circle. “Together they ruled a vast kingdom.”
Glenn splashed at her. “Mom! They did not!”
“How do you know?”
“Because there aren’t kingdoms anymore,” Glenn instructed.
“Those are just in stories.”
Glenn’s mom went quiet, only her head and shoulders bobbing out of the water, then with two clean strokes, she returned to Glenn’s side and rose up onto her back again. The water stilled and it was quiet except for the faint clap of the tide meeting the beach far away. Glenn felt a rising pressure below her palm and then there was her mother’s hand easing into hers, locking them together.
“You’re right,” she said. “Just in stories.”
Glenn stood with the warmth of that memory wrapped around her like a cloak. She tried to wish away everything that Opal had said, but as much as Glenn wanted to she couldn’t tolerate such a comforting lie.
Too many pieces had fallen into place over the last few days to deny the picture they created. Aamon hadn’t come across the border and stumbled onto their property. He had come to find the Magistra and bring her back. As soon as Aamon was well again it was time for her to return. That was the moment Glenn had seen out beyond the border the night her mother disappeared. It was no dream.
Now she knew why her mother had always avoided talk of her
past and her family. Why she looked out across the border like she was terrified of what lay on the other side. The cruelty of her abandonment, which had once seemed inexplicable, was now so clear. It was simply the first time Glenn had seen her mother for what she truly was.
A monster.
The word churned inside of her. How could she reconcile it with the woman who held her hand while they floated in that lake? Which was the lie?
Glenn eased a finger in between the skin of her wrist and the flat underneath of the bracelet. The world went quiet. Even her heart seemed to cease its beating. As the bracelet slid away, tendrils of the other world began to appear, reaching for her and then dancing away.
Glenn could feel the power mounting outside the edge of the bracelet’s bubble, ready to fill her again. A rush of emotions churned within her, a small newfound hope mixing with a decade of grief and rage.
“Glenn?”
She turned with a start, slipping the bracelet back onto her wrist.
Kevin stood in the doorway behind her.
“What are you doing?”
“I was just … I was getting some air.”
Kevin stepped out past the flagstones and joined her, looking up into the trees.
“It’s different, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“The air. I don’t know. It feels … fuller somehow.” Kevin turned to Glenn. “Where were you? Opal left panicked and then you two were talking. Is everything — ”
“It was nothing.”
Kevin was standing between her and the house, hands stuffed in the pockets of his heavy Magisterium coat, waiting. He knew her too well to believe her when she said it was nothing. The truth rose to Glenn’s lips — what had happened when she took off the bracelet, the truth about her mother — but the enormity of it stopped her. How could she explain?
“It’s … I’m tired,” Glenn told him. “That’s all. We leave early tomorrow. We should try to get some rest.”
Glenn hurried up the slate path. Her shaking hand found the door handle and began to pull.
“I’m not going back.”
Glenn turned. Kevin stood with the bare trees swaying behind him.
“What are you talking about?”
“When all of this is over. Whatever happens. I’m not going
back.”
“Why?”
Kevin shrugged. “Nothing to go back for.”
There was a twist in her chest as she saw falling snow and felt Kevin’s hand on her back. She remembered stumbling through the dark beside him, laughing herself breathless.
“What about — ” Glenn began.
“What?”
20
There was no sound but the faint rush of the river out in the dark.
Glenn stood at Opal’s door, her fingertips frozen on the handle. She wanted to answer, but the words wouldn’t come.
The way Kevin stood in the moon’s half-light, motionless, his eyes like cinders, he didn’t feel like Kevin at all. Something foreign sat just beneath his quiet stillness. Just like that first moment he was caught in Opal’s web, it was as if Kevin’s body was nothing more than a mask. Was this the shadow of Cort Whitley inside him? Was Kevin lost to her now too?
“Nothing,” Glenn said.
Kevin’s penetrating stare didn’t falter. Finally Glenn had to look away, wondering if he felt some sliver of her mother lurking inside her, just like she saw Cort within him.
Before Glenn knew it, he was standing right beside her. She took in a quick breath and held it. Their shoulders nearly touched as his hand disappeared behind her and took the door handle from her.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I thought.”
Kevin threw open the door. As he stepped inside, he dropped one hand so the back of it swept alongside hers, a warm brush of skin, and the door closed with a
Glenn snapped awake hours later and sat up in the small bed. The house was dead quiet — no sounds of breathing or the house settling.
No movement inside or out. Something was wrong. Glenn was sure of it. It was like a thin, tight wire at the core of her had been plucked and was sending tremors throughout her body.
Glenn’s bare feet slipped off the mattress and touched the floor.
She dressed, crouching in the dark, then peered out her open door.
Nothing in the hallway. She crept forward, keeping low until she could just see outside.
The front of the house was lit with the barest thread of moonlight coming in from the window, but it was enough to tell that no one was there. To her left was a short hall that led to Opal’s room and the room where Kevin had been sleeping.
A fiery orange glow seeped from Kevin’s room and spread along the walls. Glenn took a deep breath and stepped into the hallway, one palm flat against the rough-hewn wall as she stole down its length.
Glenn edged up to the side of the doorway and flattened herself to it.
She could hear faint whispers from inside the room. The muscles in Glenn’s neck went rigid as she leaned forward. In the middle of the room stood a girl a little older than Glenn with a sharp, angular jaw and dark hair. She was dressed in a long black cloak with a hood lying back across her shoulders.
The room was illuminated by a single flame that flickered, suspended, above her open palm.
Kevin, Opal, and Aamon stood perfectly still before her, their arms straight at their sides. Their eyes were lifeless. The girl in the cloak kept up the stream of whispering, and every so often Kevin or Opal would slowly nod their heads.
