The Fury

'It's a great gift—' began Alaric.

'It's a great big pain. Look, you don't understand. The ordinary predictions are bad enough. It seems like most of the time I'm finding out things I don't want to know. But getting taken over—that's awful. And afterward I don't even remember what I've said. It's horrible.'

'Getting taken over?' Alaric repeated. 'What's that?'

Bonnie sighed. 'It's what happened to me in the church,' she said patiently. 'I can do other kinds of predictions, like divining with water or reading palms'—she glanced at Elena, and then away—'and stuff like that. But then there are times when—someone—takes me over and just uses me to talk for them. It's like having somebody else in my body.'

'Like in the graveyard, when you said there was something there waiting for me,' said Elena. 'Or when you warned me not to go near the bridge. Or when you came to dinner and said that Death, my death, was in the house.' She looked automatically around at Damon, who returned her gaze impassively. Still, that had been wrong, she thought. Damon hadn't been her death. So what had the prophecy meant? For just an instant something glimmered in her mind, but before she could get a grasp on it, Meredith interrupted.

'It's like another voice that speaks through Bonnie,' Meredith explained to Alaric. 'She even looks different. Maybe you weren't close enough in the church to see.'

'But why didn't you tell me about this?' Alaric was excited. 'This could be important. This—entity—whatever it is—could give us vital information. It could clear up the mystery of the Other Power, or at least give us a clue how to fight it.'

Bonnie was shaking her head. 'No. It isn't something I can just whistle up, and it doesn't answer questions. It just happens to me. And I hate it.'

'You mean you can't think of anything that tends to set it off? Anything that's led to it happening before?'

Elena and Meredith, who knew very well what could set it off, looked at each other. Elena bit the inside of her cheek. It was Bonnie's choice. It had to be Bonnie's choice.

Bonnie, who was holding her head in her hands, shot a sideways glance through red curls at Elena. Then she shut her eyes and moaned.

'Candles,' she said.

'What?'

'Candles. A candle flame might do it. I can't be sure, you understand; I'm not promising anything—'

'Somebody go ransack the science lab,' said Alaric.

It was a scene reminiscent of the day Alaric had come to school, when he'd asked them all to put their chairs in a circle. Elena looked at the circle of faces lit eerily from below by the candle's flame. There was Matt, with his jaw set. Beside him, Meredith, her dark lashes throwing shadows upward. And Alaric, leaning forward in his eagerness. Then Damon, light and shadow dancing over the planes of his face. And Stefan, high cheekbones looking too sharply defined to Elena's eyes. And finally, Bonnie, looking fragile and pale even in the golden light of the candle.

We're connected, Elena thought, overcome by the same feeling that she'd had in the church, when she had taken Stefan's and Damon's hands. She remembered a thin white circle of wax floating in a dish of water. We can do it if we stick together.

'I'm just going to look into the candle,' Bonnie said, her voice quivering slightly. 'And not think of anything. I'm going to try to—leave myself open to it.' She began to breathe deeply, gazing into the candle flame.

And then it happened, just as it had before. Bonnie's face smoothed out, all expression draining away. Her eyes went blank as the stone cherub's in the graveyard.

She didn't say a word.

That was when Elena realized they hadn't agreed on what to ask. She groped through her mind to find a question before Bonnie lost contact. 'Where can we find the Other Power?' she said, just as Alaric blurted out, 'Who are you?' Their voices mingled, their questions intertwining.

Bonnie's blank face turned, sweeping the circle with sightless eyes. Then the voice that wasn't Bonnie's voice said, 'Come and see.'

'Wait a minute,' Matt said, as Bonnie stood up, still entranced, and made for the door. 'Where's she going?'

Meredith grabbed for her coat. 'Are we going with her?'

'Don't touch her!' said Alaric, jumping up as Bonnie went out the door.

Elena looked at Stefan, and then at Damon. With one accord, they followed, trailing Bonnie down the empty, echoing hall.

'Where are we going? Which question is she answering?' Matt demanded. Elena could only shake her head. Alaric was jogging to keep up with Bonnie's gliding pace.

She slowed down as they emerged into the snow, and to Elena's surprise, walked up to Alaric's car in the staff parking lot and stood beside it.

'We can't all fit; I'll follow with Matt,' Meredith said swiftly. Elena, her skin chilled with apprehension as well as cold air, got in the back of Alaric's car when he opened it for her, with Damon and Stefan on either side. Bonnie sat up front. She was looking straight ahead, and she didn't speak. But as Alaric pulled out of the parking lot, she lifted one white hand and pointed. Right on Lee Street and then left on Arbor Green. Straight out toward Elena's house and then right on Thunderbird. Heading toward Old Creek Road.

It was then that Elena realized where they were going.

They took the other bridge to the cemetery, the one everyone always called 'the new bridge' to distinguish it from Wickery Bridge, which was now gone. They were approaching from the gate side, the side Tyler had driven up when he took Elena to the ruined church.

Alaric's car stopped just where Tyler's had stopped. Meredith pulled up behind them.

With a terrible sense of deja vu, Elena made the trek up the hill and through the gate, following Bonnie to where the ruined church stood with its belfry pointing like a finger to the stormy sky. At the empty hole that had once been the doorway, she balked.

'Where are you taking us?' she said. 'Listen to me. Will you just tell us which question you're answering?'

'Come and see.'

Helplessly, Elena looked at the others. Then she stepped over the threshold. Bonnie walked slowly to the white marble tomb, and stopped.

Elena looked at it, and then at Bonnie's ghostly face. Every hair on her arms and the back of her neck was standing up. 'Oh, no…' she whispered. 'Not that.'

'Elena, what are you talking about?' Meredith said.

Dizzy, Elena looked down at the marble countenances of Thomas and Honoria Fell, lying on the stone lid of their tomb. 'This thing opens,' she whispered.

THIRTEEN

'You think we're supposed to—look inside?' Matt said.

'I don't know,' Elena said miserably. She didn't want to see what was inside that tomb now any more than she had when Tyler had suggested opening it to vandalize it. 'Maybe we won't be able to get it open,' she added. 'Tyler and Dick couldn't. It started to slide only when I leaned on it.'

'Lean on it now; maybe there's some sort of hidden spring mechanism,' Alaric suggested, and when Elena did, with no results, he said, 'All right, let's all get a grip, and brace ourselves—like this. Come on, now—'

From his crouch, he looked up at Damon, who was standing motionless next to the tomb, looking faintly amused. 'Excuse me,' Damon said, and Alaric stepped back, frowning. Damon and Stefan each gripped an end of the stone lid and lifted.

The lid came away, making a grinding sound as Damon and Stefan slid it to the ground on one side of the tomb.

Elena couldn't bring herself to move closer.