Salt

by Danielle Ellison

  “I’m a demon! A demon.” I repeat it until it fits more into my own head. It sounds wrong to say about myself, but it feels oddly natural. The piece I’d been missing. I look right at her. “I think I can handle a long story,” I say.

  Gran touches my hair, my arm, and then nods. She stands and wrings her hands together. “We don’t know everything, Penelope. You have to understand that it was a long time ago.”

  She pauses and I cross my arms. I know it looks like I’m mad, which I am, but I’m really trying not to puke. Gran sits beside me on some old dusty beanbag chair. Normally, I’d make a joke, but my brain doesn’t want anything to sway her. Demon.

  “One day Emmaline’s parents opened the door—months and months after she left—and there were two babies there on the doorstep. Two girls, that journal, and that letter with their names on it. Emmaline’s youngest brother, Matthew, and his wife raised them.”

  Gran twists her wedding ring around her finger. “They had to be very careful—not knowing if they were demonic or not. There was no sign that they were any different, but when they were old enough, the girls were told about their mother.”

  I shift in the seat, confused. “So Beatrice and Clara weren’t demons?”

  “No, but demon blood flowed through them.” Gran pauses, then gets up off the chair and returns to the spot in the floor. I watch her back while she digs around for something and comes back with a long piece of parchment. She spreads it across the floor. It’s a family tree, more detailed than the one in the Umbra I had read. With more names.

  “If you look at the family tree, you’ll see that both girls only had one child—and that was purposeful.” I move closer to the paper and Gran runs her finger down the line. One child each. “Since they weren’t certain how the demonic gene got passed along, they weren’t sure what could happen. To not have children would have been safest prevention, but it would have caused many questions. Children continued the magical line and they were expected, needed even. So they believed they could have fewer children and lower the possibility of having a demonic child.

  I shake my head. “But the longer that goes on the more likely it would become.”

  “Exactly, but they didn’t know the genetics back then,” Gran says. She rearranges the way she’s sitting, and I sit beside her, the whole of our family spread out next to us. “Beatrice made sure her child knew about her biological parents, and I believe that’s why there are so few of us—one a generation until my sister and me.”

  I look to the family tree, my eyes following along as she speaks. But then I stop and point to Clara. Clara, who had one child, who also only had one child, but that child had four. Gran nods at my unspoken question.

  “Clara’s family didn’t adhere to the same belief in the power of a smaller family versus a larger one. By the time Seraphina and I were born, I had twenty-four cousins—and that’s not including the rest of the family.”

  Clara’s family doubled and tripled up until the time Gran was born. My family is huge. Gran starts to say something else, but I put up a hand. “Wait. Why have I only met like nine of them?”

  Gran looks away from me. She rolls up the parchment a little ways, then stops suddenly.

  “Because those are the only ones who survived.”

  I open my mouth to speak and close it again, confused. Gran turns back to face me, takes my hand in hers. “Things were different back then. The Nons were fighting a war against another country, and so were the witches—against demons. They were powerful then, tapping into something we didn’t have. I had a cousin named Suree, and she was so smart,” Gran says, removing her hand from mine. She twirls the ring she always wears around her finger.

  “I was only six at the time, but she was my favorite person.” She holds up the ring. “This was hers. I would follow her around everywhere. We were at the park one day, Suree was next to me on the swings, and we saw Enforcers stationed all around the playground. They were tracking demons. They had this thing back then that worked sort of like a dog whistle—only affecting those on the same frequency of demons.”

  Gran’s voice cracks, and I pull her hand to mine. “What happened to her, Gran?” Even though I feel like I know the answer, I need to hear it.

  “She fell over, off the swing, and started convulsing. Blood poured out of her ears, her eyes, her nose, and her mouth. She yelled, pulled at her hair, and dug her nails into her own skin. The Enforcers took her away. We never saw her again.” She has to pause to take a breath, to force back the tears. I’ve only seen Gran cry once, and that was when Mom died.

  “There were others too, others who woke up one day, claimed themselves demonic and started killing witches. Alfie Spencer was one of them. He eventually killed his own wife and then he led the others away from our world.” Gran wipes away tears from her eyes. Her hand squeezes mine and then she pulls me into a hug.

  “Gran.”

  “I didn’t tell you about this because it’s an ungracious part of our family history,” she says in my ear, her tears touching my face. She looks at the tree, pointing to a name.

  “My grandfather was in the Triad. He used his power to hide all traces of Emmaline, the demon Azsis, and the demonic carriers in our family history right after it happened. He stepped down once the job was done and everyone swore to never speak of it if our family renounced Triad claim. It was better for the common good to keep it quiet. That’s why there were no records; I thought this journal was lost.”

  I nod and gulp back some of my insecurity. For the first time, I feel like it makes sense. Like I make sense. “Did Mom know?”

  “She did.”

  “Then why not tell me and Connie? Why keep it a secret? It’s something that affected us too.”

  Gran sighs and rolls up the family tree. “No one on Beatrice’s side of the family had any abnormalities in magic—not for six generations.”

  “And then I was born.”

  “No, and then your parents were killed. Your essence was stolen and your magic still worked, just differently.” Gran shakes her head and tosses the paper back in the secret place, replacing the floorboard. “Maybe we were misguided, but everyone I loved died that year; I couldn’t watch that again. I couldn’t risk anyone finding out, Penelope. I couldn’t lose you like I lost others. Not after losing Genevieve.”

  Gran is almost in tears again, so I rest a hand on her shoulder. “I’m still here.”

  Gran smiles, but I can’t smile back. This isn’t that easy.

  “What happened to the demon Azsis?” I ask. I wonder if Gran knows that he’s the one who killed Mom and Dad. That he’s the one who stole my powers.

  Gran shook her head. “I’m not sure. No one has heard from him since Emmaline’s disappearance, at least none who have mentioned it.”

  She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know anything. If she did, would she have been more willing to tell us? I start to share it with her, but when she looks at me, I can see all the pain and death on her face in a way she concealed before. I don’t want to add to it. I can’t tell her. Not yet.

  “Connie needs to know,” I say instead. “You have to tell her about Emmaline and the demon blood. No more secrets, Gran.” She nods slowly. “And I’m telling Carter.”

  “You can’t,” she says. “Every time you put yourself out there, it’s dangerous. Things have not changed so much that they won’t care.”

  “I love him. I don’t want to hide.”

  Suddenly, all of Emmaline’s words make complete sense. She tried to fit in and she was lost, so she changed herself. I was lost too, before Carter and all this news. I keep trying to fit too, but I won’t, because I am not like everyone else. I am different. I’m some part demon, without essence.

  Some part related to the demon who killed my family. To the demon who has my powers. I don’t even know how to process that. I do know that my parents’ death, my losing magic, was far from random. It was planned.

  “I promise it will be okay,” I sa
y to Gran. I say the words, but even I don’t think I believe them. How will it be okay? I’m a demon. Carter said we were in this together, but I doubt this is what he had in mind. What if he walks away from me when he finds out what I am?

  Once Pop was home, I tried to call Carter and he didn’t answer, so I left. I had to get out. The walls were closing in and I couldn’t lose it in front of them. I do what I always do when I’m stressed: I go for a run. The volume is up as loud as it will go. My feet pound the pavement in a dissonant tune with the rock music. Some angry dude is screaming words into my ears that I can’t understand and it’s just me and the noise.

  The whole reason any of this has happened all goes back to Azsis. I really want to find him now.

  The song ends, another one comes on. I run, not even listening to the words. The words are lies; a story put to music so they sound better.

  I know my grandparents were protecting me, like they always do, but they need to learn that I don’t need protection. I need honesty. They knew—or at least suspected—that I had demonic power. They never told me. If they had, everything would’ve been so less complicated. Or more complicated maybe. I don’t even know.

  Gran wanted to talk about it some more now, but I couldn’t. What would I tell her?

  The sky is graying around me, but I keep going.

  The music screams sharp and shrill notes into my ear. I run harder, faster against the wind as the music builds. Carter’s eyes flash in my head. He’s something solid. Carter and me in the alley, the way it feels when his hands are on me, when he’s kissing me and my heart is racing, when he laughs and calls me Pen and does all those annoying things that I hate to love. Carter is solid.

  What if he says he doesn’t want me now?

  I didn’t want him before, but the thought of losing him is too much. I gasp in air, choking on a sob. My head spins, my heart races, and I have the urge to vomit. I stop quickly, gasping for breath, hunched over. I can’t do this without him, but I don’t want to. Not now.

  I pull the earbuds out of my ears and tuck into a clearing between some houses. My phone is all sweaty from being stuffed around my waist, but I pull it out to call him. I have a text from him from an hour ago. He must’ve sent it right after I left the house.

  Hope it went well with your gran. Have to go somewhere. Be back in time for our test. I love you.

  Defeat fills my chest. If he’s going out, then I have to wait another day to tell him. Our test is tomorrow. It will have to be after that. Sobs pour out of my body and I sink to the earth. I’m a freaking demon! I’m the one thing I’m taught to hate and the only person I want to hold me and reassure me is gone for the night. I’m supposed to be strong—I want to be an Enforcer—but right now, I feel lost.

  I give myself five minutes to cry. Then I have to go home and somehow be the Penelope who believes everything will be okay. But this is not going to be okay. Not ever.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I wake up before my alarm—though “waking up” is the wrong term after my lame excuse for sleep. I got maybe two hours and they were both restless. My mind wouldn’t stop thinking about all the things Gran told me. I’m a demon. My entire family…demon blood.

  I check my phone. There’s still nothing else from Carter. My stomach sways at the thought of him, at what will happen when I see him later. In a few hours, we have to take the Partner Final, which we’ll pass because we are the best thing since spray-on butter, and I will start a new chapter of my life. Hopefully, with Carter—if, of course, he doesn’t freak out that I’m a demon. Half demon. Well, one-seventh demon—or something. I’m not a math person.

  And I guess if he does, then I’ll at least have passed my test. I can still find my demon, learn more about the Restitution, get my magic back, and put all this behind me.

  I really hope he doesn’t freak out. He loves me. That’s enough, a lot more than some portion demonic. Right?

  I pull my hair back into a ponytail as someone knocks on the door. Connie stares back at me, her eyes swollen and her cheeks red.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, pulling her into my arms. She just starts sobbing, which is probably not the first time this morning from the state of her. “What happened?” I whisper against her ear.

  She shakes her head as we sit down on my bed. I have this feeling in the pit of my stomach that I know what’s happened. I hope I’m wrong. I hope I’m wrong. I hope I’m wrong.

  It’s only a couple minutes before she pulls away, sniffing and apologizing. I grab her hand. Her big eyes focus on me. “I talked to Thomas,” she says softly, “about what Gran told me. About you, us.”

  “Oh, Con. I shouldn’t have said it was a good idea to tell him.”

  She wanted to tell him the same way I am going to tell Carter. Connie and Thomas have been together for two years, so I think we both thought it would be a good idea. I wanted that to be a good idea, because I want that happy ending so much for Carter and me. For all of us.

  She shakes her head. “We talked through it all night. I just got home. He doesn’t…” She pauses, taking in a breath so she doesn’t cry. “He doesn’t think he can risk it. With his family being so—” She waves her hand around the air.

  “Hoity-toity?” I supply.

  Connie nods. “He swore he wouldn’t tell anyone. Blood oath and all. He said he loved me, but he couldn’t risk his parents’ finding out, for my sake. All of our sakes, I guess.”

  I bite my lip. I want to say that he’s covering his own ass. It’s not about Connie or about us. He’s guarding his future, being selfish. But if I hadn’t insisted that Gran tell Connie the truth then she wouldn’t be heartbroken right now. Not everyone needs the truth as much as I do. Maybe I shouldn’t have decided for my sister, but is the dark the best place to be forever? I don’t think so either.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  She shakes her head and stands. “I’m just going to sleep.” She takes about two steps from across the room and looks back at me. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  I watch her go down the hall to her room and once she’s closed the door, I grab my bag and my phone and leave for the Nucleus House. Mostly because I can’t handle the waiting, and because I don’t want to talk to anyone else. Maybe I can get some practice in before the test.

  Ric holds the heavy bag as I lay another round of abuse into it. Maple shakes out her hand beside me, taking a break. We have one hour until the testing starts and Carter isn’t here. Carter hasn’t even answered his phone. I’m still upset about Connie, and Ric and Maple are staring at me like some alien life form has taken over my body. I throw another punch.

  “What?” I yell at Ric.

  He raises an eyebrow, wordlessly scolding me like a child. “You’re wound up, Penelope. You better relax a little, and fast, before you spring loose and take out someone’s eye.”

  I shake my head, but I know he’s right. Maple trades spots with Ric and holds the bag while he warms up, and I start my cool-down.

  “Where’s the boy toy?” Ric asks me.

  “Not here yet,” I say. I’m waiting for him, waiting to feel it—to have the magic start thrashing inside of me—but there’s nothing. And that makes me more nervous than I’d like to admit. I step away and check my phone. Nothing. “Do you think he’s okay?”

  Ric sighs. “He’s pretty good at taking care of himself. When’s the last time you talked to him?”

  “Yesterday afternoon,” I say. “He had a phone call and he was going to see—” Poncho, about Kriegen. Kriegen had been hidden from the database, the same way Azsis was. They might be connected, too. And if they’re connected, then Carter needs to know what he’s looking for. I have to find him and tell him.

  “I know that look. What are you doing?”

  “I’ll be right back,” I say, grabbing my bag off the floor.

  “The final is in forty-five minutes,” Maple calls out. I don’t need her to remind me.

 
; “It won’t take long. I promise,” I say. Ric doesn’t look like he believes me, but I run out the door. I really hope I can keep all the promises I’ve been making.

  The library is dark, but the door creaks open and I look around and don’t see anyone. The only light comes from Poncho’s desk lamp.

  “Poncho?” I call. There’s no movement. No sounds. I expect monsters to jump out of the shadows and eat me any moment now. That doesn’t happen. How am I nervous about shadow monsters but not about real ones?

  There are some books lying open on Poncho’s desk. I run my hand over one of the pages. “Poncho, are you here? I’m looking for Carter.”

  There’s no response. Not even the hum of a computer or the purr of a cat. Where is he? Does he leave the library? I mean, he’s always here. He was the last one who saw Carter so he has to know something.

  I move away from the desk and walk toward the stacks. There’s no way I’m going down one of those because I don’t have time to get lost in the dark, so I stay in the main lobby and poke my head down an aisle to call for Poncho. The third time, there’s a huge thud, a hiss, and I turn around to see Hyde the cat pouncing out of the room.

  “Stupid cat,” I mutter, as I walk to recover the mess of books he’s made. One by one I place them back on the desk, spreading them out so a page is open. Poncho’s not going to like that they’re out of order now, but it’s all I can do. The last book has a wrinkled page, and I smooth it out.

  That’s weird.

  I read what’s written there out loud. “There is one who seeks the same as you and one who hides the truth from you. Only when the two meet, shall the lost be found.”

  That’s what Vassago told Carter and me the day we met him in the bar. And it’s here in this book? That doesn’t make sense. Why would it be in this book?

  “You’ve put them in the wrong order,” Poncho says. I jump half out of my skin. My heart’s racing when I look at him. He squeezes beside me, placing Hyde down on the table and switching the position of the two books.

  “Almost though.” His face is serious and then he smiles. “Can I help you?