Darkness Brutal (The Dark Cycle Book 1) (29 page)

“I thought she was making him up, like she made up everything else—until the day I saw the two of them down there, walking in the surf, throwing stones into the waves. It was her fourteenth birthday.” She points to a spot down the beach. “And every year on her birthday, she came here to this spot. Even after she ran off with her baby, she’d come back for the day of her birthday, and I’d see her down here, staring into that cave like she could will the thing to give her what she wanted. I don’t believe for a second that boy came from the cave. I think some young man was tricking her and eventually took her innocence, leaving her pregnant. Then he ran off—as men tend to do.” She shrugs. “But Fiona believed. That’s why I think her ghost came back here. She’s still looking for him.” For the first time she sounds like she might care.

“That’s possible,” Sid says.

I’m stuck on the vision of my mom and the boy who must have been my father. Every year on her birthday, he came through that crack in the cliff, through the doorway in time. She would scramble down here before sunrise and wait for him, her heart anxious until she saw him in the shadows. And then she’d run to him, hug him close, and it would be like they’d never been apart, the year of space between their visits completely forgotten. They would walk for miles up and down the beach, play in the surf, collect sea glass, and talk about each other’s worlds.

Until the year they created me inside those cave walls. Then he disappeared into the void and never came back.

But my mom didn’t understand. She waited, she wanted to show him—share what their love had created: me.

Years later, she made a deal with a demon . . .

All the personal, intimate details of Fiona’s story flood my mind, even though they aren’t part of what Mrs. O’Linn has shared.

I see my mother’s tragedy just like I saw what happened in that apartment where the ghost was protecting the boy, Marcus.

It always happens this way when I’m near a ghost.

I look around, past Sid and Mrs. O’Linn, to the mouth of the cave.

And I see her.

My mom. Fiona.

The world around me blurs. My breath falters.

She’s there, standing at the entrance to the cave. The white thimbleweed flowers brush at her bare legs with the breeze. A blue summer dress covers her thin form, her bare toes curl in the green at her feet, her white-blond hair whips across her neck and face. She’s so young, so vibrant.

She gives me a tired smile.

“Aidan?” Kara says, putting her hand on my arm. “Are you okay?”

“Is he having a fit?” Mrs. O’Linn asks, sounding annoyed.

“She’s here,” I breathe. “My mom—” I cover my mouth, holding in a sudden cry of pain, seeing her there. Her essence was captured as she was then, existing in that moment when she lost her love.

I collapse to my knees, gasping for air.

Someone says, “Oh my!”

Fiona’s pain, sadness, loss—it’s all there between us, and I know she’s sorry, so, so sorry, wishing she could go back and change things, if only she’d understood. If only she hadn’t left me like her own mother left her.

I start to sink into the ache of her soul, into her eyes, as she pleads with me to forgive her. And I want to go to her, tell her I love her, to feel her arms around me, smell her warmth, just like it was before the Darkness came.

But her sorrow is so strong, too strong, as if it’s gripping me by the throat, trying to drown me . . .

Then Kara’s there, kneeling at my side, her arms holding me, her fingers sending vibrations through my skin, bringing me back a little.

“I forgot . . .” I choke out, “how beautiful she was.”

“Oh, God, Aidan,” she whispers.

“What’s happening?” Mrs. O’Linn barks. “Who is this boy?”

“Please, Mrs. O’Linn,” Sid says, sounding calm as ever, “can we perhaps get some water? He may be coming down with something. He hasn’t been well.”

“Oh! Of course,” she says and scuttles off, heading for the house.

Sid’s beside me in a flash. “What do you see, Aidan?”

“It’s her . . . my mom . . .” I whisper.

“Amazing! Is she alone? Is there another spirit?”

I shake my head.

Kara grips me harder. “Not now, Sid. Leave him.”

“This is the place, Kara, the spot where it all comes together.” He sounds almost elated. He doesn’t feel the pain here, the loss.

As I find myself again, my mother’s ghost fades. But the presence remains, sorrow pulsing in the air. I squeeze my eyes shut, but I still see my mom’s wispy form in the darkness of my mind. I have to focus on something else: the sound of the waves, the cry of a gull . . .

“What’re you talking about, Sid?” Kara hisses. “This is his mother’s ghost. Not just some job. You can’t make him hurt her.”

“No, no!” He waves off her accusation. “This is a doorway, similar to the one I came through. A pivot point, so to speak, in time. I had a hunch that there would be one near the mother’s childhood home, but this”—he motions at the swath of green across the beach—“this is beyond anything. Even with my failing ability I sense the vortex here, don’t you? That open feeling, as if you’re being pulled toward something.”

Kara says, hesitant, “Yes . . . I feel something odd, but I wasn’t sure—”

“It’s the opening, the doorway. Two things happening at once: time and spirit crossing in a confluence. It has a sort of gravity to it. The two don’t usually coincide on this—”

“You’re babbling, Sid,” Kara says. “I think we should just get Aidan out of here.”

“Wait! Listen. The way Mrs. O’Linn’s daughter and granddaughter kept hearing voices, seeing things, that’s the spirit side of it. Whoever resides here in this place experiences it, but only if they already have the talent for it—the bloodline of a medium, or a talent for prophecy, like Aidan. This family is obviously brimming with it—Aidan’s grandmother, his mother, and even his sister seem to have a very strong bloodline! They would most certainly—”

“Wait, Aidan’s sister can see stuff, too?” Kara asks.

“No, I don’t believe she has Aidan’s gifts. It’s more like she’s just pulled toward things of the spirit. She would have the ability to call up spirits and sometimes control them, though. Obviously Aidan’s mother was a medium. But Aidan sees things because of his father, not because of his mother. Of this I’m sure—a prophet is a creature of knowledge and vision, not a conduit. But having someone living here who’s strong in abilities of
any
kind would definitely draw things to this place. Add the gravity of the time rip in the same location—and bam! A Crux. Aidan’s mother and father were bound to find each other in such a place.”

Kara shakes her head. “I’m lost.”

Sid kneels beside me. “Aidan, I need you to focus, focus on your mother.”

I look at him, panic filling me. “No. I can’t feel any more of her pain.”

“Yes, you can.” He sounds so sure. Like he wants me to dive in and drown.

“Sid,” Kara says, a warning in her voice.

“Just hold him, Kara, keep him centered—use the connection you have with him to keep him safe.”

“I can’t,” she says.

“Aidan, listen to me—”

“Stop!” I yell.

“Here’s the water!” Mrs. O’Linn says over the sound of the tide. “Is the boy all right? Should we call a doctor?” She bustles to my side, and Fa’auma comes up behind her, looking wide-eyed at me.

“Oh my!” Fa’auma says. “Let’s get him inside!”

“He’s fine,” Sid says, as if everything is perfectly normal. “Just a little dizzy is all.”

“No, he’s not fine,” Kara says.

Fa’auma and Mrs. O’Linn look back and forth between them and then turn to me.

“I’ll be all right,” I say, sounding more sure than I feel. I try to stand, but my bones are throbbing too much. Can heartache kill you?

“You don’t look all right,” Mrs. O’Linn says. “You look like you’ve seen death!”

I bite my lip to hold back the tears. “I need to eat something, maybe.”

“Poor boy!” Fa’auma says with a
tsk
in her voice. “We will fix you something. You’ll feel better in no time, you’ll see.”

I shake my head. I just need to go home.

Sid frowns and grumbles about needing to be sure of things and how we’re not done with the interview yet, until Kara gives him a look that could boil concrete and he shuts up.

We begin walking back toward the path, me trailing behind with Kara. She pauses, picking up a yellow ribbon blowing past her feet, then turns and takes my hand.

I can only watch in numb half awareness as she ties it around my wrist. It reminds me of the ribbons Ava had in her hair the other day.

“It’s going to be okay, Aidan,” Kara says, kissing the knot.

She moves to release my wrist, but I take her hand and walk beside her.

Mrs. O’Linn stops suddenly, waving her arms. “Oh my! I almost forgot!” She pulls something from her pocket—the stone she dug out of the bucket earlier—and hands it to Sid. “I’m supposed to give this to you.”

When Kara and I move closer, I see it’s a simple stone, nothing important. Light color, silver grey, smooth and oval—the perfect skipping rock.

Sid rolls it in his hand, looking it over, and his eyes suddenly widen. He drops it like it burned his palm.

It falls to the sand with a plop.

My pulse quickens, seeing his reaction. “What is it?” I look down at the stone.

“Don’t touch it,” Sid says in a dark voice.

“Well, my word!” huffs Mrs. O’Linn.

“What is it, Sid?” Kara asks.

“It’s a message.”

“What in heaven’s name!” Mrs. O’Linn yells. “It’s just a rock!”

“Where did you get it?” Sid asks, his cool slipping. He’s close to irate.

Mrs. O’Linn opens her mouth to answer and then snaps it shut with an odd confusion on her face. She hums and looks to the side. “Well, now. I don’t recall.”

“Did someone give it to you?” Sid asks.

She nods. “Yes. I believe someone did.” Something seems to occur to her, because her face lights up. “Oh! I remember! They said I should give it to the marked young man.” She waves to Sid’s tattooed forearms as if that explains why she handed it to him.

Sid looks over at me, and I realize what she just said—the message was meant for me. I stare down at the rock in the damp sand. Then I release Kara’s hand and bend over to pick it up.

“Aidan,” Sid says, like a warning. But he doesn’t try to stop me.

It’s cold in my palm from the sea air. I turn it over, thinking it looks like any other rock you’d find in the surf, rolled by the sea. There’s no odd energy to it, nothing—but then I freeze as something forms on the surface of the stone. A symbol. Then another. And another.

Three words:
Sister
,
Brother
, and
Severed
.

My mouth goes dry.

I rub the ribbon now tied to my wrist, one just like Holly wears in her hair, one just like Ava had tied in her white braids the other day. And as I touch the yellow silk I see her, my sister, as if she’s walking past us, up the shore, toward the cave. I stare in wonder as the image fades. Could Mom draw Ava here, show her in the grimoire
where to go? Ava hasn’t heeded my warnings. She keeps digging into what Mom was, and why. If Mom’s ghost is here now, and Ava’s been chasing her . . .

“What could’ve left a message like this?” I ask Sid. A message only Sid and I can see. To everyone else this would just be a rock.

He looks a little pale. But he doesn’t know anything about my sister, not really. Why would he be reacting to this rock so strongly?

“A demon,” he answers after a second. “It’s the only thing that could take away her memory.” He nods toward Mrs. O’Linn.

Fa’auma’s jaw drops open in shock. “Demons?”

“Folderol!” Mrs. O’Linn barks.

“Has anyone been down here on the beach recently?” I ask the two women. “Maybe some kids?”

Mrs. O’Linn shakes her head, looking indignant, but Fa’auma frowns, like she’s thinking.

“There were those kids the other day, Laura,” Fa’auma says. “Remember, you chased them off, nearly lost your shoe.”

Mrs. O’Linn scrunches up her face, looking annoyed. “No, no!”

“What did they look like?” I ask.

“Didn’t get a good look,” Fa’auma says. “They were runnin’ off before I could see clear. But it appeared to be two girls and a boy.”

“What’d the two girls look like?”

She shakes her head. “Sorry, sweetie. I only know it was two girls and a boy.” But then she adds, quickly, “Though I did think the one girl was smaller than the others. Younger. And her hair was light, while the other two had darker hair.”

“Ava,” I say under my breath.

“You think your sister came here?” Kara asks.

“She’s been running off with Holly. Plus, she’s been looking like mad for answers about my mom; my guess is something led my sister here.” That
something
being my mom.

“This isn’t good,” Sid says.

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“Why?” Kara asks. “What am I missing?”

“The message,” I say. “It says my sister and I will be separated.”

Sid looks at me funny. “That’s all you saw?”

“What do you mean
all
?”

Sid shifts uncomfortably.

I study the stone again, seeing the same message. “You see something else?”

“Kara,” Sid says, sounding distracted, “we need to go see Eric about some scrolls.”

“Sid,” I say, “tell me.”

“Aidan, if you don’t see it, perhaps—”

I get in his face. “Stop hiding shit from me. What the fuck did you see?”

Mrs. O’Linn gasps, and a hand flies to her mouth. “Such language!”

Sid gives me a nervous look but says, “It’s the symbol of Dark Opening.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Someone’s going to open
the
doorway.”

I shake my head. “That’s not an answer. What does it
mean
?”

He swallows hard. “A force is working to open a permanent passageway between the spirit world and this one, to cut down the Veil completely. If it succeeds, it will be the end of everything. The beasts of Sheol, demons and monsters chained there for longer than memory, they’ll come to this plane, and nothing, not even you, will be able to stop them.”