Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
Our shovels hit the coffin just as the truck pulled up behind us. The lights were on, shining brightly to replace the long-gone daylight.
My lungs burned as I sucked in the sharp, crisp air. There hadn’t been time to empty my stomach of its content like my body so craved. No time to ask the million and one burning questions I now had buzzing through my head. Or inquire about every little device Rae wore on her waist.
“Nico, Jonah!” Rae called as she shed her jacket.
Her arms flexed, and I could practically feel the support they offered me in the void.
They carried that same unwavering strength now as she stood in the grave we’d half dug up.
While the guys pitched in to shovel out the rest of the dirt, I went to open the truck’s passenger door where Wilson sat.
My shirt was heavy with sweat, throat burning from my injury and heavy breathing.
“How’s it looking?” He’d swung himself over, so his legs hung out of the truck.
“Good,” I said. “We found the coffin. Or…a coffin?”
“The,” he said in hopes of manifestation.
“How many people do you think are buried on the ranch?” This could turn into a multi-day search unearthing skeletons.
“I’m putting it out into the universe that it’s just the one.” Wilson reached for my hand, capturing my full attention with it. “You’re not sleeping upstairs after this. We’ll convert the dining area into a room.”
“With all your manifesting, after tonight, we won’t have to worry—”
“Even if we get this thing, I want you where I can see you. Where can I help.” He squeezed my fingers tight before letting go. “At least for a couple of weeks. Maybe months without incident.”
It’s as close to a teary-eyed, runny-nose hug as we’ll ever get. As close to an I love you outside of a birthday or long road trip apart. “Via, you’re…”
All I have left. The only person who knew what it was like to live with our parents. The only one who understood what it was like to be loved but not prioritized by them. The one person who knew the toll of going so many places but being no one while in them.
“So are you,” I promised.
“Here!” someone’s voice called.
“Oh, I hate this part,” another one of them lamented.
“Go on,” Wilson said, not meeting my gaze as he nudged his chin toward the group. “Make sure they finish the job right. Dinner’s probably still warm.”
I smiled at the optimism. We were used to living day by day, but maybe after this, we could start talking about tomorrow.
“We really need to start talking,” I told him. There was so much lost time, and we’d taken after our parents, filling most of it with the unspoken. “For real.”
I didn’t want to end up like Mom and Dad, letting the silence fill in gaps we were perfectly capable of filling.
His smile matched mine. “I agree.”
I rejoined the team, finding the grave deeper and the coffin pried open. Before us lay a brittle skeleton. I lifted the front of my shirt, coughing into it as the clouds of dust and dirt coated my nostrils.
“Jonah?” Rae climbed out of the grave, her pants stained and her unbuttoned shirt revealing a black camisole and sweat beading her chest.
“What now?” she asked her youngest member.
Jonah dug out a tiny notebook, trembling fingers flipped through the pages. As he turned, Nico poured salt around the grave. December did the same, meeting him in the middle to close the circle.
“Salt barrier so when we summon it to the original resting place, it’ll be trapped—”
The wind picked up, pounding hard against our skin. The sky revealed no change in color, but the heavy fragrance of rain mixed in with the dirt and death.
“There’s activity back at the house,” December warned her cousin.
We all looked toward the house. The activity wouldn’t be apparent this far out without the motion-detecting lights. They flickered on and off as if a wire had short-circuited.
“He’s going to put up a fight.” Nico kneeled next to the grave, peering in.
My heart lurched, and I inched closer to Rae. Her expression didn’t change as she pulled out her phone, where she kept her notes.
“Keep going, Jonah,” she encouraged and typed a mile a minute on her screen.
He swallowed but continued, “Prep for burning with a starter and match.”
December had the starter and poured it into the grave. The wind picked up, some of it sending fluid back toward the stable.
The headlights of the truck flickered in tandem with what was happening back at the barn. Wilson looked just as surprised as we were, leaning over to shut off the engine. But even without the keys, the lights flickered.
“Everyone, take a breath.” Rae’s attention remained on her screen. “This is its last hurrah. It—”
The truck’s lights blew. I covered my face, trying to shield it from flying glass and plastic.
The wind howled so hard that it felt like a storm was mere minutes away. One by one, they turned on flashlights, and as soon as some of the light hit me, December yelled, “He’s here!”
“Boo,” someone snickered in my ear. My stomach dipped as a hot breath fanned across the back of my neck. Nico tried to get closer to me, a gust of air knocking him back. I scrambled to his side, cradling the shoulder he hit on the way down. My palm was sticky and red when I pulled it away from him.
“Octavia?” Rae asked.
“I’m fine! He’s hurt—”
“I’m good!” Nico pushed off the ground and grabbed my hand. “Inside the circle.”
He shone his light on the space where we’d just stood. Nothing but emptiness met us. But the grass lay flat, as if someone had stood in the same spot for days.
“Did you fucking see that?” Nico asked his team, his hand still around my wrist as he whipped his neck around on high alert. “It looked fully formed. I couldn’t see through it. This has a massive amount of power, Rae.”
“Stay in the circle,” she shouted over the blasting wind. Rae ran past us, saying something to my brother before closing the truck door and dumping salt around the vehicle.
“What do you mean?” My heart hammered as Nico shoved his hands through his hair. “Is this not typical?”
“This spirit, or whatever this thing is—”
“Whatever it is?” My eyes widened. “It’s not a ghost?”
“I’ve never seen a ghost do something like this.”
He pointed to the dark sky, highlighting how the howling wind wasn’t a classic scare tactic.
“It literally choked me two seconds ago,” I said. “If it could do that, couldn’t it… Mess with the weather?”
“It touched you after not making physical marks on a person after months of haunting. It’s one thing to push something over in our plane of existence and another to manipulate weather. To trap people in a dark void.”
“Nico!” Rae called as she stepped back into the circle. Her hand shook as she held her phone. “Matches.”
Nico heaved out a sigh and did what he was told. I tried to catch his gaze again, desperate to get him to continue what I suspected he was getting at: they were wrong.
He didn’t think this was Arnold. And if this wasn’t Arnold, would it matter if the bones burned?
It took three tries for Nico to light the match. He shielded it with his hand for as long as he could before dropping it into the grave.
Rae recited something from her phone, stumbling over her words. She glanced at me between lines, and I kept my eyes on her, willing myself to feel as strong and stable as her wide stance.
The flames in the grave crackled. Sparks flew as if the bones were firecrackers that couldn’t get off the ground. Jonah peered inside, a frown on his face as he said, “It’s not working!”
“Of course not, silly,” the distorted voice said.
A shadowy figure stood at the edge of the salt circle. It almost had a face and body between the clouds of black.
It reminded me of the edges of a nightmare.
When you couldn’t tell if something was real or not, but it didn’t matter, because the fear was real.
The fear tasted of something that could change your palate forever.
Even if I woke in my warm bed and this had all turned out to be a nightmare, it would change me forever.
“None of it ever did,” it said.
Then, with ease, it stepped into the salt circle.