CHAPTER FORTY

I bolt upright in bed, my heart pounding from a dream I can't remember. It's morning and the dim light is slinking in through the window, tinting the room a steel grey. The day is just beginning and already it's steeped with a sense of finality. It feels like an end.

I suppose the only question is: An end to what?

I quickly realise that Katherine didn't come home last night; the house is quiet and empty, the silence punctuated only by the ticking of the kitchen clock. As I make myself a small breakfast, my thoughts almost instinctively turn inwards, trying to dredge up the dream I can't remember from the depths of my subconscious. It's like an itch I can't scratch and it's driving me mad.

I dig around in my mind all morning - as I eat my food, as I get dressed and ready for the day, as I wait at the dining table for Katherine or someone to come home, as I wait on the couch watching the ear-grating morning television, as I wait in my room, staring first at the pages of a book - or at least trying to - and second at the ceiling. No one turns up. But when I sit up on my bed, I find myself staring at the wall which once held a crimson word. And just like that, the dream returns.

Or rather, what I thought was a dream.

It was in fact, just a voice, by now a recognisable voice, relaying a message - or a warning, or a threat - in my mind.

Your time is up. Break the curse and come to me. If you are not here in three hours, you know what the consequence will be.

My mind spins, fumbles through my thoughts. Three hours. How long ago did I wake up? An hour ago? Two? My phone is still sitting on my bedside table where I left it to charge last night. Now I claw at it, tugging it from the power cable.

The time reads, 10:11

I recall looking at the kitchen clock when I woke. It had been a little past nine when I was getting breakfast, and if I go by the assumption that Keon operates with round numbers, then he should have relayed that messaged at nine.

I pull up the contacts on my phone and call Katherine. She doesn't pick up on the first ring, so I call again.

"Melissa? What is it?"

"Midday," I blurt, feeling every second like a stab to the gut. "We have until midday to break the curse or Keon's gonna - Keon's gonna-"

"How do you know this?" Katherine's voice comes through urgent and low. "Did he communicate with you again?"

I nod. Then I remember she can't see me and I manage a weak, "Yeah."

"You need to tell me exactly what he said, word for word. Can you do that?"

"Yeah, um, he said-" I relay the message, now permanently stamped onto the pale pink flesh of my brain. My voice cracks when I get to consequence.

Katherine takes a second to reply. "He didn't tell you where? There was no note? No address?"

"No, nothing. Why? We can still find him, right? I mean, surely there's someone with an ability for that? Someone who can locate people? We could try Renée, too. I'm sure she'd have a - spell? Right? Please tell me there's something we can do."

"You don't have to worry. Let the council sort this out. Right now, I just need you to sit tight. Alright? We're nearly done up here so we'll be over in a half hour. And Melissa?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't do anything stupid."

She hangs up.

-:-:-:-:-

As reluctant as I am to do it, my next call is to Harrison, who turns up on my doorstep half an hour later.

"I wondered if you would call," he says as way of greeting, inviting himself inside. "Thought you might change your mind and keep me out of the loop."

"I considered it."

"I'm glad you didn't."

I go to close the door, but the sound of a car pulling into the drive stops me. Harrison raises an eyebrow.

I burst out of the house, towards the driveway. Overhead the sky crackles with thunder. A car has arrived. No, not a car - a van. I can't see who it contains until the doors slide back and out they step: Katherine, Ethel, Scott, David, and Annalise. Renée emerges last, the patterns on her skin glowing bright silver in the gloomy light.

I stare at them. Every question is trying to force its way out of my mouth simultaneously, and as a consequence, I can't get out a single word.

"Inside, quickly," Katherine says as she approaches me. She brushes past on the way to the house. Everyone else does the same. I spin around to watch them disappear inside, no explanation given.

Beside me, Harrison says, "They sure do like to torture us with suspense."

We hurry in after them and find them gathered around the dining table. When I enter, Katherine grabs my hand and leads me to a chair. "Renée needs you for a locator spell."

"For Keon?"

"He's spoken to you in your mind. When a telepath does such a thing, a small part of their energy gets left behind - like a footprint. You are connected to him now, always. But that also means we can trace his energy back to him."

"Okay. What do I have to do?"

Renée, sitting opposite me, hands me a vial of blue-tinted liquid. There's no need to ask what it is. It's the same concoction she made me drink last time - the one that allowed me to bear one of her silvery marks. I take it from her and swallow it quickly, trying not to gag at the taste.

"Give me your hands," she says. She lays them palm up on the table. Then she places two fingers to the inside of her forearm and closes her eyes. A glow rises up on her skin, spinning and twirling until it forms a distinct pattern underneath her fingers. Now she opens her eyes. She lifts the symbol up off her arm, into the air, and then touches it to my skin. The burn is intense.

It fades after she lifts her fingers away, revealing, for the first time, the entirety of the design. Its shape is so complex I can barely follow any of the weaving lines. I could spend hours staring at it and still feel like I have not seen the whole thing. I am so transfixed that I nearly forget the urgency of our situation.

"Melissa," Renée says. "I'm going to take you hands now. Prepare yourself."

I'm about to ask what she means when our hands clasp together. At once, it is like a jolt of electricity has shot through me. My body stiffens, my muscles stop responding to my brains commands. Even If I wanted to, I couldn't let go.

Renée has her eyes closed, but I can see them rolling back and forth under the thin skin of her eyelids, like she's dreaming. I myself notice an odd sort of feeling washing over me, like I'm not entirely present in the room, half of me floating in some other place, a dream world beyond the constraints of physical reality. Every now and then, hints of sounds and smells, flashes of colour and light, things that could not possibly be present in the dining room become apparent to me, as though I am privy to far-off places and happenings.

Just as I start to explore more of this half-world, there's a sharp flash of blue light and Renée abruptly releases my hands. She is breathing loudly, and I notice my own ragged breath and increased heart rate, as though I have just run a mile. "I've found him," she gasps. "In a-" She frowns. "In a flickering room. A holy place of arches. All tinted by blue fire."

"Do you know the exact location?" Ethel, seated beside her, has her eyebrows drawn tightly together.

"He is close by - I am sure of it. I need a map."

Katherine departs from the room and returns quickly with an old street directory. Renée holds it before her, spine to table, one hand on each cover. She closes her eyes. Then she lets it fall open. Without looking, she points to a location on the page. "There."

Everyone leans in to take a look at where her finger rests.

"Why, it's St. Margaret's Church," David says, readjusting his glasses.

Ethel shakes her head in dismay. "It's on the north side of bridge. It'll take us forty minutes to get there in the least. And if traffic's bad? Maybe an hour or more. The city is unpredictable."

"But we only have an hour left."

Everyone looks at me like I'm some alien creature they've never seen before.

"We better go then," Scott says, meeting my eyes.

Everyone starts standing. I remain where I am. "What about the plan?"

"We have something," Katherine says. "I'll tell you on the way."

We all leave the house. And as I look at the people around me, I realise it was always going to be this way. I am in that vision again, the walls of the dark room pressing down on all sides, and for the first time the blue light catches the faces of my companions. They are flickering and shadowy renditions of their real selves. And although my mind's eye distorts them further, I recognise them all. Because every single one of them is with me now, piling into the van.

I get in. I buckle up. I feel time slip and slide around me. The boundaries between present and future are melting and withering away; soon there will be no vision, no fate, no dreadful future to collide with. There will only be now. Now and all its atrocities. Now and all its pain.

The future is here.