"Water was sacred to the Druids," Bonnie explained, as Meredith placed the dish on the floor and the three girls sat around it.
"Apparently, everything was sacred to the Druids," said Meredith.
"Shh. Now, put the candle in the candlestick and light it. Then I'm going to pour melted wax into the water, and the shapes it makes will tell me the answers to your questions. My grandmother used melted lead, and she said her grandmother used melted silver, but she told me wax would do." When Meredith had lit the candle, Bonnie glanced at it sideways and took a deep breath. "I'm getting scareder and scareder to do this," she said.
"You don't have to," Elena said softly.
"I know. But I want to—this once. Besides, it's not these kind of rituals that scare me; it's getting taken over that's so awful. I hate it. It's like somebody else getting into my body."
Elena frowned and opened her mouth, but Bonnie was continuing.
"Anyway, here goes. Turn down the lights, Meredith. Give me a minute to get attuned and then ask your questions."
In the silence of the dim room Elena watched the candlelight flickering over Bonnie's lowered eyelashes and Meredith's sober face. She looked down at her own hands in her lap, pale against the blackness of the sweater and leggings Meredith had lent her. Then she looked at the dancing flame.
"All right," Bonnie said softly and took the candle.
Elena's fingers twined together, clenching hard, but she spoke in a low voice so as not to break the atmosphere. "Who is the Other Power in Fell's Church?"
Bonnie tilted the candle so that the flame licked up its sides. Hot wax streamed down like water into the bowl and formed round globules there.
"I was afraid of that," Bonnie murmured. "That's no answer, nothing. Try a different question."
Disappointed, Elena sat back, fingernails biting into her palms. It was Meredith who spoke.
"Can we find this Other Power if we look? And can we defeat it?"
"That's two questions," Bonnie said under her breath as she tilted the candle again. This time the wax formed a circle, a lumpy white ring.
"That's unity! The symbol for people joining hands. It means we can do it if we stick together."
Elena's head jerked up. Those were almost the same words she'd said to Stefan and Damon. Bonnie's eyes were shining with excitement, and they smiled at each other.
"Watch out! You're still pouring," Meredith said.
Bonnie quickly righted the candle, looking into the bowl again. The last spill of wax had formed a thin, straight line.
"That's a sword," she said slowly. "It means sacrifice. We can do it if we stick together, but not without sacrifice."
"What kind of sacrifice?" asked Elena.
"I don't know," Bonnie said, her face troubled. "That's all I can tell you this time." She stuck the candle back in the candleholder.
"Whew," said Meredith, as she got up to turn on the lights. Elena stood, too.
"Well, at least we know we can beat it," she said, tugging up the leggings, which were too long for her. She caught a glimpse of herself in Meredith's mirror. She certainly didn't look like Elena Gilbert the high school fashion plate anymore. Dressed all in black like this, she looked pale and dangerous, like a sheathed sword. Her hair fell haphazardly around her shoulders.
"They wouldn't know me at school," she murmured, with a pang. It was strange that she should care about going to school, but she did. It was because she couldn't go, she guessed. And because she'd been queen there so long, she'd run things for so long, that it was almost unbelievable that she could never set foot there again,
"You could go somewhere else," Bonnie suggested. "I mean, after this is all over, you could finish the school year someplace where nobody knows you. Like Stefan did."
"No, I don't think so." Elena was in a strange mood tonight, after spending the day alone in the barn watching the snow. "Bonnie," she said abruptly, "would you look at my palm again? I want you to tell my future, my personal future."
"I don't even know if I remember all the stuff my grandmother taught me… but, all right, I'll try," Bonnie relented. "There'd just better be no more dark strangers on the way, that's all. You've already got all you can handle." She giggled as she took Elena's outstretched hand. "Remember when Caroline asked what you could do with two? I guess you're finding out now, huh?"
"Just read my palm, will you?"
"All right, this is your life line—" Bonnie's stream of patter broke off almost before it was started. She stared at Elena's hand, fear and apprehension in her face. "It should go all the way down to here," she said. "But it's cut off so short…"
She and Elena looked at each other without speaking for a moment, while Elena felt that same apprehension solidify inside herself. Then Meredith broke in.
"Well, naturally it's short," she said. "It just means what happened already, when Elena drowned."
"Yes, of course, that must be it," Bonnie murmured. She let go of Elena's hand and Elena slowly drew back. "That's it, all right," Bonnie said in a stronger voice.
Elena was gazing into the mirror again. The girl who gazed back was beautiful, but there was a sad wisdom about her eyes that the old Elena Gilbert had never had. She realized that Bonnie and Meredith were looking at her.
"That must be it," she said lightly, but her smile didn't touch her eyes.
"Well, at least I didn't get taken over," Bonnie said. "But I'm sick of this psychic stuff anyway; I'm tired of the whole thing. That was the last time, absolutely the last."
"All right," said Elena, turning away from the mirror, "let's talk about something else. Did you find anything out today?"
"I talked with Alaric, and he's having another get-together next week," Bonnie replied. "He asked Caroline and Vickie and me if we wanted to be hypnotized to help us deal with what's been happening. But I'm sure he isn't the Other Power, Elena. He's too nice."
Elena nodded. She'd had second thoughts about her suspicions of Alaric herself. Not because he was nice, but because she had spent four days in his attic asleep. Would the Other Power really have let her stay there unharmed? Of course, Damon had said he'd influenced Alaric to forget that she was up there, but would the Other Power have succumbed to Damon's influence? Shouldn't it be far too strong?
Unless its Powers had temporarily burned out, she thought suddenly. The way Stefan's were burning out now. Or unless it had only been pretending to be influenced.
"Well, we won't cross him off the list just yet," she said. "We've got to be careful. What about Mrs. Flowers? Did you find out anything about her?"
"No luck," said Meredith. "We went to the boardinghouse this morning, but she didn't answer the door. Stefan said he'd try to track her down in the afternoon."
"If somebody would only invite me in there, I could watch her, too," Elena said. "I feel like I'm the only one not doing anything. I think…" She paused a moment, considering, and then said, "I think I'll go by home—by Aunt Judith's, I mean. Maybe I'll find Robert hanging around in the bushes or something."
"We'll go with you," Meredith said.
"No, it's better for me to do it alone. Really, it is. I can be very inconspicuous these days."
"Then take your own advice and be careful. It's still snowing hard."
Elena nodded and dropped over the windowsill.
As she approached her house, she saw that a car was just pulling out of the driveway. She melted into the shadows and watched. The headlights illuminated an eerie winter sight: the neighbors' black locust tree, like a bare-branched silhouette, with a white owl sitting in it.
As the car roared past, Elena recognized it. Robert's blue Oldsmobile.