“That’s it?” I ask.
“Simple spells are always the most powerful,” Sage recites.
“Okay, well, something connecting me and Mama…” I sigh and grab the back of my neck. “She left this necklace. Nadia said I could have it when I was fourteen or something like that, so I’ve been wearing it on occasion for a while now.”
“As for something from the earth.” Sage digs through her bagnow, and pulls out a small baggie of little black speckles. “Saved seeds from the herb spiral at work.”
“Okay, let’s put them around the candle,” Sky says, and Sage and I arrange the objects so they’re equidistant and not too close to the flame. “And now, we have to ask the old gods to help us find the soul-stealer.”
We all look at one another for a few moments. “You should ask,” Sage says to me. “It’s your soul.”
I close my eyes and shake my head. “I feel stupid.”
“Just do it. If nothing happens, we’ll just have Nadia perform the ritual in two days or whatever she said earlier.”
I glare at the candle and sigh. “Fine.” I imagine the last time I felt close to the old gods. For some reason, I anticipate Sky’s arrival home after falling to be the thing that should come to me—but no. Weirdly enough, the memory that pops up is when Carter held my hand against the oak tree and told me to sense the water in the tree’s circulatory system. That feeling of connection…it felt similar to when I was struck by lightning.
Like a part of me was opening up to what I had lost without even knowing I’d lost it. The way I could feel the life of the water in the tree. The way the water itself seemed to be a whole spirit, talking to the water that made up my body…and how my body seemed to connect to every single body of water all around me. Every river, every creek, hell, every raindrop, even, that makes up this land. Even the ones long gone, and even the ones that are yet to come. All of that inside me at once, making me feel whole for the first time in a long time.
Now I know that I had briefly connected to a stolen piece of my soul. Which I’m going to get back, dammit. A bit of awkwardness isn’t going to stand in my way.
“Old gods,” I say, and to my dismay, my voice has the slightest bit of emotion in it. “Um. Please lead me to my lost soul fragment.”
We all sit in silence for about thirty seconds, when I throw up my hands. “It didn’t work, but that’s—”
And then Sky gasps. “Teal! Your hands!”
When I glance at them, they’re glowing. They’re glowing blue just like at the beach, on the night of wild lightning.
Sage and Sky and Iwatch, enraptured, as the glow of my hands pours down, and a line, all crooked and alight, flows out from me and along the floor, leading straight through the wall of the basement.
“We have to follow it!” Sky says excitedly as she blows out the candle and rises to her feet. “It’s leading us to Mama!” She wrinkles her nose. “I don’t like saying ‘Mama,’ actually. I’m going to call her Cora now.”
“It’s leading us to her?” I ask, my voice wavering.
“Yes. Can’t you feel it?” Sage murmurs. “Come on. Let’s go get her.”
We all leap in Sky’s car, keeping an eye on the blue line the whole while. It’s like my own little GPS connection—wherever I go, the line aligns itself to me, leading me in what hopefully is the quickest way there. “We need to head south,” Sky says as she starts the car. And that’s what we do.
As the sun lowers itself toward the horizon line, turning the sky into the peachiest pink orange ever, the line spreads out in front of the car, leading us down the highway, past both state parks, toward the downtown beach walk. In fact, it takes us right on the beach strip, and Sage screams, “Left!” in the middle of allthe stores and restaurants, leading us to the little parking lot behind one of the art galleries.
“Wait a minute,” I murmur, watching the glow of the blue line between my hands and the back entrance to the gallery. “I was here just a couple of months ago. And…the PI said that there was a woman who used a name similar to Mama’s, an artist…”
“She’s an artist?” Sage asks, wrinkling her nose.
“We’re about to find out, looks like,” Sky says, opening her car door.
I do the same, only noticing how much my hands tremble when I climb out of the car. I probably need to take some Tylenol or Advil or whatever is next on the painkiller schedule, but I can barely feel the ache, or even just the regular sensations of my body. Instead, it’s like there’s not just a line reaching my hands, but also reaching my belly, where it fills me with nothing but fear.
Sky marches right on the blue line to the door. She opens it and holds it for me and Sage, waiting patiently.
“You ready?” Sage asks. She looks nervous, too. A little pale.
“I think so. What about you?”
Sage shrugs. “I’m going in, expecting the worst of her. It’s all I’m capable of right now.”
I nod. “She stole my soul, Sage. I think it’s very realistic to expect the worst.”
