Shadow Demons (5 page)

Blood seeped into the ground and covered the trunk of the tree where the witch had fallen. But where did she go? Jackson pulled me close.

“She was dead,” he said. “I’m almost positive of it.”

“So how is she gone? Wouldn’t we have seen her if she just got up and walked away?”

“Something strange is definitely going on here,” he said, his eyes surveying the woods around us. “We should get out of here as soon as possible.”

I had no problem with that. I was ready to leave the second I saw the purple arrow fly by my head. But when I tried to head back toward Shadowford, Jackson hesitated. He bit his lower lip and had worried creases around his eyes.

“What is it?” I asked. “I thought we were leaving?”

“Harper, look at this place,” he said. He stretched his arms out and turned around. “We can’t leave it like this.”

For the first time since the fight broke out, I took a good look at the area around us. The ice was melting into the ground, leaving it slightly soggy, but that part would dry up by morning. It was the part underneath the ice and around the edges of our fighting area that were destroyed.

I held my palm even with my chest and conjured a small orb of pure white light.

“Don’t,” Jackson said, taking a step toward me.

I shook my head. “I want to see,” I said.

Jackson backed away, giving me space. I walked around the edges of the area, taking in the severity of the damage. Every bit of undergrowth was gone. Even the grass and weeds underneath the pine needles were gone. In places where the ice had melted, I could see nothing but scorched earth, as if a fire had ravaged the area instead of an ice storm. The trees that were hit the hardest were decomposed and rotten. Their limbs were bare and dry. Anything that had been living and thriving when we got here was now dead and decaying.

“What caused this?” I asked, trembling. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.

“Me,” he said simply.

I turned to study him. “You?” I asked. “You mean the ice stuff you did?”

He shook his head and began to pace. “Not exactly,” he said. “Yes and no, I mean. It’s complicated.”

He ran a hand through his hair, and I waited for him to keep going. He’d been avoiding telling me about his powers for the past couple of weeks, but after tonight, there was no hiding the truth.

“You’ve already told me how you got your powers back,” I said. “Is it really that much of a stretch to explain to me how it works?”

“We don’t have much time,” he said. “I promise I’ll explain it all to you later, but we can’t leave this looking so scarred. It leaves too much evidence of my powers. If the Order finds this, they’ll know. I can’t risk it.”

“But what can we do?” I asked. “I could grab some pine needles or something and try to cover up the ground, but I don’t know what to do about the trees.”

“Yes you do,” he said. “You still aren’t used to thinking like a witch.”

I drew my eyebrows together. What did he mean by that? Then, I remembered the day Zara asked me to heal the dying magnolia tree in the garden. “You want me to heal this?”

“Exactly,” he said. “And quickly, please. I don’t want to be standing here if the witch comes back with reinforcements.”

The idea of the witch’s return brought goosebumps to my arms. I shivered, realizing my clothes were still soaking wet from the rain. Jackson was right, we needed to get out of here. Fast.

“Why don’t you do it?” I asked. “You obviously have some kind of power of your own now.”

“I can’t,” Jackson said. “It doesn’t work like that. We don’t have time to talk about all the details now. Please, Harper.”

“As long as you understand that this doesn’t let you off the hook for explaining what the hell is going on with you,” I said.

He nodded. “I get it.”

I let the orb of light dissolve into nothingness, then sat down on the cold damp ground. Water soaked into my boots and ripped tights, but I did my best to ignore it. There was no time to mourn my destroyed clothes or think about the cold. Instead, I set my hands, palms-up on my knees and did my best to connect to my power.

Soon, I felt the warm blue power of my own energy flowing through me. The strength of it surprised me. I had been worried that with all the distractions tonight, I wouldn’t be able to summon my power. Especially after the rain had taken so much out of me. But here it was, moving through me with great strength.

I imagined grass growing underneath my body. Not perfect summer green grass, but a brown and gray fall sort of grass that matched the rest of the forest. With my mind, I took the circle of grass under my body and extended it out like sunshine throughout the rest of the damaged section of woods.

When the foundation work was done, I stood and moved to each tree, one at a time. Healing the trees took a lot more energy than the grass. With each one I healed, I felt more and more light-headed. By the time I got to the fourth tree, I was so dizzy I stumbled backward. Jackson caught me in his strong arms and held me tight against his chest.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. He rested his chin against my shoulder and I leaned my head against him. “I know this has to be hard on you to ask all this, but you have to trust me when I tell you that it’s incredibly important to try to hide all evidence that I used this power.”

“It’s okay,” I said, catching my breath. “I’m almost finished.”

He gave me a squeeze, then released me. I only had two more trees to heal, then the area would look as close to the rest of the woods as I could make it look with my level of magical knowledge and ability.

I placed my hand on the dry, crumbling bark of the next tree and let my power flow into it. I thought about a healthy, growing tree. I pictured the limbs filling back out with pine needles and pine cones.

Under my hand, the bark shifted and changed. The color returned to a more normal shade of dark brown and bits of green lichen began to grow near the moist base.

My stomach lurched, and I had to steady myself against the tree to keep from throwing up. I closed my eyes. Despite the cold and my wet clothes, sweat beaded on my temples. Jackson stepped forward, but I held my hand up for him to leave me alone. I felt feverish, weak. I hated for him to even see me like this. I wanted to look strong, but I didn’t even think to use my powers until it was too late and we were trapped. If it hadn’t been for his powers coming back to him, we both probably would have been dead. I couldn’t accept that.

I was tired of feeling helpless in these situations. Something had to change. If I was going to protect myself and the people I loved the most, I had to find a way to get more power.

As the last leaf blossomed on the final tree, I fell to the carpeted forest floor, exhausted. Jackson lifted me into the air and carried me effortlessly through the woods. I put my arms around him and cradled my head between his neck and shoulder. The rhythm of his walk nearly lulled me to sleep, but each time I heard a twig snap or a bird’s wings flutter or a frog croak, I jerked up, expecting the worst.

“Shhh,” Jackson said. “Everything is going to be okay now. We’re almost home.”

Home. A word I never thought I’d have a connection to. But Shadowford was my home. It belonged to me. These woods belonged to me. The lake. The barn. All of it. Yet, in order to claim it, I had to become something horrible. I had to lose Jackson.

“Harper?” Jackson said quietly.

I opened my eyes. We were standing at the edge of the forest, the back of Ella Mae and Jackson’s house just visible across the small grassy backyard. “Sorry, I think I fell asleep,” I said.

He smiled, but his eyes were sad. “Can you walk?” he asked. “I don’t want to carry you all the way up to your room. It might draw some suspicion. But I’ll do it if you need me to.”

I shook my head. “I’ll be fine,” I said. “I can walk.”

He lowered me to the ground. My legs still felt a little wobbly and my ankle throbbed, but after a few steps, I was steady and sure. Tired, but okay.

At the back door to Shadowford, we paused and stared into each other’s eyes.

“Thank you for saving my life,” I said. “Again.”

Jackson looked down at his feet. “If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have been out in those woods to begin with.”

“I had a beautiful evening with you at the lake,” I said. “I wouldn’t trade that for anything. Besides, whoever that witch was, she would have found me alone at some point and attacked anyway. At least this time you were there with me. If you hadn’t been there, I don’t know what might have happened.”

Jackson took my hand in his. “Harper, there are some things you should know about what happened tonight,” he said. He looked around to make sure we were really alone. “I’m not sure it’s safe to talk about it out here, though. Can we meet tomorrow?”

“I have regional cheerleading competition tomorrow,” I said. Just thinking about it made me instantly exhausted. How was I going to recover enough to cheer tomorrow? “We could meet afterward?”

“I’m coming to the competition,” he said. “Then I’ll bring you home after and we can talk. I don’t want to let you out of my sight. Not until we know who that witch was and what she wanted.”

“Besides the fact that she wanted to kill me?” I said with a laugh. A wave of dizziness washed over me and I had to close my eyes and hold on to Jackson for a second.

“Get some rest,” he said. He leaned in to kiss me. Our lips brushed together softly and as soon as he pulled away, I missed the warmth of them.

“Good night,” I said.

I walked through the back door into the darkness of Shadowford’s kitchen. There were no lights on in the lower part of the house except a dim amber glow coming from underneath Mrs. Shadowford’s door. I made my way slowly through the dark hallway and around to the stairs, realizing somewhere along the way that during the attack, my necklace hadn’t summoned Aerden.

I paused in the middle of the staircase, panic rushing through me. I brought my hand up to my neck to make sure it was there. I breathed a sigh of relief as I felt the sapphire pendant.

But why hadn’t it worked? I’d been directly attacked by magic, yet Aerden never came to save me. What if my connection to him had been somehow damaged or broken in the attack with the crows? The idea sent shivers up and down my spine.

“You’re home late.”

I turned to find Mary Anne and Courtney sitting together on the bed in Courtney’s room. Her door was cracked open just enough for me to see them.

“Come hang out,” Courtney said, an excited smile on her face. She was normally so reserved, her happiness surprised me. “We want to hear all about your date.”

I hesitated. I knew I looked awful with my torn, wet clothes. If the girls got a closer look, they were going to want an explanation.

“I’m just gonna go change real quick.” I made my way down the hall with my head down and disappeared into my bedroom, shutting the door behind me.

I’d barely had time to strip off my sweater and boots when there was a knock on the door.

“Just a second,” I said, pulling off my mud-covered skirt.

“Is everything okay?” Mary Anne asked. Her voice was soft, but I could hear the edge of concern in her tone.

“Fine,” I said. I shoved the ruined clothes under the bed. The pajamas I’d worn the night before were still laid out on my comforter, so I threw them on real quick and went to answer the door.

Before I did, I took a second to compose myself. Deep breath in and out. Just a normal date night. No crazy witches or hunter ghouls or whatever. Everything was going to be okay.

“Hey,” I said. I intended to give them a bright smile, but I was too exhausted even for that.

“What happened?” Mary Anne pushed past me and looked around the room suspiciously.

Courtney followed close behind her and with a quick check to make sure the hallway was empty, she shut the door. She climbed up onto my bed and patted the mattress. “Have a seat,” she said. “You look beat.”

“Just tired,” I said. “It’s been a long week.”

I glanced longingly at the closed door. Part of me wanted to yank it open and ask them both to leave me alone so I could sleep. I was worried about why my necklace hadn’t summoned Aerden. I was worried about who was trying to kill me. Again.

“You know, it might not be such a good idea for you guys to be in here this late,” I said, searching for an excuse. “Mrs. Shadowford set our curfew at eleven and it’s already half-past.”

“Mrs. Shadowford’s hardly come out of her room in weeks,” Mary Anne said. “Everyone knows she was only important as long as her job was looking for you. Now that they’ve found you, she’s useless and depressed.”

Courtney picked up one of my pillows and set it in her lap. “Yeah, she’s definitely been acting strange. Have you noticed she never even comes to dinner or anything anymore? She’s definitely not going to come check on us tonight.”

“What’s really going on with you?” Mary Anne asked, narrowing her eyes. “Why are you trying to get rid of us.”

“I’m not,” I said.

“Liar,” Mary Anne said. “Something happened tonight. I can tell.” She opened my closet, rustled around looking for something, then closed it again. Then, she got down on her hands and knees and checked under the bed.

I groaned.

“What is this?” she asked, pulling my tights out from under the bed and holding them up. “This does not happen to tights on a normal date. So either Jackson is a complete jerk who threw you in a swamp and left you to die, or something else happened.”

“She’s used magic tonight, too,” Courtney said. “Can’t you tell? Her aura is completely weak and faded.”

Mary Anne narrowed her eyes at me. “I can’t actually see auras, but I can tell she looks tired.”

“Here.” Courtney patted the bed beside her again. “Come here and I’ll recharge you.”

My eyes widened. Of course! How could I have forgotten Courtney’s near super-power? She’d recharged me a few months ago on the night I had to go invisible to visit Jackson in jail. I hated to admit it, but I was in serious need of a recharge right about now.

“Thanks,” I said, my voice weak. Sitting down on the bed felt so good, all I wanted to do was curl up under the covers and sleep for a month.

“Close your eyes and give me your hands,” she said.

We sat on the bed facing each other. I put my hands in hers and closed my eyes. I let my body relax as the room grew quiet and still. Slowly, a reviving energy spread into my fingertips, up through my hands and arms, into my body and through my heart. All the way down to my toes.

I smiled.

“Feels good doesn’t it?” Courtney said with a giggle. “I love being connected to your power. It’s like hooking myself up to a giant sun.”

“You’re the one who’s powerful,” I told her. My entire body felt rejuvenated, like I could heal a hundred dead trees if I wanted to. “It’s amazing what you can do.”

Courtney blushed and let her head fall to her chest. Her straight, dirty blonde hair fell across her face, but I could tell she was happy.

“So now that you’re back to your normal self, are you going to tell us what happened tonight?” Mary Anne came around to the other side of the bed and sat down, her back against the dark wooden headboard. She didn’t look like she was going to take no for an answer.

I sighed. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“Did Jackson do something?” Courtney asked.

“No.” I shook my head. “No, Jackson would never do anything to hurt me.”

“Then what?” Courtney said. She sat forward, eyes trained on my face.

I hesitated. Could I trust them? The truth was, these two girls were a lot more like me than any of the girls on the cheerleading squad. They both came from messed up families just like me. Neither one of them would ever push me to be the Prima or to be anything I’m not. If there was anyone besides Jackson I could trust in this town, it was probably the two girls sitting here with me.

Still, what did I know about Courtney? Both Mary Anne and Agnes had a secret past that could have led to my death. Who was to say Courtney wasn’t hiding something equally as dangerous? And what about Mary Anne? Knowing where she came from, was it really smart to trust her?

Then again, Mary Anne had saved my life. And Courtney, well, she wasn’t the killing type. I drew in a deep breath. I had to start opening myself up to people if I ever wanted anyone to be completely on my side. Right now, I felt like I could really use a few friends on my side. Friends with no ulterior motives.

“If I tell you this, you have to promise that you won’t tell a single soul,” I said. My voice was a whisper and my hands trembled in my lap. “If anyone else were to find out about this, it could mean my life.”

Both girls leaned forward, their faces dead serious.

Courtney placed her hand on my arm. Other than the two recharging sessions where our hands were clasped together, Courtney had never touched me. I think she meant it as her promise that she could be trusted. The firm touch meant more to me than words.

Mary Anne scooted toward us on the bed and placed her hand on top of Courtney’s. I met her blue eyes and could see her promise in them.

I swallowed nervously, took a deep breath, then told them all about the witch in the woods.