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This again. Isaiah couldn’t believe he’d risked getting in trouble with Memphis over something so dumb. “You brought me down here to tell me that?”
Sarah Beth frowned. “I can’t marry you, Isaiah. I thought you understood that.”
Isaiah blinked in astonishment. She thought he wanted to marry her? Before he could think of what to say back, Sarah Beth continued. “Anyway, I thought you’d be happy for me. After all, if it weren’t for sharing our moon glow, my gentleman wouldn’t be able to come for me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was supposed to keep you here, and I did.” Sarah Beth smiled her little gray-toothed smile. “You know.”
Isaiah was bored and mad. “Can you just tell me?”
“I’ve only ever had one power—I could talk to my special gentleman. The man in the stovepipe hat. The King of Crows.”
The wheat bent in the wind like a parade of mourners. Isaiah blinked, trying to keep it in focus. “But…” was as much as he could manage.
“I know I told you I was working against him, but I’m not.” She let out a little giggle. “Oh, Isaiah! It’s so pretty where he is, didn’t you think? Not like this.” She growled and gestured angrily at the fading farm that he and his friends had been slowly bringing back to life. “I’ll be his queen. I’ll have everything. I won’t have fits ever again. Nobody will make fun of me anymore,” she said on a near-whisper. Her jaw jutted forward, quivering. “Nobody.”
Beneath his growing horror, Isaiah also felt sorry for this girl. She was what his mama would call “pitiful” with a shake of her head.
Sarah Beth’s strange silvery eyes took on a new fire. The sad whisper was gone. “’Cause if they do, my gentleman’ll break ’em apart like twigs. His army will eat up their souls. They’re coming, you know. This world’s as good as gone.”
“What did you do to me?” Isaiah asked.
“He needed some of your power. He needed to see the future so he could shape that future. So he used me to get it from you,” Sarah Beth said, and Isaiah felt so dizzy he was afraid he’d slip right off the rocks and into the current. “Becau
se you’re my friend, he’s going to let me keep you. I told him, ‘You can’t hurt Isaiah. He’s very dear to me.’”
“What about the others? What about Memphis?”
“They don’t understand you. They don’t treat you proper. Only I do.”
Sarah Beth snuggled closer to Isaiah, as if he were her very best friend and she had the best secret in the world to share with him and only him.
Fear buzzed with a cicada whine in Isaiah’s head. The way the light fell on the rippling water. The crows in a line, screaming and screaming at him, and he’d just been too caught up to hear their warnings. Hadn’t he seen this very moment weeks ago in a vision? He hadn’t understood what it was, then, only that it was very bad. He’d thought it was about keeping Sarah Beth safe. He had to get back to his brother. He had to tell Memphis and Uncle Bill. Had to warn the Diviners. His friends were in trouble. That had been the vision’s message, he knew now.
“W-we… we oughta, oughta get back. Th-they’ll be looking for us.” Isaiah took a step backward. His ankles wobbled. The ground was slippery with mud. The river roared behind them.
Sarah Beth’s face clouded over. She set her teeth in a line. “You’re gonna tell.”
Isaiah shook his head. He couldn’t speak.
“Yes, you are.”
“I just wanna get back.” She stood between him and the bank. Why had he let her talk him into coming out on the rocks? He hadn’t wanted to, but he was afraid to stand up to her and say no. He moved to the left and so did Sarah Beth. But she was sure-footed where he was wobbly. The wet rocks were algae-covered and very slippery. He needed to keep one eye on where to put his feet and another on Sarah Beth, because he was frightened of her. She wasn’t the Sarah Beth he had known. She was someone who’d been siphoning his power, he realized; someone who’d been playing with the King of Crows all along.
“My gentleman told me something else. He said if you made me mad, I could make your power mine.” Sarah Beth picked up a rock and threw it at Isaiah.
He ducked, nearly losing his balance. The rock sailed over his shoulder and crashed into the current and was borne quickly downstream. Isaiah’s heart pounded. Sarah Beth grabbed another rock. This one clipped Isaiah in the arm. He grabbed at the place where it stung, slipped on the rock, and fell. A precarious tangle of roots stopped his slide into the surging water.
“I want what you got. Give it to me.”
She wasn’t content with sharing moon glow anymore. She wanted it all to herself, would do anything to get it. Isaiah could see it in her steely eyes, in the set of her teeth peeking out from underneath her curled lip.
The swollen river pushed at Isaiah’s legs, throwing him off-balance. Gasping, he managed to right himself by pushing off from a rock. No helpful tree limbs extended out over the river at this point. The water was up to his thighs, but when it surged, it hit his chest like an icy fist.
“I want it. I want all of it. Give it to me, and I’ll help you out of the river.”
Isaiah slipped, and in his panic, he grabbed at Sarah Beth’s hand. The vision came on, bucking like the river. He saw dust kicking up on the road, the flickers of white behind it. Ghosts on the road. Bill. He had to warn Bill.
