“Information on whom?”
“Willow and Celeste!” she replied, stifling an exasperated huff with gritted teeth.
“I have maintained meticulously-detailed notebooks for every client I’ve ever seen,” Mike sniffed, rising to walk over to the bookshelves. As if to demonstrate, he swept a hand across a shelf that was loaded with dozens of dusty spines, eventually pulling out a brightly colored spiral notebook with a flourish. He sat back in his chair, gripping the notebook in his lap as he surveyed Lilah with narrowing eyes. “The question I shall now pose to you is this: what is compelling to you about these particular women? Surely they disappeared before you were even born.”
Lilah wasn’t sure how to answer that. “I guess I just took an interest in their story,” she offered, hearing the feebleness in her own words. She could see the gears turning in Shaman Mike’s mind; her window of opportunity to get information was rapidly closing. She licked her lips anxiously before countering with one final question of her own.
“When you were at their house, did either of them mention anything about a baby?”
The shaman stared at her a long time before answering. Finally, he leaned back in his chair, inclining his head slightly as he spoke. “Why would you ask me that?”
She set her cold tea on the floor. “Because I’m pretty sure Willow was my mother.”
The shaman’s eyes grew wide. “What did you say?” he whispered. As he scrambled to his feet, the rocking chair he had been sitting on nearly flipped over backwards.
Lilah had the sensation of something cold trickling down her back. This was not going the way she’d anticipated.
Meanwhile, the shaman had started whispering to himself furiously, reciting some sort of incantation as though a balloon were deflating through his lips.
“Ah Kha Sama Ranza Shanda Rasa Maraya Phet!”
“What?” Lilah asked, sharing a dumbfounded look with Jace. “What are you—"
“It would seem I was mistaken,” Mike hissed, cutting off both Lilah and his susurrating mantra mid-sentence.
“Mistaken about what?” At this point, she was doing everything she could to keep her voice calm and steady. Beside her, Jace had risen to his feet. He took a deliberate step to wedge himself between Lilah and the shaman, who suddenly had a frantic look in his eyes.
“You are the malignant visitor,” he croaked. “And you must leave – this very moment.”
“But—” Lilah started, rising from the couch.
“Leave, now!” the shaman barked.
Jace put a protective hand on her shoulder. “Lilah, come on. Get your things.”
As she scrambled to grab her backpack from the floor, her knee caught the mug of tea she had set on the ground, sending brown liquid pooling across the shaman’s rug. She tried to grab the cup before the rest of the contents could pour out of it, but her fingers slipped on the wet ceramic, sending the mug clattering to the floor where its handle broke cleanly off. She whipped her head up just in time to see the shaman angrily fling his own mug of tea to the ground, where it shattered all over his intricately woven rug.
“GET OUT!”
Still kneeling on the ground, Lilah let out a yelp and covered her face. Jace could only watch in horror as the shattered fragments of ceramic resting at Mike’s bare feet flew back together, brown liquid sloshing back into it as though pulled by some invisible force. Tendrils of white steam rose from the boiling liquid as though it had just been poured from the kettle.
“No,” Lilah whispered, staring at the mug with glassy eyes. “Please – not now.” She clutched her hands against her head to try and ward off whatever was happening inside of it, but it was no use. It felt like an electrical storm was raging inside of her skull, crackling in her ears.
Jace dropped to the ground beside her. “Lilah! What’s happening? Please – tell me what to do!”
“Take my hand,” she whispered.
She felt his warm fingers squeeze against hers right as darkness fell.
Chapter 20
Night’s Edge
Jace blinked, trying to let his eyes adjust to the darkness. Lilah’s cool hand was still resting in his, and though he could feel the self-consciousness rising in his cheeks, he knew he couldn’t let go. Chief Quinn had made that much abundantly clear.
“Lilah?” he asked, squinting his eyes to make out the details of her face. “Lilah, are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” came the hushed reply. “Where are we?”
“The forest, I think. I can smell pine needles.” Jace knelt on one knee, using his free hand to sweep the ground. “But the snow is gone. The ground is completely dry.”
As he stood to his feet, his eyes began to make out the darkened outlines of trees that surrounded them. They weren’t standing in pitch blackness, as he’d originally thought. In fact, from somewhere far behind the trees, a dim light was glowing from all sides, casting the surrounding forest in vertical stripes of gray. The light reminded him of sunlight – as though the night had an edge to it. A quiet gasp escaped his lips as a nearby sound ruffled against the silence. It sounded like whimpering.
“Did you hear that?” Lilah whispered.
“Yeah.”
“Is someone… crying?”
A lump began to form in Jace’s throat. “The sound is coming from over there. Are you okay to walk?”
“I think so.” Lilah’s voice was so quiet, Jace had to strain to hear it over the noise of the crickets. “It’s strange – I’m not having a seizure. At least, I don’t think I am. But my head feels… funny.” As she said that, she nearly stumbled on a pile of books.
Books?
“I’ve got you,” Jace replied, tightening his grip on her hand. “Just hang onto me, okay?”
“I won’t let go.”
They took a few steps toward the sound, carefully weaving their way through the dark silhouettes of trees and scattered piles of clothes, rugs, and upholstery. Jace couldn’t figure that part out but he wasn’t about to trouble Lilah with a string of pointless questions. Stranger still, it occurred to him that no matter how far they walked, the faint bands of sunlight always seemed to remain the same distance in front of them. It was as though night itself had been captured in a giant bubble. Jace could only pray that the bubble wouldn’t collapse with him and Lilah trapped inside.
What would happen then? What would happen to us?
As they made their way through the forest, the whimpers grew closer and closer. Before long, Jace could swear that they were right next to the source of the noise – but he couldn’t see anything in the darkness. Somewhere close by, an owl hooted softly. Then, for a moment, all was still.
It was Lilah’s shrill scream that pierced through the silence, causing Jace to whip around in fright. Raising his free arm as if to ward off an attacker, he found himself nose-to-nose with a young man, perhaps just a few years older than him. The man had long oily hair and a narrow mouth that hung open, fluttering slightly as though he was trying to form words. Stranger still, his head was angled unnaturally, tilted in such a way that he seemed unable to hold it upright. It took Jace several moments to understand why: the man wasn’t standing in front of him – he was protruding from a tree. Or rather, the tree was protruding from him. As the realization slowly took hold of him, it took every ounce of willpower Jace had not to scream. Instead, he clamped a hand over his mouth and leapt backwards, dragging a paralyzed Lilah with him.