Gretchen turned to him. “What is it?”
“I don’t know.” Will’s voice was a whisper.
“Don’t you?” Mafer’s gaze was piercing, and Will winced beneath it, as if he were in physical pain.
“Do you?” Gretchen demanded, turning to Mafer.
But still, Mafer was watching Will.
“Stop looking at him,” Gretchen snapped. She was glad that Kirk had told her to talk to Mafer, because it was clear that Mafer knew. She knew something that Will didn’t want her to know, and it made Gretchen furious.
Finally Mafer seemed to reach a decision. “Gretchen—”
“Stop,” Will said, putting up a hand, but Mafer ignored him.
“The spirit that’s trying to protect you …”
Suddenly Gretchen knew, as if Mafer’s mind had communicated it without words, and a new kind of dread filled her. “Don’t say it,” she whispered. She looked over at Will. His hands covered his face, and his body was bent, like a branch in a cruel wind.
“Gretchen, it’s Will’s brother.”
“No.”
“It’s Tim.”
Chapter Twenty
From the Walfang Gazette
Police Led on High-Speed Chase
Walfang police were led on a high-speed chase down a section of Route 27 last night as an unknown driver hit speeds of up to ninety miles per hour. The car was a 2007 Nissan, reported stolen by Samantha Munch earlier in the evening. After leading police on a chase for more than fifteen miles, the car jumped the median and flew out of control, finally coming to a stop as it hit a tree. Police exited their vehicle and approached the car, but the driver must have fled the scene. “I don’t know how he got by us,” said Officer Bradley Vincent. “But it was pitch dark outside.”
Detectives are working on a partial thumbprint left at the scene.…
He pulled the flute from his bottom drawer, testing its weight in his fingers. It was light, like a breath of air. Will tucked the ancient instrument into the inside pocket of his jacket, then closed his bureau and started out the door.
Johnny was in the kitchen when Will reached downstairs. Johnny’s pale skin was drawn over the bones of his face. He looked taut, like one of his guitar strings tuned sharp. He hadn’t taken the news of Gretchen’s latest accident well, and looking at the dark circles beneath his eyes, Will wondered whether he had slept at all. Johnny didn’t speak, just gave Will a half smile that was more reflex than greeting, and took a long pull of his coffee.
“Didn’t sleep?” Will asked.
Johnny shook his head. “It’s hard—being in Tim’s room.” He shifted in his chair, and the wood creaked beneath him.
Will didn’t reply. Instead, he reached for one of the blueberry scones that his mother had left out on a plate and took a bite.
“You can see the ocean from up there,” Johnny went on. “Sometimes I even think I can hear it.” He looked up at Will. “It’s strange, how time passes. The waves roll on, the minutes come one after the other. The days pile up, and you don’t even notice. And then one day it can all be over.” He wrapped his hands around the coffee mug.
“Gretchen’s okay,” Will said.
Johnny looked at him, doubt written in his dark eyes. “I know you want to protect her, Will. So do I. But …” He stared down into his coffee. “You can’t protect anyone.”
“You’re wrong.” Johnny looked up at the edge in Will’s voice, but Will didn’t care. He was shaking, almost burning with rage. This was the attitude that he despised most. “And even if you aren’t wrong,” Will went on, “I’m not about to stop trying.” He started for the door.
“Will—” Johnny called, but Will didn’t turn back.
Reaching into his jacket, he kept a tight hold on the flute, half afraid that it might fall out of his jacket and be lost forever.
He hurried down the path that he and Gretchen had worn to the bay. A light drizzle was falling, casting the clouds and water in shades of dark blue and pale gray. Will reached the top of the escarpment and blew into the instrument. Then he sat down on the wet grass to wait.
The clouds were a thick mass, impenetrable and blank as a wall. They formed no shapes, nor did the water. Because of the rain and chill air, there were no people. All was still. There was nothing to watch to make the time go faster. He was alone with his thoughts, which were jumbled together like the stuff in his mother’s junk drawer. The moment he landed on something, such as Tim, or Gretchen saving him, his mind’s eye caught sight of something else—Kirk, or the fire on the bay. It was distracting and nonsensical, worse than useless. But there was too much junk to close the drawer. All he could do was sit and stare helplessly at all the stuff.
He didn’t have to wait long before Asia appeared. Will hurried down the embankment to meet her. She was walking on the shore, wearing an olive trench coat over blue jeans. Her dark hair was loose around her face, her lips and cheeks red with the weather.
“Where have you been?” Will asked.
“Nearby,” Asia said. “I expected you’d call to me.”
Will looked out over the water. “It’s so strange to see you again. I keep thinking that … now anything could happen. Tim could walk out of that water.”
“I’m not back from the dead, Will. I was never dead.”
Will turned to face her. “In my mind, you were dead.”
Asia reached for his hand. “I’m sorry for the pain I caused you.” She intertwined her fingers with his.
Warmth flowed from her hand into his, traveling up his arm and down the side of his body, like a caress.
“I did not think I would return,” Asia admitted. “I thought it was better if you and Gretchen assumed I was dead.”
“Why did you come back?” Will asked.
Asia dropped his hand. “I had to, Will. When I realized that Circe was here, I had to.”
“How did you even know she was?”
Asia looked down, traced an arc in the sand with her toe. “Tim told me,” she admitted finally.
Will felt this answer like a slap. “My brother?”
“The Beyond has a new kind of vibrancy—a new access to our plane,” Asia explained.
“Is that, like, the dead? Heaven?”
“I don’t know what heaven is, Will. I can only tell you that it’s a different plane. And there are planes beyond that. I’ve never been there. I’ve never seen it. But I can feel it.”
“How did you see Tim, then?”
“The spirits have new access to our world. Access they don’t usually have. Tim came to me in a dream.”
“But that was just a dream.”
“Who is to say what a dream is? We have access to all sorts of things in our dreams, Will. Things that slip away on waking.”
Will remembered the dreams he’d had lately: A dream of a dragon lighting a lake of oil. A dream that he was with his brother, sitting on a dock. A dream about Gretchen, setting the bay on fire. And the letters in the mirror: FURY. And on the car …
“You’ve remembered something,” Asia said.
“Just … dreams.” Will shifted his weight. Just dreams. Just. Or had Tim been sending him messages? His throat tightened at the thought that his brother had been trying to tell him things and he’d missed them, or feared them, not recognizing them for what they were. Mafer knew, but he didn’t—not until the last time.
Asia nodded knowingly. “You see now.”
Will rubbed the scar that ran along his forehead. “I don’t know.” He focused on taking one breath followed by another. “How do we destroy Circe?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
“I don’t lie.”
“You aren’t telling the whole truth, then.”
Asia sighed. “I don’t know how you can destroy her. All I can tell you is that you may be able to banish her back to the Beyond by destroying the body she inhabits.”
“Like Kirk was trying to do.”
?
??Yes.”
“So we have to find someone who’s willing to kill himself.”
Asia didn’t respond.
“Boy, Asia, you’re just full of good news, aren’t you?” Will’s voice was bitter. “You’ve always got some little nugget of wonderful to pass around.”
“I did not bring these things into being, Will. They are the way they are. I can’t change them.”
Will tried to speak, but he was blinded and strangled by tears. “Somebody else has to die now,” he choked out.
“I don’t know.” Asia grasped his hand again. “Perhaps there is another way. I just don’t know, Will.”
“Can Tim help protect Gretchen?”
“He already has, I think,” Asia said. “He can see her when we cannot. But I don’t know what more he can do. He doesn’t exist in this world.”
“Goddamn it.” Will choked on a sob, and Asia pressed his fingers.
“I wish I had some comfort for you,” she said.
Will rubbed his palms over his cheeks, brushing away his tears. Some comfort. Something to cling to. Instead, there was only certain pain, certain death. Because Will knew one thing—there was no way that he was going to let that thing get anywhere near Gretchen. He would die first. He would die and send that thing back to hell, where it belonged. So there was no comfort there. But at least he didn’t have to face the thing alone. Will took a deep breath, feeling, at last, some small comfort and gratitude. “You’re here,” Will said at last.
“Yes,” Asia said. “And she was sent to the Beyond once.”
“How?”
“I know only that Calypso used Circe’s own magic against her. But I don’t know how.”
Will sat down, and Asia sat beside him. They both looked out where the air was still and gray over the dark water. His brother was out there, somewhere. He saw now what it was that Tim had wanted from him all along. He’d wanted Gretchen to know about her powers, perhaps so that she could use them. But Will hadn’t told her. In trying to protect her, he might have caused more harm than good.
“What will we do the next time?” Will asked. “Could she—could Gretchen go somewhere? Hide?”
Asia touched the rocky sand beneath them with long, pale fingers. “I can only tell you that fear is the enemy,” she said. “Running won’t help. There is only one way for this to end—Gretchen must face Circe. And I do not know how that will end.”
Will watched her profile, suddenly wary. Asia’s black hair streamed down her back; her brilliant green eyes were facing out to sea. He remembered with an almost physical reaction that at one time she had been sent to kill Gretchen. She was supposed to deliver Gretchen to Calypso. What if this were the same thing? What if she regretted her decision not to kill Gretchen the last time?
Asia looked at him then, her cool green eyes piercing him like an arrow. He wanted to trust her, but he feared her as well. A moment ago, he had been grateful for her help. Now he felt wary of accepting it.
I can’t trust anyone to help Gretchen, he realized. Everyone else has their own agenda. Will didn’t know if he could protect Gretchen, but he was sure that he would never let anything hurt her. I’ll die protecting her, he vowed, and the thought of death didn’t frighten him in the least. In that way, Asia had been right. Once you gave up fear, you regained your power.
Chapter Twenty-One
Gretchen realized that her wrists were no longer bound. She lifted her arms and looked down to see them lined with flaming feathers.
Still she burned on.
Sparks flew from her body, swept like a wave over the scarecrow man. His dark clothes ignited, and she saw his form, black and wrapped in fire as he fell to the ground. Someone threw a cloak over him, but when the flames died away, he did not move.
The humming through Gretchen’s body reached a fevered pitch, and then stopped, seeming to extinguish the light. The fire had gone out. The people had disappeared.
Above her, there were no stars.
She was nowhere.
Someone was seated on the front step of the Archer house, arms folded on knees, head bowed. For a crazy moment, Gretchen thought the figure was Tim. The way the figure sat reminded her of the last night that she had seen him. He had been sitting on a rock, down by the bay, in this same posture. She wanted to roll down the window, call out to him. But the figure moved slightly, and a long lock of brown hair fell forward, over the right shoulder.
Sadness welled up in Gretchen then, like the pressure from a geyser rising to the surface. She felt it might explode out of her, coating everyone in hot steam. But in another moment the car had slowed and things had shifted just enough that the pressure eased, and the next moment it passed away.
That was the thing about this world. Nothing stayed forever—even things that seemed permanent, like rocks, or love. Eventually the sea would swallow them up, or the earth would shift, or things would change in some other way, and the thing you loved would be gone, or different, and so would your love for it. Even the memory would alter or fade, until you didn’t even have that to cling to.
These were dark, bitter thoughts, and Gretchen forced her mind to move away from them. I can’t think this way. All I can do is think about the now. This moment. This is what really exists.
She stopped the car and turned back to the figure on the steps. Even though Gretchen couldn’t see her face, she could tell by the thick brown hair that it was Mafer. Relief flooded her system. They hadn’t had a chance to talk the night before, and Gretchen desperately needed to. Of course Mafer knew that.
Gretchen wondered what it would be like to know things about people, to be able to guess things in advance. She’d had that experience once or twice—knowing who was calling the moment the phone rang, predicting the next song on the radio—but had always been able to write it off as coincidence. She wondered if Mafer ever felt burdened by what she knew about people. Whether she, like Gretchen, might rather have a normal life, free of the “gift.”
Mafer didn’t look up as Gretchen pulled her father’s car into the driveway, or even when Gretchen crunched across the gravel and up the stone footpath that led to the porch. When Gretchen reached her step, Mafer finally lifted her chin and placed it on her crossed arms. Her dark eyes caught a ray of sunlight, which made them seem almost hazel.
“Are you okay?” Gretchen asked.
“Define okay,” Mafer replied.
Gretchen huffed out a sigh. “Do you want to come inside?”
Mafer nodded. “Yeah.”
Gretchen led Mafer through the front door, past the formal living room, and into the kitchen. “Can I get you some water?” Gretchen asked, tossing her jacket over the back of a chair.
“Nothing, thanks.” Mafer leaned against a counter as Gretchen pulled a glass from the cupboard. She filled it from the tap and took a long pull. The Archers got their water from a well, and it had a sour, metallic aftertaste, but Gretchen was used to it. She wrapped her hands around the glass and turned to face her friend.
“Thank God you’re here.”
Mafer closed her eyes. “You don’t seem surprised to see me.”
“I’m relieved,” Gretchen admitted. “I was going to come over to your house today anyway.”
“Were you?” Mafer’s eyes fluttered open, and she cocked her head, a small smile at the edge of her lips. “Really?”
“I wanted to talk to you about something.” Gretchen ran her fingers through her long hair, impatiently tucking it behind an ear. “We didn’t get a chance last night. I have a question.”
“All right.”
“There’s someone I’m wondering …” Gretchen’s throat felt dry; she took another sip of water. “I’m wondering if I can trust this person.”
There was a window over the sink, and Mafer looked out to where the brown fields led out to the bay beyond. Gretchen could see two figures in the distance. They were walking toward the house. There was a glare on the window, and Gretchen couldn’t see the figures properly, but
she assumed it was the Archers, or maybe her father and Mrs. Archer, out for a walk. “Someone who has returned after a long absence,” Mafer said in a dreamy voice.
“Yes.” Relief flooded Gretchen’s body at the fact that she didn’t have to explain all about Asia. Of course not; Mafer already knows. “How can I know whether or not I can trust her?”
Mafer turned to face her. “What makes you think you can?”
Gretchen was about to say that she was Asia’s friend, but the words wouldn’t quite force themselves out. Can you ever be friends with someone who was originally sent to kill you? True, in the end, she changed her mind … but that didn’t change what Asia was sent to do. “I don’t know.” An image of Asia popped into Gretchen’s mind—Asia ready to kill Kirk when she thought Circe was inhabiting his body. At the time, Gretchen had taken this to mean that Asia was willing to protect her at all costs. But now a new thought occurred to her. Life does not mean much to Asia, Gretchen realized. She’s ready to kill if she has to.
“Is there some reason for you not to trust her?” Mafer asked, and as the words floated into the air, Gretchen felt herself again looking out the window. “Is there anything she might want?”
Now the glare had shifted, and the two figures came into view in the purple twilight of the fast-fading sun. One was Will, the other Asia. The breeze lifted Asia’s long hair slightly, blowing it away from her face, revealing her brilliant green eyes. She looked impossibly graceful and beautiful, even in the old clothes she wore. With a sinking feeling in her stomach Gretchen whispered, “Maybe there is something she wants.”
That’s why she’s here, she knew in a flash. This has nothing to do with Circe. It has to do with me. With Will. She wants to get rid of me.
Maybe she is Circe.
Gretchen frowned. She looked down at her right hand and snapped her fingers. A flame shot up between them, and burned there—steady. She played with it, letting it roll over the backs of her fingers, then out to the tips.