The Sisters of Nowhere

t h i r t y - n i n e : c a l m

It had been hours on end with no signs of Marigold or Silas. Birdie could feel the energy in the air rising as if it were anticipating the eclipse.

Night settled its purple color on their back porch where Birdie sat, pensive. This was maddening.

So much was supposed to happen in a few short hours and all she could do was wait. According to the almanac, the eclipse would reach its zenith at two a.m. and they had to find their way to the middle of the forest before that.

Marigold couldn't be faulted for getting lost in the forest, but Silas? Shouldn't he know better?

She drew her bare feet up beneath her burgundy skirt and scanned the names she'd written down from the obituaries. There were forty-one in total--souls that were now even more lost than they were before. What if they failed to bring them back too? Even worse, what if they couldn't even rescue Wyatt?

"I haven't even thought about the play all day," Ophelia said. Birdie hadn't even noticed her coming to sit beside her.

"It's hard to think about much else," Birdie agreed, but she was lying. In reality, she'd been thinking about Sal all afternoon. There was something about their exchange that disturbed her even more than their terrible exchange.

It was a strange thing to dwell on in the midst of everything else, but Birdie couldn't shake it. There was something off about him and she couldn't help the suspicions rising in her mind.

"Ope?" Birdie asked quietly, absently creasing her skirt with her thumb. "Do you really think Gwydyr is living inside my head?"

Ophelia shrugged. "I dunno. But something had to of happened the night we summoned it. Unless you were having visions trees before. You weren't, though, right?"

Despite herself, Birdie snickered. "No."

"Maybe the forest likes you," Ophelia suggested. "That's why it's trying to get you to help it."

"Maybe."

Something creaked near the barn.

Ophelia and Birdie shot to their feet and were across the yard in an instant.

Birdie's heart gave a frantic flutter as she pulled open the door to find Silas and Marigold waiting for them inside. It was dark, only illuminated by the moonlight coming in from outside.

Ophelia was the first to say "Where have you been?!" before Birdie could.

Birdie watched Marigold's panicked face that complimented Silas's angry one nicely.

There was that stormcloud again, loud and thunderous and black. But this time it wasn't just from Silas--it was coming from both of them.

Birdie gulped.

"Hal is going to use Wyatt to kill the forest," Marigold said, looking like she was about to cry.

The stale air of the musty barn thickened. Bethany McFarlane silently chewed on a few pieces of straw, watching the scene unfold before her with a distinct sense of disinterest.

"Hal isn't using Wyatt to gain the forest's power," Marigold explained when it became evident that Silas had no intent to. "He's using him to murder it."

"But how do you murder a forest?" Ophelia asked.

"How do you think?" Silas retorted.

Ophelia deflated a little. "Um...burn it?"

Silas nodded. "Except, in Gwydyr's case, you can't burn it by fire. You burn it with blood."

"Wait," Birdie said, closing her eyes against a headache threatening to make her head explode. "So to gain the forest's power, you make a sacrifice, right? How does Gwydyr know what's a sacrifice and what's a weapon?"