I knew I should say something… anything… but I couldn’t find the energy to respond, or a voice to respond with. When Evelyn’s smile had faded, it had taken the light from the clearing with it. In the sudden darkness, all I could see were ghosts, pouring through the trees. Dozens of them, more than dozens, layered so heavily atop one another that I couldn’t see through them to the live people beneath.
The inaudible sound of the dead rose higher and higher until my bones were vibrating, and it was all I could do to wrap my arms around my legs and shrink away from the noise.
CHAPTER 44
That day in the clearing wasn’t the start of the downward spiral—that had been Shane’s death, or maybe Ishmae’s departure—but it was a breaking point. We had only a few weeks left until summer break, but I remember lying awake in the small hours of the night, surrounded by the silent, demanding dead, wondering how I could possibly make it that long.
I could have told my friends what was going on—fuck knows they must have noticed something was wrong, no matter how I tried to pretend otherwise—but what would any of them have been able to do? None of them even saw the ghosts. They sure as hell couldn’t help me banish them.
Alexa would have been a better choice as confidante, but she’d happily let me believe she was someone else for a whole semester. Maybe we’d find our way back to the trust that she was so fond of talking about, but that day was still a long fucking way off.
That left me alone with my problems. I did what I could to soldier on, but the greater the number of ghosts crowding in around me, the harder it was to look past them to the reality that lay underneath. I remember stopping on one of the long, winding paths through campus to yell at a pair of ghosts who seemed intent upon barreling into me. It was only when they both shied away, with muttered words and wary glances, that I realized they hadn’t been ghosts at all, but students. Normals, I’m guessing. First-years or second-years would’ve gone straight to Bard.
I’m sure Silt and Vibe tried to talk with me at various points, and I must have said or done the right things because life kept on going, but I don’t remember those conversations. I barely even remember exams; all my mind can conjure is the image of myself walking into the lecture halls and then walking back out again a few hours later, as if I’d been a ghost, watching my own body from a distance.
Finally, just when my mind was ready to snap with the strain of pretending that everything was normal, the semester ended. Students, both Powers and normals, fled the campus in a series of waves, rushing back into the outside world for a few weeks of relaxation and family-time. When the noise had died down, I wandered the first-year dorm. I made certain that everyone had left, and then I returned to my room. I took a seat on my bed and waited and watched as the dead gathered around me in disorderly ranks.
I looked from Mom to Shane to the legions of strangers, and gave them all the smile that still made Silt shiver.
“Okay, you fuckers. Let’s get it on.”
•—•—•
There isn’t much information out there on Crows. Biographies and such, sure enough—as Stonewall and the others had found out—but that’s about it. Other Powers have it easy. There are dozens of books on the developmental paths a Pyromancer’s powers might take. There’s years of study on the multiple types of Shifters and how their transformations affect them biologically, and on the way some Powers work to oppose each other, like Shadecasters and Lightbringers, while others work in harmony, like Empaths and Sirens. But Crows? Nobody knows exactly what we do, let alone how, and the scientific community sure as shit isn’t interested in teaching us how to develop those powers.
In my more lucid moments over the past month, I’d gathered what data I could from the Academy’s digital library. Most of it was worse than useless; a combination of folk lore and superstition, all heavily flavored with fear. The only thing that had made any sense at all came from a philosopher in the early decades post-Break. He’d theorized that necromancy, by its very nature, was a struggle between the Crow’s will and the dead he was trying to control. If mind control had been a thing—and thank God it fucking wasn’t—he reasoned it would have functioned the same way.
Since the ghosts showed no signs of wanting to leave, it was clear I was going to have to make them go. If that took a battle of wills, then so be it.
•—•—•
Problem was… seated on my bed and surrounded by the dead, I had no clue how to start the war I so badly needed to win. The ghosts took my declaration of battle the same way they took everything I said; with a complete lack of reaction. Those who were screaming kept on screaming. Those who were weeping kept on doing so. The angry ones, like Shane, didn’t even pause in their silent rage.
And in the middle of it all was Mom, beaming and humming her soundless tune.
A full semester at the Academy and I knew as little about my power as when I’d started. Five months, and I’d never even managed to actively use it.
Mr. Grey should’ve just left me in Bakersfield.
After a wasted hour, I found myself thinking back to that first fight with Matthew. The first-years were still split on whether I’d used my powers then or not. I’d come down firmly on the side that chalked the whole thing up to a concussion… but what if I was wrong? What if I had used my power? How the hell had I managed
