Oh My Stars Boutique was located on the east side of Town Square, owned by the Sullivan family. When I'd visited Voodoos Bar, Fable and I clicked instantly, but I hadn't gotten to know the other two sisters, Ivy and Adora.

All three sisters were a year or two apart in age, all three beautiful and bewitching in their own, opposite ways. Ivy was the oldest, with the coal-black hair that angled sharply at her shoulders. Fable was the youngest, with fawn skin and chestnut-colored hair that pooled around her shoulders and flowed to her waistline. Adora was the middle, tendrils the color of dandelions and honey dripping down her tanned skin, and she'd been the most distant from me since I'd arrived.

The glossy floor had been hand-painted into a swirling galaxy of purples, blues, and blacks, whereas the walls and ceiling a crisp and bright white. Clothes and dresses hung from silver rods, stretching up and down the walls of the store with circular tables in the middle to showcase shoes, masks, and costume jewelry.

The heels of my boots sent an echo off the tile. "The floor is gorgeous."

"It is, isn't it?" Adora sighed, pulling her joined hands to her chest. "Fable doesn't take compliments well, but she's a true artiest." She kissed the tips of her fingers, and her fingers stretched open in the air.

Fable rolled her eyes and shook her head from behind the counter, having to work this shift. "I just don't respond to compliments well," she corrected. "Doesn't mean I don't take them."

"What do people wear to this Superstition Day anyway?"

"It depends on whether you will defy or not. If you defy, you wear a mask so the universe can't see you," Monday said, holding out a black leather jacket out in front of her with studs and spikes at the shoulders, similar to one I already owned. Her head tilted to the side, a lollipop stick poking from between her lips. "If you're not defying, you're basically just drinking and avoiding superstitions. But the people in masks will be out to get ya, try and force ya to break 'em."

"I'm wearing a mask," Fable added. "I'm not having a repeat of last year."

"Oh, last year was so good," Ivy joined in with a laugh. "Remember that?" She turned to face Adora, her straight black hair slapping her cheek like a dark storm. Adora absentmindedly nodded as she draped another shirt over her arm. I hadn't found one thing yet. "Those who don't wear masks, you try to push them to defy superstitions. Fable …" she paused to calm her laughing fit, "By the end of the night, Fable was so drunk, she ended up toasting with a shot of water after I'd switched out her glass. And the worst part? It was with crazy Jasper Abbott."

Monday, Adora, and Ivy all lurched forward with a loud cackle.

Fable did not.

"I'm so sorry, Jasper. It wasn't me. I didn't mean to,'" Ivy mocked Fable and what had happened the year before.

"And look at him now," Fable pointed out, a finger pressing the air.

"Oh, stop. The man's still alive," Adora said.

"I don't get it."

"You don't cheers someone with water unless you're wishing death upon them," Monday explained. "Just grab a mask. You'll be better off. No one will mess with you." She picked up a Greco Roman mask from the center table and handed it to me. "This one suits you."

It was silver with a beaded design around the edges and eyes. "Guess I'm wearing a mask then." If I'd told myself a year ago I would be in Weeping Hollow, taking care of my grandfather and picking out a mask for Defy Superstition Day, no way would I have believed it.

"Oh, wicked." Adora gasped with a devious smile. Her long blonde hair piled over one shoulder as she shifted the clothes that were lining her arm. "I have the perfect dress to match that."

Adora waited outside the curtain of the dressing room as I gazed at myself in the mirror with the black leather dress glued to my skin. It was a scoop neck, the hem hitting at my upper thigh, with capped sleeves. It was something I'd wear, but never to a small-town festival. I turned and reached for the zipper at my back.

"Won't I be overdressed?" I called out from behind the curtain when Adora pushed it to the side and pulled it closed behind her. She walked behind me in the mirror and pulled my white hair off one shoulder and draped it onto the other when it cascaded down to my waist.

I felt the zipper tug at my back. "You know, Fallon," she started, keeping her green eyes on me in the mirror. "I have a feeling you're going to be trouble. Especially in this dress." But there was no smile on her face, no humor in her tone. The zipper slowly slid up my back as her breath hit my neck.

"Hardly," I tried to say, and I wanted to say more, but the air grew thicker in the room. It was too small for both of us, too enclosed. My lips pressed together when her pointed red nails dragged down the length of my arm.

A weak and unbelieving smile braced Adora's pouty lips. "As much as I hate it, you have to become one of us."

I swallowed. "Why do you hate it?" She didn't know me. Out of the three sisters, Fable was the only one who took any interest in getting to know me. Adora hadn't talked to me until today.

"Because I was supposed to be with Kane."

"But I'm not Kane's type, he said so himself." I turned to face her. "You have nothing to worry about, Adora." I didn't have space in my mind for anyone else anyway when Julian Blackwell consumed most of my thoughts.

Okay, all of my thoughts.

I couldn't shake the dream. It was so real—too real. And tonight, I was going back to Norse woods to prove it.

Adora's fingers dug into my hips, pulling me back to the moment, and she pinned me forward as she stayed behind, pressing her chest to my back.

"It doesn't matter. He'll choose you. All I'm asking is for you to keep all the flirting and closeness away from me when he does. I don't want to see it." Her words were like an iceberg. Hard and cold, yet slowly melting under the waters of her emotions. She embodied the same kind of heartbreak I'd seen mar many faces of the ghosts who would come to me.

"Adora, you have the wrong idea about me," I assured her.

"No, sweetheart. You have the wrong idea about us."

And with that, Adora disappeared behind the curtain, leaving me alone in the dressing room.

I waited until after Gramps fell asleep in his recliner with Stephen King's Lisey's Story resting over his lap. It was a quarter after midnight as I quietly locked the door behind me and walked to the driveway before rolling the scooter to the street. I didn't want to wake him.

If my gut was correct, the dead birds would still be piled somewhere in those woods, proving whatever happened the other night wasn't a dream, and I couldn't let this go until I knew the truth.

The streets were busy, and all the shops were open. Lamp posts gleamed a dim yellow over the square. Children played in the grass and high-schoolers sprawled out in the gazebo, watching as I drove past on the scooter. Through the diamond-paned window of The Bean, the Sullivan sisters, Monday, and the guys from their coven were gathered around a corner table, drinking from their mugs and smiling and laughing and … belonging.

I parked behind the funeral home and entered the woods, desperate and on a mission to find answers. To prove I wasn't crazy.

An eerie hush fell over the woods and shadows contorted sluggishly, compelled by the wind. Leaves and pine needles crackled under my boots with every step into the dark, the only light the constellations in the black sky. I hadn't been walking long, but as I drew deeper between the trees, the lights from inside the houses lining the Norse Words faded.

The hoot from an owl ricocheted in the canopies and shuddered across my skin, but I kept walking. I could find my way back, I thought, underestimating the nighttime as it pressed on me from all sides. I breathed in the cool air more rapidly, quickening my steps.

An orange glimmer appeared off in the distance. As I drew nearer, the casual voices from a group of guys grew louder until they came into view. Four of them sat around a fire behind a cabin, and I sank against a tree, hoping none of them could see me.

"—and when you said you have a certain taste, I almost died, Jules." One of laughed.

"Morgan's alright," another said. "If you're into a hit of anthrax …"

"You could lay her across the table and snort the freakshow."

Freakshow. And my heart caved inside my chest.

"Snort her? I wouldn't touch her with a ten-foot pole."

Laughter bounced into the night.

I didn't want to hear any more, but I was stuck at a standstill. I took a careful step backward, and a twig snapped, causing a bird to fly from the branches, a stir within the woods. I held my breath.

The four Heathens jumped up from their chairs around the fire and peered into the woods—peered in my direction. I braced myself against the tree, making sure none of my limbs were sticking out.

"Who's out there?" one of them called.

"You see anything, Jules?"

"I'll go check it out."

This was my shot. I could run now, and they couldn't catch me. But I couldn't move. I was frozen here behind this tree, willing my feet to do something, but nothing would come of it. I threw my head back against the bark and bit my lip, breathing slowly in and out of my nose. Footsteps followed the silence. I'd lost my chance because if I were to run now, they could tackle me to the ground.

Someone was nearing. My heart pounded, his every step foreboding over the damp earth. Then he walked past me, wearing black slacks and a black coat, black hair styled as if he'd woken up like that. It was Julian, and he stood there for a moment with his head fixed straight, his back to me. I watched how his shoulder blades moved inside his coat, the subtle tilt of his head, listening to the secrets sewn into the trees.

"What is it?" a voice called out from behind.

Julian turned, and his gaze slammed into mine.

For a moment, his empty eyes stared into my fearful one. Then his eyes filled with something I didn't recognize. A mixture of something familiar and fearful. He pulled his pointer finger over his mask in a quiet gesture as he stepped closer and closer and closer until the tips of his boots touched the tips of my oxford shoes.

He lifted his head. "It's nothing," he called back to the others, then returned his eyes to mine and whispered, "You can't be here."

"Was last night real?" I begged quietly, needing to know. "Tell me it was real. Tell me I'm not crazy."

Julian's eyes squinted. "You're crazy. There, I said it. Now leave."

He took a step away, and it cut me open. My head slowly shook as it didn't make sense. If he was right, and I was going crazy, he wouldn't hide me like this. He wouldn't have lied to his friends about me being here.

My hand darted out and latched on to his.

Julian froze under our joined hands.

Beats passed, and he hung his head.

"Please, Julian. Be real with me." My thumb grazed over his skin. He clutched onto mine tighter, and the silence of the night shaped us into one for a few breaths before he whipped around and walked me back against the tree. He grabbed the back of my neck and tilted my head.

The lump in Julian's throat bobbed, and his eyes flicked over my features as I was arrested in his hold.

"I'll come to you, but you can't tell anyone," he whispered, and I nodded. His eyes looked past me at the others before hitting mine again, and then he let me go, disappearing and leaving me with shallow breaths and a pounding heart.

"Let's head to Voodoos," he called out to the others, giving me a way out of the woods.

The fire clicked off in an instant, erasing heat and light all at once. I waited long after their voices faded, and I was certain they were gone before darting back through the woods.

I couldn't remember how long I'd run between trees, over grooved ruts of the ground, no distinct way out, every turn seeming the same. Was I running in circles? The woods seemed to morph around me, taunting me as my legs burned, but thoughts of Julian kept pushing me farther.

"I'll come to you," he'd said ...

My foot caught on a protruding root, and I was thrown face down against the hard earth, something crunching beneath me. Dried, crusted blood and velvety wings and bone fragments painted the forest floor. A scream caught in my throat as I shuffled back to my feet, swiping at my hands, my arms, my legs, my hair, trying to get the stench and remains of death off of me.

It had all been real. My gaze darted around the raven graveyard. The birds' eyes had turned white like cataracts, and their bodies were shredded apart in pieces and scattered.

It was all real. Julian had killed them all, the wild and desperate look in his eyes, his crazed pulse in his fingers beating against my neck, the blood, the way his lips skimmed across mine, then the dark void in his face. The terror.

It had all been real, and memories of it slammed into my skull. "Death is coming …" he'd said, and it was his voice that followed me all the way out of the woods. "… And I can't stop it."