Chapter 33
Julian
From a Buick 8,my feet landed on the ground of Goody Farms, located on the northwest end of the border. The white plantation home nestled between cornfields and rows of apple trees, wild blueberries, cranberries, and strawberries blanketed the acreage. Most of the town’s food source came from Goody Farms, making Norse Wood’s own Goody family one of the wealthiest of Weeping Hollow. Goody Farms and the Hollow Heathens were the solid two reasons why Sacred Sea hadn’t successfully taken over the town.
The night was full, and iridescent gray clouds slid lazily across the phasing moon. A crow squawked in the distance, and Phoenix tossed a knowing glare at me from over the hood of my classic car.
It was me the black birds followed. Crows, ravens, it hardly mattered anymore. It was never-ending because Death wasn’t finished with its massacre. Their sounds always followed, always reminded. Always kept me on edge and aware. Darkness could take me at any moment, but I was stronger now because Fallon and I were strong.
Winnifred, Zephyr’s sister, played a depressing tune on the piano, and the notes echoed in the hollowed home, carrying through the already opened front doors. The two of us passed by her, a nod our only greeting. Winnifred was a promiscuous creature, with wheat-blonde hair and upturned eyes. Her fingers never left the piano’s keys as one side of her mouth lifted, her plump breasts pressed together and up by a corset. Moonlight streamed in from the floor to ceiling window, casting a beam of white light over the grand piano.
My eyes went skyward then forward, landing on Phoenix’s back as he led the way through the living room toward the back of the house. Nerves bounced in every step we took until we reached the carved wooden doors of the room I hadn’t entered since the time I lost both my brother and father.
When we entered, Zeph and Beck were already present, as well as Clarence Goody and Drunk Earl. The last of the Hollow Heathens filled this very room. My glare slid from Beck to Zephyr to Phoenix, searching for answers but finding none.
“Take a seat,” Clarence Goody announced, gesturing toward the three empty chairs surrounding the sacred Heathen table.
Each chair was hand-crafted by the Wildes with our family name carved into the wood, the matching element symbol etched below it. Two of the five candles flickered from the center table, a matchbook at their side.
Phoenix ran his hand across the candle, and a flame ignited. Before taking a seat, I did the same, my gaze lingering on the Danvers chair with the earth element symbol underneath. The upside-down triangle, a line straight across. The only unlit candle spread an emptiness which lasted for over a century.
Phoenix’s hawkish gaze darted around the room as he followed suit, sinking into the chair his father once sat, the same chair a distant relative of his once built.
He broke the silence. “What is Drunk Earl doing here?”
A stained bandana covered Earl’s face, his gray hair sticking in all directions as if he’d stuck his finger in a light socket. Off the arm of the wooden chair, Earl’s wrist hung loosely, grasping a lowball glass of expensive brandy. A smug smile coated his face.
Beck’s elbows dug into his knees with his thumbs under his chin, his impatient knee bouncing beside his father’s. Zeph seemed relaxed, right at home in the discomfort of it all.
“Earl is a Hollow Heathen, he deserves to be treated as such,” Clarence Goody answered, his straight white hair curtaining his mask.
“Earl is a waste of magic,” Phoenix hissed.
Drunk Earl waved his hand out in front of him. “Go on and pretend I’m not here.”
“What do you think I’ve been doing for twenty years?” Phoenix Wildes. Always the protector of baby Beck.
Beck shoved a cigarette into his mouth, leaned forward, and snatched the matchbook from the table.
“What are we doing here?” I asked, wanting to get back to Fallon, the shop, anywhere else but this place.
This small, insufferable room was my martyrdom—a reminder of when I’d been forced to listen to Jonah, Clarence, and Agatha conspire to give up Dad instead of me for thegreater good. It was a time just before they took Dad to the cliffs and shoved him inside The Wicker Man. A time before they set his body aflame.Anywhere but here…
Bright green orbs beamed from behind Clarence’s white mime mask. “Are you any closer?” he asked, his voice like a bass filling even the cracks of the room, the nooks and the crannies.
Beck began to speak, but I intervened, “What are you referring to?”
“Breaking the curse,” he answered, and I darted a glare at Zeph and back to his father. “When the books went missing in the chamber, I was questioned. Don’t take me for a fool. You think you’re the first Heathen to break into the chamber for answers?”
“No, we’re not close,” I gritted through a clenched jaw, hating that he knew. Hating that someone within the Order could threaten us with this. Even if it meant risking Zephyr, his own son.
Clarence nodded. “I didn’t see it until they called you in and ordered you to stay away from Tobias Morgan’s daughter. I don’t know what they are up to, but I’m not going to stay two steps behind. It’s time we put the coven before the town, same as Sacred Sea has been doing since balance shifted. And ithasshifted.”
“I agree,” Phoenix said, and I sensed relief in his voice. Perhaps he was relieved Clarence could be in on this too, with breaking the curse. He could be on our side, but I still couldn’t trust him.
“Oh, good. The son of fire,” Clarence crossed his legs, only growing thinner, and leaned back. “You’re the oldest, Phoenix, and you still haven’t chosen a mate from the coven. Shall we discuss the reason why?”
“Found no one worth choosing,” he snapped, and my focus jerked toward him. Phoenix’s eyes glowed with a neon-yellow hue, and I knew right then he was lying before the table. A sacred space where treachery and betrayal weren’t welcome.
