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“Get off of him!” Sadie screamed and pulled harder. River grasped the spirit by the waist, yanking with her while Charlie chanted, tears streaming down her face. In an almost robotic manner, the first spirit drifted back into the woods, yet the other screeched and pierced Skyler with its stare. Charlie’s words grew louder, desperate. Then after only mere moments, the spirit finally released Skyler and stared toward the trees. Charlie’s spell cast it back into the woods, blood spilling from her hand. But it was too late. Skyler’s face was frozen, his eyes turning to orbs of crimson, cracks spreading along his flesh.
“No!” Charlie shouted, her hand falling as she rushed toward him, his body collapsing to the ground in her arms. “No, no, no.”
Sadie grasped her sister by the wrist, trying to rip her away from Skyler. “We have to go now.”
“No!” Charlie shouted.
Sadie turned to River since her sister refused to run, to save herself, to save her baby. She was going to get them all killed. “Do it, River!” she pleaded.
River didn’t hesitate and lifted Charlie over his shoulder. He didn’t loosen his grip as she pounded on his back, running her into the cabin. Sadie slammed the door shut while River set Charlie on her feet.
“Ward the cabin!” Sadie breathed as she hurried and collected a bundle of sage from the kitchen.
“I can’t,” Charlie cried, her hands shaking. “I need to get back to him. He’s going to become one of them.”
Sadie lit the sage, then grabbed Charlie by the wrist, preventing her from leaving. “Skyler would want you to, all right? For the baby, for you, ward the damn cabin.” It didn’t have to be for her or River, but for this innocent life growing inside Charlie that had never gotten a true chance.
Charlie relented, using the dagger she still had to open the wound further. She handed the blade back to Sadie and took the sage, whispering, the words sounding like a thousand echoes, the acrid smell of burning stirring. White triangular symbols illuminated the walls as her sister warded the cabin. Sadie knew that spell, knew it wouldn’t hold forever, but it would for the night. They didn’t have all the herbs they needed to make something stronger.
Once Charlie stepped away, it hit Sadie, sinking in that Skyler was gone… “I’m so sorry,” Sadie murmured.
“This wasn’t how things were supposed to happen. I shouldn’t have ever cast that spell. I thought I was helping,” Charlie sobbed, then ran toward the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Tortured wails echoed through the walls, not coming from the spirits, but Charlie, crying louder than any of the screeching vibrating outside. Sadie’s heart cracked, just as Skyler’s skin had, but she knew to leave her sister alone for the night.
As Sadie turned to River, her knees buckled, and she collapsed to the floor, even though her own cries remained trapped inside her. River scooped her into his lap, her breaths coming out ragged in the crook of his neck. “This isn’t her fault,” she croaked. “It’s mine. I should never have given into the darkness.”
He ran a hand through her hair, holding her close. “Perhaps it’s mine—once I got a taste for the darkness, I liked it. I still do, just as I know you do. It’s like someone trying to quit their addiction. It’s possible, but it will always linger. We just have to decide what path to continue on and stop looking back.”
“Those spirits are evil and tore the good parts of themselves into pieces, killing them, and now Skyler…” Sadie clutched onto River, knowing precisely how her sister was feeling. It was how Sadie had felt when she’d lost River. And now, she wasn’t sure what to do since Charlie couldn’t unbind their magic. The wards were up for now, but unless the hex was broken, they wouldn’t wake up.
River lifted Sadie and carried her to the fur rug, then laid beside her in front of the dead fireplace, his chest pressed to her back. The spirits swarmed around the cabin, their wails clashing with the wind’s music, their fists banging against the wood, the glass, but the wards continued to hold. And she wondered if one of them was now Skyler.
“Do you want to take my life right now?” Sadie asked as River’s chest rose against her.
“No,” he murmured, his warm hand trailing across her stomach beneath her shirt.
Sadie rolled over to wrap her arms around him and whispered in his ear, “Liar. But I wouldn’t fault you if you did.” In fact, in that moment, she wished he would.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Allow me to make them suffer.”
Sadie hadn’t even attempted to sleep—she just lay there, holding River. Charlie’s sobs in the bathroom accompanied the sounds outside during the night, but Sadie’s own eyes remained dry, her heart hollow with grief.
Just as the spirits’ screeching silenced, so did Charlie’s crying. Morning light seeped in through the window behind the curtains, and she thought for a moment that she’d woken up since there was no musical wind, only the quiet outdoors. But River was beneath her touch, and that proved they were still enveloped by the veil.
Sadie drew back, meeting River’s gray irises. “I have to talk to Charlie. She needs to make the wards along the cabin stronger, and we may not have the brews, but I know a few things that can help. It looks as though the spirits have left, so I can probably get her to do a spell. Can you grab the bag of salt from the cabinet for me?”
He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Of course. Go talk to her and I’ll see what else I can find.”
“Thank you.” She pushed up from the floor, avoiding looking at her laptop, where Skyler had just been the night before, watching a movie on it while sitting on the futon.
Taking a deep breath, she knocked on the bathroom door. Her sister didn’t answer, so she knocked again. “Charlie?”
What if the wards hadn’t held in there? Heart pounding, Sadie threw open the door, frantic as she searched for Charlie. She shoved the shower curtain aside, finding her sister resting in the tub, shoes and all, her gaze fixed on the ceiling.
“I’m not going to kill myself,” Charlie said, keeping her eyes trained on the ceiling as if it was a starry sky where she could wish upon all the tiny lights to give her something she couldn’t have back. “Although, I did think about it. But that’s all they are … dark thoughts that we all have. Only some of us show them more easily than others. After I remembered everything, remembered the spell I cast, remembered how Skyler would take my life in the same way River must have been doing with you over the years, I thought that I would have time to figure out how to break this cursed hex. Once I did, I believed that I could finish the life I was supposed to have with Skyler.” Her hands fell to her stomach, where a child, Sadie’s child, was growing. “Not only that, though—I believed that maybe I could find a way for River to come too, for you to be with him. In this life, the way it used to be, when no one tried to tear you two apart, only this hex that was because of me.” She choked on a sob, then finally turned to Sadie, her eyes red and puffy. “We’re not that different after all. If the things happened to me that had happened to you in Salem, I would’ve held fear too. You took from Salem, I took from you, and now the spirits are taking from the both of us. It’s a vicious little circle, isn’t it?”
“You’re wrong,” Sadie whispered, crouching at her side. “You wouldn’t have held fear. You’re much stronger than I am. Everything in life is a gray area. Right. Wrong. The reasons for those rights and wrongs. Jasper and I had discussed relocating while I was pregnant, but I wanted to stay and watch over you. I would like to believe that I would’ve changed paths once my son was here, once I saw his innocent face. Maybe I would’ve wanted to be better for him. Maybe. As for Skyler, I’ve loved him like a brother in every single life. He’s been a shoulder I could lean on, just as you’ve been.” She took a shaky breath, clenching her fists to keep from trembling. “You and I have always believed in an afterlife. Once Skyler is free from this spell, he will be there waiting for you, and for the time left that you have on Earth, you’ll take care of the child growing inside you. I believe wholeheartedly that you can break this hex. You were always a better witch than me—I just used my magic more often, more viciously. Yet it was to protect not only us but you and Eben. As for River and me… I fear the place we’ll be sent to when we die won’t be as beautiful as where you will go.”
