Chapter 17
My legs shook under me where I’d been ordered to stand. A few minutes had passed since the news, and it seeped into my brain like blood in white cloth, spreading slowly.
“You’ll face the trials, and it will be up to Mary the Mother to deem you worthy of her full Blessings,” Josephine had said.
Most of the mothers had gone back inside, disinterested in the whole affair.
Imogen’s mouth was pinched, chewing over words she wanted to say but couldn’t.
I felt for her, really. She wanted the Blessing.
She deserved it more than I did. She wouldn’t even get a chance to tell me so, though, because I would be starting right away.
Josephine put a hand on my shoulder, the only showing of any kind of emotion from her, the mother who had raised me to be a Hunter. I wanted to pull her in for a hug and bury my face into her shoulder, but that wasn’t what Hunters did. I had to settle for the short touch.
“I’m proud of you, kiddo,” Diana said, and she shook me by my upper arms. We laughed together. “You’ve got this, you know. This whole thing was bullshit politics, but you’re going to show them what a Hunter truly is.”
“Thank you. I couldn’t have done it without you.” I averted my eyes, hoping she didn’t see the shame that tinged the edges of my gratefulness.
“Come see me when it’s all done, Fallon. I’m going back home, but I want to hear all about it when you’re a Blessed Hunter.”
“I will.”
A small hand wrapped around my elbow, pulling me from Diana. “Go behind the house and stand in front of the shed, facing the door,” Cora ordered, and I did so without pause.
I was going to face the trials. All my life, this had been a coming-of-age moment for every sister I’d known, something I’d expected to do myself years ago.
I’d never heard of any Hunter failing the trials, though with all the secrecy surrounding the event, I’d certainly never asked any mothers if it had happened.
It wasn’t even common for Hunters who had gone through it to speak about it afterwards.
I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
Cora joined me with a brown leather bag strapped over her shoulder. She unlocked the shed, opening the right door. It was empty inside, except for a metal chair facing the back wall.
“Sit.” Cora’s voice had never sounded so cold. As my eyes adjusted to the dark inside the musty shed, I fixated on a black circle painted on the wall across from my seat. I glanced back at Cora, who stopped me with warm hands on either side of my head. “Focus on the dot and nothing else.”
“What is this?”
She hushed me, and I pressed my lips shut, holding perfectly still on the uncomfortable metal.
Cora muttered words soft as turning pages in a book, and I couldn’t make out any of them.
While being Diana Hunter’s true daughter had marked me as different among my sisters, Cora truly was special among the Hunters.
In every generation, there was a witch, and for now, ours was Cora.
She would pass that knowledge along to an apprentice one day, and I suspected she’d already chosen Imogen for the task.
Cora stood in front of me and took my hand, turning it palm up. She already had a dagger in her other hand, and I cried out more from the surprise than the pain when she sliced across my hand. I looked up at her with panicked eyes. Had I failed already?
“How do you feel?”
Betrayed, I wanted to spit out, but I was too confused to form words. As blood pooled in my palm, I held it out so that it didn’t drip onto my pants, but the line of red wasn’t widening anymore.
“I…What was that?”
Cora pressed a cloth from her bag to the collection of blood in my hand. The cut had already closed up, scabbed over with a crimson line.
“Your first Blessing, Fallon. The power of healing. You’re going to need it for the trials to come. It would be a waste for a lifetime of training to come to a quick end.”
“Thank you,” I said. I stretched my palm open and relaxed it again. The wound itched, but it didn’t reopen.
“Thank Mary,” she said, and I didn’t know if it was a prayer or an order. She moved behind me again. “Focus.”
I reset my posture and stared ahead at the black circle on the wall.
“Another Blessing?” I asked. Already? Wasn’t I meant to prove myself worthy of them by completing the trials?
Cora didn’t answer, and so I held still while her magical whispering began anew, trickling over me like a summer drizzle, so sudden and short that it didn’t even blot out the sun.
The inside of the shed lightened as if the sunlight really had come out from behind a cloud, though.
The detail of the wood became clear, and the circle I’d thought was black was actually a deep ocean blue.
I looked to the ceiling to see if a light had come on, but it was the same grainy dark wood as the rest of the structure.
“You see now?” Cora asked. “Senses suited for the night. Your second Blessing. Stay put.” There was another short round of whispering, followed by gentle clinks and a brush of soft leather. I was ordered out of the small space.
“What was that one?”
“The third Blessing. A good one. Protection from ever becoming a vampire. Even if one drains you and performs its blood ritual, you will never rise.”
The only response I could conjure was a soft sound of surprise. I’d never become a vampire. I didn’t want to even begin examining the complicated response that brought up in the back of my mind.
Cora locked the door to the shed. I followed after her, holding my rush of questions.
My stomach started its slow twist before the conscious thought of where she was leading me even occurred.
The moment she’d taken the southerly path down the mountain, I knew what was coming, though being on the Land, it was always a low-grade fear that buzzed in the back of my mind.
The cave.
I couldn’t afford to be afraid of it now.
The back of my mind whispered, though, “How long would they leave me in there this time?” It had been three days at my worst, when I’d been so full of teenage, hormone-fueled angst over who I was, when I’d dug into that pain and aimed it at Josephine.
Even then, though, I’d had water and a jacket to keep me warm.
Was I to go without all that to prove myself a real Hunter?
I had to focus on keeping my boots under me along the steep, muddy path.
I didn’t have long to get my thoughts together before the path curved backward in on itself at the mouth of the cave, hidden on the side of the mountain that was our home.
Cora pulled the heavy, round stone from the opening, just wide enough for me to squeeze through.
“Here, take this.” She pressed a smooth, black stone into my palm. “Tap it three times in a row over and over if you choose to give up in there.”
“I won’t give up.” The stone was curious, but I detested what it represented, so I tucked it away into my pocket.
“In,” she ordered. Where had all her maternal warmth gone?
“How long?”
Her gaze gave nothing away, still stuck on that same demand. I twisted my body between smooth stone and wet, mossy earth, then crawled on hands and knees until I was inside the cave.
“It’s up to you,” Cora answered with a quick, motherly smile before the shaft of sunlight shrank and disappeared. She sealed the cave entrance entirely.
Up to me? My shaky breaths echoed in the tight space, making it sound like I wasn’t alone. I brushed the feeling away, sitting cross-legged on the smooth, flat cave floor and looking around to gain my bearings. Looking around. I could see in the dark cave for the first time. My Blessing.
It was buzzing through me now, and my entire body felt different.
The rock beneath me was cooler and rougher than I remembered, and far away, echoing through the cave, water dripped, ringing so loud in my ears now that I had to touch my cheeks, my shoulders, my spine, just to be certain the water wasn’t falling on me.
I dipped my fingers beneath the collar of my shirt, and the twin wounds of the bite I’d received yesterday had smoothed.
I pressed the flesh of my cut palm with my thumb, and there was no pain.
A scream sent me crawling backwards like a crab until I slammed against the stone door of the cave.
My own scream echoed in the small area, and I winced at the volume.
My loud and ragged breaths tricked my panicked body into thinking they were coming from outside myself.
Moans carried next, bouncing from the other side of the cave, and I flung my gaze around every corner of the small cave opening, convinced someone else — or something else — was with me in the tiny space.
I pushed against the round stone, and though Cora had moved it with casual ease, even throwing my full strength against the door, I couldn’t get it to even budge.
A growl made the skin on my neck tighten, and I pressed myself flush against the unmoving door, drawing my knees up.
My enhanced vision blurred with tears. I’d been in this cave so many times as a child.
I’d heard the haunting sounds, but never like this.
What had changed? Was it part of the trials, to let loose whatever dark creatures made this cave home?
I sobbed and pushed away the hot tears that tickled my cheeks, willing myself to breathe in and out, in and out in a steady rhythm. I wasn’t sure exactly when the darkness took me, or if I even realized it was happening before I was out.