“How did that get there?” I asked, buttoning my shorts and stalking over to rip it from her grasp.
“Nat, I need you to remember everything.” She unzipped her duffel bag, removed a pouch, and waved it near my nose like smelling salts.
“What is that?” I asked, backing away.
“Bone ash and charred lavender buds.”
“Bone ash?” I repeated. The smoky scent stirred something in the basement of my memory, something made of shadows and secrets, like an old trunk locked away, its horrors hidden from sight. I imagined the trunk covered in thick dust, imagined blowing that dust away just like Vanessa blew the herbs and ash from my hand last night.…
“Oh my god.” I stumbled back and dropped onto the bed. From the stones in my yard to the animalistic howls that filled the night, everything came stampeding back. “What did you do to me?” I asked through gritted teeth. Talismans and cold-blooded animal sacrifice—these I could process, even if I couldn’t process my best friend’s involvement. What I could not wrap my head around was the chilling idea that someone could hijack my memories.
“I’m sorry, we just couldn’t have you asking questions last night. We had to make you forget.”
“You’re one of them,” I whispered. “A Malachian.”
I expected Lindsey to avert her brown eyes, to fidget her hands. Deep down, she had to know it was wrong to associate with murderous fanatics, no matter how charismatic or coercive they may be. But her expression struck an unnerving contrast with the pictures of us wearing goofy smiles displayed around the room. The dark strokes of her eyebrows were hard lines, her glittering smile and uninhibited laugh distant memories preserved only in the frames on the wall. “That’s not what we call ourselves,” she replied.
“You’re manipulating me. Twisting my preconceptions, making me think things are real that aren’t. Is this how the Malachians brought you into their cult?”
“Like I said, that’s not what we—”
“Fine, the Wardens. Whatever you want to call them, they killed the twelve boys in the sanctuary, didn’t they? In 1971?”
Lindsey rolled her eyes, a flippant response to murder. I wondered how I hadn’t noticed anything different about her until recently. Over the past six months, she had smiled, laughed, and socialized less. Her hips used to sway when she walked, but now her gait was plain, confident, square-shouldered, as if the cords of muscle framing her feminine curves had quietly become more pronounced. “I can’t answer your questions.”
“You’re going to have to.” I rose to her level, refusing to be intimidated. That competitiveness we shared was coming to the fore with a vengeance. “I’m not going to drop this.”
“I don’t want you to drop it. But last night wasn’t supposed to happen the way it did. You weren’t supposed to see what you saw yet, and Vanessa and I didn’t know what else to do. Miss Maggie was busy with something important, and she’s the only one who can answer your questions.”
“Why her?” I brushed my thumb over the Malachian mark—or Warden’s Rune—stamped into the cover of the journal. “Is she your leader? The Triad?”
“You heard that, huh?” she asked, defusing the tension by strolling around to look at the pictures of us. “She’s one of three. Kind of implied in the name.”
“What were you trying to protect me from last night? Was it them? Miss Maggie? The Triad?”
Lindsey turned. I saw the same fear in her eyes as last night. Whatever had been with us in the woods near the cabin elicited genuine terror. I just needed to find out if the Triad and what inspired that terror were one and the same.
Lindsey thought she was protecting me, but it was she who needed protection. She was in too deep.
“If you’re in danger, we need to tell Jason,” I pleaded, squeezing her arm. “Let’s tell your mom. I just want you to be safe.”
“You don’t understand…” She trailed off, biting into her bottom lip. “I literally can’t tell anyone anything, just like you literally couldn’t remember anything.”
“I overheard you and Vanessa talking about a blood oath,” I said gently. “Is a blood oath what’s stopping you? Is that why you have so many cuts?”
She didn’t acknowledge my question. We stared each other down. For all my fascination with cults, I had never learned how to “deprogram” a victim. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing and drive Lindsey away. But I didn’t want to fall down the rabbit hole myself.
“I don’t know whether your group is responsible for the last massacre or is just a weird Malachi fan club,” I said eventually, “but I’m going to the police. I’m your best friend, and I have no choice.”
“Will you tell them about your grandma?” Lindsey asked evenly. “You must have seen her contributions to the Book of Wisdom.”
My eyes narrowed. “This is bigger than my grandma’s reputation, and I’m not going to let you use her to shame me into silence.”
Lindsey raised an eyebrow, looking impressed at my gumption.
“Come with me to the sheriff’s office,” I pleaded. Even though I would let my grandmother’s name be dragged through the mud to save Lindsey, I wouldn’t do it lightly. “As long as you haven’t hurt anyone, they’re not going to punish you. You’re a victim.”
She didn’t move. I marched to the desk and reached around her to grab my keys and wallet, but she blocked me.
“I can’t let you do this,” she warned.
“Are you going to stop me? Hog-tie me and drag me to Miss Maggie’s doorstep?”
She shrugged, but it came off more aggressive than ambivalent. “I could if I wanted to.”
Scoffing, I tried again. She caught my wrist in a vise-like grip and muscled me back to the bed, tossing me on my stomach and pinning my arm behind my back.
“Stop!” I said, trying to keep my voice low.
She relented. I scrambled to face her and found her just as unruffled and determined as before. That maneuver had been effortless for her.
“There’s a better way that doesn’t involve fighting.”
“Better way to what?” I asked.
“Keep you from doing something boneheaded. You can take a blood oath and promise me that you won’t go to the police until after you’ve talked to Maggie.”
I laughed, a little madly. “I’m not doing that.”
“Listen, if it doesn’t work, you can go straight to the station. But if it works, maybe you can admit that this isn’t about murder and manipulation—it’s about magic, and there’s so much more for you to learn and understand before you cry wolf to people who can’t help us.”
I closed my eyes and massaged my temples. Her logic was sound, but I didn’t like it. “Fine,” I said.
She returned to her duffel and extracted a length of twine, a cloth, and a sheathed knife.
“Whoa!” I launched off the bed and dropped my voice to a harsh whisper. “What’s with the knife?”
“It’s a blood oath, Nat,” she whispered back. “What did you expect?”