The Vampire Diaries #8: Phantom (The Hunters #1) (2011)

Chapter 10

Elder blossoms can be used for exorcism, protection, or prosperity, Bonnie read, lying flopped down on her bed, chin propped on her hands. Mix with comfrey and coltsfoot and bind in red silk during a waxing moon to make a charm bag for attracting wealth. Distill in a bath with lavender, feverfew, and motherwort for personal protection. Burn with hyssop, white sage, and devil's shoestring to create a smoke that can be used in exorcising bad spirits.

Devil's shoestring? Was that really an herb? Unlike most of the others, it didn't sound like something she'd find in her mother's garden. She sighed noisily and skipped ahead a little.

The best herbs for aiding meditation are agrimony, chamomile, damiana, eyebright, and ginseng. They may be tossed together and burned to create smoke or, when picked at dawn, dried and sprinkled around the subject in a circle.

Bonnie eyed the thick book balefully. Pages and pages and pages of herbs and what their properties were in different circumstances, and when to gather them, and how to use them. Al written as dryly and dully as her high school geometry textbook.

She had always hated studying. The best thing about the summer between high school and college was that no one could expect her to spend any time tucked up with a heavy book, trying to memorize excessively boring facts. Yet here she was, doing just that, and she'd total y brought it on herself.

But when she had asked Mrs. Flowers to teach her magic, she had expected something, well , cooler than being handed a heavy book on herbs. Secretly, she had been hoping for one-on-one sessions that involved casting spells, or flying, or summoning fantastical servants to do her bidding. Less reading quietly to herself, anyway. Shouldn't there be some way that magical knowledge could just implant itself in her brain? Like, well , magically?

She flipped forward a few more pages. Ooh, this looked a bit more interesting.

An amulet filled with cinnamon, cowslip, and dandelion leaves will help in attracting love and fulfilling secret desires. Gather the herbs in a gentle rain and, after drying, bind them with red velvet and gold thread. Bonnie giggled and kicked her feet against the mattress, thinking that she could probably come up with some secret desires to fulfill . Did she need to pick the cinnamon, or would it be okay to just get it out of the spice cupboard?

She turned a few more pages. Herbs for clarity of sight, herbs for cleansing, herbs that had to be gathered under the ful moon or on a sunny day in June. She sighed once more and closed the book.

It was past midnight. She listened, but the house was quiet. Her parents were sleeping.

Now that her sister Mary, who'd been the last of Bonnie's three older sisters to leave home, had moved in with her boyfriend, Bonnie missed having her right down the hall . But there were also advantages to not having her nosy, bossy big sister so close.

She climbed out of bed as quietly and cautiously as she could. Her parents weren't as sharp-eared as Mary, but they would come and check on her if they heard her getting up in the middle of the night.

Carefully, Bonnie pried up a floorboard under her bed. She had used it as her hiding place ever since she was a little girl. At first she had kept a doll she'd borrowed from Mary without permission; a secret candy stash bought with her allowance; her favorite red silk ribbon. Later, she'd hidden notes from her first boyfriend, or tests she'd failed. Nothing as sinister as what was hidden there now, though.

She lifted out another book just as thick as the volume on herbs Mrs. Flowers had lent her. But this one was olderlooking, with a dark leather cover wrinkled and softened by time. This book was from Mrs. Flowers's library, too, but Mrs. Flowers hadn't given it to her. Bonnie had snuck it off the shelf while Mrs. Flowers's back was turned, sliding it into her backpack and projecting her most innocent face when Mrs. Flowers's sharp eyes lingered on her afterward. Bonnie felt a bit guilty tricking Mrs. Flowers like that, especial y after the old woman agreed to mentor her. But, honestly, no one else would have had to sneak the book out in the first place. Any reason Meredith or Elena gave for wanting it would have immediately been accepted by everybody as right and true. They wouldn't even have to give a reason, just say that they needed the book. It was only Bonnie who would be sighed at and patted on the head - sweet, silly Bonnie - and stopped from doing what she wanted.

Bonnie stubbornly set her chin and traced the letters on the book's cover. Traversing the Boundaries Between the Quick and the Dead, they read.

Her heart was pounding as she opened the book to the page she'd marked earlier. But her hands were quite steady as she removed four candles, two white and two black, from beneath the floorboard.

She struck a match, lit one of the black candles, and tilted it to drip wax on the floor beside her bed. When there was a little pool of melted wax, Bonnie pressed the bottom of the candle into it, so that it stood upright on the floor.

"Fire in the North, protect me," she intoned. She reached for a white candle.

Plugged into its charger on the bedside table, her phone rang. Bonnie dropped the candle and swore.

Leaning over, she picked up the phone to see who was calling. Elena. Of course. Elena never realized how late it was when she wanted to talk to somebody.

Bonnie was tempted to press "ignore," but thought better of it. Maybe this was a sign that she shouldn't perform the ritual after all , at least not tonight. Maybe she should do some more research first to make sure she was doing it right. Bonnie blew out the black candle and pushed the button to answer her phone.

"Hey, Elena," she said, hoping her friend didn't sense her irritation as she placed the book gently back under the floorboard. "What's up?"

The ash was unbearably heavy. He strained against it, pushing at the blanket of gray holding him down. He clawed frantically, a panicked part of him wondering whether he was even going upward at all , whether he might not instead be digging himself farther under the surface. One of his hands was clutched tightly around something

- something fine and fibrous, like thin petals. He didn't know what it was, but he knew he shouldn't let go of it, and despite the fact that it hampered his struggle, he did not question this need to hold on.

It seemed as if he were clawing at the thick ash forever, but final y his other hand broke through the crumbling layers and relief flooded his body. He'd been going the right way; he wasn't going to be buried forever.

He reached out blindly, searching for something he could use to lever himself out. Ash and mud slid under his fingers, giving him nothing firm, and he floundered until he found what felt like a piece of wood in his grasp. The edges of the wood bit into his fingers as he clung to it as though it were a lifeline in a stormy ocean. He gradual y maneuvered his way up, slipping and sliding in the slick mud. With one last great effort, he wrenched his body out of the ash and mud, which gave a thick sucking noise as his shoulders emerged. He climbed to his knees, his muscles screaming in agony, then to his feet. He shuddered and shook, nauseated but euphoric, and wrapped his arms around his torso.

But he couldn't see anything. He panicked until he realized something was holding his eyes shut. He scrubbed at his face until he detached sticky clumps of ashy mud from his eyelashes. After a moment, he was final y able to open his eyes.

A desolate wasteland surrounded him. Blackened mud, puddles of water choked with ash. "Something terrible happened here," he said hoarsely, the sound startling him. It was so profoundly quiet.

It was freezing, and he realized he was naked, covered with only the same muddy ash that was everywhere. He hunched over and then, cursing himself for his momentary weakness, painfully straightened himself up. He had to...

He...

He couldn't remember.

A drop of liquid ran down his face, and he wondered vaguely whether he was crying. Or was it the thick, shimmering fluid that was everywhere here, mixing with the ash and mud?

Who was he? He didn't know that, either, and that blankness triggered a trembling in him that was quite separate from the shivering caused by the cold. His hand was still clenched protectively around the unknown object, and he raised his fist and stared at it. After a moment, he slowly uncurled his fingers.

Black fibers.

Then a drop of the opalescent fluid ran across his palm, over the middle of the fibers. Where it touched, they transformed. It was hair. Silky blond and copper hair. Quite beautiful.

He closed his fist again and held them against his chest, a new determination building inside him.

He had to go.

Through the haze, a clear picture of his destination sprang into his mind. He shuffled forward through the ash and mud, toward the castlelike gatehouse with high spires and heavy black doors that he somehow knew would be there.

Chapter 11

Elena hung up the phone. She and Bonnie had discussed everything that was going on, from the mysterious appearance of Celia's and Meredith's names to Margaret's upcoming dance recital. But she hadn't been able to bring up what she had real y called to talk about. She sighed. After a moment, she felt under her mattress and pulled out her velvet-covered journal.

Dear Diary,

This afternoon, I talked with Caleb Smallwood on the front lawn of my house. I barely know him, yet I feel this visceral connection with him. I love Bonnie and Meredith more than life itself, but they have no idea what it's like to lose your parents, and that puts a space between us.

I see myself in Caleb. He's so handsome and seems so carefree. I'm sure most people think his life is perfect. I know what it's like to pretend to have it together, even when you're coming apart. It can be the loneliest thing in the world. I hope he has a Bonnie or a Meredith of his own, a friend he can lean on.

The strangest thing happened while we were talking. A crow flew straight at us. It was a big crow, one of the biggest I've ever seen, with iridescent black feathers that shone in the sun and a huge hooked beak and claws. It might have been the same one that appeared on my windowsill yesterday morning, but I wasn't sure. Who can tell crows apart?

And, of course, both the crows reminded me of Damon, who watched me as a crow before we even met.

What's strange - ridiculous, really - is this dawning feeling of hope I have deep inside me. What if, I keep thinking, what if somehow Damon's not dead after all?

And then the hope collapses, because he is dead, and I need to face that. If I want to stay strong I can't lie to myself. I can't make up pretty fairy tales where the noble vampire doesn't die, where the rules get changed because it's someone I care about.

But that hope comes sneaking up on me again: What if?

It would be too cruel to say anything about the crow to Stefan. His grief has changed him.

Sometimes, when he's quiet, I catch a strange look in his leaf green eyes, like there's someone I don't know in there. And I know he's thinking of Damon, thoughts that take him somewhere I can't follow anymore.

I thought I could tell Bonnie about the crow. She cared about Damon, and she wouldn't laugh at me for wondering whether there were some way he might still, in some form, be alive. Not after she suggested the very same thing earlier today. At the last minute, though, I couldn't talk to her about it.

I know why, and it's a lousy, selfish, stupid reason: I'm jealous of Bonnie. Because Damon saved her life.

Awful, right?

Here's the thing: For a long time, out of millions, there was one human Damon cared about. Only one. And that one person was me. Everyone else could go to hell as far as he was concerned. He could barely remember my friends' names.

But something changed between Damon and Bonnie, maybe when they were alone in the Dark Dimension together, maybe earlier. She's always had a little crush on him, when he wasn't being cruel, but then he started to take notice of his little redbird. He watched her. He was tender with her. And when she was in danger, he moved to save her without a second thought as to what it might cost him.

So I'm jealous. Because Damon saved Bonnie's life.

I'm a terrible person. But, because I am so terrible, I don't want to share any more of Damon with Bonnie, not even my thoughts about the crow. I want to keep part of him just for me.

Elena reread what she had written, her lips pressed tightly together. She wasn't proud of her feelings, but she couldn't deny they existed.

She leaned back on her pillow. It had been a long, exhausting day, and now it was one o'clock in the morning. She'd said good night to Aunt Judith and Robert a couple of hours ago, but she didn't seem to be able to make it into bed. She'd just puttered around after changing into her nightdress: brushing her hair, rearranging some of her possessions, flipping through a magazine, looking with satisfaction at the fashionable wardrobe she hadn't had access to in months. Calling Bonnie.

Bonnie had sounded odd. Distracted, maybe. Or perhaps just tired. It was late, after all.

Elena was tired, too, but she didn't want to go to sleep. She finally admitted it to herself: She was a little afraid to go to sleep. Damon had been so real in her dream the other night. His body had felt firm and solid as she held him; his silky black hair had been soft against her cheek. His smooth voice had sounded sarcastic, seductive, and commanding by turns, just like the living Damon's. When she had remembered, with a sickening horror, that he was gone, it had been as if he had died all over again. But she couldn't stay awake forever. She was so tired. Elena switched off the light and closed her eyes. She was sitting on the creaky old bleachers in the school gym. The air smelled of sweaty athletic shoes and the polish they used on the wooden floor.

"This is where we met," said Damon, who she now realized was sitting beside her, so close the sleeve of his leather jacket brushed her arm.

"Romantic," Elena replied, raising one eyebrow and looking around the big empty room, the basketball hoops hanging at each end.

"I try," Damon said, a tinge of a laugh coloring his dry voice. "But you chose where we are. It's your dream."

"Is it a dream?" Elena asked suddenly, turning to study his face. "It doesn't feel like one."

"Well," he said, "let me put it this way. We're not actual y here." His face was serious and intent as he gazed back at her, but then he flashed one of his sudden, brilliant smiles and his eyes slid away. "I'm glad we didn't have gymnasiums like this when I did my studies," he said casually, stretching out his legs in front of him. "It seems so undignified, with the shorts and the rubber balls."

"Stefan said that you played sports then, though," Elena said, distracted despite herself. Damon frowned at Stefan's name.

"Never mind," she said hastily. "We might not have much time. Please, Damon, please, you said you're not here, but are you anywhere? Are you all right? Even if you're dead... I mean really dead, dead for good, are you somewhere?"

He looked at her sharply. His mouth twisted a little as he said, "Does it matter that much to you, princess?"

"Of course it does," Elena said, shocked. Her eyes were filling with tears.

His tone was light, but his eyes, so black she couldn't tell where the iris ended and the pupil began, were watchful.

"Everyone else - all your friends - this town - they're all okay, though, aren't they? You have your world back. There are such things as collateral damages you have to expect if you're going to get what you want."

Elena could tell from Damon's expression that what she said next would matter dreadfully. And, in her heart of hearts, hadn't she admitted to herself the other day that, as much as she loved Damon, things were better now, that everything could be good again with the town saved and her returned to her old life? And that she wanted it that way, even if it meant Damon was dead? That Damon was what he said: collateral damage?

"Oh, Damon," she said at last, helplessly. "I just miss you so much."

Damon's face softened and he reached for her. "Elena - "

"Yes?" Elena murmured.

"Elena?" A hand was gently shaking her. "Elena?"

Someone stroked her hair, and Elena nuzzled sleepily into the touch.

"Damon?" she said, still half dreaming.

The hand paused in its stroking and then withdrew. She opened her eyes.

"Just me, I'm afraid," said Stefan. He was sitting next to her on her bed, his mouth a straight, tight line, his eyes averted.

"Oh, Stefan," said Elena, sitting up and throwing her arms around him. "I didn't mean - "

"It's all right," Stefan said flatly, turning away from her. "I know what he meant to you."

Elena pulled him toward her and looked up into his face.

"Stefan. Stefan." His green eyes had a distant expression.

"I'm sorry," she said pleadingly.

"You have nothing to apologize for, Elena," he said.

"Stefan, I was dreaming about Damon," she confessed.

"You're right, Damon was important to me, and I... miss him." A muscle twitched at the side of Stefan's face, and she stroked his jaw. "I will never love anyone more than I love you, Stefan. It would be impossible. Stefan," she said, feeling like she might cry, "you're my true love, you know that." If only she could reach out and show him with her mind, make him understand what she felt for him. She'd never fully explored her other Powers, never fully claimed them, but losing their telepathic connection felt like it might kill her.

Stefan's expression softened. "Oh, Elena," he said slowly, and wrapped his arms around her. "I miss Damon, too." He buried his face in her hair and his next words were muffled. "I've spent hundreds of years fighting with my only brother, with us hating each other. We killed each other when we were human, and I don't think either of us ever got over the guilt and the shock, the horror of that moment." She felt a long shudder go through his body.

He sighed, a soft, sad sound. "And when we finally started to find our way back to being brothers again, it was all because of you." His forehead still resting on her shoulder, Stefan took Elena's hand and held it between both of his, turning it over and stroking it as he thought. "He died so suddenly. I guess I never expected... I never expected Damon to die before I did. He was always the strong one, the one who truly loved life. I feel..." He smiled a little, just a sad twist of his lips. "I feel... surprisingly lonely without him."

Elena entwined her fingers with Stefan's and held his hand tightly. He turned his face toward hers, meeting her eyes, and she pulled back a little so she could see him more clearly. There was pain in his eyes, and grief, but there was also a hardness she had never seen there before.

She kissed him, trying to erase that hard edge. He resisted her for half a second, and then he kissed her back.

"Oh, Elena," he said thickly, and kissed her again. As the kiss deepened, Elena felt a sweet, satisfying sense of rightness sweep through her. It was always like this: If she felt distanced from Stefan, the touch of their lips could unite them. She felt a wave of love and wonder from him, and held on to it, feeding the emotion back to him, the tenderness between them growing. With her Powers gone, she needed this more than ever.

She reached out with her mind and emotions, past the tenderness, past the rock-solid love that was always waiting for her in Stefan's kiss, and delved deeper into his mind. There was a fierce passion there, and she returned it, their emotions twining together, as their hands held each other harder.

Beneath the passion, there was grief, a terrible, endless grief, and farther still , buried in the depths of Stefan's emotions, was an aching loneliness, the loneliness of a man who had lived for centuries without companionship. And in that loneliness was the taste of something unfamiliar. Something... unyielding and cold and faintly metallic, as if she had bitten into foil.

There was something Stefan was holding back from her. Elena was sure of it, and she reached deeper into his mind as their kisses intensified. She needed all of him... She started to pull back her hair, to offer him her blood. That always brought them as close as they could possibly be. But before he could accept her offer, there was a sudden knock on the door.

Almost immediately it opened and Aunt Judith peeked in. Elena, blinking, found herself alone, her palms stinging from the speed with which Stefan had pulled away from her. She looked around hastily, but he'd vanished.

"Breakfast is on the table, Elena," Aunt Judith said cheerfully.

"Uh-huh," Elena said, distracted, peering at the closet, wondering where Stefan had hidden himself.

"Are you all right, dear?" her aunt said, her forehead creased with concern. Elena had a sudden picture of how she must look: wide-eyed, flushed, and disheveled, sitting in her rumpled bed and looking wildly around the room. It had been a long time since Stefan had needed to use his vampiric speed for anything as mundane as not getting caught in her bedroom!

She gave Aunt Judith a reassuring smile. "Sorry, I'm still half-asleep. I'll be right down," she said. "I'd better hurry. Stefan will be here to pick me up soon."

As Aunt Judith left the room, Elena finally caught sight of Stefan, waving from the lawn below her open window, and she waved back, laughing, the strange emotions at the bottom of Stefan's mind put aside for the moment. He gestured that he was going around to the front of the house and that he would see her in a minute.

She laughed again and jumped up to get ready for the picnic at Hot Springs. It was nice to be the kind of girl who worried about getting grounded. It felt... pleasurably normal.

A few minutes later, as Elena, now dressed in shorts and a light blue T-shirt, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, headed down the stairs, the doorbell rang.

"That'll be Stefan," she called as Aunt Judith appeared in the kitchen doorway. Elena grabbed her beach bag and picnic cooler from the bench in the hall.

"Elena!" Aunt Judith scolded. "You have to eat something before you go!"

"No time," Elena said, smiling at the familiarity of the argument. "I'll grab a muffin or something on the way." She and Aunt Judith had exchanged these words, or similar ones, most mornings of Elena's years in high school.

"Oh, Elena," Aunt Judith said, rolling her eyes. "Don't move, young lady. I'll be right back."

Elena opened the door and smiled up into Stefan's eyes.

"Why, hello there, stranger," she said softly. He kissed her, a sweet touch of his lips on hers.

Aunt Judith hurried back into the hallway and pressed a granola bar into Elena's hand. "There," she said. "At least you'll have something in your stomach."

Elena gave her a quick hug. "Thank you, Aunt Judith," she said. "I'll see you later."

"Have fun, but please don't forget Margaret's dance recital tonight," Aunt Judith said. "She's so excited about it."

Aunt Judith waved good-bye from the doorway as Elena and Stefan strolled toward the car.

"We're meeting the others at the boardinghouse and caravanning to Hot Springs," Stefan said. "Matt and Meredith are both bringing their cars."

"Oh, good, we won't be as crowded as we were yesterday. Not that I minded sitting on your lap, but I thought I might squish Celia in the middle," Elena said. She turned her face up and stretched like a cat in the sunshine. A breeze tossed her ponytail, and she closed her eyes and enjoyed the sensation. "It's a gorgeous day for a picnic," she said. The world was alive with birdsong and with the rustle of trees. A faint tracery of white clouds underscored the bright blue of the sky. "Would it be jinxing ourselves to say it feels like the kind of day where nothing could go wrong?" she asked.

"Yes, it absolutely would be jinxing ourselves to say that," Stefan said, straight-faced, unlocking the passenger-side door for her.

"Then I won't say it," Elena said. "I won't even think it. But I feel good. I haven't been to Hot Springs for ages." She grinned with pure pleasure, and Stefan smiled back at her, but Elena was struck once again by that certain something new - something troubling - in his eyes.

Chapter 12

"It's going to be a lovely day - perfect for a picnic," Meredith observed calmly.

Bonnie had tactful y but firmly steered Celia into Matt's car instead of Meredith's, and so Meredith was alone with Alaric - at last! - for the first time since he'd arrived. Half of her just wanted to pull off the road, grab Alaric, and kiss him and kiss him, she was so glad that he was final y here. Al through the insanity of the last few months, she'd wished that he were there to fight by her side, to depend on. But the other half of her wanted to pull off the road, grab Alaric, and demand that he explain to her exactly what his relationship was with Dr. Celia Connor.

Instead, here she was, driving placidly, hands at ten and two on the steering wheel, making small talk about the weather. She felt like a coward, and Meredith Suarez was no coward. But what could she say? What if she was just paranoid, and making a ridiculous fuss about a strictly professional relationship?

She glanced at Alaric out of the corner of her eye.

"So..." she said. "Tel me more about your research in Japan."

Alaric ran his hands through his already tousled hair and grinned at her. "The trip was fascinating," he said. "Celia's so intelligent and experienced. She just puts together all these clues about a civilization. It was a real eye-opener for me to watch her decipher so much from the evidence in the graves there. I never knew much about forensic anthropology before, but she was able to reconstruct an amazing amount about the culture of Unmei no Shima."

"Sounds like she's simply amazing," Meredith said, hearing the acid in her tone.

Apparently Alaric didn't notice it. He smiled a little. "It took quite a while for her to take my paranormal research seriously," he said ruefully. "Parapsychology isn't particularly well regarded by the experts in other scientific disciplines. They think people like me who choose to spend their lives studying the supernatural are charlatans, or naive. Or a little crazy."

Meredith made herself speak pleasantly. "You were able to convince her at last, though? That's good."

"Sort of," Alaric answered. "We got to be friends, anyway, so she stopped thinking I was a complete fraud. I think she's found it all a lot more believable after the one day she's spent here, though." He gave a wry smile. "She tried to hide it, but she was blown away yesterday when Stefan saved her. The existence of a vampire makes it clear that there's a lot conventional science knows nothing about. I'm sure she'll want to examine Stefan if he'll let her."

"I would imagine so," said Meredith dryly, resisting the urge to ask Alaric why he thought Stefan would cooperate when he had seemed so displeased that Alaric had told Celia about him.

Alaric slid a hand across the car seat until he was close enough to run a finger gently along Meredith's arm. "I learned a lot while I was gone," he said earnestly, "but I'm really more concerned about what's going on right now in Fell's Church."

"You mean this dark magic that is supposedly rising here?" Meredith asked.

"I mean the dark magic that seems to be targeting you and Celia," Alaric said forcefully. "I'm not sure either of you is taking it seriously enough."

Me and Celia, thought Meredith. He's just as worried about her as he is about me. Maybe more.

"I know we've faced danger in the past, but I feel responsible for Celia," Alaric went on. "I brought her here, and I'd never be able to forgive myself if something happened to her."

Definitely more, Meredith thought bitterly, and shrugged off Alaric's hand.

She instantly regretted the motion. What was the matter with her? This wasn't who she was. She'd always been the calm, rational one. Now here she was feeling like, well , like a jealous girlfriend.

"And now it's threatening you, too," Alaric went on. He tentatively touched her knee, and this time Meredith let his hand stay. "Meredith, I know how strong you are. But it's terrifying to me that this doesn't seem to be the kind of enemy we're used to. How can we fight what we can't even see?"

"Al we can do is be vigilant," Meredith said. Her training had been comprehensive, but even she didn't understand this new evil. Yet she knew how to protect herself much better than Alaric realized. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. His window was open a crack, and the breeze ruffled his sandy hair. They knew each other so well, yet he still didn't know her biggest secret. For a moment she considered telling him, but then he turned to her and said, "Celia's putting on a brave face, but I can tell she's scared. She's not as tough as you are."

Meredith stiffened. No, this wasn't the right time to tell Alaric that she was a hunter-slayer. Not when she was driving. Not when she was this angry. Suddenly his hand felt heavy and clammy on her knee, but she knew she couldn't push it off again without betraying her feelings. Inside, though, she was raging at how the conversation kept coming back to Celia. Alaric had thought of her first. And even when he was talking about the danger to Meredith, he couched it in terms of what had happened to Celia. Alaric's voice became a buzz in the background as Meredith clutched the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles whitened.

Really, why was she surprised that Alaric had feelings for Celia? Meredith wasn't blind. She could be objective. Celia was smart, accomplished, beautiful. Celia and Alaric were in the same place in their lives. Meredith hadn't even started college yet. She was attractive - she knew that - and certainly intelligent. But Celia was all that and more: She was Alaric's equal in a way Meredith couldn't be just yet. Sure, Meredith was a vampire hunter. But Alaric didn't know that. And when he did know, would he admire her strength? Or would he turn away from her, scared of her abilities, and toward someone more academic, like Celia?

A black bubble of misery filled Meredith's chest.

"I'm beginning to think I should take Celia away from here if I can get her to leave." Alaric sounded reluctant, but Meredith could hardly hear him. She felt as cold as if she were being enveloped in a fog. "Maybe I should get her back to Boston. I think you should leave Fell's Church, too, Meredith, if you can convince your family to let you go away for the rest of the summer. You could come with us, or maybe there's a relative you could stay with if your family wouldn't like that. I'm worried that you aren't safe here."

"Nothing's happened to me yet," said Meredith, surprised by the calm of her own voice, when such dark emotions were boiling inside her. "And I have a responsibility to be here and protect the town. If you think Celia will be safer away from here, do what you and she think is best. But you know there's no guarantee that whatever's threatening us won't follow her somewhere else. And at least here there are people who believe in the danger.

"Besides," she added thoughtful y, "the threat to Celia may be over. Maybe once the attack is averted, it moves on to someone else. My name didn't appear until after Stefan saved Celia. If so, then the danger is only to me."

Not that you care, she thought viciously, and was surprised at herself. Of course Alaric cared. It was just that he seemed to care about what happened to Celia more.

Her fingernails cut into her palms around the steering wheel as she carefully followed Stefan's car off the road and toward the parking lot for Hot Springs.

"Stop!" Alaric shouted, panic in his voice, and Meredith automatically slammed on the brakes. The car squealed to a halt.

"What?" Meredith gasped. "What is it?"

And then she saw her.

Dr. Celia Connor had gotten out of Matt's car to cross to the path up to the springs. Meredith had come speeding right toward her. Only inches from Meredith's front bumper, Celia was frozen, her pretty face gray with fear, her mouth a perfect O.

One more second, and Meredith would have killed her.

Chapter 13

"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry," Meredith said for the tenth time. Her usually composed face was flushed, and her eyes were bright with unshed tears. Matt didn't remember ever seeing her so upset about something, especially something that had ended up not being a big deal. Sure, Celia could have been hurt, but the car hadn't touched her.

"I'm fine, really I am, Meredith," Celia assured her again.

"I just didn't see you. I don't know how, but I didn't. Thank God for Alaric," Meredith said, throwing a grateful glance at Alaric, who was sitting close beside her and rubbing her back.

"It's okay, Meredith," he said. "It's all okay." Alaric seemed more concerned for Meredith than for Celia, and Matt didn't blame him. Babbling was pretty out of character for Meredith. Alaric wrapped his arms tightly around Meredith, and she visibly relaxed.

Celia, on the other hand, tensed noticeably as Meredith leaned into Alaric's embrace. Matt traded a rueful glance with Bonnie.

Then Stefan reached out and stroked Elena's shoulder absently, and Matt was surprised to feel a jealous pang of his own. Wasn't he ever going to get over Elena Gilbert? It had been more than a year since they dated, and about a century in experience.

Bonnie was still watching him, now with a speculative gleam in her eyes, and Matt shot her a bland smile. He'd just as soon not know what Bonnie saw in his face when he looked at Elena and Stefan.

"Around this bend and up the slope is the Plunge," he said to Celia, ushering her forward along the trail. "It's a little bit of a hike, but it's the best place around here for a picnic."

"Absolutely the best," said Bonnie cheerily. "We can jump down the waterfall." She fell in on Celia's other side, helping him to herd her away from the two couples, who were murmuring to one another softly as they followed behind.

"Is that safe?" asked Celia dubiously.

"Totally," said Bonnie. "Everybody jumps the waterfall here, and nobody's ever gotten hurt."

"Usually it's safe," said Matt, more cautiously. "You and Meredith might want to think about not swimming, Celia."

"I hate this," Bonnie said. "I hate having to be extra careful because of some dark thing that we don't know anything about. Everything should be normal."

Normal or not, it was a magnificent picnic. They spread their blankets on the rocks near the top of the waterfall . The small falls plummeted down the side of the cliff and ended in a deep pool of effervescent water, making a sort of natural fountain that spilled into a clear bronze-green pool. Mrs. Flowers had packed salads and breads and desserts for them, as well as meat and corn to grill on a hibachi Stefan had brought from the boardinghouse. They had more than enough food for a couple days of camping, let alone one lunch. Elena had stowed cold drinks in a cooler, and, after hiking up the trail in the Virginia summer heat, everyone was happy to crack open a lemonade or soda.

Even Stefan took a water bottle and drank as he started heating the grill, although it was automatically understood by everyone that he would not be eating. Matt had always found the fact that he never saw Stefan eating a little creepy, even before Matt knew he was a vampire. The girls squirmed out of jeans and tops to display their bathing suits, like caterpillars transforming into butterflies. Meredith was tan and lean in a black one-piece. Bonnie was wearing a petite mermaid-green bikini. Elena wore a soft gold bandeau that went with her hair. Matt watched Stefan watching her appreciatively, and felt that little twist of jealousy again.

Both Elena and Bonnie pulled their T-shirts back on over their bathing suits almost immediately. They always did: Their pale skin burned instead of tanned. Celia lounged on a towel, looking spectacular in a casual yet daringly cut white swimsuit. The effect of the pure white against Celia's coffee-colored skin was amazing. Matt noticed Meredith's eyes passing over her and then glancing sharply at Alaric. But Alaric was too busy shucking down to a pair of red trunks. Stefan stayed out of the direct sunlight, remaining in his dark jeans and black T-shirt.

Wasn't that a little creepy, too? Matt thought. Stefan's ring protected him from the sun's rays, didn't it? Did he still have to stick to the shadows? And what was with the black clothing? Was he pretending to be Damon now? Matt frowned at the thought: One Damon had been more than enough.

Matt shook his head, stretched his arms and legs, turned his face toward the sun, and tried to get rid of his thoughts. He liked Stefan. He always had. Stefan was a good guy. A vampire, a dry voice in the back of his mind noted, even a harmless one, can rarely be described as a good guy. Matt ignored the voice.

"Let's jump!" he said, and headed toward the waterfall .

"Not Meredith," said Stefan flatly. "Not Meredith, and not Celia. You two stay here."

There was a little silence, and he glanced up from the grill to see his friends staring at him. He kept his face neutral as he returned their gazes. This was a life-or-death situation. It was Stefan's responsibility now to keep them safe, whether they liked it or not. He looked at them each in turn, holding their eyes. He was not going to back down.

Meredith had risen to her feet to follow Matt to the falls' edge, and she hesitated for a moment, clearly unsure how to react. Then her face hardened, and Stefan saw that she had chosen to take a stand.

She stepped toward him. "I'm sorry, Stefan," she said, her voice level. "I know you're worried, but I'm going to do what I decide I want to do. I can look after myself."

She moved to join Matt, who was standing at the edge of the cliff, but Stefan's hand whipped out to grab her wrist, his fingers as strong as steel. "No, Meredith," he said firmly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bonnie's mouth drop open. Everyone was looking at him with puzzled, anxious faces, and Stefan tried to soften his tone. "I'm just trying to do what's best for you."

Meredith sighed, a long, gusty sound, and seemed to be making an effort to let go of some of her anger. "I know that, Stefan," she said reasonably, "and I appreciate it. But I can't go through the world not doing the things I usual y do, just waiting for whatever this is to come get me."

She tried to move around him, but he sidestepped to block her way again.

Meredith glanced at Celia, who threw up her hands and shook her head. "Don't look at me," Celia said. "I have no urge to jump off a cliff. I'm just going to lie in the sunshine and let you all work this out yourselves." She leaned back on her hands and turned her face toward the sun. Meredith's eyes narrowed and she whirled back to Stefan. As she was opening her mouth, Elena broke in.

"What if the rest of us go first?" she suggested placatingly to Stefan. "We can make sure there's nothing clearly dangerous down there. And we'll be near her at the bottom. Nobody's ever been hurt jumping here, not that I've heard of. Right, guys?" Matt and Bonnie nodded in agreement.

Stefan felt himself softening. Whenever Elena used her logical voice and her wide, appealing eyes, he found himself agreeing to plans that, in his heart of hearts, he thought were foolhardy.

Elena pressed her advantage. "You could stand right by the water below, too," she said. "Then, if there's any problem, you could dive in right away. You're so fast, you'd get there before anything bad could happen."

Stefan knew this was wrong. He hadn't forgotten that sick swoop of despair, of realizing he was too slow to save someone. Once again, he saw Damon's long, graceful leap toward Bonnie that had ended with Damon falling to earth, a wooden branch driven through his heart. Damon had died because Stefan was too slow to save him, too slow to realize the danger and save Bonnie himself.

He'd also been too late to save Elena when she had driven off the bridge and drowned. The fact that she now lived again didn't mean he hadn't failed her then. He remembered her pale hair floating like seaweed in the chilly water of Wickery Creek, her hands still resting on the steering wheel, her eyes closed, and shuddered. He had dived repeatedly before he found her. She had been so cold and white when he carried her to shore. Still , he found himself nodding. What Elena wanted, Elena got. He would stand by and protect Meredith as best as he could, and he prayed, as far as a vampire could pray, that it would be enough.

The rest of the friends stayed at the top while, down at the bottom of the falls, Stefan surveyed the pool at his feet. The water sprayed up exuberantly from where the falls hit the surface. Warm, pale sand encircled the pool's edges, making a tiny beach, and the center of the pool seemed dark and deep.

Matt jumped first, with a long, wavering whoop as he plummeted. The splash as he hit the water was huge, and he seemed to stay submerged for a long time. Stefan leaned forward to watch the water. He couldn't see through the foam thrown up by the falls, and an anxious quiver shot through his stomach.

He was just thinking of diving in after him when Matt's sleek wet head broke the surface. "I touched the bottom!" he announced, grinning, and shook his head like a dog, throwing glittering drops of water everywhere. He swam toward Stefan, strong tan limbs moving powerful y, and Stefan thought how easy everything seemed for Matt. He was a creature of sunlight and simplicity, while Stefan was stuck in the shadows, living a long half-life of secrets and loneliness. Sure, his sapphire ring let him walk in the sun, but being exposed to the sunlight for a long time, like today, was uncomfortable, as if there were some kind of itch deep inside him. It was worse now that he was readjusting to a diet of animal blood again. His unease was yet another reminder that he didn't really belong here. Not the way Matt did.

He shrugged off his sour feelings, surprised at their emergence in the first place. Matt was a good friend. He always had been. The daylight must be getting to him. Bonnie jumped next, and surfaced more quickly, coughing and snorting. "Oof!" she said. "I got water up my nose! Ugh!" She pulled herself out of the water and perched on a rock near Stefan's feet. "You don't swim?" she asked him.

Stefan was struck with a flash of memory. Damon, tanned and strong, splashing him and laughing in one of his rare fits of good humor. It was hundreds of years ago now. Back when the Salvatore brothers had lived in the sunlight, back before even the great-grandparents of his friends had been born. "Not for a long time," he answered. Elena jumped with the same casual grace as she did everything else, straight as an arrow toward the bottom of the falls, her gold bathing suit and her golden hair gleaming in the sunshine. She was underwater for longer than Bonnie had been, and again Stefan tensed, watching the pool. When she broke the surface, she gave them a rueful grin. "I couldn't quite reach the bottom," she said. "I was stretching and stretching down. I could see the sand, but the water pushed me back up."

"I didn't even try," Bonnie said. "I've accepted that I'm too short."

Elena swam away from the bottom of the falls and climbed onto the sand, settling next to Bonnie at Stefan's feet. Matt climbed out of the water, too, and stood near the falls, gazing up critically. "Just jump feet first, Meredith," he called teasingly. "You're such a show-off."

Meredith was poised at the edge of the falls. She saluted them and then leaped into a perfect swan dive, arching swiftly toward the pool, disappearing smoothly beneath the water with barely a splash.

"She was on the swim team," Bonnie said conversationally to Stefan. "She has a row of ribbons and trophies on a shelf at home."

Stefan nodded absently, his eyes scanning the water. Surely Meredith's head would break the surface in a second. The others had taken about this long to reemerge.

"Can I jump yet?" Alaric called from above.

"No!" Elena shouted. She rose to her feet and she and Stefan exchanged a worried glance. Meredith had been down there too long.

Meredith surfaced, sputtering and pushing her wet hair out of her eyes. Stefan relaxed.

"I did it!" she called. "I - "

Her eyes widened and she began to shriek, but her scream was cut off as she was abruptly yanked under the water by something they couldn't see. In the space of a breath, she was gone.

For a moment, Stefan just stared at where Meredith had been, unable to move. Too slow, too slow, an internal voice taunted him, and he pictured Damon's face, laughing cruelly and saying again, So fragile, Stefan. He couldn't see Meredith anywhere under the clear, effervescent water. It was as if she had been taken suddenly away. All of this flew through Stefan's head in only a heartbeat, and then he dived into the water after her.

Underwater, he couldn't see anything. The white water from the falls bubbled up, throwing foam and golden sand in front of him.

Stefan urgently channeled his Power to his eyes, sharpening his vision, but mostly that just meant that now he could see the individual bubbles of the white water and the grains of sand in sharp relief. Where was Meredith?

The bubbling water was trying to push him up to the surface, too. He had to struggle to move forward through the murky water, reaching out. Something brushed his fingers and he grabbed at it, but it was only a handful of slippery pondweed.

Where was she? Time was running out. Humans could go without oxygen for only a few minutes before brain damage set in. A few minutes after that, there would be no recovery at all.

He remembered Elena's drowning once more, the frail white shape that he had pulled from Matt's wrecked car, ice crystals in her hair. The water here was warm, but would kill Meredith just as surely. He swallowed a sob and reached out frantically again into the shadowed depths. His fingers found skin, and it moved against his hand. Stefan grasped whatever limb it was, tight enough to bruise, and surged forward. In less than a second more, he could see that it was Meredith's arm. She was conscious, her mouth tight with fear, her hair streaming around her in the water.

At first he couldn't see why she hadn't come to the surface. Then Meredith gestured emphatically, reaching to fumble at long tendrils of pondweed that had somehow become entangled with her legs.

Stefan swam down, pushing against the white water from the falls, and tried to work his hand under the pondweed to pull it off her. It was wrapped so tightly around Meredith's legs that he couldn't get his fingers beneath it. Her skin was pressed white by the strands.

Stefan struggled for a moment, then swam closer and let Power surge into him, sharpening and lengthening his canines. He bit, careful not to scratch Meredith's legs, and pulled at the pondweed, but it resisted him. A little late, he realized that the resilience of the plants must be supernatural: His Power-enhanced strength was enough to break bones, tear through metal, and should have had no problem with a bit of pondweed.

And final y - so slow, he reprimanded himself, always just so damn slow - he realized what he was looking at. Stefan felt his eyes widen in horror.

The tight strands of pondweed against Meredith's long legs spelled out a name.

Chapter 14

damon

Where were they? Elena watched the water anxiously. If anything had happened to Meredith or Stefan, it was Elena's fault. She had convinced Stefan to let Meredith jump the falls.

His objections had been total y reasonable; she could see that now. Meredith had been marked for death. For God's sake, Celia had almost been killed simply getting off a train. What had Meredith been thinking, jumping off a cliff into water when she was in the same sort of peril? What had Elena been thinking of to let her? She should have been by Stefan's side, holding Meredith back. And Stefan. She knew he ought to be fine; the rational part of her brain kept reminding her that Stefan was a vampire. He didn't even need to breathe. He could stay underwater for days. He was incredibly strong. But not so long ago, she had thought Stefan was gone forever, stolen by the kitsune. Bad things could happen to him - vampire or not. If she lost him now through her own stupid fault, through her own stubbornness and insistence that everyone pretend that life could be the way it used to be - that they could have some simple fun without doom following them - Elena would lie down and die.

"Do you see anything?" Bonnie asked, a tremble in her voice. Her freckles stood out in dark dots against her pale face, and her normal y exuberant red curls were plastered flat and dark against her head.

"No. Not from up here." Elena shot her a grim look, and before she even consciously made the decision, she dived into the pool.

Underwater, Elena's vision was clouded by the froth and sand thrown up by the falls, and she treaded water for a moment as she tried to peer around. She saw a patch of darkness that looked like it might be human figures off near the middle of the pool and struck out toward it. Thank God, Elena thought fervently. When she got closer, the darkness resolved itself into Meredith and Stefan. They seemed to be struggling against something in the water, Stefan's face near Meredith's legs, Meredith's hands reaching desperately toward the surface. Her face was bluish from lack of oxygen, and her eyes were wide with panic.

Just as Elena came close to them, Stefan jerked sharply and Meredith shot upward. As if in slow motion, Elena saw Meredith's arm swing toward her as Meredith rose. A sudden blow sent Elena shooting backward toward the rocks behind the falls, the falls pushing her deeper underwater as she passed under them.

This is bad, she had just enough time to think, and then her head hit the rocks and everything went black. When Elena awoke, she found herself in her room at home, still in her bathing suit. Sun shone through the window, but Elena was wet and shivering with cold. Water trickled from her hair and bathing suit, droplets winding down her arms and legs and puddling on the carpet.

She was unsurprised to see that Damon was there, looking as sleek and dark and poised as ever. He'd been perusing her bookshelf, as comfortable as if he were in his own home, and he wheeled around to stare at her.

"Damon," she said weakly, confused but, as always, so happy to see him.

"Elena!" he said, appearing delighted for a moment, and then he frowned.

"No," he said sharply. "Elena, wake up."

"Elena, wake up." The voice was frightened and desperate, and Elena fought the darkness that seemed to be holding her down and opened her eyes.

Damon? she almost said, but bit the word back. Because of course it was Stefan who was gazing worriedly into her eyes, and even sweet, understanding Stefan might object to her calling him by his dead brother's name twice in one day.

"Stefan," she said, remembering. "Is Meredith all right?"

Stefan wrapped her tightly in his arms. "She will be. Oh, God, Elena," he said. "I thought I was going to lose you. I had to pull you to shore. I didn't know..." His voice trailed off, and he hugged her even closer to his chest. Elena did a quick self-inventory. She was sore. Her throat and lungs hurt, probably from breathing in water and coughing it out. There was sand all over her, coating her arms and bathing suit, and it was starting to itch. But she was alive.

"Oh, Stefan," Elena said, and closed her eyes for a moment, resting her head against him. She was so cold and wet, and Stefan was so warm. She could hear his heart beating beneath her ear. Slower than a human's, but there, steady and reassuring.

When she opened her eyes again, Matt was kneeling next to them. "Are you okay?" he asked her. When she nodded, he turned his gaze to Stefan. "I should have jumped in," he said guiltily. "I should have helped you save them. Everything seemed to happen so fast, and by the time I knew something was real y wrong, you were bringing them back out of the water."

She sat up and touched Matt's arm, feeling a warm flood of affection for him. He was so good, and he felt so responsible for all of them. "Everyone's fine, Matt," she said. "That's what matters."

A few feet away, Alaric was inspecting Meredith as Bonnie hovered over them. Celia stood a little farther away, her arms wrapped around herself as she watched Alaric and Meredith.

When Alaric shifted away, Meredith caught Elena's eye. Her face was white with pain, but she managed to give her an apologetic smile.

"I didn't mean to hit you," she said. "And Stefan, I should have listened to you, or just had more sense and stayed on shore." She grimaced. "I think I might have sprained my ankle. Alaric's going to drive me to the hospital so they can tape it up."

"What I want to know," Bonnie said, "is whether this means it's all over. I mean, Celia's name appeared, and she was almost strangled in the train doors. And Meredith's name appeared, and she almost drowned. They both got saved - by Stefan, good job, Stefan - so does that mean they're safe now? We haven't seen any more names."

Elena's heart lightened with hope. But Matt was shaking his head.

"It's not that easy," he said darkly. "It's never that easy. Just because Meredith and Celia could be saved one time, it doesn't mean whatever it is isn't still after them. And even though her name wasn't called, Elena was in danger, too."

Stefan's arms were still around Elena, but they felt hard and unyielding. When she glanced up at his face, his jaw was set and his green eyes full of pain.

"I'm afraid it's not the end. Another name has appeared," he told them. "Meredith, I don't think you could have seen it, but the plants you were tangled in spelled it out against your legs." Everyone gasped. Elena clutched his arm, her stomach dropping. She looked at Matt, at Bonnie, at Stefan himself. They'd never seemed more precious to her. Which one of the people who she loved was in danger?

"Well, don't keep us in suspense," Meredith said wryly. Her color was better, Elena noted, and her voice sounded crisp and competent again, although she winced as Alaric touched her ankle gently. "Whose name was it?"

Stefan hesitated. His eyes darted to Elena and then quickly away. He licked his lips in a nervous gesture she'd never seen from him before. Taking a deep breath, he finally said, "The name the plants spelled out was Damon."

Bonnie sat down with a thump, as though her legs had given way. "But Damon's dead," she said, her brown eyes wide.

But for some reason the news didn't shock Elena to the core. Instead, a hard, bright feeling of hope flooded her. It would make sense. She had never believed someone like Damon could just be gone.

"Maybe he's not," she heard herself say, lost in thought as she recalled the Damon in her dreams. When she had passed out under the water, she had seen him again, and he had told her to wake up. Was that dreamlike behavior? It could have been her subconscious warning her, she supposed doubtfully, but his name had appeared underwater.

Could he be alive? He had died - she had no doubt about that. But he was a vampire; he had died before, and lived again. The Guardians had tried, they said, and they had said there was no way to bring Damon back. Was it a pointless hope? Was the eager beating of her heart at the thought that Damon might be alive just Elena fooling herself?

Elena snapped back to the present to find her friends staring at her. There was a moment of complete silence, as if even the birds had stopped singing.

"Elena," Stefan said gently. "We saw him die."

Elena gazed into Stefan's green eyes. Surely, if there was any reason to hope, he would feel it the same way she did. But his gaze was steady and sad. Stefan, she saw, had no doubt that Damon was dead. Her heart squeezed painfully.

"Who's Damon?" Celia asked, but no one answered. Alaric was frowning. "If Damon's definitely dead," he said, "if you're sure about that, then whatever is causing these accidents might be playing on your grief, trying to hit you where it hurts. Perhaps there's an emotional danger here that it's trying to create as well as a physical one."

"If spelling out Damon's name is meant to upset us, then it's aiming at Stefan and Elena," Matt said. "I mean, it's no secret that Meredith and I didn't like him much." He crossed his arms defensively. "I'm sorry, Stefan, but it's true."

"I respected Damon," said Meredith, "especially after he worked so hard with us in the Dark Dimension, but it's true that his death didn't... affect me the way it did Elena and Stefan. I have to agree with Matt."

Elena glanced at Bonnie and noticed that her jaw was clenched and her eyes glistened with angry tears. As Elena watched, Bonnie's bright eyes dulled and lost focus, gazing off into the distance. She stiffened and turned her face up toward the top of the cliff.

"She's having a vision," Elena said, jumping to her feet. Bonnie spoke in a voice flatter and rougher than her own.

"He wants you, Elena," she said. "He wants you."

Elena followed her gaze toward the cliff. For a wild moment, that hard, bright hope came bursting back into her chest again. She fully expected to see Damon up there, smirking down at them. It would be just like him, if he'd somehow survived death, to show up suddenly, make a grand entrance, and then pass off the miracle with a shrug and a dry quip.

And there was someone standing at the top of the cliff. Celia gave a little scream, and Matt swore loudly. It wasn't Damon, though. Elena could tell that right away. The silhouetted figure was broader than Damon's lithe form. But the sun was so bright she couldn't make out the person's features, and she lifted her hand to shade her eyes.

Like a halo, blond curly hair gleamed in the sunlight. Elena frowned.

"I think," she said, recognition dawning on her, "that's Caleb Small wood."

Chapter 15

As soon as Elena spoke Caleb's name, the person on the cliff began to pull back out of their line of sight. After a moment of hesitation, Matt took off running pel -mel up the path toward where they'd seen him.

It should have been silly, Elena thought, the way they all reacted as if they'd been threatened. Anyone had a right to hike the trails at Hot Springs, and Caleb - if it was Caleb - hadn't done anything but peer down over the edge of the cliff at them. But nevertheless, there had been something ominous about the figure hovering so watchful y above them, and their reaction didn't feel silly.

Bonnie gasped and her body relaxed as she came out of the trance.

"What happened?" she asked. "Oh, gosh, not again."

"Do you remember anything?" Elena said.

Bonnie shook her head mournfully.

"You said, 'He wants you, Elena,'" said Celia, examining Bonnie with a clinically enthusiastic glint in her eye. "You don't remember who you were talking about?"

"I guess if he wanted Elena, it could have been anyone," Bonnie said, her eyes narrowing. Elena stared at her. Had there been an uncharacteristic catty edge to Bonnie's tone? But Bonnie grinned rueful y back at her, and Elena decided the comment had just been a joke.

A few minutes later, Matt came back down the path, shaking his head.

"Whoever it was just vanished," he said, his forehead crinkled in confusion. "I couldn't see anyone on the trail in either direction."

"Do you think he's a werewolf, like Tyler was?" Bonnie asked.

"You're not the first person who's asked me that," Elena said, glancing at Stefan. "I just don't know. I don't think so, though. Caleb seems total y nice and normal. Remember how wolfy Tyler was even before he became a werewolf?

Those big white teeth and his sort of animalness? Caleb's not like that."

"Then why would he spy on us?"

"I don't know," Elena said again, frustrated. She couldn't think about this now. Her mind was still swimming with the question: Could Damon be alive? What did Caleb matter, compared to that? "Maybe he was just hiking. I'm not even sure it was Caleb. It could have been some other guy with curly blond hair instead. Just a random hiker who got scared off when Matt went charging up the hill toward him."

Their discussion went in circles until eventual y Alaric took Meredith off to the hospital to have a doctor check out her ankle. The rest of them adjourned to the top of the falls to gather up the picnic stuff.

They all nibbled at the chips and brownies and fruit, and Matt made himself a hot dog on the hibachi grill , but the joy had gone out of the day.

When Elena's phone rang, it was a welcome relief. "Hey, Aunt Judith," she said, forcing a cheerful note into her voice.

"Hi," Aunt Judith said hurriedly. "Listen, I have to go to the auditorium to help do all the girls' hair and makeup, and Robert already will have to leave work early to get to the recital on time. Would you do me a favor and pick up some flowers for Margaret on your way over? Something sweet and ball erinaish, if you know what I mean."

"No problem," Elena said. "I know exactly what you mean. I'll see you there." She wanted to forget for a while: forget mystery hikers and near-drownings and her constant alternating feelings of hope and despair about the appearance of Damon's name. Watching her little sister twirl around in a tutu sounded just about right.

"Terrific," said Aunt Judith. "Thank you. Well , if you are all the way up at Hot Springs, you'd better start heading home soon."

"Okay, Aunt Judith," Elena said. "I'll get going now."

They said good-bye, and Elena hung up and started gathering her things together. "Stefan, can I take your car?" she asked. "I need to get to Margaret's dance recital. You can give him a ride back, right, Matt? I'll call you guys later and we'll work on figuring this out."

Stefan got to his feet. "I'll come with you."

"What?" said Elena. "No, you need to stay with Celia and get to the hospital to take care of Meredith, too."

Stefan took her arm. "Don't go, then. You shouldn't be alone now. None of us are safe. There's something out there hunting us, and we need to al stick together. If we don't let each other out of our sight, then we can all protect one another."

His leaf green eyes were clear and full of anxiety and love, and Elena felt a pang of regret as she tugged her arm gently out of his grasp. "I need to go," she said quietly. "If I spend all my time being scared and hiding, then the Guardians might as well have let me stay dead. I need to be with my family and live as normal a life as I can."

She kissed him gently, lingering for a moment against the softness of his lips. "And you know they haven't targeted me yet," she said. "Nothing's spelled out my name. But I promise I'll be careful."

Stefan's eyes were hard. "What about what Bonnie said?" he argued. "That he wants you? What if that means Caleb? He's hanging around at your house, Elena! He could come after you at any time!"

"Well , I'm not going to be there. I'll be at a dance recital with my family beside me," Elena pointed out. "Nothing will happen to me today. It's not my turn yet, is it?"

"Elena, don't be stupid!" Stefan snapped. "You're in danger."

Elena bristled. Stupid? Stefan, no matter how stressed or anxious, had never treated her with less than total respect. "Excuse me?"

Stefan reached for her. "Elena," he said. "Let me come with you. I'll stay with you until nightfall and then keep watch outside your house tonight."

"It's really not necessary," Elena said. "Protect Meredith and Celia instead. They're the ones who need you."

Stefan's face fell , and he looked so devastated that she relented a little, adding, "Please don't worry, Stefan. I'll be careful, and I'll see you al tomorrow."

His jaw clenched, but he said nothing more, and she turned to make her way down the trail, not looking back. Once they were back at the boardinghouse, Stefan couldn't relax.

He couldn't remember ever, in all his long life, feeling so edgy and uncomfortable in his own body. He itched and ached with anxiety. It was as if his skin were fitted too tightly over his bones, and he moved irritably, tapping his fingers against the table, cracking his neck, shrugging his shoulders, shifting back and forth in his chair. He wants you, Elena. What the hell did that mean? He wants you.

And the sight of that dark, hulking figure up on the cliff, a shadow blotting out the sun, those golden curls shining like a halo above the figure's head...

Stefan knew he should be with Elena. All he wanted to do was to protect her.

But she had dismissed him, had - metaphorically, at least - patted him on the head and told him to stay, faithful guard dog that he was, and watch over someone else. To keep someone else safe. No matter that she was clearly in danger, that someone - some he - wanted her. Still she didn't want Stefan to be with her right now. What did Elena want? Now that Stefan stopped to think about it, it seemed that Elena wanted a host of incompatible things. To have Stefan as her loyal knight. Which he would always, always be, he asserted to himself, clenching his fist tightly.

But she also wanted to hold on to the memories of Damon, and to keep that part of her she had shared with him private and pristine, separate from everyone else, even from Stefan.

And she wanted so much more, too: to be the savior of her friends, of her town, of her world. To be loved and admired. To be in control.

And to be a normal girl again. Well , that normal life she had lived had been destroyed forever when she met Stefan, when he made the choice to let her into his world. He knew it was his fault, all of it, everything that followed after that, but he couldn't be sorry that she was with him now. He loved her too much to have any room for regret. She was the center of his world, but at the same time, he knew it wasn't the same for her.

A hole inside him gaped with longing, and he moved restlessly in his chair. His canine teeth lengthened in his mouth. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt so... wrong. He couldn't get the image of Caleb out of his head, looking down at them from the top of the cliff, as if checking to see whether whatever violence he'd hoped to cause had come to pass.

"More tea, Stefan?" Mrs. Flowers asked him softly, breaking into his furious thoughts. She was leaning forward over a little table with the teapot, her wide blue eyes watching him from behind her glasses. Her face was so compassionate that he wondered what she could see in him. This elderly, wise woman always seemed to perceive so much more than anyone else; perhaps she could tell how he was feeling now.

He realized she was still waiting politely for his answer, the teapot suspended in one hand, and he nodded automatically. "Thank you, Mrs. Flowers," he said, offering forth his cup, which was still half-full of cold tea. He didn't really like the taste of normal human drinks; he hadn't for a long time now, but sometimes drinking them made him fit in, made the others relax a bit more around him. When he didn't eat or drink at all , he could sense Elena's friends prickling, the hairs on the back of their necks rising, as some subconscious voice in them noted that he was not like them, adding it to all the other little differences he couldn't control, and thereby concluding he was wrong.

Mrs. Flowers filled his cup and sat back, satisfied. Picking up her knitting - something pink and fluffy - she smiled. "It's so nice to have all you young people gathered together here," she commented. "Such a lovely group of children."

Glancing at the others, Stefan had to wonder whether Mrs. Flowers was being gently sarcastic.

Alaric and Meredith had returned from the hospital, where her injury had been diagnosed as a mild sprain and taped up by the emergency room nurse. Meredith's usual y serene face was tight, probably at least partial y because of the pain and her irritation at knowing she'd have to stay off her foot for a couple of days.

And partially, Stefan suspected, because of where she was sitting. For some reason, when Alaric had helped her hobble into the living room and over to the couch, he had parked her directly next to Celia.

Stefan didn't consider himself an expert on romance -

after all , he'd lived for hundreds of years and fallen in love only twice, and his romance with Katherine had been a disaster - but even he couldn't miss the tension between Meredith and Celia. He wasn't sure whether Alaric was as oblivious to it as he seemed or whether he was pretending obliviousness in the hope that the situation would blow over. Celia had changed into an elegant white sundress and sat flipping through a journal titled Forensic Anthropology, looking cool and composed. Meredith was, in contrast, unusual y grimy and smudged, her beautiful features and smooth olive skin marred by tiredness and pain. Alaric had taken a chair next to the couch.

Celia, ignoring Meredith, leaned across her toward Alaric.

"I think you might find this interesting," she said to him.

"It's an article on the dental patterns in mummified bodies found on an island quite near Unmei no Shima."

Meredith shot Celia a nasty look. "Oh, yes," she said quietly. "Teeth, how fascinating." Celia's mouth flattened into a line, but she didn't reply.

Alaric took the magazine with a polite murmur of interest, and Meredith frowned.

Stefan frowned, too. All the tension humming between Meredith, Celia, and Alaric - and now that he was watching, he could tell that Alaric knew exactly what was going on between the two young women and was flattered, irritated, and anxious in equal parts - was interfering with Stefan's Powers.

While he'd sat and sipped his first cup of tea, reluctantly following Elena's command to "stay," Stefan had been sending out tendrils of Power, trying to sense whether Elena had made it home, whether anything had stopped her on her way. Whether Caleb had stopped her. But he hadn't been able to find her, even with his senses extended to their utmost. Once or twice, he'd caught what felt like a fleeting impression of what might be the very specific sound, scent, and aura that unmistakably meant Elena, but then it slipped away from him.

He'd blamed the fact that he couldn't locate her on his weakening Powers, but now it was clear to him what was keeping him from finding her. All the emotion in this room: the pounding hearts, the flushes of anger, the acrid scent of jealousy.

Stefan pulled himself back, tried to quell the rage rising within him. These people - his friends, he reminded himself - were not purposely interfering. They couldn't help their emotions. He took a swig of his rapidly cooling tea, trying to relax before he lost control, and winced at the taste. Tea wasn't what he was craving, he realized. He needed to get out to the forest soon and hunt. He needed blood. No, he needed to find out exactly what Caleb Small wood was up to. He stood up so abruptly, so violently, the chair rocked unsteadily beneath him.

"Stefan?" Matt asked in an alarmed voice.

"What is it?" Bonnie's eyes were enormous.

Stefan glanced around the circle of distracted faces, now all watching him. "I have to go." Then he turned on his heels and ran.

Chapter 16

He walked for a long, long time, though it seemed his surroundings never changed. The same dim light filtered through a constant cloud of ash. He plodded on through grime, through mud, through ankle-deep pools of dark water.

Occasionally, he unclenched his fist and gazed again at the locks of hair. Each time, the magic liquid cleaned them a little more, changing a scrap of fibrous blackness to two locks of shining hair, red and gold.

He walked on.

Everything hurt, but he couldn't stop. If he stopped he would sink back below the ash and mud, back to the grave back to death.

Something whispered around the edges of his mind. He didn't know quite what had happened to him, but words and phrases spun in his head.

Words like abandoned, words like alone.

He was very cold. He kept walking. After a while, he realized he was mumbling. "Left me all alone. They'd never have left him here." He couldn't remember who this him was, but he felt a sick sort of satisfaction from the glow of resentment. He held on to it as he continued his march. After what felt like an unchanging eternity, something happened. Ahead of him he could see the gatehouse he had imagined: spired like a fairy-tale castle, black as night. He walked faster, his footsteps shuffling through the ash. And then the earth opened suddenly beneath his feet. In the space of a heartbeat, he was falling into nothingness. Something inside him howled, Not now, not now. He grabbed and clawed at the earth, his arms holding him afloat, his feet swinging into the emptiness below him.

"No," he moaned. "No, they can't... Don't leave me here. Don't leave me again." His fingers slipped, mud and ash sliding beneath his hands.

"Damon?" an incredulous voice roared. A great muscular figure stood above him, silhouetted against the moons and planets in the sky, his chest bared, long, spiraling tangles of hair spilling over his shoulders. This statue of a man reached down and grasped him by the arms, lifting him up. He yelped in pain. Something beneath the earth had latched onto his legs and was pulling him back down.

"Hold on!" The other man grunted, muscles rippling. He strained and heaved against whatever was clinging onto Damon - Damon, the man had called him, and that felt right, somehow. The other man gave a great tug, and finally the force below released him, and he shot out of the earth, knocking his rescuer backward.

Damon lay panting on the ground, spent.

"You are supposed to be dead," the other man told him, climbing to his feet and holding out a hand to steady Damon. He pushed a long lock of hair away from his face and gazed at Damon with serious, troubled eyes. "The fact that you are not... well , I am not as surprised as I should be."

Damon blinked at his savior, who was watching him attentively. He wet his lips and tried to speak, but his voice wouldn't come.

"Everything has been disturbed here since your friends left," the man said. "Something essential has shifted in this universe. Things are not right." He shook his head, his eyes troubled. "But tell me, mon cher, how does it come to be that you are here?"

Final y Damon found his voice. It came out rough and quavering. "I... don't know."

The man immediately was al courtesy. "I think the situation calls for some Black Magic, oui? And some blood, perhaps, and a chance to clean up. And then, Damon, we must talk."

He gestured toward the dark castle ahead of them. Damon hesitated for a moment, glancing at the emptiness and ash around them, then trudged after him toward the open doors.

After Stefan swept out of the room so suddenly, everyone could only stare after him as the front door banged, signaling that he had left the house just as quickly. Bonnie hugged her arms around herself, shivering. A little voice in the back of her head told her that something was very, very wrong.

Celia finally broke the silence. "Interesting," she said. "Is he always so... intense? Or is it a vampire thing?"

Alaric chuckled dryly. "Believe it or not, he's always seemed very low-key and practical to me. I don't remember him being so volatile." He ran a hand through his sandy hair and added thoughtfully, "Maybe it was the contrast with his brother that made him seem so reasonable. Damon was pretty unpredictable."

Meredith frowned thoughtfully. "No, you're right. This isn't the way Stefan usually acts. Maybe he's emotional because Elena's threatened? But that doesn't make sense... she's been in danger before. Even when she died - he was heartbroken, but, if anything, it made him more responsible, not wilder."

"But when Elena was dead," Alaric reminded her, "the worst thing he could imagine had already happened. It's possible that what's making him so jumpy is that he doesn't know where the threat's coming from this time."

Bonnie took a sip of tea, zoning out as Meredith hmmmed thoughtful y, and Celia raised one skeptical eyebrow. "I still don't understand what you mean when you say Elena died. Are you suggesting she actually rose from the dead?"

"Yes," said Meredith. "She was turned into a vampire, then she was exposed to sunlight and physically died. They buried her and everything. Later - months later - she returned. She's human again, though."

"I find all that very hard to believe," said Celia flatly.

"Honestly, Celia," said Alaric, throwing up his hands in exasperation. "With everything you've seen since we got here - your scarf nearly choking you, then spelling out a name, Bonnie having a vision, Stefan practically flying to save you - I don't know why you're drawing the line now and saying you don't believe a girl could come back from the dead." He paused and took a breath. "I don't mean to sound harsh, but really."

Meredith smirked. "Believe it or not, it's true. Elena came back from the dead."

Bonnie wrapped one long red curl around her finger. She watched as her finger turned white and red against the strand of hair. Elena. Of course they were talking about Elena. Everyone was always talking about Elena. Whether she was with them or not, everything they did or thought centered on Elena.

Alaric turned to address the whole group. "Stefan seems convinced that 'he wants you' means Caleb, but I'm not sure that it does. From what I've seen of Bonnie's visions, and what you guys have told me, they're hardly ever about what's right in front of her. Caleb's appearance - if it even was Caleb - could have been a coincidence. Don't you think so, Meredith?"

Oh, don't bother to ask me about the visions, Bonnie thought bitterly. I'm only the one who has them. Wasn't that the way it always was, though? She was the one everyone overlooked.

"It could be a coincidence," Meredith said doubtfully. "But if it's not Caleb she was talking about, who is it? Who wants Elena?"

Bonnie glanced under her eyelashes at Matt, but he was staring out the window, apparently completely detached from the conversation. She could tell that Matt still loved Elena, even if no one else knew. It was too bad: Matt was awfully cute. He could date anyone, but it was taking him a long time to get over her.

But then, no one ever seemed to get over Elena. Half the boys at Robert E. Lee High School had gone around gazing wistful y after her, as if she might suddenly turn around and fall into their arms. Certainly most of the boys Elena had dated had stayed a little bit in love with her, even after Elena had more or less forgotten their names. It isn't fair, Bonnie thought, twirling her hair more tightly around her finger. Everyone always wanted Elena, and Bonnie had never even had a boyfriend for more than a few weeks at a time. What was wrong with her? People always told her how cute she was, how adorable, how fun... and then they looked past her to Elena, and it was like they couldn't see Bonnie anymore.

And while Damon, amazing, sexy Damon, had been fond of her, sometimes, when she wasn't trying to kid herself, she knew he hadn't really seen her, either.

I'm just the sidekick, that's my problem, Bonnie thought glumly. Elena was the star; Meredith was a hero; Bonnie was a sidekick.

Celia cleared her throat. "I have to confess I'm intrigued by the appearance of the names," she said stiffly. "It does seem like they point to some kind of threat. Whether or not Bonnie's purported vision comes to anything" - Bonnie shot her best nasty look at Celia, but Celia ignored it - "we should definitely investigate any background or context we can find for the unexplained appearance of the names. We should find out if there's a recorded history of this kind of thing happening before. The writing on the wall , if you will ."

She gave a thin-lipped smile at her own joke.

"But what would we investigate?" Bonnie said, finding herself unwillingly responding to Celia's teacherlike manner. "I wouldn't even know where to start looking for something like this. A book on curses, maybe? Or omens?

Do you have anything like that in your library, Mrs. Flowers?"

Mrs. Flowers shook her head. "I'm afraid not, dear. My library, as you know, is mostly herbals. I have a few more specialized books, but I can't recall anything that might be helpful with this problem."

When she mentioned "more specialized books," Bonnie's cheeks got hot. She thought of the grimoire on communication with the dead, still tucked under the floorboards in her bedroom, and hoped Mrs. Flowers hadn't noticed it was missing.

After a few seconds, her cheeks had cooled enough that she dared to glance around, but only Meredith was looking at her, one elegant eyebrow raised. If Meredith thought something was up, she wouldn't rest until she got the whole story from Bonnie, so Bonnie gave her a bland smile and crossed her fingers behind her back for luck. Meredith raised her other eyebrow and looked at her with deep suspicion.

"Actual y," Celia said, "I have a contact at the University of Virginia who studies folklore and mythology. She specializes in witchcraft, folk magic, curses, all that kind of thing."

"Do you think we could call her?" said Alaric hopefully. Celia frowned. "I think it would be better if I went up there for a few days. Her library isn't as well organized as it could be - I suppose it's symptomatic of the kind of mind that studies stories rather than facts - and it might take a while to discover if there's anything useful there. I think it would be just as well for me to get out of town for a while, anyway. After two brushes with death in two days" - she sent a pointed glance toward Meredith, who blushed - "I'm beginning to feel that Fell's Church isn't the healthiest place for me." She looked at Alaric. "You might find her library of interest, if you'd like to come with me. Dr. Beltram is one of the best-known experts in her field."

"Uh..." Alaric looked startled. "Thanks, but I'd better stay here and help Meredith. With her sprained ankle and everything."

"Mmm-hmmm." Celia glanced at Meredith again. Meredith, who had been looking steadily more delighted every second since Celia had announced she was leaving, ignored her and smiled at Alaric. "Well , I suppose I should give her a call and get my things together. No time like the present."

Celia stood up, smoothed her sundress, and walked out the door, head high. As she passed, she brushed against the table near Mrs. Flowers's chair, sending her knitting to the floor.

Bonnie let out a breath as Celia left the room. "Well, really!" she said indignantly.

"Bonnie," said Matt warningly.

"I know," said Bonnie angrily. "She could have at least said 'excuse me,' right? And what was that with asking Alaric to come with her to UVA? He just got here, practically. He hasn't seen you for months. Of course he's not going to leave again with her right now."

"Bonnie," said Meredith, in a strangely choked voice.

"What?" said Bonnie, catching the oddness in her tone and looking around. "Oh. Oh. Oh, no."

Mrs. Flowers's knitting had fallen from its table, and the skein of yarn had rolled across the floor, unwinding as it went. Now, in the curls of soft pale pink, they could al clearly read one word written across the carpet: bonnie

Chapter 17

Once he got outside, Stefan remembered that Elena had taken his car. Turning into the woods, he began to run, using his Power to speed his pace. The pounding of his feet seemed to thud, Guard her, Guard her.

He knew where Tyler Small wood had lived. After Tyler had attacked Elena at a dance, it had made sense to keep an eye on him. Stefan burst from the woods at the edge of the Small woods' property.

They owned an ugly house, in Stefan's opinion. An inaccurate portrayal of an old Southern manor estate, it was too big for the lawn it sat on and bulged with unnecessary columns and twisting rococo decorations. Just looking at it, Stefan had been able to tell that the Small woods had more money than taste, and that the architects who'd designed it weren't educated in true classical forms.

He rang the bel at the front door, then froze. What if Mr. or Mrs. Small wood answered the bell ? He would have to Influence them to give him as much information as they could about Caleb, and then to forget Stefan had been there. He hoped he had the Power to do it: He hadn't been eating enough, not even of animal blood.

But no one came. After a few seconds, Stefan sent questing tendrils of Power through the house. It was empty. He couldn't go in, couldn't search Caleb's room like he wanted to. Without an invitation, he was stuck out here. He wandered around the house, peering through the windows, but finding nothing out of the ordinary other than entirely too many gilded frames and mirrors. Behind the house he found a small white shed. Sending Power toward it, he felt something slightly... off. Just the slightest tinge of darkness, a feeling of frustration and ill intent.

The shed was padlocked, but the lock was easy enough to snap. And as no one lived here, he didn't need an invitation to enter.

The first thing he saw was Elena's face. Newspaper clippings and photos were tacked all over the walls: Elena, Bonnie, Meredith, himself. On the floor was a pentagram with more pictures and roses.

Stefan's certainty that something was wrong solidified. Elena was in danger. Sending Power before him, searching desperately for any trace of her, he took off running again.

As she drove away from the florist's, Elena turned the conversation with Stefan over and over in her mind. What was going on with him since they'd come back to Fell's Church? It felt like there was part of him that he was holding back, hiding from her. She remembered the loneliness, the sinking, dizzy feeling of isolation that she had sensed when she kissed him. Was it Damon's loss that was changing Stefan?

Damon. Just the thought of him was enough to cause an almost physical pain in her. Mercurial, difficult, beautiful Damon. Dangerous. Loving, in his own way. The thought of his name, written in water plants across Meredith's legs, floated through her mind.

She didn't know what it meant. But there was no hope. She needed to stop lying to herself about that. She had seen Damon die. Yet it seemed impossible that someone as complex and strong and seemingly undefeatable as Damon could be gone so quickly and so simply. But that was the way it happened, wasn't it? She should know that death didn't often come with a grand show, that it usually came when you were least expecting it. She had known that before all this... all this stuff with vampires and werewolves and evil mysterious opponents. She had known all about the suddenness and simplicity of death for years, back when she was just normal Elena Gilbert, who didn't believe in anything supernatural, not even horoscopes or fortune-telling, much less monsters.

She glanced at the passenger seat next to her, where there lay the bouquet of pink roses she had picked up to give to Margaret. And, next to them, a simple bunch of forget-me-nots. Like I'd ever forget, she thought. Elena remembered riding in the car toward home with her parents and baby Margaret on an ordinary Sunday afternoon. It had been a beautiful sunny fall day, the leaves of the trees by the roadside just beginning to be painted with red and gold.

They'd gone to lunch at a little inn out in the country. Margaret, who was teething, had been cranky at the restaurant, and they'd taken turns walking her up and down on the porch of the inn for a few minutes at a time while the others ate. But in the car she was quiet, half drowsing, her light golden lashes fluttering down to rest for longer and longer periods against her cheeks.

Elena's father had been driving, she remembered, and the radio had been tuned to the local station so he could catch the news. Her mother had twisted to look at Elena in the backseat, her sapphire blue eyes so like Elena's own. Her golden hair, touched with a little gray, was pulled back in a French braid, elegant and practical. Smiling, she had said, "Do you know what I think would be nice?"

"What?" asked Elena, smiling back at her. Then she saw a strange glitter, high in the sky, and leaned forward without waiting for a reply. "Daddy, what's that?" She'd pointed upward.

Elena never found out what her mother had thought would be nice. Her father never answered what that was. The last things Elena remembered were sounds: her father's gasp and the screech of the car's tires. Everything after that was blank, until Elena had woken up in the hospital, Aunt Judith by her bedside, and learned that her parents were dead. They had died before the paramedics had even pried them out of the car.

Before they restored Fell's Church, the Guardians had told Elena that she should have died in that accident, and that her parents should have lived. The glitter had been their air car, and Elena had distracted her father at the worst possible moment, causing all the wrong people to die. She could feel the weight of it now, the guilt at surviving, her anger at the Guardians. She glanced at the dashboard clock. There was still plenty of time before she had to be at Margaret's recital. Turning off the highway, she pulled into the cemetery's parking lot.

Elena parked the car and walked briskly through the newer part of the cemetery, carrying the forget-me-nots. Birds were chirping gaily overhead. So much had happened in this cemetery in the last year. Bonnie had seen one of her first visions among these tombstones. Stefan had followed her here, watching her secretly when she thought he was just the gorgeous new guy at school. Damon had nearly drained an old tramp under the bridge. Katherine had chased Elena out of the cemetery with fog and ice and a far-reaching, far-seeing evil. And, of course, Elena had driven off a bridge to her death here by the cemetery, at the end of that first life, the one that seemed so long ago now.

Elena picked her way past an ornate marble memorial to Fell's Church's Civil War veterans and down to the shady glen where her parents were buried. The tiny wildflower bouquet she and Stefan had left two days before had withered, and Elena threw it away and put the forget-menots in its place. She picked a bit of moss off her father's name.

The lightest crunch of gravel sounded from the path behind her, and Elena whirled around. There was no one there.

"I'm just jumpy," she muttered to herself. Her voice sounded oddly loud in the quiet of the cemetery. "Nothing to worry about," she said more firmly.

She settled in the grass by her parents' graves and traced the letters on her mother's headstone with one hand.

"Hi," she said. "It's been a while since I've actually sat here and talked to you, I know. I'm sorry. An awful lot has happened..." She swallowed. "I'm sorry, too, because I found out that you weren't supposed to die when you did. I asked the Guardians to... to bring you back, but they said you had moved on to a better place and they couldn't reverse that. I wish... I'm glad you're happy wherever you are, but I still miss you."

Elena sighed, lowered her hand from the gravestone, and trailed it through the grass by her knees. "Something's after me again," she continued unhappily. "After all of us, I guess, but Bonnie said I brought it here when she was in a trance. And later she said he wants me. I don't know if it's two different people - or whatever - after us, or just one. But it's always me the bad things focus on." She twisted a blade of grass between her fingers. "I wish things could be simpler for me, the way they are for other girls.

"Sometimes... I'm so glad to have Stefan, and glad I could help protect Fell's Church, but... it's hard. It's real y hard." A sob was building in her throat and she swallowed it back. "And... Stefan's always been there for me, but I feel like I don't know all of him anymore, especial y because I can't read his thoughts. He's so tense, and it's like he needs to be in control all the time..."

Something shifted behind her, just the slightest hint of movement. She felt a warm, damp breeze like a breath on the back of her neck.

Elena whipped her head around. Caleb was crouching behind her, so close they were almost nose-to-nose. She screamed, but Caleb slapped his hand over her mouth, muffling her cry.

Chapter 18

Caleb's hand was hot and heavy against her lips, and Elena scrabbled against it with her nails. He gripped her tightly with his other hand, holding her still, his fingers digging into her shoulder.

Elena struggled fiercely, flailing her arms and landing a firm blow in Caleb's stomach. She bit down hard on the hand he had over her mouth. Caleb jerked backward, quickly letting go of her and pulling his bitten hand to his chest. As soon as her mouth was uncovered, Elena screamed.

Caleb stepped away from her, holding his hands up in surrender. "Elena!" he said. "Elena, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. I just didn't want you to scream."

Elena eyed him warily, breathing hard. "What are you doing here?" she asked. "Why were you sneaking up behind me if you didn't want to scare me?"

Caleb shrugged and looked a little embarrassed. "I was worried about you," he confessed, stuffing his hands in his pockets and hanging his head. "I was hiking up by Hot Springs earlier and I saw you and your friends. They were pulling you out of the water, and it looked like you weren't breathing." He peeked up at her through his long golden lashes.

"You were so worried about me you decided to grab me and cover my mouth to keep me from screaming?" Elena asked. Caleb ducked his head further and scrubbed at the back of his neck in an embarrassed way.

"I wasn't thinking." Caleb nodded solemnly. "You looked so pale," he said. "But you opened your eyes and sat up. I was going to come down and see if you were okay, but your friend saw me and started running up the path toward me like he was going to jump me, and I guess I just freaked out." He grinned suddenly. "I'm not usually such a wuss," he said. "But he looked mad."

Elena found herself feeling unexpectedly disarmed. Her shoulder still ached where Caleb had grabbed her. But he seemed so sincere, and so apologetic.

"Anyway," Caleb continued, gazing at her out of candid light blue eyes, "I was driving back to my aunt and uncle's place, and I recognized your car in the cemetery parking lot. I just came in because I wanted to talk to you and make sure you were okay. And then, when I got close to you, you were sitting down and talking, and I guess I was embarrassed. I didn't want to interrupt you, and I didn't want to barge in on something personal, so I just waited." He ducked his head sheepishly again. "And instead I ended up assaulting you and scaring you to death, which sure wasn't the better way to go. I'm real y sorry, Elena."

Elena's heartbeat was returning to normal. Whatever Caleb's intentions, he obviously wasn't going to attack her again now. "It's all right," she said. "I hit my head on an underwater rock. I'm fine now, though. It must have looked pretty weird to see me just sitting here and muttering. Sometimes I come here to talk to my parents, that's all. This is where they're buried."

"It's not weird," he said quietly. "I find myself talking to my parents sometimes, too. When something happens and I wish they were with me, I start telling them about it and it makes me feel like they're there." He swallowed hard. "It's been a few years, but you never stop missing them, do you?"

The last bits of anger and fear drained out of Elena when she saw the sadness in Caleb's face. "Oh, Caleb," she said, reaching out to touch his arm.

She caught a sudden motion out of the corner of her eye and then, seemingly out of nowhere, Stefan appeared, running incredibly fast, straight toward them.

"Caleb," he growled, grabbing him by the shirt and throwing him to the ground. Caleb let out a grunt of surprise and pain.

"Stefan, no!" shouted Elena.

Stefan spun to look at her. His eyes were hard and his fangs were fully extended. "He's not what he says he is, Elena," he said in an eerily calm voice. "He's dangerous."

Caleb slowly pulled himself to his feet, using a gravestone as a support. He was staring at Stefan's fangs.

"What's going on?" he asked. "What are you?"

Stefan turned toward him and, almost casually, slapped him back down.

"Stefan, stop it!" Elena yelled, unable to contain the note of hysteria in her voice. She reached out for his arm, but missed. "You're going to hurt him!"

"He wants you, Elena," Stefan growled. "Do you understand that? You can't trust him."

"Stefan," Elena pleaded. "Listen to me. He wasn't doing anything wrong. You know that. He's a human." She could feel hot tears gathering in her eyes and she blinked them away. Now was not the time to weep and wail. Now was the time to be cool and rational and to keep Stefan from losing control.

Caleb staggered to his feet, grimacing with pain, and this time charged clumsily at Stefan, his face flushed. He got one arm around Stefan's neck and yanked him to the side, but then Stefan, with an easy strength, tossed Caleb to the ground once more.

Stefan loomed over him threateningly as he stared up at him from the grass. "You can't fight me," Stefan growled.

"I'm stronger than you. I can drive you out of this town, or kill you just as easily. And I will do either if you make me think it's necessary. I won't hesitate."

Elena grabbed Stefan's arm. "Stop it! Stop it!" she shouted. She pulled him toward her, trying to turn him so she could look into his eyes, so she could get through to him.

Breathe, she thought desperately. She had to calm things down here, and she tried to steady her voice, to sound logical. "Stefan, I don't know what you think is going on with Caleb, but just stop for a minute and think."

"Elena, look at me," Stefan said. His eyes were dark with emotion. "I know, I'm absolutely sure, that Caleb is evil. He's dangerous to us. We have to get rid of him before he gets a chance to destroy us. We can't give him the opportunity to get the better of us by waiting for him to make his move."

"Stefan..." Elena said. Her voice was shaking, and an oddly rational, detached part of her noted that this must be what it felt like when the person you loved most lost his mind.

She didn't know what she was going to say next, but before she could even open her mouth, Caleb had risen again. There was a long scratch down the side of his face, and his blond hair was tangled and full of dirt.

"Back off," Caleb said grimly, coming toward Stefan. He was limping a little bit, and clutched a fist-size rock in his right hand. "You can't just..." He raised the rock threateningly.

"Stop it, both of you," Elena yelled, trying for a fierce general's voice that would command their attention. But Caleb just hoisted the rock and threw it straight at Stefan's face.

Stefan dodged the rock, moving almost too quickly for Elena to see, grabbed Caleb by the waist, and, in one graceful motion, flung him into the air. For a moment, Caleb was suspended, seemingly as light and boneless as a scarecrow tossed from the back of a pickup truck, and then he hit the side of the marble Civil War monument with a sickening crunch. With a thud, he fell to the ground at the foot of the statue and was still .

"Caleb!" Elena screamed in horror. She ran toward him, shoving her way between the bushes and clumps of grass that encircled the monument.

His eyes were closed and his face was pale. Elena could see the light blue veins in his eyelids. There was a spreading pool of blood on the ground beneath his head. A streak of dirt ran across his face, and that dirt and the long red scratch on his cheek suddenly seemed like some of the most heartbreaking things she had ever seen. He wasn't moving. She couldn't tell whether he was breathing. Elena dropped to her knees and felt for Caleb's pulse, fumbling at his neck. As she found the steady thrum of a heartbeat beneath her fingers, she gasped in relief.

"Elena." Stefan had followed her to Caleb's side. He put his hand on her shoulder. "Please, Elena."

Elena shook her head, refusing to look at him, and shrugged his hand away. She felt in her pocket for her phone. "My god, Stefan," she said, her words clipped and tight, "you could have killed him. You have to get out of here. I can tell the police I found him like this, but if they see you, they're going to know you two were fighting." She swallowed hard as she realized the streak of dirt staining Caleb's shirt was Stefan's handprint.

"Elena," Stefan pleaded. At the anguish in his tone, she finally turned toward him. "Elena, you don't understand. I had to stop him. He was a threat to you." Stefan's leaf green eyes beseeched her, and Elena had to steel herself to keep from crying.

"You have to leave," she said. "Go home. I'll talk to you later." Don't hurt anyone else, she thought, and bit her lip. Stefan stared at her for a long moment, then finally backed away. "I love you, Elena." He turned and disappeared into the trees, through the older and wilder part of the cemetery.

Elena took a steadying breath, wiped her eyes, and dialed 911. "There's been an accident," she said, her voice panicky, when the operator picked up. "I'm in the Fell's Church Cemetery off Route Twenty-three, over by the Civil War monument near the edge of the newer section. I've found someone... It looks like he was knocked unconscious somehow..."

Chapter 19

"Honestly, Elena," Aunt Judith said, shaking her head as she adjusted the car's rearview mirror. "I don't know why these kinds of things always seem to happen to you, but you find yourself in the strangest situations."

"Tel me about it," Elena said, slumping down in the passenger seat of her aunt's car and resting her head in her hands. "Thank you for picking me up, Aunt Judith. I just felt too shaky to drive after being at the hospital with Caleb and everything." She swallowed. "I'm sorry I missed Margaret's dance recital after all."

Aunt Judith patted Elena's knee with one cool hand without taking her eyes off the road. "I told Margaret that Caleb got hurt and you had to take care of him. She understood. Right now I'm worried about you. It must have been a shock to find him like that, especially when you realized it was someone you knew. What exactly happened?"

Elena shrugged and repeated the lie she'd told the police. "I just found him lying there when I went to visit Mom and Dad." Elena cleared her throat before continuing. "The hospital's keeping him for a couple of days. They think he's got a bad concussion and they want to watch and make sure his brain doesn't swell . He woke up a little bit in the ambulance but was really groggy and didn't remember what had happened." Which was lucky, Elena thought. What if he'd said he was attacked by Elena Gilbert's boyfriend, who had something weird going on with his teeth? What if he'd said her boyfriend was a monster? It would be last fall all over again.

Aunt Judith frowned sympathetically and shook her head.

"Well , Caleb's lucky you came along. He could have been lying there for days before anyone went looking for him."

"Yeah, lucky," said Elena hollowly. She rolled the bottom of her T-shirt between her fingers and was startled to realize she still had her bathing suit on under her clothes. The picnic that afternoon seemed like it had taken place a million years ago.

Then something Aunt Judith said struck her. "What do you mean, he could have been lying there for days before anyone looked for him? What about his aunt and uncle?"

"I tried calling them after you called me, but it seems that Caleb's been fending for himself for quite a while. When I reached them, they were out of town on vacation, and frankly they didn't seem like they were too concerned about their nephew, even when I told them what had happened."

She sighed heavily. "I'll go visit him tomorrow and bring him some of the flowers from our garden he's been working so hard on. He'll like that."

"Huh," said Elena slowly. "I thought he told me he came here to stay with his aunt and uncle because they were so upset about Tyler being missing."

"Maybe so," Aunt Judith said dryly, "but the Small woods seem to be doing pretty well now. They said that in their opinion, Tyler will come home when he's good and ready. That boy was always a little out of control. It sounds like Caleb is more worried about Tyler than they are."

She pulled into the driveway of their house, and Elena followed her inside to where Robert was reading his newspaper at the kitchen table.

"Elena, you look exhausted," he said, folding the paper and looking up at her in concern. "Are you all right?"

"I'm okay," she said numbly. "It's just been a long day."

She thought she had never made more of an understatement in her life.

"Well , Margaret's gone to bed, but we saved you some dinner," Aunt Judith said, making a move toward the refrigerator. "It's a chicken casserole, and there's some salad. You must be starving."

But suddenly Elena felt sick. She'd been suppressing al her feelings about Stefan and his attack on Caleb, keeping the images tamped down so she could get on with the business of dealing with the police and the staff at the hospital and her own family. But she was tired and her hands were shaking. She knew that she couldn't keep everything under control for much longer.

"I don't want anything," she said, backing away. "I can't... I'm not hungry, Aunt Judith. Thank you, though. I just want to take a bath and go to bed." She turned and hurried out of the kitchen.

"Elena! You have to eat something," she heard Aunt Judith cry exasperatedly behind her as she hurried up the stairs.

The solid-sounding murmur of Robert's voice broke in:

"Judith, let her go."

Elena ducked into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

She and Margaret shared the hall bathroom, and she busied herself with emptying Margaret's bath toys from the tub, keeping her mind carefully blank: a pink rubber ducky, a pirate ship, a stack of gaily colored plastic cups. A goofily smiling purple seahorse looked up at her with painted blue eyes.

Once the tub was empty, Elena ran the water as hot as she could stand and poured in a generous dollop of apricot-scented bubble bath from a bottle that promised to soothe her spirit while rejuvenating her skin. Soothing and rejuvenating sounded good, although Elena had her doubts about how much she could reasonably expect from a bottle of bubble bath.

When the tub was full and frothy with a thick layer of bubbles, Elena quickly undressed and stepped into the steaming water. It stung at first, but she eased herself in bit by bit, gradually getting accustomed to the temperature. Once she was comfortable, she lay back in the water, her hair floating out like a mermaid's, the sounds of the house muffled by the water over her ears, and let the thoughts she'd been avoiding come at last.

Tears overflowed her eyes and trickled down her cheeks to join the bathwater. She had believed that everything was going to be normal now that they were back home, that things were going to be good again. When she and her friends had gotten the Guardians to send them back and to change things, to reverse the deaths, to fix the broken, to make everything the way it would have been if nothing dangerous had touched the little town of Fell's Church, she had thought that it would make her life simple and easy. She would have her family, her friends, her Stefan. But it wasn't going to work, was it? It wasn't ever going to be that way, not for Elena.

As soon as she'd come back to town, the very first day she'd stepped outside into the sunshine of a Fell's Church summer, something dark and evil and supernatural had started stalking her and her friends.

And as for Stefan... God... Stefan. What was happening to him?

When she closed her eyes, she saw Caleb flying through the air and heard that horrible, final-sounding crack that Caleb's head had made as it connected with the marble of the mausoleum. What if Caleb never fully recovered? What if this cute, innocent guy, this guy whose parents had died and left him like hers had died and left her, was broken forever because of Stefan?

Stefan. How had he become the kind of person who could do something like that? Stefan, who felt guilty about the animals he took blood from, the doves and rabbits and deer of the forest. The Stefan who she knew at the deepest level of her soul, who she thought kept nothing from her - that Stefan would never have harmed a human being like that.

Elena lay in the bathtub until the water got cold and her tears had stopped. Then she got out, drained the tub, dried her hair, brushed her teeth, put on a nightgown, called good night to Aunt Judith and Robert, and climbed into bed. She did not want to write in her diary. Not tonight. She switched off the light and lay flat on her back, staring into the darkness - the same blackness, she thought, as Damon's eyes.

Damon had been a monster, she knew - he had killed, although not as blithely as he pretended; he had manipulated people and enjoyed it; he had haunted and hated Stefan for hundreds of years - but she had also seen the lost little boy he kept locked inside him. He had loved her, she had loved him, and he had died.

And she loved Stefan. Desperately, devotedly, undeniably. She loved the sincerity in his eyes, his pride, his courtly manners, his honor, and his intelligence. She loved that he had rejected the monster that lurked inside him, the one that had driven so many vampires to terrible acts. She loved the sorrow he held - for his past, for his hatred and jealousy of Damon, for the terrible things he had seen. And she loved the hope that always sprang up in him, the strength of will Stefan possessed that allowed him to keep fighting back the darkness.

Beyond all that, she loved Stefan. But she was afraid. She had thought she knew him inside and out, that she could see clear through to the innermost reaches of his soul. That wasn't true, not anymore. Not since the Guardians had stripped her powers, severing their psychic connection and reverting her back to a normal, human girl. Elena rolled over and buried her face in the pillow. She knew the truth now. No matter what the Guardians had done for her, she would never be a normal girl. Her life would never be simple. Tragedy and horror would follow her forever.

In the end, there was nothing Elena could do to change her destiny.