Page 6 of Haunting the Deep

I reluctantly sit down next to them. The blanket looks like the same one we used when I did the clarity spell with them.

Alice pulls her hair into a ponytail. “Despite what you may think, Sam, none of us are ready to deal with the outside world right now. Personally, I’d like to spend the rest of the year with nothing more serious to think about than what I’m going to wear to the Spring Fling. And if I never hear the dopes in our school gossiping about the shreds of misinformation they have from that night, it will be too soon.” She twirls a leaf between her fingers. “We haven’t even attempted magic. Theonlyreason I read my bones yesterday was to convince Mary that all threats had passed. You have no idea how many times in a row she can ask the same damn question.”

Mary rests her head theatrically on Alice’s shoulder. “You would be lost without me and you know it.”

“Anyway,”Alice says, pushing Mary off her shoulder. “My reading told me exactly nothing about our previous situation. Instead, I—”

“Found out something bizarre,” Mary says. Susannah and Alice both look at her. “What? We don’t know for sure that it’s somethingbad.”

“The bones said you need to join our circle,” Alice says. “And don’t get your back up thinking we’re just using you to be the fourth person for a spell or something. I can see the wheels turning in that brain of yours.”

An image of Lizzie’s empty chair flashes through my thoughts. Nothing good comes from magic.

“Alice’s reading also said that someone’s coming.” Susannah makes eye contact with me, gauging my response as she speaks. “And we got the message that if we don’t work together, we’ll be like the wanderer. Darkness will be over us, and our rest will be a stone.”

Alice tosses the leaf. “No more information than that. No matter how many times I cast them, they came up with the same riddle.”

I press my fingers into my forehead. “Please tell me that means we’ll be traveling and not that one of us is going to die. ‘Rest will be a stone’ sounds morbid as hell.”

Susannah tightens her lips. “We don’t know. As Alice said, we haven’t done a reading since the fall. We don’t know what we may have missed.” She pauses. “Have you seen anything odd, anything at all?”

I make eye contact with her. “Like what?”

“Like spirits,” she says, and I look away. Damn Susannah’s ability to read people.

I stand up. I can’t do this. I’ve only recently started sleeping well again. “I’m sorry, but I can’t be part of your circle. If you want to go to the movies or something, cool. But if it’s about magic, just…no.”

I walk away before they can respond.

Itrip walking up my uneven brick driveway.Awesome.

“Samantha!” Mrs. Meriwether says, loading a stack of beautifully tied pastry boxes into her truck bed. She waves me over. “How was school? No more weird noises today, I hope.”

“Nope.”

She searches my face. She looks like she wants to say something more, but decides against it.

I take a step toward my door and stop. “Just curious, but does my dad ever ask you about that night that everything happened?”

She tilts her head, considering my question. “Your dad has always been the silent, stoic type, even when we were kids. One summer he fell out of a tree and broke his finger. The thing swelled up to the size of a plantain, but he refused to admit that it hurt. In fact, he climbed right back up that tree and jumped out, just to prove it couldn’t get the best of him.” She raises a knowing eyebrow at me. “Now, I have to get to the bakery with these new recipes I was experimenting with. But anytime you feel like chatting, you just come on over.”

I open the side door to my house. “I will.” But I probably won’t.

The house is quiet. “Dad!”

“In the ballroom!” His voice comes from down the hall to the right of the stairs. I close the door and speed-walk in the direction of the sound. We’re calling the room with the piano and the uncomfortable-looking old furniture the ballroom?

I step through the door, and I instantly relax at the sight of him, alive and healthy.

I avoid looking at the painting of Abigail that hangs at the other end of the room. In fact, I haven’t come in here since Elijah left. All I see when I look at Abigail is eyes just like his, eyes that I miss. And I don’t want to miss them. No magic. No thinking about Elijah.

My dad stands by a set of white silk couches and looks up at the high ceiling.

“What are you doing?”

“Just looking around this old place,” he says, and smiles. “You know this room was never quiet when your grandmother was alive.” He gestures toward an antique record player. “There was always music and hordes of ladies having tea and playing bridge.”

I smile, too. “The way you used to describe her, I thought that Grandma didn’t have many friends.”