From a Buick 8, my feet landed on the ground of Goody Farms, located on the northwest end of the border. The white plantation home nestled between cornfields and rows of apple trees, wild blueberries, cranberries, and strawberries blanketed the acreage. Most of the town’s food source came from Goody Farms, making Norse Wood’s own Goody family one of the wealthiest of Weeping Hollow.
Goody Farms and the Hollow Heathens were the solid two reasons why Sacred Sea hadn’t successfully taken over the town, despite what the law of balance stated.
The night was full, and iridescent gray clouds slid lazily across the phasing moon. A crow squawked in the distance, and Phoenix tossed a knowing glare at me from over the hood of my classic car.
It was me the black birds followed. Crows, ravens, it hardly mattered anymore. It was never-ending because Death wasn’t finished with its massacre. Their sounds always followed, always reminded. Always kept me on edge and aware. Darkness could take me at any moment.
Winnifred, Zephyr’s sister, played a depressing tune on the piano, and the notes echoed in the hollowed home, carrying through the already opened front doors. The two of us passed by her, a nod our only greeting.
Winnifred was a promiscuous creature, with wheat-blonde hair and upturned eyes. Her fingers never left the piano’s keys as one side of her mouth lifted, her plump breasts pressed together and up by a corset. Moonlight streamed in from the floor to ceiling window, casting a beam of white light over the grand piano.
My eyes went skyward then forward, landing on Phoenix’s back as he led the way through the living room toward the back of the house. Nerves bounced in every step we took until we reached the carved wooden doors of the room I hadn’t entered since the time I lost both my brother and father.
When we entered, Zeph and Beck were already present, as well as Clarence Goody and Drunk Earl. The last of the Hollow Heathens filled this very room. My glare slid from Beck to Zephyr to Phoenix, searching for answers but finding none.
“Take a seat,” Clarence Goody announced, gesturing toward the three empty chairs surrounding the sacred Heathen table.
Each chair was hand-crafted by the Wildes with our family name carved into the wood, the matching element symbol etched below it. Two of the five candles flickered from the center table, a matchbook at their side.
Phoenix ran his hand across his candle, and a flame ignited. Before taking a seat, I did the same, my gaze lingering on the Danvers chair with the earth element symbol underneath. The upside-down triangle, a line straight across. The only unlit candle spread an emptiness which lasted for over a century.
Phoenix’s hawkish gaze darted around the room as he followed suit, sinking into the chair his father once sat, the same chair a distant relative of his once built.
He broke the silence. “What is Drunk Earl doing here?”
A stained bandana covered Earl’s face, his gray hair sticking in all directions. Off the arm of the wooden chair, Earl’s wrist hung loosely, grasping a lowball glass of expensive brandy. A smug smile coated his face.
Beck’s elbows dug into his knees with his thumbs under his chin, his impatient knee bouncing beside his father’s. Zeph seemed relaxed, right at home in the discomfort of it all.
“Earl is a Hollow Heathen, he deserves to be treated as such,” Clarence Goody answered, his straight white hair curtaining his mask.
“Earl is a waste of magic,” Phoenix hissed.
Drunk Earl waved his hand out in front of him. “Go on and pretend I’m not here.”
“What do you think I’ve been doing for twenty years?” Phoenix Wildes. Always the protector of baby Beck.
Beck shoved a cigarette into his mouth, leaned forward, and snatched the matchbook from the table.
“What are we doing here?” I asked, wanting to get back to Fallon, the shop, anywhere else but this place.
This small, insufferable room was my martyrdom—a reminder of when I’d been forced to listen to Jonah, Clarence, and Agatha conspire to give up Dad instead of me for the greater good. It was a time just before they took Dad to the cliffs and shoved him inside The Wicker Man. A time before they set his body aflame. Anywhere but here…
Bright green orbs beamed from behind Clarence’s white mime mask. “Are you any closer?” he asked, his voice like a bass filling even the cracks of the room, the nooks and the crannies.
Beck began to speak, but I intervened, “What are you referring to?”
“Breaking the curse,” he answered, and I darted a glare at Zeph and back to his father. “When the books went missing in the chamber, I was questioned. Don’t take me for a fool. You think you’re the first Heathen to break into the chamber for answers?”
“No, we’re not close,” I gritted through a clenched jaw, hating that he knew. Hating that someone within the Order could threaten us with this. Even if it meant risking Zephyr, his own son.
Clarence nodded. “I didn’t see it until they called you in and ordered you to stay away from Tobias Morgan’s daughter. I don’t know what they are up to, but I’m not going to stay two steps behind. It’s time we put the coven before the town, same as Sacred Sea has been doing.”
“I agree,” Phoenix said, and I sensed relief in his voice. Perhaps he was relieved Clarence could be in on this too, with breaking the curse. He could be on our side, but I still couldn’t trust him.
“Oh, good. The son of fire,” Clarence crossed his legs, only growing thinner, and leaned back. “You’re the oldest, Phoenix, and you still haven’t chosen a mate from the coven. Shall we discuss the reason why?”
“Found no one worth choosing,” he snapped, and my focus jerked toward him. Phoenix’s eyes glowed with a neon-yellow hue, and I knew right then he was lying before the table. A sacred space where treachery and betrayal weren’t welcome.
Phoenix lowered his eyes, and Goody set his glass down on the side table. “Twenty-seven years ago, I sat at this very table when your grandfather spilled the importance of continuing each bloodline. I was sixteen, Phoenix. You’re almost twenty-eight. Julian and Zephyr, you two are not far behind him. Before you know it, I will retire, but I cannot rest easy knowing this coven is without a high priestess and no solid plans for continuance. This is the worst we’ve been in almost two hundred years. What are you waiting for? Why hasn’t either one of you had a son yet?”
Zeph sat up. “Being forced—”
“Relax. I’m not forcing you, Zephyr. Not right now,” Clarence interrupted, then returned his attention to Phoenix. “And don’t tell me you’re waiting to break the curse, because every Heathen before you tried, and every Heathen failed. The only certainty we have is making sure you pass along your magical element.” He slid his eyes to Drunk Earl when he added, “And preferably not with a flatlander. You four are what binds the coven. You have many people depending on your magic.”
“We have until we’re thirty,” I announced.
“My daughter understands what it’s like to be a Heathen,” Clarence offered.
Phoenix winced at the insinuation. “Winnifred? You must be joking.”
“Careful,” Zeph warned.
Phoenix’s gaze flicked from Zeph back to Clarence, and he inhaled deeply. “Listen, Mr. Goody, beauty has never been the issue when it comes to Winnifred. Anyone can see the good genes your wife passed along to your daughter. But I have two years. If I can’t break this curse in two years, I’ll pass along my fire sperm. But until then, and with all due respect, I don’t want to hear another word about it.”
“They see us as weak,” Clarence replied dryly. “Change needs to be made now.”
Phoenix cocked his head to me with disbelief in his eyes, and his brown hair fell from its hold, the ends hitting his jawline. He returned his wide eyes to Clarence. “I have until I’m thirty. I’m taking the time I’m owed.”
“Then you give me your word?” Clarence countered. “Two years, and you’ll choose my daughter, Winnifred?”
Phoenix’s muscles tensed. His fiery eyes narrowed. My eyes dragged across the room. Everyone was waiting the same as me, yet no one knew what he’d say.
Phoenix Wildes was the wild card, unpredictable and expressive. Think about what you’re about to say before you say it, I thought.
“Yes,” he agreed, but his words were etched with insecurity and doubt. I closed my eyes. Phoenix always kept his word once stated. “For the sake of the coven, I give you my word.”
“See, now we’re getting somewhere. Now, Julian,” he called upon me, and I steered my gaze away from Phoenix. Please do not ask me about Fallon. I couldn’t lie if he did, not here. “Your shadow-blood has taken six lives, Blackwell. Six!”
“It wasn’t six.” The truth was, I couldn’t remember for certain. “Five, tops.”
I hadn’t realized until Jonah found River how out of my mind I’d become. Then what happened with Fallon had pushed me over that line. Their blood was on my hands, each death devouring my conscience. It was a vicious circle only Fallon could pull me back out of it, but I couldn’t become dependent on her alone.
Clarence Goody raised a brow. “Beth Clayton?”
“Beth Clayton’s lips were stitched with a needle and thread. Have you ever seen me blackout, walking around with a sewing kit?” I leaned back in my chair, gripped the arms at each side. “It couldn’t have been me,” I said angrily. And then, a long, silent moment later, “Could it?”
“The coven has received confirmation it was you,” he stated. “Regardless of proof, they’ll blame the rapidly decreasing numbers of these residents on you because of your shadow-blood and what happened with Javino. If this continues, the Order will have no choice but to burn you in The Wicker Man, and you have yet to have a son.” Panic enveloped me whole. “Your shadow-blood has gotten out of hand, and that’s why I’ve come to the conclusion that by the Full Cold Moon, if things haven’t changed, I’m attempting an expulsion.”
It felt as if all the oxygen had been sucked from the room.
I’d become paralyzed as Beck and Phoenix jumped to their feet at my defense.
Their words flew around the room as Drunk Earl fell into a laughing fit from the safety of his seat.
“You can’t do that,” Phoenix’s voice fired off at my side. “He would become catatonic. He’ll be nothing.”
“That’s if he doesn’t die,” Zeph muttered, then drank from his glass.
“He won’t die,” Clarence tore his eyes from mine, breaking our stare-off. “He may become catatonic, but he’ll still embody magic of spirit. We’ll put him into comatose lucidity. It will be the only way to control him during the expulsion as well as contain his sperm.”
“You sick son-of-a-bitch!” I slammed my fist over the sacred table. “For twenty-six years, I’ve bowed down to this coven. I’ve given up my life, relationships, my morality, my freedom, my manhood. And now you’re taking my soul? Are you fucking kidding me, Clarence?” I blew out an incredulous breath, unable to believe the absurdity of this. “You have lost your damn mind. It’s not supposed to be this way.”
“I am your high priest, remember where you are and who you are speaking to. You are nothing but a tool for the sake of the coven, or have you forgotten that?” Clarence’s voice shook. “You murdered six people. I should have taken you to the Norse chambers myself after Jury Smith. The natural world has been looking out for you, but not for long. I’m giving you advanced notice, Blackwell. You take one more life, and the coven will take action.”
“I won’t let this happen,” Phoenix assured, then turned to Clarence. “The coven will never agree to this. Agatha will never agree. We should be helping him, not imprisoning him. Think about how many lives he’s saved.”
“This meeting is over,” Zephyr stated, and a gust of his wind rushed through the room. The candles flickered.
“I’m not finished,” Clarence’s voice vibrated the walls. The four of us stood, towering over the round table, eyes glaring down at Clarence. “The Pruitt’s are hosting their annual ball during Samhain, and I have a feeling he is hiding the missing books. I’ve spoken with Pruitt myself. He has agreed to let the four of you bartend the event. You have your way in. But it is up to all of you to take back the missing books.”
When I didn’t think this meeting could get any worse, it did. I’d lost all trust and respect for Clarence a long time ago, and yet, he continued to surprise me. Augustine Pruitt may be a smug prick, but he and Viola Cantini were only following Fallon’s father’s wishes. I knew where this was going, and it would take more than a feeling to convince me to walk into the Pruitt home, snooping around for the books. This plan—if one would call it that—was different than breaking into the Chambers. This was someone’s home.
“How are you so certain Pruitt has the missing books?”
“You forget I am a Heathen as well. A very old Heathen. My magic may have faded over time, but I still hear the whispers in the wind.” He slid his gaze to Zephyr then back at me, almost as if Clarence couldn’t stand to look at his son. There was no doubt in my mind Clarence would never have passed along his air element if he weren’t forced to do so, selfishly keeping it until the day he died. “The books are in the Sacred Sea chamber under the house.”
“Let me rephrase, try and understand this. You want us to break into Sacred Sea’s chamber? All four of us could be executed,” I reiterated, shocked he was ordering this of us.
I wasn’t surprised Clarence was just as desperate as we were to break the curse, but risking the Heathens? The only ones who held the coven together? Had he lost his mind?
“I told you, change needs to happen for this coven. Breaking this curse needs to happen, so don’t get caught,” he said and drank from his glass. “Start preparing. I will see you four at the Samhain ritual. Now, you are dismissed.”
The candles flickered until the flames were engulfed by the Goody wind.
And darkness befell us, inside us.