18. Nobody is Safe
NOBODY IS SAFE
Dreary sunlight spills through stained glass and falls upon the flower arrangements surrounding a closed casket. Organ music fills the sanctuary. Ivy’s parents stand near the altar, accepting condolences and receiving hugs while their surviving child hides behind them.
After today, the town will move on. The news cycle will come to an end.
And the adults will have closure. There’s no danger in Foggy Hollow, at least no more than any other town with teenagers who throw parties and make poor choices.
Ivy Winslow has been accounted for, and while the accounting wasn’t what anyone hoped, it at least brings a tidy, if not tragic end.
But it’s all a farce.
Foggy Hollow isn’t any other town.
There is danger.
An entire dimension full of it.
I stand in the back of the long line next to Twig, who is officially boot free, and Jude, who flew home as soon as Twig spilled the beans about Lainey and Griffin.
The shadows under his eyes make me wonder whether he slept at all in Seattle.
I tried asking him about his grandfather, but he was vague and much more interested in everything happening here.
I am, too, truth be told.
In fact, I can think of little else.
Griffin is in trouble, if not already dead.
Something is seriously wrong with Lainey Sikes.
And if my gut is right—if my latest dream was more than a dream—then my mother has been here this whole time, held against her will. Simon, too. The thought of them alive and trapped inside the Overlay for so long makes me feel physically ill.
“We have to save them,” I whisper, careful to keep my voice low. This isn’t a conversation I want anyone to overhear, least of all Kate, who stands in front of us with Harrison.
“There might not be anyone to save,” Jude replies.
“It wasn’t a normal dream, Jude. She’s in there. I could hear her voice when I touched the leaf.”
She came back for me.
Tulane all but confirmed it.
My mother returned to Foggy Hollow five years ago with every intention of making amends. But I never saw her. Meanwhile, a gremlin-like creature appeared at the well when I just happened to be nearby and coughed up a glowing seed that’s somehow giving me very specific, very personal visions.
It can’t be a coincidence.
“Someone is trying to send me a message.”
“You think it’s your mom.”
“Is that really so crazy?” The heated question comes out too loud.
Kate glares at us over her shoulder.
Twig fidgets.
I press my lips together.
The line shuffles forward.
The organ continues to play.
Jude drags his hand down his face, his jaw tight as he leans close. “I know you don’t want to hear it, Selah. But I think we have to consider the possibility that Rafe is behind this.”
“I don’t think it’s Rafe.”
“If he wanted to lure you into the Overlay, what better way to do it than to make you believe your mother’s in there?”
“Why would he want to lure me into the Overlay?”
“I don’t know. Revenge? Boredom? A habit that’s hard to break? For centuries, he’s perfected the art of tormenting my bloodline. Breaking the curse doesn’t make him suddenly stop.”
“He has a point,” Twig says.
Which makes me want to scream.
Maybe the point is valid, but with my mother’s words so sharp in my memory, I’m having a hard time entertaining Jude’s doubt.
I can’t stop imagining the creature, hopping into their prison.
The hope they would have felt upon seeing it.
Finally, after all these years, a way to communicate with someone on the other side. A way to communicate with me.
I can’t ignore it.
I won’t.
“If there’s even a chance my mother is in there, I have to do something.” I look beseechingly at Twig.
“The challenge would be getting in,” he whispers. “All the rifts are shut, aren’t they?”
“We’ll have to open one.”
Jude makes a noise.
A very frustrating noise.
I ignore it. “Rafe used the ruby to open a rift at the masquerade ball.”
“We don’t have the ruby,” Jude says.
He’s right.
We don’t.
The ruby is underneath St. Fortuna’s, locked inside a crypt with a mountain of evidence that would surely get Harper on our side, and possibly Kate, too.
Why, oh why, did I throw that key into the stupid well?
“There could be something about the hedge maze,” I continue, grasping for solutions. According to Megan Carlisle, they were in the hedge maze when the world went dark and sinister. According to Simon’s journal, he and my mom were in the hedge maze the first time they saw a rift.
“There’s really nothing there?” Twig asks.
“Just a dried-up fountain and a broken sun dial.” I shuffle forward, my chest tight. Surely, there must be a way. “Lainey opened a rift with those glowing dots on her wrist.”
Jude huffs. “Lainey isn’t here. Even if she was, I don’t think she’d let you borrow her wrist to open a rift.”
I round on him. “Do you have any ideas of your own? Or are you just set on objecting to all of mine?”
“I’m trying to be logical.”
“I don’t think logic is called for in this particular situation.”
And there is the rub.
Jude loves logic.
My attention wanders to Naomi, standing at the front of the line with her parents. She loves logic, too. Her entire cosmology has been built upon it. Now, that cosmology has been flipped on its head. Same with Jude’s.
My frustration softens.
He stands with one hand in his pocket, looking gorgeously tortured in a suit and tie.
He has spent the last few days at a dying man’s bedside and he’s no stranger to funerals.
He had to go to his father’s when he was nine.
Not long ago, he buried his grandfather.
By the sound of it, he’ll be burying his other one soon enough.
I’ve only ever been to one.
My grandparents died in a car accident. Despite my young age, I can remember the shock of it. The sadness. The frightening sound of Dad’s choked cry when his cousin reached the front of the receiving line and wrapped him in a hug.
Mom had been holding my hand.
I can still feel the softness of her palm as she pulled me close to her side and said, “It’s very hard, when you don’t have parents.”
I slip my hand into Jude’s and give it a squeeze.
He squeezes back.
The door opens behind us, letting in the November chill. Someone sweeps past wearing a black dress and a black dress coat. Jude’s grip tightens. He draws me back slightly, shifting forward so as to put himself between me and the newcomer.
When I see who it is, my jaw nearly hits the floor.
Lainey Sikes steps forward to wrap Kate Calloway in a hug. Kate responds stiffly, but Lainey doesn’t seem to notice. She turns to Harrison and gives him a hug, too.
Kate catches my eye and something in her expression hardens. “Is Griffin with you?” she asks Lainey, in a voice slightly louder than anyone else is daring to speak.
“He’s still in Oklahoma. He feels terrible for not being here, but they’ve had these visits arranged for months. You know how hardcore his dad is about football.”
Lies.
All lies.
Griffin isn’t on a college tour.
Griffin isn’t going to return.
Sooner or later, the authorities will be notified and Kate might finally believe us.
Until then, she isn’t safe.
Nobody is.