Chapter Seven
I don’t remember the drive home. At some point I must have told Jasmine to call an emergency meeting with the other twitches. Someone tried reaching Jackson again, but only succeeded in getting his voice mail. Either he’d been with the rest of the elders, which was highly possible, or he was out there and unable to connect with us. Whichever it was, it became clear at that point that we were on our own.
By now, I would’ve done just about anything to get away from the wreckage that used to be the construction warehouse. Even if it meant going home and telling the others what I feared had happened.
There had been so much wreckage.
As soon as I had realized exactly what it was I was looking at, I’d gone numb with fear. The place was a charred mess. Everything was burned to the ground, and what wasn’t completely incinerated was covered in black soot, masking any evidence of what had once been standing in its spot. One look at the steaming acre of burned wood and steel and I knew nothing had survived.
And no one.
Before I knew what I was doing, I began to stagger forward, stepping onto the brittle remains of the grounds, not realizing until I’d already walked a few feet that the remnants were hot enough to melt the bottoms of my shoes.
That’s when I knew I was officially out of it. I was aware that my brand-new Jimmy Choos were being destroyed and I didn’t stop walking. I just didn’t care. I kept moving forward, even as I slipped on the loose pieces of debris below my feet. I slowed down only when something caught my eye among the sea of black.
It was shiny and small.
I veered over to see what had been reflecting the light of the moon, approaching where I thought the glint was coming from. The ground wasn’t as hot here and I crouched down, hoping to see a little better.
There it was again. Just a tiny hint of gold among the darkness.
I got down on my hands and knees and began to pick through the ashes and toss burned-up objects behind me. Clawing through the debris, I briefly wondered if I’d been seeing things, and then my hand hit something warm and smooth in the dust. Carefully withdrawing my hand from the mess, I knew from the feel of it that it had a chain. Either a necklace or a medal, maybe. Pulling the scarf out of my hair, I spit on the object and begin to polish it. A thought came to mind about how disgusted my girlfriends would be to see me crawling around in the dirt and spit-shining trash, and I found I didn’t care.
All I cared about was trying to figure out what the hell had happened here. And whether our worst fears had actually come true.
When I was sure I’d gotten the object in my hands as clean as I could without taking it to my jeweler, I tossed my scarf aside and held it up in front of me—and gasped.
It was a gold necklace, thin and delicate, with a pendant about an inch in size attached. The medallion read, “Be the change you wish to see in the world,” and it hung from a fourteen-inch chain. The piece was beautiful and obviously handmade.
And completely familiar to me.
It was the same necklace my mom had worn as far back as I could remember. My dad and I had both bought her other jewelry over the years—some expensive, some one-of-a-kind, one piece was even priceless—but she never took off the necklace engraved with the quote from Gandhi.
Except she wasn’t wearing it now, because it was here in my hand, covered in soot and still warm from the fire. As I thought about what that meant, my head drooped to my chest, defeated.
That was when I officially checked out.
After that I somehow made it back to the car. The others filed in after me, everyone dealing with their grief in different ways. Without my suggesting it, Jasmine told the rest of the coven to meet at my house ASAP. Her usually sarcastic tone had been replaced with one that was softer, kinder. The last thing I wanted was a bunch of kids running around my house—my parents’ house—but I didn’t have the energy to argue. I was having a hard enough time keeping us on the road because my eyes kept blurring with tears.
“Throw your stuff wherever,” I mumbled as we walked inside. The monotone voice that came out didn’t sound like my own and I had to look around to confirm that I’d actually spoken. I locked eyes with the four of them for the first time since we’d left the Elm, and froze. I had no idea what to say. So I said what my mom would have if she’d been there.
“There’s food in the kitchen. Help yourselves. I have to . . .” I looked around for an excuse to leave the room but was having trouble forming complete sentences, let alone being creative. “. . . go somewhere,” I finished lamely. Not even waiting for a response, I turned away from my coven and trudged over to the stairs, climbing them slowly. I felt like I was moving through quicksand and by the time I’d reached the top, I was exhausted. And I was usually always energetic. A few kids had even nicknamed me the Energizer Bunny back in freshman year.
But now just existing felt hard.
My room was exactly how I’d left it a few hours before and I felt minor relief as soon as I saw all my stuff. I needed to feel the familiar. See things that gave me even a tiny bit of comfort. But before I could fully enjoy the homecoming, I heard someone follow me into my room.
“Hadley?” said a quiet voice. I recognized it as Sascha’s. She sounded much less peppy than usual and for this I was thankful. “I’m sorry to bug you but, um, everyone’s downstairs and we’re not sure what to do or where anything is.”
I looked at her blankly. I guess in my haste to get upstairs, I’d completely forgotten to show them where things were. I forced myself to concentrate on what she was asking and tried to be a better hostess. “There are pillows and blankets in the closet down the hall. People can either find a room or a chair to sleep in. The couch downstairs pulls out into a bed. It’s been a long day . . . let’s just regroup tomorrow.”
I turned around and walked over to my bed and collapsed face-first onto it. With minimal movement, I kicked my destroyed Choos onto the floor and buried my head in one of the pillows.
Sascha didn’t say anything else as she watched me retreat to my mattress, and after a few seconds I heard the shuffling of feet and then the door close.
I was finally alone.
I wasn’t sure exactly what woke me, but once my eyes sprang open, I lay in bed listening for what it might have been. But it was quiet. Well, except for the white noise ringing in my ears, which was almost more frightening than if I’d heard something go bump in the night. I wasn’t used to the stillness.
I stared up at the ceiling, willing myself back to sleep, but finally stopped trying when I heard a noise. It sounded like the scraping of a chair across the kitchen floor, followed by glass clanging against tile. Someone was in the kitchen.
I groaned. The banging continued and so I weighed my options. I could stay in bed and most likely run over the events of the night or I could head downstairs to see what was happening. Sighing, I threw my legs over the side of the bed and yawned as I pushed my feet into my slippers. The sooner I got them to cut out the noise the sooner I could get back to bed and try to forget that this whole sucky day had ever happened.
I walked quietly down the stairs and peeked around the corner into the kitchen, expecting to see Sascha or Peter, or even annoying Fallon. But when my eyes adjusted, I saw the back of a woman as she worked her way around the cabinets. I stood frozen as she pulled out a box of cookies and then moved over to a steaming mug that was waiting for her on the counter.
As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I watched her pull out a bag of chamomile-and-peppermint tea. My heart immediately started to race as recognition hit me.
It couldn’t be.
I lurched forward, stumbling over my own feet as I tried to close the space between us.
“Mom?”
She turned around at the sound of my voice and I couldn’t even describe the joy I felt at seeing her face. I fell into her arms and buried myself in her hair before starting to cry. As I blubbered, I thought about all the questions I had for her.
Where were you? What happened? Are you okay? What’s going on? What happened at the Elm? Where are the others?
But none of that came out of my mouth. “I’m sorry, Mom” was all I could manage before squeezing her even tighter. All my other questions could wait. The important thing was that she was there with me. What I’d thought had happened in that burned-down mess had just been a big misunderstanding. She was okay. We were okay.
“Aw, sweetie, I know,” she replied, rubbing my back soothingly. “Me too.”
“I love you and I’ll do whatever you want me to,” I told her. “I’ll train. I won’t argue with Jackson anymore. I promise. I’ll be better.”
“That’s good, baby,” she answered softly. “Because I’m going to need you to be strong. I need to know you’ll do whatever it takes. That you’ll fight.”
“I will,” I promised, pulling away from her and looking straight into her eyes. I still couldn’t quite believe she was standing there in the kitchen with me. “If anything happens, I’ll be ready.”
“You don’t know how happy it makes me to hear that,” Mom said. But the look on her face was more like relief than happiness. I cocked my head to the side as I tried to read her mind. Unfortunately, my mom had had a lot more practice at reading my thoughts than vice versa and I couldn’t get anything from her.
“What’s going on, Mom?”
“Hadley, sweetie, something bad’s happened,” she said quietly.
“I know. Peter’s parents were kidnapped,” I responded. “And no one knows where their parents are. We went to the Elm and it was a mess. And then I found your necklace and I was so worried . . .”
My words trailed off as I saw her wince at this. I opened my mouth to keep talking, but then promptly closed it. Something was really wrong. I was starting to feel sick to my stomach again.
“You have to be strong. For me and for the others,” she said finally, reaching her hand out toward me.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, my bottom lip starting to tremble.
“I’m so sorry, sweetie. I didn’t know this was going to happen. We were just trying to fix things, but they knew where we were. They surprised us,” she said, swallowing hard. “I tried to stop them, but we didn’t have a chance. There were too many of them and not enough of us.”
“Why are you saying all of this?” I asked, confused. My chest was feeling heavy and I was having trouble breathing. “You’re here. You’re fine.”
“I’m not,” she said bluntly.
I flinched as if I’d been slapped. “You are,” I whispered, my eyes tearing up again. “You’re fine! Stop lying!”
I was screaming now, and couldn’t care less if anyone heard. I was so confused and hurt and tired, I just wanted to figure out what was going on so we could go back to our regular lives.
“I’m telling you the truth, Hadley.” She said this sadly, a tear rolling down her cheek. “We were at the Elm and Parris’s coven knew we were there. I’m not sure how they knew, but they did. Our powers wouldn’t work for some reason, and before we could get out . . . the flames spread so quickly, we were gone before we even realized what was happening.”
“No,” I whimpered. “No, no, no, no, no!”
She took my face in her hands, kissing my wet cheeks. Even though I was upset, I let her do this, mostly because it was better than trying to make sense of what she was saying.
“Listen to me. I know this is going to be hard on you and I wish you didn’t have to go through this, but you’ve got to be strong. You’re going to be sad, and that’s okay, but I don’t want you to be sad forever,” my mom said gently. “Because all those kids in there? They need you.”
“What about what I need? I need you, Mom. I need you. Here. With me.”
“You have me, Hadley. I’m here, watching over you always. But I can’t do what needs to be done next,” she said. “You are stronger than anyone else I’ve ever known—more powerful as well. You’re the only one who can stop the Parrishables.”
“I thought you didn’t want me to call them that,” I said, sniffling.
She smiled at me. “That’s my girl. Always arguing,” she said. “That’s good. You’re going to need that fight in you for what’s ahead. They’re strong, and none of you are prepared for their darkness yet. It’s up to you to teach the coven. You’re the only hope of keeping the Cleri alive.”
“But I don’t know what to do,” I said, looking down at my hands, suddenly more unsure of myself than I’d ever been before.
“Yes you do. Trust your instincts, Hadley, and you’ll be just fine.”
“I can’t do this alone, Mom,” I said, hating to admit I wasn’t fully capable of handling any situation that came my way. But in this case, I was terrified at what she was suggesting. I wasn’t sure I could be the one everyone was counting on. Hell, if I could barely even get out of bed, how was I supposed to save anyone from an ancient, evil witch coven?
“You can do this, Hadley. In fact, you’re the only one who can do this. And you won’t be alone. You’ll have the power of your ancestors behind you,” she said.
It was hard for me to believe that I was our coven’s only hope. That I was somehow strong enough to do what our parents couldn’t. I mean, sure, I could convince my friends and classmates to do what I wanted, but when it came to outsmarting deranged witches and stopping their mission of total witch-world domination, how was I supposed to be anything but a well-dressed teenager who was uniquely skilled in the art of persuasion?
Could I be more than that? Was I more than that?
“What am I supposed to do?” I asked, my voice shaky. I still wasn’t sure that what my mom was saying was true, but since this might be the last time I talked to her, I wasn’t going to argue. I’d done that enough when she was alive and look where it got me.
“First, you need to get the coven out of town. Somewhere the Parrishables won’t be able to find you. Our summer cabin, maybe? It’s plenty big for all of you and no one but us knows about it. Then you need to take over training. They’re going to be resistant at first, but you have to convince them that they need to get prepared. If not, you’ll all be in danger.”
I nodded, recognizing how surreal this conversation was, but agreeing nonetheless. “And then what?”
“Then you wait for them to find you, and you fight like hell.”