Like that’s the simplest thing in the world. The words have built up in my throat, and if I open my mouth I’m going to heave for who knows how long.
“Fine. The Obeahman, for one. If I’m right, then he’s there too. And we all remember how well he kicked my ass last time. Now he’s even kicking hers. For two, what kind of Machiavellian shit am I going to step in with the Order? Jestine said there would be a price, and of that I have no doubt. And then there’s this test that we’re all running blindly into.”
“We don’t have a choice,” Thomas says. “The clock ticks. Caution’s become a luxury.”
I snort. If caution is a luxury for me, that’s fine. I know what I’m willing to pay. Thomas and Carmel aren’t a part of it, but they might get pulled in anyway.
“Look,” he says. “The situation is dark. Maybe even pitch black, if you want to get really dramatic.” He smiles. “But don’t feel guilty about being excited to see her again. I’m excited to see her again.”
There’s no doubt in his eyes. He’s absolutely certain that the plan will go from A to B, and everything will work out with rainbows and pots of gold. It’s like he’s completely forgotten just how many people I got killed last fall.
* * *
We changed trains in Glasgow and finally disembarked at Loch Etive, a sprawling, stretching lake of blue that reflects the sky with eerie stillness. When we crossed it on the ferry to the north bank, I couldn’t shake the awareness of the depth beneath the boat, the idea that the reflection of sky and clouds was masking an entire world of darkness, caves, and swimming things. I’m glad to be across, on solid ground. There’s moss here, and moisture in the air, clearing my lungs. But even now I feel the lake over my shoulder, sitting still and sinister as the yawning jaws of a trap. I much prefer Superior, with her waves and rages. She doesn’t keep her violence a secret.
Jestine’s got her phone out. She’s been periodically checking for texts from Gideon, but isn’t really expecting one. “Mobile service in the north country is spotty,” she said. Now she clicks her phone closed and rolls her neck back and around, stretching after sleeping in what was roughly a Q shape for hours on the train. Her hair is down and loose on her shoulders. We’re all dressed comfortably, in layers and athletic shoes, backpacks affixed, looking for all the world like hikers out walking the country, which I guess is fairly common. The only things that set us apart are our pinched, nervous expressions. There is a very strong, stranger-in-a-strange-land vibe passing between us. I’m used to finding my feet fast in new places. God knows I’ve moved around enough. Maybe planting roots in Thunder Bay has made me soft. Having to rely on Jestine for everything doesn’t sit well either, but there’s no other option. At least she’s doing a decent job of keeping Thomas and Carmel’s minds off of what lies ahead by telling colorful local stories. She talks of ancient heroes and loyal hounds, and tells us about the dude from Braveheart and where he held his meetings. By the time she pulls us into a pub for fries and burgers, I realize she’s taken my mind off everything too.
“I’m glad you two have worked things out,” Jestine says, looking across the table at Carmel and Thomas. “You make a very cute couple.”
Carmel smiles and adjusts her hair, pulled into a sporty ponytail. “Nah,” she says, and nudges Thomas with her shoulder. “He’s too pretty for me.” Thomas grins, grabs her hand, and kisses it. Since they just got back together, I’m willing to let this PDA business slide.
Jestine grins and takes a deep breath. “We may as well stay here for the night and start off in the morning. There are rooms for board upstairs and we’ve got a long hike tomorrow.” She raises her brows at Thomas and Carmel. “How do you want to room? The two of you and the two of us? Or boys in one, girls in the other?”
“Boys in one,” I say quickly.
“Right. Back in a minute.” Jestine gets up to make the arrangements, leaving me with my gaping friends.
“Where’d that come from?” Carmel asks.
“Where’d what come from?”
As usual, playing dumb gets me nowhere.
“Is there something going on?” She gestures with her head toward Jestine. “No,” she says, answering her own question. But she’s looking at Jestine, measuring just how attractive she is.
“Of course there isn’t,” I say.
“Of course there isn’t,” Thomas echoes. “Although,” he says, and narrows his eyes. “Cas does have a weakness for girls who can kick his ass.”
I laugh and throw a fry at him. “Jestine did not kick my ass. And besides, like Carmel can’t kick yours?” We smile and go back to eating with the mood shades lighter. But when Jestine returns to the table, I avoid looking at her, just to make a point.
* * *
My eyes are open in the dark. There isn’t any real light in the room, only soft, cold blues streaming in from the window. Thomas is snoring in his bed next to mine, but not sawing logs or anything. It wasn’t him that woke me. Not a nightmare, either. There’s no adrenaline in my blood, no twitchy feeling in my back or legs. Whispering. I remember whispering, but I can’t separate it from dream or waking sound. My eyes swivel to the window, out toward the lake. But that’s not it. Of course it isn’t. That lake isn’t going to slither out of its banks and come up here after us, no matter how many things it has pulled under and drowned.
Probably just nerves. But even as I think so, my legs swing out of bed and I pull my jeans on, then slide the athame out from underneath the pillow. Go with your gut is the credo that has served me best, and my gut says there’s a reason that I’m suddenly awake in the middle of the night. And I’m wide awake, stark fucking awake. The dry chill of the floor against my bare feet doesn’t even make me flinch.
When I open the door of our room, the hallway is silent. That almost never happens; there’s always a noise of some kind coming from somewhere, the creaking of the building against its foundation, the distant hum of a running refrigerator. But right now there’s nothing, and it feels like a cloak.
There isn’t enough light. No matter how wide I open my eyes, they can’t take enough in to see much of anything, and I only vaguely remember the layout of the hall from walking up to our rooms. We took two left turns. Carmel and Jestine went farther back; the door to their room was around the corner. The athame shifts in my palm; the wood slides against my skin.
Someone screams and I bolt toward the sound. Carmel’s calling me. Then all of a sudden she isn’t. When her voice cuts off, my adrenaline spikes. I’m in their open doorway in two seconds, squinting against the light from Jestine’s bedside lamp.
Carmel’s out of bed, squeezed against the wall. Jestine’s still in bed, but sitting straight up. Her eyes are fixed across the room, and her lips move rapidly in a Gaelic chant, her voice coming even and strong from her throat. There’s a woman standing in the middle of the room in a long, white nightgown. A shock of white-blond hair spirals out over her shoulders and down her back. She’s obviously dead, her skin more purple than white, and there are deep grooves in it, like wrinkles, except that she isn’t old. It’s shriveled, like she was left to rot in a bathtub.
“Carmel,” I say, and hold my hand out. She hears but doesn’t react; maybe she’s too shocked to move. Jestine’s voice gets progressively louder and the ghost rises from the floor. The yellowed teeth are bared; she’s getting more pissed by the second. When she starts to thrash, she sprays putrid water everywhere. Carmel squeaks and covers her face with her arm.
“Cas! I can’t hold her much longer,” Jestine says, and the moment she does, the spell loses its grip and the ghost rushes the bed.
I don’t think; I just throw the knife. It leaves my hand and runs into her chest with a meaty thock, like it just connected with the trunk of a tree. It drops her on the spot.
“What’s going on?” Thomas asks, running into me from behind and shoving past to get to Carmel.
“Good question,” I say, and move farther into the room so I can close the door. Jes
tine leans over the edge of her bed and stares down at the body. Before I can say something soothing, she reaches out and shoves it, turning it face up, the athame’s handle sticking squarely out of the chest.
“Isn’t it supposed to … disintegrate or something?” she asks, cocking her head.
“Well, sometimes they explode,” I say, and she backs off fast. I shrug. “He’d been disemboweled already, but when I put the athame into what was left, his gut sort of … blew up. Not into tiny bits or anything.”
“Eee.” Jestine makes a face.
“Cas,” Carmel says, and when I look at her, she shakes her head at me. I shut up, but really, if she expects delicacy then she probably shouldn’t have come back. I walk to the ghost. The eyes aren’t visible anymore; either they’ve disappeared, or they’ve fallen back into the skull. Despite the inherent grossness of the rotten, purple skin, and the way it shines like she was just lifted from the water, it isn’t any worse than the other things I’ve seen. If this is what the Order calls a test, I’ve been worrying too much. I toe the ghost tentatively. It’s just a corporeal shell now. It’ll degrade in its own way, and if it doesn’t, I suppose we could weigh it down and sink it into the lake.
“What happened?” I ask Jestine.
“It was strange,” she replies. “I was asleep, and then I wasn’t. There was something moving in the room. It was bent over Carmel’s bed.” She nods at Carmel, still standing by the door, with Thomas’s arm around her shoulders. “So I started chanting.”
I look at Carmel to confirm, but she shrugs.
“When I woke up it was by my bed. Jestine was saying something.” She leans into Thomas. “It was all pretty fast.”
“What was that chant?” Thomas asks.
“Just a Gaelic binding spell. I’ve known it since I was little.” She shrugs. “It’s not what I had planned on using. It was the first thing that popped into my head.”
“What do you mean it’s not what you’d planned on using? Why were you planning to use something?” I ask.
“Well I wasn’t; not really. I just knew this place was haunted. I didn’t know for sure if the ghost would show up. Just said a few words as we crossed the threshold, to entice it, and then went to sleep and hoped.”
“Are you fucking nuts?” Thomas shouts. I put my hand out, gesturing to keep his voice down. He presses his lips together and bugs his eyes out at me.
“You did this on purpose?” I ask Jestine.
“I thought it’d be good practice,” she replies. “And I’ll admit, I was curious. I’ve been taught about the athame being used, but of course I’ve never seen it.”
“Well, the next time you get curious, you might think about telling your bunkmate,” Carmel snaps. Thomas kisses the top of her head and squeezes her tighter.
I stare down at the corpse. Wondering who she was. Wondering if she would have been a ghost I would have needed to kill. Jestine sits unaffected at the foot of the bed. I’d like to throttle her, yell until her ears pop about putting people in danger. Instead I reach down to pull the athame loose. When my fingers close around the handle, they hesitate, and my stomach does a small flip when I have to jerk at it to get the blade out of the bone.
The knife slides out, coated with a faint tinge of purplish blood. As soon as the tip of the blade is clear, the wound expands, curling the skin back in layers, tearing through the faux-fabric of the nightgown. It takes the skin down to the bone and turns the bone to black and then to dust; the entire scattering of muscle, sinew, cloth, and hair takes less than five seconds.
“Don’t ever put my friends in danger again,” I say. Jestine locks eyes with me, defiant as usual. After a few seconds, she nods and apologizes to Carmel. But in those few seconds I saw what she was thinking. She was thinking I was a hypocrite to tell her that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
We move the girls’ things into our room, but after that, nobody goes back to sleep. Thomas and Carmel just sit together on his bed, snuggled up and not saying much. Jestine tucks herself into my bed, and I spend the last hours until dawn by the window, sitting in a chair and watching the black spot of the lake.
“That throw was brilliant,” Jestine says to me at one point, maybe trying to make peace, and I make some kind of affirmative noise in my throat, not ready to really talk to her yet. I think she could have fallen back asleep, but feels too guilty to let herself, seeing how shaken up Carmel is. As soon as there is enough light, we start getting ourselves together.
“We’ve already paid,” Jestine says, shoving her pajamas into her pack. “I suppose we could just leave the keys at the bar and head out.”
“You’re sure we’ll make it to the Order by tonight?” Carmel asks, peering out at the expanse of mist and trees. There’s a whole lot of darkness and nothing else out there, and it looks like it might go on forever.
“That’s the plan,” Jestine replies, and we shoulder our backpacks.
We go down the stairs, making as little noise as possible. But I suppose that’s not necessary, considering the ruckus we made at three in the morning. I expected all the lights to come on and for the innkeeper to bang down the door and rush in holding a baseball bat. Except they don’t play baseball in this country. So maybe they would have been holding a cricket bat, or just a big stick, I don’t know.
At the bottom of the steps, I turn and hold my hand out for both sets of keys. I’ll just leave them near the cash register.
“I hope nothing got broken last night.”
The voice is so unexpected that Thomas slips down the last few stairs and Carmel and Jestine have to catch him. It’s the owner of the inn, a stout, dark-gray-haired woman in a chambray shirt. She’s behind the bar, staring at us while she dries glasses with a white towel.
I go to the bar and hold the keys out. “No,” I say. “Nothing got broken. I’m sorry if we woke you. Our friend had a nightmare and everyone sort of overreacted.”
“Overreacted,” she says, and cocks her brow. When she takes the keys, she grabs them, practically snatches them out of my hand. Her voice is a low, rough grumble; she’s got a thick brogue, and the toothpick sticking out of one corner of her mouth doesn’t make it any easier to understand. “I ought to charge you another night’s stay,” she says. “For the extra efforts we’ll be taking from now on.”
“Extra efforts?” I ask.
“Every Scottish inn needs a haunting,” she says, putting down one glass and starting on another. “A story for the tourists. A few roaming footsteps in empty hallways at night.” She levels her eyes at me. “I expect I’ll have to be finding a way to do it myself, from now on.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it. My teeth grit at the urge to turn and glare at Jestine, but it wouldn’t do any good. She’d just blink back innocently, not seeing anything wrong. I don’t like the idea of following her through unfamiliar country. Not when she’s clever enough to trick me into breaking my own rules.
* * *
“What the hell was that about?” Thomas asks once we’re outside. “How did the innkeeper know?”
Nobody answers. I have no idea. This place is strange. People look at you in one slow wink, and they have a link to magic, like they’re all Merlin’s second cousins once removed. The owner of the inn was an ordinary woman, but talking to her felt like talking to a hobbit. Now, outside, even the chill in the air feels off, and the dark lines of the trees seem too dark. But there isn’t anything to do but follow Jestine, and she takes us down the roughly paved road, where we fill our water bottles in a fountain and then turn off, onto a pebble and gravel path through the woods.
Once we’re moving and the sun comes up higher, finally visible through the peaks of the trees, things seem better. The hiking isn’t hard, just a well-groomed trail and a few rolling hills. People pass us in small groups, on their way back to the Loch and beyond. They all look cheerful, weathered, and normal, outfitted in REI and khaki caps. Birds and small mammals skitter through the underbrush and b
ranches, and Jestine points out a few of the more colorful ones. By the time we stop for a lunch of prepacked fruit and cereal bars, even Carmel’s color has gone back to normal.
“Another few hours on this trail, and then we should leave the path and head through the forest.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“We should be on the trail for half a day, and then we should see the mark,” Jestine replies.
“What’s the mark?”
She shrugs, and the rest of us exchange a look. Carmel asks whether she means the Order, but I know she doesn’t. She doesn’t know what the mark is.
“You said you’d been here before,” I say, and her eyes widen innocently. “You said you knew the way.”
“I said no such thing. I’ve been to the Order before, but I don’t know exactly how to get there, and certainly not on foot.” She tears into a granola bar. The crunching sounds like breaking bones.
I think back. She didn’t actually say it. Gideon said she knew the way. But he probably meant because she was told, not because she’d ever done it.
“How can you have been there and not know where it is? Weren’t you practically raised there?” I ask.
“I was raised by my parents,” she says, giving me the arched eyebrow. “I’ve been to the compound from time to time. But when I went, it was blindfolded.”
Thomas and I look at each other, just to confirm the craziness.
“It’s tradition,” says Jestine, seeing the look. “Not all of us break with it, you know.” I don’t have to ask what that’s supposed to mean.
“You messed up back at the inn, Jestine.”
“Did I? She was dead, and the athame sent her.” She shrugs. “It’s very simple, really.”
“It’s not simple,” I say. “That ghost probably never harmed a living person in its entire afterlife.”
“So? It doesn’t belong here. It’s dead. And don’t look at me like that, like I’m brainwashed. Your morality isn’t the only morality in the world. Just because it’s yours doesn’t mean it’s right.”