Chapter 46
46
Sonny
There’s a grave marked with my name in the town cemetery. It sits between my three brothers, the only one out of birth order. That feels like a jab against me from the Midnight Syndicate. As if they knew I’d make my way out here eventually to pay my respects, and they wanted to grate on my nerves a bit, the same way I’ve grated on theirs.
It certainly worked.
I wrapped my hands around the granite stone and ripped it out of the earth, my small muscles fueled by pure rage.
It was heavy. So, so heavy.
But I had time.
I dragged it through the cemetery, down the street, and around the corner.
Right to Mayor Payne’s lush front lawn.
I drug it up against the gardens his wife spends hours tending to.
Then, I set it up among the dazzling blossoms and left it there.
Their attempts at silencing me will never work. I’ll scream about their betrayal until my last breath. And after that, I’ll bellow it into the heavens.
I woke up in a terror this morning, coated in sweat and gasping for breath, my sheets tangled around my legs.
I was drowning, forced deep beneath the surface of the black water and thrashing around. My hands and legs flailed in all directions, reaching for something— anything to grasp onto and pull my head above water.
My mother would say that a dream about dark water was a bad omen. That they meant death was coming for someone you loved dearly.
Her superstitions always seemed so silly back then.
Don’t put your shoes on the table, or you’ll get bad luck.
Don’t leave your purse on the floor or you’ll lose money.
Don’t throw away money because you’ll tell the universe it means you don’t want it.
Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder, or you’ll end up in an argument.
I was a child, incapable of wrapping my mind around the gravity of such things. Now, they terrify me. I live my life around these silly little anecdotes and this morning, I could practically hear her somber voice warning me to call everyone I loved and check in.
So, I called Poppy. She didn’t answer.
Which only made my anxiety worse.
In fact, she hasn’t answered since she left me alone in Briarwood with her parents. We never got to have that conversation about what Divina said, or why she’s been acting so weird. I woke up Friday morning to find her room empty, her bags missing, and Divina screaming in my face, asking where she went. Then, I panicked. I booked the first flight out and left without saying goodbye. All I’ve gotten as proof of life are a few impersonal texts apologizing for missing a call, or empty promises that she’ll call me later.
With Ava, Beatrix, and Jonah’s help, we make it through the rest of Finley’s journals in record time.
Ava is reading the final entries of the last one out loud while I take notes and Jonah and Beatrix listen on my couch.
“It’s like I can feel him losing his mind with every page,” Beatrix says with a sad sniffle. “Who puts a kid through that kind of hell?”
I clip my pen on the edge of the notebook. “I wonder if this Midnight Syndicate is still around.”
“They have to be,” Jonah insists. “Think about what crazy Matilda said. They’re the ones eating the cows without giving a damn what the consequences are.”
Beatrix’s head snaps in his direction. “She’s not crazy,” she insists.
“She seems pretty off-kilter,” he scoffs.
“Then, I must be certifiable, right?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
She leans forward in her seat and points to her chest. “Since coming here, Matilda is the only person who has ever made me feel normal for my interest in that stuff. She taught me how to practice my craft safely, and never once questioned my sanity. Not like you and Mom and Dad have. You’re Luminara, too. Just because you don’t seem to have the same set of gifts doesn’t mean you can judge me for mine.”
“Come on, Bea. I’ve never said anything negative about all your little Voodoo rituals,” Jonah dismisses.
“See! It’s not Voodoo, Jonah. You have no idea how insulting that is,” Beatrix whines, crossing her arms.
“Either way,” Ava interrupts. “Jonah has a point. Matilda may have been talking about the Midnight Syndicate when she said all that. Maybe we should ask her about it now that we know what we do.”
“What are we trying to accomplish?” Jonah asks for the umpteenth time. “This kid is long gone. The school is already here, and even if this Midnight Syndicate is real, how is it any of our business?”
Ava shakes her head. “These journals recount a very different history than what we’ve been told about the town and the university. We owe it to the people who suffered and every future student who comes here to ensure that the events are recorded accurately and respectfully to those who have passed.”
“Spoken like a true historian,” Jonah mutters.
“I feel a responsibility to this kid,” I add, tapping on the cover of the journal. “Maybe it’s because I’m the one who found the journals, I don’t know. I just feel like he deserves to have his side told.”
“Matilda can channel the dead. I wonder if she can reach him,” Beatrix chirps.
Jonah rolls his eyes.
This time, Beatrix doesn’t bother arguing. Instead, she flings her fist out and punches her brother in the arm. He cries out, cradling his bicep with his opposite hand while Ava shouts at them to stop fighting.
My eyes shift back to the journal.
“Let’s go today,” I say, hopping off the couch.
The three of them stare at me like I’ve got three heads. “Today?” Ava asks hesitantly, tracking my movements as I grab up my phone and keys from the side table and stuff them into my purse hanging on the back of my door.
“Yes. It’s Saturday, so we’re allowed. It’s a new month, so Jonah and I can visit town again. Seems like the perfect time.”
“I thought we were having a Housewives marathon,” Jonah complains, pushing out his lower lip in a pout as he casts longing glances toward my TV.
“We can do that tomorrow. We all know none of us has any plans.” Technically, I do with Dr. Whitlock, but they don’t need to know about that. We already share too much, and I don’t want to tell anyone else until I talk to Poppy about it.
Beatrix and Ava share a look, and when they realize there’s no real reason not to go, they each shrug.
“I guess we’re going to see Matilda,” Beatrix concedes.
An hour later, we’re walking through the front door of Matilda’s shop. She’s standing in the front window, half-heartedly sorting through crystals with one eye on the door, as if she expected us. We hardly share a greeting before she waves her hand to follow her to the, her expression somber.
“We wanted to see if you could connect with a boy who passed quite some time ago,” Beatrix explains with a shaking voice as we pass through the store. “As a fellow Luminara, we hoped you could help.”
“I know who you’re speaking of. He lived a long and fruitful life and does not want to be disturbed again until he can go into eternal rest.” Matilda’s words are clipped, leaving no room for argument.
“It would be nice if we could ask him some questions,” Beatrix tries anyway.
Her tone is laced with an irritation I would have never expected her to have toward Matilda. It just proves how much Finley has come to mean to all of us.
Turning on her heel to face me, Matilda says, “You know the answers.”
“If that were true, I wouldn’t be here.”
“You have the gift of sight, yes? Aeternum blood flows through your veins,” she prods, raising a brow as if she already knows. “Perhaps something else, as well.”
I scowl, shaking my head in denial. “No. No, that’s not what that is.”
“Sure, it is. You are a window to the past, just as your ancestors were.” Shaking her finger, she adds, “You know, your mother could hear their voices.”
On instinct, my eyes flick over toward my friends at the mention of my mom. Somehow, I know she isn’t referring to Divina, though I had no idea my mom had experience with oddities like mine.
Ava crosses her arms. “No, Poppy is Valerian,” she insists, sucking in her upper lip.
Lowering her voice, Matilda tilts her head toward them and looks at me. “Should we speak alone, or are you ready to tell them?”
“Tell us what?” Beatrix prods.
“You’ve hardly given me a choice, have you?” I bite out, glaring at the old woman.
With a soft, sad smile, she nods. “There is no going back if you choose to move forward. Not after you’ve made the same choice as your mother. She’s so proud of you, by the way.”
“Poppy?” Ava pushes, her voice raising with suspicion.
I run a hand down my face, irritation grating at my very core. I can’t do this. Not without talking to Poppy first.
Where the hell is she?
“I’ll explain everything when I can,” I promise them before I turn back to Matilda. “You knew we were coming. You claim I have the answers, but I don’t. I need help. What are we supposed to do?”
Matilda gives us her back as she rifles through the drawers of a desk that’s sitting against the back wall. It’s so buried beneath a mountain of boxes, I completely missed it when we first walked in. Chancing a look toward my friends, I quickly avert my eyes when I’m met with three separate suspicious glares.
“Here it is.” Spinning on her bare heel, she holds up an amber, glass vial with a corked lid. “You need to go into the woods alone, drink this, and let them show you what you need to see.”
“The woods are forbidden,” Ava dismisses.
“Yeah, there’s a reason they’re called ‘The Dead Woods.’ Nothing survives them,” Jonah adds with dramatic annunciation.
Without looking back at my friend, Matilda frowns at me. “Take this, and you’ll understand why.”
“How am I supposed to get into the woods without being caught?”
And alone? Who knows what lives out there? There’s obviously a good reason they’ve banned students from going in them, like Jonah said.
She shoves the vial into my palm, closing her fingers tightly around mine. “Trust me, no one is actually watching.”
I stare down at our interlocked hands, silently debating if any of this is real. If it is, do I really think it’s worth undoing all the work Poppy and I have put into making this happen?
“Why are you the only person in Nocturne Valley with gifts?”
It’s bothered me since we first visited her before the Falconry. Why, in a town full of people considered Null, is she so privileged?
“I’m not the only one. It just appears that way.”
A vague, non-answer.
“What happened to everyone else?”
“ You did.” She opens her arms toward the four of us. “Ravenshurst happened. The powers that be decided the collective energy should be directed toward the legacies of the elite. They took too much and left us with nothing.”
“You blame us for their lack of gifts?” Ava asks, dumbfounded.
“No one knows who to blame. All they know is that this town was once a beautiful, thriving place that was beaming with energy. Now, it feels like a graveyard, and we’ve been forced into oppression so you and your future generations could thrive. You can imagine how that might conjure up some resentment.”
“We had no control over that,” Ava insists, her brows furrowed and fingers wrapped in such tight fists, her knuckles whiten.
“And yet, you all continue to accept your invitations to Ravenshurst. You continue to support the machine that has stripped us of so much. You serve as a cog, then go off on your merry way, back to your lives in the outside world—where we are not welcome—and you thrive. You live freely and openly, while we remain oppressed.”
None of us has a response to that, though I can guess what they’re all thinking.
They didn’t know. No one at Ravenshurst knows what they’re contributing to when they receive those letters. They have no reason to believe there is anything they should do, but celebrate.
When she’s sure we won’t come back with a rebuttal, she continues.
“The Founder’s Day Festival is this week, so everyone will be distracted with that. They purposely hold a majority of it over the workweek. That way students will be caught up in finals and won’t be able to attend the main events,” Matilda rambles, pulling her hands away from me to put some distance between us. “We spoke already about how you’ve been treated by my fellow Nocturnians. I feel compelled to tell you that it has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with the people in power. They fear you and the threat you pose to their agenda. They’ve manipulated our small town into fearing you as well. Why else do you think they’ve restricted your time here?”
Miss Mercer did say it was for our safety. Was she actually trying to tell me that the people of Nocturne Valley were dangerous?
“Why wouldn’t they just shut Ravenshurst down if they’re so hellbent on keeping us out?” Jonah rubs his jawline in thought. I’m surprised he’s buying this.
Matilda offers him a tight smile. “Your tuition goes much further than our measly taxes.”
We all share a look, silently debating if we should outright ask her about the Syndicate that Finley refers to. Before I realize that we’ve settled on doing it, Beatrix clears her throat.
“Are you referring to the Midnight Syndicate?”
Matilda nods once. “I am.”
“They’re real?” Ava blanches, tugging on the neckline of her shirt.
“Absolutely. And they’re much closer than you realize.” The last statement is directed toward me.
“What do you mean?”
“The Midnight Syndicate reaches far beyond Nocturne Valley. You would be surprised who is a part of it. Everything from family members, friends . . . Lovers.”
Beatrix scrunches her nose. “Trust me, none of us have any lovers,” she laughs.
Matilda offers her a tight, condescending smile. “Sure.”
Shaking my head, I quickly change the subject before Matilda tattles on me once again. “What am I supposed to do after the woods?”
Her teasing expression sobers. “You’ll know.”