Spellcaster

The Book of Shadows—it hit that barrier, and it was like—like an explosion or something—

“Cole! Nadia!” The inside of the car was almost entirely dark now that the lights were as dead as the engine, but she could make out the shadow of her father trying to clamber into the backseat with them. “Are you all right?”

“We’re okay,” Nadia managed to gasp.

“The water—”

“I see it!” Already the muck was rising—or was the car sinking? Nadia couldn’t tell.

Dad stopped trying to get in the back with them; instead he managed to push open the passenger-side front door and climb out of the car. For one moment, Nadia felt crazy terror stab her—he’s left us, where’s Dad, where’s Dad?—but then Cole’s door opened and Dad reached inside to pull her little brother free.

“Daddy!” Cole wailed as he clamped his arms around their father’s neck. Raindrops fell into the car now, hard and stinging. Nadia managed to undo the straps of his safety seat, so Dad could lift him.

“That’s right. Daddy’s here. Nadia, I’m going to get Cole out of this ditch and come right back for you. Right back! Hang on!”

Nadia nodded, too quickly, because her whiplash-stung neck ached. She clawed at her seat belt, freeing herself just as the water rose high enough to wash over one of her legs. The seat belt had been keeping her out of the mud, and she tumbled into it. It was cold—so cold the mere touch of it numbed her to the bone. A long scrape along her forearm stung tears into her eyes. She was clumsy now, and even more afraid than before. But it didn’t matter as long as she could still climb out.

She braced her feet against the armrest and tried to stand; she was dizzy, but she could do it. Where was her father? Was he all right?

Lightning flashed. In the blaze of that sudden light, Nadia glimpsed someone above her.

He was her age, perhaps. Dark hair, dark eyes, though she could tell nothing else in the night and the rain. But in that flash of lightning, she’d already seen that he was beautiful—so much that she wondered if the crash had dazed her into seeing phantoms, delusions, angels. Thunder rolled.

“Take my hand!” he shouted, reaching into the wreck.

Nadia grabbed his hand. His fingers wrapped around her wrist, and they felt like the only warmth in the world. She let him tow her upward, helping him by climbing as best she could. Rain spattered against her face and hands as she emerged from the wreckage, and her rescuer slung one arm around her waist to pull her away from the car, onto the nearby bank of the ditch they’d crashed into.

As they flopped onto the muddy ground, lightning crashed again, painting his face in eerie blue. He must have seen her more clearly, too, because he whispered, “Oh, my God. It’s you.”

She drew in a sharp breath. This guy knew her?

How could he know her when she didn’t know him?

Next to them were Dad and Cole. “Thank you,” her father breathed, clutching one side as if in pain; Nadia only then realized he’d been injured.

“Dad! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said, though his whole body was stiff with pain. “I was able to call 911 while our new friend—what’s your name?”

“Mateo.”

Nadia turned back to him, but Mateo was already looking away from her, as if unwilling to meet her eyes. He, too, was gasping for breath; the rescue couldn’t have been much less frightening for him than the crash had been for her.

But how could he know her? Did he know her? Was she imagining things in the aftermath of the wreck?

“While Mateo helped you. We’ll—we’ll be all right.”

“What happened?” Cole sniffled. He clung to his father as if afraid he might fall in the ditch again.

Nadia scooted closer to them so she could take her little brother’s hand. “It’s okay, buddy. We’re okay. We had a wreck, that’s all.”

“Sometimes cars hydroplane during a storm.” Dad breathed in and out through his nose, hand still braced against his ribs. “That means the tires are actually on the water instead of the road. It can be dangerous. I really thought—I thought we were going slow enough to avoid that—”

“You weren’t doing anything wrong.” Nadia wished she could have told her father not to blame himself, but he could never understand what had just happened to them, or why.

She turned back to see her mysterious rescuer—Mateo—but he was gone. Peering through the rain and gloom, Nadia tried to make out where he might be. He couldn’t have gotten far. But she couldn’t find him; it was as if he’d vanished.

Her father, distracted with pain and Cole’s fear, didn’t seem to notice that Mateo had left. “We’re okay,” he kept repeating, rocking her little brother back and forth. “We’re all okay, and nothing else matters.”

In the distance, sirens wailed, and she could make out the beat of red-blue lights from a far-off police car or ambulance. Help was on the way, yet Nadia shivered from the cold and the adrenaline and the pent-up fear.

She glanced upward to see that they’d damaged a sign in the wreck. Leaning to one side, rocking back and forth in the wind of the storm, was a placard emblazoned with the words WELCOME TO CAPTIVE’S SOUND.

She’s real.

Mateo stood in the woods, his back to a tree, as he watched the police see to the family he’d just helped. An ambulance had pulled up for the father, but there didn’t seem to be any particular rush for them to get to the hospital. Nobody was hurt too badly. Good.