Chapter 19 Toolie
Toolie
We reached the graveyard just before midnight, the world blue-black and sodden, the sky holding its piss until the last possible second.
I could see our breath, ghosted out in front of us like warnings.
The headstones crouched in the mist, leaning at angles that made them look like they were listening.
Every step forward, the ground sucked at my boots, and the cold worked up through my soles and into the hollows of my bones.
Catherine kept her eyes down, counting each stone with a little flinch.
I stayed two paces behind, watching the tremor in her hands as she squeezed Nora’s fingers.
Maeve carried nothing, not even a coat, just stalked ahead as if the idea of being cold were a personal insult.
Declan limped after us, face set and grim, the old wound leaking through his makeshift bandage.
Every few steps, he’d mutter a prayer under his breath, but I don’t think he expected God to hear it.
Moab was waiting at the edge of the plot, half-hidden by a weathered yew.
He’d lost some weight, and his cheekbones stuck out sharp, eyes sunk in bruised shadows.
His hand hovered near his waistband, where the knife from a dead guard was tucked.
He didn’t wave, didn’t speak, just nodded once and scanned the trees, every inch a man expecting company.
Scarlette and Mama Celeste had set up shop in the center of the oldest part.
They’d chalked a perfect circle onto the mossy flagstones and ringed it with tea lights and old beer bottles repurposed as candleholders.
The inside of the circle looked like a witch’s chem lab—little jars of salt, bundles of dried herbs, scraps of animal bone picked clean.
Scarlette was hunched over, hands busy breaking up some blackish root with the handle of a kitchen knife.
Her hair was out of its usual ponytail, and it made her look younger, or maybe just more tired.
Mama Celeste kneeled cross-legged, palms flat on the ground, muttering to herself while she ground something in a mortar.
Moab’s eyes tracked us in, then flicked to Catherine, then back to me. “You brought the whole damn crew,” he said, voice gravelly but low enough not to carry.
“No other choice,” I replied. “It’s now or never.”
Moab looked over my shoulder at Maeve, who was already glaring at him. “Nice to see you too, sister,” he said, deadpan.
Maeve just snorted. “Don’t start.”
Nora tugged on Catherine’s arm, trying to hide behind her, but Catherine kept her spine straight, chin up. The way her knuckles bled white on my hand, I knew she was hanging on by threads.
Scarlette stood, wiped her hands on her jeans, and met us at the edge of the circle. “You made it,” she said, like she hadn’t believed it until now.
“Barely,” I said. I felt the ache in my ribs every time I breathed, like some of Hale’s men were still working me over in that cell. “Is it ready?”
“Ready as it’ll ever be.” Scarlette gave Catherine a once-over, then Maeve, then me. She nodded toward the circle. “If you’re coming, you need to sit. Don’t break the line.”
Catherine hesitated. “Will it hurt?”
Scarlette’s laugh was short. “Not at first.”
I led Catherine in. She stepped across the chalk, pulling Nora with her, and sat cross-legged just opposite Scarlette.
I stayed by Catherine’s side, one arm around her shoulder, careful not to touch the raw bandage at my own wrist. Maeve refused the invitation, staying just outside the circle, arms folded.
Declan looked at the chalk line, then up at me. “I’m not coming,” he said, soft. “My place is here.”
Catherine looked back at him, pain sharp on her face. “You saved us.”
He gave her a sad smile. “Don’t thank me yet.”
Mama Celeste finally stood, rising with a grace that made her seem weightless.
Her skirt swirled around her ankles, catching the light from the candles, making her look part witch, part goddess.
She addressed us all, voice big and round and full of command.
“The window closes with dawn. We must complete the ritual before first light, or you will remain here—forever.”
Nora squeaked. Catherine drew her closer. I felt the fear roll off both of them in waves.
Scarlette started laying out jars, arranging each one just so. “It works like this,” she said, speaking to us but really just narrating her own actions. “The circle keeps us anchored. The herbs blunt the edges. The blood does the rest.”
Moab spat into the grass. “Always with the blood.”
“Always,” Scarlette agreed. She pointed to my arm, where the shamrock tattoo was still crusted with old blood. “Yours first, Toolie. Then Catherine. Then whoever wants to follow.”
Maeve made a disgusted noise, but didn’t leave.
Mama Celeste fished a bone needle from her pocket and beckoned me forward.
I didn’t hesitate. After everything, what was one more scar?
She pricked my palm, then Catherine’s, then smeared both with a handful of salt and herb.
The sting was sharp, almost electric, and for a second I thought my heart stopped.
Celeste’s eyes went black, pupil swallowing iris. She held our hands together over a bowl, let the blood drip, then whispered words in a language I didn’t know. The wind picked up, scattering the candle flames. The grass outside the circle rattled, alive with invisible feet.
I looked at Catherine. Her lips were blue, but her eyes were clear, fixed on the sky above.
“Don’t let go,” I said.
“Never,” she whispered.
Moab stood sentry at the edge of the circle, knife drawn. Scarlette kept working, adding more powder, more salt, burning old scraps of paper, and tossing them into the bowl.
“Why does it smell like piss?” Moab muttered.
“Because you’re standing next to a graveyard, and you’re an asshole,” Scarlette shot back.
Even Mama Celeste smiled at that, a quick flash of teeth.
I felt the world tip. The shadows around the headstones got deeper, black eating at the edges of everything.
The mist thickened, curling around our feet, sneaking up over the stones, and winding through the branches.
The air was cold and dry, and I felt every rib, every stitch of pain from the last week.
Mama Celeste intoned, “The Veil is thin. Speak your truths. Leave nothing behind.”
I looked at Catherine, then at the others. “If we do this,” I said, “we don’t go back. Not to the old world, not to the old rules. Whatever waits for us on the other side—it’s ours, not theirs.”
Scarlette nodded, solemn. “That’s the point.”
Moab kept scanning the tree line, eyes never resting. “If we have to fight, we fight.”
Maeve sneered. “You always want a fight, don’t you?”
Moab looked at her, not smiling. “It’s better than waiting to die.”
Silence. Even the wind quit. The only sound left was the hiss of the candles, the tick of cooling sweat on my skin, the pulse in my wrist, slow and regular.
Mama Celeste drew a pattern in the air, fingers trailing blue sparks. “It’s time.”
Scarlette handed out slips of paper, one for each of us in the circle. “Write your name,” she said, “and one thing you never want to lose.”
Catherine watched me, then wrote her own. Nora did, too, tongue poked out in concentration. Scarlette finished hers in two seconds flat.
Mama Celeste collected them, one by one, then burned each slip in the flame. The smoke curled up, thick and sweet, leaving a taste of something like clove on my tongue.
“The circle is set,” Celeste announced. “Now we wait.”
We waited. The world hung in the balance, the stars pulsing overhead, the wind dead, the air so clear I could see my own reflection in the black of Catherine’s eyes.
That was when the noise started in the trees. Not loud, but heavy. Bootfalls, and the sound of something breaking through the bramble. Moab went rigid, all senses tuned to kill.
“They’re coming,” he said, voice notched up a half-step.
Scarlette’s hands moved faster, breaking the last of the root and tossing it into the center. The candle flames bent sideways, almost flattened by the pressure.
I held Catherine tighter, and she pressed her face to my shoulder.
Mama Celeste’s voice came out cold and hard. “We don’t move. No matter what.”
The boots got closer. I could hear English, shouted orders. “Fan out! Find them!” Someone fired a shot into the air, and the sound cracked across the graveyard, echoing off the stones.
Maeve flinched, but she didn’t run. Moab raised his knife and stood between us and the line of trees.
Scarlette’s eyes locked on mine. “We finish this,” she said. “No matter what.”
I nodded. My jaw ached from clenching. I could feel my own heartbeat in my ruined wrist, in my chest, in my head.
The candles guttered, then went out, all at once.
The circle held, but outside, the world exploded into chaos—men yelling, boots stomping, gunfire and the high, animal wail of someone getting cut open.
Mama Celeste started the chant, low and rhythmic. Scarlette joined, then me, then Catherine, our voices stacking up into a wall against the outside.
We didn’t move. We didn’t let go. Even as the air inside the circle turned black and thick, even as the night filled with screams and the stink of cordite and blood.
Somewhere out there, the English closed in. But here, in the circle, all that mattered was Catherine’s hand in mine, the tremor in her body, the promise that if we did this, we’d never be apart again. Even if it meant leaving the world behind.
I barely had time to brace before the graveyard lit up like Armageddon.
The English came through the trees in a line, boots slapping the mud, torches arcing wild shadows across the stones.
Hale led them, dark coat whipping behind him, his face set in the same contemptuous sneer I’d seen in the torture chamber.
He moved different than his men—deliberate, never ducking, eyes fixed on us as if he could smell the weakness.