Chapter 15
Elena read tarot differently than Sofia.
Sofia used the cards like a conversation.
Elena used them like an interrogation.
She sat at Jake’s kitchen table Monday evening with five candles burning and told everyone not to speak unless asked.
Marcus lasted forty seconds.
“So are we summoning something?”
“No,” Elena said.
“Cool.”
“Marcus.”
“Sorry.”
Jake stared at him.
Marcus shrugged.
“You told me your boyfriend is a werewolf and your dead biological father guarded magical doors. I’m adjusting.”
Noah smiled.
Jake pointed at him.
“Do not encourage him.”
Marcus leaned toward Noah.
“Boyfriend?”
Noah’s growl answered before either boy did.
Marcus’s eyes widened.
“Oh my God. That’s real.”
Jake put his face in his hands.
His life was over.
Elena placed five cards face down.
“This spread was my mother’s.”
Sofia, standing behind her, said, “Your mother stole it from mine.”
“They were sisters.”
“They still argued about it for thirty years.”
Elena ignored her.
She turned the first card.
The Hermit.
“Jake.”
Second.
Strength.
“Noah.”
Third.
Ten of Pentacles.
“Family.”
Fourth.
Death.
Marcus whispered, “That seems bad.”
Elena looked at him.
“Transformation.”
“Why put a skeleton on it?”
“Branding,” Jake whispered.
Noah snorted.
Elena turned the fifth card.
Her expression changed.
The Magician.
Sofia leaned forward.
“No.”
Jake was becoming deeply tired of that word.
“What?”
Elena touched the card.
“The Warden.”
Jake looked around.
“Me?”
Elena shook her head.
“Someone active. Someone using tools. Directing events.”
“Thomas?”
“Maybe.”
Sofia picked up the Magician.
“The card isn’t identifying a person like a photograph. It’s showing agency.”
“Someone making all this happen.”
“Yes.”
Marcus leaned back.
“So the hunters aren’t just reacting to Noah and Jake. Somebody set the board.”
Everyone looked at him.
“What?”
Jake said, “That was surprisingly useful.”
“I contain multitudes.”
Elena turned another card from the deck.
Three of Cups.
Then another.
The Sun.
She frowned.
“What?”
“Those are good cards.”
Jake waited.
“And?”
“They don’t belong with the question I asked.”
“What did you ask?”
“Where the threat is.”
Sofia stared at the cards.
Then began laughing.
Not happily.
“Oh, that’s clever.”
Jake’s stomach tightened.
“What?”
Sofia pointed at Three of Cups.
“Celebration.”
Then The Sun.
“Daylight. Success. Public joy.”
Noah went pale.
“the fall party.”
Jake shook his head.
“That already happened.”
Marcus looked at him.
“Graduation.”
Silence.
Graduation was months away.
But there were other celebrations.
Pep rally.
senior recognition.
Winter formal.
School events where everyone they cared about would gather in one place.
Elena collected the cards.
“We stop reacting.”
Jake looked at her.
“How?”
“We find the threshold before they open it.”
Noah stiffened.
“You know where it is?”
“No.”
Jake thought of the woods.
The oak.
The place where Noah had woken.
“The tree.”
Everyone looked at him.
“What?” Noah asked.
“The first morning. You were beside that fallen oak.”
Noah nodded.
“I thought you ended up there randomly.”
“So did I.”
Jake remembered the strange marks in the mud.
The hunter.
The silver rod.
His first contact with Noah.
Recognition.
Awakening.
“What if you didn’t run there?”
Noah stared.
“What if they brought you there?”
Elena stood.
Sofia was already reaching for her coat.
Marcus looked around.
“Are we going to the haunted werewolf murder woods?”
Jake grabbed his hoodie.
“No.”
Marcus relaxed.
“We’re going to the haunted Warden threshold woods.”
Marcus sighed.
“I liked my version better.”
They reached the fallen oak just before sunset.
Jake had not been back since the morning he found Noah.
The place looked smaller.
Ordinary.
That frightened him more.
Sofia walked the perimeter with a pendulum.
Elena scattered a thin line of salt.
Marcus held the flashlights and complained that nobody had given him a supernatural job.
Noah stood beside Jake.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Me either.”
Jake took his hand.
“Good.”
The pendulum stopped.
Sofia stared at the ground.
“Here.”
They cleared wet leaves.
Beneath them was a flat stone.
Carved into it were names.
Dozens.
Some old enough that the letters had softened.
Some fresh.
Jake found DANIEL MILLER.
Then ANA MILLER.
Then MARA BENNETT.
Noah sucked in a breath.
His grandmother.
At the bottom, newly carved:
NOAH BENNETT.
And beneath it:
JAKE MILLER.
Marcus whispered, “That is profoundly not good.”
A final line had been carved below their names.
Not a name.
A date.
December 21.
Sofia looked toward the sinking sun.
“Winter solstice.”
Elena whispered, “They’re not waiting for graduation.”
Jake stared at his name in the stone.
“They’re opening it at the solstice.”
From somewhere beneath their feet came three slow knocks.