Chapter Eight
Monica walked me home. We made no mention of the fact that I’d pissed myself, or that the cops had held me illegally for over twelve hours. In truth, it wasn’t so much because I was embarrassed, but because I didn’t want to believe something like that had actually happened. It was horrifying to think about. I’d spent my whole life in this sleepy little town, and it seemed impossible to believe that things were changing so quickly – and so much for the worse – right before my eyes.
I felt powerless. I felt helpless. And I felt terrified, even more so than I’d been when Monica had first disappeared and basically all of the adults refused to believe me when I said something sinister was going on.
At my front stoop, Monica hugged me.
“Promise me you’re not going away again,” I said. “Promise me. I couldn’t handle that, not after everything that’s happened.”
Monica gave me a weak smile. “I wish,” she said. She sighed heavily. “The truth is, Elizabeth, most of the time, I can’t control it.” Her brown eyes filled with tears, and she blinked them away, tilting her sharp chin to the cloudy sky. “The first few times I disappeared…well, it wasn’t because I went looking for them, you know?”
My heart sank. I nodded. “Yeah,” I said softly. “I get it.”
“But I’ll try,” Monica said fiercely. “Besides,” she added, “you’d still be in jail if it wasn’t for me.” She shuddered, apparently even more disturbed by that thought than I was. “I can’t disappear only for you to skip curfew again.”
I shivered. “No,” I echoed, “you can’t.”
“What happened, anyway?”
I sighed. “I was with Steven. We drove out to the lake, and then his stupid car wouldn’t start, and by the time we got back, it was already past seven-thirty. I told him to let me out so I could walk. I figured his parents would care way more about the curfew than mine.”
Monica wrinkled her nose. “So, things are going okay between two of you?”
For a moment, I almost caved. I almost told her how irritated I’d felt with him recently, especially after what had happened the last time I’d been at his house. I almost told her about how he waited on Andrea hand and foot, like some kind of weird, obsessed servant.
But when I looked at my best friend, I realized how stressed she was. Her pale face was more gaunt than usual, and there were dark circles under her round, brown eyes. She was glancing at me with a glimmer of hope.
“Yeah,” I said finally. “Things are okay between us.”
Monica gave me a hug, and I trudged inside, more conscious of my body odor than ever before. I’d hoped to slink up quietly to my room, but Mom was standing in the kitchen with her hands on her hips. The angry look on her face sent chills down my spine.
“Elizabeth, do you mind telling me where the hell you’ve been?” Mom’s face was streaked with dried tears, and she looked awful.
I started to shake. “A cop picked me up last night,” I said unsteadily. “I was walking home after meeting Steven, and it was just after seven-thirty.”
My mom glared at me. “You expect me to believe that? Really, Elizabeth,” she said, throwing her arms in the air. “I’m starting to think that Monica is a bad influence on you!”
I narrowed my eyes. “What the heck does she have to do with anything?”
Mom rolled her eyes. “You know, Elizabeth. She’s so free spirited! She just runs off everywhere, and her parents don’t even care.” Before I could refute Mom’s claims, she wagged a finger at me. “And don’t think for a second that just because you’re turning sixteen soon you’re going to get away with the same behavior!”
“Mom, it really wasn’t like that,” I said quickly. “Call downtown. They have a record of keeping me.”
My mom sighed heavily. “You really got in deep, huh?”
I frowned. “I’m not lying. This cop – some deputy, I don’t remember his name – pulled me off the street and took me downtown.” I held out my arms and pulled my sleeves up, showing my raw, bruised wrists. “They put plastic cuffs on me and kept my arms behind my back. Then they put me in this room. I was in there, alone, with no food or water or anything, for, like, twelve hours!”
My mom frowned. She came forward, gingerly pressing her fingers against my wounded wrists. The anger on her face faded, and she stepped away, grabbing the kitchen phone and holding it tightly against her ear.
I waited in silence as Mom called the police department.
“Hello, I need to speak to whomever has your log book for the past few days,” Mom said. “This is very urgent.”
My stomach sank, and I slumped down into a kitchen chair. When Monica had first rescued me, I’d been starving. But now I felt nauseous again, sick with fear and worry. It was crazy. I knew that I wasn’t lying; I knew that I’d been at the police station all night and some of the morning. But I still expected them to lie to my mother. I still expected her to hang up and punish me, ground me for some transgression I didn’t even commit.
My mom was white in the face when she hung up the phone.
“Elizabeth, there has to be something else wrong here,” she said sternly. “You can tell me. They didn’t provide much information.”
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I swear, I was just walking in the snow, and they picked me up.”
My mom’s shoulders sagged. Fresh tears glinted in her eyes, and she shook her head.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Mom said slowly, “but try and stay out of trouble, okay?”
I nodded. “Okay.” I swallowed and bobbed my head again, once more, for emphasis.
Aidan came downstairs, clutching his backpack. When he saw me, his eyes got wide.
“Holy crap you were gone all night!”
“Yeah,” I said miserably. “I was at the police station all night. They picked me up because I missed curfew.”
Aidan’s eyes got even wider. “Whoa,” he said. “Cool!”
“No,” I said sharply, pushing past him and running up the stairs. “Definitely not cool.”
---
I was gladder than anything that school was out for winter break. Aidan was at some kind of all-day sports clinic, and obviously, Mom and Dad had to work. I was grateful for the time alone. Besides, I was in no mood to go sit for eight hours and listen to teachers drone on about things that mattered significantly less than real life. I know it sounds dramatic – all teenagers think their personal shit is more important than learning about the French Revolution and laissez faire economics. But right now, I couldn’t think of a single thing more important than saving the town I’d grown up in from absolute madness.
After a long shower, I spent the day in bed, napping fitfully. I kept waking up hot and sweaty, twisted in my sheets. My wrists still throbbed, and I wondered if, at this point, the pain was purely imagined.
Thankfully, at least, I didn’t dream. When I woke up for the last time, it was after four. The house was still silent, and I yawned and stretched before reaching for my phone and texting Monica. Honestly, I was surprised to hear back from her. Despite our conversation this morning, part of me wondered if she was planning to take off again, maybe this time for good.
‘Not that I could blame her,’ I thought darkly as I pressed ‘send.’ ‘I don’t blame her for wanting to get away from here. The whole fucking town has gone insane.’
A loud knocking at the door made me jump. I pulled on my bathrobe and ran downstairs, half expecting to see Steven, or even Monica. When I opened the door and saw an official from the church as well as a cop, I almost screamed.
“Hello,” the cop said. He glanced down at his clipboard. “Are you Elizabeth Hartsell?”
I swallowed in fear. “Yeah,” I said. I crossed my arms over my chest. “Why? What’s going on?”
The cop exchanged a glance with the church official. It wasn’t someone I’d met before, but he looked intimidating in long, white robes with a white collar at his throat.
“You’ve been reported,” the cop said. “By an…Aidan?”
My stomach plummeted to the ground. “Aidan?” I narrowed my eyes in disbelief. “That’s my brother,” I said quickly. “I can’t believe he would’ve done something like that.”
“You’ve been reported for having inappropriate relations,” the church official said. He leered at me, leaning in close. “And we need to speak with your parents.”
“They’re not home,” I said quickly. My mind was racing, and my palms were sweating. If they tried to take me back to jail, I had no idea what to do. Mom wouldn’t be home for hours, and if Aidan really had reported me, I couldn’t trust anyone in my own family.
“May we wait for them?”
“No,” I said quickly. I slammed the door in their faces. “Go away!” I yelled loudly.
I locked the door and pushed the deadbolt through the bar before running into the kitchen and making sure all of the windows were latched. Thankfully, every room in the house was secured. But now that fear had struck again, I couldn’t calm down. I was sweating and panicking, and my heart was blipping fast in my chest, as if I’d just run a long marathon.
I shuddered. I could still hear the cop and the church guy talking outside the door in low tones. When I pressed my ear to the door, I couldn’t hear anything above murmurs. ‘Go away,’ I begged silently. ‘Please, just leave me alone and forget all about me!’
After what felt like an eternity, I heard footsteps fading away. Sickened with relief, I slunk into the kitchen and sat at the table, staring dully at my phone. Angry, confused thoughts were swirling around in my head. Why had Aidan, my own brother, reported me to the cops? And for what? I hadn’t done anything wrong. If anything, they were the ones who owed me an explanation.
The sound of another knock at the door made me jump out of my skin, and for a moment, I wanted to run upstairs and throw myself into bed.
“Elizabeth, it’s me,” Monica called loudly. She knocked again, her tiny fist gently pounding on the door. “Come on, let me in!”
I raced up from the chair and sped into the foyer, unlocked the door, and pulled Monica inside. When she looked at me, her brown eyes went wide with alarm.
“What happened to you?” Monica asked quickly. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost or something!”
I shuddered. “Another cop came by with someone from the church,” I said quickly. “He said that Aidan reported me…I don’t know! Some shit about ‘inappropriate relations!’ Do you even know what that means?”
Monica wrinkled her nose. “It means sex,” she said bluntly. “I bet he got an incentive to do that.”
Now it was my turn to stare in disbelief. “What? What the hell does that even mean?”
Monica sighed. She walked into the living room and flopped down in my dad’s armchair. She was so light that even when she leaned against the back, the foot rest didn’t pop up.
“I heard something about the younger kids getting bribes if they ratted people out for bad behavior,” Monica said. She grimaced. “It’s like Nazi Germany or something.”
I shivered. “Yeah,” I said slowly. “This is unbelievable.”
Monica nodded. We fell into silence. For a few moments, the only thing I could hear was the blood pounding in my ears.
“I wish I could do something to help,” I said softly. “Like, maybe I could…” I bit my lip, feeling incredulous. In the span of just a few days, I’d gone from hardcore skeptic to someone who actually believed in witches.
Monica raised an eyebrow. “Don a cape and save the world?”
I snickered. “No,” I said. Unfortunately, she’d hit closer to the truth than I was really willing to acknowledge.
“Then what?” Monica turned to me.
“I don’t know,” I said, feeling helpless. I swallowed. “I know it sounds crazy, but…” I trailed off. “I believe you now. I believe all of that stuff about witches and power.” Tears filled my eyes. “I feel insane,” I added softly. “I feel like this is a crazy, stupid dream, and we’re never going to wake up.”
Monica sighed. “I know what you mean,” she said heavily. “If you’d told me about this months ago, I never would have believed you.”
I nodded.
“My parents, you know, they’re being controlled,” Monica said thinly. She laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “This witch – well, he’s a warlock actually – is really powerful. He’s been the one controlling them, ever since before I disappeared for the first time.”
My eyes widened. “You’re kidding.”
Monica shook her head and gave me a bitter smile. “No,” she said. “I wish.”
“Have you…” I felt ludicrous even saying the words aloud, but I knew I had to ask. “Have you, you know, tried to counter that?”
Monica’s thin shoulders slumped, and she nodded miserably. “Yeah,” she said. “But he’s too strong. He’s much more powerful than I am.”
“How many of you are there?”
Monica bit her lip. “A few,” she said. She counted on her fingers. “Thirteen,” she said finally. “At least, now. Henrik and Ligeia told me that years ago, when people were less skeptical, they had many more members.”
I stared at her. I couldn’t believe she was talking so candidly about this. We were having a cool, collected conversation – almost like we were talking about the news, or the weather.
“What do you have to do to join?”
Monica eyed me. “Don’t, Elizabeth,” she said. “It’s not worth it.”
I frowned. “How can you say that? You’re doing something. You’re actually helping!
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Monica exclaimed. “I had no idea about any of this until a few months ago!”
“Please,” I begged. “Please, talk to them and let me join. Let me help you. I want to help.”
Monica sighed. “I don’t think that’s going to work.”
“Why not?”
“Just because.”
“Come on,” I demanded. “At least give me one reason!”
Monica shook her head. She shut her lips together in a tight, white line. “No,” she said softly. “I can’t.”
“Why not?” I demanded. “Ten minutes before you got here, some cop showed up and he wanted to take me away again! Are you going to let this happen? You can’t just waltz into the police station and save everyone in town!”
Monica looked hurt. “Of course, I’ll always help you,” she said quietly. “You’re my best friend.”
“So, let me help you,” I begged. “Please, Monica, I’ll do anything.”
Monica sighed and shook her head. “No,” she said softly.
“Please?” I stared at my best friend, pleading with my eyes. “Please,” I repeated.
“Stay out of this,” Monica hissed. She glared at me. “I told you, no!”