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He counted: Memphis, Theta, Evie, Sam, Jericho, Henry, Ling, Bill.
Memphis. Theta. Evie. Sam. Jericho. Henry. Ling. Bill.
Isaiah searched for his face among them.
The rock came down on his head. The vision vanished. Isaiah looked up through dripping blood to see Sarah Beth’s face. Her mouth was set in a grim, determined line. She gripped the rock tightly in her good hand.
“Wh-why?” was all Isaiah could ask.
She hit him again, and he slipped into the water up to his chest. Sarah Beth put her other hand on him. She was trying to pull what power he had right out of his body anyway, trying to make it hers. Isaiah fought back, but the blows had left him dizzy. Sarah Beth was only grabbing straws of magic from Isaiah, and it was making her very angry; he could feel her inside him, all that anger coiling around him like a snake waiting to strike.
Sarah Beth broke away, panting, and for a second, Isaiah thought it was over. He was awfully woozy from the pain in his head. Nevertheless, he’d crawl over the bank and run as hard as he could to Memphis and the others. He’d do whatever it took to get away from this girl and warn the people he loved.
Sarah Beth was looking down at him through narrowed eyes. “This world will be ours.”
All she had to do then was push. With a scream, Isaiah was pulled into the churning water.
“Hurry, oh hurry,” Evie said. She couldn’t say why she was so panicked. There was no reason to think that Sarah Beth would hurt Isaiah—that she could hurt Isaiah. But reading the girl’s dolls had filled her with terror. She had seen Sarah Beth writing her name inside the King of Crows’s coat. She had felt the girl’s adoration of him, her willingness to follow him blindly into chaos if that’s where he was leading. Her deep need to feel important—not just important, but superior. Evie realized that they had let a fox into their henhouse.
She could hear the river before she saw it. There on the bank was Sarah Beth, sitting in the grass.
“Where’s Isaiah?” Evie demanded.
“He’s not here,” Sarah Beth said.
The others were just coming up now.
“Isaiah!” Memphis called.
“Isaiah! Little Man!” Bill joined in.
“You’ve been in league with the King of Crows this whole time, haven’t you?” Evie said.
Sarah Beth looked up at Evie coolly. “He’s going to make me his queen.”
“He’s not going to do any such thing. He’s a liar and a trickster. His promises are empty. And you are a very foolish girl,” Evie said.
“You’re jealous that he chose me and not you,” Sarah Beth said.
Sam looked down and saw the bloodstained rock in the grass. “Evie,” he said under his breath.
“I can’t find him,” Memphis said, panicked.
Evie could feel the world slipping off its axis and spinning toward the cold, dark unknown. With a trembling hand, she reached down and touched the rock.
“No, no, no!”
She ran along the riverbank. Memphis chased after, calling, “Evie? What is it? Evie, tell me!”
The river had carried Isaiah to an inlet. His shirt collar had caught on a branch near a barn swallow nest. It held him there, letting him float out a ways, then tugging him back in. He looked as if he were simply taking a nap, but the bloody wound on his head told another story.
“Isaiah! Isaiah!” Memphis cried and waded into the river after him. Sam stripped off his shirt and jumped in after Memphis.
“Not the boy,” Bill prayed. “Please, Lord, not the boy.”
Jericho waded in to lend a hand. “Sam,” he said and shook his head.
“Isaiah,” Memphis said, hollowed out. “Isaiah?” he said again, as if he couldn’t quite trust what the world was showing him. The water was not water. The grass just a cruel imitation of grass.
