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Darkness coated my room. The lights were off and I'd opened a window, letting the night air spill in. I used to think Black Hill smelled of riches and roses when the sunset, but it stunk of nothing but facades.

The ring of my phone pierced through the silence.

"Anna, you there? It's Zayn. After meeting Wendy and the twins at the beach, there's one person left that can help us."

I blinked and laid back against my headboard. I'd thrown the bruja book onto my desk and covered it with an old shirt. My head hurt whenever I looked at it.

"How did you even get my number?" I asked, furrowing my brows. "You're calling at past ten in the night. On a landline as well."

Zayn didn't speak for a moment. In the background, somebody screamed in what sounded like Korean. Muffled sounds crackled through the speaker and a door slammed.

"What's going on?" I spoke, my voice quiet. "Zayn, say something."

"Sorry about that, I'm back now. It doesn't matter how I got your number, it was ages ago. You ended up blocking me, anyway." Another scuffle. "This is the only time Grace could see us. She doesn't sleep well during the night so we'll be a good distraction for her."

My head span with all the new information. When had I ever blocked her? The urge to ask more burned like a flame, but Zayn sounded dead to the world. Her voice sounded raspy and broken like she'd been smoking. I raked my nails over my forearms and tried to keep my voice neutral.

"Okay, sure. Whatever." I closed my eyes for a second. She didn't trust me enough to tell me anything important. "What's Grace going to do for me?"

"I thought you knew her. She always goes on about you when I visit. Meet me at the slope that leads up to the Cliffs in half an hour, and I'll tell you everything. "

She cut the call, leaving me with the taste of disappointment on my tongue. I scrambled to change my clothes and grabbed the bruja book, stuffing it into my jacket pocket.

I snuck out of the house through the front door, grateful that the cops were busy down at the station. Anyone else would be investigating the extra deaths by the lake. As I left, I felt Mum's absence like a bullet wound in my heart.

Zayn stood underneath a street lamp by the Cliffs. Her hair swirled around her head like a bird's nest, and the closer I got, the worse she looked. Her eyes glistened red, her shoulders hunched around her ears. She kicked the pavement with her scuffed boots and curled her coat around herself.

"Hey," she said when she saw me. "You look like you crawled through hell to get here."

I smiled. "You should see yourself," I said. Her pretty eyes trailed over my face, and I glanced away, cheeks burning.

The strange haze around us dissipated when I reached into my coat pocket and grabbed the bruja book. I kept my skin clear from the metal corners and gave it to Zayn. She gripped the book with trembling fingers.

Her eyes widened. They reminded me of a scared horse. She held the book away from her.

"You found this at Emily's," she said.

It wasn't a question. She glanced up at me and I nodded. I should've shown her before, right on the sand dunes at the beach. Zayn didn't ask questions and took a deep breath before she flicked open the first page.

She slammed it closed, and shoved it back into my chest.

"I can't read this." She snatched her hand back as though the metal had burned her. "Grace would love to keep it. She's wanted that book for years. We should get going before she thinks we've fallen down the Cliffs, or something."

I squared my shoulders. "You know what it is, don't you?"

Above us, a crow passed by, screaming into the dark. Nobody lived around the Cliffs, with the only road leading to the shopping district. Nobody except one person.

We were right by the McMahon woman's house, and I couldn't breathe. Nerves scraped against my spine. It felt weird to be there, after all the warnings the others had given me. After her stalking and seeing that strange blue eye in my dreams.

"It's a weird witch manual, yeah. I'm not allowed to look at things like that. My dad won't let me, and it still hurts to-" Zayn looked up at the sky. "Grace will explain it all better than I could."

"You're so cryptic, it's mad," I said, but I gestured for her to lead the way.

The McMahon woman's house looked as run-down as Francine's. Elephant grass grew thin brown trunks either side of the mud path that led to her front porch. Honeysuckle and ivy ran along the sides of her house. The smell was cloying and musty, sweet underneath the scent of decay.

Zayn rang the bell. I followed her onto the small porch, my gaze stuck on the wood. Muddy footsteps painted the surface. Footsteps that matched hers.

When the door opened, and that watery blue eye stared out from the crack, I wanted to book it out of there. But Zayn opened the door and dragged me inside.

It was like stepping into a set from the 60s, with putrid floral patterns and wood flooring. The McMahon woman hobbled down the dim hallway and turned left. Zayn took off her shoes. Her socks were uneven, one colored and the other plain white. I copied her, toeing off my Nikes, and followed her into the living room.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" I hissed, wincing at the sight of the weird brown leather couch.

The room had cyan wood panels along the walls and nothing else going for it. It all smelled too much like cabbage and old perfume. I swiped a finger along the top of a pretty machine that hung from the ceiling by the old TV. Dust coated it and stuck to my finger like caramel. I gagged.

Zayn shushed me and pushed my hand off of the thing. She nodded at it.

"It's a vintage rain lamp," she said. "When you fill it with oil, the glass beads roll down the strings and it looks beautiful."

She sounded enraptured. Our arms brushed when she went to dust off the top of the case, and the warmth traveled down to my heart. I pressed closer and took comfort in the touch.

Something rattled down the hallway. The McMahon woman entered the living room with a silver tray in her hands. Zayn hurried to grab it from her and placed it on the high coffee table in front of the couch.

"You've come to me for something, no?"

I glanced up. The woman stared at me with her mismatched eyes. She spoke in a thick Irish accent. She was talking to me.

"Yeah. It's about what happened to me at the lake last year. My friends... I've been getting mixed signals from everyone I ask about them. Zayn says you might be able to help me figure things out?"

The McMahon woman accepted the chipped mug of tea Zayn offered her and plopped down onto the couch. I grabbed my own but put it down on the coffee table. I settled myself on the edge of a bright orange armchair.

"Your so-called friends were not what they seemed, girl," the woman said. Her words came like a dripping tap. My skin itched, waiting for her to finish her sentences.

"They're a powerful coven of witches along with their mothers. They've been terrorizing this town for decades with that damn lake, and nobody can do a thing about it."

She shook her head when I opened my mouth. Somehow, everything felt more real when she said it out loud like this. Despite the weariness that wouldn't leave my body, I trusted what she was saying.

I spoke anyways.

"I have their Book of Shadows," I said.

"Oh, Mary mother of Jesus." The McMahon woman laid the book down onto the coffee table, open on the page with the illustration of the lake. "I thought they'd finished with this after Seo-Yeon."

Zayn spilled her tea, sending the silver tray crashing to the ground. I reached to help her but she waved me away.

"It's alright, I'll get a rag and clean it up." She paused before she left the room. " Grace, don't tell her until I'm back."

The woman, Grace, swiped a hand over her shiny forehead. It felt strange to think of her as a human being. She'd been the weird figure haunting my waking hours with the Society for so long.

What was so important about Seo-Yeon?

"I need to know about the ritual. My friends had to be the sacrifices the book said the lake needed."

"The ritual, girl, is to feed the god in the lake. I'd love to tell you I was pulling the wool over your eyes now but I'm afraid it's true. They call it Bunyip, from Aboriginal Australia. It takes sacrifices of women as its food source, and in return, it doesn't destroy Black Hill. Have you never wondered why nobody falls sick here? Our crime rate is amongst the lowest in the world, and I haven't seen an ambulance pass by since I was born here."

I leaned back into the armchair and tried not to sneeze at the dusty smell.

"They threw people into a lake for some made-up god," I said. How did she expect me to believe this?

"That's where you're wrong, girlie. That god is as real as you or me. I've seen it with my eyes when I escaped its clutches. My eye wasn't always like this, you know." Grace waved a finger and fixed me with a steely gaze. "I spend my time watching over the girls those women befriend, looking for the mark of Bunyip on them."

Memories of wide smiles and my limbs as fluid as water raced through my mind. I sighed and massaged my temples. A headache bloomed behind my left eye. My body ached like I'd been awake for far too long. I should've slept more.

"I'd say it's hard to know why your friends died," Grace continued. "I've seen three separate generations of these women, and not one has been mentally stable. They would do anything to feed their Bunyip, I'll have you know."

Questions bubbled in my mouth and threatening to spill down the corners of my lips. Zayn came back with a rag and cleared the tea from the hardwood floor. Grace didn't have any rugs. I wondered if Zayn spilling things was common.

"You can tell me about Seo-Yeon, now," I said. "Who even is she?"

"Seo-Yeon lived where you do. It's why I frequent that place often," Grace said. Zayn went to sit beside her and the old woman placed a liver-spotted hand on her leg. "She was your age when she got pregnant. While her parents ignored her, the Committee invited her into their ranks. She became their new friend, blind to their faults. They sacrificed her to their lake god a few days after she gave birth to her child."

Zayn nodded. She wouldn't look at me. "Grace thought the child would be the next to go. It's why she took me in."

I paused and looked at the two of them. A Korean family that had lived where I did. A baby girl who grew up without a mother. Why Zayn couldn't bear to look at the Book of Shadows. Why she hated my friends.

"Seo-Yeon is your mum," I said, biting my lip.

It hurt that Zayn hadn't told me all this earlier. She'd played the act well, pretending not to know what happened to my friends. To the Society. Everything Emily and the others had told me crumbled at that moment. I'd never known them at all.

I pushed down my anger at Zayn, at the world, and turned back to Grace.

"So, they hadn't fed the god and when we went into the lake, it took them for his sacrifice. What now? How do we know there wasn't a girl they were marking for the honor, instead?"

Grace nodded. Her gaze seemed far away. I wondered how someone could stay so long in a town fueled by hatred and death. I wondered why I'd ever thought it was a good idea to move here, in the first place.

"As long as a girl has not shed blood in that lake before death, then there will be no more sacrifices. The god gives them their link to magick." Grace yawned. It showed her yellowed teeth and a blackened tongue. I forced myself not to gag.

No god, no magick.

"You're tired, you should rest," Zayn told her.

Grace nodded and heaved herself up from the armchair. She clung to Zayn's supporting arm. To me, Zayn smiled in apology.

"I'll tell you everything tomorrow. Everything," she said.

I stood up as well, reaching out to steady Grace's other arm. Her eyes followed my every movement.

"There's one last thing," I said. I sounded whiney, even to my own ears, but I needed to know. "Girls are still found dead in the lake, even with the Society gone. Doesn't that mean anything?"

"You have naught to worry about, girl."

With that, they shuffled out of the living room. Leaving me alone, with a thousand questions left unanswered.

I found my way onto the street by myself, checking my phone. Mum would be back in a few hours.

I was so focused on the screen that I didn't notice anybody standing beside me until sharp nails dug into my shoulds. Linda smiled down at me, a face full of makeup, and eyes full of what looked like fear.

"We have a lot to talk about," she murmured. "Don't you think?"

Linda dragged me to the stone wall before the Cliffs. The same wall I'd first met Arthur at. The irony struck me, and I turned my face into the dark, trying to hide my trembling lips. I gripped my phone tighter, my thumb ready on the emergency call button.

"I suppose that old bat poisoned your head with lies," Linda said, her lip curling over her teeth in a half-growl. "It never occurred to you why all those girls have ended up dead after you escaped the lake, has it?"

I turned my head to look at her, my lips pursed. No, it hadn't.

"It's the lake." I shrugged like it was no big deal. In reality, my heart thundered in my chest, a marching rhythm to the never-ending anxiety. "It wants more food now the sacrifice is gone."

Linda raised one pencil-thin eyebrow. "Very good, Anna. And did you notice the ratio of dead girls to dead you? One to four and counting. What our coven does isn't evil despite what Grace McMahon and her little whore want you to believe."

I bristled, stepping away from the woman. "Zayn isn't a whore," I hissed.

"With a name like that, she's a lot more," Linda said. She flashed her teeth, a crude imitation of a smile. "You could end this, Anna. Give yourself in for the greater good."

"And let you win?" I shook my head. "You can go to hell, and all your witch friends, too."

I flipped my hood over my head, ignoring the quiet hisses of my name. I slipped into the night, my mind on Mum's arrival back home. 

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the oil rain lamp