with love as she found both the fear and the prayer were for her. The demon paused in its approach, sensing the change in Amanda. She took advantage of the demon’s hesitance and sprang to her feet, throwing Kaedin behind her.
“Don’t be afraid, it can’t hurt you. You are strong!”
Kaedin took a step forward, brow knitting together in determination. “I am strong!” she shouted.
Amanda felt that strength and threw up a protective shield between them and the demon. The dark creature attempted to move forward but was unable to get a step closer. It pushed against the invisible obstacle several times but couldn’t weaken the blockade. Frank wilted to the floor, the dark mass leaving him.
She’d never seen a spirit so bright. Kaedin smiled at her like it was natural for her to smile as she had before she’d been taken.
“You can’t hurt me anymore!” Kaedin screamed out.
The room felt light, warm, and the air tasted sweet. Amanda noticed the nightstand begin to shine, and the shimmer spread across the room. She looked up at Kaedin and smiled, knowing this was the time to say goodbye. Amanda was glad they’d met. She was forming the words when Kaedin’s face dropped back into a veil of terror.
Amanda spun around, but she was too late. The dark mass of shadows was upon her, mouth thrashing. Its jagged teeth sunk into her side, and she was immediately searing in pain. The demon’s poison rushed through her veins and set them on fire. It shook its head furiously, sending black tar splattering across the floorboards. It flung its head powerfully before releasing her. She flew through the air and slammed against the far wall. Amanda bounced off the plaster and landed on her face, unable to catch herself.
She tried to move her arms, but they wouldn’t obey.
Through her tears, she could see Kaedin on the floor, eyes closed and rocking herself.
“Kaedin, you can do this without me. Be strong, be brave, move on.” Her heart sank when she realized she wasn’t talking. She couldn’t speak either. Darkness was taking her. The scene began to dissolve around the edges until the only thing left was Kaedin’s tear-soaked face, and then that too was gone. Amanda knew she was dying, but her heart’s last prayer was for Kaedin.
2
“I don’t know! I’ve never seen anything like this before,” a willowy teen girl with long golden hair cried out.
“They’re rare, and you’re young. Myself being the opposite, I’ve seen these marks before. I know how she got them. I just don’t understand…” The thin older women with cropped graying hair paused.
“What?” Nell asked.
“I’ve seen them, but they’ve always been on dead bodies. I’ve never seen a living person bear them.”
Was she still alive? No, she couldn’t be. She found the mere idea ridiculous, having already come to terms with her death and her eternal sentence. Amanda could still feel the Hell fire burning her insides. Scorching all that had once been pink into a charcoal black.
This was right. This was fair. She should be in Hell after all of the spirits she’d failed. Why did she have to run away? If she’d just accepted who she was at the Dredging age, she would have been properly trained, instead of being a seventeen-year-old novice. She could have saved Kaedin.
She choked on emotion as her mind brought up a picture.
The last image she had witnessed as a living-breathing person was Kaedin holding herself tightly. Her sweet face turned upward wearing the most pained expression she’d ever seen. She didn’t think a person could convey such torment with one look, one expression. She kept tracing and retracing the lines of Kaedin’s small face, the creases in her forehead, the tears on her cheeks, and those haunting blue eyes. Her heart was broken, not because she was burning in Hell, but because she’d witnessed a spirit being broken today.
She couldn’t hold the demon off long now. she was easy prey, as is anyone with no hope.
“Amanda, come back to us. Don’t linger in the darkness a moment longer.”
Amanda could just make out muffled words reaching out to her. The voice sounded like it was at the far end of a tunnel.
“Amanda Sarah Cates!” The voice was becoming clearer.
“Wherever you are, get your skinny rear back here now! S-B my dear, don’t leave me.”
Madgie had called her S-B since she was a kid. She thought it an odd nickname since S-B wasn’t even close to her initials. Six months after the nickname was established, she’d finally felt comfortable enough around her mentor to ask her about it.
“So tell me, why S-B?” Amanda asked.
Madgie threw a thin arm around her before replying. “It stands for sugar beet,” she said, smiling.
“Sugar beet, huh? I’m not sure that you’ve given me the right nickname,” Amanda said.
“Sure I have, sugar beets are something sweet that God decided to hide in a layer of dirt. And that’s you to a tee,” Madgie said.
Amanda snapped out of her reverie when she heard another voice. When this new voice spoke, it was nearly too soft to hear.
“Amanda?” Nell whispered.
Her eyes shot open, making Nell shriek.
“Oh, dear,” Madgie shouted, clutching her chest.
“I have to go back!” She was surprised to find her voice actually hanging in the air.
As she attempted to sit up, she realized her limbs where still of no use to her. “Has it moved yet, Madgie?”
Her mentor was speechless staring wide-eyed at her. Still as a statue, Madgie looked as if she were bracing for a rattlesnake to strike.
“Has the Scar moved yet?” Amanda shouted.
Madgie’s shoulders loosened two notches. She had always been dreadfully impatient, and Madgie seemed satisfied that she was in fact herself and not some creature set upon their destruction. “You watch your temper, Amanda Sarah. Nell is here,” she said shortly. Amanda’s eyes stretched wide in anger, which usually amused Madgie. “Yes, the Scar has moved. Are you all right, S-B? Is your head hurt, are you thinking clearly?” Madgie asked.
It had moved. She realized. Her blood felt like lead in her veins, weighing her down, and she didn’t know if she would ever get up.
Kaedin would fade. Her spirit would be dead before she ever found peace, she thought. Tears began to fall freely from her swollen eyes. Amanda gave herself over to the screams of pain that had been waiting to come forth, only stifled by her will to save Kaedin. Madgie’s thin eyebrows shot up. Amanda could just make out Madgie’s hushed words to Nell over her own cries.
“I’ve seen her fail other spirits. She’s always come out more broken but not weeping.”
“Really? What about when she was little?” Nell asked.
“I was there when Amanda first came to the Hovel in the Dredging. Almost all of the other children cried for their mothers, but not her. I’ve never seen her shed a single tear.”
“Not even when you told her…”
She choked on the end of her sentence, but Amanda knew what she was asking. Healers couldn’t have children because they were always being pulled into Scars, and only they can exist on that plane. So, a pregnant woman would lose her child unless it too was a Healer, which was a million to one shot. Of course, there were strict rules about men and women not having any type of relationship other than friendship to prevent constant miscarriages. Nell had mourned the loss of her future family harder than anyone. The poor thing’s only dream in life had been to be a mother, and she would have been a natural, but would never have a chance to be one.
