Chapter 3
SLAMMED SHUT
“It should be right up here,” I say, moving aside a low-hanging branch as thorny brambles snag at my joggers.
Jude and I tromp through the woods, fallen leaves crunching underfoot, the air nipping at my nose.
I lead the way, walking so fast I’m all but running.
Urgency pushes me from behind. I’m afraid of missing it.
Afraid of reaching the spot and the rift will be gone, just regular air, like the seed in my pocket.
Thankfully, my fear is unfounded.
As soon as we reach the gully, I spot it below.
A flickering window.
A small doorway.
Hovering in the air.
Jude stops beside me and I can tell by the expression on his face he sees it, too.
“That little gremlin hopped right in there. That’s when I turned around and went to the well and found this seed.” I yank it from the pocket of my puffer vest, vaguely noting its warmth, but not until I open my hand do I realize what that warmth means.
A tiny gasp tumbles from my lips.
The seed is glowing again.
“Look,” I say—an unnecessary word.
Jude has already noticed.
He plucks the seed from my palm, examining it just like Twig did in the hospital alcove.
“Is anything happening?” I ask.
His eyes lift to mine.
“You don’t see anything?”
“I see a glowing seed.”
“No, I mean—” I stuff my hands into my pockets. “You’re not having any… visions?”
“Visions?”
I bite my lip.
“Selah, what are you talking about?”
“When I first touched it, I saw something. Or I guess, I experienced something.” I narrow my eyes at the rift, my gaze hardening. “It was my mom.”
Jude cocks his head.
“She was running through the woods. Something was chasing her.” It was me.
I was chasing her. But for some reason, I can’t say this part out loud—me, chasing my mother away.
Me, the monster who made her run. It stands in direct opposition to everything Dr. Penny told me all those years ago on her couch.
It wasn’t my fault.
That nightmare I had when I was eight—my inability to hold onto her, to save her from that ravenous blackhole—was no more my fault than Lainey’s supposed death was Twig’s. My mother leaving had nothing to do with me at all. Dr. Penny had insisted upon it.
And yet, that vision would say otherwise.
I bury my hands deeper into my pockets. “She tripped and fell. She looked absolutely terrified. Then the vision ended.”
His brow furrows.
“Do you think it was real?”
Jude shakes his head, not a no, exactly. More of an I-don’t-know, because he is no wiser than me. “You never ran into any glowing seeds and gremlin-sized cryptids while researching for your podcast?”
“Unfortunately, it’s not a topic we’ve covered.”
Not yet, anyway.
He gives me the seed back and stares at the rift, sparkling and new. “This must be how Lainey got out.”
“How though? Jude, we watched her explode.”
Same with Ivy.
Rafe disappeared, too.
Then he showed up in that mirror.
What the heck was that about?
“How does someone vanish into nothing, then reappear a week later, fully intact?”
Jude pulls at his chin. “I have no idea.”
A chilly breeze rustles the leaves at our feet.
A crow caws somewhere in the trees.
The two of us look at one another, and then, as though coming to an unspoken agreement, we move toward the rift.
It distorts.
Visibly changes shape.
Then it sparks like a live wire.
I jump.
Jude takes my hand and very slowly, like two people approaching a wounded but feral animal, we creep closer.
The seed grows hot inside my pocket.
I can feel it all the way through my puffer vest.
We take one more step and the doorway combusts.
It explodes like Lainey.
Like Ivy.
It vanishes into nothing.
The cawing crow takes flight.
The heat in my pocket goes cold.
I blink at the spot where the rift once was.
“What just happened?” Jude asks.
I reach forward, moving my hand through the air.
It’s warmer than it should be.
“It feels like Halloween,” I say.
“What do you mean?”
“After we broke the curse, right after you destroyed Seraphina.” I realize I never explained to him how we got out, how we returned here, to this dimension. Our dimension. “Whatever veil exists between our world and that one disappeared. We got booted and the rift slammed shut.”
Jude toes the scorched leaves on the ground—a perfect circle of them— his brow still furrowed, like he’s deep in thought.
“I saw Rafe at the hospital,” I blurt.
“You saw Rafe?”
“I was in the bathroom. The lights went out. When they came back on, he was there, in the mirror.”
Did I really see him?
Or was it my imagination on overdrive?
Do I need to add hallucinations to the growing list of confounding events that have transpired today?
“It was just for a second. When I turned around, he wasn’t there.” I twist my hands, trying to make sense of it. “Do you think it was really him? Is Rafe alive?”
Jude looks troubled.
Deeply troubled.
Like he’d rather believe anything but that.