The ingredients we spent the last week gathering begin to dance along the grass, the ground underneath our feet trembling, at least that’s what it feels like at first. I swallow hard, gripping my sisters’ hands as though they can anchor me as the ground shakes faster.
Except it’s not the ground. It’s the objects that are swirling in the middle of our circle now, whatever our magic did causing them to float and move and flicker in a tornado of motion that quickly becomes something more than I can bear to look at.
So instead I watch Hazel’s face, grim set to her mouth, the fire flickering behind her eyes, steam seemingly rising from her very skin.
And then it’s done.
The ground ends its shaking. A lantern made of sea glass and brass and all the things we’ve collected sits in the middle of the circle where the ingredients once were.
Posey sucks in a breath, and at first I think it’s in response to the fact that we’ve all created this strange object sitting in front of us.
Then the movement catches my eye.
The snake coiled around Posey’s ankle, fangs bared, forked tongue flickering.
She squeezes my hand.
“Don’t move,” Hazel hisses, and it sounds as if the sound came from the snake itself.
“Don’t move,” she says again, and this time it’s directed at Rose.
A huge, inky black bird swoops through the circle, claws out as it lands on Rose’s shoulder. She cries out but doesn’t falter in any other way, her hands shaking in my palm.
“Don’t move,” Hazel says.
And all I can think is that this is where everything is going to go wrong.
This is my vision come to life.
Twenty-Seven
“You’ve called on me again,” Hazel says, but it’s not her voice.
My head snaps to my youngest sister, and the thing staring back at me from inside Hazel isn’t her at all.
Hazel’s head cocks to the right, inhuman, unnatural, and my mouth goes dry. I squeeze Posey and Rose’s hands, and they squeeze right back.
A tear drops from Hazel’s eye — at least, I thought it was a tear.
It’s not.
It drops onto the grass, and fire snakes away from her, scorching a line straight to the lantern.
“I warned you the last time you were here, the last time you called forth the land, the sea, the sky, the earth, that the price would be paid. What price do you offer?” the thing inside Hazel asks.
Another tear drops, sizzling on the ground. This one goes further than the last, scorching a new path toward the center of the circle.
“Is the gift you offer this body?” the thing asks.
The snake on Posey’s leg slithers up further, encircling her waist, impossibly long, impossibly thick.
Blood drips from the huge black bird gripping Rose’s shoulder, and it hits me all at once.
We forgot to do — we forgot to do the blood offering.
I rip my gaze away from my little sister and the thing inside of her and turn to where I can feel Caleb behind us, outside the circle.
“A knife!” I scream at him. “We need a knife!”
