Page 99 of Haunting the Deep

I push open the door. “Dad!”

He’s standing in the foyer.

“I need you to go pack your things,” he says.

“Wait, is that why you called me home?”

“We’re leaving bright and early. Take whatever you need for a few days, and the rest we’ll have shipped.” I can tell by his tone that he’s dead serious. He looks at the girls. “I’m sorry to do this, but I’m going to have to ask you girls to head home. I need to talk to my daughter.”

“But—” Alice starts.

“I really must insist,” my dad says. The girls walk out the door reluctantly.

“Dad, what happened? You’re scaring me.”

He waits for the door to close. “First, I got a call from one of your teachers, a Mr. Wardwell, telling me that he was worried about you. That you were all jumpy in his office this afternoon and that you look like you haven’t been sleeping for the past week. Only to be followed by Jaxon coming over saying all kinds of wild things about you and the girls and how they’re potentially bad people? At which point Mae tells me Jaxon doesn’t mean it because he’s under a spell?” He pauses. “Which, I can see by your lack of shock right now, you knew about.”

“Dad—”

“No, Sam. I told you what my fear was about Salem. I don’t know if Mae is right about Jaxon or not, but if so, I’m not taking the chance. If someone is using magic at your school against Jaxon, of all people, then it’s no longer safe for you to be there. I told Mae that she and Jaxon could come with us.”

I take a deep breath, trying not to panic.I can’t leave Salem right now. I just can’t.“Did she accept?”

“Not yet,” he says. “But I have her in the ballroom right now, and I’m trying to convince her. You’ll want to get started on that packing. We’re leaving right after breakfast tomorrow.”

“You’re in the ballroom and not the living room or the kitchen?” I ask, peering down the hall.Is it because they’re fighting and don’t want me to overhear?

“Time to pack, Sam,” my dad says, pointing toward my room.

I walk past him and up the stairs. I can’t argue with him when he’s in this kind of mood. If I push now, he might put me in the car and drive to New York this very moment. And there is definitely no explaining theTitanicat this point. Not only would he make me leave immediately, but he’d probably burn the house down just to make sure nothing with magic in it ever comes near me again.

I close my bedroom door.

“Elijah?” There is fear in my voice.

He blinks in.

“I went—” I start.

“I saw.”

“My dad—”

“I know.”

“We have to fix this—solve this, whatever—tonight or I have no possibility of convincing him to stay.” I dump the tissue-wrapped dance card onto my bed. “What do you make of this thing?”

He furrows his brow and his posture is tense. “It is reminiscent of the objects you have been receiving all along—seemingly random, but not. If it in any way relates to Myra and Henry, there is no information telling us so. We have already researched them ad nauseam.”

“Maybe it’s more literal than we think? Maybe it’s about the school dance?” I crack my knuckles. “It does have the same image as those raffle tickets Blair handed out.”

“I have checked Niki’s and Blair’s houses,” he says.

“But what about the room where the dance committee meets? Maybe there’s something there?” I say.

“Potentially. Or the venue where they are holding the dance? I will go now.”

There is a tapping on my window, and I whip around. Elijah already stands by the glass. Did he blink across the room to get there that fast? I can just make out Alice, Mary, and Susannah through my lace curtain. Elijah unlatches the window and opens it.