The Promise (The Coven Series) (16 page)

Thirteen men and women.

The thirteenth daughter.

Lines
from Emily’s diary hit me.

A curse.
 
The thirteenth daughter.

Miscalculated.
 
I have
to get them both away from here.

Them?
 
My eyes
widened.
 
No.
 
She couldn’t be talking about me and Kay?

“CJ,
what’s wrong?
 
You look like you’re gonna
throw up any second.”

Thirteen.
 
Kay’s dreams of being burnt at the stake.
 
Emily’s dreams of darkness
coming.

“CJ,
you’re scaring me,” Kay’s voice floated around me.
 

He’s
here.
 
He’s in the book.
 
A boy she didn’t recognize.
 
He’s back? Mom had asked.

“Cassie
Jayne!”

It
couldn’t be.
 
He couldn’t be.
 
That was impossible, insane.

Kay
grabbed me by the arms and shook me.
 
“What’s wrong?” she yelled.

I
opened my mouth to scream my questions at her, but my stomach twisted
painfully.
 
Be quiet, it hissed at
me.
 
I shut my mouth and tried to calm
down.
 
I had to get a hold of
myself.
 
I needed to think, to sort this
out.
 
I needed to write.

“I’m
fine, Kay, just thinking.”

“What
the hell were you thinking about?” she demanded.
 
“You scared me, CJ.”

“I’m
sorry.
 
It’s just that your dream made me
remember the night Emily died.
 
She
almost burned to death in the car.”
 
The
lie rolled easily off my tongue.
 
I hated
lying.
 
It shouldn’t be this easy.
 
How easy was it for everyone around me?
 
For Kay maybe?

Kay
winced.
 
At least it was a lie she would
believe.
 
I’d told her afterwards how
horribly burned Emily had been.
 
The car
caught on fire somehow and she’d burned, her skin blistering just as Kay’s had
in her dreams.
 

“I’m
sorry.
 
I didn’t mean to bring up bad
memories.”

“They’re
not as bad as they were.”

“Time
will do that,” she gave me a half smile.
 
Her own mom had died of cancer when she was thirteen.
 
Thirteen.
 
There was that damn number again.
 

“I
guess.
 
I’m really tired, Kay.
 
Let’s just get some sleep, okay?” I needed
her to go back to sleep so I could think.
 

“Sure,”
she agreed and settled herself back down into the bed.
 
“Are we going to talk to them tomorrow?” she
yawned.

“No.”

She
sighed.
 
“Are you sure?”

“Yup.”

She
rolled over.
 
“Night, CJ.”

“Night,
MJ.”
 

I
lay there for a long time, listening as her breathing slowed and evened out
into deep sleep.
 
I hated to think Kay
was lying to me too.
 
She was my best
friend, the one person I trusted more than anyone since Emily’s death.
 
It hurt to think she might be a part of all
this, whatever this was.
 
I slipped from
the bed and grabbed a notebook and pen before ducking into my bathroom.
 
No telling how long she would sleep and I
needed to make sense of this.
 
I started
to write.

Things I learned from Emily’s diary
:

She
was dreaming of a darkness coming – but what?

A
boy appeared and then talk of a curse started and got the town all excited.

13
men and women betrayed – curse deals with the 13th daughter.
 
Connection?

The
town miscalculated – Emily knew the truth. Made a plan?

She
was afraid.
 
Someone came after her – in
her diary.

Things I know:

Something
weird is going on.
 
Dad is pushing me to
stay away from the Coven and Mom wants me to go.
 
People are pestering me more than usual to
go.

Dad
freaked at the thought of my going.
 
Went a little crazy.

Ethan – new in town.
 
Says he’s never been here before, but Mom says he has.

Who
is lying to me?
 
Why would either of them
lie?

Thoughts:

This
is crazy.
 
What I’m thinking is
impossible.
 
Did the Coven kill my sister
because she found out something she wasn’t supposed to know?
 
She said she couldn’t keep me and Kay safe.
 
From what?
 
The curse?
 
It had to have something to do with the 13
people who had been burned at the stake in Salem.
 
The 13th daughter – 13 to
signify the 13 that burned?
 
Revenge maybe?
 
She
said it was in the book.
 
What book?
 
Warded by magic?
 
It has to be in the meeting hall.
 
I need to get that book.
 
How?

Dad
knows something, but he won’t tell me.
 
Maybe he can’t tell me.
 
That vow
about protecting the Coven’s secrets with their lives?
 
Maybe he couldn’t say anything because he was
afraid they might kill him?
 
I’m all he
has left he says, that he can’t lose me too.
 
Did he know what they planned to do to Emily?
 
Is that why he didn’t answer his phone that
day?
 
Did he know they were going to kill
her?
 
Is that why he drinks himself into
oblivion?
 
Guilt?
 
Please, Daddy, please don’t have known.
 

Did
Mom know?
 
I can’t believe either of them
knew.
 
They loved her.
 
Mom cried for days afterward.
 
You can’t fake that kind of grief.
 
Emily was their child, their flesh and
blood.
 
I refuse to believe they helped
to plot her death.
 
If they knew about
it, then why have the cops show up at our door?
 
There would be no point to it.
 
They can’t have known.
 
They
can’t.

Well
damn.
 
I guess I do believe they killed
her.
 
The Coven killed her to keep her
quiet.
 
To protect
their secrets.
 
I have to find out
what’s going on.
 
It’s something
big.
 
Why else would the entire Coven
work on a truth spell?
 
The boy.
 
Emily
suggested they cast a truth spell.
 
Maybe
that’s why everyone was working on it.
 
The boy was back.
 
Ethan?
 
He did show up out of nowhere.
 
And he feels older than a normal teenager,
especially when he looks at me with those beautiful eyes.
 
No, it can’t be Ethan.
 
But Mom said he’d been here before.
 
Damn, I need that book Ems was talking about.

Emily’s
Book of Shadows.
 
She said she put
everything in there.
 
Where did she hide
it?
 
I know where?
 
No, I don’t.
 
Emily had hundreds of hidey holes same as me.
 
Where?
 
I have to find it.
 
It’d be so much
easier if I could just ask Kay for help, but every time I
try,
my stomach decides to shout, HELL NO.
 
Instincts kicking in?
 
Telling me not to trust my best friend?
 
The girl I love like a sister?
 
For now, I’ll keep this to myself, but I may need her help in the
end.
 
I just need time.

Ethan.
 
What am I going to do about him?
 
Is he lying to me or am I being
paranoid?
 
Damn his sorry hide.
 
How dare he?
 
How could he do that to me?
 
I
didn’t think I could ever hurt this much again.
 
I’m not falling in love with him.
 
I do love him.
 
I’ve known him a
week and I love him.
 
How insane is
that?
 
Everything that’s logical says
it’s too soon to love him, but I do.
 
That’s why this hurts so much.
 
I
love him.
 
He’s lying to me.
 
My gut says he’s lying.
 
What am I going to do?

Find
those books.
 
That’s what I’m going to
do.
 

It’s
all I could do at this point.
 
I got up
and turned off the bathroom light.
 
I put
my notebook in my bookbag.
 
I would start
looking first thing in the morning.
 
I
crawled into bed beside Kay and whispered a quiet prayer to whoever was listening.
 
I’d need all the help I could get.
 

Chapter Thirteen

A
week and a half later, I had nothing to show for my efforts at playing Nancy
Drew.
 
I’d searched everywhere for
Emily’s Book of Shadows.
 
Nothing.
 
I’d scoured
the attic, torn through the basement, and had ransacked the old tree house in
the woods behind our house.
 
The only
thing I found was dirt and spider webs.
 
Feeling useless and frustrated, I made my way to the cemetery.
 

Dad
must have been here earlier.
 
A bouquet
of carnations decorated the grave.
 
They
had always been her favorite flower.
 
I
traced her name.
 
She’d died three years
ago today.
 
October 15th.
 
Tragic accident.
 
Tragic accident my ass.
 
No, my sister had been murdered, but I
couldn’t prove it.
 

“I’m
so sorry, Ems,” I whispered.
 
“I’m
trying, but I can’t find it.”

The
wind whistled through the trees, a sad mournful sound.
 
There was no other answer.
 
I didn’t expect one.
 
She’d given me the only clues she could.
 
It was up to me to solve the mystery and find
her book.
 
But where?
 
I’d looked in all the obvious places with no
luck.
 
I’d even climbed up into the old
tree she’d fallen out of and broken her arm.
 
I thought I knew all her hidey holes, but apparently not.
 

“You
were right, Emily, about everything.
 
It’s not nonsense.
 
I went to
Meg’s initiation ceremony.
 
I felt
everything you said I would.
 
I want to
explain it all away, but I can’t.
 
It was
too real.
 
I felt them, the
Elements.
 
They greeted me when I entered
the circle and then they went through me twice more during the ceremony.
 
I can’t even describe what it felt like.
 
It was amazing and scary as hell.
 
I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.
 
So sorry.”

I’d
thought long and hard about that night.
 
The things I’d seen and felt couldn’t be swept away by logic.
 
They were real.
 
I couldn’t deny it anymore.
 
She’d be so happy that I’d finally started to
believe in the power of the Elements.
 
I
just wished she were here so I could hear her say I told you so.
 

“I
miss you so much, Ems.
 
There’s so much
going on, but more than anything, I really wish you could tell me what to do
about Ethan.”

“So
do
I
.”

My
head snapped up.
 
He stood there, not
more than ten feet from me.
 
How did he
do that?
 
Sneaking up on me seemed to be
a habit of his.
 
As usual he looked yummy
and it was all I could do to remember to breathe.
 
He was wearing a pair of faded jeans and his
Hard Rock Café tee shirt – my favorite.
 
It hugged his muscles and showed every ripple of his abs when he
moved.
 
His hair hung in gentle waves
around his face and his eyes, his eyes looked haunted and worn.