The Equinox (34 page)

“Okay, so now what?” I ask as I look
between Rose, Charlotte, and Arabella.

“My sisters and I are going to look for
Johnny. Maybe we can find him and bring him back before it gets dark,” Arabella
says.

“What happens when it gets dark?”

“If the Equinox is going to strike, he’ll
do it after dark. That’s when we need to be ready.” Charlotte says this while
appearing distracted by another thought.

I groan. “Ready for what?”

Rose shakes her head, obviously
conflicted. “I’m not sure exactly.”

“How did you defeat Erebus a decade ago?”
I ask, desperate to find an answer. This is all getting much too real.

Rose frowns. “We didn’t defeat him, that’s
why he’s still around. He just got what he wanted last time, so he went away
for a while.”

I tilt my head and shake it, confused.
“What did he get?”

“Our light attracts the Equinox. He gains
his strength from our darkness, but the only way to darken an Enchanter
completely is to drain our power and then kill us. A decade ago he got enough
energy to thrive off of for quite some time—because he killed a direct
descendant.” Rose’s tone is soft and muffled with sadness.

Another completed puzzle emerges. The only
other dead direct descend I know of is my Grandpa George. “No.” My voice
cracks.

Rose clenches her jaw. She doesn’t have
to say a word for me to make this connection, but there it is, another part of
the puzzle revealed. Erebus killed my grandfather. I want to ask Rose if the
Equinox caused the fire to the house too but I hold back. These memories can’t
be easy for her, especially at a time like this.

This is the end of the conversation. Rose
stays behind to chat with some members while Charlotte takes me back to the
house. The car is still running as I hop out of the car. I turn around to face
her.

“I’m going to stay with Rose,” Charlotte
speaks first. “Let me know when you’re ready to go to the carnival and I’ll
come get you. Please do not go anywhere alone.” She shoots daggers at me with
her eyes, waiting for me to focus on her and promise.

I nod. “Okay, I will call you in a bit.”

She gives me a forced smile and backs up
down the drive.

All I want to do when I get inside is
wash away the salt that’s buried deep into my skin; a painful memory of my date
with Johnny yesterday. The warm water feels good but I can’t scrub the memories
away—not that I’d want to entirely. Our date yesterday was a dream—and
then a nightmare. So then why did he have my pendant? And if he was the one
that rescued me from the water, then why rip the chain from my neck and then
keep it from me all this time? It troubles me because no excuse I come up with
justifies the theft.

Right now, none of that matters. I need
to get to the carnival to be with the others—and calling Charlotte is the
last thing on my priority list. I can make it to the event alone and she can
stay with Rose.

As I leave Summer Estates and lock up the
back door, I notice that the sky is already starting to dim and hesitate just
slightly. I look down at my bracelet and confidence begins to settle in.

I start to move toward the sounds coming
from the Summer Island Carnival, which are filled with screams of innocence and
excitement. It isn’t until I’m halfway down the street that I get the feeling
that I’m being watched. It hits me like a chill that soaks deep into my skin to
the point of mistaking the cold for hot. I turn my head in all directions but
my eyes catch nothing. I’m not turning around now.

With my head held high I trudge forward
through the sand with a tight grip on my sandals.

Even after participating in the set up of
the carnival, I’m still surprised at the sight before me. I stand past the
entrance where the tennis courts used to be, which are now covered with a two
story haunted house; its lights flicker a multitude of bright colors. Screams,
followed by a spatter of laughter, echo from inside its walls.

The lazy river swimming pool is now a
canoe ride where guests paddle their way through fun obstacles of raining beach
balls and water gun sprays by their laughing peers.

A long row of games wind around the
exterior of the drive, parted every now and then with the food booths that
Johnny and I set up. I frown at the memory, though I know at this point that
everything will remind me of him.

“Finally, I was getting worried about
you,” Trisha approaches me from my side—so quietly I jump.

Her eyes widen. “Are you okay?”

I inhale deeply to help calm myself. “As
okay as I can be.”

Trisha looks around us and then lowers
her head and her voice to speak to me. “Do you think he’s here?”

For a second I assume she’s speaking
about Johnny, but I know better. With all that’s gone on I almost forgot that
Trisha is one of us and that she was at the meeting earlier.

I sigh. “I don’t know. Rose seems to
think he’ll be here. I guess we just wait and find out.”

“And then what?” she asks. I can’t tell
if her question is one filled with excitement or fear. With Trisha being so new
to all of this, it’s very possible that she’s not privy to much information.
She may not know about the evil serpent that attacked the town a decade ago, or
the fact that Erebus is responsible for my grandfather’s death…

With a glance down to my pendant I frown.
“I suppose I’m protected, so he can’t possess me. That’s all I know.” Even as I
say this I feel cold, and helpless, and I’m in no hurry to start my shift but
Charlotte has already found me.

She walks toward me, appearing furious as
her short blonde hair bounces wildly toward me. There’s a fierce look on her
face, and her blue eyes glow a touch of madness. “I
said
I would pick you up. I was about to go back to the house
because I hadn’t heard from you. For once, can you just listen to the people
who are trying to protect you?”

Guilt sets in quickly, knowing that the
sternness is not uncharacteristic for Charlotte—but I’m not used to her
directing that sternness toward me. She has every right to be furious.

“I didn’t want you to leave Rose. I’m
fine. I’m here.” I say this quickly, hoping that it can dissolve some of her
anger.

She doesn’t back down. “You are so
stubborn, Katrina. Just like your grandmother.” She let’s out a frustrated
throaty noise, but I can sense she’s amused by this fact.

“Rose is helping Roy out with one of the
food booths, to cover for Johnny.”

Roy. Maybe he knows where Johnny is, but
before I can ask Charlotte about it, she’s shoving a walkie talkie into my
hands.

“Here,” she says. The earpiece of the
device dangles lazily to its side. “Can you be a rover tonight? If anyone needs
help with anything, just help them out. If you see anything—”

“I know, I know. I turn into a ninja.”

Charlotte gasps. “No! You call for help
immediately. We’ll be right there and we’ll deal with this together.”

For a second I want to cry. I’ve felt so
numb all day, I could scream now just to feel something—anything.

Charlotte sighs and wraps her arms around
me. “Be safe, Kat. Rose and I won’t be too far from you, but it’s important
that we spread out.”

“I’ll stay with Kat,” Trisha offers
eagerly.

A smile tugs at my lips. I think it’s
more for her safety than mine. I slip the earpiece onto my ear as a gesture
that I’ve got it handled, and I tuck the little black box into my back pocket. Although
Charlotte doesn’t look entirely convinced, she backs off and leaves us to
continue our walk.

Not even a second goes by. “So what
happened between you and Johnny?” Trisha asks. Of course she wants the inside
scoop, but I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to answer questions today. It’s too
soon.

“Nothing.” It’s my gut response but then
I moan in frustration. “Everything—and then disaster. He’s gone. His
phone is off. He left town.”

Trisha nudges me gently. “I know all of
that, but what happened between you two? I thought you two hated each other.”

“Things changed, I guess. We grew on each
other. Turns out we share a lot of the same interests.”

“And he’s hot,” Trisha says with a
giggle.

I give her a surprised glance. How she
can joke and giggle at a time like this is beyond me.

A flicker of light from above me kicks my
senses into high gear. I look around and though the lights have returned to
normal, something is off—I can feel it in my gut. I search the crowd for
anything unusual but nothing suspicious stands out from where I’m standing.

Still unsettled, Trisha follows me as I weave
my way through the crowd and long lines until there’s a clearing near the
entertainment stage. The band is setting up but I see an opportunity to get
some height on the situation.

I gesture for Trisha to follow me toward
the back of the stage where a ladder sits, propped up against the main stage
backdrop. “Spot me—hold the bottom. I’m going up to check things out.” I
whisper this unnecessarily but Trisha reacts as if I’ve just given her the most
important mission. Her eyes spread wide and she nods heavily.

The rungs of the ladder are thick with
grease but I try to ignore the grossness of it by pulling myself up, one step
after the other until I reach the top. I poke my head over the edge of the
thick fabric wall of the stage and see out over the crowd. From this height I
can spy every inch of the park.

“So why did he take your pendant?” Trisha
calls up from the ground. She’s not letting this conversation rest. Is she
jealous? She did always talk about how hot and complicated he was. Maybe on
some secret level she was interested.

“I don’t know,” I say over my shoulder. “There
was no time to ask. We were on his boat and when I found the pendant I was so
freaked out I swam home.” Now is not the time to talk about sea sprinkle and
mermaid tails.

“Why would you
swim
home?” Trisha’s voice expresses how I feel about myself right
now. Shameful.

I sigh. “Because—I thought he was
the Equinox.”

There’s a silence below me, and then…“Oh.
Why?”

Johnny is the furthest thing from the
Equinox so it’s like a rake scraping my heart as I have to admit my mistake. “I
just had this wild idea all along that whoever stole my pendant that night was
trying to kill me—and who else would try to kill me but the Equinox?”

As the sun lowers its curtain and the moon
takes center stage, the lights of the carnival come to life. The crowd grows
thicker and the voices carry more elation as guests wander around with their
cotton candy and prize stuffed toy manatees.

A shake of the ladder snaps me back to my
mission. “Whoa.” I look down.

Trisha holds up her hands. “Sorry!”

I look around back out at the crowd to
see if I can spot anything unusual but everything appears to be normal, except
for the growing long line at the Haunted House—and then a bloodcurdling
scream shakes the night.

All of the hair on my neck rises as I
turn toward the sound. That wasn’t an excited scream from the thrill of a ride.
No—it’s a terrified scream of someone being injured. I can almost smell
the blood.

I see him. A boy about twelve years old
is clutching his leg where a large shard of glass sticks out, its mean jagged
edges are covered in blood. I gasp and fly down the ladder too quickly. Even my
heightened senses can’t stop me from slipping on the overly greased rung and
falling the rest of the way down. I crumple Trisha with a thud and I hear her
moan. She rolls around the grass for a few seconds and I cringe.

“I’m so sorry, Trisha.” I grab her arm
where her pain radiates heat. Knowing I can’t leave her until I heal her. I press
on the cord to my earpiece to speak into the microphone. “This is Kat, come in
someone—anyone.”

A crackle and a hiss later, I hear a
voice. “Katrina, are you okay?”

It’s Rose. I sigh. “Yes, I’m fine, but
there’s a boy injured at the haunted house. Can you go to him?”

“I’ll be right there.” Rose clicks off
and I turn back to Trisha. “You’ll be okay. Do you know how to energy source?”

She lays on her back and looks up into
the sky but her eyes close again in pain.

“Trisha, you need to open your eyes. You
have to be open and accepting. Ask for the strength to heal you.”

Trisha takes a few deep breaths and does
as I say. After a few minutes I see her smile return to her face and I know she
is feeling better.

“Thanks Kat.”

I can’t help but laugh. “Don’t thank me.
I’m the one that fell on you. Do you have the strength to get up? I want to see
if Rose needs help.”

Trisha pulls herself up and groans.
“Okay.” I help her the rest of the way until she’s on her feet and we begin
jogging. Rose has already reached the boy by the time we arrive, and she ushers
me to help carry him to the grass. We watch as she puts her hands to his injured
leg and applies pressure as her right hand pulls the glass out of his upper
thigh.

The boy is numb to the pain, thanks to
Rose, but she has to work extra hard to keep the blood from spilling out in
bucketfuls. It’s difficult to watch, but I force myself to stomach the sight of
blood. If Rose can do it, so can I.

Charlotte appears by our side and begins
to ask the boy a million questions. Apparently he was standing in the room of
mirrors when one of the mirrors just cracked and shards of broken glass started
flying. He was lucky enough to be facing away from the spray; small fragments
of glass caught his face too, but nothing serious.

I’m about to ask if there is anyone else in
the room with him when I see three more bloody young bodies carried out by
adults; their injuries appear to be more severe.