Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
GWENNA
On the fourth day, dawn returns.
I open my eyes to light, sunlight, streaming through the gauzy curtains in my room, watery and weak but undeniably there. And I almost fall to my knees and weep.
Classes resume. Everything snaps back to life, people chattering and gasping over creepy as hell and finally and felt like we were in a horror movie.
When I get to my Art History class, usually sleepy and slow-paced, it’s buzzing: faces animated, gossip flying.
Even Ponytail Brett seems to have lost his usual mannered composure.
“That was so weird, right?” he murmurs, to me or to no one in particular. “This is all so freaking weird.”
I can barely focus to take notes, as if anything about the late Bronze Age could matter now. Although maybe it does, I think dully. Maybe there’s some magical key or amulet or something the Lady will want me to find.
That’s all I can really think about. The full moon. That night.
When darkness falls, around four or so, I’m in the study with Callahan, and I can feel the anxiety clenching around my stomach.
Cal looks up. “Are we…still going out?” he asks. “To try and talk to her?”
My gaze drifts out the window, to the lake and the distant trees on the other side. The crumbling shape of the ashen branches scorched by that lightning strike.
“I think we have to.”
And so, hours later, we gather, five of us, on the southern shore of the lake. The same stretch of sand where I dived under the waves for my so-called swim test with Elena and saw her for the first time.
Vivian.
Kingston has barely spoken, and Callahan’s been pacing. And Kai…
“I don’t like this,” Kai’s muttering. “I don’t like this.” He shoves his hands in his pockets.
“Shut up,” Lanz says irritably. “We know you don’t. And you haven’t come up with a better idea, so…” He gives a little wide-eyed shrug. “We’re here. Deal.”
Kai presses his lips together but says nothing.
It’s cold, fiercely cold and still, but not freezing. The lake is moving—liquid water, not even so much as a few chunks of ice bobbing around. Above us, the sky is black and clear, the moon luminous. It would be beautiful if not for the circumstances. Or, no, it is beautiful, but terrifying.
“Sorry I’m late,” Morgan says, jogging to a stop. She’s bundled in a coat I haven’t seen before, a white wool trench that falls to her knees, bright and almost glowing in the moonlight. “I had a lot to pull together.”
“Oh no, take your time,” Kai drawls. “You were the one who insisted it be the stroke of midnight.”
“I said around midnight,” Morgan mutters. “I just didn’t want anyone to see us and wanted the moon to be in full view.”
I really have had enough of their bickering right now. “What’s the plan here?” I say, to Morgan more than to Kai. “How are we starting this?”
Morgan looks me up and down. “What are you wearing?”
I glance at my body. My coat—obviously—and then some combination of sweater and skirt. “Clothes?”
“Gwenna.” Morgan wraps her arms around herself and sighs. “I said white. I said everyone should wear white, for that matter,” she adds, glancing around at the four of them, “but I assumed all of you would ignore me.”
Oh. Right. She did say something to that effect, I remember now. Shit. “I don’t own anything white,” I say, a little defensively.
“I know. That’s why I came prepared.” Morgan stoops to her satchel as a low, chill stream of air washes over us, ruffling everyone’s hair, and when she straightens back up, she’s holding something long, gauzy, and…white.
A dress.
“One of these days, I’m going to cut you off from borrowing my clothes,” she says. “But. Here.” She pushes the dress into my hands.
I stare down at it. “You want me to put this on?”
Morgan blinks.
“Here, I mean,” I say. “Now?”
“She’ll freeze,” Lanz says, looking almost incredulously at the dress, its nightgown-like sleeves and long, loose skirt.
“She won’t,” Morgan says, and brandishes something else from her satchel: a perfume bottle, presumably one of her magic ones that keeps you warm after a few sprays. “What is this, amateur hour?”
“I don’t get why clothes even matter.” Kai mutters. “This some kind of fashion show?”
Kingston shakes his head. “Let me speak to her, Morgan. I’ve done it—”
“Stop!” I yell. “Stop.”
My voice rings against the surface of the lake, ricochets back off the distant dark trees.
“We’re not doing this halfway, okay?” I say at last, shivering even under my scarf. “If this is what it takes, this is what it takes. Right?” I glance at Morgan, whose arms are folded, expression hard.
“Every Sunday,” she says, slow and deadly. “All of you show up in the chapel with your shoes shined, your shirts pressed, and your ties tied. Your priests come in with their collars and their robes and their gold jewelery around their necks. Is that a fashion show?”
Kai rolls his eyes. “Come on. That’s—”
“No,” Morgan answers for them, eyes flashing. “No, of course not. It’s about respect. It’s about dignity. It’s about sanctifying the practice, about reverence for the tradition, and…and if you can’t do that, then I don’t know why I’m even bothering to—”
“Morgan.” I grab her upper arm, half-worried she’s doing to lean back and deck one of them. When she doesn’t, I look at the four of them. “Guys. Please.”
No one speaks. I let Morgan go, and she exhales hard, composing herself.
“Look,” she says, tone more even now. “King. Kai. Everyone. I’m just trying to give you an outside chance, here. You can do this properly and respectfully and maybe get her attention, or you…show up sloppy, get ignored, and nothing changes. Is that what you want?”
“No.” I answer before any of them can. I take a deep breath, nod, and shuck off my coat. “Let’s just get it over with.”
It’s strange, peeling off all your clothes in the middle of a cold, dark, night. Surreal, really, like a naked-in-class nightmare with a macabre twist. But I do it, because at this point, I’ll do whatever has to be done.
No one stops me. Not even Kai. What they do, instead, is circle around me. Backs turned, eyes averted. Shoulders together. A wall of black wool that hides me from view, and almost, almost shields me from the cold.
I fling out an hand in Morgan’s direction, and she supplies the dress, which I slip over my head. It’s light, insubstantial. Not outerwear in the slightest.
“I’m decent,” I say, and the four of them part.
“Good.” Morgan strides forward, spraying a heavy cloud of perfume over me that settles with a tingling feeling on my exposed skin: collarbones, hands, bare feet.
I wrinkle my nose, but manage to resist the sneeze—somehow, it feels like that’d ruin the moment—and instead submit to Morgan’s motioning me forward, lifting something else to my head.
“Scarlet flax,” she says. A wreath—flowers. Small red trumpets of blossoms strung together in a circlet.
A crown.
Gently, she sets it onto my head, smoothing my hair with her fingertips and easing it in place.
“Perfect,” she murmurs. “You ready?”
If I have to be ready, then I’m ready, I think.
Outwardly, I just nod. Morgan smiles slightly.
“Good.” Taking both my hands in one of hers, she gestures the others back. “Shoo. Go…over there somewhere. Cooties,” she adds, in a low voice so only I can hear. “We can’t have boys throwing off the vibe.”
I giggle in spite of myself. The four of them share a look, but collectively seem to agree, and take a good few steps back.
“I feel like we’re at a slumber party,” I whisper as Morgan leads me to the edge of the water. “Trying to get Bloody Mary to show up in the mirror or something.”
As soon as I say it, I worry that I’ve offended her—making light of the practice, or whatever, but Morgan grins.
“Yeah, pretty close.” Right at the edge of the water, she lets me go, and steps aside so there’s nothing between me and the expanse of the lake. I’m feeling the cold a little, perfume notwithstanding, little tendrils of it seeping in at the edges of the dress. Shivering, I look at Morgan.
“Now what?”
“Now…” She considers. “Hm. Well, you know how to pray, right?”
It’s such a strange question. But I nod. “Sure.”
“Well, same idea.” Morgan sweeps a hand out in front of us. “You’re just asking for what you want. Focusing intently. Entreating the power that’s before you to oblige.”
“Okay…” I shake my head slightly. “Meaning?”
Morgan draws her brows together. “Meaning what I just said? Do what you feel.”
I half-laugh, half-sigh. I’ve never done what I feel in a prayer.
“You can’t give me a script, or something? A…spell?”
Morgan huffs. “God, you Catholics. Always with the formulas.” But she softens. “Keep it basic, I guess. Get on your knees, close your eyes, and say something like…like I wish to speak with the Lady of the Lake. See if it stirs her.”
I make a face, the edges of the flower crown brushing my ears. “That’s it? Just saying it out loud?”
“Yes.” A hint of her earlier irritation creeps back into Morgan’s voice.
“Abra-ca-fucking-dabra, Gwenna.” But instantly, she softens.
“I mean, that is what that literally means, you know. I create as I speak. Literal magic words.” She puts a hand on my shoulder and looks up into the dark vault of sky.
“You’re burning moonlight,” she whispers, and gives me a squeeze. “Good luck.”
Then Morgan withdraws, standing a few feet distant, and I’m alone.
Okay, I think. Here goes. I get on my knees, a little awkwardly in the cold plush of sand that is the lakeshore, close my eyes, and fold my hands—not fully in my lap, but not quite raised in supplication, either.
I wish to speak with the Lady of the Lake.
I see the words in my mind. Think them over, once, twice, and before I realize it, my lips are moving, too.
“I wish to speak with the Lady of the Lake,” I whisper. “I wish to speak with the Lady of the Lake.”