I wouldn't leave the hospital.
The doctors said Emmie was fine, go home, get some rest, nothing you can do.
But they were wrong.
Magic had hurt her, and I had to believe magic could bring her back. I had to believe that our love, our presence, would make a difference. So, I let my sisters collect the supplies we needed, and Nick and I stayed with our daughter.
It was a modern hospital, and we had a private room with children's paintings on the walls. A smiling sun. A dancing lamb. A friendly flower.
I stared at that lamb, one leg poised above a stream as if to test the waters and edged my chair closer to Emmie's small bed. My fingers plucked uselessly at the hem of my sweater.
Nick, his eyes hollow, cradled Mitch in one arm. He placed his two fingers beneath Emmie's downturned hand and lifted it slightly.
Her limp hand curled around his fingers.
For a moment, I imagined she was clutching him, and I knew Nick had imagined the same. But that was only gravity.
Throat aching, I looked away, toward the lamb.
“Where are they?” I muttered, stroking Emmie's cheek with the back of my hand. My sisters had been gone an hour. It was nearly nine AM.
Jayce and Lenore bustled into the room carrying backpacks. Connor and Brayden, both in their uniforms, hovered outside the door.
“Good thing visiting hours are a thing of the past.” Lenore dropped her pack on a chair and opened the canvas bag.
“Did you get them?” I asked.
Lenore pulled out the long pair of silver scissors that had belonged to our aunt. “I’m glad you kept these.” She handed them to me. “They belong with you, with your knot magic.”
Jayce spread a section of canvas beneath Emmie's bed. The canvas was similar to the one I'd finished last week. But inside this circle was an Eve's Grid, a sacred geometric pattern. The circle would help us focus our energy and keep Emmie protected during the spell.
My sister consulted a compass, then arranged crystals around the canvas circle.
I ran my thumb across the scissors' long blades, blades I’d consecrated as magical tools. These scissors also had the power of love and memory in them. They had meaning, and that meaning also gave them power.
“Where do you want us?” Nick asked, his voice rough. He put his arm around my shoulders, and I blinked back tears.
There was no question of Nick leaving, but I didn't want Mitch inside the room, and I hesitated.
“I can take Mitch,” Brayden said, as if he'd read my thoughts. “Maybe it's best if—”
“As far away as you can take him,” Nick said. Skirting the canvas, he crossed the room and handed our son to the paramedic.
“Thank you,” I said to Brayden.
“We're family.” Brayden turned and strode away.
Nick stood in the hallway, watching him leave. He stopped inside the doorway beside Connor. “What next?”
“Next,” I said, “we cut the cords.” Let this work. And even though I hadn’t said the words aloud, I’d never said them aloud, my throat was sore from my night of silent pleading. Please, let this work.
Lenore toed off her tennis shoes and padded across the canvas to Emmie. She closed her eyes and held her hands above my daughter. I knew she was going inward and down to Lower World, for more insight.
Jayce glanced at her, then continued fiddling with the placement of the crystals.
I dug through the backpack Connor had brought earlier and brought out my own folded canvas triangle. This wasn't how I'd planned to use the demon trap, but I couldn't think of a better place to put the book.
I unrolled the canvas with the painted triangle. Hands damp in their hospital gloves, I set it in the furthest corner of the room from Emmie's bed.
I laid the book inside the triangle. If the thought-form demon was still in the book and not in Emmie, as I believed, then the trap should keep it there.
Lenore made a noise low in her throat.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said quickly. “Just... nothing. You're right, it's not inside her. It's got her in its tentacles.”
My stomach writhed. My sister wasn't telling us everything. “And what else?” I asked.
“These aren't like the psychic cords you’ve cut before,” she said. “My guides are telling me it might not work.”
“But it might?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Did they have any better ideas?” I asked.
“No.”
“Then we go ahead with the plan,” I said.
Jayce brushed off the knees of her jeans and rose. “I'm ready.”
A machine beside Emmie's bed beeped.
My sisters and I stood around the bed. Jayce called in the energies of the circle—the elements and spirit guardians.
Lenore closed her eyes, her lips moving silently. The hair rose on my arms, and the protective circle closed around us.
I relaxed my vision. The air caught in my throat. Black tentacles gripped my daughter, and I quickly looked away. I’d known this. I’d known what I’d see, and I forced myself to look again.
But now other threads of light swirled around Emmie. Jayce's elemental energies—green and blue, orange and white—flowed in a counter-clockwise motion. The tentacles rippled slowly toward them, as if they were being sucked into a whirlpool.
Other lines of energy flowed around Emmie too. Something in their movements reminded me of animals—the delicate steps of a deer, the powerful flow of a bird of prey. Lenore's spirit guides had come to lend a hand.
Lines of gold shot up from the grid pattern encircling us. More lines of varying colors from the crystals joined in an unspeakably beautiful pattern.
The tentacles shivered and clung on.
“In the name of the light, help me cut this cord,” I said in a low voice to anyone who might hear—God, angels, my parents. “Empower these blades.” Sweat stung my eyes, and I blinked furiously.
The energy from the crystals shifted toward me, their lines joining, brightening, growing wider. They arced downward and struck the scissors in my hand. Heat flowed up my arm.
“Now, get away from my daughter.” I sliced through the first tentacle.
There was a mechanical shriek. An answering, low, guttural sound emerged from my throat.
“Hurry,” Connor urged, looking over his shoulder.
The noise would attract a nurse soon. Gritting my teeth, I hacked through tentacle after tentacle, as near to Emmie's body as I dared.
The limbs shriveled, leaving blackened circles on Emmie's small form where they'd been attached. The scissors grew slippery in my hand.
The blare of machines crescendoed, echoed through my skull. Light and sound battered me. Vaguely, I was aware of Nick striding past me.
And still I cut, and Lenore was blowing into those awful, dark circles, and they were filling with light. And Jayce was chanting, and the machines were bleating, and I cut the last cord.
Emmie cried.
I almost dropped the scissors, but Jayce grabbed my arm. “We're not done.” She grasped my hand around the scissors, and Lenore took my other.
I visualized golden light flowing from me into my daughter. Light flowed from Jayce and Lenore too, filling her up.
Lenore laid a hand on the top of Emmie's head. “Everything that is not yours is gone. All portals are closed. A white cocoon of protection and love surrounds you.”
Jayce released me and spritzed the air above Emmie with one of her clearing sprays.
“Release the circle,” I said hoarsely and pulled Emmie into my arms.
My daughter struggled against me. And then Nick was there, stroking her curling hair, one end of a plug in his hand. He’d unplugged the machine so as not to attract the nurses.
“You did it.” His voice caught. “Emmie, you're okay.”
“I'll get a nurse,” Connor said from the doorway.
Grinning, Jayce rolled up the canvases, crystals and all, and stuffed them into her bag. Lenore returned the book to its cereal box and carefully set it inside her pack.
The doctor strode into the room and broke into a relieved smile. “Wonderful. Let's take a look at you.”
Nick set Emmie on the bed and tossed the electrical cord away behind his back.
The doctor prodded the sides of Emmie’s neck. Frowning, she edged aside the collar of Emmie’s hospital gown. A red circle, like the mark of a suction cup, blazed on her shoulder.
My breath hitched.
“Looks like you've got a bit of a heat rash.” She leaned forward and checked her back. More red circles dotted her skin. “Here too.”
Suckers from a tentacle. The marks were where the tentacles had attached. I backed toward Lenore, my stomach sinking. This had been too easy. “Those marks, are they normal?” I asked.
“You see all sorts of odd marks,” the doctor said absently.
Lenore, brow furrowed, shook her head. “I've never seen that before,” she whispered. “But she's awake.”
“No!” Emmie's hand flew out, and she ineffectually slapped the doctor.
She stepped away, chuckling. “Well, Emmie’s definitely got her strength. That's a good sign.”
Emmie's head turned toward me, and my knees buckled.
Lenore grasped my elbow.
My tailbone hit the edge of a chair before I could right myself. Gasping with horror, I turned to the window. I grasped the sill, pulled myself to standing, stared at the pine trees in the cold, morning light.