“To confirm it’s a Geatgrima? I only need to lay eyes on it,” she said, “but to figure out what seems off about it? I’m not entirely sure. As much time as you can get me, I guess.”
I looked at Eva, asking the silent question.
“I’ve been practicing,” she said, “and I can keep it going for ten minutes. Beyond that… I’m not sure.”
“That will be enough,” I assured her, even as anxiety rubbed my already frayed nerves raw. I looked down at my watch, and felt my lungs freeze up. “We should split up now. It’s ten minutes until the cops do their next set of rounds. You’ve got your phones, right?” I added, to Eva and Zale.
Zale nodded and held his up.
“I’ve got mine, but I won’t be able to break my concentration to check it, so you’ll have to use Zale as your point person for communication,” Eva said.
“Ooooooh, yes, I am comms director!” Zale gasped excitedly.
Jess just looked at him like she was starting to regret every life choice that had led her to this moment. But then she turned to me, and with the air of someone steeling herself, she said, “Let’s do it.”
Zale kept staring at me, like he was waiting for us to initiate some kind of team handshake, but then Eva grabbed him by the collar and pulled him toward the beach. Jess gestured for me to lead the way, and I crept out from behind the rock, making for the edge of the woods. Once we were both obscured behind the tree line, we walked the perimeter of the parking lot, moving as quickly as we dared without flashlights, using the light that bled into the woods from the parking lot streetlamps to avoid tripping over tree roots. We passed right by the place where Jess had concealed her own body a few days previously, and kept going, until we were crouched in the bushes around that far north side of the theater’s lot. I’d spent some time in this area—it housed the various outbuildings where they stored props, costumes, and set pieces. I remembered meeting Luca here, and had to swallow back a big pang of regret. However much I mayhave liked Luca, there was little chance I’d see him again; and besides, proximity to me would just put him into danger with his stepmother. She’d already used him as bait once, though in that instance it had just been a glamour of him. I couldn’t bear the thought of endangering the real thing.
“Wren?” Jess’s voice broke through my momentary distraction.
“Huh?”
“I said, how will we know when the distraction has started?”
“Zale will text us, but I think it should be pretty obvious. She’s going to set it off over near the lighthouse, which we should be able to see from the other side of this building.” I led her around the far side of the nondescript concrete box of a building, until we could just spot the lighthouse between two other outbuildings. I checked my watch again. Three minutes. Two…
Two things happened at once. My phone buzzed against my thigh, and we heard a voice over in the parking lot.
“Maeve? You take south, I’ll go north,” the voice said.
“You mean like every other time we’ve done it? Hecate’s Wheel, Jacob, let’s just get it over with, all right?” came Maeve’s sarcastic reply.
Jess and I flattened ourselves against the wall as a beam of light rippled past toward the back of the theater. I pulled my phone from my pocket and checked the notification.
GO TIME!!!read the text from Zale.
“Zale says it’s—” I began in a whisper, but Jess cut me off.
“Holy SHIT.”
I followed her gaze to the lighthouse, and had to slap my hand over my mouth to stifle my own gasp. Three geyser-like jets of water were shooting into the air on either side of the lighthouse, forming a bubbling curtain of water around it, as though we were gazing on the world’s largest decorative fountain. My mouth fell open just as a profanity-laden cry sounded from the other side of the theater, followed by sounds of running.
“Wow, Eva!” I whispered.
“When you said distraction, I thought… like setting off a firecracker on the beach or something,” Jess breathed.
For a few more precious seconds, we stood transfixed at Eva’s remarkable water magic. Then something in me snapped back to attention and I tugged on Jess’ sleeve, pulling her toward the Playhouse.
“Let’s not waste such a good distraction,” I hissed, and together we ran for the building.
There were now two entrances into the cavern beneath the Playhouse. The first was through a secret door that the Kildare coven had ensured was built when the Playhouse was originally constructed. The second was through a gaping hole that my mother’s own green witch magic had created when she took control of the surrounding foliage, and decimated the side of the Playhouse with a combination of violently expanding roots and vines that crushed the supporting wall to rubble. It was through this second, more easily accessible entrance that Jess and I now carefully climbed, picking our way through a minefield of rock and splintered wood, and a lush, almost jungle-like curtain of plant life that seemed in danger of swallowing the cavern completely. At last, we managed to fight our way into the chamber hidden within; and I looked around, feeling all the air go out of me like someone had just punched me in the gut.
I hadn’t been down here since the night I followed the glamour-conceived doubles of the Gray Man and Bea, right into a trap. It looked exactly as it had after my mother and aunts had rescued us, and I found that my heart was beating so fast it felt like a flutter in my chest. I should have realized it would be difficult to be here again, to relive the trauma of that night; but in all my preparations and worries over this night’s plan, I hadn’t stopped to consider the effect it might have on me. My legs felt like water. A cold sweat broke out on my forehead, and my hands shook violently as I pressed them against the walls for support. But, even all of this was secondary to the sight of the Source itself, pulsating with palpable and visible energy.
As I was processing all of this, Jess was walking purposely across the chamber toward the Source. Her face, before it passed out of my line of sight, was alight with reverence, but without any of the hunger or malice that had lit up Veronica’s face when she had looked at it. This realizationalone restored just a little of my courage. It wasn’t a mistake bringing her here.
The Source itself was little more than a pile of ancient rubble upon a battered stone plinth. Jess walked in a slow circle around its crumbled remains, which rose just enough on both sides to suggest that the rocks had once been built up into something more substantial—like an archway. I watched as Jess moved closer, and I felt an urge to warn her not to get any closer; but then I realized what was different now than the last time I’d been here—well, besides the fact that a madwoman wasn’t pointing a gun at my friend.
The relentless pull of the Source was… muffled somehow. It no longer felt like an invisible magnetic force was pulling me toward it. I could still feel the attraction, and yet, it did not compel me, whisper to me, as it had when I’d first seen it all those months ago.
