Bitter Demons (11 page)

"We won't. She has two towns looking for her,
including her very powerful mother," he said. "Let them find her
and rescue her. You're all that matters to me."

I stood and walked to the edge of the forest.
He wasn't telling the whole truth. I knew he cared about his
brother more than anything else. All he cared about was keeping his
brother safe - and that meant keeping me safe.

"I think we need to concentrate on finding
out more about this feather," I said, not turning to look him in
the eye. I didn't want him to see how hurt I was.

"We can do some digging," he said. "But
that's all. Nothing dangerous."

"They want to put a guard at my door and keep
me locked in my room," I said. "I hardly think there will be much
opportunity for dangerous right now anyway."

"I should get you home, then," he said. "Ella
Mae and Mrs. Shadowford are probably going to be waiting for you to
make sure you're safe. Did they know you were riding home with
me?"

I nodded. "I told Mrs. Ashworth to call them
before I left the lake house."

"Everything is going to be okay, Harper," he
said. "But we have to be suspicious of everyone. Keep your eyes
open for anything unusual like someone watching you at school or
saying something strange."

I felt overwhelmed. How many people in this
damn town wanted me dead?

"I'll do everything I can to keep you
safe."

"I know," I said.

He kissed my forehead, then drove me
home.

The fact that Jackson's kisses had gone from
passionate to pecks on the forehead was not completely lost on me.
I blamed myself for the way I'd pushed him in the orchard to tell
me more than he wanted to tell. When he dropped me off at home, he
hugged me tight, but there was no passion.

I longed to feel his lips on mine. Anything
to wash away the memory of Caroline's scream.

"Will I see you tomorrow?" I asked.

"I'm going to try to stay as close to you as
I can," he said. "I don't know who they'll post as your guard, but
whoever it is probably won't be a big fan of me hanging
around."

I suddenly remembered the horrible things
Meredith had said about him. In the horror of the night's events,
I'd completely forgotten about it. Now hardly seemed like the time
to ask him why the Order called him Wrath. It would have to
wait.

"Thanks for being on my side," I said
instead. "I don't know what I would do without you."

He smiled and ran his thumb across my cheek.
"Try to get some rest," he said. "I'll find a way to see you
tomorrow."

We said goodbye, and I headed inside
Shadowford Home. Even though it was after midnight, Mrs. Shadowford
was waiting for me. The second I stepped in the door, she called
out to me from her suite of rooms down the hallway.

I stepped inside her door. The room was
darker than usual, her lights dimmed to a deep amber. "Yes?"

"What took you so long to get home? Mrs.
Ashworth called half an hour ago."

"I had to wait for Jack-"

"I don't want to hear your excuses." Her
sharp tone caught me off guard. She squinted toward me in the
half-darkness. "Everyone speaks of you as if you were some kind of
messiah, returned to save us all from our own weakness. But I think
you are a plague on this town. Death follows you like a dark
storm-cloud."

My knees locked in place and I tried to keep
my hands from shaking. Mrs. Shadowford's tone dripped with
hatred.

"We've seen nothing but heartache since the
moment you first arrived," she said, her beady eyes locked on mine.
"And here I sit, my hands tied to do anything about it. But mark my
words, young lady. You will soon be under my control. Once the
council sees the kind of girl you really are, they'll give me
permission to take more drastic measures to keep you in line."

I swallowed, but my mouth was so dry. I knew
Mrs. Shadowford wasn't particularly fond of me, but for the most
part, she'd stayed out of my life except for the occasional
question or instruction. I had no idea what kind of drastic
measures she was capable of enforcing, but it didn't sound like
fun.

"I'm tired," I said, holding my voice steady.
"I'm going to go to bed."

I turned to leave, but the door slammed shut
so fast, I could feel the rush of air blow my hair off my
shoulders. Slowly, I turned back to her. Mrs. Shadowford's wrinkled
hand was raised high in the air. She balled up her fist and brought
it down on top of her desk with a smack. I jumped as several items
in the room began to shake.

"You will not turn your back on me like I am
some servant," she said. Her anger radiated out through the room.
Picture frames vibrated against the wall. The beads on a small
lampshade on her desk began to shake. "Until you become Prima, you
are still under my supervision in this household. Do you understand
me?"

I nodded and took a step back.

"You will go up to your room and not come
down until you are called for," she said. Her fist was still
clutched tight, her wrist shaking from tension. "Your meals will be
brought up to you. Now go."

The door opened on its own, and I pushed
through as fast as I could. I ran up the stairs and down the hall
to my room. Courtney must have been waiting for me, because the
second I hit the top step, she came rushing from her room.

"What happened?" she asked, breathless and
wide-eyed.

I threw a glance over my shoulder. I couldn't
afford to stand around in the hall talking, but I wasn't sure I was
allowed to have visitors in my room either. The last thing I wanted
to do was piss Mrs. Shadowford off more than she already was.

"I can't talk about it," I said. I slipped
into my room, but left the door open.

Courtney started to follow, and I put my hand
up to stop her. "What?" she asked.

"I'm not sure you're allowed in here with
me," I whispered. "Mrs. Shadowford's really upset with me, and I
don't want to risk making it worse."

"Gosh, what did you do?" She leaned forward,
matching my tone of voice.

Across the hall, Mary Anne's door opened a
small crack. Courtney and I both turned at the sound of the
squeaking hinges. She was dressed all in black, as usual. Her black
hair fell across her face, and her eyes were ringed with red, as if
she'd been crying. Her eyes locked on mine. She gasped.

"Harper?"

She looked surprised to see me.

"Yes?" I said.

She slapped her hand across her mouth and
shook her head, then slammed her door shut.

"What was that about?" Courtney asked.
"Harper, what's going on?"

"I'm not sure," I said. I stared dumbly at
Mary Anne's closed door. The way she looked at me when our eyes
met... Did Mary Anne know something about what happened tonight?
Why would she have been surprised to see me, unless she never
expected me to come home? She wasn't at the party, so how would she
have heard? If Courtney didn't know, I assumed Mary Anne didn't
either. But now, I wasn't so sure.

"Is there anything I can do to help? Can I
get you something to drink or anything?"

I shook my head. "It's been a long night. I
think I just want to get some rest. But can you do me a favor?"

"Just name it," she said.

"Come by my room in the morning," I said. "I
might need you to deliver a note to Jackson."

I sat down at my desk once she was gone and
wrote a short note to Jackson.

What do you know about Mary Anne?

I couldn't sleep. All I could think about was
Caroline, scared and alone, possibly being tortured. And it was all
my fault. I tossed and turned until the sun rose outside my
window.

I decided to run a hot bath when there was a
knock on my door. I threw on my faded robe and opened the door,
unsure who to expect.

"Good morning." Courtney moved past me,
carrying a tray full of food. "I convinced Ella Mae to let me bring
up some breakfast for you."

"Thanks," I said. The fresh fruit and yogurt
looked delicious, but my stomach was still in knots from the night
before. "Just set it down on the bed, and I'll get to it in a
sec."

"Are you feeling alright?"

I sighed. "Did Ella Mae tell you what
happened last night?"

Courtney shook her head.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and picked
at a green leaf on top of one of the strawberries. "One of the
cheerleaders from Cypress was kidnapped at the party last
night."

Courtney put a hand to her chest. "Oh my
gosh," she said quietly. "Did you know her?"

"I'd just met her yesterday," I said.

"I don't get why you're in trouble, though,"
she said.

It was hard to explain these things to
Courtney when she didn't really know the whole truth about
Peachville. Or at least, I didn't think she knew. We had all been
brought to this house because we were special, right? I already
knew that Courtney had some magical powers. More specifically, I'd
already learned that she could move items with her mind and she
could recharge a witch who had used up her power. Still, that
didn't mean she knew about the demon gate or the fact that the town
was inhabited by a powerful coven of witches.

Frankly, I didn't want to be the one to tell
her, either. After how crazy it made Agnes, I didn't want to risk
another girl being mad at me for being chosen over her. I didn't
know how it worked or why the Order chose one girl over another,
but I was fairly certain that despite any magical abilities, Mary
Anne and Courtney weren't ever going to be invited to join the
cheerleading squad.

"It's complicated," I said. "I'm not really
sure I should talk about it."

Courtney's gaze dropped to her hands. I felt
bad about shutting her out. I could tell she wanted a friend, and I
really owed her after she recharged me the night I went upstairs to
steal the memory spell book. But I had no choice. I'd already
gotten one girl kidnapped. I didn't need to pull someone else into
my crazy life.

"I get it," she said, her dark blonde hair
falling down over her face. "Did you have something for me to take
to Jackson?"

I walked over to my desk and grabbed the
folded note. I hesitated before I handed it over to her. Could I
really trust her with this? I wanted to believe that she was on my
side, but every time I trusted someone, they either turned out to
be a psycho or they turned up dead.

"I won't read it," she said, holding out her
hand.

I handed her the note. "I know," I said. "I
just don't want to get you in trouble."

Courtney smiled. "I'll be okay."

She stuffed the note in the pocket of her
jeans.

"I'll let you know if he writes back," she
said.

When she was gone, I sat on my bed and ate
some of the breakfast. Courtney was so quiet when I first got here,
but after Agnes died, she really came out of her shell. Still, I
hadn't seen her with any friends at school or anything. She never
talked about any of her friends, either. Did she even have any?

Maybe that was why she always seemed so eager
to help me out or talk to me about what was going on in my life.
She'd definitely tried to reach out to me several times. She'd even
trusted me with her magic secrets. I suddenly wondered what
Courtney's real story was. And Mary Anne's too, for that matter. I
mean, here we were, three girls living in the same house day in and
day out, yet we hardly knew a thing about each other's past.

There was a reason each of us were brought
here. According to Morgyn, it was because we were all either
adopted or motherless, and we all showed some kind of tendency
toward magic. But where were Courtney and Mary Anne from? Did they
have families out there? Or were they adopted like me?

Could their past have something to do with
Caroline's disappearance? I didn't have anything connecting
Caroline to this house, but the look on Mary Anne's face last night
made me think she was hiding something. To me, finding out more
about the girls I lived with might be the first step toward
figuring out who wanted me dead.

If Agnes was smart enough to figure out why
she was brought to Shadowford, why not Mary Anne and Courtney? And
I'd already learned firsthand what that knowledge could do to
someone who wasn't chosen to join the Order. It was enough to make
Agnes want me dead. Was one of the other girls living here just as
angry?

Whoever took Caroline really wanted me. I was
sure of it. I pulled a notebook from my bookbag and started a list.
At the top, I wrote MOTIVE in capital letters.

Who had motive to hurt or kill me?

The Others went to the top of the list. After
all, I'd killed three of their top local members. That wasn't
exactly public knowledge or anything, but I couldn't be sure no one
knew what happened that night at the old Brighton Hospital. The
Others seemed to think all demons were evil and any witch who
joined with a demon was equally evil. They wanted to end the Order
of Shadows, and for them, killing me would be a huge victory. Yes,
they had motive for sure.

Mary Anne and Courtney were next on the list
with a big question mark beside their names. I needed to dig deeper
into their past to try to find out if some hidden motive lurked in
there somewhere. Plus, I needed to find out just how much they both
knew about this town and why they were brought to Shadowford in the
first place.

I tapped my pencil against the edge of the
notebook. Who else might have a motive to want me dead? After last
night, it was clear that Mrs. Shadowford didn't want me here, but
wasn't she a member of the local Order? If she went through her
initiation here in Peachville, then her life depended on mine. That
automatically ruled her out, unless she was suicidal.