14. Sebastian

14

SEBASTIAN

"A piece of the vein?" Sebastian shot a confused look at James, who seemed just as surprised. "Like a physical piece?"

"That's what Dad said."

Sebastian shook his head. This couldn't be right. "How is that possible? A vein is a fluid system, like a river. You can take energy out like you can take water, but you can't take a piece like it's a pie."

Samantha raised her hands, as if to say what do you want from me . "I'm just telling you what Dad told me. A piece of the vein. They thought it could be used as an energy source. Instead, it broke the natural order of the system, causing the energy at the intersection to go haywire. I don't know the scientific details, but the veins couldn't maintain themselves without the missing piece."

"What happened to the piece?" James asked.

"It got destroyed," Samantha said to Sebastian's dismay. "As soon as they extracted it, it began to deteriorate."

"So we can't put it back?" Sebastian asked desperately.

"There's nothing left of it. It's been gone for eighty years." Samantha narrowed her eyes. "Why does it matter? "

"Because if we don't fix the veins, they're going to blow." Sebastian fisted his hands in his hair, pulling hard. Fuck .

"So get the hell out of here, Sebastian," his mom said as if he was being obtuse.

"We can't get out of here," Sebastian growled. James placed a comforting hand on his back. "I'm not trapped at Storm House, but I'm still stuck. And it's not just me."

Samantha's eyes widened. "If you're still tied to the veins, why are they at risk of exploding?"

Sebastian didn't feel like explaining. "There has to be a way to solve this. We have to be able to restore the veins."

"Selma did," his mom reminded him. "She created a stand-in for the missing piece."

Sebastian turned desperately to James, only to see his own fear reflected on his face. This problem had no better solution. What had been broken couldn't be put back together. The key to it all had been destroyed the moment this problem had begun.

They were doomed.

"Sebastian, what exactly is going on?" his mother's words cut through his panic.

He turned back to her. "Moonlight Falls has a lot more problems than potential explosion. Did you know the vein intersection is a gateway?"

" What? " She looked genuinely shocked. "To Beyond?"

"Fuck." None of this was helping. Sebastian kicked the table leg, not bothering to answer her.

James remained calm. He seemed to be studying Samantha. "What do you mean Selma created a stand-in for the missing piece? "

"How can I be clearer than that?" She frowned at James in pure annoyance. "The person trapped by the curse does what the missing piece can't. The person makes the system whole by supplying energy and allowing the veins' energy to pass through them."

"But if a stand-in is no longer enough, what do we do?" Sebastian asked.

"I don't know." Samantha stood from the table. "I'm sorry, Sebastian. I've told you what you asked for."

Sebastian stood, his chair legs scraping the floor. "Are you leaving?" He hated the desperate edge to his voice. Even after everything, he didn't want his mom to walk away from him. He didn't particularly want her around, but he couldn't stand being abandoned again.

"Is there any point in me staying?" She picked up her handbag. "If things are falling apart and on their way to exploding, there's no reason for me to stay."

"No." Sebastian felt hollow inside. "Why stand by your son? Why choose me? What would that be worth?"

Samantha scowled at him, her eyes angry. "There's no sense in me staying to die. Or would that make you happy?"

Sebastian felt like he'd been slapped. "Of course not. That wasn't… Never mind."

James rose from the table, rounding it to approach Samantha. "You could try to help us find a solution."

"What solution? The missing piece is gone. Selma did her best to replace it through blood and bone, but if that's not working, I don't know what you expect me to do." She marched to the front door and threw it open, leaving without another glance in Sebastian's direction.

James's face twisted in a way Sebastian had never seen before, like he was about to explode. "She can't just walk away."

Sebastian wished he could pretend it didn't hurt. He knew better than to expect anything different from his mother, but somehow, she still got to him. At least he'd probably never have to see her again.

James turned away from the open front door and engulfed Sebastian in a hug. "I'm sorry, sweetheart."

"You don't have to be." Sebastian pressed his face into James's hair. "This sucks, but I've got you. Your support means everything."

"I wish I could do more," James whispered.

"This is enough, James."

James held him for a long time. Sebastian wondered if James felt just as lost about what to do next as he did.

Eventually, they returned to town and found Hazel. Their grim expressions must have alerted her to the bad news because she didn't immediately ask how things went.

"Let's find Parker and Eli," James suggested.

Eli was due to finish his shift at the diner, and when they arrived, it looked like Parker was too. They all settled in the park at a picnic table near the trees. All they needed was some possessed deer or a bear to come crash the party and the day would be a perfect shitshow. Though Sebastian was too consumed by everything his mother had said to spare any real concern for shades.

Sebastian explained what they'd learned. Eli looked like his mind was being blown when he heard a piece of the vein had been taken. Sebastian marveled at the younger man's unwavering intellectual interest.

"It'd be fascinating to know how they did it," Eli mused. "I doubt anyone else has ever taken a piece of a vein."

"Unless they did and blew up because of it," Parker countered.

Eli frowned. "True. Sorry, this is just fascinating. Academically, I mean."

"If only it meant we weren't screwed," Sebastian said, half in the hope someone would tell him they weren't .

"Maybe we need to redo Selma's spell," Eli suggested. "We could try to recreate it, rebind an energy source to the veins and get back to the stability she had originally."

Sebastian didn't think any of them were capable of that kind of magic. Parker was powerful, but he didn't seem to do much bespoke spellwork beyond warding. Creating spells was a challenge, especially blood-and-bone spells, which none of them had any real knowledge of.

As Sebastian opened his mouth to say all this, something rushed out of the woods. A shade left the shadows of the trees and flew toward them, circling before diving downward, aiming for Eli.

Eli threw up his hands instinctually. James and Parker both sent sparks flying. To Sebastian's surprise, the shade didn't grab Eli. The sparks missed as it dove past him and grabbed his backpack, which had been discarded on the ground.

"Hey! What?" Eli twisted around in confusion.

Sebastian and James leaped from the picnic table. The shade shot into the sky in full sunlight. It clutched Eli's backpack and leered down at them.

Sebastian, James, Hazel, and Parker shot sparks in the air, but the shade flew higher to avoid them. It was nothing like the humanoid shade but still looked different from a typical one. It wasn't made of ghostly semi-transparent shadow but a dark black substance that seemed to eat the light. Otherwise, its body and bony arms were a familiar ghostly shape.

The shade shot back toward the forest, flying above the trees and disappearing from view.

"Why would it steal your backpack?" Sebastian asked, thinking bitterly of his stolen robe.

"I don't know." Eli stared into the trees. "I guess there wasn't anything else for it to grab."

But why grab anything ?

Parker put a hand on Eli's shoulder. "Did you lose any of your research?"

Eli shook his head. "No, everything in my bag I'd already copied, though it's never good to lose the primary data source. I had a bunch of old receipts in there. At least my laptop is at home."

Hazel glared at the forest. "That shade out on a bright day isn't good."

Eli jolted like he hadn't even thought of that, too focused on his stolen bag.

Sebastian tried to find a positive. "At least it didn't stick around."

"It seemed like it came just to take my bag," Eli said. "Like it was planned."

James looked at his brother with concern. "Do you think it could have known you were carrying research on the veins? Remember how the shades tried to grab your backpack at Storm House when all those shades were surrounding the fuel cell?"

Sebastian sat back down at the picnic table. The surprise shade hadn't helped his headache. "How could it have known Eli was carrying his research? There definitely weren't any shades like that in the clearing that day."

"But they've clearly realized I'm doing something with the veins and must be able to communicate with each other." Eli bit his lip. "Shades have been messing with my experiments from the start. What if they don't want me doing anything with the veins because they don't want me messing with their gateway?"

Parker seemed to go pale as something occurred to him. "Maybe you were targeted all those weeks ago and the bite you suffered wasn't random."

No one seemed happy about that revelation, but Eli rallied quickly. "Stealing my stuff won't stop me, and they won't learn much from what was in my bag," he said with vindictive satisfaction .

"Who knows, if they're so concerned with their gateway, maybe the shades will realize the veins are getting less stable and fix them for us," Sebastian joked.

James snorted. "Wouldn't that be nice?"

It felt just about as unlikely as any other solution.