Comes the Night (40 page)

Pocketing the lighter, Alex turned to Maryanne. “Look, I went for a walk, okay? Just a long walk, by myself.”

Maryanne looked at her skeptically.

Well, Alex wasn’t
technically
lying. Though the truth wasn’t that simple. But Maryanne would throw a fit if she knew where Alex had really gone.

She’d gone deep into the woods. Alex had left within a half hour of breakfast, packing her backpack with her compass, a flashlight, a couple bottles of water, some energy bars just in case, and her cell phone. Though there wasn’t much snow on the ground—only a couple of inches—the forecast was calling for the first major snowfall of the season to start within the next 24 hours. She had to do this today.

After all, she’d promised.

Alex had pulled on her heavy mitts and hat, buttoned up her pea coat and wrapped a scarf around her neck. Then she’d walked through the now-fairly-familiar woods to Connie’s house. No dark caster came out to meet her. She spotted a few thick-furred squirrels around the trees near Connie’s nest. The animals were coming back, now that the caster was gone.

Not gone—at rest.
Connie was at rest. That made the lonesome easier.

But as she neared Connie’s home, Alex’s heart sank. Connie’s bower had been destroyed, the small trees snapped at the base. The copper had been collected and removed, so the Heller couldn’t carry it off to line a new nest. Someone had even made a small fire, and the branches that Connie had used to cover her nest had been reduced to ashes.

They’d destroyed a Heller’s nest. People were looking for the Hellers again and someone had found Connie’s nest and destroyed it. They’d been hunting for her. No, not specifically Connie. They’d been hunting for
them
. And now that the stories had started again, that hunt wouldn’t end any time soon.

Alex had felt sick at the sight. Sad and so angry! And she’d sunk to her knees by the big tree—the one where she and Connie had knelt the first day Alex had brought all the copper. As she leaned on the tree, her hand slid down the trunk, right at the place where Connie had rested her copper doll as she’d gone through her gifts. And miraculously, she’d felt a little wire poke through her mitten. When she bent to look closer, she found a tiny copper X shoved in the bark at the base of the tree.

X marked the spot.

Oh shit, could it be... could Connie have
... Alex scattered the snow with her mittens, then, using a half-burned stick, scraped away the hard layer of earth until she saw it—Connie’s copper doll! Alex drew a grateful breath. Her baby had been buried there.

No, not
buried
there—not this time. Connie had
hidden
her doll.

Around the doll’s body was a copper bracelet. A thick one—thicker than the other ones that Connie had made for the girls. And on this copper band, scratched meticulously were Alex’s initials—AR, a heart, then Connie’s initials too.

Connie hadn’t buried her baby. She’d protected it. She must have known the Heller hunters were rising again, rising anew—looking for her, looking to destroy her nest. Connie had hidden her baby away for safekeeping until Alex could take her.

The doll—Lily Michelle—that had to be her name now—was now hidden in the girls’ bedroom, underneath two wide floorboards Alex had pried up one day during her convalescence. She had needed a place to hide the diary. And for now, Lily Michelle rested there too, wrapped in the softest hand towel Alex could find, with a folded face cloth for a pillow.

If people knew this, every one of her old friends—bar none—would think she was off her nut!

Snorting a laugh, she wondered herself.

“I wonder where Brooke is?” Maryanne asked. She walked to just below the Madonna. Earlier in the day, she’d dared to bring more pillows up to the attic to make their body landing softer. She scattered them, strategically, on the floor now.

“Who knows? She’s been doing that a lot lately—slipping out.”

“Got to be hard on her, Seth dying.”

“I can imagine.” Alex looked pointedly at Maryanne. “I can imagine lots of things.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Maryanne nodded. “We have to watch out for her. She’s... ” Maryanne let the sentence die on her lips.

“She’s her own worst enemy,” Alex said.

“She’s our friend.”

“Yes she is. And I only hope she remembers that. But this caster thing... this caster power... and now this thing with her killing C. W.—”

“I know. She’s a legend in this town, and she’s good with that. Too good.” Maryanne took a seat on the floor. “We can’t let her get carried away. Get lost in the power—all of it. We have to watch out for her. We have to watch out for each other.”

Alex stared over at Maryanne, who seemed lost once again as she looked to the stained glass window. There was sadness still in those big brown eyes. All that grief. And it suddenly turned to alarm.

“Did you... did you hear people talking to you, Alex? When you were in the coma? Did you hear me?”

They’d talked a lot while Alex had been in the coma. And Alex had been moved by how much Brooke and Maryanne had done for her, especially Maryanne. But this was the first time Maryanne had asked this question. This was the first time that she’d dared.

And it deserved a careful answer.

Alex walked over and sat down beside Maryanne.

How much did Maryanne really want to know about what Alex remembered? How much did Alex really want to tell her?

“I remember bits and pieces,” she offered with a shrug.

“Nothing major?”

Alex knew the anxious look on Maryanne’s face. Surely it was pretty damn close to the one she’d worn herself when Maryanne had handed back Connie’s diary. It was a look that pleaded, “
Please don’t know.
” One that begged both a lie and the truth.

“No,” Alex said. “Nothing major.” But she turned her eyes away from Maryanne as she said it.

They heard quiet footsteps coming up the stairs.

Brooke. Finally—she was here. She shrugged her coat off at the top of the stairs and walked quickly across the floor.

Alex could feel the cold coming off her as she approached.

“Where were you?” Maryanne asked.

Argh! Well, at least Alex wasn’t the only one getting Maryanne’s overprotective attention.

“Just driving around.” She’d been crying, clearly, but Alex knew better than to mention it.

Apparently so did Maryanne. “You got past Betts!”

So obviously pleased with herself, Brooke almost smiled. “Always.”

“How are the roads?” Maryanne asked.

“The snow’s just starting.” As she said this, the few flakes that had dotted Brooke’s hair melted away, making it almost glisten in spots.

Snow
. Casters in the snow was a daring mix.

But it was now or never.

Wordlessly, she and Maryanne stood. With Maryanne on one side of her and Brooke on the other, Alex took the few steps toward the window.

“Oh, wow. The snow’s more than ‘just starting’, Brooke,” Alex said. “It’s really coming down.”

“Yeah,” Brooke said. “But I’m casting.”

“Me too,” Maryanne added.

They both turned their attention to Alex. She could feel it on either side of her.

Was she ready for this? Was she ready for... all of this new life?

Alex looked up into the Madonna’s face. It was a beautiful picture with the large petals of snow falling behind her. She walked—this beautiful lady—through those roses. Regardless of the thorns.

Well,
to hell
with the thorns.

“Me too,” Alex said. She looked first to Brooke, then Maryanne. “We’re casters. Let’s do this.”

The three raised their hands to the glass. Together they tapped, together they chanted,
I want out, I want out
—And suddenly they were out again, joining with the night.

Giddy with the sheer joy of it, they soared off through the falling snow into the Mansbridge night.

Haven’t had enough of the Casters? Visit our blog at
http://castersthebooks.com/wordpress
, click on the thread “Castermania”, and join the discussion. We have downloadable Book Club Questions that you can riff off, or pose your own question or comment for discussion.

Please read on for an excerpt from Enter the Night, Book 2 in the Casters Series.

Other books by the Wilson-Doherty writing team:

Casters Series

Enter the Night—coming February 2013

Embrace the Night—coming Summer 2013

Forever the Night—coming Fall 2013

The Gatekeepers Series

The Summoning—Book 1

Ashlyn’s Radio

About the Authors

The Wilson-Doherty writing team consists of Norah Wilson and Heather Doherty, both of whom live in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Norah’s previous publications include romantic suspense and paranormal romance novels targeted to the adult market. Heather is previously published in literary fiction and is currently also writing young adult literary and child lit. They love to hear from readers! Learn more about them at their
website
.

Connect with the Authors:

Email: [email protected]

Website:
http://castersthebooks.com

Blog:
http://castersthebooks.com/wordpress

Twitter:
https://twitter.com/#!/wilsondoherty

Excerpt from

Book 2 in the Casters Series

O
H CRAP
,
ARE
we really doing this?

“Oh geez, am
I
really doing this?” Maryanne Hemlock mumbled.

Great. Back in Mansbridge less than three hours and she was already talking to herself again. Not that the habit had left her over the Christmas holidays, but one could always hope.

Brooke—the only one within earshot at the moment—turned to shoot her a grin as they neared the tattoo shop. Alex was way ahead of them, already inside and no doubt staring up at the walls lined with designs. They paused outside, looking in through the window.

“Yep, we’re really doing this,” Brooke said.

It had been Alex’s idea, the tattoos. Well, actually it was Alex’s belated Christmas gift to them all, happily announced when the three of them had reunited at the Fredericton airport.

Maryanne’s flight had been the first to touch down. And like a kid with her nose against the glass, she’d waited there for her friends to arrive. She’d stuffed her hands into her sweatshirt pockets, then pulled them back out again. Repeatedly. She sat down, then jumped back up over and over again. She watched the clock on the wall.

Then they announced the flight from Halifax.

Alex had chosen to fly back. As Maryanne watched her plane taxi up the terminal, she realized just what a feat of courage that must have been for her friend. The plane was a puddle jumper, just right for the short hop from Nova Scotia to New Brunswick. But Maryanne had had the dubious pleasure of flying in one years ago, and knew how claustrophobia-inducing it could be. From the outside, the aircraft basically looked like a cigar tube with wings. From the inside... well, it pretty much felt the same. Just one seat on each side of a narrow aisle, with the aircraft’s roof curving close above your head.

She’d watched Alex appear in the aircraft’s doorway, pause and draw a deep breath. Then Alex had descended the plane’s stairs and crossed the short stretch of tarmac. By the time she’d entered the tiny airport’s arrivals area, she wore a victorious grin. Maryanne had been so glad to see that confidence after what had happened to her. They’d all been affected by the horrors they’d unearthed at Harvell House, but Alex more than the rest of them. Of course, Alex didn’t know how much Maryanne knew about what had really happened to her.

Half an hour later, Brooke Saunders had arrived on her flight from New York via Toronto, stepping off the plane like she owned it and the airport too.

They’d hugged and high-fived in arrivals. Then they’d driven back to Mansbridge in Brooke’s rental, which she’d left in the airport parking lot over the holidays. Dumping their bags off at Harvell House, they’d headed straight for the tattoo shop.