Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Once I’ve had my cry out, Leo and I rejoin the decoding effort. All that’s left to figure out is where. Where in the hell did Browne hide the bracelet? We scour the journal for something—anything—a general area, a longitude and latitude, a single clue that can narrow the field.
I stay one step ahead of Leo and Avery, writing down all the letters each symbol could stand for. And since we English majors are masters in the art of reading too much into things, I’m also handy at figuring out the subtext of the literal words.
He stares at the page. “For the love of the gods.”
Browne went to the riverside, to the site of the massacre, and raised the spirits of his two dead friends.
I ask, “Did he conjure them?”
Avery peers at her notes. “That’s what it looks like.”
“And that’s not the same as talking to them?” Please tell me it is.
“No,” Leo replies.
Shit.
“When he was contacting spirits, he was talking to them where they were. Like a phone call.” Leo taps his pen on the page. “Here he’s talking about literally summoning their spirits from the underworld and bringing them to this realm.”
“Wait,” I gasp. “There’s an underworld?”
“Yes.”
My head buzzes, threatening to go off-line. “Like a hell?”
“More like the ancient Greek land of the dead.”
Oh, my god, I can’t even think about that right now.
I. Just. Can’t. Even.
Leo grips my hand under the table, and within seconds his grounding warmth washes through me. I can’t blame him for calming me; we don’t have time for me to freak out. Because whatever, or wherever, this underworld is, there’s no record of Browne sending his buddies back there.
“Was it them I felt by the river?” I clench Leo’s hand tighter. “Did I feel ghosts?”
“I’m guessing you feel ghosts all the time. They carry all sorts of emotional energy.”
I seriously want a refund on this psychic ability. It’s a nightmare.
In two steps, Rime clears the distance between the couch and the table. “Those were ghosts you felt at the river?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Browne have a reason for conjuring them?” Aaron asks from the kitchen where he’s pouring himself some iced tea. “Or was he just trying to see what he could get away with?”
Liv approaches, pale and wavering on unstable legs. “Ghosts?”
Rime pulls out a chair for her.
Topaz sits in the remaining seat while Aaron leans in the kitchen doorway and Rime grips the edge of the table, his shoulders tense and his knuckles turning white.
As they breathe down our necks, Avery, Leo, and I finish interpreting the last few pages written in Enochian.
Leo drops his pen and announces, “Browne buried the bracelet on the other side of the river. Exactly opposite the site of the massacre.”
Rime’s eyes cut to mine. “Do you remember where that was, little psychic?”
“The site of the massacre? Yeah, I think so.”
“The pin’s still on my phone,” Leo tells us.
Rime turns for the door. “Then let’s go.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Leo waves him back. “We need more information.”
Topaz already has an arm in her jacket sleeve. “Why? Browne said where it is.”
“Not specifically,” Leo counters, facing down their scowls.
I jump in, “Where on the other side of the river? Right on the bank? Under the water? Back further in the woods?”
“Exactly.” Leo nods firmly. “Browne doesn’t answer any of those questions.”
“Um,” Liv pipes up. “Just so y’all know, the river’s changed course a little over the past four hundred years. So, you know, what Browne said was across the river might not be anymore.”
Leo frowns. “If his measurements were even all that accurate to begin with. He probably only had a telescope and a quadrant to work with.”
Rime groans.
Aaron asks Liv, “How much of a change are we talking about here?”
“Maybe a couple yards difference.” She gestures for the laptop.
“So we could still get close enough for Betts to feel it?”
“Probably. Especially since we know the exact spot the massacre happened.”
I lean to the side to see what Liv is looking up, and a thrill ripples through me. “Guys, come here. Look at this!”
From behind us Leo marvels, “You’re in the database.”
“Well, yeah,” she says. “All EnSci students have access to the database.”
“Robin and I got in there, but we didn’t know how to interpret what we were looking at.”
“Well, this—” Liv hits a few keys. “—is an animation of the river’s course over time.
” A squiggly red line winds through a black and white topographical map.
Liv hits another key, and the line shifts a few millimeters.
Another and it jumps again, this time more significantly, especially in places where it takes the sharpest turns.
She says, “So here’s where they think the river was four hundred years ago. ”
Leo takes out his phone and opens the map app. Together, he and Liv compare where he’s pinned the massacre site to her river maps. The conclusion? In the area we’re scoping, if all the maps can be trusted, the river has shifted 2.61 yards and widened 28 inches.
“Please tell me we don’t have to calculate anything,” Avery begs, wearing the same deer-in-headlights look I get when someone starts throwing numbers around.
Liv laughs. “Nah. We don’t need to be that exact.
Just keep in mind that, on that opposite side, the riverbank is about seven feet further back than it was in Browne’s time.
” She looks from face to face, just now realizing everyone is hovering and staring at her.
“Um, anything else you want to know while I’m in here? ” She flicks a hand at the screen.
“Actually—” Leo leans lower, his shoulders slicing between Liv and me. “In case that lead box isn’t doing its job anymore—” He rubs his bristly chin as his curious eyes rake over the screen.
I rise and offer him my chair.
“We’ll search that whole area,” Liv tells him as he sits down beside her. “And see if anyone has found anything weird there. Diseases, mutations, barren spots—you know, that kind of stuff.”
Leo smiles. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
She giggles as she searches. “Has Betts told you how much she loves ten-legged frogs?”
When they both look up at me, I fake a gag.
“Ten-legged frogs?” Aaron laughs.
I tell him, “You have to see it to believe it.”
“Oh, I believe it.”
Topaz mutters, “Subworlders.”
Yeah, I suppose humanity deserves that.
Liv gasps and grabs Leo’s arm. “Look at this!”
“What?”
“Look!” She points to the screen. “Starting in 1962, here, see that? Almost every year since then, they’ve found dead fish there. And look! Look at what they died from!”
We all lean in closer, but none of us understand what we’re seeing.
“Neurotoxicity?” Leo asks.
“Yes!” She bounces in her seat, her excitement at odds with the subject she’s explaining. “Lead poisoning!”
In one blink, Leo’s eyes double in size.
“I mean, it could be other things,” Liv is quick to say. “But lead poisoning is a common cause. And look, it’s right in that area across the river.”
Leo jumps to his feet. “It has to be close to the river if the lead is leaching into the water.”
Rime drums his fingers on the table. “Browne probably buried it in the ground along the bank, not knowing the river would move or get wider.”
“I’ll bet it’s right on the edge of the water,” Liv agrees. “I mean, it has to be, doesn’t it? Otherwise, it would’ve washed downriver. But just last year they recorded the dead fish in the same spot.” She points at the screen. “Year after year, always the same spot.”
“So then why haven’t scientists found the box?” I ask. “Wouldn’t they be trying to figure out what’s going on?”
Liv shrugs. “It’s just a little poisoning. Believe me, they have bigger fish to fry.” She giggles into her hand. “Pun intended.”
Aaron fist-bumps her across the table.
“Here, Leo—” She beckons him with wiggling fingers. “Give me your phone.”
He unlocks it and hands it to her, no questions asked.
Biting her lip and squinting her eyes, she rapidly taps away on the screen. A moment later she offers it back. “There. I dropped the pin in the center of the area, but it extends about twenty-five yards in either direction.”
A total of fifty yards. Half a football field. And to think, last summer when Leo and Robin began their search, they were combing an area as wide as four states. And now it’s up to me to narrow the field even further. I’m the scope on the sniper rifle, line me up and fire.
“Liv, this is brilliant.” Leo squeezes her shoulder. “Thank you so much.”
Topaz snatches her jacket off the back of the couch where, in her annoyance, she’d slung it. “So, can we go now?”
“C’mon, Betts.” Rime nods at Topaz, then steps back to nudge me toward the door. “Leo, give me your phone.”
I plant my feet. What is happening? Is Rime expecting me to go without Leo?
“Hawthorn!” Rime snaps his fingers. “Phone!”
Leo tightens his hands into fists. “No way.”
A hush comes over the room.
Rime mirrors Leo, shoulders squared and forehead low. “What do you mean, no way?”
“Betts isn’t going anywhere without me.”
“One of us needs to stay here with the other humans. It’s not safe to leave them alone.”
“Then you stay.”
Rime takes one heavy, menacing step closer. “I’m the fighter.”
“And I’m not, so why leave me here?”
“You did your job, now it’s time for me to do mine.”
“Stick to the books, right?” Leo sneers, pissed off and hurt. “That’s all I’m good for.”
Liv, bless her heart, cowers in her seat on the other side of the table. Meanwhile, Avery is starting to look as angry as Leo.
“Enough, you two,” she huffs, arms crossed and chin raised. “No chest thumping in my living room.”
No one acknowledges her command.
Rime jabs a finger at Leo’s chest. “Now is not the time for your daddy issues. We have a job and we need to get it done. In the most efficient way possible.”
Leo throws up his hands. “And what in the gods’ name do you think I’ve been doing?”
Rime looks at me, then back at Leo, a snide curl to his lip.
Leo’s eyes blaze. “Don’t,” he warns, voice deadly low.
Topaz tears off her jacket again and slaps it onto the chair. “I’m staying here.” She shoves right between the angry men. “Leo’s roots dig better than my snakes,” she tells Rime. “You need him.”
“If he goes, there won’t be anything to dig up!” Fuming, Rime tries to swerve around Topaz. “He won’t do what he needs to do. He won’t let her—” He swallows his last words.
Fury blasts off Leo, so hard it snatches my breath. “Won’t let her what?”
Rime turns away and clasps his hands behind his neck.
“Won’t let her what?” Leo shouts.
“You won’t let her suffer!” Rime spits out. “There, I said it. I said the quiet part out loud.” He stomps up to Leo again, hissing through gritted teeth, “If you go, you’ll pull her out the second she starts to struggle. I know you will—”
I try to intervene, “Guys—,” but Leo and Rime’s lifetime of competition, jealousy, and resentment choke me like a sooty, sticky fog.
The latter is still snarling. “It’s gonna be bad and you know it, and that’s why you don’t want her going with me.
Because you don’t trust me to know her limit.
” He turns the accusing finger he had pointed at Leo onto himself.
“Even though I’ve been the one watching out for Summer all these months, while you’ve been here playing frat boy. ”
Leo’s anguish floods me, wiping out Rime’s indignation. His chest heaves with every breath, but he rallies and snaps back, “And you trust me?”
“I don’t trust you one fuck.” Rime’s eyes are pulsing, his lips curling back from his teeth, and his muscles twitching. “What was that tunnel you made, huh? Were you ever going to tell me about that? What other secrets are you keeping?”
“Enough!” I spring upright—so fast I teeter. “Whatever I have to do to find the bracelet, I’ll do it.” I hold Leo’s gaze, not shrinking back from the savage fear in his eyes. “And I need you to let me,” I tell him before I turn the same burning glare on Rime and insist, “Both of you.”
“Then go.” Wisely, Topaz doesn’t give us time to think. “Now!”
It’s a mad scramble to get Leo and Rime out the door before they start fighting again, or before I shatter like a wineglass hurled to the floor. My hands are shaking so hard Avery has to tie my shoes.
And Liv is crying.
“I’ll be fine,” I tell her. “Neither of them will let anything happen to me.”
She nods, gulping in air. I have to get away from her before I fall apart.
Rime puts Topaz on standby in case we need backup at the river, and orders Avery, Aaron, and Liv to go to a crowded, public place if they sense danger. All instructions received, the two male fae and I stumble out the door and into the chilly March afternoon.