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“I don’t understand. What’s this protecting me from? Threatening emails?”
“You can delete an email,” he said, throwing the rest of the dress into a trash can, which felt more symbolic than I think he meant it to. “When they marked you with blood, they made an address out of you. A front door with your name on it. Now you have a decoy, with just enough of you in it when someone knocks. Anything they send your way arrives there instead.”
“Send my way?” I struggled to get the words out.
“There are things that can be done to you, now that you’re marked, from a distance. Dreams of the retreat, the fire, the feeling you had in the water. You’ll wake up missing it and you won’t understand why. Then there’s the pull,” he said, his tone even and matter-of-fact, as if this was all basic and banal to him. “You’ll feel homesick for a place you spent one night. It comes in waves, usually when you’re feeling tired or lonely, because that’s when the door’s open the widest.
“And then there’s the dread. If pulling doesn’t work, they push. It comes at three in the morning, and you’ll be certain something’s wrong. It’s meant to wear you down until the retreat seems like the only place that feels safe. And if none of that works, there’s the leaning. If they decide you matter enough, someone works on you specifically. They use your hair, which they take from the pillow in your tent. That’s when you start deciding things and you don’t know where the decision came from. Wanting things you shouldn’t want.”
I looked at the salt and nails in the jars. “So that’s what those are for.”
“And worse,” he said. “The things they threaten us with…I’m not even going to say them out loud.”
“You’re marked, too?”
“Yes, but I’ve spent my whole life figuring out how to protect myself. They can’t get to me like that anymore. I worry more about the basic ways someone can ruin your life. Or end it.”
I thought of Callie and Priya and Jess. They had nothing to protect them. And they had no idea how trapped they already were.
“What about my friends?”
“Marlowe, you can’t tell them anything I’ve told you. Don’t tell them we met today. If Kai and Adrian find out, we’ll both pay for it.”
“Who the hell is Adrian?”
“Priya’s guy.”
“Oh my god,” I said. “And what about Jess?”
“She’s already been assigned. He’s not a good guy. Not at all.”
I slipped the shadow token into my purse. “I have to warn them.”
“You can give them advice, but it has to sound like it came from you, not me. You’re going to have to tell them you figured it out alone.”
“Okay,” I said. “But what do I tell them?”
“Tell them to watch their drinks around these men, and never to wear any of their gifts. Tell them that if they wake up from dreams of the retreat, or if they start feeling some weird pull toward signing up, they need to bathe in salt and revoke it. Swear them to secrecy. And be careful about the group chat. Kai and Adrian will be looking over their shoulders when they unlock their phones.”
“They’re going to think I’m insane.”
“They signed up for a manifestation retreat. Don’t underestimate them.”
“I guess,” I mumbled, my body already tight from the guilt of what I’d be keeping from them.
The sun had all but set now, turning the treetops burnished amber and army green.
“You need to get going. It’s not safe for you to be out here in the dark,” he said, glancing in the direction of the cove. We both stood.
“And Marlowe…” He paused, and his face darkened.
“What?”
“The coven has expectations about you and me.”
“Expectations?”
“I’m supposed to be taking you out on dates. Texting you daily. They check. We’re supposed to be…”
