Chapter 8

I sat in my black dress with ruffly cap sleeves, surrounded by sympathy cards and flowers, waiting for Mom to get home from the funeral.

I’d had this dream before. And this part, the beginning, was the only part of the nightmare that actually happened in real life. This was the day Mom went to the cemetery to bury Grandpa. I’d stayed behind and waited for the reception because I couldn’t control my magic.

It bigtime sucked.

Luckily, this dream was a regular rerun, so I knew beat-for-beat what I was in for. And from here out, things got weird. Take the part where I melted into an oozy lava person and burned up the couch, flowers, and cards. Or when the whole ranch house went up in flames as I melted through the floor. And who could forget the ending, where mom got home and cried her eyes out over my smoldering crater because she’d officially lost everything? Classic.

But this time, just as I was bracing to ride out my recurring nightmare, the doorbell rang.

Which was strange, because I hadn’t even gotten to the part where my dress started smoking.

I cracked the door open, half expecting the fire department to already be in the driveway.

Except it wasn’t the fire department. And it wasn’t our driveway.

Where the barn normally sat was the setting sun, pink sea, and a purple stripe of shadowy land on the horizon.

And on the porch right in front of me stood a freckly, red-headed teenager. He had a leather kilt-looking thing tied around his waist. A heavy fur cape hung over his bare, refrigerator-solid shoulders. With wild, sun-bleached red hair and a face too big for his . . . face . . . he looked like a sun emoji. Except where sunglasses and a smile would go, there was a frown as serious as the grave.

I recognized him from a few nights ago. From that dream where I erased a hole in my World History homework. We’d met in the cafeteria, I’d followed him outside, and we’d talked on the beach—this beach, I think.

The boy standing in front of me was my passenger. The voice that helped me get away from Ghost. Somehow, I just knew.

“I’m guessing you’re not here for the reception,” I said. Stupid as usual.

He didn’t seem to find that very funny. Instead, he tilted his head. Reached for my face.

I leaned away, kind of weirded out. “Whoa there.”

He brushed my curls out of my eyes, lifted my bangs with his hand, and stared. But he wasn’t looking me in the eyes. Instead, he was looking just a little higher.

My face heated up, and I smacked his hand away. “Quit.” I knew I had a fivehead. That’s why I had bangs.

But then he pushed his own hair back and, suddenly, I realized why his face seemed so big to me.

If I had a fivehead, he had a twohead. Everything above his eyebrows sloped backward, almost in a wolfy kind of way.

“Oh.” I tried to hide all my surprise in one hard blink. “Wow.”

He wasn’t ugly. Actually, between high cheekbones, soft frown, and cool blue eyes, you could maybe even call him cute. But the more I studied his face, the deeper I spiraled. There was a canyon of differences between us, like looking at an elf and a dwarf side-by-side in The Lord of the Rings movies. And we probably both thought we were the elf.

He turned toward the ocean. I want to show you something, he said. Like the last time I met him in a dream, his mouth didn’t move, but his voice echoed all around us.

I didn’t know why he thought at me when we were face-to-face. “You can talk out loud if you want,” I said. “Or if you let me into your head, I could try your language.” I’d probably butcher it, though.

This works, he said simply.

He dropped off the porch, then looked over his shoulder, expecting me to follow.

Running after boys I just met hadn’t really been working out for me lately. But hey, this was a dream. Worst case scenario, I’d just wake up.

I whacked through the tall grass and scrub and struggled over the sand dunes in my black ballet flats. When I glanced back, I realized Grandpa’s ranch house had been plunked down under a huge, pointy mountain with white cliffs, surrounded by green trees and scrubland.

I jogged to catch up with my new . . . could I call him my friend? “Where are we?”

Home.

He knelt down by a charred pit in the sand stacked full of firewood. Then he reached into a pouch hanging around his hips and took out two stones. One was a gray rock with sharpened edges. The other was a nugget of fool’s gold. He clacked them together and struck a spark.

Sitting there all sunbaked, shirtless, and shaggy, he kind of looked like a surfer bum. But as he tried to light his kindling, his focus was all uniformed boy scout.

Once he got a good flame going, he patted the beach beside him like he’d saved me a spot.

It was kind of chilly out here. After taking a second to adjust my skirt, I sat in the sand and tried to rub some warmth into my bare arms. “So, uh, do you remember your name?”

He stared into the growing fire, thinking. Then he traced a picture in the sand with his stubby finger. Something like . . . He scratched out the finishing touches. A tall, triangular evergreen.

I scrunched my nose. “Christmas tree?”

He stared out from under his bangs at me with skeptical blue eyes, like he wasn’t sure if I was making fun of him. What’s Christmas?

“Sorry. Stupid.” I shook my head. “More like . . . Pine?”

He pouted and shrugged. Close enough.

“I’m Cecelia.” I reached out for a handshake.

For a second, he stared at my open palm, unsure. Then he dropped his piece of fool’s gold in my hand.

“Uh. Thanks.” Our supernatural connection did pretty good job of interpreting word-for-word. But I guess handshakes, like Christmas, didn’t translate. Can’t say he wasn’t polite though.

Pine pointed at the land across the sea, where the sun had dipped behind the mountains.

One, two, three small points of warm light flickered to life.

I sat up on my knees and squinted. “Are those other fires?”

Pine smiled like he was about to show me a secret—the first smile out of him this whole time. He took off his cape and held it in front of our fire to block the glow. Then he swept the pelt open and shut like a curtain, flashing light and shadow.

He pointed between his eyes and the fires across the water, signing for me to watch.

I leaned forward, staring at the dark horizon. After a long moment, each of the fires across the water flickered. Dark, light. On, off. Like somebody out there was waving back.

I cracked a grin at Pine. “Who is that?”

He shook his head, beaming. No idea.

They signaled back and forth a few more times before Pine put the pelt over his shoulders again.

Every day I swim as far as I can. But not far enough. He stared at the lights across the water with shining eyes, lost in a daydream. I’ll find a way to get there. Someday.

A headache shot between my eyes, point-blank.

Pine and I grunted and grabbed our heads at the same time.

A memory flooded my vision—and not a memory of mine.

It happened a long time ago at night. Here. On this beach.

Ghost towered over where I fell in the sand, bristling with animal fur and radiating rage.

His bearded face was twisted up, shouting. But I could barely hear his voice—it was like I had water in my ears.

Ghost kicked over the logs in a blast of embers. Stamped the dying fire out in the sand. Came at me with a stone knife.

I snapped out of the memory in a white flash just in time to hear the end of my own scream.

That was Pine’s memory.

His last memory.

Pine hunched over the sand, gasping like he’d just broken free from a chokehold. His whole body shook.

“Hey. Take it easy.” I wanted to reach out, maybe put a hand on his back to ground him, but we didn’t know each other that well. Instead, I just hovered close by, awkward and useless. “It’s not . . .”

I was going to say it’s not real. But a long time ago, somewhere far away, it had been real.

“It’s over,” I said instead. That was the only thing I could think to say that was true.

He dug his fingers into the sand, catching his breath. After a minute, he wiped his nose on his arm, wrapped his fur tight around his shoulders, and scooted away from me to huddle up by himself.

I rubbed the spot on my forehead where Pine’s final memory pummeled me like a paintball.

“Ghost did that to you”—I looked back at Pine’s friends across the ocean—“for this? Just because you signaled those people?”

He’s alive. Pine’s eyes blazed like barbecue briquettes. How is he alive? He glanced up at me, and the blaze burned brighter. You.

Guilt pressed me flapjack flat. If I was him, I’d want to throttle me. “It was my magic—an accident. I don’t know how it happened.”

Pine hung his head and heaved a gritty sigh. He used you. His thinking voice softened very slightly, almost like he felt bad for me.

My whole body went noodley with relief. I didn’t deserve the sympathy. But I’d take it over a punch in the face. “Who is this guy? What’s his deal? What does he want?”

Everything, Pine said. He’s called—he seemed to be searching for a word I could understand—the Crow.

Crow. I tested the name.

Pine glanced up at the white peak looming over Grandpa’s ranch house. He’s the greatest man to ever live under this mountain—a magic stealer. He can take your gift away, use it for himself. It made him a god. He clenched his jaw. And a murderer.

“Power absorption?” A chill spilled down my arms. That was serious magic, the kind that would’ve landed your name on a government blacklist back in the sixties. The sort of list that families who could raise the dead tried to dodge. Cough.

I thought back to my adventure with Dixon. The quarantine closet. The light shining out of the crate. How scared and out of control I felt. “Oh my gosh.” I sat up straight. “He used my power to bring himself back to life.”

But your magic—Pine narrowed his eyes—it should be gone. He took it.

“He’s tied to me like you are. Maybe as long as we’re connected, he has to share.”

Pine huffed. It was almost a laugh. The Crow doesn’t share. And he won’t stay tied. He balled his hand into a fist and socked the sand like he should’ve thought of all this sooner. That must be why he’s hunting you.

“What?” My entire body flash-froze. “He—he can’t kill me. He’ll just destroy himself.” I paused to run the math. “I mean, I’m pretty sure. Unless he could somehow support himself once he had my magic.” I gripped my stomach, suddenly sick. “Could he do that? Tie himself to himself?”

Pine shrugged. He didn’t know how this stuff was supposed to work. He may not care.

I wrapped my arms around myself. “Whether he steals all my magic and outlives me or we both go down together, it ends the same way.” Me, toast. I was not okay with that. “So, it’s me or him. It just comes down to who gets who first.”

I know the Crow. Pine gave me a firm nod. I’ll do everything I can to help you end him.

“But wait.” I buried my hands in my hair. “If I poof him, he’ll be stuck inside me. Forever.” I tried to imagine graduating high school, going to college, growing to be as old as Grandpa John—all with Crow living inside me.

Better than outside. Pine sounded very, very sure.

And he was right. What other choice did I have? It sure beat getting kebabbed in the woods.

“So that’s the plan,” I said. “I’ll hunt him down. Poof him.” I touched my chest where Nuke and Bitey hibernated. “Lock him up with the rest of the zoo.”

Pine nodded. Or run as fast as you can.