Kendare Blake - Girl of Nightmares

“Yeah? Well if it’s going to be more than a pint, let me know now, so I can bank it,” I reply, and he grins. We’re at his locker, talking about the ritual, which he still doesn’t have nailed down. But to be fair, it’s only been a day and a half. The blood he’s referring to is the conduit—the link to the other side—or the price. I’m not sure which. He’s talked about it both ways, like a bridge, and like a toll. Maybe it’s both, and the other side is basically a toll road. He’s a little bit nervous while we talk, I think because he senses my eagerness. He can probably tell I haven’t slept much either. I look like total shit.

Thomas straightens when Carmel walks up, looking ten times better than we do, as usual. Her hair is up in a clip, bouncing jauntily in a sweep of blond. The sparkle from her silver bracelets hurts my eyes.

“Hey, Thomas,” she says. “Hey, zombie-Cas.”

“Hey,” I say. “So I guess you heard what happened.”

“Yeah, Thomas told me. Pretty scary stuff.”

I shrug. “It wasn’t that bad. Riika was actually cool. You should’ve come.”

“Well. Maybe I would have if I hadn’t been kicked out of the club.” She lowers her eyes and Thomas goes immediately on the defensive, apologizing for Morfran, insisting he was out of line, and Carmel nods, keeping her eyes on the floor.

Something’s going on behind Carmel’s lowered lashes. She doesn’t think I’m watching, or maybe she thinks I’m too tired to notice, but even through the exhaustion I can see what it is, and the knowledge makes me hold my breath. Carmel was happy to be kicked out. Sometime in between rune carving and being tacked to a wall by a pitchfork, it all got to be too much. It’s there in her eyes; the way they linger regretfully on Thomas when he isn’t looking, and the way they blink and sparkle fake interest when he tells her about the ritual. And the whole time Thomas just keeps on smiling, oblivious to the fact that she is basically already gone. It feels like I’ve watched the last ten minutes of a movie first.

Spending the entire school year at the same school is something I haven’t done since eighth grade, and I have to say, it’s sort of obnoxious. It’s the Monday of the last week of the year, and if I have to sign one more yearbook I’m going to sign it in the owner’s blood. People I’ve never spoken to are walking up with a pen and a smile, hoping for something more personal than “have a neat summer” when such hopes are futile. And I can’t help but suspect that what they really want is for me to write something cryptic or crazy, some new clue they could use for the rumor mill. It’s been tempting, but so far I haven’t done it.

When there’s a tap on my shoulder and I turn around to see Cait Hecht, my botched date from two weeks ago, I almost back into my locker.

“Hey, Cas,” she smiles. “Sign my yearbook?”

“Absolutely,” I say, and take it, scrambling to think of something personal but all that goes through my brain is “have a neat summer.” I write her name and then a comma. What now? “Sorry about the brush-off, but you reminded me of a girl I killed”? Or maybe, “It never would have worked. The girl I love would disembowel you.”

“So, are you doing anything cool this summer?” she asks.

“Uh, I don’t know. Maybe travel around a bit more.”

“But you’ll be back here in the fall?” Her brows are raised politely, but it’s just small talk. Carmel says Cait started dating Quentin Davis two days after the coffee shop. I was relieved to hear it, and am relieved now that she doesn’t seem upset in the least.

“That is a very good question,” I say, before giving up and scribbling “have a great summer” into the corner of the page.

Looking out the window of Carmel’s car, there’s no light except for stars and the pale glow of the city behind us. Thomas waited for the new moon. He said it was the best time for channeling. He also said that it would help if we were near the place where Anna crossed over, so we’re headed for the wreckage of her old Victorian. It fits. It makes sense. But the thought of it makes my mouth dry, and Thomas is going to explain everything once we get there, because I could barely sit still to listen back at the shop.

“You sure you’re up for this, Cas?” Carmel asks, peering at me in the rearview mirror.

“I have to be,” I say, and she nods.

When Carmel decided to do the ritual with us, I was surprised. Ever since that day in the hall, when I saw the detachment lurking behind her eyes, I haven’t been able to look at her the same way. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was hallucinating. Three hours of sleep riddled with dreams of your girlfriend killing herself will do that to you.

“This might not work at all, you know,” Thomas says.

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re trying, right? That’s all we can do.” My words and voice sound reasonable. Sane. But that’s because I don’t have anything to worry about. It’s going to work. Thomas is strung tight as a violin, and you don’t need a tuning fork to feel the waves of power coming off of him. Like Aunt Riika said, he’s more than witch enough.

“Guys,” he says. “After this is over, can we go get a burger or something?”

“You’re thinking about food now?” Carmel asks.

“Hey, you haven’t spent the last three days fasting and doing herbal rue steams and drinking nothing but Morfran’s gross chrysanthemum purification potions.” Carmel and I grin at each other in the mirror. “It isn’t easy becoming a vessel. I’m freaking starving.”

I clap him on the shoulder. “Dude, when this is over, I’ll buy you the whole damn menu.”

The car goes quiet as we turn down Anna’s road. Part of me expects to round the corner and have the house curl into our vision, still standing, still rotting on its crumbling foundation. Instead there’s empty space. Carmel’s headlights shine into the driveway, and the driveway leads to nothing.

After the house imploded, the city came out and cleared the debris in an effort to determine the underlying cause of the blast. They never found it, though true to form, they didn’t really try. They poked around in the basement and shrugged their shoulders and filled it in with dirt. Now everything that was left is concealed completely. The place where the house stood looks like an undeveloped lot, packed dirt and scrubby, fast-growing weeds. If they had looked any closer, or dug any deeper, they might have found the bodies of Anna’s victims. But the current of the dead and unknown was still too close, whispering that they should walk softly and leave it alone.

“Tell me what we’re doing, again,” Carmel says. Her voice is steady but her fingers are curled around the steering wheel like she’s going to rip it off.

“Should be relatively easy,” Thomas replies, scrounging around in his messenger bag, making sure he’s remembered everything. “Or if not easy, then at least relatively simple. From what Morfran told me, the drum used to be used by Finnish witches on a regular basis, to control the spirit world and talk to the dead.”

“Sounds like what we need,” I say.

“Yeah. The trick of it is to be specific. The witches never cared much who they got. As long as they got someone they figured they were wise. But we want Anna. And that’s where you and the house come in.”

Well, we’re not getting any younger. I open the door and step out. The air is mild and there’s only a hint of a breeze. When my shoes crunch against the gravel the sound brings a flash of nostalgia, a jolt that takes me back six months, when the Victorian still stood and I used to come at night to talk to the dead girl inside it. Warm, fuzzy memories. Carmel hands me the camping lantern from the trunk. It illuminates her face.