Steadfast

  But some of the parents came in, and once there were more of them, they could get the birds back a little—and then Daddy was there at last, scooping Cole into his arms and putting a coat over his head until they were way down the hall. For a while Cole just cried out loud, and he didn’t even feel like a baby for doing it.

  “It’s okay, buddy.” Dad ruffled his hair. “It’s okay. It’s all over.”

  “What happened?” Cole whispered.

  “I don’t know. The birds must have seen their reflections in the glass.”

  “But why were there so many?”

  Abigail’s mom came by them and said, “Something is wrong in this town. Really wrong. You see it, don’t you?”

  “Well, obviously,” Dad said.

  “I mean, strange.” She leaned closer to both of them, and Cole felt weird, because he didn’t like seeing a grown-up as scared as a little kid. “This isn’t natural, what’s happening here. Maybe it sounds like something out of—a bad movie, I don’t know. But it’s real. You know it as well as I do. And we have to put a stop to it.” With that she stalked off, pulling Abigail behind her.

  Cole watched Abigail go. “Are we not having the Thanksgiving pageant?”

  “I don’t think so, buddy.”

  “What did Abigail’s mom mean? Was she talking about the birds?”

  Dad didn’t seem to be listening, but he said, very slowly, “About the birds, and other things.”

  Nadia started getting the texts first thing in the morning. First Mateo—but his messages were blank, or garbled nonsense. At first she’d assumed she was just receiving butt texts that would stop when Mateo took his phone out of his back pocket, but they kept coming, one after another. It was like he was genuinely trying to reach her but wasn’t coherent enough to do it.

  Just as she was trying to tell herself not to be stupid, a message came in from her father about the chaos at Cole’s school. Nadia was trying to think of what Elizabeth might have to gain by taking away some little kids’ Thanksgiving play when her dad texted: BTW, Elizabeth dropped by again. Seems odd. Does she have problems @ home? Might want 2 talk w/ school counselor.

  At first all Nadia could feel was triumph. Elizabeth must have made her move on her father, and failed. The Betrayer’s Snare had worked.

  But then she realized that Elizabeth had attacked the school, too, which meant she was springing all her traps at once. Those garbled messages from Mateo went from merely odd to terrifying.

  When the bell rang for third period, Nadia dashed into the hallway. Through the scanty group of students still attending full time, she caught a glimpse of a fuzzy, pink sweater over a wide, white circle skirt—pure 1950s. “Verlaine!”

  Verlaine turned from her locker, at first merely blasé, but her expression shifted into concern as Nadia pushed toward her. “Oh, crap. What’s happening now?”

  “I’m not sure, but we have to get to Mateo, this instant.”

  “Sounds like a good excuse to skip.” Verlaine shoved her books back in her locker and slammed it shut. “To the Batmobile.”

  That was when the ground began to shake.

  Nadia gasped and put her arms out, the better to hang on to the wall of lockers—but they were squeaking wildly, shaking open, sending heavy textbooks and tons of crap flying. Verlaine took her hand and pulled her back toward the center of the hall.

  “Earthquake!” someone yelled.

  “Since when can Elizabeth make earthquakes?” Verlaine huddled on the floor next to Nadia, both of them putting their hands over their heads just like in those stupid drills.

  “She can’t.” Some things were beyond even the power of witchcraft. “But the One Beneath can.”

  After only a few moments, though, the tremors stopped. The school still seemed to be in one piece, though people were crying and freaking out. “Forget about skipping,” Nadia said as she and Verlaine rose slowly to their feet. Plaster dust had fogged the air. “I think school’s out.”

  Verlaine coughed once. “Okay, even if you didn’t know about witchcraft? You’d have to know this whole situation is severely screwed up.”

  She was right, Nadia realized. It took very little to veil the world of witchcraft from everyday people simply because they were so quick to explain away deviations from the norm. To convince themselves they hadn’t seen something that would make them question the reality they knew. But Elizabeth and the One Beneath were abandoning even that faint pretense. They meant to terrify. They meant to be known.

  “Come on,” Nadia said. “Whatever’s going on, it’s happening to Mateo.”

  Together they ran for the doors, but they swung open just before Nadia and Verlaine would have slammed through. Faye Walsh stood there, her once-pristine white sweater twinset now grubby with dust and debris. “Excuse us,” Verlaine said as she tried to duck past, but Ms. Walsh put out her hand, halting them in their tracks.

  “We need to talk,” Ms. Walsh said. “Nadia, I’ve been trying to talk to you for a long time.”

  Nadia forced herself not to scream with frustration. “Yes, ma’am, I know, and I’m sorry, but honestly—is this the time?”

  “Oh, yes. It’s time.” Ms. Walsh crossed her arms. “When I see evidence of witchcraft, I want to talk to a witch.”

  24

  AT FIRST NADIA COULD ONLY GAPE AT MS. WALSH. WHEN she could speak, she said the only thing she could think of: “You’re not a witch.”

  “No, I’m not,” Ms. Walsh said. “But my mother was, and my grandmother before her. They taught me the signs. Bound me close. Made me a Steadfast.”

  “You’re a Steadfast?” Verlaine, who had been looking even more panicked than Nadia felt, brightened, but only for a moment. “Wait. If your mom and grandmother were witches, why aren’t you one?”

  Ms. Walsh stiffened slightly; this was a difficult subject. “I didn’t have the gift. It happens that way sometimes.”

  Verlaine nodded. “Oh, so you’re a Squib.”

  “No Harry Potter stuff,” Nadia said hurriedly. “I keep telling you. Witches hate that.” Her initial shock began to shake away; now she could only think of Mateo. “My Steadfast is in trouble right now. Come with us. We’ll talk on the way.”

  “She’s not your Steadfast?” Ms. Walsh said, looking at Verlaine.

  “Everyone thinks that,” Verlaine said. “Understandable mistake. But wow, are you in for a surprise.” She took Ms. Walsh’s arm and began ushering them out of the school building. With the postquake chaos, nobody would notice their departure—and besides, Nadia thought, they were leaving with a faculty member.

  “You know this isn’t me,” Nadia said as their steps quickened to a jog at the edge of the parking lot. “The sickness, the destruction, any of it.”

  Ms. Walsh replied, “That’s Elizabeth Pike. Is she doing what I think she’s doing?”

  “If you think she’s trying to turn Captive’s Sound into the gateway to hell itself?” Nadia said. “Then yes.”

  It turned out Ms. Walsh could run fast enough to keep up with them at full speed, even in her high heels.

  They found Mateo in the back alley behind La Catrina. He lay on the cold pavement, not unconscious but in a stupor; his cell phone had fallen from his hand. A stray cat watched from the far steps as they struggled to get him inside.

  Nadia’s hands shook as she sifted through the under-the-bar first-aid kit and found a shiny, silver emergency blanket; she wrapped it around Mateo, who now lay on one of the long, leather booths. Verlaine held his head, and Ms. Walsh his feet.

  “A male Steadfast,” Ms. Walsh said as she looked down at him. “Unbelievable.”

  “That word is almost meaningless to me now,” Verlaine replied, almost absentmindedly. “I guess I used to think some things were unbelievable, but I can’t remember any at the moment.”

  Now to help Mateo recover—but how? Nadia didn’t know whether he was suffering from a new and more horrible aspect of his family’s curse, or some other spell of Eliz
abeth’s entirely. One of magic’s great powers was its mystery; it could be difficult to tell precisely what spells had been cast. Great if you were the spellcaster—not so great when the guy you loved was suffering.

  But Mateo stirred, as if the warmth and their voices had awakened him from a nap. He opened his eyes just a crack. “Nadia?”

  “Mateo!” She clutched his hand and was relieved to feel him squeeze back. “What happened?”

  “The dreams—the ones from my—” Then he caught sight of Ms. Walsh and immediately froze. “I mean, I think I got dizzy. I passed out.”

  “The dreams from your curse,” Ms. Walsh said. She smiled. “It’s okay. I’m a Steadfast, too.”

  “Really?” Mateo looked back at Nadia, who nodded.

  Verlaine cut in. “Wait. You said you’re Steadfast for your mother. But you said your mother was a witch, that she left you her Book of Shadows. Did you keep the powers after she died?”

  Ms. Walsh kept smiling, but it was obviously a struggle now. A deep sadness filled her eyes. “My mother has Alzheimer’s. No spells overcome that, I’m afraid. She held on as long as she could, but a couple of years ago, she turned over her bracelet and spell book to me. Said she couldn’t be trusted to use them any longer. Now she’s in a home up in Boston. I go see her as often as I can. Sometimes she even knows me. But she’s not a witch anymore, not in any meaningful sense. Still, the Steadfast bond—it endures. Through everything.”

  Nadia’s eyes met Mateo’s, and they each smiled. As terrifying as it was to remember they were bound together forever, their whole lives long—it was even more beautiful. In some ways, it was just proof of something they’d sensed the first time their eyes had met.

  Sometimes Verlaine tried to write news stories in her head about her own life, just to get practice at summarizing quickly, and putting the most important information as the lede.

  As near as she could tell, the front page for the Verlaine’s Life Gazette would read something like this:

  END SERIOUSLY NIGH

  Area Sorceress Near Completion of Bridge to Underworld Locals Feel Magical Effects: Earthquakes, Mysterious Illness, Demonic Incursion

  Captive’s Sound came even closer to apocalypse today when Sorceress Elizabeth Pike initiated the final steps of her plan to bring demonic overlord the One Beneath into the mortal world. Should she succeed in completing her bridge between the underworld and our town, only a thin seal will remain between the world we’ve always known and total destruction.

  Local witch Nadia Caldani, along with Steadfast Mateo Perez and stylish sidekick Verlaine Laughton, has been working tirelessly to stop Elizabeth Pike, with only limited success. Now, however, the Gazette has learned that Rodman High guidance counselor Faye Walsh is also a Steadfast and may have new insights about the magic being performed—perhaps enough to turn the tide.

  That about summed it up, Verlaine thought. All she had to do was add Horoscopes, Page Five. And the horoscopes would be easy enough to do: Every single sign’s forecast would read Pray Really Hard.

  “My dreams of the future aren’t waiting for me to fall asleep any longer,” Mateo explained. By now they were all seated around one of the big circular booths in the strange stillness of the closed restaurant. Nobody had even turned on the overhead lights, so the only illumination was the grayish excuse for sunlight that came through the windows. “It’s okay right now, but earlier—the dreams were taking me over. I couldn’t talk, couldn’t think, could hardly even move.”

  Nadia never took her hand from his. “Elizabeth’s deepened the curse. I’m not sure why she’d do that, though. Your dreams help us sometimes, even though they hurt you.”

  Ms. Walsh—no, Faye; she’d told them they could call her that off-campus—shook her head. “Elizabeth may not have a choice. The level of magic she’s performing now goes beyond anything even she would have done before. Right now all her magic may be intensifying at once. She can’t strengthen her influence in the world without strengthening every one of her curses, every one of her spells, at once.”

  So, are people going to be even meaner to me? Verlaine wondered, then felt bad about even thinking it. The fate of the world was slightly more important than her social life. Besides, if the world ended, it would kind of be a moot point.

  “She needs these people to suffer,” Nadia said. “All the ones she’s put in the hospital. And I’ve learned—the One Beneath uses emotions, a lot. He steals them. He takes them in trade.” She went silent for only a moment. “So maybe He uses them to build. Maybe those people’s pain is exactly what He’s using to build the bridge. I think pain is what the bridge is made of.”

  Faye nodded. She looked . . . well, encouraged was too strong a word, but like they might be getting somewhere. “I went through my mother’s Book of Shadows, searching for something like a remedy for illness caused by witchcraft, something like that. I didn’t see anything, but you might.” From her leather satchel she pulled out a clothbound book. The cloth was plain, faded black, the kind of thing that generally didn’t earn a second glance. But Verlaine reminded herself that Nadia had said every Book of Shadows was different. Every Book of Shadows had its own power.

  Sure enough, as Nadia reached for it, the pages flipped open of their own accord. “Whoa,” Mateo said. “Did it hear you?”

  “Sometimes Books of Shadows do.” Nadia smiled almost fondly at it, then glanced at Faye. “Your mom must have been really powerful.”

  For the first time since she’d come to them, Faye smiled. “She was something else. I wish you could’ve seen her in her prime.”

  Nadia looked down into the Book of Shadows. At first Verlaine wondered if a light had come on somewhere, then realized the spell book was glowing. The gentle golden illumination revealed Nadia’s dawning excitement. “This isn’t a cure for illness. But it’s a way to ease pain, and end suffering. It’s pretty serious magic, but I think—I think I could do it.”

  Wait. Had things suddenly gone from sucky to awesome? Verlaine brightened. “So you can stop Elizabeth from hurting Uncle Gary and all the others. When they stop hurting, she’s not causing them any more pain. And if they’re not in pain, she loses the building blocks she needs for the bridge. The bridge collapses, the One Beneath can’t get here, Elizabeth’s defeated, and it’s the best Thanksgiving ever. Right?”

  “That’s the idea.” But Nadia only looked about one-tenth as excited as she ought to. “Verlaine, it’s dangerous.”

  Of course it couldn’t be easy. Mateo leaned closer to Nadia. “You mean, you could be hurt?”

  “Maybe, but that’s just part of working high-level magic.” Nadia didn’t even glance at him; it was Verlaine she spoke to. “I’m not talking about it being dangerous for me. I meant for Uncle Gary.”

  “He’s in the hospital with about a zillion tubes in him and a crazy, evil witch keeping him in pain,” Verlaine said. “How much more dangerous could it get for him?”

  Quietly Nadia replied, “If I do it wrong, he could die.”

  Verlaine sucked in a breath. Faye put one hand on her shoulder, temporarily back in school-counselor mode.

  It wasn’t like Verlaine hadn’t been afraid of this before now. She’d hardly been able to think of anything else since Uncle Gary’s collapse. But hearing it from the exact person she’d been counting on to save him—that made it much more real. She whispered, “Why would he die?”

  “Right now the magic is holding him in this painful space between life and death.” The amber light from the spell book still played across Nadia’s face. “I’m going to ease his pain, which means easing the spell’s hold on him. He should come back to the side of life. But—I don’t see anything in this spell to guarantee that. I don’t know what kind of condition he’s in, or whether there’s more to what Elizabeth has done. So I’d be cutting all her ties at once, and anything could happen.”

  “The spell is about easing suffering, right?” Verlaine demanded. “What kind of loser spell would onl
y end suffering by killing people?”

  “It’s probably more about helping people who are sick or injured through normal means, rather than suffering because of magic,” Faye suggested.

  Mateo said, “Are we sure this is a good idea? There are a lot of people in the hospital. That’s a lot of lives to take a risk with.”

  “I don’t know.” Nadia bit her lower lip. “Maybe—maybe I jumped to conclusions.”

  They were jumping to conclusions about something that could kill Uncle Gary? And yet what was the alternative? Her brain was doing the calculations her heart was too weary to handle.

  “We should think about it,” Mateo said.

  “I know,” Nadia agreed. “I know. We just don’t have much time to think. And the spell has to be anchored—someone would have to be at the hospital, in the thick of it, wearing one of my own witching charms. The pearl. That person would bear the biggest part of the risk. Even if none of the patients died, this person might.”

  “I could do it,” Faye offered. “If we decide to cast this spell.”

  Verlaine made up her mind. “You have to do it. You have to try. And I’ll anchor the spell.”

  Everyone stared at her. Verlaine couldn’t quite believe she’d said that herself. But she knew what she knew.

  “I love Uncle Gary as much as I love anybody on Earth.” Her breath didn’t want to support her voice; it felt caught in her chest, waiting for tears she wouldn’t let come. “But I don’t just love him. I know him. And if we could tell him how much is at stake—that this could mean the deaths of thousands and thousands of people if we fail—then he’d say to take the chance. He’d do it himself if he could. I know that, for sure.”

  It felt beyond horrible to risk Uncle Gary’s life like that. Just getting the words out seemed to have stolen the strength from her body.

  But a life was more than a pulse, more than a breath. A life was also made up of what you believed and what you stood for. Of what you were willing to do—and who you loved. Protecting Uncle Gary’s survival at the cost of so much pain and suffering would betray his life more surely than anything else, and Verlaine knew it.