Page 22 of An Invocation of Monsters

He was wearing swimming trunks, the same pale beige as the rest of his clothes. Willow was behind him in a white swimsuit, singing under her breath to herself.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I managed a smile. “Did you know there’s a whole ghost town back there? That wasn’t part of the tour.”

Kase’s own smile looked frozen in place. “Ahh, that. Yeah. Mary and Joseph don’t really encourage anyone to go exploring there, it can be dangerous… but look, we’re going swimming. The lake’s warm, I promise. Why don’t you join us?”

I had packed a swimsuit as directed when I first started planning this trip. And maybe, if I played nicely, Kase would be more inclined to answer my questions, because he sure as hell had dodged that one.

“Give me five and I’ll be right down.”

7

Elle

The bikini I had packed couldn’t have made me any more different from these people. I winced a little as I adjusted the black top, wondering if I was about to scandalize the entire Lodge.

But it was all I had, and the last thing I wanted was to ask to borrow clothes from Willow. She was thinner than me, anyways, so it wasn’t like it would help.

I yanked on an oversized T-shirt to cover my scandalousness and grabbed my camera, flicking through the last set of images. I frowned at them; the last set I’d taken, trying to see if Toth appeared, were all blurred out.

Just like my selfie had been.

Nope. That was a mystery for another day.

I dropped the camera and hurried out, not allowing myself to think about it much harder than that.

Kase and Willow were on the patio waiting for me, looking so weirdly alike with their blonde hair and pale clothes that I paused to examine them.

Not for the first time, I wondered why everyone here looked the same, but none of them seemed to be related.

Willow looked up at me, shading her eyes. “You don’t look much like Gillian,” she said, as though reading my thoughts.

I stiffened, but she didn’t seem to mean anything by it.

Not that I could actually be offended. It was true. I did not look much like either of my parents at all.

The closest thing I could claim was the shape of my mother’s pixie-ish nose and gray eyes.

Otherwise, I had no idea who in the family had possessed dark, flaming hair. At least Juno had gray eyes as well, although hers were a softer shade than mine, the mist to my steel.

“I must take after my father,” I said, giving her a tight smile. It really wasn’t any of her business, and it wasn’t like she’d known what my father had looked like anyway.

Willow blinked. “You mean Benjamin Gray?”

Who the hell else would I mean? “Yes.”

“Oh… I see.” She looked strangely doubtful, but Kase stood up and brushed off his immaculate trunks.

“Daylight’s wasting, ladies,” he said, gallantly holding out a hand towards the lake.

I followed them down, the cool stones under my bare feet belying their claim. It was cold out here, no two ways around it.

I glanced out over the lake, a sudden chill washing over me. Willow’s shriek cut through the silence of the woods as Kase pushed her off the dock, but the sound barely registered in my consciousness.

It felt like… the woods were listening. Like the world held its breath, waiting for something. A pressure in the air, a storm building… there was something about this place that made me feel like I was no longer on the Earth I knew.

“Do I have to push you in, too?”

I was yanked from my strange reverie and looked down at Kase’s dimpled face.

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