Legacy

by Cochran, Molly

  “She’s resigned as high priestess,” Gram said. “Livia Fowler will replace her at the ritual.” She gave a little snort.

  “Livia Fowler?” I repeated, hoping I’d heard wrong.

  “Yes. She has a daughter at your school.”

  “Becca,” I sighed. “The Fowlers hate our family, you know. Miss P told me.”

  “Well, ‘hate’ might be rather too strong a word,” she said.

  “The Fowlers think that the Ainsworth women are responsible for every instance of the Darkness.”

  “Is that so?” she asked calmly. She didn’t seem even slightly put out. “Well, they’re a clannish lot.”

  “Worse than that! I’ve heard that the Fowlers have their own private army of thugs who’ll beat up anyone they don’t like.”

  “Nonsense. Mr. Fowler is the coach of some community sporting team. Football, or baseball, one of those things,” she said with a dismissive wave. “That’s why there are always young men at their house. Good gracious, how easily rumors start!”

  “Still, doesn’t it bother you, even a little?” Just the thought of a private army headed by Livia Fowler was making my stomach churn.

  “Bother? No, dear. Sciatica bothers me. Indigestion bothers me. Bunions, arthritis, irregularity . . . These are things that bother me. The opinion of the Fowlers, however, has nothing to do with me. Or with you.”

  “Gram,” I began, feeling as if I were sliding off a cliff, “if the Darkness were to infect one of us . . .”

  “Yes?” She was arranging herself in the visitor’s chair, leafing through a copy of Quilting magazine. “Oh, look. They’re already showing pumpkin prints.”

  “Fine. Well, if that happened, how long would it take to show?”

  She brought the page closer to her face. “I think jack-o’-lanterns are far too scary for baby blankets, don’t you?”

  “Gram . . .”

  “Show what? Oh, the Darkness? I don’t know. As long as it likes, I imagine.” She tittered. “I don’t mean to be flippant, dear. But it’s true. The Darkness can manifest quickly, or it can take years to reveal itself.”

  “And during those years, no one would know anything? There wouldn’t be any harbingers?”

  “The harbingers have always signaled imminent danger.” Suddenly she put down the magazine, her face stricken. “Oh, dear, all these goings-on have frightened you, haven’t they, dear?” She stood up and fluttered around me.

  “No, I’m all right, really. I just wanted to know.”

  “Well, you are still new to our ways. Perhaps you don’t understand why we’re concerned about something beyond the sinkholes and fires. Granted, they’re certainly bad enough.”

  “Uh . . . yes,” I waffled. “This thing, the Darkness . . . People act like it has a mind of its own . . . as if it were a person.”

  “But it does, Katy. It has its own intelligence. It uses the minds of its victims—and don’t forget, they are all victims—but behind those minds, those personalities, the Darkness follows its own agenda.”

  “So it could be inside a person for a long time without anyone even knowing it?”

  “Indeed, yes. There have even been instances of the Darkness infecting children, although one can hardly bear thinking about that.”

  “But if that were to happen . . .”

  “Gracious, you mean a child?”

  “Hypothetically. There would be something we could do, wouldn’t there? I mean besides the . . .”

  She raised troubled eyes to me. “The burning?” she finished. The words sounded sticky.

  I nodded. “Given that it’s a child, there must be exceptions—”

  “There is no other solution,” she said. “The infected ones, once found, must be destroyed.” Her voice was no more than a whisper. “I wish there were some other way.” She clapped her hands together, and a bright smile transformed her face. “But we don’t have to worry about things like that, do we?”

  “Maybe there is another way,” I persisted. “Maybe it just hasn’t been found yet. A spell, or an incantation . . .”

  She thought for a moment. “Well, there is the ‘Song of Unmaking’—”

  “Say what?” I felt my pulse quicken. “The song of un-what?-ing?”

  “Unmaking. It’s a spell for dispelling the Darkness.”

  “Oh,” I said, deflated. “The burning spell.”

  “Wellll . . .” She stretched out the word. “That’s how it’s always been interpreted.”

  I blinked. “You mean it might have been interpreted wrong? For all these centuries?”

  She looked thoughtful. “It may have been centuries, but it has actually never been used.”

  “What?”

  She shrugged.

  “What about Dorothea Lyttel? Or Constance Ainsworth, back in 1929?”

  “Both those women set the fires that killed them themselves.”

  “Like my mother,” I whispered.

  She nodded. “It is what has been done since the beginning of time.”

  “But the spell—”

  “The song is ambiguous. It has been studied ever since Hattie’s ancestor Ola’ea wrote it, but no one knows for certain what it means.”

  “Aren’t the instructions clear?”

  “Spells don’t have instructions, dear. It’s all a matter of interpretation. At first, anyway. After the first time, it’s called tradition. Anyway, it can only be found in the Great Book of Secrets, which is very difficult to get to. The whole community has to take part in order to open it. I know, because we were almost called upon to perform the opening spell in 1955, when floods in the area . . . Well, never mind that.”

  “The Great . . .” I got it. “You mean the book of secrets for Whitfield, collectively.”

  “Quite. Everything about us is in that book. Every spell we’ve evoked. Everything we know. Every bit of information and lore that any of the original twenty-seven families brought with them from England. If it is known, if it has ever been known by any witch in Whitfield or her ancestors, it is recorded in the Great Book.”

  “Must be a pretty big book,” I said lamely.

  Gram clucked. “Of course, it has no real size, until it is called up. And it can only be accessed by magic.”

  “Then we have to look there,” I said.

  “But why, dear? Do you have some question?”

  I stared at her for a moment. “Er . . . if anything comes up, that is. That would be the thing to do.”

  “Yes, certainly.”

  I finally got my walking papers that afternoon, after Dr. Baddely put me through the usual tests. Gram had signed all the papers and we were on the elevator when a couple of candy stripers from my school got on, so excited that they were actually squealing.

  “Can you believe it?” one of them chirped.

  “It’s horrible. The most horrible thing I ever heard.”

  These were Muffies. That was how they talked all the time. Everything was the worst, the most fabulous, the most absolutely heinous, the most devastatingly awesome. They never even noticed me, of course. I just counted the seconds until the elevator door would open, so I could get away from them. One, two . . .

  “How’d he do it?”

  “Razor. He’s in the emergency room now.”

  “It doesn’t make any sense. He was the cutest guy in school.”

  No he isn’t. Peter is. Three, four . . .

  “I heard he was in some kind of trouble with the police.”

  “Not him. His mother was.”

  Muffled Muffy laughter. “That’s not his mother! She’s black, duh.”

  Five . . . Oh no oh no oh no . . .

  “Oh, right. Didn’t she run that restaurant or something? The one on the corner?”

  “It got torn down.”

  “Yeah. The geeks all went there.”

  “That’s it.” Heavy sigh. “I guess you never know when somebody’s going to flip out.”

  “Peter!” I screamed as the d
oors opened. I shoved past the candy stripers, nearly knocking one of them over.

  I ran to the emergency room. In the waiting area, two policemen were questioning an emaciated old black woman. They were flanking her on either side like two stone monoliths beside a gnarled old tree. It took me a moment to recognize the woman, but when I did, it felt as if my heart had fallen out of my chest. “Hattie!” I called. Her gaze, tired and vacant, wandered toward mine.

  “Is he alive?” I demanded. I knew it wasn’t the right time or place to be questioning her, but I had to know. One of the policemen turned to glare at me.

  “Yes,” Hattie answered, nodding almost imperceptibly. Her voice was weak and trembling.

  Relief flooded through me like warm butter. “I’ve got to see him,” I said, heading toward the double doors that led to the treatment area.

  “You can’t go in there, miss,” the receptionist said.

  I ignored her, banging through the doors like a crazed bull. “Peter!” I shouted.

  Cloth screens sectioned off patients into makeshift rooms. I ran from one to the next, calling Peter’s name. And then I found him, his wrists bandaged, tubes going into his nose, two IVs in his arms, a bag of blood hanging near his head.

  “Peter?” I tried to be quiet, though I felt like screaming at the top of my lungs.

  His eyes opened, and he looked alarmed. I fell down on my knees beside him. “Peter, why? Why?” I moaned. Hot tears were streaming down my face.

  “Forgive me,” he whispered. He made a motion with his fingers. I clasped them with my own.

  “Was this your plan?” I coughed. “Your stupid plan? To kill yourself?”

  “No,” he rasped. “But it was the only way.”

  “Who is that?” someone behind me asked.

  Footsteps approached me from behind, and another voice spoke. “Miss, I don’t know how you got in here, but you’re going to have to wait in the reception area,” the voice said.

  “It didn’t work, anyway,” Peter said, so softly I could barely hear him. “Eric didn’t like it. He started screaming. Then Hattie came. She saw and called the ambulance.”

  “Peter, we have to tell, we have to tell everybody.”

  “No—”

  “Get her out of here.” Someone grabbed my arm. I threw it off.

  “Call security.”

  “There’s a way, Peter,” I insisted. “The Great Book of Secrets. Gram said—”

  “It doesn’t matter what she said. No one’s going to help us.”

  “Let’s go,” a third voice boomed behind me. This one grabbed me firmly under my armpits and yanked me to a standing position. I finally looked at him, seeing a uniform. Hospital security, probably.

  “You’re wrong, Peter. We’ll find a way together.”

  “Katy, please . . .”

  The guard shoved me across the length of the emergency room and through the double doors into the waiting area. “You have parents?” he boomed, finally letting go of me.

  “I’m here with her,” Gram said, jogging toward us, her handkerchief waving agitatedly.

  “She’s not permitted beyond those doors, ma’am,” the guard said.

  “I know, officer. I’ll be responsible for her.”

  “Don’t let it happen again,” he warned, lumbering away.

  “Good heavens, child,” she whispered, looking around at the people occupying the chairs in the waiting room. “What on earth were you thinking?”

  I was tired of hiding. She had to know. Everyone had to, now. “It’s trying to kill Peter,” I said.

  Nearby, one of the officers with Hattie turned around. Since my foray into the forbidden area of the treatment rooms, Dr. Baddely had joined them. She was looking at me, too.

  For a moment I wavered between keeping Peter’s secret and trying to help him. Then the two policemen prodded Hattie, and the three of them moved slowly toward the exit. Dr. Baddely stepped away.

  They were taking Hattie! To lock her up, to charge her with whatever had happened to Peter. “No!” I shouted. “Hattie, tell them!”

  She looked at me with rueful, terrified eyes.

  “It’s not her,” I screamed. “It’s the Darkness!”

  A dozen heads swiveled to face me.

  “Tell them, Hattie! We can find a solution together. Tell them about Eric!”

  Hattie slumped in a faint into the arms of one of the officers.

  “We’re getting out of here,” Gram said, propelling me past the police and through the automatic glass exit doors. “Now.”

  I looked back. Everyone was staring, but the person I noticed most was Dr. Baddely. Her eyes were piercing through me like lasers.

  She was a witch, too, then. She knew exactly what I was talking about.

  By nightfall, I realized, every witch in Whitfield would know.

  “I . . . I had to say something,” I tried to explain. “We need to work together, the whole community. We can do the spell of Unmaking, like you—”

  “Oh, be quiet!” my great-grandmother snapped.

  “But you said—”

  “I said there was no way to protect the child!” She shoved me forward, away from the hospital, as if trying to outrun the inevitable.

  She said nothing more, but as we made our way through the twisted streets of Old Town, the realization of what I had done came crashing down on me.

  I had just condemned a ten-year-old boy to death by fire.

  CHAPTER

  •

  THIRTY-FOUR

  ASTRAL PROJECTION

  Penelope Bean’s ancestral home looked sort of like Hawthorne’s House of the Seven Gables, although it was more like the House of the Hundred and Seven Gables. Gram and I came in through the side door, the former servants’ entrance, which was down a flight of steps from the street. The door opened into an enormous kitchen with a gigantic cast iron stove that made the one in Hattie’s Kitchen seem positively modern, two gleaming zinc counters, and a table large enough to seat twelve. Then we climbed up a long staircase into a foyer lined with palm trees in big brass planters. Agnes was waiting for us.

  “I heard you come in,” she said, taking Gram by the elbow. My great-grandmother was wheezing from the exertion of climbing the stairs. “Why didn’t you use the front door?” Agnes asked.

  “I didn’t want anyone to see us come here.”

  “Oh?”

  “It was my fault,” I said. “I thought I was helping. The police had Hattie, and Peter almost died, even though he said he had a plan, and I thought that if everyone knew about the Darkness, then we could all work together and do something . . .”

  “Stop, stop, stop,” Agnes said. “Come in and sit down, both of you.”

  “I shouldn’t have said anything,” I lamented as we walked into an old-fashioned parlor filled with heavy dark furniture and oval portraits on the walls.

  “It’s a little late to come to that realization,” Gram said acidly. “Half the people in that waiting room were witches.”

  “Grandmother, please.” Agnes held up a hand. “Now tell me, Katy. Everything.”

  “Hattie’s in trouble,” I began. “The police think she’s been beating Peter.”

  Trying not to trip over my words I told her about the marks on Peter’s back, what the paramedic had said on the night of the fire at Ainsworth House, the dream I’d had that had made me bicycle over to Hattie’s place, and what I’d seen when I climbed the trellis and looked inside Peter’s room.

  “It was Eric,” I finished. “For the past ten years, the Darkness has been living inside that little boy.”

  “Ten . . .”

  “Yes. That was what my mother saw on the last day of her life.”

  “She tried to kill Eric because she knew he was infected?”

  “Yes. She tried, and thought she had. That’s why she went home and set herself on fire,” I said.

  “But the boy lived.”

  “Barely,” Gram said. “I’m sure Agatha didn’
t even consider that possibility. After what she did to him, little Eric had so many handicaps that the Darkness couldn’t even manifest through him.”

  “That’s why it wants Peter,” I told them. “Every night for months—ever since it learned to speak through Eric—it’s been trying to get Peter to kill his brother so that the Darkness can come into Peter. It keeps saying that Peter will be a better vessel.”

  “Well, it’s getting stronger now. What did it do to put Peter in the hospital?” Agnes asked.

  “I don’t know. Peter said it was the only way, whatever that meant.” Suddenly the thought of Peter lying on that cot with the thick bandages on his wrists was just overwhelming. I felt my shoulders start to shake. “Maybe he just got tired . . .” I said, too upset to finish.

  Gram put her arm around me. “There, there,” she said. “He’s all right now, and there’s no reason to think—”

  “Peter told me not to say anything to anyone, because he’s convinced that none of you will lift a finger to help him or Eric.”

  “It’s not like that, Katy,” Agnes said. “Of course we want to help them. Every witch in Old Town thinks of Eric Shaw as her own child. But if this is the Darkness—and I hope to Hecate that you’re mistaken about this—then we have to consider the safety and survival of the community first.”

  “But there must be a way to take the Darkness out of Eric without killing him!” I insisted.

  “The method is clear—”

  “Maybe there’s another method!” I shouted. “Maybe there’s a way no one has found yet. Just because something isn’t four hundred years old doesn’t mean it won’t work.”

  “Do you think that no one has ever considered what you’re proposing? How many of the witches who’ve been infected by the Darkness throughout our history do you suppose had families, friends, loved ones who would give up their own lives if that could save them from burning? I’ll tell you how many, Katy. All of them.

  “No one with even the slightest degree of decency wants to see another being burned to death. Not a cat, not a bug. The problem is that no one has found another way, despite centuries of searching. In the end, the community has always had to resort to the burning. And no one, no one, has liked it.”

  “But what about the ‘Spell of Unmaking’?” I asked.