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House of Night (Hunted) Chapter 29
Zoey is late to a class she was apparently going to, “rush[ing] into the stables late”, which I could have sworn she was already in the entire last chapter. Her professor, Lenobia, of the equestrian class she’s apparently taking, tells Zoey she needs to muck her horse’s stall. Zoey apparently has a horse. I’ll admit it, I am off to a very rocky start this chapter. I don’t know if it’s because there’s a billion insignificant things going on in this book or if it’s me.
“Zoey, you have a stall to muck.” She tossed me a pitchfork and pointed me toward Persephone’s stall. […]
Persephone whickered a soft greeting to me and I went straight to her head, stroking her face […]
“She loves you, you know. The mare has told me so.”
I turned to see Lenobia standing just inside the door of the stall […]
“Not in words. Horses communicate in feelings. They are passionate, loyal beings with hearts big enough to hold the world.”
“I’ve always thought so, too,” I said softly, kissing Perspehone’s forehead.
“Zoey, Kalona must be killed.”
…maybe it’s the book.
To be fair, Zoey immediately points out that “the abruptness of her statement shocked me”, so it was supposed to be jarring. But it kind of doesn’t work when House of Night has like a hundred narrative threads that are interchangeably the main plot or a subplot, sometimes disappear for half a book at a time, and are often only “progressed” by characters talking about them rather than anything ever happening. The whole thing is abrupt.
Zoey is surprised that Lenobia is talking about this so openly. Lenobia explains that Raven Mockers avoid horses and the other students are out exercising the horses, so the stables are safe. Zoey points out that Kalona is immortal, so he can’t be killed.
“But we must defeat him. He lures our people away from Nyx.”
“I know. I haven’t even been back one whole day and already I can see how bad things are.”
Dear book, You gotta stop reminding us how little time has passed because it’s just drawing attention to how little has happened in this 300-page book. Love, Matthew
Now, I hate when reviews do the “here’s what I would have done differently” thing, but think about this for a second. Let’s look at what Zoey just said:
“I haven’t even been back one whole day and already I can see how bad things are.”
Would she not have been able to see how bad things were getting if the first half of this book did take place at the House of Night? Seriously, why couldn’t we have done this? What did we gain by going to the tunnels (and ignoring the most immediate plot development) for half a book, then going back to the House of Night, only to immediately make plans to leave again?
What if, instead, Hunted began at the House of Night? With Zoey and her friends suffering a sleepless night, worrying and plotting their next move, only to wake up and see how Kalona’s presence has brainwashed the other vampyres overnight? Heartbroken, they realize that for the time being, the House of Night is a lost cause. Now when the novel hits the first location change, we’re going into the unknown, abandoning everything we knew after watching it become unrecognizable before our eyes. The novel is setting up to do some of that right now, but imagine if this happened at Hunted‘s transition from act one to act two, instead of the climax after a whole book of talking about the plot. Then Zoey’s tunnel adventure with the red fledglings feels like a whole new world in act two instead of a stopgap while we’re waiting to get back to the story. And act three is totally opened up for an actual fucking climax.
Anyway, on that note, back to characters talking about the plot instead of the plot doing anything.
“Neferet is in on all of this, too.” I held my breath, waiting to see if Lenobia would remain blindly loyal to her High Priestess or if she would see the truth. […]
Lenobia nodded her head. “Yes, a few of us have been afraid of that. I’m ashamed to say we looked the other way instead of confronting Neferet when she first began to behave strangely. I no longer consider her in Nyx’s service. I plan on pledging my allegiance to a new High Priestess,” she finished, giving me a knowing look.
“Not me!” I practically squeaked. “I haven’t even Changed yet.”
Wait, is this still a thing? Zoey already has people who’ve been calling her their priestess. For entire books now. Why is she suddenly so surprised about this?
I wanted to flail my arms around and scream, I’m seventeen! I can’t save the world – I can’t even parallel park!
You know what’s funnier than jokes about how parallel parking is hard? Jokes about how this. entire. book. has been. about. zoey. trying. to save. the. world.
“You’ve been Marked and Chosen by our Goddess. That is enough for me. It is also enough for Dragon and Anastasia. […] All of the [other teachers] are blinded by Kalona.”
“Why aren’t you?”
She took her time answering me. “I am not sure”
I genuinely don’t know if this is supposed to be a mystery that’s going to be solved or if House of Night is just admitting it’s a plot hole.
Zoey shares Kramisha’s prophecy/poem about stopping Kalona with Lenobia. Lenobia is particularly interested in the lines about the “joining of five”.
“It says ‘place of power— joining of five.’ And then it lists the five: Night, Spirit, Blood, Humanity, Earth.”
“They are people,” I said, feeling a rush of excitement. […] “I’ll bet if Grandma was here, she’d tell me that there were five Ghigua women who got together and created A-ya.”
“Does it feel right to you, deep in your soul? Is the Goddess speaking to you?”
I smiled and my heart soared. “It does! It feels right.”
God, I would love to see the Casts write a murder mystery. “Why, detective! How did you know the butler did it?” “It felt right.” “Wow!”
“The most obvious place of power is here at the House of Night,” she said. […]
“No, inside the school the place of power has been tainted by him. It was his power joined with Neferet’s and mixed with Stevie Rae’s blood that released him and—” I gasped, realizing the implications of what I’d just said. “Stevie Rae! I would have thought she’d represent earth. I mean, that’s her affinity and all, but she’s not earth: she’s blood!”
Lenobia smiled and nodded. “Very good. One down. Now all you must name is the other four.”
Well, this can’t take long. The world revolves around Zoey’s dozen friends, so it’s not like we have a whole lot of narrowing down to do.
“Aphrodite. She has to be humanity, even though most of the time she wants nothing to do with it.”
See? This’ll take no time at all.
“Well, places of power are also tied to spirit. Like Avalon, the ancient isle of the Goddess, is tied in spirit to Glastonbury. Even Christians felt the pull of the power of the place and at one time built an abbey there.” […]
“What did you say about an abbey and the Goddess? […] It’s perfect! The place of power is [the] abbey of the Benedictine nuns [and] Spirit is the head nun, Sister Mary Angela.”
“A nun? To represent Spirit? […] Are you quite sure, Zoey?”
…is that a particularly strange connection? Because we haven’t even started grasping at straws yet.
“I guess the people I’ve known who are closest to the earth are my grandma’s people. The Cherokee have always respected the earth”
Is this seriously how this mystery is being solved? Zoey’s just drawing whatever conclusions make the most sense to her and divine intervention is telling her she’s right. Heath is also human. All the red fledglings live underground. Erik Night’s last name is literally Night. How do we know those aren’t equally valid answers for humanity, earth, and night?
“Could it be Anastasia?” [Lenobia suggested.] “Her gift for spells and rituals is often grounded in the earth.”
Hahaha, oh, Lenobia. You must be new here. Only Zoey’s friends are important.
“It’s my grandma. She’s Earth.”
“Perfect!” Lenobia agreed. “Then you have them all!”
“Not Night. I still haven’t figured out who—” I broke off as I registered Lenobia’s knowing look.
“Look deeper, Zoey Redbird, and I do believe you will discover who Nyx has Chosen to personify Night.”
“Not me,” I whispered.
“Of course it is you,” Lenobia said.
Although Lenobia has picked up on “of course it’s Zoey” rules pretty quickly.
Lenobia tells Zoey that she and Aphrodite have to get to Benedictine Abbey right away. Zoey explains that Darius, Damien, and the twins have to come too so her circle is also complete. Zoey then explains that all these people are already meeting here shortly anyway.
We finally got around to putting a Reflected in You Companion eBook together. So if you want to re-live the magic (or live it for the first time if you’re new to the blog) of Reflected in You offline and from the warmth and comfort of your own, uh, eReader, this is the book for you.
As always, the eBook is free for Patrons.