Savvy rolled her eyes and pointed at the box in Nor’s hand. “Open it,” she ordered.
After pulling off the top of the box, Nor peered inside at what looked like — a bronzed crow’s foot? “Oh.” She was unsure what to say. She picked it up and examined it more closely. The talons were curled inward, clutching a translucent stone. “Thank you?”
“What is that thing?” Grayson exclaimed. He shook his head at Reed. “This is what you got her? A dead bird’s foot? Man, how is it that you’ve ever had a girlfriend?”
This time it was Savvy who punched him. She took the claw out of the box and slid it along her little finger. “I think it looks like a ring,” she said, waving her hand at Nor.
“I don’t think it’s a ring,” Reed was quick to say. “I don’t know what it is. I found it over at the Society and thought it was weird and that you’d appreciate it.”
“Because I’m weird?” Nor asked, horrified.
“Only in the best way possible,” he reassured her.
Nor felt her own cheeks flush, and she slid the unusual present into her pocket for safekeeping — or at least until she could figure out what the hell to do with it.
She glanced across the room at Judd and Apothia, bickering over lighting the candles on the cake. In the corner, Antiquity growled softly in her sleep. A knock on the door announced Madge’s arrival. As Savvy launched into some animated story, Nor’s fingers found Reed’s present in her pocket. And in spite of the sense of foreboding she couldn’t seem to shake, Nor smiled, a real smile.
Hours later, the full moon shone its silvery light through the dining room window. Most of the candles had burned out, and the tablecloth was dotted with hardened puddles of melted wax. All that remained of the cake were plates smeared with frosting and raspberry jam. Several empty bottles of Apothia’s plum wine littered the table. Madge had left a while ago.
“You know our midnight tour on Samhain is our most popular tour of the year,” Madge had apologized, kissing Nor on the cheek.
At the head of the table, Judd leaned back in her chair, smoking her pipe and filling the air with the sweet aroma of her tobacco. Apothia disappeared into the parlor, and then the sweeping music of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake filled the room. Nor and her grandmother shared a good-humored groan as Apothia jetéd and fouettéd back into the room. She tried to coax Judd to dance, but instead, Judd pulled Apothia onto her lap. Apothia took Judd’s face in her hands, and they kissed to catcalls from Savvy and Grayson.
Nor would normally have been embarrassed by their public display, but glancing around the room, all she saw was joy. It was in the flush of Apothia’s soft cheeks and in Savvy’s chirpy voice and the lively movement of her hands. It was in her grandmother’s eyes, in the contented sighs of both dogs asleep under the table, and in the clumsy manner in which Grayson attempted to sneak another glass of wine. It was in the way Reed laughed, silently, his shoulders shaking and his eyes squinted shut.
Eventually Judd and Apothia headed upstairs to bed. As Savvy blew out the last of the candles, Nor and Reed stacked the dirty plates and collected the silverware. Grayson feigned sleep at the end of the table until they were finished.
“I was just resting my eyes,” he insisted.
“You were just trying to get out of doing any of the work,” Savvy said.
“Well, yeah. That, too.”
Outside, the air was rich with chimney smoke; Nor could practically taste the cinders. It was a familiar scent that Nor associated with the season, when the creeping cold brought fireplaces back to life.
Nor pulled her sweater more tightly around herself. From the Tower’s front porch, she could see the rush of the waves against the beach below. There was movement out there as well, and she could hear a chorus of low, ethereal moans echoing across the water.
“Apparently all the humpback whales in the area sing the same song,” Reed said, coming up behind her. He brushed up against her arm, and Nor’s pulse began to flutter. “Kind of like they have their own dialect or something.”
“There’s no way those are all whales,” said Grayson, who’d also stepped outside. He pointed to more shadowy shapes in the water, including several close to shore.
“It pains me to admit this,” Savvy said, “but I think he might be right.”
“What are they then?” Reed asked.
Nor left the others on the porch and went into the yard, away from the light of the Tower and to listen more clearly to the mournful song of the whales and whatever other creatures were out there. She definitely heard a hint of something different in the whales’ voices. Something restive, Nor thought. The hair on the back of her neck started to prickle. Something dark and disquieting.
Without a word to the other three, Nor walked to the edge of the property and pushed her way through the overgrowth until she found the trail leading down to the beach. A mess of brambles and naked tree limbs crisscrossed over her head, forming a tunnel that made Nor feel like she was in a scene from Alice in Wonderland.
The trail was unusually overgrown, as if the forest had turned suddenly savage. The plants greeted Nor with hostility and snagged her exposed skin with sharp thorns and stinging nettles. Nor didn’t remember the trail ever being this difficult to navigate.
Behind her, someone cursed. The thistles must have gotten them as well.
Nor stopped at the end of the trail and waited for everyone else to emerge. A piece of Grayson’s sweatshirt had been torn. Reed had scratches on his cheeks, and Savvy had one across her forehead.
The beach stretched two miles in either direction, connecting with Meandering Lane at one end and with a small inlet leading to Celestial Lake at the other. Though not the most beautiful, the beach had its own kind of triumphs — the view of the archipelago being one of them. The water glittered in the moonlight like diamonds. Squinting, Nor could spy the barnacle-covered tail of a humpback whale. The faint whine of a powerboat could be heard in the distance.
Grayson took off toward the water’s edge, Savvy following closely behind him. She shrieked every time one of her bootheels got trapped in between the rocks.
“Shall we?” Reed asked. He held out his hand, and Nor suddenly wished she could push a giant pause button and suspend time. In that moment, she didn’t want to think about her mother or about whatever was going on out there in that cold water; all she wanted to think about was that Reed Oliveira was holding his hand out to her. And for a moment, time did exactly that. It paused. And then Nor stepped off the path, slipped her hand into Reed’s, and followed him onto the beach.
“I was right,” Grayson called. “Those aren’t just whales.”
“What are they then? Mermaids?” Savvy teased.
“No, not mermaids,” Grayson snapped.
The tinny whine of the powerboat grew louder as it cut through the waves. It shined a spotlight over a cluster of creatures in the water. Nor could make out breaching Dall’s porpoises, and the long extended arms of a giant Pacific octopus waving wildly like the mythological kraken. Jet-black dorsal fins revealed the largest orca pod Nor had ever seen. Barking steller sea lions, harbor seals, and otters dove in and out of the waves. Sea birds glided overhead, their eerie witch cackles filling the sky.
They were all moving in the same direction. They were all moving north toward the Pacific Ocean, as if they were all running from a common enemy invading the cold waters of the archipelago.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Reed said.
“Maybe they know something we don’t.” Savvy teetered warily away from the shore. “Like the way dogs act really weird before an earthquake is about to hit?”
While the others debated their own theories, Nor shut her eyes and tuned them out. The thoughts of all those sea creatures trickled over her like water in a creek. At first, it was hard to separate one creature’s thoughts from another. She quickly realized it didn’t matter, that they were all conveying basically the same thing.
Nor paled, and h
er skin prickled with horripilation. Still clutching Reed’s hand, she backed away from the water’s edge, fear piercing her like a thousand arrows.
Savvy’s right, she realized with a start. They’re afraid of something that’s drawing nearer. They were afraid in the way a herd is afraid when a predator stalks them, readying to pick them off one by one. Something out there, something dangerous and unnatural, had them spooked.
The powerboat had finally bumped its way to shore. Nor recognized the girl at the helm as Charlie Coldwater, her cousin Gage beside her. She cut the engine sharply just as a Jeep, almost as dilapidated as the old boat, rumbled down the beach toward them, sending an arc of rocks over their heads, and stopped.
“Hey!” Savvy called indignantly. “What the hell?”
The Jeep was yellow but thickly splattered with mud. Both doors and the roof were missing. The driver, a tall young man with chiseled features, slammed the Jeep into park and leaped out almost before the vehicle came to a complete stop. The passenger, on the other hand, seemed uninterested in what was happening in the water, though it was hard to tell behind his dark aviator sunglasses.
“Well?” the driver of the Jeep called to the Coldwaters.
“They’re moving out fast,” Charlie called back. “They keep going at this rate, there won’t be anything left out here but anemones and barnacles.”
Gage swung out over the side of the boat and hauled it onto the beach by a soggy rope.
The driver of the Jeep considered Charlie’s words for a moment. “Any sharks?”
“Oh yeah, loads,” Gage said, “but they’re not preying on any of the others. They all just seem pretty fixated on getting the hell out of here.”
The Jeep driver turned to his passenger. “What do you think?”
The passenger shrugged, his back still to the shore, and spit some sunflower shells onto the rocks. “We could just ask the girl,” he finally said.
At that, Gage sneered. “What’s she going to tell us? I doubt she has a clue about what’s going on.”
The driver leaned against the Jeep, crossed his arms, and turned to Nor. “Well?” he asked her.
In an instant, all eyes were on Nor, but she was just as caught off guard as they were. She was “the girl”? “I — I don’t know!” Nor stuttered, but she did, sort of. Still, how did these strangers know to ask her why the animals were so spooked?
“No shit,” Gage said. “See, Pike? What did I tell you?”
“Why are you picking on her?” Savvy said, coming to Nor’s defense. “Go find a marine biologist and be an asshole to them, why don’t you?”
Gage gave Nor a knowing smirk before turning back to Pike. “Like I said.”
Why is this guy such an asshole? Nor thought. She glared at him, but no matter how long or how intensely she scowled, he refused to look at her. As badly as she wanted to shut him up for good, when she saw the look on Savvy’s face, she quickly decided against saying anything more. The fact that there were sea creatures all but running over one another in their haste to get away from the archipelago was alarming enough.
Pike shook his head. “Man, shut up, Gage.” He called to Charlie, still sitting in the boat: “We’ll meet you two back at the compound.”
Glowering, Gage splashed back into the water and launched himself over the side of the boat. The word Arcana had been carefully painted on the back of the wooden boat in gold swirling letters. The motor started with a rumble. Charlie squared her baseball hat, and the two Coldwaters took off, the small boat bouncing along the waves and disappearing into the dark.
“Just ignore him,” Pike said to Nor. “It’s common knowledge that our cousin is — well.” He turned to the passenger still spitting sunflower seeds into the sand. “What would you say he is, Sena Crowe?”
“He’s a dick.”
Pike laughed. “Exactly.” He swung back into the driver’s seat, and after a few false starts, the Jeep sputtered to life. “You should get back,” he called to Nor and her friends over the churning engine. “It is Halloween. Who knows what else is lurking out here in the dark.” And with that, the Jeep disappeared in another spray of sand and rocks.
Savvy spun toward Nor. “What the hell is that guy’s problem?”
Good question, Nor thought. They seemed to know more about her than she knew about them. Nor forced herself to shrug, hoping a mask of cool indifference would hide the tremor in her hands. She jammed them into the pockets of her sweater just in case. “No idea,” she said.
“Well, I’m pretty sure I hate him.” Savvy looked out at the water and shuddered. “Can we go? This is starting to give me the creeps.”
“I thought we liked things that give us the creeps,” Nor teased.
“Not this.”
“Maybe we should take the long way back,” Reed suggested, fingering the cuts on his face. “I’m not sure I’m up for more blood loss.”
Nor smiled, but she didn’t trust herself to say anything. The worrying change in the island’s wildlife — and how much the Coldwaters seemed to know about her — fluttered like a butterfly in the pit of her stomach. With everything that had happened tonight, she was afraid that if she opened her mouth that butterfly, all of her secrets, all the parts of herself she wanted to keep hidden — most especially from Reed — would come pouring out.
Reed took Nor’s hand, and she let him guide her down the beach while she tuned in to the faint cries in the water, of sea lions and a gray whale. Savvy was right. They did know something. There was something coming, something to fear. Nor wondered if the island’s residents should have been running away from Anathema Island, too.
Reed and Nor’s pace was far slower than that of Savvy and Grayson; soon, the two of them were alone, weaving their way silently along the shoreline. They reached a wide dirt road that led them up to Meandering Lane. On either side of them, beach grass glowed silver and ethereal in the moonlight. The grass moaned like a ghost in the wind — a hollow, grief-stricken sound. It chilled Nor to the bone.
The sound of voices carried over from the other side of the island. The lantern lights from the Witching Hour’s midnight tour of the cemetery moved across the black landscape like a constellation. What would happen if they actually succeeded in summoning the ghost of a Blackburn daughter? If Astrid, Judd’s mother, or Hester, the first daughter, appeared? Would they be able to tell Nor what was going on? Would they be able to protect them from whatever dark force the animals were so afraid of?
Outside the Tower, they paused, and Reed ran his hands up and down Nor’s arms as if to warm them. She tugged at the sleeves of her sweater, making sure they covered her scars, then reached up and pressed her hand lightly against the scratches on Reed’s face and felt the stubble on his cheeks.
“They don’t look too bad,” Nor started to say — and then gasped softly when the scratches on his face disappeared at her touch. She pulled her hand away in alarm as pain, delicate as freshly mown blades of grass, fluttered to the ground. Shit. She hadn’t meant to do that. She needed to be more careful.
Fortunately, Reed didn’t seem to notice either her reaction or that she’d healed his cheek. And instead of running away, spooked by this girl who was more than simply weird, he kissed her cheek good night, pressing his lips just close enough to Nor’s ear to send shivers down her neck.
A few days after Nor’s seventeenth birthday, her mother was scheduled to appear on a popular morning talk show. Despite Nor’s initial intention — that there was no way in hell she was going to acknowledge the highly publicized event, let alone watch it — in the end, the temptation was an itch she had to scratch. With an exasperated sigh, she sat up in bed, pushed her wild hair out of her eyes, and turned on her phone.
She launched the search engine, typed in her mother’s name, and after scrolling through the hundreds of hits that came up, found what she was looking for. And then there she was, her comely face filling the cracked screen of Nor’s cell phone: Fern Blackburn. The host oohed and aah
ed along with the delighted studio audience as, in the blink of an eye, Fern transformed a homely young woman into a beauty almost as fetching as Fern herself. Then a child, stripped of her sight as an infant, saw her parents for the first time. The only thing missing from the show was a lame man dropping his crutches and walking across the stage.
“How stunning you are,” the host crooned. “And yet how humble.” Everyone in the audience murmured their approval of this striking visionary who would selflessly guide them all into the light of the future. That Fern Blackburn could make wishes come true was no longer in doubt.
Nor squinted at the screen, searching her mother’s face for any signs of the incredible strain and sacrifice Nor knew was necessary for Fern to perform such “miracles.” She saw none and grew more alarmed. There was nothing, not a single flaw, not a bruise or a blemish, not even a broken capillary. Only fern tattoos spiraling across her porcelain skin. Nor remembered what her mother had had to do in the past to practice magic outside her own Burden. She remembered being on the roof with Fern that night. She remembered how her mother’s skin had split open, how her mother’s blood had trickled across the roof. And she remembered how the blood had poured from the wounds Fern had then made on Nor’s skin when her own blood wasn’t enough. If Fern wasn’t paying the price for her spells herself, then someone else certainly was.
The audience rose to its feet and applauded. Nor turned off her phone in disgust and tried not to think about the terrible cost someone had paid for restoring that little girl’s sight.
Nor shuffled downstairs and found Apothia in the kitchen preparing a tray of assorted breakfast foods: fresh bagels and sliced strawberries, hazelnut spread, and a jar of honey. A greasy-smelling hash sizzled on the stove. There was also orange juice, a pot of what smelled like peppermint tea, a French coffee press, and a pitcher of Bloody Mary mix.
“After seeing Fern’s little demonstration on national television,” Apothia said, “your grandmother and I decided we needed something to give us strength. We haven’t yet decided if that strength will come from food or from vodka.”