The book of living secre.., p.29
The Book of Living Secrets, page 29
“If!” Connie thundered. “If! Would you survive a fire in that tiny basket?”
“The alternative is that they blow out to sea, Miss Rollins.” Caid kept his voice steady. “And are never seen again.”
“They have their problems,” Orla murmured shakily. “We have ours.”
She tugged furiously on Connie’s sleeve, and they all turned in unison to find that the Chanters had come, though not in numbers anywhere near what Connie had projected. Only eight remained, their robes stained far beyond white, muddied and covered in gunpowder, some of them singed, one or two badly bloodied. Their varying heights suggested they were of different genders and ages, though they all wore the same grotesque, misshapen leather masks.
The two on the ends carried torches, the rest pistols and rifles. They would be in range soon.
“Get behind me,” Connie said in a dangerous whisper.
That meant moving closer to the Wound, but they were still nowhere near its writhing storm of tentacles. The balloon seemed gone for good, having disappeared somewhere among the clouds, leaving them outnumbered and outgunned and alone.
“We tried,” Orla said, clinging to Caid’s side. She gazed up at Adelle, her eyes swimming with tears. Adelle attempted to hug her as best she could, but her left arm wasn’t working so well. They had to hurry, and it seemed like they would have to cast the spell without defeating the Wound, leaving their poor friends to fend for themselves.
It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right, but what could they do?
The screamers flew overhead, pursuing the balloon. The dense wharf shook, the slow thunder of the Befouler’s tread growing closer as it passed the warehouses. Caid, Adelle, and Orla backed away with tiny steps, Connie doing the same, but out ahead of them, her rifle now raised after a swift reload. They passed the Wall of a Hundred Faces, staring at them, a twisted mosaic of pleading mouths and bulging eyes. Adelle hadn’t looked at it closely before, but now she watched the tormented faces protrude from the stones, clamoring wordlessly for relief.
Adelle watched Caid look for the faces of his loved ones, and felt tears to match Orla’s well in her eyes.
“What do we do?” she asked him gently.
Caid drew in a shaky breath, the first sign of fear he had shown in front of her. The force of it made her feel all the more frightened and helpless.
“We send you home,” he replied, equally gentle, fighting through what she knew must be sheer terror. Once she and Connie were gone, he and the others would be at the mercy of the Chanters and the monsters, who seemed willing to take their time. Adelle almost wished they would hurry it up, fire the rifles—at least she would be there when their friends mounted a defense. Why hesitate? “Then you will be well, and safe, and we here will be what we will be.”
“I would take you with me, you know that, right? If I could. In a heartbeat.”
“And if it would not tear your world apart, Adelle, I would gladly accept.”
Adelle couldn’t tell him about the novel, about her first introduction to him, but then, she realized, she didn’t need to. He wasn’t that character, not anymore. Or, if he was, then Robin Amery had never understood him at all. She had made a beautiful world, but its goodness was in the little details she had abandoned, the characters who had become wonderful all on their own.
Severin Sylvain wasn’t a romantic hero; this young man was.
“Meeting you was nothing like I expected,” she told him. “I’m sorry we couldn’t do more. Couldn’t fix this.”
Caid scrunched his eyes shut and tossed his head. His spectacles had gotten dirty again. “It occurs to me now that I should like to kiss you. Would you oblige me?”
“Please,” Adelle whispered, her lips already closing on his. “Yes.”
It was light and sweet, and simple, and Adelle loved it more than every sloppy behind-the-bleachers fumble in the world. Their first and last kiss. She hoped the tears transferring from her face to his wouldn’t bother him. When he craned his neck back to look at her, Adelle tried to smile, but found it was easy, even if her chin quivered.
“What are they waiting for?” Connie muttered out of one corner of her mouth, her rifle steadied to her shoulder. High above, the screamers called back and forth to each other as if in celebration. They had found their prey.
“The Befouler.” Orla covered her mouth, flinching away from the sight of it. “They were waiting for it, and now it has come.”
38
“MAYBE I SHOULD SHOOT,” Connie said, fidgeting. “I’d rather die from the Clackers than from that monstrosity.”
“You will not be dying, Miss Rollins,” Kincaid reminded her sternly. “You will please hand me the rifle, and you and Adelle will cast your spell. It is time to admit defeat and salvage what we can.”
Orla sobbed.
“Courage, Orla,” he told her, carefully setting Adelle down. She couldn’t stand anymore, and had to immediately kneel, cradling the shears still sticking out of her body. The bloodstain had spread down to her belly. “Courage and valor.”
“A lady is not taught those things,” Orla wailed, wiping fiercely at her face.
Connie pressed the rifle into his hands with a nod. Then Caid turned to Orla and gathered her to his side. “A lady does not need to be taught those qualities,” he said. “A lady naturally possesses them.”
Connie dropped down next to Adelle, shoving her backpack between them and tearing open the nylon flap. “I told you, Delly, he’s a catch.”
“Catch and release,” Adelle sighed, tears drying on her cheeks. “Just my luck.”
“Mine too,” Connie replied, fishing out the candle and cup; she had scooped up a rock along the way. Carefully, she set the book beside the ingredients.
“What are you talking about?”
“Missi . . .” Connie snorted shyly, the wharf shaking under them as the Befouler advanced. “We, um, we kissed. There’s a lot we need to talk about when we get home.”
“Apparently.”
“You know,” Connie mused. “It’s wild—I never met her.”
“Who?” Adelle added the incense from her pocket to the pile.
Connie grinned. “Moira. I never got to see her alive. She was always my book crush, and I never met her.”
Adelle frowned and glanced down at the scissors jutting out of her shoulder. “Ah, so she wasn’t just an example. Well, trust me, it’s better that you didn’t.”
“It doesn’t matter, anyway,” Connie said, glancing up toward the screamers. “I met who I needed . . . to.” Her words ground to a stuttering stop as her gaze lifted. “Uh, guys? Balloon is back.”
Kincaid spared a single glance, though Orla twisted around and tilted her head, staring in openmouthed shock as the balloon, trailed by a streamer of screamers, barreled down toward them, flames roaring around the edges of the fabric, devouring it. What was more, a hole flapped open in the balloon, roughly the size and shape of a screamer.
“Look out below!” Mississippi’s alarm sounded just above the crackle of flames, the shrieks of the screamers, and the deafening steps of the Befouler as it brought its bulk and stench down the wharf.
“Dump it!” she heard Missi call next. “NOW!”
Even the Befouler paused as the balloon basket suddenly became a pitcher. The weight of the tea being poured over the edge and into the Wound made it list precariously as it shot toward the waves.
“They did it!” Adelle laughed, incredulous.
The Wound’s arms flapped, the air shocked dead by the roar that came from it—otherworldly, deafening. Adelle almost flattened herself against the ground from the blast; Connie, Orla, and Kincaid struggled to keep their feet. The wharf quaked, spidery cracks splitting it down the middle. Waves churned and crashed, spilling bile-black water over the edge.
Connie remembered herself and hurried to protect the spell ingredients. Scrambling, she shoved everything they needed into the nylon bag, watching the waterline begin to rise, the Wound thrashing, drowning in gallons of the dream-inhibiting tea.
The Befouler called to its master, their twining voices crying in outraged agony as the Befouler raged toward them. Connie could see Kincaid’s arms shaking as he aimed the rifle at it and then fired. The bullet struck—a great shot, in fact, though it was simply absorbed by the gelatinous hulk.
The shot had hit center, in the forehead of a new face lurching from the writhing mass of mashed-together bodies.
Severin.
“Lord in heaven!” Orla covered her face and looked away. “It took him.”
“They don’t think we can pull this off,” Adelle murmured, staring over her shoulder at him with steely ferocity. “That’s why the Chanters didn’t fire. They don’t just want us to die; they want us to die horribly. But we won’t. I can’t.”
Connie could read that expression with absolute best-friend precision.
“Delly! If you take those shears out and try to stab him, I swear on my life I’ll—”
“Connie!” Adelle waved her arm toward the sky. “Connie, look out!”
The Befouler had come, and Kincaid was stuck reloading while Severin’s mangled body leaned out of its front, almost its own oozing appendage. No matter how quickly Kincaid worked or how much Connie helped him with the powder, they would never make it in time.
But the balloon, now freed of its ballast, engulfed in flames and torn to shreds, had other plans—its own wild plans. Adelle watched Mississippi appear over the edge, hanging off the basket, legs kicking as she hauled down on a rope, veering the balloon sharply toward them. The balloon was coming down, and fast, and it was headed right for them.
Connie shoved Kincaid down, all instinct, and together they tackled Orla into a pile, settling just beside Adelle as the ground shook, the Wound thundered, and the water splashed over them in freezing torrents.
Severin had wanted to see the grand montgolfière, and now he would, as it crashed down into the Befouler and set the creature alight. Its chorus of screams blotted out even the Wound’s protests, the slick black tar covering the Befouler igniting like fuel. Three figures jumped from the balloon, landing rough and somersaulting, as the basket all but flattened the monster from the speed of its descent.
The fire raged, and the Chanters called out to each other in confusion as their weapon and their god died.
“That was incredible!” Connie leaped to her feet. A moment later she was in Missi’s arms. The cowgirl winced but hugged her right back. Connie held her at arm’s length, noticing the loosened, busted sling around her shoulder and the grazing wound across her bicep.
“You’re hurt.” Connie checked her over for other bandages.
“Don’t you fuss about that now.” Missi waved her off. “Did it work? Is it gone?”
They all turned in silence to the Wound and watched its tentacles flap slower and slower, only wriggling before they flopped over uselessly into the water, somewhere below the line of the wharf. The waves raged on, dying down near the wharf’s midpoint, though rising higher and higher above the Wound, crashing down onto it, spray and foam obscuring it entirely from view.
“The Wall . . . ,” Orla breathed, blinking fast. “The faces are gone.”
One by one, appearing through the veil of seawater, figures emerged—with tentative steps and raised arms, but they came. Nothing stirred inside the Befouler. Those lost to it were gone, it seemed, its victims smashed by the balloon basket.
“Now,” Kincaid reminded the girls, reaching toward them and opening and closing his hand. “Give me the candle.”
“Lay out your spell now, while the Wound is dead, before you idiots cause more trouble!” Mississippi shouted. She softened her words by squeezing the back of Connie’s neck affectionately. “Who put those darn scissors there, girl?” She pointed, befuddled, at Adelle’s chest.
“Caid can tell you the whole story,” Adelle whispered. “I don’t think the culprit will be a problem now.”
Adelle was growing paler by the minute. Connie bit down on her lip, frantically spreading out the ingredients, slapping open the book quickly before anyone could notice the title. She cast her gaze skyward, determining north and south, then ripped the incense out of her nylon bag. There was no shortage of seawater for the cup.
Heavy, wet splats made them jump as screamer bodies dropped out of the sky, some landing dead in splayed piles along the wharf, others disappearing into the sea.
Orla huddled closer to Kincaid as he returned with the candle, lit from the fire still turning the Befouler to greasy ash.
“Say your goodbyes now and then go and greet them,” Kincaid told her with a smile. “They will be confused, and they will need reassurance.”
Connie took the candle from Kincaid and poured out a little wax on the wharf, then ground the base of the candle down into it. Everyone gathered in a circle, protecting the weak but brave little flame.
“They got Joe, Rollins, and too many of the children,” Missi said, shaking her head. Farai and Geo were covered in soot, singed and bruised but alive. “We didn’t sacrifice all of this and break my beautiful balloon for you to fall down now. Cast your spell, darlin’, and get on home.”
She leaned down and kissed Connie on the top of the head, and Connie knew in her heart it was for luck. She took Adelle’s hands, and they both nodded, as ready and unready as two people could ever be. Connie wanted to stay and look around, and see their friends reunite with the people making their way down the wharf, but there was no time, and if they waited too long, their presence might just create some new terrible chaos for their friends to suffer.
“I’ll miss you,” Adelle murmured, keeping her gaze on Caid as she added, “I’m going to miss you all so much.”
“Don’t forget us,” he replied, her blood staining the white linen covering his heart. “But live. Live and live, and we will do the same.”
Orla simply sobbed and dislodged herself from the group to drape her arms around Adelle’s neck one last time. Then she backed away and inhaled, loud enough for them all to hear. “My heart cannot take any more of this!”
“Ready?” Connie took both of Adelle’s hands again.
“No. You?”
“Nope.”
“She’ll be fine,” Adelle promised her. “She will.”
“I know,” Connie said, worrying anyway. “She’s Mississippi McClaren. She can do anything.”
Adelle closed her eyes, and Connie did too, and surrounded by sad and hopeful faces, they both put their hands on the book, on the last page, and spoke the words: “Split the world, coiled and curled, the curtain torn, the Old One born.”
Epilogue
ADELLE LOOKED UP INTO the audience. Only two dozen or so friends and family had come, but to her it felt like the crowd packing a two-story Times Square bookstore. She found Connie there in the front row, hand in hand with her new girlfriend, Gigi. Gigi had transferred midsemester and joined the biathlon club, and Connie had found the courage to ask her out just before classes ended for the summer.
Connie winked and gave her a thumbs-up.
Everything had been different since they came home.
The next day would mark the one-year anniversary of their return. Adelle had started to lose consciousness on the way to the hospital, but luckily Long Wharf had been crowded with tourists when they popped back into reality, and she was saved by an Italian couple with a working cell phone and snatches of English.
There were questions, too, of course. In the ambulance, the two girls tried to shore up their story. They decided, in the end, that they just wouldn’t try to explain any of it. Rumors started. Stories were spun. Most people assumed some kind of suicide pact gone wrong, or that they had been drugged and kidnapped by a psychopath. The girls bit their tongues, and let their peers and friends and family speculate where they had been for those mysterious days. In their world, it had amounted to just over seventy-two hours.
“I don’t remember,” Adelle told her mother whenever she got up the courage to ask. Brigitte Casey was still in high demand, but she stayed home more. That would only last for a little while, Adelle knew; her mother was too in love with her job to curb it for long, and that was fine.
Adelle didn’t mind being home alone with Greg as much anymore. She had found her path, and she was showing everyone, all two dozen or so in the audience, what that meant.
Yes, she had a path. She knew what she was meant to do now.
She opened the soft-covered, self-published book, ignored the coughs and squeaking chairs, and breathed in the coffee-scented air, then read aloud the first sentence of her first book.
“You don’t know the meaning of a kiss until it becomes a memory.”
The reading went about as well as it could. She made it through the first chapter of the book, and then everyone stood and clapped, and Adelle could see her mother beaming in the audience. Even Greg looked moved. She imagined Caid there next to them, dressed in a blazer and khaki pants, his glasses more modern, maybe tortoiseshell, but his wide, dimpled smile flashing as he cheered her on.
Sometimes she was sure he was around. Connie said the same thing—that every now and then she would catch sight of a pretty redhead at the mall or at a Sox game, and think: That was her. I know that was her.
It never hurt less, but Adelle found herself craving those glimpses all the same.
The store where Connie’s mom, Rosie, worked, Country Shelf, had been kind enough to set up a signing space for her. They couldn’t stock the book without a legitimate ISBN, something Rosie Rollins had warned her about, but Adelle didn’t mind. It was more of a passion project anyway, and she was just grateful that they had indulged her, letting her give the reading and then sign all the copies that had come in a tightly packed box.
Giddy, she whipped out her Sharpie for Connie and Gigi. Shiny glitter stars decorated Gigi’s cheeks, contrasting with her spotless brown complexion. She had a cute pixie cut but wore elaborate pink wigs when they went out. Her looks were already getting buzz online, and she had a flair for entertaining makeup and gossip streams, amassing more fans than Adelle’s book ever would—Adelle was enamored; Connie rolled with it. They made quite a pair, Connie in her baggy yoga pants and oversized hoodie, and Gigi in her shiny pink bows, neon short shorts, and sky-high platform sneakers.
