“Find my sister!” she yelled at a woman, who turned and ran away from her.
An abrupt wind had begun to kick up in frenzied circles around the house, lashing Cordelia’s hair across her face, tearing at her skirts. She felt the rain coming, less a sensation in the air than a pressure building within. When she glanced up, a convergence of ugly clouds was streaking the sky, roiling like billows of smoke across the black, carrying the charge of a hundred storms.
Cordelia forced herself to take in the vandal’s artistry, even as it turned her stomach and broke her heart, spiking her with fresh fear. Blood was splattered across nearly every surface—tables, ground, shrubs. Some had even hit the back of the house. It was haphazard and reckless. More about a show than a message. But the twisting pink cords that could only be entrails were different.
Driven into the ground between Cordelia and the house stood a tripod of wooden poles—two lashed together with cord, one leaning across those, its end driven deep into the earth. At the base of them, Marvel’s intestines had been carefully arranged into a series of three runes, each identical to the next. Cordelia didn’t recognize them, but they were instantly burned across her memory. Maybe Eustace would know what they meant, but she didn’t want her sister to see the fox this way. It would crush her.
Marvel’s head had been mounted to the pole emerging from the ground, thrusting toward the garden path, red with her blood. Her emptied husk was strapped behind, tied on with a long pink sash—the one Cordelia had dropped from her robe only that morning when she ran from the crypt to the house. The image of the old woman she’d seen blazed across her mind. If she was responsible for this, Cordelia would strike her down. She didn’t care about her age.
The fox had been entirely gutted, and her hide drooped like an old glove. Blood matted her beautiful fur and stained the lavender ribbon she wore. Her eyes were dull with death. The pole had torn off part of her jaw, and emerged from her open mouth, jagged and wet.
The first time it happened, with the blood, Cordelia had felt only fear—icy and miserable. The second time, with the skin and ash, she’d felt dread and an answering power. But this time, her blood bubbled with the hot tide of rage swelling inside her, echoing in the angry crashes of sky overhead. This was not a storm she perceived; it was a storm she called. And once it broke, there was no halting it.
There would be no miracle for the fox this time, Cordelia knew. Even her sister’s magic had its limits.
Above her, the sky crackled and split, raining her fury across them all.
CORDELIA’S STORM WREAKEDhavoc as the guests rushed to leave all at once, desperate to get out of the freezing sheets of rain and menacing lightning strikes, causing a congested knot of vehicles and mud while branches cracked and fell, flying through the wind, to smash windshields and terrify townspeople.
But Cordelia cared about none of it.
She let the energy rip through her and whip the air into chaos, let it catch fire to the treetops dotting the wide front lawn and soak the earth with a torrent the likes of which had never been seen in Bellwick.
She had only one thing on her mind—finding Eustace.
She tore through the house, drenched, screaming her sister’s name, slipping in the hall as she dashed toward the stairs, grabbing the banister to steady herself as she ran up them. On the second story she threw open every door, calling as she quickly checked inside before moving on to the next door. With each empty room she felt a little more hopeless, a little more afraid that they had not only killed the vixen, but that whoever was responsible had also taken her sister.
She reached the room her sister had been sleeping in and threw open the door. The bed lay starkly empty, the coverlet drawn high, remade after the night before, the pillows fluffed and waiting. A dim light circulated from a lamp on a bedside table, causing the ravens to cast grandiose shadows up the wall. Eustace was not there, but someone was. Across the bed from her, the ghost of Morna wavered in the lamplight, her face an ashen blur, her dress a mess of black crepe.
“Where is she?” Cordelia questioned the spirit. “Where is she!”
Morna turned her sad, drooping eyes up to meet Cordelia’s. Her mouth gaped open without sound. But her right hand tightened as her index finger extended, pointing down.
Cordelia had already swept the first floor, which left only one other place. She stumbled down the grand staircase into the library, skittering around the great desk to the hidden door. It was shut fast. Dragging it open, she grabbed the flashlight her sister had left on a nearby shelf and dashed down into the darkness. The narrow channels of the basement seemed to close in on her as she neared the little room.
Spinning into it, she held the flashlight out. It clattered to the floor. There, in the middle of the circle of runes, her sister lay unconscious, silver curls spread around her like a halo.
Cordelia rushed to her side. “Eustace!” she tried, turning her sister’s face toward her, patting her cheeks frantically, checking for injuries. She laid an ear to her sister’s mouth and felt the heat of her breath against her cheek. Relief swept through her, pulling up tears she’d been holding down. Cordelia sobbed as she tried to revive a stubbornly unresponsive Eustace.
“I’m going for help,” she told her pointlessly, her own face a mess of salt and snot. “Don’t leave me, Eustace!”
She raced back up to the first floor and out onto the porch, but the storm had soaked the ground so fast that many of the cars were now stuck in the mud, spinning their wheels uselessly, blocking everyone else as they sprayed them with sludge. A crosshatch of headlights cut through the dark, and the sound of horns honking filled the air between crashes of maddening thunder. In the confusion, Cordelia could no longer see Arkin, nor could she find Bennett or anyone else she recognized. She remembered Dr. Mabee leaving early, and knew what she had to do. She had no car—Gordon had taken his truck with him. But even if she had, it was doubtful she’d have gotten through this gridlock.
Instead, she ran. Once she reached the front of the property, she took off down the middle of the street. If someone came down that road, they would see her. Maybe they would stop. She could get a ride into town. She could find the doctor and bringhim back to help her sister. It was their only hope. Calling an ambulance was out of the question. In a hospital, Cordelia knew, Eustace would surely die.
Her shins ached and her feet were likely bleeding, but she continued to belt down the asphalt, even as her breathing drew shallow and her head began to pound like an egg being cracked from the inside. Blood dripped from her nose, and she wiped it away hastily.No,she thought, the sound of her mother’s body hitting the ground crashing through her.Not yet. Not yet!she called to the witch inside her—the seeress, thevolva—begging her to hold on just a little longer, just until they could find help for Eustace.
When the brights of a vehicle finally glimmered in the distance, she waved her arms wildly and tore toward them, hoping the driver would see her in time to stop. The tires whined as the truck slowed and Cordelia went from a full sprint to a jog to a shuffle. Every step seemed to come with a cost now, and the light of the headlamps blinded her. Or was it the headache erupting behind her eyes like a volcano of torment? She wasn’t sure, but she didn’t care. She heard the driver’s-side door swing open, and she managed to get the words out before the world dropped away.
“My sister,” Cordelia said to the stranger she couldn’t make out, shouting through the rain. “Please! You have to help us. Get Dr. Mabee!”
And then she let herself fall, and everything ceased to matter as a tide of black swallowed her whole.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTTHENITHINGPOLE
CORDELIA WOKE WITHa start, sitting up so fast she nearly slid from the parlor couch onto the floor. “Where am I?” she asked as the scarlet furnishings and draperies came slowly into focus, the marble fireplace and lacquered table, the pump organ sulking in a corner. A vintage wool blanket in red and brown plaid lay across her lap, scratchy but effective. Her wet dress was still sticking to her skin.
“Take it slow,” she heard a familiar voice say as a cup and saucer clinked on the table next to her.
