Page 56 of Hallows End

“Mom?”

“Don’t do it,” she says again. “I can’t save you if you do.”

“I’m not hurt.”

“You will be. Stop walking.”

I look down and see that my feet are moving without me even realizing it. “I’m not trying to.”

“Luciana, do as I say. Stop it, right now.”

“I can’t.” I look up and reach out for her, but she’s gone. “Mom? Mom! I can’t stop.”

“You’ll die.”

The words are an echo in my mind. I search around me, but there’s no one there.

“I will not! Mom? Help!”

Water. Water’s flowing around my ankles, and my feet are sinking into the concrete below as if it’s turned into sand and I’m on the shoreline.

Because Iamat the shoreline.

“How did I get here?”

“Lucy?”

My heart is beating so hard, it feels like it’s going to explode.

“Lorelei! I’m over here!”

“Lucy?” She calls and calls as if I’m lost, but I’m standing twenty yards away from her. “Where did you go?”

“I’mright here!” I try to run to her, but my feet are stuck in the sand, and the water is rising. “Help me get out of this.”

But she doesn’t hear me.

“Lucy!”

Breena and Giles come rushing out of the woods.

“We can’t find her,” Giles says, his face white, and his expression grim. “She’s not anywhere in the forest.”

“And the bridge is gone,” Breena adds as Xander, in the form of a raven, lands on a log and then changes into his human form.

“She can’t have just disappeared.” His voice is edged with both anger and fear. “Where’s Jonas?”

“Gone,” Lorelei whispers. “Just gone. And I can’t find Lucy.”

“I’m here!” For the love of Thor, why can’t they hear me? “Just help me! I’m stuck!”

“They got her.” Breena buries her face in Giles’s chest to weep. “Oh, goddess, what will we do without our Lucy? She won’t meet our baby.”

Her hands smooth over her rounded belly.

Breena’s pregnant?

“I’m here.” I’m crying now, trying to reach them with my mind since they can’t hear my voice. “Please, I’m right here. I love you. Help me.”