Legacy

by Cochran, Molly

  “What is it, Katy?” Gram asked.

  I looked from her to Hattie, not knowing what to say, what to think.

  “Kaaay?” Eric’s eyes were pleading with me.

  “Thank you,” I whispered, kissing his forehead.

  The door opened behind me, and Eric shrieked in delight as Agnes and Peter walked in.

  “Hey, buddy,” Peter said, heading for Eric. “Ladies.” His eyes held mine for a moment. He was so pale that I could see blue veins under his skin. His wrists were bound with thick white bandages. His long fingers trembled as they reached for his brother.

  I wanted to run into his arms, to kiss his face, his wounds, to hold him and never let him go. But I stayed where I was while Eric struggled to stand up in his bed, shaking me off to embrace Peter.

  Agnes and Gram were talking quietly to each other. Hattie was picking up a pile of Eric’s T-shirts that were stacked on a chair. Peter’s head was resting alongside his brother’s.

  So it was that only I saw Eric’s eyes begin to roll back in his head and his tongue loll out.

  “Eric!” I thrust myself between them, grabbing Eric’s hands in my own. “Come back!” I shouted. Peter stepped back, startled. “Eric, listen to me. You stay here, understand?”

  “Kaaay…”

  “I’m here,” I said.

  “Put him down.” Hattie’s voice had an edge of hysteria in it. “You don’t know what he can do.”

  “He’s here, with me,” I said.

  His head fell back.

  “Don’t go,” I whispered.

  His mouth opened, and a garbled mishmash of sounds spilled out.

  The others were all talking at once now, but I couldn’t spare them any of my attention. Every fiber of my being was focused on keeping Eric connected to me.

  I closed my eyes to go more deeply into that connection. What I saw was a red swirl of torment. Anger and blood, and beyond them a power so profound and ancient that I couldn’t begin to assess its depths. Like a distant galaxy seen through a telescope, the Darkness whirled somewhere in those depths.

  “Eric,” I whispered, willing the boy to me. “Come.”

  Through the blackness of space, past the image of that nebula of evil, I saw, rising out of the violent red whirlpool, a spark of light. Like the seed of summer born in the cold of midwinter, grew the light emanating from inside Eric—a light that even the Darkness, with all its power, had not been able to extinguish.

  “Eric.”

  It glowed bigger and brighter, until it filled the vista of my consciousness, filled me completely. I opened my eyes. Eric was bathed in light, his face transfigured.

  The others stood speechless. Hattie dropped the pile of clothes she was holding. Peter swallowed. The light grew, filling the room.

  And then, with the voice of an angel, Eric spoke.

  “Eric,” he said.

  “Eric,” I repeated. “Your true name.” How hard had it been, I wondered, for him to utter that one word, filled with enough magic to dispel the greatest evil force on earth?

  He held his arms out to his brother, and Peter hugged him. “I love you, buddy,” he said. “I should never have thought of leaving you,” he said hoarsely. “I’m sorry.”

  Eric kissed him, as somberly as an archbishop. Then he fell back on his bed, curled into a ball, and slept.

  We all stood in silence, all of us wanting to ask the same question. I was the one who finally did ask it.

  “Why did you do it, Peter?”

  He shuffled, blushing, clearing his throat. “He told me . . .”

  “He?” Hattie asked archly.

  “Eric,” Peter whispered. “He said that I was going to be a . . .”

  “Go ahead,” I prodded.

  He sighed. “A great leader,” he said. “That there was going to be a crisis in Whitfield, and people would look to me to save them.”

  “Say what?” Hattie looked as if she couldn’t even believe what she was hearing.

  “And I would be guided by . . . someone.”

  “Your girlfriend?” Hattie guessed, wagging her head.

  “Well . . . yes.” He gave me an apologetic look. “He said she’d be a great witch. The most powerful of magicians.”

  Hattie crossed her arms. “And what exactly was going to happen once you two geniuses took over the world?”

  “It wasn’t like that, Hattie. He didn’t mean we’d—”

  “Just spit it out, Peter.”

  “Well . . .” His voice cracked. “He said we’d fail.”

  Hattie’s eyes narrowed. “Now, let me get this straight. You tried to kill yourself because your little brother, with half a brain and not enough sense to feed himself, and who incidentally just said his name for the first time in his life, said you were going to mess something up sometime in the far distant future?”

  “It wasn’t Eric. It was the Darkness speaking.”

  “Oh, excuse me,” Hattie said. “It was the Darkness. A voice you can always trust.”

  Peter’s eyes flashed. “Don’t you see? It was what was going to happen once the Darkness transferred from Eric to me. That meant that Eric would be dead. I’d have killed him, and corrupted Katy. With the power I’d have, I was going to destroy Whitfield and everyone in it, and it was all going to look like an accident!” He was breathing hard. “That’s why I tried to kill myself. To keep that from happening.” He glanced at Hattie and the others. “You shouldn’t have called the ambulance,” he said, his voice ragged. “You shouldn’t have saved me.”

  Hattie strode over to Peter and slapped him hard across his face. “So that’s why you cut your wrists?” she shrilled. “Why you broke my heart? Because the Darkness—the Darkness, Peter—been telling you to?”

  “It wasn’t telling me—”

  “It’s saying you’re going to be some big bad boss man, and this girl going to be casting mighty spells to help you. Are you stupid?”

  She shoved him backward. “Peter Shaw, you of all people ought to know what the Darkness can do! It can talk in any voice it wants, and it’ll say anything it wants you to hear. ‘Evil leader,’” she scoffed. “What foolishness!”

  “Hattie . . .” It was Agnes, looking worried and thoughtful. “It might have been a true prediction.”

  “From the Darkness?” She flapped a hand at Agnes. “Mercy, you’re as bad as he is.”

  “It can happen.” Agnes looked at the other. “Everything he said.”

  “Can the Darkness foretell the future?” I asked.

  Gram wasn’t smiling anymore. “The Darkness can do anything,” she said.

  Agnes nodded. “Right now, its only restriction is Eric’s body. If we can’t find a way to take it out of Eric, it will find its way to a stronger body. And a stronger mind. If that happens, I don’t know what it will be capable of. Certainly, the scenario that Peter presented would be a possibility.”

  “But the future can be changed,” Gram said. “In this case, it has to be, because it’s no longer just Eric. Peter will be affected too. And Katy.” She looked at me. “We’ve always known you would be a great witch, dear. But once you grow into your power, you could use it in destructive ways, if you chose.”

  “Don’t fill the girl’s head with nonsense, Elizabeth,” Hattie warned. “The last thing we need is for these two fools to be strutting around like barnyard roosters.”

  “I fear the opposite will happen, Hattie,” Agnes said. “If the community finds out about this, no one will ever trust Peter or Katy. They’ll certainly never allow either of them to assume any positions of leadership, given this prediction.”

  “If the community finds out about this, it won’t matter,” I said flatly. “Because they’re still going to burn Eric.”

  “And maybe the two of us along with him,” Peter said.

  “What I don’t understand is the drawing,” Gram said. “Who are the two figures in it who appear to be dead?”

  “And the third,” Agnes added. “The
monster. Is it the Darkness? Or Peter, after fulfilling the prophecy? And why an island?”

  Eric wailed and twisted around in his bed. Hattie ran over to him. “What is it, honey?” she asked, stroking his hair. Sleepy-eyed, his head wagging in a constant figure eight, he slowly pulled himself along the bars of the bed until he was sitting up.

  “Baby?” Hattie swept his sweat-soaked hair to the side.

  His mouth opened and closed several times. “Kaa . . .” He stumbled. “Kaaay . . .”

  “I’m here, Eric,” I said, taking his hand. “Go ahead. I’m listening.”

  “Kaaay . . .” He started to tremble all over.

  “Eric?” Hattie was reaching down for him. “Eric?”

  “Ola,” he breathed, his voice like a feather on the wind. He looked at me. In me, deeply, as if to ask, Do you understand?

  “Ola?” I asked. “Ola’ea?”

  “Ola’ea?” Hattie repeated.

  Eric patted my hand. Patted it, like an elderly uncle rewarding me for learning my times tables. Then he slumped back onto his pillow.

  Hattie and I looked at each other. “Clear out,” she said at last. “All of you, let my baby sleep while he can. I’ll see you all downstairs in a few minutes.”

  Hattie came into the living room, where we were all standing in a circle. The naked bulb overhead cast long, ghoulish shadows on the walls. “Well?” she began. “Where do we go from here?”

  “We need to get to the Meadow,” I said.

  The others looked at me as if I were crazy. “For Lammas?” Gram asked.

  “That’ll be over,” I said. “The place will be empty.”

  “Yes?” Agnes waited.

  “We have to open The Great Book of Secrets.”

  Hattie narrowed her eyes. “I’ve heard enough of this,” she said. “Do you know how much effort it would take to retrieve the book?”

  “It’s a very complex spell,” Gram said.

  “We need to,” I argued. “For Eric. We’ve got to study the ‘Song of Unmaking’.”

  “Why? We all know what it says!” Hattie put her hands on her hips. “Except for you. You don’t know anything. You just think you do.”

  “I know that Eric said ‘Ola’ea.’”

  “Oh, he did not.”

  “I think he did, Hattie,” Agnes said.

  Hattie exhaled noisily. “So? What’s the connection?”

  Agnes bit her lip. “She wrote the ‘Song of Unmaking’. We might know more if we knew the circumstances that prompted her to create the spell.”

  My heart was racing. Thank God for Agnes. “Yes,” I said. “There has to be more to the ‘Song of Unmaking’ than we’ve—you’ve—seen.”

  Gram clucked. “Burning . . . Such a cruel, crude solution.”

  “It wasn’t Ola’ea’s way,” Hattie said. “Why would that brilliant witch write a spell—one that had to be sung, no less—that just said to get rid of the Darkness’ victims by setting them on fire like soulless logs?”

  “Precisely. She wouldn’t,” I said.

  Agnes looked at me, frowning.

  “It’s a long story, but what it comes down to is that Ola’ea wouldn’t allow innocent people—and certainly not children—to be burned to death.”

  We all sat in silence for a moment. Finally Gram spoke. “Well, none of us is getting any younger,” she said. “Especially me. Shall we try to open The Great Book of Secrets?”

  I felt a surge like electricity run through me. “Yes,” I whispered.

  “Not so fast,” Agnes said. “There’s a problem.”

  “Oh?” We all asked in unison.

  “To open the book, we’ll need all three verses of the spell.”

  “Huh?” I asked. “Another spell?”

  “It requires three stages,” my great-grandmother reminded me. “Agnes and I have the words that bring about the first stage. They’re embroidered on that hanging over the fireplace.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “And Hattie has the second verse.”

  “Memorized,” Hattie said. “Since I was five years old.”

  “Well, who else has the third verse?” Gram asked. “Who could we trust to help us open the Book?”

  Hattie looked at her watch. “And at this time of night . . .”

  “Hold it!” Peter said. Everyone looked up. I think we’d all but forgotten he was even there. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and began to click through its applications. “Remember the blanket in the Shaw mansion, Katy?” he asked. “In the bedroom?”

  “Gracious!” my great-grandmother exclaimed. “What were the two of you—”

  “Yes!” I remembered. “In the compartment under the floorboards.”

  “Here it is.” Looking at the screen, he read, “The wise and Crafty know rightly where to look . . .”

  “That’s it,” Agnes said.

  “Camera phones,” Peter said, tapping the phone with a triumphant grin. “The biggest advance in witchcraft in a thousand years.”

  Gram dashed over to him and pinched his cheeks. “Darling boy,” she said. “You didn’t really plan to kill yourself, did you?” she asked softly.

  Peter shook his head. “It was just all I could think of to do. I don’t have much magic. The Darkness wanted my life. The only way I could keep him from getting it was . . .” He looked down at his bandaged wrists.

  “We understand, dear. But you need to stay among us.”

  “Mrs. Ainsworth . . .” He was frowning in concentration. “My wrists.”

  “What is it, Peter?”

  “They’re . . . That is, I can feel . . .” He yanked off the adhesive tape on one arm and began to unravel the gauze.

  “Peter!” Hattie shouted. “What in blazes . . .”

  As the last of the wrapping fell away, he held out his bare wrist for all of us to see. The wound had healed completely. There was not even a scar to indicate that the skin had ever been broken.

  “Good heavens,” Gram said.

  “What do you mean, ‘good heavens’?” Hattie demanded. “You’re the one who did it, Elizabeth.”

  “Did what?” The old woman looked confused. “Do you think I healed the cut on that wrist?”

  “And this one,” Peter said, displaying his other arm.

  “I . . . well, I don’t know. I suppose I may have.” She raised her eyebrows. “I wasn’t conscious of it, though.”

  “That’s all right,” Agnes said, putting her arm around her grandmother. “One of the perks of age is that you don’t have to remember all your good deeds.”

  “I suppose,” Gram conceded. “That’s quite a good job, though. If I do say so myself.”

  Hattie harrumphed. “Never could toot your own horn worth spit,” she said. “I’ll go get Eric.”

  The rest of us looked up in horror. What if Eric became possessed by the Darkness in the Meadow?

  “I can’t leave him alone again,” Hattie explained.

  No one moved.

  “The doctor gave me a sedative in a filled hypodermic in case he gets too agitated,” she added quietly.

  I saw Agnes look to her grandmother.

  “I’m sure you won’t need to use it, dear,” Gram said. She always had the right words.

  Hattie took the kit, enclosed in a small case, out of her handbag and tucked it into Peter’s shirt pocket. “I’ll let you know if I need it,” she told him.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll help you get him ready,” The two of them bounded up the squeaky steps.

  “To the Meadow, then,” Gram said. “Have Penelope meet us,” she told Agnes. “She ought to be safe there. And you might perhaps alert a few others, as well.” Her gaze drifted up the stairs, where Eric was being dressed. “One never knows when one may be in need of friends.”

  CHAPTER

  •

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THE BOOK OF SECRETS

  To avoid notice, Agnes put Gram’s Caddy back in the garage and the three of us walk
ed to the Meadow, where we met Peter and Hattie, who carried Eric between them. We all tried to make our way as inconspicuously as possible past the DO NOT ENTER signs posted all around the Wonderland construction site. As it appeared that night, it certainly didn’t look much like a sacred sanctuary for witches.

  Apparently, work had ceased when the fog began to roll in. Caught off guard as usual, the workmen had simply put down their tools and supplies—even their lunches—and groped their way out of the Meadow, which would lie fallow and unreachable until the fog lifted in a day or two.

  It was one of many complaints about the work site. Aside from the on-again, off-again incidence of sinkholes, fires, dead birds that seemingly appeared out of nowhere to litter the place with their ghoulish carcasses, and groundwater leaks that forced the men to work in specially designed rubber gear, the fog—which appeared to cowen to occur at random—was too impenetrable to work in. Just completing the construction, regardless of schedule, was getting to be a real problem, according to local gossip.

  But none of that affected us, I told myself as we picked our way through the darkness. The moment we stepped into the fog, the filthy, obstacle-covered floor gave way to green grass on a woodland grave. This was the Meadow as it was in Serenity’s time, and had been preserved through magic. It would never change, not for us. Not unless we ourselves changed it through magic.

  “It’s somewhere around here, isn’t it?” Gram asked.

  “Five paces from the oak tree, facing the west boulder,” Hattie answered impatiently, setting Eric down on a blanket near a moss-covered rock. I helped Hattie get him settled, then gave him a juice box. He was asleep within five minutes.

  “Hurry up, Katy,” Agnes called. “We don’t want this to take forever.”

  “Oh, dear,” Gram said. “I wonder what the others would say? It is supposed to be a community spell, you know. Quite formal.”

  “Well, it’ll have to be informal this time,” Miss P said, emerging out of the fog. Mr. Haversall was with her, and Dingo the dog, who went straight to Eric and sat beside him. A few others joined the circle.

  Hattie stood beside Miss P. “If anything happens . . .” She looked pointedly at Peter, who nodded and patted the syringe in his shirt pocket.