The Gleaning (4 page)

Her eyes slowly opened, and took me in hazily, as if she was waking from a dream. “Lily?”

“Mom, are you okay?”

“What happened to you? Why are you so dirty?” She rubbed her eyes, looking genuinely confused.

The other witches stirred, waking slowly, gazing at me with matching “duh” expressions. I ran to the kitchen and brewed a huge pot of strong coffee, which I tossed a dash of clarifying herbs into. After pouring the magically enhanced coffee into an array of brightly-colored ceramic mugs, I carried them back into the living room on a long, wooden tray. In my torn gown and scratched up body, I must’ve looked like Cinderella catering to her Stepmother’s Evil Book Club.

My coven, looking like a batch of doped up hippies, gathered around me, gazing blankly at me like they didn’t notice the tattered gown, smeared make-up, and stilted gait, which made me look like I’d just wrestled a wild boar and lost.

Whoever had drugged them knew their stuff.

“Drink up, ladies!” My heart raced. I needed them to snap-to and find out how much they’d Seen. When their eyes started to brighten from the caffeine, I said, “Things went completely awry tonight, you guys. What happened to you all? What’s the last thing you remember?”

“You were with the warlock in the clearing. You were kissing him,” one of the elders said.

“That wasn’t me.”

“We Saw you.”

“I decided not to complete my task and told Camellia.” I glanced over at our leader, who was sitting with her back to the fireplace, staring at me with a strange expression.

“But of course you did,” she said, standing in her typical regal manner. In a blink, she’d regained her impeccable poise; and even though her white pantsuit was a little wrinkled, her hair still fell to her shoulders in tidy ringlets. She didn’t look like she’d really been sleeping.

“No. I didn’t.” I glanced at my mom for support before continuing. “Mistress, you
know
I didn’t. I expressed to you that I had changed my mind after the enchantment. That I didn’t want to bewitch Logan into revealing his mark.”

Her stony expression remained, but I saw the flash of anger in her eyes at being challenged. I watched as she internally regrouped before cocking her head as if confused.

I clenched my fists. “You
forbade
me from abandoning my mission, Mistress. Then, when I called out for help, you left me trapped in quicksand.”

The skin on my arms stung as if I was inches away from the fire instead of many feet. Tension and uncertainty filled the room, but the group remained silent.

“Trapped in quicksand? I didn’t realize we had quicksand in Melas County.” There was an awkward silence. Then she continued, “I know nothing about a trap. I eased your mind, talked you through your concern, and then yes, like you stated, I explicitly forbade you from abandoning your quest.”

“So just answer my question, Camellia.
What was the last thing you saw?
”

“Lily,” Iris said, admonishing me to watch my tone.

“You were with Logan,” Camellia said. “Clearly, you’d had a change of heart. In fact, one might argue you were a little
too
eager to complete your task.” She glanced around the room, welcoming backup. The elders nodded knowingly, but Iris looked confused and uncomfortable.

I shuddered to think of my coven watching that scene. “That wasn’t me! Someone sent in a doppelganger to meet Logan in my place! Did you really not See what happened next?”

“Oh, dear,” Camellia said. She clenched her jaw, causing the veins in her neck to flare with concern.

“What?”

“This has happened before.”

“What has happened?”

“Post-enchantment psychosis.”

I choked back a laugh. “Excuse me?”

I felt her long-fingered hand on my shoulder, my skin chilled under her touch. “Oh, Lily. Perhaps we enchanted you too early. Perhaps that sort of energy…exchange” —she looked knowingly at a few elders in an irritatingly patronizing voice— “was too much for you.”

“It wasn’t too much for me! It literally
was not
me. Ask Logan! He knows! When I finally shattered the force field, and Jacob came and took him to the dungeon, and I had to go after him, and then—”

“Dungeon?” Iris’s question overlapped my retort.

“Force field?” Ivy asked with an
I don’t quite buy this twist
eyebrow raise.

This was chaos.

I glanced over at Orchid who looked at me and shrugged sympathetically. Other than the two of us, Ivy was the only Daughter of Light present. Why was she here anyway?

“The Warlock Academy does not employ a dungeon, Lily.”

“Well, you could call Logan up and ask him if he wasn’t SPENDING THE NIGHT IN THE WARLOCK ACADEMY’S DUNGEON.”

“Yes, and ‘oath-breakers’ are oft the most trustworthy in the community.”

“You’re the one who suspects him of being the Rognaithe! How can you talk about him like this?” Tears stung my eyes. I took a deep, focused breath. “I thought you guys could See us? So tell me what you Saw, after the doppelganger…did that stuff with Logan.”

“You blocked your mind from us, and we lost contact,” Camellia said, clearly lying. I suspected she had bewitched the coven so she could send in the doppelganger—to complete the mission I’d decided to refuse. But then who was Jude? How could I have seen two shifters in one night, if they weren’t connected?

“Is that true, that you lost contact?” I asked the elders. “Or did you just pass out?”

The coven looked confused. “I can’t remember,” Iris said.

Headthunk
. “Someone put a spell on you, guys. Probably the same person who planted the doppelganger.”

Iris’ eyebrows lowered in anger as she realized it was true. But the others seemed unwilling to believe me.

Camellia breathed out a slow, infuriating breath, apparently so the rest of the room would be ensured of her calm in the face of my crazy theories. Then she wrapped a blanket around my shoulders. “Orchid, dear, can you escort Lily up to bed now? She needs to sleep this off. Hopefully she’ll be…more herself in the morning.”

“Mom? There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m telling you the truth! It wasn’t me with Logan. You guys should be focused on Jacob. You know, after he shifted into that smoke creature, he sucked Logan into his cloak. He’s going to try to poison Logan’s mind before the Gleaning!”

I stopped. It did sound crazy. Crazy and overly defensive. Since they didn’t believe me—thanks to Camellia’s manipulation—I wasn’t willing to confess to the other part. The part about the Logan doppelganger, Jude. I’d have to save that for when I was alone with Iris later.

Camellia’s voice softened. She spoke her next words slowly, like she was talking to a very young, very dim child. “Did you detect a mark on the Son of Darkness, Lily?”

“No! I did NOT see the mark. I was NOT with Logan!”

Camellia was unfazed. “I thought you were with him in the ‘dungeon’?” She mocked me again with a slow, condescending smile. The elders were all nodding at me now, like I was rocking in the corner in a mental hospital. Why was Camellia doing this to me?

“I could Hear him, but I didn’t get to him. His friend Chance helped me escape.”

She sighed. “Of course. I apologize, Iris, for assigning your daughter to such a task when clearly she wasn’t ready. Orchid, please take her to bed.”

This meeting was downward spiraling into a ‘my word against hers’ nightmare. I had no proof I was telling the truth, and enough self-awareness to know, in my current frayed condition, that my credibility was at the very least questionable. I was accusing Camellia, our leader, of secretly sabotaging my mission—a mission that meant everything for our coven. Treading carefully was my only option. If I went quietly now, slept off this presumed “post-enchantment psychosis” and presented my story again in the morning when I was fresh, I could better articulate what had happened and perhaps win them over to my side.

“Fine, I’ll go. But I swear to you all, on the great spirits of the Seven Sisters, I am telling you the truth.”

Swearing on the Seven Sisters was a big deal. I could tell by their wide, now very alert eyes, it gave the elders pause.

It was the right move. Camellia narrowed her eyes at me until they became two lavender slits.

“Goodnight, dear,” she said, which meant We Are Finished.

“Goodnight, Camellia.” Which meant To Be Continued.

This was far from finished.

The relief of fleeing the tense living room overcame me as I walked to the foyer with Orchid. “You believe me, right?” I asked as she helped me up the stairs.

“Sure, Lil.”

“Really?”

“Well, yeah. I believe you think that’s what happened.”

“Hey.” I grabbed her forearm. “It
is
what happened.”

“If you say so, I believe you.”

I scanned her face to see if she was humoring me, but she looked sincere. “Thank you. But why would Camellia lie like that? She…”

But I never got to finish my sentence. My eyelids grew heavier with each step toward my room, and when my best friend tucked me in, I found myself lost in a dream, where I was left wandering in an enchanted forest, chasing a girl who looked like me, but wasn’t me—a decoy with unnaturally white hair, who wouldn’t reveal her true identity.

As I chased her, I noticed something I should have noted in real life. This simulation, this replica—she was dressed exactly like me. But while my arms were unadorned, lavender ribbons circled her willow-thin wrists.

I’d reach her, grabbing at a fistful of her white silk dress. She’d shriek with childlike laughter, only to disappear again. Always fifty feet ahead of me, her fingers shone opalescence. From a distance, I saw her crouch on the ground, painting strange symbols on trees so pale, they stood out in the darkness like glow sticks. Whenever I approached the drawings, they’d fade away.

***

“Hey you. I didn’t think you’d ever wake up.”

It was the best I’d slept in ages. One of those deep, utterly comfortable sleeps you never want to wake up from. And now this voice lured me back into consciousness. This deep, sexy, familiar voice. My eyes flew open, and saw, a little blurry but familiar mess of hair hanging over wily blue eyes. “Jude? How are you here?”

I was lying in his arms, my cheek against his smooth, lyrically inked chest. A white sheet was tangled loosely around our bare linked ankles.

He traced the outline of my jaw, tucking a stray piece of hair behind my ear. “You’re beautiful.”

“I’m naked.”

His eyes ran down my body. “So it seems.” He kissed my neck.

“Jude!” I protested, shivering. But even as I said it, I was scanning the side of his exposed thigh for the mark.

“Ahh, so I was right.”

“Huh?”

“You wanted to get me into bed to check for the mark, didn’t you? Well, here I am. Check away.”

What was I doing with Jude? Why did I crave his kisses?

He pulled me on top of him, kissing me deeper. I didn’t resist. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to. His kiss, his body, was like the ocean on a stormy day. I wanted to dive deeper.

A harsh breeze chilled my skin, drawing my attention to the parted curtains where wiry shadows drifted in through my open window, slithering across my wall like serpents.

I was suddenly alert.

Alert to Jude tangled next to me in Logan’s place.

I yanked the sheet up to cover my nakedness. “Why are you here?”

“To be with
you
, Lily.”

“Well, you can’t be. I don’t even like you.”

The tilt of his head, and his mildly entertained expression, told me he didn’t believe me. “The magic between us. You feel it, too. We are strong together, Lily. And we could be invincible. It’s almost as if you gave up your chance to find Logan’s mark on purpose, because you wanted to find it on me instead.”

“I didn’t even know you then.”

He shrugged like that was a moot point. “To step aside and offer the job up to your sexy doppelganger, generosity like yours hasn’t existed since…well, the Beginning. No wonder he thinks you’re so special. Offering up a nice slice of your own cake and a lick of the other you, too.”

“You’re disgusting.”

He rolled on top of me. “You sure you don’t want to check me for the mark?”

“Get off me,” I said.

Chuckling, he did what he was told. “One day you’ll ask me to kiss you. And maybe, just to spite you, I’ll be the one feigning protest.”

“I doubt that.”

“Even if I’m wearing this?”

With only a sheet wrapped around his waist, he stood next to the bed. On his hipbone, a mark appeared. Shaped like a broken-rose moon.

“It can’t be you,” I protested.

“Oh, it certainly looks like it though, doesn’t it?”

“There’s no way.” But what if it was? Our magic together was powerful, first in the dungeon, and then the residual magic at home when I brought Iris out of her bewitched slumber. My light magic with his dark blended effortlessly, and it was strong. Strong in a different way than it was with Logan. With Logan, the blending of our magic was all-consuming, bone-rattling exhilaration. But with Jude it was utter strength, pure and liquid. Easy.

What if Jude was right? What if I did subconsciously abandon my mission with Logan to keep exploring other options?

Were the Seven Sisters telling me something? Could Jude—this sarcastic, appallingly irresistible creature—be the one?

I heard a high-pitched giggle outside my window. Then she floated into view, white hair floating around her face, eyes like fireballs. My doppelganger.

“What is she doing here?” I asked.

Jude glanced at the girl then back at me, unfazed, while she hovered outside, staring at us. “She’s a warning.”

“A warning of what?”

“You know much about poetry, sweetheart?”

“A little.”

“Ah, let me educate you. According to both lore and his own recollections, the great English poet, Percy Shelley, saw his doppelganger in Italy. Saw him pointing silently out at the Mediterranean Sea. The same sea Percy drowned in shortly after.” He gestured toward the floating girl. “Harbingers of death, they are.”

The doppelganger, reached out a pale hand, calling to me.