The golden light behind her. The column behind her so like a tree. The fall of her hair, the expression on her face. He’d seen it before.
Mateo yanked Nadia down to the floor mere instants before Mr. Bender’s fist slammed into the column—just behind where her face had been. The paint cracked, creating a spiderweb around the brand-new dent.
“Hey, hey!” Now Mr. Caldani was furious, too. “What are you doing? That’s my daughter!”
“I—I thought—I was going for that other kid, the one who brought her the food—” Kendall’s father pulled his hand back; he’d struck the column hard enough to cut open his knuckles. If Nadia had still been standing there, she’d have suffered a black eye and a broken nose at the least, maybe even a concussion. He remembered the wet crack of bone he’d heard in his dreams and shuddered. Mateo leaned his head against her shoulder for a moment, grateful to have kept her safe. At least the curse was worth something.
“Daddy, Riley never ate anything!” Kendall wailed. “Why won’t you ever listen to me?”
Mr. Bender looked like he was in shock. Dad put one arm around Mr. Bender’s shoulders. “Listen to me, my friend. You’re not yourself. Your child’s sick. Let’s go look after her, okay? She needs you now.”
It worked. Mr. Bender finally went to the door, surrounded by his family, though he still seemed to be in a daze.
“Whoa.” Nadia slowly rose to her feet, and Mateo rose with her. “How did you know he was going to do that? Oh, wait. Was it one of your dreams?”
“Yeah. I didn’t understand it until just now.” He ran one hand through his hair. This was—not good. At all. “Did Elizabeth do this?”
“She was here. You didn’t see her, but I did.”
“Why? Why go after Kendall’s sister?”
“I still don’t know.” Nadia looked so lost, so sad, that Mateo wanted to take her into his arms.
But then her father was there, still irate at the man who had nearly hurt her, and her baby brother was sobbing. Mateo’s dad came up behind him. “We’re going to have to comp drinks and appetizers for every table,” he muttered, “just to make up for the disturbance, and if people start believing she actually ate something here that did this to her?”
“She didn’t. People will know that. It’s okay.”
“Wish I could believe you. But come on, help me clean this up. What the hell is that gunk on the floor?”Before his father could bend down to examine the smoldering black stuff, Mateo caught his arm. “Don’t touch it, Dad. No matter what you do, don’t touch it.”
Nadia had meant to go home with Dad and Cole; by now Cole was sobbing. Ever since Mom left, he got scared so easily. Something like this meant nightmares for sure. If she sang him to sleep, or rubbed his back, maybe it would help.
Just as they got to the car, though, Nadia looked up and saw a figure sitting on a corner bench, pale in the nighttime gloom. As always, Elizabeth wore a white dress. She hadn’t gone home; she just sat there with her hands folded, as though waiting for a bus.
“Go home without me,” Nadia said quietly to her father. “I’ll be there soon.”
Dad was too distracted to argue. “Yeah, check on Mateo. Tell his dad to talk to me if that guy tries to sue. I can find a good torts lawyer for him.”
“Sure.”
Nadia crossed the street, walking toward Elizabeth. In a town as small as Captive’s Sound, even this spot by one of the main intersections was quiet and almost deserted. Nadia didn’t see anyone else any closer than the La Catrina parking lot; their only audience was a crow that had perched on a nearby lamppost and seemed to be watching them with odd, grayish eyes.
Elizabeth’s pale face and curling hair made her look like a pre-Raphaelite painting, soft and dreamy, but there was no mistaking the menace just beneath the surface. Like that Ophelia picture, Nadia thought . . . if the girl climbed out of the river and decided to kill Hamlet instead.
As Nadia took the final steps and stood in front of Elizabeth, she was able to see the new burns on her shoulder—two lines that crossed the ones she’d made when Mrs. Purdhy collapsed, but at an odd angle. She willed herself to remember the pattern, to memorize it.
“You’re killing people,” Nadia said.
“They won’t die.” Elizabeth motioned toward the other side of the bench, inviting Nadia to sit by her; Nadia remained standing. If Elizabeth cared, she gave no sign. “At least, not yet.”
“Then why are you hurting them?”
“If you knew more about witchcraft, you would understand. That’s why you must become my student.”
Nadia had to laugh. “Why would you ever, ever think that could happen?”
“Mateo isn’t here now. There’s no need to posture for his benefit. We can be entirely honest with each other.” When Elizabeth leaned forward, her usual hazy inattention to the mundane world around her vanished; Nadia felt the full sharpness of her attention. “You’ve taken yourself almost as far in the Craft as you can go on your own. Already you’re working at the very limits of your knowledge, and you’ve seen the dangers, haven’t you? Face facts. You make mistakes. Some of them are merely amusing, but some of them go beyond that.”
They’d taken Mrs. Prasad away in a van. Apparently she was still under twenty-four-hour psychiatric observation. Her son had already been killed; would she wind up in an institution, too?