Frankie
“Look,” I say to Ash as he sends the Chevy careening around yet another corner on our way back to the lake. “If a bone could
grant anyone the ability to fly, the aviation industry wouldn’t exist.”
He doesn’t look at me as he white-knuckles the steering wheel. “I know.”
“A bone can’t help anyone destroy their enemies, either,” I point out. “If animal bones could do that, the legal system wouldn’t
exist, either, let alone the military.”
“I know.”
“And unless that bone is fossilized, it isn’t even possible for it to be a thousand years old. A bone as small and thin as a cat’s would have decomposed ages ago in such bacteria-rich
soil.”
“I know.”
“I can completely understand why anyone might want to believe that an ancient talisman has mystical charms and go looking for it. This is the basis for multiple movie franchises. But that doesn’t mean those mystical charms were ever real. You know that, right?”
“I know that.”
“Then why are you breaking the speed limit to get home?” He’s driving so fast that the normally unbearably loud PUTT PUTT PUTT of the truck sounds more like PUTTPUTTPUTT. I’m gripping the dashboard because even though the Chevy has seat belts, I’m certain it doesn’t have airbags. “You didn’t
even stop long enough to take any of the leftovers Mom wanted you to have.”
It had been half heartbreaking, half amusing when my mother realized Ash and I were leaving and came running out of the house
after us with the rest of the sausage and grapes in a takeout container. “Don’t forget your salsicce all’uva!”
But that’s exactly what happened. Ash had forgotten everything else except his single-minded search for Emma Bridle.
“Slow down, Ash. It’s not going to make a difference to Emma if we get there in ten minutes or half an hour or even tomorrow—”
“Tomorrow?” Ash finally looks my way, and I’m startled to see that his face, in the bluish glow of the streetlamps beneath which we’re
passing, looks almost gray with anxiety . . . and something else. “If they’ve found the bone, tomorrow might be too late.”
“I thought we just agreed that this bone thing is bogus, so it doesn’t matter when we get there. Besides, Jackie didn’t seem
too enthused about sending her people out to an uninhabited island in the dark to rescue someone we don’t even know is in
danger—”
What Jackie had actually said to me when I’d called her from back at my mom’s house was, Are you shitting me, Giovanni?
It’s Sunday night. Do you really think I’m going to be able to rally a small-town police force to go out to a nature preserve and get eaten alive by ticks on a Sunday night?
Especially to rescue some witches who are there of their own volition? Not going to happen.
“I hope the bone thing is bogus,” Ash says, turning his face back toward the road. “But that doesn’t mean Emma isn’t in danger.”
“Danger from what?”
“Well, to start with, if Haley does the ceremony correctly, someone over on that island is going to die.”
“Die?”
“Human blood has to flow before the powers of the last witch to possess the bone can be assimilated into a new host—”
“New host?” I’m still clinging to the dashboard, but now I also feel like I’m clinging to my sanity. “What are you talking
about? How do you even know any of this?”
He shakes his head. “My grandmother. She’s into this kind of stuff.”
I nod, thinking of my own mother’s belief that sprinkling salt around doorways will ward off evil. “Yeah, okay. But that still
doesn’t mean Haley plans on killing anyone. You told me yourself that you think she’s only doing this to steal money from her followers—”
“Right. But regardless of whether Haley is a grifter or truly a witch, her followers believe she’s the real thing.”
“And?”
“And if they believe she’s the real thing, they’re going to believe the power of the witch’s bone is real, too. And that’s
going to make them easier for her to manipulate.”
“I get that.” I watch as the dark shadows of our houses loom into view.
We’d left when it was still daylight, and I had forgotten to leave a porch lamp on for myself.
Now the only light is from the nearly full moon, just rising over the treetops across the lake.
“You mean a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“Exactly. So it doesn’t matter if any of this stuff is true. Those girls think it’s true, so they’re going to do anything Haley says.”
Ash has pulled into his driveway and switched off the engine. In the sudden stillness after the PUTTPUTTPUTTs die out, I can hear the chirping of crickets. They sound extra loud because the cooling temperatures have given them an added
sense of urgency. Winter is coming. Everybody find a mate.
Ash turns in his seat to face me. I’ve never seen him look so serious.
“The problem,” he says, “is that if your brother-in-law is right, and those holes he’s been seeing are connected to Haley,
that means she got those girls to spend months—the entire summer—searching for that bone. And if she managed to get them to
do that, what’s next? According to the ceremony, what’s next is murder.”
“Well, if that’s the case,” I say, “we really do need to wait for Jackie. Just let me call her again. If Haley is that dangerous—”
“She is that dangerous, and that’s why I can’t wait. Finding Emma and getting her out of there before the ritual begins is my responsibility.
Now that I know where she is, I have to go to her.” He’s undoing his seat belt and opening his door. “It would probably be
best if you went back to your house. Call Jackie again if you want, but do it from inside, with the door locked. No matter
what you hear or see in the next few hours, do not open your door to anyone but me.”
This statement is the opposite of calming.
“Ash.” I hop out of the truck. “This is ridiculous. I’m not leaving you.”
“You have to. I won’t be able to do what I have to if I’m worrying about you—”
“I’m a grown woman who can take care of herself, Ash. Let me help.”
“Not tonight.”
Of all the things I expected him to do next, none of them include what he does, which is lean over, lift me bodily from the
ground, and begin carrying me fireman-style toward my house.
“Ash, what are you doing?” I grunt.
“You’ve helped enough,” he says. “The rest of this is up to me.”
“This is ridiculous.” I kick my legs, struggling to get away, but his grip on my hips is like iron. I should have known he’s
this strong—I saw him lift an unconscious girl as easily as if she were kindling, after all. But I’m not a half-starved teenager.
“Have you lost your mind? Put me down right now so we can discuss this like—”
I was going to say, like adults, but my voice dies in my throat because I’ve caught sight of something out of the corner of my eye . . . something that shouldn’t
be there. It’s another glow through the trees—only not the blue-white glow of the rising moon, but the orange-and-yellow glow
of flames.
Center Island is on fire.
Okay, maybe not the whole island. But this isn’t just a campfire, either, like Troy was talking about. There are enough flames
to light up Satan’s Seat like it’s the grand opening of a used car lot. No magic spell, like the “glamour” Ash was talking
about, could hide it, not with the scent of woodsmoke already beginning to fill the air.
Someone finally did it: someone is burning down the haystack to find the needle hidden in it.
Ash realizes it at the same time I do. His grip on me tightens.
“It’s starting,” he says, and begins striding much more swiftly toward my front porch. “You need to get inside.”
“Ash.” The darkened shadows of my porch loom ever closer. I can’t see Daisy waiting in the window for me because she’s back
in her laundry basket with her kittens, and I never turned the living room lights on anyway. “Put me down right now, and let’s
talk about this.”
“I can’t. You need to get inside. Please, just do me a favor, and get inside—”
But instead, I thrust an elbow into his spine. He gives an oof of surprise and finally lets go of me.
That’s when I whirl around to give him a piece of my mind . . . then get a good look at his face. The orange glow from the
fire down on the island mingled with the blue glow from the moon overhead has cast his features in high relief. I can see
every laugh line, every shadow, even the cleft of his chin . . . but most of all, I can see his eyes.
Ash, I suddenly realize, is scared. Really scared. And that’s making me scared.
“What is it?” I demand. “What can’t you tell me? What’s really going on down there? You can’t—”
“Look, I didn’t want to tell you before, but now you need to know. Gaia is real.” He says it low, and he says it fast. “Okay?
That’s what this is all about. That’s who I work for. That’s who asked me to find Emma. That’s who I bought the house for,
as an investment, but also because she likes it here in West Harbor. I used to think it was because Derrick lives here, and
she loves Derrick, but now I know—it’s just this place. It’s West Harbor.”
I blink at him. “Gaia? You mean Guy?” That’s the name of his boss at Olympus. He’d told me. Guy. “That’s who you said you bought the house for.”
“That’s right.” He lifts a hand to run his fingers through his hair, making the curls stand almost on end. “Only her name
isn’t really Guy, it’s Gaia. When I was a little kid, I couldn’t pronounce the words Gaia or Grandma, so I called her Guy, and it stuck.”
I feel frozen in place. I’m home, in my own yard, and yet I can’t move, because the world is suddenly tilting so violently
on its axis.
“You . . . you call your grandmother Guy? Olympus is your family’s charitable trust?”
“Yeah.” His shoulders are hunched, almost as if he’s embarrassed by his own words.
“You’re telling me,” I say, with a calm I’m only able to summon because of all my years of training and experience, “that
you believe your grandmother is Gaia, the mythical creator of all life on this planet?”
“I don’t believe it, I know it,” he says, his shoulders still hunched apologetically. Everything—from his voice to his body language—indicates that he