Of Caverns and Casters ✓ [TLRQ #1]

Chapter 56 - Sean

Trudging through the snow in the dark is eerie. Memories of moonlit mountain passes flutter up with each displaced flake. And underneath that—

I scrambled out from the bed and darted to the window. From the living room, his panicked voice rose. 'Oh, blast, blazes! Asha? Asha!'

Snowflakes stumbled through the window as I shoved it open with a creak.

'Sean? Is that you?' he called.

I forced it open the rest of the way and squirmed over the sill.

'D–don't come in here, okay?'

Never. Never. I ran tripping through the snow, stumbling, fighting, until I dropped onto Mama's uncle's porch, her only family in town.

Déjà vu rattles me out of the memories when I see the building Leavi's leading us to. It's wooden, two stories, with a small porch. In the darkness, it hulks, shadows coloring its face with hatred. It looks disturbingly similar to the house I ran to that night but as if someone took everything that made that place a haven and turned it cruel.

Pulse quickening, I grab Leavi's wrist and mutter, "I'm not going in there."

She looks at me, confusion drawing her brow. "It's just an old house, Sean. It's not actually haunted."

"I know that," I sneer. "I'll stay somewhere else." My other hand taps frantically at my side.

"There isn't another place to stay." She moves as if to take my shoulder but then seems to think better of it. Her hand drops. "Come on."

My jaw clenches. "Isn't there anywhere—"

"What are we waiting for?" Aster says, drawing closer. I jump though I know he couldn't understand us.

"Yeah, let's go!" Idyne darts ahead of us and onto the evil porch. My eyes screw shut as the others push inside. An inanimate object can't be evil.

It's just an old house.

I walk in, eyes closed, forcing myself to breathe properly, though I feel like I can't drag in enough air, not in here. I try to push the thought away, opening my eyes. The place is wrong because this isn't that night but feels like it should be, isn't that house but looks like it is, isn't okay but has to be.

I shove through the landing, trying to break the illusion by familiarizing myself with the floor plan that certainly isn't my great uncle's. Yes, my mother is dead. But it didn't happen just across town; it happened months and months of travel away from here. Yes, this is a two-story wooden house, but it isn't the one my great uncle kept me in, trembling, until we could get someone to go detain him. Yes, I'm alone here with people I hardly know, but he's not going to come for me anymore. My breathing starts to calm.

No, someone else is trying to kill us now.

I slide down the wall, sitting in a random room down the hall. Things aren't okay, but they rarely are. I pull out my presswrite to organize my thoughts on. If we're going to figure this out, I might as well get to work.

The house settles to sleep, everyone else camping out in the main room together. I pass hours with only their quiet breathing and my experiments for company, the stars rising and finally fading out the hall window. Still, it's hours before the sun should rise. Which means I still have enough time to get this right. Working by the light of a candle, I finish pouring the hissing liquid into the bedroom door lock in front of me. I remind myself yet again that this isn't my great uncle's house I'm trying to destroy.

The liquid in the lock starts to solidify and expand, the hiss fading.

"Hello!" Idyne chirps beside me, and I jump.

Calming down, I give her a distracted hmm and return to the lock.

"Whatcha doing?" she whispers, head beside my own.

I jerk away. "What are you doing?" My startled gaze meets her innocent one. As nice as she was to me the first day she arrived, there's something in her eyes—something wrong. My arms cross.

"Just checking in." She smiles, but there's a hard edge in it. "So, what're you doing?"

I turn back to the lock. Great. The substance has leaked out the front, done solidifying. I pull out my pocket knife to dig it out. "I'm trying to formulate a solution that, when mixed with this catalyst"—I point at a tube filled with liquid—"will solidify quickly and abruptly enough to bust a lock."

"So," she says, "you're breaking locks with liquid. Got it."

I ignore her, and she giggles. I start prepping the materials for my next test. Thankfully, the only thing I couldn't get at Marcí's before we left was the catalyst, which I don't need much of. And the substance is working—just not fast enough. The whole process should be like the key copy hyped on caffeine.

"How does it work?" she asks.

I glance at her. Any explanation she could possibly understand would take far too long. "Why are you even up?"

She shrugs. "I sort of thought the only other person wide awake would be more understanding."

My jaw tightens. "Stop distracting me. I've got work to do."

She sticks out her tongue and flounces away. I shake my head, still mixing. I'm good with bombs; I know something unstable when I see it. I don't want to be anywhere near her when she explodes.

Finished prepping the next test, I pour my mixture into the lock.