Casters Series Box Set Page 17

  Except—holy shit!—what if Brooke had broken the window when the copper hit it? Would they have been able to get back inside? Or would they all be stuck out here, like Connie’s cast? The thought made her shudder, and she decided against mentioning it to the others. They’d had enough jolts tonight.

  Alex swallowed hard. God, what a disaster. What happened to Brooke tonight scared the crap out of her. Scared her even more when she thought about what could have happened. Yeah, she should have found a way to stop Brooke, but Alex knew much of the blame for tonight lay squarely on her own shoulders.

  Meeting Connie had also added another layer of fear. Though Alex was very glad to have met her, she was nevertheless scared of the implications. Possibly eternal implications.

  Then there was that other thing that scared the crap out of her. The one that weighed the heaviest. The one that never left her. What new memories would press in on her tonight?

  “What do we do with the bracelets?” The slim band of copper around Maryanne’s left wrist disappeared as she covered it with her right hand

  “We’ll have to leave them out here, I guess,” Brooke said. Her voice took on a very un-Brooke-like tremor. “But I hate to.”

  “I don’t think we have a choice.” Alex looked around. “That big oak by the river,” she said. “I’ll hook them on a high branch and we’ll get them next time we cast out. Give them to me.”

  “When will that be?” Maryanne asked. She seemed as hesitant as Brooke to hand Connie’s makeshift bracelets over. Clearly, she wanted to keep it close, this giver of strength and taker of pain. Alex knew the feeling.

  Alex left the question unanswered as she collected the bracelets and flew towards the dark oak.

  When will that be?

  Soon.

  Now that she’d seen Connie, it would be very soon. Even if she had to go out alone.

  With all three copper bracelets tucked securely within the oak branches, the heaviness of the night returned to Alex. She soared back to Harvell House where Maryanne and Brooke waited by the window. They felt the exhaustion too, Brooke probably worst of all. It was time for that re-fusion of body and cast.

  Brooke was the first one through the glass. From outside, Alex watched as Brooke’s cast reunited with her body with a force that sent her skidding back across the attic. Or would have, had she not tried to control the momentum. Alex watched her twist sideways and body-slam into the dresser, grimacing as the lone flame that still burned atop the dresser shook. But the stubby little candle didn’t topple. Brooke sat up automatically, wrapped her arms around her knees. The adrenaline rush wasn’t making her bounce tonight. No doubt she was still scared, and rightly so. She rocked herself as she sat there on the floor, her head down on her knees.

  Maryanne’s cast-in wasn’t quite so dramatic. Just as fast, but she went with the force of it and slid all the way to the back wall. She jumped up immediately, and went to Brooke. Not to wrap her arms around her—she knew better than to try that. But to sit beside her. To wait with her.

  Alex hesitated before she moved through the glass, finding herself looking up into the Madonna’s eyes as she hovered there. There was such compassion in the lady’s eyes.

  She was getting closer to remembering the rape—the rapist. With every cast out and back in, that hammer in her memory would crack through a little more. And while she desperately wanted to know—needed to know—who had hurt her, facing those brutal truths, bit by bit, was a living nightmare.

  Alex braced herself, then slipped in through the window. Instantly, she blasted into her body, blasted into the new memories. The wind knocked out of her as she shot across the floor.

  Hold them. That was her only thought as she stopped against the back wall. Hold on to the memories, but hold them down. Just for a little while. Just until you’re alone again.

  Her pulse raced, and she could hear the ragged unevenness of her own breathing. When she stood, her knees shook. But Alex walked across the attic to join the other two girls. Maryanne had set the one low-burning candle on the floor beside her and Brooke. The two looked up at her. Even in that dim light, they could all see the wildness in each others’ expanded pupils.

  “What happened back there, Brooke?” Alex asked. “What did you—”

  “What did I do?” Brooke snapped. “For God’s sake, Robbins! What did you do? Or not do, I should say. You could have got me—”

  Brooke broke off abruptly.

  Got her what? None of them really knew the full extent of what could have happened tonight.

  “Trapped?” Maryanne offered, and for once her eyes were hard. Clearly, she was not rushing to Alex’s defense. Alex couldn’t blame her.

  “Because you didn’t warn us about the iron, you could have gotten her trapped, at the very least,” Maryanne continued. “Hurt, maybe? Broken?” Her voice lowered. “Killed, even?”

  And there it was, out in the open. What surely the others had wondered all along, but none had dared to voice. Could their casts be killed?

  “What would happen, Alex?” Brooke asked. “If my cast was trapped or... or worse?”

  Alex shook her head. She sat. “I... I don’t know!”

  Brooke hissed, only Maryanne’s warning hand on her arm stopping her from shouting. “You’re going to tell us, Alex! Everything. I don’t know where you hide that damned diary when you’re not carrying it around with you, or tucking it under your pillow at night—yes, I’ve seen you! But I’ll tear this place apart and read it myself if you hold back any more secrets! You could have... ”

  “Brooke—”

  Brooke drew a shaky breath and continued, as though she hadn’t even heard Alex. “When Seth came at me with that poker, I could have dodged the blow, but I didn’t even try. I thought it would just go right through me. But then he hit me with it. I think the contact scared him into dropping it. I could have bounced then, except the damned poker landed on me. Oh, Lord, I couldn’t even move under it. You’ve no idea how helpless I—”

  “Okay, I screwed up!” Alex nearly shouted the words. She owed Brooke an apology. Maryanne, too. The old Alex would never give it. The new Alex came close. “I should have told you about the iron. But I... I didn’t think you’d need to know. I just—”

  “Wanted to keep everything to yourself,” Maryanne said, still with that unfamiliar hard edge.

  “Maybe. I just... ” Alex lowered her head a moment. Ran her hands quickly through her hair in frustration. “It won’t happen again.”

  Brooke huffed. “Damn right it won’t happen again! Is there anything else we should know?”

  Alex gritted her teeth. “Yeah. Leave Seth Walker alone.”

  Brooke ignored the dig. “Anything else that works like iron?”

  “Not that I know of.” Alex drew a breath. “Connie wrote about iron. Ira Walker somehow found out it had properties that she couldn’t move through. He grabbed Connie in the barn one time, tried to lock her in the iron handcuffs. Probably the old ones Bryce stormed into the house with. Those were meant for Connie, but she got away. She wrote how terrifying it had been. There were blurred spots on those pages that could only have been made by her tears. I didn’t tell you about the iron because it just didn’t occur to me. I guess I didn’t think you’d have to know.”

  “No,” Maryanne said. “That’s not quite true. You didn’t tell us because you want to keep Connie all to yourself. You didn’t want to break Connie’s confidence. It’s as easy as that, Alex. You want to keep her to yourself.”

  “But you can’t,” Brooke said. “We’re in this together. Or so help me, Alex—”

  “I know! I know!” She tightened her fist on her knees.

  “So, no more secrets?” Maryanne said.

  Alex met Maryanne’s eyes and nodded. “Yeah, I got that.”

  “Is there any other danger?” Brooke asked. “Besides iron.”

  “I already told you, no. At least, not that Connie wrote of.”

  “Are we safe to
go out again?” This time it was Maryanne voicing concern. “Or are we going to be hunted now?”

  That Alex didn’t know, and it was Brooke who ventured a guess.

  “Ira Walker spent decades hunting the Mansbridge Heller,” Brooke said. “According to Seth anyway. He said his nutty old grandfather never stopped looking for it. Seth didn’t have the time of day for the old man. But Bryce... I guess Bryce was supposedly fascinated by the stories he told. And the notes he kept. Everyone else just thought the old coot was batshit-crazy.”

  “Except those who saw Connie’s cast themselves,” Maryanne said. “They’d believe Ira.” She turned to Alex. “And as far as Connie is concerned, you read to us that they were coming to kill her. That Connie heard the stories of her death around Mansbridge.”

  In a faraway voice as she got lost in the moment, Alex repeated the writings:

  Dear Diary, I know they’re going to kill me. I’m so scared. The fear is like an acid churning in my stomach and turning my limbs to water.

  But I know something else.

  I know why the Madonna bleeds. It’s not because of her thorn-pricked feet. But because of her breaking heart.

  “That’s what Connie wrote,” Brooke said, she held herself even closer. “I recognize those words.”

  “But not all she wrote, is it, Alex?” Maryanne asked.

  “No. It wasn’t all she wrote.” Alex stood. She didn’t have to dig the diary out of its hiding place to recall the words verbatim. In the dark she crossed the attic floor to look through the window as she reeled off the last of what Connie had written:

  “I’m casting out, Dear Diary. One last time, forever. I’ll hide you, say a prayer, tap on that window, and join the night forever. They’ll kill my body. They will take my life like they’ve taken my Lily Michelle and everything else! I don’t know what will happen to this cast of mine with no body to come back to. I fear being all alone. I fear being hunted. But I will survive.

  One way or the other, I will survive EVERYTHING that they do to me.

  “And then she signed her name one last time: Connie Edwina Harvell.”

  “Oh!” Maryanne gasped. “Her body is really dead? When we met her out there, I thought... ”

  “Yeah,” Alex answered, turning back toward them. “Her body’s really dead. But her cast isn’t. It’s still roaming the Mansbridge night. But I swear I really didn’t believe it could still be out there, or I’d have told you. To have survived all this time... I think maybe I didn’t want to believe it.”

  Brooke tilted her head. “Maybe... maybe Connie Harvell’s alive. It’s possible.”

  “Did you see her face?” Alex asked. “The gray features when she shrieked?”

  “You saw that too?” Brook said “Thank God! I thought I was losing it!”

  “No, I saw her face,” Maryanne said. “The anger and the wildness.” Her glance slid quickly to Alex, then away again. “And the youth,” Maryanne said. “The caster I saw was young, like us.”

  “You’re right.” Brooke nodded. “I saw that too. But the loneliness that came out... My God, that was the worst.”

  Alex silently agreed. The loneliness in Connie’s cast had been heartbreaking.

  “Connie died all right,” Alex said. “I’m certain of it. But her cast has survived all these years. With nowhere to go. And Ira Walker hunting her until the day he died. Can you imagine?”

  The silence was telling. They could all imagine, too well.

  The candle guttered out.

  Alex sighed. “Guys, I... I should have warned you about the iron. I should have told you about Connie casting out before she was murdered. I’m sorry.”

  Brooke stood. “I want to read the diary for myself.”

  Alex stiffened. “You can’t. You’ll never find it and I’ll never tell you where it is. Just trust me. Iron’s the only thing that ever hurt Connie’s cast.”

  “Like you’d tell us if there was more!”

  “Of course she would,” Maryanne answered.

  Alex wanted to give Maryanne a grateful look, but Brooke was still glaring at her across the dark attic and Alex wouldn’t blink. No way would she give in on this. No way would she give that diary over.

  It was Brooke who eventually broke the silence.

  “Fine. But just remember, we’re all in this, Alex. It’s not just you.”

  “Yeah,” she said, letting the tension drain out of her shoulders. “All four of us now.”

  They gathered the burned out candles and walked towards the stairs. It was late; they were all tired now. But as if in unspoken, mutual agreement all three stopped before they descended the stairwell to their floor.

  “We’re not going give it up? Maryanne asked, anxiously. “The casting out, I mean.”

  Alex waited for Brooke to weigh in.

  “Oh, yeah, definitely. I’m not giving this up.”

  “Me neither,” Alex replied.

  Maryanne sighed, more with relief that fatigue “I’m in, too.”

  Somehow it didn’t surprise Alex that neither Brooke nor Maryanne wanted to stop casting any more than she did, despite the danger. Oh, those dangers would have to be weighed and considered, precautions taken. But they were casters now. Each found their relief out there. And yes, a thrilling sense of power. They embraced the night and the night embraced them.

  Then there was Connie. Alex had no intention of abandoning her out there.

  And Connie wouldn’t abandon them.

  “How about tomorrow night?” Alex said.

  Maryanne pushed the small button on her watch, illuminating it momentarily. “You mean tonight. It’s three am.”

  “Tonight,” Brooke said.

  “Yes,” Alex said. “Tonight.”

  And Connie will be there, she thought. I just know she will.

  Brooke was first down the stairs and through the door onto the second floor. Maryanne followed close on her heels. But Alex hesitated and looked back over the attic floor where weeks ago she’d lain, abused and bloodied.

  The held-back memories were crumbling forward as she stood alone. And now the only thing she was holding back was the tears.

  She could almost hear him grunting, the bastard who’d raped her. Through the stupefying shroud of whatever drug he’d used, she could almost hear her own ragged breathing—sobs, almost—beneath the coat he’d covered her head with. She could feel the pain and fear and humiliation. And when he’d spent himself, he’d gotten up and walked away laughing, low and deep. She’d rolled over then, the coat falling away. He’d turned around just at that moment... Oh, God! His face! She could almost see it now. Almost see him laughing there before she’d passed out. It was so damned close, yet still just out of reach!

  A lone tear fell down Alex’s cheek. She clenched her hands so tightly her fists shook. Let them shake, she thought. Let them shake with rage like the rest of her!

  She’d remember his face soon enough, and when she did... all hell would break loose. Or rather, all Heller. A shrieking Heller. And she wouldn’t stop until she’d shredded the last bit of his sanity and left him curled up in a fetal position in a pool of his own piss.

  Buoyed by that grimly satisfying thought, Alex walked down the stairs, closed the attic door behind her and slipped through the darkness.

  Chapter 23

  The Morning After

  Maryanne

  “Are you going to tell Betts?”

  “Are you kidding?” Maryanne glanced at Brooke, who was examining her reflection in the mirror. With the cooling weather, Brooke had traded in her signature black leather bomber for a gray wool wrap coat that looked like it cost more than the semester’s tuition, and she was busy adjusting the belt just so. “She’d be all over me.”

  And for good reason. Maryanne was planning to skip school again today. A girl could feign a cold, menstrual cramps, and a suddenly sprained ankle only so many times. After missing nine days since the beginning of the school year, Maryanne had pretty much exhaust
ed plausible excuses, not to mention Mrs. Betts’ patience. She figured she’d have to test positive for the bubonic plague at this point for the old girl to let her stay home.

  “You’re going to get caught,” Alex said flatly. Her back was to Maryanne as she bent over her bed, packing her book bag.

  “Not a chance. I’m going back to sleep.” Maryanne sat cross-legged on the bed and punched her comfy pillow for emphasis. “John Smith did the upstairs carpets and bathrooms yesterday. Today he’ll do the main floor below. Predictable as clockwork. I’ll be quiet as a church mouse—no one will know I’m here.”

  “Don’t flush the toilet,” Brooke added, not unhelpfully. “They’ll hear the water running downstairs.”

  “Oh right,” Maryanne said. “Thanks on that.”

  “And I’ll bring home the extra math Your Biggest Fan assigns.” Brooke smirked.

  “Yeah, right.” McKenzie would no doubt send home the usual extra pages via Brooke, and Maryanne would do them. Sorta.

  Alex zipped up her bag and turned to face her. “You’re missing a lot of school.”

  Maryanne met Alex’s eyes, intending to shrug off the comment. But once their gazes met, she couldn’t pull away. Alex’s eyes were like little red beacons, so tired looking. So strained from the lack of sleep they all felt. But there was another reason for the redness.

  When they’d crept back to their beds last night, Maryanne had positively crashed the moment her head hit the pillow. She’d heard nothing beyond the chatter of her dreams—which, not surprisingly, featured Connie—but she would bet any money that Alex had been crying beneath her covers again.

  What’s haunting her? It wasn’t the first time Maryanne had wondered.

  Brooke yawned widely, drawing Maryanne’s attention. She still looked like her standard million bucks, with the perfect hair and perfect clothes and perfectly made up face, but even she couldn’t hide the dragginess under her $50 foundation.

  Right on cue, Brooke leaned toward the mirror for a close-up, then stepped back again in disgust. “Oh man,” she said. “It’s going to be a long day.”