Benedict squeezed his eyesshut and breathed, trying not to vomit. Sweat clung to his skin, clothes stillwet from the storm outside.
He realized too late that thescreaming had stopped. He couldn't even hear Lucy crying.
He straightened slowly,blinking against the sudden darkness. Thick candles flickered along the wall.No. It couldn't be night already.
Shadows moved in the room,voices far away and growing closer. This wasn't the hallway or any bedroom hewas familiar with. The shadows took shape, silhouettes slipping out to becomepeople gathering around a table without chairs.
He shivered,cold despite the summer heat he had been bathed in only seconds ago. Herecognized this room from a keyhole.
"Are you certain?"Elysium asked, and it sounded like the hundredth time, his voice tight and alittle angry.
Benedict blinked at hisbrother, his hair a little longer and his clothes not quite as fitted. He wasyounger, maybe the same age as Benedict. He remembered when his hair had beenthat length. He had cut it not long after Benedict moved out of the house to goto school.
"Enough," Gloriasnapped at him. "If you don't want to do it, then take her home."
Elysium cringed, fists pressedto his thighs but no longer arguing.
Benedict stared, steppingcloser as his mother took a deep drag from her cigarette.
The dark room filled withshadows taking shape. Luis hovered close to their mother's side, and Hazelwhispered to Uncle Vernon. Theodore had his arms crossed firmly against hischest. He wasn't as well dressed as the man he would become, hair a mess andsweater hanging on his thin frame. Lucy, like the rest of them, was younger,but much the same as always. She chewed her lower lip, the way she did whennervous. They all looked guilty; the weight of it sapping their youth rightbefore his eyes.
"Get on with it,"Gloria ordered.
Elysium hesitated.
Benedict couldn't rememberever seeing his brother hesitate when it came to commands from their mother.But, at last, he disappeared from the gathering of somber faces around thattable.
Benedict wanted to follow him,he tried to, but he couldn't seem to find the edges of the room, the scenebecame foggy beyond the table and no matter how he walked, he couldn't get farfrom it.
A scream pierced the room, andhe spun toward his family just in time to catch the grimaces of his siblingsand cousins.
Elysium returned, carryingEmmeline in his arms. She kicked and struggled as best she could with her wristand ankles bound. She cried, clawing at his shoulderwith broken fingers and begged him to let her go. His dark eyes fixed on thetable; Elysium wouldn't look at her. He lifted her and put her on the surface.Their mother was quick to grab the tail of rope trailing Emmeline's wrists,dragging it back and flattening the girl out on the surface, tying her arms tothe edge of the table over her head.
She sobbed, struggling to dragin enough air to scream. Her heels kicked at the table, thunkingagain and again, her whole body spasming in terror.
Benedict tried to push his wayinto the circle of his relatives, but he fell through them. "Stop!"he commanded, but they didn't hear him. He reached for her on the table,desperate to pick her up and run away, but his hands passed right through herand his heart sank low into his stomach. He gasped wildly for air, her sobsendless and his joining hers. He was the ghost now—trespassing on a scene ofthe living past.
Uncle Vernon handed his motherthat old, leather-bound notebook from the witch's house—the one he had seen asa boy and never again since. Mother had called it hokum, but she flipped itopen now. She was rough with the pages as though offended by them even as sheread the scribbles of spells and madness they had to offer.
"Please, please let mego," Emmeline tried, her voice so raw that it didn't even sound like heranymore. "I won't tell. I just want to go home!" Her words pitchedwith terror, cracking in her throat.
They ignored her—already aghost to them.
"We gather tonight tooffer this vessel," his mother announced. "Carry her to the nextworld and leave the sight of spirits in our care. We will it."
"We will it," theother six repeated.
Benedict shuddered. Why?
"Please!" Emmeline wailed.
Lucy cried silently, andTheodore stared hard at the edge of the table.
"Leave us the gifts ofsouls, the gifts of this spirit, and bless them on our boy, Benedict."
"Benedict," theyrepeated.
Tears rolled hotly down hischeeks. He wanted to scream—the way Emmeline's ghost had screamed with waves ofmind-shattering fury and pain, but it caught in his throat, strangling him.
Somewhere far away, upstairs,the old clock chimed the first bells of midnight.
They passed around a knife,and he watched, helpless against the past, as those closest to him took turnsstabbing her. Seven wounds. One at atime. Her screams grew louder and louder until the last one came in awheeze, her breath hitching in her lungs and that one eye, the one not swollenshut, bulging. She arched off the table, mouth open wide but getting no air,only gurgling up blood like a slow fountain.
Benedict's legs gave out.
She died.
He heaved forward and vomited.
Chapter Sixteen
Benedict vomited violently,hurling up everything in his stomach and then heaving breathlessly. His visionblurred, and his throat burned, coated in stomach acid. He coughed and fellback, gasping for air and sobbing.
A hand pressed against hisshoulder, firm and real. "Benny?" Elysium asked, worry thick in hisvoice. "Are you okay? Where did you come from?"
Benedict jerked away from him,shoving at his brother's chest. He needed space. He needed to catch his breath.
Benedict let out a miserablegroan. He was still in the same room, only the fog at the edges had receded toexpose old stone walls and a dirt floor under his ass. He blinked up at them,his murderous family—or what was left of them, anyway.
Hazel, Theodore, and Elysiumhad gathered around that table, the witch's journal laid out on it with abattery-powered lantern beside it, stretching light through the room. Itsmelled like a grave. How had he never realized they had a basement before? Howhad he never realized they
