Exaltation (21 page)

Chapter Nineteen

The twins’ door was locked. When Raven reached for the skeleton key above the doorframe and opened the door she ran into a dark sheet that apparently had a nightstand behind it. She dropped her bag with a curse as she fought the sheet like a ninja. She felt a hand go around her mouth before she could scream any louder.

River.

She pulled Raven past the sheet, locked the door, and pushed the nightstand against the door once more.

“What’s going on?”

“This is our security system. We knew we’d have time to hide the books if Mom gets past the sheet and such.”

“Look, I’m tired. Long day. Can we do whatever tomorrow?”

“No way,” Ash said, as she waved Raven over. All the lights were off except one desk lamp on the floor between their beds. Ash pulled out a book from under the bed as River and Raven sat down by her. Within a second River had a stash of old books pulled out, too.

“Miss Sherri gave you guys all this?”

They glanced at each other then back to the books. “Miss Sherri was a bust,” River said. “Best we got out of her was what we already knew and Berries’ address.”

That made sense. The reason Miss Sherri knew so much about everyone was because she sold real estate in the Quarter. As a result of her job she always had to know the history of the houses, including all the old residents as well as the current ones. She was good at what she did because she had a way of making every home look like an epic novel. She knew all the secrets.

“And what did you already know besides Mr. Berries is your mom’s ex and he’s a creep?”

A shiver ran down both their backs as they made a face.

“That this mythology stuff he teaches is a fluke. A mask,” Ash spat out. “He’s a skeptic—like he was just using Mom for research. Back then he was trying to disprove every belief he could find. Basically a black and white kind of guy who thinks there’s no magic to life.”

“Odd career choice then,” Raven muttered. She had sat through one too many of his lectures on the greatness of myth.

“Not really,” Ash argued. “He’s in the best position to destroy peoples’ beliefs and he does that by using their own words against them. But that is not the point. The point is from what Miss Sherri told us—we were right about him. He was into Mom but she was only really into his mind. And he was really ticked when Mom told him ‘thanks, but no thanks.’ That was right after all of us were born. Miss Sherri said he was a coward, that he never faced your dad or anything or really said anything to Mom, but he used the law against them. Berries would make false complaints about your dad’s business or even to child services about how we were raised. He taunted them until we were like toddlers then he just vanished, never saw him again. Miss Sherri told us to steer clear and make sure we locked our doors at night.”

“What did she mean by that?”

“There is a rumor that he’s a thief. That your house was broken into, way back when, and so was Aunt Saige’s, and ours. Apparently, before we were robbed a few other business and homes were.  It was a major drama because the things that were stolen were antiques and such, old books.”

“If he was a thief why would they let him teach at our school or why would my dad or your mom not say something?”

“Miss Sherri said they never proved it was him, that they just thought it was him because the robberies stopped as soon as he was gone. She gave us the impression she thought your dad took care of it. She for real said she was surprised Berries was still alive.”

“Like my dad would kill someone.”

“Yeah, we know, but you know how she is,” River said, finally chiming in on the conversation. She was taking notes like a crazy woman.

“So where did all of this come from?”

“Mr. Berries’.”

“What!”

River shrugged. “Miss Sherri told us where he lived, so we went and took a look around.”

“You robbed his house!”

“We un-robbed
our
house,” Ash clarified.

“What?”

“Look,” she said, pointing to the cover of the book. “This is our family crest.”

“He stole books like fifteen years ago and had them lying around his house?”

“No, they were hidden. Miss Sherri told us about how the walls in the house were rebuilt and that there were panels that led to them, so we took a chance.”

“You could go to jail for this!”

“Only if we are caught and besides, he wasn’t there and no one saw us. I don’t think he’s going to miss these anyways.”

“You have two book bags full of books—how would he not miss that many books?”

“There were like a thousand more there. These were all the way in the back. We covered our tracks. We were going to take them back but now we think we might keep them because they’re our family’s.”

“Two wrongs do not make a right.”

“Yeah, yeah. Seriously, check this out though,” River said, pushing a book into Raven’s lap. It was an album slash journal.

“Are you trying to show me images of my dad forever ago? That is not breaking news. I know he’s lived a long time.”

“Not the images of him, the drawings.”

Raven turned the pages and saw a sea of triangles and circles and words she was sure were in Latin, a language she didn’t want to decipher tonight.

“And?” Raven asked, as she ran her fingertips across an image. It was four rings with an array of triangles and spheres within them. It was familiar to her but she didn’t know why.

“And that’s a prediction. The coven leader before your dad, your Aunt Saige’s dad, wrote that. It’s the vision he saw as he saved your dad.”

“It would take me all night to read this, and I’m really out of it, guys.”

“I already have read most of it,” River said. “First and foremost, we are so right about our mom and your dad needing to hook up. It was said Mr. Jamison would love a womb-less woman who would change the way he saw everything.” She looked up at Raven. “Miss Sherri said your dad was almost feared before your birth, that he was respected, but you did not cross him. Most think your birth changed him, yet even more think it was Mom.”

“How sweet,” Raven said with a yawn.

“The rest of this is a revealing text.”

Which meant it was spelled, that it would appear over time. The author only wanted his secrets to come out slowly. Usually a candle with the right words spoken over it would reveal the next words. At least it would if you checked after a life changing moment, like a birth, or union, something big like that.

“It has your full name: Hartley Raven BellaRose. Then our mom’s.”

“Awesome. So you figured out what we already knew. I think our parents are talking downstairs. I was blunt with the both of them.”

“This doesn’t have to do with them. We lit a candle,” River said, as she shook the red one with a singed wick at her side. “This is about us. I think you’re going to be a queen and you have to kill five people.”

Raven’s stomach flipped. She lost the fogginess she was feeling.

“A queen of what?”

“I think it says emotion. Like bliss.”

“How do you know the last coven member was not reading my personality?”

“I don’t but check it—this talks about The Realm, two souls made of one, a new revolution.”

This was getting dangerously close to not only the conversation Raven had outside but also linked up to what her dad had been telling her in a roundabout way—that she was a solution to something. Raven already knew she had killed bad souls, her dreams told her as much.

“Does it say anything about my mom? Like where this place is they came from before the coven.”

“An Escort.”

“Do what!”

“Not that kind. Escort energy, bad energy away from souls. An angel slash demon kinda thing—a Godly power.”

Raven shook her head, falling back into the fog of exhaustion. This was not the first time either of the twins had become enthralled in coven text. It was cool to imagine old stories and prophecies at times, but not tonight—she wanted to lay in her bed and figure Rydell out. “Why would I have to kill five people though? What’s up with that? And you know what? In those hurricanes we killed far more than five.”
Calling bullshit, girls.

“Yeah but that angel boy only put two before you to kill. Remember?”

All too well.

“So what happens when the other three fall? Oh my God! You better not be telling me I have to kill Berries. You may go to jail for breaking and entering, but I’m
not
going to jail for murder!”

“No. I think these are nonhuman people.”

“How sure are you that you are reading that right?”
Nonhuman what? You can say the witch word River, really.

“Eighty percent,” Ash said, turning the page. “It even has us in here. We are the triangle—see? That’s how we stand when we fight,” she said with a glance to River, who nodded. There was no doubt River was gauging more of this than Ash was with her gift of reading text.

“Yeah but what does this have to do with Berries?”

“This? Nothing. But I think he’s trying to discredit your dad or something. He had a list of every address your dad goes to and lines through them.”

“I cannot believe you guys were in his
house
—the dude video tapes his lectures, what makes you think he was not filming you? That he’s not filing a police report now?”

“He would not want anyone in his house. This guys is after us and we fought back. Plus he had stolen items in his house. The deal is that after going after him we figured out this thing with us.”

“What did you figure out besides that you think I have to kill five people and have already killed two?”

“Raven, do you honestly think whoever is in your reign you are taking is going to give it up freely?”

“Wait, you’re taking this in the
literal
sense? Like, you think there is a kingdom somewhere?”

“Pretty much.”

“I’m all for the weird. I find it fascinating, you know I do, but I aced geography as well as world history. There are no kingdoms out there for a girl from the Quarter to rule.”

“In this world,” River said, raising her brow.

“Yeah, you’re right, I bet my kingdom is on Mars, no doubt.”

She slugged Raven. “What if it’s in The Realm?”

“The dream plane?”

Ash shrugged. “Anything is possible. The deal is that our parents have been protecting us for a while. What if this is what it’s about? What if people are after you?”

“Duh, people
are
after us. I thought this was about Berries?”

“He’s just a foul taste that we have to deal with. Rather quickly. If he knows this about you it cannot be a good thing.”

“Just give me a second to decode this,” River said.

Raven fell asleep while they went through the books.

They didn’t bother to wake her up until twenty minutes before they had to leave for school. Which made getting ready a marathon.

Raven didn’t take a breath until she got to school and that was only because it dawned on her she would see Rydell.

She dreamed about him the night before. She didn’t remember the details but it was
not
a good dream. He was either in pain or taken from her. And she fought to save and defend him.

He wasn’t there.

Raven assumed he would show up late for first period but he never did.

By the time third period came Raven was pretty much a walking depression. She’d had a night full of bad dreams, which was preceded by the twins’ revelation of breaking and entering, a ‘talk’ with her dad which was spawned because she had an odd reaction to Rydell’s kiss.

Raven was exhausted and terrified of fifth period. She didn’t care how careful the twins thought they were being, Berries would figure out they robbed him and Raven would take the heat for it.
Juvenile detention here I come!

She was the first one in third period. She shrugged her bag off and put her head down. A moment later she felt a hand on her back. She assumed it was Soren and glanced up, but it was Dagen and he looked worried.

“You all right?” he asked as his eyes, which looked so much like Rydell’s, moved across her face.

She sat up and strained not to look devastated. Rydell was nowhere in sight.

“Long night.”

He nodded once as he took the seat behind her and Raven turned sideways in hers. “Where’s Rydell?”

He glanced down. “He had some stuff to deal with at home.”

“So he skipped?”

“Something like that.”

“Is he okay?”

“I hope.”

“Is it really bad at home? Like is it his dad again?”

Dagen raised his brow. “You know about his dad?”

“I don’t know a lot of anything about Rydell.”

One shallow nod.

“You’re not going to answer me?” Raven pushed.