Free The War of Roses by L. J. Smith Page B

even.
    “But that’s the one place we know that— he —isn’t,” Bonnie argued, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
    “Just try it,” Elena said , looking at Stefan again.
    “I mean his—his poor body might be there, but that’s all!”  More tears traced their way down Bonnie’s pale cheeks.
    “Give it a try,” Elena suggested gently.
    “But—”
    Just DO it! thought Damon, startling himself.
    “All right!  You don’t have to shout!” Bonnie cried.
    Elena stared at her. Damon could feel her heart beating hard.  Strangely, he could also feel his own heart beating.  He hadn’t been able to do that before.
    Bonnie picked up the crystal by its gold chain with trembling fingers.  She held it up gingerly, positioning the translucent quartz over the bottom of the circle, about an inch from the vellum.
    Stefan leaned forward.  Mrs. Flowers came quickly back to the table with a fragrant pot of tea. She put the teapot down without attempting to pour anything into the four cups that sat at four different places on the table.
    Elena leaned forward, her eyes on the quartz crystal.
    “Bonnie, my dear, you might want to name that map.  Aloud, I mean: just say what it represents, so that there’s no question about what you’re looking at,” Mrs. Flowers advised.
    Bonnie hesitated.  Elena gave her a few seconds and then said, “The circle I drew on this piece of vellum”—she touched it—“is a map of the smallest moon of the Nether World, the one on which the great Tree existed until I destroyed it : root, branch and leaf.”
    Bonnie glanced at her sideways with wide brown eyes.   Elena’s voice had been quiet, but not repentant.  She wasn’t sorry for destroying the tree.  It had already killed Damon and had been in the process of trapping Stefan, Bonnie and herself permanently in a prison of wooden branches when she’d used Wings of Destruction on it.
    Elena thought of something else.  “The X on the circle stands for Damon’s body.  He was staked to the ground beside the trunk of the Tree.”
    Bonnie was still looking at her.  Now Elena looked back steadily, with a tiny, encouraging smile.  Below the table her hands were clenched together so hard that her fingernails bit into skin.
    Bonnie focused on the map again, taking a deep breath.  She moved the necklace so that it just touched the bottom of the circle, then slowly moved over the white space inside.
    The pendulum was motionless, swinging from side to side a little as Bonnie’s hand shook. 
    Mrs. Flowers leaned forward.
    Bonnie moved the crystal toward the left and then traced out a pattern, a slow sweep of the bottom of the circle.  The quartz didn’t respond.  She moved up an inch and swept a path going the opposite way.
    She kept doing this, back and forth, inch by inch getting closer to the X.  At last she was tracing the circle directly below the mark.
    Elena stopped breathing. 
    Bonnie moved the pendulum up and approached the X slowly.  Her hand began to tremble badly and the pendulum swung more and more wildly, but not in a circle.  She approached the X.
    Damon let his aura flare.  He used all the Power he could extract from the droplets around him and his own body.  He c oncentrated on showing the most amount of Power over the largest space possible.  Here I am! he thought.
    Bonnie reached the X .
    Elena gasped.  Stefan stood abruptly, his chair scraping on the tile floor.   Mrs. Flowers’s hand flew to her heart. 
    “What’s happening?” Bonnie cried.  Elena glanced at her quickly.  Bonnie’s eyes were shut.  “What’s it doing?” she demanded again.
    “Open your eyes, my dear,” Mrs. Flowers said in a breathless voice.  Elena couldn’t have spoken for worlds.  Stefan never even looked up from the map, where the pendulum was moving in large steady circles around the X at its center.
    Bonnie opened her eyes.  She stared at the quartz crystal as it revolved in neat circles around and