What would Daphne do? She’d ask for help, call on her guardian spirits and reach for the light, as she always did. Because Daphne had hope.‘Your little psychic friend?’Chambers taunted.‘I poured myself into her and almost ripped her mind apart. And what a delight it was. She couldn’t fight me. What makes you think you could? You’re nothing, Alexandra.’
Daphne saw the best in people. She always had. Whereas Alex…
She faltered, took a step back, and Sally gasped in pain as the darkness devoured more of her. Maeve cried out and tried to pull away, to run to her mother, but Alex couldn’t let her do that. She might just be a child but if Chambers got his claws into her who knew what he’d do.
This is your land…It might have been Sally’s voice. It was an echo, an agonised sigh, a prayer.I know it by the blood we share, the blood of Kilfayne. Claim it, as you claimed it with Nick. Call it. Give yourself to it and let it take me. It’s the only way. Call the wild…
Alex froze, the charm in her hand, and the tainted earth beneath her… But beneath that…in the rocks and foundations ofthe world…this washerland. All of it. Wildewood was hers. She had said so herself when Nick found her in the woods.
This is my land.
Alex reached out desperately. She didn’t even know what for, not really. But she remembered…long ago…calling for help like this…desperate to escape. And her dad…
‘Run, Alex! You have to run! NOW!’
But she couldn’t run. She couldn’t leave Maeve. She couldn’t leave Sally. So she reached out, blindly, desperately, just like she had all those years ago…just like before, something responded, something old and powerful. Something far beyond her.
The scent of the forest erupted around her, the smell of trees and freshly unfurling leaves, of the undergrowth and the mulch beneath it, the green of growing living things. And it wound through Alex’s body, making her gasp in alarm. The charm she held in her clenched fingers sprouted new leaves, and flowers unfurled. The forest filled the air around her, the wild wood and the charm which had brought it, vibrant and strong.
‘I’m with you, Lex,’Theo’s soft voice murmured.‘Let’s finish this.’Her brother. The other half of her. She could feel his hands on her shoulder, the warmth of his body. She could feel Theo all around her. Living, vibrant, real…
‘Theo?’
The sense of his smile was all she had by way of a reply, and the leaves wound themselves around her, the taste of them in her mouth, their rough touch brushing her skin. She shuddered with recognition.
She remembered. The forest, the way it had enveloped her, protecting her. The way it had taken her into its heart and …
Blaise snarled something and pushed Sally to her knees before him, hands tightening around her throat.
‘Get the fuck off her, you bastard!’ Alex hurled what was left of the salt at Chambers, the salt cellar arching like a line of lightthrough the shadows, and with it came the force of the woods in a storm. He fell back, flailing as the granules fell like scattershot on his ghostly flesh, punching tiny holes in the apparition. Sally tumbled to the ground at his feet, but he wasn’t paying attention to her now. The light from the silver spread through him, like fire eating through tissue paper. He writhed, trying to escape it. All around them, from every corner of the undercroft, voices screamed and Alex wrapped herself around Maeve, trying to hold her close and protect her.
There was an explosion of light, so bright Alex had to close her eyes. But in the afterimage burned onto her eyelids, she saw something else. Theo’s figure, filled with green and gold light, pulling Sally up, taking her in his arms and holding her close. The remaining leaves from the charm turned to motes of light and flew towards them.
Theo grinned at Alex. That stupid reckless trademark Theo grin.
And then her brother and Sally Walker were gone.
The candle fell, the flame snuffing out on the muddy ground and the undercroft was plunged into a darkness so complete that Alex wouldn’t have been able to see her hand in front of her face, even if she wasn’t half blind from what had just happened.
It had just happened, hadn’t it? That had really happened.
Breathing hard, she sank to the ground and gathered a sobbing Maeve to her. Maeve…the little girl shivered in her arms. It wasn’t her fault. Just like it hadn’t been Alex’s either.
‘It’s okay, sweetheart,’ she murmured, running her hand over Maeve’s hair. ‘It’s okay, I’ve got you. He’s gone.’
And so was Maeve’s mother. And Theo…
Alex’s throat tightened. Somewhere in the shadows she heard a laugh, soft and sibilant. Not Chambers’ laugh, not this time. It came from the far corner where Maeve had thrown whatever she had pulled out of the ground.
Not gone… Free…
The darkness seemed more solid there, like a living thing, boiling and rising, thick as that horrible tar-like substance, rank and creeping towards them. Alex shuffled back blindly.
Another sound filled the chamber, like thunder, but this time it was more localised, coming not from all around them and beneath them, not from the shaking earth and the walls of the house, but from behind them, where the stairs descended from the study. A beam of light swept back and forth over the undercroft like a lighthouse on speed.
‘Maeve! Alex!’
Nick skidded to his knees beside them, his face white and drawn with horror. Alex released the girl to him but laid a hand on his arm to still him, trying to ignore the way she was shaking. She moved his torch around to shine on the pool of black sludge and felt him freeze as he saw it, all his muscles going rigid with alarm.
