“Stella!” I hear, and it’s like sound through a tunnel. “Stella, don’t. Come back, Stella.”
He calls you a witch. He says you’re a scourge. He says you’re demented and ill.
And he’s doing that, now. Reverend Jenkins, with a knife blade poised to gut him, hisses those exact words at me. Taunting me.
I am five, and I feel my body surge with fury. Meanness overtakes me. Power pulses through me like a drug. I am so scared of what I might do. The name I called before is on the tip of my tongue,Asomoday.
“You told me you know about evil, Stella,” the voice through the tunnel says. Pax?
No. Don’t listen to him. Say my name. I will take over.
“We fight injustice together.
“You said you won’t be a trapped soul, Stella.
“You wouldn’t let me kill. And I won’t let you.”
I’m shaking, ill with adrenaline.
This man hurt Nirav.
This man hurtDaisy. By terrorizing me, intimidating me, insulting me: He and his fellow zealots ultimately killed my sister.
I tighten my grip on the knife, readying my plunge.
“Evil witch,” he hisses.
I am a witch. But I am not evil. “I am not evil.” I am not.
And then,then, I hear her:
Look at them, Stella.
My throat closes, but I choke out, “Daisy?!” My tears are immediate.
I look over my shoulder. I sense her there, but I cannot see her. I CANNOT SEE HER. I almost collapse.
Don’t look at me!
Turn around.
Look at THEM.
You have to look at them, Stella.
Look at the Dark Trio.
“I can’t! I don’t want to be lost! I can’t look at them, Daisy!”
My eyes focus. I get a flash of the fear in Reverend Jenkins’s eyes. The hatred. The Dark Trio is THERE, in his soul. I squeeze my eyes shut.
You have to look at them, Stella.
See them.
Acknowledge their suffering.
You can’t keep hiding from them.
