“I have to unfreeze him,” I said for what felt like the millionth time this evening. The guys tied Sam up using zip ties so he couldn’t hurt us using human means, but they were reluctant to see what magic he might have.
“Not until we know what he is and have a plan,” Gabriel argued.
“He’s Sam,” I repeated. This certainty was probably why they didn’t trust me to unfreeze him. “And if he isn’t, our best way of finding that out is to talk to him.”
“Or to whip up a truth serum.” I’m pretty sure Embry was joking, but it was one of the potions Ingrid taught me over the summer.
“I know we all learnt our lesson with the faeries, but I don’t think you could hurt someone who looked like Sam, no matter who he is,” Gabriel said delicately.
“I could freeze him again.”
“We’re not getting anywhere with him like this,” he reluctantly agreed, exchanging a look with Embry. “I want you to freeze him the second he says anything that gives you the slightest hesitation,” he warned me.
“Okay,” I agreed, waiting for him to nod before unfreezing Sam.
I wasn’t worried, because this had to be him, but if it wasn’t, the guys were right. Something evil that looked like Sam was better than no Sam at all, as long as he didn’t try to kill us.
“Lucy!” His greeting sounded like he was upset with me, until his brain caught up to his new physical predicament and he looked down at his zip-tied hands and feet. “What the…” Confusion and anger mixed into his unfinished question, which was unlike Sam from before, but fitting for someone who was on the run and recently died because of me.
“We tied you up so we could make sure it’s you,” I explained, trying to take a step towards him, but Gabriel put his arm out to stop me. He and Embry were standing on either side of me, but slightly in front, so they just had to take a step towards each other if things went south and they would form a wall between our presumed enemy and me.
“Because I died,” he let out a breath that held a million emotions, but every single one made me feel guilty.
“We’ve had our share of fake ‘you’s, so we have to be cautious,” I tried to act normal, but every inch of me wanted to run into his arms.
“Fake ‘me’s?” He had the tiniest trace of his crooked smile. He understood this wasn’t an interrogation for knowledge. It was to see if my big brother was in there somewhere.
“There’s a fairy in New Orleans that lures people who are mourning a loss into the swamps. We didn’t know they did it by looking like the person you’ve lost,” I explained.
“I tried to kill you?” he was concerned, even though I was clearly alive and well in front of him.
“You did,” I agreed.
“I’m so sorry Luce. I wanted to contact you and let you know, but I didn’t know how to do that without risking your safety.”
“Because it really is you, isn’t it?” I could tell the guys weren’t convinced yet, but I was ready to untie him and celebrate.
“That or I’m dreaming.”
“What happened to you?”
“I remember dying, and you rushing to me before everything went dark. I was dead, I guess, but I wasn’t anywhere until I woke up. Like a zombie, only I was me. I was starving for actual food, not blood or brains or anything, but my main priority was finding you.”
“Where did you wake up?” Gabriel tested his story.
“In a large pit. There were claw marks that told me I wasn’t the first to climb out, but there was still a body at the bottom when I left. By the time I figured out where I was and got to the motel, police officers and caution tape surrounded it. I couldn’t just go up to them covered in blood and ask about their investigation, so I found a squad car and hid in the bushes behind it until I made sure on the radio that they hadn’t found any teenage girls.”
“Why didn’t you go home?” Embry asked.
“They found me once, so I didn’t want to risk them coming after my girls. I’ve been trying to keep an eye on them while keeping my distance. I’ve been here since they moved in with Deanna’s father.”
“How are they?” I asked.
“Deanna’s doing a good job of making it seem like a fun adventure, but Clara’s getting to be too smart for her own good. They’re safe, but they’re worried.”
My entire body was stiff from holding my arms by my side and preventing myself from going to him. I looked to the guys in an ‘are you satisfied?’ way, but they weren’t convinced yet.
“Ask something only Sam would know,” Embry suggested.
“What’s the secret ingredient in your mom’s French toast?” I asked.
“Vanilla.”
“What was your dad’s favorite color?”
“Orange.”
“What did Clara call me before she could say Lucy?”
“Lala.”
I fired all the questions in quick succession and Sam answered them without missing a beat, so I turned to Embry, who nodded. I think he just meant for me to go close, but I used my powers to break the zip ties so Sam could wrap his arms around me and hopefully make me feel safe, like this summer hadn’t happened.
“What was that?” Sam asked when he realized that although his instincts kicked in and he was holding me now, he’d been tied up a moment ago.
“I really haven’t been okay,” I said before burying my head in his chest.
I could tell that the guys wanted to give us a minute to catch up, but they also weren’t one hundred percent certain they trusted Sam to be alone with me, so they let us sit at the table while they made tea and coffee for everyone.
“Did you know you were Gifted?” I asked, no longer taking anything for granted.
“I had no idea. I thought I was in hell, or purgatory at first, until I realized there was a more likely explanation.”
“Do you know what your Gift is?” I focused the conversation on him, though I could tell he wanted to ask a million questions about me.
“I think I was overlooked…” he showed me his hand that disappeared when he willed it to.
“Invisibility?”
“I was hoping for flying, but I’ll take it,” he teased. “Speaking of superpowers…”
“I’m not a superhero,” I argued.
“Did we fail?” He asked of his worst fear being realized.
“No, I’m a witch. Apparently. Annabelle and Beth were too.”
“That’s…”
“Not as fun as it sounds,” I said before he could tell me how awesome it was. “I found out about it when I accidentally pulverized someone, then it took forever before I could control it enough to not attack anyone who got close.”
We discussed it further before the guys brought us warm beverages and we had a lighter conversation to catch up on more pleasant topics.
Sleeping in my own bed didn’t make me feel like I was safe and at home, it felt weird. So, when I woke up at 5 a.m. with a splitting headache, I gave up on sleep and went down to make myself a tea.
It was steeping on the counter when Sam walked in, looking apprehensive at first, but then his entire body relaxed.
“I was worried it was a dream,” he came and took me in his arms. We weren’t necessarily a hugging family before, at least not every time we saw each other, but I mirrored his sentiment.
“I didn’t want to ruin last night, but… how’s the big bad?” He asked, turning on the coffee machine.
“He’s…” I let out a deep breath, searching for the best way to explain it all to him. “The Big Bad’s name is Henry, and he was married to Annabelle, which makes him my ancestor. She found the Prophecy and left him, so he has been hunting us down ever since.”
“At least you have some answers,” he offered me the tiniest of silver linings.
“I can also promise that Clara’s life will be back to normal before she graduates high school,” I said it like it was another positive in this messed up situation.
“What do you mean?” Sam didn’t get it.
“I only have to avoid Henry for the next ten years, because no matter what we do, the Bearers of the Crescent Moon die at twenty-eight.”
“That’s… there has to be something we can do,” he argued.
“There’s a spell. So far it looks like we only have to collect a few objects and random ingredients, nothing scary, but I feel like there has to be a catch.”
“If there’s a spell to make you not die, we’re using it,” he left no room for discussion.
“That’s the plan, I just don’t think it can really be as easy as putting rings and flowers in a bowl.”
“Rings and flowers?” he asked.
“I need objects from my mother, my father, and all the bearers of the crescent moon who came before me,” I sighed.
“How are you going to do that? You don’t know who your father is and—”
“We got the last piece last night,” I cut him off, not ready to get into that story. “I have my father’s baby blanket and my mom’s bracelet, then I have Annabelle’s locket, Rosalind’s flower block thing, Cassie’s weaponized gloves and Beth’s family ring.”
“You found your father?” He was more concerned than excited for me, probably wondering why I didn’t mention it last night.
“He was this guy named Brian Sherwood. I’m pretty sure he’s dead, though.”
“He taught me the Thriller dance,” he told me after thinking about it. I forgot that in the memory, he convinced Sam to let him in.
“He was a nice guy?”
“I liked him. He came over a lot for about a year, and then he came back once. Your mom had told me he was never coming back, so I was thrilled when he showed up, but it was just the one time.”
“Yeah, he… it’s complicated,” I brushed it off, but when he gave me another concerned look, I reluctantly agreed to tell him later.
“How did you get stuff from the others?” he poured himself some coffee.
“What others?”
“The other Bearers of the Crescent Moon,” he used my language. “Unless you only need the last four?”
“Annabelle was the first,” I said, realizing I had absolutely nothing to back that statement up.
“She was the first that Gabriel and Embry met, the first to come to America… but she wasn’t the first.”
“I only have four dolls,” I pointed out, but even as I said it, I remembered the references to the Prophecy implied it started long before Annabelle. Like five hundred years before she was born.
“I commissioned the dolls,” Embry came down, his eyes on Sam, making me think he was listening in from the staircase. A thought confirmed by Gabriel coming with him.
“Who told you there were others?” I asked Sam, who looked surprised that the guys didn’t know.
“Genevieve.”
I looked at him expectantly, but Embry and Gabriel clearly knew her.
“She kept a diary?” Embry asked.
“Letters to her husband,” he argued.
“Who are we talking about?” I waited for one of them to fill me in.
“Cassie’s mom died when she was very little, so her father hired Mrs. Lovell to take care of her. Her daughter, Genevieve, and Cassie were like sisters…” Embry started.
“She’s the Gen who fought crimes with Cassie,” I remembered her name popping up frequently in the Chronicles.
“And she’s my ancestor,” Sam emphasized the ‘my’ as if to show that his family was interesting and went back generations as well.
“When your mom said her family had been looking after mine for a long time, she didn’t mean just you and your dad,” I realized I had it wrong all these years.
“Martha’s family has been linked with yours since roughly 1830,” Gabriel shared.
I looked to Sam, wondering how many people I needed to hunt down now, but also feeling betrayed by yet another thing he kept from me.
“I’ve had a lot of time in the house and I wanted to find out more about being Gifted, so I went through my mother’s old things. I don’t know if I was nostalgic or if I needed to make sense of things, but Gen’s letters were the only things that mentioned anything supernatural.”
“What did she say about us?” I asked, counting myself as one of the Bearers.
“I can get the letters for you, but basically she and Cassie went to England before Cassie’s wedding and they stumbled into someone who knew her. Or, you know, someone who looked like her.”
“How many were there?” Embry asked.
“Cassie wanted to stay to find out, but she had the wedding.”
“Go get the letters,” Gabriel sighed.
“It didn’t even occur to me about the other Bearers,” I clenched my teeth and shook my head as Sam rushed up the stairs. We had nothing from anyone before Annabelle and her parents.
“How much do you know about them?” Embry asked me.
“There was a brief passage in a book Beth was reading. The oldest mention of someone being marked by the Crescent Moon was in 1148, and again with Talina and Zeke, who ruled from 1385 to 1460,” I shared, knowing it wasn’t much to go on. “What do we do?”
“If there were others… you saw the spell, we need something from every Bearer who came before you.”
“In England?” I asked. “How do you know anything would even be there anymore?”
“We have to try,” Gabriel had a lot more determination and confidence than me.
Sam came downstairs with a stack of letters, but they were fifty percent Gen missing her husband, forty-five percent praising Europe and its beautiful sights, with maybe five percent of it relevant to us. She never gave specifics, either because she didn’t think he would care, or because she was keeping it a secret.
The letter with the most details was her second, sent a couple of days after their arrival. I was reading it out loud when I found myself living it instead…
“Judith! Judith!” A man ran across the street, trying to flag Cassandra and another woman down. He looked so happy to see her that he forgot himself and tried to take her in his arms, but as soon as he got too close for comfort, she hit him in the stomach with the rounded end of her umbrella. “You don’t remember me,” he said, doubled over to clutch his stomach.
“No, I do not,” she said. He intrigued her more than he scared her. “How do you think you know me?”
“My name is Alaric,” he paused to see if it would jog her memory. “I was at your wedding.”
“You’re mistaken, Sir. I’m not from here and my fiancé--” Cassandra tried to be polite, but exchanged a glance with her friend, probably Genevieve.
“It was in 1560,” he added.
“And what did you call me?” she asked, having only met a handful of people who knew another Bearer, but none of them had mistaken her for someone else yet.
“Judith. But you’re not her,” he said sadly.
“I’m not. And I’m terribly sorry, but we’re expected for dinner and…”
“Of course,” he assured her. “Meet me tomorrow for lunch. My estate is just outside of London, one of those old ones that everyone knows where to find since it’s been in the family for ages.”
“I don’t think I can, we’re very busy,” Cassie was nervous, but it wasn’t about the stranger.
“Please?” the look he gave softened her.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she decided.
“Dawes Estate. I’ll see you tomorrow,” he gave her a smile, full of nostalgia, then let her continue on her way…
“Her name was Judith,” I shared when I came back to them.
“Anything we can use to find her?” Embry asked.
“The man who recognized Cassie had an estate outside of London. He said it’s been in his family for generations, so he might still be there.”
“I guess we’re going to London,” Embry gave me fake enthusiasm.
The guys put in a few calls to arrange our travel while I stayed back in the kitchen with Sam.
“I don’t think I renewed my passport since the baby moon fell through,” he told me.
“We probably don’t need those. Last time I crossed the border with them, I was in the back of a pickup, surrounded by chicken and roosters.”
“You must have loved that,” he laughed at me.
“We do what we have to,” I shrugged before getting serious. “You can’t come with us.”
“I’m already dead, Lucy. And I can do this,” he made his body disappear to prove his point.
“Exactly. I’ve been living the past few months wracked with guilt because I thought I killed you. There is no way I could get over it twice.”
“I don’t think it’s up to you.”
“I think you got to be invisible because it lets you keep an eye on Deanna and Clara without getting them in danger. That’s where you need to be.”
“And who will make sure you don’t follow fairies into ponds over there?”
“I learnt my lesson. And you know Gabriel and Embry won’t let anything happen to me.”
“They’re a lot friendlier than they used to be,” he pointed out instead of agreeing to not come.
“They had a huge fight and eventually made up for everything.”
“I’ll make a deal with you. Promise me you’ll come home and be at my daughter’s graduation and I’ll let you go without me.”
“Only if you promise you’ll save my seat,” I turned it on him, since neither of us could really promise such things.
“I promise,” he looked into my eyes, and even if it was fueled by hope, I believed him.
“I promise too.”
“I’ll hold you to it,” he warned before we went to pack.
I spent the rest of the day sifting through all the magic books, trying to find anything that could help us become more powerful before confronting Henry and his army. A lot of the books were more theoretical, but there were also a lot of spells with graphic images of what they did. If the goal was to torture Henry into admitting something, we would be golden, only I couldn’t even look at the pictures without wanting to throw up, and it said it wasn’t enough to hate someone, you actually had to want to see them in pain and suffering. Embry told me the books were mostly for research, or gifted to them by friends trying to be helpful, but I was really glad we found Kiara’s cure, because the books were a major disappointment. There was a tiny passage in one book stating that the Bearers of the Crescent Moon are strongest during the Crescent Moon, but I felt like we could have figured that out for ourselves.