In the darkness of the unlit porch, I couldn’t see her face. But I would recognize that old beige van, still running in the street in front of my house, anywhere. “Desert Sand,” she used to say. It was Link’s mom, holding a plate of brownies. I was still carrying the console. If Link saw me, he’d never let me live this down.
“Just a minute, Mrs. Lincoln.” I flipped on the porch light, and unbolted the front door. But when I tried to pull it open, the door jammed. I checked the lock again, and it was still bolted, even though I had just unbolted it.
“Ethan?”
I unbolted the lock again. It bolted shut with a snap, before I could take my hand away from it. “Mrs. Lincoln, I’m sorry, my door seems to be stuck.” I rattled the door with all my weight, juggling the console. Something fell to the floor in front of me. I stopped to pick it up. Garlic, wrapped in one of Amma’s handkerchiefs. If I had to guess, there was one over every door and every windowsill. Amma’s little Halloween tradition.
Still, something was keeping the door from opening, just like something had tried to open the study door for me just days ago. How many bolts in this house were going to just keep locking and unlocking themselves? What was going on?
I unbolted the lock one more time and gave the door a final pull. It flung open, banging against the wall in the front hall. Mrs. Lincoln was lit from behind, a dark figure in a pool of pale lamplight. The silhouette was unsettling.
She stared at the game console in my hand. “Video games will rot your brain, Ethan.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I brought you some brownies. A peace offerin’.” She held them out expectantly. I should’ve asked her to come in. There was a formula for everything. I guess you could call it manners, Southern hospitality. But I had tried that with Ridley, and it hadn’t gone so well. I hesitated. “What are you doing out tonight, ma’am? Link’s not here.”
“Of course he’s not. He’s at the Snows’, which is where every upstandin’ member a the Jackson High student body should be lucky enough to be. It took quite a number a phone calls on my part to get him an invitation, in light a his recent behavior.”
I still didn’t get it. I’d known Mrs. Lincoln my whole life. She had always been an odd duck. Busy getting books taken off the library shelves, teachers fired from the schools, reputations ruined in a single afternoon. Lately, she was different. The crusade against Lena was different. Mrs. Lincoln had always had conviction, but this was personal.
“Ma’am?”
She looked agitated. “I made you brownies. I thought I could come in, and we could talk. My fight’s not with you, Ethan. It’s not your fault that girl is usin’ her deviltry on you. You should be at the party, with your friends. With the kids who belong here.” She held out the brownies, the gooey double chocolate chip fudge brownies that were always the first thing to go at the Baptist Church Bake Sale. I had grown up on those brownies. “Ethan?”
“Ma’am.”
“Can I come in?”
I didn’t move a muscle. My grip tightened around the console. I stared at the brownies, and suddenly I didn’t feel hungry at all. Not even the plate, not a crumb of that woman was welcome in my house. My house, like Ravenwood, was starting to have a mind of its own, and there was no part of me or my house that was going to let her in.
“No, ma’am.”
“What was that, Ethan?”
“No. Ma’am.”
Her eyes narrowed. She pushed the plate toward me, as if she was going to come in anyway, but it jerked like it had hit an invisible wall between her and me. I saw the plate tumble, falling slowly to the ground until it shattered into a million bits of ceramic and chocolate, all over our Happy Halloween doormat. Amma would pitch a fit in the morning.
Mrs. Lincoln backed down the porch steps warily, and disappeared into the darkness of the old Desert Sand.
Ethan!
Her voice ripped me right out of my sleep. I must have drifted off. The horror marathon was over and the television had broken down into a loud, gray fuzz.
Uncle Macon! Ethan! Help!
Lena was screaming. Somewhere. I could hear the terror in her voice, and my head was pounding with such pain for a second I forgot where I was.
Someone please help me!
My front door was wide open, swinging and banging in the wind. The sound ricocheted off the walls, like gunfire.
I thought you said I was safe here!
Ravenwood.
I grabbed the car keys to the old Volvo, and ran.
I can’t remember how I got to Ravenwood, but I know I nearly drove off the road a few times. My eyes could barely focus. Lena was in such intense pain, our connection so close, that I nearly blacked out just from feeling it through her.
And the screaming.
There was always the screaming, from the moment I’d woken up, until the moment I pressed the crescent and let myself into Ravenwood Manor.
As the front door swung open, I could see Ravenwood had transformed itself once again. Tonight, it was almost like some kind of ancient castle. Candelabras cast strange shadows down on the throngs of black-robed, black-gowned, black-jacketed guests, far outnumbering the guests at the Gathering.
Ethan! Hurry! I can’t hold on…
“Lena!” I yelled. “Macon! Where is she?”
No one so much as looked my way. I didn’t see anyone I recognized, though the front hall was crowded with guests, flowing from room to room like ghosts at a haunted dinner party. They were not from around here, at least not for hundreds of years. I saw men in dark kilts and rough Gaelic robes, women in corseted gowns. Everything was black, wrapped in shadow.
I pushed through the crowd and into what looked like a grand ballroom. I couldn’t see any of them—no Aunt Del, no Reece, not even little Ryan. Candles sputtered into flame in the corners of the room, and what seemed to be a translucent orchestra of strange musical instruments shifted in and out of focus, playing themselves, while shadowy couples went spinning and gliding across the now stone floor. The dancers didn’t even seem to be aware of me.
The music was clearly Caster music, conjuring a spell of its own. It was the strings, mostly. I could hear the violin, the viola, the cello. I could almost see the web that spun from dancer to dancer, the way they pulled each other in and out, as if there was a deliberate pattern, and they were all a part of the design. And I wasn’t.
Ethan—
I had to find her.
A sudden surge of pain. Her voice was growing quieter now. I stumbled, grabbing onto the shoulder of the robed guest next to me. All I did was touch him and the pain, Lena’s pain, flowed through me and into him. He staggered, bumping into the couple dancing next to him.
“Macon!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.
I saw Boo Radley at the head of the stairs, like he was waiting for me. His round, human eyes looked terrified.
“Boo! Where is she?” Boo looked at me, and I saw the clouded, steely gray eyes of Macon Ravenwood; at least, I could’ve have sworn I did. Then Boo turned and ran. I chased him, or I thought I was chasing him, running up the spiraling stone stairs of what was now Ravenwood Castle. At the landing, he waited for me to catch up, then ran toward a dark room at the end of the hall. From Boo, that was practically an invitation.
He barked, and two massive oaken doors groaned open by themselves. They were so far away from the party, I couldn’t hear the music or the chatter of the guests. It was as if we had entered a different place and time. Even the castle was changing under my feet, the rock crumbling, the walls growing mossy and cold. The lights had become torches, hung on the walls.
I knew about old. Gatlin was old. I had grown up with old. This was something altogether different. Like Lena had said, a New Year. A night out of time.
When I entered the main chamber, I was struck by the sky. The room opened wide to the heavens, like a conservatory. The sky above it was black, the blackest sky I’d ever seen. Like we were in the middle of a terrible storm, yet the room was silent.
Lena lay on a heavy stone table, curled in a fetal position. She was soaking wet, drenched in her own sweat and writhing in pain. They were all standing around her—Macon, Aunt Del, Barclay, Reece, Larkin, even Ryan, and a woman I didn’t recognize, holding hands, forming a circle.
Their eyes were open, but they weren’t seeing. They didn’t even notice I was in the room. I could see their mouths moving, mumbling something. As I stepped closer to Macon, I realized that they weren’t speaking in English. I couldn’t be sure, but I’d spent enough time with Marian to think it was Latin.
“Sanguis sanguinis mei, tutela tua est.
Sanguis sanguinis mei, tutela tua est.
Sanguis sanguinis mei, tutela tua est.
Sanguis sanguinis mei, tutela tua est.”
All I could hear was the quiet mumbling, the chanting. I couldn’t hear Lena anymore. My head was empty. She was gone.
Lena! Answer me!
Nothing. She just lay there, moaning softly, twisting slowly like she was trying to shed her own skin. Still sweating, sweat mixed with tears.
Del broke the silence, hysterical. “Macon, do something! It’s not working.”
“I’m trying, Delphine.” There was something in his voice I’d never heard before. Fear.
“I don’t understand. We Bound this place together. This house is the one place she was supposed to be safe.” Aunt Del looked at Macon for answers.
“We were wrong. There’s no safe haven for her here.” A beautiful woman about my grandmother’s age with spirals of black hair spoke. She wore strands of beads around her neck, piled one on top of the other, and ornate silver rings on her thumbs. She had the same exotic quality Marian possessed, as if she was from somewhere far from here.
“You don’t know that, Aunt Arelia,” Del snapped, turning to Reece. “Reece, what’s happening? Can you see anything?”
Reece’s eyes were closed, tears streaming down her face. “I can’t see anything, Mamma.”
Lena’s body seized and she screamed—at least she opened her mouth and looked as if she was screaming, but she didn’t make a sound. I couldn’t take it.
“Do something! Help her!” I shouted.
“What are you doin’ here? Get out of here. It’s not safe,” Larkin warned. The family had noticed me for the first time.
“Concentrate!” Macon sounded desperate. His voice rose over the others’, louder and louder, until he was shouting—
“Sanguis sanguinis mei, tutela tua est!
Sanguis sanguinis mei, tutela tua est!
Sanguis sanguinis mei, tutela tua est!
Blood of my blood, protection is thine!”
The members of the circle tensed their arms as if to give the circle more strength, but it didn’t work. Lena was still screaming, silent screams of terror. This was worse than the dreams. This was real. And if they weren’t going to stop it, I would. I ran toward her, ducking under Reece and Larkin’s arms.
“Ethan, NO!”
As I entered the circle, I could hear it. A howl. Sinister, haunting, like the voice of the wind itself. Or was it a voice? I couldn’t be sure. Even though it was only a few feet to the table where she was lying, it felt like it was a million miles away. Something was trying to push me back, something more powerful than anything I’d ever felt before. Even more powerful than when Ridley was freezing the life out of me. I pushed against it with everything I had in me.