past her, heading for the stairs, her chin tucked in tight to her chest.
‘Evie!’ her mother called after her as she trudged up them, ‘you can’t keep on behaving like this.’
Evie slunk into her bedroom and closed the door, trying to block out both her mum’s shouts and the screaming voice of guilt in her head. She crossed to her desk, which she’d swept clean of everything. All her old magazines, term papers, essay notes and books were stashed in a cardboard box inside her closet, already coated in dust. She’d taken down all the photographs that had been stuck on the walls, as well as the list of colleges she’d intended to apply to, and in their place she’d tacked up a sheet of paper with a single word on it:
VICTOR
She stared at it for several minutes, then pulled open a drawer and took out a piece of paper. On it were fragments of text, drawn from memory, as complete as she could make it.
From two who remain a White Light will be born
A purebred Hunter fated to be the White Light
Standing alone in the final fight
To sever the realms by passing through the light
Memories will rise, shadows will fade.
Facing an army from the realms
The sun, the giver of life and the light
Together will stand and fight
And one will sacrifice himself
Closing the Gateway by walking back through
Crossing into the dark, memories will fade and shadows fall
Evie dropped the sheet of paper back onto the desk. She didn’t know why she kept looking at it. The thing was done. The prophecy had come true. She had never been the White Light. It had been Cyrus all along. Anger ripped through her every time she thought about it. The Sybll were worse than the witches in Macbeth. At least the witches got the right person. They hadn’t gone telling Macduff he was going to be king.
She walked over to the bed and flopped down on it, curling onto her side, her hands sliding beneath the pillow and pulling out a crumpled T-shirt. She balled it up and held it against her face, breathing in deeply and closing her eyes as the scent of Lucas overwhelmed her. It was fading but she could still smell him – a trace of citrus and of late summer days, hazy with smoke and horses.
Her mother was right about one thing, Evie thought to herself as she lay there clutching the T-shirt to her lips – she couldn’t keep on behaving like this. She needed to do something before she went mad, before all the anger inside her erupted in a lethal, all-consuming torrent.
Her eyes flew open and settled on the piece of paper above her desk.
Victor. Once she had found Victor – and killed him – then she’d feel better.
Chapter 3
Her mother was calling her down to dinner. Evie rolled off the bed, putting one heavy foot in front of the other. She was so tired. She knew she probably looked like a train wreck but she no longer cared. It had been weeks since she’d looked in a mirror. She had covered the one in her room with a scarf, and stood with her back to the basin every time she brushed her teeth to avoid having to see her reflection in the bathroom cabinet.
She forced herself down the stairs, wary at what admonishments her mother might be dishing up alongside dinner. But when she made it into the kitchen she saw her mother had regained her calm.
‘Joe’s coming over later,’ her mum said, bustling about the table, pouring Evie a glass of juice.
Evie raised her eyes. Her mum was keeping her own gaze firmly fixed on the tabletop. She’d started humming. Evie smiled quietly to herself as she watched the blush creep up her mother’s neck. There was one thing to be glad of at least. Evie’s old boss, Joe, was a good man and her mum deserved someone in her life who made her happy, seeing how Evie was failing monumentally on that score.
‘You know, Joe said he’s holding your job for you,’ her mother told her, sitting down at the table.
Evie picked up her fork and started toying with the food on her plate.
‘What do you want me to tell him?’ her mother asked.
When Evie didn’t answer she hurried on. ‘Well, maybe you could tell him yourself, later. I think it might be a good idea, you know. The diner was always a good job. Much better than that silly boutique.