Chapter 56
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
“Cella thank God!” Max was in front of me, his hair drenched with sweat. Behind him, Vern and Luce leaned in to get a better look. Even my mother was there. She broke down in tears when she saw I was okay and wrapped me in a sweater that smelled like her.
“Alright now, let’s give her some space,” Robetresse said.
I sat up from the ground, still dazed. We were still in Maritza’s cottage. My boots scraped the ground. “How—how did you …?”
Vern’s wife, Sonia, screamed and hurried over. “Cella’s awake!” She hugged my shoulders, while Vern chuckled, removing his glasses and wiping his eyes.
“Vern!” I hugged him tight. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
“I could say the same about you,” he said with a chuckle. “We thought we’d lost you there.”
The room was filled with staff and students, all in various states of exhaustion.
Some people sagged against the cots. Many were sitting on the ground or on the doorstep, drinking bottles of water and breathing hard.
One student looked like he might have passed out at one point.
Maritza kneeled over him, dabbing a wet washcloth over his forehead. He sat up, coughing.
“We did the spell, Cella,” Max said. “All of us. Well, most of us.” He cast a pointed look at Basile and Alex, who were outside, surrounded by the remaining council members and Dr. Strauss.
“The Magic took so many people that we needed more objects and … we each threw in one of our objects. And”—he appeared astonished as he looked around the room. “And
“Cella, it worked, Cel. It worked. We were able to bind Dani again, and—and you, too, so the Magic won’t have control of you all ever again.”
Objects were on the ground, turned to ash or shattered into pieces.
A girl cradled the torn pages of an aged storybook, holding the soft cover now in pieces in her palm.
A boy tried to tape back on the wing of a model airplane.
Another boy stuck a cracked phone in a bowl of rice.
Dr. Oswold peered sadly at her splintered Etch-a-Sketch.
“You each gave up an object to save me? You didn’t have to do that. I didn’t ask for that, I didn’t want—”
These people had sacrificed an object each to try and contain the overwhelming surge of Magic. In doing so, they had willingly diminished their own Magical abilities. And not only that, but a part of them, items they’d treasured and held dear, things that were inextricably part of who they were.
I closed my eyes, picturing the loss each of them must have felt. I imagined how I would feel if the Christmas mug that my brother had given me shattered, how I would feel willingly throwing the leather cord from his journal into a fire to be burned to ash. “I’m so, so sorry.”
I hadn’t trusted people in a long time, but here was this community I’d all but given up on, that I’d thought had forgotten about me a long time ago. And it had now banded together to save me. They all had sacrificed parts of themselves just to save me. It left me at a loss for words.
Dr. Perez handed me a bottle of water. “We did it to save all of you. Vern came out first. He was the easiest. Luce came out by herself, said she ‘followed the mycelial network,’ whatever that means.”
Luce shrugged and looked at her hand, “Turns out having part of me be mushroom comes in handy. It helped me find my way back.”
“It’s a good thing she pulled herself out, too. I don’t know if we would have had enough strength to bring you all out. Then, next after Luce was, well …”
Perez stepped aside, so the solitary girl standing behind him was in view. She tucked a wisp of blond hair behind her ear. “Hi, Cella,” she said shyly.
Her cheeks and lips had regained their color. Even her blackened teeth had turned a normal shade. She had a gentleness about her, an angelic sweetness to her smile.
“Dani?” I closed my eyes and hugged her. “I feel like I know you.”
She laughed, her fragile bones shaking against mine. “Same here.”
I wanted to talk more, make sure she was fully okay, but my mother swept me away, harping about needing my rest. “It’s my job to make sure you are okay,” she said.
Maritza seemed to agree that everyone could do with a good lie-down, so they all scattered, ordered back to their dormitories to sleep and eat and try to regain some strength.
Dr. Robetresse scooped the Book of Autumn into her arms. “I’m going to put this in a secure location. Somewhere no one can ever use it for harm again.”
I thanked everyone once again for everything they’d done for me, my words falling short of adequately thanking them for the sacrifice they’d made and what it meant to me. “The sacrifice is one I will never forget,” I said.
In my exhaustion, I let my mother take me away to my childhood bedroom.
She tucked me into the soft quilt she’d embroidered years ago, the sheets she’d cleaned just anticipating me coming to stay, all the pictures and photographs and mementos from my youth.
I let her crack open the window so I could hear the birds outside, feel the gentle breeze.
She tucked in the blankets around me once more and kissed me on the head before turning out the light.
I slept more peacefully than I had in a long, long time.