“I said, leave her.”
Francis nodded and returned to Balthazar’s side. Professor Warnick looked up at Baby Joe and Hasel and me. “Get back to the house. Go, all of you!”
“Come on!” cried Hasel. He and Baby Joe began running up the long rise to the Orphic Lodge, dragging me between them. After a few steps I turned to look back.
In the darkened hollow they waited: the dead bull; the fallen boy; the silent guardian; the fool. Of Angelica I saw nothing. Balthazar Warnick crouched above Oliver, his hands moving quickly across the boy’s groin. Oliver’s face was so white that I feared he was dead. But then he moved his head slightly from side to side. He opened his eyes very wide and stared straight up into the sky, as though he saw something there, something glorious and terrible. Even from here I could see how angry Francis was: almost literally hopping with rage.
“But she’s got it!” His words sounded thin and clear, as though plucked from wires. “We can’t let her go, she’s—”
Warnick turned to him, his eyes burning. “It’s too late, Francis. Go to the lodge and call an ambulance. Get my car ready in case it doesn’t come right away.”
“But—”
Warnick’s voice shook as he shouted, “It’s been done, Francis. It’s too late now—”
He staggered to his feet. Oliver made a noise like gurgling laughter, his eyes still fixed on the horizon. Baby Joe and Hasel halted. Without speaking we all turned to where Balthazar Warnick pointed at the eastern sky.
There, above the unbroken line of leafless birch and sturdy conifers, above the tumbled stones and dying ferns, a pale light glimmered. As we watched, the frailest, most delicate arc of a crescent moon rose above the trees. A new moon where no moon should be; a new moon when the heavens should hold only its darkest quarter. Balthazar’s voice rang out, taut with wonder and dread.
“—She’s not sleeping anymore.”
CHAPTER 9
The Harrowing
BY THE TIME I reached our room, the entire lodge was in an uproar. Lights were flicking on everywhere, yawning students peered out their doors while the housekeeper Kirsten waited grimly by the front door like the old mansion’s Cerberus, glaring at anyone who ventured down the steps. Annie stood in the corridor, white-faced, her hair sticking up like a porcupine’s.
“Sweeney! What happened? Where’s Angelica?”
I shoved past her into the room and raced from one window to the next, yanking each open and leaning out, desperately scanning the night for what I needed to see: Angelica and Oliver laughing together as they walked back up to the lodge.
But instead there was only darkness, the sweeping shadows of me mountains and a few faint stars blinking wanly beneath the sickle moon. I pulled my head away from the open casement and stared at Annie. My breast ached with fear and hopeless longing, a palpable throbbing pain as acute as though I had been stabbed.
“She’s gone.”
“Gone? What do you mean, gone?”
“I mean I don’t know where she is.” I went from the window to Angelica’s bed and stared down at the neat worn coverlet, her bulging cosmetics bag, the little case that held her contact lens solution.
She won’t get far, Sheriff. She rode off without her eyeliner.
“You don’t know where she is?” Annie’s voice rose to a hysterical pitch. “Jesus! What happened—”
Through the open windows came a sudden high wailing. It grew louder and louder, perfect counterpoint to my anguished thoughts. Crimson light streaked the trees, strobing from red to black to red.
“No!” I ran into the hall, but Annie stopped me.
“Sweeney, what happened? You have to tell me, you can’t just take off like this—where is she?”
“I don’t know!” I yelled. “She took off! Something—something happened, something with her and Oliver—”
“Drugs? Was it drugs?”
“No, it wasn’t drugs, I wish it was drugs! Angelica split and Oliver, he tried to—he—”
“Goddamn it!” Annie tore across the room to her bed and started throwing clothes into a knapsack. “I knew it, I knew I should have gone with you.” The ambulance’s siren went dead, although its ghoulish light show continued. “Where’s my stuff? Did you do something with my other bag? Oh, god, why’d I stay here—”
Grief and fear exploded inside me. “Christ, Annie, what do you think you could have done? Some kind of, of witchcraft, what could you have done about that! These people are crazy; Angelica is crazy and you think you could have stopped her?”
“I would have stopped her! I would never have let her go—”
“There was nothing you could have done.”
We whirled to face the door. There stood Balthazar Warnick, one delicate hand resting upon the wooden jamb. On his forehead a vein throbbed, and he brushed distractedly at it, as though it were a fly. His sweater was covered with dirt and leaves and blood.
“You shouldn’t have interfered,” he added wearily; though I was unsure if he was talking to me, or Annie, or himself. “Katherine Cassidy, I want you to come with me.”
I stiffened. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Professor Warnick shook his head. “No one will hurt you. We’re sending you back to the city, that’s all.”
“Why can’t we stay here?” Annie’s voice cracked and she clutched her knapsack protectively to her chest. “Why can’t we leave in the morning?”
“You can leave in the morning with the others. Miss Cassidy has to leave now.”
“Why?” I started to cry. I hated myself but couldn’t help it. “What’s going on? Where’s Oliver—”
“They’re taking him to the hospital. I think he’s all right, just a bad cut although he did lose some blood.” He ran his hand across the front of his sweater and winced. “Come on, Katherine. Pack your things.”
“No. I’m not going with you.”
“Do yourself a favor,” snapped a nasal voice, and Francis Connelly loomed behind Balthazar. He looked more shaken than I would have expected, but his eyes were cold. “Just shut up and come with us, okay?”
“Francis.” Professor Warnick turned to him angrily. “It’s under control. I told you to go to the hospital—”
“But it looks like—”
“I will meet you there,” Professor Warnick went on smoothly, but his voice had a dangerous edge. Francis stared at him, as though waiting for him to change his mind, finally nodded, and shot me a last disdainful glance. When he was gone Balthazar looked at me sorrowfully.
“Sweeney.” He’d never called me that before; his tone was so gentle that my silent tears gave way to sobs. “You have to come with me.”
“What are you doing?” Annie flung her arm protectively around my shoulders. In her too-long Snoopy T-shirt she looked like a kid fighting bedtime. “You can’t just take her—”
Professor Warnick sighed. “We’ve found drug paraphernalia in Miss Cassidy’s dorm room. Marijuana, some kind of mushrooms—”
“Hey! You didn’t have—” said Annie, but I cut her off.
“You were in my room? Who let you in my room—”
“I don’t believe it!” yelled Annie. “This is a setup, it’s a fucking—”
“I have a responsibility to the University,” Balthazar said coolly. “The penalty for drug possession is mandatory expulsion.”