by Horn, J. D.
“No.” Iris clenched her fists. “She’s a Taylor.”
SIX
“Our families got history, my girl. Real history.” Jilo’s words spoken last July had come back to haunt me in November.
“What I read from Jessamine—” Iris shook her head. An anger like I’d only seen once before, the night she learned Connor had left me to burn in Ginny’s house, descended on her like a cloud of flame. What bit of hidden history had she accidently uncovered? Her chin jutted forward. “I have to learn if what she believes to be true is indeed the truth. I have to learn if Daddy really did what she believes he did.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And if he did, I will make him answer for it.” I knew Iris had adored Granddad. She cherished his memory, and worked to keep it alive for the rest of us. I could see what she learned from Jessamine’s touch bore witness that her adored father’s feet were made of clay, and Iris was not taking this revelation well. She stood as stiff as a soldier at attention. The fists she held out before us were clenched so tightly that her knuckles turned white. Angry tears streamed down her face.
“How do you intend to do that?” Ellen crossed to put a sheltering arm around my shoulders. It was only then I realized I’d been trembling.
“I aim to ask the randy old goat himself. We are going to summon Daddy.”
“No. It is too dangerous,” Ellen said. “What if his spirit gets trapped here?”
We all knew Savannah acted as a kind of geological spirit trap. Something about this place could reach out and hold on to a spirit, keep it from moving on to wherever it was intended to go. I knew a man who swore the only way to make sure you wouldn’t be caught in the trap was to be at least seventy miles out of Savannah when you passed. I wasn’t sure about that, but I did know summoning Grandpa could be risky. Grandpa had passed through the trap cleanly the first time. If we called him down to our plane, his return trip to the great beyond might not turn out so well.
“Go upstairs and get Abigail,” Ellen commanded me. “Tell her we need her.”
I hurried from the library and found the foot of the steps in the quickest waddle I could manage. “Abigail,” I called. I started up the steps. “Abby, we need you.”
I heard a door creak open, and then Abby shushed me. “Maisie’s sleeping. Last night took a lot out of her.” Abigail’s words reached me like a stage whisper. “What is it?”
“I don’t really know, but, well, please come to the library.”
I caught a glimpse of Abby over the bend of the railing. She wore a quilted robe, and had her hair bound up in pink curlers. She nodded. “I’ll come right down.”
I turned and headed back down the stairs I had climbed, taking them slowly. I’d hoped the storm would have passed, that Ellen would have managed to calm Iris before I found myself back in the library, but no such luck. “Yes, I’m sure,” Iris snapped at Aunt Ellen as I came through the door. “I felt it in her.”
Ellen turned to face me. “Where is Abigail?” I knew she was hoping Abby could help use her magic to calm Iris.
“She’s coming,” I said to Ellen. Then softly to Iris, “It’s okay.” I reached out toward her to put my arm around Iris, but she stepped away. She nearly vibrated with rage.
Abby entered the library, her hands still busy tying the belt of her robe. “Iris, what is wrong? Why are you so angry?”
Ellen’s head tilted to the side and she spoke softly. “When Iris touched Jessamine, she sensed a connection between us.”
“Connection?” Iris glared at Ellen. “Connection?” Her voice rose an octave over its normal pitch. “That young woman is our niece.” She turned and stared at me with wide-open eyes. “Yes, your cousin. Jilo’s great-niece is your cousin.”
“Even if it’s true,” Abby said, “would it be that terrible? I mean, I know you girls think your daddy hung the moon, but he was only a man. Your daddy, well, he always had his bit on the side.” Coming from anyone else, the statement might have pushed Iris completely over the edge, but I sensed Abby was sending out waves of comfort to Iris, trying to calm her and make her think rationally rather than act out of anger. It didn’t appear to be working all that well. “We all knew it. Even your mama did.” My eyes shot up again to my grandmother’s portrait. “I’m sorry . . .”
Iris took a deep breath. She closed her eyes and took another. “It isn’t only that our father was a philanderer.”
Abby folded her hands as if she were in prayer. “Whatever you’ve seen, it’s in the past. Let it lie between him and his maker.”
“No.” She shook her head. “God may prove too forgiving. That bastard is going to answer to me for his sins.” Static electricity began to build around us, dancing on our skins. Abby patted her curlers, and as I felt my own unfettered hair begin to rise I understood why. Our house’s power failed with a loud and final-sounding pop. A whitish-blue ball of lightning shot from Iris’s fingertips into the center of our circle. It began a slow spin, dimming and taking on the color and sheen of mercury.
“Edwin Wallace Taylor, I call to you. Rise, return,” Iris shouted. The orb at our center pulsed as convex images formed on its surface. Some dark, twisted, undoubtedly demonic. Others, anguished or fearful.
“Is that—” I began.
“Yes, it’s Gehenna.” Iris answered me before I could complete my thought. “The plane of existence reserved for those of us who have committed the gravest sins.”
“Then it is real,” Ellen said. “The place of eternal suffering.” She leaned in to look more closely at the window that had formed between us and hell.
“It’s as real as anything else,” Abigail said shaking her head. “But like everything bad, I believe it is of our own making. God would never create such a place.”
“How could you have known Granddad was there?” I asked, watching the individual faces that rose to the surface of the sphere, pressing against its skin, trying to break free from their place of bondage.
“I didn’t know he would be there,” Iris said, sounding defeated by the realization. “But it may be exactly where he belongs.”
“You don’t mean that,” Abigail started, but the gravity emanating from this bulging window into hell grew strong, harder to resist. We each took a step inward.
This is not a good idea, I thought to myself.
“This is not a good idea.” Ellen echoed my thoughts aloud. “It’s some kind of trick. Daddy would never be . . . there.”
“If what I read from Jessamine is true, Gehenna is exactly where he should be.” Iris raised her arms so that her wrists bent in toward the light. Angry gashes formed there, letting her blood shoot forward to feed the spinning quicksilver globe. It swallowed the blood hungrily. “Blood calls to blood. Spirit calls to soul. Return.” Her eyes flashed at us. “Say it. Chant it. Repeat after me. Blood calls to blood. Spirit calls to soul. Return.”
I was afraid of what might happen if I obeyed Iris, but more afraid of what might happen to her if I didn’t. I joined in. “Blood calls to blood. Spirit calls to soul. Return.”
I glanced nervously at Ellen. She nodded and began the chant. “Blood calls to blood. Spirit calls to soul. Return.”
“This is wrong,” I heard Abby protest weakly, but a stern look from Iris squelched her dissent. Soon she added her voice, her magic to the spell Iris was weaving. “Blood calls to blood. Spirit calls to soul. Return.”
“Edwin Wallace Taylor,” Iris called out over our chanting, “I command you by this blood . . .” Iris focused all her power on the sphere in the circle’s center as another spurt of blood left her and rushed into the orb. Without warning we were pulled in another step closer. The orb contracted, becoming smaller but remaining at the exact center of our constricting circle. For a short time it remained a perfect sphere, but in the next instant that sphere began to elongate, forming a recognizably human shape. A mannequin-like head with only the sug
gestion of features hung in the air between us.
“Show yourself, you cowardly bastard.” Iris spat out the words, but the shape began to grow smoother, nothing more than a furrowed oval. The spirit fought the summons, evidently preferring damnation to facing its angry daughter. Another rush, another pull of gravity tugged at us, bringing us all within arm’s length of each other. Without willing it, my hands reached out, one clasping Abby’s hand, the other Iris’s. We fell silent as a shock of energy shot through us.
“I said show yourself.” Iris’s words came out almost like a growl, and my heart jumped at the sight of her face. Her lovely clear eyes glowed with a red light. The pupil and iris had been erased, leaving only two shining rubies. “Return.”
The gravity that had been centered on the shape at the middle of our circle suddenly reversed, repulsing us, knocking Ellen and Abby on their backsides. I was able to keep to my feet, but the wind had been knocked out of me. As I struggled to reclaim my breath, the shape in the center continued its metamorphosis. It was clearly in the shape of a human head, but the skin of bruised quicksilver remained mirrorlike. I could see my own features warped in its reflection. I was reminded of the horrid chandelier my mother had created from the heads of those who had stopped being of any other use to her. I’d lost my mother to this kind of magic, I would not lose Iris.
“What have you done?” Ellen asked Iris as Abby helped her back to her feet.
We all looked to Iris, and I breathed a sigh of relief to see her eyes had returned to normal. Then I felt a wave of anger. She knew better than to invite this kind of dark magic into herself, into our home.
I didn’t focus on her for long, though, as it was impossible to ignore the floating cranium at the center of the library. Its eyes opened, but they too shone smooth and reflective; there was no difference between the composition of the eyes and the lids that had covered them. Its lips separated slowly, a thin film of bluish mercury covering the mouth, then popping inward like an imploding balloon.
“My girls, my beautiful daughters, are you to be my greatest torment?” The voice that came from the form had no intonation; it sounded flat, nearly mechanical. No, worse than that, it had been robbed of all hope. Still, it was clear the voice did not belong to a man; it resembled a woman’s soft alto.
“Mama?” Ellen blanched. She broke the circle and approached the suspended figure, nearly touching it, but stopping shy of actual contact.
Iris walked a complete ring around the form. “Where is he? Was he too much of a weakling to face us himself?”
“Your father is not here. Only I. I am alone.”
Ellen fell to her knees before the chrome apparition. “Mama, I have missed you so much.” The look of wonder on her face told me she didn’t give a damn about Iris’s intended interrogation. “What happened, Mama? They said you ran the car off the road on purpose.” This was news to me.
Ellen’s question was met by silence then a heartrending moan. “No choice. I had no choice.”
Abby had moved softly around the edge of the room to get a better view of the entity’s face. The quicksilver face took a moment to register our presence, focusing first on Abby then turning toward me. Rather than looking at me dead on, she seemed confused by something on the periphery of her vision. “What kind of magic is this?”
Iris lowered her head in shame. “I’m sorry, Mama, I know it was wrong to use blood magic . . .”
“No,” she said and turned her empty eyes on me. “This girl. She’s wrong.”
A touch on my shoulder nearly caused me to jump out of my skin. I looked back over my shoulder to find Maisie had come into the room unnoticed. I remembered that she had been resting. She wore a gray oversized T-shirt. Her hair was mussed. The room flashed with a pop then darkened. The smell of ozone wafted around us.
“I told you to stay in your room,” Abby chastised her, but only mildly. She pulled Maisie away from me, trying to maneuver her through the door. “You get on back to bed, you hear?”
“Mama, we don’t have much time. The power is fading,” Iris said, her voice keening.
“We will find a way to free you, Mama,” Ellen said. “We will. But you have to tell us why you are . . . where you are.”
“Because she killed Grandpa,” Maisie said, breaking free of Abby’s grasp and taking a few steps closer to the orb. Her certainty sent a chill down my spine, as it echoed what I somehow also knew to be true. Maisie’s words were answered by my grandmother’s wail.
“Why?” Ellen’s voice broke. She pushed away, scrambling a few feet back from the apparition.
“Because he had another family. A family before us.” This time it was Iris who answered. She had seen it all with a single touch of Jessamine’s hand. “Jilo’s little sister.” My mind flashed back to the night I first met Jilo. The night I had gone to her crossroads. She had hated us Taylors. Now I was beginning to understand why.
“His parents did not approve, but he rebelled.” Iris wrapped her arms around herself. “When he took her to France and married her, they cut him off financially, revoked his access to the family trust. They knew their son was a man who loved his comforts. Eventually he grew tired of the poverty and tired of his wife as well. He never even divorced her. He left her and his children behind and came back to Savannah and married Mama.”
“When we married, I knew nothing of his first wife and family. When I learned what he had done, how he had deserted them. How he had deceived me. I couldn’t live with knowing he had made me his whore,” the voice raged. “I wanted him to pay. For what he’d done to me. For deserting his children. For abandoning his real wife. I wanted him dead. I just kept driving faster and faster. Then I awoke in hell.”
“Well,” Abby said, a halo of golden light emanating from the crown of her head. “You’ve been there long enough. If you let me, I think I can lead you out of there.” The light grew brighter around her until it shone like a gold and soothing aura. This halo. It struck me that this was what coming home looked like.
Abby took a step toward the metallic face, then another. Rather than drawing nearer the manifestation, Abby herself began to change, growing smaller to my eyes, looking as if she were walking down a long straight path into the horizon.
“Abby, no, you don’t know what you’re doing,” Maisie called, a sense of urgency causing her voice to strain.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” Abby said and nodded. “I do. I’m going to help your grandma find her way out of there.”
“No. You can’t just reach in and pull her out.” Maisie turned to me. “Gehenna isn’t a place. It isn’t a realm or dimension. It is a machine.”
“Sweetie, we don’t have time to entertain your fancies.” Iris didn’t even look at Maisie as she said the words. Maisie looked at me as if Iris had struck her.
“This has been too much for you.” Ellen wrapped an arm around Maisie’s shoulders. “You shouldn’t be a part of this. Let me help you back to your room.”
“I do not need help finding the room I have lived in my entire life,” Maisie snapped. She threw my aunt’s arm off. “You have to listen to me. I know things y’all don’t,” Maisie said, then turned to me.
The quicksilver face melted away, first returning to its spherical shape then morphing into a bulging disk. It floated out before us as Abby’s form constricted.
“We have to stop her,” Maisie said, shaking Iris’s shoulders.
The convex face of the disk distorted into an absolute flatness, then began pressing backward on itself until it became concave.
“Abby doesn’t understand. We have to bring her back.” Panic had taken control of Maisie’s voice.
I started circling the gateway, only to realize that while it remained perfectly clear when seen head on, the shape appeared distorted from the side. From the side, Abby’s form was stretching out, falling to a dense point at the front, fai
nter and more dispersed at back. An arrowhead of light about to pierce a black hole’s event horizon. Then her luminescence began to unwind, like spun gold, into the darkness. Gehenna began to show its teeth, revealing itself as an insatiable devourer, a perverter, of any goodness. The mouth of Gehenna opened wide, readying itself to feast.
My heart beat like mad. The vision I held of Abby hanging before the gate of Gehenna had remained unchanged for several seconds now. I realized, from our perspective, her image would remain there, frozen forever in this hellish event horizon. From her perspective, she might already be eternally lost. A string of light wrapped around me and tugged. I turned back to Iris just in time to see Maisie fling herself in after Abby.
The light that had lassoed me had also attached itself to my aunts. I realized Maisie had bound us all together, linking us to form a type of throw line. A tug pulsed down the length of the binding. As Maisie’s image flattened and superimposed with Abby’s, I tugged back with all the magic in me, but the gravity of Gehenna had no intention of surrendering prey that had come knocking at its door. The strand of light stretched as thin as one of Maisie’s own golden hairs, and I felt certain it would snap, leaving the two lost at the portal of hell. The room filled with the sound of fearsome shrieks and howls. Maisie appeared, her tether wrapped around herself and Abigail, the mouth of Gehenna stretching, its darkness straining to reach into our world and swallow them whole. But then it fell back in on itself, collapsing under its own weight. Like a shattering hologram, the vision of Gehenna broke into pieces, each piece a smaller, yet exact duplicate of the whole, then faded from sight. Maisie stood before me, with her arms wrapped tightly around Abigail and a look of triumph in her eyes.
SEVEN
“All right,” I said, “we are listening. What do you mean that Gehenna is a machine?”
Ellen crossed to the loveseat and sat down. She patted the seat next to her, and Maisie went to join her. Iris seemed unwilling to entertain Maisie’s ideas. Instead she turned away and began to peruse the tomes that lined the wall. I surmised she expected to find more concrete answers therein than she would get from her niece’s ranting.
