Bitter Demons (16 page)

"After the stick burned, I decided to just
reach my hand inside the circle and grab the stone," I said. "I'd
already touched the barrier once and it hurt, but it didn't seem
like it was going to kill me. But as soon as my hand clasped the
stone, I felt the circle begin to pull me in. I thought I was going
to die for sure." I rubbed my hands along my pants legs. They were
sweating like crazy from nerves. "That's when Jackson ran up and
pulled me out."

I was careful to omit the part about my
necklace and the fact that his brother had shown up as well. I
concentrated on keeping my expression steady.

"Then what?"

"Then the roses shattered as if they were
made of glass," I said. "That's when Caroline's mother showed
up."

The priestess settled back in her chair and
stared out the front window, thinking. I sat quietly, glad I was
finished with the story, and hoping I said everything right.

"Black roses like the ones you saw today do
not grow naturally on this earth," she said, not looking at me.
"They grow in the land of the shadows, in the place where these
demons come from. They are very powerful, but also very dangerous.
In the early days of the Order, the roses were used to confine
traitors in a circle, like a prison of sorts. The roses were used
for years, decades even."

The sound of her voice was like a waterfall
rushing over me. Calm and cool. She turned to look at me then, a
strange expression in her light blue eyes.

"It was always believed that no one could
break the spell of the black roses except the witch who conjured
them," she said.

My heart stopped beating in my chest for a
split second. Was she accusing me of conjuring those roses? I
opened my mouth to defend myself, but she held up a hand to silence
me.

"I have no idea how you were able to break
that spell, and even after listening to your story, it is still a
bit of a mystery to me," she said. "But I can tell from your face
that it is just as much a mystery to you."

I slumped backward and let out a huge sigh.
"It all seemed to happen so fast," I said. "The pain was
unbearable."

"A normal witch wouldn't have survived
it."

"I wouldn't have either if it hadn't been for
Jackson."

I still didn't know Jackson's full story, but
no matter what he'd done in the past, I wanted to make sure the
Order understood the kind of person he was now.

The priestess sighed. "Jackson," she said,
"is a very complicated individual. And your interest in him only
complicates things further. Your Mrs. Ashworth has expressed her
concerns to me about your relationship with him."

She certainly wasn't
my
Mrs. Ashworth,
but I couldn't say I was terribly surprised that she'd gone to the
priestess.

"She just wants me to date her son." I
blurted it out without really thinking it through, but it was the
truth.

The priestess nodded. "As the second most
powerful family in Peachville, the Ashworth's merely want to make
sure you choose a partner who is worthy of your talents," she said.
"Besides, your children would benefit from having a father from the
Ashworth line."

I had to force myself not to gag. Was she
seriously talking to me about children? With Drake Ashworth? I
didn't even know if I wanted to have children someday, and here she
was planning my wedding. Being a future was fun when it came to
casting spells, but I could really do without the whole
expectations aspect of it. Just knowing that I was expected to
marry and provide an heir gave me the heeby-jeebies.

"Jackson, on the other hand, can never be
your partner," she said. "You have to have realized this for
yourself. Demons are a great source of power for us, Harper, but
they are not our equals. Jackson's purpose for being in this world
is complicated and stands at cross-purposes to your destiny as
Prima. Any relationship between the two of you is only temporary at
best."

I swallowed and looked down at my hands. Yes,
I'd already realized that for myself, but there was a part of me
that still held some hope that we could beat the system. Of course,
the priestess didn't know that I had no intention of ever becoming
Prima of this town. Not if I could help it, anyway.

"I agree with Mrs. Ashworth that your
attachment to the demon is unhealthy," she said.

I snapped my head up. What was she
saying?

"I think it would be best if you stopped
spending so much time with him," she said.

I stood, my heart overruling my brain. Every
muscle in my body was tense with anger. I wouldn't let them keep us
apart. "We go to the same school," I said. "And we live on the same
property. You can't expect us to have zero contact."

"Of course," she said. "But the Order would
like to see you make a real effort to spend your time with other
trainees."

I clenched my jaw tight. She wasn't exactly
saying I couldn't talk to Jackson anymore, but it felt like a
threat.

"And what happens if I don't agree?" I asked.
"What if I hang out with him anyway?"

She sighed heavily. "It's possible the local
council might vote to send Jackson away," she said. "To another
town, perhaps. Or the Order might decide to finish your training in
seclusion."

I let out a slight whimper. "Seclusion? As in
all by myself, all the time?"

Priestess Winter nodded. "Except for your
trainer, of course, who would be appointed by the Order."

I pictured the torture room on the third
floor and shuddered. Could they lock me up there for the next two
years?

"I'm sure you wouldn't want to trade your
time with your friends on the cheerleading squad for that," she
said. "Even Jackson had to agree with that."

Tears stung the corner of my eyes, but I
refused to let them fall. "You talked to Jackson about this?"

"He understands what's best for you, Harper,"
Zara said. She put her hand on mine, but I pulled away as if she
had bitten me. I didn't want her comforting words. She didn't know
the first thing about my life or what was best for me.

Of course, they weren't really concerned
about what was best for me. All they wanted was what was best for
the Order of Shadows. That's all anyone in the Order cared about. I
couldn't let myself become one of them. I wouldn't.

"Harper, you are an extraordinary girl," she
said. "You did something today that no witch has ever done, and you
lived to tell about it. You may not realize just how amazing that
is right now, but trust me when I say that it is quite
impressive."

I stood near the window and looked out at the
front yard. The sun was already gone and the porch was cloaked in
darkness. Would they really send Jackson away? Or put me in
seclusion? If I was really so special, why were they treating me
like my feelings didn't matter at all?

"You may join the rest of your house in the
kitchen," Priestess Winter said. "Ella Mae and the others are
waiting for you to start dinner."

Resigned, I nodded to her, then left the
room.

Caroline's room was cold.

Her mother and sister had already gone to bed
in the next room.

When I'd heard the door close behind them, I
slipped out of my room and into Caroline's. I summoned a dim amber
light and pulled a chair close to Caroline's side.

She looked so peaceful. As if she were only
sleeping for a little while and would wake up refreshed and happy
in the morning. But there were no guarantees that she would ever
wake up.

I thought about the black stone I'd pulled
off her chest. The priestess had said it was a form of dark magic
that pulled a witch's power from her body and placed it into the
stone for another witch to use. If her power was trapped in the
stone, couldn't they just give it back to her and reverse the
spell? Or would Caroline's power be lost to her forever?

I sighed and laid my head in my hands. It
wasn't fair. I should have been the one lying helpless in that bed.
Whoever took Caroline's power was really after my power. I was sure
of it.

I spent the rest of the night thinking about
who would possibly have access to dark magic and ancient rituals.
It would have to be someone with a connection to the Order, right?
Someone who had access to all of the spell books. It would have to
be someone powerful, too. Someone capable of conjuring something so
difficult.

And they had to be close by. When Zara and I
came upon Caroline's body, there was no one around that we could
see, but what if someone had been hiding in the woods? They'd gone
to so much trouble to kidnap her in the first place, they wouldn't
have just left her there. Besides, if it was her power they wanted,
they wouldn't have left the stone just sitting there
unattended.

I twirled the black crow feather between my
fingers.

Priestess Winter said her trackers didn't
find anything in the woods, but something like a crow feather
wouldn't be so hard to overlook. They were looking for a human. A
witch. They weren't looking for a witch whose demon could manifest
as a crow.

Something tugged at the corner of my mind.
Something important. I thought of Zara floating through the air as
a butterfly. A shape-shifter. Then, I thought about the clear blue
eyes of the crow and how they looked so incredibly human.

Then it hit me. The crow didn't belong to a
witch.

The crow
was
the witch.

I was in knots all day Sunday. I wanted to
talk to Jackson about the crow, but I wasn't sure how to get his
attention without someone seeing us together. Plus, the priestess
had said he agreed not to spend so much time with me. I wasn't
exactly sure where we stood lately.

Sometimes, I felt that Jackson truly cared
for me. But other times, I wondered if he only cared about keeping
his brother alive. For a while, it seemed like our relationship was
really going somewhere, but he hadn't kissed me since that night at
the hospital when I found out he was a demon. Maybe he didn't care
about me as much as I thought he did.

I knew I couldn't just lay on my bed all day
thinking about Jackson. I needed to keep my hands busy so I
wouldn't go insane. I decided to clean my room, and when I started
cleaning out the space under my bed, I found the silver box. The
one Zara said was sitting outside my door yesterday morning. I'd
completely forgotten about it.

I sighed and pulled the white ribbon from the
slender box. Drake Ashworth had another thing coming if he thought
I was going out with him again. Why did he insist on sending me
presents?

I removed the lid from the box and froze. I
dropped the box onto the floor and backed away.

Inside the box, nestled in black tissue
paper, were a dozen black roses.

School on Monday was a nuisance. All I wanted
to do was figure out who this crow witch was, but instead, I was
forced to endure things like poetry and calculus. The only good
thing about being back in school was that I could at least see
Jackson and ask him why he agreed that we shouldn't see each other.
The Order couldn't possibly be watching us at all times, and I
figured school was a safe place to try to talk to him. Besides, he
needed to know about the black roses.

I missed riding to school with him. The
Shadowford van was more than quiet this morning. Courtney was
reading a book, and Mary Anne was even more sullen than usual. I
was happy to finally get to school and find Lark and Allison
waiting for me by the statue. Unfortunately, Brooke was there too.
I hadn't talked to her at all since the party Friday night, and
frankly I didn't really have anything to say to her. As far as I
was concerned, she was just another member of the Order now.

"You've got to tell us all about it," Allison
said, grabbing my arm. "Did you really find Caroline all by
yourself?"

"My mom said you single-handedly broke a
spell that no one in the Order knew could be broken," Lark
said.

"It wasn't that big a deal," I said with a
shrug.

"See?" Brooke said. "I told you it wasn't
that exciting."

She turned and started walking toward the
building. I stuck my tongue out at her and Lark laughed. I was
tired of Brooke's attitude. She was obviously jealous of the
attention I was getting for being the future. Well, if she wanted
my power, she could have it.

The thought stopped me dead in my tracks.

Brooke wasn't on my list of possible
suspects, but I suddenly realized she had a clear motive. I didn't
know how she might have access to dark magic or the ability to
shape-shift, but she definitely had a reason for wanting to steal
my power.

Then, I realized that the first time I ever
saw the crow was after I heard Brooke talking about me behind my
back. She couldn't be the crow unless there were two of them, and I
highly doubted that. I'd only ever seen one, and it couldn't have
been Brooke.

I guess I was relieved to find that it wasn't
yet another one of my supposedly best friends trying to kill me. On
the other hand, I was no closer to solving this mystery.

"See you guys at practice this afternoon?"
Allison said.

Brooke gave a half-hearted wave and
disappeared into her homeroom class. The rest of us parted ways and
headed to our own classes.

I had to stop by my locker real quick to drop
off some of the heavy books I'd brought home and hadn't opened.
When I opened the door to my locker, a small white piece of paper
fluttered onto the floor. My stomach did a little back-flip as I
leaned over to pick it up.

I looked around to make sure no one was
watching me, then opened the note.