Dimly, I became aware of water droplets landing on my back. I looked up to see the long rope used for raising and lowering the hammock being pulled up and out of the well. Then the hammock began to move. Someone was trying to hoist us to safety.
A frantic voice reached me. “He’s already gone, you can’t do anything for him. Come help me pull!”
Even distorted by the echoes in the well, I knew the voice.
“Again!” Abel’s words shook with strain. I wondered distantly how he managed to move us at all with only one good arm. “Can you see her? Is she all right?”
The bottom of the hammock lifted above the waterline. Drops cascaded from it with the sound of a summer rain. The well shaft brightened. With a half-open eye, I saw an arm far above, holding a lantern.
“It don’t look good, son,” said Granny Ardith’s creaky voice. “We might be too late, but—Good Lord! Verity’s with her!”
There was a shout of fury and fear from Abel. We dropped a few inches, until I was again waist deep in the icy water. Granny’s face vanished and the pulling resumed. Abel shouted desperate encouragement, urging Granny on.
They fought, freeing us from the water in slow degrees, only to lose what they gained as Abel’s single working arm tired and Granny’s feeble strength waned. Over and over, Abel and Granny pulled us up, only to have the hammock slip back down. Beneath my ear, Lilah’s heartbeats began to fade. “Try again,” Abel shouted, despair disguised as anger in his voice. “We’re running out of time.”
My spiraling, weaving thoughts coalesced into a single certainty. I knew what I had to do. And it would cost me my life. But with a settled peace, I knew this was as it must be.
I fumbled with leaden fingers for Lilah’s hand and pressed the cold skin to my lips. “Goodbye, Lilah. I love you.”
I let my sister go.
Shifting my body, I slid off the hammock. Freed from my weight, it glided skyward, twirling slowly as it went. I watched Lilah float away as I fell.
The splash came much sooner than on my first drop into the well. As I sank, there came a second, quiet sound. I felt the brush of icy metal against my outstretched hand, something descending into the depths with me, following me to my death.
My death would save Lilah.
Breath rushed from my mouth and nose, sending delicate bubbles over my skin. Then the water flooded my lungs. Strange how it burned despite being bitingly cold. I sank further, until suddenly the black in my vision turned to a pure, blinding white.
My last living thought was of my sister.
39
Dark water rippled at her feet. In the living world, rolling waters had a song. Here, there was only and always silence. She bounced slightly on her toes. They left no impression in the gray sand. The fog swirled around her white gown, stirred by her anxious pacing.
Maeve forced herself to fold her hands and be still. She exhaled. She didn’t have to breathe here, but it felt like a comforting reminder that her time in the Hollow would end at dawn, and her body would live again. For a handful of hours, anyway, until she was forced back to this awful place. But now, she would have her little girl with her. She only needed to find Lilah, and everything would be as it was meant to be.
Tonight, the fog was especially thick. It rose and fell, tumbling down the low hills on either side of the dark river, all at the will of an unseen, unfelt wind. Lilah could be here right now, waiting, obscured from view. Maeve worried the bit of gold hanging from her bracelet and tried not to think of Matthew. It wouldn’t do to dwell on such things. This night was for Lilah and her. It was time for them to begin anew.
“Lilah?” Maeve pitched her voice low, lacing it with loving reassurance. “If you can hear me, come here.”
On the far shore of the black river, the fog stirred. The mists thinned to reveal a blurry figure, motionless in the cloaking haze.
“Lilah, I’m over here.” Victorious joy warmed her. “Follow the sound of my voice.” The figure turned in her direction, but didn’t advance. It stood silent. Still. Watching.
Maeve stepped closer, until her toes were nearly in the water. Swirling clouds of consuming fog hovered thick over the obsidian surface. When they shifted, the watcher was gone. Maeve scanned the riverbank, barren save for a stand of blackened, skeletal trees. “Lilah?” she called again. “It’s me. You don’t have to hide. Come to your mother.”
A flash of white flickered between the trunks, followed by a sound she’d never heard in the Hollow—laughter. But it wasn’t Lilah’s usual giggle. This was a low and mirthless sound, almost bitter. “Lilah, this isn’t funny,” Maeve said, suddenly tense. Something was wrong. “Come here at once.”
The hazy figure of a girl stepped out from the dead woods. She seemed almost to be carried by the mists to the river’s edge. Then, with the grace of a prowling cat, she stepped out onto the water. The mist began to part, like curtains drawn back, as she moved closer, ripples spreading under her boots.
Maeve felt herself go rigid with shock as the face came into focus. A face so very like Elizabeth’s.
Verity stepped onto the near shore. Her eyes glittered, fearless and full of anger. In her hand, she clutched a pair of silver shears like a dagger.
Maeve took a halting step backward just as the fog swept down. She couldn’t stop the cry of alarm that crawled up her throat. She was blind in the swirling clouds.
The girl began circling her. Maeve spun. She tried to see where Verity had gone, tried to quell the rising worry she felt. Not only worry, but—and she was stunned to realize it—dread. Maeve reminded herself that she had no one to fear. What greater harms could befall her than the ones she’d already suffered?
And yet, there had been a look of pure vengeance in Verity’s face. If there was any way Maeve could be called to account for the things she’d done—tormenting Matthew’s mind and ultimately killing him, taunting Verity and testing her sanity, taking Lilah—the fire in Verity’s burning gaze said she’d find it.
For the first time in a very long time, Maeve felt that she might not be in control.
She turned another disoriented circle, then stumbled. A hand shot out from the fog to grip her arm. She found herself wrenched around. Maeve let out a gasp as she came face-to-face with Verity.
The girl’s eyes were full of pain and steel.
“Hello, Miss Maeve.”
40
I woke to fog. The light here was wrong, flat and dull, coming from nowhere in particular. Overhead, in a tin-colored sky devoid of sun or moon, the mists circled and swirled. I paced the dark sand, reliving my last moments. Slipping from the hammock so that Lilah could be saved, the splash as I went under, the consuming silence as I sank. Something solid and smooth sinking next to me, brushing my fingers just as I died.
As I died.
My right hand coiled into a fist. In it, I clenched a pair of silver shears. I examined their intricately carved handles, the wickedly sharp tip.
From across the water, a voice cut through the silence. Maeve, calling for Lilah.
My grip tightened around the shears. I felt the tip bite into my palm, just as though I were alive. In a flash, I knew where I’d seen them before. And some instinct, some knowledge that came with death perhaps, told me what I had to do.
I would end Maeve Donovan, once and for all.
And, with that thought, I laughed.
I stepped out onto the water, intending to wade or swim to reach Miss Maeve. But just like the sands, the water showed no sign of my passing. It bore me up as though I were no more substantial than the billowing clouds around me.
I swept toward Miss Maeve, tracking her through the fog as she called for my sister again. A smile snuck over my face at the worry creeping into her voice. I could pinpoint the second she realized that her plan had gone awry, that whoever was coming toward her now was not Lilah. And I savored the hint of fear in the way she gasped as I reached from the fog to pull her to me. She brought her hands up, as if to ward me awa
y, but I grabbed her right wrist in a merciless grip. “Hello, Miss Maeve.”
She struggled, but the strength I’d lacked in the well had returned. I only tightened my hold. Her pale blue eyes flicked to the long blades of the shears.
“Whatever you’re thinking about doing with those, it won’t work,” she said. “I’ve tried everything you can imagine to end it all. It’s impossible. Both of us, we’re beyond help or harm now.”
I opened the shears. “We’ll see about that.” I slid the open shears between her skin and the woven vines of the bracelet. There was a soft snick as the blades closed.
The bracelet fell away, lost to the fog.
Maeve went still. Shock washed over her beautiful face.
She’d expected me to stab her, but I was confident that the shears had been sent for the purpose of cutting the bracelet. They were from Granny Ardith. She’d bespelled them to accomplish this very task. “It’s time for you to move on, Mary Eve.” I prepared myself to see her vanish before me.
We faced each other by the dark river, watched by the gnarled, black trees. I waited.…
A slow, delighted grin lit Maeve’s perfect face. “You thought you broke the keeping spell, didn’t you?” She shook her head, and her pearly laugh was gentle. “Don’t you think I’ve tried cutting it?” she asked. “I’ve done it over and over again. With those very shears, even.”
Miss Maeve leaned close. “The Hollow can’t be escaped. You’ll soon find out,” she said, with complete assurance. “The bracelet will return in a few seconds.” She peered at me, serene and smooth as glass. “I can’t have you roaming this place, disturbing my time together with Lilah. There’s a pit in the center of the woods, just where the well is in the aboveground. I think it would do nicely for holding you. And I’ll finish what I started with Lilah tomorrow evening,” she said. “You gave your life—and your afterlife—to delay my plans by one night.” Maeve shook her head. “I thought you were smarter than this, Verity.”
The shears dropped from my fingers as I sank onto the dark sand, numb with defeat. I’d been wrong. I’d failed. There was nothing and no one left for me.
All at once, I knew what Maeve had felt when she’d walked away into the snow.
Then a subtle change began to warp the gray air. I squinted into the dimness over Miss Maeve’s shoulder. The fog drew together, growing solid. A black wrought-iron gate formed behind Miss Maeve, looming in the air above our heads. Its panels scrolled and swirled in an intricate, almost lacy design, up and up. I could just make out the wicked points at their tips.
Miss Maeve saw my gaze shift upward. She turned, and we watched the massive gate swing soundlessly open. In the next instant, I felt the wind’s movements for the first time since my arrival in this eerie land.
Miss Maeve whirled, towering over where I slumped on the riverbank. “What did you do?”
Wind howled down on us in a flood of sound and sensation.
I staggered to my feet, hands clapped over my ears, squinting against the flying sand. Miss Maeve’s mouth opened in a scream, but her voice was lost in the wind’s rage. She stumbled, dragged backward toward the yawning maw of the gate.
Then, as suddenly as it had come, the gale stopped. Silence slammed down. An expectant hush settled over the Hollow. The mists stilled. I felt a presence draw near.
A small figure in the shape of a little girl floated toward us through the black trees. She was even less distinct than she’d been in the woods, when she’d led Papa and me to the well. The shade of Josie Loftis rose into the air like a feather borne on a breeze. She passed over our heads, her wispy voice trailing after her. Her words echoed in my mind. “Tell my family I love them.”
She vanished through the gate.
I was close enough to see the silvery lashes framing Miss Maeve’s eyes as her frightened expression changed to one of understanding. She looked down at her still-bare wrist.
Maeve turned, tilting her head to look through the open gate. I felt sure she was seeing something I could not perceive. She opened her arms, as if to receive an embrace.
The melting started with the hem of her skirt. It dissolved into a hazy nothingness, becoming part of the swirling mist. The fog made its winding way up her body as the edges of her silhouette softened and faded. Miss Maeve neither looked back nor spoke as the fog unmade her. She stared fixedly through the open gate, as though she saw far beyond it, and into whatever waited for her.
The wind returned. This time, it was a soft, welcoming pull. What was left of Miss Maeve floated up and through the gate.
As gently as a sigh, she was gone.
I held my breath, waiting for the wind to draw me upward, too.
But instead, the gate began to close. The black scrollwork turned red as a blazing furnace, then sunrise orange, before softening to a gentle gold. Then they vanished back into the fog.
I was completely, endlessly alone. I couldn’t tell how long I lay there, weeping on the sands. It could’ve been hours or years. I knew nothing in my disconsolate state.
And then a flash of incandescent white blasted over me.
I felt myself engulfed in radiant light, and I dissolved into nothing.
41
The wild, pungent smell of sage hit my senses. My eyelids felt like they’d been welded shut, my entire body was stiff and sore, and I had a vicious headache. With effort, I opened my eyes to find myself looking up at rough-hewn ceiling beams. Bundles of drying herbs swayed over me. I was awake. And I was alive.
I lay on Granny Ardith’s kitchen table, beneath a small window opened to a daybreak sky.
“About time you came around.”
I turned my head to find her withered face close to mine. She passed a hand over her sparse gray hair. “I was afeared you wasn’t coming back,” she said.
A thousand questions flitted about in my cloudy mind. How did I get out of the well? And how had I survived? The one I gave voice to was the most important: “Is Lilah all right?”
Granny Ardith inclined her head to indicate a blazing hearth on the far side of the cabin. Lilah lay sleeping beside it on a narrow cot, her cheeks pink. “Nothing some restoratives and some warming won’t fix.”
Lilah lived.
Our father was dead.
I felt ripped in two with the strength of the opposite emotions. Racking sobs burst out, shaking my shoulders, throbbing in my head. I couldn’t have said whether they were born more of joy or grief. Perhaps both in equal, overwhelming measure.
Granny seemed to understand the source of my tears. “Reckon we’ll bury your pa as soon as you and Lilah are well enough to attend a funeral. It didn’t seem right to do it without y’all.”
“Miss Maeve killed him,” I said, barely believing this conversation was real, that I was discussing my father’s murder. My head was a muddled mess as I tried to work through the events of the previous night. “There’s so much I don’t understand.”
Granny Ardith stuck a pinch of snuff in her lip, then studied the snuffbox as though it could help her explain. “I’m bound to tell you what’s what, but it’s hard to know where to start. Probably when Della and Abel showed up here yesterday afternoon wanting my help to try and stop Miss Maeve.” Her eyes darted to mine, then away. “And Della was hell-bent I break that love spell Abel was under real quick while I was at it.”
“Love spell?” I asked.
Granny nodded. “Seems Miss Maeve concocted one to make Abel chase after Della. To hurt your heart, like your mama hurt hers. I never should’ve taught her how to do any workings.” Granny wiped at her nose with the back of her hand. Her voice sounded unsteady. “I’ve been eat up with guilt for years now, ’cause I made the bracelet that caused her to get stuck. She hated me when I couldn’t fix it and let her go. And I was scared she’d get my spirit trapped neither here nor there, like she always said she would, if I didn’t do what she wanted.”
Granny Ardith looked at once both ancient and like a guilty child. “I was ho
ping you’d figure everything out and find a way to stop her. That’s why I told you the truth about where her bracelet came from. I was too yellow to give you all the story, in case she found out I’d been running my mouth, but I hoped I gave enough to help.”
I let Granny’s confession hang in the air, not sure if I was quite ready to tell her all was forgiven. “Did you know she was going to hurt Lilah?”
“No.” Behind her spectacles, Granny’s eyes sparked. “I wouldn’t have abided that.” She spat a stream of tobacco into a tin cup and continued. “Della and Abel heard what you was hollering there in the jailhouse, about Miss Maeve and the well. They came and gathered me up, and then Della went back to the courthouse, trying to convince her daddy to stop Miss Maeve. Me and Abel went straight to the well. That boy was undone to find you in the water, I don’t mind telling you. We fished you and Lilah out and brought y’all back here.”
She rubbed her eyes, the loose skin around her lids bunching under her fingers. “It’s been one thing after another the whole night long. Had to go tell Big Tom and Hettie what happened. The sheriff is still holding Reuben Lybrand, trying to sort through this mess. Loftis didn’t want to listen to Della, but he did show up in the woods after he found y’all gone from the jail. He don’t know what to make of it all, what with that woman dead in Miss Maeve’s house, Abel pulling you and Lilah out of the well, your daddy…”
I cut her off. I couldn’t talk about my father right now. “And what about Miss Maeve?”
“Loftis took a man to help, and they got her body out sometime during the night.”
I blew out a wavering breath. “The shears I used on Miss Maeve’s bracelet, the silver ones that came with me to the Hollow. You threw them into the well, didn’t you?”
“When I saw you slipping, I knew you wasn’t gonna make it to the top. Had to cobble a charm together with the shears right there on the spot. I wasn’t sure it would work. I’d tried the same thing with them shears for Miss Maeve a dozen times when we were looking to break the keeping spell. No matter how many times we cut it off, the bracelet always came back. Nothing could break its power.” A shadow passed over the withered face. “And all this time, the shears needed someone drowning in the well to carry them over to the Hollow. Thank the good Lord Miss Maeve never thought to try that.”
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