"I'm sorry," Matt said slowly. "I shouldn't have blamed you. But... what happened?"
Stefan just shrugged, looking stricken.
Meredith's heart squeezed in her chest at the sight of her two best friends laid out like rag dol s. They were so stil . Even in sleep, Elena had always been more mobile, more expressive than this. Over the course of a thousand sleepovers, ever since they were little, Meredith had seen sleeping Elena smile, rol herself more tightly in the blankets, snuggle her face into the pil ows. Now the pinkand-gold-and-cream-colored warmth of Elena seemed faded and cold.
And Bonnie, Bonnie who was so vibrant and quickmoving, she'd hardly ever kept stil for more than a moment or two in her whole life. Now she was motionless, frozen, almost colorless except for the dark dots of her freckles against her pale cheeks and the bright expanse of red hair on her pil ow. If it weren't for the slight rise and fal of their chests, both girls could have been mannequins.
"I don't know," Stefan said again, the words sounding more panicked this time, and looked up to meet Meredith's eyes. "I don't know what to do."
Meredith cleared her throat. "We cal ed the hospital to check on Caleb while you were gone," she said careful y, knowing what effect her words would have. "He's been released."
Stefan's eyes flashed murderously. "I think," he said, his voice like a knife, "that we should pay Caleb a visit."
Elena was suspended in darkness. She wasn't alarmed, though. It was like floating slowly under warm water, gently bobbing in the current, and a part of her wondered distantly and without fear whether it was possible that she had never come up out of the waterfal basin at Hot Springs. Had she been drifting and dreaming al this time?
Then suddenly she was speeding, bursting upward, and she opened her eyes on dazzling daylight and gulped a long, shaky breath.
Soulful, worried dark brown eyes gazed down into hers from a pale face hovering above her.
"Bonnie?" Elena gasped.
"Elena! Thank God," Bonnie cried, grabbing her by the arms in a viselike grip. "I've been here al by myself for days and days, or what feels like days and days anyway, because the light never changes, so I can't tel by the sun. And there's nothing to do here. I can't figure out how to get out, and there's nothing to eat, although I'm weirdly not hungry, so I guess it doesn't matter. I tried to sleep to pass the time, but I wasn't getting tired, either. And suddenly you were here, and I was so happy to see you, but you wouldn't wake up, and I was getting real y worried. What's going on?"
"I don't know," Elena said groggily. "The last thing I remember is being on a bench. I think I got caught by some kind of mystical fog."
"Me too!" Bonnie exclaimed. "Not the bench part, but the fog part. I was in my room at the boardinghouse, and this weird fog trapped me." She shivered theatrical y. "I couldn't move at al . And I was so cold." Suddenly her eyes widened with guilt. "I was doing a spel when it happened, and something came up behind me and said stuff. Nasty things."
Elena shuddered. "I heard a voice, too."
"Do you think I... set something loose? When I was doing the spel ? I've been worrying that maybe I might have done so accidental y." Bonnie's face was white.
"It wasn't your fault," Elena reassured her. "We think it's the phantom - the thing that's been causing the accidents
- that it stole your spirit so it could use your power for itself. And now it's taken me, I guess."
She quickly told Bonnie about the phantom, then pushed up on her elbows and real y looked around for the first time.
"I can't believe we're here again."
"Where?" asked Bonnie anxiously. "Where are we?"
It was midday and a sunlit blue sky stretched brightly overhead. Elena was pretty sure it was always midday here: It certainly had been the last time she'd been here. They were in a wide, long field that seemed to go on forever. As far as Elena could see, there were tal bushes growing - rosebushes with perfect velvety black blooms. Midnight roses. Richly magical roses grown for holding spel s only the kitsune could coat onto them. A kitsune had sent Stefan one of these roses once, with a spel to make him human, but Damon had accidental y intercepted it, much to both brothers' dismay.
"We're in the kitsunes' magic rose field, the one that the Gatehouse of the Seven Treasures opens into," she told Bonnie.
"Oh," Bonnie said. She thought for a moment and then asked helplessly, "What are we doing here? Is the phantom a kitsune?"
"I don't think so," Elena answered. "Maybe it's just a convenient place to stash us."
Elena took a deep breath. Bonnie was a good person to be with in a crisis. Not good in the way that Meredith was -
Meredith's way was the planning-and-getting-things-done way - but good in that Bonnie looked up at Elena trustingly with big, innocent eyes and asked questions, confident that Elena would know the answers. And Elena would immediately feel competent and protective, as if she could deal with whatever situation they were embroiled in. Like right now. With Bonnie depending on her, Elena's mind was working more clearly than it had for days. Any moment now, she'd come up with a plan to get them out of here. Any moment now, she was sure.
Bonnie's cold, smal fingers worked their way into Elena's hand. "Elena, are we dead?" she asked in a tiny, quavering voice.
Were they dead? Elena wondered. She didn't think so. Bonnie had been alive after the phantom took her, but unwakeable. It was more likely their spirits had traveled here on the astral plane and their bodies were back in Fel 's Church.
"Elena?" Bonnie repeated anxiously. "Do you think we're dead?"
Elena opened her mouth to respond when a crackling, stomping noise interrupted her. The rosebushes nearby began to thrash wildly, and there was a great rushing sound that seemed to come from every direction at once. The snapping of branches was deafening, as if something huge was shoving its way through the bracken. Al around them, thorny rosebush branches whipped back and forth, although there was no wind. She yelped as one of the waving branches smacked her across the arm, gashing her skin open.
Bonnie let out a wail, and Elena's heart beat double time in her chest. She whirled around, pushing Bonnie behind her. She bal ed her hands into fists and crouched, trying to remember what Meredith had taught her about fighting an attacker. But as she looked around, al she could see for miles were roses. Black, perfect roses.