“Don’t give up, sweetheart,” Varnie said as I jerked in pain and cried out. “Remember, I promised to put you back together too, as soon as the hard part is over.”
I whimpered and lost control of my legs, falling into Varnie. I was a rag doll. No substance, no nothing . . . but then the pain ebbed and something else replaced the gaps inside me. Something pure and white. I clung to Varnie, letting him do all the work.
I began to feel better . . . but less. Less open, less aware, less me.
Varnie let me down easily to the sand again. He kept murmuring. Nonsense words. They comforted me, though. He sat behind me, pulling my back to his chest. The esoteric Amelia began putting herself back together inside me wearily. I think the only reason I was centered enough to stay in the visualization was because of Varnie.
We stayed like that for a long time.
Then I opened my eyes, and I was back.
“I’ve become the girl who had to be rescued by the boy,” I lamented, a little disgusted with myself. Some savvy divinator I was, right? Haunted by evil for four years while I ran around yammering about the healing power of crystals.
“I got to be the white knight. I’m pretty stoked about it actually. How do you feel?”
“Shaky, sick, embarrassed.” I looked deep inside myself. “Free.”
“I love you, Amelia. I’m sorry I waited to tell you until it was too late.”
His declaration surprised me. Too late? “Varnie . . . I—”
“It wouldn’t have mattered if I had told you before now, when you were still in that thrall with Mike, but it just seems a colossal shame that all that time is wasted.” He rested his chin on my shoulder. “I’m really, really sorry.”
“Varnie, what are you talking about?”
Varnie didn’t answer my question, but continued talking as if I hadn’t asked. “Running away has always been what I do best. But I didn’t run this time, did I?” His voice seemed sad . . . or maybe resigned. “Staying on the go, that’s what kept me alive those years when I had no one to count on.”
“Why did you have to run?”
He took a deep breath, coming back to the conversation and not whatever was going on inside his head. “Sometimes the things I see in my visions can see me back. And they don’t appreciate being noticed. And then there are the medical professionals with their pills and syringes and fancy jackets with the arms in the back. They poked and prodded and overmedicated me and still my visions came. It’s a hell of a lot easier to outrun a pissed-off creature of the night when you’re not doped up on clozapine, so I’ve learned to keep moving and keep away from white coats.”
He never talked about his life before we met him. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have his visions and no support system. “You didn’t run this time,” I said, encouraging him the best I could. “What changed? What made you stay in Serendipity Falls?”
He cleared his throat. “My biggest fear used to be that my psychic talent would get me killed. But the first time I was the recipient of one of your world-famous smoosh hugs, my biggest fear was that I would let you down. That when you needed me, I would abandon you or not be able to help you.”
I turned so I could see him. I’d never noticed that his nose was crooked before. Just a little, like maybe he’d broken it once. It made me want to kiss it. “You’ve never let me down.”
“When you were in my arms, in the cabin, you felt so small. You were so gone . . . vacant. I swore I would do anything to bring you back. And it’s time to go back now, sweetheart.” He stared at me like he was memorizing my face. He picked up one lock of my hair and smiled. “Pink.”
I didn’t want to leave the beach, but he was right. It was time to go find our friends and get out of Under. “I’m ready whenever you are.”
Something passed through Varnie’s eyes, and even though he was smiling there was an unbearable sadness. My palms turned icy cold. Something was terribly, terribly wrong. I brought my hands to his cheeks, felt the scruffiness there. I needed the physical connection because something between us was fading even as we sat in the sand. “What?” I asked on a shaky breath.
He wrapped his warm hands around my wrists. “You need to know what you’ll be seeing when you wake up.”
My eyes began to burn with forming tears. “Whatever you’re about to say, I don’t want to hear.”
“Gabe and Donny are just about to your cell. You won’t be alone for long.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “There is blood.”
“The wall? I saw it in front of my chair.”
Varnie closed his eyes. “Not the wall. Amelia, there was a struggle behind your chair. You weren’t awake, not even in your catatonic state, when we first got to Under. There was a creature, a . . . troll, for lack of a better word. He was going to hurt you. I had to fight with him.”
My brain raced to catch up with what I somehow already knew in my heart. I let myself live in denial a little longer. “You killed him?”
“Yes,” he whispered. “Amelia . . .”
“No!” No. If he didn’t say it, whatever came next wouldn’t be true.
“I couldn’t let him get you. He wanted to hurt you. I couldn’t let him . . . but . . . he had a weapon, a sword. He stabbed me. Amelia, I killed him, but he killed me—”
I sobbed. “No! No, you’re just wounded maybe. We need to go back in there and stop the bleeding. I can maybe heal you—”
“It didn’t hurt for very long. I was so full of adrenaline that I barely registered that I was stabbed until he was dead and then things got hazy. There really is a light, sweetheart, and it’s beautiful. But I couldn’t leave you, not until you woke up.”
Waves of cold washed over me. Over and over, drowning me in disbelief and denial. “Then we’ll stay here.”
“Amelia.”
“I can’t go back there knowing you’re gone. I just want to stay with you. Please, Varnie. Let’s just stay here at our beach.”
“We can’t stay here. You need to go back and live a big, full life. You’re free of that spell now, and our friends need you.” He kissed my hands, tears spiked on his lashes. “I need you to keep going, keep living. I need to be able to take the next step and know that I didn’t let you down when you needed me most, Amelia.” He kissed my lips. A sound, hard kiss that tasted like good-bye. “You have to go back now.”
“I can’t leave you.”
“I’ll always be with you.”
We both watched the tracks of each other’s tears as they rolled down our cheeks. “We didn’t get to be together. We didn’t get our chance. I’m too selfish to let you go.”
It wasn’t fair. He sacrificed everything for me and he didn’t get a shot at happiness? I believed in karma and a universe that provided and could be trusted. This was all wrong. It just couldn’t happen.
“I wouldn’t change a second of it. I would fall on a thousand swords to keep you safe, but, sweetheart, you have to be strong for both of us now. You’re still in danger and I can’t protect you out there. I barely had enough energy to show Gabe and Donny how to find you.”
If I died, his act of bravery would be in vain. That’s what he was saying. He needed me to honor his life by living mine.
“I understand.”
Most people don’t get a long good-bye. Maybe it was better that way. There was so much pressure to say the things that had never been said. To hold on to every second. I would miss his friendship, his mentoring. He’d taught me so much. And he’d saved me—not just from a monster but by plucking out the darkness from inside me. I owed him everything.
I traced my finger around his lips. “Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank—”
I pressed my mouth to his to stop the words. In the kiss, I gave him a piece of my heart that would always belong to him. I knew that wherever he went next, he would take care of it.
“It’s time,” he said, and then he was gone. It was so abrupt, but at the same time it felt like a clean
cut.
I heard Donny calling my name. I closed my eyes and clutched a handful of sand. When I opened them again I was sitting in a chair. I opened my fist and the sand fell through my fingers.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Theia
Every time I tipped the snow globe, another terrible scene depicting my miserable friends brought me low. The scenes in the red and black petals would last only until the last heart-shaped confetti settled on the bottom, so I had to keep turning the glass ball. I wanted to send it crashing to the wall, but it was my only link to the people I loved and I desperately needed to stay connected somehow.
It was frustrating not to hear what they were saying, but I could see enough to know none of us would be the same. I’d watched in horror as Varnie gave his life to save Amelia from the sickening creature who was going to hurt her. My heart seized as Varnie’s blood poured from his wound, as he took his last breath. I shook the ball again, hoping, praying that I was wrong. That Varnie would get up. I just couldn’t accept that he could be gone. His absence would be a hole in our hearts forever. I cried until my heart felt like a wrung-out rag.
Like a hero, even death hadn’t stopped him. His aura changed in front of my eyes as it rose out of his body in a ghostly form. It solidified and roamed the castle in search of someone to save Amelia.
It had taken a lot of energy to break down the door. I was surprised that Donny and Gabe didn’t seem to notice that Varnie was becoming more and more transparent as they neared Amelia’s cell.
I shook the beautiful globe and it showed me ugly things once more. Gabe and Donny, such as they were, had found Amelia and they mourned Varnie, though not for long. They seemed to know it would be best to honor him by finding a way safely home. I cried as they pulled Ame away from his body, and rage built like an inferno inside my soul.
I hated Mara.
I’d yet to see Haden, though whether that was a blessing or a curse, I didn’t know. My three friends got lost in the twisty corridors of the castle. I couldn’t warn them that the halls changed on a whim. They held hands as they searched for a way out of the concrete nightmare and I knew they would never find one.
They came upon an atrium with a high arched glass dome for a ceiling. Above the glass roof, huge winged creatures soared, occasionally diving at one another in aggressive combat. It was daylight outside, but they looked like bats. Huge bats with red eyes and wingspans about six feet across. One landed on the glass. It wasn’t a bat but more like a twisted black goblin, and it was staring at them, licking its lips.
My perspective of the scene changed. No longer could I see the atrium roof inside the glass, but the globe I held became the roof. It was then that I noticed my friends could see me back, as they pointed at what must have seemed like the eye of a giant staring at them as if they were a live-action diorama.
Then the flying horde, hairy and slimy, found a way into the atrium through an opening in the glass. My friends huddled together in the middle as the beasts swooped over their heads like dive-bombing birds. I realized I was going to watch them die. I wanted to look away, but could not. The monsters were maniacal as they terrorized their prey with grins of huge teeth, sharp and yellow. One swooped low and slashed a talon across Amelia’s cheek. I choked on my sobs as the red blood welled up on the cut.
The goblins began landing and circled my friends. There were dozens of them and more yet in the air.
Then came Haden.
He was magnificent. He entered the atrium, an army of creatures behind him, each ghoulish and unsettling, but obviously on his side. Dressed in black from head to toe, Haden wielded his sword with grace and cunning, slicing his way through the horde of creatures.
Those who fought with him represented the myriad nightmares Mara brought to humanity. A spider the size of a Volkswagen skittered alongside a hellhound with large ruby eyes. A man with no facial features, just taut skin, carried a club of iron spikes. A woman with hair made of asps floated above the ground making horrible clicking noises. A horned demon with oozing skin lesions lumbered in behind a row of skeletons.
Haden moved with a preternatural grace. Though I was frightened for him, a part of me was in awe of his skill, his strength. He was single-minded in his purpose. I marveled that he was the same boy who looked at me with love, for this man was someone I’d not yet met. The pride I felt was a bittersweet pill, for he was there to save me but he wasn’t mine anymore, and this man, the one who battled so valiantly, had kept himself a dark secret when we were together.
I think my heart stopped beating altogether as I tried to keep track of the chaos. There was blood. A lot of it. I tried to keep watch on Donny and Amelia—the skeletons that had come in with Haden gave my friends weapons and were protecting them, but things were changing fast.
Haden looked up once, into the eyes of the giant, and I knew he recognized me. In the seconds that he’d been distracted, an enemy got too close. I cried his name and gasped as I saw him go down—but the last heart-shaped petal fell and I had to shake the globe once more.
Instead of taking me back to the atrium, the scene displayed was one of the many hallways in the castle. I shook it again, frustrated. What had happened to Haden? Again, all I could see was the hallway. I peered closer, wondering what Mara wanted me to see when all my friends were in another part of the castle. I looked deeper into the ball, holding it so close that it touched my skin.
An almost imperceptible change in the shadows caught my interest. I sensed the movement before I saw it. The shadows seemed to gather into themselves and take substance. As the lines became more defined, an icy sensation grew inside me. There were no features, no hands or feet. Just a cloak of darkness that continued to grow. And then it moved.
Chills raced up and down my spine. I felt like I was watching the embodiment of fear. It was even worse than Mara, and every instinct I possessed warned me of impending doom. The creature created from the shadows would have no match. I knew it was death. It was unforgiving and obscenely graceful as it slithered through the corridor. It seemed as though it wasn’t moving so much as the distance was stirring to accommodate where it wished to be.
It left a trail of frost in its wake.
I didn’t want to see it anymore. The stark dread pooled inside my limbs so that I felt I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed when the moment came that the scene changed once again. Death’s cloak slipped through a wall and descended upon a girl sitting in a chair.
Holding a snow globe.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Haden
Even their blood was putrid. I pulled the sword out of the freshly slain goblin and heaved when the aroma reached my nose. Jesus. Even if a person could survive the talons and the feral temperament of the damn things, the smell might be enough to kill you.
I looked up and Theia was gone. I shook my head. I couldn’t give in to wondering how she’d become a giant or what was going on outside of this damn atrium. I had to trust that she would do what she needed to do to survive.
From the corner of my eye I saw yet another creature descending on me. How many had my mother sent? Even if I couldn’t see it, I’d have smelled it coming. I pivoted and thrust just as it tried to take a swipe at me. As I gutted the beast, I hoped my soldiers were able to get through the carnage with the extra weapons for my friends. Each of my skeletal guard knew who they were assigned to protect, but in the thick of battle, especially a battle against goblins, things often went awry.
As if to punctuate the thought, I found my feet stuck to the floor. A quick glance showed me that all of us—the skeletons, the creatures, and the humans—were stopped and stuck in midmovement. A shift in the atmosphere echoed in my bones. Something was not right—even for Under. The floor began tilting, even though we were stuck to it. As the laws of nature were breached, up became down quite literally.
There was nothing to hold on to, but I wasn’t falling anyway. The goblins screeched in fear, a sound no one should ever have to hear, and I hea
rd my friends shouting. I looked down at the glass roof now below me. Everything quaked, shaking loose a dusting of flower petals. Heart shaped. And then we pitched and rolled once again. A carnival ride of terror.
I focused on not losing the contents of my stomach. The smell combined with the constant jostling made that task difficult at best.
Theia. Something was wrong. I felt it in the change of my heartbeat. An unwelcome sensation overtook me. What if she was gone?
I don’t think she ever understood that she’d already saved me just by breathing. It was her quiet presence that stopped me from following the path Mara had laid out for me. It was her heart that showed me a new way. If I died today, it would be worth it. I didn’t fear death as much as I feared becoming the monster.
As long as she was alive, I had reason to live. I would earn back the trust I had sacrificed in order to save her.
And then the dome cracked. Shards of glass began falling like raindrops, each one hitting the floor with a ping and then a crunch and they began falling faster, a downpour.
Suddenly freed from the floor, I resumed the battle against the goblins. It was much later when I realized the girls were gone.
Down Is Up Again
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Theia
I blinked awake, tied to some kind of table. Above me, a single lightbulb hanging by a cord swayed back and forth. The ceiling was stark white and the coppery smell of blood tinged the air.
I couldn’t sit up; the straps were as strong as they were snug. Panic lodged itself in my throat. Breathe, Theia. And think.
What had happened?
The shadow had entered my room. I’d been too frightened to turn around, my body literally paralyzed, so I’d watched in the globe as if it were happening to someone else. It approached the girl in the chair from behind and as it melded into her, my blood froze, all sensation stopped, and I dropped the globe.