Watch Me Burn: The December People, Book Two (11 page)

Before she left her room, Emmy sought out the presence of each of her family members, so she could pinpoint their location. She could tell by the nature of the energy whether or not they had fallen asleep yet. She had also mastered the art of quiet. She had honed this skill while she hid from Whitman Colter in the pitch dark desert. She found she could slide through darkness and almost be invisible. Not literally invisible—but if the darkness were water, she could slide through it without a ripple or splash.

When she made it outside, she ran to the truck, her heart racing, cricket song covering the sound of her footsteps. She loved that moment. The moment when she knew she had gotten away with it. She was free. She would probably get caught, and end up more trapped than before. But at least for this moment, she could do anything she wanted. And what she wanted right now was to go lurk through a dark and evil forest.

She enjoyed this time of night. Around 3 a.m., too late for most people to be still up, and too early for most people to start the day. In the Houston Metroplex, people were on the roads all the time, but at this time of night, the roads had more of a hushed quality. And most of the stores were dark inside. Quiet.

Once she made it to the smaller country highway, the darkness became more total. She only passed a few cars. And even then, they were nothing more than anonymous headlights. She was alone. She had her phone off. She was nowhere.

She had to admit, part of her hoped she’d run into Nathan again. She found herself wishing it to the point that she may have cast a spell to make it happen. She didn’t know if she could do that. The concept behind casting spells was simple, but she couldn’t manage to get anything she wanted anytime she wanted it. Half the time, the spells she cast didn’t do anything.

She found the little spot in the trees where Nathan had parked before. She was disappointed to see the spot empty. But as worried as he was about his little sister, she doubted he spent all night, every night looking for her. Last time she had seen him at daybreak. She guessed a summer wizard wouldn’t venture out here until the sun came over the horizon.

She sat parked for a while before getting out. Despite her own darkness, the gloom of the forest intimidated her. It seemed as if forest wasn’t dark because of the night, but the night was dark because of the forest. Shadows oozed from between the trees like tar, extinguishing all the ambient light from the massive metropolis around it. It reminded Emmy of when the family had called upon the darkness on the Winter Solstice. That darkness hadn’t scared her—in fact, she had never been happier. That night they all got to be exactly what they were, but only the best parts of what they were. The twilight on that night had not threatened her, but exhilarated her. Vast and too beautiful for words—a night sky littered with stars, a deep infinity of beauty. Both proof something much greater than her existed in the world, but also proof all the magic and mystery in the world was hers to touch, flowing through her.

Clutching her flashlight, she got out of the car and walked past the tree line. She reminded herself again that darkness wasn’t scary. She thought about how the darkness on the solstice had opened up her lungs so she could breathe more deeply and fully than ever before. The solstice darkness felt clean and pure as untouched spring water in a cave. However, this night felt the opposite. It suffocated her. It felt thick. Dirty. Walking through it felt like wading through mud.

She lost track of her path, and turned on the flashlight. The bulb looked dim and orange, as if the batteries had run low, but Emmy suspected the darkness in the forest was draining the illumination. She turned off the sad little light. Flashlights were tools for Mundanes anyway.

The trees seemed unusually thick, and it took forever to cross a short distance. When she finally got a pace going, she found herself back at the truck. She had walked in a damn circle. She slammed her fist on the hood. She turned around and entered the forest at a run, but within a few bounds, she tripped on a root and careened forward in some thick brush.

“Dammit,” she said.

If she did make it home without getting caught, she’d have to find a way to explain how she got more red scratches on her arms and face while she slept in bed.

She shook a branch off her leg frantically. She had thought she would have no problem entering the forest. She had thought since she was dark, she had a free pass, and could just walk in. Instead, she felt…rejected.

A repulsion or concealment spell existed in this forest. She knew about these. She and her family had cast these spells before. A concealment spell couldn’t actually make you invisible. But it could motivate someone to always look in the other direction. A repulsion would give someone a creepy feeling about a place, like it was haunted. You could also conceal by confusion. Make someone so confused they would forget why they came and left. Wizards had always needed concealment spells, and had gotten good over the centuries.

However, concealment spells, as all spells, worked within the bounds of reality. You couldn’t make something invisible. You couldn’t set up an actual force field around a place. If Emmy really, really wanted to walk through the concealment spell, she could. She might feel crappy doing it, and all instincts might tell her to run the other way, but she could do it. But if this was a concealment spell, why hadn’t Julie’s family gritted their teeth and walked in?

Emmy kept working at it, and found she could walk into the forest for a while, but somehow would change direction without noticing and end up at the road. The purplish light of dawn trickled through the trees, so she walked to the truck to check the time. After 6:30am. Mom would wake up soon, but Emmy had a chance of making it home if traffic wasn’t too bad and she left right now.

Then Nathan’s truck came around the corner, blocking her in. He climbed out of his truck and looked at Emmy. He didn’t look the least bit surprised to see her there.

“What?” he asked.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“You called me.”

“I don’t even have your number.”

This started out as one of the weirdest conversations she had ever had, but he squinted at her as if
she
didn’t make sense.

“You called me with magic,” he said.

“I did? That is so cool.”

“You didn’t do it on purpose? You don’t have any information or need help or anything?”

“Uh…no. I’m sorry.”

“If you called me on accident… that means, you just wanted me to be here?”

Emmy felt her cheeks burn and she tried to will the blood out of them so she would stay pale and nonchalant. She had no idea what to say. She hated all of it, just as she hated the forest. She had no control.

“I don’t know. I don’t know how I did it, or why. It was an accident. That’s what an accident means,” she said.

“You couldn’t go in either, could you?”

Emmy scrunched her nose. She didn’t want to admit it. “No,” she said.

He nodded solemnly.

“What about the Mundanes? The police officers? They’ve searched every inch of the forest.”

“You know how it is. Magic that’s obvious to us is subtle to them. They
think
they’ve searched every inch of the forest. I’m sure some of them noticed something off about the place. But they wouldn’t know what it was.”

“That’s not a normal concealment spell, right? I didn’t know they could be that powerful.”

“Do you want to go get breakfast?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Breakfast. It’s a meal people eat in the morning,” he explained. “Pancakes and bacon and stuff like that.”

“I know what breakfast is.”

“I came all the way out here. You could at least buy me a cup of coffee.”

“You want to eat breakfast with a winter witch? Wouldn’t that piss off your parents?”

“Hey, I already wanted to go to breakfast. You don’t have to try and convince me.”

Emmy turned her phone on and texted her parents.
Yeah, I know. I’m not there. I wanted you to know I am not dead and don’t plan on becoming dead anytime soon.

Then she turned her phone off again. Emmy followed Nathan to a Waffle House only a few miles away. When she followed him in, a waitress greeted him with this sad smile that showed she knew about Nathan and his troubles. No one paid attention to Emmy, but they were Mundanes. They had no idea winter and summer didn’t belong in the same booth.

When he asked her to breakfast, she didn’t consider saying no, but as she slid into the booth across from him, her stomach did flips and she didn’t know if she could keep food down. He wasn’t as noxious as Julie, but facing him head on from only feet away, for the time it would take to eat breakfast, horrified her. She couldn’t figure out what part of his face to look at, so she scanned the menu for much longer than necessary.

When the waitress took the menus, Emmy had no choice but to look at him. She decided to look at his nose.

“I’m sorry about your sister,” she said.

Nathan nodded. She knew it had been a useless thing to say.

“I don’t understand why you’re here,” he said.

“You asked me to breakfast.”

“No. The forest. Why are you really here?”

Emmy dropped her spoon. His question had a special quality about it—a command. And the intensity of it startled her. An image of the bracelet popped into her head and she stared at her coffee, trying hard to empty her mind. She didn’t know if he could read her mind or not, but it was possible.

She waited a long time before answering. Planning out every single syllable of the words she wanted to say. He squinted at her as she stared at him in silence.

“I don’t know,” she said finally. She didn’t tell the whole story, but didn’t flat out lie. She didn’t know what spell he tried to cast, but she must have cracked it.

Nathan leaned forward in his booth, as if he expected her to say more. When she didn’t he leaned back again.

“I guess you really don’t know,” he said. “I don’t like that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Unless you have a habit of driving places in the middle of the night for no reason, it means you’re here because of magic. As part of a spell.”

“Maybe.”

“Are you a
Vandergraff
?” He said “Vandergraff” as if he described a type of mystical beast, not her last name.

“Yes. Emmy Vandergraff.”

“I’m sorry, I should have asked you your name. That was rude.”

“You’re Nathan, right?”

He nodded.

“Or, should I say ‘Are you a
Prescott
’?”

He smiled.

“I know your name because your family is in the news,” Emmy said. “How do you know mine?”

“I didn’t. Not your first name. But we know about the Vandergraffs.”

“Oh, do you? What do you think you know about us?”

“Not much.”

“That we’re winter wizards and there is nothing else you need to know, right?”

“We’ve left you be,” he said, as if ignoring them was a great kindness. “Do you know why your father drove by our house the other day?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Okay…why?”

“Oh, basic dark wizard stuff. Stalking the good guys. Being evil for no reason.”

He smiled bigger this time. His face had this wilted, tired look, but smiling came naturally to him, he couldn’t help himself.

“Is that right?” he asked. His eyes twinkled. Like, for real. As if invisible fireworks reflected in the greens of his eyes.

“Can I ask you something?” she said.

“Sure.”

“Have you met a winter wizard before? You know, before me?”

“No. I've seen them. I haven't talked to one.”

Emmy sipped her coffee and tried to pretend she didn’t hate it. She never drank regular coffee, just sometimes the sugary versions at Starbucks. But she wanted to seem grown-up. Since she’d been driving a car, he probably thought she was older. At least sixteen, and she wanted to perpetuate the illusion as long as possible. “Would you be in trouble if you were caught talking to me?” she asked.

“Yes. Probably.”

“Do you think a dark wizard took Julie?” She immediately wished she hadn’t asked the question. She didn’t want the answer.

His restrained smile faded away again. “I don’t know,” he said.

She sensed falsehood in his “I don’t know.” Not a lie, but not the whole truth, by a long shot. She didn’t know how to compel him to tell the truth as he could do with her…or as he
thought
he could do with her.

“You know. Not all dark wizards are bad,” she said. “I mean, just…mostly.”

“You mean, most of them are bad, or they are all mostly bad?”

“Yes.”

He laughed, that brightness breaking through again. He had a nice laugh. Even though sadness weighted his eyes, he laughed with abandon, as though he couldn’t help himself. He tilted his head back and let the sound rumble though every part of his body.

“Well, summer wizards aren’t all good,” he said.

“Just, mostly.” Emmy said.

“I guess so.”

“My dad thinks someone cast a catalyst spell to get Julie back, and we’re somehow part of it. Did you, or anyone in your family cast a spell like that?”