Chapter 19
DEFCON FIVE
Istand close to Jude beneath a black umbrella.
There’s a crowd at the cemetery, but nothing quite so large as the one in St. Oswald’s.
I hadn’t planned on coming. I didn’t know Ivy very well.
The burial feels like an intimate affair, the kind of thing meant for family and close friends.
Not to mention, I’ve been avoiding the cemetery since Halloween night and the weather is abysmal.
But I overheard Lainey telling Kate she was going, so we came, too.
I can’t stop peeking at her as Pastor Tim prays.
What is she up to?
What did she do to Griffin?
And how do we keep her from doing it again?
Pastor Tim says Amen.
Without warning, Mrs. Winslow lurches forward and collapses onto the casket. A keening wail tears from her throat. Her husband does nothing. He just stands there, offering comfort to no one—not his wife or his whimpering child. Pastor Tim steps in while the crowd awkwardly disperses.
The rain has mostly stopped.
Jude closes the umbrella.
I watch as Lainey gives one of Ivy’s friends a hug when something farther away catches my attention. A person shrouded in fog with a woolen cape and wild hair. Just as I realize who it is, she turns and melts into the mist.
“Mistress Bramble is here,” I blurt—urgently, jarringly.
Jude follows as I hurry forward, in the direction she disappeared. I spot her in the distance, her cape billowing as she ascends the wet grounds to the oldest part of the cemetery.
A familiar part of the cemetery.
Goosebumps crawl up my arms as we near the sunken mausoleum. Mistress Bramble ambles around the cracked, ivy-choked stone like she knows what it really is. She hums under her breath and scatters something pale gray upon the grass.
My goosebumps multiply.
This woman was born en caul.
With second sight.
And here she is, laying a circle of what appears to be salt and ash around Dante’s tomb.
As she finishes, her gaze drifts to the patch of earth where Jude lay not very long ago, dead in my arms.
She comes to a stop.
All the questions I’ve been dying to ask leap to the tip of my tongue, but before I can ask even one, she peers at Jude. “What has its claws in you, boy?”
My curiosity dies dead in my throat.
I look at Jude, who stares back at her like something does have its claws in him and how did she know?
She turns to me. “You may come.”
I blink at her—my mouth dry, my bearings off kilter.
“On Saturday, when the sun is highest, you may both come.” She pulls the drawstring on her pouch, then slips once more into the fog.
By the time we climb inside Jude’s BMW, everyone else has gone and it’s drizzling again.
Neither of us have spoken.
I can’t seem to find my voice.
It feels like I’ve drifted here in a daze.
What has its claws in you, boy?
Jude pulls the seatbelt across his lap.
Is it me, or is he avoiding eye contact? And what about the state of him? I assumed the dark circles were courtesy of his grandfather, but what if it’s something more?
He starts the car and flips on his windshield wipers. “The luncheon is at Ivy’s grandmother’s house, right?”
“Why did she say that?”
He scratches the back of his neck. “Say what?”
“Jude.”
“The thing about the claws?”
“Yes, the thing about the claws.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t have any idea, Selah. She’s pretty odd.”
I study him, unsure if he’s really stumped, or if he’s just good at acting.
Mistress Bramble keeps saying cryptic things.
You woke a great hunger.
And now, this—what has its claws in you, boy?
An unsettled feeling—infinitely worse than anything I felt when Lainey waltzed into St. Oswald’s earlier today—sinks deep into the pit of my stomach
Saturday can’t come soon enough.
Twig sits on a stair with his hands on his knees, looking star struck. “She invited you to her house?”
The four of us—me, Twig, Jude, and Naomi—are gathered on the staircase inside the home of Ivy’s grandmother, modest in size with floral wallpaper, a plethora of doilies, and the strong scent of potpourri, even with all the casseroles and crockpots vying for space on the dining table.
The place is full of guests. They stand in clusters, eating from paper plates.
Others wander from one room to the next, offering strained smiles and soft excuse-me’s.
“On Saturday. When the sun is highest.” Which I assume means noon, but Twig is typing away on his phone.
“That’ll be 12:05 pm,” he says, giving his glasses a nudge. “Did she say anything else?”
I glance sideways at Jude, who’s as quiet as Naomi.
Yes, in fact. She absolutely did say something else. But I can’t bring myself to repeat the words. “She was sprinkling a ring of salt and ash around the mausoleum.”
Twig’s eyes go wide.
Salt is a popular substance in the world of ghost hunting, often used to create protective barriers against evil spirits and negative energy.
Salt and ash together are very unique to the Hollow Walker.
So why was she sprinkling it around Dante’s tomb?
What does she know, and why does Saturday feel like a lifetime away?
The front door opens, inviting in the chilly air.
Caleb Briggs and Brady Keller step inside. They join Harrison, Brynn, Kate, and Lainey across the room.
Twig shakes his head. “This is DEFCON five,” he says, eying his sister. “Chances are high Griffin is dead. And Kate doesn’t believe us.”
Naomi wrings her hands. “Neither does Harper.”
She stands next to a china cabinet filled with teacups and plates, talking with a group of theater students. Every now and then, she glaces in our direction with a look of hurt and uncertainty on her face.
“Do you think we should try warning them again?” Naomi asks.
“Maybe Harper,” Twig replies. “I’m not sure about my sister. If we don’t tread carefully, she’ll tell my parents, and that would not be good.”
No, it wouldn’t.
Because Mrs. Calloway would tell my dad and I can’t handle his worry on top of everything else.
What we need is proof.
Hardcore, irrefutable proof.
Which is right there, in the crypt.
My mind circles the well.
How hard would it be to get that key?