EVERETT AND I STAYED UP ALL NIGHT. TALKING. NOT TALKING. Remembering that we had a place in each other's hearts. And for the first time in a long time, I remembered what it was about him I had originally felt. I had grown to love him for who he was, really.
But then the winter had come between us. And I had let so many other things — not he, only I —force us apart. Now I could see that some of the decisions I pretended weren't mine were. It was my decision whether to trust him. Whether to let him in. Whether to love him.
The next morning, we both needed to rectify our actions with Cole. As Mark had said, the more Everett acted like a jerk, the harder Cole was going to fight for me. And the more I shut Cole out, the harder he'd fight his way back in. We decided that we would take Cole to the Survivors' City — only after double-checking to make sure that every Survivor inside the walls still had a beating heart and so there wasn't be a would-be vieczy in the presence of a human. We would let him be a part of this, if only for a little while.
We roused Cole and gave him a chance to get dressed. He met us a few doors down from the inn for breakfast. When he got there, he saw us at a corner booth, the two of us on one side, waiting for him. I saw it in his mind the way he saw it, and it hurt him. A lot.
When he got to the table and saw it was set only for three, suddenly, he became wary.
"Just us?" he asked.
"Just us," I said. "Is that okay?"
"It is with me," he said, eyeing Everett.
"Then we're all good," Everett said.
"Are you going to send me back, kicking and screaming?" he asked as he began to look over the list of egg dishes.
"Nope," Everett said matter-of-factly.
Cole raised an eyebrow, set down the menu, and said, "You've got my attention."
HALF AN HOUR LATER, AT THE EDGE OF TOWN, I GRABBED COLE AND TOOK OFF running. He stumbled when I put him down, dizzy and disoriented from the speed.
I turned to him once he was steady. "Okay, you and I are going to stay here. Everett's going to see if Mark has checked everyone. We're pretty sure no one is at risk of turning into anything unpleasant when exposed to a human, but the only way to know for sure is to make sure everyone's got a heartbeat. Then we'll go in, but you need to stay close. Most of them will have never seen a human before. Got it?"
"Got it," Cole said.
"Back in a few," Everett said, bounding the walls.
"So," Cole said.
"Yes?"
"You're happy again. With him," he said.
"I was never—"
"Don't lie to me, Sadie."
"I don't know how not to lie," I said before I could even think of what else to say. Maybe it was true. "I was unhappy with a lot of what was happening between Everett and me when I came to you, yes," I said.
"And now?"
"Somehow it's different," I said. "I think. I don't know." That was a lie. It was different now. It had been the perfect night, juxtaposed so severely against the worst day.
Cole laughed sadly. "I should have seen this coming. Back for one day, during which you endure unimaginable tragedy, I come here to save you, end up crying while you hold me, and within hours you're arm-in-arm with him. Man, what kind of spell does he have on you?"
"He wonders the same thing about you."
"I'm sure he does," he said. He no longer looked me in the eye.
"You don't have to stay. It was only because you wanted to stay that we brought you here, and because Everett wanted to make peace with you that he suggested finding a way to let you do it. But no one is forcing you to come here, be a part of our messed up life for us. For me."
"I know that," he said, kicking some dirt on the ground. "I just worry so much about you."
"And for that, I'm terribly sorry."
I would have said more, but as Cole and I rounded a corner of the city wall, we found Andrew sitting on the ground, leaning against the wall. "Give me a minute," I said and left Cole where he was.
Andrew didn't look up at me. "Andrew?" I said again. When he still didn't respond, I dropped to his side.
His eyes were bloodshot and had deeply drawn circles under them. He didn't just look as if any hope, any joy, and any love he'd ever felt had been stolen from him; he looked like the capacity to feel it had been erased from his memory.
"You came back," he said finally. When I saw Lizzie's body, I marveled at how old she looked for someone who had stopped aging in her twenties. But when I saw Andrew, haggard and broken, I only marveled at how young he looked. He was, after all, only 17.
"I did," I said.
He nodded sadly. "That's good. I'm glad you're back."
"How are you handling it?" I asked.
"There is nothing I can do," he said. "I heard that you went to see her."
"I did."
"That's good. She needs that. I have been too cowardly to see in her in such a way," he said, clearly disappointed with himself. "Death is not something our family is prepared to deal with."
There was nothing I could say that would be of comfort.
He sighed heavily. "It's going to be like this when the war comes, isn't it? Except 138 times worse." His voice cracked as warm tears began to cut through the dirt on his face. How long had he been sitting here?
"I think this will be the worst of it, actually," I reasoned. "It's the hardest because it was so unexpected."
"Sadie, child, it will not be any easier waiting to face this fate. In fact, knowing it's coming is much worse," he said, reaching his hand out to mine. Raven had said exactly this the night I met him. That waiting for death was worse than death itself. That it was the worst punishment he could give us.
"Still," I countered, "surely the war won't end in a total massacre. We can't afford to think that way."
"Can't we? We will lose everything. I've already lost everything," he said, and I understood this to mean Lizzie was his everything. But then he said, "You know we had a child, Lizzie and I."
My throat closed up. "You know who your children are?" I asked, thinking this may be the only chance I'd have.
"I know who the one Lizzie and I had together was," he said. "She's gone too." He looked at me then, finally taking his eyes off the forest. "It is unimaginable, this pain, having lost them both."
"Is she one of the rogue?"
He nodded. "I still don't even understand how it happened. She hadn't yet stopped aging when the rogues abandoned us. How could she turn into the monsters you say they became if she hadn't even developed her powers yet?"
Cassie. He was talking about Cassie, the young Survivor who had spoken to me the night I first returned with the Winters. She was one of the youngest Survivors, and certainly the youngest rogue—just sixteen, in appearance and actuality. I thought of her: her pink cheeks like Lizzie's, glass-green eyes like Andrew's. Lizzie's build. Andrew's smile. It seemed so obvious in retrospect.
"I don't know how it happened, Andrew. That's the hardest part, how much we don't know," I said.
"It is not the hardest part, Sadie. This is the hardest part." Andrew's eyes drifted back to the forest. "I've lost my family. And I'm about to lose the rest of it. There's no use in fighting it. All I have ever been is patriarch of this family, a family I can no longer protect."
"Of course you can."
"No, I can't. I am of no use now."
"Andrew . . ."
"Maybe I should leave here. Live among the humans," he said.
This shocked me more than his admission of parentage. "You can't leave this place, Andrew. You built it."
"You left," he said, and he was right. Who was I to tell him to not abandon his family? "Maybe I'd turn into a monster, too. Like Cassie. Then maybe I'd forget who I was."
I put my hand on his chest then, to feel his beating heart. "You will never be a monster. You are a good person. One of the best. I hope you don't forget that."
"Sadie!" Everett called. "Sorry to interrupt, but you need to come quickly." A worry creased his face.
"We need you, Andrew. Don't forget that," I said as I got to my feet. I bent to kiss his forehead, and then I away from him.
I was halfway to Everett and Cole when Andrew called out, "He's not going to let us bury her."
I rushed toward them, but I heard Andrew say, "You didn't know? Our John thinks this was God's punishment for Lizzie letting you mix with the world outside, so he says we cannot honor her in death. You see? They don't need me anymore. They have him."
A white-hot anger boiled inside of me. "I won't let him disrespect her that way."
"Won't you?" he said.
With a new determination — and outright loathing for John — I marched into the City to find the man who was determined to ruin us even more than we'd already been ruined.
"John!" I cried at the top of my lungs. "John!"
We passed no one on the lane between the gates and the square.
"John!" I screamed again.
Hannah appeared, running toward us. "Come quickly, Sadie. It's happening again. Just like in Salem! You have to stop him," she pleaded, her tiny hands grabbing my clothes. "Please!" she cried as tears streamed down her cheeks.
Rounding the corner to the square, I saw the entire family in the amphitheater. In front of them, John paced, with Rebecca and Catherine flanking him. But then I saw something I hadn't seen: a stockade, just like they would have had in Salem. Ben was locked in it.
I turned to Everett. "Where is your family?"
"I have no idea," he whispered.
"Get them. Now."
Everett bounded away quickly. Surely the Winters wouldn't just be sitting inside their house on the square, unaware this was happening outside?
"What the hell are you doing?" I called to John, arriving at his side with Cole in my grip.
"Ah, Sadie," John said, a deviant smile on his lips. "Right on time. And who is this? Surely not a human inside our sacred walls?"
"He's none of your concern," I said.
"Now that's where you're wrong. It is absolutely my concern, as I was just explaining to your dear brethren. Things are going to change," he said.
"What are you talking about? What are you doing to Ben?"
"Our Benjamin is suffering the consequences of his actions, of affiliating with the world outside. I'm tired everyone in this family thinking they can do as they please. This is not a heretical utopia for you sinners. It's time for there to be law," he said. "My law."
"Don't be stupid," I said. "Who is going to listen to you?"
John laughed maniacally. "Everyone, dear girl."
"You're impossible," I huffed, pushing past him to get to Ben. I reached out to break the chains around the stockade.
"No, Sadie. Don't touch them," Ben said quickly. He was sweating profusely and looked to be in a great deal of pain. "He's charmed them somehow. It will hurt you."
"Don't be ridic—" I put my hands on the chains and was thrown back on the ground, some fifteen feet away from Ben, to a collective gasp from my family members. A massive shock went through my body, and I seized on the ground for several delirious, painful moments.
"What the—"
Just then Everett burst into the square with Ginny, Adelaide, Anthony, and Mark. "What the hell is happening here?" Anthony screamed.
Ginny flew to my side, "I'm so sorry. He put some kind of spell on the house. We couldn't hear or see what was happening outside of it."
"I didn't think he had that kind of power," I said.
"Neither did we," she said.
Mark tended to Ben first. "You've got to be kidding me," he said, when the electrified charm hit him. He was powerful enough to deflect it and escape its surge. "John, undo this. Now."
"Or what?"
Mark grabbed John by the throat. "Or. Else."
But John produced something in his hand, a shiny, carved piece of stone or wood, very thin and long. He pointed it at Ben, who began to seize violently and cry out in horrendous pain.
"Stop it! Stop it!" I cried.
Mark hurled John to the ground, smashing John's head against the dirt. Ginny got the object away from him using Mark's telekinesis power. "Ev, hold him down."
Everett braced his weight onto John, who was no match for the strongest Winter boy. And Mark went back to Ben and, though it took him a few times, eventually blew the chains and stockade apart, freeing Ben.
Adelaide took the object from Ginny and examined it. "It's a wand."
I looked at John. "You better start explaining right now."
He gasped out words. "Why doesn't one of my children tell our dear Sadie what I've just told all of you?"
Michael, a willowy boy who was born in the early twentieth century and had stopped aging prematurely, stood up among his peers. "J-jjohn said we can no longer allow ourselves the luxury of associating with you because of your connection to the evil outside our walls. He says that Lizzie is dead, and whatever dark magic you and the Winters possess caused her death. He said you told the humans about us, and they were going to try to hurt us, until he protected the city again. And if we didn't believe him that she was dead, then we could go see Lizzie's body and wait for you to come back because you would, and when you did, you'd bring a human with you." I looked at Cole, who looked terrified and deeply saddened. "He said this is the beginning, that you're trying to bring the humans in and destroy our family."
"The rest," John coughed underneath Everett's grip.
Michael went on. "He said that from now on, anyone associating with you or the Winters, or harboring any connection to the human world, must be punished. Starting today, the elders will search our homes to determine if there is any evidence to suggest we are mixing with your dark magic." The terror emanating from Michael was palpable.
"And what will happen if he finds anything?" I asked.
"That," Michael said, pointing to Ben who was collapsed in front of the now obliterated stockade, moaning in pain. "Or worse."
"So he wants to start a witch hunt," I said.
"He wants to protect our family from the likes of you," called Catherine, the elder who had been most supportive of John's tactics since the beginning. Nearly all the elders stood near her and cheered when she said this.
"Ben, what did he have on you?" I asked.
"Beowulf," Ben answered.
"Lizzie gave us those books!" I cried.
"Prove it," John spat.
I turned back to my family. "And you all believe him?" I asked.
They looked at each other, fear in all their eyes. "Lizzie is dead, isn't she?" one called.
I paused, realizing how this was going to look but seeing no way out. "Yes," I admitted.
"And the humans . . . did they find out about us?" another said.
"Not exactly. They did see us, but . . ." I stammered. My gut twisted.
He had set us up perfectly.
"And the man you brought. He's a human, isn't he?" someone else said, pointing to Cole.
"Yes, but . . ."
"And you and the Winters . . . when John tried to stop you, you . . . hurt him," another pointed out, gesturing to Everett who was nearly crushing John beneath him. I motioned for Everett to get off him.
"Then what choice do we have but to believe John?" Beth called.
Hannah spoke. "Plenty of choice! Sadie is trying to save you. All of you! John is afraid. That's okay. We're all afraid. It is scary that there will be this war. It is terrifying and a tragedy that Lizzie has died, and we don't know why or how. But that doesn't mean it's Sadie's fault! Or the Winters'!"
John got back to his feet and in unsettling, invasive move put his hands on Hannah's shoulders. "You see, children. Sadie's dark power is so strong that even your eldest Survivors have succumbed. We know the ways in which Satan works. Sadie is doing his work."
"He's lying!" I cried.
"You and I both know that you have brought nothing but tragedy and desecration to this family. If we are in peril, it is because of you," he said. Then turning to the crowd, he screamed, "It is because of Sadie!"
Half the crowd hailed his words, but the other half looked unconvinced, and he could tell. Suddenly, he put his hands to his head and dropped to his knees in the dirt. "Wait! Family! I am hearing something from the Lord! He says that Satan has possessed our daughter Sadie, and there is no hope for her. He says that if you don't believe, then we must search her body, for it is covered in the Devil's Marks."
It was straight out of the Salem history books.
"You've got to be joking," I huffed. But no one thought he was joking. The thoughts of every living Survivor swelled in my mind and consumed me, their doubt and fear and outrage spinning around my brain, choking down my throat.
"You can't listen to him! He's manipulating you. He's not telling the truth!"
"Am I? And if I were, why would our dear Sadie have her body so covered even on this summer day?" he asked. The scars. That bastard. They'd see my scars, and they'd believe they were the Devil's Marks because not a one of them had ever seen a scar.
I wanted to keep it together, to keep some kind of cool in the face of this insanity, but hearing what they thought of me, and feeling the hatred they felt for me was too much.
I flung my jacket and shirt off until I was standing in front of everyone I'd known in my life in only a bra and jeans. My arms and neck mangled from suicide attempts and Fateor collections, even the imprint of Sam's teeth in my stomach and back were there for the world to see. Exposed.
"Is that what you wanted to see?" I screamed, the slight grip I had on sanity slipping. "Is this what makes you think I'm of the devil? These scars I have inflicted upon myself, these wounds caused from my own pain? Yes, these are what I've been hiding. They are not of the devil but only by my own, pained hand. I'm not afraid to show you what I really am, even if it is something you're afraid of, because I am nothing to fear. I have given this family everything, have given away my life and my freedom to protect you, and for what? So you can think I am damned? There is only one evil being inside these walls, and it is John!" I charged him then, grabbing the wand from Adelaide's hand and stabbing it at John's throat, not that I knew how to use it or what it could do. "He is evil, and if you can't see that, then I can't help any of you!"
But John's calculated malevolence outpaced me, and he could turn any moment into an opportunity. So instead of cowering or further shaming me, he swallowed hard and then spoke loudly and clearly. "Now is the time to make your choice. Either go with your family and God, or go with Sadie, the Winters, and their evil," John said.
"I'm with Sadie!" Hannah cried out. "And if you have any loyalty to this family, you will be too. I have seen the future, and Sadie is good."
"I'm with Sadie," Sarah said. That was as much as I could hope to get out of the elders, I was sure.
Ben stumbled to his feet. "I'm with Sadie," he said.
And then there was silence. 132 Survivors said nothing.
I picked up my jacket and shirt and faced them with as much dignity as I could muster. I put the wand in Adelaide's hands and said, "Destroy it."
And then we waited.
As the silence continued, John searched for deserters one last time. "Are any willing to sell your souls to the devil?"
Then the screaming began. The final nail in my coffin. Catherine dropped to the ground, seizing and wailing, crying out in gibberish until one clear word rang again and again. "Ssssaaaaddddieeeeee. Sssssadie! Sadie is doing this to meee!" she cried. The Survivors were on their feet by then, hands over mouths, tears streaming down cheeks.
"Stop it!" they called, desperate. "Sadie, stop!"
"I'm not doing anything!" I yelled. Hannah was right. It was just like Salem —spectral evidence and all. The crowd began to move in on us, terrified, confused, and angry. "Winters, get Cole, Hannah, Sarah, and Ben out of here. Now." Catherine continued to cry out. "Mark, go to the apothecary. Get all the elixir and incantation books." They bolted at my behest.
"Stop it! Stop it!" the family cried. "You're hurting her."
"I'm not doing anything!" I screamed again, sickeningly aware of the futility of my efforts.
John only laughed. "Don't you see, children!" he said to the roused crowd. "She is torturing your elder! Sadie has the devil in her. Sadie will ruin us all."