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He stepped back. My foot nudged against the plastic barrette, still settled in the earth over Haley’s grave where I’d left it. Beside it gleamed Caleb’s ring. I’d forgotten it as I was stumbling out, reeling with the knowledge of what I was.
Except that it hadn’t been forgetfulness at all. Quite the opposite, really: a thorn of memory lodged under my skin, guiding my actions.
Caleb spoke again in formal tones. “An unbroken line runs from the first Master of Harrow. Hear their names and know thattheir blood and their will live on in me. Nicholas James Vaughan. William Francis Vaughan. Charles Graham Vaughan. Theodore Gaylord Vaughan. Lawrence Eustace Vaughan. Leopold Anthony Vaughan. I am of their blood, and they are of mine. As you have obeyed them, you will obey me.”
The stars were winking out overhead. The Other was here. My dark reflection.
My heart started to race. The pieces of the ritual were falling into place. Not long now.
Eli, who was carrying a heavy bag, got out a set of goblets and a plastic bottle of what looked like wine. Each of them took a goblet, and he poured the wine into them.
“We stand together as one, bound in purpose. We stand together as one, bound together by our secrets,” Eli said. “Drink, and speak, and be so bound.”
The communion, and the sharing of secrets—another part of the ritual. They were supposed to drink from the cup and offer a secret.
Never have I ever, I thought, the memory of that night at the folly echoing into the present.
Caleb drank first. “I stole thirteen thousand dollars from the company once to pay off a personal debt that I was too embarrassed to confess to. I put the money back eventually, but the evidence is there if anyone looked.” Boring.
Iris went next. “When I was nineteen years old, I had a brief affair with my professor,” she said. “I considered running away with him and forsaking my obligations to the family.” She said it matter-of-factly. At least that one was a little spicy, if cliché.
Victoria drank next and offered that she had cheated on Roman while she was in London, which no one seemed to find the least bit shocking. I’d stopped listening. Bryony was watching me, her expression tense. I smiled, just a little.It’s going to be okay,I told her, and she nodded as if she’d heard.
It was Eli’s turn. He drank deeply, and then he smiled at me. “My secret is this: I hate every single one of you, and I always have. Especially you, Caleb. You were always a little shit.”
Caleb sighed. “That’s enough, Eli.”
They had not noticed that the stars were gone. That the air had grown colder, a soft, sly wind stirring the dust. Caleb stood before me, the other three arrayed behind him.
I’d been so determined not to be afraid. Reassuring myself that I wouldn’t die. I would simply become something else. But that was a lie. I was Helen Vaughan, and Helenwoulddie.
“I call you,” Caleb said. “By blood and by the names of your masters, I call you. I call you into the body of this girl, into her form, into her mind, into her soul. Come, and be one.”
The air grew thick, and the room filled with whispers. They were reluctant, resisting the call. They knew what happened next. They grieved every time, but they could never stop it. I shut my eyes.Come, I thought.It’s all right.“Come to me,” I whispered. “Our body. Our mind. Our soul. We are one. Let us be whole.”
The darkness rushed into me.
The edges of me blurred, like ink in water. My body, my flesh—and my mind. My thoughts touched the mind of the dark soul, and we bled into each other. I gasped, but there was only the void to breathe.
You, a voice said.
Us, I replied.
I gave myself to the dark soul, and it gave itself to me, because there was no difference between us. The void shone all around me, and there were no shadows.
It was time to stop dreaming.
36
I WAS SITTINGup in bed. Not my bed in the Willows—my bed at home, the last house where Mom and Simon and I had lived. Eli sat in a chair beside me, his elbows on his arms.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said. “I won’t tell a soul about you.”
“This is my decision,” I replied. “When the time comes, I need you to remind me of that. This ismychoice. I am in control of my fate.”
“Remind you?” he said.
“I’m going to forget. It’s the only way. They can’t suspect I know what I am. And the dark soul may be an excellent liar, butHelenis terrible at it,” I confessed. Eli chuckled wryly.
