Steadfast(73)

“That word is almost meaningless to me now,” Verlaine replied, almost absentmindedly. “I guess I used to think some things were unbelievable, but I can’t remember any at the moment.”

Now to help Mateo recover—but how? Nadia didn’t know whether he was suffering from a new and more horrible aspect of his family’s curse, or some other spell of Elizabeth’s entirely. One of magic’s great powers was its mystery; it could be difficult to tell precisely what spells had been cast. Great if you were the spellcaster—not so great when the guy you loved was suffering.

But Mateo stirred, as if the warmth and their voices had awakened him from a nap. He opened his eyes just a crack. “Nadia?”

“Mateo!” She clutched his hand and was relieved to feel him squeeze back. “What happened?”

“The dreams—the ones from my—” Then he caught sight of Ms. Walsh and immediately froze. “I mean, I think I got dizzy. I passed out.”

“The dreams from your curse,” Ms. Walsh said. She smiled. “It’s okay. I’m a Steadfast, too.”

“Really?” Mateo looked back at Nadia, who nodded.

Verlaine cut in. “Wait. You said you’re Steadfast for your mother. But you said your mother was a witch, that she left you her Book of Shadows. Did you keep the powers after she died?”

Ms. Walsh kept smiling, but it was obviously a struggle now. A deep sadness filled her eyes. “My mother has Alzheimer’s. No spells overcome that, I’m afraid. She held on as long as she could, but a couple of years ago, she turned over her bracelet and spell book to me. Said she couldn’t be trusted to use them any longer. Now she’s in a home up in Boston. I go see her as often as I can. Sometimes she even knows me. But she’s not a witch anymore, not in any meaningful sense. Still, the Steadfast bond—it endures. Through everything.”

Nadia’s eyes met Mateo’s, and they each smiled. As terrifying as it was to remember they were bound together forever, their whole lives long—it was even more beautiful. In some ways, it was just proof of something they’d sensed the first time their eyes had met.

Sometimes Verlaine tried to write news stories in her head about her own life, just to get practice at summarizing quickly, and putting the most important information as the lede.

As near as she could tell, the front page for the Verlaine’s Life Gazette would read something like this:

END SERIOUSLY NIGH

Area Sorceress Near Completion of Bridge to Underworld Locals Feel Magical Effects: Earthquakes, Mysterious Illness, Demonic Incursion

Captive’s Sound came even closer to apocalypse today when Sorceress Elizabeth Pike initiated the final steps of her plan to bring demonic overlord the One Beneath into the mortal world. Should she succeed in completing her bridge between the underworld and our town, only a thin seal will remain between the world we’ve always known and total destruction.

Local witch Nadia Caldani, along with Steadfast Mateo Perez and stylish sidekick Verlaine Laughton, has been working tirelessly to stop Elizabeth Pike, with only limited success. Now, however, the Gazette has learned that Rodman High guidance counselor Faye Walsh is also a Steadfast and may have new insights about the magic being performed—perhaps enough to turn the tide.



That about summed it up, Verlaine thought. All she had to do was add Horoscopes, Page Five. And the horoscopes would be easy enough to do: Every single sign’s forecast would read Pray Really Hard.

“My dreams of the future aren’t waiting for me to fall asleep any longer,” Mateo explained. By now they were all seated around one of the big circular booths in the strange stillness of the closed restaurant. Nobody had even turned on the overhead lights, so the only illumination was the grayish excuse for sunlight that came through the windows. “It’s okay right now, but earlier—the dreams were taking me over. I couldn’t talk, couldn’t think, could hardly even move.”

Nadia never took her hand from his. “Elizabeth’s deepened the curse. I’m not sure why she’d do that, though. Your dreams help us sometimes, even though they hurt you.”

Ms. Walsh—no, Faye; she’d told them they could call her that off-campus—shook her head. “Elizabeth may not have a choice. The level of magic she’s performing now goes beyond anything even she would have done before. Right now all her magic may be intensifying at once. She can’t strengthen her influence in the world without strengthening every one of her curses, every one of her spells, at once.”

So, are people going to be even meaner to me? Verlaine wondered, then felt bad about even thinking it. The fate of the world was slightly more important than her social life. Besides, if the world ended, it would kind of be a moot point.

“She needs these people to suffer,” Nadia said. “All the ones she’s put in the hospital. And I’ve learned—the One Beneath uses emotions, a lot. He steals them. He takes them in trade.” She went silent for only a moment. “So maybe He uses them to build. Maybe those people’s pain is exactly what He’s using to build the bridge. I think pain is what the bridge is made of.”

Faye nodded. She looked . . . well, encouraged was too strong a word, but like they might be getting somewhere. “I went through my mother’s Book of Shadows, searching for something like a remedy for illness caused by witchcraft, something like that. I didn’t see anything, but you might.” From her leather satchel she pulled out a clothbound book. The cloth was plain, faded black, the kind of thing that generally didn’t earn a second glance. But Verlaine reminded herself that Nadia had said every Book of Shadows was different. Every Book of Shadows had its own power.