Beautiful Chaos

Demon Queen

One of the things about living in a small town is you can’t get away with ditching class in the middle of a historical reenactment that your English teacher spent weeks organizing. Not without consequences. In most places, that would mean suspension, or at least detention. In Gatlin, it meant Amma forcing you to show up at your teacher’s house with a plateful of peanut butter cookies.

Which is exactly where I was standing.

I knocked on the door, hoping Mrs. English wasn’t home. I stared at the red door, shifting my weight uncomfortably. Lena liked red doors. She said red was a happy color, and Casters didn’t have red doors. To Casters, doors were dangerous—all thresholds were. Only Mortals had red doors.

My mom had hated red doors. She didn’t like people who had red doors either. She said having a red door in Gatlin meant you were the kind of person who wasn’t afraid to be different. But if you thought having a red door would do that for you, then you really were just like the rest of them.

I didn’t have time to come up with my own theory on red doors, because right then this one swung open. Mrs. English was standing there in a flowered dress and fuzzy slippers. “Ethan? What are you doing here?”

“I came to apologize, ma’am.” I held out the plate. “I brought you some cookies.”

“Then I suppose you should come in.” She stepped back, opening the door wider.

This wasn’t the response I was expecting. I figured I’d apologize and give her Amma’s famous peanut butter cookies, she would accept, and I would be out of there. Not following her into her tiny house. Red door or not, I definitely wasn’t happy.

“Why don’t we have a seat in the parlor?”

I followed her into a tiny room that didn’t look like any parlor I’d ever seen. It was the smallest house I’d ever been in. The walls were covered with black and white family portraits. They were so old and the faces so small that I would’ve had to stop and stare to look at any of them, which made them all strangely private. At least, strange for Gatlin, where our families were on display at all times, the dead and the living.

Mrs. English was strange, all right.

“Please, have a seat. I’ll bring you a glass of water.” It wasn’t a question—it seemed to be mandatory. She stepped into the kitchen, which was about the size of two closets. I could hear the running water.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

There was a collection of ceramic figurines on the mantel over the fireplace—a globe, a book, a cat, a dog, a moon, a star. The Lilian English version of the standard junk the Sisters had collected and never let anyone touch, until it was smashed to rubble in their front yard. In the middle of the fireplace was a small television, with rabbit ear antennas that couldn’t have worked for about twenty years. Some kind of spidery-looking houseplant sat on top of it, making the whole thing look like a big planter. Except the plant looked like it was dying, which made the planter that wasn’t a planter, on top of the TV that wasn’t a TV, on top of the fireplace that wasn’t a fireplace, all seem pointless.

A tiny bookcase sat next to the fireplace. It actually appeared to be what it was, seeing as it actually had books on it. I bent down to read the titles: To Kill a Mockingbird. The Invisible Man. Frankenstein. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Great Expectations.

The front door slammed, and I heard a voice I never would have expected to hear in my English teacher’s house.

“Great Expectations. One of my personal favorites. It’s so… tragic.” Sarafine was standing inside the doorway, her yellow eyes watching me. Abraham had ripped into a worn flowered chair in the corner of the room. He looked comfortable, as if he was just another guest. The Book of Moons was resting in his lap.

“Ethan? Did you open the front—” It only took a minute for Mrs. English to come back from the kitchen. I don’t know if it was the strangers in her parlor, or Sarafine’s yellow eyes, but Mrs. English dropped the water, broken glass raining down onto her flowered rug. “Who are you people?”

I looked at Abraham. “They’re here for me.”

He laughed. “Not this time, boy. We came for something else.”

Mrs. English was shaking. “I don’t have anything of value. I’m just a teacher.”

Sarafine smiled, which made her look even more deranged. “Actually, you have something that is very valuable to us, Lilian.”

Mrs. English took a step back. “I don’t know who you people are, but you should leave. My neighbors have probably already called the police. This is a very quiet street.” Her voice was rising. I was pretty sure Mrs. English was only a minute away from a meltdown.

“Leave her alone!” I started to walk toward Sarafine, and she flung open her fingers.

I felt the force, ten times stronger than any hand, slam against my chest. I fell back against the bookcase, sending dusty books falling around me.

“Have a seat, Ethan. I think it’s fitting for you to watch the end of the world as you know it.”

I couldn’t get up. I could still feel the weight of Sarafine’s power on my chest.

“You people are crazy,” Mrs. English whispered, her eyes wide.

Sarafine fixed her terrifying eyes on Mrs. English. “You don’t know the half of it.”

Abraham stubbed his cigar out on Mrs. English’s side table and rose from the chair. He opened The Book of Moons as if he had marked a specific page.

“What are you doing? Calling more Vexes?” I shouted.

This time, they both laughed. “What I’m calling will make a Vex look like a house cat.” He started to read in a language I didn’t recognize. It had to be a Caster language—Niadic, maybe. The words were almost melodic, until he repeated them in English and I realized what they meant.

“ ‘From blood, ash, and sorrow. For the Demons imprisoned below…’ ”

“Stop!” I shouted. Abraham didn’t even look at me.

Sarafine twisted her wrist slightly, and I felt my chest tighten. “You are witnessing history, Ethan—for both Casters and Mortals. Be a little more respectful.”

Abraham was still reading. “ ‘I call their Creator.’ ”

The moment Abraham spoke the last word, Mrs. English gasped, and her body arched violently. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she crumpled to the floor like a rag doll. Mrs. English’s neck was resting against her chest awkwardly, and all I could think about was how lifeless she looked.

Like she was dead.

Abraham started to read again, but I felt like I was underwater—everything was slow and muffled. How many more people were going to die because of them?

“ ‘… to avenge them. And to serve!’ ” Abraham’s voice echoed through the tiny room, and the walls began to shake. He snapped the Book shut and walked closer to the body of Mrs. English.

The spidery-looking plant fell off the TV, and the pot broke against the stone of the fireplace. The tiny figurines were rocking back and forth, the pieces of Mrs. English’s life breaking apart.

“She’s coming!” Sarafine called to Abraham, and I realized they were both staring at Mrs. English’s body. I tried to get up, but the weight was still bearing down on my chest. Whatever was happening, I couldn’t stop it.

It was already too late.

Mrs. English’s neck lifted first, her body slowly following, rising from the floor as if an invisible string was pulling it. It was horrible—the way her lifeless body moved like a puppet’s. When her body straightened, her eyelids snapped open.

But her eyes were gone. In their place were only dark shadows.

The shaking stopped, and the whole room was still.

“Who calls me?” Mrs. English was speaking, but the voice wasn’t hers. It was inhuman. There was no variation in tone, no inflection—it was haunting and ominous.

Abraham smiled. He was proud of whatever he had done. “I do. The Order is broken, and I call you to bring forth the soulless, those who wander the abyss of the Underground, to join us here.”

Mrs. English’s empty eyes stared past him, but the voice answered. “It cannot be done.”

Sarafine looked at Abraham, panicked. “What is she—”

He silenced Sarafine with a look, and turned back to the creature inhabiting the shell of Mrs. English. “I was not clear. We have bodies for them. Bring forth the soulless and offer them the bodies of the Light Casters. This will be the new Order. You will Bind it.”

There was a rumbling sound within Mrs. English’s body, almost as if the creature was laughing in some sick way. “I am the Lilum. Time. Truth. Destiny. The Endless River. The Wheel of Fate. You do not command me.”

Lilum. Lilian English. It was like a sick cosmic joke. Except for the part that wasn’t a joke, the part I couldn’t stop repeating in my mind.

The Wheel of Fate crushes us all.

Abraham looked stricken, and Sarafine staggered backward. Whatever this Lilum thing was, the two of them had clearly believed they could control it.

Abraham tightened his grip on The Book of Moons and changed tactics. “Then I appeal to you as the Demon Queen. Help us forge a new Order. One where the Light will finally be eclipsed by Darkness forever.”

I froze. It was all coming together. The Shadowing Song was right. Even if I hadn’t heard a word about this Lilum thing, the song had warned me about the Demon Queen and the Wheel of Fate more than once.

I tried not to panic.

The Lilum answered, her voice unnervingly even. “Light and Dark hold no meaning for me. There is only power, born from the Dark Fire, where all power was created.”

What was she talking about? She was the Demon Queen. Didn’t that make her Dark?

“No.” Sarafine’s voice was a whisper. “It’s not possible. The Demon Queen is true Darkness.”

“My truth is the Dark Fire, the origin of power both Light and Dark.”

Sarafine looked confused, something I had never seen in her outside of the visions.

That’s when I realized she and Abraham didn’t understand the Lilum at all. I couldn’t pretend that I did, but I knew she wasn’t Dark in the way they believed. She was something all her own. Maybe the Lilum was gray, a new shade in the spectrum. Or maybe it was the opposite, and the Lilum possessed neither Dark nor Light—she was the absence of both.

Either way, she wasn’t one of them.

“But you can forge a New Order,” Sarafine said.

Mrs. English’s head jerked toward the sound of Sarafine’s voice. “I can. But a price must be paid.”

“What’s the price?” I called out without thinking.

The head jerked toward me. “A Crucible.”

The Demon Queen, the Wheel of Fate—whoever she was, she wasn’t talking about my English homework. “I don’t understand.”

“Shut up, boy!” Abraham snapped.

But the Lilum was still staring blankly in my direction. “This Mortal has the words I require.” The Lilum paused. She was talking about Mrs. English. “Crucible. A pot for melting metals. A Mortal allegory.” Was she searching Mrs. English’s mind for the right words? “A severe test.” She stopped. “Yes. A test. On the Eighteenth Moon.”

“What’s the test?”

“On the Eighteenth Moon,” she repeated. “For One who will bring the Order back anew.”

It was the message from my Shadowing Song—most of it, anyway.

The One Who Is Two.

“Who?” Abraham demanded. “Tell me now! Who will bring back the Order?”

Mrs. English’s neck jerked unnaturally toward Abraham, the black-shadowed eye sockets facing him. A thunderous sound ripped through the house. “You do not command me.”

Before he could respond, a blinding light streaked from the dark sockets where Mrs. English’s eyes should have been—directly at Abraham and Sarafine. Abraham didn’t even have time to rip. The light hit them and exploded around them, filling the room. Sarafine’s invisible grip disappeared, and I threw my arm over my eyes to shield them from the light. But I could still sense it, as if I was looking into the sun.

Within seconds, the impossible brightness dimmed and I pulled my arm away from my face. I looked at the place where Abraham and Sarafine had been standing. Black splotches clouded my vision.

Abraham and Sarafine were gone.

“Are they dead?” I found myself hoping. Maybe Abraham had used The Book of Moons one time too many. The Book always took something in return.

“Dead.” The Lilum paused. “No. It is not their time to be judged.”

I disagreed, but I wasn’t about to argue with a creature powerful enough to make Abraham and Sarafine disappear. “What happened to them?”

“I willed them away. I do not wish to hear their voices.” She didn’t really answer the question.

But I had another one, and I had to find the courage to ask it. “The one who has to face the test on the Eighteenth Moon—are you talking about the One Who Is Two?”

The darkened sockets of her eyes turned toward me, and the voice began to speak. “The One Who Is Two, in Whom the Balance is paid. The Dark Fire, from which all power comes, will make the Order anew.”

“So we can fix it? The Order, I mean?”

“If the Balance is paid, there will be a New Order.” Her voice was completely flat, as if what I had been hoping for meant nothing.

“What do you mean by the Balance?”

“Balance. Payment. Sacrifice.”

Sacrifice.

By the One Who Is Two.

“Not Lena,” I whispered. I couldn’t lose her again. “She can’t be the sacrifice. She didn’t mean to break the Order.”

“Both Dark and Light. Perfect balance. True magic.” The Lilum was quiet. Was she thinking, searching for words in the mind of Mrs. English, or just getting tired of hearing my voice, too? “She is not the Crucible. The child of Darkness and Light will Bind the New Order.”

It wasn’t Lena.

I took a deep breath. “Wait. Then who is it?”

“There is another.”

Maybe she didn’t understand what I was asking. “Who?”

“You will find the One Who Is Two.” The empty black shadows stared at me from the face of Mrs. English.

“Why me?”

“Because you are the Wayward. The one who marks the way between our worlds. The Demon world and the Mortal world.”

“Maybe I don’t want to be the Wayward.” I said it without thinking, but it was true. I didn’t know how to find this person. And I didn’t want the fate of the Mortal and Caster worlds resting with me.

The walls began to shake again, the ceramic figurines knocking against one another. I watched as the little moon moved dangerously close to the edge of the mantel. “I understand. We cannot choose what we are in the Order. I am the Demon Queen.” Did she mean that she didn’t want to be what she was either? “The Order of Things exists beyond. The River flows. The Wheel turns. This moment changes the next. You have changed everything.” The walls ceased shaking, and the moon stopped just before it fell over the edge.

“This is the way. There is no other.”

I understood that.

It was the last thing the Lilum said before the possessed body of Mrs. English dropped to the floor.