Done with this marriage before it even started.
It was true I loved Cyrus, but not in the way a wife should love a husband—not in the way Ivy loved Cyrus.
Besides, how could Cyrus ever love me after Ivy?
I’d once wanted more than a life of vengeance, but Kane took it all away that night, turning my heart to ice and never giving my ambition to love a place to wander. Next to the anger, my fantasies stirred inside, like the secret I was keeping, and with the Order forcing me to marry Cyrus, it was as if a part of me had died, too. My dreams were nothing more than castles in the sky.
“What do you think lives outside the town?” Ivy suddenly asked.
I raised my head to look her in the eyes. To search them.
It seemed the time had come.
If Ivy couldn’t be with Cyrus, she didn’t want to be here at all.
She continued, “What do you think it’s really like out there? Could it be as terrible as Augustine says it is?”
We’d had these discussions before. Growing up, tucked inside forts with flashlights during the nights, my sisters, Adeline, and I had read about the bustling nightlife of New York City, the taste buds of Paris, and the different shades of the Caribbean. We had made up stories, pretending to be living in a place where men didn’t manipulate a coven or use a woman’s body for magic or power. For a brief moment in time, our imaginations were passionate and gave us a sense of what living and love should feel like, but it also cut deeper and made us vulnerable to disappointment. Then we grew up.
“I know you can’t stand the thought of a future without Cyrus, but it’s also not something you can run away from. We can’t leave. And besides, Weeping Hollow is our home. There are good people who need us.” I leaned in, so she could feel the sincerity in my next words. “If you coddle the pain, it’ll never heal.”
“Says the one who’s marrying my boyfriend,” she muttered.
I hated this. “I’m still trying to stop it. Let’s not give up hope just yet.”
After she left,I worked quickly to return to the cave, but it wasn’t quick enough. The stranger would have to wait out another long night, and I was sure he would be all I could think about until I would see him again.
Strong winds picked up from the east. With groceries hanging from one arm, Mrs. Cantini’s dress zipped inside a garment bag folded over the other, I struggled against the wind to close the shop door behind me.
Town Square used to feel alive and festive, but the town’s colors had dulled in only two weeks. Snow covered the grounds and the gazebo. Shades of gray hovered like a graveyard in the sky. A drabness replaced the cozy, and tired flatlanders held up signs, shouting,“Drive the Heathens out!”
With only six hours of daylight, this was how the townspeople chose to spend it as if it would make a difference. As if the Heathens coming out of the woods would make the Shadows disappear.
The Heathens were useless beasts.
Other townies were closing their shops at this hour, too. Mina Mae flashed an encouraging smile at me from across the street as she locked up. I bumped into Crazy Jasper, who was waving his arms frantically in the air, chanting,“We need to find the sun!”
Ocean, the homeless man with the hairy face who usually slept in the alley behind the diner, hurried to Town Hall with a large canvas bag slung over his shoulder. He rushed past me to make it inside before the day ended.
I pulled the hood up and over my head, ducking from the wind and keeping forward along the cobblestone walkway when a pair of black beady eyes snatched me up and spun me around.
“Eleanor!” but the elderly woman who owned the hole-in-the-wall psychic store kept walking.
I sprinted, juggling groceries and the dress, peering around at our surroundings to see if anyone was watching us.
“Eleanor,” I said again, grabbing her coat.
She turned to face me, and a fierce wind blew between us.
“Please,” I begged. “You haven’t come by in over a month to see her. I need to know.” I was out of breath, and I looked up at the sky. “There’s still time. Please, it won’t take long.”
Eleanor looked from side to side before her gaze landed on me.
“Nothing will change, Adora. Each time it is the same.” She took her coat back from my grip and leaned in. “Until the spell is broken, your mother is imprisoned in her internal hell.”
Then she was gone, walking between two buildings and vanishing into the alleyway.
Eleanor’s voicefollowed me home on the edge of Seaside Street.
