Chapter Twenty-Three Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge
EVERYTHING HAPPENED AT ONCE: THE screaming, the rush of wind, the doors bursting open around us. Theta’s members tried to stop Sarah, but she screeched a string of words that sounded like poetry and nails scraping across chalkboards, chanting in a voice that wasn’t her own.
A burst of wind tore through the room and knocked us to the ground, breaking all the doors from their hinges.
And then, suddenly, there was Vivian. No longer at my side, her figure appeared like a ghostly apparition on the other side of the room as Sarah dropped the journal and leaped from the window.
Vivian jumped after her, levitating and shooting across the room like starlight. There was a scream, and at the last minute, a hand appeared, clinging to the windowsill.
Kasem was the one who got to Sarah first. He grabbed her arm, pulling her back into the room just as the lights sprang to life and voices from downstairs shouted that faculty was here, the party was over.
But the Theta members kept whispering, chanting as they drew closer to where Danny’s spirit hovered in front of the window.
Gold lines cut through the air, threading into an intricate pattern like the lace veil Cecilia wore; like a moth.
Its wings were made of light, and as the members chanted, the moth charged toward Danny’s spirit and exploded into gold fireworks as his screams pierced the night.
This wasn’t a summoning. This was an exorcism.
At the foot of the window, Sarah’s eyes were glassy as she crouched to the floor, holding on to Kasem for dear life.
“I have her,” Sarah said, but her voice wasn’t her own; it was like Vivian’s voice was speaking through her. “Danny wasn’t trying to hurt her. He was just showing us how he died. That it wasn’t like what the reports were saying.”
“It was the curse, then,” Kasem said, responding as though nothing was wrong.
Sarah—Vivian?—laughed. “It always is.”
I couldn’t breathe. It was as if Vivian was inside Sarah, like she was possessing her. And there was that pool of swamp water, dripping at Sarah’s feet. It occurred to me, suddenly: She was a ghost. Vivian, the girl who had taken me under her wing here at Westfield, was dead.
Theta’s members turned their attention to Sarah.
“It is against the sacred law for a ghost to steal possession of a human form,” Cecilia shouted. “Vivian, you may be under the protection of ?nhye, but you broke code from your sisterhood with your actions today.”
The ?nhye—I recognized the name. It was the society that Vivian and Angelica wanted me to join.
“She was just trying to help,” Honey said, but Cecilia raised her hand, silencing her.
“For a spirit to take possession of a human breaks law. It risks their soul morphing into that of a wraith. We of Theta Omicron Delta have made it our mission since our inception to free all souls in bondage. You dare interrupt our summoning that protects Westfield from the vestiges of the curse’s blight? ”
“You were sloppy today,” Sarah said, speaking in Vivian’s voice. “And you will hear from my sisterhood about your actions, which put an innocent student at risk. Allow us passage from here, and I will ensure that I not break law again by disrupting your summoning.”
“Let’s bring it to a vote,” Honey said. “Renee, will you attend to the records?”
One of the Thetas nodded, stretching out her hands and drawing in the air like a conductor directing an orchestra. As she did, silver lines appeared, just like earlier, during the exorcism.
“All in favor of sanctions being brought to Vivian, of our cousin sorority?” Renee said.
“Nay,” Honey said, stepping forward.
“Nay,” Janette said.
“Aye,” Cecilia said, standing on the opposite side of Honey. As each member spoke, they stood behind the member they agreed with. Eventually, the members each stood according to their votes. Three nays, six ayes.
“We will bring your case to sanction, Vivian. Kasem, you too will be brought to Sigma for your actions of interrupting tonight’s banishing. But we grant you passage. Leave. Now.”
Kasem reached for me but I pulled away, pressing my eyes shut, taking in everything. And yet, the soft touch of his hands anchored me. “We need to leave before they change their minds. Can you walk?”
I nodded, and he helped me stand, taking my wrist and leading me past the members of Theta and through the hidden door in the bookcase that Cecilia had emerged from.
Inside was the skeleton of a hallway, made of wood and planks and rusty nails jutting from the walls.
“Follow my steps. Vivi, can you lead us?”
Sarah nodded, grabbing one of the candles from the walls.
“The notebook must be burned and buried with the body,” she said.
“I have it,” Kasem said. He’d picked it up, torn pages and all, and had rolled it into the waist of his pants.
“Be careful,” I whispered. “Won’t you get possessed by him too?”
“I wasn’t drinking tonight,” he said. “Most spirits need more than just a tether to possess someone. They need the consciousness to be weakened so they can overpower the host’s free will.”
I thought of everyone at the party tonight, everyone in the circle, forcing shots down my throat, others faded in the back, the curdling scent of smoke seeping into their pores, glazing their eyes over as they opened themselves up for the summoning.
“You knew this,” I said, pulling my hand from Kasem’s grip.
“And you just let me open my consciousness to ghostly possession? You didn’t think to warn me when I’m the one risking everything trying to help you break your curse?
” I was screaming at him, slurring my words and stumbling after him and Sarah, who was still possessed by Vivian, as we worked our way through the secret passageway in Theta House.
There was a set of stairs that led down to a basement, where another stone hallway emerged.
Eventually, we reached a fork as the path divided into three.
“We’ll go to the Saint James residency,” Kasem said. Sarah nodded, and we took the sharp left in the path.
“Kasem,” I said, screaming his name.
He spun to face me.
“You came here willingly, didn’t you?” he snapped. “You were downing shots from strangers like you didn’t have a care in the world. Did you know someone got roofied last year at one of these things? Did they not mention it in your orientation packet?”
“No!” I shouted. “They didn’t mention that or ghostly possession. Sorry that I thought I could trust you or Honey or Vivian or anyone on this godforsaken campus.”
Kasem laughed, a bitter tinge to the sound that made my breath catch and my heart ache.
“It’s Westfield, Sianna. You can’t trust anyone. Do you understand? Do you finally get it now?”
I was trembling. Every inch of me was shaking. Uncertainty softened Kasem’s expression. He drew me to him, holding me close, letting me sink into the warmth of him as I tried to gather myself.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “This isn’t your fault.
But all of these secrets, I can’t just say them.
I took a pledge to Sigma. So did Honey, when she pledged Theta.
There are incantations that prevent us from sharing information about our societies to outsiders.
But I should have tried to at least give you some warning.
Honey should have too, when she invited you. ”
“Is this all because of your curse?” I asked. “What’s happening at school—the hauntings, the accidents—it’s all connected, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I think so. Westfield’s always been like this, but there’s always been the curse too. So I think it’s all connected. It has to be.”
Hearing his words, I was terrified.
“I shouldn’t have asked you to get wrapped up in all this,” he said. “Not at the mall and not at the woodshop.” He pulled away from me, and a part of me ached at the distance now between us. “Forgive me?” he asked, tentative, pleading.
Sarah stopped in front of a stone door.
“I’ll leave you two here,” Sarah said. She gestured to herself. “She’s sobering up. I need to take her back to her dorm so she can at least wake up in her own bed.”
Sarah would probably wake hungover, not knowing that hours earlier, a spirit had taken over her body and walked her through miles of hidden corridors.
“I usually don’t do possessions,” Sarah said, and I knew it was Vivian talking to me.
“I think they’re wrong. The host can never fully consent, even if they claim to.
But she was going to die, Sianna. When she jumped, she wasn’t in her right mind and wouldn’t have caught the windowsill.
Cecilia knows Theta messed up, but she’s too proud to admit it.
They always are. And that’s why none of their actions, or the Sigmas’, have been able to stop the accidents or protect Westfield.
” She was explaining herself as if my judgment of her actually mattered when she was a ghost. A dead person.
I looked away, unable to bring myself to answer.
Kasem drew me to the wall as Sarah walked past us and continued to the dorms. And then he turned the iron door, pushing it open to a library overflowing with books.
We walked inside and he closed the door behind us. From this side, it looked like a regular bookshelf that would otherwise go unnoticed.
I’d never seen a library so expansive, with so many books and scrolls and instruments filling its every crevice.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“The Saint James estate,” he said. “It’s where Ojore and I grew up.”