INTO THE WOODS
Not until I’m home in my bedroom with the door locked behind me do I draw up my sleeve.
The lacerations on my arm have left behind a scar, and right now, that scar is glittering in the dark, snaking across my skin in two curved lines. One loops toward my wrist, the other toward my elbow.
“Pisces,” I whisper, running my thumb over the glowing pattern. By now, I’ve committed all eighty-eight constellations to memory, and here is one of them.
Just like Lainey’s.
Just like Griffin’s.
I press my finger against my wrist.
The air starts to crackle and hum.
Fear leaps into my throat.
I pull my finger away and all returns to normal.
Except for my heartbeat.
That continues to pound as I stand in the center of my room, processing the implications. The plant, which gave me visions and opened rifts, attacked me, and in so doing, it marked me. Now it appears the mark can do the same thing as the plant.
I could go to the Water Garden right now and open a rift.
I know it as sure as anything.
But then what?
How am I supposed to free them on my own?
And what about my mom and Simon?
Where were they?
He needs two more.
And me.
My churning thoughts have tangled into a giant knot. I don’t know how to undo it. I don’t know how to make sense of what’s going on. I take out the pearl from the bottom drawer of my desk and set it in the moonlight, like maybe it might explain some things.
Nothing happens.
So I bring it to bed and cup it beneath my chin.
I fall asleep thinking about the pond, the prisoners, the clock, the hunger.
He needs two more.
And me.
Where is my mother?
And if Ivy Winslow is alive, who is buried in her grave?
I stand at the water’s edge. A pack of hounds crouch low to the ground, their fangs bared, their hackles raised, their eyes on the sky as a shrieking, writhing squall of winged creatures circles overhead. With a piercing screech, four break away from the flock and descend into a dive.
Fangs and talons collide.
