Serpent's Kiss

by Melissa de la Cruz

  Nyph pushed her silky brown hair out of her face and shrugged. “I don’t feel well,” she said.

  “What else?” Ingrid asked, scanning their sharp little faces that stared blankly back at her. This potion of Freya’s was clearly not effective, and if anything it was making the pixies ill.

  chapter thirty-one

  All Ablaze

  Now that Joanna was certain the wraith was a dead witch, one whose features recalled Johannes Vermeer’s The Milkmaid, she decided to use that as a jumping-off point. On the bookshelf in her study, she looked for her book on golden age Dutch painters, where she knew she would find the painting in question. She opened it to the picture, then gazed at the oil on canvas: the arresting touches of cornflower blue in the cloth that draped the edge of the table and the belt of the milkmaid’s apron, illuminated by sunlight pouring from a window.

  She glanced out at the Atlantic. It was an unusually bright and warm November day, white ripples undulating on the calm surface, all the way to Gardiners Island. It was too cold to garden and Joanna turned back to her work.

  The book cited that the exact date of the painting’s origin was unknown but placed it at circa 1658. The witch had been dressed in seventeenth-century clothing, but the painting perhaps helped narrow down an approximate time frame.

  The settlers had brought the styles of the Continent to the Americas. Still, there were deviations between the wraith’s style of dress and the milkmaid’s. The fabrics of the wraith’s clothing were a palette of somber colors. Her dress, modest in style, covered her nearly completely, which Joanna knew had nothing to do with weather: her hair hidden by the cap, the collar of the blouse beneath her bodice tightly encircling the base of her throat, her sleeves reaching to the wrists (unlike the milkmaid’s, which were pushed above the elbows), and her skirt falling past her feet. Any hint of flesh besides face and neck, or parts of the body that might be deemed sensual (chest, cleavage, ankles, or feet) were cloaked. Joanna was familiar with this strict and austere dress code. This girl had been living among English Puritans, just as the Beauchamps had once themselves. The seventeenth-century settlers of Long Island were of the same stock and breed as those who had driven her girls to their nooses at Gallows Hill in Salem.

  Joanna gleaned that the girl was about eighteen years of age, of lower station, suggested by the plainness of her dress—a servant or farm woman, the latter common on the east end of Long Island, a region whose economy thrived on sheep, agriculture, and whaling. Perhaps she was married. If she were and because of her social rank, she would go by the title goody (short for good wife or mistress of the house) rather than misses, which was afforded only to the elite. Joanna knew the history. She had lived it.

  In 1629, King Charles I granted the Puritans, a persecuted religious splinter group, a charter to establish an English colony in Massachusetts Bay. The territory stretched along the East Coast of North America, including parts of the states of Massachusetts (Salem and Boston), Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Falling within this colony was also Maidstone (East Hampton), an obscure little town called Fair-stone (North Hampton), and the Isle of Wight (Gardiners Island). Though Fairstone was not listed in any public records, Joanna knew of it, for it was mentioned as the original name of North Hampton in the deed that had come with her house when she had purchased it.

  The Puritans’ goal, arriving on the buckled-shoe heels of the Pilgrims, was to create a utopia, a community to inspire—or enforce upon—all, a City upon a Hill, a Model of Christian Charity, as one John Winthrop, a settler and Puritan figurehead, had put it.

  This new and pure society would be based upon the Bible. In other words, it was a theocracy with no separation of church and state. And as the Book of Exodus states, thou shall not suffer a witch to live.

  The Puritans abided in blind faith in the Bible, or at least portended to. Some truly believed witches harmful and feared they might be bewitched, converted into witches themselves (As if it were such a bad thing, or even possible! thought Joanna). They saw witches and warlocks as women and men who lustily consorted with the devil (As if we would ever!), signing his book in blood.

  Such notions, Joanna knew, were born of fanciful and prurient imaginations but were also backed by the prior three hundred years of witch persecutions in Europe. Others arriving on this new turf used witch-hunts as a means to their own selfish ends: to get to their enemies, divest them of their properties (which would go up for public auction once the accused were convicted and hanged), or to point out the rankling nonconformist, the village beggar or madwoman who got on one’s nerves, the woman who wasn’t as docile and subservient as a good Puritan wife should be, and the girl who was too willful and independent minded.

  Witch-hunts, in essence, became a way to establish a pecking order within this so-called perfect society. Those who had crossed over to this side of the Atlantic but didn’t subscribe to the belief system had to grit their teeth and conform to the social codes of the majority, lest they be branded witches or warlocks themselves—whether they were or not.

  Even before the Salem trials of 1692, accusations of witchcraft ran rampant in New England. The first hanging of a witch in North America took place in 1648 (at least, the first recorded one): Margaret Jones, in fact a real witch living undercover as a Puritan midwife and practitioner of medicine in the Charleston section of Boston. Joanna’s dear friend and mentor’s profession didn’t go over well. Of course, Margaret had returned to mid-world under a new name. She now lived in LA in a rambling house in Topanga Canyons, where she taught yoga, herbal remedies, and helped with a home birth now and then. She had garnered quite the following.

  This was the irony: a witch or warlock always returned. Mortals hanged for witchcraft, on the other hand, never got a second chance. Thousands of innocents had been lost in the witch purges from the fifteenth century on.

  Joanna strode to her bookshelf and searched for books on seventeenth-century witch-hunts in North America, specifically ones in the environs of Long Island.

  chapter thirty-two

  Will Always Love You

  They met in their favorite place, their safe harbor. Freya could not fight the pull. It was carnal—his lips, his sweet breath, like cucumbers and yogurt, the silk of his skin, the feel of his sinewy limbs, the unhurried grace with which his body received hers. It was an unseasonably beautiful day. Above the translucent dome of the greenhouse was a mackerel sky, blue slowly seeping through the scallop of clouds. They sat on the edge of the lily pond, Killian running his fingers through the water, his eyes on Freya’s.

  “There has to be a reason …” she said. They were talking about the pattern of the freckles on his back.

  He drew his hand out of the lily pond and placed a wet finger on her lips, then let it slide down to her chin. “Shh,” he said. “I am enjoying being here with you.” The light brought out the golden peach in Freya’s hair, cheeks, and lips, a delicate orange-pink. He sat there calmly with her.

  There is no way he is guilty, Freya thought. She felt this through and through, to her core. Of all people, she would be able to tell. If there had been any violence in Killian’s past, she would have seen it in a vision, where she saw the rawest of emotions, those polar extremes—love and rage.

  There had been those moments of doubt, sure, when she’d believed she saw something terrible and blank in his eyes, but she now believed they had been induced by Freddie’s nonstop haranguing. When she looked at Killian now, she saw only kindness. She wasn’t under a spell, either—not like the time she had fallen for Bran—when Loki had bewitched her, clouded her vision, rendered her unable to detect his evil. She had allowed herself to be deceived then, but she was certain she was not deceived this time. Her eyes were wide open, and she saw Killian for who he was: a good man, goodness incarnate. No matter what the mark on his back said.

  She felt restless, even though Killian was calm. He appeared resigned to his fate, to the fact that he carried the trident
mark. But she needed to find out what really happened that fateful day of the bridge’s collapse. She needed to exonerate Killian. There had to have been some mistake.

  “We need to fill the holes in your memory and find out exactly what happened,” she said. “I tried to make an amnesia antidote, and I tested it—but turns out it doesn’t work. But maybe there is some other way.”

  Killian laughed. “You tested it?” He watched her face so closely it seemed as if he were attempting to capture each twitch and crease it made, searing these little expressions indefinitely in his brain.

  “On a patient at the hospital,” she lied. She wasn’t about to launch into a story about Ingrid’s pixies; she had other concerns. “Needless to say, the potion was lame. But what if …”

  Killian took Freya’s hands in his, his countenance grave. “Darling, there’s nothing you can do. If what Freddie says is true, I will take my place in Limbo. I must be punished for my actions whether I remember them or not. If I’m guilty, I’m guilty. I shall atone if I’m at fault. No one else should have to bear the punishment that is rightly mine.”

  Freya couldn’t bear the thought of this, of being forever separated from Killian. If he were responsible, there had to be a reason for it. There was no way she would let him go to Limbo, and in a childish attempt to stave off the Valkyries, she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him close and tight, as if at any moment they might appear and tear him away from her.

  chapter thirty-three

  Like a Prayer

  You don’t sound sick to me. You’re lucky I picked up the phone. Next time you call in to claim a sick day, try hanging your head upside down from the bed. It’s the best trick in the book for feigning a cold,” said Hudson.

  “My head is hanging upside down. You told me to do just that, but obviously, it isn’t the best trick,” Ingrid replied. “Next time, I’ll pinch my nose and throw in some coughs.” She laughed, rolling over onto her stomach, then sat upright on her bed. She was playing hooky today and had planned it all out in advance with him yesterday. “I’m nervous,” she whispered.

  “Just close your eyes and think of England,” said Hudson, who was not at all being helpful.

  “Thanks a lot.” She inspected her hands, then toes, the nails painted a faint pink.

  “Good luck!” said Hudson to her silence. “Break a … hymen?”

  “You’re disgusting.” She stood and caught a glance of herself in her bedroom mirror. For a second, she didn’t recognize herself. Her hair was in an updo, a few strands falling down her face and the back of her neck. She had put a touch of black eyeliner over her lids, Audrey Hepburn style, as well as used a tiny bit of blush and lipstick to bring out her natural color. She wore a snug tan wool dress that reached a few inches above the knee.

  “Hey, Ingrid!” Hudson boomed from the phone just as she was about to hang up.

  “Yes?”

  “Love ya.”

  “Love you more!”

  “No, love you m—”

  Ingrid hung up the phone. She adored Hudson but it was time to get moving. Her hands were drenched with sweat from nerves, and she wiped them on her bed. “Very sexy,” she said to herself.

  She donned a pair of black stockings and her black heels, threw on a trench since it was unusually warm, grabbed her purse, and clipped quietly down the stairs. She tiptoed past the study, where she saw Joanna, nose deep in a pile of books—she wasn’t about to explain why she was taking the day off—and silently slipped out the door.

  It was a modern house, much fancier than what Ingrid had expected, an elegant cement-and-glass rectangular box, sandwiched between two thin horizontal white platforms, up on a winding hill, teetering off the cliff on two stilts. The manicured lawn, still a vivid green, was shaded by three large eucalyptus trees. A path of flat round stones led to the door, and she hopped from one to the other as if crossing a stream. She rang the buzzer.

  Matt, barefoot and in jeans and T-shirt—looking adorable and rumpled—opened the door, freckles splashed across his nose and cheeks. He grinned. “Sick day?”

  “Yes,” she said, smiling.

  Matt grinned back at her. “What a coincidence—I’m sick, too, Ingrid!” he jested.

  He had phoned in to work pretending to be ill as well. He had called Ingrid shortly after his last visit at the library to tell her he couldn’t wait till the weekend to see her, and a brilliant idea had struck him: they should both play hooky together before the weekend. “How fun would that be?” he had said.

  “We can’t do that!” she had replied, appalled, but the idea struck her as deliciously wicked. She was always such a goody-two-shoes and had never missed a day of work before. Why not? She needed to live a little for a change.

  Matt let her in and led her into a spartan living room with a terrace that faced the sea: blond wood floors, a glass coffee table with a vase containing a single white calla lily (the tall, slim flower that curled up on itself with its slightly open cup at the top), three brown Barcelona chairs, a steel lamp with a long arching stem, its shape resembling an elegant mushroom, and a sleek gray couch. The only section of the room that wasn’t minimalist was the floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall bookshelf, brimming with books of all sizes, spilling into piles on the floor. The room was full of sunlight and smelled of the sea.

  “Wow!” she said. “On a detective’s salary?” she asked, then put a hand to her mouth, feeling her face flush.

  “Well, it isn’t exactly Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater.” He shrugged.

  “Not at all. It’s simple and beautiful and … clean …” said Ingrid, craning her neck to look around. “I’m just surprised.”

  “I’ll give you the speech,” he said.

  “The speech?” asked Ingrid, wondering if Matt gave all the women who came to visit “the speech.”

  “Explain how I live here,” said Matt.

  “Oh, right,” replied Ingrid.

  “My younger brother’s an architect,” he said.

  “That’s it? That’s a short speech,” she teased.

  “I paid for his schooling. He’s my best friend,” he said simply. Ingrid could see there was a story behind it, saw in his lifeline the sacrifices Matt had made to help his brother achieve his success. The fights with the old man, who had wanted both of his boys to join the force.

  “You must love him very much.” Ingrid smiled.

  “Ah, enough about him, or the house. It’s good to see you,” he said, placing his hands on Ingrid’s shoulders.

  Though Ingrid was touched by the story behind his house, and the beauty of his domicile, his sudden proximity made her anxious. She gave him a brisk smile, then made a dash to the glass doors to the terrace. She felt a bit trapped in this glass box.

  It was such a clear day she could see Gardiners Island. Unbuttoning her trench, she stared out at Fair Haven and saw something peeking out from its side, shining like a gem. The greenhouse, she thought, and wondered if Freya was there with Killian now. Her sister had told her she was off to find him in the morning.

  For a moment Ingrid felt awkward and terribly inexperienced, especially now that Matt seemed so confident in this house that looked out on the Atlantic from on high. She was a girl, and he was a man, a grown-up, while she still lived, embarrassingly enough, with her mother. She was immortal but she was the child. She had taken the day off to spend with him—in bed. This was it. She felt somewhat ridiculous, like a thirty-two-year-old teenager.

  He came up behind her and slowly eased her trench coat off a shoulder. “They call that a mackerel sky, when the clouds look like the pattern on the back of a—”

  “Fish. Yes, I know, I read novels, too, Matt,” she said.

  He laughed, then kissed the side of her neck he had uncovered. Ingrid turned around. He took her purse and helped her out of the trench. Her face had turned pink. She looked down at his bare feet. They were large, perfectly formed, squarish at the toes. She found everything about him perfect.


  “If this is being ‘sick,’ I like it. I think we should get into bed right now and recover.” He gave her a mischievous grin.

  Ingrid started. “About that—”

  “Come on, let me give you the tour,” he said, taking her hand, throwing her trench and purse on one of the Barcelona chairs. Ingrid was relieved. He stopped in his tracks and looked at her with a boyish excitement. She could tell he derived a lot of pleasure showing off his house. “I forgot to ask—you want a drink?”

  “I never drink during the day,” she said.

  “Me neither. It’s better like that anyway. Come!” he pulled her by the hand.

  What did he mean it was “better like that”? Did he mean sex without alcohol? Did he think they were going to have sex? Well, that was why she had come, wasn’t it? All that stuff about being ill and bedridden was obviously a metaphor for sex. Duh! She was thrilled to give herself to Matt, but there was the prospect of breaking the news about her situation to him. Could she tell him? If she didn’t would he be able to tell she was a virgin? Could guys figure out stuff like that? She remembered Hudson’s reaction, how serious he had looked when she’d told him, as if virginity were a disease after a certain age. What if Matt thought she was weird, that there was something wrong with her? That no one had found her attractive enough to sleep with until now? That wasn’t true of course. She’d had many offers. She’d just turned them all down. Hold on, maybe there was something wrong with her.

  Matt showed her the kitchen, all steel with white stone counters and a white tile floor, the dining room, with a Saarinen table and chairs—everything sleek and sparse, with immaculate, clean lines. Ingrid began to feel more comfortable and took the lead, walking up to a closed door. “What’s in here?” she asked.