Phantom Page 0,69

were grave. "The doctors and nurses at the hospital won't be able to help Bonnie," she said. "They might even hurt her by interfering with ineffective medical solutions to a nonmedical problem. Bonnie's not sick; she's under a spel . I can feel the magic thick in the air. The best thing we can do is to make her as comfortable as we can here while we look for a cure."

Matt stepped forward into the room. His face was aghast, but he wasn't looking at Bonnie's motionless form on the floor. He raised one hand and pointed. "Look," he said.

Near the bed, a tray containing a smal teapot, a cup, and a plate had been knocked over onto the floor. The cup had smashed and the teapot lay on its side, tea leaves spil ing out in a long, dark curve across the floor.

A curve that spel ed out a name.

Chapter 25

elena

Matt swung his gaze in horror between Bonnie's prone figure, the name on the floor, and Elena's pale face. After a few shocked minutes, Elena spun and left the room. Stefan and Matt fol owed her as Meredith and the others moved to Bonnie's side. Out in the hal way, Elena pounced on Stefan. "You were supposed to look after them. If you had been here, Bonnie would have had some protection."

Matt, trailing Stefan out of Bonnie's bedroom, balked. Elena's teeth were bared, her dark blue eyes flashed, and she and Stefan both looked furious.

"It wasn't Stefan's fault, Elena," Matt protested gently.

"Alaric and Mrs. Flowers had set magical protections. Nothing ought to have been able to get in. Even if Stefan had been here, he wouldn't have been in Bonnie's room with her al night."

"He should have been, if that's what it took to protect her," Elena said bitterly. Her face was tight with anger as she looked at Stefan.

Even as Matt stood up for Stefan, he couldn't suppress a glow of satisfaction at seeing trouble between Elena and Stefan at last. It's about time Elena realized Stefan isn't perfect, the worst part of him said gleeful y. Mrs. Flowers and Alaric hurried out of the room, breaking the tension between Elena and Stefan. Mrs. Flowers shook her head. "It seems that Bonnie was very foolishly trying to contact the dead, but I don't see how she could have done this to herself. This must be the result of whatever has been endangering you. Meredith is going to stay by Bonnie's bedside for the time being while we investigate."

Matt glanced at Elena and Stefan. "I thought you said that Caleb was out of the picture."

"I thought he was!" Stefan said as they al headed downstairs. "Maybe this is something he started before we fought."

Alaric frowned. "If that's true and it's stil going, Caleb himself might not be able to stop it. Even if he died, that wouldn't interrupt a self-perpetuating curse."

Elena strode out to the hal and ripped into the first of the trash bags, her jaw set. "We need to figure out what he did."

She dug out a stack of notebooks and shoved them into the others' hands. "Look for the actual steps of a spel . If we know how he did it, maybe Alaric or Mrs. Flowers can figure out how to reverse it."

"The spel book Bonnie was using is one of mine," Mrs. Flowers said. "Nothing in it should have had this effect on her, but I'l examine it just in case."

They each took a notebook and a pile of papers and spread out around the kitchen table.

"There are diagrams in mine," Stefan said after a minute.

"There's a pentagram, but I don't think it's the same as the one we saw on the floor."

Alaric took the notebook and peered at it, then shook his head. "I'm not an expert, but that looks like part of a standard protection spel ."

The notebook in front of Matt was mostly scribbled notes. Tanner first death? it asked. Halloween? Elena, Bonnie, Meredith, Matt, Tyler, Stefan all present. He could hear Meredith's feet upstairs, restlessly pacing by Bonnie's bedside, and the words blurred before him. He scrubbed the back of his fist against his eyes before he could embarrass himself by crying. This was useless. And even if there was something helpful in here, he would never recognize it.

"Does it strike you guys as weird," Elena asked, "that Celia was the first one affected by whatever this evil is?

There wasn't anything about her in the shed. And she never