"Okay, then," she said. "I'l be right next door if you need me."
"Thanks, Mer. Good night." As soon as the knob clicked into place, Bonnie lay back in bed and bit into a cookie. Delicious.
A slow smile bloomed on her lips. She was the center of attention now, as if she were a Victorian heroine bravely suffering from some kind of wasting il ness. She had been encouraged to pick out her favorite of the boardinghouse's many bedrooms and had chosen this one. It was a charming room with creamy rose-patterned wal paper and a maple sleigh bed.
Matt hadn't left her side al night. Mrs. Flowers had fussed around her, fluffing pil ows and offering her herbal tonics, and Alaric had been conscientiously researching protection spel s in al the grimoires he could find. Even Celia, who had never been anything but snippy to her about her "visions," promised before she left to let her know as soon as she found something helpful.
Bonnie turned on her side, inhaling the sweet scent of Mrs. Flowers's tea. Here in this cozy room, it was impossible to feel like she needed protection, that she could be in danger this very second.
But was she? What was the time frame after one's name was cal ed? After Celia's name had appeared, she had been attacked within the hour. After Meredith's had appeared, she hadn't been attacked until the next day. Maybe things were getting more spaced out. Maybe Bonnie wasn't going to be in danger until tomorrow or the next day. Or next week. And Damon's name had appeared before Bonnie's did.
Bonnie's skin tingled at the thought of Damon's name in lake weeds. Damon was dead. She had seen him die -
and in fact he'd died for her (although everyone else, in their compassion for Elena, seemed to have forgotten that). But the appearance of his name must mean something. And she was determined to figure out just what. She listened. She could hear the sounds of Meredith moving around in the room next door with a steady thumping that suggested she was practicing with her stave, and from down below came the faint voices of Matt, Alaric, and Mrs. Flowers talking in the study.
Bonnie could wait. She poured herself a cup of tea, crunched on another cookie, and wiggled her toes pleasurably under the soft pink sheets. She sort of liked being a supernatural invalid.
An hour later, she had finished her cup of tea and al the cookies, and the house was quieter. It was time. She climbed out of bed, her too-long polka-dotted pajama pants flapping around her ankles, and opened her overnight bag. While Meredith had waited downstairs at her house, she had pried up the loose board by her bed and taken out Traversing the Boundaries Between the Quick and the Dead, a book of matches, a silver knife, and the four candles she needed for the ritual. Now she took them out of her bag and rol ed back the rug by the bed so she could crouch on the floor.
Tonight, nothing was going to stop her. She was going to reach Damon. Maybe he could tel her what was going on. Or maybe he was in some sort of danger, in whatever plane dead vampires ended up on, and needed to be warned. In any case, she missed him. Bonnie hunched her shoulders and wrapped her arms around herself for a moment. Damon's death had hurt her, not that anyone had noticed. Everyone's attention, everyone's sympathies, had been directed toward Elena. As usual.
Bonnie got back to work. Quickly, she lit the first candle and, dripping wax on the floor to anchor it upright, placed it to her north. "Fire in the North, protect me," she whispered. She lit them in widdershins order: black to the north, white to the west, black to the south, white to the east. When the circle of protection was complete around her, she closed her eyes and sat quietly for a few moments, focusing herself, reaching to find the power at her center. When she opened her eyes, she took a deep breath, picked up the silver knife, and quickly, without giving herself time to wimp out, cut a gash across her left palm.
"Ouch," she muttered, and turned her hand over, dripping blood on the floor in front of her. Then she dabbed the fingers of her right hand in the blood and smeared a bit on each candle.
Bonnie's skin tingled painful y as magic rose around her. Her senses honed, and she could see tiny movements in the air, as if flashes of light were appearing and disappearing just out of sight.
"'Through the darkness I cal to you,'" she intoned. She didn't need to look at the book; she had memorized this part. "'With my blood I cal to you; with fire and silver I cal to you. Hear me through the cold beyond the grave. Hear me through the shadows beyond the night. I summon you. I have need of you. Hear me and come!'"
The room went stil . It was the stil ness of expectation, as if some great creature were holding its breath. Bonnie felt like an entire audience stood around her, suspended in eagerness. The veil between the worlds was about to lift. She had no doubts.
"Damon Salvatore," she said clearly. "Come to me."
Nothing happened.
"Damon Salvatore," Bonnie said again, less confidently,
"come to me."
The tension, the feeling of magic in the room was beginning to dissipate, as if her invisible audience were quietly creeping away.
Yet Bonnie knew the spel had worked. She had a funny, blank, cutoff feeling, like when she was talking on the phone and her carrier suddenly dropped the cal . Her cal had gone through, she was sure of it, but there was no one on the other end. Only what did it mean? Was Damon's soul just... gone?
Suddenly Bonnie heard something. A light breathing, just a smidge out of time with her own.
There was someone right behind her.
The hairs rose on the back of her neck. She hadn't broken the circle of protection. Nothing should be able to cross into that circle, certainly no spirit, but whoever was behind her was inside the circle, so close to Bonnie that they were almost touching her.
Bonnie froze. Then slowly, careful y, she put down her hand and felt for the knife. "Damon?" she whispered uncertainly.
A tinkling laugh sounded behind her, fol owed by a low voice. "Damon doesn't want to talk to you." The voice was honey-sweet, but somehow also poisonous-sounding, insidious and oddly familiar.
"Why not?" Bonnie asked shakily.
"He doesn't love you," the voice said in a soft, persuasive tone. "He never even noticed you were there, unless there was something he wanted from you. Or perhaps if he wanted to make Elena jealous. You know that."
Bonnie swal owed, too afraid to turn around, too afraid to see who the voice belonged to.
"Damon saw only Elena. Damon loved only Elena. Even now that he's dead and lost to her, he won't hear you cal ing," the voice lilted. "Nobody loves you, Bonnie. Everyone loves Elena, and that's how she likes it. Elena keeps everyone for herself."