Sophie exhales. “I found it in my closet at my dad’s house.” She opens the journal’s cover. The spine crackles, and there is Quinn’s name, written in her inky scrawl, theiwith a little circle instead of a dot.
“Whoa,” says Elena.
Joey runs a finger over Quinn’s name, reverently.
Sophie gives her a second, then rifles quickly through the blank pages from back to front. The flutter disturbs the wisps of hair at her forehead. “The weird thing, though, is that there’s nothing written in it. It’s completely—”
But that’s when she sees it. Something she didn’t notice before.
On the edge of a page in the center of the journal. A faint but dark-colored thumbprint.
“What the hell is that?” Joey spins the journal toward her and hovers her own thumb over top. Almost the same size and shape. It even has print markings on it.
“Is it blood?” Elena is leaning down now, trying her finger over the print.
“I don’t know,” says Sophie. “The journal was blank before. I swear. This is the first time I’m seeing this.” The fingerprint looks like it’s similar in color to the old bloodstain on the sweatshirt, but it’s impossible to know for sure. She opens the journal wider so they can see the entire page, hoping to find a clue as to what this exactly is. What they see steals their collective breath.
The words on the page are in blue ink, with loopy letters and circles over thei’s—the same as Quinn’s name on the inside front cover. Only these words are new. They were not here the last time Sophie looked through this journal. There were no words on any pages besides Quinn’s name. And she definitely,definitelydidn’t see any bloody fingerprints.
The words stare up at them in all caps, big and bold and underlined with deep pen marks that almost slice clear through the paper.
IT DIDN’T WORK.
Sophie’s senses dull at the edges. She traces the letters’ deep indents with her finger with a thudding in her ears. She flips to the previous page.
And she’s not prepared for it.
One entire page, covered from top to bottom in one single repeated word.
Bloodspell.
Bloodspell, bloodspell, bloodspell, bloodspell, bloodspell…
She drops the journal as if burned.
Elena bends to pick up the journal and flips it open again.
“Guys, I know—I know—the last time I looked through this journal there were no words on any pages other than Quinn’s name,” Sophie manages. “How could I have missed this? There’s no way.” She’s met with silence as her friends again examine the page.
Joey shakes her head. “Well, it’s Quinn’s, isn’t it? So what if it has some kind of magic in it?” She closes the journal gently and holds it out to Sophie.
“Maybe, but what kind of magic?”
Elena says, “Could be similar to the book if the words truly did just appear. Maybe we should take it to the spell circle.” She pauses to hold Sophie’s eye for a long second. “And if there’s no magic in that journal… Not to freak you out, but I think it means someone has been writing in it. Like, in real time.”
Sophie goes icy. She’s had it with her since the moment she found it. Except…she left it in the closet while she was sleeping. And she slept hard, didn’t she? A landslide of exhaustion pulled her under—worrying about Quinn, about Leah, and about her dad. She didn’t even dream. Could someone have snuck into her room and written in it while she was asleep? Someone who knows something about Quinn? The idea makes the blood rush from her head to her feet.
“Bloodspell,” says Joey. “That was the same word carved into the deck at Quinn’s. What do you think it means?”
Elena plays with a strand of her hair. “The way it’s written on this page a hundred times, over and over and over again, it’s like someone possessed wrote it.”
Joey has her hand on the doorknob again, all business. “I think we should split up for a bit. I’m going to go to River’s house and make sure the book’s not there. Elena, you can go to Barbara’s and check Quinn’s room for the book. Maybe it’s hidden there somewhere. Sophie, see if you can figure out what the deal is with the journal.”
“Sir, yes sir,” says Elena with a salute.
Sophie’s mind is a vacuum, sucking up any logical thought.I need to talk to my dad, is all she can manage to think before they’re all out the door and heading in different directions.
28Joey
