Chapter 11 Please

11

Please

I burst awake with my heart hammering, my insides still aching with the dream.

As I sat up, propping myself against the pillows with the duvet a rumpled mess around me, snippets of images floated in my head, glistening queasily like a rainbow sheen in an oil puddle. Ivy's stricken face, the curve of Wynter's coy smile before she transformed into him . The fact that the real-life Wynter was such an obnoxious but mostly harmless poser somehow made the sinister dream version of her even more unsettling.

I leaned back against the headboard, jaw hinging wide with a massive yawn. A thin film of sleep still clung to me; a glance at the window confirmed that it was still at least an hour before daybreak, the sky only just bruising toward morning. Which meant I'd slept maybe a handful of hours at most. But my heart wouldn't settle, my skin antsy with wakefulness. I wanted to be up and moving—weird enough by itself, for someone who normally did whatever it took to avoid being conscious before eight.

And I didn't just want to be up. I could feel myself straining toward Lady's Lake like a bloodhound on a scent, an arrow quivering on the bow. I yearned to be up on the Hallows Hill summit, in the same powerfully compelling way I usually craved the other side of the veil.

Like most Thistle Grove witches, I loved our magical lake and the ceremonies we held beside its shimmering waters. But unlike others, I'd never been particularly drawn to commune with it by myself, to find solace there. Maybe my deep connection to the other side of the veil was so demanding it left too little room to long for anything else. Or maybe my inherent Avramovness was that much stronger than my mother's Harlow blood, as sad as it made me to think that I had inherited so little of that part of her. She'd often taken me up there with her for picnics, just the two of us; I'd seen the way she responded to it. Always leaning into the sweet magic-scented breeze that drifted off the waters as it ruffled her flaxen hair, the accumulated stresses of the day melting away with every breath. She so clearly belonged up there, as naturally as the bright sprays of thistles blooming along the banks.

It had made me feel a little lonesome and somehow homesick, to know this feeling wasn't something I shared with my mother.

But after the massive toll last night had taken on my system, maybe I needed to recharge. The dream had most likely been me processing the shock of it all in my sleep—and maybe now, the balm of the lake would ease me the rest of the way back.

At any rate, I had nothing to lose by spending a quiet half hour up on Hallows Hill before the day descended on us all. Shit, maybe I'd even properly meditate, and not just half-ass it the way I usually did.

Groaning, I swung my feet to the cool parquet, goose bumps prickling up my bare arms. This was not a household of early weekend risers, especially not after such a late night. It would be hours yet until the smell of French press coffee and Saanvi's homemade biscuits permeated the house. But if I borrowed Amrita's car, I'd probably be back before anyone even noticed I was gone.

I made it to the Hallows Hill parking lot, nestled two curves of the road down from the summit, just before six. No cars were allowed anywhere near the little forest that surrounded the lake. A brisk ten-minute walk brought me up to the lakeside, the mountain air bracing with crisp leaves and the beeswax-and-amber smell of the lake itself.

It wasn't storming today, the way it often had been recently. Instead, the circle of sky right above the water looked oddly pristine, as if a cookie cutter had been used to slice away the dense clotting of clouds that trailed off in every direction besides directly overhead. And even though the horizon had already taken on a rosy predawn blush, the deep blue of the sky above was somehow still cluttered with an improbable number of stars.

I gaped up at them, at that bright and frosty throng like a blizzard crystallized, sparkling and clear-cut as they normally only were at night. This was unusual, even for the lake. I'd never heard of anyone going stargazing up here in the early mornings. A sliver of moon still hung among them, too, so sharply rendered I almost expected it to glint, like Ivy's lip ring catching the light. The mirror-smooth surface of the lake reflected it all, an earthbound universe in miniature, framed by the dove grays and charcoals painted by the early light. Aside from the lap of the water against the shore, there was a numinous quality to the almost perfect silence, like the hush of an empty cathedral. It was too early for birdsong, the rustle of woodland animals in the brush.

Too early for anything but me, apparently, the slow thud of my heartbeat in my ears and the sound of my own breath.

It struck me that I couldn't even remember the last time I'd been up here by myself, and that this might be a terrible shame.

You had a point, Mom , I thought, wrapping my arms around myself and snuggling deeper into my coat. As soon as I'd set foot up here, the coil in my chest had begun to unwind, replaced by that glimmering sense of existing in a moment carved out by the cosmos with exactly you in mind.

This isn't half-bad. Not even a quarter bad, in fact.

"Excuse me? Hello?"

Shock crashed over me like a bucket of ice water. Defensive whorls of ectoplasm already coalescing around my hands, I wheeled toward the voice echoing from the trees, squinting through the low light.

Because I wasn't alone. As solitary as I'd felt, someone had been huddled just beyond the tree line since I'd arrived. Watching me.

Then a petite silhouette came stumbling toward me from the ring of pines, tripping down the uneven grassy incline that led toward the lake. As soon as I focused in, I could tell it was just a girl—or a young woman, rather, wrapped in an oversized jean jacket, the sleeves rolled up to reveal a plaid flannel lining.

"Hi?" I called back, still wary, but feeling safe enough to allow the ectoplasm around my hands to dissipate. This person didn't seem like any real threat, especially given that unsteady gait. More likely, I thought, my belly tightening with concern, something bad had already happened—to her. "Do you need help?"

"I…" She slowed, then came to a full stop about ten feet from me, swaying a little. "Yeah. I think I do."

Then she burst into heart-wrenching sobs, the kind that rolled up from the gut, and slowly crumpled to her knees. Almost gracefully, like an autumn leaf seesawing from a tree.

I broke into a little trot toward her, that bud of concern blossoming into full-blown fear. For all my experience with haunted people, most of my more dangerous encounters were under controlled circumstances, directed by me. Whatever had happened to this woman, of the many things that could happen to women, I was going into it blind.

"Hey," I murmured, sinking into a clumsy squat next to her. She was still sobbing into her hands, the red-and-gold ringlets that framed her face shaking with the force of her tears. "It's okay. I mean, it's not, clearly. But I'd like to try to help if I can. I'm Dasha. Do you want to tell me your name?"

She keened into her palms, a hopeless sound I could actually feel inside me, like a knitting needle driven through my sternum.

"I can't," she said, almost furious, dropping her hands to meet my gaze. Beneath the tears and badly swollen eyes, she was lovely. Delicately pointed chin, light brown skin, and honey-hazel eyes, their corners tilted up and the lashes wet and starfish-splayed. At least ten years younger than me, maybe in her early twenties—though those tears made her look even younger, tugging pitifully at my navel in how much they reminded me of Kira crying. "I'm sorry, it's not that I don't want to. I just can't ."

"That's okay!" I assured her hastily, as a fresh wash of frustration and anxiety flooded her face. "Are you hurt? Do you need a ride back to town? Or is there someone I can call for you?"

What was she even doing up here by herself, I wondered, mind racing with possibilities. She wasn't a Thistle Grove witch; members of the families all knew each other by face if not by name. And I was sure I'd never seen her before. I ran a critical eye over her, scanning for obvious injuries, but she seemed reasonably put together, if disheveled. She was wearing heavily distressed mom jeans—the kind that Ivy killed in, and which I'd never even tried to pull off—with a ribbed white top tucked in, under that oversized and flannel-lined denim jacket that looked like she might have borrowed it from someone else. Overlapping chains of necklaces with delicate little pendants hung around her neck, lacy rings on her fingers above and below the knuckle. Her short nails were a kaleidoscope of color and pattern—matte black lined with gold foil, dove gray tipped with white, mulberry with charcoal chevrons, and marbled sage and brown.

The colors of the four families, I realized—the ones we'd used in all the brochures advertising the Cavalcade. Which meant she was either a normie local, one who went all in on our witchy traditions, or a tourist who'd come to town specifically for the festivities.

But my eyes snagged on the scraps of leaf caught in her copper ringlets. Had she slept up here in the cold woods, or just fallen by the trees? And then, with a chill that rippled through me like an icy trickle, I saw a feathered domino mask hanging from her other wrist, its band wrapped around it like a bracelet.

Whoever she was, she'd been at the Avramov spectacle yesterday—which meant that she must have been glamoured, like everyone else who'd witnessed him .

She shook her head, a helpless, despondent gesture. "I don't have a phone on me, I checked already. No purse or wallet, either, and nothing in these shitty shallow pockets. Doesn't matter anyway. Even if I did, I wouldn't know how to unlock it."

"And why is that?" I asked, struggling to keep my voice calm.

"Because I don't remember," she forced out in a trembling whisper, her voice breaking on the r . She wrapped her hands around the nape of her neck and rocked back and forth, teeth bared. That red-and-gold hair shone like a blaze with the motion, catching the warm glint of the morning that had finally broken over us. "I don't remember anything . I—fuck, I don't even know my own name ."

I rocked back on my own heels, trying to stay composed. If I was right, something like this had happened before—to Delilah Harlow, Ivy's best friend. She'd been struck by a superpowered oblivion glamour, and according to Ivy, it had taken a week to piece her mind back together. But where Delilah had spent months randomly spiraling back into oblivion, this woman seemed much more generally lucid. She clearly understood the concept of a locked phone and the fact that she was supposed to have one in the first place, along with a wallet or purse.

But then again, we'd never seen the long-term effects of such a large-scale glamouring, especially after a magical manifestation as immense as what had happened last night. Who knew what it might have done to this particular woman's brain, how it might have slotted into any existing trauma or neurological conditions? The glamour that had afflicted Delilah had been completely different, nothing to do with a glamour cast by a circle of Avramovs. It made sense that whatever was happening to her might present differently.

"Do you know where you are?" I asked carefully, feeling out how far the amnesia extended. "It's okay if you—"

"Lady's Lake, on Hallows Hill," she replied without hesitation, before her face crumpled in confusion. "Okay, the fuck? How do I know that? And why do I know that if I don't know my own name, or how I got up here in the first place?"

"It is curious," I agreed, giving in to my burning thighs and kneeling next to her, the wet chill of dewy grass immediately seeping through my jeans. "Can you remember anything from before you came up here? Where you might have been?"

She closed her eyes, delicate face pursing with concentration, the tip of her tongue poking out like a little girl's as she thought about it. Another wash of protectiveness flooded over me, a raw tenderness that I'd only ever felt for Kira, twinned with a powerful urge to help this woman however I could.

Because this was someone terribly lost, maybe even more lost than I'd ever been. And I knew exactly how it felt to be so unmoored.

"No," she said after a moment, brow knitting. She toyed with her ringlets, pulling them tight and letting them spring back, the tiny piercings that marched up her ear glittering under the play of light and shadow. "There's just…light. Like a—a very, very bright fog? Maybe a fog with giant headlights behind it? I don't know. None of that makes sense, and I know it's not right." She flinched a little, as if the memory, or lack thereof, was physically painful. "And then, after that, nothing. Big old blank. The last thing—or first, I guess?—that I remember is seeing you standing by the lake."

"Would you like to go to the hospital? Get checked out?" There was always the chance that she'd come up here late for some ambiguous party purpose and gotten a concussion, though that wasn't something I'd ever heard of happening. Hallows Hill didn't exude the kind of vibe that made thrill-seekers want to rampage around its gentle, magic-soaked woods. In the whole of the town's history, there'd never even been an accidental drowning. "I could take you, if you want. I have a car here. We could—"

"No!" she broke in, shaking her head furiously, dread flashing across her face. "I definitely, absolutely don't want that. I'm not hurt, not like that. No doctors, no hospitals, no police. Please. "

That plaintive please twisted my stomach as much as the beseeching expression on her face, the shifting murk of fear in her eyes. Whatever the subconscious reason, the idea of going to a hospital or the authorities clearly terrified her. And given the domino mask on her wrist, I was willing to bet that it hadn't been a knock to the head that had gotten her into this predicament, anyway. If this really was the side effect of a glamour gone awry, normie doctors wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of it.

"We're not going to do anything you're not comfortable with," I soothed, resting a light hand on her shoulder. She eased into my touch immediately, like a lost puppy pressing against your leg. Again, the pit of my stomach clenched with instinctive sympathy. Beneath the jacket, she radiated heat, so at least exposure wasn't on our list of worries. Which had, apparently, somehow already become our list. "But if it's okay with you, I do have a friend I could call. Someone with some…medical-adjacent expertise."

"?‘Medical-adjacent'?" She cocked her head. "Is this like in the movies, where you take the gunshot wound victim to the vet to keep things stealth?"

"So you remember vets? And that particular movie trope?"

She made a perplexed face, scrunching up one eye. "Apparently, yes? Don't think I could give you an example of one, though. So, is that what it is? Your friend's a vet?"

I snorted a little, thinking of the many animals that roamed Honeycake Orchards, the horses and cows and baby pigs that Ivy had grown up around. Sure, why not; she'd probably helped out with all that at some point. "Something like that. She might be able to help, with no doctors or hospitals involved. Would you be comfortable with that? It would mean coming with me."

Ivy was going to murder-death-kill me for dragging her into this, especially if it was the Avramov mess I increasingly suspected it to be. But technically speaking—if we completely ignored last night—she still owed me one for the time she'd called on me to exorcise Delilah's partner, Cat.

The redhead looked me full in the eye, surprisingly forthright and unflinching, those honey-hazel irises shifting between mine. As if appraising me before arriving at a decision.

"I'll come with you," she said, with a solemn nod. "And meet your vet friend. On one condition."

"Oh, we're negotiating now?" I asked, with a chuckle, genuinely amused. "I wasn't aware this was evolving into a bargain."

A smile tugged the corner of her chapped mouth. "Maybe not a condition, then. More like a wish. I'm starving , Dasha. Problem is, I'm kind of broke right now. So before we see your friend, do you think you could spot me for something to eat?"