December 31, 2020
New Year's Eve
I was back in the coffin at the bottom of the Atlantic.
At least it felt like I was—dead or sleeping or dreaming.
Perhaps none of it ever happened. It was possible I’d dreamt up Adora and the cave, the lighthouse, the island, and, dammit, the best six weeks of my life. Perhaps I’d journeyed to the afterlife with the girl from my drawings, bonded with her, touched her, kissed her, made love to her. But each time I blinked, I was still here without her, walking along the fence line surrounding a cottage with Ocean as he told me all about the Shadows.
I had believed they were another one of Adora’s made-up stories.
Ocean had to have been in his fifties or sixties, five-foot-five, a cane fixed at his side—only for his stiff knee that acted up in the cold, he’d said—and eyes that disappeared when he smiled, which was a rarity in the brief time I’d come to know him. His clothes were well-worn and stained, and he had a round belly that entered a room before the rest of him. As he had mentioned, he was without a home, but the town took care of him.
I straightened my back and rested my hands on the fence, gazing past the cottage as the nightly winds chaffed my face. Flurries drifted and draped over rotten corn that poked from the snow like desperate fingers as though the stalks were being buried alive. A fresh scent of brittle leaves, rich soil, and melting snow permeated the air. I breathed it in.
About a quarter of a mile away was the barn where the Heathens had tortured me.
I scanned the horizon for a sign of them.
“Don’t worry. For anyone to hurt you, they first must see you, and Eleanor took care of that.” He grinned, his eyes disappearing. “Magic only exists if you believe in it, my boy.” Beyond the barn, in the distance, there was a plantation-style home with a landscape of perfect white that seemed to extend north for miles. “Goody Estate,” Ocean sighed, staring at the same house in the distance. “Kioni’s mother, Winta, resides on the property. Both her and Kioni work for them.”
“Eleanor, too?”
“No. Eleanor owns a psychic shop in Town Square.”
“Psychic.” I nodded. “Suits her well,” I said with a slight grin, recalling how Eleanor always seemed to know what I was thinking. Could she also see Adora in my mind, too?
“Tell me more,” I continued. “What do the Heathens want from me, and why do they believe I can help stop the Shadows?”
“Because you’re a Heathen,” Ocean dropped like a grenade. “They’re your brothers.”
I looked at him, surely dumbfounded. “You’re speaking of those men who tortured me in that barn?” I nodded to the wooden structure standing in front of us, where I’d been brutally beaten. Everything I’d known and read about brothers was that they did not harm one another but protected one another. And from what Adora had told me, these men were murderers. “Those Heathens are not my brothers.”
Ocean narrowed his eyes, seemingly offended. “By bond and oath.”
“Absurd lies. I could never be one of them.”
“Beck Parish, a descendant of Norse Woods’ five founding families. The element of water. Your brother.”
I peered down at the small man, shaking my head and breathing deeply to calm myself, but he continued, adamant. “Phoenix Wildes, a descendant of Norse Woods’ five founding families. The element of fire. Your brother.”
“You mean the heavy fist that molested my face?” I seethed through a clenched jaw.
“Zephyr Goody,” he continued without a hitch, “a descendant of Norse Woods’ five founding families. The element of air. Your brother.”
I felt my face get hot.
“Julian Blackwell, a descendant of Norse Woods’ five founding families. The element of spirit. Your brother.”
“I’ve heard enough of this.” I turned, wanting to find Adora and leave this town once and for all.
“Then there’s you,” he said, stopping me. “Danvers, the descendant of Norse Woods’ five founding families. The element of earth. Their brother.” An ache swam inside me, and he continued, “And the lost Heathen who’s been missed and grieved dearly by your coven for over a century.” I looked at him, a drum beating in my chest. All I’d ever wanted was to belong somewhere and be a part of something. And I did. There was an entire coven, and they missed me. Why had my mother taken me away? “Tell me, Danvers. What did your mother call you?”
My jaw was locked tight.
My eyes were nailed to Ocean’s face.
My chest was heaving.
“Stone.” A whisper.
I was doing all I could to hold myself together.
“Stone Danvers,” he repeated as though he wanted to test it out and see if it felt the same leaving his mouth as he’d always imagined. “The last known Danvers, which I’m assuming was your father, was Forest Danvers. Your mother, Clarice Danvers.”
He was mistaken. “No, my mother was Clarice Woolf.”
“Smart woman. After she fled, she took her maiden name,” he said, eyes gazing at the dead cornfield. “Either way, you’re Heathen blood, through and through.”
“And if I refuse?” If I instead leave this town to avoid getting attached, only to be disappointed all over again, what then? I thought, unsure if I could endure much more.
Ocean stroked his scraggly peppered beard. “Up until about six or seven weeks ago, you had a cursed face, yes?”
How could he have known? I hadn’t told a soul. Not even Adora.
“Your brothers agonized through the same,” he said, and I felt my throat close up with emotion. “Despite your differences, you five share a suffering no one can understand. You’re in pain, they’re in pain. The Heathens are lost without one another. You can’t refuse what’s in your blood. It’s why you’ve always felt as though something was missing before you arrived here in Weeping Hollow. They’ve felt the same hollow their entire lives.” Ocean glanced back at the Goody Estate in the distance. “Desperation never looked good on anyone, but you will find forgiveness for what they did. You won’t be able to deny it. And once that time comes, you will understand the power that comes with the brotherhood of the Heathens.”
I tried to speak, but there was nothing.
A mouthful of empty rooms.
I didn’t want to trust him, but a profound thing moving about my blood compelled me to do so. An unearthly bond thicker than my stubbornness to a tiny, bearded man who was burying me in an avalanche of information.
Unlike Adora, who’d never wanted to be seen, heard, or understood by me until I deserved it, Ocean jumped at the opportunity to tell me everything as though he’d waited his entire life for this. He was a library of knowledge Mother had deprived me of, and the intelligent thing to do was exhume all I could while I had the chance.
I shoved my hands into my pockets, keeping myself balanced and unaffected.
“You know a healthy amount of information about me because you’re my keeper,” I said, stepping forward. “What is a keeper?”
We continued our walk along the gate surrounding the cottage, Ocean to my right. “A keeper is a guardian who protects a bloodline. Every Heathen has one. Eleanor’s bloodline is the keepers of the moonchildren. An entirely different breed. My family ...” he trailed off, either finding the right words or hesitating. “My family stuck around for as long as they could, waiting for the day a Danvers would return. If only my father could see you standing here.” He looked up at me with sadness curving his eyes. “If I ever thought this day would come, I would have given marriage and children a second thought, made something of myself. For that, I’m sorry. I failed you.”
Failed me? “Hardly, though all is forgiven,” I said, trying to ease his guilt even though I had no clue of the severity of his responsibilities. “Why must someone like me need a keeper?”
“Earth is a revolving door, but for you, this door has been torn right off its hinges,” he explained. “It’s why you can hear the trees speaking to you this very moment.”
It was then that the wind swept up my chest and caressed my face.
I thought back to all the times I’d hunted. Branches swayed in a single direction to guide me. The earth vibrated beneath my soles to motivate me. Leaves tumbled and breezed past my ears to console me. The earth had always loved me as a mother should love a son.
“You have the power to see the past and manipulate the future by bringing back the dead,” he said, interrupting my thoughts. “Your bloodline must go on, and I’m here to ensure that.”
I stalled at all the words he’d said so easily. How could he declare all the secret and horrible things about me in only a few breaths and be able to say them passively without a stutter? Mother had manipulated me into being ashamed of it all, and he was speaking as if they were gifts.
“You know of my ... oddities?”
“Of course. I am your keeper.”
“Yes, you keep saying this.” There was one thing, however, about which he was utterly wrong. Adora once filled the void inside me, leaving me needing nothing more. With her, I’d found contentment. Happiness, even. But as of this moment, the void was a gaping hole, and I was confident nothing else could fill the grave she’d left behind. I missed her enough that she haunted my every thought, and I was desperate to know how she fit into this world he’d said I belonged to.
Then music bellowed in the distance, fading as it reached us like a song swaddled in a blanket. My attention turned to the direction in which it came. “Do you hear the music?”
“It’s New Year’s Eve, my boy. The whole town is celebrating in Town Square.”
If the whole town were there, that would mean Adora as well.
I had to send a message to her to let her know that I was still alive.
I jumped over the fence barrier, hearing Ocean run up from behind and stop at the fence line. “Dammit, Heathen, it’s not time yet,” he yelled, shaking his cane. “You can’t show your face in town.”
I turned with a cunning grin. “Oh, but my heroic keeper, if only looks could kill,” I jested, running backward with my arms up at my sides.
“He’s funny. Imagine that. The boy is funny.”
I turned again and sprinted into the woods as music arose. Not too deep, just enough to reach a clearing with trees surrounding me. I looked up, watching ashen clouds move past the night sky.
Ice-cold winds combed my hair and raked my scalp as it passed, taking all my lightheartedness with it. I crouched down and shoveled snow to the side until there was nothing but earth.
My palm pressed against the frozen dirt, and I shut out everything else in my mind, doors slamming shut until she was the only thing standing there.
The thought of her made my throat tighten and my vision blur.
My darling siren stood in the middle of a dark room, wearing her red dress and black lilies in her hair—a spotlight shone on only her. Perhaps the lighthouse beam.
My fingers curled into the soil, taking her hand.
“I’m so angry with you,” I finally said in a whisper, sniffling back the emotion and wiping my numb nose. “You hurt me more than anyone, and I hate you for it, but I’m still calling out to you to let you know I’m all right.” The tremor stirred, sliding under my skin and wrapping its arms around my ribs. I squeezed the dirt in my fist. “I’m pathetic for you, Adora. You’re in his arms right now, and I still want you. So, if you can hold on to anything, hold on to Bone Island,” I whispered into the air, letting the dirt slip between my fingers. “Remember Bone Island.”
Because if I had the chance to see her again, nothing would be the same between us.
I was always a Heathen, the monster she despised the most.