Kirk yanked the knife out of his thigh and scrambled to his feet. With a shout, he plunged toward Gretchen, knife high. Gretchen pulled up her arm to defend herself, but Asia was faster. She caught Kirk’s wrist and twisted it, but his fingers clung to the handle of the blade like a vine grown tight around a branch.
“I’ll destroy this body before I let you harm her,” Asia said.
Kirk started at the voice, as if Asia’s face had no relevance but the voice had stirred a distant memory. He stared up at Asia, and his eyes glittered with a fierce golden light. For the first time, Gretchen was certain that whatever that thing was, it wasn’t Kirk. “Asia,” the thing said with a strange inflection. “Are you going to protect her?” The voice was sneering, and a hungry light illuminated his face, as if this thing would relish such a challenge. “Destroy this body, then. I dare you.”
Asia narrowed her eyes and looked as if she just might, but Gretchen shouted, “No!”
In the moment of uncertainty, Kirk broke free, but he did not lunge toward Gretchen. Instead, he backed into the table and raised his arm.
Gretchen leaped at him before he could plunge the knife into his own chest. The blade caught her on the shoulder, opening a wound that bled onto her new peach shirt.
And suddenly everyone was in motion. Angel, Will, Angus, Asia—everyone lunged forward and pinned Kirk, still screaming, to the floor. But something had changed. He was screaming in English. His voice was hysterical, but it had lost its strange inflection, its guttural cast. His eyes remained dark pools as Asia pinned his arm to the table, and he dropped the knife to the floor, where it clattered and spun.
“Why did you stop me?” he screamed. “You shouldn’t have stopped me!”
Asia whispered something in his ear. He screamed again, but she whispered more, until finally he gave up shouting and started coughing. After a moment, his body relaxed a little, and his eyes fluttered closed.
The room had grown completely silent, and it took Gretchen a moment to realize that Kirk had actually fallen asleep. He was splayed backward across a metal table, limbs twisted at odd angles, blood flowing from the wound in his leg, and he was sleeping sound as a baby.
Asia cradled Kirk in her arms and placed him gently on the table.
“Oh, Asia,” Lisette breathed.
Angel looked at Asia. “I had a whole speech prepared for if I ever saw you again. It’s about how pissed I was that you bailed out on us at the end of the summer, but I think I’ll skip it.”
Will touched Gretchen’s shoulder with a finger. “This looks bad.”
“It hardly hurts.” Gretchen winced slightly as she twisted her shoulder, trying to get a better look at the injury.
Angus fished his cell phone out of the sink. “It’s still working,” he announced. “I know you were all really concerned. I’m dialing 911 now.”
“He’ll be all right,” Asia said, looking down at Kirk.
“That dude needs to be in a mental hospital,” Angus said. “He’s completely out of control.”
“He’s been doing so well.” Angel surprised Gretchen with the sadness in his voice.
“What happened?” Lisette asked. “Nothing seemed to provoke him. One minute he was Kirk; the next minute he was—”
“Someone else,” Gretchen finished for her.
Lisette nodded. “It was like that.”
Angel took her hand, and they both looked down at the sleeping Kirk as if he were their baby.
Asia gave Gretchen a knowing look. “He was not himself,” she said.
“So who was he?” Angus asked. He sounded like he was joking, but Gretchen suspected that he wasn’t.
Asia looked at him as if she might say something, then thought better of it. “We need to get Kirk to the hospital,” she said, just as red lights began to flicker through the window.
“He’s a frequent guest there, anyway,” Will said.
Asia didn’t reply. She simply brushed Kirk’s dark hair away from his damp forehead. In a moment an EMT in dark blue stepped in, carrying a bag of equipment. He took one look at Kirk and walked over to the table asking, “Anyone else?”
“Take care of him first,” Gretchen said as the man’s partner came in.
“Let me take a look,” the new EMT insisted.
Gretchen pulled back her sleeve. The EMT frowned. “Pull it back further, please.” She did, twisting so that the rear of her shoulder showed. He inspected her shoulder, then gave her a wry smile. “No wound,” he said.
“What?”
“Must be the other guy’s blood.”
Gretchen twisted her neck to get a better view as both EMTs turned to Kirk. She had felt the knife slice her flesh. But he was right—there was no wound.
Kirk wasn’t in any danger, but he needed to go to the hospital for his leg.
“I’ll ride with him in the ambulance,” Asia offered.
Will, Gretchen, and Angus decided to follow in the truck, while Lisette and Angel had to stay and clean up. Angus called Kirk’s sister to let her know what was happening.
“Great to see you again, Asia, by the way,” Angus said as Will took Gretchen’s arm and led her toward the door. “Glad you showed up. Things were just getting a little boring around here.”
“Would someone fill this out?” the triage nurse asked. She looked at Gretchen through round horn-rimmed glasses and passed a stack of papers across the desk. Gretchen took the paperwork and followed Will into the waiting room. Angus was sitting there, munching popcorn and staring at a television blaring a game show. He looked over at them and poured the rest of the popcorn into his mouth before tossing the black bag into the trash. Then he brushed the crumbs off his lap and hurried over to them.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Gretchen told him.
“Where’s Asia?” Will asked.
Gretchen understood that it was perfectly natural for him to ask, but it still irritated her. She didn’t like to hear Asia’s name on his lips. It sounded too natural there, too beautiful.
“She’s with Kirk,” Angus said, and then—as if she’d heard them talking about her—Asia appeared. Her movements were slow and she seemed thoughtful as she walked up to them.
“How is he?” Will asked.
“He’s surprisingly strong.” Asia frowned. “Not many survive what he’s been through.”
“Yeah, about that,” Angus put in. “Would anyone like to fill me in on just what that is?”
Asia cocked her head, as if she had just noticed Angus. “Why are you even here?”
He rolled his eyes. “Lady, I have no idea.”
“I want him to stay,” Gretchen announced. Will lifted his eyebrows slightly, but she ignored him.
“Seriously?” Angus looked delighted.
“Look, why don’t you just tell us what’s going on?” Gretchen demanded. She glared at Asia. Her body was shaking with the effort it took not to strike out, hit something. “You’re the only one who knows, so just—share.”
Asia looked around the waiting room. It was empty. Nine twenty-three on a Sunday night, and people seemed to be avoiding injuring themselves. The triage nurse sat behind her counter, chatting on the phone with someone who—by the tone and content of the conversation—seemed to be her daughter. She wasn’t likely to eavesdrop on them. Asia gestured for the others to follow, and she led them to the far corner, over by the windows. Asia perched herself on the edge of one of the tasteful but uncomfortable blue chairs. A ficus sat behind her, sad in its leafy attempt to make the setting seem less depressing.
Gretchen took the chair next to Asia, and Will sat on the other side of Gretchen. Angus flopped into a chair across from them. He was the only one who looked eager to hear what she had to say. Gretchen thought that Will looked exactly how she was feeling—filled with dread.
Asia pressed her palms against her knees, then took a deep breath. “You know about spirit possession, I suppose?” She looked up.
“Totally
saw The Exorcist,” Angus said with a wave, like he was an expert.
Asia looked at him a moment, then turned to Gretchen and Will.
“Is that what happened to Kirk?” Gretchen asked. “He was possessed by a demon?”
Asia flinched at the word demon, but eventually she nodded. “Not a demon exactly, but—”
“Not not a demon,” Will finished for her.
A humorless smile touched Asia’s lips. “It’s probably the right word. The only word.”
“Does the demon have a name?” Gretchen asked.
“Circe,” Asia said, touching the smooth wooden arm of the chair. “She’s a very powerful witch. She was sent to dwell in the spirit world, but something has awakened her.”
“Something like …?” Gretchen prompted.
“Like the change in her sister and rival.”
“Circe is a Siren?”
“Her mother was one of our kind—Perse—and her father another immortal. There is Siren in her, but she is more powerful than we are. Much more. Still, somehow Calypso sent Circe to the spirit world. Now that Calypso is diminished, Circe has resurfaced. The destruction of many Sirens has given those who dwell on the next plane new strength. The universe is woven together in a web, Gretchen—the human world, the spirit world. You cannot disturb one strand without affecting the fabric. The spirit world is reacting to the shock waves from this world.”
Gretchen glanced over at Will, who looked pale but calm, as if he had a new understanding of something. “So—the dead are gaining power?”
Asia nodded. “For now.”
“What does she want?” Will asked. That was one thing Gretchen loved about him—his directness, his eagerness to get to the point.
“She has one foot in our world and one foot in the Beyond. She wants to cross over fully, to regain her power.” Asia’s green eyes drifted over Gretchen’s shoulder, as if she were trying to focus on something in the Beyond—something she couldn’t quite see. “And for that, she wants to possess Gretchen. Or kill her.”
Gretchen closed her eyes, feeling a heavy weight descending over her limbs. She wasn’t surprised by this statement at all.
“Kill her?” Will demanded. “Why would she want to kill her?”
“If she kills her, Tisiphone will be reborn in flame. But that moment between life and death—”
“That’s when she could possess me,” Gretchen finished.
“She can take the shape of wind, mist, vapor. She’s been gaining power slowly. First she inhabited a dog. Then a criminal. Then Kirk …”
“So—she was in Kirk? That’s what you’re saying?” Will demanded. “But then why did he try to stab himself in the heart? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Kirk is stronger than she guessed, I suppose,” Asia said. “He thought that if he could kill himself, he would be rid of her. But by the time he had the strength—the mental strength—to try, she had already departed his body.”
“So he would have killed himself for nothing.” Gretchen shuddered at the thought that Kirk would have sacrificed himself. Would I have done the same? she wondered.
“Circe can affect the minds of those around her,” Asia went on. “When Odysseus arrived on her island, she turned his men into pigs. Not literally into pigs, of course, although that is how the story is told. She simply magnified the worst aspects of their personalities until they were no better than pigs, wallowing in their own muck, searching greedily for their next meal.”
“What does that have to do with Gretchen?” Will asked.
“She is the Fury. If Circe can kill her, she will obtain her powers. And if she strikes now, while Gretchen’s powers are in a weakened state, she may succeed.”
“What powers?” Angus asked. He was grinning, as if he had just stumbled in on an elaborate joke.
Nobody spoke. Nobody even looked at him.
“What powers?” Angus repeated. But this time his voice was faint, as if he was only now beginning to realize the seriousness of the situation. “Do you mean … are we talking about the fire stuff?”
Will looked at him sharply.
“I don’t have any powers,” Gretchen snapped.
Asia leaned forward. “You can be stabbed but not killed. The only way for you to die is by drowning—or being consumed by your own flame, which happens only once every five hundred years, at the end of your life cycle. And you could set this entire hospital complex on fire with your mind.”
“No, I couldn’t. And even if I could, I wouldn’t want to. Why would I?” Her voice was almost pleading, and Will tightened his grip on her fingers.
“If she can’t be killed, then why does Circe keep attacking?”
“She hopes to weaken Gretchen enough so that she can possess her mind,” Asia explained. “Fear can do that. Pain can do it. If she can’t accomplish that, she will drown you.”
“I never asked for this,” Gretchen whispered.
“None of us ask for the gifts we are given,” Asia replied.
“But it doesn’t really matter, does it?” Will asked. “I mean, what good is fire against mist? How do you destroy something like that?”
“I don’t know,” Asia admitted. Her eyes never left Gretchen’s. “All I know is that she won’t stop until she destroys you.”
Gretchen let her gaze drop to the floor. “I won’t fight her,” she said, lifting her eyes.
Asia and Gretchen regarded each other for a long moment. Gretchen felt as if she were reaching out to Asia over miles, or maybe across dimensions. Like it or not, Gretchen had more in common with this Siren than she did with Will. Asia was truly the only one who could understand what it was like to be a stranger among humans, an outsider.
“It’s your choice, of course,” Asia replied. “But you must understand that if you do not stop her, many will suffer. And you will die.”
Gretchen hung her head. Kill or be killed—what kind of choice was that? She had nothing to say.
Really, there was no choice at all.
Chapter Nineteen
Sparks flew up as the pyre ignited—those were the fireflies she had seen before. Heat seared through her: agony tore at her flesh in a lightning flash. And then she felt her flesh vibrating, humming with energy.
The angry faces of the mob had turned to shock and then—fear.
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.…
She awoke, disoriented, to faded rose-patterned wallpaper. A strange room, a chipped white bureau with glass knobs, lace curtains yellowed with age, a blue-and-white-striped easy chair that sat, resigned and lumpy, in the corner. Her mind scrambled for a moment, as if skidding across a sheet of ice, then finally found a toehold: the sweet smell of her pillowcase reminded her of Will. She was in the Archers’ guest room.
The window beyond the yellowed lace was dark, although the glowing green numbers on the clock beside her bed read 6:30. It should be lighter, she thought, a moment later registering the soft patter of rain.
She caught the damp, dreamy smell of wet leaves, and Gretchen realized that she had left the window slightly open; raindrops splattered against the white windowsill. Gretchen sighed, reluctant to leave the cozy cave of her blankets. A chill had settled over her room, lying across her bedspread like frost.
Gretchen tucked her knees to her chest as guilt crept over her. The image of Kirk stole into her mind, and she felt stricken. Trembling, tears streamed down, dripping over the bridge of her nose and wetting her pillow. Outside, a sparrow chirped, then fell silent, discouraged by the rain.
Gretchen was just wondering how she could possibly get out of bed when she heard a crash from the room beside hers, then a muffled curse. Her room was right off the kitchen—Mrs. Archer was probably baking.
Gretchen squeezed her eyes shut, but she knew that sleep was impossible. I don’t want this life, she thought.
But there was no
use pitying herself; she knew that. It was strange. Thinking of Tim here, in the Archer house, didn’t hurt her as much as it did elsewhere. The whole house was filled with him. His red and black plaid jacket still hung in the front closet; a photo of him and Will ages nine and seven was on the side table in the living room; even the small plate—ugly and misshapen, but cheerful in yellow—where Mrs. Archer placed her used teabags was a relic from one of Tim’s summer camps.
I’m lucky. The thought surprised her, and a moment later the sweet vanilla scent of baking scones crept under her blanket. I am lucky, she realized, to be here with Will’s family. To have Will, who cares about me. To have had Tim in my life. In spite of everything, I’m lucky. Not everyone has that. And she thought of Kirk and his sister, who didn’t understand him, and his mother, who never thought about him at all.
Outside, the rain drummed on. She swung her legs from beneath the blanket, placed her bare feet onto the wide painted boards, and stood up. A deep breath, and she wiped the tears from her eyes. She shut the window, silencing the rain, then pulled her fleece from beneath her pillow and yanked on some new, soft socks. Then she padded into the kitchen to help Mrs. Archer.
Later that afternoon, Gretchen lay on her back looking up at the sky through the filter of leaves. Light poured in through the irregular patchwork of scallop-edged ovals, illuminating the yellow and orange with a soft glow. A light breeze lifted a leaf and it parachuted in an uneven zigzag, finally landing on Gretchen’s neck. The air was pungent with the smell of decay and wood smoke from the fireplace at Will’s house. Overhead, strips of white clouds sat on a blue sky, as if they had no intention of going anywhere.
She stretched out, pressing the bottom of her feet against the tree’s trunk. Her hair was spread across a carpet of moss, grass, and fallen leaves and a small twig dug into her shoulder blade, but Gretchen didn’t mind it. She had lain beneath this tree countless times, looking up through the tall branches that cascaded to the ground around her, forming a natural curtain that hid her, and a faded red canoe, from sight. “The fairy place,” she had called it the first time Will had showed it to her, when they were five years old. Tim was old enough to reject that as the name, so Gretchen and Will were careful to call it just “the tree” in front of him. But in her heart, Gretchen had always thought the place was magical.