Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

That evening, Eli left for his shift at Moonlight Diner, and Sebastian and James headed to town hall. Hazel and Parker were waiting for them on the steps outside.

James launched into explaining the accident at the edge of town. Sebastian's stomach roiled. He was comfortable with Hazel and Parker, so this wasn't social anxiety. It was more guilt. He winced when James got to the part about Eli being stuck along with them.

"Hold on." Hazel grabbed James's arm. "So that's why I couldn't report the curse?"

"What?" Parker looked at her in confusion.

"My tongue is definitely tied." She explained her failed attempt to report what was happening at Storm House when she'd called the official hotline that afternoon. "I wasn't expecting to be tongue-tied and knew it wasn't a good sign, but I had no idea it could mean we're trapped."

"I'm so sorry." Sebastian looked hopelessly between her and Parker.

Parker gave him a stern look. "It's not your fault. "

"Yeah, Sebastian. You're a victim of this curse too. Way more so than the rest of us," Hazel assured him.

Great, James's friends were just as supportive and understanding as he was.

Sebastian wanted to be grateful. They had every right to yell at him and he appreciated that they weren't, but he knew their understanding would sour with time. It was easy to forgive him for trapping them now, but what about in a year? Or five? Ten? The way this was going, he might never find a solution to the imbalance or the curse, and Sebastian didn't expect anyone, not even James, to forgive him for permanent imprisonment.

And he'd thought he could build something lasting here. What a joke. These people wouldn't want him any more than anyone else, and if the rest of the town found out they were at risk of a deadly magical explosion because of the Storms, they wouldn't want him either.

"We can't tell anyone else," Sebastian said unnecessarily, but he didn't know what else to do.

"No, we definitely can't," James agreed. He put an arm around Sebastian. "At least not being stuck at Storm House will make it a lot easier to figure out a solution. We have access to resources."

"Not to mention smarter people on the case." Hazel gave James an evil grin.

"Yeah," he agreed without emotion. "Eli is way smarter than the rest of us."

Hazel rolled her eyes.

The group walked into the meeting like their lives weren't ruined, and Sebastian marveled at how light the mood remained between them all. Maybe none of them cared much about being stuck in Moonlight Falls. Was it possible to love the town that much? Sebastian doubted it. Reality just hadn't hit them yet, and like him, James was probably still comparing this to their last situation. They were better off than before, but that comfort would only last so long .

The mayor was waiting in a small auditorium inside town hall. "Hello, welcome." She greeted them with a serious air.

Hazel made her way over to Eleanor. "How are you doing?"

"Fine." Eleanor gave Hazel a small smile, a hand reflexively reaching to smooth her silver-flecked hair, which seemed unnecessary since she had a tidy pixy cut and not a strand was out of place.

As the two women talked quietly, Sebastian looked around. Chairs had been arranged in a circle like the meeting was a support group. Parker and James claimed seats, and Sebastian hurried to follow. A man in heavy work boots, who was already seated, nodded to them.

"How's the logging going?" Parker asked him.

"We'll be getting to that," the man said ominously.

Eleanor's attention returned to the group. She checked her watch. "Yes, let's wait until everyone arrives before we start swapping stories."

Hazel took a seat next to Sebastian. He was nervous. It wasn't as bad as the diner, but he didn't know who would be there or how the meeting would go.

Before they'd left the house, James had looked up some social anxiety management techniques online and shared them with Sebastian, who'd been hopelessly touched James had thought to look. He tried to focus on some of the grounding exercises now, but the ache in his chest made it hard.

Sebastian concentrated on the fact that Eleanor had asked him to be there and that he knew what they were going to talk about. He hoped no one asked him why they hadn't seen him in town for years. The secret-binding probably wasn't strong enough to make him lie convincingly. He might be able to imply he hadn't wanted to avoid the town, but that would only invite more questions Sebastian couldn't answer. Now that the anxiety people had always assumed he had was real, he didn't think he'd be able to use it as an excuse .

For the first time in years, Sebastian worried about what the people of Moonlight Falls thought about him. He didn't want to be the reclusive guy people whispered about. He wanted people to like him but didn't see why they would. They never had before.

James leaned in close and murmured, "Is there anything you want to say about the shades that I wasn't there for?"

Sebastian shook his head. James had offered to help him explain in case he got overwhelmed during the meeting and didn't want to talk to the group. Sebastian would have never thought to ask for something like that, but sitting there, becoming increasingly nervous, he was grateful for the option.

The city councilors all walked in together. Eleanor introduced Sebastian to a middle-aged woman named Melinda, who'd apparently known James's late mother. She gave James a big hug and claimed the free seat next to him.

The other two city councilors were introduced as William and Nora. They sat over by Eleanor, though neither struck up a conversation with anyone. Nora was younger than Sebastian expected someone in a government position to be. She had to be about Parker's age.

Mila Lopez was the next to bustle into the auditorium. At the sight of Sebastian, she gasped and rushed up to him. He automatically stood from his chair.

"Sebastian." The woman engulfed him in a hug. "It's wonderful to see you."

He hadn't expected her to be there. It made sense because Mila had always been involved in town affairs, but Sebastian hadn't thought about her in ages. He hadn't let himself, but the tight hug she gave him made it impossible to ignore how much he'd missed her.

Shit. Sebastian was going to cry. He was overwhelmed, and it had nothing to do with anxiety. Mila had been so much more than the woman who'd given him rides into town and looked after him when he wasn't at Storm House. She'd been the only person in Moonlight Falls he'd felt truly comfortable with. He'd spent a lot of time in the library with her throughout his childhood. He wished he'd been able to see her over the last six years and had no idea what to say when he couldn't explain what had happened to him.

"Oh, dear, it's all right." Mila cupped his cheek, looking up at him with tender eyes.

Sebastian sniffed and blinked, tears clinging to his lashes. "Sorry, it's been so long."

"Don't even worry about it." Mila smiled and released Sebastian, stopping to adjust the collar of his jacket. She glanced briefly at James, maybe recognizing the jacket as his, but she didn't comment. She shooed Hazel out of her seat so she could sit beside Sebastian. "We have to catch up sometime soon."

"Mm-hmm." Sebastian nodded as he plopped into his chair, still too full of emotion for words.

Hazel settled on the other side of the guy with the boots. Two other men had entered while Sebastian had been occupied with Mila, and with all the seats filled, it looked like they were ready to start.

"Welcome, everyone," the mayor said without getting up, keeping things more casual. "As you all know, we've had some serious problems around town and in the forest." She glanced at boots-man. "I think we can all agree something is changing with the shades around here."

"It's the first time I've ever heard the kids at school talk about being frightened of the beasts," said a middle-aged man in a blazer whom Sebastian hadn't been introduced to. "I don't think we can keep telling them there's nothing to fear, but I don't want to cause a panic either."

"No, you're right, Tony. And parents need to be made aware that it's getting less and less safe after dark." Eleanor looked around the group. "But before we go making announcements, we need a better picture of what's happening. Parker, why don't you start?"

Parker explained how Eli had been violently attacked by a shade about a month and a half ago. The incident was completely unprovoked and seemed like the start of whatever was going on. Before then, people had noticed shades getting more aggressive, but they hadn't acted completely outside the realm of their typical behavior, so no one had been worried. Even after what happened to Eli, most people seemed to assume the attack was a fluke or an outlier.

Then, in the last few weeks, things had taken a sharp turn for the worse. Unprovoked shade attacks involving physical contact had been almost unheard of before. Now, more people around town were reporting being grabbed and scratched, and there had been several attempted shade bites thwarted by light. The group was counting James being ambushed under Storm House as one of these incidents, and when that came up, Sebastian was asked to tell the group how many shades he had around his property.

He looked at the floor in the middle of the circle, glad he'd gone over what he wanted to say beforehand. "There've always been a lot of shades hanging around and peering in my windows. A group of them even live under the house, but recently, there seems to be hundreds of shades lurking in the trees on the south end of my property. They watch me when I go down there. It seems territorial." He wanted to explain how they responded to the magic in the veins, but there was no way for him to other than to say, "They react badly to magic."

No one questioned him, and he sat back in relief as Eleanor thanked him for the information. Though she looked less than pleased to hear there were hundreds of shades just outside of town.

"While all of that is concerning," Eleanor said, pulling the group's focus back to her. "Attacks and increased numbers aren't our most pressing problem. I've had one report of a shade immune to light. And not just immune to artificial shade-lights like we saw when they smashed out the streetlights in town, but immune to sunlight summoned by magic. And then there was the bear." She glanced at the man in the work boots.

"Yeah." He scowled and introduced himself as Carson Lee. "We deal with shades pretty often when we're logging, but we're never out at night, so it's no drama. Until yesterday when a possessed bear attacked my team."

"Really?" A man, who Sebastian was pretty sure was the local museum curator, leaned forward, shocked. "That was kept quiet."

Parker looked between them, scowling as deeply as Carson and the mayor. "What happened?"

"It came charging in at us and went for one of my guys. He had to go to the hospital for the bite on his arm, but he'll be okay. The bear definitely wasn't acting normal. It came in like it was on a mission to rip us apart. I saw its blackened eyes and onyx teeth myself, and it took an awful lot of shots to take down."

"Did the shade leave the body?" Parker asked.

Carson nodded. "Floated right out of its fur. My son banished it with summoned light, sent the beam directly into the shade's chest, and it dissipated."

Fear made the hairs on the back of Sebastian's neck stand up. Shades could possess animals, but it rarely happened. They rarely did it because they lost the ability to use their shadow magic while inside a living being. They couldn't dematerialize, fly, or shapeshift, but they could withstand full sunlight while inside an animal's body.

"At least it doesn't sound like that shade was resistant to light," Parker said, perhaps in an attempt to look on the bright side.

"True." James leaned forward, elbows on his knees, peering around Melinda to Parker. "But I wonder if that means we have two separate problems. The light-resistant shade that attacked Sebastian seemed different, and I remember Eli saying the same thing back when he was attacked. At the time, we thought the differences were insignificant, but what if those differences mean we're dealing with a new kind of shade, as well as shades willing to possess animals."

"We can't rule it out," Eleanor admitted, though her tone implied she wished she could.

"I'll search the archives for anything on light-resistant shades," Mila offered, to which Eleanor nodded. "At least possessions have been known to happen and dealing with them isn't unprecedented. The other problem seems more concerning."

"I agree," said the man in the blazer. "But even if it is two problems, it's hard to imagine they aren't related."

William, the city councilor, looked down his nose at the other man. "Why would you assume that?"

Blazer-man sat up straighter, apparently not put off by the condescending look. "We've seen no real change in the shades visiting Moonlight Falls for as long as I've been alive. Then, suddenly, we have a possession and this light resistance all happening at once. If they aren't related, the timing is unbelievably coincidental."

"While we're trying to figure out why any of this is happening," Nora cut in before William could argue, "we should make announcements informing people extra caution is needed."

"Yes," Eleanor agreed. "The town needs to know that light might not be enough and that going out at night without the ability to summon fire could be risky."

William crossed his arms. "But what about tourism? We can't scare away the city folk coming for the supernatural tours."

"It'll be a liability if we do nothing. People need to know the risks." Eleanor pulled out her phone. "I'll talk to the tour company. It's ultimately up to them to decide what to do about the tours they run. If their guides are comfortable swapping shade-lights for fire, that's their call."

William looked displeased. "But tourists might be too skittish to come and book a tour if they think there's a real risk. "

Eleanor gave him a dismissive one-shoulder shrug before turning to the rest of the group. "Why don't we have Nora and Tony draft up some statements. One for the school and one for the general public. We have to let everyone know about the bear in the least alarming way possible."

"I'll leave that for the parents to deal with." Tony brushed off the sleeves of his blazer and made a face. "The only things I'll be saying to the kids as principal will be about safety procedures and to remind them to ask an adult about anything they're unsure of."

"We'll have to let them know shade-lights might not be enough," Nora reminded him.

Tony grimaced. "That's going to scare them. But I suppose there's no way around it. If we can have something written up and distributed around town tomorrow, we'll have until Monday to worry about the school announcement, and hopefully, the kids will have heard what's going on from their parents by then, so they won't be caught off guard."

Parker said he was happy to have notices put up at the diner, and Melinda offered to help distribute flyers into mailboxes.

The meeting wrapped up after that. Sebastian promised Mila he'd stop by the library soon, and she hugged him again before leaving.

Sebastian didn't talk to anyone other than Mila as people milled around the auditorium and he was relieved to get outside, even though it was dark and they had no real idea what would happen next with the shades. As long as a possessed bear didn't stroll into town, they'd probably be fine. People would need to readjust. The immunity to light wasn't ideal, but it was manageable.

Still, Sebastian wondered what would happen if things didn't return to normal. What if things got worse? Light immunity wouldn't be so manageable if a whole horde of shades required fire to banish. Would things get bad enough that they'd find out how many people in Moonlight Falls truly believed this place called to them and was a comfort like no other? How many would leave it all behind for a place without violent beasts from Beyond?

Sebastian hoped James, Eli, Hazel, and Parker didn't change their minds about loving life in this town, especially since none of them had any choice about staying.