My father is silent for a moment as we move down the road and away from the palace gates.
“She’s far beyond that,” he finally says, “and the greatest danger is in underestimating what she is capable of. She can take many forms, so be on your guard. Your stepsisters were but another attempt at power in this world, and now that that has failed? I imagine she is none too pleased.”
We ride down the road, far from the palace grounds toward town, and I know we are all thinking the same thing—where has she gone? I dare not consider that she may have fled, not this time. It must end today.
It seems best to think as she might—if she quests for power, how might she gain it? What might she do to ease the threat on her plans?
The weight of the day falls heavy like the burden of Atlas, and a second roll of thunder—closer, this time—gives me pause. The road we’re on will bring us to the Church of the Holy Paraclete, and despite the task ahead, I am seized by a sudden urge. I draw alongside Father with my request.
“Might we take a moment?” I ask, though the words sound strange in my ears. It has been a long time since I’ve asked permission of anything. “I wish to visit Mother once more. Will you come with me?”
Father gazes ahead and I hold my breath. “Yes, this is a good idea. I’d like to see her stone one final time, too.” He pulls his horse away from mine, but his words give me pause.
“Final time?” I urge my horse to keep pace with his. “This won’t be your final time. You can defeat Celia. You can send her back, and it will all be over. Tell me you can.”
He regards me with an even greater sorrow. “I cannot. I no longer know how, for I ceased the use of my powers the day your mother died. My daughter, I kept the evil close to me that I might find some other way to defeat it, but I left before … ” His voice trails with unspoken truth.
“Before you could find someone else to draw from,” I snap. “But you forget, I cannot defeat her, either. Edward may already be dead, Father, and if he isn’t, for all I know he’ll expire the moment I so much as draw a circle in the earth before us.”
My anger heats and rises like a kettle set to boil. We’re riding toward a foolhardy purpose. Who are we to think we might save this world, this kingdom, from evil? Who are we to take the lives of those we love? Who are we to have to sacrifice for the good of others?
Thunder rolls a third time. It is closer, and I wonder aloud.
“Father, if I were an ancient evil who had just seen my plans of power destroyed at the hands of someone I assumed to be under my control, what would I do?”
“Run,” Father offers. “Or hide until I found new minions. Or devise another way to take power.”
But it does not sound right. “She has always been sure of herself, since the very moment she crossed our threshold. I don’t believe she’ll run.”
I consider Celia’s actions: when I became a nuisance, she pushed me from her way. She’d piled heavy tasks on my head, setting me to do this or that, removing personal possessions and stealing away freedom, until finally resorting to threats on Edward’s life.
“Revenge,” William says. “In her place, I’d seek revenge.”
My father and I speak the same word. “Edward.”
But I am looking at him, and he is staring down the road. I follow his gaze, which rests on the very place we travel toward.
“I don’t think we’ll have to look very far,” he says.
With another roll of thunder, closer than ever, the spires of the Church of the Holy Paraclete topple to the ground as the roof pushes upward like a rising loaf of bread and splits in two. Tiles, bricks, and stones drop from their heights, and standing in the center of the wreckage, rising above the church’s outer walls, is a beast unlike any creature I have ever beheld.
With a shout, we spur the horses onward, unthinking in our actions, plunging toward a foe we cannot defeat. But I go and I will not stop, for as we reach the edge of the church grounds, I see that the beast has destroyed the stones of the field.
They are all turned to dust. The hazel tree stands no more, and the air stinks of crushed lavender, too strong and too pungent to bring calm.
I cry out to Father, but he pays me no mind, for he stares at the beast as we draw close.
It is so much taller than the church’s insides that I can barely see its face in the gleam of night. What I can see drives a thorn of fear into my heart.
The beast’s skin is onyx, scaled and shining, with spikes the size of trees along its spine. Its six limbs are crowned with talons that open and close over the church’s brick walls, tearing off chunks and hurling them toward the ground.
As we move closer, I see that the shining of its scales isn’t shine at all, but thousands of eyes—one, two, sometimes three on each scale, looking, staring, searching. The skull of the beast is worse still, for it is misshapen and repulsive enough to send bile splashing against the back of my throat. Row upon row of teeth fill its mouth, and mandibles like the jaw of a beetle snap open and shut, tasting the air. A mound of raw flesh where its nose should be drips a yellow liquid that oozes down its face and into its mouth, pouring across its belly and dripping onto the floor of the church where it turns to steam with a hiss.
But the eyes on its face … I know those eyes, for I gazed into them and saw nothing, many days before.
The beast before us is, beyond all doubt, my stepmother Celia.
And hanging limp in one of her many limbs, clutched so tightly I fear he may be crushed at any moment, is my brother Edward.
38
The Breaking
I am lost. Utterly and completely lost.
I scream at the beast and spur my horse forward, ignoring the shouts of the men behind me. I have no care for myself or this world, for all I can see is my brother in the arms of that beast—that thing, who has done nothing but try to claim him since the moment she crossed our threshold.
But I also hold a spark of hope, for why would the beast pay mind to a dead child?
She cannot have her revenge on me if he has already died. No, I would wager my last breath that she would prefer to see me suffer before she claims him.
I am sure of it. I will risk my life, and his life, on this.
I tumble off the horse, clutching The Book, as a claw the size of three carriages descends from above. Talons sink into my horse like a knife into butter, impaling the poor creature as it wails once before leaving this life. I am glad it didn’t suffer long.
Celia flings it from her hand, across the fields, where it lands with a thud beyond my sight.
My father calls behind me, but I am not listening. I scream at Celia, demanding she release my heart, my brother, the thing I hold most dear in all the world, for Father is returned and we can finally be whole again.
But she, a beast in all forms, only laughs, spewing phlegm and sickness across the crushed stones of the church.
“Give him back to me,” I command, for I don’t know what else to do. My throat is dry and hoarse, but I will not be silenced. “You have no right to him.”
Her voice is deep and grating and scratches across my ears. “He is nothing to me, pathetic creature. But if I am to remain in this world, it becomes clear that you cannot.”
“I can no longer harm you,” I admit, though I know to do so is folly. “I have done enough. Leave us alone, and I will leave you.”
It is a promise I should not make, but what choice do I have? If I act, Edward will die. If I don’t act, others may die.
I cannot make this choice.
Celia roars and the earth shakes, sending me to my knees. Hot tears rise and spill down my cheeks and I grind my teeth as I watch her lift my brother to her festering mouth and place putrid lips upon his face.
I retch, dry heaves that bring up nothing but air and acid. That is not love. She does not know what love is, no matter how she may pretend.
“Stop … ” I try to shout, but my legs hav
e grown weak and I can no longer stand.
She will not bargain or compromise.
She will only take power, and when she receives it, she’ll seek more.
Deep within, I know she will do so forever and ever, until all those who can love see their loved ones ripped away and devoured by this abomination born of hatred and greed.
I am the only one who can stop it, and now is the only time.
I must love Edward enough to let him go.
I pray that when he sees Mother and she tells him of his sacrifice, that he understands.
With a shaking breath, I lift my head to the sky, and I think of my legions of darkness. I hear the rush of wings. With one finger, I trace a circle in the dirt around me, close my eyes, and press The Book of Conjuring to my chest. I do not need the bone key today, for there is a place inside me that knows the words I have to speak. Words I read in the book and swore I would never repeat.
It is time.
“I, Ellison, exorcize you, Celia, by—”
Arms beneath mine lift me to my feet. My eyes fly open and there is William, and my father, standing in my circle and I am terrified, for William surely cannot be here.
“No,” I say, panicked, “you can’t be a part of this.”
“Do you love me?” William asks.
I shake my head. “Why would you ask that? Why now?” Every moment I’m not on my knees in this circle prolongs Edward’s suffering.
If I don’t act now, I doubt I will ever find the strength again.
William takes my shoulders and shakes me. “Do you love me? Tell me, Ella, do you love me?”
Not now. I cannot. This is neither the time nor the place, and I tell him so.
“Answer,” he yells, and I stumble. Of course he catches me with his strong arms that will always catch me, forever and ever, if only I answer him.
And I realize this one final truth: I am not alone anymore.
I think of Mother, and her sacrifice for Father. For the world. And I think I know why William demands an answer.
“Yes,” I say, for I do.
With haste, but so gently and tenderly that it brings tears back to my eyes, he places a kiss on my parched, bloodied lips.
“Then take my life instead,” he says, and grasps my hand.
I shake my head. “I can’t. I don’t know how.”
He smiles and I melt into the earth. So short, our time together, and yet, I would not trade it for a moment with anyone else.
Celia roars above us, and I falter. I am tired, so very tired.
“You don’t need to know how,” he says, and squeezes my fingers. “I have power too, remember? Think of me, Ella, and we’ll save him. Together.”
I relent. It is the only way.
And so, with William at one side, and my father’s quiet strength on the other, I lift my voice and our arms to the sky.
“I, Ellison, exorcize you, Celia, by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Holiest Trinity, and by He who created heaven and earth—”
Beside me, William stiffens and his grip falters. I hold tighter and will my legions to strike against her.
“—and by all things both visible and invisible, by His power of death and resurrection, that by all these things you are bound to my power—”
And though the demons rip and tear, they cannot hold her attention forever. She notices us, then, and screams with a primal rage that shakes the earth beneath our feet. We are strong. We remain in the circle, for we cannot step aside. She must feel the first tendrils of binding, she must.
“—that you submit to me, for I command that you be restrained from this day forward, now and forevermore, under the earth in the fires of hell—”
The shaking grows and grows until we are forced to our knees, and as before, a crack appears along the earth’s surface. It opens, splitting with a groan, bringing hot winds and sending streaks of jagged light across the sky.
In her rage, Celia hurls one of the church’s stone walls toward us. I see it fly through the air as I speak, and in silence, I beg forgiveness for my failure.
“Don’t stop,” shouts Father, though I can barely hear him above the din, “the circle will protect us so long as we remain inside!”
The hurled stones whip over our heads and spin away, landing beyond sight. I continue.
“—never again to rise and destroy, forever damned by the power which the Christ destroyed all Hell and by Him who cast you from heaven—”
William looses a cry that rips my heart into a million pieces, for I know it, I can feel it this time—I draw his life and strength not to fuel the dead to life, but to return the dead unto death.
I will lose him, of this I am sure … but in so doing, I will gain everything, for my family will be safe, and that is all that matters.
That is all that has ever mattered.
“—and may all these things be done in His name, forever and ever. Amen.”
And just as the earth shakes one final time, the crack spreads to open beneath the church, wider and wider still, and the horde of demons at my command strikes at what my stepmother has become, surrounding and pushing and tearing, forcing her backward, backward, backward, until she stumbles toward the edge. She tilts and sways and I scream for Edward, for as she plunges into the pit with a final roar, in her grasp is the tiny form of my brother who is now falling, falling, falling into the depths of the Abyss and toward an eternity of damnation—
And then the ground closes, seams moving together with rumbles and scrapes like my passageway doors, and a hole in the sky tears open to pull my legions back inside, leaving blue skies and sucking the darkness from every corner …
And then it’s over.
And I am on the ground, and my father is holding me, and I no longer feel William’s hand in my own but I am too afraid to look for fear that I have just lost everything—everything—and I do not know whether I have made the right choice.
My father holds my face in his hands and tells me he is proud. He buries my cheek in his shoulder and wipes away the tears and holds me as the pain and sorrow of so many days falls down like fresh snow—for although this is over, the memory and aching will not melt so easily.
I do not know how long we sit there. I do know the night turns to day, and still the sun grows tired and falls from the sky as the stars take their turn to light the way once more, and I know the air grows cold, and I know the morning dew smells fresh and sweet and I yearn to quench the dryness in my throat.
And so I sit up, rub my eyes with stiff fingers, and look to the sun’s warmth.
And there, amid the sun’s rays, is my brother.
39
The True Ending
The spirit child Oliroomim descends from a seam in the sky, a seam which remains despite the ending of all.
But we have not broken the circle, and so it is there still.
In his arms, he holds my brother, and I catch my breath at the strangeness of this spirit carrying the form of Edward who is as small as he.
“Thank you,” I say, “for everything.”
He lays Edward on the sun-warmed ground, and while my brother barely breathes, I think he lives. I am overwhelmed with joy and a shout rises from within, bubbling forth to culminate in laughter—but I hold back, for I cannot know for sure until I hold him for myself.
“As you wish, mistress,” he says, and leaves, sealing the seam in the sky in his retreat. Would that I could spare him, somehow, but to grant heaven to a hell-bound spirit is far beyond even my power. I will not call him again. I pray that will be enough to allow his rest.
I run out of the circle, ignoring every pain that stabs through me, to draw Edward into my arms.
He is alive.
He is alive.
A stirring from behind causes my breath to seize in fright, but when I look it is only William—William!—pale but otherwise well, sitting amid the dirt.
In one hand, he
holds his medallion.
“I told you I’d be all right,” he says, and I am so angry I want to scream at him, I am so filled with blissful wonder I want to throw my arms around him, but I do neither because Father is here too and we are all whole.
We are together.
We are a family again, and will be forever and ever.
And I smile at William and he smiles back, and I know so much more than one simple story can ever tell.
I know that we will, all of us, live happily ever after.
THE END
Cinderella, Necromancer: Historical Notes
When I set out to write Cinderella, Necromancer, I had two goals in mind: Stay as true to the original German and French fairy-tales as possible (within the context of the story, of course), and to frame the magic of the story within a relevant, historical context.
“But Faith,” you’re saying, “necromancy isn’t real!”
Ah, but that’s where things get really interesting … so let’s start there.
It begins with Richard Kieckhefer, a professor of religion and history at Northwestern University, specializing in late medieval religious culture. He wrote two books that were highly influential on the magic that Ellison performs: Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge University Press, 2000), and Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer’s Manual of the Fifteenth Century (The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012).
Nearly all the spells Ellison performs, and all of the spirits or demons she conjures, are inspired by real, ancient necromancy spells found in the grimoire discussed in Forbidden Rites—everything from the circles she forms on the ground, writing the spirits’ names between the lines, and facing a certain direction when performing her conjurings. And while the original title of the grimoire remains uncertain (Forbidden Rites simply calls it the Munich Handbook of Necromancy: Clm 849), it contains a smaller text within it called The Book of Consecrations. And the whole thing? Written in Latin and German.
Cinderella Necromancer Page 26
