Only Ice

Chapter 2

Nox left hours ago in my car. He was lucky I trusted him with driving her. I, on the other hand, was waiting here, in the shadows, looking like a stalker.

Finally, Kathryn and Travis walked out the door and locked it up for the night. As soon as they drove away in the giant truck, I left the cover of the dark trees and made my way to the back door.

Three times I knocked on it.

"I knew you would be here," Sybil said.

"You going to let me in?"

Sybil just held the door open and gestured for me to come in.

We walked through the backroom that held all the supplies and she moved the huge metal shelving out of the way. The same one I almost knocked over that night I attacked Ember. I regretted all of that. Thank goodness she left quickly.

We entered past the silver beaded curtain and into a room dimly lit by a few candles. I took my seat at the round table that was sitting in the middle of the small room, daring not to venture further into her home. Only a few knew where she actually lived.

"What do you need?" she asked as she released her hair down from the tight bun that she always wore it in. As the red hair flowed down, it turned to a deep black, illuminating its natural color.

"I need to find Ember," I said.

"What makes you think I can find her?"

She never laid her eyes on me as she walked around the small room gathering herbs and placing them into jars that sat on various shelves.

"Can't you cast a spell or something?"

"That would require a piece of her," she said. "Do you have something like that?"

"She burned everything," I said.

"I guess I have to do everything around here," Sybil sighed as she stepped out of the room.

She returned sometime later, holding on to a hairbrush.

"You're lucky she never cleaned out her locker."

Sybil gathered a few herbs off of the shelf and threw them into a bowl along with Ember's hair from the brush. She mumbled chants under her breath as she mashed it all together until it was a fine powder. She lit the powder on fire and place a large translucent bowl over top of it. The fire went out, leaving the smoke to fill the bowl, allowing the pictures to come through.

First was Kathryn sitting in her room eating and watching a movie.

"What is this?" I asked.

"Kathryn must have used her brush," Sybil said.

Sybil started chanting another chant, and soon Kathryn disappeared, replacing an image with Ember. It was the first time I had seen her since the wildflowers. The only thing that had changed were her eyes. They held no spark, no life.

"Dead trees," Sybil said.

"What?"

"She is walking down a beach with dead trees."

"So she went south," I said.

"The sun is setting on a vast ocean."

"I need more sybil," I said.

I looked into the smoke, searching for an answer, for something that could give me a clue to where she was. And there it was, a small sign that read Jekyll Island.

"Jekyll Island!" I shouted, knocking over the glass bowl as I stood up.

"Where do you think you're going?" Sybil asked.