by Isobel Bird
“That was the whole idea,” said Lucy.
Kate looked at the angel again. Its hands were folded in front of its chest, and it was looking at her with a peaceful expression on its face. She imagined Alice making it, carving the angel’s body out of wood and affixing her sister’s hair to it. It must have taken a lot of work. She must have been really determined to stop her, thought Kate. But now Alice’s spell was about to come to an end.
“Can I have it?” Kate asked Lucy.
Lucy looked at her. She was still holding the angel in her hand, and she didn’t look as if she wanted to give it up. She kept looking from the angel to Kate, as if there was a battle going on in her mind and she wasn’t sure which side was going to win. Then, suddenly, she handed the angel to Kate and let go of it.
“It’s yours,” she said. “Now it’s your responsibility. Make sure you do what’s right.”
Kate closed her fingers around the angel, feeling the hardness of the wood and the softness of Mary’s hair on her skin. She looked at Lucy. “I will,” she told her. “You can count on it.”
CHAPTER 12
“You got it?” Cooper said in disbelief.
“Don’t sound so surprised,” Kate retorted. “I’m not that bad an actress.”
The two of them were standing in the hallway outside the room where the Air path was meeting. Once again, Kate had stood at the door, waiting to catch Cooper’s eye. When she had, Cooper had excused herself and gone outside to see what her friend had to tell her. Now she was holding the angel ornament in her hands and examining it closely.
“I just can’t believe she gave it to you,” Cooper said. “And where is she anyway? Did you knock her out and leave her in a closet or something?”
“I told her that I was going to go hide this in our room,” said Kate. “Then I sent her back to our path. I told her that Nora was in your path and that we didn’t want her to know that we were on to her and that we had the talisman.”
“Good thinking,” Cooper said. “You should get back, too. When we’re done for the day we’ll get Annie and Sasha and move on to stage two.”
“Destroying the talisman,” Kate said, nodding.
“You got it,” answered Cooper. “Once this thing is gone, Mary’s ghost should be able to come through with no problems.”
She paused a moment, looking at Kate. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Kate said. “I just feel sorry for Lucy. I don’t really think she’s a bad person. I think she got mixed up in something she doesn’t understand. You know, sort of like when I did that spell to get Scott to fall in love with me?”
“That came out okay, didn’t it?” said Cooper.
“More or less,” Kate agreed.
“So will this,” Cooper told her. “Once we break the spell this thing has over Mary, everything will be fine. I’m sure Lucy will be her old self again, too.”
Kate smiled. “I know you’re right,” she said. “But I still feel bad for her.”
“Get back to class,” said Cooper. “I’ll keep the talisman in my backpack so that Lucy thinks you really did hide it.”
“Okay,” said Kate. “But don’t lose it. That thing is the key to ending this mystery.”
Cooper closed her fingers over the wooden angel. “It won’t leave my side,” she said.
Kate left, and Cooper returned to class. Before rejoining the circle she stopped by her backpack and slipped the angel inside it. Then she resumed her place in the circle. She leaned over to Nora, who was sitting beside her, and whispered, “We got it.”
Nora turned her head sharply and stared at Cooper, her eyes wide with excitement. “The talisman?” she said quietly, her voice trembling with excitement.
Cooper nodded, and Nora smiled at her. Her whole face was glowing with joy, and Cooper wanted to give her a big hug. She had some idea of what Nora must be going through. She had felt the same way herself when the ghost of Elizabeth Sanger had come to her asking for help and she hadn’t known what to do. It was frustrating and terrifying at the same time. She had felt powerless to do anything useful; it was an awful feeling to know that someone needed her help and she couldn’t give it. She imagined Nora must feel the same way. But now everything had changed. Now they had the talisman, and now they could help the ghost of Mary O’Shea find rest.
But that would have to wait. She couldn’t just run out of class. Besides, it was only a few more hours. And they had the talisman. What could happen now?
“Where is it?” Nora asked her under her breath.
“It’s safe,” Cooper said, “in my backpack.”
Nora nodded. Cooper turned her attention to Maia. She needed to distract herself so that she didn’t obsess over the talisman and what they were going to do with it later on.
“As you all know, tomorrow night is the Winter Solstice,” Maia said. “We always celebrate by holding an all-night ritual and party where we meditate, sing, dance, and pretty much have a good time while we wait for the longest night to be over and for the sun to come up. Since we’re supposed to be the creative path, we’re going to be responsible for leading the chanting. Now, we’ll use some of the old favorites, but I thought it would be fun to make up some new ones as well. That’s what we’re going to do today. I’m going to have you break into four groups and try to come up with some fun new chants.”
“This should be interesting,” Cooper said to Nora. She was actually looking forward to the exercise. Writing the song earlier in the week had gone well, and she liked coming up with chants. Besides, it would be a great distraction for her and would help keep her mind off the talisman and the ritual she and her friends would be doing with it later.
“Let’s go around the circle and count off in fours,” Maia said. “That’s the easiest way to do this.”
They began with the man to Maia’s right and went around, each person calling out his or her number. When they were finished, Cooper, a two, stood up. “See you in a bit,” she said to Nora, who was a three.
“You’re sure Lucy gave you the real talisman, right?” said Nora, looking anxious.
Cooper nodded. “Kate says so,” she replied. “Don’t worry. Everything is going to be fine.”
Nora smiled. “I know,” she said. “It’s just that I can’t believe you got her to give it to you.”
“Hey,” Cooper said. “We’re not almost-witches for nothing.”
Nora laughed. “Have fun with the twos,” she said, as she turned and walked over to her group.
Cooper saw the other members of her own group waiting for her in a corner of the room. She went over to them and sat down. After some initial chatter they started working on ideas for a chant, and pretty soon Cooper was engrossed in coming up with something that would rhyme with “winter.” It was fifteen minutes later when she looked up, glanced across the room at the group of threes in another part of the room, and saw that Nora wasn’t among them.
She must have slipped out for a bathroom break or something, Cooper thought as she wrote out some ideas for lyrics. The pen she was using had started to dry up, and it went out completely, making only scratches on the paper.
“I’ll be right back,” she told her groupmates. “I have to get another pen.”
She walked over to her backpack and picked it up. When she did, it flopped open. Someone had unzipped it. Cooper felt a sense of dread creep over her as she looked inside. The talisman was gone.
She whirled around, searching the room for Nora. But the girl wasn’t there. Cooper’s mind raced as she tried to piece together what had happened. But there was only one explanation—Nora had taken the talisman and left. But why? And why hadn’t she told Cooper what she was doing?
“Look at that snow!”
The sound of someone talking interrupted Cooper’s thoughts. She looked to see who had spoken and saw a group of people gathered around the windows. She looked out, curious about what had brought them all running to look outside.
It was s
nowing. But it wasn’t just ordinary snow. It was a blizzard—a whirling tornado of white that had surrounded the hotel while they weren’t looking. Gazing out at it, Cooper couldn’t believe that the storm had come upon them so quietly, and without warning.
“There must be four inches of snow out there already,” said a man standing beside her.
Cooper looked at the sky. It was gray and cloudy, and it made her uneasy. There was something strange about the storm. It was almost as if it was beating at the windows, trying to get in at them. And the timing of it also disturbed her. Why had it come at the same time that Nora had disappeared with the talisman? Cooper didn’t want to think that the two things were connected, but the uneasy feeling that had come over her upon finding the talisman gone was growing stronger by the second. She had to find Nora.
She walked quickly out of the room and into the hallway. She stood there for a moment, trying to decide what to do. Should she go look for Nora by herself, or should she get Kate and Annie to help her? She had no idea where Nora might have gone, and the hotel was huge. She’d be able to cover more ground if her friends helped her.
But was there time? She didn’t know how long Nora had been gone. It might be five minutes or it might be twenty. There was no way to tell. And the longer she waited, the more time slipped by. She didn’t know what Nora was doing with the talisman, but she had an idea that the girl had taken it somewhere to destroy it on her own. Cooper didn’t know why, but she knew that Nora needed her help. If she tried to do anything with the talisman on her own, Cooper didn’t know what might happen.
She heard excited shrieks coming from the room behind her, and looked to see what was going on. One of the big windows had blown open, and snow was rushing into the room. Some of her pathmates were attempting to push it closed, struggling against the force of the wind. Cooper watched them, and she made up her mind. She had to find Nora, and she had to find her quickly.
She ran down the hallway to the lobby, hoping against hope that maybe Nora was there waiting for her. But the lobby was empty except for a couple of people sitting on the couches talking and a few other people looking out the windows at the unexpected storm.
Cooper stood beside the Yule tree, staring up at it. The lights twinkled and the ornaments gleamed. She saw her face reflected in the rounded surfaces of the colored glass balls, her features distorted by the curves. She looked at the angels and bears and toy soldiers that hung from the branches. Where would Nora have taken the angel ornament? Where would she go to try to destroy it?
The tower room. The answer came to Cooper in a flash. Of course that’s where she would go. It’s where she talked to Mary’s ghost. What better place would there be?
She raced down the long corridor to the stairs, then dashed up them as quickly as she could. Her breath came hard and her legs began to ache as she ran, and when she finally reached the door at the end of the fourth-floor hallway she was out of breath. She paused at the door for a minute, letting her tired lungs recover, and then reached for the doorknob.
It was locked. She pulled on it as hard as she could, turning it first one way and then the other. But it wouldn’t budge. Cooper gave a final tug and then stood there, staring at the unrelenting knob. Was it locked from the inside or the outside? Was Nora in there, or had she never come there at all? There was no way to tell.
She thought about banging on the door and calling Nora’s name, but she didn’t want Nora to know that she was on to her. If she really was attempting to do the ritual by herself, Cooper didn’t want to frighten her. But she also couldn’t allow her to do something potentially dangerous without help. If Nora was up there, Cooper had to get to her.
But she might not be in there at all, Cooper thought, arguing with herself. You might be wasting your time. She stared hard at the locked door, willing it to open. She even tried the knob again, hoping that maybe something had happened. But it hadn’t. She had to choose—find a way in or give up.
The only way to get through the door was to unlock it. Cooper tried to remember how they had gotten in before. Nora had had a key. Where had she gotten it? From the front desk, Cooper thought. The keys are behind the desk.
She turned and ran back down to the lobby, her feet thundering on the stairs. She knew she must look insane, running like a mad creature, but she didn’t care. There was no time to waste. She glanced out the windows as she passed them and saw that the blizzard had intensified. She knew that somehow the snowstorm was connected to whatever Nora was doing with the talisman, and that worried her.
When she reached the front desk she found the same girl working there whom she’d spoken to the day before. Once again the young woman flashed her a smile. “Some storm we’re having, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Cooper said. “Look, I need to get into my room and one of my roommates has the key. I can’t find her, so I was wondering if you could lend me the spare one. I’ll bring it right back.”
“Sure,” the girl said. “What’s your room number?”
Cooper put her hand to her head, pretending to be thinking. “Oh, what is it?” she said, feigning forgetfulness. “I always recognize it by the painting outside the door. I never really looked at the number.”
“What floor are you on?” the girl tried.
“The fourth,” Cooper said, holding her breath.
The girl reached beneath the counter and pulled up a ring of keys. “Here are the fourth-floor keys,” she said. “Just take the whole bunch. But you have to promise to bring them right back. If Mr. or Mrs. Reilly knew I gave these out they’d have a fit.”
“Thank you so much,” said Cooper. “I really appreciate it. I’ll bring these back as soon as I unlock the door.”
She smiled at the girl and then ran as quickly as she could back down the hall. I really need to start jogging, she told herself irrelevantly as she tried to ignore the stabbing pain in her side. I am way out of shape.
She ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and sprinted to the door at the end of the hall. She looked at the ring of keys, trying to figure out which one would unlock the door. They were all numbered, and she fumbled through them looking for one that was different from the regular room keys. She finally found one, at the very end, but she didn’t know for sure that it would work on the door to the tower room. After all, Nora had told them that nobody ever went up there. It was possible that the key was kept apart from the regular room keys to prevent anyone from unlocking the door.
With trembling hands she put the key into the lock and pushed. For a moment it seemed not to fit. Then it slipped into place. Cooper turned it and felt the rods of the lock sliding back. She pulled the knob and the door swung open, revealing the staircase.
Leaving the keys in the lock, Cooper stepped inside. The light was off, and she was tempted to turn it on, but she thought better of it. Instead, she moved up the stairs as quietly as she could. As she reached the top she saw some kind of light flickering faintly.
“Nora?” she called out softly. “Is that you?”
There was no answer, but Cooper could hear what sounded like someone whispering. She couldn’t make out the words, but the voice sounded familiar.
“Nora?” she called again.
She came to the top of the steps and stepped into the room. Nora was there. She was kneeling in the center of a circle of flickering candles. She didn’t look up as Cooper walked closer.
“Nora?” Cooper said.
Still Nora didn’t look at her or show any sign of knowing that she was there. She continued to kneel, looking down at something in her hands. Cooper knelt beside her, just outside the circle of candles.
“What are you doing?” she asked. She looked down at Nora’s hands. They were cupped in her lap, and inside them lay the angel talisman. It had been broken in half, snapped cleanly as if cut by a sharp knife. The two pieces had fallen away from one another, the angel’s face cleaved down the center.
“It’s over,” said Nora suddenly, startl
ing Cooper. She looked up at Cooper. Her eyes were shining, and she was smiling. “After all these years, it’s over.”
“What did you do?” Cooper asked.
Nora laughed. “I broke her spell,” she said. She looked down at the talisman in her hands. “She wasn’t so strong after all. I knew I was more powerful.”
“Why didn’t you wait for me?” asked Cooper. “We were supposed to do the ritual tonight with the others.”
“I didn’t need any help,” Nora said. “I just needed you to find the talisman for me.”
Cooper looked at the other girl. Something wasn’t right. There was something different about her—the way she spoke, the way she was behaving. It wasn’t the same Nora.
A gust of wind rattled the windows in the room. Nora looked up. “Listen to that,” she said dreamily. “Isn’t it beautiful?” She looked over at Cooper. “I always was good at calling up storms,” she said.
“Are you sure you’re okay, Nora?” Cooper asked. “What exactly did you do with the talisman?”
Nora cocked her head, a smile spreading across her face. “I’m fine,” she said. “But I’m not Nora. I’m Mary. And I have you to thank for helping me open the door.”
CHAPTER 13
Annie twitched a little as Ivy laid the first plaster strip over her forehead. It was warm, and a little bead of water ran down her cheek. Ivy wiped it away quickly, then her fingers smoothed the strip over Annie’s skin.
She was dead. That’s what she kept telling herself. Her eyes were closed, her hands were at her sides, and she was trying not to breathe too deeply. Ivy was preparing her for her journey to the world of the dead.
She had been anxious about dying all night. It was a peculiar feeling, knowing that in the morning someone would be readying her for burial. Even though it was just a ritual, something about it felt very real. She almost wished that she’d been one of the first ones to die, rather than being in the second group. The ones who’d gone first hadn’t had much time to think about it. They were alive one minute and dead the next.
