Spirit Prophecy (The Gateway Trilogy Book 2) (49 page)

“Jessica.”

Her voice made me pause, but I did not look back.

“I am sorry about your friend. I promise I will put our full investigative powers into discovering what has really happened to him. We will put your doubts to rest.”

“I don’t want anything from you,” I said quietly. “Not ever again.”

I DID NOT SLEEP THAT NIGHT, and I did not go to class the next day. Hannah crept back up before Siobhán’s class carrying a plate of eggs, sausage, and toast. She left it on my bedside table, where it still sat, cold and congealed, when she returned to check on me at lunch time.

I couldn’t close my own eyes without seeing Pierce’s final moments through his. I fought against sleep because I knew what horrors I would see when I succumbed. Blaming Finvarra was the most satisfying outlet I could find for my pain, and I gave over to it completely, seething in it. She had left me to stumble blindly through the early days of my gift, forcing me to find this man and seek his help. Everything he knew and suspected about me was because of her, and it was this knowledge that had gotten him killed. I’d never have been able to accept the truth of it if I hadn’t felt, within my own body and heart, the actual physical loss of him.

I was helpless. I had no way of contacting Annabelle, and even if I could, there was no way I could meet with her again; it was far too dangerous. And since I couldn’t do anything to help her or Pierce, I didn’t do anything at all. I laid on my bed for the better part of two days, getting up only to go to the bathroom and once, after a terrible nightmare about Pierce’s death, to wretch emptily over the trash barrel near my desk. Once, Celeste stopped by. Mackie brought cookies, which Savvy ate when she came to check on me later. Hannah spared me their sentiments and condolences, and sent them away quickly. She and Milo stayed in the room with me a lot of the time, but they didn’t speak to me much. There was nothing to say.

When she slipped out on Saturday night, I thought she was just trying to escape the pall of melancholy I was casting over the entire room. It was late, perhaps even after curfew, but I couldn’t even summon the interest to check the clock on the wall. I dropped into a fitful doze.

“Jess?”

Hannah had crept into the room. Savvy and Mackie were right behind her.

I didn’t answer, but looked back up at the ceiling as the three of them shuffled in. They approached my bed the way some people approach an open casket at a wake; hesitant and a little afraid of what they would find there.

“It’s Saturday,” Hannah said.

“Is it?”

“This is the night we all agreed we would try to Uncage the Silent Child.”

I felt a dull pulse of something under my smothering blanket of misery. Was it guilt? I hadn’t spared a single thought for the Silent Child, or anything else really, in several days.

“We’ve got to do it tonight,” Mackie said, “or else we’ll have to wait another month.”

Still I said nothing. I was searching, searching for the part of me that still cared about things. It was doing a damn good job of keeping itself hidden.

“We set everything up,” Hannah said. “The whole circle is cast out in the memorial yard in the East garden. We just need you.”

“Can’t you do it without me?” I asked.

“We thought about that,” Savvy said. She sat on the bed next to me, and I turned my head to avoid her gaze. “They were all for letting you be, up here all by yourself, but I told them it wasn’t right.”

“And she’s got a point,” Mackie said. “The Silent Child chose you. You’re the one she wants to communicate with. If we try to do this without you, she may not cooperate, or even turn up at all.”

“You’re the best chance we have of freeing her,” Hannah said. “Don’t you understand, Jess? She needs you. And I know it’s hard, but you need to be there for her now.”

Finally, I turned to look at them, three blurry shapes behind the film of tears clouding my eyes. “I don’t think I can. Honestly, I am completely useless right now. I have nothing left.”

Hannah sat on the bed beside Savvy. “Jess, you have plenty left. You can’t feel it, because you’re in a lot of pain right now, but you’re still there — behind the pain, you’re still there. And when the pain fades, you’ll realize that you’re still here.”

“I don’t want to be here.”

“Yes you do!” she said, her voice rising so sharply that I looked her in the eye for the first time. “It seems to me that your friend Dr. Pierce died trying to protect you. And if that’s true, the best way to honor him isn’t to curl up in a ball and give up. You need to honor him and keep doing what he always wanted to do himself; help the spirits.”

The tears and the beginnings of a smile fought for dominance on my face. “You are just too smart for your own good, you know that?”

She smiled weakly back. “I know. It’s a character flaw.”

I sat up, trying and failing to run a hand through my matted hair. “Okay. Someone get me a hairbrush and something to eat and let’s go.”

“That’s our girl!” Mackie said. She pulled my hairbrush off of the desk behind her and handed it to me.

“And obviously I’ve got the food covered,” Savvy said, holding out a napkin containing an apple, a muffin, and two cold sausages.

Hannah gave my hand a squeeze. “It will feel better to be doing something productive, I promise.”

“If you say so,” I said through a mouthful of muffin.

I pulled on my shoes and sweatshirt, and we set off together through the castle and out onto the grounds. The fresh air seemed to clear a film from the inside of my head as I breathed it deeply in. We met no one along the way, which was fortunate, though Hannah had thought up a cover story that no one would dare to punish us for.

“If anyone catches us, we are going to say that we were performing a ritual of remembrance for Dr. Pierce,” she said with an apologetic squeeze of the arm. “I read about it in the library, and it also needs to be done at night and on sacred ground.”

“Good idea,” I said quietly.

“There is one more thing we have to tell you though, Jess,” Hannah went on, as we set off down the darkened interior of the cloisters. I could tell from her delicate tone that I wasn’t going to like it, whatever it was. “What? What is it?”

“We had to invite Finn.”

The sausage I was now eating turned to gravel in my mouth. I forced myself to swallow before saying, “Why?”

“It’s the only way to protect ourselves,” Mackie said. “If we Uncage her and she turns out to be violent, we might not be able to Cage her quickly enough to stop her from hurting someone. We need to have a Caomhnóir there just in case.”

“So, why don’t you bring Isaac?” I asked.

Mackie shook her head. “He’s got rocks for brains, that one. We need someone who can think on his feet.”

I groaned.

Savvy smiled at me. “I notice you haven’t asked why we didn’t bring Bertie.”

“I think we all know why you didn’t ask Bertie,” I said. The memorial yard was in the furthest corner of the east garden, surrounded by a low stone wall and planted with dozens of flowering trees. From the drooping, blossomy branches hung hundreds of glass lanterns, ready to be lit in honor or remembrance of one of the hundreds and hundreds of names etched into the smooth white stones of the winding pathway.

I looked down at the carvings. Many of the names had faded into obscurity. Others, more recent or better protected from the elements, could still be read.

Hannah seemed to read my mind. “She’s not here. Elizabeth. I looked while we were setting up.”

I shrugged. I was too spent to dredge up a feeling about this omission.

“Over here,” Mackie called, waving us over to the circle they had already cast. It was actually five circles, a large one at the center with four smaller ones crossing into its orbit at the four points of the compass. My eyes widened. There were at least twenty different runes carefully drawn all around the perimeter of the circles and several more inside their borders. The runes were all different colors, created, I knew, from the dust of ten different minerals and stones, including the lapis lazuli I’d taken from Fiona’s office. Hannah must have found it in our room. Scattered bunches of herbs and sticks of incense smoked gently, sending their heady vapors to mingle with the sweet perfume of the trees. I shook my head at the complexity of it all. It must have taken them hours.

Without announcing himself, Finn slunk up beside us, making me jump.

“You were able to do everything, then?” he asked Hannah, nodding toward the circle.

“Yes,” she said. “Thank you for coming.”

Finn didn’t grunt or scowl, or give any of his typically churlish responses. Instead, quite to my surprise, he gave a short bow toward her. “No need to thank me. I agree with you. This is obviously something that needs to be done, and I’m glad to assist you in doing it.”

I stared unflatteringly at him until he caught my eye and I looked hastily away.

Mackie took charge then, in classic head girl style, directing us all to our positions in the circles, and handing each of us a different color candle.

“Jess, you’re the one who’s going to establish communication, so you need to light this spirit candle last,” she told me, thrusting the white candle into my hand. “Start in the north circle, and then, when I tell you, light the spirit candle and place it in the center circle, right inside the blue rune.”

“Okay,” I said, starting to feel nervous. “What do I need to say?”

“Nothing. Just focus on her like we do in Keira’s class. If all goes well, she will appear in the center circle, but she will be trapped there.”

“Why are we trapping her?” I asked. “The whole point is to free her.”

“Yes, but we’ve got to have a way to keep her in one place until the casting is complete, or it won’t work. When she is Uncaged, she will be able to move freely out of the circle. That’s when you’ll need to be ready,” Mackie added to Finn.

“I will be,” Finn said.

“Okay, then,” Mackie said, puffing out her cheeks in a nervous sigh. “Are we all ready? No turning back once we start.”

No one spoke. We were all too nervous.

“Right,” Mackie said. “Here goes nothing.”

Mackie spoke the incantation, since she had the most experience with the pronunciation. As she nodded to each of us, we lit our candles and placed them in the centers of our respective circles. Finally she pointed to me, and then to the center circle.

I lit the spirit candle, placed it in the center circle, heart pounding. Then I crept back to my circle and closed my eyes. I felt around out in the darkness, searching for her, urging her to me.

Come on, Silent Child. Where are you? We’re here to help you.

A bright, red light filtered through my eyelids. To my left, Hannah gasped. I knew she was there before I even opened my eyes.

The Silent Child burned like a candle, hovering four feet above the ground in the center of the circle. Her eyes, too, were burning, but with intensity as she looked at me. There was an accusation in her look. She darted for the edges of the circle, but was repeatedly thrown back into the middle. She tried to shout at me, but her words were lost in the usual mire of echoes.

“It’s okay,” I told her. “We’re here to help you.”

She pointed frantically to the others, still shouting incoherently.

“I know. I know you don’t want to talk to anyone but me. But it’s going to take all of us to free you. Please, let us help.”

She dropped her hand to her side.

Mackie continued to chant, waving a bunch of smoldering sage over her head. The Silent Child’s light grew brighter and steadier. She held her own hands up in front of her face, as though she’d never really seen them before.

“Alright, girls, on the count of three, blow out your candles. Leave the spirit one lit. Finn, when the flames go out, she will be Uncaged, so be on the alert.

The Silent Child was now so bright, I needed to shield my eyes from her. A light breeze was rising around us into a harsh wind, whipping our hair and threatening the dancing candle flames.

Mackie’s voice rose over the gale. “One, two, three!”

We all blew out our candles. A wave of energy billowed out from the center of the circle knocking us all off our feet. I looked down in panic, afraid I’d been thrown from the circle, but I was still safely within its boundary. The wind had died, and the light emanating from the Silent Child was now just a dull pulsing glow. She crouched upon the ground, hands thrown protectively over her head.

No one moved. I opened my mouth to speak to the girl, but faltered, unsure of what to say. Luckily, she chose that moment to lift her head and look at me.

“Can you hear me?” she asked, and jumped at the clear sound of her own voice.

“Yes!” I breathed.

The girl’s shoulders relaxed, and she gawked at me. “I’m free.”

“Yes, you are,” I said.

“Blimey,” Savvy murmured.

“You’ve been Caged,” I said. “Someone didn’t want you to communicate with anyone.”

The girl nodded solemnly and her expression of wonder darkened at once. “I know.”