Path of Night Page 8

  Amalia broke free, and Sabrina got hurt because of him. Then Amalia was dead on the forest floor, and to his horror and shame Nick was crying, and Sabrina forgave him. She put her arms around him and kissed him on the forehead, touched him, and spoke to him in the tender way mortals touched and spoke to one another. She told Nick he’d loved Amalia, and that wasn’t weakness.

  That was the moment Nick was sure he loved Sabrina. Really loved her, as mortals did, in a way he hadn’t known he could love anybody. And how did he show it? Nick lied.

  Every day in school Sabrina sat listless at her desk, face as white as her new hair, clearly lost in hideous private visions. Roz fretted Sabrina’s grades might drop.

  The day after they made their bargain with the Lady of the Lake, Sabrina caught Roz slipping her class notes into Sabrina’s bag. For a scary moment, Sabrina stared at the notes and the bag and at Roz, as though she didn’t know how any of them might be relevant to her.

  Then she smiled, and was Roz’s best friend again.

  “Come on, ’Brina,” said Harvey, putting his arm around her. “I’ll walk you home.”

  Roz had a music lesson. She watched them go. Before, during the months when Sabrina was devoted to witch school, Harvey would wait outside Baxter High so he could walk Roz home.

  “He loves her more than he loves you,” said the silver bird on Roz’s shoulder. “He always did and he always will.”

  Roz walked down the passage toward her music lesson, steps slowing over the blazoned legend of the Baxter High Ravens painted on the floor. The school was shadowy and quiet after hours. Like one of Sabrina’s horror movies.

  Roz’s cunning gave her a split second’s warning. A vision flashed before her eyes, of smoke coiling to leap at her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a smoke demon sliding from behind a row of lockers. The demon was a piece of cloudy darkness with teeth and watchful eyes. Like the mist that used to obscure Roz’s vision, shaped into a monster.

  She started to run, stumbled and fell, and the demon almost had her, but her vision had bought her just enough time. She dodged into a classroom, catching the demon as it slid its long smoky neck around the door. Roz slammed the door repeatedly on its head, sobbing.

  Once the smoke demon was dead, she smoothed down her paisley scarf, then went to tremble in a bathroom stall.

  Every time she had a flash of the future, Roz remembered how it felt to be blind.

  Roz had kept calm when the final darkness descended. She talked to her parents about braille and audiotapes. She held on, until she had her first vision when blind. Then she collapsed in class.

  It wasn’t being blind that terrified her. It was that the only thing Roz would ever see now were nightmares.

  Behind a vision of snarling monsters and cackling witches, she’d heard a hiss of whispers and uneasy giggling from her classmates. They were hanging back from the demented creature prostrate on the floor. Roz was screaming, alone in the dark.

  Then she heard the door bang against the wall. She was lifted up from the floor and held. There was someone with her in the dark, and he wouldn’t let her go.

  “Rosalind,” Harvey murmured in her ear. “I’m here.”

  Harvey carried her out of the classroom, Theo trotting beside them, talking in his loudest and most determined voice.

  Roz would’ve gone mad without Harvey and Theo.

  The night after she collapsed, Roz slept fitfully in her narrow hospital bed.

  “Harvey, are you there?” she kept whispering.

  Every time she asked, Harvey answered: “I’m here.”

  Whenever Roz cried out, he held her hand. When she cried and curled up in terror of the visions, he murmured comfort, then paused. Harvey began to sing, tender and sweet. Roz was finally able to rest.

  “I didn’t think much of your white boy at first,” Roz’s favorite nurse remarked the next morning. “But I get it now. Were you childhood sweethearts?”

  We’ve been together three weeks.

  Roz cleared her throat. “I met him for the first time when we were five, and we both knew right away. He’s walked me home from school every day of our lives. It’s a joke among our friends, how much he loves me.”

  It wasn’t really a lie. That’s how it would have been, if there was no Sabrina. And there was no Sabrina. She’d flown off to witch school and left her mortal friends behind.

  Roz hadn’t seen her best friend in weeks. She wasn’t going to see anybody ever again. This was the worst time of Roz’s life, and Sabrina didn’t know or care.

  When Sabrina came back, Roz accused Sabrina of hurting her with magic.

  Then Sabrina used magic to heal her.

  Now Roz was sitting in the bathroom, shaking but seeing. It didn’t matter how much Roz hated demons and visions.

  I owe Sabrina a miracle, Roz thought. She gave one to me.

  From outside her stall, she heard some of the girls from her music lesson discussing why she hadn’t been there.

  “Off making out with Harvey, I expect,” drawled Susan.

  “Hate to judge,” said Catie, sounding as though she loved to judge, “but can you imagine? Your bestie snaps up your man like he’s the last hot dog on the Fourth of July.”

  “Sabrina’s not doing badly for herself,” said Susan. “She’s got that guy she brought to the sweetheart dance. I bet she found Nick, dropped Harvey like a bad habit, and Roz caught Harvey on the rebound.”

  “Still against girl code,” argued Catie. “Harvey is not the last hot dog. There’s always another hot dog your friend hasn’t put ketchup and mustard on.”

  “That metaphor’s getting weird, Catie,” said Susan.

  Catie snorted. “Anyway, the guy at the dance was obviously a male escort Sabrina hired to pretend she wasn’t bothered by Roz and Harvey hooking up.”

  Roz choked.

  “Hiring a male escort for a school dance is super extreme behavior!”

  “Yep,” said Catie. “Exactly. Typical of Sabrina Extreme Behavior Spellman. My aunt runs a casino in Vegas. I know gigolo chic when I see it. That guy Nick was hot, but he was sleazy hot. Total tight shirts, too smooth to trust, greased-back hair, gigolo vibes. That guy doesn’t turn up out of nowhere desperate to take you to the school dance. C’mon.”

  “Sabrina said she met Nick at that after-hours genius camp she goes to.”

  “Sure. Let’s pretend the hottie with the body can read. I appreciate a sensitive artiste, not a club rat. If he was given an extreme makeover, Harvey would be my pick.”

  “Not mine. How much do you think gigolos cost?” asked Susan. “I would never! But …”

  “I’m surprised Sabrina still speaks to Roz,” Catie declared.

  “Maybe they’re a friend group who can be mature about dating,” rang out a new voice.

  Roz opened the door of the stall out of sheer curiosity to see her defender. She blinked when she saw three cheerleaders staring down the girls from Roz’s music class. In front was Lizzie, who everyone said would be prom queen one day.

  “Let’s not pretend this isn’t about your thing for Harvey,” added Lizzie. “You’ve only been crushing hard since third grade.”

  Roz cleared her throat. “Step off my man, Catie.”

  The two girls from music class decided to leave. Roz washed her hands so the cheerleaders wouldn’t think she was gross.

  “Thanks,” she told Lizzie softly.

  Lizzie shrugged. “No prob. We’re used to nasty gossip. Because … we’re cheerleaders.”

  “Hot cheerleaders,” agreed Lizzie’s friend.

  “You should hear the stuff boys say about the two hot cheerladies dating each other in Riverdale,” Lizzie continued. “We shut that down too. Nothing but support for our sapphic cheer sisters!”

  Roz nodded enthusiastically. She could get behind the cheerleader campaign for social justice.

  “You move differently these days.” Lizzie gave her a friendly wink. “Try out for the squad.”


  “I …” Roz opened her mouth to refuse, then realized she didn’t want to. “Maybe I will.”

  All her life, Roz had prepared to go blind. She hadn’t done physical activities. She’d studied hard, learned musical instruments, and read as many books as possible. Roz still loved those things, but perhaps there was more she could love. Everything she’d missed out on.

  Roz did move differently now that her vision was crystal clear. Trees had distinct leaves, even from far away, rather than being blurs of green. Sabrina had given Roz the world made new.

  Now Sabrina had asked Roz for a favor in return. She’d asked Roz to help save Nick.

  Roz kept returning in her memory to the terrible night Nick fell.

  They’d gathered together, mortals and witches, everybody Sabrina could trust, in a desperate plan to trap Satan. And Sabrina’s boyfriend had figured out how to imprison Satan in his own body. Roz didn’t know how any of it worked, but she knew what she saw.

  One minute Nick Scratch was on his feet, devouring red bleeding into his dark eyes. The next he was down. Sabrina went down too. She collapsed on the floor, her gown a golden pool around her, saying Nick’s name in a terrified whisper.

  There was an awful silence. Until the woman whom Roz’d believed was their sweet principal, Ms. Wardwell, and whom Sabrina now referred to as the demon Lilith, spoke up.

  “All’s well that ends in hell,” she remarked coolly. “We must move fast to secure the Dark Lord. I’ll take the body and—”

  “The body?” Sabrina repeated. “Nick?”

  Nick lay on his face, unmoving. He looked dead to Roz. He might be worse than dead. They will be thrown into the lake of fire, Roz remembered from her father’s sermons on damnation. That is the second death.

  Lilith stepped forward with a click of heels. Sabrina gave a wild howl.

  “No! Don’t come near us. I won’t let you touch him! I don’t trust you!”

  The demoness’s demand cut like a whip. “Do you want Mr. Scratch’s sacrifice to be for nothing?”

  “I don’t know!” Sabrina shrieked. There were hollow and discordant notes in her voice, as though her cries were rising from a pit. “I don’t care. Get away!”

  Abruptly, this seemed like a baroque nightmare to Roz. Everyone garbed in velvet beneath the shadow of a throne. The devil’s daughter screaming at the mother of demons. Roz could almost forget she loved Sabrina.

  The whole horrific scene seemed like nothing to do with Roz. Then Roz’s own boyfriend entered the ring, moving protectively between Lilith and Sabrina. Roz’s clutch at his sleeve was an instant too late. Lilith swept him with a contemptuous gaze, but Harvey didn’t even glance at her.

  “’Brina.” He knelt and pressed his forehead to Sabrina’s bare shoulder. Roz watched as Sabrina calmed. “Sweetheart. Don’t cry. You trust me, don’t you?”

  Sabrina scraped together the shreds of her composure and answered in a thin voice: “Of course.”

  Harvey gathered up Nick Scratch in his arms, careful and gentle. He stood, and though Roz could tell it was a burden, Harvey didn’t let himself falter under the weight.

  “I’ve got him, Sabrina. I won’t let anyone else touch him, unless you say. It’s up to you.”

  Sabrina had let Lilith lead them down to the gates of hell and take Nick away.

  But it wasn’t long before Sabrina was standing in front of their newly anointed Fright Club declaring: “Let’s go to hell and get my boyfriend back!”

  Roz froze. Harvey said instantly, “Of course, ’Brina.”

  Harvey worried so much when any of them was in trouble. He’d cared for Roz when she was blind. It was natural that now Harvey was desperately concerned for Sabrina.

  Roz couldn’t help wondering if worry was all it was.

  It hadn’t been long since Harvey was desperately in love with Sabrina.

  Roz sighed as she left school and blinked in surprise as the afternoon sunlight revealed Harvey, waiting for her outside. He pulled off his headphones and bounded up the steps.

  “Hey.” Roz gave him a quick kiss. “I thought you walked home with Sabrina.”

  “Sure, I walked Sabrina. Then I came back to get you after your music lesson. Do I look like the kind of fool who misses out on walking his girl home?”

  Roz snuggled up. “No fools detected here.”

  As they walked under the trees, Harvey studied her face.

  “Something wrong?”

  She didn’t want to tell him about the demon.

  “There were girls in the bathroom saying … Nick Scratch looks like a gigolo.”

  Harvey burst out laughing. Then he visibly remembered Nick was in hell, and bit his lip. “Oh no.”

  Roz hadn’t enjoyed Harvey’s many presentations on the topic of Why Nick Scratch Is a Jackass. She’d worried he might make an illustrative slideshow. Now that Harvey was tenderly solicitous for Sabrina’s well-being and determined to redeem Nick from hell, Roz found herself missing the rants.

  After walking through the woods in silence for a while, Harvey said diffidently: “You seem … withdrawn.”

  Roz braced herself to answer questions about demons.

  “Were those girls being mean?” Harvey asked. “Not just saying mean true stuff about Nick. Were they being mean about you?”

  “Maybe there was some talk about the kind of girl who dates her bestie’s ex,” Roz confessed.

  Harvey’s face darkened with protective fury. “I hate that you have to put up with that because of me. It’s so unfair. I know you never would’ve gone for me without the vision you had of us kissing. Never.”

  “Well,” Roz said.

  Harvey gave her an affectionate smile. “I’m grateful to magic for that.”

  Roz couldn’t take away the one thing magic had given him. She could only smile back weakly as they stood in front of her brightly painted house, hand in hand. Roz gestured for Harvey to come in.

  “We have the house to ourselves.”

  “Oh.” Harvey began to grin. “Well. Sexy words.”

  “Dad’s organizing the church fete,” Roz told him. “Less sexy.”

  She was standing two steps above him on the stairs. Roz had to lean down to rain light kisses onto his smiling mouth.

  “Hey, I don’t know about that. Keep talking about the church fete,” Harvey murmured. “It drives me wild.”

  Roz felt his smile spread as the kiss deepened. He spun her around as they reached the top of the stairs, then they tumbled giggling into her room and onto Roz’s bed.

  She’d never let herself think about how kissing Harvey would actually be, until she had the vision of doing so.

  If she had thought about it, she would’ve expected something different. Roz had kissed boys before, had done more than kiss them. It was fun, but she’d noticed teenage boys were always in a rush. Too keenly aware they might be interrupted, scrambling for more skin, to get further faster.

  Harvey took his time.

  Their first kiss at the sweethearts’ dance had been achingly sweet but endearingly awkward, Harvey still uncertain of his welcome.

  Now he seemed happy to be sure. Always smiling just before their lips met, always wanting to be close. His hands traversed the bends and turns of her body as though he was learning them by heart, fingers tracing the curve of her shoulder with as much reverent appreciation as his palm sliding over the curve of her hip.

  The way he kissed made Roz remember Sabrina, starry eyed, talking about the long drives she and Harvey would take through winding roads in the woods last summer, not going anywhere in particular. Taking it slow, on the journey to be together. They would stop by the side of the road, under tree leaves drenched with sunlight, and Sabrina would sing to him.

  This summer, Roz thought, that would be her.

  Roz did wonder sometimes about Harvey’s reasons for going slow. If it was love and respect, great.

  Roz was a modern girl, theoretically happy to bring up this subject herself, but she�
�d never had to do it before.

  “He doesn’t want you,” said the bird. “He was always waiting for Sabrina, and he still is.”

  No, Roz thought. He’s waiting for me now.

  Maybe he was hoping for a sign.

  Roz’s heart hammered as she undid a button of her blouse. She glanced up to find Harvey’s gaze sliding down to the skin she’d bared, then returning to her eyes. She arched in toward him, undoing another button as they kissed, her free hand combing through his soft hair.

  Roz leaned back against the pillows. The tan fabric of her blouse parted slightly more, so lace was visible. Harvey’s gaze traveled from the newly undone button to her eyes. He undid her little neck scarf, then kissed her throat as the scarf fell away.

  From below, they heard the scrape of the front door opening. She heard her father’s voice, raised in a manner that suggested he’d noticed Harvey’s jacket hanging by the door. Harvey scooted away, and Roz thumped her head against her pillow.

  “Rosalind,” Harvey murmured.

  “Yes?” Roz murmured back.

  She thought he might suggest a time his dad would be out, or at least say, I want to. Do you want to? When might you want to?

  Harvey kissed her brow. “I love you.”

  “I love you too,” Roz whispered, and felt the curve of Harvey’s smile against her temple.

  “Let’s go say hi. I don’t want you getting in trouble.”

  “Ah, what’s trouble? I got in trouble with one of the church ladies when I decided to go with natural hair.”

  “You shouldn’t ever be in trouble,” said Harvey. “Especially not because of me. And your hair is beautiful.”

  Roz cuddled up, burying her face into his neck as his hand curved protectively over her hair. Harvey did that often, she’d noticed. She thought to him the gesture meant keeping what he loved safe.

  Then she made herself pull away.

  “Before we go down …” said Roz, propping herself up on one elbow. “Can I ask you for something?”

  “Yeah.” Harvey reached out, so their hands lay clasped on the blanket in the space between them. “Anything.”

  “Can I ask you for two things?”