I'll Be Your Last

Waking the Dead

We made it to Mystic Falls in a little over two hours. We had to stop to get fast food dinner for Clarice and her daughters, who I’d learned were eleven and thirteen. The younger girl was named Christine, the older daughter was Anya. They were relatively quiet as we rode along, Clarice asking us what been happening with Silas. Rebekah and I told her what we knew anyway.

We reached my old high school around ten and I was grateful it was a Friday night because the center of the expression triangle was where Bonnie had needed to be when she lowered the veil. It was where we needed to be now.

“We’re here, Bonnie,” I whispered, with so much hope.

Clarice had brought a ton of candles and she was setting them up with the help of her daughters. Carefully, she opened the grimoire Elijah had provided us and opened it to the page he’d marked. The tiny witch scanned the pages, her lips moving silently. She was trying to memorize it.

“Aren’t you going to call your friends?” Rebekah asked me.

I shook my head. “If this works, I will.”

Rebekah nodded, her sympathetic look telling me she understood.

“How long is this going to take,” Rebekah grumbled.

“Don’t know,” Clarice asked, still reading the spell. “I’ve never done this before.”

“So you’re using expression?” I asked her. I knew it was the dangerous magic Shane had taught Bonnie.

Clarice looked up from the grimoire, her gaze locking with mine. “No,” she said firmly.

“Then how are you going to pull this off?” Rebekah asked, looking doubtful.

“Without expression,” the witch told her. “That can be some really dark stuff. My great aunt was almost lost to it, just like your friend here. She tried to pull my grandmother into it. It could have easily ended our line because they were both pretty fascinated with it for a while. It’s very difficult to control.”

Placing down the grimoire, Clarice found the place where she wanted to stand and began to chant in the same type of witchiese that I’d heard Bonnie use several times. But it felt like the atmosphere was changing around us. Every single candle was lit by flame in a single second. And for all that light, the room felt darker, colder.

“Whoa!” Christine said, her blue eyes wide as she watched her mother.

I didn’t feel as if I could move in that moment as I watched the witch chant. Even Rebekah seemed mesmerized. The air around us felt charged, alive in a way it normally wasn’t. Even though I couldn’t see anything, I could feel things. It felt like people who I couldn’t see were walking around me. It felt as if the five of us were standing in a room full of people, when in truth we were in a dark, dank cave that was huge and empty.

Please, Bonnie. Please be there.

I had no idea how long we stood there, how long Clarice chanted. The air felt heavy. I was holding my breath in anticipation too, I realized.

Clarice stopped chanting, but the rest of the magical weirdness stayed the same. The witch looked to me. “I didn’t know your friend in life. Call to her.”

I nodded. Please let this work.

“Bonnie!” I called. I counted to ten. “Bonnie!”

“Caroline?”

Oh my God, it was her voice!

“Bonnie!

“Caroline? Where are you?”