Chapter 19 #2
“I remember loving your mother the moment I met her. She had only been in town for what, Edward? Mere days?”
“Wait,” Hazel cuts in, turning to face me. “Your mother wasn’t from here?”
“Oh, no.” Maeve shakes her head, her eyes meeting mine for a moment as if to check if I knew this information.
I only know because of that journal—the one I found inside the secret room.
She never spoke of any other place to us.
“She moved here that summer. I can’t recall what year it was, but she was pregnant with Finnick the next winter. She and Ambrose…” She shakes her head.
“They put us to shame,” Edward says after a sip of his drink. “They were in love, I believe, from the very moment they locked eyes.”
I find an easy smile on my face as the two of them gush about my parents. There’s something about knowing other people loved them just as much as I did that makes me feel like it was all real—that they really were who I thought they were, even if they had their secrets.
“Where did she move from?” Cedar asks. Her question sounds inquisitive, innocent, but I know she is digging for information, even if nobody else does.
Maeve tips her head, her brows pulling together. “I don’t remember,” she mutters. “Somewhere to the north, maybe?”
That makes my mind swirl. Did she never tell them of Arizaya either? Part of me wants to mention it, to ask if they know of it, but I don’t, not as Edward beams a smile over at me.
“Your mother was the epitome of an incredible woman.”
“Hey!” Marcie hits him in the leg. “What about Mum?”
Maeve and Edward share a sweet look. “Your mother is astounding,” he says, reaching out and pressing a kiss to the palm of her hand. “But Esther was incredible. She had this knack for knowing exactly what you needed and when you needed it. She could read people so well.”
I remember that about her. Even when I was upset as a child, she always knew exactly what was wrong, and exactly what would make me feel better.
“And she just cared,” Maeve adds. “She cared about everyone and everything. No matter what else she had going on, she always made sure that everyone knew that she cared.” Cedar grabs my hand as a tear slips down my cheek.
“You inherited all the best parts of her, Everleigh,” Maeve says, and another tear slides away as she sends a warm smile my way.
“I thought we were talking about good things,” Marcie whispers to her mother. “You made her cry.”
I let out a watery laugh. “No, it’s okay.” I wipe the tears away with my free hand. “I like talking about her.”
Edward sets down his drink on the grass, standing and reaching his hand out towards Maeve. “Come on then, let’s leave these young ones to it. Will you dance with me?”
She nods decidedly, wrapping her hand in Marcie’s before the three of them step into the celebrations.
I watch as Maeve smiles brightly, Edward spinning her around in the firelight. The two of them feel like a bright spot, like the beacon this entire community can turn to in the darkness.
“So,” Hazel starts, turning to face Cedar and me, “I wasn’t going to say it while Marcie was here, but there’s a shield who has been staring at us since you and Edward sat down.
” She nods towards the tree line, and I’m not at all surprised to see a familiar silhouette, but it’s not that of a shield.
A shield wouldn’t be standing with their hip leaned casually against the tree, one leg carelessly crossed over the other. A different kind of shiver works its way up my spine.
“That’s not a shield,” I say, my eyes glued on his figure. “That’s Rylan.” Cedar and Hazel whip their heads to stare straight at him.
I swear I can see his smirk from all the way over here, but his face is hiding in the shadows. All of a sudden, I find myself wary of him, of who he really is. I’ve found myself distracted by his charm; I’ve barely stopped to think about why he is always around me.
“Has he said anything more about that dagger?” Cedar asks, her eyes locked on the forest he sinks back into. “About why it’s depicted in your mother’s journal, yet somehow his mother had it?”
“One of the journals from the study?” Hazel asks, bringing her attention back to me.
I pull my lip in between my teeth, dragging my eyes away from the dark spot he left behind. This is my chance to keep Hazel out of this, but I can't bring myself to spew another lie to another person I care about. “Cedar found drawings in one of my mother’s journals,” I say.
Cedar shakes her head. “Esther had a talent for sketching; she drew everything and anything that meant anything to her. Not that we could decipher exactly what that was.”
“What do you mean?” Hazel tips her head warily.
“She would write things next to her drawings,” I explain. “But everything was written like a riddle, one that only she knew the answers to.”
“And this dagger of yours was in there?” Hazel lifts her jar of drink to her lips.
I nod. “But no riddle.” I turn to Cedar. “And no, I haven’t had a chance to ask Rylan. The only time I’ve seen him was when he and Silas were comparing shaft sizes at the tavern.”
Hazel spits out the moonshine from her mouth as Cedar snorts from beside me. “When they what?”
I merely roll my eyes. “I don’t know what their issue is.”
Cedar looks at me from under her lashes. “You are not that ignorant.”
I shake my head. “Rylan simply likes to rile Silas up,” I say. “It’s his version of fun.”
I can’t figure out his motive, and it is eating me alive.
Why did he give me that dagger? And did he know it was my mother’s?
Why does he find so much pleasure in annoying Silas?
Rylan seems to be one of those people who always seem one step ahead, like he knows something you don’t, and that thought makes me wonder what secrets of his own he is hiding under that unwavering smirk.
“What are we talking about?” Elara appears in front of us, her hair shining in the moonlight as she takes the seat that Maeve left empty.
“Everleigh’s love life.”
I just close my eyes, and tilt my face up to the sky. “May the gods save me.” Cedar and Hazel giggle from beside me, but Elara stays eerily quiet.
I open my eyes, and when I look over at her, her eyes are wide as she surveys me, her eyes roaming over my body.
The space between us feels charged, and my heart quickly picks up in pace as she stares at me, the look in her eyes almost vacant.
My brows pull together as I laugh more nervously than I intended. “Why are you looking at me that way?”
The bard’s music still fills the clearing, but it may as well be silent as I shuffle uneasily in my seat.
Hazel leans forward. “Elara?”
“What are you carrying?” Elara’s voice is low and wary as she speaks.
Cedar and Hazel flick their eyes between Elara and me, as if we are sharing a secret, but I’m not sure how we could be. I’ve only got three things hidden in my skirt pockets: the key to my cabin, the dagger which Elara has seen before, and…the vials. My heart is racing now.
“Sorry?” I breathe.
Elara looks around, as if checking our surroundings before she speaks once more, her eyes clearer than they were mere moments ago. “I don’t know how, but whatever you’re carrying…I can feel it.”
Hazel’s eyes narrow in the dim light. “What do you mean, you can feel it?”
Elara shakes her head, her eyes hazy as the lines between her brows deepen, almost as if she is trying to decipher what is going on in her own mind. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I feel drawn to her. Like something is pulling at me internally.”
Cedar’s eyes flick to mine. “Well, what are you carrying?”
I can feel my breath rushing in and out of my lungs as fear closes up my throat. I feel swallowed up by guilt, weighed down by the small vials in my pocket, and as I look into the eyes of my friends, I know I don’t have a way of walking away from this, not as they all watch me expectantly.
Perhaps they can help me figure out what is in them, because no matter how many of my mother’s journals I read, I can’t find a single word about it.
I look around us, my eyes catching on a gap in the forest, a dimly lit corner uninhabited by the dark shadows patrolling the celebration.
“Come with me,” I say, swiftly standing and disappearing into the trunks. Cedar snatches a jar from the string above her, setting it down in the middle of the small circle we all form as we huddle out of sight of the guards.
I take a deep breath, wondering how I can explain everything without rambling apologies for keeping this from them.
“So, when I went into my mother’s study, I found something else, something other than the journals.”
“Something like what?” Cedar’s voice is low.
“What study?” Elara whispers.
The rest of us exchange a glance. I can see in Hazel’s eyes that she thinks we can trust Elara, but I’m wary. I don’t know her from a bar of soap.
“Are you all really standing here silently deliberating whether you are going to share this with me?”
I grab her hand, pulling her further into the forest. Cedar picks up the jar, and she and Hazel follow. “Leave it,” I say. “It’s a beacon that will draw them right towards us.”
Cedar twists open the lid, letting the insects fly free before they follow me deeper into the dark night.
“I am about to tell you some things that make no sense at all. Some things that if you ever told anyone else could land the three of us at the end of a rope, and I really don’t fancy my end that way.
” In the sliver of moonlight illuminating her face through the trees, I see her cheeks pale. “Can we trust you?”
Hazel and Cedar share a glance before Elara looks over to them.
“You’ll be putting yourself at risk as well,” I add. “If you don’t want that burden, then go now.”
I can see her chest rise and fall as her mind works, but then she’s straightening her back, setting her shoulders and lifting her chin an inch. “You can trust me.”
I see Hazel’s shoulders drop in relief. “All right,” she says, taking the lead.
“Long story short, we went to Everleigh’s old house last week, and when we got there, we found this recipe of sorts, a mixture that all of us took by mouth.
Neither Cedar nor I saw anything, but Everleigh…
” Everyone's gaze floats over to where I stand.
“I saw something,” I say. “Like a…glowing light shining from the wall in my father’s study. I sort of…stepped through it.”
“You what?” Elara breathes.
“It sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud,” I say. “I’ve never tried to explain it before.”
“It sounds like…” She doesn’t say it out loud, the thing that all of us are thinking.
“I know,” I whisper. I know how it sounds, but I don't have any kind of explanation for it.
“She just kind of…disappeared,” Cedar adds after a quiet moment.
“I ended up in a study that looked like it hadn’t been touched in the five years that house has been empty.
I found an entire shelf of my mother’s handwritten journals, speaking about things that have me questioning everything I knew about her.
” I furiously blink the thought away. “But”—I take a deep breath—“I also found these.” I reach into my pocket and pull out the small black velvet bag.
I slowly pull it open, sliding the vials out onto my palm.
“What are those?” Cedar asks.
“That’s it,” Elara breathes and takes a mindless step towards me. “That is what I can feel.”
I can feel my mind racing, trying to form any kind of reason that she could feel the vials from where they sat in my pocket, but it doesn’t make a single ounce of sense.
“Is that blue?” Hazel wonders.
“I have never seen anything like it,” I say. “I haven’t found anything about them in my mother’s journals either, no riddle or rhyme.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Cedar’s eyes shine with anguish even in the dark.
The same reason I’ve tried to keep all of this to myself. “I’m sorry.”
Elara plucks one of the vials from my hand, holding it up to the moonlight, and just as her fingers connect with the glass, a swirl of what looks like shimmering starlight dances in the vial, lighting it up like stars glistening in the night sky. My lungs get stuck, my breath lost to me.
“It’s never done that before,” I mutter.
I can feel my heart pounding in my chest so loudly, it’s a wonder no one else can hear it. The glow reminds me of the fissure in the wall. It’s almost identical, except for the shimmer—this one being the colour of the stars, and the one in my old house reminding me of the sun on a golden evening.
Cedar picks up another of the vials, but it doesn’t shimmer when she touches it. Her eyes narrow as she assesses the one in Elara’s grip. “Pass me that.”
They swap vials, the one Cedar was holding lighting up as soon as she lays it in Elara’s palm, the other slowly fading back to its dark blue state as Cedar takes it from her.
Hazel takes the third vial, holding it up to the moonlight as it stays dark as the night sky above us. “Do you know what this is, Elara?”
Elara shakes her head, but her gaze remains fixed on the shimmering liquid.
“I’ve never seen it in my life, but it’s almost like…
” She blinks rapidly. “It’s like something inside my body calls to it.
As soon as I sat across from you, Everleigh, I could feel something tugging me towards you, like I knew something about you wasn’t as it usually is.
And now…” She almost loses focus. “I feel elated, almost as if my entire body is so relaxed simply by having this in my hands.”
Cedar, Hazel, and I exchange wary glances. If things seemed strange before, this has taken it up a notch. “Well, what in the gods’ names is it?” Hazel says.
I swallow thickly, my throat feeling tight. There is only one way to describe what I am seeing in front of me, and I don’t want to speak it.
“Something that we cannot speak about to anyone outside of each other,” I say, my voice low so no listening ears can hear.
“Even then, we need to be careful. Whatever this is.” I take the vials from Cedar and Hazel, slipping them back in the bag.
“It only takes one person to hear us talking about it, or to see it.” I hold my hand out, and Elara hesitantly places the vial in my palm, her gaze still lingering even as I slip the bag back into my pocket. “And we could be in serious danger.”
All three of them nod before jumping at the sound of a voice.
“Happy equinox!” The words come out slurred before the man responsible for them falls straight towards the ground.