Why won’t you even talk about it?” Alessia asked. “At least tell us if it happened in your lifetime.”

  I could see the look in Nerina’s eyes, like an animal caught between two larger predators. I’d been kidding abou
t being trapped at ten thousand feet, but it had obviously been a barb that stung. Maybe if we backed her up far enough . . . “Nerina, as the Benandanti mage, I deserve to know. It’s part of my training.”

  “It is not part of your training to learn a spell you are never going to use.” Her words were clipped and cold.

  “Fine.” I kicked my feet out in front of me. “I’ll just ask Dario when we get to Cividale. Let’s see what he says.”

  A flush crept up from beneath her cashmere sweater and spread across her throat. “He won’t tell you.”

  “But maybe he’ll be interested in why you haven’t told Bree,” Alessia said.

  “There are six other Concilio members I can ask—”

  “Don’t you dare go behind my back about this!”

  “Then stop lying to me!” I leapt to my feet and jabbed my finger at her, which I wished wasn’t shaking as much as it was. “You were in Tibet. You were there when Shen practically had to drag me out of the Temple, after I killed my own father.”

  “You didn’t—” Alessia began, and I wanted to strangle the gentleness out of her voice.

  “I did. I did, and I would do it again, for the Benandanti. Because everything I’ve done has been to save my brother.” There were tears in my eyes and I stomped my foot so hard the floor trembled, as if that would make the grief and anger and shame inside me go away. “You know what I’ve sacrificed for this gig, what it’s cost me—”

  “And you think I haven’t paid a high price as well?” Nerina was on her feet now too, her eyes blazing at me, like the cornered animal inside her was gonna go down swinging or die trying. “You know the sacrifices I’ve made . . .”

  “Oh, big frigging deal, the Concilio won’t let you be with Heath.” I was so sick of hearing this excuse. “News flash, Nerina: you are the Concilio. You have a say in that too. In fact”—I couldn’t believe this idea hadn’t occurred to me before—“I think the Concilio should know about you two. About the fact that you’ve been screwing each other since Tibet. Maybe they’ll reconsider . . .”