She took a step back, grasped the tree. “There’s something else I came here to tell you.”
“Then tell me. Please, if it’s about Julian, I need to know!”
“The curse of the Hollow Heathens is passed on through our bloodline. As long as we’re living, so is their curse. If anything happens to you before you have a child, our magic will also die. It is your responsibility to make sure you stay alive. You cannot trust anyone.”
“Icantrust him,” I assured her. “He loves me, I know he does.”
“Of course, he does. Each and every time,” she whispered, her spirit beginning to falter, fade. Her words weren’t making sense as if she was speaking to herself. Her eyes snapped to mine. “I don’t have time, but remember, Fallon, he may love you, but he will never choose you. He will always choose the coven, every time too. Let him go, baby. You must choose yourself.” The tree appeared behind her, and her spirit was slipping with the nighttime breeze.
“You’re wrong,” I told her, panic bubbling inside of me.
“You’ll do what is right, I know you will,” her voice turned into a whisper too, and I forced my feet forward to wrap my arms around her, to keep her longer, to convince her. “I love you, Fallon.”
Then she was gone, her afterword like mist in her wake as I clasped onto air, my arms holding nothing. I stumbled forward until my palms hit the tree, breaking my fall. I whipped my head to my left, to my right, behind me, searching for her. But she was gone, and she wasn’t coming back.
Casper cried, arching his spine and rubbing against my leg, letting me know he was still here. I wrapped my arms around my waist with Julian’s book tucked inside, wishing her visit would have given me more answers than questions.
Freya couldn’t know Julian as I knew him. When I’d needed words of comfort, of support, she’d only told me everything I never wanted to hear of him, of how the rest of the town viewed him! My thoughts ran and ran and ran, not making sense in my head. She had spoken of the curse and how it was tied to our bloodline. That I must stay alive.
Was this why Carrie Driscoll wanted me dead? Though the cold was stinging my feet, my ears, my nose, my insides were numb to the sensations. Had Julian known this? I kept my head down, staring at the graves my feet passed as I walked through the cemetery, replaying the last few days. Julian had acted alone without the other Heathens, stealing the books, destroying the books! The only possible conclusion was that Julian did know how to break the curse, and he’d done all this to make sure no one else did.
Julian was trying to protect me.
I didn’t know whether to walk back to Julian’s or Gramps’. Without a sense of direction, I stumbled across a bench in the cemetery and lay my head down. Soft glows from the candles and torches slowly swayed in the distance, the town finding spots and laying out blankets to spend the night in the cemetery to be rejoined with their loved ones.
Julian Blackwell was in a cell. He went against everyone to protect me.
“Oh, Fallon,” a familiar voice filled the cold air. “You’re shivering,” it said. I knew there was a hand caressing my skin, but I made no effort to move. “You’ll get yourself sick if you stay out here all night without a coat.”
“He’s an asshole,” I think I cried out, and I only knew I was crying again because I tasted the salt upon my lips. I was on my feet now, staring into soft brown eyes. “I hate him, Kioni! I want to kill him myself for this! Who does he think he is?! Thinking he could be some kind of hero?” Air pushed out between my lips, and I shook my head, “So that’s what this is?”—I nodded, trying to sort through my thoughts—“He thinks he can die and leave me likethis. He’s selfish, and I won’t have it. And she’s wrong, you know!” I snapped my eyes to Kioni, who had her fingers clutching my arm, pulling me toward a car.
“Who’s wrong?”
I huffed. “Mymother.” Kioni’s brows spiked. “That’s right, I talked to theLone Luna. Not all that’s cracked up to be either.”
“You’re talking nonsense right now. You don’t mean that.”
“I mean every word.” I turned and screamed into the air. “You hear that,Mother? You don’t know anything!”
“Fallon, you’ve officially lost your mind, now get in the car.” She opened the door and may as well have pushed me into the passenger seat. Then shut the door.
It seemed like forever in this stagnant silence until the driver’s side opened, and Kioni slid into the driver seat beside me. She rubbed her hands together, blew hot air into her palms. “Okay, now let’s just hope I don’t kill us on the way to Benny’s.”
“What are you doing here, anyway?” I asked, digging my fingers into the book and looking out through the windshield, but images of Julian being locked and alone inside the tunnels consumed my mind.
“Because, unfortunately for me right now, I’m your keeper, and I have to make sure you don’t do anything stupid.”
My laugh was empty. “Of course,you are.”
Kioni faced me as we lay there in the dark in my bedroom. She hadn’t left my side. Even forced me to stand inside the bathroom with her. I hadn’t changed out of Julian’s clothes. I hadn’t set the book down. Casper had returned to the house and curled into a ball atop the blanket over my feet. Kioni’s eyes were closed, but I knew she was awake. “I have to die for the curse to be broken?” I asked aloud. “That’s what Freya told me. That the only way to break the curse for the Hollow Heathens is for me to die.”
“It’s true,” Kioni whispered, not opening her eyes. “If Norse Woods finds out, they will kill you. If Sacred Sea finds out, they will use it against Norse Woods. Your dad, Marietta, Benny, me … we would all have eventually told you once you …if youever got pregnant. Then everyone started dying … There’s something about knowing the truth that could be dangerous before then.”
“A burden.”
“Exactly.”
“I wouldn’t want my baby to have to go through this.”
