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the music the others still made. My feet had begun a bright, excited dance entirely of their own volition,
and the coven as a whole circled the fire, crushing half steps closer to the flame.
Power built in its heart, a core of white expanding. I wanted to kneel down and touch it, but the under-
the-skin ache of sunburn stopped me. My own powers, meant for healing or not, wouldn t stop me from
developing some lovely third-degree burns if I stuck my hand into a bonfire.
I was almost dancing in the fire now as it was, singing the few bright sounds I could anticipate. I closed
my eyes, tilting my head back, and lifted my hands up toward the sky. The music made me feel like my
feet were only bound to the ground by habit. I wondered if that was how Virissong felt: bound by time
and habit to a world he fled to in hopes of saving his own. It was too late now; his world had been gone
for eons.
For a moment, that thought seemed very important.
The coven s song reached a crescendo, and ended.
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Silence thundered in my ears, so loud my eyes flew open.
And my goddamned vision inverted again, the flames turning white with flickering gray cores. Blackened
branches glowed crimson and white, the fire s center bubbling a malicious, murky purple. I shook my
head, trying to clear away the reversal of colors as I realized the song had been more than just music. It
was a spell.
Power exploded upward.
It erupted from the heart of the fire, slamming into the atmosphere so hard it cracked the sky. Darkness
boiled down from the stars, shredding the evening sky. Somebody screamed.
Things poured out of the darkness. They were pale, wraithlike, blues and grays and whites against a
blackness so encompassing I couldn t breathe. The fire was a single point of illumination, but even its
colors were wrong, struggling through my reversed vision. Sheets of flat color ripped through the sky,
like I imagined the aurora to look, only in grayscale or shades of purples and blues that seemed too deep.
Spirits leaped from the colored sheets, in shapes and forms I had no frame of reference for. They were
horrible, distorted and cruel, their faces pulled long to accommodate teeth meant for tearing and rending.
They were neither human nor animal, and sometimes not even something in between. They taloned their
hands, clutching at me, at the coven, then whisked away through the black power. They were made up of
legends: names for some of them settled behind my ear bones, painfully intense knowledge that forced its
way into the front of my mind. Stone giants called a-senee-ki-wakw; flint-winged monsters from the
stars; mistai who haunted the dark and sad places.
They hated. Trapped for more time than I could comprehend, they only wanted to be free and to wreak
destruction on a world that had rejected them. Panic surged up in my stomach, making me cold as I
scrabbled for a foothold against them, anything that could help me build a wall and stop Hell from being
unleashed on Earth. I had no support from the coven: they held fast, pulling the edges of darkness farther
open. I spared one glance around the fire, hoping to find the desperation I felt in at least one face.
Instead, I found ecstasy.
Faye s blond hair was strung out wildly, her mouth open and head flung back. Her skin glowed blue, as if
she stood under black lights, her eyes dark pits and her open mouth swallowing down, or injecting,
power. She looked like she was screaming, but her expression held fierce joy, not fear.
At the third point of the triangle, Marcia stood with her teeth bared, a terrible grimace distorting her face.
But I could see and feel the power emanating from her; there was no rejection in her. From one face to
another, I saw the same things. Even Garth, whose earnestness I had trusted, cried out in silent, joyful
abandon, tears spilling down his cheeks.
I set my teeth together and prepared to dig down to the core of my being, and call up the power to stop
this. There was a gut-level certainty in me: even if the earth itself were willing to share power with me,
the effort would kill me. I wished, desperately, that I d said goodbye to Gary.
And then, like Pandora s Box, hope came.
Nothing outward changed: the silence still shrieked in my ears, the sky still boiled black. But the intent of
the specters pouring out of the black hole we d created seemed to change. The body-confused chill of
sunburn swept up from my bones, making me shiver, making a bubble of sickness in my tummy. I
swayed, and the boy next to me, more aware than I expected, put his hand under my elbow, supporting
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me. I glanced at him; his eyes shone with hope and excitement, even through my distorted vision.
Spirits like the ones who d tumbled and mock-fought over Gary filled the sky. One caught my eye, a lion
with tufts missing from his mane, and I wondered if the badger was nearby, carrying a tawny victory
prize. More fantastical creatures, honochenokeh who were benevolent spirits; oni which had no visible
form, but were life-force personified; other beings, some nearly human and some from pure legend, rolled
out of the gap, chasing down their nightmare counterparts and disappearing into the sky. I looked for the
thunderbird, and for Coyote, but saw neither of them in the mad rush. Even so, a sense of safety
overwhelmed me.
The fire burned out in one impossible burst, swallowing the sparks it had thrown at the stars just one
breath earlier. The column of power cut off, and all around me the coven members collapsed to their
knees, as if they d been supported by nothing more than the sky-rending light. The rip of blackness sealed
shut, leaving twilight skies again, and suddenly I could hear distant voices.
They weren t laughing anymore. They were raised in alarm and confusion: the overhead activity hadn t
gone unnoticed, even if our bonfire had. I stared up at the sky, trying to grasp the implications of what
we d done, when Garth grabbed my arm.
 It s time to go, he said in a low, urgent voice. I startled and shook him off, staring first at him and then
at the other coven members, who were scrambling to their feet and hurrying away.
 What? Why?
 Because that was way too much magic to hide. Can t you hear people coming? We ll get in trouble if
we re found around the smoking ruins of a bonfire in the middle of the park. Garth was smiling brightly
at me, his colors fading from inversed.  Did you see it, Joanne? Did you see what we did?
I looked back up at the healed sky.  We let monsters into the world.
 Light and dark, he said earnestly.  We can t have the good without the bad. You felt all the goodness,
too, didn t you?
I nodded slowly. The strength of the spirit animals and benevolent ghosts still lingered beneath my skin. I
remembered Colin s snake, and Gary s tortoise, and smiled suddenly. They d have a lot of company now.
My vision went completely black, and I fell over.
Monday, June 20, 5:04 a.m.
I woke up around dawn, more feeling the time in my sunburned bones than actually knowing it. The
ceiling above me was unfamiliar, gold sparkles mixed in with the ridges of plaster. The corners of the
room seemed dim, which, after a few moments consideration, I realized was due to the lights being off. I [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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