Salem Falls

One moment, Evelyn and Louis were resting peacefully on the couch, their bodies entangled in each other and lips a mess. The next, Siren was at her door with a badly crumpled Niall, begging for her help.

“Oh my god,” Evelyn breathed. “Get him inside and laid down. Louis, go upstairs to my parents bathroom and find a big wooden chest. Bring every green bottle you can find.”

Niall looked awful as Siren dragged him through the door, though Siren was in contention, looking just as riddled with self-hate and overwhelmed with emotion. As she laid him out the couch, Evelyn couldn’t help but break into a few, horrified tears at the sight of Niall’s limp body, his chest not giving a single movement to show he was breathing. His skin was sallow, lips a ghostly blue. For a minute, all Evelyn could do was stand aside with a face full of fear, watching as the scene unfolded in front of her.

“Evelyn!” Siren shouted with fearful impatience as Louis came through the door with handfuls of bottles nearly spilling out of his forearms. “Do something!”

Evelyn, snapping out of it, went to Niall’s side too. She had to be brave for him, her best friend. She couldn’t let images of them as children in the forest distract her, she couldn’t be fearful of him dying. Because the reason he was on the couch right now was because for some ridiculously misguided reason, Siren thought that Evelyn could help.

Maybe her mother’s healing elixirs could, but she made no promises for her magic.

“Okay!” she exclaimed, trying to settle herself enough to think straight as Louis dumped the bottles on Niall’s chest for her selection. And as she opened Niall’s mouth to pour the first one in, one to heal internal organ damage. “Siren, go get the spell book from the mantel!”

And for once, Siren did exactly as she was told without even asking. Evelyn’s mind was spinning at a million miles a minute, trying to figure out exactly what she needed to do. She could throw together the right combination of elixirs and potions made by her mother’s hand, but when it came to kind healing spells, Evelyn wasn’t sure she could save him. But for her best friend, she was going to have to try.

Louis watched on in a sort of fascinated horror as Evelyn ripped off Niall’s shirt, taking one of the elixirs and rubbing it on his chest – an elixir to heal burns. Though there weren’t any visible, this was some of the darkest magic Evelyn had ever felt, and she wouldn’t stop short of any precautions.

Siren was already flipping through the pages, finding the spells for healing. The pain was evident in her face as she went through the book of good magic, thrusting it to Evelyn as soon as she got to the right place in an effort to get it out of her hands. Normally, this disrespect would irritate Evelyn, but there was no time to waste.

She began trying every spell as Louis helped spoon elixirs down Niall’s throat, over his eyelids, along his pulse points as Evelyn instructed. Her knowledge amazed her – all the years watching her mother, she had to assume, but then she realized that some of the things her mother hadn’t taught her, they were coming naturally. Niall’s skin quality improved as the elixirs did their magic, but his breathing did not return to normal. The final healing process was going to have to take magic.

Evelyn pressed her hands to Niall’s chest, knitting her brows together in concentration as she murmured incantations from the book, just as Niall had taught her every afternoon. Calmly, with emotion, with determination, with confidence. She began to try everything on the page; she tried the spell for healing lacerations, the spell for memory loss, the spell for sore feet. But no magic sparked from her hands, no noticeable difference was occurring. Her mother’s elixirs were working but yet again, her magic was falling short.

“Now would be the perfect time to prove you’re not entirely worthless!” Siren declared, her voice cracking with worry but still wrought with her ever-present impatience.

“Shut up!” Evelyn cried, angry tears coming to her eyes. “Shut up! You’re the one who got him into this fucking mess and I’m doing the best I can so just fucking stop!”

Siren was silent again, tears streaming down her cheeks as Louis attempted to comfort her. The mage was too exhausted to even resist, crumbling next to Louis as Evelyn tore through the pages in an attempt to find something that worked. She’d been moving through the easy section, but still waiting were the more powerful spells. Her heart sank. There was no way she could attempt them.

But with another glance at Niall, her best friend, face no longer curled in pain but his pulse still fast and breath still shallow, she knew she had to try. For her best friend. For herself, even. For Siren.

“Okay Niall,” she whispered to her best friend in her bravest voice, hands pressed firmly to his chest. “I need you to do this for me, okay? I need you to get better. I’m going to try to do my very best to save you, but you and I both know my very best isn’t much. Your body is healed but your soul is missing, I can sense it. So right now, I’m going to speak to your soul, okay? Just hang tight.”

She turned back to the book, to a spell entitled Anima Quaerere – Soul Search. She murmured the incantations into the dead air of the room, Siren and Louis watching on as Evelyn centered herself, eyes closed, heart set on saving Niall. She focused all her energy into finding the soul other than her own she knew the most, begging Niall silently to come back.

And then there was a jolt of lightning coursing through the bones in her arms, shooting right from her heart back into Niall’s. She could feel an other worldly force channeling through her, shooting small white sparks out of the ends of her fingertips. The surprise that something actually worked occurred to her, but until the spell was complete, Evelyn was determined to remain focused. All of her energy had to be dedicated to her best friend.

So until she felt a heaving breath beneath her, she held fast. And when she did, Niall’s eyes fluttered open, bloodshot but once again full of life. With a heaving sob, she collapsed on the couch, all the energy having been sucked out of her by the spell.

But she’d done it. In a flurry of excitement, Louis threw himself onto her and wrapped her up in his arms, congratulating her though he didn’t really understand – the mark of a good boyfriend. “You did it Evelyn!” he exclaimed breathlessly, his dark blue eyes locking onto hers just as she began to lose herself in the exhilaration of it all.

“What happened?” Niall moaned out in confusion, lifting his head but finding himself to weak, allowing himself to flop back on the pillows beneath him. Siren blanched, clearly fearful of telling him the truth – of telling him that her dabblings in dark magic had nearly killed one of the few people she truly cared about.

“What matters now is that you’re okay,” Evelyn hummed, giving him a soft smile.

Suddenly, her phone was ringing in her pocket. As Siren went to Niall’s side, Evelyn retrieved it, only to see that the caller was her mother. Ecstatic from her performance, she answered the call immediately, overflowing with excitement and thrilled to be able to share with her teacher.

“Mom!” Evelyn exclaimed. “You won’t believe what just happened!”

“There’s no time, Evelyn.” Ella Connors’s voice was grave. “They’ve just found another human body. It’s steeped with dark magic, one of the most gruesome deaths yet.”

The breath caught in Evelyn’s lungs. Her mother’s tone was too dark for this to be any normal civilian death. It had to have been someone they knew. And with both of their heavy involvement in the non-magical world, it could be any number of people. Evelyn was struck with imminent fear.

“Who is it?” she asked breathlessly.

“Ezra Nanzig,” Ella replied, her voice breaking with tears.

It was as thought the world was melting out from around her. Ezra Nanzig, one of her oldest friends, a leader in the community, the sweetest old man she knew, had been brutally murdered by a dark mage. Evelyn was too beside herself to even answer her mother as tears welled in her eyes as well, hanging up the phone and shoving it in her pocket. She knew immediately what she had to do.

“I have to go,” she murmured to the rest of the room, Louis staring at her with concern. “Ezra is dead. Louis, I need you to go to my mom’s shop and ask for her strongest healing elixir for Niall and tell her everything that’s just happened.”

Louis nodded solemnly, coming to her side before pressing a kiss to her temple and rushing out the door. Evelyn then turned to Siren, her eyes narrowed at the girl at her best friend’s side. She’d never seen the fiery mage look so small and even, dare she say, regretful? Fearful? Relieved?

“All this dark magic bullshit has got to end,” she breathed. “It has got to stop hurting people I love. If you manage to hurt him again, Siren, I swear to the fucking trees I will end you. Okay?”

Siren looked taken aback for a moment before her lips curled into an approving smile at Evelyn’s angry assertiveness. “I told you, you aren’t entirely worthless.”

Almost unconsciously, Evelyn returned the smile to the girl she so actively detested. Something in that moment shifted between them, she could sense it. But before another word could be exchanged, she was out the door. Someone in the Sixth Circle had some explaining to do. And for once, Siren Chevaux was off the hook.

There was still something sinister hanging in the air. Evelyn could feel it.

The days were growing shorter, like the sun was ashamed of the happenings in Salem Falls and couldn’t bear to watch. The moon seemed to be perpetually new those days, either hiding behind clouds or not appearing at all. The sky darkened as she raced beneath it, speeding towards a house she’d only ever driven past when her mother was feeling sad and homesick.

Harry was taken aback when he found it was Evelyn at the door, hot, hateful tears streaming from his cousin’s eyes. Forcefully, she pushed her way past him, searching for any immediate evidence that he was involved with what had happened.

“Can I help you?” Harry stated flatly, though his tone gave away his amusement at Evelyn’s presence. That only ignited the flame more.

Evelyn turned on her heel, marching right up to Harry and pressing a finger deep into his chest. “You and Zayn need to quit it with your sadistic games, alright? People are getting hurt, Harry. You’re killing people and it needs to stop.”

Harry’s expression went dark for a moment, before he caught himself and his eyebrows flickered upwards. “I’m flattered that you think that I’m capable of that caliber of dark magic,” Harry quipped quietly. “But it’s not me. And it’s not Zayn.”

This surprised Evelyn, who examined her cousin with cautious eyes. Harry showed no signs of lying, his aura was still a pure shade of honesty. She pressed her lips together as the anger and exhaustion bubbled inside of her, still furious with Siren and with whoever took Ezra from the world, and exhausted from her magical display. Tears welled in her eyes for what felt like the millionth time that hour as she attempted to be strong in front of Harry.

“Well, tell Zayn to get his clan in order,” she threatened. “He’s in charge and at the end of the day, every death caused by whoever is doing this is blood on Sixth Circle’s hands – on Zayn’s hands.”

Harry was silent.

“You may not care about these humans, but they are just like us,” she breathed, beginning to sob. “They have homes and families and people they love. Dark magic took the life of one of my friends today, and it nearly killed another. I can’t take it anymore, Harry, I just can’t.”

And in a strange moment of weakness for the both of them, Evelyn cried uncontrollably in front of her biggest rival, her cousin who had always been better than her, the cousin who had always played for the other team. And in that moment, Harry wrapped an arm around her shoulder, pulling an exhausted Evelyn to him.

“I know,” he hummed softly, unable to do anything else. “And I’m sorry.”