January 26, 2021
5 Days until the Cantini-Sullivan Wedding
Some of the greatest works of art to ever bestow upon us happened to be nothing more than an artist’s need to be felt or heard.
I refuse to believe it was chance that those who were not able to express themselves in a way society approved possessed otherworldly talent. For centuries, books have served as portals and road maps and diaries, as hearts with black blood, paper chambers, and leather-bound bones to encourage a reader to think and dream beyond the breadth of limits. How incredible for something to have the ability to bind two people together, allowing one to feel and hear another when miles, and sometimes lifetimes, apart. How incredible.
They said that it was the eyes that were a window to the soul.
I believed it to be art, and the eyes were a window to the heart.
And the way Adora looked at me five nights before told me she loved me. She’d looked at me with haunting eyes begging to be heard.
Since then, I have lay in bed, unable to sleep through the night, loved and alone.
Well, because ... love, sadly, just wasn’t enough.
In five days, she’d forever belong to someone else.
A tragedy indeed, to finally be loved by someone, and having no choice but to walk away from it. In the end, she was fated to belong to another, and I was doomed to watch from a distance.
Once daylight flooded the bedroom, I dressed into warmer clothes, then descended the stairs as the coffee’s aroma lingered on the first floor of Goody Estate. The other Heathens were already awake and gathered on the back porch, so I made a cup as well when Ocean joined me from the living room.
“Good news,” he said with a smile. “Clarence owns a property on the Westside, and since the previous tenant was killed by the Shadows, he’s letting me move in.”
I leaned against the counter. “Is that right?”
“I haven’t had a home in ... I can’t remember how long. He said he’d get me a job in town, too. I was thinking maybe you can move in with me after all this is over. Who knows,” he grinned, “maybe I’ll get lucky, and I’ll find a lady in town. Then I can carry on the legacy of the keeper.”
“I have faith in you, keeper,” I told him. “But you’ll have to shape up your beard first. You don’t want a pretty face getting lost in there.”
Ocean laughed as I stepped away to join the Heathens outside.
“You look like hell,” Phoenix greeted as I closed the French doors behind me. He was sitting on a porch step, a mug cradled between his knees, and looking out into the dead garden that surrounded the frozen lake. “How’s our future Mrs. Cantini? Did she bring Cyrus along with her for a three-some last night?”
He didn’t know that I hadn’t seen her in five days.
He didn’t know how much I missed her.
“Is this supposed to be funny?” I said into my coffee, looking at him from over the mug. “Feel free to swallow those words back down and choke on them.”
Phoenix grinned. “Wow, she really did a number on you.”
Zephyr chuckled from the rocking chair. He was already dressed in his usual dapper style, which, in this decade, could be seen as vintage, I suppose. Oxford shirt, sweater, tweed trousers, and leather boots. The colors he wore were always muted, calming, unlike Julian, who mainly wore black.
Beck, however, didn’t own a pair of denim that wasn’t stained with dirt, and under his denim jacket, he always wore what they call a hoodie.
Phoenix sported jeans and a leather jacket over sleeveless shirts. Even in winter, as though his body was a furnace. Their styles were so different for a group that was so tightly knitted. The only thing in common were the silver pendants hanging around their necks. And since joining the Heathens, my style has become a mixture of all four of them.
I dropped my shoulder against a column and peered out into the snow-drenched horizon. “She mentioned she’s Cantini’s finneuma—his soulmate.” I tucked my un-gloved hand into my pocket. “Considering the way she behaves around me, it is difficult to believe she belongs to anyone else.” Why was I talking about Adora with them, and why couldn’t I stop?
Julian and the rest of the Heathens exchanged glances, then looked down at their coffee mugs.
I loathed being a novice. “What is it now?”
“Nothing,” Zephyr said. “It’s just that Cyrus is her match, but she still betrayed him for you. We’re surprised, truly. You must really have a hold on her.” His green eyes lifted to mine. “Sacred Sea does not play games when it comes to matches, I can assure you.”
Julian leaned back, his knee bent and his boot flat against the exterior wall. “If what you say is true, and she’s his match, then in five nights, you’ll see for yourself. At their bedding ceremony, a bright light shoots up into the sky. You can see it no matter where you are in Weeping Hollow. It’s a pretty big event for their coven.”
“Bedding ceremony?”
Beck was standing across from me against the other column. “It’s not that strange if we were to take their other rituals into account. But, yeah, the founding families are part of it. Because Adora and Cyrus are a match, magic will just pour right out of them, and the coven will soak it up.”
“I think I’m going to be sick.” Not only would another man be fucking her, but everyone would be watching, seeing her naked, her breasts, her orgasmic expressions that I once gave her, taking everything that was once only hers and mine.
Phoenix stopped his gentle rocking. “If you want, we can make sure you’re ... distracted, have a girl or two sent to your room that night.”
“Though I appreciate your offer for a futile fuck, I must decline,” I said. “Relying on ordinary alternatives is not my style. Nor is asking for favors.” Having given my whole self to Adora, I could not imagine feeling secure and comfortable enough to open up to anyone else. Besides, no one could be as perfect as her—my peerless siren. I’d much rather go without.
I needed to change this topic. “Is there anything I should know about Norse Woods that I haven’t been told yet?”
The men exchanged glances. “Well ...” Beck started, but Julian cut him off. “We will worry about it when the time comes because right now, I’m growing impatient. It’s been five days. We’ve given you plenty of time, and we can’t risk another. What happened during the dreamscape?”
“Zephyr was right. She was in Cleo’s dream. In a different form,” I finally told them after spending the last five days doing as much research as I could.
Julian arched a brow. “She? She who?”
“The Shadows. It took on the form of a person.” I set my mug on the porch railing. “At the time, I hesitated to speak up because the woman in Cleo’s dream looked very similar to Adora.” I held out my hand to stop their thoughts. “It was not Adora, but perhaps this woman was an ancestor or close relative of hers. It appeared that she wore a chain similar to Adora’s around her neck. The same chain I’ve also seen in a book Adora’s mother wrote.” I remembered this woman’s lips moving, as it was a repeating vision in my mind. Circe, she’d tried to say.
Beck drew Julian’s attention. “Marcelline Sullivan,” he said with a snap of his fingers. “She’s been in a coma-like state since the girls were little. What if she has something to do with the Shadows?”
If this were the case, it would devastate Adora. “According to Adora, her mother was in a coma because she tried to escape from Weeping Hollow.”
“Sounds like Adora’s in denial,” Phoenix said. “Marcelline was drowning Adora that day in the ocean. She swam as far as Bone Island before they finally caught up to her, and the only way to keep Adora safe was for the coven to turn her into a vegetable.” He pointed at Julian. “I bet somewhere locked up inside that head of Marcelline’s, she’s pissed and killing off Weeping Hollow out of spite.”
“The reason she is only able to access dreams,” Zephyr added.
“You mentioned a book,” Julian said. “We need that book, Danvers.”
The conversation was changing so quickly that I had not recovered from the initial shock of Phoenix mentioning Adora’s mother trying to drown her. Putting the pieces together, for this to make sense, was like getting hit by a tidal wave one after another. “Why would her mother try to drown her? She has two other daughters, yes? So, why Adora specifically?”
The porch fell silent.
A few seconds later, and “I really don’t know,” Julian said. “Whatever the reason, it doesn’t matter. We still need the book.”
“The book is likely to be at the Cantini Manor, but we do not need another Heathen turning rogue because of a girl like last time.” Zephyr nipped his chin in the direction of Julian. “And by Heathen, I mean Julian Blackwell.”
Julian’s head fell back for a split second. “I broke the curse, didn’t I?”
Phoenix rubbed his hands together. “Do I smell another book-stealing mission baking?”
“There’s no need for a mission,” I said, and four pairs of eyes crawled to me. “I stole it from her five nights ago.”
I’d spent most of my days and nights reading the book to the end, then re-reading and decoding the messages hidden inside. Before, I was unsure whether Alec and Circe were fictional, made up by Adora’s mother’s imagination, or if their story was true, and this book had manifested itself into her mother’s head. However, as soon as I laid eyes on Circe in Cleo’s dream, I knew it had to be real.
An hour later, we were huddled around the round table.
Julian was leaning back in his raven chair, fingering through the book as I retold the rest of the Heathens the story of Alec and Circe.
“You will not believe what Marcelline wrote in here,” Julian muttered, turning the book to face Beck. “This is the entire story of the Curse of the Forbidden Girl.”
“What’s the Curse of the Forbidden Girl?”
“A cautionary tale,” Julian muttered, tucking his nose inside the book’s spine. “To prevent treachery, really. She was a sea witch who was married to another witch but fell in love with a mortal. She was using the tunnels to sneak back and forth to see her lover but was caught. Let’s just say it didn’t end well.” He closed the book and dropped it into his lap, tapping on the cover. “And there are clues in here?”
I nodded. “The Shadows aren’t five entities. I believe it is one. That it’s Circe, and somehow her soul was split into five. The clues are leading us to the sapphire and the spring, so if I had to guess I would say the sapphire is waiting for us at the bottom of the spring in the Forbidden Caverns.”