“Get under the covers,” she said. “You’re freezing.” She tucked me up and got in beside me. I could feel her cold feet on mine under the covers.
“You’re not crazy, Ruth,” she said. “It’s the Sight. People have visions sometimes. Visions of the past. Or visions of the future. Eldred told me.”
“But I don’t want to have visions. They’re horrible,” I said.
Ruby sighed. “I wish you could give them to me,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to have the Sight, to see ghosts and fairies, to have visions. To see into that other world that’s so close, but so hard to get into.”
I was warming up. “What other world?” I said sleepily.
“The bigger world,” said Ruby. “The world where spirits live. Where past and future and present are all mixed up. The world where there’s magic and wishes and fairies. Where dead people are alive and live people are dead.”
I shivered. “It’s too scary, Ruby. You don’t know. You wouldn’t want this.”
“Oh, but I do,” said Ruby fervently. “But only one twin has the Sight. And that twin is you.”
I smiled. “Twins,” I said. And there, inside the warm bubble of light from the candle, I felt that same feeling I’d had my first night here, when the ghost got into the other bed and smiled at me: safe and warm and happy.
“Twins,” said Ruby, blowing out the candle.
And then we both fell asleep.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
POLISHING
“So tell me about this feeling again,” said Ruby.
She was dusting the piano in the living room with a feather duster. I was applying furniture spray to the coffee table, then rubbing it up into a shine. Ruby had to show me how because I’d never polished furniture before. We had a cleaner at home who came every week, and she wouldn’t dream of asking me to help her.
Aunt Doll had sent us in here after breakfast, instructing us to dust and polish everything. She woke us up at eight when we didn’t appear for breakfast. We both had slept in, worn out by all the excitement the night before.
“You mean what happened in the secret room?”
“The nursery,” said Ruby. “That’s what my mother called it in the letter.”
“Yes, the nursery,” I said. “I wonder why they called it that?”
“I guess it was a baby’s room,” said Ruby.
“Well, duh,” I said, flicking my dust cloth in her direction. It fell short.
“Where did you learn to throw?” she asked, picking it up and hurling it back at me. It hit me in the face.
“I didn’t,” I said, and went back to polishing the table. Aunt Doll had told me to keep at it till I could see my face in it. I peered at it. I could see a kind of blur that was probably my face.
“Tell me about the feeling,” repeated Ruby.
“You said you felt it too,” I replied, moving to a table beside the couch and spraying some furniture polish onto it. “In the nursery. When the flashlight went out.”
Funny thing about that flashlight. When we had retrieved it from the nursery that morning before breakfast, it was working just fine. So it wasn’t the batteries.
“Oh, right. I couldn’t breathe. It got really stuffy all of a sudden.”
“Well, that’s what I keep feeling. I felt it in the cemetery, when we found all those graves, and then I felt it in the barn when we were talking to Eldred about the curse, then I felt it in the room. And then the whispering started.”
“Tell me what they were saying again? The whisperers,” said Ruby. “In the barn and last night.”
“I think…I think there was only one. When I was on the ship I heard screaming in the wind, and then there was just this one voice saying, ‘By water! By water!’ in a kind of hiss. And last night it was saying, ‘By fire! By fire!’”
I shuddered. I didn’t want to think about what I’d seen the night before. It had seemed so real: the dark room, the smell of smoke, the man’s eyes staring. I shook my head, as if that would get rid of the pictures in my mind, and tried to concentrate on polishing the small table under the window.
“It’s something to do with the curse,” said Ruby thoughtfully. “‘By fire, by water.’ There was a fire in your vision last night, and when we were in the barn, it was the shipwreck, so there had to be water. A lot of water, if you think about it.”
“Brilliant, Ruby,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I guess there is a lot of water in the ocean.”
“Well, yeah. There is,” she said, grinning. She had given up on the dusting and was sitting on the piano stool, twirling gently.
“But how are we going to figure it all out, Ruby?”
“If only Eldred was here,” she said. We’d gone looking for him after breakfast, but he was nowhere to be found. Finally Aunt Doll told us he’d gone to see a man down the shore about some medicine for one of his sheep and he’d be gone all day.
“I wonder how much he knows,” I said, rubbing at the table. “Wasn’t there something in the letter from Molly about him not knowing that much about the curse?”
Ruby put down her duster and dug in her jeans pocket and pulled out the letter.
I went and looked over her shoulder at it.
“Here,” said Ruby, pointing. “‘And Eldred said he didn’t know how it worked, but it was a terrible thing, the curse.’” She ran her finger down a little farther. “And here, ‘he told us that maybe if we went to Slippers Cove, we might find out more.’” She read on. “And here, ‘he didn’t know anything more himself.’”
She looked up at me.
“Maybe that’s it. Maybe we have to go to Slippers Cove.”
I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to do anything. I didn’t want to see the fire again, or the dead man, or the shipwreck. I didn’t want to see any more visions, or hear that whispering and chanting again, or feel the walls closing in on me.
Ruby was reading the letter again, going back up the page a bit. “Listen,” she said. “This is what she said about it: ‘the twin with the Sight could see the Ghost Road and find Slippers Cove, where no one had been since 1902, because it was lost, lost by sea and lost by road and no one could find the way there.’”
She looked up at me. “That’s you, Ruth. You’ve seen it already. You can find the way.”
“Maybe,” I said reluctantly. But there was something I had to do first.
“How far is it?” I asked, looking out the window. It was another gray day, and although it wasn’t exactly raining, it looked like it might start any minute.
“I’m not sure. Eldred thought it took about four hours to get there, according to the old stories,” she replied, following my gaze. “We need to go on a clear day, start early, take a lunch. Tell Aunt Doll we’re going on a long hike. She won’t mind.” Ruby folded the letter carefully and slid it back into her pocket. Then she picked up her duster and turned back to the piano, running it along the keys. “Let’s get this finished and then we can make our plans. Maybe we can go tomorrow.”
“Okay,” I said. “But first I need to talk to someone.”
“Who? Eldred?”
“No. The witch. I told you last night. She knows something.”
“Oh, come on, Ruth, you don’t want to talk to her. Believe me, she’s nothing but poison.”
“She has something to tell me. About my mother, she said. And other stuff. She said some of it I’d want to hear and some of it I wouldn’t.”
Our eyes met. “I wonder what that could be,” said Ruby softly. “What you don’t want to hear.”
I swallowed.
“I don’t know. Something awful I guess. But isn’t it better to know than just to keep on wondering and being scared?”
“Chances are we’ll still be scared, once we know,” she said gloomily.
“I have to go, Ruby. She definitely knows something. I got the strangest feeling while I was there with her, after you left, like she could see right into my head…”
Ruby shivered. “Sh
e’s done that to me before. It’s like she knows what you’re thinking.”
“Didn’t Eldred say something about her having the Sight? If she does, maybe she can help me.”
Ruby shook her head. “No, you don’t get it, Ruth. She’s nasty. She doesn’t want to help anyone. She’s like a spider, sitting there in that dark house, spinning her webs, trying to catch people in them. Dad hates visiting her too; he’s never happy after. She’s the only person I’ve ever met who can make Wynken, Blynken and Nod sit down and be quiet. They’re terrified of her. And Wendy will hardly even put a foot inside the house.”
“So everybody’s scared of her,” I said thoughtfully.
“Yup. Pretty much. She’s a witch.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
THE SPIDER
I knocked at the witch’s door. I could feel Ruby’s eyes boring into me. She was high on the hill behind Buckle, watching me through an old pair of binoculars we found on the bookshelf in the living room.
I told her she didn’t need to, but she had insisted.
“What if she pushes you into the oven?” she said. “Or locks you into a cage to fatten you up?” She grinned at me.
“Come off it, Ruby,” I said. I knew she was just kidding around, but it wasn’t helping my nerves.
“I’ll just stay up on the hill till you come out. And if you’re not out in about an hour, I’ll come and knock on the door. Will you need that long?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“If she turns you into a toad, I’ll take care of you,” said Ruby. “I’ll keep you in a little box and feed you flies—”
I gave her a push and she nearly fell over, laughing.
“Okay,” said Ruby. “You’re on your own. But I’ll be watching the door every minute. If you get really scared, just get out of there. Or scream or something.”
“I’ll be okay,” I said, but it was hard to watch her walk away. She turned and waved, a big grin on her face. I waved back, then walked along the road to the witch’s house.
The knock seemed to echo through the old house. Nothing happened. There were no footsteps, no sounds behind the door. I knocked again.
It was chilly on the doorstep. It wasn’t really raining, but there were teeny tiny drops of water in the air, like rain only finer. I lifted my hand to knock again, but before I made contact with the door, it swung open.
I peered inside. “Mrs. Peddle?” I called uncertainly. I couldn’t see anything.
She glided out from the shadows behind the door. Dressed as before, in a long, faded black dress, her hair up in a bun, her eyes sharp and dark. A sweet, delicious smell of baking wafted out from behind her.
She smiled at me. A twisted, mean little smile.
“Well, well,” she said in her creaky, high voice. “Look what the wind blew in.” She looked past me into the street.
“No shadow today?” she said. “Where’s the other one?”
“She…uh…she’s at h-home,” I stuttered.
“Ha!” laughed the witch. “You’re not as good a liar as your sister,” and then stood back to let me in.
As I walked into the gloom, it hit me like a smack to the back of my head. The witch had called Ruby my sister, not my cousin. She knew.
I walked down the hall into the dim kitchen, the witch gliding silently behind me. On the table, cooling on a wire rack, was a freshly baked batch of crisp oatmeal cookies. Mrs. Peddle motioned to a chair, watching me like a cat at a mouse hole. A tall glass of milk sat on the table beside an empty plate.
“You knew I was coming,” I said.
She cackled. Really cackled. There is no other way to describe the creaky laughter that bubbled out of her.
“Sit down,” she said. “And help yourself to cookies. I think you’ll like them. The other one does.”
I sat down. At first I thought maybe I could hold my dignity and not have any cookies and milk, but the sweet smell that filled the kitchen was not to be resisted. I took one and had a nibble. Crisp and buttery.
“Don’t worry,” said Mrs. Peddle. “They aren’t poisoned.” Then she laughed again.
I took a swig of milk and polished off the cookie.
“You’re a very good baker,” I said politely.
“And you’re a very well-brought-up girl,” she replied, still with an air of finding me very amusing.
“You know,” I said. There was no use beating around the bush. “You know about Ruby and me. That we’re twins.”
“Oh yes, and a great deal besides,” she said. “I knew you’d be back. Your Aunt Meg would look at me with just the same expression you do. Like she could see more than she’d ever tell. She was a curious girl too, just like you. Couldn’t leave anything alone. She always had to know. For all the good it did her.”
I felt a rise of anger inside me and could feel my cheeks turning red.
The witch laughed. “Temper, temper,” she said. “You’ll be stomping out of here in a minute like the other one, and no wiser about any of those questions that you’re bursting with.”
I took a deep breath. Then I had another drink of milk.
“Mrs. Peddle—” I began
“You can call me Nan while you’re at it, girl. You knows I’m your Nan.”
“Okay, Nan,” I said. “You said you could tell me what I need to know. About my…my mother. And everything else, you said. I need to know.”
“I daresay you do,” said the witch. “I daresay you want to know why you were lied to all your life. About who your mother is and who your father is and who your sister is and what your names are—”
“Names?” I asked. “What names?”
“By rights you’re Ruth Elizabeth Finn and the other one is Ruby Ann Finn. You’re both Finns, through and through, and cursed from the day you first drew breath.”
Her angry words rang out in the gloomy kitchen and I felt cold all over. But I spoke up. I wasn’t going to let her see she was scaring me.
“Okay. We’re cursed. I get that. Like our mothers. But why? I don’t understand why.”
“Ha!” said Mrs. Peddle, glaring at me. “So you know about the curse, do you? But what do you know?”
“Just that the twins always seem to die young, at the same time. Back through all the Finns, back to Fiona and Fenella, the ones found in the root cellar, and their mother, Catriona and her sister Caitlin.”
“Oh, it goes farther back than that,” said Mrs. Peddle. “Suffice it to say that once upon a time two girls did a very bad thing, and their daughters and granddaughters and all their line have been paying for it ever since.”
“What did they do?”
The witch shook her head. “Never mind what they did. It’s enough for you to know that you are cursed. And your mother was cursed. And she brought that curse into my family, to my son, and I’ll never forgive her for that. Her and her sister. Meg.”
“How?” I asked her.
“They bewitched him when he was nothing but a boy. He followed them everywhere, and it did me no good to tell him not to play with them. I saw them for what they were. Wicked, wicked girls.”
“They weren’t wicked!” I protested.
“They were Finns, and they were cursed. Molly set her sights on George and wouldn’t rest till she had him. And Meg helped her, every step of the way. Always plotting and planning something, that girl was. Oh, I knew no good would come of it. And once George took up with Molly, he wouldn’t hear anything against either of them. He even told me—” Her eyes grew bigger, as if she still couldn’t believe what he’d said to her. “He told me when he was sixteen that if I said one more word against them he’d leave and never come back! With his father dead and me on my own! So then I had to be quiet. But I never stopped watching them, because I knew what would happen, sooner or later. She’d break his heart.” She made a strange sound, like she was trying to strangle a sob. “And so she did, the day she died. Her and her sneaky sister.”
She sniffed and made a fierce litt
le swipe at her eyes with a lace handkerchief she produced from her apron pocket.
Then she focused her reddened eyes on me, sharp as flint.
“Those two girls were cursed,” she spat. “Just like you and the other one. Nothing good ever came from the Finns. And nothing ever will.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
THE BEGINNING
I wanted to get out of there. The witch was glaring at me, hatred coming off her in waves. Like she was a stove, and all her anger against the Finns was the heat. I couldn’t breathe. I stood up.
And then it happened again. Her dark kitchen melted away and I was back in that shadowy room with everything on fire, and the man’s body lying on the floor, his eyes staring. In the crackle of the flames I could hear that horrible, strangled voice again, hissing, “By fire! By fire! By fire!”
But this time I wasn’t alone. There were two young women beside me, each carrying a small child.
“There you lie, Robert Barrett,” said one, in a thick Irish accent. “And may God forgive you for what you did to my sister.”
“Come, Eva,” said the other. “We need to be gone.”
Then everything winked into blackness and I found myself lying on the floor, looking up into the witch’s face.
She had me by the shoulders and was giving me a shake.
“Ruth,” she said. “Ruth, come back.”
I tried to sit up, but a wave of dizziness knocked me down again.
“Just lie there a minute,” she said. “I’ll get you some water.”
She didn’t sound like the furious, nasty old woman who’d been railing against Meg and Molly. She sounded old and worried and ordinary.
She knelt down on the floor beside me and offered me a glass of water.
“Can you sit up now?” she said.
I sat up cautiously, and although I was still dizzy, I didn’t fall back. My back felt bruised from where I’d fallen on it. I drank some water. Then the witch took my arm and helped me to a chair. I took a deep breath. My head still felt light and strange.
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