As she said it, the five of us looked out our windows expecting to see acres of flat, indiscriminant buildings. But there was nothing there.
“What are we looking at?” Peter asked.
“I have no idea,” I muttered, straining my eyes to see in the dark. I pulled the car over and turned off the engine. Getting out, I let the door slam behind me, not even waiting for the others to follow. The street was empty as I crossed it, and all I could hear was the sound of crickets as they chirped in the night, followed by the echo of my heels hitting the pavement.
As I made my way to the other side of the road, I started to get a nervous feeling in my stomach, which always told me when something bad was about to happen. My fear threatened to turn into panic and my breath caught in my throat as I stepped up onto the sidewalk. I didn’t even realize that my hands had covered my mouth to stifle a scream. But the scream came anyway, a shrill cry in the quiet night. Only it wasn’t me; it came from one of the other girls just behind me.
Funny, I hadn’t even heard them come up.
I tried to speak, but for some reason I couldn’t. My mind had shut down and the rest of the world was quickly slipping away.
Because in front of me, on that chilly, dark evening, I was standing out on the sidewalk and looking at the last place my mom was known to be.
And the whole thing was burned to the ground.
Chapter Seven
I don’t remember the drive home. At some point I must have told Jasmine to call an emergency meeting with the other twitches. Someone tried reaching Jackson again, but only succeeded in getting his voice mail. Either he’d been with the rest of the elders, which was highly possible, or he was out there and unable to connect with us. Whichever it was, it became clear at that point that we were on our own.
By now, I would’ve done just about anything to get away from the wreckage that used to be the construction warehouse. Even if it meant going home and telling the others what I feared had happened.
There had been so much wreckage.
As soon as I had realized exactly what it was I was looking at, I’d gone numb with fear. The place was a charred mess. Everything was burned to the ground, and what wasn’t completely incinerated was covered in black soot, masking any evidence of what had once been standing in its spot. One look at the steaming acre of burned wood and steel and I knew nothing had survived.
And no one.
Before I knew what I was doing, I began to stagger forward, stepping onto the brittle remains of the grounds, not realizing until I’d already walked a few feet that the remnants were hot enough to melt the bottoms of my shoes.
That’s when I knew I was officially out of it. I was aware that my brand-new Jimmy Choos were being destroyed and I didn’t stop walking. I just didn’t care. I kept moving forward, even as I slipped on the loose pieces of debris below my feet. I slowed down only when something caught my eye among the sea of black.
It was shiny and small.
I veered over to see what had been reflecting the light of the moon, approaching where I thought the glint was coming from. The ground wasn’t as hot here and I crouched down, hoping to see a little better.
There it was again. Just a tiny hint of gold among the darkness.
I got down on my hands and knees and began to pick through the ashes and toss burned-up objects behind me. Clawing through the debris, I briefly wondered if I’d been seeing things, and then my hand hit something warm and smooth in the dust. Carefully withdrawing my hand from the mess, I knew from the feel of it that it had a chain. Either a necklace or a medal, maybe. Pulling the scarf out of my hair, I spit on the object and begin to polish it. A thought came to mind about how disgusted my girlfriends would be to see me crawling around in the dirt and spit-shining trash, and I found I didn’t care.
All I cared about was trying to figure out what the hell had happened here. And whether our worst fears had actually come true.
When I was sure I’d gotten the object in my hands as clean as I could without taking it to my jeweler, I tossed my scarf aside and held it up in front of me—and gasped.
It was a gold necklace, thin and delicate, with a pendant about an inch in size attached. The medallion read, “Be the change you wish to see in the world,” and it hung from a fourteen-inch chain. The piece was beautiful and obviously handmade.
And completely familiar to me.
It was the same necklace my mom had worn as far back as I could remember. My dad and I had both bought her other jewelry over the years—some expensive, some one-of-a-kind, one piece was even priceless—but she never took off the necklace engraved with the quote from Gandhi.
Except she wasn’t wearing it now, because it was here in my hand, covered in soot and still warm from the fire. As I thought about what that meant, my head drooped to my chest, defeated.
That was when I officially checked out.
After that I somehow made it back to the car. The others filed in after me, everyone dealing with their grief in different ways. Without my suggesting it, Jasmine told the rest of the coven to meet at my house ASAP. Her usually sarcastic tone had been replaced with one that was softer, kinder. The last thing I wanted was a bunch of kids running around my house—my parents’ house—but I didn’t have the energy to argue. I was having a hard enough time keeping us on the road because my eyes kept blurring with tears.
“Throw your stuff wherever,” I mumbled as we walked inside. The monotone voice that came out didn’t sound like my own and I had to look around to confirm that I’d actually spoken. I locked eyes with the four of them for the first time since we’d left the Elm, and froze. I had no idea what to say. So I said what my mom would have if she’d been there.
“There’s food in the kitchen. Help yourselves. I have to…” I looked around for an excuse to leave the room but was having trouble forming complete sentences, let alone being creative. “. . . go somewhere,” I finished lamely. Not even waiting for a response, I turned away from my coven and trudged over to the stairs, climbing them slowly. I felt like I was moving through quicksand and by the time I’d reached the top, I was exhausted. And I was usually always energetic. A few kids had even nicknamed me the Energizer Bunny back in freshman year.
But now just existing felt hard.
My room was exactly how I’d left it a few hours before and I felt minor relief as soon as I saw all my stuff. I needed to feel the familiar. See things that gave me even a tiny bit of comfort. But before I could fully enjoy the homecoming, I heard someone follow me into my room.
“Hadley?” said a quiet voice. I recognized it as Sascha’s. She sounded much less peppy than usual and for this I was thankful. “I’m sorry to bug you but, um, everyone’s downstairs and we’re not sure what to do or where anything is.”
I looked at her blankly. I guess in my haste to get upstairs, I’d completely forgotten to show them where things were. I forced myself to concentrate on what she was asking and tried to be a better hostess. “There are pillows and blankets in the closet down the hall. People can either find a room or a chair to sleep in. The couch downstairs pulls out into a bed. It’s been a long day… let’s just regroup tomorrow.”
I turned around and walked over to my bed and collapsed face-first onto it. With minimal movement, I kicked my destroyed Choos onto the floor and buried my head in one of the pillows.
Sascha didn’t say anything else as she watched me retreat to my mattress, and after a few seconds I heard the shuffling of feet and then the door close.
I was finally alone.
I wasn’t sure exactly what woke me, but once my eyes sprang open, I lay in bed listening for what it might have been. But it was quiet. Well, except for the white noise ringing in my ears, which was almost more frightening than if I’d heard something go bump in the night. I wasn’t used to the stillness.