"I came as soon as I could." He put an arm around her in a brief, almost hesitant hug. He never would have done that in the old days, Bonnie thought. He used to be so reserved.
Stefan and Matt were looking at each other. Here we go, thought Bonnie. It was almost funny; the same expression was on both their faces. Hurt and tired, and trying not to show it. No matter what, Elena would always be between them.
At last, Matt stuck out his hand and Stefan shook it. They both stepped back, looking glad to have it over with.
"Where's Damon?" said Meredith.
"Poking around. I thought we might want a few minutes without him."
"We want a few decades without him," Bonnie said before she could stop herself, and Meredith said, "He can't be trusted, Stefan."
"I think you're wrong," Stefan said quietly. "He can be a big help if he puts his mind to it."
"In between killing a few of the locals every other night?" Meredith said, her eyebrows up. "You shouldn't have brought him, Stefan."
"But he didn't." The voice came from behind Bonnie, behind and frighteningly close. Bonnie jumped and made an instinctive lunge for Matt, who gripped her shoulder.
Damon smiled briefly, just one corner of his mouth up. He'd taken off his sunglasses, but his eyes weren't green. They were black as the spaces between the stars. He's almost better looking than Stefan, Bonnie thought wildly, finding Matt's fingers and hanging on to them.
"So she's yours now, is she?" Damon said to Matt casually.
"No," Matt said, but his grip on Bonnie didn't loosen.
"Stefan didn't bring you?" prompted Meredith from the other side. Of all of them, she seemed least affected by Damon, least afraid of him, least susceptible to him.
"No," Damon said, still looking at Bonnie. He doesn't turn like other people, she thought. He goes on looking at whatever he wants no matter who's talking. "You did," he said.
"Me?" Bonnie shrank a little, uncertain who he meant.
"You. You did the spell, didn't you?"
"The..." Oh, hell. A picture blossomed in Bonnie's mind, of black hair on a white napkin. Her eyes went to Damon's hair, finer and straighter than Stefan's but just as dark. Obviously Matt had made a mistake in the sorting.
They took seats on the decaying bales of hay, all except Damon, who remained standing. Stefan was leaning forward, hands on knees, looking at Bonnie.
"You told me-you said that Elena spoke to you." There was a perceptible pause before he got the name out. His face was tense with control.
"Yes." She managed a smile for him. "I had this dream, Stefan, this very strange dream..."
She told him about it, and about what had happened after. It took a long time. Stefan listened intently, his green eyes flaring every time she mentioned Elena. When she told about the end of Caroline's party and how they had found Sue's body in the backyard, the blood drained from his face, but he said nothing.
"The police came and said she was dead, but we knew that already," Bonnie finished. "And they took Vickie away-poor Vickie was just raving. They wouldn't let us talk to her, and her mother hangs up if we call. Some people are even saying Vickie did it, which is insane. But they won't believe that Elena talked to us, so they won't believe anything she said."
"And what she said was 'he,' " Meredith interrupted. "Several times. It's a man; someone with a lot of psychic power."
"And it was a man who grabbed my hand in the hallway," said Bonnie. She told Stefan about her suspicion of Tyler, but as Meredith pointed out, Tyler didn't fit the rest of the description.
He had neither the brains nor the psychic power to be the one Elena was warning them about.
"What about Caroline?" Stefan asked. "Could she have seen anything?"
"She was out front," Meredith said. "She found the door and got out while we were all running. She heard the screams, but she was too frightened to go back in the house. And to be honest, I don't blame her."
"So nobody actually saw what happened except Vickie."
"No. And Vickie's not telling." Bonnie picked up the story where she had left off. "Once we realized nobody would believe us, we remembered Elena's message about the summoning spell. We figured it must have been you she wanted to summon, because she thought you could do something to help. So... can you?"
"I can try," Stefan said. He got up and walked a little distance away, turning his back on them. He stood like that in silence a while, unmoving. At last he turned back and looked Bonnie in the eyes. "Bonnie," he said, quiet but intense, "in your dreams you actually spoke to Elena face to face. Do you think if you went into a trance you could do it again?"
Bonnie was a little frightened by what she saw in his eyes. They were blazing emerald green in his pale face. All at once it was as if she could see behind the mask of control he wore. Underneath was so much pain, so much longing-so much of that intensity that she could hardly bear to look at it.
"Then we'll do it. Right here, right now. And we'll see if you can take me with you." Those eyes were mesmerizing, not with any hidden Power, but with the sheer force of his will. Bonnie wanted to do it for him-he made her want to do anything for him. But the memory of that last dream was too much. She couldn't face that horror again; she couldn't.
"Stefan, it's too dangerous. I could be opening myself up to anything-and I'm scared. If that thing gets hold of my mind, I don't know what might happen. I can't, Stefan. Please. Even with a Ouija board, it's just inviting him to come."