So whats the deal with u kidnapping Sonja?
I didn't *kidnap* her, dork
why would u take her away from school where shes safe?
I needed her help. She agreed to come. She wanted to. Please don't give me a hard time about this
Don't tell me ur taking her inner eye bs srsly
… stop making fun of her David. She's really a Seer. She might be kinda nuts but I think it's cuz seeing the future is making her nuts.
…
for real?
Yeah
So has she seen anything *useful*? Has she told you who's gonna win the war? or if ur gonna beat ur fate? Or who might live or…
Im not sure she would tell me those things if she could
then what the hell good is being a seer?
I dunno. Seers are weird.
No shit
So have u wrecked my caddy yet?
I thought it was MY caddy, jerk
Alexandra leaned against the SUV, arms folded, as Burton and Sonja said good-bye. She hoped she was reading too much into it, but Burton's fingers touching Sonja's arm, Sonja's laugh as she turned her face away while Burton made one of his corny jokes…
She shook her head.
Sonja walked over to Alexandra and the Escalade, smiling more than she should. Burton followed her, and stood before Alexandra and held out his hand.
"For what it's worth, I was pleased to see you again, Alex," he said.
Alexandra took his hand. "I'm not sure what it means when you call me Alex."
Burton rolled his eyes. "I'll call you Miss Quick if'n that's yore preference. But I thought we'uns'd part as friends."
In a low voice, Alexandra said, "Do not mess with Sonja." When Burton raised his eyebrows, she whispered, "And no, it's not because I feel some kind of way about you."
"You really oughter learn what you do an' don't have a say in, Miss Quick," Burton said mildly. "Miss Sonja an' I are just friends as well. I think you oughter mind yore own snakes. I din't like what that awful Granny said. I'm right worried 'bout you, an' I reckon all yore friends will be, 'cludin' my sisters. You feature keepin' this from 'em?"
His sudden seriousness made Alexandra look away.
"I don't know," she said. "I don't know that I actually learned anything new or useful. Just more questions for my father."
"I'd put a few questions to him myself if'n we met."
"Would you? I'd like to see that."
Burton chuckled. "You'uns have a safe trip."
He stood next to the mules they'd ridden to the edge of Furthest, as Alexandra and Sonja got into the Escalade, and he watched them drive off.
On the road, which was slippery with snow, Alexandra asked, "Are you all right? I know this was a lot more than you bargained for. I mean, I assume it was, unless you saw all of this beforehand with your Inner Eye."
Sonja looked at her suspiciously, but there was no mockery in Alexandra's tone. The other girl shook her head. "I really didn't know what we were going to find or what Granny Grimm would say."
"Well, it seems I have to go back to my father again and see if I can demand more answers from him."
"Are you sure you want to?"
Alexandra glanced at her. Sonja put her hands over her eyes. "Alexandra! The road!"
Alexandra avoided the car coming from the opposite direction, which honked at them as they passed. "I'm watching the road!"
Sonja bit her lip.
"What do you mean, am I sure I want to?" Alexandra asked.
Sonja rubbed at her neck, which was still bruised from the thing that had tried to strangle her. "I'm sorry, Alexandra. I was hoping this would be more helpful for you. I'm afraid we only learned more things you're better off not knowing."
"How am I better off not knowing something that involves me? Of course I want to know!"
Sonja looked out the window to her right, and watched snow and trees blur past. She fell silent, which Alexandra assumed was fatigue and her anxiety about Muggle roads. Hopefully, Alexandra thought, the dingbat wasn't still thinking about Burton. She thought about saying something, and decided not to.
It took as long to drive back to Charmbridge as it had taken to drive to the Ozarks. The weather remained bad most of the way. Alexandra had to use a Levitation spell to get the Escalade out of a ditch once. It was a little dented and scraped after that, even after she and Sonja tried to apply Repairing Charms.
Sonja said nothing, but seemed very relieved when they finally parked at the bluff next to the Invisible Bridge. They hadn't talked as much on the trip back, and Sonja hadn't enjoyed eating at Muggle diners and fast food places as much.
Alexandra carried the Ozarker care package Mrs. Pritchard had sent with them to the foot of the bridge. Sonja put her knapsack on, and turned to face Alexandra.
"Thank you, Sonja," Alexandra said. "I'm afraid I dragged you along on a useless quest, but… I do appreciate it. Thank you for everything."
"It wasn't useless," Sonja said. "It was foreseen."
Alexandra fought the impulse to roll her eyes. She hugged Sonja, and it was a genuine hug. She missed all of her friends right now, and she was going to miss Sonja too. She had actually been pleasant company, rarely complaining, and enduring Alexandra's sarcasm and temper more quietly than most of her friends did.
Sonja hugged her back. "What are you going to do now?"
"Fulfill one of your prophecies."
Sonja pulled away, with a nervous expression.
"What I set free, I must deal with," Alexandra said.
"You're going to do something foolish," Sonja said.
"Is that a prophecy?"
Sonja managed a small smile. "Anyone could prophesize that, Alexandra." Then her expression turned more serious. "What Granny Grimm said about a geist… I don't know what that is either. But… I think it was a prophecy."
"A geist is going to end me? I'd better find out what it is, then."
Sonja's solemn expression was disquieting.
"What?" Alexandra asked. "Like should I just not bother because I can't avoid my fate? It's like you said, a prophecy can mean anything. Maybe this geist comes to send me off when I'm ready to die of old age."
When Sonja's expression didn't change, Alexandra said, "Yeah, probably not."
Sonja said, "Your father swore to defy the Stars Above. But you can't defy the Stars Above, Alexandra. We have no power over them, but they also have no power over us. No more than I do, when I give you a prophecy. What we speak is the truth—"
"But it's only the truth as you see it. Yeah, we've been over this." They had discussed it, at length, during the many hours they'd spent in the SUV, or while trying to sleep.
"The point is, it might be better not to keep trying to turn the future into something different."
"Even if the future I have right now is less than five years?" Alexandra said bitterly.
"That was a geas, not a prophecy," Sonja said seriously. "It's not the same thing."
"Right. One's a binding oath, the other is a bunch of nonsense you can twist around to mean whatever." When Sonja's face twitched, Alexandra said, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean nonsense."
"It's all right," Sonja said, in that airy tone she took when talking about her Inner Eye at school. She leaned forward and gave Alexandra a kiss on the cheek, before hefting the bag from Mrs. Pritchard over her shoulder. "I'll see you soon, Alexandra."
"Was that a prophecy?" Alexandra called after her, but Sonja didn't answer as she walked across the Invisible Bridge.
Alexandra's was the only vehicle that turned off the Interstate into town, and as she drove through Old Larkin, it seemed quieter than before. On Sweetmaple Avenue, there were no cars parked in front of her house, and no one was waiting for her when she parked in the driveway. No one Apparated onto the lawn. No one came running across the street to confront her. No neighbors peeked out of their curtains to spy on her.
The charms she and Hela had cast around the town hadn't completely isolated it from the rest of the Muggle world, but it felt as if they had done something. Alexandra hoped it meant the town would be left alone, but keeping away reporters and feds was one thing; keeping away the Dark Convention was another.
She released Charlie and Nigel both from her skin, and put Nigel in the terrarium up in her room, after plugging it in and letting it warm up. Charlie hopped on top of the large cage she'd left hanging above her desk, but didn't enter it.
She texted Brian:
Hey. Im back.
His response came a little later:
Everything okay?
Yeah. I'll tell u more if u want to come over…
Can't.
:(
I'm packing.
?
I told you I'm going to Chicago to stay with my dad. I'm leaving tomorrow.
so soon
I told you all of this. Guess you were thinking about other things.
Don't be like this, Brian. Can we at least say goodbye?
Yeah. Okay.
They met the next day at the Frosty Freeze near Larkin Mills Mall. It put Alexandra in a glum mood even before Brian arrived. This was where she had introduced Hela to Muggle fast food.
Brian entered, wearing a heavy coat and gloves. It hadn't snowed since Alexandra left Larkin Mills, but the weather was still very cold.
He didn't smile when he sat down across from her. He took his gloves off, and looked at the menu board without much enthusiasm. "You having a burger?"
"I'm not actually very hungry," she said.
"Me neither." He shrugged. "Split some fries?"
She nodded, and waited until he'd brought back the fries and a side of drinks. She broke the awkward silence by asking about where in Chicago he and his father were going to live, what school he was transferring to, and how his mother was. He answered as if they were casual acquaintances making small talk.
"Brian," she said finally. "I know I haven't been the best girlfriend. Or the best friend. But let's not end like this. We've been through some things. When we made up, after all those years, I was happy. I mean, I was really happy we were friends again. Maybe I didn't show that enough."
She took his hand in hers. He didn't look directly at her, but he squeezed her hand gently.
She said, "I've done a lot of things I wish I hadn't, and believe me, you don't know half of it." When he frowned at her, she sighed. "I didn't mean those kinds of things. I'm just saying… I know I'm a trial and a pain."
He snorted, while putting a fry in his mouth. "A trial and a pain?"
"I'd like to still be friends."
"Alex… I missed you too, while you were away at that wizard school, and all those years when I was angry at you. The thing is…" He hesitated. "Listen. Don't flip out."
"Okay," she said. "Whatever you want to say, I'll just listen, I promise."
"I know it isn't your fault Bonnie died, and that all these things are happening," he said slowly. "But after you told me about your father and the Confederation and the Deathly Regiment and everything, I can't help thinking… that me being friends with you is why I lost my sister, and my parents are divorcing, and I was driving around in the dark with Billy fucking Boggleston hunting monsters with a baseball bat, and just when I was about to try to tell you I couldn't take it anymore, I watched you almost die…"
Alexandra remained silent as he took a deep breath.
"None of this is fair. It's not fair to blame you. It's my fault too. I said I wanted to be friends again, knowing what you are. I said I could handle it. I'm the one who wanted us to be more than friends. It was me, I know.
"I don't want to stop being friends, or never talk to you again. But… I want to stop hearing about wizards, or having to deal with the wizarding world. For a while. I want you to remove that Mark on me. I don't want to be a MACUSA contact anymore. I want to leave that world behind when I leave Larkin Mills."
He met her green-eyed gaze, staring into the same tiger's eyes that had once fixed on him in anger at Old Larkin Pond, and so many other times.
Alexandra nodded slowly. "Okay."
They both stared at the table, leaving the rest of their fries untouched.
She squeezed his hand again. "You know the wizarding world doesn't care what either of us wants. I can't guarantee you won't hear about the wizard war again, even in Chicago."
In the parking lot, she removed his Mark. She didn't bother trying to hide her wand. Brian looked around nervously, but no one was watching.
After he drove away, Alexandra returned home. She waited until she was inside and the house sealed before she cried.
She spent the next few weeks hunting Redcaps and ghosts in Larkin Mills, and casting charms like those she'd seen around Mahomachi.
Everyone called her, and everyone wanted her to join them.
David said No-Majes in Detroit needed more help than in Larkin Mills.
In Arcadia and Yukon, the MACUSA had destroyed two more Confederation Regiments. The Confederation News Network claimed the Dark Convention had overrun the Territories; Anna said it wasn't true, but the Dark Convention was sowing chaos anywhere there were no Regiments around to stop them. She asked Alexandra point-blank what the Thorn Circle was doing. Alexandra repeated that she didn't know.
Livia and Ashley and Nicholas remained in their safehouse, but MACUSA wizards sometimes escorted them to field hospitals where Livia provided magical healing, and Dr. Farr helped treat unfortunate Muggle casualties of the wizard war.
Claudia had finally accepted that Alexandra couldn't join her and Archie even if she wanted to because of the Ban, but still wanted her to go into hiding.
Julia wanted her to join them at Croatoa, though Julia admitted that even her mother had begun speaking of the need to leave quickly in the event that the war took a turn in the east.
Even her father called her. Alexandra didn't know what he used as a phone, but he repeated his offer to let her return to his redoubt in the Lands Below.
"Why don't you bring any of your other daughters there?" Alexandra asked.
"They will not go," he said. "You know this."
"What would I do there?"
"I would find some way to make you useful."
"But not as part of the war? Not to help end the Deathly Regiment?"
"What are you doing there to end the Deathly Regiment? Your family is not there. The school Livia was running there is gone. According to Melody Wilborough, even your young friend has left. You and she should both leave Larkin Mills."
"Does Mrs. Wilborough want to leave Larkin Mills?"
She heard only dead air. Then her father said, "She seems to think she's going to die there. I've told her she need not, that without you and Claudia to watch, she could go anywhere she likes, and I would be happy to find purposeful work for her elsewhere."
"Maybe she likes it here," Alexandra said. "Maybe people sometimes want to do more than your bidding."
"Indeed." Her father's voice grew cold. "Unfortunately, I have little time for those people right now. There is a war. Good-bye, my daughter."
He didn't call her again.
Alexandra used her Seven-League Boots to visit Lucilla and Drucilla. They, too, pleaded with her to stay in their seven-gabled mansion. Lucilla was still distant and maddeningly like and unlike her old self, her memories and personality like a familiar shape seen through a glass darkly. But she remembered Alexandra, and that, Alexandra and Drucilla agreed, was enough for now.
All of her sisters were as safe as they could be, Alexandra thought, except perhaps Julia, and Julia would not leave her mother.
Sometimes she felt like calling Brian, but she didn't. Maybe she would visit him in Chicago someday, after the war was over.
She took no joy in killing Redcaps, who had so terrorized her as an eleven-year-old without a wand, but kill them she did. She did try talking to them, and demanding they surrender; they always responded with rhymes about grinding her bones to make their bread, and drinking the blood of Muggle children. So she blasted them to bits. She did this while avoiding the Muggle patrols who were also looking for monsters; she no longer bothered trying to talk to Billy, or the Larkin Mills Police Department.
Ghosts continued to bother her. There were too many ghosts around Larkin Mills. They always found her outside the town's limits, where she had cast her wards, and howled and screeched imprecations at her, and when they bothered Muggles, she Banished them.
She checked daily with Mrs. Wilborough, who told her that her clock showed no one in Deadly Peril. Even when she walked Murdoch Road by herself at night. She half expected, feared, or hoped to encounter Hela or Harriet there, but apparently they had not lingered like so many of the wizards who'd died in the battle of Larkin Mills.
A late February snowstorm blanketed much of the Midwest. It brought back more memories for Alexandra, of the blizzard that she still half-believed she'd conjured when she was eleven. Angry and hurt enough to summon a ball of spite which she'd then tried to undo, to disastrous effect, it had caused a chain of events leading to her house burning down. She'd fled into the blizzard with Claudia, and almost froze to death following a will-o-wisp out to the highway.
She'd always assumed that had been another one of Ben Journey's haphazard murder attempts, but as she walked through the snow this evening, she had a hard time seeing what his plan had been. She'd never really asked Journey's ghost to explain all the things he'd done. Now she looked up at the sky, and wondered if something similar was happening tonight. The weather was terrible and visibility was almost zero.
Very distantly, she heard a rumble.
"I haven't forgotten!" she said. Even if there was a Thunderbird up there, she didn't think it could hear her. But maybe it was reminding her of her promise.
She continued trudging through the snow, magically parting it before her like a living plow. Something about the weather had put her in a reminiscing mood. She didn't expect to encounter another Ignis Fatuus, but she did fear Dark creatures might take advantage of the blizzard to wreak havoc.
When she was almost to the Interstate, she found a darkened car sitting in the middle of the street. Only a couple of inches of snow had piled up on its windshield, so it hadn't been there long, but Alexandra wondered what the driver expected to do—sit there and wait out the storm?
She could just make out two figures in the front seat. She kept walking. She wasn't about to use her wand to help a stuck car; it wasn't as if they couldn't just get out and walk for help. But the people in the front seat seemed too still and wrong somehow, so Alexandra's curiosity got the better of her. She walked closer, until she could see both of them, a man and a woman, with their eyes staring straight ahead.
She drew her wand, and took another step, until she was close enough to knock on the driver's window.
He didn't move. Neither did the woman next to him.
Alexandra knocked harder. They still didn't move.
She looked around, and said, "Homenum Revelio!"
Nothing was revealed in her immediate vicinity. The shops behind her were closed, and the nearest houses were half a block away.
There are no people near me…
Alexandra turned back to the car, with a sick feeling. She cast a Light Spell, and saw that the front of their coats were dark. Only when she looked closer did she see the gashes across their necks.
"Oh, God," she breathed, fogging the car's window in front of her. She stepped back and leveled her wand, turning in a circle, but she seemed to be alone in the blizzard.
She couldn't see any footprints in the snow. She didn't know what kind of Dark creature could slash two peoples' throats inside a car and leave no trace.
Her phone rang.
She held her wand away from her as she fished her phone out of her pocket with her other hand. It was Mrs. Wilborough.
"Hello?" she answered. "Mrs. Wilborough, listen—"
She heard a gurgling sound.
"Mrs. Wilborough?" The icy dread upon discovering the dead motorists spread through her veins now. The sound continued for another moment, and then stopped. The phone went dead.
Why did not I not cast something around Mrs. Wilborough's house? She'd tried protecting the town, but never thought about protecting anyone individually inside the town.
She Apparated to the end of Sweetmaple Avenue. It was dark. The power was off on the entire block.
It was an obvious setup for an ambush. She'd been lured here, and she didn't know if Mrs. Wilborough was still alive.
She tried calling Mrs. Wilborough back. The phone rang and rang.
She couldn't see across the street, let alone all the way to Mrs. Wilborough's house. She was too far away to use a Revealing Spell. Her mind spun frantically. She thought about Apparating into Mrs. Wilborough's living room and blasting anything moving that wasn't her.
No, that's a trap! screamed the sensible voice in her head.
She had worn her magical waterproof boots, not her Seven-League Boots, so she had to run normally, even with magic pushing snow out of her way. She didn't slow down until she was pretty sure she was in front of Mrs. Wilborough's house. She had to blast snow off the curb to check the address. She pointed her wand, hesitated, and said, "Homenum Revelio."
Whoever was inside would feel the swooping sensation of her Revealing Spell. A wizard would definitely recognize it.
Her spell revealed only one person in Mrs. Wilborough's house.
A tall shadow appeared silhouetted in front of the living room curtains. The curtains parted, just a crack.
"Confringo!" Alexandra said.
Mrs. Wilborough's living room window exploded inward. The figure was blown back along with the glass and shredded curtains. Alexandra Apparated into the house, and cast another Blasting Curse at the robed figure sprawled on the floor.
Her instincts had been correct. She had recognized in a split-second that the shadow was too tall to be Mrs. Wilborough. She felt no relief that she hadn't accidentally blasted her neighbor, because she knew what being right meant.
Mrs. Wilborough was lying next to her magical grandfather clock, in a pool of blood.
Alexandra's own hand on the clock pointed to "Larkin Mills," her father's pointed to "Lands Below," and Claudia and Archie's hands both pointed to "Traveling."
Why had there never been a hand for Melody Wilborough?
Alexandra glanced at the robed wizard, still lying unmoving on the floor. Wind and snow blew into the living room, but Alexandra ignored it, just as she ignored the broken glass as she sank to her knees and looked into Mrs. Wilborough's staring, lifeless eyes.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered.
She gently lifted the old woman's glasses off her face, and closed her eyelids before replacing them.
She heard a disconsolate meow from beneath the couch. Tiger crouched there, terrified.
The man lying on the floor groaned.
Alexandra rose to her feet and said, "Accio Wand."
A short, thin wand of dark wood flew into her hand. She inspected it briefly, touched her own wand to it, and set it on fire. She tossed the flaming wand out the broken window, where it sizzled and crackled with green flames that continued to burn even as it sank into the snow.
When the robed wizard lifted his head, his cowl fell away and Alexandra recognized him.
"You," she said.
The Gaunt Man grinned at her, from a bloodied face. He spat out a tooth. "That was… naughty," he said, in a low, sibilant voice. "Such a violent girl."
The Gaunt Man, whose real name she'd never learned, had been imprisoned on Eerie Island with her, and she had learned only later that he was a serial killer who murdered Muggles.
She wondered if he'd escaped before she and her father returned to Eerie Island, when she'd freed Typhon and Edna.
"You killed Mrs. Wilborough," she said. Her arm trembled a little, both from emotion and from the freezing cold of the blizzard blowing through the shattered window into the house. "And two Muggles in a car."
"I killed many Muggles in cars," the Gaunt Man said. "Oh, blizzards are wonderful. So many Muggles stuck on the road, and no Auror Authority… of course, Central Territory is practically lawless now anyway." Despite his injuries, his eyes gleamed maniacally, as if he were proud and wanted to share his accomplishments. He managed to focus on her. "I killed three other families on this street before I found someone with your Mark." He looked at Mrs. Wilborough's body. "She didn't even seem surprised to see me. How odd."
"WHY?!" Alexandra screamed.
He smiled. "Oh, I don't think you'd understand. No one does." He wiped the back of his hand across his bloody mouth. "What did you do with my wand?"
"Why did you come here?" Alexandra asked, struggling to get her voice under control. Three other families… "Why were you looking for me?"
"Well, they told me you'd be here," the Gaunt Man said.
He started to sit up. Alexandra said, "Feordupois!" The Deadweight Charm slammed him back to the floor. He grunted in pain and surprise.
"They who?" she asked. "The Dark Convention?"
The Gaunt Man nodded. "This is really quite uncomfortable," he complained.
"So, what, they found you and told you to come here and try to kill me? Why would you do that?"
"It's hard to indulge in my calling without any friends," the Gaunt Man said. "Even other Dark Wizards aren't interested, most of them, and those who are, well…" he chuckled. "Just between you and me, they're crazy." Alexandra didn't say anything, and he sighed. "They promised protection and freedom, and also explained why you were on Eerie Island. I'm sorry about the prophecy, but you do need to die. It wasn't personal. I don't usually kill other wizards, you know. I'm not a monster."
"What made you think you could just walk into my town and kill me?" Alexandra's teeth were clenched together in fury. "Like I was just going to let you?"
The Gaunt Man blinked in surprise. "You're just a teenager. And I've killed so many…" He coughed. "I admit, this didn't go quite the way I thought it would."
Alexandra shook her head. Tears threatened. So did nausea. She couldn't afford either, not right now. "You must be stupid. I think the Dark Convention sent you because you're crazy and expendable."
The Gaunt Man frowned. "I am very good at what I do, and I'm a wizard of no small ability. Give me my wand back and let's have a duel, why don't we? I think you owe me that much. We were imprisoned together on Eerie Island. It makes us comrades of a sort, doesn't it?"
"No," Alexandra said. "It doesn't."
He managed to lift his head, with great effort, and now his smile was manic. "So what are you going to do… kill me? Are you the Enemy's Daughter after all?"
Alexandra wasn't even seeing him, not really. She was seeing Mrs. Wilborough's corpse, and the two dead motorists, and thinking about all the corpses in houses around her, and who knew how many more out on the highway? All because this maniac had come to Larkin Mills looking for her.
She focused on him again, and he saw death in her eyes. For a moment, he lost his mad grin, and she saw only fear.
That was good, yet when she started to mumble "Avada Kedavra," she faltered. She remembered her argument with Burton about Dark magic, and Granny Grimm asking her if she was a murderer.
"You can't do it," the Gaunt Man crooned. "You were about to cast the Killing Curse, weren't you? But you don't have it in you."
She gave him a look of hatred and contempt. "Oh, I do." She pointed her wand again and said, "Diffindo!"
She walked across the street with Tiger meowing unhappily beneath her coat. All the houses were still dark. Alexandra tried to remember who her other neighbors were. She thought the people living next door were both painters or something. On the other side was an older man who was retired; at least, he always seemed to be home. There was a nice Indian family that had moved in next to Mrs. Wilborough at some point in the last few years. They had a little girl…
Alexandra choked. For a moment she was glad that the Seaburys had moved, and at least she didn't have to worry about them, then realized how selfish that thought was. She was sick with guilt and grief, trying to stay calm while she wanted to scream.
She collected Charlie and Nigel and put them both back onto her skin. She put Tiger in Charlie's cage, which the cat didn't like. She gathered all her belongings in her magical backpack and walked out of the house a final time. She put her backpack and the cage with the yowling cat into the SUV parked in the driveway.
No one had called the police yet. No one was shouting from any of the neighboring houses.
Alexandra walked around her house, casting fireproof wards on all sides of it. Her movements were stiff and her face was frozen. Anyone observing her might think she was in a state of shock, but she kept her mind rigidly focused on what she was doing. When she was finished, she stood next to the Escalade and stared at the house that had been her home, in the Muggle world, for almost as long as she could remember. It had burned down and been rebuilt once.
She pointed her wand and said, "Incendio!"
The jet of flame ignited the front of the house, and she cast the spell again and again until 207 Sweetmaple Avenue was ablaze.
She got into the SUV and called Billy Boggleston, as she stared at the flames consuming the house her father had given his eldest daughter.
Billy answered right away. "Yeah?"
"Billy," she said. "It's Alexandra."
"Alexandra? Why are you calling me?" he asked angrily.
"I need you to do a couple of things."
"Say what? Go fuck yourself! Since Brian isn't around to do it."
"Mrs. Wilborough is dead." The words seemed to come from someone else; Alexandra struggled to feel anything as she watched her house burn.
Tiger was yowling even louder. Flames reflected against the windshield, and in her eyes, as she held the phone.
"What the hell?" Now Billy sounded upset and scared.
"A bunch of people are dead," Alexandra said. "And it's gonna be really ugly when the blizzard stops."
"Why are you telling me this?" Billy demanded.
"Because I want you to know the killer is dead. Call the police and tell them they need to come to Sweetmaple Avenue."
"Wait—you're the one who's gotta explain this—"
"I'm leaving Larkin Mills. For good. It's time for me to go. Let everyone know I'm gone. Everyone. Good-bye, Billy."
She hung up, put her phone in her pocket, and began driving. Some people were finally opening their doors down the street, shouting as they saw the house burning brightly in the night, though no flames or even sparks crossed property lines.
Tiger was still screaming. Alexandra activated the cage's Silencing Charm. When she looked in the rear view mirror before backing into the snowbound street, she saw that her face was spattered with blood. She stared back at her reflection for a moment, then kept backing up.
Her Lost Traveler's Compass kept her on the road even in the blizzard. She drove slowly out of Larkin Mills and out onto an almost empty Interstate. Sometimes she passed shapes by the side of the road which were other vehicles. Each time she cast a Revealing Spell, swallowed her dread and disappointment, and drove on.
She left the Escalade in a parking garage outside of Indianapolis, put Tiger's cage in her magical backpack, and used her Seven-League Boots to travel to the Whites' house in New England.
Drucilla was not enthusiastic about the cat, but Tiger immediately took a liking to Lucilla, and Alexandra's scowl cowed even Dru.
Alexandra didn't stay.
Hours later, she stood on the shore of Lake Superior. This wasn't where she and Hela had taken off across the water on their last journey to Eerie Island. It was a more remote stretch of beach where she and three other fugitives had landed after their escape.
She took the token her father had given her out of her pack. She wasn't actually sure it would help with what she needed to do, but it seemed like it should, and since she had had more practice banishing ghosts than summoning them, she needed the help. She released Charlie from her skin, and the raven perched on her shoulder, not interested in flying into the gale that was blowing off the water.
She'd learned the basics of calling and banishing ghosts from a forbidden tome called Deathly Conjures, which Darla Dearborn had given her when she was thirteen. She still had the book, and had studied from it before the Junior Wizarding Decathlon, but she had not tried any summonings since her brief alliance with Hela during the necromancy competition. Now she looked out at the lake, which must have claimed hundreds of lives over the centuries. Surely some had been wizards.
She waved her wand in one hand, the obol in the other, raising her voice to be heard over the wind.
"Wind and waves that made your graves,
I call to now release you,
From silent sleep in watery deep,
Answer if it please you.
I can't restore who lives no more,
Your fate is written evermore,
The lake it's said, won't give up her dead,
But the living can hear you once more."
Charlie shrieked a coda to her verse.
She lowered her arms, and waited to see if any spirit would answer her call. She had been less demanding than she might have been—the idea of compelling spirits made her uneasy. Even if they had been wicked like Ben Journey. But surely some spirit would like to talk, even if it just meant a brief escape from their icy grave.
"Is that your best effort?" asked a voice that came not from the direction of the water, but the beach behind her. She whirled around, to face a grinning apparition with a ghostly mustache. "Pardon the blunt assessment of a dead man, Miss Quick, but that was appalling verse. I'm amazed it worked."
"How are you here?" Alexandra asked. "You died in Larkin Mills!"
Pasquale Mercurio nodded. "I did, indeed, and my despair at that is exceeded only by my embarrassment. But you know ghosts are not always bound to where they died. Your sisters dragged me away and disposed of my body, and I daresay the Bureau of Hauntings, if any of them are still on the job at all, are quite over their heads." He shrugged, with a flourish of his hands. "And since you are the author of my misfortune, it took but little—even your trifling conjuration—for me to find my way to you."
"Wicked!" said Charlie.
Alexandra eyed Mercurio. "What, are you planning to haunt me? That's not going to happen. I doubt you can help me, so if you don't go back where you came from, I'll be happy to send you along."
"You're very rude for someone calling spirits to help you. What is it you want?"
Alexandra sighed. "A boat."
Mercurio's ghostly eyebrows went up. "A boat?"
"A boat that I can raise from the bottom of the lake," Alexandra said. "To travel across the water."
Mercurio frowned. "Can't you just obtain a vessel that hasn't sunk?"
"It has to be tied to the lake, preferably with a magical connection, and there's a whole syncretic thing with my earlier journeys. Rule of threes and thaumaturgic binding of thematic elements… Look, if you don't know what I'm talking about then you were never a very good wizard."
"Why do you want to go out on the water? It looks rather uninviting."
"It's very uninviting. That's also kind of the point. Go away, Mercurio. I don't need you or want you here." Alexandra looked around, but didn't see any other ghosts answering her call.
"But I'm here because of you," he said, and this time he wasn't smiling.
"You're here because you tried to abduct me, and you got yourself killed by Richard Raspire!" Alexandra snapped. "Go harass him!" She really hoped Raspire's ghost wouldn't also show up.
"He is otherwise occupied," Mercurio said. "But you can be sure he's unhappy with you as well."
"Fuck him." If Richard Raspire had also not passed on, she looked forward to banishing him with prejudice should he ever show his ghostly face around her.
Mercurio made a tsking sound. "If it weren't for you, none of us would be here…"
"Fuck you too!" Alexandra shouted. "You're all dead because of your choices! Stop blaming me! I didn't kill you!" Charlie cawed ominously as Alexandra pointed her wand at Mercurio. "Enjoy the Lands Beyond."
"Wait!" Mercurio held up his hands. "I know where you can find a boat."
"How convenient." Alexandra didn't lower her wand.
"The goblin packet," Mercurio said.
Alexandra lowered the tip of her wand. "What did you do with it after you all came ashore?"
"Sank it, of course. We didn't want the Auror Authority to find it, but as you recall, you left us with no wands that would have allowed us to disassemble or Vanish it."
Alexandra nodded. "It'll do. Where is it?"
"What do I get for telling you?"
"Not being Banished."
Mercurio grimaced. "You're really quite an unpleasant little bitch."
"There goes the charming mask," Alexandra said. "Nice to see the real you, the one who got sent to Eerie Island, and was ready to hand me over to the Dark Convention. Show me where the goblin packet is and I'll let you go your own way."
The former metamorphmagus's face transformed into something inhuman and nightmarish. Alexandra kept her wand pointed at him. After a moment, he transformed back, and he was all smiles again, though the coldness in his eyes matched the chill in the air. "It's not far. In fact you can almost see the little cove where we sank it from here."
Alexandra followed the ghost, with Charlie taking off to glide for only short distances, as the wind buffeted the bird. Just through some bare trees, there was indeed a tiny cove—really just an indentation in the shoreline—where Mercurio pointed at the gray water. "There. We pushed it off filled with rocks, and watched it sink just a few yards offshore." He turned to her. "Why are you going out on the lake?"
Alexandra cast a Revealing Spell. The goblin packet she and Pasquale Mercurio, Cygnus Nero, and Elisabet Todd had stolen from Eerie Island was indeed submerged just offshore. Without answering Mercurio, she took a step with her magical boots to the shore.
Charlie caught up to her, cawing angrily, as she raised the goblin packet from the shallow, freezing water. It popped to the surface, mastless and very much the worse for wear having spent months underwater.
"Jerk," Charlie said, landing on her shoulder again.
"Sorry, Charlie," she said. She had forgotten how much the raven had to struggle against the wind right now. "You'd better go back onto my skin. The next part is going to be rougher, and not suitable for ravens."
Charlie was reluctant, but after she kissed her familiar's beak and pulled her jacket and shirt back, the raven sank onto her shoulder.
"Just how many beasts do you have tattooed onto your skin?" Pasquale Mercurio asked. Alexandra turned to find the ghost standing behind her again.
"Thanks for the boat," she said. "Now get lost."
"You can't make me unless you Banish me, and I fulfilled my part of the bargain."
"That doesn't mean you get to follow me around forever. What do you want?"
Mercurio stared at the boat, which looked almost as ghostly as he did, gray and soaked and rimed with ice, beneath stormy skies. "I want to be freed from this existence," he said, in a voice Alexandra could barely hear over the wind.
Alexandra grimaced at the ghost, as icy rain began to pelt her and pass through him. "It was your choice to stay instead of moving on. You died a coward's death and now you're suffering a coward's afterlife. I can't do anything about that."
Mercurio's expression turned white with fury, and Alexandra almost took a step back. "You may be a clever girl and a talented witch, but you know nothing of death."
"More than you think, actually. But not enough to send you onward."
"But you can!" Mercurio insisted. "You are the one keeping us trapped here. All of us!"
"All of us who?" Alexandra demanded.
Mercurio's face transformed, into that of a Navajo witch. "All of us who died because of you!" he snarled. The ghost transformed again, and became an unrecognizable figure with a face that was blackened and charred, and clothes that were crackling flakes of ash stuck to his skin.
"Because of you!" the ghost howled, and Alexandra felt the chill in her bones as he reached for her. "All you have to do is die!"
She Banished the spirit, sending it wailing to the Lands Beyond. She stared at the space where it had been, wondering if it had really been Pasquale Mercurio, or something else wearing his face, as Mercurio wore other's faces. She was glad it hadn't worn other dead spirits' faces she might have recognized, and shuddered.
Unnerved, it was a minute before she turned back to the water and saw that the boat had almost sunk again. She had to cast another spell to buoy it up once more. She cast a Water-Walking Charm to walk across the waves to the boat, and climbed aboard. Another spell turned it around and propelled it out of the inlet and towards the black, flashing clouds at the center of the lake.
She found herself wishing she weren't doing this alone. Charlie's company would have been welcome, but she had to cast more spells just to keep herself from being blown overboard, and what she expected to face out on the water would require all her attention. She feared she wouldn't be able to protect Charlie in such a storm. She would have welcomed Hela beside her right now. Even Pasquale Mercurio would have been better than nobody, if he hadn't turned out to be some kind of revenant intent on harassing her.
As waves rose around her, she kept the one-time goblin packet pointed north. Wind and water flowed around it, so that she only bobbed a little on waves that should have capsized such a tiny craft immediately. Her heart raced and she felt more nervous about what she was about to attempt. She'd expected that, but the encounter with Mercurio's ghost had affected her, and she silently cursed him again, and everyone else who kept blaming her for things that weren't her fault.
Up in the sky, she couldn't see the Thunderbird, but the booming sounds and flashes above the clouds told her that it was up there. She wondered if it knew she was here.
She could not yet see the great crack in the world that ran beneath Eerie Island and the Great Lakes, but she knew she was getting close to it. She thought she only needed to put another league behind her.
A solid wall of fog formed ahead. Alexandra took a deep breath. Maybe she wouldn't make it that far.
What you set free, you must deal with, she thought, and kept the boat plunging ahead.
Though the winds blew as fiercely as ever, she and her enchanted craft were suddenly surrounded by fog that muffled the sounds of thunder. Everything beyond the length of her arm was gray mist. The boat rocked gently in waves that she could no longer see. She could barely hold onto the sensation of moving forward, and wondered if she'd been stopped or turned around, before she finally saw, with her Witch's Sight, a green river of light that pierced darkness, fog, and water alike.
Almost simultaneously a fiery glow appeared, visible through the fog. It was not so close… but then a second glow appeared, closer.
The third glow was close enough for Alexandra to see flames, and pinpoints of light glaring from the eyes above the fiery mouth.
There were three underwater panthers, on all sides of her.
She stared ahead, at the crack in the world that seemed close enough to touch but was both deep beneath the waves and still so far away. She tried to force her craft forward faster. She couldn't even tell if it worked. The panthers closed in on her, belching flames.
Defiantly, she raised her hickory and yew wands with their cores of panther hair, and called a wave to hurl the boat forward, though it risked capsizing her. She rose on the wave, almost to the height of the nearest panther, and then fell onto her belly in the wet bottom of the boat and hung on as it slid down the swell of water she had created. A flume of spray erupted around the charms she'd cast to keep out the rain and wind, and the boat spun a bit before resuming its course. Alexandra rose to her feet, shaky and wet, and saw she'd put a little distance between herself and the closest panther, but she was now approaching the one ahead, and the two behind her were following the bobbing craft, striding easily across the waves.
She was closer to the crack in the world as well, though. She concentrated on it, and felt it yield to her as all the other cracks had when she pried at them.
The underwater panthers either didn't notice or didn't care. Alexandra put her wands away, reached into her pack and pulled out her broom. She held it tightly in both hands as the panthers got closer. Their golden heads loomed out of the mist, close enough that Alexandra could hear moisture crackling and turning to steam in the flames coming from their mouths.
She had faced underwater panthers before, but never three grown ones at once. Each one was terrifying, and she didn't feel brave. She felt foolhardy and reckless, like everyone told her she was. She'd had a plan, but like most of her plans, she'd flung herself into it and just hoped it would work. Like most of her plans, she was going to die if it didn't.
But I didn't die, she thought.
"I always come back!" she shouted at the panthers, though she doubted they could hear her, let alone understand her. She gripped her broom and opened the crack in the world, tearing it wide.
A vortex formed instantly, as lake water was sucked into the crack. The panthers roared as the water dropped beneath their feet and they too plummeted toward the shimmering crack.
Holding her broom, Alexandra dove into the spinning vortex. She had to hold open the crack long enough to make sure the panthers went through… and that meant going through herself. She knew where the panthers had come from, and hoped that would make it easier to send them back. Together, they all went plummeting into the Lands Below, accompanied by tons of roaring water.